Stanislav Stryzheniuk: "I was fired from Odesa Film Studio as a nationalist"

He dreamed of flying, but became the editor-in-chief of the Odesa Film Studio, where he defended Ukrainian cinema against Moscow censorship. Stanislav Stryzheniuk, a 95-year-old poet, publicist, and translator, talks about the struggle for Oles Honchar's Cathedral, his communication with Kira Muratova, the impact of his father's captivity on his fate, and why he is ready to take up a machine gun today.

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Stanislav Stryzheniuk is a member of the National Union of Writers of Ukraine, winner of the K. Paustovsky, P. Tychyna, Golden Pen, Cultural Capital 2019 literary prizes, and the all-Ukrainian Coronation of the Word competition.

He was born on March 3, 1931, in the town of Haivoron. He studied at the Odesa Special High School of the Air Force. Stryzheniuk dreamed of becoming a pilot, but the ideological and mandate commission forbade him to take to the skies: his father, an infantry private, was captured by the Nazis near Kharkiv, so he was considered unreliable.

In 1955, Stryzheniuk graduated from the Faculty of Chemical Technology of the Odesa Polytechnic Institute, and in 1963 from the Gorky Literary Institute.

He worked as an engineer at the Aktiubinsk Chemical Plant, head of the Odesa Regional Department of Culture, editor-in-chief of the Odesa Film Studio, editor of the Horizon almanac, and executive secretary of the Odesa Regional Organization of the Writers' Union of Ukraine.

Stanislav Stryzheniuk published his first poems in 1956 in the collective almanac "Voice of the Heart", and his debut book was "In the Brotherly Land", published by the Odesa Regional Publishing House in 1957.

Stryzheniuk is the author of more than 30 poetry collections. Some of his poems have been translated into English, Bulgarian, Polish, Hungarian and other languages. In 1995, Mr. Stryzheniuk translated into Ukrainian the works of the Italian poet Corrado Calabro. His book "Rosso D'alicudi" was published under the title "The Red Color of Alicudes". Later, Stryzheniuk translated the poem "Lucifer" by the classic of Romanian and Moldovan literature Mihai Eminescu.

In May 2021, at the Odesa National Scientific Library, Stryzheniuk presented the book "Judgment Day. Dramatic Cossack Thought in Three Parts, dedicated to Hetman Mazepa. In 2024, a new book "Peace. Love. Memory". It includes both old poems that have not yet been published and those written during the full-scale invasion.

Mr. Stanislav, you survived the Second World War, now a full-scale war. Your creative biography includes more than 30 books, your latest collection Peace. Love. Memory" was published in 2024. How does a poet react to war?

A poet reacts to war like a soldier. War is always a tragedy. For both nations at war. But for us, Ukrainians, it is a threefold tragedy, because this invasion was carried out by Russia. They tell us that we are "one people" but at the same time exclude Ukraine from this imaginary "people".

Who are you? You are the Golden Horde. Shevchenko wrote that we were Mongols, but he was wrong. It is Muscovy that is the Mongols.

In any case, I treat the war as a nationally hostile phenomenon that destroys everything. And we see this every day on our own experience. It is impossible to hide from it: missiles are flying and falling on our heads. We are talking now and at the same time hoping that nothing will happen at this moment. So for me, this war, which cannot end, is a horror. And this is the shame of the millennium.

You dreamed of becoming a pilot, but your wings were "cut off" because your father, a private infantryman, was captured by the Germans. Have you forgiven that ideological system? And was it the first impetus for you to choose the word over the sky?

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My mother, Yevdokiya Nazarivna, used to tell me: "Do not fly high, because you will fall." And indeed, once I almost fell. It happened when I was flying from Semipalatinsk with a group - we were on a business trip to Kazakhstan. I know this country well. I worked at the Aktobe Chemical Plant, at the Alga station, which is about forty kilometers from Aktobe.

Later I realized: Kazakhstan was a kind of testing ground for the Soviet Union's Gulag. This feeling came to me on the spot. I went there also because it was here that Taras Shevchenko was exiled with a ban on writing and drawing. But how can you forbid a person to think and express his thoughts? It's impossible. Especially when it comes to an artist, one of the most prominent graduates of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.

And today, when I look at the victims of this war, I realize that my people are a victim people, but at the same time a people-army. This is our strength, because we cannot be defeated. The will to freedom and liberation is so deep that we will fight in all possible ways.

I feel it in myself. Once I dreamed of flying, but today I would not hesitate to take up arms and go to war. I wouldn't hide from bullets, because no one will protect us but ourselves.

In May 2021, you presented a dramatic Cossack drama about Ivan Mazepa. Why did you turn to this particular figure during the war?

I turned to Ivan Mazepa because I know his biography and his twenty-year hetmanship well. He thought in terms of freedom, was oriented toward Europe, and tried to lead the Ukrainian people there. He was a highly educated, cultured, spiritual person. For me, Ivan Mazepa is a symbol of the Ukrainian soul.

Now I am working on a new work related to Odesa. Many people argue about the date of its birth, but it's not just about historians. Odesa has two wings: the steppe and the sea. The sea is our connection to the wider world. That's why I'm not surprised that Ukraine has a station in Antarctica. I want to look at Odesa from a clean slate - from the steppe above the sea. People often say: Jewish, Moldovan... I understand that, but first of all, it is Ukrainian Odesa.

You started working as an editor-in-chief at the Odesa Film Studio in 1964. Tell us how you got there.

You know, at that time I was the head of the regional department of culture and, frankly, I was a little tired of this work. The department was then located at 37 Pushkinska Street, on the fourth floor. My office and the entire apparatus were there.

One day I went to the art museum on what was then Korolenko Street and saw a painting: Pushkin and Mickiewicz in Odesa. I literally grabbed my head as the head of the Department of Culture because I knew they had never met in Odesa.

I then told the museum director: "Find out who the author of this painting is, and remove the work itself and put it in the storerooms-it does not correspond to the historical truth." In addition to truth, there must also be responsibility, especially in matters of culture and history. Especially since the Polish people have their own historical claims against us, as we know. But we must clearly understand who we are and what we are worth. And without Poland, of course, it would be much harder for us to survive, including the current Russian invasion.

Your years of work at the studio are the period of its heyday, which is associated with its longtime director Gennadiy Zbandut. How do you explain the rise of the studio under his leadership? What was his secret?

You know, there was no particular secret. Odesa itself, by its very nature and atmosphere, already creates the ground for creativity.

When I came to the studio, it was to the fanfare of the famous song from the movie Spring on Zarechnaya Street. Marlen Khutsiev made this film and raised the Odesa Film Studio to a very high level.

So it was not easy to enter this story. I realized then that I had to work the way Oleksandr Dovzhenko used to work at the Odesa Film Studio. He was not only a great director, but also a man with a clear position-with a sense of Ukrainian separateness long before there was talk of independence.

That is, the film studio for me began with Dovzhenko, not with Zbandut. And this story ended with a summons to Moscow, to Mikhail Suslov, the Secretary for Ideology of the CPSU Central Committee. After that, the bureau of the party's regional committee removed me from my position. Formally, for negotiating with Oles Honchar about the film adaptation of his novel The Cathedral. At the time, this work had just been published and caused a great deal of resonance. We really wanted to make a movie. In fact, I was portrayed as a nationalist. I can say that for sure.

In the 1960s, the film studio, and Odesa in general, was a place where the Ukrainian language could be heard much more often than in the 1970s and even more so in the 1980s. It is often heard in the background of Kira Muratova's early films. How did you, a Ukrainian-speaking poet, feel in a studio where the majority of people were Russian-speaking?

When I was fired from my job, it turned out that a lot of denunciations had been written against me. There were a lot of snitches in those days. There were at least five against me. I know these people. I even have a letter from one of them-he later told me everything. This is a document that I can make public.

I was considered a nationalist. Only because I wanted to make films with Ukrainian actors, Ukrainian directors, with Ukrainian music and songs. This is how I saw cinema in Odesa. At the same time, Mosfilm was trying to turn Odesa into a platform for the VGIK. However, this did not happen - we defended our position.

Then we started inviting young directors. That's how I met Vladimir Vysotsky. He was friends with Andrei Tarkovsky, a director who had a keen sense of the Ukrainian soul.

Vysotsky often read me his poems. Once I read him my "Horses". He listened attentively, and later he wrote the famous song "Horses."

Later, while working on the movie Vertical, I was on Elbrus and saw the filming. A helicopter overturned there, there were damages, and I had to go on a business trip immediately. There, we met Vysotsky again-he was singing his songs for tourists. That's when we decided to invite him to play one of the key roles in the movie. I am also responsible for this.

The director of the studio, Zbandut, also supported me. He understood a lot, though not everything. For example, he couldn't understand why I took on the adaptation of Oles Honchar's novel The Cathedral.

At the Odesa Film Studio in the 1920s, there was a deep conflict between local filmmakers and Russian filmmakers who were invited. Was there any tension in your time between the local staff and the Muscovites who were sent to the studio? The studio was also a large expedition base, where film crews from other film studios came to visit. How did all these groups get along?

They came and used film crews from other studios in Odesa. Many directors wanted to work here. That's why films like Kira Muratova's and Jungwald-Hilkiewicz's appeared.

I remember one day I was sitting in my office and my assistant Nina Vasilevska said that they had brought two pages of an appendix to a script that was already in production. It turned out that it was about a banquet. The film crew went to Privoz, bought two bags of crayfish, and went to Mayaki to shoot, because Marina Vladi came to Vysotsky. This is the story.

I wrote a resolution then: "At the expense of the director Jungwald-Hilkiewicz." And he paid for it, this whole cancer banquet. You see, there is a certain joke here, but in any case, work is work.

You were the editor-in-chief of the studio when Kira Muratova made what some consider to be her greatest films: "Short Encounters and Long Farewells. The latter was shelved, and Muratova was de facto banned from filming. Perhaps you paid with your position not only for The Cathedral, but also for this film. What was your relationship with Muratova like in general?

Our relationship was normal. She is a very talented filmmaker, really extremely talented. I was the chairman of the artistic council, and at these meetings she was mostly silent. Because everything she wanted to say was already on the screen. And that's right: words can be one thing, but the screen can be something else.

At the time of my release, indeed, Kira Muratova was also tied to the Sobor. In general, there was a serious conflict between Kyiv and Moscow at the time. If Kyiv approved a scenario, Moscow could "cut it down". And vice versa: if Kyiv realized that Moscow would not let the material through, it was simply not sent. These were essentially two warring artistic units.

What was the relationship between the Odesa Film Studio and the Kyiv Film Studio? The destruction of the school of poetic cinema in Kyiv and the "closure" of Muratova's studio were events of the same order. The end of the Shelest era in Ukraine also marked the end of the "long thaw". Did you feel like a part of Ukrainian cinema, or did the Soviet identity prevail?

No, we felt like Ukrainian cinema. We had Dovzhenko. You see, great-power politics is a crime. To be precise, you can't impose a language, a way of thinking, a nationality on a person. These are things of this order. So this was especially felt by the actors we invited and auditioned.

Anyway, Odesa Film Studio is a Ukrainian studio. It started under Dovzhenko, it continued with his soul. And it remained, at least, such a freedom-loving studio. God bless it now. I know all these things that are happening there, but I think everything will be fine.

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