In 1922, Lenin decreed not only a liberalisation of the economy (NEP), but also the promotion of non-Russian cultures (Korenizatsiya) to stabilise the shaky Soviet Union. Ukrainian cinema flourished under the state monopoly VUFKU (Vse-Ukrainske Foto Kino Upravlinnia – All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration), which began production in Odesa in 1922 and later opened more studios in Kyiv and Kharkiv. Four scripts by Isaak Babel were adapted by VUFKU: Sil (Salt, Petro Chardynin, 1925, lost), Mandrivni Zori (Wandering Stars, Hryhori Hrycher-Cherykover, 1926, lost), Benya Krik (Vladimir Vilner, 1926) and Dzhimmi Higgins (Jimmy Higgins, Heorhi Tasin, 1928, lost, except for a fragment). Many great classics of Soviet cinema are Ukrainian VUFKU productions, among them Ljudyna z kinoaparatom (Dziga Vertov and Yelizaveta Svilova, 1929) or Arsenal (1928) and Earth (1930) by Oleksandr Dovzhenko. Today, Dovzhenko is considered a representative of Ukraine’s modernist Renaissance. In the comedy Jahidka kohannja, his second work and the earliest one still existing, parental and gender roles are treated in a refreshing burlesque manner. Most of the social progresses of the early Soviet Union were reversed in the mid-1930s by a conservative family policy (see Tsirk), with abortion and homosexuality now criminalised and divorce made difficult. The nationality policy and with it VUFKU had already been terminated in 1930, which was followed by Stalin’s campaigns to exterminate the Ukrainian culture, peasants and writers alike.

Mariann Lewinsky