Alexander Dovzhenko
Soviet filmmaker and pioneer of montage theory.
Alexander Petrovich Dovzhenko, also called Oleksandr Petrovych Dovzhenko, was a Soviet filmmaker and screenwriter born to Ukrainian parents. He is regarded as a major figure in early Soviet cinema, ranking alongside Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, and Vsevolod Pudovkin, and helped develop Soviet montage theory.
He was born on September 10, 1894 (August 29 under the old calendar) in the small settlement of Viunyshche, in what was then the Chernigov Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Sosnytsia, Ukraine). His parents were Petro Semenovych Dovzhenko and Odarka Yermolayivna Dovzhenko. According to Russian Orthodox tradition, he was named after the 13th-century prince Alexander Nevsky, whose saint’s day falls on August 30—though this naming was not directly tied to his birth date, which is August 29 (O.S.). The family spoke Ukrainian at home, but due to mandatory Russian in schools, he likely learned to read Russian and Church Slavonic before Ukrainian.
The Dovzhenkos were peasants, descended from Cossacks who had moved from Poltava province to Sosnytsia in the 1700s. Alexander was the seventh of fourteen children, but by age eleven he was the oldest surviving child: four older brothers died in a scarlet fever outbreak in 1895, and another brother succumbed to typhus in 1905. Only Alexander and his sister Polina, who became a doctor, lived to adulthood.
Though his parents were uneducated, a semi-literate grandfather pushed him to study. In 1911 he entered the Hlukhiv Teacher’s Institute (now Hlukhiv National Pedagogical University of Oleksandr Dovzhenko), graduating in 1914. He was sent to Khoroshiv, where a teacher shortage forced him to cover natural science, gymnastics, geography, physics, history, and drawing. He may have volunteered for the army during World War I but was exempted due to his teaching duties. On June 16, 1917, he was declared unfit for military service and later had heart surgery.
After the 1917 Russian Revolution, gaps appear in his biography. He may have sympathized with Bolshevik policies, but he identified more with Ukrainian interests, seeing the world in national rather than class terms. Other teachers introduced him to the writings of Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Alexander Herzen, though Dovzhenko later described himself as politically naive. In 1917 he returned to Kyiv, studying at the Kyiv Commercial Institute and later the Kyiv
- born
- September 10, 1894 (O.S. August 29), Viunyshche, Chernigov Governorate, Russian Empire
Lore & Background
Dovzhenko was born into a peasant family of Cossack descent in the hamlet of Viunyshche. He was the seventh of fourteen children, but only he and his sister Polina survived to adulthood. He graduated from the Hlukhiv Teacher's Institute in 1914 and taught a variety of subjects before being classified as unfit for military service in 1917. He studied at Kyiv Commercial Institute and Kyiv Academy of Arts but did not finish either. He was a member of the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party and supported the Ukrainian Central Council. After the Russian Revolution, he was captured by the Cheka in 1919 with arms in his hands, and a revolutionary court sentenced him to prison until the end of the war, though he was released after th. In 1923, Dovzhenko was expelled from the Communist Party for 'political unreliability' and for having been a member of the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party.
Reader's Guide
Dovzhenko's significance lies in his role as a major early Soviet filmmaker and a pioneer of Soviet montage theory, often ranked with Eisenstein, Vertov, and Pudovkin. His 'Ukraine Trilogy'—Zvenigora, Arsenal, and Earth—produced during the New Economic Policy and korenizatsiya, are his most well-known works in the West. These films present a historical panorama of Ukraine and promote Socialist realist themes, though Arsenal was poorly received by communist authorities in Ukraine, who began harassing him. His life and work reflect the complex political and cultural currents of early Soviet Ukraine, including his shifting allegiances between Ukrainian nationalism and Bolshevism. The article notes disputes in his biographical record, particularly regarding his military service and political affiliations, which he may have rewritten during periods of repression.
Did You Know?
- Dovzhenko was named after the 13th-century Russian prince Alexander Nevsky due to Russian Orthodox Church policies.
- He was the seventh of fourteen children, but only he and his sister Polina survived to adulthood.
- He was expelled from the Communist Party in 1923 after returning from diplomatic work in Germany.
- His film Arsenal (1928) depicted the Kiev Arsenal Uprising from the opposite side of the barricades from his own earlier political stance.
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