Dovzhenko later avoided military service during World War I because of a heart condition, but during the Soviet-Ukrainian War he served a year in the Red Army.
In 1919 in Zhytomyr, Dovzhenko was taken prisoner and sent to a concentration camp.
In 1920, Dovzhenko joined the Borotbist party. This party was a left-nationalist political party in Ukraine from 1918-1920.
Afterwards, Dovzhenko served as an assistant to the Ambassador in Warsaw, Poland as well as Berlin, Germany.
Upon his return to USSR in 1923, Dovzhenko began illustrating books and drawing cartoons in Kharkov.
Three years later, Dovzhenko turned to film in 1926 when he landed in Odessa. His ambitious drive led to the production of his second-ever screenplay for a forty-nine-minute film.
Two years later, Dovzhenko gained greater success in editing, co-writing and directing a feature film, which later established him as a major filmmaker of his era.
Although this was the fourth film by Dovzhenko, it was the first of which was widely reviewed and discussed in the media. This was also the first installment of Dovzhenko's "Ukraine Trilogy".
Later that same year, Dovzhenko married Soviet actress and film director Yuliya Solntseva. Her name, a pseudonym, is derived from the Russian word for 'sun'. The couple would remain married until Dovzhenko's death.
The first installment of his "Ukraine Trilogy" was the 1928 Soviet silent black and white drama film 'Zvenigora'.
This was followed up with the 1929 Soviet silent black and white drama/history war film 'Arsenal' (the alternative title being 'January Uprising in Kiev in 1918').
The third and final installment was the 1930 Soviet silent black and white propaganda film 'Zemlya' ('Earth').
Of the "Ukraine Trilogy", this is regarded as Dovzhenko's masterpiece, of which he is best known for editing, writing and directing.
The "Ukraine Trilogy" are Dovzhenko's most well-known works in the West.
Set in the peaceful Soviet countryside, the impressionistic silent Russian film 'Earth' follows the trials and tribulations of farmers on a collective who come into conflict with more affluent "kulak" landowners.
Each are led by Vasili 'Basil' Opanas (Semyon Savshenko), the grandson of a dying aged farmer. Vasili opposes the rich kulaks (or golchomags) over the coming of collective farming.
When the farmers then pool their resources to buy a tractor, a triumphant development that soon yields to tragedy.
Despite the hardships that they face, the farmers press on, with their connection to the land evident in the film's many moments of scenic rural beauty. The film also co-stars Solntseva as Vassili's sister.
As shown in the film, "kulaks" were a category of affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire and early Soviet Union, particularly Soviet Russia and Azerbaijan.
'Earth' poetically portrayed collectivization in a positive light, but Soviet authorities evidently didn't consider it positive enough and the film was subjected to criticism.
Soviet censors made Dovzhenko eliminate a number of scenes from the film, including a shot of peasants urinating in a tractor radiator and a scene where a dead man's fiancée mourns him in the nude.
In Dovzhenko's next film was the 1932 Soviet black and white drama film 'Ivan'.
It portrayed a Dnieper Dam construction worker and his reactions to industrialization, which was then summarily denounced for promoting fascism and pantheism.
After spending several years writing, co-writing and producing films at Mosfilm Studios in Moscow, Russia, Dovzhenko turned to writing novels. Over a twenty-year career, he personally directed only seven films.
Fearing arrest, Dovzhenko personally appealed to Joseph Stalin. Moreover, the Soviet dictator had been a fan of 'Arsenal' and gave his blessing to the director's next project.
Dovzhenko was later a mentor to two young Soviet filmmakers. These were Soviet film director, screenwriter and actress Larisa Shepitko ('The Ascent') and Soviet film director and artist of Armenian descent Sergei Parajanov ('Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors', 'The Color of Pomegranates').
Dovzhenko passed in his dacha in Peredelkino, Soviet Union (now Russia) from a heart attack on November 25, 1956. He was 62.
Dovzhenko was later interred at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Solntseva continued his legacy by producing films of her own and completing projects Dovzhenko was not able to create.
Two years later, 'Earth' was voted one of the twelve greatest films of all time by a group of one hundred and seventeen film historians at the 1958 Brussels World Fair in Belgium (also known as Expo 58).
Even Russian filmmaker, writer, and film theorist Andrei Tarkovsky ('Andrei Rublev', 'Solaris', 'The Mirror', 'Stalker') quoted 'Earth' as one of his favorite films.
Three years later, Solntseva was the first female winner in the 20th century to receive the Best Director Award at the 14th Cannes Film Festival in May 1961.
She was also the first woman to win a directing prize at any of the major European film festivals, notably for the 1961 Soviet black and white war/drama film 'Povest plamennykh let' ('Chronicle of Flaming Years'). Before Dovzhenko's death, he had written the screenplay for her film.
The Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kiev were later named after the filmmaker in his honor following his death.
Alongside Sergei M. Eisenstein ('Strike', 'Battleship Potemkin', 'October: Ten Days That Shook the World', 'Ivan the Terrible: Parts 1 and 2') and Vsevolod Pudovkin ('Storm Over Asia'), Dovzhenko became one of the major pioneers of Soviet filmmaking.
During his thirty-year career, his films have won international acclaim and have become influential classics of the silent and early sound eras.
Combining images from Ukrainian history and folklore, stark realism, visual poetry, propaganda, and gentle humor, his films celebrated nature and man's relationship to the land.
From his humble beginnings in the Ukrainian peasantry, Dovzhenko developed into a volatile artist with a great belief in cinema as an art form for the people.
Fearing arrest and execution, he had to come to terms with the Stalinist order and compromised his vision for his later films.
Despite his concessions, his creative work inspired the first post-Stalinist generation of filmmakers and writers to challenge prevailing Soviet and artistic orthodoxies.
Dovzhenko brought international recognition to the Soviet film industry during the 1930s.
Emotional intensity and mystical symbolism often took precedence over narrative structure in his films, many of which concerned the Russian Civil War (1918–1920) and the collectivization period (late 1920s to early 1930s).
Dovzhenko had been active from 1926–1956.
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