ЗАБУТИЙ ЮВІЛЕЙ СЕРІАЛУ «НЕВІДОМА УКРАЇНА: НАРИСИ НАШОЇ ІСТОРІЇ» — ЯК ПОКАЗНИК СТАНУ НЕІГРОВОГО КІНО, МЕДІА, КІНООСВІТИ, СУСПІЛЬСТВА

Abstract

In the second year of Independence, Ukrainian historians and cinematographers created a historical-educational cycle “Unknown Essays on our history”. This is the first Ukrainian film series to fully reflect the history of statehood, as its appearance was impossible in colonial-dependent O. Dovzhenko took note of this with pain back in April 1942, calling the only country in the world where the history of this country was not taught in universities, where history was considered something forbidden, hostile and counter-revolutionary. The series Unknown Ukraine is 108 series on the history of 12 - on the history of the Ukrainian army Golden Stirrup, 12 - on the history of medicine Medical Affairs in Ukraine, 8 - on the history of law How sued in Ukraine. Each historical period is presented in 12 series of 15 minutes each, which is supposed to fit on a three-hour VHS videotape. The whole series is 12 videocassettes, 140 series lasting about forty hours - an unprecedented phenomenon! After the premiere of the series at the Cinema House in December 1993, the press called it an extraordinary phenomenon, high class not only professionally, but also evidence that we do not really know the history of and that the authors found a worldview, showed history, but not a servant of someone's ideological myths, and the main idea of the series - was, is and will be. The film cycle emerged as an important state order, which aimed not only educational, but also a kind of therapeutic function - to reconcile worldview divide caused by the Soviet era. It was planned to show it on state channels, to duplicate it in the languages of national minorities, in particular, for the Crimea, Donbass, Transcarpathia, and to reproduce it on videocassettes. The project was worked on by 68 film directors, fifty cameramen, and dozens of scientific historians-consultants. The author's text (mostly behind-the-scenes) was voiced by prominent Ukrainian actors Vitaliy Rozstalny, Bohdan Stupka, Natalia Sumska, and others. The films of the series gave a feeling of multiplicity of sources and screen-genre interpretations, became not only the art of publishing views on history, but also one of the tools of a special, scientific and artistic consideration of it. But after the premiere, the series did not receive any advertising, it was not shown for three years. The first broadcast took place only in the autumn of 1996 on one of the private TV channels, at an inconvenient time, and in the following years - had an exclusively night broadcast, between 2 and 4 o'clock - to a very small audience. Today, this film cycle is still remembered by the older generation - and for the youth Unknown Ukraine remains largely unknown. It is no coincidence that the 25th anniversary of the premiere of the series was not celebrated in any way. The author of the article joined the first public film demonstrations of Unknown Ukraine, witnessed the appeal of the concerned public to President L. Kravchuk demanding an immediate telecast of the entire film cycle; draws attention to the development of historical and cognitive topics caused by the series in other studios, its importance for education, explores the reasons for the reduction of the cognitive value of historical topics in favor of entertainment, which had unfortunate consequences for Ukrainian post-totalitarian society; as a director he shot one of the series, researched their typology, defended his dissertation on this material - he directly participated in the creation of this large-scale project, so the proposed perspective is not devoid of a certain subjectivity and journalism.