Serhiy Parajanov officially rehabilitated after 50 years: what the USSR accused the director of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors of

Exactly 100 years have passed since the birth of the legendary director of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Serhiy Parajanov. Half a century has passed since the Soviet authorities sentenced the legendary cultural figure to 5 years in a strict regime camp for "Ukrainian nationalism and homosexuality."

Finally, 50 years after the director's trial, Serhiy Parajanov was legally recognized as rehabilitated, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory reported. The case was supported by the Office of the President of Ukraine and Ukrainian human rights activists, said Anton Drobovych, head of the UINM.

"The legal rehabilitation of Serhiy Parajanov is a truly remarkable and significant event. It is yet another proof of the thesis that goodness and justice ultimately prevail, even if in a strategic perspective. All victims of the communist totalitarian regime, as well as any totalitarian regime, have the right and opportunity to be restored to dignity and truth," Drobovych said at the UINM.

The Institute of National Memory also wrote that the decision to rehabilitate Serhiy Parajanov "is a landmark precedent for the consideration of other high-profile cases of Ukrainian dissidents who were convicted by the communist totalitarian regime on trumped-up charges under the so-called 'general criminal articles'.

The case of the arrest began in 1964. At that time, during the premiere of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Parajanov's long-awaited film, a protest by creative intellectuals against mass political repression by the USSR took place in Kyiv's Ukraina Cinema, UINM reports .

Subsequently, 9 years after the premiere, the Soviet authorities decided to imprison Serhiy Parajanov for 5 years in strict regime camps, accusing him of "Ukrainian nationalism and homosexuality," probably because of the film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. The Ukrainian-Armenian filmmaker was released from arrest by the Russian sculptor Lilya Brick, who later helped him write a letter to Leonid Brezhnev to allow Parajanov to travel to Iran for a year. Unfortunately, the artist never received a response.

Andriy Kohut, Director of the SSU Archive, responded to the news of the rehabilitation on Facebook: "This news was hard to keep to myself and I am very glad that it has already been widely spread in the media. On December 20, the National Rehabilitation Commission and I finally rehabilitated Serhiy Parajanov. Unfortunately, there are much fewer KGB documents about the director than there used to be. "Loafer" was the operational nickname Parajanov received from the Chekists. From the surviving card, it is known that the 5th Directorate of the KGB, the same one that fought against dissidents, was involved in its development."

Earlier, OBOZ.UA wrote about ten films and TV series that every Ukrainian should watch to understand why we shouldn't fraternize with Russians. Among them is Serhiy Parajanov's legendary film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.

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