Sergey Parajanov - Life

Biography? I don’t quite remember what is my biography. It's “Dard” (sorrow in Armenian) - here is its eternal form. S.Parajanov

I deliberately didn't name this page "Biography", because I didn't feel like the life of Sergey Parajanov fits into the stamped HTML page with a header "Biography". It was a life... full of miraculous creations and inspirations, full of colors and images... yet it was a life full of pain and anguish, persecution and years in the concentration camp. It was a life spent in the world of the beauty, yet a life lived in the world of shit. Like his main hero Sayat-Nova from "The Colors of a pomegranate", Parajanov's life poses a question "why is my life in so much suffering?" Maybe, if I look around I can understand why. ...Like Sayat Nova, like Tarkovsky, like Brodsky and Pasternak and Akhmatova and Vysotsky many others, Parajanov tasted life in a different way. They all searched for beauty everywhere, and they have found it... unfortunately, such is the life of all the those who can see beauty in simple things and who can show that beauty through paintings, words or movies. The world simply cannot keep up with them... until the time comes.

So what exactly was his life like? Born and raised in a traditional Armenian family in Tiflis (Tbilisi). Lived his childhood very close to the tight Armenian community. These images of childhood will later get reflected in his work "The colors of a pomegranate". Armenians in mid XXth century were spread all around the world. The genocide of 1.5 millions in Turkey took its toll by turning half of the whole nation into runaway fugitives. One thing we have learned throughout the time is to call any place in this world our home, to build new homes, make new lives and keep our tradition, while absorbing different cultures. So was the Armenian community in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. Historically one of the biggest and oldest communities, Armenians in Tbilisi raised many famous sons. The famous Nersesyan gymnasium was considered one of the best in the world. That's where Sargis Parajanyan (his born name) grew up.

1945. End of the second world war. Parajanov moves to Moscow and enrolls into the Institute of Cinematography. The story tells that Alexander Dovzhenko asked to watch his diploma movie "Moldavian Fairy Tale(1951)" twice. That was the only time in the history of the institute when the examination board decided to watch a diploma film twice. In 1952 he moves to Kiev and starts working at the Dovzhenko studios. After a number of short films and side projects, Parajanov finally starts working on his first movie. The movies was "The Shadows of forgotten ancestors", which turned out to be one of the biggest masterpieces in the history of cinematography. Read about this movie

In a few years Parajanov moves to Armenia, his true motherland and starts working on the "Armenfilm" studio. This is where some of his short movies like "Hakob Hovnatyan" were born. And this is where he would screen his biggest masterpiece: "The Colors of a pomegranate". Read about this movie. That was the movie that made him famous all over the world by causing a furror in cinematography and the movie that got no attention from the Soviet authorities. It was the movie that was shot under extremely poor and primitive conditions in Armenia. After forcefully cutting 20 minutes out of the movie and re-releasing the short version for the Soviet audience, Parajanov said: "My masterpiece no longer exists". And that was the movie that started the chain of events in his life. The Soviet censure didn't particularly like all the religious images he portrayed in "Colors...". This subsequently resulted in a number of screenplays being rejected and later led to the imprisonment under a fake incrimination. Parajanov was sent to Gulag, one of the most horrible concentration camps in Russia. Years later the world will know it from Solzhenitsyn's "Archipelago Gulag" book. The year was 1973. Barely even started, half of his creative and talented life was taken away.

This is where Parajanov's life resembles painfully close to the life of Joseph Brodsky. Like Brodsky, Parajanov served a number of years and was relesed due to the protest movement among cultural workers. In 1977 he was back to Georgia without any money, job and little hope. That wasn't the end yet: in a few years he is imprisoned again, this time without even a trial. I guess the luck smiled to Parajanov (pardon my sarcasm), instead of the Gulag horrors, he spent less than a year in the Tbilisi prison. The Soviet machine that worked so well in destroying talents finally comes to a halt when Gorbachev comes to power in mid 80's. Years of stagnation are followed by the period of perestroyka. Ironically, perestroyka (translated as "re-construction") turned into a complete and total collapse. Those years brought a change in mentality and a change in attitude: imprisoned talents were put to an amnesty. So was Sergey Parajanov. Finally, after almost 25 years of a halt in creative career, he resumes his work. This time it was "Gruzia Film" studio that produced his new movie.

"The Legend of the Souram Fortress" was completed in 1986. Next year work on "Ashik Kerib" was started. (Read about this movie) Both movies became world-renowned masterpieces and received a number of awards at movie festivals. Parajanov didn't get to see many of them. After unsuccessful treatment in France, he passed away in 1989 in Yerevan from lung cancer. Such was the life of one of the biggest talents in the history. He had a long and hard road, yet being oppressed and misunderstood most of his life, he only managed to realize a small part of his talent. The movie that was intended to be his final work was never finished. He had a name for the movie: "Requiem".

Image: A few moments of Joconda's Life, the Last Supper, 1988 Image: Variation by Pinturicchio and Raphael, 1988
Image: I'm 60, 1984
Image: Parajanov with his nephew Georgiy