IVAN KAVALERIDZE

DIRECTING

Ivan Kavaleridze (1887–1978) was a sculptor and director; he was an author of the first statues of Taras Shevchenko and Bolshevist politician Artem (one of the first Constructivism monuments in Europe); he was a director of several avant-garde historical films, and after the Socialism focus in the Soviet art he became a pioneer cameraman. Soviet critics ranked Kavaleridze, the author of nine full-length films, together with such personalities as Dovzhenko, Pudovkin and Eisenstein.

However, Kavaleridze still remains an outsider in Ukrainian culture. He was born in Talaivka, Poltava region, in a Georgian-Ukrainian family.