From Stories to Images: Translating Ukrainian Folklore to the Animated Screen

• In Event: Ukrainian Folklore, Past and Present: Interpretation, Adaptation, Resistance

Abstract

What happens when a story is translated into images? This question is explored in this paper, which focuses on animation based on folklore produced in Ukraine at the Kyivnaukfilm studio from the 1960s to the 1990s. Using Ukrainian folk tales and arts, animators and directors created short films that incorporated folk and traditional imagery (embroidery, arts, architecture, interior design, etc.), giving them new life on the screen. Such films as Marusia Boguslavka (Marusia Boguslavka, director Nina Vasylenko, 1966), Chomu u pivnia korotki shtantsi (Why the Rooster Wears Short Pants, directors Ipolyt Lazarchuk and Tsezar Orshans’kyi, 1966), and Iak zhinky cholovikiv prodavaly (How Women Were Selling Their Husbands, Iryna Hurvych, 1972), showcase traditional Ukrainian imagery that, as the paper argues, itself becomes the main non-narrative character of the films.

Author

• Olga Blackledge