VISIBILITY FOR THE INVISIBLE IN SERHII PARAJANOV'S "KYIV FRESCOES": SOCIAL EXCLUSION AND THE ROLE OF ART IN POST-WAR SOCIETY

Abstract

Introduction. This article examines Serhii Parajanov's film project "Kyiv Frescoes" as a source for analyzing the sociocultural consequences of the Second World War in the Ukrainian SSR. Official Soviet discourse heroized the memory of the war while overlooking the everyday problems of veterans, the war-disabled, widows, and mothers of the fallen. The article aims to identify and analyze episodes in the screenplay and screen tests that represent social exclusion in the post-war period, and to consider the role of art as a means of psychological adaptation and the symbolic reintegration of the individual into society.

Methods. The study employs cultural-historical and visual analysis of materials and documents, allowing the project to be treated as a cultural text in which post-war social problems are articulated through images and symbols. The source base includes the literary screenplay and the director's script of "Kyiv Frescoes", the short film edited by Parajanov in 1966, and documents of the Dovzhenko Kyiv Film Studio and authorities of the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR.

Results. The analysis shows that in Kyiv Frescoes Parajanov planned to give visibility to social groups that remained peripheral in official Soviet discourse or were represented in a formalized heroic mode. The director contrasts privileged generals with ordinary veterans, the war-disabled, widows, focusing on loneliness, psychological trauma, material insecurity, and the social silencing of their problems. War appears not as a completed event of the past but as a prolonged experience that continues to shape a person's emotional state, everyday life, and social position. It is also established that, in Parajanov's conception, art performs not only an aesthetic but also a social function: engagement with museum space, artworks, and the city's architecture supports the characters' psychological recovery, preserves their dignity, facilitates adaptation to new realities, and enables the reintegration of socially excluded individuals into post-war society.

Conclusions. "Kyiv Frescoes" should be understood as an artistic attempt to critically reflect on post-war Soviet society, in which the problem of social exclusion is intertwined with reflections on the role of art in overcoming trauma and restoring the visibility of marginalized individuals. The project disrupted the optimistic image of post-war reality and therefore proved unacceptable to Soviet censorship. Parajanov's unrealised project is a valuable source for studying cultural memory, visual history, and the mechanisms of social exclusion in the Ukrainian SSR.