The Many Layers of Sergei Parajanov : A Life’s Work Reprised

Sammanfattning: Abstract This thesis examines the various biographical threads, which created the complex fabric of Sergei Parajanov’s life and work, especially his films. His origins, education, marriages, family life, and friendships forged in film school and in the various studios, where he worked, are used to frame his cinematic productions. However, the most novel features of this study result from an examination of his letters from prison and the artistic output, drawings, collages, scripts/scenarios, assemblages, etc., created in the gulag and outside during the time that he was denied the right to make films. An argument is made that the Soviet authorities jailed him as a dissident although he never considered himself one, being rather simply an honest creative individual, who would not abide the censoring or redaction of his work. His homosexuality was the pretext for Soviet authorities to incarcerate him, but Parajanov’s queerness has been almost completely omitted from purportedly authoritative memoirs and biographies meant to capture the late filmmaker’s legacy. These publications written by Soviet and post-Soviet critics, Parajanov’s close friends, and numerous confidants make a deliberate effort to erase his self-professed queer identity. Foreign aficionados of his work, on the other hand, have little hesitancy acknowledging his queerness. My research centers on Parajanov’s queer identity as the underlying source of his bold and innovative artistic output.