This week, Abram and Liam are joined by our friend BC Jim to talk about Sergei Parajanov’s 1965 film Souls of Forgotten Ancestors Parajanov is perhaps best known for The Color of Pomegranates and this film is in many ways similar. Among other reasons, the film is notable because it was the first feature length film to be shot almost entirely in Ukrainian.

Based on the 1913 novel of the same name by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Souls tells the story of a pair of star-crossed lovers living in the Zakarpatiia region of what is today Ukraine. It was historically a very poor and isolated region largely populated by people that outsiders called Hutsuls (probably a derogatory term) and which was later embraced by some of them. At the turn of the 20th century these people were embraced by Ukrainian nationalists, who had a very romanticized view of these simple, hardy woodmen as embodying the very heart of Ukrainian values. In this episode we explore the history of the region, the process of nation formation, the integration of Zakarpatiia into the Soviet Union, and the history of Ukrainian nationalism.

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