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Please join the Harriman Institute for a screening of Chubai. Speaking Again, followed by a discussion and Q&A session with the Director, Mykhailo Krupiievskyi. Introduced by Mark Andryczyk.
At the close of the 1960s the talented, young poet Hrytsko Chubai arrives in Lviv. His poetry speaks to the youth and vexes Galician city-dwellers. Chubai is invited to read his poems at intimate gatherings and at evenings of poetry. He is taken under the wing by the poet-dissident family of Ihor and Iryna Kalynets.
Chubai and his friends publish their first samvydav literary-artistic almanac Skrynia (The Chest). At the start of January 1972, the KGB unleashes a special operation against the almanac. Chubai, Ihor and Iryna Kalynets, and many other representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, are arrested. Ihor and Iryna receive 9-year sentences in a prison camp. Chubai is released but his life transforms into a living hell.
The film has an innovative format and was made as a combination of the documentary film and TV show genres. Its actions unfold in the studio-basement of Hrytsko Chubai. The video projection pushes out the walls of the studio and transports the viewer into the featured time and place.
