“Bohdan Khmelnytskyi,” Soviet historical propaganda film, 1941

Ihor Savchenko’s film was a great Soviet success. The main actor Mykola Mordvinov, who played Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, received the Stalin Prize of the first degree for this role in 1942. It may be partly explained by the fact that “Bohdan Khmelnytskyi” met important geopolitical objectives of the Soviet Union in the early 1940s. By that time, the USSR occupied part of Polish territory. This film was intended to show the primordial hostility of Poles to Ukrainians and emphasize the heroic struggle of Ukrainians against the Polish nobility, and to restore Soviet society’s notion of a shared historical homeland and integrate the myth of the golden age of imperial statehood into the collective consciousness. 

Ihor Savchenko was tasked with “restoring the rights” of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, whose reputation had been significantly damaged in the early years of the Soviet Union. In the 1920s, Soviet historians emphasized Hetman Khmelnytskyi’s valour and diplomatic skills, questioning his heroism. Khmelnytskyi was driven by selfish motives rather than a desire to liberate Ukrainians from the oppression of Polish lords. Khmelnytskyi was depicted as a mercantile landowner-intriguer who did not care about Ukrainians. In Ihor Savchenko’s film, the Hetman Khmelnytskyi is shown as a strong military leader who defends the interests of all Ukrainians.

The Orthodox faith is the primary social-cultural marker used as an argument for the brotherhood of the two nations. The commonality of religions is emphasized by Russian ambassadors, who came to Hetman Khmelnytskyi with a proposal to conclude a military agreement with the Russian tsar. Representatives of the Kyiv Metropolitanate also emphasized that righteous Orthodox Christians hold on to their father’s faith and do not convert to the Union, know the main prayers, drink a lot of vodka, and mercilessly kill Polish lords because they have caused many injustices to Ukrainians. The reward of these efforts will be the Kingdom of Heaven granted to the Ukrainian Cossacks by the Lord after their death. 

Catholic bishops are depicted as real apostates from God’s commandments. They persuaded Hetman Khmelnytskyi’s ex-wife, Helena Chaplynska, to give Khmelnytskyi poison. The Polish lords are portrayed as cruel sadists. In one of the film’s scenes, they publicly interrogate captured Ukrainian Cossacks, subjecting them to a variety of tortures. The Ukrainian Cossacks were clever and sincere but wild and undisciplined warriors. The scene of the battle between Ukrainian rebels and Polish military leaders proves this statement.

Not all participants in the uprising led by Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, as interpreted by Ihor Savchenko, agreed that it was advisable to conclude a military treaty with the Russian tsar. Some said that Moscow was far away, and the Polish army was nearby. Others argued that after all the numerous tortures and sufferings that Polish nobility inflicted on Ukrainians, reconciliation with them was out of the question.

The film ends with the Pereyaslav Rada, during which Khmelnytskyi puts a charter to his lips, proclaiming the eternal union of Ukraine with Russia. In the same scene, Hetman Khmelnytskyi makes a speech:  “Glory to Russians, our brother, who has given us a helping hand in our struggle. The day will soon come when brother will be united with brother, and there will be no power to break us.”

The union of Ukraine with Russia appears as a theological outcome of Ukrainian history. The film’s creators emphasized the inevitable logic: Ukrainians freed themselves from Polish lordly oppression and then united with brothers – Russians. The eternal and unbreakable friendship of Ukrainians and Russians must be protected as the apple of the eye, as it is the key to the prosperity and power of both nations. 

The film “Bohdan Khmelnytskyi” provides an opportunity to explore how Soviet propaganda films covered the early modern history of Ukraine to achieve the geopolitical goals of the USSR in the late 1930s and 1940s. It allows us to see how Soviet filmmakers tried to portray Polish nobles in the most negative way possible (to emphasize that the Poles, part of whose territory was occupied by the Soviet Union, were the real enemy) and to emphasize the inevitability of Ukraine’s reunification with Russia (to create a sense of a common homeland among Ukrainians and Russians, which was especially important in the first years of the German-Soviet war).