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The Ukrainian DP journal “CHORS” was planned as a quarterly on arts and culture, written by a group of editors around Ihor Kostec’kyj. Even though a second edition was never published, the editor’s notes and pre-written articles, ready to be published in a long-planned second edition, tell a lot about the potential within the project. 

In the statutes of CHORS, the journal, as well as the attaching, desired worldwide idea, distanced itself heavily from Communism and the Soviet Union. The reason that was provided for this positioning was the Soviet understanding of art and the fact that art had to serve a purpose under Soviet Realism. Such distancing from Soviet influence into world arts is rather understandable. Criticism of various kinds was not only usual but almost expected for Ukrainian DPs in the western occupation zones of post-war Germany. 

CHORS, however, went one step further. One of the categories, which was planned to be a returning category in every edition, was film criticism. In this category, the editors sought to provide their reviews and critiсs for one or more contemporary or historical movies. Planned for the second edition were, among other things, two articles: one article on the actress Ingrid Bergmann and one open letter for the German filming industry. 

Both of these articles target the filming industry itself harshly. Hollywood is displayed as the end for the true art in film, and the fact that movies are being produced to fit with the masses is seen as a disgrace to the arts. Movies from the silent film period are shown as a positive example of true film art to which the people in charge should return to. 

By issuing such statements, the editors did something remarkable: Not only did they distance themselves from the Soviet sphere of influence, just like everyone else. They also dared to stand up against the economic rule of Hollywood, the artistic soul of the US-capitalist system, and to stand up not only against Communism but also against Capitalism, or at least some fraction of it. To show opposition against the socio-economic system of the occupying forces that secured the freedom of their people was really outstanding. At least at the start of editing CHORS – the so-called “camp period,” the swelling threat of forced repatriation to the Soviet Union, which has cost a major amount of people their lives, health, or freedom, was still in everybody’s minds. Still, the editors dared to defend their own way of thinking, somewhat of a third way between the Western, Capitalist, and the Soviet, Communist way of thinking and living.

Title:

Reviews of Film Art as an Instrument of Independence by the Ukrainian DP Journal CHORS, 1946-1951

Year:
1946-1951
Source:
Archive of the Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen (FSO), FSO 01-242 Kostec’kyj.
Original language:
English, German

Against the Current

Khors sees the reason for the decline of morality in contemporary film art as the fact that the conception of “the great artist” nowadays depends on the judgment of the crowds, on something that has nothing in common with artistic values. Khors, for this part, issuing from eternal art and referring to the most remarkable person in world film as an example, wants to demonstrate three points

What Ingrid Bergmann must [bracketed, handwritten: should] do to be a really great actress

1) Never again sign a contract with Hollywood

2) Either play quite a new character in each part trying to solve new artistic problems – in the way of expression, mask, movement, rhythm (artistic prototype: Werner Krauss); or always play one character which should have no likeness to anything out of ordinary life (artistic prototype: Charlie Chaplin)

3) Confine herself to perform only ten more parts, which, after careful thinking, would prove the most necessary. Later, if there should arise the necessity of fulfilling special, unforeseen, outstanding artistic tasks, she might risk an eleventh part. 

***

Open CHORS letter
to the German film producers

Dear Gentlemen, 

The art of film is in danger. The economic dictatorship of Hollywood businessmen, who have nothing in common with art, has led to standardization, the equalization of subjects and artistic means, and the loss of good taste. Even the most outstanding literary works, when they get caught up in the cogs and teeth of the Hollywood machine, flattened, castrated, represented by patented “heroes” and “heroines” like Tyron Power or Mian O’Hara, turn into tabloid productions, into mass-produced, anti-artistic “coca-cola”. But the greatest tragedy of contemporary film is the loss of individuality: the screenwriter, the director, but first and foremost – the actor. The great actors of silent film, each of whom was a cosmos of art, were great fathers with no worthy heirs in the gray, faceless, meaningless mass of today’s cinema actors. 

We turn to you, honored German film industrialists, with the call to resolutely return to the sources. Once in the great times after the first war, Germany became the cradle of world film art through expressionist art. It would be a great joy for us, for all those for whom the life of art is their daily bread, to see artistic Germany once again at the forefront of the world art movement – and we call on you to make every effort to bring about this new renaissance. 

Our first suggestion to you would be: to put aside the current market plans, unite joint efforts, and create at least a few artistic films that would have as their core the chef d’oeuvres of the silent era and would present in new versions a harmony of the “old” and the “new”; in their nature a bridge between what the silent film gave to the art of the actor and the director and what the sound film enriched it with. 

We mean: “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, “The Tired Death”, “Dr. Mabuse the Gambler”, the old “Indian Tomb”, “Nibelungen”, “Metropolis”, “Faust”…

The majority of the artists – the director Fritz Lang, the writers Thea von Harbour and Norbert Jaques, the actors Lil Dagover, Margarete Schön, Hanna Ralph, Werner Krauss, Bernhard Goetzke, Walter Janssen, Paul Richter, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Theodor Loos, Hans Adalbert von Schlettow and others – are fortunately still alive today. They are scattered in various small ventures and only occasionally appear before the audience without being united around a leading universal artistic idea, as was the case in the times of Reinhardt, Wiene, and Murnau. Create the possibilities for the rebirth of this idea, gather and unite these artists, and give them new weapons. Let the old beautiful cadres, with the participation of Conrad Veidt, who has already died but is still alive in the film, be integrated into the technically perfected screenplay, and let a new version of “Caligari” be created: a new version, in which excerpts with the old Somnabula are edited in [sic!]. And in this collaboration between the “old” and the “new”, let the new ideas mature, let the new generation of artists appear, to whom the older generation could hand over everything better of itself, and who would become an equal successor in the great cause of cultivating unrepeatable artistic personality. 

We sincerely believe, gentlemen, that this appeal of ours will not pass your hearts by, and that the matter we are touching on here is actually no less on your conscience than on ours. 

Yours sincerely
Group of artists
“CHORS Family”

In original German language 

Offener CHORS-Brief
an die deutschen Filmproduzenten

 

Sehr geehrte Herren, 

Die Kunst des Films steht in Gefahr. Die ökonomische Diktatur der Geschäftsleute aus Hollywood, die nicht mit Kunst gemeinsam haben, führte zur Standardisierung, zur Gleichmacherei der Sujets und Kunstmittel, zum Massenverlust des guten Geschmacks. Sogar die hervorragendsten literarischen Werke, wenn sie an die Rädchen und Zähnchen der Hollywood-Maschine geraten, verflacht, kastriert, repräsentiert durch patentierte „Helden“ und „Heldinnen“ wie Tyron Power oder Mian O’Hara, verwandeln sich in Boulevard-Produktion, in serienweise fabriziertes, antikünstlerisches „coca-cola“. Aber die schwerste Tragödie des zeitgenössischen Films ist der Verlust der Individualität: des Drehbuchautors, des Spielleiters, in erster Linie jedoch – des Schauspielers. Die grossen Schauspieler des Stummfilms, deren jeder ein Kosmos der Kunst war, sie waren grosse Väter, die in der grauen gesichtslosen, bedeutungsleeren Masse heutiger Kinoschmierenschauspieler keine würdigen Erben haben. 

Wir wenden uns an Sie, geehrte deutsche Filmindustrielle, mit dem Aufruf, sich entschlossen zu den Quellen zu kehren. Einmal in den grossen Zeiten nach dem ersten Krieg wurde Deutschland durch die expressionistische Kunst zur Wiege der Weltfilmkunst. Es wäre eine grosse Freude für uns, für alle, denen das Leben der Kunst das tägliche Brot bedeutet, wieder das künstlerische Deutschland auf der Spitze der Weltkunstbewegung zu sehen, – und wir rufen Sie auf, mit allen Kräften diese neue Renaissance heraufzuführen.

Unser erster Vorschlag für Sie wäre: die laufenden Marktplätze beiseitelegend, gemeinsame Bemühungen zu vereinen und mindestens einige weniger künstlerische Filme zu schaffen, die als Kern die chef d’oeuvres der Stummzeiten hätten und in neuen Fassungen eine Harmonie des „Alten“ und des „Neuen“ vorstellen würden; in ihrer Art eine Brücke wären zwischen jenem, was der Kunst des Schauspielers und des Spielleiters der Stummfilm gab und dem, wodurch der Tonfilm sie bereicherte. 

Wir meinen: „Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari“, „Der müde Tod“, „Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler“, das alte „Indische Grabmal“, „Nibelungen“, „Metropolis“, „Faust“…

Die Mehrzahl der Künstler – der Spielleiter Fritz Lang, die Schriftsteller Thea von Harbou und Norbert Jacques, die Schauspieler Lil Dagover, Margarete Schön, Hanna Ralph, Werner Krauss, Bernhard Goetzke, Walter Janssen, Paul Richter, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Theodor Loos, Hans Adalbert von Schlettow und andere – sind heute noch zum grösstem [sic!] Glück am Leben. Sie sind in verschiedene kleine Unternehmungen zerstreut und treten nur gelegentlich vor den Zuschauer, ohne um eine führende universale Kunstidee, wie es in den Zeiten der reinhardt, Wiene und Murnau war, vereint zu sein. Schaffen Sie doch die Möglichkeiten für die Wiedergeburt dieser Idee, sammeln und vereinen Sie diese Künstler, geben Sie ihnen neue Waffen in die Hand. Lassen Sie alte schöne Kadern [sic!] unter der Teilnahme des schon verstorbenen, aber im Film lebenden Conrad Veidt sich einfügen in das technisch vervollkommnete Drehbuch, und lassen Sie eine neue Fassung des „Caligari“ schaffen: eine neue Fassung, in der Ausschnitte mit dem alten Somnambula einmontiert einmontiert [sic!] werden. Und lassen Sie in dieser Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem „Alten“ und dem „Neuen“ die neuen Gedanken reifen, den Künstlernachwuchs auftreten, welchem die ältere Generation alles Bessere von sich übergeben könnte, und welcher ein ebenbürtiger Nachfolger in der grossen Sache der Pflege unwiederholbarer künstlerischer Persönlichkeit würde. 

Wir glauben aufrichtig, geehrte Herren, dass dieser Aufruf nicht an Ihren Herzen vorbeigehen wird, und dass die Sache, die wir hier berühren, eigentlich auf Ihrem Gewissen nicht minder liegt als auf dem unseren. 

Hochachtungsvoll
Künstlergruppe
“Familie CHORS”

Related sources:

Documents (3)

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Testimonies of Ihor Kostetskyi’s Fate under Nazi Rule
Ihor Kostetskyi was just one example of several hundred thousand individuals who were taken by the Nazi Army from occupied eastern European territories and had to work as “Ostarbeiter,” a slave in the Nazi's service, in the German war industry. Before the war, Kostetskyi was an intellectual who – though born in Kyiv, Ukraine – had little consciousness of his “Ukrainiennes” before the fall of Carpatho-Ukraine in 1938 and was involved in several cultural, artistic, and creative projects and initiatives. When he was mobilized to the Soviet Red Army at the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Kostetskyi was already in the process of changing his Russian-sounding name...
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Testimonies on the Material Situation of the Culturally Active Ukrainian Diaspora in Germany, 1946-1951
The Ukrainian DP journal CHORS was initially planned to be quarterly. However, the first CHORS edition in 1946 was also the last. These documents provide an insight into the reasons for the non-publishing of further editions and deliver indicators for the material situation of the Ukrainian diaspora in the American occupation zone of Germany in general.  A second and third editions of CHORS were seemingly planned shortly after publishing the first edition. The indicator for this thesis is the handwritten list of planned content for these two editions. On the back of this document, it is visible that it was initially an old document of the German Air Force from World War Two....
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Principles and Future Aims of the DP Journal CHORS, 1946-1951
The Ukrainian DP journal CHORS was, first and foremost, not a political publication. Published by a small team around the dissident Ihor Kostetskyi, its focus was on arts, culture, and film. In its own statutes, CHORS was not only displayed as a journal. Instead, it should be somewhat of a worldwide movement, that people could join or leave if they wish in the future. The overriding principle is to accept the “primacy of the artistic form,” that art should be created to be art and not for economic, political, or popular reasons. If one does accept this very principle, this core principle, “every artist is allowed to belong to [CHORS] - regardless of...
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Worked on the material:
Research, comment

Daniel Pruess

Translation from German

Daniel Pruess

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