A language scandal has arisen around the series “Kriposna”/STB TV channel additional filming of episodes of the 4th season of the series “Fortress”. The reason for the conflict was that the Ukrainian actors supposedly should take part in the filming together with the Russian ones on the territory of Poland. More in the exclusive blog on Channel 24 website.
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War for language
The public protest of the actors began after the video of actress Valeria Khodos, where she, without naming names or projects, condemns cooperation with the Russians.
It took the producers of the Kriposna project 5 days to comment on the rumors surrounding the filming of the series. In the end, Kriposnaya's showrunner Tala Prystaetskaya said that the series would be dubbed in Ukrainian, and not a single Russian would participate in additional filming of the episodes. The main character, played by the Russian actress Tatyana Ratnikova, will be replaced by an understudy.
In this rebuttal, the accents should be correctly placed. Russian actors will not take part in additional filming of the series, but this does not negate the fact that they will be present in most episodes filmed before February 24.
Dubbing in Ukrainian means that the fourth season was also written and filmed in Russian. Will Ukrainians get the opportunity to watch a Ukrainian-produced series in the state language only thanks to Russia's full-scale aggression? Russia. So, using the example of a resonant case, you can explore a complex phenomenon.
The war that began in 2014 did not become an impetus for the Ukrainianization of mass and popular film production – the one that is turned on every day in the kitchen at dinner after graduation news. And now everything is in order.
Russian actors
The series “Kriposna” is a Russian-language television series about the adventures of the Ukrainian serf woman Catherine in the 19th century in Nizhyn. The main character, the Ukrainian serf-owner Ekaterina Verbitskaya, was played by two Russian women at once – Ekaterina Kovalchuk (Season 1-2) and Sonya Priss (Season 3). Among the galaxy of Ukrainian actresses, hundreds of graduates of the Karpenko-Kary Institute, there was no professional actress who could reproduce the pain of Ukrainian serfs. I had to search twice among the Russians.
In fact, the Russians did not play secondary roles in the series. They were the central characters and only the nobility: Julia Aug, Mikhail Gavrilov, Maxim Radagin, Maria Mashkova, etc. But Ukrainian actors are assigned mainly the role of serfs, farm laborers or prostitutes. Among them are top theater and film actors: Olesya Zhurakovskaya, Viktor Zhdanov, Alexander Pecheritsa, Anastasia Pustovit, Veronika Shostak, Stanislava Krasovskaya and many others.
Honestly speaking, the question of filming with Russian actors should first of all be asked not to actors, but to producers and directors of Ukrainian projects that pull Russians there.
Who would have thought that on February 24, 2022, a full-scale war would begin – emphasize the word “full-scale”, because the war began in 2014. The filming of the first two seasons of the television series “Kriposna” began back in 2017. , and in the Ukrainian series, only their own names remained from the Ukrainian language.
Of course, the Revolution of Dignity and the unleashing of an aggressive war by Russia contributed to the development of domestic cinema. Goskino provided funds for the shooting of feature and not only patriotic films; quotas forced cinema, radio, television and the book market to speak Ukrainian; the state even supported popular television series, such as the series “To Catch Kaydash”.
However, in parallel, a “shadow” and not very market of co-production with Russia or direct orientation to the Russian market was developing. The main roles continued to be given to the begging Russians, and with them – big fees and better contract conditions.
Ukrainian actors in our own market have always felt like aliens. They were rarely given the main roles, smaller fees, in the already young and cramped Ukrainian market they had to compete with the Russians. And in this war, the tricolor mostly won.
Ukrainians got secondary roles because “the strong Moscow and St. Petersburg schools.” Every year, masterful theater faculties produce hundreds of worthy actors who are forced to change their profession or be unemployed. The theaters of the big cities are overflowing with talent. They are noticed, but we are talking about units or arthouse cinema.
Concerning the thesis about “strong Moscow and St. Petersburg schools”. Let us assume that this conjecture can be proved to a certain extent. To this assumption, I can give a completely logical answer – experience. Because “Goskino” in Russia invests millions of dollars in production for propaganda or to stupefy the population. While we, instead of creating our own market and raising Ukrainian specialists, cut off their oxygen, giving places to Russian ones for much more money. Yes, even Ukraine itself fed the Russian industry. Then this coin turned into a muzzle pointed against the Ukrainians themselves.
Ukrainian language
The series was broadcast both on the Ukrainian channel STB and on the Russian channel “Russia-1”. This, in fact, explains the filming of all four seasons in Russian, even after the armed aggression of the Russian Federation in 2014 – it is cheaper to shoot in the “generally understood” language. The Ukrainian language narrows the audience, and dubbing for the market of post-Soviet countries is an additional cost.
The creators of the series justify themselves with historical accuracy, claiming that no one spoke Ukrainian in Ukraine 100 years ago. First, it is a historical absurdity. Where did Russian-speaking serfs come from in Ukraine? The population of the villages and towns of the current Chernihiv region was mainly Ukrainian-speaking.
It was not for nothing that only later – in the second half of the 19 prohibition of the Ukrainian language. But this was later after the abolition of serfdom, and the series takes place under the conditions of serfdom (until 1861).
Moreover, in the Russian empire of the 18th-19th centuries, the “elite” for the most part spoke French more than Russian. Hence, in fact, the names like “Nicola and Kitty”, and not “Nicholas and Catherine”.
Secondly, what language do they show in Poland? Where they are in a hurry to sell the 4th season of the series “Kriposna”. Also in Russian? To keep the imaginary “authenticity”?
Another aspect is inferiority. all the educated nobility speak Russian in the series, and laborers and serfs speak Ukrainian (although I won’t even be able to name the disfigured surzhik in Ukrainian in the series). How do we humiliate users of Ukrainian once again – a noble and intelligent will not speak the language.
What are the words of the main producer of series and films of the 1 + 1 channel Elena Yeremeeva, who said in 2020 that the Ukrainian language is not suitable for melodramas, except for comedies! And what comedies in Ukrainian were filmed on “1 + 1”? Balloon ribbons featuring a stereotypical uncle from a mountain valley who speaks illiterate and doesn't know how to use a toilet.
Ukrainian is always used by the funny, uneducated Ukrainian peasant, and Russian by the urban intelligentsia. There are enough examples: “The Last Muscovite”, “Big Uncles” (1+1), “Happy House” (New Channel), etc.
Did a rocket really have to hit every Ukrainian city in order for Ukrainian actors to be noticed in Ukraine, for the content to speak Ukrainian? Because the main recipient of your product was, is and will remain Ukrainians!
It was easier to stay in the warm bath of a “common” market with a huge audience of millions, and now you have to learn languages and look for new viewers and partners in Western markets.
Ukrainian actors continue to publicly join the flash mob #norussianactors. Producers and businessmen now do not dare to appeal against the general pro-Ukrainian trend. But will the status quo remain the same in a year or two? Will the memory of different people in Bucha and the genocide in Mariupol, the mass execution in Olenivka or the terrorist attacks in Kremenchug and Vinnitsa be erased? Will Russian indifference to the nationwide Ukrainian grief not be forgotten? Will the search for “good Russians” begin with producers, businessmen, or simply recklessly tolerant citizens? In the end, what language will the serf woman speak in seasons 6-7?
