The history of Ukrainian animation, which began in the late 1920s, is part of Ukrainian cinematography and has involved a variety of techniques, including frame-by-frame filming, time lapse, and computer animation.
Ukraine SSR
Early history (1920s–1930s) Ukrainian animation's founder is considered to be Viacheslav Levandovsky (b. Odesa, February 24, 1897, d. Kyiv, April 18, 1962). The history of Ukrainian animation began in 1926 when the animation studio of the All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration was established. Shortly after, in 1927, Vyacheslav Lewandowski beginning his animation career in Odesa, created the silent film puppet cartoon "Chaff Goby (Shazka o solomennon bychke or Solomennyi Biychok)" also translated "The Tale of the Straw Bull", based on the Ukrainian folk tale, Straw Bull, and story by Oleksandr Oles. However, the film has now been lost, and the only parts that we know about it were a few shots described by Oleksandr Shimon, a person who watched the film:
Vyacheslav Lewandowski continued his career in Kyiv, with The Tale about the Squirrel Hostess and the Mouse Villain (Shazka o belle khoziaushke I myshke zlodeike) in 1928. He created approximately twelve other works of animation, including the 1927 "Ukrainization" about the introduction of the Ukrainian language as an official language in Ukraine, and starting work in 1928 on the later-completed "Tuk-Tuk and his friend Zhuk" about a boy who grows vegetables with his dog named Zhuk, with a pig and fox described as lazy and aggressive, encroaching on Tuk-Tuk's work in all possible ways. (Archival copy of this latter cartoon still exists and was shown at the Dovzhenko Center in 2017).
The All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration, parent entity of Lewandowski's animation studio, was closed in the early 30's with many of its leaders imprisoned or executed to suppress a Ukrainian national revival in the 1930s. After its closure, the All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration was recreated into the All-Ukrainian film industry trust, "Ukrainfilm". This move effectively ended the studio's independence, making it a branch of the Soviet Union's Soyuzkino.
Levandovsky was working on one of the first Ukrainian animation films with sound, Tuk-Tuk i yego priyatel Zhuk (translated either Tuk-Tuk and his friend Zhuk or Knok-Knok and his friend Beatle) in 1932 (The United States' Walt Disney Company had released its first animation with synchronized sound, Steamboat Willie, four years earlier in 1928). Levandovsky would continue work in Kyiv until 1936 and Moscow after 1933. In 1980, Ivan Ivanov-Vano claimed that Viacheslav Levandovsky could only be compared to Yuri Norstein.
In the years following the 1932–1933 Holodomor, in 1934 in Odesa, two of Lewandowski's young students, Semyon Guetsky (1902-1974) and Eugene Gorbach (1901-?), created the first Ukrainian graphic animated film, Murzilka in Africa, about a fairy tale character named Murzilka who goes to Africa to save a girl named Kane from oppression and cruelty. Started in 1928 by Lewandowski and finished by Guetsky and Gorbach in 1935, the 1936 Zhuk v zooparke (the Beatle in the Zoo) and the 1938 release of Tuk-Tuk and his friend Zhuk was the first attempt to create a serial animation character. Ippolit Lazarchuk (b. August 13, 1903, d. February 23, 1979) created the 1937 Lesnoy dogovor (The Wood Deal) and the 1938 Zapreschenny popugay (the Forbidden Parrot), but the anti-fascist film the Forbidden Parrot was not released.
Suspended animation (1940s) Events in the 1940s including World War II virtually froze animation created by Ukraine. Oppression and the ongoing war diminished the animation base in the Ukrainian SSR. Consequently, development of Ukrainian animation was paused for decades. Only educational and science films were created by Kievnauchfilm until 1959. The 1945 Lost Letter animation about travels and temptations of a Ukrainian man delivering a letter from Ukraine to Moscow, while set in "Little Russia" (a name used by Russia for Ukraine) as referred to in the animation, was actually created by Moscow's Soyuzmultfilm animation studio.