Where Was Kazimir Malevich Actually Born? Sensational Facts

The biographical movie “Black Square” about the founder of Suprematism Kazimir Malevich, should appear in Ukrainian cinemas in the fall of 2018.

The directors of the picture in the process of creation found new facts: Kazimir Malevich was born in Ukraine, on Zhilyanskaya street – the place, where in the 19th century the teachers of Kiev University settled and rented students.

While working in Kiev city archives Tatyana Filevskaya, the researcher of Kazimir Malevich’s art and scriptwriter of the future movie, found out that Malevich was born in the large estate of his aunt (father’s sister) Maria Orzhekhovskaya. At the same time, it was not possible to establish the exact number of the house, since at different times the estate of Orzhekhovskaya was listed under numbers 62, 63 and 65.

On the photo (resource “Old Kiev”) – houses by the street Zhilyanskaya, numbers 65 and 67. Built in the 19th century, they were demolished on summer in 1979. Perhaps one of them belonged to Maria Orzhekhovskaya, Kazimir’s Malevichaunt.

According to the Kiev artist Alexander Pavlov, in the late 1970s, along with the collector Igor Dyachenko, they met with his sister, Malevich, Victoria Severinovna. It was she who told that her brother was born in a house on Bozhenko Street, the former Bouillon Street, 15, and even showed Malevich’s room on the second floor. “As it turned out, for many years in the memory of an elderly woman something has become confused,” Pavlov said. However, this unfortunate mistake crept into all the biographical descriptions about Kazimir Malevich.

Alexander Pavlov also told, perhaps, a fictional story about how the estate on Zhylyanska Street became the property of Maria Orzhekhovskaya. Being still quite a young woman, she fled with her young son from her husband, who behaved not in the best way. On the train the adjutant of one general allegedly approached and informed that his boss was taking Mary Orzhekhovskaya for maintenance. The benefactor bought a runaway in 1871 an estate in Kiev. “Maria owned it for 20 years, then sold it,” said screenwriter Tatyana Filevskaya. “As it turned out, the fate of this woman, unfortunately, is unknown.”

It is reported that 80% of the funding the film project from the State Agency of Ukraine Cinema, the remaining 20% from the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Film Director Oleg Scherbina noted that the documentary tape is Ukrainian-Italian co-production. “The film is at the final stage. We are already thinking about his promotion to European and world film festivals.”

Production of movie is handled by Fresh Production Group. The filming is scheduled to be completed by the end of February 2018; the Ukrainian premiere is expected in the autumn.