Director Rostyslav Derzhypilskyi has been awarded the Stanislav Vincenz Prize.

The director of the Ivano-Frankivsk Drama Theater, Rostyslav Derzhypilskyi, has been awarded the Stanislav Vincenz Prize. The award ceremony took place during the Via Carpatia forum in Kyiv on November 13.

The seventh international forum of Central and Eastern Europe, Via Carpatia 2024, was held for the first time in Kyiv from November 11 to 13, concluding with the annual award named after the distinguished friend of Ukraine, Polish philosopher and chronicler of Hutsulshchyna Stanislav Vincenz, “For Humanitarian Service and Contribution to Regional Development.”

Rostyslav Derzhypilskyi is a director, actor, People’s Artist of Ukraine, and the general director-artistic director of the Ivano-Frankivsk Drama Theater. In 2015, he founded the International Open Festival of Performing Arts “Time of Theater” and became the general director of the International Festival of Contemporary Art Porto Franko.

In 2019, Rostyslav Derzhypilskyi received the National Taras Shevchenko Prize of Ukraine in the category of “Theatrical Art” for his productions of the burlesque fairy tale “Eneida” based on Kotliarevskyi's poem, the neo-opera Hamlet based on Shakespeare, the parable “She is the Earth” based on the works of Vasyl Stefanyk, and the theatrical charity art project “Oscar and the Pink Lady” based on Schmitt's novel.

Additionally, Derzhypilskyi has directed plays such as “Sweet Daruся,” “Whore,” “Nation,” “Migrant Women, or Mom, Come Back,” “Almost Never Backwards,” “Three Sisters,” “Sharyk, or the Love of a Sich Rifleman,” “Intimate Zone,” “Modigliani. I Crossed a Bridge That Does Not Exist,” “Hutsulka Ksenia,” and Romeo & Juliet. He is also known for his roles in the films “Alive” and “Dovbush.”

In previous years, the Vincenz Prize has been awarded to Yulia Paievska (Taira), Myroslav Marynovych, Ivan Malkovych, Leonid Finberg, Petro Rykhlo, and Yosyp Zisels.

During the Via Carpatia forum, the Ivano-Frankivsk Drama Theater presented the play “Dziady” based on the eponymous work by Adam Mickiewicz, which was interpreted in a contemporary context by Polish director Maya Klechevska. The premiere took place in the hall named after the Hero of Ukraine Vasyl Slipak at the National Music Academy.

This marks the first staging of Mickiewicz's “Dziady” on the Ukrainian theater scene. The production has been recognized as the main theatrical event of 2023 in Poland. It also made it to the shortlist in the nomination “For the Best Performance at the Intersection of Theatrical Genres, Artistic Synthesis, and Performative Forms” at the Festival-Award “HRA.” According to the creators, the play reveals the inhumane essence of Russia, which carries its imperial values through many years, and calls on Ukrainians and Europeans to continue the fight for Ukraine's freedom and resist aggression. At the same time, it emphasizes that “there are no good Russians.”

“For Poles, this is probably the most important work by Mickiewicz, and it is thanks to the Ivano-Frankivsk theater and Ukrainians that we have understood the essence of this work,” says Polish director Maya Klechevska.

“Maya Klechevska staged “Dziady” in such a way that the play has a very clear, in a good sense, aggressive anti-Russian discourse. I once again realized that this is the power of classics: the meanings embedded in texts written a thousand, five hundred, or two hundred years ago are, unfortunately, still relevant today. Mickiewicz wrote “Dziady” in 1822, at a time when part of Poland was under the occupation of the Russian Empire. The poet himself was forced to emigrate; he was not in Poland at that time because it was dangerous. The director made the performance as modern and pro-Ukrainian as possible, about our captured boys (abroad, especially in Poland, with this performance we draw attention to our captives, to the “Azov” soldiers). In the original, these were Polish students who at that time languished in Russian prisons, while in the production, they are Ukrainian captives who are currently hundreds in Moscow prisons. The play discusses how Polish children were taken in droves to Siberia – and we know that today, by various means, Ukrainian children are being abducted and taken to Russia. We are talking about the genocide of the Ukrainian nation. Also, the performance features a sharp discourse against the Moscow Patriarchate. It clearly shows that it has been a yoke for the Ukrainian nation for centuries. We understand that this is yet another form of weaponry used to influence and continue to influence Ukrainians. Therefore, our main message is that today everything Russian kills,” said Rostyslav Derzhypilskyi.