Ivan Mykolaichuk

Ivan Vasylyovych Mykolaichuk (; 15 June 1941 – 3 August 1987) was a Ukrainian actor, producer, and screen writer. He is best known for playing the Hutsul Ivan in Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964), based on Mykhailo Kotsyubynsky's book of the same name. He received the Komsomol prize of Ukraine in 1967, and the title of Meritorious Artist of the Ukrainian SSR in 1968. He posthumously received the Shevchenko National Prize. Biography Ivan Vasylovych Mykolaichuk was born in a village of Chortoryia (Kitsman Raion) in Western Ukraine during World War II in a family of peasants. Mykolaichuk graduated from a high school of the neighboring village of Brusnytsia (Kitsman Raion). In 1957, he finished the Chernivtsi Music College and in 1961 he graduated from the theater-studio of the Chernivtsi Music-Drama Theater of Kobylyanska. On 29 August 1962, Mykolaichuk married an actress of the theater (later the People's Artist of Ukraine) Maria Karpiuk. In 1963-65, he studied in the Karpenko-Karyi Memorial Kyiv Institute of Theatrical Arts (instructor - Viktor Ivchenko). During those years, Ivan debuted in the Leonid Osyka's movie Dvoye (The two).