Old Tiflis vs Soviet Tbilisi: the origins and ways of Parajanov’s creativity

This article explores the cultural, biographical, and personal foundations of the creative work of Sergei Parajanov, one of the most distinctive artists of the post-Soviet space. Particular attention is given to the influence of the multiethnic environment of Tbilisi, Armenian family traditions, and the region’s visual culture on the formation of Parajanov’s aesthetic and worldview. The author considers Parajanov a figure whose artistic strategy, heritage, and radical innovation are organically combined. The article also focuses on the director’s traits, including his experiences of imprisonment, personal loss, and a deep sense of otherness, all of which are reflected in his works' visual and conceptual structure. An original concept is introduced – to Parajanovize – to describe a specific artistic model of behavior characterized by provocation, irony, transgression, and deliberate norm violation. Parajanov’s collages and installations are analyzed as autonomous forms of his visual language, where existential intensity and iconographic richness become tools of self-expression. His numerous unfinished projects are discussed as an element of the tragic dimension of his creative biography.