Said Bargandzhia

The documentary «The Pen of the Hittologist» (the Hittites - Indo-European ancient people - ed.) about the scientific work of the first President of Abkhazia, Vladislav Ardzinba, was presented at the Ministry of Repatriation of the Republic on October 18. The film was directed by historian Dzhambul Indzhgiya.

Indzhgiya told the WAC web information portal that the idea of ​​making a film about the history of the ancient Hittite people was born in his student years.

«Once I came across a book by Vladislav Ardzinba, who was already a recognized Hittologist, known almost all over the world. Since then, I already knew exactly what my film was going to be. So it happened. «The Pen of the Hittologist» is a film about the scientific activities of the outstanding man Vladislav Ardzinba,» said the historian.

According to him, the shooting of the film began in 2015: archival photo and video materials were collected, several interviews with scientists who worked together with Vladislav Ardzinba were filmed.

«I approached the wife of our first president. Svetlana Dzhergenia gave me a photo and video archive, where there were materials unknown to the general public, for example, children's photos of Vladislav Ardzinba. We had to collect a lot on our own. We shot the film bit by bit,» the historian said.

According to Indzhgiya, during the process of working on the film, he visited Turkey, the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire, Hattus (a city located 145 kilometers east of Ankara, which still retained its ancient name - ed.). He also managed to visit the University of Hittology, where representatives of the Abkhaz-Abaza ethnic group work.

«At the university, we met the historian Yezle Sir Galash, who calls herself Abkhazian. She said that when she was a student, she read Vladislav Ardzinba’s work about the Hittites, which was then only translated into Turkish, and was so inspired by it that she eventually wrote a thesis on this topic,» said Indzhgiya.

The historian believes that one of the main difficulties in working on this film was the lack of material.

«There is a lot of material about the political activity of Vladislav Ardzinba. There are photos and videos, there are documents, eyewitness stories and much more. As for his scientific activities, then everything is much more complicated. It was difficult to find his scientific works, for example, of his student years,» he explained.

Indzhgiya also announced that he plans to make a sequel to the film.

The first part of the documentary «The Pen of the Hittologist» has a duration of 52 minutes and includes the period of scientific activity of the first President of Abkhazia Vladislav Ardzinba from 1945 to the end of the 1980s. The continuation of the film will tell about the scientific activities of Ardzinba from the late 1980s until the last days of his life.