In the famous Hollywood film "The Deer Hunter" Robert De Niro and other stars played Belarusians

Anyone who loves cinema knows Mike Cimino's (Michael Cimino) classic American film The Deer Hunter. I'll be honest: it's one of my favorite films, which I first saw back in the USSR during Gorbachev's Perestroika. Hollywood megastars Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, and Christopher Walken starred in the film.

Павялічыць

Let me remind you that the plot of the film, which premiered on December 8, 1978, five years after the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, tells the story of three young Americans of Slavic origin, called up for military service and sent to the war in Vietnam.

Film critics long debated: what was the nationality of these guys? American Ukrainians-Lemkos, Boykos, or maybe Russians? The Russian Wikipedia confidently calls them Russians. The Ukrainian Wikipedia refrains from ethnic identification, simply characterizing the heroes as "Orthodox" residents of the USA. There is no Belarusian version of the article about the film at all, which is a pity.

Павялічыць

Sometimes it happens that a historian, working in archives, unexpectedly comes across a completely different topic.

So, I managed to accurately ascertain that Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, and Christopher Walken play American Belarusians in the film, and the famous wedding scene was filmed by Mike Cimino based on a real Belarusian-American wedding in an Orthodox church in New York, where Cimino was the groom's best man.

Now in more detail. Working with the personal file of Viktor Chabatarevich in The Arolsen Archives (a Belarusian, collaborator, SD officer in Minsk, and head of the BKA cadet school), I noticed that his son, born in Belarus in 1940, had a rather rare name, Nikanor. The son himself has already passed away, but during his lifetime he was a well-known New York barista and a former FBI agent.

So, it turns out: Mike Cimino and Nikanor, or Nick Chabatarevich, were best friends since childhood. This is what Cimino said about him in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter magazine in 2015:

«This is a very personal film, especially the wedding scene. My best friend at the time was Belarusian, a man of Belarusian descent, Nikanor Chabatarevich. That is the surname of the character played by Christopher Walken, Nikanor Chabatarevich, or, as in the film, Nick Chevatorevich. And I was his best man at his wedding.»

In Nikanor Chabatarevich's American obituary, one can read the following lines:

«Chabatarevich was born in Belarus and emigrated to the United States with his parents during World War II. He grew up in Flushing and loved cinema very much, recalled his former FBI supervisor and friend Tim Rambias.

Chabatarevich's friend and college roommate Michael Cimino later, as is well known, became a world-renowned film director and named one of the main characters in "The Deer Hunter" after him, Corporal Nick Chevatorevich. Christopher Walken received an Oscar for this role.»

Another mystery of Belarusian history has been revealed. It only remains for journalists to popularize this interesting fact.

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