January and February in History

January

1 Today is the 60th birthday of the distinguished actor Sergei Shakurov (born 1941). Shakurov, a People’s Artist of Russia, has acted in more than 50 movies and starred on the stages of the Moscow-based Theater on Malaya Bronnaya, the Russian Army Theater and the Stanislavsky Theater. Shakurov has invariably infused his heroes with his own strong character — often very thorny, independent, at times controversial. Not surprisingly, he is often seen as the embodiment of the “nastoyaschy muzhik” (“real guy”), which has appealed to Russia’s best film directors, who have put him in roles ranging from a journalist investigating Chernobyl in Mikhail Belikov’s Raspad (1992), a Red Army cavalry commander in Nikita Mikhalkov’s Ours Among Aliens – Aliens Among Us (1979), a kulak counter-revolutionary in Andron Konchalovsky’s Siberiade (1979) or a gallant gentleman in Pyotr Todorovsky’s The Beloved Woman of Mechanic Gavrilov.

6 Today would have been the 90th birthday of Maria Mironova (1911-1997), the Russian actress who became famous as part of comic team with her husband Alexander Menaker. The Mironova-Menaker duo was popular for 30 years, ending only with the death of Menaker in 1982. The union of these two talented people also gave Russia one of its best actors in modern times: the brilliant Andrei Mironov (Diamond Arm), who would have been 60 this year, but who died on a theater stage from a stroke at 47. Having survived her son, Mironova continued acting on the stage of the Theater called School of Modern Play until her final years.

13 The writer Arkady Vainer was born 70 years ago today. Together with his brother Georgy (born 1938), Vainer is  one of the most popular detective story writers in Russia. Indeed, most of the novels co-authored by the Vainer brothers in the 1970s-1990s became hit films, such as Vertical Races, and A Visit to the Minotaur. Their novel Era of Mercy served as a basis for the popular TV series The Meeting Place Must Not be Changed, directed by Sergei Govorukhin (1979) and starring the charismatic Vladimir Vysotsky as criminal brigade chief investigator Gleb Zheglov.

24 Today is the centenary of film director Mikhail Romm (1901-1971). His first film, based on Guy de Maupassant’s story “Boule de Suif” (“Ball of Wax”), won him the top prize at the 1934 Venetian festival. It is the story of a group of French travelers who are stopped by Germans and, desperate to be let go, force a voluptuous professional prostitute to succumb to the advances of a German officer. This theme of the danger of crowds vis-à-vis individual rights became a main theme in Romm’s art. A few years later Romm gained the official status of Director #1 with his two films dedicated to Lenin, Lenin in October (1937) and Lenin in 1918 (1939). From that point on, he was never idle. Yet, throughout the 1950s he suffered through a creative crisis, as his movies Secret Mission (1950), Admiral Ushakov (1953) and Murder on Dante Street (1956) did not bring him artistic satisfaction. In 1962 he re-emerged with a megahit Nine Days of One Year, the story of a young nuclear-physicist which starred several new, young talents: Tatyana Lavrova, Innokenty Smoktunovsky and Alexei Batalov. In 1966, Romm earned worldwide recognition for his documentary Ordinary Fascism, where he revisited the history of fascism in Hitler’s Germany and focused on the psychological basis of a totalitarian regime.

27 One hundred and seventy-five years ago the writer Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin (1826-1889) was born. No one grasped the essence of Saltykov-Shchedrin better than his colleague, Sergei Stepnyak-Kravchinsky: “A merciless writer of satire, he raised havoc with his deadly plume and during his lifetime enjoyed the reputation of a man whose mighty personality was as interesting as his activities and his life.” A noble by birth and a graduate of the privileged Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo, Shchedrin began criticizing Russian society at the age of 22. For his very first novel, An Intricate Affair (1848), he  was exiled to Vyatka for eight years. He resumed his writings in 1856 and went on to author 22 books. In parallel, he served in the Interior Ministry and actively helped formulate the liberal reforms of 1861 (including the abolition of serfdom). “I will not allow the muzhik to be offended!” he said. “He has had his share, gentlemen!” In 1868, Shchedrin retired and dedicated himself fully to his literary work. His best works include History of a Certain Town, Provincial Sketches, and The Golovlev Family.

The objects of his humorous works were the Russian bureaucrats, especially venal and stupid governors. In one satirical fairy tale he tells the story of “How One Muzhik Fed Two Generals” and pokes fun at the lazy Russian general who cannot feed himself after winding up on an uninhabited island, even though the island is full of birds and other easy prey. The Golovlev Family (1872-76) was a powerful study of the decadence of a provincial family of landowners, torn apart from the inside by their own greed, barbarity and lack of humanity. Interestingly enough, Vladimir Lenin greatly esteemed Shchedrin, and often quoted him in his works and public speeches. For example, Lenin often called his political opponents “Iudushka” (“little Judas”) evoking the name of a character from The Golovlev Family.

Ivan Turgenev said of Shchedrin: “His laughter is bitter and sharp. There is something of [Jonathan] Swift in Saltykov, this serious and ferocious humor, this realism, sober in its clarity amidst a wild play of the imagination, and especially this unwavering common sense.”

31 Today would have been the 80th birthday of Vladislav Strzhelchik (1921-1995), one of the pearls in the crown of the famous Bolshoy Dramatic Theater (commonly known  as BDT)  troupe during its heyday in Leningrad. Strzhelchik performed at the BDT from 1948 until nearly his death and also starred in more than 30 films. Not your typical Soviet hero, Strzhelchik had the refined facial features of a noble aristocrat, making him the perfect choice to play Russian nobles, white officers, tsars and tsar’s officials. He even starred as Napoleon Bonaparte. One of his best (and most popular) roles was in the TV series “Aide-de-camp of his Excellence,” where he played “His Excellence,” General Kovalevsky, the White General who was the enemy of Soviet Power. A similar success awaited Strezhelchik in the TV play based on Nikolai Leskov’s The Enchanted Wanderer.

February

1 Today is the 70th birthday of Boris Yeltsin (born 1931). Both opponents and proponents of this charismatic political leader agree on one thing: Yeltsin exerted an immense impact on Russian history and on world politics at the end of the 20th century. As to the nature of that impact, much time will have to pass for there to be anything like a balance, dispassionate assessment. Yeltsin’s life has been the subject of many articles (including in Russian Life), stories, essays and biographies. Yeltsin himself has written two autobiographical works, Against the Grain and the recently released Midnight Diaries.

4 Kliment Voroshilov (1881-1969), for many years one of the closest associates of Josef Stalin, was born 120 years ago. One of the few members of Stalin’s retinue who could address the dictator as “Koba” (Stalin’s revolutionary alias), Voroshilov earned national fame during the Civil War in 1918-1921 through the success of the First Cavalry Army, which he and Semyon Budyonny formed. Only many years after his death would the Soviet people learn that the real Voroshilov was far from the mythical war hero. A great cavalry leader, he was at best mediocre as a strategist, but he proved an incomparable political survivor. He served as effective defense minister from 1925 until 1940, when he was unseated after the Soviet Union was losing in the first months of its war with Finland. Widely blamed in history books for Soviet unpreparedness in WWII, Voroshilov also failed in the defense of Leningrad (and remarkably survived the insubordination of setting up a military committee for the defense of Leningrad without Stalin’s pre-approval). After Stalin’s death, Voroshilov first backed Khrushchev’s anti-Stalin line, rising to de facto head of state. Then, in 1957, he joined the [later named] “Anti-Party Group” that sought Khrushchev’s ouster. But he survived that failed coup through self-criticism, continuing on in the Politburo until his retirement in 1960.

12 Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), arguably the world’s greatest ballerina, was born on this day 120 years ago. The daughter of a soldier and a washerwoman, sickly Anna dreamed of dancing from her earliest childhood. In 1899, after graduating from the ballet section of the St. Petersburg Theater School, she joined the famous Mariinsky Theater. In 1909, she rose to worldwide fame through her role in Sergei Diaghilev’s seminal ballet, Russian Seasons, staged in Paris. Just one year later, she formed her own troupe, which met with success throughout Europe, North and South America. The choreographers and dancers in her troupe developed the traditions of the classic school of Russian choreography, staging new versions of ballets by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Alexander Glazunov, dances to the tunes of Anton Rubinstein, Franz Liszt and others. Pavlova created many ballet images in Russian and foreign classic ballets, but (like Plisetskaya who would follow her) it was the Dying Swan (to the music of Camile Saint-Sans, choreographed by Mikhail Fokin) which was her trademark ballet. On her deathbed, Pavlova murmured: “Give me the swan’s costume.” Tamara Karsavina, prima-ballerina and vice-president of the English Academy of Dance wrote about Pavlova: “Many ballerinas are happy to please the public with their brilliance and the bravura of their performance. Yet, Pavlova conquered hearts with her inimitable grace, her refinement, with some indescribable magic and spirituality which was inherent only in her.”

15 Today is the centenary of the birth of actor Nikolai Mordvinov (1901-1966). This “great tragic” as critics and the public called him, acted all his life (starting in 1940) on the stage of the Mossoviet Theater. His most successful roles included Petruccio (Taming of the Shrew), Othello and King Lear. However, Mordvinov also excelled at comic roles which often bordered on buffoonery, such as his Rippafat in Carlo Goldoni’s Tavern Keeper. Mordvinov also starred in films, namely in Brave People, Kotovsky, and Last Tabor. Arguably his best cinema role was as Arbenin in the screen version of Mikhail Lermontov’s play “The Masquerade,” directed by Sergei Gerasimov.

16 170 years ago today the writer Nikolai Leskov (1831-1895) was born. One of the most original “masters of the word” in Russian literature, Leskov was a writer with huge talent and a tragic fate. Over time, his role in Russian literature has grown, such that today it is hard to imagine our literature without his Lefty (1881), The Enchanted Wanderer(1873) and especially his captivating drama “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District” (1865). The lattermost is the story of the tragic love of the simple Yekaterina Izmailova. The play was—and still is—one of the mainstays of Moscow’s Mayakovsky Theater. Later, the plot inspired composer Dmitry Shostakovich to write his opera “Yekaterina Izmailova.” In the 1990s, director Valery Todorovsky did a remake of the story in his film Moscow Nights, starring Vladimir Mashkov. Leskov’s fairy-tale-like language, full of provincial dialects and deeply Russian characters distinguished him from other writers. According to Maxim Gorky, Leskov wrote not about “the muzhik, the nihilist or the landlord, but rather Leskov wrote about the Russian man, the man of this country ... As an artist of the word, Leskov deserves to stand next to such creators of Russian literature as Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev and Goncharov.” Leskov’s heroes — the righteous men known in Russia as “pravedniks” were capable of “daily exploits” in the name of love and truth. And these qualities, as Leskov wrote, “belong in the Russian people and constitute their genuine beauty.”

19 Today would have been the 70th birthday of the actress Alla Larionova (1931-2000). One of the most beautiful actresses in the history of Russian cinema, Larionova was an icon in the 1950s and 1960s and starred in over 40 films. She became popular after her very first film, based on the fairy tale Sadko (1952). Her fame reached unequalled heights after her role in the film Anna on the Neck, based on a Chekhov story. Larionova became the archetypal actress typifying the classic noble beauty of  the “old-regime.” She was at her best in the film Twelfth Night.

Today (March 3, new style) is also the 140th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom in Russia, in 1861. The reform, signed by the “Tsar-Liberator” Alexander II, was like many of his reforms, only a half-measure; it far from ended the centuries-long impoverishment of Russia’s peasants. In addition to a 49-year period of “temporary dependance,” the measure did not grant peasants enough land to survive, put them under the thumb of new rural communies and obligated them to compensate their landlords for land they received.

23 Today is the 180th anniversary of the birth of the poet Alexei Zhemchuzhnikov (1821-1908), known as the father of the legendary literary persona, Kozma Prutkov. Together with his brother, the writer Alexei Tolstoy (1817-1875), Zhemchuzhnikov signed many parodies and satirical works with the nom de plume “Kozma Prutkov.” To this day, Prutkovisms abound in Russian speech, making it immensely more colorful and rich. At least one quote from Kozma Prutkov is worth citing: ÌÂ Ó·˙flÚ¸ ÌÂÓ·˙flÚÌÓÂ. One of the translations of this Prutkovism was offered by Mikhail Gorbachev’s interpreter, Pavel Palazhchenko: “You can’t embrace the boundless.”

27 The artist Nikolai Ge (1831-1894) was born 170 years ago on this day. One of the finest painters of psychological turmoil in the history of Russian art, Ge created such canvasses as The Last Supper (1863), Peter the First Interrogates Tsarevich Alexei (1871), What is the Truth? The Christ and Pilate (1890), as well as a series of literary portraits of the writers Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Ivan Turgenev, and the poet Nikolai Nekrasov.

— Valentina Kolesnikova