List activity
69 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
25 people
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Aleksandr Khanzhonkov was the world's first maker of a cartoon film, the first maker of a full-time feature film in Russia and the founder of the first Russian film studio.
He was born Aleksandr Alekseevich Khanzhonkov on August 8, 1877, in the village of Khanzhonkovo, Donetsk province, Russian Empire (now Donetsk, Ukraine). His father, Aleksei Khanzhonkov, was a landlord of Don Cossack ancestry. In 1896 Aleksandr graduated from Novocherkassk Cossack Cadet School, then was promoted to junior officer in the privileged Don Cossack unit in Moscow. Khanzhonkov fought in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and was decorated for bravery. In 1905 he received an honorable discharge and a veteran officer's package of 5,000 rubles.
In 1905 he bought the film production company Gomon i Siversen in Moscow. He also brought new equipment from Pathe and started his own filmmaking business. In 1905-06 he shot his first documentaries. By the beginning of 1906 he invested all of his money in his filmmaking business, and obtained registration for filmmaking in Moscow. In the spring of 1906 he showed imported French films, as well as his own documentaries from his company, now named A. Khanzhonkov & Co., which initially was registered as a trade business. In 1907 Khanzhonkov produced his first film, "Palochkin i Galochkin", but it was not completed and he decided not to release it.
In 1908 Khanzhonkov released his first feature film, Drama v tabore podmoskovnykh tsygan (1908). At that time he hired actors and directors from the Vvedensky Narodny Dom Theatre Company, including such actors as Aleksandra Goncharova, Andrei Gromov, Pyotr Chardynin and Ivan Mozzhukhin. Between 1909 and 1919 he produced about 100 films. He was the biggest film producer in Russia, and made more films than all other Russian film studios combined. He produced 12 films in 1912 and 20 in 1913 alone. By 1914 his net annual profit surpassed 150,000 rubles, which in 2012 would be comparable to $50 million.
In 1911 Khanzhonkov produced the first full-length feature film in Russia, Defense of Sevastopol (1911), about the siege of the city of Sebastopol during the Crimean War of 1854-55. The production was sponsored by Tsar Nicholas II. Khanzhonkov made a painstaking effort and produced a really advanced period film epic. He found many surviving veterans of the Crimean war, and used the same locations where the historic battle took place. The Tsar issued orders that Khanzhonkov was given temporary right to command and direct the movements of several regiments of the Imperial Army and Navy that were used in the massive battle scenes. Khanzhonkov became the first director in the world to use two cameras. The premiere of the 100-minute film took place at the Livadia palace in Yalta, before the the tsar and his court, and with the cast and crew of more than 100 in attendance. Khanzhonkov was awarded and decorated for the film. He was also commissioned by the tsar to make several documentaries and feature films about various official events in Russia, such as Votsareniye doma Romanovykh (1913).
During the early years of Russian cinema, Khanzhonkov collaborated with theatrical directors, such as Vasili Goncharov and Yevgeny Bauer. His works with Bauer were considered among the highest achievements of the silent film era in Russia. Khanzhonkov also played an important role in the formation of the Russian film industry during the 1910s. In 1910 he started the first Russian film magazine, "Vestnik cinematografii", a comprehensive quarterly publication about emerging film culture and film business. In 1912 he produced the world's first cartoon, _Prekrasnaya Lukanida, ili Voina usachei s rogachami (1912)_, directed by Wladyslaw Starewicz.
In 1916 Khanzhonkov bought land on the Black Sea coast in Yalta, Crimea, and built the new Khanzhonkovs Studio there. In the spring of 1917 he moved his Moscow studio, with actors and staff, to the new location in Yalta. There, from 1917-20, he produced about 15 films. In 1920, after the defeat of the Russian White army of Gen. Vrangel in Crimea, Khanzhonkov's studio and his land were nationalized by the Communist government. At the same time Khanzhonkov's Film Factory in Zamoskvotrechye in Moscow was also confiscated and nationalized by the Communist government, then renamed Goskino (the first location of Goskino was on Zhitnaya St.). Khanzhonkov left the country, together with his best actors, directors and cinematographers. In 1922 he started a film studio in Baden, Austria.
In 1923 Khanzhonkov was invited to come back to Russia by the newly founded "Rusfilm" company. The invitation was sponsored by Soviet Culture Commissar Anatoli Lunacharsky, who sent an official welcome telegram to Khanzhonkov. In 1923 Khanzhonkov returned to Russia, but the "Rusfilm" company suddenly folded. He was hired by Goskino as production consultant, then worked for Proletkino Studios. In 1926 he was falsely accused of embezzlement and arrested. Although he was later cleared of all charges, he was left penniless. His health declined and he moved from Moscow to Yalta and never worked again.
By 1934, Khanzhonkov, aged 56, was disabled and jobless. He wrote a passionate letter to the government which took all his wealth and made him poor, and he was eventually granted a pension from the Russian government. In 1937 he published a book of memoirs titled "Pervye gody Russkoi kinematografii" ("The First Years of Russian Cinema"). By that time he was living in the glorious past. His first wife, writer Antonina Khanzhonkova, died in emigration and the couple's two children were grown up. Back in Russia Khanzhonkov married his assistant, Vera Dmitrievna Popova-Khanzhonkova, who cared for him for the rest of his life while he suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and was using a wheelchair due to his disability. He survived the Nazi occupation of Yalta during World War II. He died on September 26, 1945, in Yalta, Crimea, Soviet Union (now Ukraine).
Khanzhonkov's films were edited to remove any pro-monarchist elements during the regime of Joseph Stalin. In 1956 the cultural "thaw" was initiated by Nikita Khrushchev, the ban on Khanzhonkov's films was ended and many of his movies were shown on public television as well as in theaters.Presenter of Khanzhonkov Studios 1906-1917 [Presenter of State Committee for Cinematography 1923-1926] (1915) After Death
(1917) The Dying Swan- Director
- Writer
- Production Designer
Yevgeni Bauer was the most important filmmaker of the early Russian cinema, who made about eighty silent films in 5 years before the Russian Revolution of 1917.
He was born Yevgeni Frantsevich Bauer in 1865, in Moscow, Russia, into an artistic family. His father, Franz Bauer, was a renown musician who played zither, his mother was an opera singer, and his sisters eventually became stage and cinema actresses. From 1882 - 1887 he studied at Moscow School of Art, Sculpture and Architecture, graduating in 1887, as an artist. At that time Bauer worked for Moscow theatres as a stage artist as well as a set designer for popular musicals and comedies. He was also known as a newspaper satirist, a caricaturist for magazines, a journalist, and a theatrical impresario. During the 1900s he became involved in still photography and worked as an artistic photographer, having several of his pictures published in the Russian media.
In 1912, Bauer was hired by A. Drankov and Taldykin as a production designer for Tryokhsotletie tsarstvovaniya doma Romanovykh (1913), then he became a film director for their company. After making four films as director for A. Drankov, he moved on to work for Pathe's Star Film Factory in Moscow, and made another four films for them. In 1913, Bauer was invited by the leading Russian producer Aleksandr Khanzhonkov. Their fruitful collaboration would last only four years, yielding about 70 films, of which less than a half survived. Among Bauer's best works with Khanzhyonkov were such films as After Death (1915), Her Sister's Rival (1916), and Revolyutsioner (1917), starring Ivane Perestiani as an Old revolutionary.
Bauer reached his peak in the genre of social drama, such as Daydreams (1915) (aka.. Daydreams), starring Alexander Wyrubow as Sergei, an obsessed widower who falls for an actress because of her resemblance of his late wife, but soon their characters clash, leading to a tragic end. Soon Yevgeni Bauer established himself as the leading film director in Russia. He achieved great financial success earning up to 40,000 rubles annually. In 1914, Bauer started using his wife's name, Ancharov, as his artistic name, due to the political pressure from rising Russian nationalism during the First World War, so he was credited as Ancharov in some of his films. Bauer was the main force behind successful careers of major Russian silent film stars of that time, such as Ivan Mozzhukhin and Vera Kholodnaya. With Vera Kholodnaya, Bauer made thirteen films back-to-back in one year. In After Death (1915) and Umirayushchiy lebed (1917), Bauer cast none other than Vera Karalli, the legendary ballerina of the Boshoi Theatre and Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
Bauer's style evolved from his experience as a theatre artist, actor and photographer who incorporated theatrical techniques in his films in a uniquely cinematic way. His mastery of lighting, his use of unusual camera angles and huge close-ups, his inventive and thoughtful montage and such theatrical effects as long shots through windows or his use of gauzes and curtains to alter the screen image, all these innovations were decades ahead of his time. Bauer was one of the first film directors who used the split screen. He introduced a multi-layered staging involving juxtaposed foreground and background with lush decor and thoughtful compositions alluding to classical paintings of the old masters. He developed ingenious camera movements, showing a remarkable depth of field, and achieving powerful dramatic effects. Bauer's vision and inventiveness, his integrated skills as artist, actor, photographer, and director, made him the leading filmmaker of the early Russian cinema.
Russia was a tough place for film and entertainment business, becoming increasingly unstable during the turbulent years of the First World War. Then Russian culture and film industry suffered from a cascade of troubles and destructions caused by several Russian Revolutions. However, by 1917 several major Russian film studios became established in Yalta, Crimea, near the Tsar's palaces and lush villas of other major patrons, where social environment of an upscale resort with a Mediterranean climate provided special conditions conducive for filming all year round. Bauer moved to Yalta and continued his work at the newly established Khanzhyonkov film studio, becoming also its major shareholder. There Bauer directed his last masterpiece, Za schastem (1917) (aka.. For happiness), passing the torch to his apprentice, Lev Kuleshov, who replaced the ailing Bauer in the role as painter Enrico, which Bauer wanted to play himself, but unfortunately he fell and broke his leg.
In spite of his illness, Bauer used a wheelchair, and began directing his last film, Korol Parizha (1917), which was initially designed as his largest project, but was ended as his last song. His broken leg and unexpected complications interrupted his work as he became bedridden in a Yalta hospital. The film was completed by actress Olga Rakhmanova and his colleagues at Khanzhyonkov studio. Yevgeni Bauer died of pneumonia on 22nd of July (9th of July, old style), 1917, in Yalta, Crimea, and was laid to rest in Yalta cemetery, Yalta, Crimea, Russia (now Yalta, Ukraine).
Bauer was married to actress and dancer Emma Bauer (nee Ancharova), whom he met in the 1890s during his stint as a theatre artist. In 1915 Lina Bauer starred as a flirtatious wife who hides her lover in a closet and successfully outwits her husband in Bauer's comedy The 1002nd Ruse (1915) (aka.. The 1002nd Ruse). Bauer's sister, Emma Bauer also starred in several of his films.Director (1915) After Death
(1917) The Dying Swan- Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev was born on March 19, 1872, into a wealthy noble family in Novgorod, Russia. His father, Pavel Diaghilev, was a distinguished General to the Russian Tsar Nicholas II. His mother died in childbirth but he grew up in a highly cultured environment. He studied piano and singing from the early age.
He also took lessons in painting at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and studied music with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. From 1891-96, Diaghilev studied law and graduated from the Law Department of the St. Petersburg University. There he developed a life-long friendship with his fellow law student Alexandre Benois. They formed a circle of artists and art connoisseurs known as 'Mir Iskusstva' (World of Art). From 1898-1904 he founded and edited the influential art magazine "Mir Iskusstva" (The World of Art). From 1899-1901, Diaghilev was a special artistic adviser to the Imperial Directorship of Theatres and to Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Diaghilev's first partners Alexandre Benois and Leon Bakst became his life-long collaborators. They produced the first international art show of contemporary artists from Scandinavian countries and Russia in St. Petersburg in 1900. In 1904, they organized the then-largest ever portrait show in Tavrichesky Palace in St. Petersburg. That show also included a research of over 7 thousand portraits in various traditional and contemporary styles and involved art historians, restorers, and artists from many Russian cities. Alexandre Benois also collaborated with Diaghilev on publication of art catalogs, books and the 'Mir Iskusstva' art magazine, which promoted artistic innovations and challenged the existing order. Their book 'History of Russian Painting' (1904) became the first comprehensive work on the subject. In 1905 Diaghilev and Benois organized an important art exhibition of contemporary Russian artists in St. Petersburg and in 1906 he took a major exhibition of Russian art to the Petit Palais in Paris.
In 1906 Diaghilev settled in Paris and began the biggest Russian-European multicultural project in history which became known as the "Russian Seasons" and "Ballets Russes" (Russian Ballet). In 1907, he produced the first series of concerts of Russian music in Paris. Sergei Rachmaninoff, Aleksandr Glazunov, Aleksandr Skryabin, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov conducted their own works, as well as the works of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Aleksandr Borodin and Mikhail Glinka. In 1908, in the Paris Opera, he produced 'Boris Godunov', an opera by Modest Mussorgsky, starring Feodor Chaliapin Sr.. In 1909, he secured support from Grand Prince Vladimir Romanov and took a company of top Russian dancers, including Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky to Paris. After several successful seasons in Paris, Diaghilev staged the "Russian Ballet" shows in Geneva, Madrid, Rome, London and New York. He later staged 'The Sleeping Beauty' by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in London.
Diaghilev's ability to link talented people with generous patrons was legendary. He made connections for Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as well, as other artists with important Russian art collectors, such as Shchukin, Morozov, Ryabushinsky and others. Diaghilev managed to organize sponsorship for his large-scale "Russian Seasons" ballet and opera productions. From 1908-12 he produced Russian operas in Paris and, from 1913-14, he produced opera in London. There Diaghilev produced and directed opera 'Boris Godunov' with Feodor Chaliapin Sr. in the title role. In 1914, he transformed the opera 'Golden Cockerel' into an innovative cross-style ballet-opera and brought an updated 'Prince Igor' with Feodor Chaliapin Sr. to London. His "Ballets Russes" (Russian Ballet in Russian Seasons) was founded with assistance of choreographer Mikhail Fokin and artists Léon Bakst and Alexandre Benois. Diaghilev was associated with the dancers of the first rank, such as Anna Pavlova, Matilda Kshesinskaya, Tamara Karsavina, Vaslav Nijinsky, and George Balanchine. Diaghilev's ballet traditions were later continued by George Balanchine in the United States, Anna Pavlova and her troupe in Europe, and Serge Lifar at the Paris Opera.
Diaghilev collaborated with the best talents of his time; composers Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Richard Strauss, Erik Satie, and Sergei Prokofiev. From the circle of Gertrude Stein, Diaghilev engaged such authors as Jean Cocteau and André Gide. Distinguished artists, such as Pablo Picasso, André Derain, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Giorgio De Chirico, Alexandre Benois, Konstantin Korovin, Alexander Golovin and Pavel Tchelitchev worked with him as stage set and costume designers. One of Diaghilev's consultants was Guillaume Apollinaire, who also acted as writer and artistic adviser for "Ballets Russes" (Russian Seasons).
During WWI Diaghilev made transformations in his projects by bringing together a larger diversity of talents. He understood the changes of cultural paradigm after WWI and updated the format of his project from 1917-29. His 1917 production of ballet 'Parade' was the first collaboration of Satie and choreographer Léonide Massine with Pablo Picasso, who at that time married the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova. In the 1920s, he produced innovative ballets 'Lani' and 'Le train bleu' (Blue Express) with choreographer Bronislava Njinska and costume designer Coco Chanel with participation of Pablo Picasso. Later he introduced avant-garde ideas from Vsevolod Meyerhold in his production of 'Stalnoi Skok' by Sergei Prokofiev with choreographer Léonide Massine and designer Sergei Jakulov. In 1928 production of 'Apollon musagete', Diaghilev collaborated with Igor Stravinsky, George Balanchine, and Coco Chanel.
Diaghilev brought cultures together and challenged the existing cultural order in a highly productive way. By expanding his international activities into art exhibitions and stage shows, Diaghilev connected people and ideas in what became arguably the first continuous large-scale cross-cultural and cross-genre project in the 20th century. From 1905-14 his "Russian Seasons" employed mostly Russian and French performers and artists, whom he already knew. After WWI, from 1918-29, Diaghilev welcomed all talents from all backgrounds; the best Russian and International performers, composers, authors and artists all came to him. His talent and exquisite taste ensured the highest quality of his "Russian Seasons" productions during the 25 years of his leadership and after. His idea of showing the best parts instead of a full-length ballets became a success, and ensured the revival of classic ballet in the 20 century. His partners became leaders of their own projects and carried his innovative style. His apprentices worked in major cultural centers across the world.
Sergei Diaghilev died in Venice, Italy on August 19, 1929. His funeral cortège proceeded by gondola to the cemetery island of San Michele where he was laid to rest. His tomb is visited by his graceful followers who made a tradition to lay red roses and ballet shoes.Art Critic (Impresario) - Director
- Writer
- Editor
Dziga Vertov was born on 2 January 1896 in Bialystok, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire [now Podlaskie, Poland]. He was a director and writer, known for Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Three Songs About Lenin (1934) and The Sixth Part of the World (1926). He was married to Elizaveta Svilova. He died on 12 February 1954 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].Director (1922) Cinema-Truth
(1926) The Sixth Part of the World
(1929) Man with a Movie Camera
(1931) Enthusiasm
(1934) Three Songs About Lenin- Director
- Writer
- Editor
The son of an affluent architect, Eisenstein attended the Institute of Civil Engineering in Petrograd as a young man. With the fall of the tsar in 1917, he worked as an engineer for the Red Army. In the following years, Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theater as a set designer and then director. The Proletkult's director, Vsevolod Meyerhold, became a big influence on Eisenstein, introducing him to the concept of biomechanics, or conditioned spontaneity. Eisenstein furthered Meyerhold's theory with his own "montage of attractions"--a sequence of pictures whose total emotion effect is greater than the sum of its parts. He later theorized that this style of editing worked in a similar fashion to Marx's dialectic. Though Eisenstein wanted to make films for the common man, his intense use of symbolism and metaphor in what he called "intellectual montage" sometimes lost his audience. Though he made only seven films in his career, he and his theoretical writings demonstrated how film could move beyond its nineteenth-century predecessor--Victorian theatre-- to create abstract concepts with concrete images.Director (1923) Dnevnik Glumova
(1925) Strike
(1925) Battleship Potemkin
(1927) October (Ten Days that Shook the World)
(1938) Alexander Nevsky
(1944) Ivan the Terrible, Part I
(1958) Ivan the Terrible, Part II- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Vsevolod Pudovkin was born on 28 February 1893 in Penza, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and actor, known for Admiral Nakhimov (1947), Zhukovsky (1950) and Minin i Pozharskiy (1939). He was married to Anna Zemtsova. He died on 30 June 1953 in Jurmala, Latvian SSR, USSR [now Latvia].Director (Actor, Writer, Art Director) (1924) The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks
(1926) Mother
(1928) Storm Over Asia
(1929) The New Babylon
(1944) Ivan the Terrible, Part I
(1958) Ivan the Terrible, Part II- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Yakov Protazanov was born on 4 February 1881 in Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for A Narrow Escape (1920), Without Dowry (1937) and Kak khoroshi, kak svezhi byli rozy (1913). He died on 9 August 1945 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia].Director (1924) Aelita: Queen of Mars- Composer
- Editorial Department
- Sound Department
Edmund Meisel was born on 14 August 1894 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was a composer, known for Battleship Potemkin (1925), Der rote Kreis (1929) and The Holy Mountain (1926). He died on 14 November 1930 in Berlin, Germany.Composer (1925) Battleship Potemkin
(1927) October (Ten Days that Shook the World)- Additional Crew
- Writer
- Actor
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April 1870 - 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism.Premier of the Soviet Union (Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR [1917-1924], Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union [1923-1924]) (1927) The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Elsie Charlotte (Hennessy) and John Charles Smith. She was of English and Irish descent. Pickford began in the theater at age seven. Then known as "Baby Gladys Smith", she toured with her family in a number of theater companies. At some point, at her devout maternal grandmother's insistence, when young Gladys was seriously ill with diphtheria, she received a Catholic baptism and her middle name was changed to "Marie".
In 1907, she adopted a family name Pickford and joined the David Belasco troupe, appearing in the long-running The Warrens of Virginia". She began in films in 1909 with the 'American Mutoscope & Biograph [us]', working with director D.W. Griffith.
For a short time in 1911, to earn more money, she joined the IMP Film Co. under Carl Laemmle. She returned to Biograph in 1912, then, in 1913 joined the Famous Players Film Company under Adolph Zukor. She then joined First National Exhibitor's Circuit in 1918. In 1919, she co-founded United Artists with D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and then-future husband, Douglas Fairbanks.Actress (1927) Potseluy Meri Pikford- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Douglas Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman in Denver, Colorado, to Ella Adelaide (nee Marsh) and Hezekiah Charles Ullman, an attorney and native of Pennsylvania, who was a captain for the Union forces during the Civil War. Fairbanks' paternal grandparents were German Jewish immigrants, while his mother, a Southerner with roots in Louisiana and Georgia, was of British Isles descent. From the age of five he was raised by his mother due to her husband's abandonment. She changed her sons' surnames to Fairbanks (her former husband's surname) and covered up their paternal Jewish ancestry.
He began amateur theater at age 12 and continued while attending the Colorado School of Mines. In 1900 they moved to New York. He attended Harvard, traveled to Europe, worked on a cattle freighter, in a hardware store and as a clerk on Wall Street. He made his Broadway debut in 1902 and five years later left theater to marry an industrialist's daughter.
He returned when his father-in-law went broke the next year. In 1915, he went to Hollywood and worked under a reluctant D.W. Griffith. The following year he formed his own production company. During a Liberty Bond tour with Charles Chaplin he fell in love with Mary Pickford with whom he, Chaplin and Griffith had formed United Artists in 1919. He made very successful early social comedies, then highly popular swashbucklers during the 'twenties. The owners of Hollywood's Pickfair Mansion separated in 1933 and divorced in 1936. In March 1936, he married and retired from acting.Actor (1927) Potseluy Meri Pikford- Additional Crew
Joseph Stalin (a code name meaning "Man of Steel") was born Iosif (Joseph) Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in 1878 in Gori, Georgia, the Transcaucasian part of the Russian Empire. His father was a cobbler named Vissarion Dzhugashvili, a drunkard who beat him badly and frequently and left the family when Joseph was young. His mother, Ekaterina Gheladze, supported herself and her son (her other three children died young and Jopseph was effectively an only child) by taking in washing. She managed, despite great hardship, to send Joseph to school and then on to Tiflis Orthodox Theological Seminary in Tbilisi, hoping he would become a priest. However, after three years of studies he was expelled in 1899, for not attending an exam and for propagating communist ideas and the books of Karl Marx.
Since 1898, Stalin became active in the Communist underground as the organizer of a powerful gang involved in a series of armed robberies. After robbing several banks in southern Russia, Stalin delivered the stolen money to Vladimir Lenin to finance the Communist Party. Stalin's gang was also involved in the murders of its political opponents; Stalin himself was arrested seven times, repeatedly imprisoned, and twice exiled to Siberia between 1902 and 1913. During those years he changed his name twice and became more closely identified with revolutionary Marxism. He escaped many times from prison and was shuttling money between Lenin and other communists in hiding, where his intimacy with Lenin and Bukharin grew, as did his dissatisfaction with fellow Communist leader Lev Trotskiy. In 1912 he was co-opted on to the illegal Communist Central Committee. At that time he wrote propaganda articles, and later edited the Communist paper, "Pravda" (Truth). As Lenin's apprentice he joined the Communist majority (Bolsheviks), and was responsible for the consolidation of several secret communist cells into a larger ring. Stalin's Communist ring in St. Petersburg and across Russia played the leading role in the Russian Revolution of 1917. After the revolution the Bolsheviks Communists grabbed the power, then Communists murdered the Tsar and the Russian royal family. Stalin and Lenin took over the Tsar's palaces and used the main one in Kremlin as their private residence.
Lenin appointed Stalin the People's Commissar for Nationalities in the first Soviet government and a member of the Communist Politburo, thus giving him unlimited power. Stalin led the "Reds" against anti-Communist forces known as the "Whites" and also in the war with Poland. He also organized "Red Terror" in Tsaritsin (later renamed Stalingrad). With his appointment as General Secretary to the Party Central Committee in 1922, a post he held for the next 30 years, until his death, he consolidated the power that would ensure his control of the country after Lenin's death in 1924. He also took, or gave himself, other key positions that enabled him to amass total power in the Party and Soviet government.
Stalin was known for his piercing eyes and terrifying stare, which he used to cow his opponents into submission during private discussions. In 1927 Stalin requested medical help for his insomnia, anger and severe anxiety disorder. His doctors diagnosed him as having "typical clinical paranoia" and recommended medical treatment. Instead, Stalin became angry and summoned his secret service agents. The next day the chief psychiatrist, Dr. Bekhterev, and his assistants died of poisoning. In addition, before the doctors' diagnosis about Stalin's mental condition could become known, he ordered the executions of intellectuals, resulting in the murders of hundreds of thousands of doctors, professors, writers, and others.
Stalin's policy of amassing dictatorial power under the guise of building "socialism in the country" resulted in brutal extermination of all real and perceived anti-Communist opposition. His purges of the Soviet military brought about the execution of tens of thousands of army officers, many of them experienced combat veterans of the Revolution, the Civil War, the Polish campaigns and other military operations (this decimation of the Russian officer corps would result in the Soviet Union's initial defeats at the hands of Nazi invaders at the beginning of World War II). He also isolated and disgraced his political rivals, notably Trotsky. Stalin's economic policies of strict centralized planning (i.e., the "five-year plans") resulted in the near ruination of the Soviet economy and mass famines in many areas of the Soviet Union, notably in Central Russia and the Ukraine. Popular resistance to Stalin's policies, such as nationalization of private lands and collective farming, by independent farmers ("kulaks"), brought about brutal retaliation, in which millions of kulaks were either forced off their land or executed outright. Altogether Stalin's economic and political policies resulted in the deaths of up to 10 million peasants during 1926-1934. Between 1934 and 1939 he organized and led massive purge (known as "The Great Terror") of the party, government, armed forces and intelligentsia, in which millions of so-called "enemies of the Soviet people" were imprisoned, exiled or executed. In the late 1930s, Stalin sent some Red Army forces and material to support the Spanish Republican government in its fight against the rebels led by Gen. Francisco Franco and aided by troops and material from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Stalin made the Non-Aggression Pact with Adolf Hitler in 1939, which bought the Soviet Union two years' respite from involvement in World War 2. After the German invasion in 1941, the USSR became a member of the Grand Alliance and Stalin, as war leader, assumed the title of Generalissimus. He had no formal military training and scorned the advice of his senior officers, due to suspicion and his rising paranoia, actions that resulted in horrific losses to the Russian military in both men and material (not to mention civilian losses). He rejected military plans made by such experienced officers as Marshal Georgi Zhukov, and insisted they be replaced by his own plans, which led to even more horrific losses. Towards the end of WWII he took part in the conferences of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Clement Attlee. The agreements reached in those conferences resulted in Soviet military and political control over the liberated countries of postwar Castern and Central Europe.
From 1945 until his death Stalin resumed his repressive measures at home, resulting in censorship of the arts, literature and cinema, forced exiles of hundreds of thousands and the executions of intellectuals and other potential "enemies of the state". At that time he conducted foreign policies that contributed to the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West. Stalin had little interest in family life, although he was married twice and had several mistresses. His first wife (Ekaterina Svanidze, married c. 1904) died three years after their marriage and left a son, Jacob (also known as Yacov), an officer in the Russian army during World War II who was captured by the Nazis and died in a POW camp (his father refused German offers to exchange him for captured German officers). His second wife (Nadezhda Alliluyeva, married 1919) attempted to moderate his politics, but she died by suicide, leaving a daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, and an alcoholic son, Vasili Stalin, who later died in exile. Increasingly paranoid, Stalin launched attacks on such intellectuals as Osip Mandelstam, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Anna Akhmatova, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Boris Pasternak, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and many other cultural luminaries. Stalin personally intervened in the fate of "counterrevolutionary" Yiddish writers and changed their sentences from exile to execution. Thirteen of them were executed by the Soviet secret police; their leader, Perets Markish, was executed in the typical KGB manner by a single gunshot to the head on August 12, 1952, in Moscow.
Stalin died suddenly on March 5, 1953, under somewhat mysterious circumstances, after announcing his intention to arrest Jewish doctors, whom he believed were plotting to kill him. The "official" cause of death was announced as brain hemorrhage. Stalin's apprentice, Georgi Malenkov, took the power, but was soon ousted by Nikita Khrushchev. Three years after death, Stalin was posthumously denounced by Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress in 1956 for crimes against the Party and for building a "cult of personality." In 1961 Stalin's body was removed from Lenin's Mausoleum, where it had been displayed since his death, and buried near the Kremlin wall. In 1964 Leonid Brezhnev dismissed Khrushchev and brought back some of Stalin's hard-line policies. After 1986 Mikhail Gorbachev initiated a series of liberal political reforms known as "glasnost" and "perstroika", and many of Stalin's victims were posthumously rehabilitated, and the whole phenomenon of "Stalinism" was officially condemned by the Russian authorities.Chairman of the Council of Ministers
of the Soviet Union [1941-1953] (General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [1922-1952]) (1934) Three Songs About Lenin- Director
- Writer
- Producer
One of the 20th century's greatest masters of cinema Sergei Parajanov was born in Georgia to Armenian parents and it was always unlikely that his work would conform to the strict socialist realism that Soviet authorities preferred. After studying film and music, Parajanov became an assistant director at the Dovzhenko studios in Kiev, making his directorial debut in 1954, following that with numerous shorts and features, all of which he subsequently dismissed as "garbage". However, in 1964 he was able to make Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), a rhapsodic celebration of Ukrainian folk culture, and the world discovered a startling and idiosyncratic new talent. He followed this up with the even more innovative The Color of Pomegranates (1969) (which explored the art and poetry of his native Armenia in a series of stunningly beautiful tableaux), but by this stage the authorities had had enough, and Paradjanov spent most of the 1970s in prison on almost certainly rigged charges of "homosexuality and illegal trafficking in religious icons". However, with the coming of perestroika, he was able to make The Legend of Suram Fortress (1985), Ashik Kerib (1988) and The Confession, which survives as Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992), before succumbing to cancer in 1990.Director (1957) Zolotye ruki
(1985) The Legend of Suram Fortress (Georgia)
(1988) Ashik Kerib (Azerbaijan)
(1988) Andrei Tarkovsky & Sergei Parajanov: Islands- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Aleksandr Dovzhenko was born on 10 September 1894 in Vyunishche, Sosnitsa Ueyzd, Chernigov Governorate, Russian Empire [now Sosnitsa, Sosnitsa Raion, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine]. He was a writer and director, known for Earth (1930), Shors (1939) and Life in Bloom (1949). He was married to Yuliya Solntseva. He died on 25 November 1956 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia].Writer (1958) Poem of the Sea- Additional Crew
- Writer
- Director
The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. This resulted in high expectations for his second feature Andrei Rublev (1966), which was banned by the Soviet authorities for two years. It was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival at four o'clock in the morning on the last day, in order to prevent it from winning a prize - but it won one nonetheless, and was eventually distributed abroad partly to enable the authorities to save face. Solaris (1972), had an easier ride, being acclaimed by many in Europe and North America as the Soviet answer to Kubrick's '2001' (though Tarkovsky himself was never too fond of his own film nor Kubrick's), but he ran into official trouble again with Mirror (1975), a dense, personal web of autobiographical memories with a radically innovative plot structure. Stalker (1979) had to be completely reshot on a dramatically reduced budget after an accident in the laboratory destroyed the first version, and after Nostalghia (1983), shot in Italy (with official approval), Tarkovsky defected to Europe. His last film, The Sacrifice (1986) was shot in Sweden with many of Ingmar Bergman's regular collaborators, and won an almost unprecedented four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. He died of lung cancer at the end of the year. Two years later link=Sergei Parajanov dedicated his film Ashik Kerib to Tarkovsky.Director (Writer, Actor) (1962) Ivan's Childhood
(1965) Pervyy uchitel
(1965) I Am Twenty
(1966) Andrei Rublev
(1972) Solaris
(1975) The Mirror
(1979) Stalker
(1983) Nostalgia (Italy)
(1987) Moskovskaya elegiya
(1988) Andrei Tarkovsky & Sergei Parajanov: Islands
(2000) Cinéma, de notre temps (1988– ) Une journée d'Andrei Arsenevitch (France)- Writer
- Additional Crew
- Actor
William Shakespeare's birthdate is assumed from his baptism on April 25. His father John was the son of a farmer who became a successful tradesman; his mother Mary Arden was gentry. He studied Latin works at Stratford Grammar School, leaving at about age 15. About this time his father suffered an unknown financial setback, though the family home remained in his possession. An affair with Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior and a nearby farmer's daughter, led to pregnancy and a hasty marriage late in 1582. Susanna was born in May of 1583, twins Hamnet and Judith in January of 1585. By 1592 he was an established actor and playwright in London though his "career path" afterward (fugitive? butcher? soldier? actor?) is highly debated. When plague closed the London theatres for two years he apparently toured; he also wrote two long poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece". He may have spent this time at the estate of the Earl of Southampton. By December 1594 he was back in London as a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the company he stayed with the rest of his life. In 1596 he seems to have purchased a coat of arms for his father; the same year Hamnet died at age 11. The following year he purchased the grand Stratford mansion New Place. A 1598 edition of "Love's Labors" was the first to bear his name, though he was already regarded as England's greatest playwright. He is believed to have written his "Sonnets" during the 1590s. In 1599 he became a partner in the new Globe Theatre, the company of which joined the royal household on the accession of James in 1603. That is the last year in which he appeared in a cast list. He seems to have retired to Stratford in 1612, where he continued to be active in real estate investment. The cause of his death is unknown.Writer (1964) Hamlet
(1970) King Lear- Director
- Writer
- Actor
He was born with a disability because of an anatomic defect of his leg, in 1951 in Podorvikha village in Siberian Russia. His father was a Red Army veteran of WW2. One of most important contemporary filmmakers, Sokurov worked extensively in television and later graduated from the prestigious film school, VGIK, in 1979. His films often created tensions with the Soviet authorities but he received great support from such outstanding film masters as Andrei Tarkovsky. Particularly, after the collapse of the regime, Sokurov's films started earning him numerous awards around the world. While most known for his feature films, Sokurov has directed over 20 interesting documentaries. His 2002 sensational "Russian Ark" is a historic achievement that will be watched and talked about by many generations.
Sokurov has collected a number of awards at Berlin, Cannes, Moscow, Toronto, Locarno and European Film Awards. He lives and works in Russia.Director (1987) Moskovskaya elegiya
(1988) Days of Eclipse
(1990) The Second Circle
(1992) The Stone
(1994) Whispering Pages
(1995) Dukhovnye golosa. Iz dnevnikov voyny. Povestvovanie v pyati chastyakh
(1997) Mother and Son
(2002) Russian Ark
(2003) In One Breath: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark
(2005) The Sun
(2011) Faust- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Naum Kleiman is an historian of cinema, Russian film critic, specialist in Sergei Eisenstein, former director of the Moscow State Central Cinema Museum, Eisenstein-Centre director.
He was co-founder of the legendary Eisenstein Archives, and their director from 1967 to 1985.
In 1989 he founded the Moscow State Central Cinema Museum whose director he became in 1992.
From 1992 to 2014 he was director of the Moscow State Central Cinema Museum and director of the Eisenstein Centre.
In 2017 he released the book "Eisenstein on Paper. Graphic Works by the Master of Film" about collection of drawings, sketches, caricatures and storyboards by Sergei Eisenstein.
From 2021 on the show Radio Dolin (2021) as a historian of cinema, he tells about important film directors and their cult movies.Film Historian (1989) Histoire(s) du cinéma
(1998) The Unknown Ivan the Terrible
(2011) The Story of Film: An Odyssey- Actor
- Soundtrack
Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Communist Party. He initiated the changes known as "perestroika" and "glasnost".
He was born Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev into a peasant family on March 2, 1931, in the village of Privolnoe, Stavropol province, Southern Russia. His father, named Sergei Gorbachev, was a tractor driver. His mother, named Maria Panteleyeva, was a peasant. His grandparents were deported and sentenced for nine years under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin, for their success in becoming richer independent farmers known as kulaks. Young Gorbachev witnessed the destruction of traditional farming and degradation of villages, that caused massive exodus of people from their land and to gloomy industrial Soviet cities, where they were doomed to become brainwashed by propaganda and live in small flats under restricting political and economic conditions for the rest of their lives. During the Second World War Gorbachev survived the Nazi occupation of his land in Stavropol province in 1942-1943. After the war, Gorbachev chose to remain on his land, although it was now taken by the Communist Government, the ranks of which he would penetrate later. Gorbachev privately described his life and work on a Soviet collective farm as serfdom.
In 1947 Gorbachev shot to fame at the age of 16, after helping his father, a combine harvester operator, to harvest a record crop on a collective farm. For this achievement he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and was promoted to the Communist Party at the age of 21. From 1950 - 1955 he studied law on a State scholarship at Moscow State University. There he met his future wife, Raisa Maksimovna Gorbacheva (nee Titarenko), they married in September 1953, and their daughter, Irina, was born in January 1957. After a brief stint as a Government Lawyer in Stavropol, Gorbachev made a career as a ranking leader of Komsomol (Union of Young Communists), then as a Communist Party leader of Stavropol province, climbing to the ranks as Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At that time Gorbachev made his first travels outside of the Soviet Union. While the Soviet leaders were manipulating their own people into submission through fear and control, the West Europeans enjoyed freedom and prosperity that attracted East Germans and other Soviet satellites. Gorbachev learned his first lesson on his tour in East Germany, witnessing their rapid recovery after the Second World War. At the same time, in 1956, Yuri Andropov and Georgi Zhukov led the attack on Hungarian Revolution, and killed thousands of Hungarians who opposed the Soviet-imposed regime. Then Soviet leadership made more aggressive international actions by spreading military support to pro-communist regimes across the world and also by building the Berlin Wall and enforcing Soviet military and political domination in Eastern Europe. These Soviet actions alienated Europeans.
Open political discussions in the Soviet Union were not allowed under threat of prosecution, freedom of speech was never guaranteed, all media was owned and controlled by the Soviet government and independent activity was suppressed, and only some fragmented information was made available to ranking provincial communists, such as Gorbachev. In 1961 he attended the important 22nd Congress of the Communist Party in Moscow, where Nikita Khrushchev announced his Utopian plan to surpass the USA per capita income in 20 years. At the same 22nd Congress, upon Khrushchev's instruction, Gorbachev, among other top communists received a copy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's anti-Stalin publication "One day of Ivan Denisovich" which criticized the brutality of Gulag prison-camps and the Soviet regime in general. That gave Gorbachev and some other young communists a hope that Khrushchev may change the brutal Soviet regime. However, in 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was arrested and dismissed by pro-Stalin group led by Leonid Brezhnev who eventually established a remake of Stalinism for the next 18 years, albeit in a more grotesque and senile version of Soviet regime. Then Brezhnev's regime crushed the Prague Spring of 1968, fought the Chinese Army over a border dispute in 1969, sent Soviet Tanks and Air Force to Egypt and Syria against Israel in the 1970s, as well as in North Vietnam against the French and Americans. At that time Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa Maksimovna, were allowed to travel to the Western Europe and see the difference between reality in European countries and its distorted depiction by the Soviet propaganda. In 1972 he headed the Soviet official delegation to Belgium, then, in 1974 was made Member of the Supreme Soviet in charge of the Commission on Youth Affairs. During the 1970s Gorbachev enjoyed a highly privileged life of a ranking communist, having many perks such as a villa in a suburb of Moscow, a special limo with a chauffeur and guards, and regular luxurious vacations in Italy and in the South of France, all at the expense of the Communist Party. However, this allowed him to see the striking difference between the quality of life in the Western Europe and gloomy survival of masses in the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev witnessed that people were living hopeless lives having no choice. Workers of collective farms lived without identification documents up until the 1970s. Undocumented citizens at collective farms were disposable. Migrants were used as industrial slaves, for symbolic pay. Wages were set by the state and did not depend on productivity or quality. The economy was governed by the state 5-year plan. This mostly ignored the world and domestic market signals; and lacked the incentives for innovation and efficiency. Teachers were forced to indoctrinate children of all ages from kindergartens through schools and universities. Total control and manipulation was demonstrated twice a year at annual May Day parades and Great Revolution parades on November 7. Military parades were accompanied by marching masses of industrial workers and managers, doctors and scientists, as well as teachers and students from all schools and universities. Exemplary obedient people were rewarded with better food and perks. Taming millions to obedience by fear and hunger led to a massive degradation of human rights, poor spirituality, lack of initiative and creativity, and the decay of public health and vitality. The country of almost three hundred million people was stuck in stagnation, inefficiency, and apathy. Brighter students were taken into the military-industrial system, brainwashed and locked there for life with little choices. Opponents were locked in the "Gulag" prison-camps, mostly in Siberia. There, millions were working various hard labor jobs in grand-scale economic projects; like the Baikal-Amur railroad (BAM). Since the Communist Revolution of 1917, people had been continually stripped of their land and property. Under Khrushchev and Brezhnev the destruction of independent farming was finalized. By the 1960s and 1970s massive poverty and anxiety pushed millions to migrate to cities. Mass-construction of cheap panel buildings was lagging behind. Millions of families shared poor housing, hostels, and dorms in cities. Villages were deserted. Collective farms decayed. Agricultural output fell below the levels of the Tsar's age. Tens of thousands of churches and monasteries were destroyed across the Soviet Union, and many churches were replaced by offices and halls of the Communist party. Spiritual life was dominated by ugly propaganda. People were blinded by fear and pushed to wrong values. Meaningful human virtues were replaced with fake ideals of ruthless Soviet communism. Propaganda idolized members of the Soviet Politburo, their portraits were decorating every school and factory along with countless portraits and statues of the first Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin.
In November 1979 Gorbachev was promoted Candidate Member of the Politburo, then less than a year later, he was made Full Member of Politbureau, the highest rank in the Communist Party which gave him unlimited direct access to Brezhnev and Andropov. The latter also promoted Gorbachev to sub for him at several Politburo meetings, and gave him a huge power in decision-making. Gorbachev developed a personal friendship with another Politburo member, Eduard Shevardnadze, and the two were vacationing together at the prestigious Black sea resort of Pitsunda. At that time the invasion of Afghanistan, ordered by senile Brezhnev in 1979, seriously undermined international credibility of the Soviet Union. Andrei Sakharov wrote an open letter to Brezhnev calling for a stop to the war. 50 nations boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Crackdown on intellectual freedom and human rights included the use of psychiatric terror, arrests, and the exile of dissidents. The head of the KGB Yuri Andropov declared Andrei Sakharov the "enemy No. 1." Sakharov was forcefully exiled from Moscow to the militarized 'closed' city of Gorky. He was placed under tight surveillance and restricted from any contacts. His wife was also under tight surveillance. By his 70th birthday Brezhnev's health declined dramatically; but he made himself a Generalissimus Marshal of the Soviet Union, similar to that of Joseph Stalin. Brezhnev accepted over 200 decorations and awards, including awards from all pro-Soviet governments, except China. Brezhnev accepted countless expensive gifts and amassed a collection of vintage cars and other bribes. His personal vanity and behavior was replicated at all levels of the Communist Party and led to massive corruption. The old Brezhnev lost his acting abilities and couldn't even read the script. Massive disillusionment was reflected in cynical jokes about the Soviet life. The ugly reality in the Soviet Union was reflected in its senile leader. Gorbachev saw that outdated economic and political system in the Soviet Union was doomed, but propaganda was still brainwashing the minds of millions, because it was controlled by the privileged few top communists who lived in denial of the big reality.
The youngest Politburo Member, Mikhail Gorbachev, was contemplating reforms. Leonid Brezhnev died on November 10, 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov who died just 16 months later. He was replaced by Konstantin Chernenko, who died in just 13 months. In 1983 Politbureau member Rashidov committed suicide, then, in 1984 the powerful Defence Minister Ustinov died. While the Soviet Union was in a dying mode, the real world was rapidly growing into computer age that reshaped global community. The rigid Soviet System was incompatible with the constantly innovating world. USSR failed to respond to rapidly changing reality and alienated forward-thinking people even in the pro-Soviet countries. During the early 1980s Soviet Politbureau was torn between two viciously fighting groups of Communists, one was made of the old hard-liners led by Andrei Gromyko, the apprentice of Joseph Stalin. The other, pro-democracy group, was made of the forward-thinking members of the Politbureau who chose Gorbachev as their leader along with Aleksandr Yakovlev who was the brain behind Gorbachev's moves. With Gorbachev's support Yakovlev managed to change all hard-liners in the Soviet media and propaganda system. In March 1985 Gorbachev was made the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, becoming the first Soviet leader to have been born after the disastrous Russian Revolution of 1917. He announced reforms called 'perestroika' (aka.. restructuring) and 'glasnost' (aka.. opening up), and lifted the walls of propaganda and denial. However, Gorbachev's first reform on regulations related to manufacturing and trade of alcohol became an economic disaster, causing a serious economic damage to the Soviet Union's State budget with annual losses exceeding tens of billions of dollars. Although his reforms were supported by public, many communist hard-liners openly opposed Gorbachev. Eventually, by the late 1980s Gorbachev's push for economic liberalization resulted in emergence of co-operatives and other forms of independent businesses, making the movement to freedom irreversible.
In December of 1986, Gorbachev personally contacted Andrei Sakharov in his exile. Gorbachev ordered that the KGB should release Sakharov and return him to Moscow. Back in Moscow Sakharov continued his work as a humanitarian. A few months before his death, he was elected as a representative of the Academy of Sciences to the Supreme Soviet in 1989. Sakharov showed to the World what an independent thinker can do by going to the extremes of science. He invented a bomb that could bring the most horrible extermination of life, and then took a stand to ban his own invention for the salvation of planet Earth. Gorbachev had important meetings with Ronald Reagan culminating in their summit in Reikjavik, Iceland, and leading to a more stable political and military situation in the world, that resulted in reunification of Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989. At that time the Soviet hard-liners criticized Gorbachev's international moves, saying that he was not a leader, but rather a follower of Ronald Reagan's instruction: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall" when the state of world affairs did not allow Gorbachev to disobey without a risk of losing his face. He also followed recommendations by Margaret Thatcher on opening the "Iron Curtain" to allow the Russian people to see the world and learn about the diverse international reality and travel freely on their own. A first, Gorbachev skillfully used hidden buttons within the rigid structure of the Soviet power tainted by the long tradition of obedience, fear and intimidation, which was installed by dictator Joseph Stalin within the ranks of Communist bureaucracy. That fear of the man in Kremlin served Gorbachev's plans well, as he managed to overcome the resistance of hard liners in ending the ruling powers of the Communist Party. Soon Gorbachev began giving away many power buttons in Moscow, which allowed his rivals to gain strength and independently form opposition groups. Andrei Gromyko, the last living member of Joseph Stalin's old Politbureau, had criticized Gorbachev's methods as "weak leadership" and also said "He (Gorbachev) is unfit for the Hat" (where the Hat means Kremlin, or an allusion to the Tsar's crown of power). Such criticism was ignored by most of the younger members of the Communist Politbureau and Central Committee, because weak central leadership allowed provincial bosses to privatize state property at a fraction of its real value.
Gorbachev replaced his hard-line critic Andrei Gromyko with Eduard Shevardnadze as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, and both Gorbachev and Shevardnadze pushed for international détente and withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. In another effort to add weight to his gradually eroding power, in March of 1990 Gorbachev updated his official title by adding a newly created post as President of the Soviet Union, albeit he was not really a democratically elected president. He surrounded himself with the political council of 15 top politicians, but he was lacking the grass-roots connections with masses and mid-level bureaucracy across the country. At that time Gorbachev began to experience powerlessness in his efforts to change the gigantic Soviet system, he was known for expressing his powerlessness by using profanities and anger at his meetings with the ranks of Soviet Government and industrial leaders. Gorbachev was facing an impossible task of modernizing the brittle structure of the Soviet Communism, especially the massive and inefficient Soviet military-industrial complex where opposition to reforms was the most organized, and inefficiency was dissembled as a military secret, like a catch-22, thus making it unreformable. Gorbachev himself was still perceived as the Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party, and that stigma became the weakest part of his image in the eyes of many open-minded and quickly learning people in the Soviet Union. His effort to gain political weight by adding a figure of Vice-President of the Soviet Union had failed and soon backfired. Gorbachev's fatal mistake was letting the Members of Politbureau to chose the Vice-President of the Soviet Union behind closed doors in Kremlin; the "chosen" one was a career communist Gennadi Yanayev who would very soon betray Gorbachev during the coup.
Eventually Gorbachev became overshadowed by a much stronger figure of Boris Yeltsin, who gained more popular support by pushing further economic and political reforms, and also criticized Gorbachev's manner of restructuring of the Soviet system as slow, indecisive and inefficient. The rivalry between two former Communist comrades ended in the August 1991 coup, when still powerful KGB and Soviet Army leaders tried to take the power away from both Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Their coup failed just a couple days later, after the entire country watched Gennady Yanayev and his coup members on TV. "Let me say that Mikhail Gorbachev is now on vacation. He is undergoing treatment, himself, in our country. He is very tired after all these years and he will need time to get better." said Gennadi Yanayev before the cameras, and his hands were visibly trembling from fear. Gorbachev's disappearance during the coup was also seen as his grave weakness. Boris Yeltsin disposed his Communist ID card in front of the cameras and publicly denounced Gorbachev. Then all ranks of communists deserted the Communist Party in a massive exodus, and that was the end of the Soviet Union. All regional leaders were anxious to rule as presidents of their own independent states, and Yeltsin was already elected the president of Russia, the biggest part of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin met with the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus and they made a treaty as independent states. By the end of December 1991 the Soviet Union became obsolete and Gorbachev retired after a formal signing of dissolution of the USSR.
Mikhail Gorbachev is still regarded in the Western world for his input in ending the Cold War and helping the reunification of Germany. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1990) and received numerous international awards, decorations and privileges, such as the Honorary German Citizenship. However, in Russia Gorbachev's political standing failed to gain any substantial public support. He received less than 1% of popular vote in the 1996 presidential elections in Russia, when his former rival Boris Yeltsin was elected for his second presidential term. In 2001 Gorbachev founded the Social Democratic Party of Russia, but later, in 2003, he had resigned from the party leadership and stayed away from most of the current Russian political forces and media. In contrast to Gorbachev's popularity all over the world, he fell in obscurity in Russia, largely because in the new era of the wild Russian capitalism his outdated views and experience became obsolete. Instead he turned to business of giving lecture tours and speeches internationally and selling photo-ops with him for money that goes to humanitarian causes; he also sold his name and image to commercials such as the Pizza Hut and other businesses. He has been running the business of the Gorbachev Foundation, which handles his international appearances, while keeping a low profile in the current political life of Russia. In 2005 he was awarded the Point Alpha Prize for his role in re-unification of Germany. In 2006 Gorbachev underwent a carotid artery surgery in Munich, Germany.President of the Soviet Union [1990-1991] (General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [1985-1991])- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Elem Klimov was born on 9 July 1933 in Stalingrad, Nizhne-Volzhskiy kray, RSFSR, USSR [now Volgograd, Volgogradskaya oblast, Russia]. He was a director and actor, known for Come and See (1985), Rasputin (1981) and Pokhozhdeniya zubnogo vracha (1965). He was married to Larisa Shepitko. He died on 26 October 2003 in Moscow, Russia.Director (1985) Come and See- Director
- Writer
- Actress
Kira Muratova was born on 5 November 1934 in Soroca, Romania [now Moldova]. She was a director and writer, known for Nastroyshchik (2004), Vtorostepennye lyudi (2001) and The Asthenic Syndrome (1989). She was married to Aleksandr Muratov and Yevgeni Golubenko. She died on 6 June 2018 in Odessa, Ukraine.Director (1971) The Long Farewell- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
Documentary film director. Born on July 19, 1961 in Leningrad. Since 1978 he worked at the Leningrad studio of Documentaries as assistant cameraman, assistant director and editor. In 1988 he finished the Higher Courses of Film Writers and Directors in Moscow. Laureate of the "Triumph" Prize, Laureate of the RF State Award and the "Nika" prize. Award-winner of numerous national and international film forums. He started his own production company, Kossakovsky Film Production, based in San Petersburg, to create a cinema with a strong focus in poetics and reality.Director (1997) Sreda- Writer
- Soundtrack
Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in his ancestral estate Yasnaya Polyana, South of Moscow, Russia. He was the fourth of five children in a wealthy family of Russian landed Gentry. His parents died when he was a child, and he was brought up by his elder brothers and relatives.
Leo Tolstoy studied languages and law at Kazan University for three years. He was dissatisfied with the school and left Kazan without a degree, returned to his estate and educated himself independently. In 1848 he moved to the capital, St. Petersburg, and there passed two tests for a law degree. He was abruptly called to return to his estate near Moscow, where he inherited 4000 acres of land and 350 serfs. There Tolstoy built a school for his serfs, and acted as a teacher. He briefly went to a Medical School in Moscow, but lost a fortune in gambling, and was pulled out by his brother. He took military training, became an Army officer, and moved to the Caucasus, where he lived a simple life for three years with Cossacs. There he wrote his first novel - "Childhood" (1852), it became a success. With writing "Boyhood" (1854) and "Youth" (1857) he concluded the autobiographical trilogy. In the Crimean War (1854-55) Tolstoy served as artillery commander in the Battle of Sevastopol, and was decorated for his courage. Between the battles he wrote three stories titled "Sevastopol Sketches", that won him wide attention, and a complement from the Czar Aleksandr II.
After the war, Tolstoy returned to St. Petersburg, where he enjoyed the friendship of Ivan Turgenev, Nikolai A. Nekrasov, Ivan Goncharov, and other writers. On his trips to Europe, he had discussions with Gertsen in London, and attended Darwin's lectures. In Brussels he had meetings with philosophers Prudhon and Lelewel. Tolstoy undertook a research of schools in Europe, and later he built and organized over 20 schools for poor people in Russia. At that time the secret police began surveillance, and searched his home. In 1862 he married Sofia Andreevna Bers, and fathered 13 children with his wife. Four of their babies died, and the couple raised the remaining nine children. His wife was also his literary secretary, and also contributed to his best works, "War and Peace" (1863-69) and "Anna Karenina" (1873-77). In his "Confession" (1879) Tolstoy revealed his own version of Christianity, blended with socialism, that won him many followers. Tolstoyan communities sprang up in America and Europe, and he assisted the Russian non-Orthodox Christians (Dukhobors) in migrating to USA and Canada. He split from aristocratic class and developed an ascetic lifestyle, becoming a vegetarian, and a farmer. He sponsored and organized free meals for the poor. He transfered his copyright on all of his writings after 1880 to public domain. In his later age Tolstoy was pursuing the path of a wandering ascetic. He corresponded with Mohandas K. Gandhi, who was directly influenced by Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God is Within You" (1894), which was praised by many nonviolent movements.
In 1900 Tolstoy criticized the Tsar's government in a series of publications, calling for separation of Chuch and State. Tsar Nicholas II retaliated through the Church, by expulsion of Tolstoy from Orthodox Cristianity as a "heretic". He fell ill, and suffered from a severe depression; he was suicidal and even had to eliminate all hunting guns from his home, because of his suicidal mode. He was treated by the famous doctor Dahl, and was visited by composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and basso Feodor Chaliapin Sr., who performed for Tolstoy on many occasions. Later he went to convalesce in Yalta, in Crimea, where he spent time with Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky. Tolstoy was an obvious candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but was initially omitted by the Nobel Committee for his views. The omission caused a strong response from a group of Swedish writers and artists. They sent an address to Tolstoy, but the writer answered by declining any future prize nomination.
In 1902 Tolstoy wrote a letter to the Tsar, calling for social justice, to prevent a civil war, and in 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, Tolstoy wrote a condemnation of war. The Tsar replied by increasing police surveillance on Tolstoy. In November of 1910 he left his estate, probably taking the path of a wandering ascetic, which he had been pursuing for decades. He left home without explanations and took a train, in which he caught pneumonia, and died at a remote station of Astapovo. He was laid to rest in his estate of Yasnaya Polyana, which was made a Tolstoy National Museum.
His youngest daughter, named Alexandra Tolstoy, was the director of the Tolstoy Museum, and was arrested by the Communists five times. She emigrated from Russia to the United States, where she founded the Tolstoy Foundation. She helped many prominent Russian intellectuals, such as Vladimir Nabokov and Sergei Rachmaninoff among many others.Writer- Writer
- Soundtrack
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow, Russia. He was the second of seven children of Mikhail Andreevich and Maria Dostoevsky. His father, a doctor, was a member of the Russian nobility, owned serfs and had a considerable estate near Moscow where he lived with his family. It's believed that he was murdered by his own serfs in revenge for the violence he would commit against them while in drunken rages. As a child Fyodor was traumatized when he witnessed the rape of a young female serf and suffered from epileptic seizures. He was sent to a boarding school, where he studied sciences, languages and literature. He was devastated when his favorite writer, Alexander Pushkin, was killed in a duel in St. Petersburg in 1837. That same year Dostoevsky's mother died, and he moved to St. Petersburg. There he graduated from the Military Engineering Academy, and served in the Tsar's government for a year.
Dostoevsky was active in St. Petersburg literary life; he grew out of his early influence by Nikolay Gogol, translated "Eugenia Grande" by Honoré de Balzac in 1844 and published his own first novel, "Poor Folk", in 1845, and became friends with Ivan Turgenev and Nikolai A. Nekrasov, but it ended abruptly after they criticized his writing. At that time he became indirectly involved in a revolutionary movement, for which he was arrested in 1849, convicted of treason and sentenced to death. His execution was scheduled for a freezing winter day in St. Petersburg, and at the appointed hour he was blindfolded and ordered to stand before the firing squad, waiting to be shot. The execution was called off at the last minute, however, and his sentence was commuted to a prison term and exile in Siberia, where his health declined amid increased epileptic seizures. After serving ten years in prison and exile, he regained his title in the nobility and returned to St. Petersburg with permission from the Tsar. He abandoned his formerly liberal views and became increasingly conservative and religious. That, however, didn't stop him from developing an acute gambling problem, and he accumulated massive gambling debts.
In 1862, after returning from his first major tour of Western Europe, Dostoevsky wrote that "Russia needs to be reformed, by learning the new ideas that are developing in Europe." On his next trip to Europe, in 1863, he spent all of his money on a manipulative woman, A. Suslova, went on a losing gambling spree, returned home flat broke and sank into a depression. At that time he wrote "Notes from Underground" (1864), preceding existentialism in literature. His first wife died in 1864, after six years of a childless marriage, and he adopted her son from her previous marriage. Painful experiences caused him to fall further into depression, but it was during this period that he wrote what many consider his finest work: "Crime and Punishment" (1866).
After completion of "The Gambler" (1867), the 47-year-old Dostoevsky married his loyal friend and literary secretary, 20-year-old Anna Snitkina, and they had four children. His first baby died at three months of age, causing him to sink further into depression and triggering more epileptic seizures. At that time Dostoevsky expressed his disillusionment with the Utopian ideas in his novels "The Idiot" (1868) and "The Devils" (aka "The Possessed") (1871), where the "devils" are destructive people, such as revolutionaries and terrorists. Dostoevsky was the main speaker at the opening of the monument to Alexander Pushkin in 1880, calling Pushkin a "wandering Russian, searching for universal happiness". In his final great novel, "The Brothers Karamazov" (1880), Dostoevsky revealed the components of his own split personality, depicted in four main characters; humble monk Alyosha, compulsive gambler Dmitri, rebellious intellectual Ivan, and their cynical father Fyodor Karamazov.
Dostoevsky died on February 9, 1881, of a lung hemorrhage caused by emphysema and epileptic seizures. He lived his entire life under the pall of epilepsy, much like the mythical "Sword of Damocles", and was fearless in telling the truth. His writings are an uncanny reflection on his own life - the fate of a genius in Russia.Writer- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Boris Barnet was born on 18 June 1902 in Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and actor, known for The Adventures of the Three Reporters (1926), Secret Agent (1947) and Okraina (1933). He was married to Yelena Kuzmina, Natalia Glan, Alla Kazanskaya and Valentina Barnet. He died on 8 January 1965 in Riga, Latvian SSR, USSR [now Latvia].Director