Oleksandr-Zenon Kurbas Stepanovich

Les Kurbas (full name - Oleksandr-Zenon Stepanovich Kurbas; February 25, 1887, Sambir, Kingdom of Galicia and Volodymyria, Austria-Hungary - November 3, 1937, Sandarmok, Karelian ASSR, RSFSR, USSR) is an outstanding Ukrainian director, actor, theater theorist, playwright, publicist, translator. A representative of the shot revival. People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1925). Founder of the "Berezil" theater. A victim of Stalinist repressions.

Biography

Les Kurbas was born on February 25, 1887 in the city of Sambir, in the family of Galician theater actors Stepan and Wanda Kurbas. From childhood, he received a good education, in particular, he studied at the Ternopil Gymnasium and Lviv University, where he actively fought for Ukrainianization. Later, he transferred to the University of Vienna, where he studied at the Faculty of Philosophy and listened to lectures on Slavic studies. He graduated from the drama school at the Vienna Conservatory.

After returning to Halychyna, he worked at the Hnat Hotkevich Theater and "Ruska Besida". In 1915, he founded the first stationary Ukrainian professional theater "Ternopil Theater Evenings" in Ternopil. In 1916, he moved to Kyiv at the invitation of Mykola Sadovsky and began working at the Sadovsky Theater, where he organized a studio of young actors, which grew out of the Young Theater.

In 1919, he worked as a director of the Kyiv Opera Theater "Musical Drama". In 1920, he founded the theater group "Kyidramte", which began its tour in the cities of the Kyiv region. Kurbas was the founder of the political and philosophical theater in Ukraine. In his performances at the "Berezil" theater (Kharkiv), he painted a universe where the main thing is a special trust in human life in all its contradictions.

Creative collaboration of Kurbas with playwright Mykola Kulish and artist Vadym Meller was the culmination of his achievements. However, his innovative approaches were not always understood by Soviet critics, and accusations of "gloominess" and distortion of Soviet reality led to conflicts. On October 5, 1933, he was dismissed from the position of artistic director of the "Berezil" theater on charges of nationalism.

On October 6, 1933, Kurbas went to Moscow, where he worked as a director of the Maly Theater for several months. In December 1933, he was arrested and imprisoned on charges of participation in a counter-revolutionary organization. After lengthy interrogations and confessions, he was transferred to the Solovetsky camp, where he created a theater and staged plays. On November 3, 1937, Kurbas was shot in the Sandarmoh tract.

Performances at the "Berezil" theater

• "October", collective text, 1922
• "Ruhr", collective text, 1923
• Kaiser's "Gas", 1923
• Jimmy Higgins by Sinclair, 1923
• "Haydamaki" after Shevchenko, 1924
• Macbeth by Shakespeare, 1924
• "On the Eve" by Popovsky, 1925
• "Golden Belly" Crommelinka, 1926
• "Prologue" by Bondarchuk and Kurbas, 1927
• "People's Malachy" Kulish, 1928
• "Mina Mazailo" by Kulish, 1929
• Mykytenko's "dictatorship", 1930
• "The Birth of a Giant", collective text, 1931
• Moliere's "Monsieur de Poursagnac", 1933
• "Maclean Gras" Kulish, 1933

Filmography

Director

• 1924 - "Vendetta"
• 1924 - "McDonald"
• 1925 - Arsenal

Art director

• 1924 — "Tovstopuzenko's Dream"