Aleksei Nikolayevich Arbuzov (russian: Алексей Николаевич Арбузов) (April 20, 1986) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

playwright.

Biography

Arbuzov was born in Moscow, but his family moved to

Petrograd Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

in 1914. His father was

and his mother was

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

. Orphaned at the age of eleven, he found salvation in the theatre, and at fourteen he began to work in the

Mariinsky Theatre The Mariinsky Theatre ( rus, Мариинский театр, Mariinskiy teatr, also transcribed as Maryinsky or Mariyinsky) is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music th ...

. In 1928 he joined a group of young actors in the Guild of Experimental Drama; after its dissolution he joined a traveling

agitprop Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred to ...

theater for which he began to write plays. He moved to Moscow in 1930; in 1935 he wrote the play ''Dal'nyaya doroga'' (A long road) and in 1939 ''Tanya'', his two most successful plays. Avril Pyman writes of him, "The charm of his work lies in his shrewd but affectionate attitude to his fellow-man; he sees through human foibles to the basic desire to lead a good and useful life, and creates plausible, even likeable, 'positive' characters." Several of Arbuzov's plays deal with personal transformation and redemption within a Soviet context. In ''Tanya'' (1939), a woman whose life is shattered by the death of her husband finally finds meaning and purpose serving the sick in a Siberian village. ''An Irkutsk Story'' (1960) describes how the shallow and hedonistic life of 25-year-old Valya is transformed by the love of Sergei, foreman of an excavator crew building a dam in Siberia. Following the death of Sergei in a drowning accident, she finds new meaning in joining the construction crew and raising her children. This affectionate immersion into the emotional lives of his characters brought rebukes from some Soviet literary critics. For example, Dmitry Shcheglov wrote, "Upon turning to a play by Arbuzov, we are engulfed in a pleasant atmosphere of universal love, nobility, and friendship; however, these fine feelings fail to guide us, to mobilize us, or to direct our minds and thoughts toward a great goal." Arbuzov's characters embrace the communist ideal of working to build a

classless society The term classless society refers to a society in which no one is born into a social class. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievement ...

, but it is the celebration of their personal struggles that endeared Arbuzov to Soviet audiences.Roberts, S. ''Introduction to An Irkutsk Story'' (Pitman Publishing, 1963) p. vii.

References

External links

Biography of the playwright Aleksei Arbuzov
at Alice in Theaterland 1908 births 1986 deaths 20th-century Russian male writers Writers from Moscow Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the USSR State Prize Russian people of Greek descent Socialist realism writers Russian dramatists and playwrights Russian male writers Soviet dramatists and playwrights Soviet male writers {{Russia-writer-stub Burials at Kuntsevo Cemetery