Vsevolod Meyerhold
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Vsevolod Emilyevich Meyerhold (russian: Всеволод Эмильевич Мейерхольд, translit=Vsévolod Èmíl'evič Mejerchól'd; born german: Karl Kasimir Theodor Meyerhold; 2 February 1940) was a Russian and Soviet
theatre director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...
,
actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...
and
theatrical producer A theatrical producer is a person who oversees all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The producer is responsible for the overall financial and managerial functions of a production or venue, raises or provides financial backing, and hire ...
. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theatre. During the
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...
, Meyerhold was arrested in June 1939. He was tortured, his wife was murdered, and he was executed on 2 February 1940.


Life and work


Early life

Vsevolod Meyerhold was born Karl Kasimir Theodor Meyerhold in
Penza Penza ( rus, Пе́нза, p=ˈpʲɛnzə) is the largest city and administrative center of Penza Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Sura River, southeast of Moscow. As of the 2010 Census, Penza had a population of 517,311, making it the 38th-la ...
on to Russian-German wine manufacturer Friedrich Emil Meyerhold and his
Baltic German Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...
wife, Alvina Danilovna (). He was the youngest of eight children.Pitches (2003, pg. 4) After completing school in 1895, Meyerhold studied law at Moscow University but never completed his degree. He was torn between studying theatre or a career as a violinist. However, he failed his audition to become the second violinist in the University orchestra and in 1896 joined the Moscow Philharmonic Dramatic School. On his 21st birthday, he converted from
Lutheranism Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
to
Orthodox Christianity Orthodoxy (from Greek: ) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion. Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Antiquity, but different Chur ...
and accepted "Vsevolod" as an Orthodox Christian name (after the Russian writer
Vsevolod Garshin Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin (russian: Всеволод Михайлович Гаршин; 14 February 1855 — 5 April 1888) was a Russian author of short stories. Life Garshin was the son of an officer, from a family tracing its roots back ...
, whose prose he loved).


Early career

Meyerhold began acting in 1896 as a student of the Moscow Philharmonic Dramatic School under the guidance of
Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko (russian: Владимир Иванович Немирович-Данченко; , Ozurgeti – 25 April 1943, Moscow), was a Soviet and Russian theatre director, writer, pedagogue, playwright, producer an ...
, co-founder with
Konstantin Stanislavsky Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski ( Alekseyev; russian: Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈgʲejɪvʲɪtɕ stənʲɪˈslafskʲɪj; 7 August 1938) was a seminal Soviet Russian ...
of the Moscow Art Theatre. At the MAT, Meyerhold played 18 roles, such as Vasiliy Shuiskiy in ''
Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich ''Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich'' (russian: Царь Фёдор Иоаннович, old orthography: Царь Ѳедоръ Іоанновичъ) is a 1868 historical drama by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy.Banham (1998, 1115) and Moser (1992, 270). It i ...
'' and Ivan the Terrible in ''
The Death of Ivan the Terrible ''The Death of Ivan the Terrible'' (russian: Смерть Иоанна Грозного, translit=Smertʹ Ioanna Groznogo) is a historical drama by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy written in 1863 and first published in the January 1866 issue of ''O ...
'' (both by Aleksey Tolstoy). In 1898, in the first successful production of Chekhov's first play, ''
The Seagull ''The Seagull'' ( rus, Ча́йка, r=Cháyka, links=no) is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. ''The Seagull'' is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatises th ...
'', Meyerhold played the lead male role, opposite Chekhov's future wife,
Olga Knipper Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova (russian: Ольга Леонардовна Книппер-Чехова, link=no; – 22 March 1959) was a Russian and Soviet stage actress. She was married to Anton Chekhov. Knipper was among the 39 o ...
. After leaving the MAT in 1902, wanting to break free of the highly naturalistic 'missing fourth wall' productions of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, Meyerhold participated in a number of theatrical projects, as both a director and actor. Each project was an arena for experiment and creation of new staging methods. Meyerhold was one of the most fervent advocates of
Symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: Arts * Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism ** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries ** Russian sym ...
in theatre, especially when he worked as the chief producer of the
Vera Komissarzhevskaya Vera Fyodorovna Komissarzhevskaya (russian: Ве́ра Фёдоровна Комиссарже́вская; 8 November 1864 – 23 February 1910) was one of the most celebrated actresses and theatre managers of the late Russian Empire. She made ...
theatre in 1906–1907. He was invited back to the MAT around this time to pursue his experimental ideas. Meyerhold continued theatrical innovation during the decade 1907–1917, while working with the imperial theatres in
St. Petersburg 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 ...
. He introduced classical plays in an innovative manner, and staged works of controversial contemporary authors like
Fyodor Sologub Fyodor Sologub (russian: Фёдор Сологу́б, born Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov, russian: Фёдор Кузьми́ч Тете́рников, also known as Theodor Sologub; – 5 December 1927) was a Russian Symbolist poet, novelist, transl ...
,
Zinaida Gippius Zinaida Nikolayevna Gippius (Hippius) (; – 9 September 1945) was a Russian poet, playwright, novelist, editor and religious thinker, one of the major figures in Russian symbolism. The story of her marriage to Dmitry Merezhkovsky, which laste ...
, and
Alexander Blok Alexander Alexandrovich Blok ( rus, Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Бло́к, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈblok, a=Ru-Alyeksandr Alyeksandrovich Blok.oga; 7 August 1921) was a Russian lyrical poet, writer, publ ...
. In these plays, Meyerhold tried to return acting to the traditions of '' Commedia dell'arte'', rethinking them for the contemporary theatrical reality. His theoretical concepts of the "conditional theatre" were elaborated in his book '' On Theatre'' in 1913.


Career under communism

On the day when the February Revolution broke out – on 25 February, under the old style calendar then used in Russia – Meyerhold's production of ''Masquerade'' by
Mikhail Lermontov Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (; russian: Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjurʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲɛrməntəf; – ) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucas ...
had a dress rehearsal at the
Alexandrinsky Theatre The Alexandrinsky Theatre (russian: Александринский театр) or National Drama Theatre of Russia is a theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The Alexandrinsky Theatre was built for the Imperial troupe of Petersburg (Imperial tr ...
, in front of an audience that included the poet
Anna Akhmatova Anna Andreyevna Gorenko rus, А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко, p=ˈanːə ɐnˈdrʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡɐˈrʲɛnkə, a=Anna Andreyevna Gorenko.ru.oga, links=yes; uk, А́нна Андрі́ївна Горе́нко, Ánna Andríyivn ...
. That evening has been described as "the last act of the tragedy of the old regime, when the Petersburg elite went to enjoy themselves at this splendidly luxurious production in the midst of the chaos and confusion."
Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, scree ...
, who was then a teenager but would later be a world-renowned film director, desperately wanted to see the production, having heard that it featured clowns, but having made his way across the city that was in the throes of a revolution was disappointed to discover that the Alexandrinsky was closed. Meyerhold was one of the first prominent Russian artists to welcome the
Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
– and one of only five out of 120 who accepted an invitation to meet the new People's Commissar for Enlightenment,
Anatoly Lunacharsky Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (russian: Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский) (born Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov, – 26 December 1933) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Bolshevik Soviet People ...
in November 1917. (Among the others were the poets Alexander Blok and
Vladimir Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...
.) He joined the
Bolshevik Party " Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...
in 1918, narrowly escaping execution when he was caught on the wrong side of the battle lines during the civil war. He became an official of the Theatre Division (TEO) of the Commissariat of Education and Enlightenment. In 1918–1919, Meyerhold formed an alliance with
Olga Kameneva Olga Davidovna Kameneva (russian: Ольга Давыдовна Каменева, uk, Ольга Давидiвна Каменева; 1883 – 11 September 1941) (née Bronstein — Бронште́йн) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and ...
, the head of the Division. Together, they tried to radicalize Russian theatres, effectively nationalizing them under Bolshevik control. Meyerhold came down with
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
in May 1919 and had to leave for the south. In his absence, the head of the Commissariat,
Anatoly Lunacharsky Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (russian: Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский) (born Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov, – 26 December 1933) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Bolshevik Soviet People ...
, secured
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 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 1 ...
's permission to revise government policy in favor of more traditional theatres and dismissed Kameneva in June 1919. After returning to Moscow, Meyerhold founded his own theatre in 1920, which was known from 1923 as the Meyerhold Theatre until 1938. Meyerhold confronted the principles of theatrical academism, claiming that they are incapable of finding a common language with the new reality. Meyerhold's methods of scenic constructivism and
circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...
-style effects were used in his most successful works of the time. Some of these works included
Nikolai Erdman Nikolai Robertovich Erdman ( rus, Николай Робертович Эрдман, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ˈrobʲɪrtəvʲɪtɕ ˈɛrdmən, a=Nikolay Robyertovich Erdman.ru.vorb.oga; , Moscow – 10 August 1970) was a Soviet dramatist and screenwriter ...
's ''The Mandate'', Mayakovsky's ''
Mystery-Bouffe ''Mystery-Bouffe'' (russian: Мистерия-Буфф; Misteriya-Buff) is a socialist dramatic play written by Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1918/1921. Mayakovsky stated in a preface to the 1921 edition that "in the future, all persons performing, pres ...
'',
Fernand Crommelynck Fernand Crommelynck (19 November 1886 – 17 March 1970) was a Belgian dramatist. His work is known for farces in which commonplace weaknesses are developed into monumental obsessions. Biography He was born into a family of actors, the child ...
's '' Le Cocu magnifique'' (''The Magnanimous Cuckold'') and Aleksandr Sukhovo-Kobylin's '' Tarelkin's Death''. Mayakovsky collaborated with Meyerhold several times, and was said to have written ''
The Bedbug ''The Bedbug'' (russian: Клоп, ') is a play by Vladimir Mayakovsky written in 1928-1929 and published originally by '' Molodaya Gvardiya'' magazine (Nos. 3 and 4, 1929), then, as a book, by Gosizdat in 1929. "The faerie comedy in nine picture ...
'' especially for him; Meyerhold continued to stage Mayakovsky's productions even after the latter's suicide.


Acting techniques

The actors participating in Meyerhold's productions acted according to the principle of ''biomechanics'' (only distantly related to the present scientific use of the term), the system of actor training that was later taught in a special school created by Meyerhold. Meyerhold's acting technique had fundamental principles at odds with the American
method actor Method ( grc, μέθοδος, methodos) literally means a pursuit of knowledge, investigation, mode of prosecuting such inquiry, or system. In recent centuries it more often means a prescribed process for completing a task. It may refer to: *Scien ...
's conception. While method acting melded the character with the actor's own personal memories to create the character's internal motivation, Meyerhold connected psychological and physiological processes. He had actors focus on learning gestures and movements as a way of expressing emotion physically. Following Konstantin Stanislavski's lead, he said that the emotional state of an actor was inextricably linked to his physical state (and vice versa), and that one could call up emotions in performance by practicing and assuming poses, gestures, and movements. He developed a number of body expressions that his actors would use to portray specific emotions and characters. (Stanislavski was also at odds with Method acting, because like Meyerhold, his approach was psychophysical.)


His influence

Meyerhold gave initial boosts to the stage careers of some of the most distinguished comic actors of the USSR, including
Sergey Martinson Sergey Alexandrovich Martinson (russian: Серге́й Александрович Мартинсон; – 2 September 1984) was a Russian eccentric comic actor, the master of pantomime, buffoonery and grotesque. He became People's Artist of t ...
,
Igor Ilyinsky Igor Vladimirovich Ilyinsky (russian: И́горь Влади́мирович Ильи́нский; 24 July 1901 – 13 January 1987) was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actor, director and comedian. Hero of Socialist Labour (1974) and People ...
and
Erast Garin Erast Pavlovich Garin (russian: Эра́ст Па́влович Га́рин; – 4 September 1980) was a Soviet and Russian actor, director and screenwriter. He was, together with Igor Ilyinsky and Sergey Martinson, one of the leading comic ...
. His landmark production of Nikolai Gogol's ''
The Government Inspector ''The Government Inspector'', also known as ''The Inspector General'' ( rus, links=no, Ревизор, Revizor, literally: "Inspector"), is a satirical play by Russian dramatist and novelist, Nikolai Gogol. Originally published in 1836, the pl ...
'' (1926) was described as the following:
Energetic, mischievous, charming Ilyinsky left his post to the nervous, fragile, suddenly freezing, grotesquely anxious Garin. Energy was replaced by trance, the dynamic with the static, happy jesting humour with bitter and glum satire.
Meyerhold also gave a start to his one time assistant of " The Queen of Spades"
Matvey Dubrovin Matvey Grigor'evich Dubrovin ( rus, Матве́й Григо́рьевич Дубро́вин, p=matveˈj grigoˈrjevich dubroˈvin, a=Ru-Matvey Dubrovin.ogg; born July 12, 1911, in Saratov, Russian Empire – died October 22, 1974, in Leningr ...
, who later created his own
theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
in
Leningrad 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 autumn 1921, Meyerhold was appointed head of the State Higher Theatre Workshops, in Moscow, where one of his first students was Sergei Eisenstein, who later wrote
The God-like, incomparable Meyerhold, I beheld him then for the first time and I was to worship him all my life.
But they fell out, apparently because Eisenstein failed to treat the older man with sufficient deference, for which he was, as he put it, "expelled from the Gates of Heaven." In his films, Eisenstein used actors who worked in Meyerhold's tradition. He also cast actors based on what they looked like and their expression, and followed Meyerhold's stylized acting methods. In ''
Strike Strike may refer to: People * Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...
'', for instance, the bourgeois are always obese, drinking, eating, and smoking, whereas the workers are more athletic. For the original production of ''The Bedbug'', in February 1929, Meyerhold hired the young Dmitri Shostakovich as a pianist. Many years later, Shostakovich reputedly recalled: "It's impossible to imagine now how popular Meyerhold was. Everyone knew him, even those who had no interest or connection with the theatre or art. In the circus, clowns always made jokes about Meyerhold. They go for instant laughs in the circus, and they wouldn't sing ditties about people the audience wouldn't recognise immediately. They even used to sell combs called Meyerhold."


Repression

In the early 1930s,
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
launched a campaign to bring Soviet artists to heel, and compel them all to observe the rules of 'socialist realism', which precluded
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
art and experimentation, and any art form reckoned to be 'formalist', in that the artist had paid more attention to the form of a work than to its political message. After Shostakovich had been singled out as being guilty of 'formalism', in January 1936, Meyerhold evidently surmised that he would soon be a target, and in March delivered a talk entitled "Meyer Against Meyerholdism" in which he said – reportedly to 'thunderous applause' – that "the path to simplicity is not an easy one. Each artist goes at his own pace, and they must not lose their distinctive way of walking... Soviet subject matter is often a smoke screen to conceal mediocrity." A year later, in April 1937, his wife, the actress Zinaida Reich, wrote Stalin a long letter alleging that her husband was the victim of a conspiracy by
Trotskyists Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a re ...
and former members of the disbanded
Russian Association of Proletarian Writers The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, also known under its transliterated abbreviation RAPP (russian: Российская ассоциация пролетарских писателей, РАПП) was an official creative union in the ...
. The letter was not answered. In December 1937, Stalin's crony, Lazar Kaganovich went to a production at the Meyerhold Theatre, and walked out in disgust. The theatre was closed, by order of the Politburo, on 7 January 1938, on the grounds that 'throughout its entire existence, the Meyerhold Theatre has been unable to free itself from thoroughly bourgeois Formalist positions', his works were proclaimed antagonistic and alien to the Soviet people.


Arrest and death

The ailing Stanislavsky, who was the director of an opera theatre now known as
Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre The Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre (russian: Московский академический Музыкальный театр имени народных артистов К. С. Станиславског ...
, invited Meyerhold to be his assistant – an invitation that surprised many in Moscow, given their long standing artistic differences. Stanislavsky died soon afterwards, in August 1938. His dying wish was "Take care of Meyerhold; he is my sole heir in the theatre – here or anywhere else." Meyerhold directed his theatre for nearly a year, and was engaged with producing the première of
Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, ...
's ''
Semyon Kotko ''Semyon Kotko'' (russian: Семён Котко), Op. 81, is an opera in five acts by Sergei Prokofiev to a libretto by Sergei Prokofiev and Valentin Katayev based on Katayev's 1937 novel ''I, Son of Working People'' (russian: Я, сын труд ...
'', when he was instructed that he was to choreograph a spectacle in Leningrad, involving 30,000 athletes. On 17 June 1939, he addressed a conference of theatre directors, in the presence of
Andrey Vyshinsky Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky (russian: Андре́й Януа́рьевич Выши́нский; pl, Andrzej Wyszyński) ( – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat. He is known as a state prosecutor of Joseph ...
, the state prosecutor who had presided over the infamous Moscow show trials. His speech was not reported in the Soviet press, giving rise to a report that he had declared, defiantly:
If what you have been doing with the Soviet theatre recently is what you call anti-formalism, if you consider what is now taking place on the stages of the best theatres in Moscow as an achievement of the Soviet theatre, then I would prefer to be what you consider a formalist... in hunting formalism, you have eliminated art.
This is from a version of the speech written up later by the emigre musician Yuri Yelagin, from notes he said that he made at the conference – but its accuracy is disputed. After the speech, he returned to Leningrad, and was arrested on arrival, on 20 June 1939. Shortly afterwards, intruders broke into his flat and repeatedly stabbed his wife,
Zinaida Reich Zinaida Nikolayevna Reich (the last name also spelled Raikh or Raih; russian: Зинаида Николаевна Райх; – 15 July 1939) was a Russian actress and one of the main stars of the Meyerhold Theatre until it was closed under Jose ...
, who died from her injuries. Taken to NKVD headquarters in Moscow, and placed in the hands of the notorious torturer,
Lev Shvartzman Lev Leonidovich (Aronovich) Shvartzman (russian: Лев Леони́дович (Аронович) Шва́рцман; 25 July 1907 13 May 1955) was a Soviet MGB officer, notorious for his brutality, who was executed for using torture to extract ...
, Meyerhold broke down and confessed to being a British and Japanese spy. In his final days, he wrote a letter to the head of the Soviet government
Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
, which was retained in police files, where it was discovered after the dissolution of the USSR by the journalist Vitaly Shentalinsky. In it, he wrote: He was sentenced to death by firing squad on 1 February 1940, and executed the next day. The Soviet Supreme Court cleared him of all charges in 1955, during the first wave of de-Stalinization.


Marriage and family

Meyerhold married his first wife, Olga Munt, in 1896 and together they had three daughters. He later met the actress Zinaida Reich when she began studying with him. They fell in love and he divorced his wife; Reich was already divorced and had two children of her own. They married in 1922 or 1924.


Bibliography


Texts by Meyerhold

* '' Meyerhold on Theatre'', trans. and ed. by Edward Braun, with a critical commentary, 1969. London: Methuen and New York: Hill and Wang. * ''Meyerhold Speaks/Meyerhold Rehearses (Russian Theatre Archive)'', by V. Meyerhold, Alexander Gladkov (ed.) and Alma Law (ed.), Routledge, 1996 * ''Meyerhold at Work'', Paul Schmidt (ed.), Applause Theatre Book Publishers, 1996


Works on Meyerhold

* ''Vsevolod Meyerhold'' (Routledge Performance Practitioners Series), by Jonathan Pitches, Routledge, 2003 * ''Meyerhold: The art of conscious theater'', by Marjorie L Hoover,
University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts a ...
, 1974 (biography) * ''Vsevolod Meyerhold'' (Directors in Perspective Series), by Robert Leach, Christopher Innes (ed.), Cambridge University Press, 1993 * ''Meyerhold's Theatre of the Grotesque: Post-revolutionary Productions, 1920–32'', James M. Symons, 1971 * ''Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre'', by Edward Braun, University of Iowa Press, 1998 * ''The Theatre of Meyerhold: Revolution and the Modern Stage'' by Edward Braun, 1995 * ''Stanislavsky and Meyerhold'' (Stage and Screen Studies, v. 3), by Robert Leach, Peter Lang, 2003 * ''Meyerhold the Director'', by Konstantin Rudnitsky, Ardis, 1981 * ''Meyerhold, Eisenstein and Biomechanics: Actor Training in Revolutionary Russia'' by Alma H. Law, Mel Gordon, McFarland & co, 1995 * ''The Death of Meyerhold'' A play by Mark Jackson, premiered at The Shotgun Players, Berkeley, CA, December 2003. * ''The Theater of Meyerhold and Brecht'', by Katherine B. Eaton, Greenwood Press,1985 * ''Meyerhold and the Music Theater'', by Isaak Glikman, 'Soviet Composer', Leningrad, 1989 * ''Vsevolod Meyerhold Annotated Bibliography'', by David Roy, LTScotland, 2002 * ''Stanislavsky in Practice: Actor Training in Post-Soviet Russia'' (Artists & Issues in the Theatre, Vol. 16) by Vreneli Farber, Peter Lang, 2008 (Meyerhold's ideas applied in post-Soviet actor training)


See also

*
Nikolay Okhlopkov Nikolay Pavlovich Okhlopkov (russian: Никола́й Па́влович Охло́пков; 15 May 1900, in Irkutsk – 8 January 1967, in Moscow), was a Soviet and Russian actor and theatre director who patterned his work after Meyerhold. Pat ...
*
Michael Chekhov Mikhail Aleksandrovich Chekhov (russian: Михаил Александрович Чехов; 29 August 1891 – 30 September 1955), known as Michael Chekhov, was an American actor, director, author and theatre practitioner. He was a nephew ...
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Yevgeny Vakhtangov Yevgeny Bagrationovich Vakhtangov (also spelled Evgeny or Eugene; russian: Евге́ний Багратио́нович Вахта́нгов; 13 February 1883 – 29 May 1922) was a Russian-Armenian actor and theatre director who founded the ...
* Sergei Mikhailovich Tretyakov * Andrei Droznin * Center of Theatrical Arts «House of Meyerhold» at
Penza Penza ( rus, Пе́нза, p=ˈpʲɛnzə) is the largest city and administrative center of Penza Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Sura River, southeast of Moscow. As of the 2010 Census, Penza had a population of 517,311, making it the 38th-la ...


References


External links


Meyerhold's Boris Godunov

Meyerhold
in the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''
Meyerhold Memorial Museum



Meyerhold's Biomechanics, Etudes, Training

Theatre Biomechanics as a Rehearsal Method







Moscow Meyerhold Theatre


* ttp://www.russianartandbooks.com/cgi-bin/russianart/Mis00006.html Meyerhold in Russian periodicals {{DEFAULTSORT:Meyerhold, Vsevolod 1874 births Russian people of German descent 1940 deaths People from Penza People from Penzensky Uyezd People from the Russian Empire of Dutch descent Bolsheviks Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Lutheranism Russian theatre directors Russian acting theorists Russian male stage actors Modernist theatre Theatre practitioners Russian communists Deaths by firearm in Russia Soviet rehabilitations Burials at Donskoye Cemetery Soviet theatre directors