Itzik Feffer, Albert Einstein and Solomon Mikhoels 1943

Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels ( yi, שלמה מיכאעלס lso spelled שלוימע מיכאעלס during the Soviet era russian: Cоломон (Шлойме) Михоэлс, – 13 January 1948) was a Latvian born

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish actor and the artistic director of the

Moscow State Jewish Theater The Moscow State Jewish (Yiddish) Theatre (Russian: Московский Государственный Еврейский Театр; Yiddish: Moskver melukhnisher yidisher teater), also known by its acronym GOSET (ГОСЕТ), was a Yiddish theat ...

. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the

Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, ''Yevreysky antifashistsky komitet'' yi, יידישער אנטי פאשיסטישער קאמיטעט, ''Yidisher anti fashistisher komitet''., abbreviated as JAC, ''YeAK'', was an organization that was created i ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. However, as

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 ...

pursued an increasingly anti-Jewish line after the War, Mikhoels's position as a leader of the Jewish community led to increasing persecution from the Soviet state. He was assassinated in

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

in 1948 by order of Stalin.

Early life

Born Shloyme Vovsi in Dvinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia), Mikhoels studied law in

Saint 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 ...

, but left school in 1918 to join Alexis Granowsky's Jewish Theater Workshop, which was attempting to create a national Jewish theater in Russia in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

. The workshop moved to Moscow in 1920, where it established the

. That was in keeping with

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 policy on nationalities, which encouraged them to pursue and to develop their own cultures under the aegis of the Soviet state.

Theatrical career

Mikhoels was the company's leading actor and, as of 1928, its director.Leftwich, Joseph (2007). "Solomon Mikhailovich Mikhoels". ''Encyclopaedia Judaica''. 2nd ed. Macmillan Reference USA. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, 2016-12-16. His memorable roles included Tevye in an adaptation of

Sholom Aleichem ) , birth_date = , birth_place = Pereiaslav, Russian Empire , death_date = , death_place = New York City, U.S. , occupation = Writer , nationality = , period = , genre = Novels, sh ...

's novel ''

Tevye the Milkman Tevye the Dairyman, also translated as Tevye the Milkman ( yi, טבֿיה דער מילכיקער, ''Tevye der milkhiker'' ) is the fictional narrator and protagonist of a series of short stories by Sholem Aleichem, and various adaptations of th ...

'' (which was adapted for an American audience as '' Fiddler on the Roof'') and the title role in a Yiddish translation of Shakespeare's ''

King Lear ''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane ...

'', in 1935.Wasserstein, Bernard (2012).
On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War
'. New York:

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...

. . p. 292. As a director he commissioned a new ''Bar Kochba'', written by Shmuel Halkin, which the company successfully staged as a socialist turn on the traditional story. These plays were ostensibly supportive of the Soviet state; however, the historian Jeffrey Veidlinger has argued that closer readings suggest that they actually contained veiled critiques of

's regime and assertions of Jewish national identity. It is now believed that the Ukrainian director Les Kurbas contributed to the original ''King Lear'' production after he was ousted from his Berezil Theater in 1934. He seems to have had a lasting influence on Mikhoel's directing style.

Antifascist activities

By the mid-1930s, Mikhoels's career was threatened because of his association with other leading intelligentsia members who were victims of Stalin's

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 ...

. On August 24, 1941, Mikhoels led a gathering of thousands in central Moscow's Gorky Park. It was explicitly a Jewish rally and aimed to raise funds for the Soviet war effort from the international Jewish community. Speakers included the writer David Bergelson. Mikhoels actively supported Stalin against

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

and, in 1942, was made the chairman of the

. In that capacity, he travelled around the world and met with Jewish communities to encourage them to support the Soviet Union in its war against

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. That was useful to Stalin during

, but after the war, Stalin opposed contacts between Soviet Jews and Jewish communities in noncommunist countries, particularly Mikhoels' aims of establishing

Jewish autonomy in Crimea Jewish autonomy in Crimea was a project in the Soviet Union to create an autonomous region for Jews in the Crimean peninsula carried out during the 1920s and 1930s. Following the WWII and the creation of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Fa ...

, which he regarded as a plot by American capitalists. The Jewish State Theater was closed, and the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested. All but two were eventually executed in the purges shortly before Stalin's death.

Death

Mikhoels died in

in January 1948. Some sources claim that he was assassinated on Stalin's personal orders, and his death was disguised as a

hit-and-run In traffic laws, a hit and run or a hit-and-run is the act of causing a traffic collision and not stopping afterwards. It is considered a supplemental crime in most jurisdictions. Additional obligation In many jurisdictions, there may be an ...

car accident. Mikhoels was allegedly taken to a Ministry for State Security (MGB)

dacha A dacha ( rus, дача, p=ˈdatɕə, a=ru-dacha.ogg) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of post-Soviet countries, including Russia. A cottage (, ') or shack serving as a family's main or only home, or an outbu ...

and killed, along with the theatre critic and MGB informer Golubov-Potapov, under supervision of Deputy Minister of State Security

Sergei Ogoltsov Sergei Ivanovich Ogoltsov (russian: Сергей Иванович Огольцов; 29 August 1900 – 30 December 1976

Robert Conquest George Robert Acworth Conquest (15 July 1917 – 3 August 2015) was a British historian and poet. A long-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Conquest was most notable for his work on the Soviet Union. His books ...

, ''Reflections on a Ravaged Century''. Norton, (2000) , page 101 and run over by a truck. However, after his death Mikhoels was praised in a ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...

'' obituary and accorded a state funeral, with prominent members of the party and government officials among the mourners. He was buried at the New Donskoy Cemetery, in Moscow.Vovsi-Mikhoels, Natalia, ''Mon père Salomon Mikhoëls. Souvenirs sur sa vie et sur sa mort''. Montricher: Les Editions Noir sur Blanc, (1990) , page 101

Family

Solomon Mikhoels Postal card Russia 2015

Mikhoels was married to Anastasia Pototskaya, a Russian of Polish descent. He had two daughters from his first marriage to Sara Kantor, Nina and Natalya Vovsi. Mikhoels' cousin Miron Vovsi was a famous physician. He was arrested during the

Doctors' plot The "Doctors' plot" affair, group=rus was an alleged conspiracy of prominent Soviet medical specialists to murder leading government and party officials. It was also known as the case of saboteur doctors or killer doctors. In 1951–1953, a gr ...

affair but released after Stalin's death in 1953, as was Mikhoels' son-in-law, the Polish-born composer

Mieczysław Weinberg Mieczysław Weinberg (8 December 1919 – 26 February 1996) was a Polish-born Soviet composer and pianist. Names Much confusion has been caused by different renditions of the composer's names. In official Polish documents made before he mov ...

. In 1983, Mikhoels' daughter, Natalia Vovsi-Mikoels, wrote a biography of her father: ''My Father Shlomo Mikhoels: The Life and Death of a Jewish Actor''.

Ranks and awards

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration ...

* People's Artist of the USSR *

Stalin Prize Stalin Prize may refer to: * The State Stalin Prize in science and engineering and in arts, awarded 1941 to 1954, later known as the USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, ...

Laureate

References

External links

Mikhoels, Solomon
yivoencyclopedia.org * *
Виктор Левашов. Убийство Михоэлса
at lib.ru
Video Lecture on Solomon Mikhoels by Dr. Henry Abramson of Touro College South
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mikhoels, Solomon 1890 births 1948 deaths Actors from Daugavpils People from Dvinsky Uyezd Latvian Jews Jewish male actors People's Artists of the USSR Soviet theatre directors Soviet Jews Jewish socialists Jewish anti-fascists Jews executed by the Soviet Union Yiddish theatre performers Stalin Prize winners People murdered in the Soviet Union Soviet male stage actors People killed in Soviet intelligence operations Burials at Donskoye Cemetery