Alexander Nikolayevich Afinogenov (russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Афиноге́нов) (, Skopin – 29 October 1941,

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

) was a Russian and Soviet

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

Biography

Alexander was born in the town of Skopin, in

Ryazan Oblast Ryazan Oblast ( rus, Рязанская область, r=Ryazanskaya oblast, p=rʲɪˈzanskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Ryazan, which is the oblast's largest city. Geo ...

. He joined the

CPSU " 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 1922. He obtained a degree in journalism in 1924, the year that he published his first play. In the 1920s he was a member and later director of the Proletkult's theatre. He turned away from the Proletkult in the late 1920s, and became in the early 1930s the chief drama theoretician of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers. He wrote 26 plays, but he is best known for ''Fear'' (1931) and ''Mashenka'' (1941). His work was attacked in 1936 and he was expelled from the CPSU in 1937, but he was never purged, and was rehabilitated in 1938. He continued writing until his death in a German air raid in 1941. He was married with American ballerina Jenny Marling (Schwartz). Her first husband was John Bovingdon.

Works

His play ''Crank'' (Чудак) satirises bureaucracy,

protectionism Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulation ...

, and

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

. It was produced by the Second Moscow Art Theatre in 1929, in a production that featured Azarii Azarin as Volgin, Serafima Birman as Troshchina, and Sophia Giatsintova as Sima. His later plays ''Fear'' (Страх, 1931) and ''A Far Place'' (Далекое, 1935) were very popular with audiences; "he is distinguished among Soviet playwrights for his interest in personal psychological problems."

References

Sources

* Solovyova, Inna. 1999. "The Theatre and Socialist Realism, 1929-1953." Trans. Jean Benedetti. In ''A History of Russian Theatre.'' Ed. Robert Leach and Victor Borovsky. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 325-357. .

External links

article on Afinogenov
1904 births 1941 deaths People from Skopin Russian dramatists and playwrights Russian male dramatists and playwrights Soviet dramatists and playwrights Soviet male writers 20th-century Russian male writers Soviet theatre directors Expelled members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Soviet civilians killed in World War II Deaths by airstrike during World War II {{Russia-writer-stub