Aleksei Nikolayevich Arbuzov (; April 20, 1986) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

playwright.

Biography

Arbuzov was born in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, but his family moved to

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

in 1914. His father was

and his mother was

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

. 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 (, also transcribed as Maryinsky or Mariyinsky) is a historic opera house in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th-century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces ...

. 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 , portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in the Soviet Union where it referred to popular media, such as literatu ...

theater for which he began to write plays. He moved to Moscow in 1930; in 1935 he wrote the play ''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 in 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 A classless society is a society in which no one is born into a social class like in a class society. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience an ...

, 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 Soviet dramatists and playwrights Soviet male writers {{Russia-writer-stub Burials at Kuntsevo Cemetery