Beatrice Vitoldi (December 15, 1895 – November 1939) was a Soviet film actress born in 1895 in

Salerno Salerno (, ; ; ) is an ancient city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Campania, southwestern Italy, and is the capital of the namesake province, being the second largest city in the region by number of inhabitants, after Naples. It is located ...

, Italy. Vitoldi is most famous for her only film role as the mother with the baby carriage in the Eisenstein film ''

The Battleship Potemkin '' Battleship Potemkin'' (, ), sometimes rendered as ''Battleship Potyomkin'', is a 1925 Soviet silent epic film produced by Mosfilm. Directed and co-written by Sergei Eisenstein, it presents a dramatization of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 ...

''. When she was five, her parents emigrated to

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

where her father worked as an engineer at the Russisch-Baltischen Waggonfabrik (later also known as

Russo-Balt Russo-Balt (sometimes Russobalt or Russo-Baltique) was one of the first Russian companies that produced vehicles and aircraft between 1909 and 1923. History Riga factory The Russo-Baltic Wagon Factory (; , RBVZ) was founded in 1874 in Rig ...

). The family later moved to

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

where her father worked at a machine tool factory. Interested in both arts and politics, she met several

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

and was also introduced to

Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein; (11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist. Considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, he was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is no ...

(who incidentally also came to Saint Petersburg from Riga). Actively involved in the

Bolshevik revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was led by Vladimir L ...

, she worked later as a secretary for the

Proletkult Proletkult ( rus, Пролетку́льт, p=prəlʲɪtˈkulʲt), a portmanteau of the Russian words "proletarskaya kultura" ( proletarian culture), was an experimental Soviet artistic institution that arose in conjunction with the Russian Revol ...

organization. In 1925 in the Eisenstein film ''The Battleship Potemkin'', she played the role that made her famous in the Soviet Union. In 1931 she became a Soviet attachée in Italy. In 1937 she was recalled to Moscow where she was arrested and tried during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

. As with many victims of the purge, the exact circumstances of her death are unknown.Filmographie universelle, by Jean Mitry (in French), Publisher: Institut des hautes études cinématographiques, published in 1980, page 323-325

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vitoldi, Beatrice 1895 births 1939 deaths Soviet film actresses Italian emigrants to the Russian Empire