Lenin Mikhail Frantsevich (real name Ignatyuk) is a famous Soviet drama artist, one of the greatest actors of the Soviet theater. Holder of the title "People's Artist of the RSFSR".
Biography
The future artist was born in March 1880 on the fourth in the city of Kiev. Father, Franz Ignatyuk, is a Pole by birth, and his surname is Ignatovich, but accidentally, when entering military service, it was distorted, and so they left it. Franz Grigorievich's wife, Mikhail's mother, is Ukrainian. Polish-Ukrainian marriages were quite widespread in the pre-revolutionary period both on the territory of Ukraine and on the territory of Poland.
Mikhail did not have special physical data and was not drawn to sports. But from an early age he loved to act out small scenes and participate in productions. The future artist studied at the Real School (educational institutions in pre-revolutionary Russia with a bias in natural sciences). From the age of sixteen he began to take part in school performances, one of his first roles was Albert in an amateur production of "The Covetous Knight". The young actor quickly realized that he had a talent for reincarnation and even came up with a creative pseudonym for himself, which, however, did not last long - the surname Mikhailov.
In 1899, the aspiring actor went to Moscow to enter the Maly Theater. He chose The Dying Gladiator as his examination paper. The sluggish and sometimes indistinct reading did not impress the commission, but among the examiners was Alexander Lensky, who decided to give the guy a second chance. Lenin was offered to play the role of an impostor in the famous "scene at the fountain" from Pushkin's drama "Boris Godunov". He coped with this work more than well and was accepted into training.
Career
In 1902, Mikhail completed his studies and became one of the members of the troupe of the Moscow Maly Theater. There, on the recommendation of his teacher, the artist introduced himself as Lenin, taking the name of his first wife, Lenochka, who taught French at Shchepkin's school. After working for several years, he moved to the State Theater, and then to the Korsha Russian Drama Theater. In 1923, the artist returned to the Maly Theater, in which, with short breaks, and work until the end of his life.
Lenin was always intelligent, bright and cheerful, living in his own world, saturated with the most interesting images, always tried to find something bright and good in any situation. For each role, he prepared carefully, studying to the subtleties the history, life, customs, culture and costumes of the time in which his character lived. And therefore Boris Godunov or Bogdan Khmelnitsky performed by Lenin are still canonical examples of theatrical art.
He knew old Moscow perfectly, and his friends, who traveled with him around the capital, said that the artist knew how to turn a long journey into an interesting excursion. Mikhail Frantsevich was an ardent admirer of Pushkin and the era in which the great poet lived, knew how to tell about those times in such a way that he himself seemed to be a living witness of those events.
There are legends about his work, and Mikhail Lenin is also a character in many theatrical tales. Here, for example, one of them: they say that in about the eighteenth year, Mikhail Frantsevich placed an advertisement in a Moscow newspaper, in which he asked not to confuse him with a political adventurer who had appropriated his pseudonym.
During the Great Patriotic War, the theater was moved to Chelyabinsk, where the work did not stop for a minute. Living in evacuation in a hotel with his wife, Mikhail Frantsevich began every day with the morning newspaper … Leafing through the filings of Moskovskiye Vedomosti for 1913 and energetically sharing the news of that day, but of that old year, with those around him.
In political studies, Lenin often sneered at the Soviet leadership, but he did it so subtly that he got away with rather risky jokes. For example, when asked what position Stalin occupied, the artist replied that he was the chairman of many responsible movements and cataclysms, for which he received a credit.
A rather skeptical attitude towards the "party policy" did not prevent the eminent artist from being a real patriot and closely following the development of events at the front. He told his friends that the country that gave the world such people as Chaliapin and Pushkin could never be conquered by anyone.
In April 1942, Lenin personally supervised the recruitment of front-line brigades, and also selected the repertoire for them. In May of the same year, Mikhail Frantsevich's troupe gave 48 concerts on the front line of the Moscow and Northwestern districts. Lenin and his associates donated most of their earnings to the Defense Fund.
Personal life death
The famous Soviet artist was married twice. Elena Aleksandrovna Lenina became the first chosen one of Lenin. It was she who "gave" her surname to the famous theater-goer, even before Vladimir Ilyich appeared on the political stage of Russia and went through many trials alongside the famous husband. In marriage, they had two children: a son, Igor Mikhailovich, and a daughter, Alla Mikhailovna. The second wife was Anna Matveevna Kuznetsova.
In recent years, the great actor wrote memoirs in which he gave many vivid characteristics to famous theatrical figures and touched on the history of Russia. His book is an excellent theatrical reference book of the Soviet period. Mikhail Frantsevich passed away at the age of seventy, on January 9, 1951. He developed a transient form of tuberculosis, which he could not cope with. He was buried in the city of Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
