Michurina-Samoylova V.A., (1866-1948), actress

Categories / Art/Music, Theatre/Personalia
MICHURINA-SAMOYLOVA Vera Arkadievna (1866-1948), actress, People's Artist of the USSR (1939). Daughter of V.V. Samoylova. Performed first under her father's name, Michurina, then in 1921 as Michurina-Samoylova. Studied acting technique under her aunt, N.V. Samoylova. From 1885, she was an amateur actor, and in 1886 joined the company of the Alexandrinsky Theatre (from 1920, the Academic Drama Theatre, from 1937 the Alexander Pushkin Drama Theatre). Her main stage forte, as she put it, was "coquettes and courtesans," intriguers and vamps, elegant, smart, but deceitful salon queens. She was attracted by the irony of a "double performance": Reneva in Shines but Gives out no Warmth by A.N. Ostrovsky, Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard by A.P. Chekhov, and others. An acknowledged master of detailed and meticulous character development, she created many lyrical characters, including Portia in The Merchant of Venice by W. Shakespeare, Sofia in Woe from Wit by A.S. Griboedov, and Natalya Petrovna in A Month in the Country by I.S. Turgenev. During the Soviet years, the irony of Michurina-Samoylova's acting gave way to a sarcasm and acute social characterisation: Mrs. Cheveley in An Ideal Husband by O. Wilde, Ogudalova in The Portionless Bride, Gurmyzhskaya in The Forest by Ostrovsky, and others. She acted in plays by Soviet playwrights, including M. Gorky, B.S. Romashov, V.V. Ivanov, and K.A. Trenev. After October 1917, she was a member of the Provisional Committee of the Alexandrinsky Theatre. During the Siege, Michurina-Samoylova stayed in Leningrad, acting as the chairman of the Leningrad Department of All-Union Theatre Society (see Union of Theatre Workers), and worked on the radio. From 1918, she headed the School of Russian Drama (see Drama School). She wrote the memoirs, Half a Century on the Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre (Leningrad, 1935), and Sixty Years in Art (Leningrad, Moscow; 1946). Received the Stalin Prize in 1943. In 1917-48, she lived at 2 Zodchego Rossi Street (memorial plaque installed). Buried at Necropolis of Artists.

References: Мичурина-Самойлова В. А. Пятьдесят лет артистической деятельности, 1886-1936. Л., 1936; Державин К. Н. Вера Аркадьевна Мичурина-Самойлова. М.; Л., 1948.

A. A. Kirillov. Chekhov Anton Pavlovich
Gorky Maxim (Alexey Maximovich Peshkov)
Griboedov Alexander Sergeevich
Ivanov Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich
Michurina-Samoilova Vera Arkadievna
Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolaevich
Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich
Romashov Boris Sergeevich
Samoylova Nadezhda Vasilievna
Samoylova Vera Vasilievna
Shakespeare William
Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) Iosif Vissarionovich
Trenev Konstantin Andreevich
Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich
Wilde Oscar
Zodchego Rossi Street/Saint Petersburg, city, house 2
Державин К. Н. Вера Аркадьевна Мичурина-Самойлова. М.; Л., 1948
Мичурина-Самойлова В. А. 50 лет артистической деятельности, 1886–1936. Л., 1936 Alexandrinsky Theatre
Siege of 1941-44
Necropolis of Artists
Theatre Workers of the Russian Federation, Union of
Theatre College