Ilia Sudakov

Born July 20 (Aug. 1), 1890, in Moscow; died there Sept. 1, 1969. Soviet theater director. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1938). Member of the CPSU from 1940.

Sudakov became an actor and director at the Second Studio of the Moscow Art Theater (MKhT) in 1916 and at the Moscow Art Academic Theater (MKhAT) in 1924. His productions included Bulgakov’s Days of the Turbins (1926) and Ivanov’s Armored Train 14–69 (1927, with N. N. Litovtseva; both plays staged under the artistic direction of K. S. Stanislavsky), Afinogenov’s Fear (1931), and Korneichuk’s Platon Krechet (1935).

From 1933 to 1937, Sudakov headed the Working Youth Theater in Moscow. From 1937 to 1944 he was principal director and artistic director of the Malyi Theater, where he staged Gutzkow’s Uriel Acosta (1940), Gorky’s The Barbarians (1941; with K. A. Zubov), Korneichuk’s The Front (1942), and Leonov’s Invasion (1943).

Sudakov also worked at the Film Actors’ Theater-Studio. From 1946 to 1948 he was with MKhAT, and from 1948 to 1952 he headed the Central Theater of Transportation. Between 1930 and 1956 he was a professor at the State Institute of Theatrical Arts. He also acted in films.

Sudakov was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1942 and 1951. He received two orders of the Red Banner of Labor and several medals.