Klavdiia Nikolaevna Elanskaia

Born Sept. 11 (23), 1898, in Enotaevsk, in present-day Astrakhan’ Oblast. Soviet Russian actress; People’s Artist of the USSR (1948). Member of the CPSU since 1951.

Elanskaia joined the Second Studio of the Moscow Art Theater in 1920, and in 1924, the Moscow Art Theater. With a highly dramatic talent to convey the heroines’ noble impulses, Elanskaia played many of the roles of the classical Russian dramatic repertoire. Among these were Parasha (Fiery Heart by Ostrovskii), Katiusha Maslova (Resurrection by L. N. Tolstoy), Katerina (The Thunderstorm by Ostrovskii), Tsarina Irina (Tsar Fedor loannovich by A. K. Tolstoy), and Olga (Three Sisters by Chekhov). Her roles from the contemporary repertoire include the title role in Trenev’s Liubov’ larovaia, Mariia Nikolaevna (The Russian People by Simonov), Shchelkanova (The Golden Carriage by Leonov), and Mother Superior Melan’ia (Egor Bulychov and the Others by Gorky). Elanskaia received the State Prize of the USSR in 1952. She has been awarded two orders as well as medals.