Kuznetsov, Mikhail Prokopevich

Born Sept. 2 (15), 1913, in Petrovsk-ZabaikaPskii, now in Chita Oblast. Soviet Russian actor; People’s Artist of the USSR (1971).

Kuznetsov began his stage career in amateur productions. He was invited to join the Irkutsk Young People’s Theater in 1932. From 1933 to 1945 he worked with the Theater of Working Youth and the V. P. Chkalov Drama Theater in Gorky. In 1945 he joined the V. P. Chkalov Drama Theater in Tomsk. His main roles were Mitrofan in Fonvizin’s The Minor, Shvandia in Trenev’s Liubov’ larovaia, Falstaff in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, Sergei Tiulenin in an adaptation of Fadeev’s Young Guard, Khlestakov in Gogol’s The Inspector-General, Raspliuev in Sukhovo-Kobylin’s Krechinskii’s Wedding, and Luka in Gorky’s Lower Depths.

Kuznetsov joined the M. lu. Lermontov Theater in Stavropol’ in 1951. He played Gennadii Dubravin in Romashov’s Bridge in Flames, Schastlivtsev in Ostrovskii’s The Forest, Shchukar’ in an adaptation of Sholokhov’s Virgin Soil Upturned, and Skvorets in Shtok’s Leningrad Boulevard.

Kuznetsov portrayed V. I. Lenin in a number of plays: Youth of the Fathers by Gorbatov (1944), The Kremlin Chimes by Pogodin (1946, 1967), The Family by Popov (1950), In the Name of the Revolution by Shatrov (1958), The Third Pathetique (1959) and The Flowers Are Alive (1962) by Pogodin, and The Sixth of July by Shatrov (1965). Kuznetsov also appeared as Lenin in the motion pictures Blue Notebook (1964) and Salvo of the Aurora (1965). He has been awarded the Order of Lenin and a number of medals.