Pavel Aleksandrovich Markov

Born Mar. 10 (22), 1897, in Tula. Soviet Russian critic, stage director, teacher, historian and theorist of the theater. Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR (1944); doctor of the arts (1960).

In 1921, Markov graduated from the history and philology department of Moscow University. He has been a critic, reviewer, and essayist since 1919. Markov’s articles have been published in the collections Portraits of the Theater (1939), Theatrical Truth (1965), and In the Theaters of Various Countries (1967). His books include Latest Trends in the Theater, 1898-1923 (1924), The Moscow Art Theater: 1898-1948 (1950, in collaboration with N. N. Chushkin), V. F, Komissarzhevskaia (1950), and VI I. Nemirovich-Danchenko in the Music Theater (1960).

As the director of the literary section of the Moscow Art Theater from 1925 to 1949, Markov recruited the greatest Soviet writers to work in the theater. He was the director of the artistic section of the V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater from 1933 to 1944 and the artistic director of the K. S. Stanislavsky and V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater from 1944 to 1949. The works Markov staged at these theaters included Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kashchei the Immortal and Mozart and Salieri (1944) and Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann (1948). Between 1951 and 1955, Markov was the stage director and chairman of the literary council of the Malyi Theater, where he staged Port Arthur by Popov and Stepanov (1953, in collaboration with K. A. Zubov) and The Silver Moon by Laxness (1955). As stage director of the Moscow Art Theater from 1955 to 1962, he helped stage Leonov’s The Golden Carriage (1957) and an adaptation of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1960).

In 1939, Markov began teaching at the State Institute of Theatrical Arts, becoming a professor there in 1943. He was the chief editor of the Theater Encyclopedia (5 vols., Moscow, 1961-67). Markov has been awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.