Vasilii Sakhnovskii

Born Feb. 17 (Mar. 1), 1886, in Dorogobuzh, Smolensk Oblast; died Feb. 26, 1945, in Moscow. Soviet stage director, specialist in theater studies, and teacher. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1938); doctor of art studies (1939).

Sakhnovskii studied in the faculty of philosophy at the University of Freiburg. In 1910 he graduated from the faculty of history and philology of Moscow University. He began publishing in 1907. In 1912 he began working in Moscow at F. F. Komissarzhevskii’s studio (from 1914, the V. F. Komissar-zhevskaia Theater) as a lecturer, director, and teacher. In 1918 he presented Kamenskii’s Sten’ka Razin and Hervieu-Chul-kov’s La Carmagnole on the stage of the Palace of the October Revolution.

In 1919, Sakhnovskii helped organize the Model Theater and served as its director. From 1922 to 1926 he was director and artistic director of the Moscow Dramatic Theater, the Comedy Theater (formerly the Korsh Theater), and the Komissar-zhevskaia Theater, reopened in 1924 through Sakhnovskii’s efforts. Among his productions were Shaw’s Great Catherine, Ostrovskii’s The Thunderstorm, Schiller’s Don Carlos, Dead Souls, adapted from Gogol’s novel, and Ostrovskii’s Wolves and Sheep.

In 1926, Sakhnovskii became a stage director at the Moscow Art Theater. His best productions there included Uncle’s Dream, adapted from Dostoevsky’s novella (1929; artistic director, V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko), Dead Souls, adapted from Gogol’s novel (1932; artistic director, K. S. Stanislavsky), Anna Karenina, adapted from Tolstoy’s novel (1937; in collaboration with Nemirovich-Danchenko), and Leonov’s The Gardens of Polovchansk (1939). In 1932 he became assistant director, and in 1937 head of the theater’s artistic section, and in 1943, a member of the theater’s artistic and directing collegium.

Sakhovskii began teaching in 1926, at the State Academy of the Arts. In 1933 he became head of the department of directing and of the subdepartment of staging at the State Institue of Theatrical Arts. In 1943 he became artistic director of the Nemirovich-Danchenko School-Studio. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.