Sofia Vladimirovna Giatsintova

Born July 23 (Aug. 4), 1895, in Moscow. Soviet actress and director. People’s Artist of the USSR (1955). Member of the CPSU since 1951.

Giatsintova was a member of the Moscow Art Theater from 1910 to 1924 and participated in the work of its first studio. From 1924 to 1936 she was an actress in the second Moscow Art Academic Theater, and from 1936 to 1938 she worked in the Moscow Oblast Council of Trade Unions Theater. From 1938 she was an actress and director in the Lenin Komsomol Moscow Theater. The subtle, graceful, and psychologically profound art of Giatsintova, who was a pupil and follower of K. S. Stanislavsky, is distinguished by its broad range and lofty dramatic quality. Among her best roles were Maria in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Nelly in The Insulted and Injured, based on Dostoevsky, Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Leonarda in Lope de Vega’s The Widow From Valencia, Maria Aleksandrovna Ul’ianova in Popov’s The Family, and Aunt Tasia in Arbuzov’s Years of Wandering. Giatsintova directed many plays, including A Doll’s House (1939, in cooperation with I. N. Bersenev), Turgenev’s A Month in the Country (1944), The Family (1949), and The Cherry Orchard (1954, in cooperation with A. A. Pelevin). Her film roles included Maria Aleksandrovna Ul’ianova in The Ul’ianov Family (1957) and Pani Maria in Lost Without a Trace (1957). Giatsintova received the State Prize of the USSR in 1947. She has been awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.