Dmitrii Nikolaevich Zhuravlev

Born Oct. 11 (24), 1900, in the village of Alekseevka, present-day Kharkov Oblast. Soviet Russian actor and artist of the variety stage. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1960).

In 1927, Zhuravlev graduated from the school attached to the E. B. Vakhtangov Theater, where he acted until 1939. In 1931, after becoming acquainted with the dramatic reading of A. la. Zakushniak, he gave his first public performance, reading Pushkin’s Egyptian Nights and poems by V. V. Mayakovsky. Zhuravlev’s repertoire included Pushkin’s “Bronze Horseman” and The Queen of Spades (1940); Mayakovsky’s “At the Top of My Voice,” “Verses About a Soviet Passport,” and “All Right”; A. P. Chekhov’s Lady With a Lapdog (1939) and The House With the Attic (1953); and works by P. Merimée, A. A. Blok, M. Gorky, and L. N. Tolstoy. Zhuravlev’s spirited renditions combine the lyrical with the heroic. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1949 and has been awarded two orders and medals.