Gizzatullina-Volzhskaia, Sakhibzhamal

Born May 14 (26), 1892, in Kazan. Soviet Tatar actress, director, theater figure. Honored Artist of the Tatar ASSR (1926). The first Tatar actress.

After 1907, Gizzatullina-Volzhskaia performed in Saiar, the first Tatar professional troupe. In 1912 she organized the Nur Troupe in Ufa, from which the Bashkir Drama Theater was later created. Her roles include Gaini in Kamal’s The Unhappy Youth, Katerina in Ostrovskii’s The Thunderstorm, and Luisa in Schiller’s Cabal and Love. She staged several plays and taught many actors in the Tatar theater, including Sh. Shamil’skii, G. Kazanskii, E. Syrtlanova, and F. Latypov. During the Civil War (1918-20), she organized a traveling troupe for the Second Army of the Eastern Front. (Many of the actors in this troupe were members of the Ufa Tatar-Bashkir Theater.) In 1920 she headed the Tatar Drama Theater in Izhevsk. Gizzatullina-Volzhskaia worked in the Red October Theater in Kazan from 1922 to 1924, after which she led amateur drama groups.