Gnat Iura

(Ignatii Petrovich Iura). Born Dec. 27, 1887 (Jan. 8, 1888), in the village of Fedvar (present-day Podlesnoe, Aleksandrovka Raion, Kirovograd Oblast); died Jan. 18, 1966, in Kiev. Soviet Ukrainian actor and stage director. People’s Artist of the USSR (1940). Member of the CPSU from 1938.

Iura began his professional stage career in 1907, performing in theaters in the Ukraine. A brilliant comedian, he continued the best traditions of the Ukrainian theater. In 1920 he helped found the Novyi Theater in Vinnitsa, which was soon renamed the Franko Theater. He was the theater’s administrative director until 1954 and shared the post with M. M. Krushe’nitskii until 1961. The theater moved to Kharkov in 1923 and to Kiev in 1926.

Iura’s most outstanding works as a stage director included Kulish’s 97 (1924), in which he played the role of Kopystka, and Vishnia’s Vii (1925, based on the short story by Gogol), Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro (1933), in which he played the role of Figaro, Staritskii’s Oh, Don’t Go to Parties, Gritsiu (1938), and Franko’s Stolen Happiness (1940, 1956). Other outstanding productions of his included Bogdan Khmel’nitskii (1939), Makar Dubrava (1948), and The Snowball Grove (1950), all by Korneichuk, as well as Ianovskii’s Thinking About Britanka (1957) and Kocherga’s Svichka’s Marriage (1960).

Iura taught at the Karpenko-Karyi Kiev Theatrical Institute beginning in 1938, becoming a professor in 1946. He was a deputy to the first through fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR in 1949 and 1951, he was awarded three Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and several medals.