Varvara Myasnikova (original) (raw)

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Soviet actress of theater and cinema (1900–1975)

Varvara Myasnikova
Born Varvara Sergeyevna Myasnikova(1900-09-22)September 22, 1900Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died April 22, 1978(1978-04-22) (aged 77)[1][2]Moscow, Soviet Union
Occupation actress
Spouse Sergei Vasilyev

Varvara Sergeyevna Myasnikova (Russian: Варва́ра Серге́евна Мяснико́ва; October 5 [O.S. September 22] 1900 – April 22, 1978)[1][2] was a Soviet actress.

Myasnikova was born in Saint Petersburg in 1900, the daughter of an insurance agent and a housewife. She had a sister and brother. She started working at Narkompros in 1918, where she also started in a theater group, then joining an experimental theater company within Narkompros. In 1925, the group ended up due to lack of funding, but the actors were hired by the Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater.[3][4]

Her film career began in silent cinema in 1928, with the film The Parisian Cobbler (Парижский сапожник). In 1931, she was hired by the state-funded film production unit Lenfilm. In 1929, she acted in Fragment of an Empire (Обломок империи).[1] In 1934, she married Sergei Vasilyev, film director, editor and screenwriter, who was also the screenwriter and director of Chapayev (Чапаев), that year, in which Myasnikova played Anka, a machine gun operator; her role would inspire girls from the Soviet Union to volunteer in the Red Army, like Nina Onilova.[4][5]

The couple had a daughter, named Varvara after her mother. In the same year, she was awarded the title of Emeritus Artist of the Soviet Union for her role in Chapayev, at the Moscow International Film Festival.[3][1]

With the outbreak of World War II, the Lenfilm team was evacuated to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Myasnikova, her daughter and husband left Leningrad. Her mother and brother, Alekei, died in the Nazi siege of the city in 1942.[3][1]

In 1947, Myasnikova played the Fairy Godmother in the feature Cinderella (Золушка), by Nadezhda Kocheverova and Mikhail Chapiro, but her participation is very limited in the production. Her marriage to Sergei Vasilyev ended in divorce in 1955 and Myasnikova moved to Moscow with her daughter. There she was hired by Mosfilm and started working in the national theater.[1] In 1959, she played in Vladimir Kaplunovski's The Captain's Daughter and in the adaptation of Ivan Turgenev's novel, Mumu, by Yevgeny Teterin (1959).

Myasnikova died in Moscow on April 22, 1978, at the age of 74; her body was buried in the Serafimovskoe Cemetery in St. Petersburg, next to her mother and brother.[1]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Varvara Sergeyevna Myasnikova". LiveJournal. Retrieved September 2, 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Варвара Мясникова - актриса - биография - советские актрисы" [Varvara Myasnikova - actress - Biography - Soviet actresses] (in Russian). kino-teatr.ru. Retrieved 2 September 2021.
  3. ^ a b c "Varvara Myasnikova". IMDB. Retrieved September 1, 2021.
  4. ^ a b Sakaida, Henry (2012). Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941–45. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 28–29, 56. ISBN 9781780966922.
  5. ^ "ГОВОРЯТ ПОГИБШИЕ ГЕРОИ". Предсмертные письма борцов с фашизмом. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
  6. ^ "Varvara Myasnikova". Filmaffinity. Retrieved September 1, 2021.