Alexander Alexejewitsch Khanshonkov

Alexander Alexejewitsch Khanshonkov

Aleksandr Khanzhonkov ( Russian Александр Алексеевич Ханжонков , scientific. Transliteration Aleksandr Alekseevic Chanžonkov in Chanschonkowka in today's Donetsk Oblast ; * July 27 ^{. Jul} / 8. August  1877 ^greg. , † 26. September 1945 in Yalta ) was a Russian entrepreneur and Russian film industry pioneer , producer, director and screenwriter.

biography

He was born in the village of Chanschonkowka, the son of an impoverished landowner. In 1896 he graduated from the Novocherkassk Cossack Cadet School and became a non-commissioned officer in the privileged Don Cossack regiment in Moscow . In 1905 he ended his military career as an officer for health reasons and received legal compensation of 5,000 rubles. With this he bought shares in the Moscow company Gaumont and Sieversen , which he later took over in order to set up a film strip factory on their basis . In the spring of 1906 he co-founded the company E. Osch and A. Chanschonkow for the distribution of foreign films and the production of Russian film strips.

On ^jul. / 22nd December 1906 ^greg. Chanschonkow submitted the founding application for the company Chanschonkow & Co. to the Moscow Trade Office. Their purpose was to produce and trade in film strips, lanternae magicae , fog pictures and various devices for their production. Ivan Oserov, a well-known banker and member of the State Council, was one of the company's guarantors.

At first, Khanshonkov was only concerned with documentaries and the distribution of foreign films in Russia, but in the summer of 1907 he began shooting a homeland strip Palochkin i Galochkin ( Палочкин и Галочкин ), which he did not finish.

On December 20, 1908 ^Jul. / January 2, 1909 ^greg. the first artistic production from Chanschonkov's studio hit the screen, the “ Drama in the Gypsy Camp near Moscow ”, about which the journal Cine-Phono wrote: “ ... one must point out the fact that this film is the first by A. Chanschonkow published drama that was staged by his own troupe, because this studio has only produced nature films so far ”. At that time, several films in 1909 were in the studio at the same time in the works published, including " song about the merchant Kalashnikov ", " Russian wedding of the 16th Century " and " doorkeeper Wanka ". To this end, he hired the new director Vasily Goncharov and the theater troupe of the Wedensky Volkshaus , which at the time consisted of Alexandra Goncharova , Andrei Gromov , Pyotr Tschardynin and Ivan Mosschuchin . The theme of the films edited by Khanshonkov was the film adaptation of Russian classics, folk tales and songs.

From 1910 the Chanschonkow & Co. company published the Westnik Kinematografii (Kinematographieanzeiger) magazine; From 1915 the magazine Pegas (Pegasus), which she financed , appeared, which in addition to film also dealt with theater, music, literature and modern culture.

Many significant milestones in the history of Russian cinema are thanks to Chanschonkov's studio. 1911 came with Chanschonkov and Goncharov's joint production The Defense of Sevastopol ( Оборона Севастополя ) the first full-length Russian film. In 1912, Chanschonkov's company published Władysław Starewicz's work The Beautiful Ljukanida, the world's first puppet cartoon. Thanks to this and other successes, Chanschonkov's studio advanced to become the leading film production facility in the Russian Empire in the 1910s. Another special feature of the studio were productions of scientific strips, for which a special department was set up in the studio, in which leading Russian scientists were also active in the productions.

In the spring of 1917, shortly after the February Revolution , Khanshonkov moved with most of his employees to Yalta on the Crimean peninsula , where he ran a similar film studio for several years and continued to publish films. In 1920, when the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War was looming, Khanshonkov emigrated to Constantinople and later to Milan and Vienna , where he tried to resume film production. In 1922 he also tried to take up research in the field of sound film production, but this failed due to a lack of financial resources.

In 1923, Khanshonkov received an offer from Russia to direct the Rusfilm film studio . He accepted it and therefore returned to the newly formed Soviet Union . However, the studio was closed a short time later without having started operations. Chanschonkow then worked for some time as a consultant at the state film production and censorship authority Goskino , and later as a production manager at the Proletkino film studio .

In 1926, Khanshonkov was arrested along with several other senior executives of Proletkino after the public prosecutor's office opened criminal proceedings against the management of this organization for embezzlement of state funds. Although Khanshonkov was ultimately acquitted for lack of evidence, he was banned from working. At about the same time, Chanschonkov's health deteriorated, which is why he moved from Moscow to Yalta. However, since he was no longer allowed to practice his profession, he and his wife had to live in abject poverty.

In 1934, Khanshonkov wrote a letter to the chairman of the state film production authority, Boris Shumyatsky , in which he pointed out his material needs and his deteriorating health and asked that the ban be lifted. This had an effect: Khanshonkov was rehabilitated and received a pension from the state. Meanwhile dependent on a wheelchair, Chanschonkov could no longer devote himself to film production in full, instead he wrote memoirs. He spent his last years in Yalta, where he died in 1945.

Web links

• Alexander Chanschonkow in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Article on the 125th birthday ( Memento from January 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (English)