Alexei Denisovich Diki

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Grave of Alexei Denisovich Diki

Alexei Denissowitsch Diki ( Russian Алексей Денисович Дикий ; * February 12th July / February 24th  1889 Greg. , Yekaterinoslav , today Dnipro in the Ukraine ; † October 1, 1955 in Moscow ) was a Soviet actor, theater director and director (nationality Russian ). He was best known as a Stalin actor (with an accent of the Moscow nobility ), who at times ousted Micheil Gelowani as such .

Life

Alexei Diki moved to Kharkov when he was young , where his sister, a popular actress, helped him get into acting. He began his acting career at the Kharkov Dramatic Theater. In 1909 he moved to Moscow, where he studied acting with Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirowitsch-Danchenko and in 1910 came to the Moscow Art Theater. In 1909 he started as an assistant to I.  Uralov . In 1910 he was hired as an actor at the art theater. He admired the stage works of Mikhail Chekhov (nephew of Anton Chekhov ) and became his partner on stage. Diki followed him in building the second Moscow Art Theater MChAT-2 , where he was employed from 1922–1928.

In 1928 Diki received an invitation to Tel Aviv to work as director with the legendary Jewish theater company HaBima , who had emigrated from Russia . Diki directed two successful performances for this theater, “The Oytser / The Treasure” by Scholem Alejchem (premiere on December 29, 1928), which was artistically and financially very successful, and “The Crown” by David Calderon (premiere on May 23, 1929 ). HaBima established itself as the Jewish national theater and Diki was internationally recognized as an innovative director.

1931 founded his own theater studio and taught an acting class. In 1936 he was appointed director of the Bolshoy Dramatiteskij Theater / Great Drama Theater in Leningrad . It was there that his lifelong collaboration and friendship with Boris Baboschkin began . In the same year the Great Terror began under Josef Stalin . In 1937 he was arrested on inaccurate charges of anti-Soviet activities on the basis of intrigues by envious fellow actors. Until 1941 he was imprisoned in a Siberian camp.

After his release he was unemployed and was not allowed to work in Moscow and Leningrad. After all, he worked in the Siberian city of Omsk during the Second World War until he got the role of Kutuzov in the propaganda film "Kutuzov" in 1944 . For this role he received the Stalin Prize and was allowed to work as a theater director in Moscow.

In the roles of Kutuzov or General Nakhimov , he was positively noticed by Stalin and he explicitly wanted Diki to play himself, Diki did not speak a Georgian accent and thus fit into the overall nationalist culture of the 1940s. He portrayed Stalin in several films, and Stalin, for his part, valued the brilliant actor Diki. He had KGB officers bring him to his Kremlin for a brief meeting and told him that his experience in the camp was a necessary experience for him and that everyone in the country must have experience as a camp prisoner or in exile.

Sovexportfilm describes his portrayal of Stalin as convincing, truthful, majestic, calm, clear, secure, cordial and attentive to fellow combatants and drawing flawless conclusions. At a meeting in the Kremlin, Stalin said that everyone needed exile and camp experience. Diki interprets his role differently than Micheil Gelowani, he put both forearms on his stomach while sitting (he was of a corpulent stature) and held the pipe with both hands, which he seldom smoked, the lecturing gestures are much less pronounced than with Gelowani, who lacks the mischievous Caucasian facial expressions. The way of speaking is deadly serious with an over-articulation of every syllable. In Tretij Udar he looks like a monolith that has lost all human individuality through its omniscience.

Diki told Stalin that he played him as the people saw him, later Diki said to his students that he had portrayed Stalin as a dangerous, terrifying and power-hungry dictator. Stalin valued this depiction so much that he awarded him the Stalin Prize for it . Diki, who is said not to have aspired to the role of Stalin, is also said to have said: "I am not playing a person, but a granite monument."

His most important works as a director were Blocha by Nikolai Leskow and Teni / Schatten by Michail Saltykow-Shchedrin, played by Boris Babotschkin . Apparently he nevertheless disappointed, since he was ousted again by Micheil Gelowani. Like Micheil Gelowani, he received no more commissions because of his portrayals of Stalin after the dictator's death.

Filmography - actor

  • 1934: The fishermen's revolt (Vosstanye rybakov)
  • 1944: Kutuzov
  • 1946: Admiral Nakhimov
  • 1946: The Oath ( Kljutwa )
  • 1947: Surgeon Pirogow (Pirogow)
  • 1948: The third blow (Treti udar)
  • 1948: The real man (Powezd o nastojschtschem)
  • 1949: The Battle of Stalingrad (Stalingradskaja bitwa I)
  • 1950: The Battle of Stalingrad (Stalingradskaja Bitwa II)
  • 1971: Poezd v dalyoki avgust

Performances - Director (selection)

literature

  • Nikolas Hülbusch: In the dictator's cabinet of mirrors . Alfeld 2001 (= also phil. Diss., Bochum 2000)
  • Lars Karl: About heroes and people . phil. Diss., Tübingen 2002
  • The battle of Stalingrad . Program booklet of Sovexportfilm, Berlin 1950
  • Simon Sebag-Montefiore : Stalin . London 2003
  • Two thousand and one lexicon of international film

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Diki, Alexei Denisovich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Дикий, Алексей Денисович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Soviet actor and director
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Ekaterinoslav
DATE OF DEATH October 1, 1955
Place of death Moscow