Vera Karalli

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Vera Karalli in "Krizantemy" (1914)

Vera Alexeyevna Karalli ( Russian Вера Алексеевна Каралли , married Schischkin; born July 27, 1889 in Moscow ; † November 16, 1972 in Baden near Vienna) was a Russian dancer , choreographer and silent film actress in the early years of the 20th century.

Career

Postcard from the 1910s

Karalli was born into a Moscow family of artists: her father AM Karalli-Tortov was director of the Volkov Theater in Yaroslavl , her mother Olga Nikolajevna Karalli (née Krushenkova) was an actress. Karalli graduated from the Moscow Theater School in 1906 under the direction of the choreographer Alexander Gorski . In the ensemble Ballets Russes directed by Sergei Pavlovich Djagilew , she performed on tours abroad in 1909, 1919 and 1920. At the same time she worked at the Bolshoi Theater , after two years became a solo dancer and in 1915 a ballerina in the Bolshoi Ballet . Her dance partner was often the well-known dancer Mikhail Mordkin .

In 1914, Karalli also began a successful acting career, becoming one of Russia's first acclaimed film actresses. She got her first role in 1914 in the drama "Ты помнишь ли?" (German: “Do you remember?”) directed by Pyotr Chardynin as a female counterpart to the successful actor Iwan Ilyich Mosschuchin . Vera Karalli appeared in around sixteen Russian silent films between 1914 and 1919, including a 1915 version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace directed by Jakow Alexandrovich Protasanov . She had her last film role in the German-language production "Die Reiche einer Frau" in 1921. As a sought-after actress, she often got leading roles from the well-known director Jewgeni Bauer , with which she was recognized for her performance in "Posle smerti" (German "After Tode") ) after a story by Ivan Turgenews and the role of Gizella in "Umirajuschtschi lebed" (German "The dying swan"), a melodrama from 1917, became known.

Involvement in Rasputin's death

Karalli was a mistress of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov and suspected in the murder of Rasputin involved in December 1916th Allegedly she was one of the two women who were present in Felix Yusupov's palace on the night of Rasputin's murder . The other woman was possibly the noble actress Marianne Pistohlkors . The alleged masterminds of the plot never gave the names of the two women.

exile

In the course of the October Revolution , Karalli fled to the West, where she played under the pseudonym Vera Caroly in Robert Wiene's silent film drama "The Revenge of a Woman" alongside Olga Engl and Franz Egenieff - this was her last film role.

In 1920 Karalli and Russian artists, including the opera singer and dancer Maria Kuznetsova , took part in a large charity concert at the Paris Opéra Garnier to help impoverished Russian emigrants with the proceeds.

In the 1920s Karalli taught dance and ballet in Kaunas , Lithuania , and from 1930 to 1935 she was ballet master at the Opera Națională Bucureşti in Bucharest , Romania . Karalli lived in Paris between 1938 and 1941 and later settled in Vienna, where she also taught ballet. She died in Baden in 1972 and was buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery.

She was married to the wealthy businessman Boris Schischkin from Nikolaev.

Filmography

  • 1914: Ты помнишь ли? ( Ty pomnish 'li? ) (German: "Do you remember?")
  • 1914: Сорванец ( Sorvanets )
  • 1914: Хризантемы ( Krizantemy )
  • 1915: После смерти ( Posle smerti ) (German: "After the death")
  • 1915: Война и мир ( Voyna i mir ) (German "War and Peace")
  • 1915: Наташа Ростова ( Natasha Rostova )
  • 1915: Тени греха ( Teni grekha )
  • 1915: Обожжённые крылья ( Obozhzhenniye krylya )
  • 1915: Любовь статского советника ( Lyubov statskogo sovetnika )
  • 1915: Счастье вечной ночи ( Schastye vechnoy nochi )
  • 1915: Драконовский контракт ( Drakonovskiy contract )
  • 1916: Гриф старого борца ( Grif starogo bortsa )
  • 1917: Король Парижа ( Korol Parizha ) (German: "The King of Paris")
  • 1917: Умирающий лебедь ( Umirayushchii Lebed ) (German: "The dying swan")
  • 1917: Набат ( Nabat )
  • 1918: Мечта и жизнь ( Mechta i zhizn )
  • 1919: La Nuit du 11 septembre (German: "The night of September 11th")
  • 1921: A Woman's Revenge

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Edvard Radzinsky: The Rasputin File. Doubleday, 2000, ISBN 0-385-48910-2 , pp. 476-477.
  2. ↑ Aleksandre Vassiliev: Beauty in Exile: The Artists, Models, and Nobility Who Fled the Russian Revolution and Influenced the World of Fashion. translated by Antonina W. Bouis. Harry N. Abrams, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8109-5701-9 , p. 189.
  3. ^ Russian traces in Vienna - Part 2: From Vera Karalli to Josef Stalin on rbth.com
  4. ↑ Gennadi E. Kagan: She danced her beauty. The legend of the life of the Russian ballerina Vera Karalli 1889–1972. Böhlau, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-205-77784-7 . (books.google.at)
personal data
SURNAME Karalli, Vera
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Karalli, Vera Alexeyevna (full name); Schischkin, Vera; Каралли, Вера Алексеевна (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian dancer, choreographer and silent film actress
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1972
Place of death Baden near Vienna