March 28, 2015

Smoktunovsky: Portrait of an Actor


Smoktunovsky: Portrait of an Actor

March 27, 2015, would have been the ninetieth birthday of beloved actor Innokenty Smoktunovsky. Renowned for his film roles, such as Hamlet in Hamlet and Yuri Detochkin in Beware of the Car, Smoktunovsky also had a highly successful career as a stage actor. In this excerpt from an interview with a Hungarian reporter, he recounts his experiences during World War II on the basis of old photographs.

[…] In this one my face is more serious. It’s another photograph from my youth. See how much red hair I had? As many red hairs as freckles on my face. But where is that hair now? Where did that incredible, enormous power go? It’s gone. Understand?

And now we’re up to the war, that is, its end – 1945. Rather often I get this request: “Bring out your military photos.” They don’t realize that if someone has military photos, it means he was near the front lines, near the battles, but wasn’t fighting – no, he was posing in his free time. Whereas I was in really, really awful binds and wrote a book about it, soon to be two. […] Just now I wrote a book titled To Be. In it I describe how out of 125 or 130 of us, only four survived. All the rest fell like grass cut in a meadow. Just like my other three comrades, I would take their bullets, their grenades, to somehow extend my life and somehow protect the road we were supposed to be guarding, to not let through the Nazi division that had broken out of Toruń (this was in Poland).

And now I’m often asked: “Show us your photos from the front!” I only have the one photograph, but it’s not from the front, it’s from after the war – 1945. I’m a staff sergeant. My mustache and beard haven’t even grown in yet, but I’ve already gone through such awful trials that I wouldn’t wish even on my enemies. Because, as I’ve already said, I was taken prisoner, then escaped from the prisoner-of-war camp, because I was torn apart by disease – dysentery, dystrophy… and complete psychological shock. I couldn’t accept the fact that any prison guard could shoot me, just like that. So I escaped. Because if I hadn’t escaped, all the same, two, or three, or five days later I would have just collapsed from exhaustion.

Later, when I was picked up by friendly Ukrainians in the Kamenets-Podolsk Oblast (now Khmelnitsky Oblast) and was left to rest in their house, there was a mirror on the wall in front of me. And because my mind wasn’t quite working yet, I thought that someone was looking at me through a window, some man with a big nose and sunken eyes. I would ask him, “What are you looking at? What do you want?” And the man “in the window” would whisper something at the same time. Then I realized that it was me. After all, a whole year I hadn’t seen myself in the mirror, being on the front lines, fighting the Nazis with my division. How could I possibly have photographs from the front, if I was busy protecting my human dignity and perhaps even my own life, as well as the life of my country?!

 

Translation: Eugenia Sokolskaya [source]

Image credit: http://agritura.livejournal.com/159547.html

 

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.  
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
Woe From Wit (bilingual)

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955