6 Soviet actresses with noble roots who managed to achieve success in the USSR

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It is now prestigious to have ancestors of nobles. It is not for nothing that many public figures and famous people like to remember their aristocratic great-grandmothers and grandfathers when they speak. But even 40 years ago, in the presence of non-worker-peasant roots in the pedigree, they could attach the stigma "unreliable", and in Stalin's times even subject them to repression. Therefore, the artists had to carefully hide this part of the biography. Today we will recall 6 Soviet actresses who were of noble origin.

Tatiana Okunevskaya

The successor of an old noble family was not charming in the Soviet way. Already at the age of 17, she shone on the screen, starring in 1935 in the title role in the film "Hot Days". An acknowledged beauty, she narrowly escaped death - her father was shot in 1937 as a White Guard officer and an enemy of the people. Inevitably, this fate would have awaited the whole family, but the actress was saved by the presence of high patrons. So, they say that among those to whom she was able to turn their heads were the communist leader of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito. Since Stalin at that moment was interested in cooperation with him, the girl was left alone.

Subsequently, the Minister of State Security Viktor Abakumov and Lavrenty Beria were among the admirers of this charming girl. However, all the same, Tatyana Okunevskaya went to prison. In 1948 she was arrested under Article 58.10 for anti-Soviet propaganda. She had to spend more than a year in a common cell in a prison, until, according to the verdict, she was sent to Dzhezkazgan for another 10 years. Only Stalin's death and amnesty were able to help Tatyana find freedom. Okunevskaya returned to another life sick, exhausted and exhausted. However, the desire to resurrect as soon as possible was stronger.

To the surprise of everyone, she was able to regain its former shape and beauty. She returned to the profession and began acting, but not as intensely as in the old years. Even in her mature years, the hereditary noblewoman watched over her appearance. At the age of 86, she decided to undergo plastic surgery. Unfortunately, the doctors brought an infection into her bloodstream. For the next two years, the actress struggled with the disease, but still lost. In 2002, she died at the 89th year of life.

Marietta (Maria) Kapnist-Serko

The life of another hereditary noblewoman, Countess Kapnist, was also tragic. She was born in 1913 in the capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, and the blood of the famous ataman Ivan Serko also flowed in her veins. Of course, the family did not accept the revolution, and hiding from the pogroms, they moved to Sudak. But even then the Red Guards got to Count Rostislav Kapnist. He was shot in 1921, but his wife and daughter managed to escape, dressed in national Tatar clothes. 16-year-old Marietta after a while returned to Leningrad to become an artist. She managed to enter the theater studio at the drama theater. However, as usual, there were well-wishers who told the management about her direct relationship with the disgraced count.

The girl not only lost her job, but she was also expelled from the capital. Marietta left for distant Kiev, where she successfully graduated from the economic technical school, having received the profession of an accountant. However, shortly before the occupation of Kiev by fascist troops, the Soviet authorities prudently arrested Countess Kapnist, and then sentenced her to 8 years of labor camp, accusing her of spying for foreign intelligence services in wartime. The young woman was exiled first to Karlaga, then to Steplag. There she met Yan Volkonsky. A passion flared up between the Polish engineer and Marietta.

Kapnist gave birth to a daughter, Radislava, but the lovers could not register the marriage - moreover, Volkonsky was accused of defaming a prisoner and sentenced to death. In 1950, Marietta was finally released. But she remained to live in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Only after Stalin's death was she allowed to move to Kiev. The only thing she could count on was a janitor's place and a small closet instead of rooms. But how incredible the twists and turns of fate are! Once passing by the film studio to them. Dovzhenko Marietta was seen by director Yuri Lysenko. He was imbued with her characteristic appearance and invited the no longer young woman to play the role of abbess in the movie "Tavria".

Subsequently, cooperation with the studio continued - Maria Kapnist has repeatedly played all kinds of strict countesses, mysterious old women, witches and gypsies. So the childhood dream of becoming an artist came true, but a little at the wrong time and in the wrong role as a young noble daughter dreamed of herself.

Love Dobrzhanskaya

Remember the mother of Yuri Detochkin from the movie "Beware of the Car" or Zhenya Lukashin from the cult "Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath" - in their image there is a natural intelligence and sophistication of manners. All these roles were played by Lyubov Dobrzhanskaya, a hereditary noblewoman and the daughter of an officer of the imperial army. Her father Ivan Andronikovich, who at the time of the revolution was in the rank of captain of the infantry Rivne regiment, was repressed and exiled for 5 years to the famous Solovki. And later he was sent to a colony-settlement in Kazakhstan to work as an ordinary shepherd. In 1941, the family received a notification that their husband and father had died of myocardial infarction, but whether this was actually so is unknown. Even already being a famous artist, Lyubov Dobrzhanskaya tried to find his grave, but to no avail.

The mother of the actress was afraid all her life to show her "gentle" origin, so she took on any hard work - she worked as a laundress, a seamstress and carefully guarded information about her origin from others. Therefore, her daughter's career developed more or less steadily. The actress became famous on the stage, but her film characters also found admirers.

Muse Krepkogorskaya

But Muse Krepkogorskaya boasted of her noble origin. She could leave a person unattended, be overly demanding and directly talk about what she did not like. Even her husband, the popular actor Georgy Yumatov, was looked down upon by the Muse, considering him somewhat rustic. And this star was born in the family of the famous musician Viktor Krepkogorsky, who became famous also for the fact that he accompanied Fyodor Chaliapin himself. When the purges began among the intelligentsia in the 1930s, her father could not bear the weight of fear and hanged himself.

But Muse's mother was always proud to be a hereditary noblewoman. But, of course, she did it secretly. Her daughter, after her career took off, loved to talk about it. And to live as if times had not changed - she didn’t deny herself anything, loved luxurious jewelry, expensive apartment decoration and fashionable outfits. And to admonitions that it would be necessary to count the money, the actress invariably brushed it off and replied: "Georges will work." She was able to appreciate her husband only after his death. When Yumatov died, she closed herself off, stopped paying attention to her appearance and began to abuse alcohol. Two weeks before the 75th anniversary of the actress was gone. She survived her husband by only a year and a half.