The disgraced princess of Soviet theater and cinema: How Eda Urusova survived repression, prison and exile

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

There are not many works in the filmography of this actress - just over 30. The audience hardly remembers her name, because even in the most famous films - "12 Chairs", "Casket of Maria Medici", "Courier" - she got supporting roles. But on the stage, she played about 200 roles! Hereditary princess Eda (Evdokia) Urusova experienced many trials: her father, sister and spouse were shot, she herself spent 17 years in camps and exile, but she not only withstood, but was able to maintain faith in people, endurance and dignity until the end of her days.

Eda (Evdokia) was a descendant of the noble princely family of the Urusovs. When she was called a princess, she corrected: "The princess is the wife of the prince, and I am the daughter, which means the princess!" She was born in 1908 in a family in whose family were writers Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin and Evgenia Tur on the maternal side, and the Urusov princes of Yaroslavl on the paternal side. As a child, Eda studied at a private dance school with her daughter Maria Ermolova, then she graduated from the Institute for Noble Maidens and the Moscow Art Theater School. At the same time, Urusova began acting in silent films. After that, she performed on the stage of the Moscow Drama Theater and the Yermolova Theater. There she met the actor Mikhail Unkovsky, married him and gave birth to a son. The boy had a congenital defect of the palate and upper lip, and as a child he had to undergo 3 surgeries in a row. But this was only the beginning of those difficulties and trials that fate was preparing for Urusova.

In early 1935, Eda's father and her sister, Elena Raevskaya, and her husband were arrested in connection with a fabricated "Kremlin case" for participating in a conspiracy against the authorities. None of them pleaded guilty, but they were sent to prison and then shot. In 1938, 6 artists of the Yermolova Theater were arrested, including Urusova's husband. All of them were forced to confess to a terrorist conspiracy against the authorities. Ed received an official notification of the death of her husband only in 1942, when she herself was already in the camp.

When her relatives were arrested, friends advised Eda to take her son and leave the capital, but she did not want to leave the theater. In the summer of 1938, their troupe gathered on a tour to Leningrad, and right at the station, the actress was arrested, accused of having links with the Nazis. She herself then had a poor idea of what fascism was, and could not understand what her crime was. Only years later, Urusova found out that then her colleagues in the theater had written a denunciation against her. And only upon receiving documents on rehabilitation, many years later, did she become aware that already on the third day after her arrest, a resolution was adopted to condemn her for counter-revolutionary activities and sentenced her to 10 years in forced labor camps.

The actress ended up in the Far Eastern Forced Labor Camp, where she worked in logging, worked as a milkmaid, accountant and played in the camp theater. Due to constant hunger, she developed an ulcer. The princess more than once applied for early release, but she was denied on the basis of a negative characterization from the Yermolova Theater.

About this time Urusova later said: "".

Princess Urusova was released only in 1947, and 2 years later she was arrested again - then at the highest level it was decided to clean up the central regions of the "undesirable element", after which the arrests of all those who had served 10-year sentences under Article 58 began. Eda Urusova was sent first to the Yaroslavl prison, then to exile in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and later to Norilsk, where she was able to perform in the drama theater together with other disgraced artists - Georgy Zhzhenov and Innokentiy Smoktunovsky.

The actress told about her stay in the Krasnoyarsk Territory: "".

Only in 1955, Eda Urusova was finally able to return to Moscow. She immediately went to the hospital with an ulcer, scurvy and last-degree dystrophy. After a long course of treatment at the Sklifosovsky Institute, she returned to the stage of her theater and even began acting in films. According to the law on rehabilitation, they were obliged to restore her in the theater, but at the same time they were not given roles for a long time.

Colleague Urusova, actress Tatyana Govorova said: "". Karen Shakhnazarov, the director of the film "Courier", in which Urusova starred, said about her: "".

Until her last days, Eda Urusova appeared on the stage of the theater, and acted in films until she was 84 years old. On December 23, 1996, the actress died at the age of 88. She lived a long life and never complained about her fate, did not curse or blame anyone. In her declining years, the actress said: "".

Another actress who survived 15 years in the camps was also a hereditary noblewoman: How Countess Kapnist went through the horrors of repression.