Table of contents:
Video: How the life of the stars of the Soviet ballet who fled from the USSR developed: Baryshnikov, Godunov and others
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
From time to time, the Land of the Soviets was shocked by reports that this or that actor or athlete decided to stay abroad, refusing to return from the tour. Not everyone who fled the USSR in search of recognition, professional growth and high incomes had a successful life. For many, talent has allowed them to achieve success, while others have not been able to cope with loneliness and depression.
Natalia Makarova
The 30-year-old leading ballerina of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater categorically refused to go on tour to London. She was just practicing a difficult game and least of all wanted to be distracted from the process. However, the management of the theater was adamant, not yet knowing what troubles this forced trip of Natalia Makarova would turn out to be for them.
On September 4, after meeting with a friend, the ballerina called the police and asked for political asylum in the UK. Asylum was granted, but Natalia Makarova's hopes of being accepted into the troupe of the Royal Covent Garden did not materialize. But already in October, she, together with Rudolf Nureyev, recorded two miniatures for the BBC, and in December she became the prima of the American Ballet Theater. In America, she met her husband Edward Karkar.
She danced on the best stages in the world, including Covent Garden, and enjoyed immense popularity. For the first time after her escape she ended up in Russia in 1989. Natalia Makarova will soon turn 78 years old, she still lives in America. In 2018 she was awarded the prize of the Benois de la Danse ballet festival "For a Life in Art".
After Natalia Makarova decided to stay abroad, the chief choreographer of the theater, Konstantin Sergeev, was fired from his job.
Mikhail Baryshnikov
The dancer in 1974 was on tour in Canada as part of the troupe of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater. At the same time, the KGB did not have the slightest reason to suspect the young and successful Baryshnikov of wanting to stay in the West. He had everything a 24-year-old talented ballet dancer could dream of: an apartment, a car, a very decent salary. But he lacked the most important thing: freedom of creativity. He wanted to choose his own repertoire, not limiting himself only to what the party leadership suggested for staging.
From Canada, Baryshnikov moved to the United States. He was immediately enrolled in the American Ballet Theater, becoming its premier. After 4 years, Mikhail Nikolayevich became the head of the troupe. After serving as a leader for 11 years, he decided to take up modern dance, in which he succeeded no less than in ballet. She acts in films, plays in the drama theater.
Mikhail Baryshnikov received the freedom so desired for him and admits that he never felt longing for his historical homeland. I missed and continues to miss my close and dear people, but by no means geographic places.
READ ALSO: Escaped from the USSR: how was the fate of a Russian dancer in the USA >>
Alexander Godunov
The talented ballet dancer spent a long time hatching plans for his escape. And when, in the end, he was able to leave the surveillance of security agents during his American tour, Alexander Godunov was never able to reach the career heights he dreamed of.
Everything went wrong for him. The artist's wife Lyudmila Vlasova refused to stay with him in America because of her elderly mother who remained in Russia. He was accepted into the troupe of the American Ballet Theater only six months later because of the strike of the artists who did not want to put up with the arrival of a new soloist. After working in the theater for only a year, he tried to build his own project "Godunov and the Stars", but did not achieve much success. Having retrained as a drama artist, he also suffered a fiasco.
As a result, loneliness and depression led to chronic alcoholism and death from complications of hepatitis. Alexander Godunov died at the age of 46.
READ ALSO: The tragic fate of Alexander Godunov: the scandalous escape from the USSR and the mysterious death of the famous dancer >>
Shulamith and Mikhail Messerer
The legendary ballet dancer, who shone on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater, who literally raised Maya Plisetskaya after the execution of her father and her mother's exile, was a real prima with a worldwide reputation. She lived in her homeland for many years, performed at the front during the Great Patriotic War, leaving the stage, and was engaged in teaching.
But in February 1980, during a tour of the Bolshoi Theater in Japan, together with her son Mikhail, also a ballet dancer, she turned to the British Embassy with a request to grant her and her son political asylum.
Sulamith Mikhailovna became a teacher at the Royal Theater, Covent Garden, in addition, she taught in America, France, and Japan. Everywhere with her there was a son, who helped the mother in everything, was independently engaged in teaching. Shulamith Messerer never regretted her decision, believing that then, in 1980, she acted absolutely right.
Mikhail Messerer has been directing the ballet of the Mikhailovsky Theater since 2007, initially as chief choreographer, and since 2018 as artistic director of the theater.
READ ALSO: The difficult fate of Sulamith Messerer: how Maya Plisetskaya's aunt conquered the world ballet scene >>
The term "defector" appeared in the Soviet Union with the light hand of one of the State Security officers and came into use as a sarcastic stigma for people who left the country of the heyday of socialism for life in decaying capitalism. In those days, this word was akin to anathema, and the relatives of the "defectors" who remained in a happy socialist society were also persecuted.
Recommended:
Traitor or writer: How was the life of the Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Rezun, who fled to Great Britain
Today he even has a passport in the name of Viktor Suvorov, although in reality he is Vladimir Rezun, a former GRU resident officer. In 1978, while in Geneva, Vladimir Rezun fled to Great Britain, where he asked for political asylum. He is still called a traitor and they say that even his own father stopped communicating with him, and his grandfather could not at all survive the flight of his grandson. How was the life of a former intelligence officer and what does he do?
The American fate of Oleg Vidov: How the life of the famous Soviet actor developed after his escape from the USSR
On June 11, the famous film actor Oleg Vidov could have turned 76 years old, but 2 years ago he passed away. In the 1970s. he was one of the most successful actors, who starred both in the USSR and abroad, and was remembered by the audience for the films "Blizzard", "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", "The Bat", "Gentlemen of Fortune", "Headless Horseman" and others. He was called the first handsome Soviet cinema, but in the early 1980s. he was suddenly out of work. What woman played a fatal role in his fate and forced him at 42
How was the life of Hollywood stars who left the cinema: Darth Vader the farmer and others
It often seems to us that the fate of an actor is the joy of creativity and red carpet, but this is only one side of the medal. On the other - the daily hard work, conflicts with colleagues and devastating articles from critics. Many film actors, having reached certain heights, feel tired and a desire to change their lives. Some become disillusioned with the profession after a series of failures or simply decide to finally pay attention to their family and children. It is not often that stars in full blaze of glory leave Hollywood Olympus, alone
Famous Soviet "defectors": why the successful and famous fled from the USSR, and how they lived abroad
The term "defector" appeared in the Soviet Union with the light hand of one of the State Security officers and came into use as a sarcastic stigma for people who left the country of the heyday of socialism for life in decaying capitalism. In those days, this word was akin to anathema, and the relatives of the "defectors" who remained in a happy socialist society were also persecuted. The reasons that pushed people to break through the "Iron Curtain" were different, and their destinies also have warehouses
What the audience did not know about foreign film stars who were adored in the USSR: Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn and others
The Soviet Union constantly bought many films from the West. The Soviet audience idolized the actresses who shone in these tapes. I bought homemade postcards on trains, painted portraits by hand to hang on the wall. But after perestroika, there was no time for former idols, and many had no idea how the fate of their favorite actresses developed, and someone learned only myths about them