Shchepkin Mikhail Semenovich

Shchepkin Mikhail Semenovich

Mikhail Semenovich Shchepkin is a great Russian actor who, thanks to his unique talent, mind and hard work, went an incredible path for his time from serf to the largest reformer of the acting scene and the founder of realism in Russian stage art.

Biography

Little Misha Shchepkin saw his first performance at the age of seven, and made his debut on stage at 11. For the obvious acting abilities of the serf, the boy was awarded a job in the home theater of Count Volkenstein. But he combined it with the duties of a waiter in the manor house and assistant surveyor, and at the age of 17 became the count's personal secretary. "I studied very easily and quickly, because as soon as I caught up with six years, as I had already learned all the wisdom, that is, the alphabet, the hour-old and the psalter; this usually ended then with all the teachings from which we, of course, did not understand a word, but acquired only the ability to quickly read church books, "Shchepkin wrote in his memoirs.

At the age of 22, Mikhail met Elena, an orphan whom Major General Dmitry Chalikov raised in his family as a daughter. He picked up this abandoned Turkish girl during the siege of Anapa. Despite the fact that the marriage with the serf made her, a free girl, also a serf, two years later Mikhail and Elena got married. In this marriage, seven children were subsequently born, two of whom connected their lives with the theater, and three achieved great success in philology, jurisprudence and social activities. The famous Russian and Soviet writer, poet, playwright and translator Tatyana Shchepkina-Kupernik is Mikhail Shchepkin's great-granddaughter.

After Mikhail Semenovich, with the permission of his owner, became a permanent actor of the local theater troupe, and eventually got a place in the Poltava Theater, others noticed his talent. Thus, the Governor-General of Little Russia, Prince Nikolai Repnin-Volkonsky, decided to buy the serf actor from Countess Volkenstein. She requested a huge amount - 10,000 rubles. Some of them were collected at the expense of a charity performance, and the prince himself donated the missing money.

1824: Debut at the Maly Theater in Moscow and Alexandrinsky in St. Petersburg

In September 1822, Shchepkin made his debut on the Moscow stage, and since 1824 he began performing at the Maly Theater. The following year, he first came to St. Petersburg to perform on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater.

Over time, he expanded the repertoire and refined his acting technique. He prepared for each appearance on the stage in a thorough way, long before the start of the performance he tuned into performance, in a word, he really got used to it in image. Shchepkin said that the actor should not copy, but delve into the "soul" of the role. These methods of understanding the character and penetrating his character after a hundred years formed the basis of the Stanislavsky system.

Wherever Shchepkin performed, the audience received him enthusiastically. Directors, theater critics, authors of plays - too. "Now you have become several times taller than the Shchepkin I have seen before. You now have that high calm that you didn't have before. You can now reign in your role, whereas before you were still somehow throwing. If you do not hear this and do not notice it yourself, then believe me in some way, agreeing that I can know in any sense, "Nikolai Gogol wrote to Shchepkin in 1842.

Shchepkin's house along Bolshoi Spassky Lane in Moscow, 1900. Bakhrushinsky Museum