Childhood Aleksandr Tairov was born Aleksandr Yakovlevich Korenblit on July 6, 1885, in
Romny,
Russian Empire. His father, Yakov Korenblit, was the headmaster of a primary school in
Berdichev. At the age of 10, young Tairov moved to
Kiev and settled with his aunt, a retired actress. She introduced him to theatre. He took part in amateur performances and assumed the name Tairov as a pseudonym.
Experience In 1904 he enrolled in the
Law School at
Kiev University. That same year Tairov married his cousin, Olga. In 1905 Tairov opposed the pogroms of Jews in Kiev. He was arrested by the Tsar's police and imprisoned. His second arrest led him to decide to move from Kiev to St. Petersburg.
Theatrical beginnings In 1906 Tairov was invited by the famous Russian actress
Vera Komissarzhevskaya and joined her theatre as an actor under the directorship of
Vsevolod Meyerhold. Tairov concurrently continued his studies in law at
St. Petersburg University. There he started his lifelong friendship with
Anatoli Lunacharsky. He collaborated with Vsevolod Meyerhold on a joint production of a play by
Paul Claudel. Both directors were creating new experimental models for theatre in Russia. Tairov felt that the work of Meyerhold's actors was dictated by the production concept and that the actors were mere puppets. Soon Tairov left to join
Pavel Gaideburov's company as a director.
Chamber Theatre Tairov created a prototype of his Chamber Theatre as "synthetic theatre" with high goals in mind. As director he experimented with staging, acting, individual and group movements, stage and costume designs, and worked with every detail of theatrical performance in order to break away from the traditional theatre. Tairov's experimental approach spread to all phases of creating a stage show including even the rehearsals and practice. He used the music of
Ludwig van Beethoven and
Frédéric Chopin as a way of helping his actors achieve a special state of mind during their performances.
Riga In 1912 Tairov was invited to direct a play in collaboration with the Russian Drama Theatre in
Riga. There he was once again attacked by the local anti-Semites and was banned by the local authorities from staying and working in the city of Riga. The conflict took two weeks to resolve. Tairov prevailed, he stayed and completed his work for the Russian Drama Theatre in Riga. Upon his return to St. Petersburg, Tairov
converted to
Evangelical Lutheranism.
Moscow In 1913 Tairov moved to
Moscow. There he joined a corporation of attorneys at law and could continue a comfortable career. Instead, Tairov established himself as an important anti-realist director. With his wife, the actress
Alisa Koonen, he founded the Kamerny (Chamber) Theatre in 1914; it became the centre of experimental creativity for many Russian actors, artists, writers, and musicians. Tairov was the first director in Russia to stage
The Threepenny Opera by
Bertolt Brecht. He staged classical play of
Kalidasa - "
Sakuntala", plays of
Valery Bryusov,
Eugene O'Neill,
J.B. Priestley,
Oscar Wilde, and other contemporary writers. Tairov collaborated with such artists as
Alexandra Exter,
Pavel Kuznetsov,
Sergei Soudeikin,
Mikhail Larionov,
Natalya Goncharova,
Vladimir Pohl,
Inayat Khan and others. Tairov's Acting Studio became extremely popular among aspiring actors such as
Vera Karalli,
Yevgeni Lebedev, and others. He worked with composers
Sergei Prokofiev, A. Aleksandrov,
Georgi Sviridov, and
Dmitri Kabalevsky.
After Revolution After the
Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Tairov continued development of his independent approach to theatre. His early productions of the Soviet era were Salome by Oscar Wilde and Adrienne Lecouvrer, which became a legendary play and ran more than 800 performances. The Chamber Theatre remained very popular and toured across the
Soviet Union. The Chamber Theatre's tours of
Europe in 1923, and of
South America in 1930 were critically acclaimed as "a total victory of the famous Russian innovator and a genius of staging".
Under Stalin in the 1930s In 1929 Tairov produced
Bagrovy Ostrov (The Crimson Island) by
Mikhail Bulgakov. At that time
Joseph Stalin began his total control of culture and labeled the play bourgeois. That was enough to trigger organized attacks on Tairov in the Soviet media. His next production of
Vsevolod Vishnevskiy's
Optimistic tragedy (1933) was criticized by
Vyacheslav Molotov as a slander of Russian history. Tairov tried to defend his theatre, he stated that theatres must be established on the level of research institutes. "Pavlov has an institute on which millions are spent.
Stanislavsky must have an institute too", said Tairov. As a punishment, Tairov's Chamber Theatre was sent to work in
Siberia. However, unlike many other enemies of the regime, Tairov survived the Great Purges in which millions were imprisoned or executed.
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee In August 1941, though his theatre company had returned to Siberia, Tairov joined the
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Moscow. It was formed by the group of leading intellectuals to campaign against the Nazis during the
Second World War. The Committee was headed by
Solomon Mikhoels. Along with Tairov other prominent members were
Emil Gilels,
David Oistrakh,
Samuil Marshak,
Ilja Ehrenburg, and many other leading intellectuals in the Soviet Union. The main driving force of the Committee was represented by the group of
Yiddish writers such as
Perets Markish,
Lev Kvitko, David Gofstein,
Itsik Fefer,
David Bergelson, and others. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee provided over 45 million rubles to the Soviet
Red Army. After the end of the Second World War it was denounced by Joseph Stalin, and many of its members were executed by the Soviet secret service.
Under Stalin after World War II In 1946 the Soviet Communist Party launched attacks on intellectuals in the Soviet Union. Such leading cultural figures as
Anna Akhmatova,
Sergei Prokofiev,
Aram Khachaturian,
Boris Pasternak,
Mikhail Zoshchenko and many others suffered from censorship and severe repression. Tairov's Chamber Theatre was attacked for having little to do with contemporary Soviet life. Tairov tried to make additions to the repertoire and invited writer
Alexander Galich, and young director
Georgi Tovstonogov, but it was too late. In May 1949, the Soviet Committee for Arts issued an official order to close the theatre. Tairov's Chamber Theatre was accused of "Aesthetism and
Formalism". Tairov was granted a personal pension and soon was hospitalized with brain cancer. He died on September 5, 1950, in Moscow, and was laid to rest in the
Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, Russia. ==Timeline==