Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko

Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko was a Russian and Soviet theatre director, teacher, playwright, writer, and theatre critic. In 1876 Nemirovich-Danchenko graduated from the Tiflis gymnasium with a silver medal and entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow University, then transferred to the Faculty of Law, but in 1879 left the university before graduating. 

 

In 1877 he began to publish as a theatre critic: articles and reviews in the magazines 'Budilnik', 'Artist', 'Strekoza', in the newspapers 'Russky Kurier' (he was an editor of the paper), 'Novosti Dnya' and others under the pseudonyms Vl., V., Vlad, Incognito, Goboy, Nike, Kiks. In 1881 he wrote his first play 'Shipovnik', which was staged a year later by the Maly Theatre; in the same year his first short story 'At the Post Station' was published. From 1891 to 1901 he taught in the drama department of the Music and Drama School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society. Among his pupils were Ivan Moskvin, Olga Knipper-Chekhova, and Vsevolod Meyerhold, who joined the troupe of the Moscow Art Theatre.

 

In 1898, together with Konstantin Stanislavsky, he founded the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT), becoming its director and later the head of several of its studios. After the October Revolution he became a member of Centrotheatre (the supreme body governing theatres) and was one of the founders and editors of the journal 'Theatre Culture'. In 1919 he organized a Musical Studio at the MAT. In 1943 Nemirovich-Danchenko succeeded in establishing the School-Studio at the Moscow Art Theatre, which bears his name. Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko died on April 25, 1943, in Moscow of a heart attack.