Volkonsky S.M. (1860-1937), dramatist

Categories / Art/Music, Theatre/Personalia
Categories / Capital/Personalia
VOLKONSKY Sergey Mikhailovich (1860-1937), Prince, dramatist and critic, pedagogue, expert on acting technique theory, historian, writer, and Staff Master (1901). Graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology at St. Petersburg University in 1884. From the late 1880s, he appeared in several of the capital's periodicals with critical essays on theatre. He was interested in the history of the Decembrists' movement. In 1893, he was appointed Commissioner for the Ministry of Public Education at the World Fair in Chicago. During his term as Director of the Imperial Theatres (1899-1901), Volkonsky supported pioneering ideas and contributed to the reorganization of theatre; while sharing the views of aestheticists, he brought artists from the World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) collective to the stage. He had to retire because of a conflict with M.F. Kschessinska. From the 1900s, Volkonsky developed theories on acting, popularising and developing the doctrine of the Eurhythmics system invented by E. Jacques-Dalcroze. He wrote several following books, including A Man on Stage, Artistic Echoes (St. Petersburg, 1912), then Elocution: An Attempted Study on Everyday and Stage Speech, and Eloquent Man: Theatrical Training of Gesture (St. Petersburg, 1913), and finally Echoes of Theatre (Petrograd, 1914). At various times, Volkonsky taught courses and lectured on the history of Russian culture, literature and theatre in the USA, France, and Italy (some of his lectures were published in English, German and Russian). After October 1917, he taught at literary and theatre workshops in Moscow. From 1921, he lived abroad, in Germany, Italy and France. While abroad, he published a book called Life and Being: Extracts from Past, Present and Eternal (Berlin, 1924), as well as a memoir called My Memoirs (Vol. 1-2, Berlin, 1923-24; Moscow, 1992).

References: Бойков В. Герой Серебряного века // Наше наследие. 1991. №4. С. 54-58; Бачелис Т. И. О Волконском // Волконский С. М. Мои воспоминания: В 2 т. М., 1992. Т. 2. С. 357-382.

A. A. Kirillov. Jaques-Dalcroze Emile
Kschessinska Mathilde (Maria) Felixovna
Volkonsky Sergey Mikhailovich, Duke
Бойков В. Герой Серебряного века // Наше наследие, 1991
Бачелис Т. И. О Волконском // Волконский С. М. Мои воспоминания: В 2 т. М., 1992 State University, St. Petersburg
Imperial Theatres Board