«Считаю Вас очень близким мне человеком…»: Е.К. Малиновская, В.И. Немирович-Данченко и другие в 1935–1942 годах

Abstract

Elena Konstantinovna Malinovskaya (1875–1942) left a noticeable mark in the history of the Russian theatre of the late 1910s — 1930s. After managing Moscow academic theatres after the revolution, in 1924 she was forced to resign, and in 1930 she returned to the theatrical world, by leading the Bolshoi Theatre. After her final resignation in 1935, the figure of Malinovskaya drops out of view for theatre scholars. Meanwhile, after having outlived the repression of her children and having lost all administrative positions, she had by no means lost touch with the world of performing arts. In this article, which is written using the material of several archives (Malinovskaya's extensive personal fonds in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the Malinovsky Family Fonds in the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko Foundation in the Moscow Art Theatre Museum, and the E. P. Peshkova Foundation in the Gorky Archive, as well as investigative files from the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia), the last seven years of the life of an outstanding activist for the Russian theatre have been carefully examined. The author pays particular attention to Malinovskaya’s correspondence with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, who tried to support his former boss. The article reveals that even in the difficult conditions of evacuation from Moscow to Kuybyshev (Samara) in 1941, up to the last days of her life, Malinovskaya tried to take an active part in the fate of the Bolshoi Theatre.