Vsevolod Meyerhold

Meyerhold’s significance as a pioneering theatre director, silenced and executed under Stalin, is equal to Brecht’s or Stanislavski’s. He studied with the influential Stanislavski, then rejected his methods, though finally was asked by the ailing director to lead his company. Mayakovsky wrote for his friend and collaborator Meyerhold; Rodchenko, Rosanova, Lissitzky and Malevich designed for him, Shklovsky was among his circle in Berlin, and Eisenstein one of his students (hiding Meyerhold’s archive after his death). The young Shostakovich lived in his flat for some months; when a fire broke out, Meyerhold rescued the composer’s manuscripts before anything of his own.