Alla Tarasova

Alla Tarasova
Alla Tarasova
Born	Alla Konstantinovna Tarasova; 6 February [O.S. 25 January] 1898; Kyiv, Russian Empire
Died	5 April 1973 (aged 75); Moscow, RSFSR, Soviet Union
Occupation(s)	Actress, pedagogue
Years active	1916–1973

Alla Konstantinovna Tarasova (Russian: А́лла Константи́новна Тара́сова; 6 February [O.S. 25 January] 1898 – 5 April 1973) was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actress and pedagogue. She was a leading actress of Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre from the late 1920s onward.^[1] People's Artist of the USSR (1937) and Hero of Socialist Labour (1973).

Career

A title role in Anna Karenina (1937) was her most resounding success. She appeared to mixed reviews as Katerina in the screen version of Ostrovsky's The Storm (1934) and as Catherine I in the movie Peter the Great (1937). Tarasova toured London and United States with the Moscow Art Theatre in 1922–1924 to much international acclaim. She was a recipient of five Stalin Prizes (in 1941, twice in 1946, 1947, and 1949), two Orders of Lenin and the honorary title of People's Artist of the USSR in 1937.^[2]

Tarasova joined the Communist Party in 1954, having already been elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in 1952. She served as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet until 1960 and was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labour shortly before her death in 1973.^[3]

Tarasova died on 5 April 1973 and was interred at the Vvedenskoye Cemetery.^[4]

In 1975, a ship, the MV Alla Tarasova, was named after her.

Solovyova, Inna. 1999. "The Theatre and Socialist Realism, 1929-1953." Trans. Jean Benedetti. In A History of Russian Theatre. Ed. Robert Leach and Victor Borovsky. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 325–357. ISBN 0-521-43220-0.