Nikolay Cherkasov

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Konstantinovich and the family name is Cherkasov.

For other people named Nikolai Cherkasov, see Nikolai Cherkasov (disambiguation).

Nikolay Konstantinovich Cherkasov^[a] (27 July [O.S. 14 July] 1903 – 14 September 1966) was a Soviet and Russian actor. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1947.^[1]

Nikolay Cherkasov
Николай Черкасов
Cherkasov in Alexander Nevsky, 1938
Born	(1903-07-27)July 27, 1903 Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died	September 14, 1966(1966-09-14) (aged 63) Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting place	Tikhvin Cemetery
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1918–1965

Career

He was born in Saint Petersburg (later Petrograd in 1914, and Leningrad from 1924 to 1991) into the family of a railway clerk. From 1919 he was a mime artist in Petrograd's Maryinsky Theatre, the Bolshoi Theatre, and elsewhere. After graduating from the Institute of Stage Arts in 1926, he began acting in the Young Spectator's Theatre in Leningrad.

Cherkasov debuted in film with the supporting part of hairdresser Charles in Vladimir Gardin’s Pushkin biopic The Poet and the Tsar (1927). Cherkasov was one of Stalin's favorite actors and played title roles in Sergei Eisenstein's monumental sound films Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Parts I & II of Ivan the Terrible (1945 & 1946; though Part II was not officially released until 1958 because of Stalin's repression of the film). He also played Jacques Paganel in the 1936 adaptation of Jules Verne's The Children of Captain Grant. In the 1947 comedy Springtime, Cherkasov appeared alongside other icons of Soviet cinema, Lyubov Orlova and Faina Ranevskaya. For the role of Alexander Popov in the film Alexander Popov in 1951, he received a Stalin Prize of the second degree. In 1957, Cherkasov portrayed Don Quixote in director Grigori Kozintsev's screen adaptation of the novel.

Cherkasov's grave, Tikhvin Cemetery, Saint Petersburg

In 1941, Cherkasov was awarded the Stalin Prize; in 1947, he was named a People's Artist of the USSR. He wrote his memoirs, "Notes of a Soviet Actor" in 1951. He died in Leningrad in 1966 and was buried in Tikhvin Cemetery, the "Necropolis of the Masters of Art", at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

The image of Cherkasov in the role of Alexander Nevsky is on the Soviet Order of Alexander Nevsky, because there are no known portraits of Nevsky himself.^[2]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1927	The Poet and the Tsar	Charles, the barber
1928	His Excellency	Tall clown
1928	My Son	Pat
1929	Luna sleva	Kalugin
1929	Rodnoy brat
1930	Vsadniki vetra
1932	Vstrechnyy
1934	Crown Prince of the Republic	Waitor
1934	Lyublyu li tebya?	Student
1934	Kto tvoy drug
1935	Happiness
1935	Red Army Days	Kolka Loshak
1935	Zhenitba Zhana Knukke	Captain Hans Pfal
1935	Granitsa
1936	Girl Friends	White army Officer
1936	The Children of Captain Grant	Jacques Paganel
1937	Baltic Deputy	Professor Dmitriy Illarionovich Polezhayev
1937-1938	Pyotr Pervyy (part 1, 2)	Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia
1937	Za sovetskuyu rodinu	Commander-in-Chief
1938	Treasure Island	Billy Bones
1938	Alexander Nevsky	Alexander Nevsky
1938	Friends	Beta the Ossesian
1939	Lenin in 1918	Maxim Gorky
1940	Kontsert na ekrane	Concert MC
1942	The Defense of Tsaritsyn	Peasant	Uncredited
1942	Yego zovut Sukhe-Bator	Baron Ungern
1943	Shestdesyat dney
1944 1957	Ivan the Terrible (part 1, 2)	Ivan the Terrible
1947	In the Name of Life	Lukich, the attendant
1947	Springtime	Arkadi Mikhailovich Gromov, director
1947	Novyy dom	Mikhail Kostousov akademik
1947	Pirogov	Lyadov
1949	Ivan Pavlov	Maxim Gorky
1949	Alexander Popov	Alexander Popov
1949	The Battle of Stalingrad (part 1, 2)	Franklin D. Roosevelt
1949	Schastlivogo plavaniya	kapitan Levashov
1950	Mussorgsky	Stasov, the critic
1953	Rimsky-Korsakov
1955	They Knew Mayakovsky	Mayakovsky
1957	Don Quixote	Don Quixote
1963	Vsyo ostayotsya lyudyam	akademik Fyodor Dronov
1965	Tretya molodost	Gedeonov

Notes

1. Russian: Николай Константинович Черкасов, romanized: Nikolay Konstantinovich Cherkasov