ABSTRACT
Socialist realism, following world events years before the second world war began, kindled in the Soviet Republics an intense and virile national pride toward the first Socialist land and toward the historical past out of which it had come. It would have failed in its purpose if it had looked at and shown the war as anything other than a tremendous, intense, cruel, sacrificial incident in the life of Socialism. The fame of Yermolova dominated the later nineteenth-century Russian stage as, with very great differences in style, that of Siddons dominated the early years of people's. The 15th of July 1943 was the ninetieth anniversary of Yermolova’s birth. When she died, on the 18th of March 1928, she was 75. Naturally, and without any “class” distinctions, but with the homage due to artistic skill and profundity, the players came in for more ostentatious marks of esteem. Both these actresses belonged to what might be called “Maly families”.
