ABSTRACT
Born in 1863, Stanislavsky’s life saw profound scientific and social changes take place as the nineteenth century became the twentieth century. Living in Russia, he experienced artistic traditions from both Europe and Asia. Before his death in 1938, he witnessed three great revolutions: realism’s overturn of nineteenth-century histrionics, modernism’s rejection of realism, and Russia’s political move from monarchy to communism. The first two shaped his career and made him world famous; the last turned him from a wealthy man into a poor one, from an artist who shaped modern theatre into one who was shaped by political forces. ‘I have lived a variegated life’, he wrote, ‘during the course of which I have been forced more than once to change my most fundamental ideas’ (Stanislavski [sic] 1952: 3).
