Les Kurbas commemorative plaque unveiled in Kyiv

A commemorative plaque dedicated to Les Kurbas, an outstanding Ukrainian stage director, actor, manager of the Berezil drama company, was recently unveiled on Volodymyrska St. in Kyiv, to the accompaniment of dozens of little bells. This plaque is a gift to the Kurbas Dramatic Art Center from the state administration of Dnipropetrovsk. The plaque was manufactured by the Yuzhmash Works, supervised by Fedir Maistrenko, an expert on art castings, designed by the artist, Volodymyr Nebozhenko. This plaque is practically similar to the one unveiled in Geneva 12 years ago. As it was, one could see a video tape on a big video screen mounted beside the plaque, based on a film made back in 1927 that had miraculously survived the ravages of time.

Says the center’s director, Academician Nellie Korniienko: “He was one of the noblest men of the 20th century. One can still feel the effects of his physical destruction; his death in 1937 threw our theater back a number of decades.”

Much has changed since then, although Korniienko says the Kurbas Center may well find itself without electricity and central heating because of unpaid utility bills.

The Kurbas Center plans a series of events in conjunction with the 125th anniversary of Kurbas as a revolutionizing stage director of the Ukrainian theater. The nearest event is scheduled for March 31 in Kyiv: an international conference with presentations to be made by researchers specializing in Kurbas from Canada, Georgia, Italy, Poland, Russia, and France.