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Benjamin Zuskin (; ? 1899 - August 12, 1952) was a Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish actor and director in Moscow State Jewish Theater
Moscow State Jewish Theater

The Moscow State Jewish Theater, Russian language: ?????????? ??????????????? ????????? ?????, also known by its acronym GOSET: ?????) was a Yiddish theater company established in 1919 and shut down in 1948 by the USSR authorities....
. Zuskin had a title of the People's actor of the RSFSR. He was a laureate of the Stalin Prize in 1946.

in was born in the town of Zemelis in Lithuania
Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest....
 in 1899, a son of a tailor. He attended a cheder
Cheder

A Cheder is a traditional elementary school teaching the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language....
. Zuskin was admitted into a college in 1911. During World War I, Russian authorities considered Jewish population in wartime regions as treasonous and in 1915, about 250,000 were expelled into inner cities of Russia.






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Benjamin Zuskin (; ? 1899 - August 12, 1952) was a Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish actor and director in Moscow State Jewish Theater
Moscow State Jewish Theater

The Moscow State Jewish Theater, Russian language: ?????????? ??????????????? ????????? ?????, also known by its acronym GOSET: ?????) was a Yiddish theater company established in 1919 and shut down in 1948 by the USSR authorities....
. Zuskin had a title of the People's actor of the RSFSR. He was a laureate of the Stalin Prize in 1946.

Biography

Zuskin was born in the town of Zemelis in Lithuania
Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest....
 in 1899, a son of a tailor. He attended a cheder
Cheder

A Cheder is a traditional elementary school teaching the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language....
. Zuskin was admitted into a college in 1911. During World War I, Russian authorities considered Jewish population in wartime regions as treasonous and in 1915, about 250,000 were expelled into inner cities of Russia. The Zuskin family was sent to Penza
Penza

Penza is a types of inhabited localities in Russia in Russia, the administrative center of Penza Oblast in the Volga Federal District. It stands on the Sura River, 625 km south-east of Moscow....
 where Benjamin kept on his studies and took roles at a local theatre. In 1920 he became a student of Sverdlovsk
Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg is a major types of inhabited localities in Russia in the central part of Russia, the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast....
 Geological Institute, but in 1921 asked for transfer to Moscow Geological Institute.

Theatre life

Zuskin joined Moscow State Jewish Theater in 1921. In the same year Zuskin, together with Solomon Mikhoels
Solomon Mikhoels

Solomon Mikhoels ; was a Soviet Union Jewish actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during the World War II....
, set on the stage a play "Sholom Aleichem
Sholom Aleichem

Sholem Aleichem was the pen name of Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich, the popular humorist and Imperial Russia Jewish author of Yiddish literature, including novels, short stories, and Play ....
's Party". In 1922 he played a major role in "Witch" by Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden

Abraham Goldfaden ; was an Ukraine-born Jewish poet, playwright. stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays....
.

Accomplishments

Zuskin's performance blended with Alexander Granovsky's system of organic interrelation of a word and gesture, plastics and rhythm of movements. His characteristic features were light humor and romanticism which gave additional tints to a controversial life of Jewish hamlet of shtetl
Shtetl

A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in pre-The Holocaust Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Poland, Galicia , and Romania....
. His roles showed to the audience a quarry of talented people among their routine activities.

Zuskin was a partner of Mikhoels until the latter's suspicious death in car accident in Minsk
Minsk

Minsk is the Capital and largest city in Belarus, situated on the Svislach River and Nemiga rivers. Minsk is also a headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States ....
, in January 1948 when he became the Theater's artistic director. Since 1935 he was also teaching at the actors' studio at the Theater. His most famous role was that of the Fool in King Lear
King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered one of his greatest works....
 with Solomon Mikhoels in the title role.

Filmography

Zuskin was a featured actor of Soviet movies.
  • A Man from a Shtetl («??????? ?? ????????»), 1930.
  • Happiness Hunters («???????? ???????»), 1936.
  • Unsubdued («????????????»), 1945.


Execution

As a prominent member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was formed in Samara, Russia in April 1942 with the official support of the Soviet authorities. It was designed to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany, particularly from the Western world....
, he was arrested at a hospital while being treated for nervous exhaustion and later executed on Stalin's orders in the event known as the Night of the Murdered Poets
Night of the Murdered Poets

The Night of the Murdered Poets refers to the night of 12 to 13 August 1952, when thirteen of the most prominent Yiddish writers, poets, artists, musicians and actors of the Soviet Union were secretly executed on the orders from Joseph Stalin in the basement of the Lubyanka prison in Moscow....
 on August 12, 1952.

See also

  • Pale of Settlement
    Pale of Settlement

    The Pale of Settlement was the term given to a region of Russian Empire, along its western border, in which permanent residence of Jews was allowed, and beyond which Jewish residence was generally prohibited....
  • History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union
    History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union

    The vast territories of the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest Jewish diaspora in the world. Within these territories the Jewish community flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also facing periods of intense antisemitism discriminatory policies and persecutions....
  • Yiddish theater


External links

  • .
  • Zuskina-Perelman, Alla (B.Z.'s daughter): Benjamin's Travels (Puteshestvie Veniamina: Razmyshlenia o zhizni, tvorchestve i sudbe evreiskogo aktera Veniamina Zuskina. Published Moskva : Mosty kultury ; Ierusalim : Gesharim, 2002)