Aleksei Kapler

  1. Home
  2. Wiki
Aleksei Kapler
BornЛазарь Яковлевич Каплер Edit this on Wikidata
15 September 1903 (in Julian calendar) Edit this on Wikidata
Kyiv Edit this on Wikidata
Died11 September 1979 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 75)
Partner(s)Svetlana Alliluyeva, Tatyana Zlatogoroda Edit this on Wikidata

Aleksei Yakovlevich Kapler (also Alexei, Russian: Алексей Яковлевич Каплер, born Lazar Yankelevich Kapler; 28 September 1903 – 11 September 1979) was a prominent Soviet filmmaker, screenwriter, actor, and writer.[1][2][3][4][5] He was known as screenwriter of many Soviet movies, such as Lenin in 1918, Amphibian Man, The Blue Bird and Striped Trip, as well as one of the anchors and directors of TV program Kinopanorama (a cinema overview).[citation needed]

Early life

[edit]

Kapler was born into a wealthy family of Jewish merchants in Kiev in 1903, the son of Yakov Naftalievich Kapler and Raisa Zakhar'yevna Kapler (née Krintsberg). As an adolescent, he participated in local theater productions. In particular, he participated in a puppet theater, along with Sergei Yutkevich, Grigori Kozintsev, Michał Waszyński, and Konstantin Mardzhanov.

He and his colleagues eventually moved to Leningrad. There, Kapler appeared in several films directed by Kozintsev. In the 1930s, Kapler was a scriptwriter for a series of films about the life of Vladimir Lenin, which were directed by Mikhail Romm. For this, he became a recipient of the Stalin Prize in 1941.

Internments in the Gulag

[edit]

Kapler is also known as the first love of Joseph Stalin's then teenage daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, who was more than 20 years his junior. According to Stalin's daughter, that was the reason for Kapler to be sentenced in 1943 to five years in exile on charges of anti-Soviet agitation.[6][7] He was sent to Vorkuta region, where he worked as a photographer and lived in a tiny room partitioned off in the corner of the local photo studio.[8]

In 1948, after returning to Moscow without permission, he was imprisoned the second time and spent five more years in Minlag labour camp by Inta. In 1953, after Stalin's death, he was released an exonerated of all charges in 1954.[9] After the release, Kapler continued working on cinema and TV.

Personal life

[edit]

His first wife (married 1921–1930) was the actress Tatiana Tarnowska (1898–1994), daughter of Countess Maria Tarnowska. With Tatiana he had a son, Anatoly (b. 1927). His second wife (married 1953–1960) was actress Valentina Tokarskaya (1906–1996) whom he met in exile. After his remarriage, he had another affair with Svetlana Alliluyeva.[10] Kapler's last wife (married 1960 till his death in 1979) was poet Yulia Drunina (1924–1991).[11]

Filmography

[edit]

Notes and references

[edit]
  1. ^ Peter Rollberg (2009). Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema. US: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 319–321. ISBN 978-0-8108-6072-8.
  2. ^ The Soviet Theater: A Documentary History
  3. ^ The People's Artist : Prokofiev's Soviet Years: Prokofiev's Soviet Years
  4. ^ Российская газета: «Кинопанорама любви»
  5. ^ Энциклопедия «Кругосвет»
  6. ^ Sopelnyak, Boris. "10 лет за ночь с дочерью Сталина". No. 735. Mir Novostey. Archived from the original on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
  7. ^ Sopelnyak, Boris. "10 лет за ночь с дочерью Сталина. Ending". No. 736. Mir Novostey. Archived from the original on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
  8. ^ [1] Archived 28 February 2019 at the Wayback Machine Boris Sopelniak Ten Years in Jail for a Kiss from Stalin's Daughter
  9. ^ Biography of Aleksei Kapler on kino-teatr.ru
  10. ^ Rayfield, Donald (2015). "La vie tragique de la fille de Staline". Books. 69 (10): 39–41. ISSN 1967-7375.
  11. ^ Fair, La rédaction de Vanity (29 August 2014). "Svetlana Allilouïeva, l'étrange destin de la fille de Staline, petite princesse du Kremlin et dissidente soviétique". Vanity Fair (in French). Retrieved 4 February 2025.
[edit]