MOSCOW, October 5 We continue the series of materials about a unique collection of digitized attributed photographic images from the repository, which contains more than three million frames. The earliest date back to the mid-19th century. Employees of the Visual Projects Service are conducting scientific work to find reliable information on historical photographs from different years.
Every year on October 5th, International Teachers' Day is celebrated all over the world. The professional holiday of all teachers and education workers was proclaimed by UNESCO in 1994. In our article we will talk about outstanding artists who made an invaluable contribution to the educational system.
In the first photo: Soviet composer and teacher Dmitry Shostakovich in classes with students at the Moscow State Conservatory named after P. I. Tchaikovsky, October 9, 1947 year. Jacob Berliner/.
The greatest composer of the 20th century, pianist, conductor, public figure and teacher, nominated for an Oscar, twice for a Grammy, Dmitry Shostakovich received his initial education at home — he learned to play the piano from his mother.
World fame came to Shostakovich at the age of 20, when his First Symphony was heard not only in his homeland, but in the USA and Europe. One of the master’s outstanding works, which has become widely known, is the Seventh Symphony, which he began writing during the Great Patriotic War in the summer of 1941 in besieged Leningrad. It was first performed on August 9, 1942 in a besieged city in the Great Hall of the Philharmonic by the radio orchestra.
Dmitry Shostakovich began teaching at the Leningrad Conservatory in 1937, where he held the position of professor. Among his students was, in particular, the composer Georgy Sviridov. In June 1943, at the invitation of the director of the Moscow Conservatory and his friend Vissarion, Shebalin moved to Moscow and began working there. His student in the instrumentation class was the famous cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich.
In the fall of 1948, the composer was stripped of the title of professor at the Moscow and Leningrad Conservatories for his low professional level. Only thirteen years later, the People's Artist of the USSR returned to teaching and until 1968 supervised several graduate students in Leningrad.
The great actress Faina Ranevskaya, after meeting with Dmitry Shostakovich, said: “Small, majestic, simple, mournful. Modest, does he know that he is a genius?”
Pianist and teacher Elena Gnesina during classes with her students .
Elena Fabianovna Gnesina is one of the sisters who opened a music school in Moscow in 1895 — the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music. The date of the foundation of the school and the formation of a large complex of educational institutions is considered to be February 15 — the day the first student was enrolled in the “E. and M. Gnessin Music School”.
Both children and adults were accepted into the school, many were taught for free. The Gnessins considered singing in a choir and participating in a chamber ensemble to be an important means of musical education. The teachers developed their own teaching methods, a multi-stage system of music education, created a pedagogical repertoire, which over time developed into the system of Russian “Gnesin” music pedagogy.
By the end of the first decade of its existence, the school established itself as one of the best in Moscow, providing highly professional education of a general musician. Over its history it has produced thousands of performers, composers and teachers.
Honored Artist of the RSFSR, professor and teacher Elena Gnessina was the permanent director of the institute until the end of her life. While heading the school, she taught a piano class, as well as methods of teaching piano. Her teaching career lasted more than seventy years.
In 2024, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Elena Gnessina will be celebrated.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in 2022 to celebrate the pianist’s anniversary, as well as to establish a scholarship her name.
Chorese master, dancer and teacher Asaf Messerer at a rehearsal with ballet dancer Olga Lepeshinskaya.
People's Artist of the USSR Asaf Messerer is a representative of the famous Messerer-Plisetsky theatrical dynasty, a graduate of the Moscow Choreographic School, a soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, a leading teacher and choreographer. He danced, composed, taught.
He had great physical endurance, a unique performing style, and his powerful high jumps became the hallmark of the dancer. At the age of eighteen he began his teaching career.
In 1923, the twenty-year-old artist Messerer taught at the Choreographic School at the Bolshoi Theater, the Lunacharsky Choreographic College and the State College of Cinematography. In 1946 it was twenty-five years since the beginning of his creative activity. Despite his age, he continued to dance for several more years, until 1953, without simplifying difficult parts.
One of Asaf Messerer’s partners was the prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater, People’s Artist of the USSR Olga Lepeshinskaya, who loved to dance since childhood, but dreamed of becoming an engineer, like her father, and building bridges. Fate decreed otherwise. Already in 1933, Lepeshinskaya made her debut at the Bolshoi Theater. Possessing filigree precision of movements and temperament, she successfully performed both classical and modern roles.
After the death of her third husband in 1962, the ballerina became blind. A year later, Italian doctors managed to restore her vision. Her teaching career began in Italy. Lepeshinskaya came to Moscow, but never returned to the stage. The management of the German opera house «Komische Oper» invited the artist to help them create a ballet troupe, and she devoted almost ten years to this troupe. Then she taught in Dresden, Stuttgart, Munich, Budapest, Vienna, Belgrade, Stockholm, New York, Tokyo. Lepeshinskaya became an honorary citizen of both West and East Berlin, Belgrade, Stockholm and many other cities.
The brilliant partnership of Asaf Messerer and Olga Lepeshinskaya in the ballet Don Quixote, their magnificent mastery of classical dance created a sensation. The production was such a success that Lepeshinskaya was awarded the 1st degree Stalin Prize in 1941 for her great contribution to the art of ballet.
Soviet theater and film director, Honored Artist of the RSFSR, professor and teacher Sergei Eisenstein gives a lecture to students of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography, October 1, 1935.
Sergei Eisenstein is an internationally recognized cinematic genius who developed fundamental works on film theory and innovative techniques that changed the global film industry. The director was friends with Chaplin and Disney, he was quoted in his own films by Francis Ford Coppola, Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg.
In the early twenties, Eisenstein created his first film, “Strike,” where he showed his potential as a director. The work immediately received a prize at the World Exhibition in Paris. But his painting “Battleship Potemkin” conquered the world. The legendary film that made the master famous was filmed without scenery and famous actors. In 1926, the American Film Academy awarded the film the title of best film of the year, and at the Paris Art Exhibition the film received the highest award — “Super Grand Prix”.
Sergei Eisenstein began teaching at the State College of Cinematography in 1928 (now the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography named after S.A. Gerasimov), and was later appointed head of the department of directing at VGIK. He developed a program on the theory and practice of directing, and began work on the book “Directing” based on the lectures he gave. In 1937, as a professor, he created a systematic course and the world's first program on the fundamentals of film directing.
Sergei Eisenstein never demanded that students be “Eisensteinites” and copy him. All his students have their own style.