Article

Leopold Antonovich Sulerzhitsky

Published Online January 22, 2008

Last Edited October 17, 2014

Leopold Antonovich Sulerzhitsky (b at Zhitomir 1872; d at Moscow 17 December 1916), a theatre personality in Russia, participated in the settlement of Western Canada by taking charge of the 1898-99 emigration of DOUKHOBORS, in place of the imprisoned leader Peter Vasilevich VERIGIN.

Sulerzhitsky, Leopold Antonovich

Leopold Antonovich Sulerzhitsky (b at Zhitomir 1872; d at Moscow 17 December 1916), a theatre personality in Russia, participated in the settlement of Western Canada by taking charge of the 1898-99 emigration of DOUKHOBORS, in place of the imprisoned leader Peter Vasilevich VERIGIN. Sulerzhitsky, who had studied at the Moscow School of Art and Sculpture with Count Leo Tolstoy's daughter, Tatiana, was chosen by Tolstoy for this work. He left for Canada on 10 December 1898 on a freighter, the Lake Huron, with 2140 emigrants. He supervised the transportation and settlement of 7400 Doukhobors from Halifax to Winnipeg and thence to many rural townships in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. He returned to Russia in 1900 and became active in theatre work. He was the assistant private secretary of Konstantin S. Stanislavsky, who founded the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898, helping him to write down his system of acting in 1909. In 1905 he assisted Vsevolod E. Meyerhold when young revolutionaries closed the Theatre-Studio and subsequently helped students to join the Art Theatre.