The last Soviet culture minister
In his diploma performance as Hitler, Gubenko poured all his hatred for the man who killed his parents into the role. Lyubimov saw it and immediately brought him to the Taganka Theatre.
An actor and film director who rose from war orphan to People's Artist of the RSFSR. He was the first working arts professional to become Soviet Minister of Culture (1989–1991) since Anatoly Lunacharsky. After the USSR collapsed, he entered left-wing politics, serving as chair of the Duma's Culture Committee and deputy speaker of the Moscow City Duma, where he defended Soviet cultural heritage. Following the Taganka Theatre split, he founded and led the Sodruzhestvo Aktyorov Taganki until his death in 2020.
Career Timeline
- 1989–1991Minister of Culture
From the Orphanage to Cannes: Nikolai Gubenko, Film Director
Nikolai Gubenko was born in the Odessa Catacombs on 17 August 1941, during the Defence of Odessa. The following year his father was killed in action as a Soviet Air Forces pilot, and his mother was hanged by the Nazi occupation forces after refusing to collaborate. Raised in an Odessa orphanage after the war, this childhood trauma became the core material of his most important film.
After graduating from the acting department of VGIK in 1964, Gubenko debuted in Marlen Khutsiev's "I Am Twenty." At the Taganka Theatre, he gave a searing performance as Hitler in Brecht's "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui", a role into which, he later recalled, he poured all his hatred for the man who killed his parents. He completed VGIK's directing course in 1970 and directed six feature films between 1971 and 1988.
His masterwork is the 1976 film "Wounded Game" (Подранки, also released as "The Orphans"). This autobiographical story of orphaned boys in the postwar years cast fifteen real orphans in the leading roles, drew 20.3 million viewers, and was selected for the 1977 Cannes Film Festival competition. It also won the Bronze Hugo at the 1977 Chicago International Film Festival. Named People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1985, Gubenko was the first working arts professional to head Soviet culture since Anatoly Lunacharsky in 1917.