Mykola Yakovchenko

Mykola Fedorovych Yakovchenko April 20 May 3 1900 Pryluky September 11 1974 Kyiv was an outstanding Soviet Ukrainian theater and film actor who played character roles He was named a Peoples Artist of the Ukrainian SSR in 1970 He was born in Pryluky now Chernihiv Oblast Ukraine then Poltava Governorate Russian Empire into the family of an assistant manager of the Astrakhan fishing industry His mother had four other children besides him His family had its origins in the Don Cossacks the family moved to the Poltava province from RostovonDon and had a patriarchal structure where a penchant for art was not particularly encouraged In 1912 he enrolled in the Second Prilutsk Higher Primary School named after Kislov In 1916 he enrolled in the city Jewish gymnasium where he became interested in amateur art performing his first roles in the gymnasium theater At the same time he thoroughly studied the Greek language During the revolutionary events he went to the front His grandson Mykola BohonkoYakovchenko said It is not known for certain on whose side he fought for the Reds or the Whites According to documents he spent the entire war on a Red Army medical train However over time he became enthusiastic about talking about General Shkuros cavalry he once obtained two wellhidden St Georges Crosses In 1918 he made his debut on the amateur stage in Pryluky From the amateur group he moved to the troupe of Pylyp Khmaras theater which was Russian at the time and from 1919 Ukrainian then Soviet At this time he played in plays by Leonid Andreyev Tyukha in Savva and Second Lieutenant Grigory Mironov in Days of Our Lives From 1920 to 1927 he worked in theaters in Lubny Pryluky Simferopol Cherkasy Chernihiv Dnipro and Kharkiv From 1927 he was an actor at the Frank Ukrainian Academic Theater in Kyiv with breaks