Papov, Sergei

Papov, Sergei Ivanovich 

Born Sept. 18 (Oct. 1), 1904, in the village of Il’ino, in what is now Kineshma Raion, Ivanovo Oblast; died Oct. 18, 1970, in Moscow. Soviet actor. People’s Artist of the USSR (1958). Member of the CPSU since 1940.

Papov began acting in 1921 in the auxiliary cast of the Kineshma theater. He went on to act in the Proletkul’t Theater in Ivanovo and the Young Theater in Voronezh. Beginning in 1940, he acted in the A. V. Kol’tsov Theater of Voronezh. Papov excelled in dramatic roles, portraying heroic, purposeful, and courageous figures. Among his best roles were Godun in Lav-renev’s The Break; Kuznetsov in Those of Strong Spirit, by Medvedev and Grebnev; Shul’ga in The Young Guard, adapted from Fadeev’s novel of the same name; the title role in Lavrent’ev’s Ivan Budantsev; and Vasilii Zabrodin in Shtok’s Leningrad Avenue. Roles played by Papov in 19th-century Russian plays were Astrov in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and the Mayor in Gogol’s Inspector-General. He also played the role of Przheval’skii in the film of the same name (1952).