Sandro Akhmeteli

Sandro Akhmeteli (

In 1918, Georgia became independent from Russia, and the new government launched a program aimed at reviving the national theater. Akhemeteli returned to Georgia to lead the younger actors into a coup against the establishment. In 1922, the conspicuous Russia-based Georgian theater director Kote Marjanishvili also returned to Georgia, and the two men began reforming the Tbilisi Rustaveli Theater. Their collaboration was productive, yet uneasy. Restricted and somewhat conformist Marjanishvili found Akhmeteli’s autocratic rule and turbulent character too violent and left the Rustaveli Theater in 1926, leaving Akhemeteli in sole control of the company. Akhmeteli formed his own artistic corporation Duruji (after a river in his native Kakheti) and required all its members to sign a special pledge to "sacrifice their life and future to the will of the corporation and theater".^[1]

Triumph and fall

Akhemetli's relations with the recently established

Akhemeteli was never able to escape Beria's supervision. Accused of "anti-Soviet activities" and forbidden to tour abroad, Akhemeteli was finally removed from the scene in 1935. He took refuge among his admirers in Moscow, but, in 1937, he was extradited to Tbilisi to be imprisoned with a number of his colleagues on trumped-up charges of espionage for the British and plots to murder Beria and Joseph Stalin. Akhemeteli was subjected, in the presence of Beria, to extensive tortures until rendered mute and paralyzed.^[1] He was forced to make confessions but refused to name others and was executed on June 27, 1937. Foreign visitors to his theater were informed he had retired. Akhmeteli was first rehabilitated by the Georgian theater historian Natela Urushadze.^[2]

References