Alexander Burdonsky

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Vasilyevich and the family name is Burdonsky.

Alexander Burdonsky
Born	Alexander Vasilyevich Stalin (1941-10-14)October 14, 1941 Kuybyshev, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Died	May 23, 2017(2017-05-23) (aged 75) Moscow, Russia
Alma mater	Russian Academy of Theatre Arts
Occupation	Theatre director
Years active	1972−2017
Employer	Russian Army Theatre
Spouse	Dalia Tamulevičiūtė
Parents	Vasily Stalin (father) Galina Burdonskaia (mother)
Relatives	Joseph Stalin (grandfather)
Awards	People's Artist of Russia (1996)

Alexander Vasilyevich Burdonsky (Russian: Александр Васильевич Бурдонский; October 14, 1941 – May 23, 2017) was a Russian theater and film director and grandson of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin. He directed more than 20 plays at The Moscow Theater, and also directed films including Playing On the Keys of The Soul and This Madman Platanov. In 1996, Burdonsky was awarded the People's Artist of Russia Award for his works.

Alexander was born on October 14, 1941, in Kuybyshev (now Samara), during evacuation, to Vasily Stalin and Galina Burdonskaya. At birth, he was given the surname Stalin, but during his school and college years, he used the surname Vasiliev. In adulthood, he adopted his mother's surname, Burdonsky.

Four years after his birth, Burdonskaya left her husband due to his lifestyle and habits such anlcohal abuse, infidelity, and frequent scandals. After the separation, Vasily Stalin prevented Galina from seeing Alexander and his younger sister Nadezhda. The children returned to their mother only after Stalin’s death.

In 1951, at his father’s insistence, Alexander was enrolled in the Kalinin Suvorov Military School, where he studied for two years. After completing seventh grade in 1955, he entered the Theatrical Art and Technical School to study stage design, while also participating in amateur performances at the Pioneer House on Tikhvin Lane.

After graduating from the school in 1958, he worked as a props artist in various Moscow theaters. In 1966, he enrolled at GITIS (the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts) in the directing department, studying under Maria Knebel. He was also accepted into the acting studio of the Sovremennik Theatre under Oleg Nikolayevich Yefremov.

Upon graduating from GITIS in 1971, Burdonsky was invited by Anatoly Efros to play the role of Romeo in a Shakespeare production at the Malaya Bronnaya Theatre. Three months later, Maria Knebel invited him to the Central Theatre of the Soviet Army to direct the play He Who Gets Slapped by Leonid Andreyev, featuring Andrei Popov and Vladimir Zeldin. After the production premiered in 1972, the theatre’s artistic director, Andrei Alekseyevich Popov, offered Alexander Burdonsky a permanent position there.

Burdonsky died of cancer on May 23, 2017, at the age of 75. He was predeceased in 2006 by his wife, Dalia Tamulevičiūtė, a Lithuanian teacher and theatre director.

Personal Life:

He was married to his classmate, Dalia Tamulevičiūtė (1940–2006), a theatre director, Honored Art Worker of the Lithuanian SSR, and the chief director of the Lithuanian Youth Theatre. The couple had no children. He was later widowed.

External links

• Биография на сайте Театра Российской армии
• Внук Иосифа Сталина Александр Бурдонский: Дед был настоящим тираном… Archived 2017-05-30 at the Wayback Machine