Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Eisenstein
Eisenstein in St. Petersburg, 1910s
Born	Sergei Mikhailovich Eizenshtein 22 January 1898 (O.S. 10 January 1898) Riga, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire
Died	11 February 1948(1948-02-11) (aged 50) Moscow, Soviet Union
Years active	1923–1946
Spouse(s)	Pera Atasheva (birth name Pearl Fogelman; 1934–1948; his death)
Awards	Stalin prizes (1941, 1946)

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (/ˈaɪzənˌstaɪn/;Russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн; IPA: [sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn]; 22 January [O.S. 10 January] 1898 – 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director and film theorist, a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958).

Eisenstein was born to a middle-class family in Riga, Latvia (then part of the Russian Empire in the Governorate of Livonia), but his family moved frequently in his early years, as Eisenstein continued to do throughout his life. His father, Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein was born to a German Jewish father who had converted to Christianity, Osip Eisenstein, and a mother of Swedish descent. His mother, Julia Ivanovna Konetskaya, was from a Russian Orthodox family. According to other sources, both of his paternal grandparents were of Baltic German descent. His father was an architect and his mother was the daughter of a prosperous merchant. Julia left Riga the same year as the Russian Revolution of 1905, taking Sergei with her to St. Petersburg. Her son would return at times to see his father, who joined them around 1910. Divorce followed and Julia left the family to live in France. Eisenstein was raised as an Orthodox Christian, but became an atheist later on.