Polina Vladimirovna Kumanchenko

Born Oct. 21, 1910, in the village of Muzykovka, in present-day Belozerka Raion, Kherson Oblast. Soviet Ukrainian actress. People’s Artist of the USSR (1960).

Kumanchenko graduated from the studio at the Nikolaev Russian Dramatic Theater in 1928. From 1929 to 1931 she worked in the Nikolaev Ukrainian Workers’ and Peasants’ Touring Theater, and from 1932 to 1937 in the Kharkov Theater of Working Youth. Between 1937 and 1961, Kumanchenko was an actress of the T. G. Shevchenko Ukrainian Theater in Kharkov. In 1961 she joined the I. la. Franko Ukrainian Theater in Kiev. Her principal roles have included Kharitina in KarpenkoKaryi’s The Woman Farm Laborer, Cleopatra and Galina Romanovna in Korneichuk’s Why the Stars Smiled and The Heart’s Remembrance, Elizaveta in Kocherga’s laroslav the Wise; and the title roles in Baratashvili’s Marine and Sheridan’s Duenna. She has also appeared in films. A deputy to the fourth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, she received the T. G. Shevchenko State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR in 1971. She has also been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and various medals.