Serdiuk, Aleksandr

Born June 14 (27), 1900, in the village of Bzov, in what is now Baryshevka Raion, Kiev Oblast; Soviet Ukrainian actor. People’s Artist of the USSR(1951). Member of the CPSU from 1943.

In 1919, Serdiuk graduated from the N. V. Lysenko Kiev Institute of Music and Drama. From 1919 to 1922 he was an actor at the T. G. Shevchenko First State Theater of the Ukrainian SSR in Kiev, and from 1922 he acted at the T. G. Shevchenko Kharkov Theater, where he was administrator and artistic director from 1957 to 1962.

Serdiuk’s acting was distinguished by deep psychological interpretation and, at times, by an incisive publicistic style. His roles have included the Mayor in Gogol’s The Inspector-General, Egor Bulychov in Gorky’s Egor Bulychov and the Others, Platon, Kobza, and Groza in Korneichuk’s Platon Krechet, The Destruction of the Squadron, and A Page From a Diary, Nikita in Kocherga’s laroslav the Wise (State Prize of the USSR, 1947), Sergeev in Dmiterko’s General Vatutin (State Prize of the USSR, 1948), and Karavai in Makaenok’s Pill Under the Tongue. He portrayed V. I. Lenin in Pogodin’s Third Pathétique and Shtein’s Between Downpours. Beginning in 1930, he also appeared in films. In 1946 he became a teacher at the Kharkov Institute of the Arts.

Serdiuk was a deputy to the fourth and fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.