Zhdanovich, Irina Florianovna

Born Sept. 14 (27), 1906, in Minsk. Byelorussian Soviet actress; People’s Artist of the Byelorussian SSR (1940). Member of the CPSU since 1947.

Zhdanovich began working in the la. Kupala Theater in Minsk in 1920. Roles as rebellious, restless heroines incapable of compromise have been her forte—for example, Maryl’ka in Chornyi’s The Motherland, Vera in Gorky’s The Last Ones, Nastia in Samuilenok’s Death of the Wolf, Ania in Movzon’s Konstantin Zaslonov, Negina in Ostrovskii’s Talents and Admirers, Anna Karenina in the play based on Tolstoy’s novel, and Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. She was a deputy to the second through the fourth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR. She received the State Prize of the USSR in 1948 and has been awarded two Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.