Lidiya F. Ryndina

Biography

July heat shimmered over the Russian Empire on the day Lidiya F. Ryndina first opened her eyes—17 July 1883. The footlights soon called: she stepped before the camera for Peterburgskiye trushchobi in 1915, slipped into the shadows of post-revolutionary Europe for Der Unbekannte aus Rußland in 1922, and compressed a lifetime into 1917’s Zhizn trekh dney. Eight-one autumns later, on 17 November 1964, her final curtain fell in Paris, France, closing a career that had spanned empires, wars, and exile.