Aleksandr Aleksejevich Khanzhonkov (1877 - 1945) was Russia's first cinema entrepreneur.

Biography

Born in a small village on the banks of the Don river in rural Russia in 1877, Khanzhonkov in 1911 founded Russia's first cinema factory, a limited company, whose main financial backer was Ivan Oserov , an influential banker and member of the Council of State. Following the October Revolution, Khanzhonkov in 1920 emigrated, first to Constantinople, then to Vienna and finally to Berlin. Abroad, he showed his films of the period before the revolution for a living. Several times, he tried to organize a new cinema factory with the help of émigré actors, but despite his authority on the field did not succeed in doing so. In 1923, he returned to Soviet Russia. He had received an invitation to found a new studio called "Ruskino", and, believing the New Economic Policy to be the end of communism, returned to Moscow. However, he was mistaken. Soon after Lenin's death in 1924, the policy was discontinued, "Ruskino" was never founded and Khanzhonkov was denounced as a class enemy. In 1925, he was sentenced to half a year in prison, after which he was deprived of his civil rights. He was rehabilitated in 1931 only, after which he moved to Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula, where he lived until his death in 1945, mainly writing his memoirs (the manuscripts have since been lost) and publishing articles on pre-revolutionary Russian cinema.

Bibliography

• Ханжонков, А.А. 1937. Ранние годы русской анимации. Москва/Ленинград: Искусство.
• Кузнецова, М. 1997. Александр Ханжонков. Жизнь за кадром. Москва: "Профил" No. 29.
• Янгиров, Рашит. 2001. К биографии А.А. Ханжонкова: Новый ракурс. Москва: "Киноведческие записки" No. 55.

External links

Biography (in Russian)