Petre Otskheli (November 25, 1907 – December 2, 1937) was a Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 modernist

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

 set and costume designer

Costume Designer

A costume designer or costume mistress/master is a person whose responsibility is to design costumes for a film or stage production. He or she is considered an important part of the "production team", working alongside the director, scenic and lighting designers as well as the sound designer. The...

 who designed in theatre in Georgia and briefly in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. He was put to death during Stalin’s Great Purge

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

 at the age of 30, but his scenographic constructivism

Constructivism (art)

Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...

 has had a lasting influence on the Georgian scenic design.

Born in Kutaisi

Kutaisi

Kutaisi is Georgia's second largest city and the capital of the western region of Imereti. It is 221 km to the west of Tbilisi.-Geography:...

, Otskheli studied at the Kutaisi realschule

Realschule

The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...

 and the Tbilisi

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

 Academy of Fine Arts in the 1920s. Through most of his career Otskheli had a creative relationship with the director Kote Marjanishvili

Kote Marjanishvili

Konstantine "Kote" Marjanishvili also known by the Russified name Konstantin Aleksandrovich Mardzhanov was a Georgian theater director regarded as an important contributor to the pre- and post-revolutionary evolution of Georgian, Russian and Soviet stages...

 who invited the young artist to his theatre in Kutaisi in 1928. Otskheli’s visual experiments and skillful use of stage for massive designs with a series of subtle elements earned him recognition, but he soon came under pressure from Stalin’s lieutenant in the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

, Lavrentiy Beria

Lavrentiy Beria

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....

. In 1936, Otskheli fled Beria’s persecution to Moscow where he was recruited by his fellow countryman Sergo Amaghlobeli, then the director of Moscow Maly Theatre

Maly Theatre (Moscow)

Maly Theatre is a drama theater in Moscow, Russia. Established in 1806 and operating on its present site on the Theatre Square since 1824, the theatre traces its history to the Moscow University drama company, established in 1756...

. In 1937, both Otskheli and Amaghlobeli were arrested and shot on trumped-up charges of treason.

Further reading

• Lomtatidze, Lily (1973), Petre Otskheli. Tbilisi.

External links

• Tsimintia, Ana (2007-12-14) Fragments of Georgian Modernism: Theatre Designs of Petre Otskheli on Display at Karvasla. Georgia Today. Retrieved on 2008-06-13.
• Petre Otskheli’s designs. Art.dfl.ge. Retrieved on 2008-06-13.