I.M. Sechenov in Culture, Stalin, Stanislavsky and Demidov

[Lily Alexander]

As far as I know, Sechenov was a teacher of Nikolai Demidov, a young 
physician, who was a doctor of the Stanislavsky family, in particular, 
of the director's many children.

Demidov leaned a lot from Sechenov, and was his follower in many ways, 
as a scholar.

As Stanislavsky's kids were frequently sick, as kids usually are during 
cold Russian winters, the doctor visited often, and the young Demidov 
and Stanislavsky spent a lot of time together.  One was fascinated by 
the teaching of his guru, Sechenov, and another by the new winds in 
theatre and acting. Demidov was a great fan of MHAT and Stanislavsly's 
directing.

Out of the hundreds of hours of their passionate discussions, which 
involved what Demidov had learned from Sechenov, the system of 
Stanislavsky, or The Method, was born.

People who knew both closely, have written that Stanislavsky could never 
come up with the Method on his own. He was a genius on stage, but not 
too verbal or articulate, needless to mention, not too eloquent in 
writing or knowledgeable in science. He would have never come up with 
the elaborate system of acting without Demidov's instruction every step 
of the way. Demidov became an at home consultant to Stanislavsky in his 
development of the System, or his shadow co-author through the 
developemnt of those 4 or 6 volumes, the director published as his 
system. Their collaboration lasted for many years, and Demidov's and 
hence Sechenov's influence, was central to what is now known around the 
world as The Method Acting, with Stasberg, a student of Mikhail Chekhov, 
making it accessible to the American actors from De Niro to Jack Nicholson.

As is well known, Stanislavsky has never given any credit to Demidov, 
nor did he acknowledge Demidov's vital significance to the entire Method 
acting project. I am not judging: he was a genius in his own right, and 
perhaps at some point he sincerely persuaded himself that the System was 
his baby only.

The System became a celebrity, and although some of the Master's 
favorite but rebellious students, such as Meierhold and Mikhail Chekhov, 
rebelled against it and proposed their own alternative "Methods," it was 
the System of Stanislavsky that became the Number 1 theory, which could 
not be questioned under Stalin.

Stalin was a big fan as well. He adored Stanislavsky and considered the 
System an achievement he can be proud of, as Soviet leaders were proud 
of their cosmonauts and ballerinas.

Demidov lived through the 30s and 40s, and tried to dirct and opened an 
acting school. his studnets adored him, and thoughgt he was a great man. 
I met some of them. When Demidov realized that his name would never be 
mentioned in respect to the acting system, he wrote his own book, his 
version of the System. For him, it was not a matter of auhtorship (he 
was more like Bakhtin kind of guy, who was not obsessed about his own 
name), but a matter of correct interpretation of what the method was. A 
group of people during the Brezhnev time were trying to collect 
information on Demidov, and I was among the fortunate who had a chance 
to read Demivov's unpublished manuscript on method acting. It was a 
fascinating book, a take on acting and emotions of the serious scholar, 
and it has persuaded me, personally, beyond the reasonable doubt, that 
he indeed was a co-author of the Method. His version was however a bit 
different, but amazingly interesting and effective. Demidov had been 
trying throughout the Stalin's time to get his book published. But he 
was stonewalled: this simply was not possible. There was One Method, One 
Stanislavsky, and Stalin would not allow anybody (especially some 
questionable scientist) to challenge the authorship of Stanislavsky, 
whom his adopted as one of this celebrities.

(Stanislavsky actually did not do a thing for his love; he was helping 
Meierhold and others to survive, but he was just "lucky" to be loved by 
Stalin.). Stanislavsky also did not create obstacles for Demidov either 
- no harm was done, but he simply ignored him.

In a sense, Demidov's manuscript, if published, would have offered an 
alternative version of the body-mind connection in acting, rooted in the 
teaching of Sechenov. And it was not that under Stalin his approach was 
suspicious. It was a matter of unquestionable authorship and authority 
of Stanislavsky that Stalin would not allow to doubt. He obviously 
projected his own rules on his pet artists and scholars: 1 leader, 1 
acting guru, 1 leading biologist, 1 linguist, etc.

Even during the Brezhnev era, those who tried to publish Demidov's 
manuscript (and I repeat - I read it and it was a serious, highly 
original and valuable work), simply could not do this. The unoffcial 
taboo or censorship was still there... Imagine that: censorship of the 
Method acting!..

Demidov was teaching, among other things, how to engage the micro-units 
of muscles and body language, humdreds of times more detailed that the 
Method engages, and his version of method, is valuable for close-ups 
especially - he was completimng his book in the 30s, likely with cinema 
art in mind.

Perhaps the time came to give some credit to Nikolai Demidov and publish 
"his Method". After all, Mikhail Chekhov's alternative method was also 
prohibited in Russia almost until peresroika, but now it is published in 
many books and widely accessible around the world.

If somebody would like to research the issue or write about Demidov, the 
student of Sechenov, I would be happy to share everything I know on the 
subject. Besides, hopefully, Demidov's unpublished manuscript is still 
somewhere out there, in Russia.

All best,

Lily Alexander
NYU

Andy Hicks wrote:

>In Semyon Babaevskii's Svet nad zemlei, ownership of a book by I.M. Sechenov
>causes a character to rise in the esteem of the regional Party Secretary. 
>Ivan Sechenov (1829-1905) was apparently a founder of neurophysiology and
>seems to be regarded as a precursor to I.P. Pavlov and his work with
>conditioned reflexes.  Other than that vague resonance, do the members of
>this list know of any cultural significance that Sechenov might have in the
>Stalinist era?
>
>
>Many thanks,
>
>
>Andy Hicks
>
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