European Film Star Postcards: New Didier Hanson acquisition: Vera Karalli

19 July 2018

New Didier Hanson acquisition: Vera Karalli

My friend Didier Hanson sent me this wonderful postcard from the Russian Empire, he recently acquired. I love it very much. The picture is a still from a film by Yevgeni Bauer, who directed more than seventy silent films in the four years before the Russian Revolution of 1917. Film critic Kenneth Turan writes in his book on the director: "Bauer's films have been justly called the work of the greatest director you've never heard of." Nabat/The Alarm (1917) was one of the last films Bauer made before he died of pneumonia in a hospital in Yalta, only 52 years old. Star of the film is actress and ballet dancer Vera Karalli of whom Didier Hanson has sent me several postcards in the past. So, today a special post on Didier's cards of La Karalli.

Russian postcard, no. 200. Photo: publicity still of Zoya Barantsevich, Vera Karalli, Vladimir Strizhevsky and Vjacheslav Svoboda in Nabat/The Alarm (Yevgeni Bauer, 1917). Collection: Didier Hanson.

Russian postcard. Photo: publicity still for Krizantemy/Chrysanthemums (Pyotr Chardynin, 1914). Collection: Didier Hanson.

Russian postcard, 1916. Collection: Didier Hanson. Eunice and Petronius (1915) was a ballet by choreographer Alexander Alexeyevich Gorsky, produced by the Russian Imperial Ballet.

Russian Postcard, no. 91, 1917. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson. Photo: publicity still for Vozmezdie/Retribution (Yevgeni Bauer, 1916) with Vitold Polonsky.

Lidya F. Ryndina, Vera Karalli and Vitold Polonsky in Vozmezdie (1916)

Russian Postcard, no. 152. Collection: Didier Hanson. Photo: publicity still for Vozmezdie/Retribution (Yevgeni Bauer, 1916) with Lidya F. Ryndina, Vera Karalli and Vitold Polonsky.