“The great tragedian of the Russian stage and an unrivaled brawler” – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Pyotr Voronkov talks about the actor’s quarrelsome disposition, because of which he was fired from the theater.

Once again today, the St. Petersburg pre-revolutionary Palais Royal hotel. The central figure among the famous residents, and there were plenty of them, was the actor Mammoth Dalsky. A great tragedian of the Russian stage and an unrivaled brawler. Even his last name was deliberately distorted, saying not Dalsky, but Skandalsky. Tall, bright, with a beautiful voice and an unusually cocky disposition.

When he was invited to the Alexandrinka, the oldest drama theater in Russia, the legendary prima Maria Savina nodded at him somewhat haughtily: “Hello, young man!” He immediately replied: “Hello, old lady!” He was loved and hated. Performances with his participation were always sold out. But after 10 years he was fired from the theater at the request of the troupe – he quarreled with everyone. “I’m right even when I’m wrong,” the actor repeated.

Chaliapin, Utesov, and Alexei Tolstoy admired his performance. But the stage was not the only source of his income. The fees he was paid were fabulous. There were rumors that Dalsky was selling opium, playing big cards with bandits, and participating in commercial scams. Now it’s difficult to say what happened and what didn’t really happen.

Mammoth accepted the revolution enthusiastically. Seized the Merchants’ Club and proclaimed it a house of anarchy. He spoke to the people from the window, throwing pieces of cloth, cognac, boots into the crowd with theatrical gestures… At the head of an armed gang, he captured the artist Korovin and took him to evaluate the expropriated paintings. Alexei Tolstoy wrote: “When the revolution began, he felt a gigantic tragic stage and wanted to play the main role on it in the new “Robber Brothers.”

Who knows how it would have ended. But one day, Mammoth was in a hurry to meet Chaliapin, jumped onto the tram and fell off the running board right under the wheels. Newspaper obituaries noted: “He was predicted to die on the barricades, amid the roar of bombs and waving banners, and he was run over by a stupid tram…”