The Unknown Fate of Melania Wohl-Lewicka, Polish Prima Donna of Tbilisi
Journal Title: Pro Georgia. Journal of Kartvelological Studies - Year 2017, Vol 0, Issue 27
Abstract
Melania Wohl was born on April 6, 1885, in Warsaw. She started her wondrous opera career in Warsaw. Melania made her opera stage debut at the Warsaw Government Theatre in 1910. After studying the Polish periodicals it seems that she afterwards flourished as a prima donna at the Teatr Wielki (Warsaw National Opera House) in the years 1910-1914. During the First World War Melania Wohl-Lewicka moved to Kiev. After a one-year stay in Kiev, Melania headed to Tiflis. In January 1916, Melania Wohl-Lewicka made her debut at the Tiflis Opera House. Throughout her career, she has performed the titular roles in more than 35 operas. Since the establishment of the Bolshevik regime in Georgia (1921) representatives of the Polish community living in Georgia were allowed to return to native homeland. Melania Wohl-Lewicka gave a farewell concert at the Tiflis Conservatory and made the decision to go back to Poland, she changed her mind, married a Georgian scientist Giorgi Eliava and stayed to live in Georgia. Throughout its history, the Soviet ruling elite used political repressions to encourage loyalty to the communist regime. The wave of repressions reached its peak in the years 1936-1938. In particular, for the communist nomenklatura only intellectuals were very dangerous. They were declared to be unacceptable, “enemies of the people” by the Communists and for the decades they forbade even mention the names of such people. Thus, we have a lot of lost history and the presented story as well. The paper is a modest attempt to reconstruct story of Melania Wohl-Lewicka based on different types of sources: Periodicals, memoir, oral history and a few books. They reflect her early life, activities, and repressions. The major part of the biography is based on her daughter’s memories.
Authors and Affiliations
Maka Khutsishvili
Keywords
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