Sergei Eisenstein Bio, Death, Cause of Death, Is He Related To Albert Einstein

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Sergei Eisenstein was a Soviet film director and film theorist who is credited with the development of Montage filmmaking which was subsequently adopted by early Soviet film directors. He achieved mastery of state-minded propaganda in filmmaking which put him on the bad books of the then Soviet Government. He was a communist who used his work in films to propel political ideas after the Russian revolution. He directed a few short films and silent films before his first seminal project which gave him more fame.

In the course of his filmmaking career, he didn’t achieve much success as he wanted to and being desirous to be a man of great fame who should be accorded great respect, Sergei Eisenstein chose to take on and fake the identity of the real famous Einstein even to the extent of modifying his looks just to look like him. Find out more about Sergei Eisenstein, his bio, death and cause of death.

Sergei Eisenstein’s Bio

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was born on 22nd January 1898 into a middle-class family in Riga, Latvia which was formerly part of the Russian Empire in the Governorate of Livonia to Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein (father) who had a German Jewish ancestry and Julia Ivanovna Konetskaya (mother) a Russian. His father was an architect whose job warranted he moved about frequently while his mother was the daughter of a prosperous merchant.

Julia left Riga in 1905 with Sergei for St. Petersburg during the Russian Revolution but Sergei would often return occasionally to see his father who later joined up with them in St. Petersburg in 1910. He was raised an Orthodox Christian as this was the main Christian doctrine in Russia but would later turn to atheism.

Just like his father, Sergei chose architecture as a profession and was enrolled to study at the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineering as an architecture and engineering student. It wasn’t too long in 1981 when he left school to join the Red Army as part of military resources for the Bolshevik Revolution. This put him on the opposite side with his father who supported the Tsarist government. Following the defeat of the Tsarist government, Sergei was transferred a couple of times to Petrograd, Vologda, Dvinsk and Minsk. In Minsk, he came in touch with the Kabuki theatre, studied Japanese and learnt some 300 kanji characters which he gives credits to for shaping his pictorial development dexterity. He later travelled to Japan for more studies.

Career Beginnings

Sergei Eisenstein returned to Moscow in 1920 and began his career in theatre work with Proletkult. His works here were Gas MasksListen Moscow and Wiseman. It wasn’t too long before he began working for Vsevolod Meyerhold as a designer and in 1923 he launched himself as a theorist by inscribing The Montage of Attractions for LEF. In this same year, Glumov’s Diary his first film was made with Dziga Vertov who had been hired initially as an instructor with Wiseman theatre production.

His first full-length film came as Strike in 1925 and it received worldwide critical acclaim at that time. Based on the success of this film, he went on to direct October (aka Ten Days That Shook The World) in celebration of the ten years anniversary of the October 1917 Revolution.

 

His career which spanned over two decades saw him produce many great works amidst some confrontations with the socialist government and public of the time, but in all, it was a huge success for him. He was severally appreciated with various awards at various times like the Stalin Prizes which he won twice in 1941 for the film Alexander Nevsky of 1938 and in 1946 for the first film of the series Ivan the Terrible (1944). He was honoured as Artist of RSFSR in 1935, got Order of Lenin in 1939 for his film Alexander Nevsky and a Google Doodle appeared in honour of his 120th posthumous birthday in 2018.

His Death And Cause of Death

As his career progressed, his health was failing. Sergei Eisenstein had a heart attack on February 2, 1946, and spent the years that followed recuperating in healthcare. He had another heart attack in 1948 at the age of 50 which sadly led to his death. His cadaver was found on the floor of his Moscow flat in the morning of February 11, 1948. He was later cremated on February 13 of the same year after lying in state in the Hall of the Cinema Workers.

Is He Related To Albert Einstein?

Sergei Eisenstein while he lived often faked the persona of renowned physicist Albert Einstein. He went as far as altering his looks to resemble the great scientist but soon found it herculean to grow some natural bushy moustache like Einstein. To cover up for this, Sergei cut some fur off his cat and glued it to his upper lip whenever he wanted to put up the Einstein act.

He managed to pull this off for some time and at other times, failed woefully. At such unlucky times, those who took him to be Albert Einstein would often engage him in a conversation in the German language which he neither understood nor spoke. At other times, he was asked to demonstrate some of Einstein’s ‘his’ work which he failed at or said anything that found its way into his head then. His fake moustache did fall off at times and you can imagine how embarrassing this really was.

One would really begin to wonder why he chose to impersonate another person, were they related in any way whatsoever?

The Albert Einstein we know is a German-born theoretical physicist whose life and life works were well documented. He had no trace of being related to Sergei Eisenstein who was a Russian film director.

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