Natalya Sats

Natalya Ilyinichna Sats (; – 18 December 1993) was a Russian stage director who ran theaters for children for many years, including the Moscow Musical Theater for Children, now named after her. In 1937, she fell victim to Soviet repressions, but was rehabilitated in 1953. She was a recipient of the USSR State Prize, People's Artist of the USSR award, Lenin Prize, Hero of Socialist Labour medal, and the Lenin Komsomol Prize.

Childhood Natalya Sats was born in Irkutsk, Russia, where her father, Ilya Sats, was in political exile. Ilya Sats, a composer, grew up in a Jewish family. He was a friend and protégé of Leo Tolstoy. Natalya's mother, Anna Sats (née Shchastnaya), left home as a young woman to become a professional singer in Montpellier where she met Ilya Sats. When Ilya was exiled to Irkutsk, Anna followed him and soon gave birth to Natalya. The two were subsequently married.

Theatre career In the year of the Russian Revolution, Sats was a school girl, but she was well connected to the new Bolshevik regime through her uncle, Igor Sats, who was the secretary and brother-in-law of the Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky. At the age of 15, she was made head of the theatre and music section of the Department of Public Education of the Moscow Soviet, and organised a series of programmes for children, employing professional performers, musicians and circus acrobats, in 11 of Moscow's districts. In October 1918, she established one of the world's first dedicated theatres for children using professional performers, on Manonovsky Alley, Moscow. Meanwhile Sats and her new partner, Sergei Rozanov, by whom she had a son, Adrian, who accepted that theatre should serve the political interests of the soviet state, opened a new children's theatre, The Moscow Theatre for Children, in temporary headquarters. Peter and the Wolf, dedicated to Sats, went on to international success. It has been recorded over 400 times, and translated into many languages. Sats continued to narrate performances of Peter and the Wolf through the rest of her career.

In November 1936, she married Israel Veitser, the People's Commissar for Internal Trade, whom she had met during a trip to Berlin in 1931, when he was soviet trade representative there. However he was not arrested until ten weeks after her, on 3 November 1937, which makes it unlikely that he was the reason she was arrested. (He was shot in May 1938). Her daughter, Roxana, believed she was arrested for lending money to someone who had been declared an "enemy of the people." In November 1937, she was moved a place of detention for wives of prominent 'traitors', where Tukhachevsky's widow was a fellow prisoner.

Later life After Stalin's death in 1953, Sats was fully rehabilitated and returned to Moscow in 1958. Here she ran a touring theater for children. Eventually, with the support of influential colleagues, she was able to start a new theater for children in Moscow. In 1965, the Musical Theater for Children opened. Her theater company traveled the world, performing in many countries and languages.

In addition to working as a playwright, director and producer, Sats wrote three books, including an autobiography Sketches from My Life, On September 14, 2023, a memorial plaque was unveiled in Almaty in connection with the 120th anniversary of the birth of Natalya Sats.

Awards and honors

Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1933) People's Artist of the RSFSR (1967) USSR State Prize (1972) Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1973) People's Artist of the USSR (1975) Order of Friendship of Peoples (1978) Lenin Prize (1982) Hero of Socialist Labour (1983) Order of Lenin (1983) Lenin Komsomol Prize (1985) Order of the October Revolution (1989)