Alexandra Brushtein


Alexandra Yakovlevna Brushtein was a Russian and later Soviet writer, playwright, and memoirist.

Life

Brushtein was born in Vilnius as Alexandra Yakovleva Vygodskaya. Her father was Jakub Wygodzki, a doctor and writer. Her mother was Elena Semenovna Vygodskaya, also from a medical family. Elena's father, Semyon Mikhailovich Yadlovkin, was a military doctor in Kamenets-Podolsky. She graduated from the Bestuzhev Courses. She participated in the revolutionary movement, and was active in the Political Red Cross.
After the October Revolution, she participated in Likbez, the Soviet campaign to eradicate illiteracy. She organized literacy schools in Petrograd, and worked on creating a repertoire for children's theaters. In 1942 she joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
She authored more than sixty plays, mostly for children and youth, and adapted classic works such as Uncle Tom's Cabin and Don Quixote under a pseudonym. She would become most famous for her autobiographical series Doroga uxodit v dal' :
She also authored a collection of theatrical memoirs, Pages of the Past.
She died 20 September 1968 in Moscow.

Family