Person attributes
Maya Losifovna Turovskaya was a Soviet and Russian theatrical and film critic, film historian, screenwriter, and culturologist. She was born on October 27, 1924, in Kharkov, Ukraine. Maya's father, Losif Turovsky, was an economics professor, and her mother, Fani (Shub) Turovskaya, was a physician.
She graduated in the 1940s from Moscow State University, where she studied philology. After that, she received a degree in theater science from the State Theater Institute. She was then hired by a state radio committee but was fired for being Jewish. In the 1950s, she began to write about theater, film, and culture.
Maya Turovskaya and Yuri Khanyutin co-wrote a documentary in the 1960s that drew parallels between Stalin-era totalitarianism and Nazism. The documentary was called Ordinary Fascism and was also known as Triumph Over Violence. It was directed by Mikhail Romm. After Ordinary Fascism, Maya focused on film and theater criticism, writing for newspapers, magazines, and journals. She also wrote books about Russian film and stage actress Maria Babanova; German playwright Bertolt Brecht; and Andrei Tarkovsky, the Soviet director whose abstract films were banned in his homeland.
Maya Turovskaya died on March 4, 2019, at her home in Munich. She was ninety-four.
