Helias, Yaroslav

Helias, Yaroslav [Геляс, Ярослав; Heljas, Jaroslav], b 21 November 1916 in Terpylivka, Zbarazh county, Galicia, d 6 October 1992 in Uzhhorod. Stage actor and director. He made his stage debut in 1935 in the touring theater Tobilevych Theater in Galicia. He worked at the Lviv Ukrainian Drama Theater (1939–49, 1958–61), the Kharkiv Ukrainian Drama Theater (1949–57), the Odesa Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater (1961–3), and the Ternopil Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater (1963–74). In 1974 he was appointed chief stage director at the Transcarpathian Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater in Uzhhorod. He has directed plays by Ivan Franko, Oleksander Dovzhenko, Juliusz Słowacki, Sándor Petöfi, Liubov Zabashta, Karel Čapek, and others. Some of his best roles have been Zadorozhny in Franko’s Ukradene shchastia (Stolen Happiness) in 1940, Don Juan in Lesia Ukrainka’s Kaminnyi hospodar (The Stone Host) in 1942, Hamlet in William Shakespeare’s play (1943 and 1957), Vorkaliuk in Yaroslav Halan’s Liubov na svitanni (Love at Dawn) in 1952, Chatsky in Aleksandr Griboedov’s Woe from Wit in 1948, and Vadym in Oleksander Levada’s Favst i smert’ (Faust and Death) in 1961.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]