Niatko, Polina

Niatko, Polina [Njatko] (real surname: Omelchenko), b 21 October 1900 in Karabachyn, Radomyshl county, Kyiv gubernia, d 16 October 1994 in Kyiv. (Photo: Polina Niatko.) Stage and film actress and pedagogue. After completing study at the Lysenko Music and Drama School in Kyiv (1916–18) Niatko acted in Molodyi Teatr (1918–19), Berezil (1923–4), the Odesa Derzhdrama (1925–35, with interruptions), and the Kyiv Ukrainian Drama Theater (1940–60) and taught at the Kyiv Institute of Theater Arts (until 1960). Her notable roles in theater were Mavka in Lesia Ukrainka's Lisova pisnia (The Forest Song) and Diiana in Vasyl Mynko's Ne nazyvaiuchy prizvyshch (Without Naming Names), and in films, Oksana in Koliïvshchyna (1933) and Kateryna in Prometheus (1936).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]