Hakkebush, Liubov

Hakkebush, Liubov [Хаккебуш, Любов; Hakkebuš, Ljubov], b 26 September 1888 in Nemyriv, Bratslav county, Podilia gubernia, d 28 May 1947 in Kyiv. Prominent stage actress and teacher. She studied at the Moscow Kamernyi Theater and appeared in amateur productions staged by the Kobzar Ukrainian club in Moscow. She first appeared on the Ukrainian stage in 1918 at the State People's Theater in Kyiv. From 1918 to 1926 she worked in Kyiv at the State Drama Theater, the Shevchenko First Theater of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, and under the direction of Les Kurbas in the Kyiv Drama Theater (Kyidramte) and the Berezil theater. She then worked at the Ukrainian drama theaters of Odesa (1926–8, 1939–41) (see Odesa Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater), Kharkiv (1928–33) (see Kharkiv Chervonozavodskyi Ukrainian Drama Theater), and Staline (see Donetsk Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater, 1933–9). She also taught acting at the theaters, the music and drama institutes of Kyiv (see Lysenko Music and Drama Institute) (1922–6), Odesa (1926–8), and Kharkiv (1929–33), and the Kyiv Institute of Theater Arts (1944–7). She appeared in over 80 leading and supporting roles in such plays as H. Ibsen's Vikings at Helgeland, Mykola Kulish's Komuna v stepakh (Commune in the Steppes), C. Goldoni's La locandiera, and Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Most memorable were her renditions of Lady Macbeth in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Fru Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts. Hakkebush's life and career are described in N. Yermakova's Aktors’ka maisternist’ Liubovy Hakkebush (The Thespian Mastery of Liubov Hakkebush, 1979).

Valerian Revutsky

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