This book brings together all surviving diaries and notebooks of Mikhail Alexandrovich Ulyanov. Archive materials are arranged in chronological order and published without omissions, preserving the peculiarities of the author’s style and spelling.
The great actor Mikhail Ulyanov, “The Face of the 20th Century,” is remembered by the people as a fighter and winner—already during his lifetime, he earned not only the passionate love of audiences, but also every imaginable laurels and honors.
Personal notes reveal another, “unknown” Ulyanov: a man torn by doubts, always dissatisfied with himself and not satisfied with his work. He is excessively demanding and strict with his colleagues—actors and directors—but above all with himself. Yet in every line of his diaries, one can read what was most important to him: pain for a person, for Russia, and for the fate of its art.