Professor Albina Ovchinnikova, Renowned Art Critic and Educator, Dies at 84

Albina Ovchynnikova, a professor, lecturer, art critic and author of textbooks on acting, died on March 30 after a long illness.

This was reported by the professor's daughter.

"I am sad to report that my mother, Professor Albina Petrovna Ovchinnikova, died this morning after a serious long illness. She did not live to be 85 for four days," she wrote on Facebook.

Albina Ovchinnikova was born in 1940 in Khakassia, but spent most of her life in Odesa. She holds a PhD in Law, a Doctor of Arts, and a professorship at the Tashkent Theater and Art Institute and did an internship at the State Institute of Theater Arts.

She worked in Odesa:

• At the School of Culture in 1967-1975 and 1983-1988;
• Director of the Odesa Theater for Young Spectators in 1981-1983.

She taught at the South Ukrainian Pedagogical University in 1988-2002; headed the Department of Art History at Odesa University in 2002-2004, and since 2004 she has been a professor at the Department of State and Law Theory and the Department of Journalism at the National University "Odesa Law Academy".

She developed the traditions of Les Kurbas' theatrical ideas, Georgian and Russian theater schools. She conducted research in the field of art history and cultural studies. In her stage speech, oratory and rhetoric, she used the methods of K. Stanislavsky, M. Chekhov, Les Kurbas, and E. Grotowski.

In 1999, she lectured on the use of theater in public speaking, rhetoric and stage speech at the Sorbonne University (Paris).

Author of books: "Five Steps to Good Speech", "Speech Communication and the Art of Speech", "Expressiveness and Logic of Speech in the Stanislavsky System", "Twilight of Culture and Humanitarian Knowledge", "Cultural Values and Civilization".

Кирило Бойко