My Life: Before Exile

Mikhail Shemyakin is an artist, sculptor, graphic artist, art historian and analyst, educator, director of ballet and dramatic performances, and theatrical events. He is known in Russia for the monuments to Peter I in St. Petersburg and "Children - Victims of Adults’ Vices" in Moscow, as well as for staging the ballet "The Nutcracker" at the Mariinsky Theatre. He lives and works in France. The book "My Life" is the first part of the master’s autobiography: from his birth in Moscow in 1943 to his exile from the country in 1971. "These are the notes of a man grateful to fate, reflecting a complex, anxious, dangerous, and — despite everything — beautiful time; to somewhat unusual parents, remarkable people he had the chance to meet, and also to hardships, blows, falls, and deprivations. All this heightened my perception, tempered my soul, and shaped the character of a fighter, a soldier, and a man forever devoted to his chosen cause, training me to pay attention to people, to appreciate their virtues, and to accept their flaws.”