Anatoliy Solonitsyn
Actor
Biography
Anatoly Alekseyevich Solonitsyn (August 30, 1934, Bogorodsk – June 11, 1982, Moscow) was a Soviet actor of remarkable intensity and philosophical depth, best known for his collaborations with Andrei Tarkovsky. Born in 1934 in Bogorodsk, he became the face of inner struggle and metaphysical searching in Soviet cinema, most famously portraying Andrei Rublev, the tormented painter of icons, and the introspective Writer in Stalker. Solonitsyn’s performances were marked by a quiet magnetism—his stoic presence and penetrating gaze gave form to Tarkovsky’s spiritual explorations. Though he appeared in a range of Soviet films, his legacy is inseparable from Tarkovsky’s cinema, where he embodied characters wrestling with art, faith, and the weight of history. His life was cut short in 1982 by cancer, yet his work remains timeless—an imprint of the soul etched in celluloid.
Filmography
Solaris
as Dr. Sartorius 1972
Mirror
as Forensic Doctor 1975
Andrei Rublev
as Andrei Rublev 1966
The Ascent
as Павел Гаврилович Портнов, следователь у фашистов 1977
At Home Among Strangers, a Stranger Among His Own
as Сарычев 1974
Trial on the Road
as Igor Leonidovich Petushkov 1986
Agony: The Life and Death of Rasputin
as Colonel 1981
Peasants
as Pavlik's father 1981
No Path Through Fire
as Commissar Yevstryukov 1967
The Train Has Stopped
as Malinin, a journalist 1982
Iz zhizni otdykhayushchikh
as Tolik Chikin 1981
Twenty Six Days in the Life of Dostoevsky
as Fyodor Dostoevsky 1981
The Turning Point
as Kostik 1978
The Bodyguard
as Sultan Nazar 1979
Under a Stone Sky
as Хофмайер (немецкий полковник) 1974
The Legend of Till
as Fishmonger 1977