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{{Short description|Russian actress}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}
'''Vera Alexandrovna Tiscenko''' (28 August 1902 – 13 October 1983) was a [[Russians|Russian]] actress of [[Polish people|Polish]] descent and member of the [[Moscow Art Theatre]] who lived through four revolutions: the [[1905 Russian Revolution]], the [[Russian Revolution (1917)]], the [[Spanish Civil War]], the [[Direct Action Day]] & [[Indian Independence Movement]], and the [[Indo-Pakistani War of 1947]] (also known as the First Kashmir War). In India, her divorce from her first husband, Eugene Tiscenko, has achieved the status of a constitutional precedent that has been deployed repeatedly by the [[Supreme Court of India]].<ref name=2Husbands>{{cite journal | first=Rohit | last=De | date=2010 | title=The Two Husbands of Vera Tiscenko: Apostasy, Conversion and Divorce in Late Colonial India | publisher=Cambridge Journals | journal=Law & History Review | volume=28 | issue=4 | pages=1011–1041 | doi=10.1017/S0738248010000751 | url=http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7910949 | accessdate=29 September 2024}}</ref> She was the second wife of [[Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy]] who was the last [[Prime Minister of Bengal]] until the [[Partition of India]] (April 1946- August 1947) and subsequently became the fifth [[Prime Minister of Pakistan]] (1956–1957). They had a son [[Robert Ashby]], born as Rashid Suhrawardy, who worked in the British and American film industry.

==Life==
The second of three sisters, she pursued acting as a child against her parents wishes and when she was 19 caught the attention of [[Olga Knipper]] (widow of [[Anton Chekov]]) who brought her to meet [[Constantin Stanislavski]] at the [[Moscow Art Theatre]].
She acted at the Moscow Art Theatre and in [[Prague]]. Always dynamic on stage she went on a European tour with [[Moscow Art Theatre]] actress [[Vera Baranovskaya]], where she met the Russian émigré medical student Eugene Tiscenko who was then living in [[Berlin]]. They were married on 20 May 1931, and later settled in [[Madrid]]. After the outbreak of the [[Spanish Civil War]] the couple moved to [[Rome]] via [[Vienna]] where on 27 January 1937, she gave birth to a son, Oleg. In 1938 her husband went to [[Edinburgh, Scotland]] to qualify for a British medical degree. Vera's marriage to Eugene had not been not a happy one and left alone with her son in [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini's Rome]] she became increasingly worried about the surrounding [[Europe]]an unrest. She decided to accept an invitation from [[Hassan Suhrawardy|Sir Hassan Suhrawardy]], an eminent surgeon and uncle of her [[English language|English]] professor and former director from the Moscow Art Theatre, [[Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy]], to leave [[Europe]] with her son and stay with him in [[Calcutta]], India.{{fact|date=September 2024}}

==The Tiscenko decision==
On 1 September 1938, they arrived in Calcutta and [[Hassan Suhrawardy|Hassan]], a widower for a good many years, began to put the make on her. Vera promptly sought out his nephew, [[Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy|Huseyn]], to put a stop to his advances and in Huseyn she found a colorful, brilliant and witty man; an [[Oxford]] graduate and prominent lawyer ([[Gray's Inn]]), and also a widower (his first wife Begum Niaz Fatima had died in 1922) who had recently been elected to the new [[Bengal]] Assembly in 1937.<ref>''The Times'' obituary 6 December 1963</ref> Vera, living in Calcutta with her son on her own earnings and without any support from her husband, found "relief and solace" in the teachings of [[Islam]]. She cabled her husband with the news of her conversion to Islam and requested that he accept the Islamic faith. Eugene, a [[Greek Orthodox Church|Greek Orthodox]] replied that his religious convictions were unshakable and "refused absolutely" to change his faith and insisted that their son remain Greek Orthodox. Vera, who had changed her name to '''Begum Noor Jehan''' at her conversion on 27 June 1940, applied to the [[Calcutta High Court|High Court of Calcutta]] on 5 August 1940, for a suit declaring dissolution of her marriage to Eugene Tiscenko.<ref>Noor Jehan Begum vs Eugene Tiscenko on 19 December 1941 http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/358792/</ref><ref>Lexis Nexis https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=28+Law+%26+Hist.+Rev.+1011&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=bca521f9c4feb97d30614b909e02e905 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713203103/https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=28%20Law%20&%20Hist.%20Rev.%201011&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=bca521f9c4feb97d30614b909e02e905 |date=13 July 2011 }}</ref> The [[Calcutta High Court]] originally declared that her marriage to Eugene was dissolved. Despite a subsequent appeal that left the case unresolved, she married [[Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy]] later in 1940 and they had one son, Rashid (aka Robert Ashby). One year later, on 19 December 1941, the Calcutta High Court overturned the dissolution of marriage. The "Tiscenko" decision came to affect the lives of women all over [[South Asia]]. A [[Polish people|Polish]] woman who was married to a Russian man in Germany trying to dissolve her marriage before a court in Calcutta.<ref name=2Husbands />

==Vera Vlasova==
Following her divorce in 1951 from Suhrawardy, Vera, went to live in the [[New York City]]. Her younger sister, Lydia, was living in a [[Manhattan]] apartment building at [[130 West 57th Street]] that her husband, Dr. David Jedwabnik had inherited from his brother, Abram, in 1949.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Gray|first=Christopher|date=2000-06-11|title=Streetscapes/130 West 57th Street; A Building and a Family With Intertwined Histories|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/11/realestate/streetscapes-130-west-57th-street-building-family-with-intertwined-histories.html|access-date=2020-11-19|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Vera spent the rest of her life teaching acting lessons based on the [[Stanislavski's system]] under the pseudonym ''Vera Vlasova'' at her studio in her flat on Orchid Avenue in Hollywood.<ref>''The Hollywood Reporter'', 9 March 1983, p.24</ref> Her professional name, "Vlasova", was the name of Vera Baranovskaya's character in [[Mother (1926 film)|Mother]], a film based on the novel by [[Maxim Gorky]] and directed by [[Vsevolod Pudovkin]] in 1926. For over twenty years she went on lecture tours around the world lecturing as the "Foremost authority on the [[Stanislavski's system|Stanislavski Method]]". On 7 October 1983, Vera was at [[Los Angeles International Airport]] about to board a flight to [[New York City]] to visit her sister, Lydia, en route to give a lecture at the [[Moscow Art Theatre]] when she suffered a sudden stroke as she was arguing with the [[baggage handler]] about the treatment of her luggage. She died on 13 October 1983, in [[Los Angeles]].<ref>''Variety'', 14 October 1983, p.8</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tiscenko, Vera Alexandrovna}}
[[Category:1902 births]]
[[Category:1983 deaths]]
[[Category:Russian people of Polish descent]]
[[Category:Moscow Art Theatre]]
[[Category:Actresses from Odesa]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian actresses]]
[[Category:Spouses of prime ministers of Pakistan]]
[[Category:Pakistani people of Polish descent]]
[[Category:Pakistani people of Russian descent]]
[[Category:Soviet emigrants]]
[[Category:Immigrants to Pakistan]]
[[Category:Naturalised citizens of Pakistan]]

Vera Alexandrovna Tiscenko Calder - Revision history

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