Greenfeld, Nathan Yakovlevich

Born on May 15 (old style) in Chisinau in 1884, one of six children in the family of a sworn assistant Yankel Leibovich Grinfeld (who died when his son was 7 years old) and his wife Brana Mordkovna. ^[2] Since 1900, took part in revolutionary activities. Arrested on May 1, 1902 for revolutionary propaganda, emigrated to America . ^[3] In January 1905 he returned to Odessa and joined the RSDLP . Re-arrested in April 1905 , the following year sentenced to 12 years of hard labor (the term was subsequently reduced to 6 years). In 1909, he made an unsuccessful attempt to escape from the settlement in Goryachinsk of Barguzinsky Uyezd together with the writer Andrei Sobol (who subsequently dedicated his memories to him “On the hard labor road” in the journal “Hard labor and exile”). ^{[4] [5]} The next year, he still fled from exile and emigrated to the United States again. He lived in Germany , France , Switzerland and Italy , worked as a translator and foreign correspondent for periodicals in several languages, as a factory worker in Marseille .

In 1921 he participated in the constituent congress of the Communist Party of Italy in Livorno . On the recommendation of Antonio Gramsci joined the CPSU (b). In 1922 he headed the Russian trade delegation at the Genoese Conference , became the personal secretary of the USSR People's Commissar for Foreign Trade L. B. Krasin . ^[6] In 1923 he was appointed trade representative and cultural representative in France, then worked at Vneshtorg. ^{[7] [8]}

In 1927 he returned to Leningrad , was appointed a member of the board of Sovkino and director of the Leningrad film factory Soyuzkino (later Lenfilm). ^{[9] [10] [11]} Later he was also a member of the board of the All-Union Photographic Film Association. At the same time in 1935 he became director of the Opera and Ballet Theater named after S. M. Kirov . ^[12] He was a member of the society of former political prisoners .

Arrested on November 16, 1937 , on February 3, 1938, was sentenced to death, replaced by 10 years in prison . ^[13] Re-arrested shortly after release in 1948 , in exile in the Krasnoyarsk Territory until 1954 . His wife, a TB doctor, as a member of the traitor's family, was expelled to Spassk-Ryazan .

The granddaughter is a political scientist, sociologist and culturologist (born 1954), the granddaughter of Jacob Davidovich Kirshenblat .

• N. Greenfeld . Behind the scenes of the movie congress in Paris. (Paris, October 1926) // Cinema Front, 1927, No. 1, January 15.
• Oles Chishko, Sergey Spassky , Nathan Greenfeld . Battleship Potemkin (opera). Edition of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater. S. M. Kirova, 1937.
• Khovanshchina / Music by M.P. Mussorgsky; Repl. ed. N. Ya. Greenfeld. Leningrad: Publication of the Leningrad State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater. S. M. Kirova, 1937.