Alexander Sharovsky

Alexander Yakovlevich Sharovsky was born in Baku on 10 February 1948, in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Russian Wikipedia records that he took part in a school drama circle. He later told Day.Az that his parents would not hear of a theatrical future and hoped he would become a doctor. Their names are not published in the sources used here.

Russian Wikipedia also records a youthful football life: he played seriously, including for Baku Dynamo and Lokomotiv, was in an Azerbaijan select side, and became seriously ill after injuries in a 1966 match against Baku Spartak. That is a claim on that page. It is not treated here as a sporting career equal to his theatre work, and it is not connected to his death in 2026.

He learned acting inside the theatre, not in a named drama academy. To meet his parents halfway he enrolled in the evening faculty of the Azerbaijan State Institute of Foreign Languages and graduated in 1973, trained as a teacher. He said he told his parents each year that he would leave the stage. He never did.

The working apprenticeship was the Young Spectators Theatre from 1967, under chief director Zafar Pashayevich Neymatov. He told Day.Az that he announced he wanted to be an actor, was told to prepare a poem and a fable, and came back in a week.

From 1967 he was an actor at the Azerbaijan State Theatre of Young Spectators. In the mid-1970s he moved to the Azerbaijan State Academic Russian Drama Theatre named after Samad Vurgun. English-language and Azerbaijani summaries date that move to 1976. Russian Wikipedia says 1974. He played leading roles and assisted on four productions by Rustam Ibrahimbayov.

He taught himself directing. He told Day.Az he turned to direction because many of the directors he worked with did not satisfy him, and because he was curious to feel what it was like to make living pictures on a stage. English Wikipedia records the formal steps: assistant director from 1978 to 1990, production director from 11 June 1991, chief director from 3 February 1993. Russian Wikipedia dates the chief-director appointment to March 1993 and says he held the post until February 2026. News in his last days still described him as a People's Artist, director, and actor of that house. Do not say he died in office unless a later official notice confirms he still held the title in September 2026. No source used here gives a reason for the February 2026 step-down.

Away from Baku he staged two Igor Pikovsky plays, Golden Times and It's Terribly Restless in the City, at the Odessa Russian Drama Theatre named after A. Ivanov in 1992. In 2005 he staged The Dowryless Man at the Rostov Drama Theatre. He also directed variety miniatures, Adventures of Caucasians in Russia, for the Moscow theatre of Afag Bashirgyzy.

His private life stayed mostly off the bill, except when he chose to speak. The pianist of the Young Spectators Theatre was a first marriage of about 14 years. They married in secret after he entered the company at 18. He did not name her in the Day.Az interview used here. They later separated. He stayed in the theatre.

His wife in later decades, and the person who spoke for the family during his last illness, was the actress Nataliya Yuryevna Sharovskaya (also Natalya Sharovskaya; also recorded as Nataliya Hashimova), a People's Artist of Azerbaijan and a member of the same Russian Drama Theatre company since 1992. Earlier, 1985 to 1992, she was at the Gorky Young Spectators Theatre. Secondary compilations give her birth year as 1959, with no sourced birth day used here. That year makes any identification with the unnamed first wife impossible on the dates he gives. A 2016 theatre feature called both of them native Bakuites. He told Day.Az that Baku was the only place they felt happy.

In a 2018 jubilee interview he said he wanted to tell the audience about his family, his ancestors, and his grandchildren. Names of children and grandchildren are not given in the sources used. They are not invented here. His parents are mentioned only as people who wanted a doctor, not a nameable pair of biographies.

On 9 February 2022, the day before his 74th birthday, he told Vesti.az that if a director is not authoritarian, he is talentless. If you cannot impose your will on actors who each think they know the role better than you do, he said, you are simply without the gift.

To Day.Az he said he always expected understanding and sympathy from the house, because a production is the breath of many people, designers, dressers, composers, actors, lighting, joined to surprise an informed public. He quoted the line that sympathy is given as grace is given. The things he would not accept, he said, were betrayal and ingratitude. On classics, he rejected the idea that interpretation spoils taste. A play is dialogue written in words. The director's task is to give it volume, form, and atmosphere, so that Mirza Fatali Akhundov, Ostrovsky, Shakespeare, and Nizami interest today's audience instead of sitting in mothballs. He cited Mayakovsky's line that theatre is not a reflecting mirror but a magnifying glass. That sentence remains Mayakovsky's.

Beside the stage he was head of the community of European Jews in Baku, as English and Azerbaijani Wikipedia describe him, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Baku International Center for Multiculturalism. A presidential order of 8 November 2018 listed him in a renewed composition of that board. A Trend Life note on his birthday in 2024 still described him as head of the Baku religious community of European Jews. The theatre later posted him with leading actors speaking about a Year of Multiculturalism. Those are civic roles next to the company, not a second profession.

Trend's death notice called him one of the prominent figures of Azerbaijani theatre and cinema, particularly known for his work at the Azerbaijan State Russian Drama Theatre. English Wikipedia, citing theatre sources, says he played more than 50 roles, appeared in four films, and staged 54 plays.

What the obituaries lean on is the house he ran. For a generation of Baku theatregoers he kept a Russian-language company alive as a living repertory, not a museum: Chekhov beside boulevard comedy, Samad Vurgun and Mirza Fatali Akhundov beside guest work in Odessa and Rostov. He said he had come to the theatre for happiness and, late in life, still said he was happy. He had played what he wanted to play, and staged what he wanted to stage.

No memorial fund was announced in the sources consulted. The Russian Drama Theatre company and the Ministry of Culture issued tributes. First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva posted on her official Instagram, quoted by AzerNEWS: "Alexander Yakovlevich Sharovsky. May God rest your soul, great Master!"

Honours accumulated around the job rather than instead of it.

• Honored Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR, 20 March 1987
• People's Artist of Azerbaijan, 24 May 1998
• Golden Dervish prize of the Azerbaijan Theatre Union, 1996 (Russian Wikipedia)
• Humay prize of the Bakuintsy society (Russian Wikipedia; year not pinned in this pass)
• Presidential personal pension from 1 April 2005
• Shohrat Order, 5 February 2008, for services to theatrical art
• Medal of Pushkin (Russia), 19 January 2013
• Gold medal of St Apostle Bartholomew, Baku and Caspian diocese, 2013
• Rossotrudnichestvo badge "For Friendship and Cooperation," 2015
• Sharaf Order, 9 February 2018, for services to Azerbaijani culture
• Order of Friendship (Russia), 11 May 2021, for strengthening Russian-Azerbaijani cultural ties and preserving the traditions of Russian theatrical art in Azerbaijan
• Honorary Diploma of the President of Azerbaijan, 9 February 2023
• Russian jubilee medal for the 200th anniversary of Alexander Ostrovsky's birth, 2026 (theatre report cited on Russian Wikipedia)

English Wikipedia says he appeared in four films. Russian Wikipedia names one credit: engineer Petrov in the musical comedy Don't Be Afraid, I'm with You. He told Day.Az that he filmed from time to time, but that he did not like the film process. In the theatre he was used to playing from the first scene to the last. In cinema, the middle might be shot before the beginning. He said the two crafts were different structures, and that the screen had not changed how he worked on stage. No further film titles are added here. Russian Wikipedia lists IMDb name nm0788986. Credits beyond the one named title are not invented.

The company page is https://www.rusdrama-az.com/sharovskiy.html. That is the theatre's page, not a personal social account. Interview films from the theatre channel and from Azertac, Real TV, and ITV are attached as videos. No personal YouTube, Instagram, X, Facebook, or TikTok homepage was recovered.

AzerNEWS reported Mehriban Aliyeva's Instagram tribute of 9 September 2026, including the words "May God rest your soul, great Master!" and said the post included a photo. The shortcode was not recovered. It is quoted in the death chapter. It is not attached as a post.

No public controversy, lawsuit, censorship fight, or professional scandal is recorded in the sources used for this profile.

What does exist is bibliographic, not a dispute he was reported to have started. English and Azerbaijani pages date his move to the Russian Drama Theatre to 1976 and the chief-director appointment to 3 February 1993. Russian Wikipedia says he joined in 1974, became a production director in 1991, was appointed chief director in March 1993, and held the post until February 2026. Both sets of dates are kept. The February 2026 end of the chief-director post is recorded without a stated reason. None is invented.

The 1966 football injury described on Russian Wikipedia is not connected, in any source used here, to his death in 2026. He is not the writer Alexander Sharov. He is not Yeruham Scharovsky. Photographs of the Sharovsky palace or park in Ukraine are a different subject.

In early September 2026 he was already in intensive care at the Central Clinical Hospital in Baku. On or about 3 September his wife, Nataliya Sharovskaya, told Trend that his condition remained grave, and that she was boundlessly grateful to President Ilham Aliyev, First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva, and the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. She also thanked Anar Alakbarov, assistant to the president and executive director of the foundation, for calling and asking after them. The theatre company issued its own thanks for the organisation of his treatment.

Hospital statements carried by APA and Axar on 4, 7, and 8 September said his condition remained serious but stable, then stable and serious, and that comprehensive treatment continued in intensive care. No outlet consulted has named a disease as the cause of death. The cause is not publicly specified.

On 9 September 2026 Trend reported that he had died. The Ministry of Culture's announcement was noted the same morning in the Azerbaijani press. Russian Wikipedia records the date as 9 September 2026 and the place as Baku. He was 78. First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva posted on her official Instagram account. AzerNEWS quotes: "Alexander Yakovlevich Sharovsky. May God rest your soul, great Master!" The permalink was not recovered. No resting place and no memorial fund were announced in the sources consulted.