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Olga Leonardovna Knipper (Russian: Ольга Леонардовна Книппер-Чехова; 21 September [O.S. 9 September...

Olga Leonardovna Knipper (Russian: Ольга Леонардовна Книппер-Чехова; 21 September [O.S. 9 September] 1868 in Glazov – 22 March 1959 in Moscow) was a Russian stage actress. She was married to Anton Chekhov. Knipper was among the 39 original members of the Moscow Art Theatre when it was formed by Constantin Stanislavski in 1898. She played Arkadina in The Seagull (1898), and was the first to play Masha in Three Sisters (1901) and Madame Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard (1904). Knipper married Anton Chekhov, the author of these plays, in 1901. Knipper-Chekhova played Ranevskaya again in 1943, when the theatre marked the 300th performance of The Cherry Orchard. The German actress Olga Chekhova was her niece and the Soviet composer Lev Knipper was her nephew. Olga Leonardovna Knipper was born on the 21 September [O.S. 9 September] 1868 to Leonard and Anna Knipper. Though both of her parents were of German origin, her father wasted no time in claiming Russia as their family heritage. Around the time of Olga's birth, her father, Leonard, was in charge of a factory in a small town north-east of European Russia called Glazov. Two years after Olga was born, her family moved to Moscow where