Stanislavski's reputation has suffered posthumously from the brilliant but malicious parody of him in Bulgakov's novel Black Snow. This study will help to rehabilitate him - if he needs any rehabilitation - since it proves how difficult his life and career became after the Russian Revolution, and what tightropes he had to thread to keep his famous Moscow Arts Theatre going in the face of Soviet bureaucracy and the interference of insensitive ideologues. Apart from his genius and originality as a director, Stanislavski was also a very great actor, particularly in Chekhov's plays, and the photos of him in various key roles back in Czarist times are a poignant reminder of how high cultural levels were in the old Russia. Benedetti also shows that in the West his important writings have suffered badly from inadequate and even distorting translations.