September and October in History

September

2 Today is the 65th birthday of the actor Valentin Gaft (1935). A long-time actor at Moscow’s Sovremennik theater, Gaft rose to prominence after starring in the Soviet-era mega-hit TV program, Seventeen Moments of Spring. He played a member of a CIA negotiating team headed by Alan Dulles that was holding secret talks with German intelligence in the spring of 1945. Critics call Gaft’s acting “deadly truthful,” and even his negative heroes have a devilish charm. Interestingly, in the 1970s and 1980s, Gaft’s clever mind and sharp tongue led him to pen epigrams, which earned him many enemies among his fellow actors and directors. In the Soviet era, these epigrams circulated in handwritten copies or by word of mouth. Recently, Gaft published them all in his autobiography. Each, in just a few lines, conveys the essence of a person’s character, exposing their weaknesses and role in Russian theater and cinema. Two are offered here about other figures in this issue’s Calendar. Of the Mikhalkov clan (father Sergei Mikhalkov and his two filmmaker sons, Andron and Nikita, see October 21), Gaft wrote

êÓÒÒËfl, ÒÎ˚¯Ë¯¸ ÒÚ‡¯Ì˚È ÁÛ‰?

íË åËı‡ÎÍÓ‚‡ ÔÓ Ú· ÔÓÎÁÛÚ

Russia do you feel that terrible itch?

Three Mikhalkovs are crawling on you

About the ubiquitous film actor Armen Dzhigarkhanyan (see October 3), notorious for his cinematographic versatility, there was this merciless epigram:

ÉÓ‡Á‰Ó ÏÂ̸¯Â ̇ ÁÂÏΠ‡ÏflÌ

óÂÏ ÙËθÏÓ‚, „‰Â Ò˚„‡Î

— Ë„‡ı‡ÌflÌ

There are fewer Armenians on earth

Than movies in which

Dzhigarkhanyan starred

7 This is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Kuprin (1870-1938). No less dear to Russians than, say, Chekhov, Kuprin wrote the popular novels Molokh (1896) and The Duel (1905) as well as numerous short stories. He often focused on the boring and hopeless life of the Russian military, and was the first to expose the Russian army’s cruel hazing policies. Yet first and foremost, Kuprin was a highly entertaining narrator and his stories are famous more for their subject matter than their artistic depth. A notorious bon-vivant, Kuprin called himself a “life-loving” man, an “ever-forgiving, impatient, enamored servant of life.” This obviously had an impact on his art. “Why is he such a great writer? Well, simply because he is ALIVE, he is ALIVE in every petty detail,” wrote Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak. Kuprin emigrated from Russia to France in 1920. After living in emigration for 17 years, in 1937, already gravely ill, longing for his homeland, he asked permission to return to Russia and was greeted here en grande pompe. He died less than a year after his return.

9 Today would have been the 70th birthday of the singer Yuri Gulyaev (1930-1986). He made his debut at the Donetsk (Ukraine) Opera Theater, later moving to the Kiev-based Theater of Opera and Ballet before joining the Bolshoi in 1975. His classic repertoire included such roles as Yevgeny Onegin, Figaro and Robert from Iolanta. Yet millions of listeners came to love Gulyaev as a popular performer of folk and contemporary songs — namely his inimitable “Vdol po Piterskoy” (“Down Piterskaya Street”)  and “You Know What Kind of Guy He Was,” dedicated to Yuri Gagarin.

11 Russian aircraft designer Semyon Lavochkin (1900-1960) was born 100 years ago on this day. Lavochkin developed the two-seated La-1 fighter, which began serial production in 1940. His La-5 fighter was broken in during WWII, and in 1943 he developed an improved version, the La-5FN, with a more powerful engine, better range and better maneuverability. By the end of WWII, Lavochkin’s La-7 was taking on Germany’s Fokker-Wolf 190A-8 and winning, cementing Russian air supremacy on the Eastern Front. After the war Lavochkin continued to improve his aircraft; in  1948 his La-176 broke the sound barrier.

15 This is the 75th birthday of Kiril Lavrov (1925). At the age of 25 Lavrov joined the troupe of the famous Bolshoi Dramatic Theater in Leningrad, which was directed by the legendary Georgy Tovstonogov. By 1956, Lavrov had become a regular in many Soviet movies. Among other roles, he starred as space program engineer Sergei Korolev (in Taming of the Fire) and was also one of the most famous Vladimir Lenins on the silver screen. Yet Lavrov also attempted to stay away from roles that relied on Soviet cliches, to play more controversial roles, and these were his most successful, e.g. in The Brothers Karamazov, My Gentle and Tender Beast, and A Glass of Water. In 1989, after Georgy Tovstonogov passed away, Lavrov took over the Bolshoi Dramatic Theater.

20 Today is the centenary of the birth of the biologist and geneticist Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky (1990-1981). A noble by birth, Timofeev-Resovsky lived the dramatic life of an indefatigable, courageous scientist challenged endlessly by the whims of Stalin’s regime. Timofeev-Resovsky joined the Red Army during the Civil War of 1918-1920, later graduating from Moscow State University. In 1925 he left for Germany and stayed there even during the fascist era, holding a post in a research institute. After the defeat of Hitler, Timofeev-Resovsky ended up in a closed Soviet research institute overseen by Lavrenty Beria’s secret police. Later, he was allowed to live in the closed city of Obninsk (see story, page 19), continuing his research and lecturing students. His name became known to millions of Russians during the perestroika era when Daniil-Granin’s novel Zubr (Bison) was published in Novy Mir literary magazine – the novel was dedicated to Timofeev-Resovsky. The scientist produced works on the theory of evolution, the biosphere and the relations between society and nature; he was also one of the founders of molecular and radiogenetics, radiobiology and the genetics of population.

23 Sergei Ozhegov (1890-1964) was born 110 years ago today. A noted linguist and author of the famous Ozhegov Russian-to-Russian Dictionary, he was said to have succeeded in “grasping the soul of the Russian language.” His dictionary went through 22 editions from 1949-1990 and even today remains the most authoritative reference book of Russian.

25 Eighty years ago actor and film director Sergei Bondarchuk (1920-1994) was born. Bondarchuk’s star first rose in 1952, when he was awarded a prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival for his portrayal of the Ukrainian poet and painter Taras Shevchenko in a movie of the same name. Soviet Movie Fan #1, Joseph Stalin, was so taken by Bondarchuk’s role as the Soviet soldier Andrei Sokolov (in the patriotic movie Man’s Fate) that he ordered Soviet cultural bosses to award the very young actor the prestigious title of USSR People’s Artist. Today, Bondarchuk is most famous as a film director. His epic film War and Peace, based on Lev Tolstoy’s novel of the same name, propelled him to international fame when it won the 1969 Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

25 Today is the 170th anniversary of the birth of the artist Konstantin Flavitsky (1830-1866), who created one of the most captivating and enigmatic canvases in all of Russian art: “Princess Tarakanova.” This 1864 painting is actually thought to depict Princess Raguzskaya, a pretender to the throne during the reign of Catherine the Great. Raguzskaya’s coup plot was uncovered and she died in Peter and Paul Fortress in 1775. Thus, the work had a bit of a subversive quality, as it portrays the princess with sympathy – a fear-struck princess stands on her prison bed as flood waters rise around her. To many, the painting evoked the arbitrary cruelty of Russian sovereigns and thousands flocked to see the painting when it was first displayed. Emperor Alexander II also went to see the painting and, likely worried about public reaction, ordered that the exhibition catalog carry the following inscription: “The subject matter of the canvas was borrowed from the novel Princess Tarakanova [a popular novel of the time] and is void of any historical truth whatsoever.” St. Petersburg actually endured a disastrous flood in the same year as Raguzskaya died. Inspired by the event, Flavitsky completed in his imagination the atrocious death of “Tarakanova.” The talented painter also produced other works of merit, including “Solomon’s Judgment,” and “Christ and the Martyrs in the Coliseum,” but he died an early death from tuberculosis, just 10 days short of turning 36.

28 Today is the 100th birthday of Russia’s oldest cartoonist, Boris Yefimov, who has walked through and touched the pages of history, meeting (and drawing) such figures as Trotsky and Tito. Russian Life featured a detailed story on Yefimov’s life in our Aug/Sep 1999 issue.

October

3 Today is the 65th birthday of the popular actor Armen Dzhigarkhanian. Overcoming a thick Armenian accent early in his career, he worked hard and finally succeeded in catching the attention of the best Russian film and theater directors. An indefatigable character actor, Dzhigarkhanyan has starred in every kind of movie since the 1960s — from comedies to adventure thrillers, saying “the actor must act.” He has been a White officer captain in the Soviet blockbuster Elusive Avengers, a spy in the Moscow Film Festival winner Tehran-43, a progressive worker in the 1970s hit Premium, a hunchbacked bandit in One Can’t Change the Meeting Place, an American gangster in the TV series Rafferty, and the list goes on. But Dzhigarkhnyan is also active in the theater. At Moscow’s Mayakovsky Theater he starred as Shakespeare’s Richard and as Socrates in Edvard Radzinsky’s Talking to Socrates. In 1997, Dzhigarkhanyan left the Mayakovksy Theater to found The Theater of Armen Dzhigarkhanyan in Moscow, where he works mostly with young actors.

8 Today would have been the 75th birthday of dissident writer Andrei Sinyavsky (1925-1997), who also wrote under the pen name Abraham Tertz. A graduate of the philological faculty at Moscow State University, Sinyavsky initially wrote stories that meshed science fiction, the grotesque and reality, as in his first short story, “At the Circus.” Starting in 1956, Sinyavsky published many works abroad that did not meet with the criteria of socialist realism — the sanctioned form of Soviet literature. In 1965, he was put on trial along with Yuly Daniel (pen name Nikolai Arzhak), another dissident writer. Both were convicted of publishing defamatory works abroad and their trial marked the end of Khrushchev’s short-lived thaw. On June 8, 1971, Sinyavsky was released before his prison term had expired; in 1979 he emigrated to France, where he delivered lectures at the Sorbonne. His most famous works are Walks with Pushkin (1965-1968), In Gogol’s Shadow and the autobiographical novel Good Nights (1984). Even after glasnost opened up Russian literature, Sinyavsky opted to stay in France, where he published the magazine Syntax until his death in Paris in 1997.

13 Today is the 120th anniversary of the birth of the poet Sasha Chyorny (Alexander Glikberg: 1880-1932). See our profile on page 50.

14 Intercession of the Virgin (Orthodox Holiday).

21 Today is the 55th birthday of actor and film director Nikita Mikhalkov (1945). As an actor, Mikhalkov starred in many popular films, such as I Am Walking Down Moscow, A Cruel Romance, A Railway Station for Two and many others. Local critics tend to believe that Mikhalkov directed his best movies in the 1970s and 1980s, when he directed Unfinished Play for a Mechanical Piano, Five Evenings, and Oblomov, all characterized by a piercing look into the Russian soul. Such psychological depth is arguably missing in his later movies, Burnt by the Sun (which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film) and especially The Siberian Barber.

26 Today is the 120th anniversary of the birth of the military engineer, General Dmitry Karbyshev (1880-1945). Karbyshev fought in the Russo-Japanese war and in WWI. Later, he was at the head of the construction of the Brest fortress (which was the first to take the heat of Hitler’s offensive in the summer of 1941). Beginning in 1936, Karbyshev taught at the Academy of the General Staff of the Soviet Army. He wrote many works on the engineer’s art and military history, and developed the theory of engineer support and combat use of engineering troops. At the beginning of the WWII, Karbyshev was making an on-site tour of Grodno (in Belarus), got caught in German encirclement and was taken prisoner. He categorically refused German offers to collaborate and began clandestine subversive work among Soviet prisoners. In 1945, the Germans, having given up hope of luring Karbyshev into collaboration, tortured him to death, pouring cold water over him in freezing temperatures while he was tied to a pole. His name thus went down in history as a synonym for courage, honor and duty. In the 1960s, a monument to Karbyshev, evoking the tragic end to his life, was unveiled on the sunny green boulevard in North-West Moscow that bears his name.

27 Today is the centenary of the birth of Lidiya Ruslanova (1900-1973), one of the most popular folk singers in Russia. Ruslanova began her singing career when she was just 17, singing before Red Army soldiers during the Civil War. In 1945, after endless concerts at the front in WWII, Ruslanova, like millions of Soviets, was arrested and served a term in the camps of Magadan. She is widely considered the single best interpreter of the folk song “Valenki” (quilted winter boots).

29 Andrei Bely (real name Boris Bugaev: 1880-1934) was born on this day 120 years ago. A prolific poet and prose writer, Bely belonged to the generation of young poet-symbolists, bringing him close to the leader of the early symbolists, Alexander Blok. This, however, didn’t stop Bely from having an affair with Blok’s wife, Lyubov Mendeleeva. Bely’s first collection of verses was titled Gold in Azure (1904) and it brought him near instant fame. His most famous novel is Petersburg (1913-1914), a memoir of life in Russia between the two revolutions. Bely’s metaphysical mysticism and experimentalism led some to call him the Russian Joyce. Of himself, Bely wrote: “An adept of mysticism and Kant, poet, expert in verses, occultist, skeptic, individualist, collectivist, anarchist and socialist — that’s the way I look from the outside.”

— Valentina Kolesnikova