June 18, 2014

Yuri Vizbor: Soviet Renaissance Man


Yuri Vizbor: Soviet Renaissance Man

This Friday, June 20, would have been the 80th birthday of Yuri Vizbor (1934-1984), singer-songwriter, actor, teacher, journalist, mountain climber, and radio operator, among others.

These days, some 30 years after his death, Russians remember Yuri Vizbor primarily as a songwriter – someone who wrote “bard” songs or “author” songs, on par with Bulat Okudzhava, Aleksandr Galich, Vladimir Vysotsky, and other great poets of his generation. Some will remember that he was also an actor, albeit not a professional one. Some may deduce from his songs that he was an avid mountain climber. But he was much, much more.

Some of the most important events in Vizbor’s life – in his own telling – happened by accident. He claims he was born “due to negligence,” to a young Ukrainian woman and a passionate Lithuanian officer, Yusef Vizboras (the distinctively Lithuanian suffix –as was later lost in translation). The university he attended was similarly accidental: a classmate and friend of his convinced him to go look at the main building of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute, and, impressed by the architecture, he agreed to join his friend and apply together. Little did he know, the place was teeming with “bards,” including Yuliy Kim and Ada Yakusheva (spoiler alert: Vizbor later married her). Vizbor quickly made a name for himself in these circles – plus, one of his songs is now the Institute’s (now University’s) official anthem.

Vizbor in the army

But, you might say, what was a songwriter doing at a Pedagogical Institute? As was true for many other bards, Vizbor’s most lasting legacy was a side project to a completely unrelated career. Upon graduation he was certified as a “Russian and literature” teacher, and was sent to Arkhangelsk to teach, but was almost immediately drafted into the army and stationed in Karelia (Kandalashka), where he was trained as a radio operator.

Songwriter, teacher, radio operator… Vizbor just kept adding job titles. Next he went into journalism, at times filing reports in song. He also participated in various extreme sports, going on mountain climbing trips all over the Soviet Union and even becoming a ski instructor. (When did he have time for all this?) Naturally, many of his most famous songs concern hiking through the woods, climbing his favorite mountains, and long road trips.

To round out his already well-rounded life, Vizbor was also an occasional actor. When a director called him out of the blue to cast him in an upcoming movie, he thought it was a prank – his diploma said “teacher,” not “actor”! But for an amateur actor he didn’t do too shabbily, appearing in over a dozen films and voicing several more. Ironically, in his most famous movie appearance – as Martin Bormann in Seventeen Moments of Spring – his distinctive, slightly out-of-tune voice was replaced with another actor’s.

Vizbor with his usual seven-string

Did Vizbor know he was going to end up with so many careers? Well, no. “For myself,” he writes in his autobiography, “I thought I was going to become either a soccer player, or a pilot.” Good guess, young Yuri, but life had a lot more in store for you!

 

Image credit: peoples.ru, nnm.me, vizbor.ru

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Woe From Wit (bilingual)

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Fearful Majesty

Fearful Majesty

This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.
At the Circus

At the Circus

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
PO Box 567
Montpelier VT 05601-0567

802-223-4955