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Joseph Stalin (a code name meaning "Man of Steel") was born Iosif (Joseph) Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in 1878 in Gori, Georgia, the Transcaucasian part of the Russian Empire. His father was a cobbler named Vissarion Dzhugashvili, a drunkard who beat him badly and frequently and left the family when Joseph was young. His mother, Ekaterina Gheladze, supported herself and her son (her other three children died young and Jopseph was effectively an only child) by taking in washing. She managed, despite great hardship, to send Joseph to school and then on to Tiflis Orthodox Theological Seminary in Tbilisi, hoping he would become a priest. However, after three years of studies he was expelled in 1899, for not attending an exam and for propagating communist ideas and the books of Karl Marx.
Since 1898, Stalin became active in the Communist underground as the organizer of a powerful gang involved in a series of armed robberies. After robbing several banks in southern Russia, Stalin delivered the stolen money to Vladimir Lenin to finance the Communist Party. Stalin's gang was also involved in the murders of its political opponents; Stalin himself was arrested seven times, repeatedly imprisoned, and twice exiled to Siberia between 1902 and 1913. During those years he changed his name twice and became more closely identified with revolutionary Marxism. He escaped many times from prison and was shuttling money between Lenin and other communists in hiding, where his intimacy with Lenin and Bukharin grew, as did his dissatisfaction with fellow Communist leader Lev Trotskiy. In 1912 he was co-opted on to the illegal Communist Central Committee. At that time he wrote propaganda articles, and later edited the Communist paper, "Pravda" (Truth). As Lenin's apprentice he joined the Communist majority (Bolsheviks), and was responsible for the consolidation of several secret communist cells into a larger ring. Stalin's Communist ring in St. Petersburg and across Russia played the leading role in the Russian Revolution of 1917. After the revolution the Bolsheviks Communists grabbed the power, then Communists murdered the Tsar and the Russian royal family. Stalin and Lenin took over the Tsar's palaces and used the main one in Kremlin as their private residence.
Lenin appointed Stalin the People's Commissar for Nationalities in the first Soviet government and a member of the Communist Politburo, thus giving him unlimited power. Stalin led the "Reds" against anti-Communist forces known as the "Whites" and also in the war with Poland. He also organized "Red Terror" in Tsaritsin (later renamed Stalingrad). With his appointment as General Secretary to the Party Central Committee in 1922, a post he held for the next 30 years, until his death, he consolidated the power that would ensure his control of the country after Lenin's death in 1924. He also took, or gave himself, other key positions that enabled him to amass total power in the Party and Soviet government.
Stalin was known for his piercing eyes and terrifying stare, which he used to cow his opponents into submission during private discussions. In 1927 Stalin requested medical help for his insomnia, anger and severe anxiety disorder. His doctors diagnosed him as having "typical clinical paranoia" and recommended medical treatment. Instead, Stalin became angry and summoned his secret service agents. The next day the chief psychiatrist, Dr. Bekhterev, and his assistants died of poisoning. In addition, before the doctors' diagnosis about Stalin's mental condition could become known, he ordered the executions of intellectuals, resulting in the murders of hundreds of thousands of doctors, professors, writers, and others.
Stalin's policy of amassing dictatorial power under the guise of building "socialism in the country" resulted in brutal extermination of all real and perceived anti-Communist opposition. His purges of the Soviet military brought about the execution of tens of thousands of army officers, many of them experienced combat veterans of the Revolution, the Civil War, the Polish campaigns and other military operations (this decimation of the Russian officer corps would result in the Soviet Union's initial defeats at the hands of Nazi invaders at the beginning of World War II). He also isolated and disgraced his political rivals, notably Trotsky. Stalin's economic policies of strict centralized planning (i.e., the "five-year plans") resulted in the near ruination of the Soviet economy and mass famines in many areas of the Soviet Union, notably in Central Russia and the Ukraine. Popular resistance to Stalin's policies, such as nationalization of private lands and collective farming, by independent farmers ("kulaks"), brought about brutal retaliation, in which millions of kulaks were either forced off their land or executed outright. Altogether Stalin's economic and political policies resulted in the deaths of up to 10 million peasants during 1926-1934. Between 1934 and 1939 he organized and led massive purge (known as "The Great Terror") of the party, government, armed forces and intelligentsia, in which millions of so-called "enemies of the Soviet people" were imprisoned, exiled or executed. In the late 1930s, Stalin sent some Red Army forces and material to support the Spanish Republican government in its fight against the rebels led by Gen. Francisco Franco and aided by troops and material from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Stalin made the Non-Aggression Pact with Adolf Hitler in 1939, which bought the Soviet Union two years' respite from involvement in World War 2. After the German invasion in 1941, the USSR became a member of the Grand Alliance and Stalin, as war leader, assumed the title of Generalissimus. He had no formal military training and scorned the advice of his senior officers, due to suspicion and his rising paranoia, actions that resulted in horrific losses to the Russian military in both men and material (not to mention civilian losses). He rejected military plans made by such experienced officers as Marshal Georgi Zhukov, and insisted they be replaced by his own plans, which led to even more horrific losses. Towards the end of WWII he took part in the conferences of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Clement Attlee. The agreements reached in those conferences resulted in Soviet military and political control over the liberated countries of postwar Castern and Central Europe.
From 1945 until his death Stalin resumed his repressive measures at home, resulting in censorship of the arts, literature and cinema, forced exiles of hundreds of thousands and the executions of intellectuals and other potential "enemies of the state". At that time he conducted foreign policies that contributed to the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West. Stalin had little interest in family life, although he was married twice and had several mistresses. His first wife (Ekaterina Svanidze, married c. 1904) died three years after their marriage and left a son, Jacob (also known as Yacov), an officer in the Russian army during World War II who was captured by the Nazis and died in a POW camp (his father refused German offers to exchange him for captured German officers). His second wife (Nadezhda Alliluyeva, married 1919) attempted to moderate his politics, but she died by suicide, leaving a daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, and an alcoholic son, Vasili Stalin, who later died in exile. Increasingly paranoid, Stalin launched attacks on such intellectuals as Osip Mandelstam, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Anna Akhmatova, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Boris Pasternak, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and many other cultural luminaries. Stalin personally intervened in the fate of "counterrevolutionary" Yiddish writers and changed their sentences from exile to execution. Thirteen of them were executed by the Soviet secret police; their leader, Perets Markish, was executed in the typical KGB manner by a single gunshot to the head on August 12, 1952, in Moscow.
Stalin died suddenly on March 5, 1953, under somewhat mysterious circumstances, after announcing his intention to arrest Jewish doctors, whom he believed were plotting to kill him. The "official" cause of death was announced as brain hemorrhage. Stalin's apprentice, Georgi Malenkov, took the power, but was soon ousted by Nikita Khrushchev. Three years after death, Stalin was posthumously denounced by Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress in 1956 for crimes against the Party and for building a "cult of personality." In 1961 Stalin's body was removed from Lenin's Mausoleum, where it had been displayed since his death, and buried near the Kremlin wall. In 1964 Leonid Brezhnev dismissed Khrushchev and brought back some of Stalin's hard-line policies. After 1986 Mikhail Gorbachev initiated a series of liberal political reforms known as "glasnost" and "perstroika", and many of Stalin's victims were posthumously rehabilitated, and the whole phenomenon of "Stalinism" was officially condemned by the Russian authorities.- Additional Crew
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Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April 1870 - 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism.- Writer
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Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow on February 10, 1890 into an artistic family of Russian-Jewish heritage. His father was an acclaimed artist named Leonid Pasternak, who converted to Christianity, and his mother was a renown concert pianist named Rosa Kaufman. Their home was open to family friends such as composers Sergei Rachmaninoff and Aleksandr Skryabin as well as writers Rilke and Lev Tolstoy. Pasternak had a happy childhood, being brought up by prominent intellectuals in a cosmopolitan atmosphere. He studied music at the Moscow Conservatory and philosophy at the University of Marburg, Germany. In 1914 he returned to Moscow and published his first collection of poems. His work at a chemical factory in the Urals during WWI was later used as material for his novel "Doctor Zhivago".
In 1917 he fell in love with a Jewish girl and wrote "My Sister Life", a collection of passionate metaphoric poems that brought him international recognition and had an impact upon Russian Symbolist and Futurist poetry. Pasternak cautiously supported the Russian revolution, but was shocked with the brutality of communists. His parents and sisters emigrated to Europe in 1921. During the "Great Terror" of 1930s, Pasternak became disillusioned with the Soviet reality. He came under severe political attack and devoted himself to making translations of classic works: Shakespeare's "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "King Lear", Goethe's "Faust", as well as Paul Verlaine, Rainer Maria Rilke and other Western poets. His translations of Georgian poets favored by Joseph Stalin probably saved his life. Stalin spoke with Pasternak in 1934 over the phone, and questioned his association with poet Osip Mandelstam, who was executed upon Stalin's order. Later Stalin crossed Pasternak's name off the arrest list, quoted as saying "Don't touch this cloud dweller", alluding to his book "The Twin in the Clouds".
During 1940s-50s Pasternak wrote his autobiographic novel "Doctor Zhivago". A model for Lara in the novel was the poet's muse, beautiful and kind Olga Iwinskaja, an editor at "Novy Mir" magazine. In 1949, when she was pregnant by Pasternak, she was arrested by KGB on false accusations of "spying" and spent 4 years in prison-camp. Their unborn baby was lost, and Pasternak suffered a heart attack. After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, Olga Iwinskaja was released and reunited with Pasternak, who completed "Doctor Zhivago". He tried to publish it in the Soviet magazine "Novy Mir", but was rejected. The manuscript of "Doctor Zhivago" was secretly smuggled out of the Soviet Union and was first published in Italy in 1957.
Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. But Soviet authorities declared him a "traitor" and attacked him with a campaign of persecution, terrorizing Pasternak up until his death in 1960. He was so abused by the Soviet authorities, that he became unable to go to accept the Nobel Prize and was forced to decline the honor. He lived the life of fear and insecurity that was imposed upon him and millions of others under the Soviet totalitarian system. He ended his life in poverty and a virtual exile in an artist's community of Peredelkino near Moscow. His last poems are devoted to love, to freedom, and to reconciliation with God. Pasternak was rehabilitated posthumously in 1987. In 1988, after being banned in the Soviet Union for three decades, "Doctor Zhivago" was published in the same "Novy Mir" magazine as a sign of changing times. In 1989 Pasternak's son accepted his father's Nobel Prize medal in Stockholm.- Director
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Lily Brik, one of Russian and Soviet culture's most enigmatic women who was admired by many important men, was known for her wit and beauty and helped many talented people to become famous.
She was born Lilya Urievna Kagan, in 1891, in Moscow, Russia, into a Jewish family of a lawyer and a music teacher. Young Lilya grew up in a trilingual family environment, she received an excellent private education and absorbed from the intellectual and artistic circles of both Russian capitals, St. Petersburg and Moscow. Lilya studied piano professionally; in addition to her native Russian and Yiddish she spoke fluent German and French. She studied art and architecture and graduated from Moscow Institute of Architecture.
Lilya and her junior sister, Elsa, who later became known as Elsa Triolet, were both famous for their personal charm and special beauty. Lilya was just a teenage girl when she attracted attention of the famous Russian opera basso Feodor Chaliapin Sr.. At that time, as Lilya realized the power of her charm, intellect, and sex appeal, she became part of Russian cultural milieu. She was arguably one of the most famous and influential women in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s Russian and Soviet culture. Lily Brik's face was on the cover of LEF magazine and on numerous posters of that time. She also helped many talented men to become famous and happy, and some men, like poet Mayakovsky, were unhappy without her company.
On February 26, 1912, Lilya married Osip Brik in Moscow, and soon the couple moved to St. Petersburg. They had a dacha-home in Levashovo, an upscale suburb of St. Petersburg. There, in July of 1915, Lilya's junior sister, Elsa, introduced her boyfriend, poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, to Osip and Lilya. Mayakovsky became obsessed with both, charming and coquettish Lilya Brik, and intellectually challenging Osip Brik. But Lilya remained married to Osip Brik, who extended his hospitality to her greatest admirer. Osip Brik financed the publication of futurist poetry collection 'Cloud in Pants' (1915) by Vladimir Mayakovsky, which was inspired by their muse, Lilya. At that time Lilya became involved in silent film. In 1918 she made her film debut co-starring with Mayakovsky in Zakovannaya filmoi (1918) which was produced by the "Neptun" film studio in St. Petersburg.
During the Russian Revolution the Briks lived in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). There Lilya's husband briefly served at the special militarized Revolutionary Automobile Group, and had risen to the rank of a Commissar. In June of 1920, the Briks moved to Moscow where Osip Brik was hired as a Legal Councel for the CheKa (predecessor of the KGB). From there Osip Brik was fired with a verdict, "for negligent attitude and evasion from work", but the Briks still managed to help emigration of the parents of writer Boris Pasternak.
During the 1920s the Moscow apartment of Lily and Osip Brik was the meeting place for such Russian culture luminaries as Boris Pasternak, Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sergei Eisenstein, Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, Yuri Tynyanov, Vsevolod Meyerhold and many others. Lily and Osip Brik were among the most active proponents of new artistic ideas in art, literature, theatre and film in the 1910s - 1930s Russia. They were both important members of Russian Formalism and Futurism in literature and art. In 1922-23 Lily and Osip Brik made a trip to Europe and visited Wassily Kandinsky and Bauhaus in Germany.
In the 1920s, Lily Brik directed two films. In 1926, she produced and directed a documentary titled 'Jews on the land', based on a scenario by Mayakovsky and Viktor Shklovskiy about Jewish collective farms in Russia. Then Lily Brik directed a parody on "bourgeous cinema" titled 'Steklyanny glaz' (aka.. The Glass Eye 1929). From 1922-1928 Lily Brik was also involved in publishing the magazine 'LEF' (Leftist Front of Arts), which became the platform for the LEF group, and for the Russian Dada and Constructivist art. Lily Brik's portrait by Alexander Rodchenko appeared on the cover of LEF magazine. She was the inspirational force for the group of Russian avant-garde writers, artists and film directors, such as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexander Rodchenko, Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, Sergei Yutkevich, Viktor Shklovskiy, V. Ivanov-Zhemchuzhny and others.
In 1930, while she was on a trip in Europe, Lily Brik learned that her close friend and film partner Vladimir Mayakovsky committed suicide after his breakup with actress Veronika Polonskaya. Lily, who previously twice saved him from committing suicide, was too far away to be able to help him this time. After Lily Brik's letter to Joseph Stalin, who approved her idea to publish the collected works of Mayakovsky, his poetry was included in the Soviet school curriculum and reissued in massive printings. She divorced from Osip Brik. From 1930-1937 she was married to Soviet General Vitali Primakov, who was falsely accused of relations with Anti-Soviet Trotskyist organization and was executed in 1937, during the Moscow Trials and "Great terror" under dictatorship of Joseph Stalin.
During hard times Lily Brik was supported by none other, than Nikolay Cherkasov who was a strong supporter of retired and disabled actors and writers. He personally donated substantial sums of money to many less fortunate actors and cinematographers who suffered under the communist regime. Cherkasov found that Lily Brik was left homeless in Moscow, and that she has no income. Cherkasov used his star power to pressure the Soviet authorities: he wrote a letter to the Soviet Government requesting "good care and accommodation for actress Lily Brik, the widow of writer Vladimir Mayakovsky" and soon Lily Brik was provided with a decent place to live in central Moscow.
From 1938-1978 she was married to writer Vasily Katanyan. The home of Lily Brik and Vasili Katanyan was the meeting place for unofficial cultural milieu in the 1950s and 1960s Moscow. At that time Lily Brik played important role in supporting the new generation of talented writers, musicians, artists, and filmmakers in the former Soviet Union. She was instrumental in the early career of poet Andrei Voznesensky and filmmaker Sergei Parajanov as well as other aspiring talents. In 1978, after suffering from an incurable illness, she committed suicide by taking a lethal dose of sleeping pills. That was on August 4, 1978, in Peredelkino, Moscow, Russia.
Lily Brik was model for portraits by such famous artists as Marc Chagall, Alexander Tyshler, Alexander Rodchenko, David Burlyuk, Fernand Léger, and Henri Matisse.- Stanislav Petrov was born on 7 September 1939 in Vladivostok, USSR. He died on 19 May 2017 in Fryazino, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Marina Levtova was born on 27 April 1959 in Neryuktyayinsky, Megino-Kangalassky Raion, Yakut ASSR, RSFSR, USSR [now Sakha Republic, Russia]. She was an actress, known for Lilac Ball (1988), Podzemelye vedm (1990) and Moya Anfisa (1979). She was married to Yuriy Moroz. She died on 28 February 2000 in Rasdory, Odintsovo Raion, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Writer
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Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy is a Russian and Soviet self-taught scientist who developed the theoretical issues of astronautics, and an esoteric thinker who dealt with the philosophical problems of space exploration.
Almost completely deaf in childhood as a result of scarlet fever, Tsiolkovskiy did not receive a systematic education (he studied for four years at the Vyatka gymnasium and spent three years self-educating). In 1879 he passed the exam for the title of a people's teacher and until 1921 he taught mathematics and physics at the schools of Borovsk and Kaluga, at the same time trying to interest the scientific community with his projects of airplanes and an all-metal airship, and subsequently rocket technology. He published at his own expense many works, including those devoted to substantiating the idea of cosmic pantheism.
His main scientific works - on aeronautics, rocket dynamics and astronautics - began with an attempt to use the mathematical apparatus to solve fantastic problems. Many researchers, including Yakov Perelman, characterized Tsiolkovskiy as a thinker who was significantly ahead of his time.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Writer
Aleksandra Snezhko-Blotskaya was born on 21 February 1909 in Volchansk, Kharkov Governorate, Russian Empire [now Vovchansk, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine]. She was a director and assistant director, known for The Snow Maiden (1952), Geese-Swans (1949) and The Hunchback Horse (1947). She died on 18 November 1980 in Zheleznodorozhny, Moscow Oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].- Vladimir Turchinsky was born on 28 September 1963 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was an actor, known for Rodina zhdyot (2003), Red Sky (2014) and American Gladiators (1989). He died on 16 December 2009 in Pashukovo, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
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Anton Makarenko was born on 13 March 1888 in Belopolye, Kharkov Governorate, Russian Empire [now Bilopillia, Sumy Oblast, Ukraine]. He was a writer and actor, known for Road to Life (1931), Pedagogicheskaya poema (1969) and Zacínáme zít (1952). He was married to Galina Stahievna Makarenko. He died on 1 April 1939 in Golizyno, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia].- Writer
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Anna Akhmatova was arguably the greatest Russian woman poet.
She was born Anna Andreevna Gorenko on June 23, 1889, in Bolshoi Fontan, a suburb of Odessa, Ukraine, Russian Empire. Her father, Andrei Antonovich Gorenko, was a Navy Engineer. Her mother, Inna Erazmovna (nee Stogova), belonged to Russian Nobility. From 1890-1905 her father served in St. Petersburg at the Headquarters of the Imperial Trade Fleet and Ports under Grand Prince Aleksander Mikhailovich. The family lived in Tsarskoe Selo, the elite Royal suburb of St. Petersburg. Young Anna Akhmatova received an excellent private education and attended the Tsarskoselky Gymnasium for Ladies. After the divorce of her parents in 1905, she lived in Kiev for 4 years. There she graduated from the Fundukleevsky Gymnazium in 1907, and attended the Law school of Kiev University for 2 years. Back in St. Petersburg she studied at the St. Petersburg Classes for women (Zhenskie Kursy) from 1911-1913.
Akhmatova started writing poetry from age 11, and signed her first publication with her real name, Anna Gorenko. Her father objected that she used his name, because he also was a writer, and even met Fyodor Dostoevsky and corresponded with Anton Chekhov. Then Anna made up a pseudonym 'Akhmatova' and invented a poetic myth of her connection to the Tatar Khan Akhmat; her pseudonym was a product of her creative imagination. In 1910, in Kiev she married Nikolai Gumilev, whom she knew for five years. Gumilev was an important Russian poet and critic, the founder of the literary movement of Acmeism. The young couple spent a honeymoon in Paris. There she met with then little known artist Amedeo Modigliani. She made a second trip to Paris in 1911 and to Italy in 1912, and continued her friendship with Modigliani, who made fifteen portraits of her, some of them nude. Inspired by love, Akhmatova wrote her first book of poetry "Evening" (Vecher, 1912). At the same time Akhmatova met Vladimir Mayakovsky at the St. Petersburg literary club 'Brodyachaya Sobaka' (Stray Dog). Her son Lev Gumilev was born in October of 1912. Her next books "Rosary" (Chyotki, 1914) and "The White Flock" (Belaya Staya, 1917) brought her literary fame. Her poetry was highly praised by Yuri Tynyanov and Boris Pasternak.
Terror came in her life with the Russian revolution of 1917. Communists killed leading intellectuals by thousands. Akhmatova's separated husband Nikolai Gumilev was executed in 1921 on the charges of "anti-Soviet plot". After publishing her books "Plantain" (Podorozhnik, 1921) and "Anno Domini MCMXXI (1922) she was ostracized as "bourgeous". She witnessed the brutal arrest of poet Osip Mandelstam, who criticized Joseph Stalin and later was killed in a Siberian prison-camp. Publication of her works has been banned from 1925 to 1953. One modest collection of her poetry was published in Leningrad in 1940, but was banned the same year and confiscated from all Soviet libraries and book stores. In spite of her own suffering, Akhmatova supported a young struggling writer Olga Berggolts. At the beginning of the Nazi siege of Leningrad Akhmatova was starving and helpless. She was evacuated to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where she lived with the family of Korney Ivanovich Chukovskiy. In the middle of WWII her poem 'Courage' was published in Pravda.
Akhmatova's husband Nikolai Punin was a chief curator of the Hermitage and a prominent art historian and writer. He was arrested in 1935, after his criticism of ugly life in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Punin criticized the loss of civilized values and tasteless portraits of the Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin, thousands of which flooded the renamed city of Leningrad. Akhmatova had to burn all of her husband's documents and photographs in order to protect his life. Then she was assisted by her friends Mikhail A. Bulgakov and Boris Pasternak in writing a petition to Joseph Stalin, and her husband was released. The second time Akhmatova tried to save Punin from under arrest was in 1949. At that time, Punin lectured that Cezanne and Van Gogh were great artists, and he described the portrait of Vladimir Lenin, as "a bootleg, not a painting"; for such anti-communist statement he was arrested and exiled to the Gulag prison-camp. He died in a Vorkuta prison-camp in 1953. This time Akhmatova was powerless, because she was under KGB surveillance.
After the end of the Second World War Akhmatova was interviewed in Leningrad by Sir Isaiah Berlin, who came for a visit from London in the fall of 1945. In August of 1946 Akhmatova was attacked by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, because Joseph Stalin pushed repressions against intellectuals (writers, musicians, doctors). Akhmatova was labeled "alien to the Soviet people" for her "eroticism, mysticism, and political impartiality." She was censored along with Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Zoschenko, Sergei Prokofiev, and other leading intellectuals. The official ban was imposed on all publications and public performances of Akhmatova, and she was deprived of livelihood until the death of Joseph Stalin.
After her expulsion from the Union of Writers in 1946, Akhmatova was left penniless. At that time she was threatened by the Soviet authorities and moved from Leningrad to Moscow with the family of Viktor Ardov. Ardov, Chukovsky, and Fadeev later helped reinstate her membership in the Union of Writers. Boris Pasternak gave a special reading of the unpublished version of his novel 'Doctor Zhivago' for Akhmatova. In 1955 she received a small dacha-cabin in Komarovo, a suburb of Leningrad (St. Petersburg). There she was living and writing in the summertime, working on her major works: 'Poema bez geroya' and 'Requiem'. But her masterpiece 'Requiem' was not published until 1987. 'Requiem' is a monumental poem about survival of the people through the 'Great Terror' and dictatorship of Stalin.
Her only son Lev Gumilev (1912 - 1992) was a historian and philosopher, who survived several arrests and spent many years in the Soviet Gulag prison-camps. Akhmatova and her circle in the 50's and 60's Leningrad was an unofficial incubator for talented youth, such as her apprentice Joseph Brodsky. In 1962, Akhmatova was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and in 1964 she was awarded the Etna-Taormina Prize for poetry. Akhmatova also received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University (1965).
Anna Akhmatova died on March 5, 1966, in Domodedovo, a suburb of Moscow. Akhmatova's burial service was held at the St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral in St. Petersburg, she was laid to rest in the Komarovo cemetery, near St. Petersburg, Russia.- Aleksandr Kazantsev was born on 2 September 1906 in Akmolinsk, Russian Empire [now Astana, Kazakhstan]. He was a writer, known for Planeta bur (1962), Chariots of the Gods (1970) and Target... Earth? (1981). He died on 13 September 2002 in Peredelkino, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Aleksey Sdobnov was born on 15 August 1966 in Former USSR. He was an actor, known for Superdeep (2020), BiKheppi (2019) and Kogda smert prishla v Bagdad. He died on 13 January 2024 in Lyubertsy, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Mark Magidson was born on 10 July 1901 in Vilna, Russian Empire [now Vilnius, Lithuania]. He was a cinematographer, known for Povest o nastoyashchem cheloveke (1948), Zagovor obrechyonnykh (1950) and Salamander (1928). He died on 14 June 1954 in Moscow Oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].- Music Department
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Rimma Kazakova was a popular Russian poet-songwriter best known for her lyrics to such songs as 'You Love Me', 'Nenaglyadny moy', 'Wedding Music' and 'Madonna' among other hits.
She was born Rimma Fedorovna Kazakova on January 27, 1932, in Sebastopol, Russia, Soviet Union (now Sebastopol, Ukraine). Her father, Fedor Lazarevich, was a Red Army officer, her mother was a homemaker. Young Kazakova was fond of classic literature and poetry. During her formative years she lived and studied in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia), graduating from Leningrad HS in 1949. From 1950 to 1955 she studied history and literature at Leningrad State University, graduating in 1955, majoring in History. That same year she had the first publication of her poem in the Soviet Union. From 1956 to 1961 Kazakova lived in Khabarovsk in the Far east of Russia. There in 1958 she published her first collection of poetry titled "We'll Meet in the East." In 1959 she joined the Writers Union. From 1961 to 1964 she attended the Higher Courses of Literature at the Union of Writers in Moscow.
Since the 1960s Rimma Kazakova was part of the Moscow cultural milieu known as the 60s generation. She enjoyed popularity in the Soviet Union and Russia as the author of many books of poetry based on traditions of Russian folklore, urban romance and other lyrical trends of the 20th century. Kazakova wrote lyrics to many popular songs by composer Igor Krutoy, such as 'Madonna', 'Wedding Music', 'You Love Me' and other hits performed by singer Alexander Serov.
Rimma Kazakova survived numerous attacks by the Soviet officialdom; she was censored and banned form traveling outside of the Soviet Union. During the 1980s she was nominated for Soviet State Prize, but she never received the prize. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakova was elected First Secretary of the Writers' Union of Russia, alongside Bella Akhmadulina and Andrei Voznesensky. She died on May 19, 2008, of natural causes while she was undergoing treatment at the prestigious "Perkhushkovo" sanatorium near Moscow, Russia.- Music Department
- Writer
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Robert Rozhdestvenskiy is a Soviet and Russian poet, translator, songwriter.
Rozhdestvenskiy was born as Robert Petkevich, in the village of Kosikha, West Siberia. Father - Stanislav Petkevich, worked in the NKVD. In 1941 he was drafted into the Red Army. With the rank of lieutenant, he commanded a platoon of the separate engineer battalion. Killed in action in Latvia in 1945. Mother - Vera Fyodorova, a military doctor, before the war she was the director of a rural primary school, and at the same time studied at a medical institute. His parents divorced when Robert was five years old. Mother remarried, stepfather - Ivan Rozhdestvenskiy, military man. Robert took the surname and patronymic of his stepfather. Since 1934, he lived with his parents and grandmother in Omsk. At the beginning of the war, his mother was called to the front and Robert remained with his grandmother Nadezhda Fyodorova.
Robert's first publication was the poem "My dad goes on a hike with a rifle" ('Omskaya Pravda', July 8, 1941). In 1943 he studied at the military music school. In 1950, the first adult publications of Robert Rozhdestvenskiy's poems appeared in the magazine 'Na rubezhe' (Petrozavodsk). In the same year, Rozhdestvenskiy tries to enter the Literary Institute named after Maxim Gorky, but unsuccessfully. He studies for a year at the historical and philological department of Petrozavodsk State University. In 1951, on his second attempt, the poet managed to enter the Literary Institute (graduated in 1956), he moved to Moscow. At the same time he met Yevgeniy Yevtushenko, and later Bulat Okudzhava and Andrei Voznesensky.
In 1955, the young poet's book "Flags of Spring" was published in Karelia. A year later, the poem "My Love" was also published there. In 1955, Robert, while practicing in Altay, met conservatory student Aleksandr Flyarkovsky, with whom the Rozhdestvenskiy's first song, "Your Window," was created.
A characteristic property of Rozhdestvenskiy's poetry is its constantly pulsating modernity, the living relevance of the questions that he poses to himself and to us. These questions concern so many people that they instantly resonate in a wide variety of circles. If you arrange Rozhdestvenskiy's poems in chronological order, you can be convinced that the poet's lyrical confession reflects some essential features characteristic of social life, its movement, maturity, spiritual gains and losses.- Costume Designer
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Vyacheslav Zaytsev is a Soviet and Russian fashion designer, painter and graphic artist, teacher, professor. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1991). People's Artist of the Russian Federation (2006).
Vyacheslav Zaytsev was born in Ivanovo. Graduated from the Ivanovo Chemical-Technological College with a degree in textile design in 1956. In 1962 he graduated with honors from the Moscow Textile Institute. Then he was assigned to the Experimental Technical Sewing Factory of the Moscow Regional Economic Council in Babushkino and appointed its artistic director.
At the very beginning of his activities, he created a collection of workwear for women workers in the region and villages, which was rejected by the methodological council. Soon it was published by Paris Match magazine with the article "He dictates fashion to Moscow." Three years later, in 1965, the author of the collection, which never saw the light of day, was tracked down by Pierre Cardin and Marc Bohan (Dior) using this article. In the time preceding the meeting, Zaytsev managed to prove himself in creating fashionable women's clothing for the trading network of the capital and region, and was invited to the position of artistic director of the experimental technical workshop of the All-Union House of Clothing Models on Kuznetskiy Most. Having become acquainted with the work of their young colleague from the USSR, famous Parisian couturiers, including Guy Laroche, who was present at the meeting, actually recognized him as their worthy colleague in the profession. The result of their meeting was the article "Kings of Fashion" in the WWD newspaper.
Since the late 1960s, Zaytsev began to be perceived in the West as the leader of Soviet fashion; his high authority was expressed in the name 'Red Dior' assigned to him in the Western press, which emphasized the organic connection of the unique art of the fashion designer with the best traditions of world fashion.- Writer
- Music Department
- Actor
Gennady Shpalikov was born on 6 September 1937 in Segezha, Karelian ASSR, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Republic of Karelia, Russia]. He was a writer and actor, known for Dolgaya schastlivaya zhizn (1966), Ya shagayu po Moskve (1964) and You and Me (1971). He was married to Inna Gulaya and Natalya Ryazantseva. He died on 1 November 1974 in Peredelkino, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia].- Anatoliy Otradnov was born on 6 March 1982 in Revda, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was an actor, known for Gagarin. Pervyy v kosmose (2013), First on the Moon (2005) and The Alien Girl (2010). He died on 30 January 2012 in Chelobityevo, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Yuriy Kuzmenkov was born on 16 February 1941 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was an actor, known for Minuta molchaniya (1971), Glavnyy den (1974) and Maltiyskiy krest (2008). He died on 11 September 2011 in Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Valery Kharlamov is an ice hockey forward who played for CSKA Moscow in the Soviet League from 1967 until his death in 1981. Although small in stature, Kharlamov was speedy, intelligent, skilled and a dominant player, being named the Soviet Championship League most valuable player in 1972 and 1973. An offensive player, he led the league in scoring in 1972. Kharlamov was considered one of the best players of his era, as well as one of the greatest players of all time.
In international play, Kharlamov represented the Soviet Union at 11 World Championships, winning 8 gold medals, 2 silvers and 1 bronze. He participated in three Olympics, 1972, 1976 and 1980, finishing with two gold medals and a silver, and participated in the 1972 Summit Series against Canada. He spent most of his career playing on a line with Vladimir Petrov and Boris Mikhailov, and this trio is considered one of the best in the history of hockey.
Valery Kharlamov was elected to the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame, the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Russian Hockey Hall of Fame and was selected as one of the forwards on the IIHF Centennial All-Star Team. The Kharlamov Trophy is presented annually to the best Russian hockey player in the NHL, as chosen by his peers. The Kharlamov Cup is presented to the champion of the Minor Hockey League playoffs, and the Kontinental Hockey League named one of their four divisions after him. - Anatoliy Ignatyev was born on 22 July 1926 in Smolensk, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was an actor, known for Ne stavte Leshemu kapkany... (1981), Kapitan 'Staroy cherepakhi' (1956) and Metel (1965). He died on 28 October 1986 in Moscow Oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].
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Vladislav Semernin was born on 26 August 1946 in Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR, USSR. He was a writer and producer, known for Poltergeyst-90 (1991), Daphnis and Chloe (1993) and Sheremetevo-2 (1990). He died on 7 September 2010 in Dubna, Moscow Oblast, Russia.- Writer
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- Music Department
Bella Akhmadulina was a prominent Russian poet, one of the bold female voices in contemporary Russian literature, whose ecstatic performances attracted audiences of thousands to her appearances at concert halls and stadiums.
She was born Isabella Akhatovna Akhmadulina on April 10, 1937 in Moscow, Russia. Her father, Akhat Valeevich Akhmadulin, and mother, Nadezhda Makarovna Lazareva, had mixed ancestry of Tatar, Russian, Georgian, and Italian heritage. Akhmadulina finished high school and attended the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow. There she suffered from political pressure and was temporarily expelled, because she supported Boris Pasternak. Her talent prevailed, and after a yearlong hiatus she returned to college, graduating in 1960 as a writer.
Akhmadulina came to prominence during the post-Stalin thaw, when a loosening of censorship led to a flowering of the arts. Her first poems were published in 1955 in the official Soviet magazine "October". Her deliciously fresh early poetry of the 1950s-60s was part of the revival during the cultural "Thaw" initiated by Nikita Khrushchev. Along with poets Yevgeniy Yevtushenko, Andrei Voznesensky, Robert Rozhdestvensky and Bulat Okudzhava, she played an important role in the liberation of the collective consciousness after decades of repressions under dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. Akhmadulina was sometimes compared with Anna Akhmatova for her sincere feminine style. But later, after Nikita Khrushchev was dismissed by Leonid Brezhnev, the "Thaw" ended and her style was misjudged by Soviet critics as eroticism. Akhmadulina was barred from the Writer's Union and banned from publication at the same time as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and other Soviet dissidents. In response to the ending of the "Thaw" she titled her next book of poetry "Oznob" (Fever, 1968), it was published in Frankfurt, Germany, and in the USA under the title "Fever and other poems" (1969).
Akhmadulina was a staunch proponent for freedom of speech and human rights in the Soviet Union. She publicly defended Andrei Sakharov, Lev Kopelev, Georgi Vladimov', Vladimir Voinovich and other dissidents. When she was banned from the Soviet press and media, Akhmadulina delivered her statements through international press and radio. He poetry has been translated into English, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, French, German, Polish, Czech, Danish, Armenian, Georgian, Latvian, Kurdish, Romanian and many other languages worldwide. "There is only one honorable reason for writing poetry - you can't do without it," she said in an interview during her first visit to the United States in 1977.
The main themes of Akhmadulina's works are friendship, love, and relations between people. Her sensational public appearances, startling images and intensely personal style, couched in classical verse forms, established her as one of the Soviet Union's leading literary talents. As she matured, her themes became more philosophical, even religious, or they dwelled on the nature of poetic language. "O magic theater of a poem,/spoil yourself, wrap up in sleepy velvet./I don't matter," she wrote in one characteristic verse. Besides her poetry and prose, she wrote numerous essays about Russian writers, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Vladimir Vysotskiy, Bulat Okudzhava and Evgeni Evtushenko, among others. Nobel Prize winner Joseph Brodsky, once placed Akhmadulina above Russian poets of her generation and described her verses as a "treasure of Russian poetry." Like so many Russian writers, Akhmadulina stood for more than literary accomplishment. To Russian audiences she embodied the soul of poetry and expressed, in her clashes with the authorities, the moral imperative behind Russian literature.
Bella Akhmadulina received numerous awards and decorations from the Soviet and Russian state. She was made Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Literature (1977). She was awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples (USSR, 1984), "Nosside" Prize (Italy, 1992), "Pushkin" Prize (Germany, 1994), Presidential Prize (Russia, 1998). She was awarded the U.S.S.R. State Prize in 1989 and the State Prize of the Russian Federation in 2004. Despite her shaky official reputation, she was always recognized as one of the Soviet Union's literary treasures and a classic poet in the long line extending from Lermontov and Pushkin.
Her talent, her feminine beauty and a multitude of her high profile romantic affairs, sometimes comparable to that of Marilyn Monroe, made her bohemian life a stark contrast with the Soviet gloom. Beautiful and charismatic, Akhmadulina married a series of prominent artists, starting with Yevgeniy Yevtushenko, whom she met at a student gathering in 1954. She made an indelible first impression, with her "round, childish face," thick red hair tied in a braid and "slanting Tatar eyes flashing," as he recalled in his 1963 memoir, "A Precocious Autobiography." "This was Bella Akhmadulina, whom I married a few weeks later." She was seventeen, and he was twenty one. Although Mr. Yevtushenko wrote a series of love poems to her, the marriage did not last, and Ms. Akhmadulina would later claim not to remember the relationship. In the 1960s, she had a passionate romance with actor Vasiliy Shukshin who was her partner in film and TV performances. Later, she went on to marry the short-story writer Yuriy Nagibin, then the children's writer Gennadi Mamlin. She also had a relationship with director Eldar Kuliyev which produced a daughter, Elizaveta Kulieva, who also became a poet. In her later years, she was married to Boris Messerer, a notable Russian theater and film artist.
Bella Akhmadulina died of a heart failure on November 29, 2010, at her home in Peredelkino, a suburb of Moscow, Russia. Her death caused a considerable mourning in Russia. Thousands lined up to attend her funeral service at the Central House of Writers, then she was laid to rest near the tomb of Andrei Voznesensky in Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow. Russian president Medevdev paid tribute, he wrote that Akhmadulina's poetry was a "classic of Russian literature" and her death was an "irreparable loss."- Sergey Taneyev was born on 25 November 1856 in Vladimir, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a composer, known for Rasskazy o Lenine (1958) and Medeya (1967). He died on 19 June 1915 in Dyutkovo, Moscow Governorate, Russian Empire [now Zvenigorod, Moscow Oblast, Russia].
- Vasili Shchyolokov was born on 25 February 1908 in the Russian Empire. He was an actor, known for Svoimi rukami (1956), Svoya golova na plechakh (1961) and Shtorm (1972). He died on 10 May 1987 in Moscow Oblast, RSFSR, USSR.
- Armands Neylands-Yaunzems was born on 26 May 1970 in Riga, Latvian SSR, USSR [now Latvia]. He was an actor, known for Kobra. Antiterror (2003), Lyubov.ru (2008) and Brachnyy kontrakt (2009). He died on 21 September 2010 in Peredelkino, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Mikhail Neygum was born on 6 September 1952 in Karaganda, Kazakh SSR, USSR. He was an actor, known for Tyomnye allei (1991). He died on 24 October 2001 in Shemetovo, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Yevgeniy Liskonog was born on 13 June 1946. He was an actor, known for Porokh (1985), Iskrenne Vash (1985) and Santa Esperansa (1980). He died on 23 March 1990 in Mytishchi, Moscow Oblast, RSFSR, USSR.
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- Music Department
Vasiliy Shirinskiy was born on 17 January 1901 in Yekaterinodar, Kuban oblast, Russian Empire [now Krasnodar, Krasnodar Krai, Russia]. He was a composer, known for Na podmostkakh stseny (1956), The Safety Match (1954) and The Golden Key (1939). He died on 16 August 1965 in Mamontovka, Pushkino district, Moscow Oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Pushkino, Moscow Oblast, Russia].- Composer
- Music Department
Aleksandr Kreyn was born on 20 October 1883 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a composer, known for Ballet Tales (1955), Tom Sawyer (1936) and Uchitel tantsev (1952). He died on 25 April 1951 in Staraya Ruza, Moscow Oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].- Mikhail Derzhavin was born on 15 June 1936 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was an actor, known for Troe v lodke, ne schitaya sobaki (1979), Nochnoy vizit (1998) and Oni byli pervymi (1956). He was married to Roksana Babayan, Nina Budyonnaya and Ekaterina Raykina. He died on 10 January 2018 in Odintsovo, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Camera and Electrical Department
Igor Komarov was born on 3 July 1920 in Gomel, Russia [now Homyel, Belarus]. Igor is known for The Fall of Berlin (1945). Igor died on 26 December 1999 in Krasnoarmeysk, Moscow Oblast, Russia.- Yegor Gaydar was born on 19 March 1956 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was an actor and writer, known for Yegor Gaydar: Gibel' imperii (2013), The Other Day 1961-2003: Our Era (1997) and Shkola zlosloviya (2002). He died on 16 December 2009 in Odintsovo, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Cyril Pavlov was born on 8 October 1919 in Makovskie Vyselki, Ryazan oblast, Russia. He died on 20 February 2017 in Peredelkino, Moscow oblast, Russia.
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Kris Kelmy was born on 21 April 1955 in Moscow, USSR. He was a composer, known for Kremlyovskiy koncert (2002), Kriminalnyy talant (1989) and Pup in Boots (1981). He was married to Lyudmila V. Kelmy. He died on 1 January 2019 in Novoglagolevo, Naro-Fominsky District, Moscow Oblast, Russia.- Anatoliy Antosevich was born in 1942. He was an actor, known for Sinyaya tetrad (1964), Tatyanin den (1968) and Semeynaya istoriya (1977). He died on 23 August 1997 in Korolyov, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Alexandr Subbotin died on 8 May 2022 in Mytishchi, Moscow Oblast, Russia.
- Sergiy Radonezhskiy was born on 14 May 1314 in Varnitsa, Yaroslavl oblast, Russia. Sergiy died on 25 September 1392 in Sergiev Posad, Moscow oblast, Russia.
- Lev Dovator was born on 20 February 1903 in Khotino, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire [now Vitebsk Oblast, Belarus]. He died on 19 December 1941 in near Ruza, Moscow Oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].