Alexander Vertinsky ( March 9 (21), 1889 , Kiev , Russian Empire - May 21, 1957 , Leningrad , USSR ) - Russian and Soviet variety actor , film actor , composer , poet and singer , idol of the first half of the 20th century . Laureate of the Stalin Prize in 1951. The father of actresses Marianna and Anastasia Vertinsky.
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Biography
Alexander Vertinsky was born on March 9 (21), 1889 in Kiev . Vertinsky's father, private attorney Nikolai Petrovich Vertinsky (1845-1894), came from a family of a railway employee [1] ; in addition to legal practice, he was also engaged in journalism - published feuilletons under the pseudonym Graf Niver [2] in the Kievsky Slovo newspaper. Mother, Evgenia Stepanovna Skolatskaya, was born in a noble family [1] [3] . Nikolai Petrovich could not marry her, because his first wife did not give a divorce, and “adopted” his own children several years later [4] . When the boy was three years old, his mother died, and two years later his father died from short-term phthisis [3] . After the death of their parents, Alexander and his sister Nadezhda were in different families with relatives of the mother, and the brother was assured that the sister was dead. Later, Alexander and Nadezhda met by chance and became very close [5] .
At the age of nine, Alexander Vertinsky perfectly passed the exam at the First Kiev Gymnasium [6] , but two years later he was expelled for poor progress and bad behavior and transferred to the 4th Kiev Gymnasium (considered an “simpler” educational institution) [1] , from which also was expelled in the 5th grade (circa 1904 ) [7] [8] . Here he became fascinated with the theater, played for a while on the amateur stage and was an extra on the Solovtsov Theater in Kiev [9] , although he later recognized his first acting experience as extremely unsuccessful [4] .
Vertinsky gradually gained a reputation as a novice Kiev writer: he wrote theater reviews of celebrity performances — Fyodor Chaliapin , Anastasia Vyaltseva , Mikhail Vavich , Giuseppe Anselmi , Maria Karinskaia , Titta Ruffo [3] , published small (usually “ decadent ”) stories. newspapers [4] : in “Kiev Week” - “Portrait”, “Cigarettes Spring”, “My Bride”, in the weekly “ Lukomorye ” - the story “Red Butterflies” [3] .
Vertinsky earned his living by various means: selling postcards, working as a loader, proofreader in a printing house, playing in amateur performances [5] ; he was also an accountant at the European Hotel, from where he was fired “for incapacity”. His acquaintance with the poets M. Kuzmin , V. Elsner and B. Livshits , artists A. Osmerkin , K. Malevich , M. Chagall and other guests of the literary salon created by S. N. Zelinskaya [4] , teacher the very Alexandria Gymnasium, from which Vertinsky was expelled (later became the wife of N. V. Lunacharsky, the brother of A. V. Lunacharsky ) [6] .
Moving to Moscow
In 1913, Vertinsky, in the hope of making a literary career for himself, moved to Moscow [6] , where he settled in Kozitsky Lane with his sister Nadya, an actress, in the house of Bakhrushin [4] . Here he began performances in literary and dramatic communities, including as a director (putting " Balaganchik ", one of A. Blok 's plays) [3] , worked for a while in A. Khanzhonkov's studio [4] .
Vertinsky later wrote about Blok’s poetry, which in many respects shaped his worldview, as “the element that forms our world”:
In our world of bohemians, everyone hid something in himself, some hopes, ambitious plans, impossible desires, each was harsh in his judgments, flaunted by contrived originality of views and the intransigence of critical assessments. And above all this, the intoxicating wind of Blok’s poetry, which had poisoned more than one heart with dreams of the Beautiful Lady, walked [1] .
Vertinsky did not imitate Blok, but was impressed by his poetic images and subsequently called his very life-perception “very Blochsky” [1] .
On the same days, Vertinsky got close to the futurists and met Mayakovsky . At the same time, as noted later, the philosophy of the futurists was not close to Vertinsky; Igor Severyanin's “poetry concerts” made a much bigger impression on him [3] . However, Vertinsky wrote about the poetry of the latter, that “in his poems there was genuine feeling, talent and sincerity, but there was not enough taste, sense of proportion and genuineness of feelings” [1] . As for the futurists, with the exception of Mayakovsky, whose talent Vertinsky genuinely admired, they, in the artist's opinion, simply “shocked the bourgeois, wrote abstruse poems, exhibited obviously mocking canvases and pretended to be geniuses” [1] .
Theater debut
In 1913, A. Vertinsky tried to fulfill an old dream and enter the Moscow Art Theater , but was not accepted because of a defect in diction [9] : the exam was taken by K. S. Stanislavsky , who did not like the fact that the examiner could not pronounce the letter “ p " [3] .
Even before the war, Vertinsky began performing on the stage of the Theater of Miniatures in Mamonovsky Lane along Tverskaya Street, which was directed by M. A. Artsybusheva [4] . His first number here, "Tango", was performed using erotic elements: on the stage in spectacular costumes, the prima ballerina and her partner danced, and Vertinsky, standing at the backstage, performed a parody song on what was happening. The premiere was a success, and the aspiring artist was honored with one line in the Russian Word review: “Witty and Cutesy Alexander Vertinsky” [2] . Subsequently, while continuing to cooperate with the theater M. Artsybusheva, Vertinsky wrote topical parodies (“Furlana”, “Warm Sin”, etc.): they brought him the first earnings [4] .
Movie Debut
Vertinsky's film debut took place in 1913 in the film "Cliff", where he got the small role of one of the guests - the cadet. In this picture, Vertinsky met Ivan Mozzhukhin , who played the main role — Paradise [10] .
In his memoirs, Vertinsky writes that at the end of 1914 , after the outbreak of the First World War , he voluntarily went to the front by an orderly on the 68th sanitary train of the All-Russian Union of Cities, which traveled between the front and Moscow [1] , where he worked under the command of Count Nikita Tolstoy [ clarified ] and worked here until January 1915, making (according to the data of the journal) a total of 35 thousand dressings. After being slightly wounded, Vertinsky returned to Moscow [3] , where he learned about his sister’s death (according to rumors from a cocaine overdose), the only person close to him [4] .
Returning from the front, Vertinsky continued to actively act in films. Then he met Vera Kholodnaya [3] . Moreover, according to DK Samin, the author of the book “The Most Famous Emigrants of Russia”, it was Vertinsky that Cold Faith owed its rapid take-off. He was the first to see "the demonic beauty and talent of the actress in the modest, unknown wife of Warrant Officer Kholodny" [2] and brought her to the Khanzhonkov Film Factory . Vertinsky was secretly in love with the actress [6] and dedicated her first songs to her - “Little Creole”, “Behind the Scenes”, “ Your fingers smell like incense ” [11] .
Debut on stage
Alexander Vertinsky's debut on the stage took place in 1915 , in the familiar Artsybushevsky theater of miniatures, to which he offered his new program: “Songs of Pierrot ”. Artsybusheva approved the idea: an exotic decoration was made for the artist, they picked up "moonlight" lighting. Vertinsky began to go on stage in a made-up and in a specially tailored costume by Pierrot, under the deadly, lemon-purple light of a ramp [2] .
Gradually, singing songs both on his own poems and on poems of the poets of the Silver Age ( Marina Tsvetaeva , Igor Severyanin , Alexander Blok ), Vertinsky developed his own style of performance, an important element of which was the melodious recitative [9] with characteristic grazing [5] ; This style allowed the verses to “remain precisely verses on the shading background of the melody” [9] . Vertinsky and his art, as noted, "represented the phenomenon of an almost hypnotic effect not only on the philistine, but also on a demanding elite audience" [9] .
The basis of A. Vertinsky's repertoire of those years was the original material: “Little Creole”, “Your fingers smell incense”, “Lilac Negro” (three songs dedicated to Vera Kholodnaya), “Seroglazochka”, “Just a minute”, “Today I laugh at myself , Behind the Scenes, Crystal Requiem, Smoke without Fire, Beznozhenok, Lord’s Ball, Dog Douglas, About Six Mirrors, Jamais, I Am a Little Ballerina (co-authored with N. Grushko), Kokainetka (text by V. Agatov ) [1] [2] [12] . The fact that it really could be a Soviet poet V. Agatov (1901-1967), expressed doubts [13] .
Pierrot image
The use of the “mask” as a stage image was typical for that time. It was noted that the choice of Vertinsky was influenced by the poetry of Blok, in particular the play “Balaganchik” and the cycle “Masks”. The artist himself claimed that this make-up appeared spontaneously when he and other young orderlies gave small "home" concerts for the wounded, and "was needed on the stage solely because of a strong feeling of insecurity and confusion before the crowded hall." This mask helped the artist to enter the image. His Pierrot (according to the biography of E. R. Sekacheva) is “a comedic sufferer, naive and enthusiastic, always dreaming of something, a sad jester, in which true suffering and true nobility are visible through the comical manner” [3] .
Later, the image of “black Pierrot” appeared: the dead-white make-up on the face changed the domino mask, the black dress with a white scarf around the neck replaced the white suit of Pierrot. New Pierrot (as E. R. Sekachev writes) became “in his songs more ironic and caustic than before, since he lost the naive dreams of youth, saw the everyday simplicity and indifference of the surrounding world” [3] . The artist turned each song into a small play with a complete plot and one or two heroes. The singer, who called his works "arietki" began to be called "Russian Pierrot" [5] .
Vertinsky returned to variety activities, joining the Petrovsky Theater, led by Maria Nikolaevna Ninina-Petipa; here his fee was already a hundred rubles a month. With this troupe, Vertinsky conducted numerous tours around the country, developing his own novel song genre with a brief but complete storyline [4] . Reviews of his performances - S. Gorodetsky and B. Savinich - appeared in the newspapers Rampa i zhizn and Teatralnaya gazeta.
As noted later, Vertinsky's cycles of poems were born "variations on the theme"; in them, he “sought to show that no one understood, a lonely person was defenseless in the face of a huge ruthless world” [3] . Moving away from the traditions of Russian, he "... offered another song to the stage, connected with the aesthetics of the latest trends in art and culture, and, above all, the author's artistic song." [3] Vertinsky, as experts noted, managed to create a new genre that was not yet Russian stage. “I was more than a poet, more than an actor. I walked along the difficult road of innovation, creating my own genre, ” [1] ,” Vertinsky himself said.
The brightness of the stage image of the “subtle Pierrot” led to the appearance of a large number of imitators and parodists Vertinsky. In particular, the parody songs of the popular eccentric artist Mikhail Savoyarov , who toured Russia with concerts until the late 1920s, were particularly well known. In his concerts of the 1920s, Savoyarov changed clothes, put on his makeup, and part of the second section performed under the trademark (and mask) of Vertinsky (“Pierrot”), and in national touring programs he sometimes shared this occupation with Leningrad artist Valery Valerinsky, [14] The repertoire, pseudonym and stage image of which was built on the "songs of the porcelain clown". [15] This, of course, served Vertinsky in good stead, which, despite its brief career (less than four years) and a long absence - as a result, not only was not forgotten, but also turned into a symbolic (and symbolist ) legend of pre-revolutionary Russian variety art. [14]
1917-1920
It is interesting that on October 25 (November 7), 1917 - on the day of the beginning of the October revolution - the benefit show of Vertinsky was held in Moscow. At that time, he collaborated with various entrepreners (Leonidova and Varyagin, Galanter, Grossbaum) and toured a lot, and with constant success [4] . He was friends with the writer Lev Nikulin , who wrote for him the words to the songs “Return” and “You are going to faraway countries”.
Meanwhile, life in Moscow became more difficult for Vertinsky. The romance “ What I have to say, ” written under the impression of the death of three hundred Moscow junkers, aroused the interest of the Emergency Commission , where the author was summoned for an explanation. According to the legend, when Vertinsky noticed the representatives of the Cheka: “It's just a song, and then, you can't forbid me to pity them!”, He received the answer: “It will be necessary, and we will forbid breathing!” [3]
CG Paustovsky in The Tale of Life, in the book The Beginning of an Unknown Ages, tells another version of the origin of the romance. According to Paustovsky, the performance of the romance took place in Kiev during the battles with the Petliurists .
Vertinsky clasped his thin fingers, painfully pulled them down in front of him and sang. He sang about the junkers killed shortly before this near Kiev in the village of Borshchagovka, about the young men sent for certain death against a dangerous gang.
At the end of 1917, Vertinsky set off on tour in the southern cities of Russia, where he spent almost two years speaking in Odessa , Rostov , Yekaterinoslav , in the Caucasus and the Crimea , by which time he replaced Pierrot’s costume with a tailstock [3] . In 1919, Vertinsky went to Kiev , from there he moved to Kharkov , where he gave many concerts and met with actress Valentina Sanina , then ended up in Odessa. The last city of his stay at home was Sevastopol [4] .
Emigration
From Sevastopol in November 1920 on the steamer "Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich" along with the remnants of the army of Baron Wrangel Alexander Vertinsky crossed over to Constantinople , where he began to give concerts again - mainly in the clubs "Stella" and "Black Rose" [4] .
About the reasons that predetermined emigration, A. Vertinsky wrote many years later:
What pushed me to this? I hated Soviet power? Oh no! The Soviet government did nothing wrong to me. I was a supporter of any other system? Also not: Obviously, it was a passion for adventure, travel. Youthful carelessness. [sixteen]
It is believed that Vertinsky toured Romania in the summer of 1921, but there is evidence that he remained in Constantinople, at least until December 1921 - in particular, he spoke at a reception at the American embassy [17] .
Having bought a Greek passport, which provided him with freedom of movement [3] , Vertinsky left for Romania , where he performed in cheap night clubs and toured Bessarabia in front of the Russian-speaking population. Later, the singer said that it was emigration that turned him from a capricious artist into a hard worker who earns a piece of bread and shelter [5] .
Soon (after the denunciation of a certain Chisinau actress, the mistress of General Popovich, in the benefit performance of which the actor refused to speak), [4] Vertinsky was accused of spying for the USSR and exiled to Bucharest . According to another source, the Vertinsky song “In the Moldavian Steppe”, which was supposed to “incite anti-Romanian sentiment” [3], caused discontent among the local authorities with the local authorities.
Poland and Germany
In 1923, with the impresario Kiryakov Vertinsky, he moved to Poland , where he was given an excellent reception, followed by numerous tours. In Sopot, Vertinsky married a rich Jewish girl Raisa (Rachel) Pototskaya, who after her marriage became Irena Vertidis. (In 1930, the marriage actually broke up, although the divorce was formalized only in 1941 in Shanghai.) [18] . Then Vertinsky appealed to the Soviet consulate in Warsaw with a request to return to Russia. Under the application, P. L. Voikov , the Soviet ambassador to Poland, put a positive resolution, on whose advice Vertinsky made this attempt. Vertinsky’s request was denied [19] .
On the eve of the visit to Poland of the Romanian king, Alexander Vertinsky was forced to move to Germany (as an "unreliable element") and settle in Berlin [4] . While still in Poland, along with fellow compatriots Vertinsky began touring in European countries and gradually gained popularity abroad, continuing to act in films and releasing poetry collections [5] .
European touring for an artist was not an easy thing: the attitude of the public to artists acting in restaurants was not the same as in Russia:
All of our acting whims and tricks in the homeland were tolerated with a tender smile. The actor was considered the highest being, to whom much was forgiven and much was allowed. From this it was necessary to wean in a foreign land. And the pubs were terrible because, regardless of whether they listen to you or not, the artist is obliged to perform his role, the public can behave as she pleases, sing, drink, eat, talk or even scream.
- A. Vertinsky [20]
In Berlin, A. Vertinsky continued his active creative activity, but the cultural life of the country, like herself, was at that moment in a deep crisis. By the mid-1920s, Vertinsky's second request for a return home, addressed to the head of the Soviet delegation in Berlin, A. Lunacharsky , was again met with refusal [3] .
Life in Paris
In 1925, Vertinsky moved to France , where he continued his lively concert activities and, perhaps, created his best songs: “Pani Irena”, “The Wreath”, “The Ballad of the Gray-haired Lady”, “In the Blue and the Far Ocean”, “Sarasat Concert” "," Hispano-Suiza "," Crazy organ-grinder "," Madam, the leaves are already falling "," Tango "Magnolia" "," Song about my wife "," Days are running "," Piccolo Bambino "," Femme raffinee ", “Jimmy”, “Christmas”, “Palestinian Tango”, “Tin Heart”, “Marlene”, “Yellow Angel”, “Irina Strozzi”.
About his "second homeland" Vertinsky wrote:
... My France is one Paris, but one Paris is the whole of France! I loved France sincerely, like anyone who lived for a long time in it. It was impossible not to love Paris, how it was impossible to forget it or to prefer another city to it. Nowhere else did Russians feel so free and free abroad. It was a city where the freedom of the human person is respected ... Yes, Paris ... is the birthplace of my spirit! [21] .
The years spent in Paris are considered the heyday of A. Vertinsky's creative life. In Paris, speaking at the Kazbek restaurant in Montmartre, the Great Moscow Hermitage, Casanova, Scheherazade, he met with representatives of the Romanovs, grand dukes Dmitry Pavlovich and Boris Vladimirovich , European monarchs ( Gustav, King of Sweden , Prince of Wales ), scene and screen celebrities: Charlie Chaplin , Marlene Dietrich , Greta Garbo [5] . During these years, Vertinsky became friends with Anna Pavlova , Tamara Karsavina, and especially Ivan Mozzhukhin ; with the latter, he formed a kind of tandem, filming in his spare time from work on stage. Close friendship associated him for many years with Fyodor Chaliapin [4] .
Among his pupils are Ludmila Lopato , a singer of a cabaret of Russian emigration, and later a keeper of the tradition of performing Russian and Gypsy romance.
In his memoirs, Vertinsky cites an evidencing case: in Paris, one unfamiliar English gentleman asked him to perform his favorite song, whose name he did not remember. From the melody sung by the master, Vertinsky recognized his “Tango”, and performed it, with which the Englishman was very pleased. Only the next day, Alexander Nikolaevich learned that the Prince of Wales himself was the stranger [22]
Palestine
In 1933, Vertinsky left France and went on an engagement to Lebanon and Palestine . Here he gave concerts (in Beirut , Jaffa , Tel Aviv , Haifa , Jerusalem ) and met some of his old acquaintances. In Jerusalem, Vertinsky spoke to a seven-thousandth audience, who received him very warmly [4] .
Departure for America
In the fall of 1934, Alexander Vertinsky sailed on the Lafayette steamer to America. While swimming among the ocean expanses and yearning for his homeland, he writes the song "About Us and the Homeland", which made so much noise abroad and for which even in Shanghai he was persistently whistled by some personalities, trying to disrupt the concert [4] .
At the very first concert of Vertinsky in New York , many well-known representatives of the Russian emigration gathered: Rachmaninov , Shalyapin , Nikita Baliyev , Boleslavsky , Ruben Mamulyan , as well as his Parisian friend Marlene Dietrich . It hosted the premiere of the song "Aliens Cities". After the final thing, “About us and about the Motherland,” the hall burst into a standing ovation, which “was, of course, not about me, but about my Motherland” [23] , ”the actor said of this later. By this time, Vertinsky's repertoire began to change: exotic scenes were replaced by nostalgic motifs (“Alien Cities”, “About Us and the Motherland”), theatrical characters, filled with hysterical passions, began to give way to ordinary people experiencing simple human feelings. In the thirties, for the first time Vertinsky began to use poems of Soviet poets in his songs [5] .
From New York Vertinsky went to San Francisco , where he was invited to a series of concerts in California. The concerts were successful and for a time usually stirred up the monotonous life of the Russian colony. There Vertinsky meets with many Russian musicians and artists [4] .
One of his performances was held in the famous Hollywood Breakfast Club, where millionaires gathered. In Hollywood Vertinsky offered to play in a film in English; the artist was fluent in German and perfectly in French, but (according to E. R. Sekacheva) “did not tolerate English speech”. Vertinsky received advice from Marlene Dietrich "to overcome the disgust of any normal person and take himself in hand" [1] , but failed to do so, and therefore refused to shoot [3] . However, this did not prevent him from accepting M. Dietrich’s invitation to come to Hollywood and stay at her luxury villa in Beverly Hills , where many screen stars lived, and live there for a while. Vertinsky dedicated his famous song “Marlene” to this period [24] .
Years in Shanghai
In 1935, from San Francisco Vertinsky goes to Manchukuo . At first he lived in Harbin , where he gave concerts (one of the latter was held on February 2, 1936 in the American Theater, which seats 1,500 spectators). From Harbin Vertinsky moved to Shanghai , where he lived a large Russian colony. Here he stayed until his departure to the USSR [25] . In Shanghai, he met the poetess Larissa Andersen , with whom he had been unrequitedly in love and whose work is highly appreciated . The artist performed in the Renaissance cabaret, in the Arkadia summer garden, in the Marie-Rose cafeteria, but the concerts did not bring him large fees: it was during these years that he first learned to emigrate [3] .
On May 26, 1942, Alexander Vertinsky entered into a second marriage with Georgian Lydia Vladimirovna Tsirgvava , the twenty-year-old daughter of an employee of the CER , whose age difference was 34 years old. Soon his first daughter, Marianna , was born. To feed the family, the artist had to give two concerts a day.
After the invasion of China by Japanese troops , the family’s financial situation deteriorated sharply. Lydia V. Vertinskaya said that during the occupation of Shanghai there was no influx of foreign goods, the Japanese did not supply the emigrants with medicines, and even getting an aspirin pill was a whole problem. According to her own memoirs, before each of his performances Vertinsky bought a coat out from the pawnshop, and after the performances he handed it over again until the next time [2] .
Homecoming
In the second half of the 1930s, Vertinsky repeatedly appealed to the Soviet representative offices with a request to allow him to return to his homeland. In 1937, A. Vertinsky was invited to the Soviet embassy in China and presented an "official invitation from the Central Executive Committee , inspired by the initiative of the Komsomol ." In order to pay off his debts, the artist became a co-owner of the Gardenia cabaret (which closed in a month), in the hope of demonstrating the loyalty of the Soviet government — he began to publish in the Shanghai Soviet newspaper Novaya Zhizn, to prepare memories of his life abroad. But the documents for entry into the USSR were not executed because of the Second World War that began in 1939 [3] .
At the end of March 1943, Vertinsky made another attempt and wrote a letter addressed to V. M. Molotov , in which he wrote: "To live far from the Motherland at the moment when it is drenched in blood, and to be powerless to help it is the most terrible." Permission was obtained (during World War II , some other cultural figures were allowed to return) [3] . He arrived in Moscow in November 1943 with his wife and three-month-old daughter Marianne , and settled on Gorky Street (at first, at the Metropol Hotel ). Exactly one year later, the spouses had a second daughter, Anastasia . Vertinsky devoted two girls to one of his most famous songs of that period: “Daughters” [5] .
Vertinsky toured at the front , performed patriotic songs - both Soviet authors and his own composition (“About us and the homeland”, “Our grief”, “In the snows of Russia”, “Another song”, “Kitezh”) [3] in 1945 he wrote the song "He", dedicated to Stalin [26] . His love lyrics, despite the happy marriage, was marked by notes of hopelessness and tragedy ("Farewell", "Unnecessary letter", "Bar-girl", "Killing love", "Salvation", "Monkey Charlie", "Nothing in this life not usual "," Autumn "); only the poem “Without Women” was considered as an exception [3] .
Vertinsky (according to the recollections of Marianna’s daughter) said about himself: “I have nothing but a world name.” To earn a living, he again had to actively begin touring, 24 concerts a month. Only in a duet with pianist Mikhail Brokhes for 14 years, he gave more than two thousand concerts [4] , having traveled throughout the country, speaking not only in theaters and concert halls, but in factories, mines, hospitals and orphanages.
As noted in the biography of E. R. Sekacheva, out of more than a hundred songs from Vertinsky’s repertoire, no more than thirty were allowed to perform in the USSR, at each concert there was a censor. Concerts in Moscow and Leningrad were rare, Vertinsky was not invited to the radio, there were almost no records published, there were no reviews in the newspapers [3] . Despite the singer’s immense popularity, the official Soviet press treated his work with restrained hostility. According to the artist’s biography on the site “Actors of Soviet and Russian Cinema”, “Shortly after the end of the war, a campaign was launched against lyrical songs that supposedly lead students away from the tasks of socialist construction. Directly about Vertinsky not mentioned, but it is as if implied. And now his records are withdrawn from sale, deleted from catalogs. None of his songs are on the air, newspapers and magazines about Vertinsky's triumphal concerts remain icy silence. An outstanding singer, as it were, does not exist ” [5] .
A year before his death, Vertinsky wrote to the deputy minister of culture:
Somewhere there: at the top still pretend that I have not returned, that I am not in the country. About me do not write and do not say a word. Newspapers and journalists say: "There is no signal." It probably will not. And yet I am! The people love me (forgive me this courage). I have already traveled around our country on the 4th and 5th time, I finish the third thousand concerts! .. [1]
After the war, Vertinsky continued to act in films. The directors mainly exploited his characteristic appearance and manners: he demonstrated both of these in the role of the prince in the 1954 film “ Anna on the neck ”. For his role in the movie " Conspiracy of the Doomed " (Cardinal Birnch), he received his only state award: the Stalin Prize (1951). His work in the film “The Great Warrior of Albania Scanderbeg, ” where he played the role of Doge Venice [5], was also noted.
Despite this, the artist in the last years of his life was in a deep spiritual crisis. In 1956, he wrote to his wife:
I went over in the mind of all my acquaintances and 'friends' today and realized that I have no friends here! Everyone walks with his own bag and grabs everything in it that he needs, spitting on the others. And all the psychology he has is "avosechnaya", and you - at least die - he does not give a damn! <...> Look at this story with Stalin. Everything is false, mean, wrong <...> At the congress, Khrushchev said: "With nearly standing up the memory of the 17 million people tortured in the camps." Wow?! Who, when and what will pay for the "mistakes" of all this bastard ?! And how long will mock our homeland? How long? ... [1]
The last concert of Vertinsky was held on May 21, 1957 in the House of Veterans of the Stage. Savina in Leningrad. On the same day, Alexander Nikolaevich died of acute heart failure at the Astoria Hotel, at the age of 69. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery of Moscow [27] .
Family
- Father - Nikolai Petrovich Vertinsky (1845-1894), died of consumption .
- Mother - Evgenia Stepanovna Skolatskaya, died when Sasha Vertinsky was three years old.
- Sister - Nadezhda Vertinskaya.
- The first wife is Irina Vladimirovna Vertidis (marriage 1923-1941), which follows from the divorce certificate from the singer’s archive [28] . Vertinsky himself does not mention his wife in his memoirs. In the 1996 conspiracy book “Alexander Vertinsky without make-up”, Vitaly Bardadym indicated that the first wife was called Rachel Pototskaya, without citing any sources [28] [29] .
- The second wife is Lidiya Vladimirovna Vertinskaya (nee. Tsirgvava; Georgian, 1923–2013), actress , artist (marriage 1942-1957).
- The eldest daughter - Marianna Alexandrovna Vertinskaya ( July 28, 1943 ), actress .
- The eldest granddaughter is Alexandra Ilyinichna Vertinskaya (born 1969 ), an artist , TV presenter .
- The youngest granddaughter - Daria Borisovna Khmelnitskaya (born 1978 ), designer.
- The youngest daughter is Anastasia Alexandrovna Vertinskaya ( December 19, 1944 ), actress .
- Grandson - Stepan Nikitich Mikhalkov ( September 24, 1966 ), actor , restaurateur , son of Nikita Mikhalkov .
- The eldest daughter - Marianna Alexandrovna Vertinskaya ( July 28, 1943 ), actress .
Filmography
- 1913 - Breakage - cadet ;
- 1915 - Honeymoon - the artist ;
- 1915 - Neurasthenics - actor Arzhevsky ;
- 1915 - Champions of Equality - Secretary ;
- 1915 - The murder of the ballerina Plameneva - detective ;
- 1916 - How are people alive - an angel ;
- 1916 - Drained glass to the bottom - Sergey Sorin ;
- 1916 - Daughter Nana - Kut ;
- 1916 - King without a crown - Anatole Severak ;
- 1916 - From slavery to will - antiquary ;
- 1916 - The Chess of Love - Alexander ;
- 1916 - As it was (Student-rivals) - Paul ;
- 1916 - Pushing the Fall - Stavrin (as the patient);
- 1917 - Life begins tomorrow - Leonid Basmanov ;
- 1917 - The Golden Whirlwind
- 1917 - On the verge of three curses - a young man ;
- 1917 - The wreckage of the wreck - Stephen ;
- 1928 - Mysteries of the East (UFA film studio, Germany) - vizier ;
- 1930 - The End of the World (La fin de monde) - episode ;
- 1950 - Conspiracy of the Doomed - Cardinal Birnch
- 1953 - The Great Warrior of Albania Scanderbeg - Doge of Venice
- 1954 - Anna on the neck - the prince
- 1955 - Flame of Wrath - Pan Benevsky / Catholic Prelate
- 1956 - Bloody Dawn - Pan Savchenko [30]
Literary Prose
- Vertinsky A. A quarter of a century without a homeland. Pages past. - Kiev: Muzychna Ukrayina, 1989. - 144 p.
- Vertinsky A. Dear long ... Poems and songs. Stories, sketches, reflections. Letters / Comp. and podg. text Y. Tomaszewski, afterword. K. Rudnitsky. - M .: Pravda, 1990. - 576 p.
- Vertinsky A. Behind the scenes. Introductory article by Y. Tomashevsky. // Library author song "Guitar and the word." Big series. Music edition. - M .: Soviet Culture Fund, 1991. - 304 p. (Vertinsky's songs, given in a single composition with his artistic prose, interviews to newspaper reporters, letters to his wife, as well as memories of him. More than 60 photographs of Vertinsky from different years.)
Recognition and Memory
Awards
- The Stalin Prize of the second degree (1951) [31] for the performance of the role of Cardinal Birnch in the film " Conspiracy of the Doomed " (1950).
Memory
- The artist is dedicated to one of the showcases of the Kiev Museum of one street . Here are the autographs of A. Vertinsky with the texts of individual songs, photographs, a collection of gramophone records of the 1930-1950s, and the figure of the sad Pierrot, which was the stage image of Alexander Nikolaevich.
- In 2009, the museum presented the exhibition “Alexander Vertinsky: I am ready to kiss your streets ...”, dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the birth of an outstanding singer-chansonnier [32] .
- In memory of the astronomer of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, Lyudmila Karachkina named the asteroid (3669) Vertinsky , opened on October 21, 1982 [33] .
- The streets in Gudermes and the village of Aleksandrovka ( Krasnogorsk district, Moscow region) are also named in honor of Vertinsky.
- The monument on Andriyivskyy Descent in Kiev, opened on March 21, 2019 [34] .
Documentary and TV programs
- 1990 - I returned home. A. Vertinsky (TST USSR).
- 1990 - Odyssey of Alexander Vertinsky (Lentelefilm); DVD - “Carmen Video”, 2003.
- 1998 - Stars of French Cinema. Paris secrets of Eldar Ryazanov. Issue 4. (TV company REN TV).
- 2004 - XX century. Favorites. "Russian Pierrot". Alexander Vertinsky (GTRK "Culture").
- 2006 - Historical Chronicles with Nikolai Svanidze. 1951. Native blood. Alexander Vertinsky and others (GTPK "Russia").
- 2008 - Idols about idols. Alexey Kortnev about Alexander Vertinsky (TV channel "Star").
- 2010 - seven-string guitar. "Alexander Vertinsky. I need only a topic ..." (GTRK "Culture").
- 2011 - Alexander Vertinsky. Life after death (TV channel "Who is who", NTV +). [35]
Vertinsky's image and creativity in culture
- Vertinsky’s caricatures (“Vertinsky broke like a harlequin, // put cocaine into his nostrils ...”) is contained in Mikhail Kulchitsky ’s poem “Mayakovsky (Last Night of the Russian State)” (1939).
- In the feature film Kotovsky ( 1942 ), in the scene that takes place in Odessa captured by the White Guards, in the restaurant, the actor in the form of Vertinsky "sings" the song "Bezhnozhenka" under his original record.
- In the 1955 film “The Rumyantsev Case” the character Shmyglo, the repeat offender plays the tango Magnolia.
- In the film adaptation of Bulgakov's “Run” (1970), Valery Zolotukhin portrays Vertinsky in a scene with a pop singer in a restaurant where white immigrants gather.
- In one of the film series “ The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed ” ( 1979 ), Vladimir Vysotsky as the police captain Gleb Zheglov , accompanying himself on the piano, performs Vertinsky's song “Lilac Negro”.
- In 1991, Nikolai Nikitsky recorded a record of songs by Alexander Vertinsky.
- In 1992-93 Valery Obodzinsky recorded the album “Days Run” (songs by Alexander Vertinsky).
- In 1993, Boris Grebenshchikov recorded the album " Songs of Alexander Vertinsky ."
- The name of Vertinsky's song “Your fingers smell like incense” was used in the 1993 feature film of the same name.
- In 2000, the premiere of the play “Alexander Vertinsky. Yellow tango . The performance represents the Moscow Union of Actors and Musicians "Golden Lion". In the role of Vertinsky - Sergey Fedotov .
- In 2001 the disc of Irina Bogushevskaya and Alexander F. Sklyar was released “Brazilian cruiser. Strange songs by Alexander Vertinsky.
- In 2005, rock musicians Gleb Samoilov and Alexander F. Sklyar released a musical performance entitled Raquel Meller - Farewell Dinner , in which they performed songs by A. Vertinsky. A well-known actress and singer Alesia Mankovskaya also took part in the project. 10 years later, in February 2015, Gleb Samoilov, in his creative evening, performed in addition to his songs also songs by Alexander Vertinsky.
- In the feature film “ Garpastum ” ( 2005 ), which takes place in the year of the First World War, the heroes meet in Petrograd a young man (titled “A Passer on the Embankment”), who sings his new song “The White Steamer” to them.
- In the feature film “ Bastards ” ( 2006 ), the actor Sergei Rychenkov, in the role of thief-tweeter Tyapy, repeatedly sings his favorite song - Vertinsky's romance “Yellow Angel”.
- In the film “ Morphine ” ( 2008 ) by Alexei Balabanov , the original recording of the song “ Tango Magnolia ” is an anachronism, since the picture takes place in 1917-1918 , 14 years before the song was written.
- 2008 in music - the group “Underwood”, the image of Alexander Vertinsky is represented in the song “Black Pierrot” (the album “Everyone you loved so much”).
- In 2010, the group "Black Coffee" released the single "A voucher to hell" with the song of Vertinsky "Half-Blood".
- In 2012, Alexander F. Sklyar released a disc “ Russian Sun ” with Vertinsky's songs.
- Creativity and personality of Alexander Vertinsky are reflected in the album of the group “ Do it yourself with skillful hands ” by the cooperative Nishtyak . The concept of the album is based on the yarnichesky story about the death of Vertinsky and his afterlife journey to Gagra.
- In 2015, the group “Remember your name” released a song called “What I have to say” (the album “Remember your name”) to the lyrics of Alexander Vertinsky.
- In 2015, the Voice of the Prophet group used the lines from the verse Homeland in introducing to their album.
Discography
The very first records of Vertinsky (48 songs) were made in 1930/31 by the companies Parlophone (Germany - England - France) and Odeon (Germany). See the complete discography, including publications on records , in a separate article . Only official CDs are listed here.
- 1993 - Vertinski (Russian season, RSCD 0002; 2000 Boheme Music, CDBMR 007143)
- 1994 - What I Have to Say (Melody, MEL CD 60 00621)
- 1995 - Love Songs (RDM, CDRDM 5 06 089; 1999 Boheme Music, CDBMR 908089)
- 1996 - Vertinski (2CD, Le Chant du Monde, LDX 274939—40)
- 1996 - Yellow Angel (CD-Media, CDM 96—3; 1997 CVPIKNO, AB 97 —YA)
- 1997 - Unpublished (CVPIKNO, AB 97—1)
- 1999 - The Legend of the Century (Boheme Music, CDBMR 908090)
- 2003 - Vertinsky Remixed by Cosmos Sound Club (Limited Edition, no label, b / №)
Literature
- Babenko V. Actor Alexander Vertinsky. Materials for the biography. Reflections. - Sverdlovsk: 1989. - 144 pp., Ill.
- Bardadym V. Alexander Vertinsky without make-up. - Krasnodar: "Soviet Kuban", 1996.
- Vikhornov V. Alexander Vertinsky on the screen and not only. - Novosibirsk: “Svinin and Sons”, 2012.
- Makarov A. Alexander Vertinsky. Portrait against the background of time. - M .: "Olympus"; Smolensk: “Rusich”, 1998. 2nd ed .: M .: “Astrel”, “Olymp”, 2009. - 413, [3] p .: 16 p. silt - (History of the individual). ISBN 978-5-271-22600-7
- Songs and romances of A. Vertinsky. Songwriter. L .: Soviet composer, 1991. - 128 p.
- Savchenko B. Alexander Vertinsky // New in Life, Science and Technology. Series “Art”, № 6. - M .: “Knowledge”, 1986.
- Savchenko B. Alexander Vertinsky // Savchenko B. Idols of forgotten pop. - M .: "Knowledge", 1992. P. 9-63.
- Savchenko B. Alexander Vertinsky // Savchenko B. Estrada retro. - M .: "Art", 1996. S. 79-113.
- Uvarova E. Alexander Vertinsky // Masters of Variety / Comp., Ed. B. Poyurovsky (Series: Actors for All Seasons) - M .: “AST-PRESS BOOK”, 2003. P. 6-83.
See also
- Russian poets of the Silver Age
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Dmiterko V. Always singing Pierrot . ynik.info (June 21, 2008).
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 Samin DK. The most famous émigrés of Russia. to-name.ru. The date of circulation is January 12, 2010. Archived on August 25, 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Sekacheva E. R. Alexander Nikolaevich Vertinsky. Biography . to-name.ru. The date of circulation is January 12, 2010. Archived on August 25, 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Skorokhodov G. Culture and Art. Biography Vertinsky ("Alexander Vertinsky." - VAL PRO Interactive, 2001) . acma.ru. The date of circulation is January 2, 2010. Archived August 25, 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Actors of Soviet and Russian cinema. Vertinsky Alexander - Biography . www.rusactors.ru. The date of circulation is January 2, 2010. Archived August 25, 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Aleksandr Vertinsky - Biography @ IMDb . www.imdb.com. The date of circulation is January 12, 2010. Archived on August 25, 2011.
- ↑ Alexander Vertinsky
- ↑ Russian writers of the 20th century. Biographical Dictionary / Ed. P. Nikolaev. - M., 2000.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Alexander Vertinsky . slova.org.ru. The date of circulation is January 12, 2010. Archived on August 25, 2011.
- ↑ Vikhornov V. Alexander Vertinsky on the screen and not only. - Novosibirsk .: “Svinin and Sons”, 2012. - p. 51, 58
- ↑ Samin DK. The most famous émigrés of Russia. - M .: Veche, 2000, p. 260
- ↑ Agatov Vladimir Garievich . agatov.ouc.ru. The date of circulation is October 10, 2011. Archived on February 4, 2012.
- ↑ Cocaineth Unsolved . a-pesni.org. The date of circulation is October 10, 2011. Archived on February 4, 2012.
- ↑ 1 2 Yuri Hanon . "Mikhail Savoyarov: King by the Throne" . Hanograf (2012). The appeal date is April 16, 2017.
- ↑ M. Kravchinsky . “Songs and Entertainment of the NEP Epoch” (series “Russian chansonnier”). - Nizhny Novgorod: Decom, 2015 - 720 p.
- ↑ Vertinsky A. A quarter of a century without a homeland. Pages past. - Kiev: Muzychna Ukrayina, 1989. - p.31.
- ↑ "Turkish Delight". As it appears to be an American girl in Constantinople. // The Outlook (New York). - 08/11/1922.
- ↑ Vikhornov V. Alexander Vertinsky on the screen and not only ... - p. 132
- ↑ Vertinsky A. A quarter of a century without a homeland. Pages past. - p.62.
- ↑ Vertinsky A. A quarter of a century without a homeland. Pages past. - pp.51-52.
- ↑ Vertinsky A. A quarter of a century without a homeland. Pages past. - p.66.
- ↑ Vertinsky A. A quarter of a century without a homeland. Pages past. - p.111-113.
- ↑ Vertinsky A. A quarter of a century without a homeland. Pages past. - with. 130.
- ↑ Vikhornov V. Alexander Vertinsky on the screen and not only ... - p. 160, 161
- ↑ Vikhornov V. Alexander Vertinsky on the screen and not only ... - P. 162-165
- ↑ "He", A. Vertinsky . avmalgin.livejournal.com. The date of circulation is January 12, 2010. Archived on August 25, 2011.
- ↑ Novodevichy cemetery .. Alexander Nikolaevich Vertinsky. Singer, musician, actor
- ↑ 1 2 Sergey Borovikov. Vitaly Bardadym. Alexander Vertinsky without make-up . Banner . Journal Hall (1998).
- ↑ Bardadym V.P. Alexander Vertinsky without make-up. - Krasnodar: Soviet Kuban, 1996. - 207 p. - ISBN 5-7221-0119-2 .
- ↑ V. Vikornov, Alexander Vertinsky on the screen and not only ... - p. 265-266.
- ↑ Soviet feature films. Annotated catalog. Volume 2. Sound films (1930-1957) - Moscow: Art, 1961. - p. 443.
- ↑ Museum of One Street "Alexander Vertinsky: I am ready to kiss your streets ... Archived March 18, 2014.
- ↑ MPC Database on the Small Bodies of the Solar System (3669) (English)
- ↑ Oleksandr Vertinsky postav on Andriivskyi uzvozі in the image of P'ro . Ukrainian Interests.
- ↑ Vikhornov V. Alexander Vertinsky on the screen and not only ... - p. 269
Links
- Alexander Vertinsky (Eng.) On the Internet Movie Database
- Short biography on library.ru site
- Poems and songs, discography, frames from films, prints
- Short biography on the site acma.ru
- The collection of songs in alphabetical order and audio archive in Real Audio format on the site bards.ru
- Vertinsky, Alexander Nikolaevich in the library of Maxim Moshkov
- Alexander Vertinsky on the Project1917 site
- Reasonable V. A. A contemporary's memoirs about A. A. Vertinsky
- Alexander Vertinsky: return to his father // Kiev Gazette. (inaccessible link)
- Current discography of Alexander Vertinsky on Russian-Records.com
- Alexander Vertinsky on YouTube
- Alexander Vertinsky. Odyssey of the Sad Pierrot
- Alexander Vertinsky in the author’s TV program by Alexander Karpenko “Books and People”. Dialog-TV, issue number 25