Mourning Russia's Clown Prince

At times, a journalist has to struggle to avoid cynicism... This is how I felt when I heard on August 5 that Russia’s greatest comic, Yuri Nikulin — dubbed by many the Russian Charlie Chaplin — had gone into the hospital for a heart operation. When doctors announced that Nikulin had experienced heart failure during the operation, I couldn’t help thinking he might not make it, that we ought to prepare a background profile on him for our readers. But I fought back the cynicism, thinking better of it — the doctors were doing their utmost to save Russia’s beloved clown and actor. We all felt kind of upbeat, thinking he can’t die, just like that. So, never mind the editorial plan, I said to myself, let’s not create a bad omen... we’ll run a story on him when he is out of hospital.

Alas, my human and journalistic presentiment didn’t fail me. No matter how hard the doctors tried, death proved stronger this time. On August 21, Yuri Nikulin’s heart stopped beating. He was 75 years old.

I solicited an interview with Nikulin in April of last year, but to no avail. Yuri Vladimirovich was busy preparing a new circus program (as head of the “old” circus downtown, on Tsvetnoy boulevard). And “last but not least,” he was being solicited by everyone. Not just journalists were lining to meet with the famous circus director. So loved by the strong of this world, Nikulin could break open closed doors and help people to solve their little problems. So, I had no hard feelings — after all, how could one have hard feelings with Yuri Nikulin?! His common Russian face, which many felt to be the image of a sort of typical Ivan Durak (“Ivan the Fool”), could make you feel at ease just by thinking of it.

So, now I write these line off the cuff... After all, what Russian doesn’t know the illustrious resume of Yuri Nikulin? A clown at the Moscow circus since the 1950s, Yuri Nikulin was also a successful manager (which he proved when he became circus director in 1984, securing huge funding for a state-of-the-art renovation), TV anchor (he hosted the extremely popular comedy show, White Parrot), and, of course, movie star  — his comedies Kavkazskaya Plennitsa (Prisoner of the Caucasus, 1967), Brilliantovaya Ruka (Diamond Arm, 1969), and Operatsiya ‘Y’ i drugiye priklyucheniya Shurika (Operation ‘Y’ and Other Adventures of Shurik, 1965) to name just three, are well known to all Russians.

My personal favorite is Brilliantovaya Ruka. Lines from this movie have become proverbial in my household — if not throughout all Russia. My kids, who were born a couple of decades after the movie came out, have, by now, seen this movie almost as many times as myself. Nikulin’s famous song from this movie, A nam vsyo ravno (“Ah, it’s all the same to us”), still resonates in my ears as an eternal anthem to indomitable optimism. For Yuri Nikulin always saw the glass as half-full. In fact, he may well be one of the rare representatives of the older generation who truly enjoyed living today.

A few months before his death, Nikulin said that he still looked forward to the future with anticipation and curiosity. “For how can one live,” he said, “if he feels he has achieved everything?!”

Of course, there was more to Nikulin than meets the eye. Especially for those who saw only Ivan Durak and therefore felt reassured that someone out there was more stupid than oneself. A veteran of the Soviet-Finnish War and WWII, Nikulin was decorated with numerous military awards. He was also a brilliant dramatic actor, whose role in the well-known film, Dvadtsat dnei bez voini (Twenty Days Without War, 1977) brought him wide acclaim.

But, for the overwhelming majority of generations of Russians, it is certainly Nikulin’s humor which will make him immortal, especially his famous anekdoty (jokes), of which he has accumulated more than 10,000 since he started collecting them in 1936. His doctors told the media that, right before the operation began, Nikulin told them a joke which made them roll with laughter. The doctor wouldn’t say which joke it was... But Nikulin has an assortment of jokes on every theme, even medicine. Perhaps it was this sad joke, one of his favorites: “The patient asks, ‘Doctor is it true that women live longer than men?’ To which the doctor replies, ‘Widows do.’”

It would be so typical of Nikulin. For he always tried to overcome hard times with the help of humor. “Laughter is beneficial to the human body,” he wrote. “When smiling, laughing, bursting into laughter (until you drop), a person, without even suspecting it, kills hazardous bacteria which fill his body.”

In 1981, Nikulin quit working as a clown in the circus arena and staged a farewell gala concert. “On this memorable evening, the public was especially good to me,” he recalled in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda. “At the end, all the troupe came out and the ringmaster solemnly announced: ‘Artist Nikulin is performing today on the manege for the last time.’ I felt choked up, and I was thinking that I was about to cry. But then it occurred to me: ‘Will there be enough vodka?’ (There were so many guests invited, and we had purchased only three cases of vodka.) After this, I was already smiling.”

But it takes a Yuri Nikulin to overcome tears like that. Now, our tears of mourning are too hard to contain. The whole nation was glued to their TV screens in the middle of August, hungry for news updates on Nikulin’s health. When a miracle failed to happen, the pain was overwhelming. “It is hard to find a Russian who did not admire this unique artist,” ITAR-TASS News Agency justly wrote. “Everybody knew that Nikulin brought with him laughter and joy... Russia became an orphan after losing its beloved and unique actor.” In an unusual display of sorrow, President Boris Yeltsin made a TV address and offered condolences to Nikulin’s widow, Tatyana, and to his son Maxim, who works at the circus directed by his father.

So do we here, at Russian Life. And may these short lines let our readers share the pain the whole of Russia felt in these last, waning days of summer...

– Mikhail Ivanov