June 18, 2014

Yuri Vizbor: Soviet Renaissance Man


Yuri Vizbor: Soviet Renaissance Man

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

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

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

Vizbor in the army

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

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

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

Vizbor with his usual seven-string

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

 

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

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

Some of Our Books

Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Fearful Majesty

Fearful Majesty

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

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

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

Marooned in Moscow

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

About Us

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

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955