Today, November 6, the famous satirist, author of books and sparkling miniatures, as well as just a talented Odessa resident Mikhail Zhvanetsky, passed away. His famous phrases, filled with everyday wisdom, observation and deep insight, have become recognized aphorisms.
EliteExpert resembles the biography of a great writer.
Childhood and youth
Mikhail Zhvanetsky was born in Odessa on March 6, 1934 in a family of doctors: his mother was a dentist and his father was a surgeon. When the war began, my father was called to the front, where he served in a hospital and was awarded the Order of the Red Star. Little Mikhail and his mother spent the war years in evacuation in Central Asia. After the end of the war, the family returned to their hometown, where the future writer spent his school and student years.
After the institute, he worked as a mechanic at the Odesa port, then as an engineer for lifting and transport mechanisms at the Odesa plant "Prodmash", worked at the enterprise for eight difficult years.
On the way to glory
Young Zhvanetsky was engaged in creativity even in his student years, organized the miniature theater "Parnas-2", where he performed with Roman Kartsev and Viktor Ilchenko. Mikhail was a presenter and played on stage, at the same time he began to invent miniatures and monologues. He performed most of them himself. It was impossible not to laugh at Zhvanetsky's productions, although there was a touch of almost imperceptible sadness and kindness in them, which the audience liked.
In 1962, an event occurred in Zhvanetsky's life that determined his entire life path - he met the then already famous artist Arkady Raikin. First, the master invited Zhvanetsky's friends - Kartsev and Ilchenko - to his theater, and included Zhvanetsky's works in the repertoire. A little later, Raikin invited the satirist himself to the position of head of the literary department.
Miniatures and monologues written by the author in this theater acquire their own unique style. Later, Zhvanetsky decides to leave the Raikin Theater to start a career as an independent satirist writer and performer of his own works.
However, he did not forget his friends who helped him succeed. In 1970, Zhvanetsky, together with Kartsev and Ilchenko, returned to Odessa and created a theater of miniatures, which was very popular in the satirist's hometown. The theater quickly became famous, which allowed the group to organize large-scale tours in the cities of the USSR.
In the early 1972s, Mikhail Zhvanetsky worked in the Odessa Philharmonic as an artist of the spoken genre. By 1988, the name of the Odessa resident was already known throughout the Soviet Union and, in the end, Zhvanetsky received the position of assistant chief director at the Moscow Theater of Miniatures. From XNUMX to the present, he was the artistic director of the theater.
In the early 1980s, Mikhail Mykhailovych worked at the "Young Guard" publishing house.
Zhvanetsky is the author of many books, laureate of the independent award "Triumph", knight of the Russian Order of Friendship. Member of the Russian Pen Club, president of the World Club of Odessans. Zhvanetsky was also People's Artist of Ukraine (1999) and Honorary Citizen of Odessa (1994). In 2006, the pedestrian boulevard in the center of Odessa was renamed in his honor.
Farewell chord
The last time Mikhail Zhvanetsky performed in Odessa was on March 21, 2019, on the city's main stage: the Opera House. Naturally, the crowd was full, and the queues at the ticket office stretched for dozens of meters - the townspeople came to laugh at the jokes of their compatriots. Mikhail Mykhailovych himself was glad to perform in his native walls, and at that moment no one could have thought that this would become the satirist's swan song for Odessa.
And a month ago, Zhvanetsky announced his retirement from the stage due to his age: he was 86 years old. According to his representative, the satirist did not want to show the public the loss of working capacity and quoted his phrase: "you need to grow old at home"...
From the editorial board
Zhvanetsky knew how to play with words, put them in unexpected combinations and turn them inside out: "It is better to work hard with love than to work hard with love." He simply came out with a leather briefcase, took out sheets of A4 format and read in an even voice, and the audience groaned with delight. Mikhail Mykhailovych was a man whose greatness consisted in the fact that people wanted, asked, waited to be laughed at. A story about how ridiculous everything around is, in one way or another, absurd, uncomplicated and stupid, was what people wanted to hear more than anything in the world.
This is how we will remember the last among the Odessans.
How to find out the truth about yourself? Who?
Will you ask those who love you? Will they tell the truth about you?
They love you.
So, you need to look for those who don't love you.
What are they looking for?
There are plenty of them.
And what will they tell you? Will it be true about you?
They don't love you.
So, those who love will not tell the truth about you and those who do not love will not tell the truth about you.
The rest are those who do not know.
And what can they say at all?
How can they be asked?
They don't know you.
How to find out the truth about yourself?
How to live without knowing the truth about yourself?
And how is everyone living?
Everyone lives like this, not knowing the truth about himself. And he dies from the second.
