17 Dec 1987
Passed away Arkady Raikin. Variety, theater and film artist. Satirist writer.
To put it bluntly, I don’t dare say it, and to put it mildly, I’m speechless. I respect you, and you respect me, we are respected people. Luck, like a rich inheritance, always happens to someone else.
Born in 1911 in Riga, Raikin grew up in a Jewish family and spoke Yiddish. During World War I, they moved to Rybinsk, and during the Civil War, to Petrograd. Against his father's wishes, he enrolled in the Leningrad College of Performing Arts. He worked at the TRAM, the Theater of Working Youth. Fame came in 1939, when his act "Chaplin" won a prize at the All-Union Variety Artists Competition.
Difficulties, misfortunes, and persecution—they don't shape a person. They merely reveal and confirm existing, but hitherto hidden, character traits. A person is shaped by happiness. And if they don't grow up the way we would all like, it's most likely because they weren't happy enough.
The laureate was accepted into the Leningrad Theatre of Variety and Miniatures. Three years later, he became its artistic director—for nearly 40 years. The theatre now bears his name.
Culture is within a person, and if it is not there, then no tickets to the Bolshoi Theater or pompous talk will buy it.
After the war, radio versions of Raikin's short plays enjoyed immense popularity. Later, so did television versions, in which Raikin, a master of stage transformation, quickly changed his persona. He worked with such authors as Polyakov, Zoshchenko, Zhvanetsky, and Khait. In 1982, his theater moved to Moscow. Since 1987, it has been called "Satirikon." It is now directed by his son, Konstantin Raikin.
There are not so many human vices in their pure form: cowardice, greed, envy, selfishness<> These vices, which make a person a slave, have been scourged by art at all times. And at all times, scourging them has been art<> Cowardice will never declare itself cowardice<> It will pretend to be life experience, wisdom, care, a sense of duty<> Evil, when it is discovered and exposed, is not dangerous. It looks bad, lacks charm and will not conquer anyone. Therefore, at all times, evil has mimicked