July 12: Tamara Miansarova, singer of "Black Cat" and "Sunny Circle," passed away.
On July 12, 2017, Tamara Miansarova, the singer who infected the USSR with a twist with the song "Black Cat" and the first Soviet laureate of the Sopot competition with the song "Sunny Circle," passed away at the age of 86.
I knew and felt the value of every word in her. I knew what “let there always be heaven” meant, having lived through a heaven that sows death.
Childhood cut short by war
Tamara Miansarova was born in 1931 in Zinovyevsk (now Kropyvnytskyi). Her maiden name was Remneva. Her father, a singer at the Odessa Music Theater, left the family shortly after her birth, during the height of the Holodomor. Her mother, also a singer, earned her living with odd jobs until she received an invitation to become a soloist for Minsk Radio.
Mother and daughter met the war in Belarus. Ten-year-old Toma witnessed the horrific events: bombings, city squares lined with gallows.
For just one minute, and don't let it seem cruel to you, imagine your child in a park among the hanged, and you will understand what needs to be protected, and what values are truly values
What I saw in my childhood is like nothing else. I remember very well how we were in a field, and there was a battle raging between the forest and the other side. My mother covered me with her body and said, "Tomochka, don't be afraid, we'll die together."
Mother in the camp, daughter at the church
When Minsk was liberated, Toma's mother was accused of collaborating with the Germans.
It happened at night… [NKVD soldiers in uniform] ordered my mother to get dressed and go outside. I was horrified; I was little, what should I do? But no one cared. They took my mother away, and I ran in the deep dark night after the departing car, screaming at the top of my lungs, "Mama, my mother, my mother!"
Her mother was sent to a camp in the Urals. Toma went begging near a church. There, her aunts, who had come to Minsk after its liberation, found her.
They... were in prison and found out about Mom. Someone there told them that there was a little girl sitting by the yellow church and crying all the time.
From Luhansk to the Conservatory
The girl was taken to Luhansk (then Voroshilovgrad). In 1947, her mother was acquitted and allowed to return to Minsk Radio. Toma enrolled in the music school at the Minsk Conservatory. Instruments were scarce, so her mother sewed a mattress for her daughter and let her study at night.
I'd wait until all the classes and concerts were over and take a free classroom. This usually happened around 11 p.m., and then I'd study until 3 or 4 a.m., and then I'd sleep the rest of the night right there at the piano.
In 1951, she was recommended for admission to the Moscow Conservatory. She studied two majors—pianism and vocals. She mastered the "muscle belt"—she knew how to produce the desired sound and sustain it. She married and became known as Miansarova.
The Birth of a Pop Star
In 1958, she won third prize at the All-Union Variety Artists Competition. She decided to pursue a career as a pop singer.
Pop music has one undeniable advantage: its young audience. They have an incredible sense of the power of time, its rhythm.
In 1962, she won gold at the World Youth Festival in Helsinki. A year later, she made a splash in Sopot, Poland, with the song "Solnechny Krug" (Sunny Circle), which became her signature song. Poles seemed to fall in love with Miansarova then—they made a film about her and released a perfume called "Tamara." In 1964, Miansarova sang "Cherny Kot" (Black Cat) and infected the country with the twist. However, the song was soon removed from radio rotation—it was not appropriate for Soviet citizens to listen to the twist.
Recognition and later years
Despite this, the artist's popularity soared ("Letka-enka," "Rudy Rydz," and "Stomping Baby"—all of her repertoire included it). She toured throughout the country and abroad, winning prestigious international awards. The Soviet Union refused to recognize her achievements and denied her the title of "Honored Artist," saying all her awards were foreign, and we here don't even know how she sings. She resigned from Mosconcert. From 1968, she worked at the Donetsk Philharmonic.
In the 1980s, she returned to Moscow. She taught vocals at GITIS. At that time, according to the Polish magazine "Panorama," she was included in the list of the most popular singers of the 25th anniversary, along with Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, and Karel Gott.
She was married four times. In 1996, she received the title of People's Artist. In 2012, at 81, she published her memoirs, "In Life and on Stage." She passed away at 86.
Our generation was lucky with both poets and composers. The current era has a different tuning fork.
