Aleksandr Nikolayevich Vertinsky (Russian: Александр Вертинский, 21 March 1889 in Kiev — 21 May 1957 in Leningrad) was a Russian artist, poet, singer, composer, cabaret artist and actor who exerted seminal influence on the Russian tradition of artistic singing. March 21 is the 80th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (81st in leap years). ... 1889 (MDCCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... A monument to St. ... May 21 is the 141st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (142nd in leap years). ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Leningrad (Russian: Ленинград) is a historical name of the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, used between 1924 and 1991. ... Cabaret is a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue — a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting around the tables (often dining or drinking) watching the performance. ...

Born out of wedlock, Vertinsky was brought up by his father's sister in Kiev. He was ousted from school in 1905 and tried a variety of jobs before starting to earn his living by contributing short stories to the Kievan periodicals. In 1912 Vertinsky and his sister moved to Moscow where he failed in his ambition to join Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre. At that period he became addicted to cocaine, a baneful habit that would claim the life of his sister. 1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: ) is the capital of Russia and the countrys principal political, economic, financial, educational and transportation center, located on the river Moskva. ... Konstantin (Constantin) Stanislavski (Константи́н Серге́евич Станисла́вский / Алексе́ев) (January 5, 1863 - August 7, 1938) was a Russian theatre and acting innovator. ... The Moscow Art Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow, Russia, founded in 1897 by Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. ... This article is about the drug cocaine. ...

By 1916, Vertinsky started to employ a scenic figure of Pierrot, with powdered face, singing miniature novellas-in-song known as ariettes, or "Pierrot's doleful ditties". Each song contained a prologue, exposition, culmination, and a tragic final. The novice performer was christened the "Russian Pierrot", gained renown, became an object of imitation, admiration, vilified in the press and lionized by the audiences. 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Watteaus commedia dellarte player of Pierrot, ca 1718-19, traditionally identified as Gilles (Louvre) Pierrot is a stock character of pantomime. ...

Simultaneously with his booming singing career, he played screen bit parts in Aleksandr Khanzhonkov's silent movies. From that time stems a lifelong friendship with Ivan Mozzhukhin. His famous piece "Vashi paltsy pakhnut ladanom" was dedicated to another film star, Vera Kholodnaya. Shortly before the October Revolution Vertinsky devised a stage persona of Black Pierrot and started to tour Russia and Ukraine performing decadent elegies with a touch of cosmopolitan chic, such as "Kokainetka" and "V oranzhevo-lilovom Singapure". In the words of the British researcher Richard Stites, "Vertinsky bathed his verses in images of palm trees, tropical birds, foreign ports, plush lobbies, ceiling fans, and "daybreak on the pink-tinted sea"^[1] — precisely those things which the war-time audience craved for. Aleksandr Aleksejevich Khanzhonkov (1877 - 1945) was Russias first cinema entrepreneur. ... Ivan Mozzhukhin Ivan Ilyich Mozzhukhin (1888-1939) was a leading Russian silent film actor. ... Vera Vasilievna Kholodnaya (1893-1919) was the first star of Russian silent cinema. ... The October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution or November Revolution, was the second phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the first having been instigated by the events around the February Revolution. ...

By November 1920, Vertinsky decided to leave Russia with the bulk of his clientele. He performed in Constantinople and toured Romanian Bessarabia, where he was declared a Soviet agent. In 1923 he performed in Poland and Germany, then moved to Paris, where he would perform before the Russian emigré clientele at Montmartre cabarets for nine years. Constantinople[1] was the name of the modern-day city of Ä°stanbul, Turkey over the centuries that it served as the second capital of the unified Roman Empire, and after its division into East and West, of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire (from the city... 1927 map of Bessarabia from Charles Upson Clarks book Bessarabia or Bessarabiya (Basarabia in Romanian, Besarabya in Turkish) was the name by which the Imperial Russia designated the eastern part of the principality of Moldavia ceded by the Ottoman Empire to Russia in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish... 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Eiffel Tower, the international symbol of the city, with the skyscrapers of La Défense business district 5 km/ 3 mi behind. ...

After several successful tours in the Middle East, Vertinsky followed the majority of well-to-do Russians to the USA, where he debuted before the audience which included Rachmaninoff, Chaliapine, and Marlene Dietrich. The Great Depression forced him to move to Shanghai, where he met his second wife. His daughter, Marianna, was also born in China. A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff, also Sergey Rachmaninov or Serge Rakhmaninov (Серге́й Васи́льевич Рахма́нинов), (April 1, 1873 – March 28, 1943) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. ... Marlene Dietrich in the 1920s Marie Magdalene Marlene Dietrich (December 27, 1901 – May 6, 1992) also known as Maria Magdalena Dietrich was a German actress, entertainer and singer. ... The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn, starting in 1929 and lasting through most of the 1930s. ... Shanghai (Chinese: 上海 pinyin: ; Shanghainese: ), situated on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta in East China, is Chinas largest city. ...

In 1943 the Soviet government allowed Vertinsky to return to Russia. Despite lack of media coverage, he performed about two thousand concerts in the USSR, touring from Sakhalin to Kaliningrad. In order to feed his family, he also appeared in Soviet films, often playing prerevolutionary aristocrats, as in the screen version of Chekhov's "Anna on the Neck" (1955). His role of an anti-Communist cardinal in "The Doomed Conspiracy" even won him the Stalin Prize for 1951. 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1943 calendar). ... Location of Sakhalin in the Western Pacific. ... Map of Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad (Russian: ), until 1945 known by its German name Königsberg , then briefly as Kenigsberg (Russian: ), is a seaport city, capital and main city of the Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. ... Anton Chekhov, Russian writer Pavel Chekov, character in Star Trek Chekhov, town in Moscow Oblast, Russia Chekhov, town in Sakhalin Oblast, Russia Chekhovo, health resort in Bashkiria, Russia This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The word cardinal comes from the Latin cardo for hinge and usually refers to things of fundamental importance, as in cardinal rule or cardinal sins. ... The USSR State Prize (Russian:Госуда́рственная пре́мия СССР) was the Soviet Unions highest civilian honour. ...

The artist passed away on May 21, 1957, in Leningrad. His both daughters, Marianna and Anastasiya, made spectacular careers in Soviet cinema. The former conducted a much-aired liaison with Andron Konchalovsky, while the latter married his brother Nikita Mikhalkov. Among Anastasiya Vertinskaya's film roles were Ophelia in Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet (1966) and Princess Marie in Sergey Bondarchuk's War and Peace (1969). May 21 is the 141st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (142nd in leap years). ... Leningrad (Russian: Ленинград) is a historical name of the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, used between 1924 and 1991. ... Andron Sergeyevich Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky (Russian: ) (born August 20, 1937 in Moscow) is an acclaimed Russian film writer and director. ... Nikita Mikhalkov in the 2005 Fandorin movie The Councillor of State. ... Anastasiya Alexandrovna Vertinskaya (Russian: ) (b. ... Grigori Mikhailovich Kozintsev (Russian: ; Kiev, 22 March (O.S. 9 March) 1905 – Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, 11 May 1973) was a Soviet Russian film director. ... Hamlet is a 1964 film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play Hamlet based on the Russian translation of Boris Pasternak. ... War and Peace (Russian: Война и мир; Vojna i mir) was a Soviet-produced film version of the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. ...

Inline references

1. ^ Stites, Richard. Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society Since 1900. Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 052136986X. Page 14.

Online references

• Online Vertinsky shrine
• English-language website