"Alexander Galich" is the pseudonym of Alexander Arkadievich Ginzburg. The daughter of the poet, playwright and performer of his own songs Alexander Galich once asked her father: "How old did you start to write?" The father only laughed in response. And when she asked her grandmother about this, she thought about it and said: "I think he began to write poetry when he had not yet begun to speak …"
Childhood and adolescence of Alexander Galich
Alexander Ginzburg was born on October 19, 1918 in the city of Yekaterinoslavl (in Soviet times, the city was called Dnepropetrovsk, since 2016 it has been called Dnepr).
In 1923, the Ginzburg family moved to Moscow. Here Alexander went to school. At the age of 12, he began to study in a literary studio, and a year later he entered the Detkorov activist (literary brigade) of the Pionerskaya Pravda newspaper. In 1932, his first publication appeared in the newspaper - a poem: "The World in a Mouthpiece", in which an imitation of Mayakovsky was clearly felt. The head of the literary brigade attracted the famous poet Eduard Bagritsky to work with young writers. Bagritsky six months later wrote in Komsomolskaya Pravda: "I systematically work with a literary group of pioneers and find here such nuggets as Ginzburg, whose book of poetry I will be able to publish in a couple of years." The poet did not have time to fulfill this promise, he died in 1934.
After graduating from the 9th grade, Sasha Ginzburg entered the Literary Institute and the Stanislavsky Opera and Drama Studio, but it was not easy to study in two places at the same time, and Alexander soon left his studies at the literary institute.
The beginning of a literary career
At the age of 21, Alexander Ginzburg entered the Studio Theater of Alexei Arbuzov and Valentin Pluchek. In this studio in 1940 he wrote songs for the play "City at Dawn", in the work on the script of which he also took part. In the same year he began to sign himself with the pseudonym "Alexander Galich", which he invented by combining the first and last letters of his full name: "Ginzburg Alexander Arkadyevich".
In June 1941, the war broke out. Alexander Ginzburg was exempted from being drafted to the front for health reasons (he was diagnosed with a heart defect), but with a group of friends he created the Komsomolsk Front Theater, for which he wrote songs and plays, performed with his troupe in front of the soldiers.
At the end of the war, Alexander Galich writes plays that are successfully staged in the theaters of the country: "Taimyr is calling you", "An hour before dawn", "How much does a man need?" According to his script in 1954, the film "True Friends" was shot. In the fifties, Alexander Galich was admitted to the Union of Writers and the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR.
Conflict with power
In 1958, a play based on Galich's play "Matrosskaya Tishina" was being prepared at the Moscow Art Theater Studio Theater under the direction of Oleg Efremov. The play was almost ready, and even received permission from Glavlit, but never reached the viewer. There was no official ban, but unofficially the playwright was told: “What do you want, Comrade Galich, for a play to be staged in the center of Moscow, in the young capital's theater, which tells how the Jews won the war ?!” The play was repeatedly tried to stage in many theaters in the country, but each time a phone call was heard from the party organs and, as a result, it was played for the first time only in 1989.
At the end of the fifties, Galich concentrates on writing and performing his own songs with a seven-string guitar. In this work, he picked up the traditions of Alexander Vertinsky and became one of the brightest representatives of the author's song genre, along with Bulat Okudzhava and Yuri Vizbor.
The unofficial ban on Matrosskaya Tishina attracted additional attention to Galich's work. In the early 60s, he was accused of the songs he performed did not correspond to Soviet aesthetics. Galich continues his literary work. Based on his scripts, the films "On the Seven Winds" and "Give a Book of Complaints" are being shot. For the film "State Criminal", released in 1965, Galich even received the USSR KGB prize. However, the songs of Alexander Galich, becoming more and more profound and politically poignant, each time evoke more and more strong opposition from the authorities.
In 1968, at the festival of author's songs in Novosibirsk, Galich performed his song "In memory of B. L. Pasternak":
The very next day, a flurry of criticism falls on the bard. Galich is no longer allowed to perform and publish his songs. In 1969, a collection of his songs was published in the emigrant publishing house "Posev", and soon Galich was expelled from the Writers' Union of the USSR. Following is the expulsion from the Union of Cinematographers. He is not hired anywhere, and he is forced to sell books from his library to support his family. In 1972, the poet had a heart attack, and he was given the second group of disability, but the pension was not enough to live on. Party officials have repeatedly offered Alexander Galich to voluntarily leave the USSR, but he refuses to agree for a long time. In 1974, a ban was issued in the USSR on all of his works, including those previously published. In the summer of the same year, under pressure from the party and the KGB, Galich still leaves the country.
After leaving the USSR, Galich first lived in Norway, then moved to Germany, where he worked for a while at Radio Liberty. After Germany, he moved to Paris, where on December 15, 1977 he died as a result of a tragic accident - electric shock. They buried him in a Russian cemetery in Paris.
Family and personal life of Alexander Galich
Alexander Galich was married twice. With his first wife - actress Valentina Arkhangelskaya - he met at the beginning of the war, where he was with the troupe of the Theater-Studio of Arbuzov and Pluchek. Alexander and Valentina got married right after the troupe returned to Moscow in 1942, and a year later their daughter Alena was born. Soon after the end of the war, the family broke up, and in 1947 Galich married Angelina Nikolaevna Shekrot.
In 1967, the illegitimate son Grigory was born to Alexander Galich. Sophia Mikhnova-Voitenko, who worked at the Gorky Film Studio, became his mother.
The value of the work of Alexander Galich
Alexander Galich wrote about two hundred songs. He also created scripts for several theatrical plays and six films. Galich's songwriting actually became a bridge between the Russian urban romance of the early twentieth century and the author's song of the end of the Soviet era. Vladimir Vysotsky called Galich his teacher. Just as in the early songs of Galich, the intonations of Alexander Vertinsky are clearly distinguishable, in many of Vysotsky's songs the intonations of Galich's songs are recognizable.
In 1988, Alexander Galich was posthumously reinstated in the Writers' Union of the USSR. His books and records began to be published in the country again. In 1993, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the house where he lived. Alexander Galich was given back the citizenship of his native country, but it was already the Russian Federation, not the USSR.
