Alexander Alexandrovich Ivanov is a well-known parodist poet in Soviet times. For thirteen years, he hosted the popular TV show Around the Laughter. He played several small but memorable movie roles, regularly performed on stage with his skits. We will talk about how the life path of this talented person was developing, and about the literary parodies of Alexander Ivanov in this article.
Biography. Start
Alexander Ivanov was born in Moscow in December 1936. After graduating from high school, he went to study at the Moscow Correspondence Pedagogical Institute and five years later he began to teach drawing and descriptive geometry in one of the technical schools.
Meanwhile, in his early youth, he composed lyric poems, but after some time he got cold for this lesson. And once, while reading someoneâs poems, the poet Alexander Ivanov suddenly began to write skits of parody unexpectedly even for himself. So he found his real gift.
While working as a teacher, he simultaneously writes parodies of poems by poets, whose books he bought where he saw them. According to friends, his entire room in a communal apartment in those years was littered with similar publications. It seemed that Alexander Ivanov's parodies and their writing were taken seriously.
First publications
Thus, the poet in 1962 found his true calling. Suddenly, the small witty works of the aspiring parodist liked the editors of the famous Literary Newspaper, and they began to publish them. You understand that in order to get the right to regularly post your works in such a venerable publication (and Literature was truly known and loved by the intelligentsia of the Soviet Union), it is not enough for the author to be only talented and original. In addition, he must have his own voice, which would become easily recognizable.
Alexander Ivanov, this mockingbird, masterfully re-singing the style and intonation of other poets, had such a voice. As soon as he delivered a parody poem to some author, he immediately became famous.
Is this not a dream for a creative person? That is why many poets wanted to "get on the pen" to Ivanov. From all over the country, provincial piites sent their collections to him, accompanying them with requests to write "some kind of parody," they even offered options for what exactly should be "laughed at." Some of those eager to be spoofed came up after the concert, they say that some even waited outside the house ... But it happened later when the program Around the Laughter appeared and became popular, and Alexander Ivanov became not only a popular parodist, but and TV presenter. And at the beginning of his career, offended poets wrote complaints about Ivanov many times, and did not even give a hand.
Alexander Ivanov became famous for writing epigrams. Like parodies, they were popular with viewers. In addition, it is known that the parodist wrote several essays and pamphlets, as well as notes for newspapers.
Books
Alexander Alexandrovich Ivanov worked on parodies a lot, therefore, since 1968, his copyright collections began to be published. The first book was called Love and Mustard. The next three came out under the headings âNot With Your Own Voice,â âLaughing and Crying,â and âFrom Where ...â. In 1970, the parodist Alexander Ivanov was admitted to the Union of Writers. At that time, it was an event from the category of those that are worth mentioning in biographical information.
Until now, the book, entitled "Not With Your Own Voice," is considered by connoisseurs to be one of the best and most visible among collections of parodies of verses by Alexander Ivanov. Its name tells the reader that the parodist should speak not in his own voice, but in the voice of the poets parodied by him.
In this collection, in particular, a parody of Eduard Asadov appeared, which was extremely popular in those years - his poems were memorized, young people copied them into albums (then many had such notebooks for recording poems and songs they liked). Asadov wrote narrative poems about various everyday situations. They had, as a rule, morality and carried some edification. Literary scholars noted their sweetness and sentimentality. The poet Alexander Ivanov, in parodies, expressed a cheerful protest against this poetic vulgarity - it was impossible to fight laughter in those years with hypocrisy and moralization.
With a special predilection, the parodist treated the so-called countrymen-poets. Of course, among poets and among prose writers there were indeed quite a few who came to literature, being a true connoisseur of the Russian hinterland, and also being gifted in literature. But among the countrymen there were also those who, calling to appeal to the Russian village and "primordial values", had never even been in the province, traveling and living in capital cities. They wrote poetry with a simple-minded saying and often got confused and made a reservation, naming some rural realities. Of course, it was difficult for a professional parodist to get past such obvious linguistic flaws and verbal "cursing." In addition, parodies pointed to the apparent squalor and deceitfulness of the imaginary position of such a village man.
One of the poems of the now forgotten Soviet poet Alexander Govorov, for example, was awarded the parody of Alexander Ivanov. It ended like this:
Long live the ancestors
Shod in bast shoes!
Long live the grandfathers
Long live the grandmothers!
Long live the grandchildren
Long live the granddaughters
Long live the granddaughters
Dressed in pants!
Ay, it seems out
Bad poems.
Oh I'm allowed
I am from the plow!
Parodist's Creed
And here is how Alexander Ivanov himself told what he thinks about the essence of his profession:
- Hundreds of thousands of people now write poetry, easily mastering the elementary skills of creating all kinds of iambic, chorea and even verlibre. In this phenomenon itself there is no trouble, it is even a sign of an increased culture of the population. The trouble is that the graphomaniac is drawn to fame, to recognition, and he is besieging publishers. The editors of a Moscow magazine told me that they receive monthly 150-200 kilograms of poetry. This was not a joke, but a statement of fact, verses were recounted by weight, for such was their quality. Meanwhile, part of them, and not a small one, leaked to the press. The editorial dam could not resist the stormy rampart. Criticism constantly complains about these gaps in the dam, but complaining alone is not enough. And here comes to the aid of laughter, exposing literary insolvency. I love literature too much to put up with dullness, lack of culture, with everything that impoverishes and averages our poetry.
Further, the parodist added that in his work he was not only fighting. A friendly parody, he believed, could support and, as it were, legitimize the poetâs right to his own style, even help him become easily recognizable. The poet, Ivanov claimed, has the right to declarations and manifestations of diverse emotions in poetry only if he really lived with these feelings. The poet's life was to be filled with everything that he later turned into poetry. That, in his opinion, was, for example, the life of David Samoilov - because his poems
... contain the inexplicable secret of the beautiful with their apparent ease and simplicity.
According to the parodist, both Bulat Okudzhava and Vladimir Vysotsky lived a worthy life for a poet.
Literary scholars noted that the parodist Alexander Ivanov created parodies of word masters, like music on their poems. These witty miniatures both teased, and caused a smile, and at the same time forced to admire the poems themselves. It happened that Alexander Ivanov with his skits performed at poetry evenings with famous poets - Bella Akhmadulina, David Samoilov, Eugene Evtushenko, Bulat Okudzhava. He read parodies of the poems of these authors, causing laughter not only in the auditorium, but also in the poets themselves.
Here, for example, is what sounds like a fragment of a parody of Alexander Ivanov to the verses of Andrei Voznesensky:
Sneezing nylon dragonflies
dogs plan castor on velveteen,
bug cockroaches cough with glucose.
Rave? Rave.
On TV
For many years Alexander Ivanov led The Around the Laughter, and all of his parodies have been heard from that scene more than once. Many viewers, about whom we can say âwith experienceâ, well remember this program that was once famous. On television, she appeared in 1978. There is a version that the name for it at the stage of its creation was coined by Valerian Kalandadze, deputy editor for literary and dramatic broadcasting of TV. It was specially in tune with the program "Around the World" - even then it was a kind of television hit.
Incidentally, the role of the leader was initially supposed to be entrusted to the popular artist Andrei Mironov, but he was busy both on the set and in the theater, then this honorable position was temporarily offered to the parody poet Alexander Ivanov.
The first issue attracted a huge number of viewers, and it could not be otherwise, because such stars as Mikhail Zhvanetsky, Leonid Utesov, Rina Zelenaya and Vladimir Andreev took part in it. Ivanov also fit perfectly into the chair of the presenter. Broadcasts from release to release became more and more popular, and Alexander Ivanov was offered a permanent job on television.
The rise of many young artists became apparent precisely after the release of the program, sometimes thanks to the number alone. So Leonid Yarmolnik became famous with his famous "Chicken Tobacco." For the first time, the talented Mikhail Evdokimov appeared on this stage - he was discharged from Siberia, where he was listed as a canteen worker.
Often on a blue screen, under the unobtrusive guidance of the presenter, Arkady Raikin, Mikhail Zadornov, Klara Novikova, Efim Smolin, Arkady Arkanov, Semyon Altov, Grigory Gorin and many others appeared. Humorous duets were very popular - Mikhail Derzhavin and Alexander Shirvindt, Roman Kartsev and Viktor Ilchenko ... Young singers also appeared, for example, the audience first met Nadezhda Babkina and Alexander Rosenbaum.
In general, for a long time the program "Around the Laughter" was a hit of television programs. And the phrases of humorists in the form of proverbs and sayings were in full swing in the speech of ordinary citizens.
However, other times began in the 90s, and the attention of society shifted towards the socio-political life of the country. There were programs "Look" and "Before and after midnight." The administration of television, considering that the potential of the program âAround the laughterâ has been exhausted, decided to stop working on it. This happened in 1991.
It seemed that satirist Alexander Ivanov and parodies no longer needed. It was not easy for his family. Need so pressed the spouses so that for some time Ivanov even traded his own collections of parodies at the Olimpiysky book fair.
The most famous parodies
Here we mention the works of the parodist who became the most famous and at one time made famous the name of their creator.
Perhaps the most famous parody of Alexander Ivanov - "Red Pashechka". For the first time she sounded from the scene in the program "Around the laughter." Unfortunately, today few people remember the work of the Soviet writer, prose writer Lyudmila Uvarova. If not for the famous parody.
Besides the fact that it was written in prose and based on the well-known children's fairy tale about Little Red Riding Hood, it should be noted that the theme and style of the parody are very unusual. Perhaps no one before Ivanov had written so ridiculously on such a bitter subject. However, the parodist understood this, therefore, preceding the reading of the humoresque, he said:
- Yes, I certainly understand that laughing at the deaths and illnesses of people is, of course, wild and immoral. But nevertheless, I allowed myself such a âcynicalâ parody - based on the fact that laughter will simply overwhelm Lyudmila Uvarovaâs authorial style to the theme of death and disease in her work to such an extent that the work simply cannot be read normally, and in the end itâs forcing is made ridiculous, too obviously "pinched". From this point of view, I showed the authorâs style in a âcrooked mirrorâ.
Another equally popular was the parody of Alexander Ivanov, "Circle Area" (otherwise called "Enchanted Circle"). It was written in one of the poems of the rather famous poet Yuri Ryashentsev:
The area of ââthe circle ... The area of ââthe circle ... Two pi er.
âWhere do you serve, girlfriend?â
- In the APN.
(Yuri Ryashentsev)
Here is the text of the parody itself:
My friend says, breathing a little:
- Where did you study, Goluba, at TSSH 1 ?
You drained the cup of knowledge to the bottom,
Two pi er - not the area of ââa circle, but the length,
And not a circle, but a circle, moreover;
Teach in class it seems in the sixth.
Well poets! Amazing people!
And science, apparently, does not take them.
You canât blame them for banality,
You wonât unlock them with any key.
All used to frolic them, darlings, to dare.
Education everyone wants to show ...
The abbreviation of the central vocational school here means a parish school.
The parody "Pole" by Alexander Ivanov was also very popular. Meanwhile, it was not written on a poem by a contemporary, but on the work of the Russian poet, who lived in the 19th century, Alexei Pleshcheev.
Brilliantly performed a parody written by Grigory Gorin on the style of the parodist Ivanov himself, artist Gennady Khazanov. Performed at one of the New Year's âBlue Lightsâ, it mocks the beginning of the children's poem-fairy tale âMoidodyrâ by Korney Chukovsky. There was a misconception that Alexander Ivanov himself wrote a parody of "Moydodyr", but this is not so.
After transfer
In the 90s, the satirical poet worked on the political stage in the support group of the future president Boris Yeltsin.
Then the parodist Alexander Ivanov wrote parodies in the form of political pamphlets, as well as epigrams on political figures. Only thanks to this work he managed to improve his financial situation and even acquire a house on the Spanish coast.
Personal life
Ivanovâs first marriage was unsuccessful. A young woman with a teenage son from her first marriage, whom he met on a beach in the Crimea, moving to Moscow, quickly found herself another, better off husband.
After the divorce, when the parodist was already well over thirty, he met in Leningrad with Olga Zabotkina, the ballerina of the Mariinsky Theater, who was considered one of the most beautiful women in the Northern capital. She became for Alexander Ivanov, who periodically fell into a binge, and his wife, and mother, and girlfriend, living with him until the end of his days.
One of the former admirers of the beautiful ballerina, Eugene Fort, spoke about this unexpected marriage:
Everyone was surprised when she married San Sanych, for he was a man not of her romance. But how can women be understood!
The very talented ballerina, who played several prominent roles in the cinema, who had already received the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR, left the stage to move to Moscow and become her husband's secretary. In fact, she was in charge of all his affairs and watched the speeches. She was present on all the recordings of Around Laughter. In addition, she was also the first listener of his skits. According to friends of the family, with its help, the image of the leading famous program "Around the Laughter" was created.
Olga Zabotkina, well-acquainted with her spouses Arkady Arkanov, characterized Olga Zabotkina as a âsmart, beautiful, restrained and strictâ woman, frugal even to some parsimony in everyday expenses, and a real âgray cardinalâ of the family.
A peculiar sign of the Ivanov and Zabotkina family was the constant presence of pets - like most childless couples, they filled their loneliness, having cats, dogs, canaries ...
In an interview in 1990, the parodist poet Alexander Ivanov spoke about his family like this:
Our family is small - I and my wife Olga Leonidovna Zabotkina, a former ballerina of the Kirov Theater. Now the wife is retired, dancing, as I say, in the kitchen. We have no children, but there is a cat Alarek and a dog Avva.
Olga Zabotkina died five years after the death of her husband.
Character and appearance
Friends described Alexander Ivanov as a loner. He had almost no friends, he did not tell anyone about himself and did not believe his spiritual secrets. Yes, and about personal affairs or spoke briefly or even tried not to spread.
An unforgettable feature of Alexander Ivanov was his appearance. Tall, very thin, unperturbed, with some, as they said, inquisitorial grin on his face, he appeared on stage. However, in reality, his equanimity was apparent: as the parodist himself admitted, he felt such excitement every time before the performance and during it that he simply âwas dumbfoundedâ from fear of a hall filled with spectators.
The favorite style of Ivanov was, as the satirical writer Arkady Arkanov dubbed him, "demonstrative asceticism" - a strict suit of a classic cut, straight posture, calm, slightly flavored with sarcastic notes, a manner of communicating with the audience. And this, a surprised raised eyebrow of the presenter on readable poems that were attacked by a parodist (as a rule, on his individual lines or words). Further, the audience was told the name of the parody, which necessarily stemmed from the absurdity, concluded in the general sense of the work or in the indicated phrases.
According to contemporaries, those who were in the circle of acquaintances of Alexander Ivanov, the object of his pride was that he made one of the most common Russian surnames so popular.
Death
The parodist Alexander Ivanov finished his days in July 1996 in Moscow. He came to the capital from Spain, where they had been living in their house with his wife in recent years. The trip was supposed to be short - Alexander Ivanov was offered to take part in a concert in honor of some kind of democratic holiday. The wife to accompany him, as she always did, this time could not. Finding himself in forced loneliness, the poet once again broke into a bout. He died of a massive heart attack, which was the result of acute alcohol intoxication.
The poet was buried at the Vvedensky cemetery in Moscow.
According to some accounts, the lyric poems of Alexander Ivanov, which he allegedly wrote for many years without showing to anyone, should have been preserved in the archive. But they disappeared, and where - nobody knows about this, even his widow.
In this article we talked about the satirical poet Alexander Ivanov, the program "Around the Laughter" and its parodies.