Viktor Ardov: biography, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Today we will talk about a talented person whose name is not familiar to everyone, but who has made a significant contribution to the development of satirical literature. Viktor Ardov is a writer whose work is still discussed by true connoisseurs of this field.

He was born at the beginning of the century and went through a difficult path through various historical events and turning points in history. And all this time he did not stop creating literary masterpieces.

Viktor Ardov: family

To begin with, we would like to tell you about the most important thing - what are the roots of this talented writer. Ardov Viktor Efimovich was born in 1900 in the month of October. There is no exact date of birth, because due to the update of the calendar, all people born in that period of time have two birthdays. So it is with Victor - October 8 or 21.

It happened in Voronezh. Victor's father - Efim Moiseevich Zigberman, a railway engineer, graduated from the then prestigious Institute of Technology inKharkov. As a Jew, he was a member of the national community in Voronezh. The writer's grandfather was the owner of a dental clinic where he worked.

As you can see, Victor grew up in a family with a good income. Already at the age of eighteen, he became a graduate of the Moscow Gymnasium for Boys and began working in a cabaret. There he played the role of an entertainer, and also acted as an actor. Seven years later, Ardov graduated from the Moscow Institute of National Economy, where he studied at the Faculty of Economics.

War and creativity

Viktor Ardov, whose biography is offered to your attention, began his career at the age of twenty-one. First, he began to draw caricature sketches and composed text for them. These works were published in such magazines as the famous "Crocodile" and "Red Pepper". Later, he began to write satirical stories and made illustrations for them himself.

Even before the start of the war, he managed to create many comedies both independently and together with other talented writers:

• "Squabble" (co-author - Nikulin L. V.);
• "Article 114 of the Criminal Code" (co-author - Nikulin L. V.);
• "Tarakanovshchina" (co-author - Nikulin);
• "Birthday Girl" (co-authored by Mass V. Z.);
• "Small Trump".

His work ("The Birthday Girl") was even staged in the Moscow theater. In addition, the author wrote wonderful humoresques for such famous artists as Arkady Raikin and RinaGreen.

At the age of twenty-seven, Victor became the head of the literary department of the theater in Leningrad. And when the war began, he did not stand aside. In forty-two, the writer went voluntarily to the front and served throughout the war as a war correspondent with the rank of major. After the end of the war, he was awarded and received the Order of the Red Star.

Nickname: why "Ardov"

Viktor Ardov, whose stories were very popular in that era, was not published under his real name. According to his father, he had a Jewish surname Sigberman, but he seemed to have forgotten about it as soon as he began to create.

Many people ask: why such a pseudonym? There is no exact explanation at the moment, but there is one most likely version. The Jews have two sub-ethnic groups, which sometimes come together in one family. And so it was with Victor. On the one hand, his ancestors were Ashkenazim, and on the other hand, Sephardim. The writer initially took the name Sephardi, but then the prefix somehow disappeared, and the pseudonym Ardov remained.

Famous friends

Ardov (Zigberman) Viktor Efimovich lived at the same time with the great figures of literature and communicated with many of them personally. He also had very close friendships with some of them. Having studied many different sources, it can be stated with confidence that among Victor's friends there were such famous writers as Mayakovsky V. V., Bulgakov M. A., Zoshchenko M. M., Ilf I. A. and Petrov E. P., and also actress Ranevskaya F. G. About themthe writer tells in his book of memoirs.

And some names are mentioned there not just as friends or colleagues. We are talking about people who very often lived in his Moscow apartment. About Brodsky I. A., Pasternak B. L., Tsvetaeva M. I. and other famous names Ardov spoke more than once as about his close friends. He and his relatives communicated especially closely with Anna Akhmatova. The famous poetess was so close to this family that her monument was erected in the courtyard of their Moscow house.

Private life

Viktor Ardov was married twice. His first wife was Irina Ivanova, about whom nothing is known except her name. There is no exact data even about when exactly this event occurred for the first time. Maybe there was a record keeping problem at the time and that's why there's a lot of confusion about recovering lost information now.

But it is known for sure that the second time the writer married in 1933. His wife this time was the actress Olshevskaya Nina. She bore Victor two sons: Misha and Borya. In addition, the writer had a brother Mark, who worked, like their grandfather, in the field of medicine and became a very famous figure in this field. Ardov maintained family relations with both his maternal uncle, Vyacheslav Volgin, and his cousin Yakov. That's basically his whole family.

Writer's work

Viktor Ardov, whose books still attract us, became the author of forty collections, which include humorous stories, sketches, essays andfeuilletons. He wrote scripts for the films "Shining Path" and "Happy Flight".

Already after the death of the writer, which overtook him on February 28, 1976, in Moscow, a book was published with his memoirs called "Etudes". The list of Ardov's works is very large, and almost every one of them was very popular at one time. They came out starting in 1926 under the following names:

• "Do you like to ride";
• "Come tomorrow";
• "Mess on the air";
• Cream of Society;
• "Insidious Sleepwalker";
• "Sakhar Medovich";
• "Your friends";
• "Sore spot";
• "Neighborhood Nightmare";
• "Samples of Eloquence";
• "The work of an actor";
• “Grandmothers, grandmothers”;
• "Mistakes of the registry office";
• "Flowers, berries";
• "Two in the hole".

After the death of the writer, several more collections were published:

• In 1980, Humorous Stories came out;
• In 1987 - "Soviet Story";
• In 2005 - "The Great and Funny";
• In 2011 - "Smart Kids";
• In 2012 - "Poodle tongue".

As we can see, over the years the writer's work has not lost its relevance. After all, humor has no boundaries or barriers. This is exactly what we can observe in the work of the famous satirist Viktor Zigberman (Ardov).