Mikhail Savoyarov
Encyclopedia
Mikhail Savoyarov is a Russian chansonnier
, composer, poet, comic actor and mime
. In the first quarter of 20th century he was a famous satirical singer-songwriter. His popularity peak was in the years of war (1914–1917) when he began to be called the King of eccentrics. It was also the time when he became friends with Aleksandr Blok. Considering that the period of his greatest popularity was almost at the exact time as the brief period of renaming the capital, Savoyarov can be called the Petrograd artist in the strict sense of the word.
, started working as a violinist in a private opera house
, and then in the Palace Theatre. The repertoire of these theatres included mostly operetta
s, which influenced his style. Savoyarov made his début onstage as an operetta tenor
comedian by chance substituting for an ill actor. He had a success though not grand. Having an independent streak, soon he quit the theatre and started living on his own resources. Since 1905 he was seen playing in musical single-show companies (so called “Capellas”), Russia
n, Little Russian, Gipsy or pseudo-French
ones which were in fashion and brought profit.
In 1905 Savoyarov began to compose and sing topical songs, set at first to operetta or folk songs music and later to his own melodie
s. Poetic and musical talent advanced him as a singer-songwriter. His repertoire included mostly songs and trolls accompanied by piano, violin, dancing, pantomime
and eccentric
acting often turned into brazen antics and buffoonery. It’s significant that his style of acting coincides with his last name Savoyarov that comes from French word “Savoyard
” which means a strolling musician, a troubadour
from Savoy
.
In 1907 Savoyarov had a success on fair of Nizhny Novgorod
where he performed together with his first wife Ariadna Azagarina. Earlier she was famous in single-show companies as a French cabaret
singer. Performing as “french-russian duet” they had a repertoire that consisted of comic and satiric scenes including singing, dancing, disguise and impersonations using theatrical costume
s, make-up, mise-en-scènes and even decorations.
In 1914 Savoyarov published his first collection of texts of his own composition and joined the Society of Dramatists and Composers. At the age of 40 he writes his best songs and reaches the height of his fame. Savoyarov’s favorite character is a flaneur
of high society, dandy
, petty bourgeois, low dives frequenter with a rumpled or well-pressed dress coat and a top hat or a bowler on, a cane in a hand and a chrysanthemum
in his buttonhole
. Sometimes Savoyarov also used a mask of a criminal, and for such cases he composed special topical songs. One of them represented the author: “I’m a thief , that’s what I’m proud of, and my name is Savoyarov”. Playing “himself” on the stage is typical of his work.
There were times when his limited popularity as a satirist and humourist was a burden to Savoyarov who was trying to break through genre barrier of high poetry with such works as the dramatic melodeclamation
titled Glory to Russian woman (of military-patriotic character) or the dramatic scene The Aviator
’s death which however didn’t have much success.
Savoyarov’s popularity reached it’s peak by 1916-1917. His comic topical songs such as Kisanka, Walked, Thank you kindly, Our Culture, Because of the Ladies were reissued and many times and were very popular to quote, and the eccentric scene “Moon oh moon, are you drunk indeed?” was sung by literally everyone in Petrograd. The countless couplets of Our culture had a particularly big success. Many actors included them into their repertoires with author’s consent and also repeatedly “stole” them. The reproachful chorus of this song (“Here’s the fruits of education, here’s our culture!”) was used by different authors to create renewed versions of the late 1920s.
During 1915-1917 many of Savoyarov’s topical songs were notable for satirical and political jokes. Therefore not all of them were published constantly being censored and abridged in the number of couplet
s.
During wartime Savoyarov met Aleksandr Blok who attended his concerts in cinemas and café chantant a dozen times in 1914-1918. Sometimes Blok brought actors who recited his poems and plays onstage. Thus in 1918 he persistently showed Savoyarov’s performances to his wife L.D. Mendeleyeva-Blok so that she could “adopt” his eccentric manner (for reading The Twelve
poem). Vsevolod Meyerhold
also attended Savoyarov’s concerts while working on his play Balaganchik (‘The Puppet
Show’). According to Blok, Savoyarov’s Balaganchik was “way better than ours”. Here’s one of his notes on this subject that Blok wrote in his journals:
Blok didn’t recite The Twelve
himself cause he couldn’t do it well. Usually his wife performed reading of the poem. However, according to the audience who listened The Twelve performed by Liubov Dmitriyevna her did it poorly, falling into bad theatricism. A big woman with massive arms bare almost to her shoulders was rushing about on the stage dramatically shouting and gesticulating, sitting down and jumping up again. It seemed to some of the audience that Blok didn’t like listening to Lyubov Dmitriyevna’s reading either. But it was unlikely to be truth because Blok was always advising her and showing how to recite the poem. That’s why he was taking Lyubov Dmitriyevna to Savoyarov’s concerts. Apparently Blok believed The Twelve poem should be recited in this specific rough and eccentric manner, the way Savoyarov did it playing the role of a criminal from St. Petersburg
. However Blok himself didn’t know and didn’t learn how to recite. To do that he would have to become, as he put it, a ‘variety poet and singer of satirical songs’ himself.
Savoyarov didn’t leave it unanswered. Specially for the famous guest of his concerts he wrote a few mock verses imitating ‘with delicate irony
’ Blok’s most popular lines or intonation
(for example: “A night. A street. A lamp. A drugstore” turned into “A store. A crowd. A low price”). Being aware that Blok is in the audience Savoyarov always performed such satirical songs for him. The live dialogue
between the two poets during the concert delighted the public
.
----
The October Revolution
destroyed the life of Russia
including cultural. The day of 7 November 1917 drew a line in Mikhail Savoyarov’s biography cutting short his career
as an actor at high tide.
As well as Aleksandr Blok, Savoyarov tried to cooperate with the new authority during the first years after ‘the proletarian revolution
’. He headed the Petrograd variety actors’ union for three years. Then however he was supplanted by ‘real’ proletarian actors. During the 1920s Savoyarov endeavoured to be relevant, referring to new Soviet themes, he kept on writing and performing. Among the songs performed by his second wife, artiste Yelena Nikitina (1899–1973) the most successful were the operetta Proletarian’s song and a love song parody
You’re still the same where the decadent intonations of Vertinsky
were derided.
Savoyarov continues to give concerts all over USSR up until 1930. He’s already over 50 at that time. His repertoire of that time includes satirical songs What a thing to happen! (in Charleston
beat), monologues in «Rayok» genre
(rhymed humorous "talk shows", a special kind of rhymed prose) such as You say, we’re going to far; I want to love the whole world (1925), musical feuilleton
“Records, big deal!” (1929), a parody
song Little bricks and other. However Savoyarov couldn’t repeat his Petrograd success of 1915.
By the early 1930s Savoyarov stopped giving concerts. The political situation in the country stands stock-still, socialist associations of creative professions are formed and it becomes impossible to organize concerts independently. The Bolshevik Party didn’t welcome any eccentric, satirical in particular.
In 1933 Savoyarov moved from Leningrad
to Moscow where he lived the rest 7 years of his life. He died (or was killed?) a month and a half after the war on Germany
started. On 4 August 1941 Mikhail Savoyarov died of heart rupture
during the bombing in the 43 Lesnaya street gateway. He wouldn’t hide in the bombshelter during the air raids
.
or theatre. In the 1910s both success and influence follow the ‘music concerts’ of Igor Severyanin
as well as poetry accompanied by Mikhail Kuzmin
. However, it was Aleksandr Blok who was influenced the most by eccentric style of an artist and even poet Savoyarov. It’s the most evident in his post-revolutionary works. According to academic Shlovsky few comprehended «The Twelve» poem and condemned it because everyone was used to take Blok seriously only. The Twelve, a portrayal of criminal revolutionary Petrograd, which was compared by Shklovsky to the Bronze Horseman by Pushkin
, had brand new image
s:
Shklovky talked about Savoyarov’s songs in ‘ragged genre’ performing which he would go on stage dressed and painted as a criminal. George Balanchine
, a choreographer, forever memorized Savoyarov singing thieves songs: “Alyosha, sha! – take a half-tone lower, stop telling lies”... Such criminal atmosphere
in The Twelve
poem pervades Petrograd, a frightful city of the snowy winter of 1918.
Savoyarov put musical in common practice parody
songs of (or responses to) other authors. The most famous of them were Child, don’t hurry (a response to Mikhail Kuzmin
’s romance
Child and rose) and You’re still the same (a parody of Vertinsky’s romance Your little fingers smell incense). Often during his concerts in the 1920s Savoyarov would change costume
s, make himself up and performed the second part under the name (and the mask) of ‘artist Valertinsky’. This did a good turn for Vertinsky
who wasn’t forgotten during the period of his immigration
.
Savoyarov’s easy manner of singing, gesticulating, constantly moving around the stage and playing the violin had a profound effect. After the manner of Savoyarov, in the 1920-30s playing violin his disciple, a singer of satirical songs Grigory Krasavin, the first performer of the famous Bublichki (‘Bagels’) of Yakov Yadov, started performing.
In the 1930s both in Leningrad
and Moscow many artists learned from Savoyarov. Among the most famous disciples of that period Arkady Raikin
is pre-eminent. Nowadays hardly anybody remembers that in 1930s Raikin started not as a reciter and satirist but as a musical eccentric and a dancer mime
and that his first fame and the title of laureate
of the all-USSR variety
actors competition came to him thanks to his dance and mimic numbers Chaplin and Mishka.
That was also the time when Alexander Menaker learned a lot from Savoyarov. His school of eccentric can be distinguished in Andrei Mironov
, Menaker’s son’s, manner of performing and in musical parts of young Konstantin Raikin
. One of Savoyarov’s songs of 1915 (rural scene Trumpeters) is performed by Andrei Mironov in Eldar Ryazanov
’s film (O Bednom Gusare Zamolvite Slovo, 1981) Say a Word for the Poor Hussar
(“...across the village are running the boys, the girls, the women, the kids, like a swarm of locusts, the trumpeters blow the trumpets” ). The music for this number was rewritten by the composer Andrei Petrov
, but the lyrics by Savoyarov remained the same.
Perhaps the most evident artistic influences of Mikhail Savoyarov can be considered his grandson, a composer, a 1988 “European Oscar” winner and also an ingenious writer and artist working under a pseudonym Yuri Khanon
. The eccentric Mikhail Savoyarov may have found his new incarnation in him…partly philosophically and academically. Another king of eccentrics’ granddaughter, Tatyana Savoyarova is also known as an eccentric artist (partly surrealist and mocker).
Savoyarov’s artistic style was distinguished by the charms of ‘very lively’ performance, by natural musicality, plasticity, subtle nuances, the strong ability to transform, the ability to reveal the text and subtext, supplementing the singing with dancing and mimic scenes. Such a performance has one drawback: it must be seen and listened to in person. The archive
s didn’t save neither gramophone
recording
s nor film fragments. Savoyarov only heritage left is published music, photographs and collections of poems.
Chansonnier
A chansonnier is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings of songs, hence literally "song-books," although some manuscripts are so called even though they preserve the text but not the music A chansonnier is a manuscript or...
, composer, poet, comic actor and mime
Mime
The word mime is used to refer to a mime artist who uses a theatrical medium or performance art involving the acting out of a story through body motions without use of speech.Mime may also refer to:* Mime, an alternative word for lip sync...
. In the first quarter of 20th century he was a famous satirical singer-songwriter. His popularity peak was in the years of war (1914–1917) when he began to be called the King of eccentrics. It was also the time when he became friends with Aleksandr Blok. Considering that the period of his greatest popularity was almost at the exact time as the brief period of renaming the capital, Savoyarov can be called the Petrograd artist in the strict sense of the word.
Biography
Mikhail Nikolayevich Savoyarov (Solovyov) was born on 30 November 1876 in Moscow. As a child he didn’t receive music education. He learned to play violin without a teacher, also took private lessons. In the end of the 1890s Savoyarov moved to Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, started working as a violinist in a private opera house
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
, and then in the Palace Theatre. The repertoire of these theatres included mostly operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s, which influenced his style. Savoyarov made his début onstage as an operetta tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
comedian by chance substituting for an ill actor. He had a success though not grand. Having an independent streak, soon he quit the theatre and started living on his own resources. Since 1905 he was seen playing in musical single-show companies (so called “Capellas”), Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n, Little Russian, Gipsy or pseudo-French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
ones which were in fashion and brought profit.
In 1905 Savoyarov began to compose and sing topical songs, set at first to operetta or folk songs music and later to his own melodie
Melodie
"Melodie" is a hip-hop ballad by German rapper Kool Savas. It features Senna Guemmour, member of pop group Monrose, and R&B singer Moe Mitchell. The single released on April 18, 2008.- Music video :...
s. Poetic and musical talent advanced him as a singer-songwriter. His repertoire included mostly songs and trolls accompanied by piano, violin, dancing, pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
and eccentric
Eccentricity (behavior)
In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive...
acting often turned into brazen antics and buffoonery. It’s significant that his style of acting coincides with his last name Savoyarov that comes from French word “Savoyard
Savoyard
Savoyard is a Romance language group with several distinct varieties that form a linguistic subgroup from the Arpitan language family. It is spoken in some territories of the historical Duchy of Savoy, nowadays a geographic area spanning France , Switzerland , and Italy...
” which means a strolling musician, a troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
from Savoy
Savoy
Savoy is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Monaco and the Mediterranean coast in the south....
.
In 1907 Savoyarov had a success on fair of Nizhny Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod , colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is, with the population of 1,250,615, the fifth largest city in Russia, ranking after Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg...
where he performed together with his first wife Ariadna Azagarina. Earlier she was famous in single-show companies as a French cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, 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 at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
singer. Performing as “french-russian duet” they had a repertoire that consisted of comic and satiric scenes including singing, dancing, disguise and impersonations using theatrical costume
Costume
The term costume can refer to wardrobe and dress in general, or to the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period. Costume may also refer to the artistic arrangement of accessories in a picture, statue, poem, or play, appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances...
s, make-up, mise-en-scènes and even decorations.
In 1914 Savoyarov published his first collection of texts of his own composition and joined the Society of Dramatists and Composers. At the age of 40 he writes his best songs and reaches the height of his fame. Savoyarov’s favorite character is a flaneur
Flâneur
The term flâneur comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", "loafer"—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur—that of "a person who walks...
of high society, dandy
Dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self...
, petty bourgeois, low dives frequenter with a rumpled or well-pressed dress coat and a top hat or a bowler on, a cane in a hand and a chrysanthemum
Chrysanthemum
Chrysanthemums, often called mums or chrysanths, are of the genus constituting approximately 30 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Asteraceae which is native to Asia and northeastern Europe.-Etymology:...
in his buttonhole
Buttonhole
Buttonholes are holes in fabric which allow buttons to pass through, securing one piece of the fabric to another. The raw edges of a buttonhole are usually finished with stitching. This may be done either by hand or by a sewing machine. Some forms of button, such as a Mandarin button, use a loop...
. Sometimes Savoyarov also used a mask of a criminal, and for such cases he composed special topical songs. One of them represented the author: “I’m a thief , that’s what I’m proud of, and my name is Savoyarov”. Playing “himself” on the stage is typical of his work.
There were times when his limited popularity as a satirist and humourist was a burden to Savoyarov who was trying to break through genre barrier of high poetry with such works as the dramatic melodeclamation
Melodeclamation
Melodeclamation was a chiefly 19th century practice of reciting poetry while accompanied by concert music...
titled Glory to Russian woman (of military-patriotic character) or the dramatic scene The Aviator
Aviator
An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...
’s death which however didn’t have much success.
Savoyarov’s popularity reached it’s peak by 1916-1917. His comic topical songs such as Kisanka, Walked, Thank you kindly, Our Culture, Because of the Ladies were reissued and many times and were very popular to quote, and the eccentric scene “Moon oh moon, are you drunk indeed?” was sung by literally everyone in Petrograd. The countless couplets of Our culture had a particularly big success. Many actors included them into their repertoires with author’s consent and also repeatedly “stole” them. The reproachful chorus of this song (“Here’s the fruits of education, here’s our culture!”) was used by different authors to create renewed versions of the late 1920s.
During 1915-1917 many of Savoyarov’s topical songs were notable for satirical and political jokes. Therefore not all of them were published constantly being censored and abridged in the number of couplet
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...
s.
During wartime Savoyarov met Aleksandr Blok who attended his concerts in cinemas and café chantant a dozen times in 1914-1918. Sometimes Blok brought actors who recited his poems and plays onstage. Thus in 1918 he persistently showed Savoyarov’s performances to his wife L.D. Mendeleyeva-Blok so that she could “adopt” his eccentric manner (for reading The Twelve
The Twelve
The Twelve is a controversial long poem by Aleksandr Blok. Written early in 1918, the poem was one of the first poetic responses to the October Revolution of 1917.-Background:...
poem). Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold was a great Russian and Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theatre.-Early...
also attended Savoyarov’s concerts while working on his play Balaganchik (‘The Puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
Show’). According to Blok, Savoyarov’s Balaganchik was “way better than ours”. Here’s one of his notes on this subject that Blok wrote in his journals:
«...Liuba finally saw Savoyarov who plays on tour in miniature close to us. — Why measuring ounces of Alexandrians’ talent who always perform after lunch and before dinner if there’s a real art in ‘miniature’?...»
- — Aleksandr Blok, sketchbooks (20 march 1918).
Blok didn’t recite The Twelve
The Twelve
The Twelve is a controversial long poem by Aleksandr Blok. Written early in 1918, the poem was one of the first poetic responses to the October Revolution of 1917.-Background:...
himself cause he couldn’t do it well. Usually his wife performed reading of the poem. However, according to the audience who listened The Twelve performed by Liubov Dmitriyevna her did it poorly, falling into bad theatricism. A big woman with massive arms bare almost to her shoulders was rushing about on the stage dramatically shouting and gesticulating, sitting down and jumping up again. It seemed to some of the audience that Blok didn’t like listening to Lyubov Dmitriyevna’s reading either. But it was unlikely to be truth because Blok was always advising her and showing how to recite the poem. That’s why he was taking Lyubov Dmitriyevna to Savoyarov’s concerts. Apparently Blok believed The Twelve poem should be recited in this specific rough and eccentric manner, the way Savoyarov did it playing the role of a criminal from St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. However Blok himself didn’t know and didn’t learn how to recite. To do that he would have to become, as he put it, a ‘variety poet and singer of satirical songs’ himself.
Savoyarov didn’t leave it unanswered. Specially for the famous guest of his concerts he wrote a few mock verses imitating ‘with delicate irony
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
’ Blok’s most popular lines or intonation
Intonation (linguistics)
In linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch while speaking which is not used to distinguish words. It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation does distinguish words. Intonation, rhythm, and stress are the three main elements of linguistic prosody...
(for example: “A night. A street. A lamp. A drugstore” turned into “A store. A crowd. A low price”). Being aware that Blok is in the audience Savoyarov always performed such satirical songs for him. The live dialogue
Dialogue
Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....
between the two poets during the concert delighted the public
Public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individuals, and the public is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science,...
.
----
The October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
destroyed the life of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
including cultural. The day of 7 November 1917 drew a line in Mikhail Savoyarov’s biography cutting short his career
Career
Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....
as an actor at high tide.
As well as Aleksandr Blok, Savoyarov tried to cooperate with the new authority during the first years after ‘the proletarian revolution
Proletarian revolution
A proletarian revolution is a social and/or political revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists, communists, and most anarchists....
’. He headed the Petrograd variety actors’ union for three years. Then however he was supplanted by ‘real’ proletarian actors. During the 1920s Savoyarov endeavoured to be relevant, referring to new Soviet themes, he kept on writing and performing. Among the songs performed by his second wife, artiste Yelena Nikitina (1899–1973) the most successful were the operetta Proletarian’s song and a love song parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
You’re still the same where the decadent intonations of Vertinsky
Alexander Vertinsky
Alexander Nikolayevich Vertinsky was a Russian and Soviet artist, poet, singer, composer, cabaret artist and actor who exerted seminal influence on the Russian tradition of artistic singing.-Early years:...
were derided.
Savoyarov continues to give concerts all over USSR up until 1930. He’s already over 50 at that time. His repertoire of that time includes satirical songs What a thing to happen! (in Charleston
Charleston (dance)
The Charleston is a dance named for the harbor city of Charleston, South Carolina. The rhythm was popularized in mainstream dance music in the United States by a 1923 tune called "The Charleston" by composer/pianist James P. Johnson which originated in the Broadway show Runnin' Wild and became one...
beat), monologues in «Rayok» genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
(rhymed humorous "talk shows", a special kind of rhymed prose) such as You say, we’re going to far; I want to love the whole world (1925), musical feuilleton
Feuilleton
Feuilleton was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the latest fashions, and epigrams, charades and other literary trifles...
“Records, big deal!” (1929), a parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
song Little bricks and other. However Savoyarov couldn’t repeat his Petrograd success of 1915.
By the early 1930s Savoyarov stopped giving concerts. The political situation in the country stands stock-still, socialist associations of creative professions are formed and it becomes impossible to organize concerts independently. The Bolshevik Party didn’t welcome any eccentric, satirical in particular.
In 1933 Savoyarov moved from Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
to Moscow where he lived the rest 7 years of his life. He died (or was killed?) a month and a half after the war on Germany
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
started. On 4 August 1941 Mikhail Savoyarov died of heart rupture
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
during the bombing in the 43 Lesnaya street gateway. He wouldn’t hide in the bombshelter during the air raids
Airstrike
An air strike is an attack on a specific objective by military aircraft during an offensive mission. Air strikes are commonly delivered from aircraft such as fighters, bombers, ground attack aircraft, attack helicopters, and others...
.
Artistic influence
Savoyarov was the first to the Russian music scene his own eccentric style of performing different from circusCircus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
or theatre. In the 1910s both success and influence follow the ‘music concerts’ of Igor Severyanin
Igor Severyanin
Igor Severyanin was a Russian poet who presided over the circle of the so-called Ego-Futurists.Igor was born in St. Petersburg in the family of an army engineer. Through his mother, he was remotely related to Nikolai Karamzin and Afanasy Fet. In 1904 he left for Manchuria with his father but later...
as well as poetry accompanied by Mikhail Kuzmin
Mikhail Kuzmin
Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin was a Russian poet, musician and novelist, a prominent contributor to the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.Born into a noble family in Yaroslavl, Kuzmin grew up in St. Petersburg and studied music at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov...
. However, it was Aleksandr Blok who was influenced the most by eccentric style of an artist and even poet Savoyarov. It’s the most evident in his post-revolutionary works. According to academic Shlovsky few comprehended «The Twelve» poem and condemned it because everyone was used to take Blok seriously only. The Twelve, a portrayal of criminal revolutionary Petrograd, which was compared by Shklovsky to the Bronze Horseman by Pushkin
Aleksandr Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian author of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature....
, had brand new image
Image
An image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...
s:
«...The TwelveThe TwelveThe Twelve is a controversial long poem by Aleksandr Blok. Written early in 1918, the poem was one of the first poetic responses to the October Revolution of 1917.-Background:...
is an ironical work. It’s written not even with folk rhyme but with “flash” language. A Savoyarov style of street trolls».
- — (Viktor Shklovsky
Viktor ShklovskyViktor Borisovich Shklovsky was a Russian and Soviet critic, writer, and pamphleteer.-Life:...
, the Hamburg account: articleArticle (publishing)An article is a written work published in a print or electronic medium. It may be for the purpose of propagating the news, research results, academic analysis or debate.-News articles:...
s, memoirs, essays (1914-1933).
Shklovky talked about Savoyarov’s songs in ‘ragged genre’ performing which he would go on stage dressed and painted as a criminal. George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
, a choreographer, forever memorized Savoyarov singing thieves songs: “Alyosha, sha! – take a half-tone lower, stop telling lies”... Such criminal atmosphere
Atmosphere
An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, and that is held in place by the gravity of the body. An atmosphere may be retained for a longer duration, if the gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low...
in The Twelve
The Twelve
The Twelve is a controversial long poem by Aleksandr Blok. Written early in 1918, the poem was one of the first poetic responses to the October Revolution of 1917.-Background:...
poem pervades Petrograd, a frightful city of the snowy winter of 1918.
Savoyarov put musical in common practice parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
songs of (or responses to) other authors. The most famous of them were Child, don’t hurry (a response to Mikhail Kuzmin
Mikhail Kuzmin
Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin was a Russian poet, musician and novelist, a prominent contributor to the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.Born into a noble family in Yaroslavl, Kuzmin grew up in St. Petersburg and studied music at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov...
’s romance
Romance (music)
The term romance has a centuries-long history. Applied to narrative ballads in Spain, it came to be used by the 18th century for simple lyrical pieces not only for voice, but also for instruments alone. During the 18th and 19th centuries Russian composers developed the French variety of the...
Child and rose) and You’re still the same (a parody of Vertinsky’s romance Your little fingers smell incense). Often during his concerts in the 1920s Savoyarov would change costume
Costume
The term costume can refer to wardrobe and dress in general, or to the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period. Costume may also refer to the artistic arrangement of accessories in a picture, statue, poem, or play, appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances...
s, make himself up and performed the second part under the name (and the mask) of ‘artist Valertinsky’. This did a good turn for Vertinsky
Alexander Vertinsky
Alexander Nikolayevich Vertinsky was a Russian and Soviet artist, poet, singer, composer, cabaret artist and actor who exerted seminal influence on the Russian tradition of artistic singing.-Early years:...
who wasn’t forgotten during the period of his immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
.
Savoyarov’s easy manner of singing, gesticulating, constantly moving around the stage and playing the violin had a profound effect. After the manner of Savoyarov, in the 1920-30s playing violin his disciple, a singer of satirical songs Grigory Krasavin, the first performer of the famous Bublichki (‘Bagels’) of Yakov Yadov, started performing.
In the 1930s both in Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
and Moscow many artists learned from Savoyarov. Among the most famous disciples of that period Arkady Raikin
Arkady Raikin
Arkady Isaakovich Raikin was a Soviet stand-up comedian. He led the school of Soviet and Russian humorists for about half a century.Raikin was born into a Jewish family in Riga , then part of the Russian Empire. He graduated from the Leningrad Theatrical Technicum in 1935 and worked in both state...
is pre-eminent. Nowadays hardly anybody remembers that in 1930s Raikin started not as a reciter and satirist but as a musical eccentric and a dancer mime
Mime
The word mime is used to refer to a mime artist who uses a theatrical medium or performance art involving the acting out of a story through body motions without use of speech.Mime may also refer to:* Mime, an alternative word for lip sync...
and that his first fame and the title of laureate
Laureate
In English, the word laureate has come to signify eminence or association with literary or military glory. It is also used for winners of the Nobel Prize.-History:...
of the all-USSR variety
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
actors competition came to him thanks to his dance and mimic numbers Chaplin and Mishka.
That was also the time when Alexander Menaker learned a lot from Savoyarov. His school of eccentric can be distinguished in Andrei Mironov
Andrei Mironov
Andrei Alexandrovich Mironov was a Soviet theatre and film actor who played lead roles in some of the most popular Soviet films, such as The Diamond Arm, Beware of the Car and Twelve Chairs...
, Menaker’s son’s, manner of performing and in musical parts of young Konstantin Raikin
Konstantin Raikin
Konstantin Arkadyevich Raikin is a Russian film and theater actor, director of the Moscow Satyricon theater...
. One of Savoyarov’s songs of 1915 (rural scene Trumpeters) is performed by Andrei Mironov in Eldar Ryazanov
Eldar Ryazanov
Eldar Aleksandrovich Ryazanov is a Soviet/Russian film director whose comedies, satirizing the daily life of the country, are very famous throughout the former Soviet Union....
’s film (O Bednom Gusare Zamolvite Slovo, 1981) Say a Word for the Poor Hussar
Hussar
Hussar refers to a number of types of light cavalry which originated in Hungary in the 14th century, tracing its roots from Serbian medieval cavalry tradition, brought to Hungary in the course of the Serb migrations, which began in the late 14th century....
(“...across the village are running the boys, the girls, the women, the kids, like a swarm of locusts, the trumpeters blow the trumpets” ). The music for this number was rewritten by the composer Andrei Petrov
Andrei Petrov
Andrey Pavlovich Petrov was a Russian and Soviet composer. Andrey Petrov is known for his music for films such as I Step Through Moscow, Beware of the Car, and Office Romance.-Life:...
, but the lyrics by Savoyarov remained the same.
Perhaps the most evident artistic influences of Mikhail Savoyarov can be considered his grandson, a composer, a 1988 “European Oscar” winner and also an ingenious writer and artist working under a pseudonym Yuri Khanon
Yuri Khanon
Yuri Khanon is a pen name of Yuri Feliksovich Soloviev-Savoyarov , a Russian composer. Prior to 1993, he wrote under a pen name Yuri Khanin, but later transformed it into Yuri Khanon, spelling it in a pre-1918 Russian style as ХанонЪ. Khanon was born on Juny 16, 1965 in Leningrad...
. The eccentric Mikhail Savoyarov may have found his new incarnation in him…partly philosophically and academically. Another king of eccentrics’ granddaughter, Tatyana Savoyarova is also known as an eccentric artist (partly surrealist and mocker).
Savoyarov’s artistic style was distinguished by the charms of ‘very lively’ performance, by natural musicality, plasticity, subtle nuances, the strong ability to transform, the ability to reveal the text and subtext, supplementing the singing with dancing and mimic scenes. Such a performance has one drawback: it must be seen and listened to in person. The archive
Archive
An archive is a collection of historical records, or the physical place they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the function of an organization...
s didn’t save neither gramophone
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
recording
Recording
Recording is the process of capturing data or translating information to a recording format stored on some storage medium, which is often referred to as a record or, if an auditory medium, a recording....
s nor film fragments. Savoyarov only heritage left is published music, photographs and collections of poems.
Literature
- Aleksandr Blok, Collected works in eight volumes, Moscow, Khudozhestvennaya Literatura (“belles-lettres”) state publisher, 1962.
- Aleksandr Blok, Collected works in six volumes, LeningradLeningradLeningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
, Khudozhestvennaya Literatura, 1962. - Dmitry Gubin, Playing during the eclipse, Ogonyok periodical, №26, iuni 1990.
- Encyclopedia of Russian Variety Art, ed. Uvarova, XX century, Moscow, Rospen, 2000.
- V. Orlov, The life of Blok, Moscow, Centrpoligraf, 2001.
- Mikhail Savoyarov, Songs & couplets of singer-songwriter. Petrograd, Evterpa, ed.1,2, 1914-1915.
- Mikhail Savoyarov, Songs: couplets, parodies, duets. Petrograd, Evterpa, ed.3, 1915
- Mikhail Savoyarov, Because of the Ladies (published music), Economic, Petrograd, 1914
- Mikhail Savoyarov, The Drunken Moon (published music), Evterpa, Petrograd, 1915
- Mikhail Savoyarov, Trumpeters (published music), Evterpa, Petrograd, 1916
- Viktor ShklovskyViktor ShklovskyViktor Borisovich Shklovsky was a Russian and Soviet critic, writer, and pamphleteer.-Life:...
, The Writing Table // V.B. Shklovsky, The Hamburg Account: articles, memoirs, essays (1914–1933), Moscow, Sovetsky Pisatel (“Soviet Writer”) publisher, 1990. - N. Sinev, In Life and in Variety, KievKievKiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, 1983 - G.Terikov, Topical songs in Variet, Moscow, 1987.
- Solomon VolkovSolomon VolkovSolomon Moiseyevich Volkov is a Russian journalist and musicologist. He is best known for Testimony, which was published in 1979 following his emigration from the Soviet Union in 1976...
, History of Saint Petersburg culture, Moscow, EKSMO, 2008. - Solomon VolkovSolomon VolkovSolomon Moiseyevich Volkov is a Russian journalist and musicologist. He is best known for Testimony, which was published in 1979 following his emigration from the Soviet Union in 1976...
, tr. Bouis, Antonina W., St. Petersburg: A Cultural History (New York: The Free Press, 1995). ISBN 0-02-874051-1. enEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria... - Variety in Russia, XX century: encyclopedia, ed. Uvarova, Moscow, OLMA-press, 2004.