Arkady Mikhailovich Arkanov (; 7 June 1933 – 22 March 2015) was a Russian writer, doctor, playwright and

stand-up comedian Stand-up comedy is a performance directed to a live audience, where the performer stands on a stage and delivers humorous and satirical monologues sometimes incorporating physical acts. These performances are typically composed of rehear ...

Biography

Arkanov was born Arkady Mikhailovich Steinbock in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. At the onset of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in 1941, he was evacuated to

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

, together with his mother and younger brother. In April 1943, the family was reunited with their father in Moscow. In 1957, Arkanov graduated from the I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University and, before becoming a writer, worked as a family doctor. Between 1963 and 1967, he was a satirist at the journal ''

Yunost ''Yunost'' (, ''Youth'') is a Russian language literary magazine created in 1955 in Moscow (initially as a USSR Union of Writers' organ) by Valentin Kataev, its first editor-in-chief, who was fired in 1961 for publishing Vasily Aksyonov's ''Tick ...

''. In 1966, he changed his last name, and in 1968 became a member of the

Union of Soviet Writers The Union of Soviet Writers, USSR Union of Writers, or Soviet Union of Writers () was a creative union of professional writers in the Soviet Union. It was founded in 1934 on the initiative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (1932) a ...

. In the 1960s–70s, he collaborated with Grigori Gorin, with whom he wrote several plays for the Moscow Theater of Satire. Arkanov's first marriage was to

Maya Kristalinskaya Maya Vladimirovna Kristalinskaya (; 24 February 1932, Moscow – 19 June 1985, Moscow) was a Soviet-Russian singer. In 1957 she performed at the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow with an amateur ensemble under the direction of Y ...

, a singer in 1967. After their divorce, Arkanov married Yevgeniya Morozova. He had a son, Vasily Arkadievich Arkanov (born 1967), a Russian-English translator and journalist who has lived in New York since 1993.Американский сын Арканова
rg.ru. 9 December 2005 He was a holder of the title

People's Artist People's Artist is an honorary title in the Soviet Union, Union republics, in some other Eastern bloc states (and communist states in general), as well as in a number of post-Soviet states, modeled after the title of the People's Artist of the U ...

of Russia and awarded the Order of Honour.

References

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Arkanov, Arkady 1933 births 2015 deaths Writers from Kyiv Male actors from Kyiv Television presenters from Kyiv Theatre people from Kyiv Russian male comedians Russian satirists Jewish Russian writers Recipients of the Order of Honour (Russia) People's Artists of Russia I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University alumni Soviet physicians