Alexander Galitch

Alexander Galich, whose real name is Alexander Aronovitch Ginzburg, is a Soviet and then Russian playwright, poet and singer-songwriter. He constructs his pseudonym based on the initials of his name.

He began his studies at the school of Constantin Stanislavsky and continued at the Theater-Studio of Alexei Arbouzov and Valentin Pluchek. In the first period of his creative activity, before the war, he gained great fame as the author of plays and scripts for popular films.His play "The Silence of the Sailors", dealing with the fate of three generations of a Soviet Jewish family, was banned from being staged in 1958. He began performing his own songs in the early 1960s.

Protesting against violence, censorship and injustice, Galich's songs enjoyed particular popularity among the scientific intelligentsia and led to the persecution of the poet - bard by the Soviet authorities. At the beginning of 1972, Galich was excluded from the Union of Writers and the Union of Cinematographers, which meant a de facto ban on remuneration for any creative activity. The same year, Galich approached the priest Alexander Men and received baptism in the Orthodox Church. In 1973, he was admitted in absentia to the French section of the PEN Club. In 1974, under pressure from the authorities, he was forced to emigrate from the USSR. He first settled for a year in Norway, which he left for Munich, and then Paris. During these years, Galich joined the People's Labor Union of Russian Solidarists (NTS), worked as a presenter at Radio Svoboda - Radio liberty. He died at home, electrocuted while plugging in a tape recorder. The cause of his death is officially defined as accidental, although the involvement of the KGB is mentioned. He is buried with his second wife Angelina Nicolaïevna born Prokhorova (1921-1986). His tombstone has an error in his date of birth (1919 instead of 1918).