Alexander Moiseevich Gorodnitsky
Gorodnitsky at 2015 Grushinsky Festival
Born
Александр Моисеевич Городницкий

20 March 1933
Leningrad
NationalitySoviet, Russian
Occupation(s)geologist, oceanographer, and poet, bard

Alexander Moiseevich Gorodnitsky (Russian: Алекса́ндр Моисе́евич Городни́цкий, IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr məɪˈsʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ɡərɐˈdʲnʲitskʲɪj] ⓘ; born March 20, 1933) is a well-known Soviet and Russian bard and poet.

He is an author of over 60 books, poems, songs, and other literary works.[1] His song "Atlanes Hold the Heavens" is the official anthem of the Hermitage Museum and considered as unofficial anthem of Saint Petersburg.[2][3]

Professionally, he is a geologist and oceanographer. Gorodnitsky is an author of over 250 scientific publications on geophysics and tectonics of ocean bottom.[1]

Asteroid No. 5988[4] and a pass in the Sayan Mountains were named after Alexander Gorodnitsky.[1]

Early life

Gorodnitsky was born on 20 March 1933 in Leningrad to a Russian Jewish family originated from Mogilev.[5] His father — Moisey Afroimovich Gorodnitsky (1908–1986)[6] — was an engineer who worked in the printing industry.[7] His mother — Rakhil Moiseevna Gorodnitskaya (1908–1981),[6] — in her youth, was a school maths teacher, then worked as corrector and editor of sailing directions.[7]

Gorodnitsky survived the Siege of Leningrad during Second World War. In 1951, he graduated from high school №254[5] and entered the Faculty of Geophysics of the Leningrad Mining Institute, which he graduated in 1957 with specialist degree.[8][9]

Academic career

From 1957 until 1972 Gorodnitsky worked in the Research institute for Geology of Arctic (its current name is All-Russian Research Institute for Geology and Mineral Resources of the World Ocean named after academician I.S. Gramberg). He has participated in many geological expeditions. Gorodnitsky is one of the discoverers of the Igarskoye copper deposit (1962).

Since 1962, he has participated in maritime geophysical expeditions. Gorodnitsky is one of the authors of new ocean's electric field measurement method (1967). In collaboration with V.D. Fedorov and A.N. Paramonov he discovered the bioelectric effect of phytoplankton (1967). In 1968, he became a Candidate of Sciences (thesis on "The application of magnetometry and electrometry for the ocean bottom exploration").

From 1969 until 1972 Gorodnitsky headed the Laboratory of Marine Geophysics of the Research institute for Geology of Arctic. In 1972, Gorodnitsky moved from Leningrad to Moscow and started working for the Research Institute of Oceanology named after P.P. Shirshov as a principal researcher. In 1982, he became a Doctor of Sciences in geological and mineralogical sciences (thesis on "The structure of oceanic lithosphere and underwater mountain building"). In 1991, Gorodnitsky was given the highest academic rank of the professor. He authored original model of petromagnetic structure of the Mid-ocean ridge zones (1997).[10]

He teaches in the State University of the naukograd Dubna as visiting professor.[11] He was awarded the honorary title of "Merited figure of sciences of Russian Federation" (2005).[12]

Gorodnitsky was at the drifting station at the North Pole (1964) and in Antarctica (1973). In 1982 and 1984, he took part in expeditions devoted to the search for the legendary Atlantis at the Ampère Seamount in the North Atlantic.[13]

Gorodnitsky's research included numerous dives on bathyscaphes, starting from Hermit Atoll in Papua New Guinea in 1978. In 1988, during an expedition on the research ship Akademik Mstislav Keldysh in the North Atlantic on the deep-sea apparatus Mir (submersible), he dived to a depth of 4.5 kilometers.[10]

Poet and singer-songwriter

Alexander Gorodnitsky
Alexander Gorodnitsky and Alexander Kostromin

Gorodnitsky's first songs appeared during his expedition in 1953. For a long time his songs were distributed via samizdat tape recordings, and often performed by other singers. Like Alexander Galich, and unlike other bards, Gorodnitsky composed and sang his songs a cappella for several decades; later, he started playing the guitar. Most of his songs are based on his personal experiences. In concert, he usually performs with a professional guitarist accompanying him.

In 1972, Alexander Gorodnitsky was admitted to the Union of Soviet Writers on the recommendations of famous poets Boris Slutsky, David Samoilov, and Vadim Shefner.

In the opinion of literary critics: "The art of Alexander Gorodnitsky is definitely a most remarkable phenomenon of both guitar poetry and the wider Russian literary culture of the 20th century. Having undergone a nearly 50-year-long evolution, it now presents an organic synthesis of the poetic word with profound philosophical, historical, and scientific intuition to embody in its multi-genre creative system the essential qualities of the modern worldview".

Poems and songs by Alexander Gorodnitsky have been translated into English, Bulgarian, Hebrew, Spanish, German, Polish, French, Czech and other languages. They have also been included in school curricula.

Gorodnitsky is acknowledged to be one of the founders of the bard songs genre in Soviet Union. His most popular songs are following: "Atlanes Hold the Heavens", "Near the Pillars of Hercules", "To the mainland", "Blue sky above Canada", "French ambassador's wife", "Snow", "Riffles", "The song of polar pilots".[9]

Many of Alexander Gorodnitsky poems and songs published in post-Soviet period are dedicated to Germany: "Stuttgart" (1998), "Neva-Elbe" (2000), "German castles" (2003), "Johann Sebastian Bach" (2018), "Lüneburg" (2019) and others.[14]

Gorodnitsky is a member of the Union of Writers of Russia and PEN International. Also he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fazil Iskander International Literary Award.[15] He was awarded the honorary title of "Merited figure of arts of Russian Federation" (2013).[16]

Family

Gorodnitsky has a son from first wife, a Vladimir (born 1955), who has been living in Israel since 1984.[17]

His second wife was Anna Nal (28 September 1942 - 11 September 2017), professional interpreter/translator. The marriage was childless.[17]

Political views and social activity

Gorodnitsky opposed the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and had signed the open letter against war, political self-isolation of Russia, restoration of totalitarianism.[18]

Albums

Books

TV Programs and Documentaries

The film deals with the tragic fate of Yiddish, the language of European Jewry, which was practically obliterated during the Holocaust. On the eve of his 75th birthday, the well-known poet and scientist Alexander Gorodnitsky travels to the Belarusian city of Mogilev where his parents were born and raised and where, in the autumn of 1941, the Nazis murdered all his relatives. He proceeds to other towns and villages of Belarus trying to find any surviving relatives and traces of Yiddish culture. Continuing the search, Gorodnitsky flies over to Israel where his son and granddaughters live. The viewer learns about the stories of various people onscreen as well as the dramatic decline of the once-great Yiddish culture that has given the world Sholem Aleichem, Shmuel Galkin, Solomon Mikhoels, Marc Chagall, and Chaim Soutine. The film contains unique documentary footage. The songs and poetry featured here were written and recorded by Alexander Gorodnitsky specially for this project, among them the fragments of the new epic poem In Search of Yiddish. In 2009, In Search of Yiddish was named the best foreign documentary in the Culture category at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.

In this documentary, Alexander Gorodnitsky recalls his pre-WWII childhood, the war and the besieged Leningrad, student years, long-term expeditions in the Arctic and the World Ocean, trips to distant countries, the emergence of guitar poetry in Russia, and its departed poets and bards. A substantial portion of the series is devoted to the 1960s era, the Soviet “Sixtiers” generation, and much else. The film features poems and songs by Alexander Gorodnitsky in his own renditions, which create a poetic background for the narrative. Filming took place between 2005 and 2009 in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Israel, Germany, France, USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The film makes use of rare documentary footage as well as numerous video and photo materials from private archives in Russia and across the world. In 2012, the authors won Tsarskoye Selo Arts Award.

Subsequently, the same team of authors released further documentaries: And Hope Will Go On Living (2012), My Petersburg (2013), The Legends and Myths of Alexander Gorodnitsky (2014), and Portraits on the Wall (2015). In 2015, Portraits on the Wall also won the Tsarskoye Selo Arts Award.

References

  1. ^ a b c "Биография Александра Городницкого" (in Russian). RIA Novosti. 20 March 2013.
  2. ^ Alisultanova, Asiya (25 October 2018). "У Эрмитажа появился официальный гимн. Его автор — бард Александр Городницкий". Sobaka.ru (in Russian).
  3. ^ "Вечер Корпоративных Друзей Эрмитажа" (in Russian). Клуб Друзей Эрмитажа. 9 December 2019.
  4. ^ "Small-Body Database Lookup".
  5. ^ a b Khimich, Oksana (15 April 2001). "Детские годы поэта Александра Городницкого". Jewish.ru (in Russian).
  6. ^ a b "Городницкий, Александр Моисеевич" (in Russian). TASS.
  7. ^ a b "Александр Городницкий. Лиро-эпическая гипотеза о поэзии эпохи атлантов". 45parallel.net (in Russian). No. 28. 1 October 2009.
  8. ^ "ГОРОДНИЦКИЙ Александр Моисеевич". Biograph.ru (in Russian).
  9. ^ a b "Биография Городницкого Александра Моисеевича" (in Russian). Gorodnitsky Official Website.
  10. ^ a b "Городницкий Александр Моисеевич". Shirshov Institute of Oceanology.
  11. ^ "История кафедры общей и прикладной физики" (in Russian). Dubna State University.
  12. ^ "О награждении государственными наградами Российской Федерации". Decree No. 292 of 15 March 2005 (in Russian). President of Russia.
  13. ^ "Александр Городницкий - о тайнах Атлантиды, ленинградской блокаде и 60-х". 5 July 2017.
  14. ^ Городницкий А.М. Избранное: Стихи, песни, поэмы. М.: Яуза, 2021.
  15. ^ "Положение о Международной литературной премии имени Фазиля Искандера" [Regulation on Fazil Iskander International Literary Award]. penrus.ru (in Russian). 5 April 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  16. ^ "О награждении государственными наградами Российской Федерации". Decree No. 639 of 25 July 2013 (in Russian). President of Russia.
  17. ^ a b "Александр Городницкий: Вечная молодость шестидесятых". Peoples.ru (in Russian).
  18. ^ "Обращение инициативной группы по проведению Конгресса интеллигенции "Против войны, против самоизоляции России, против реставрации тоталитаризма"". Novaya Gazeta (in Russian). 13 March 2014.
  19. ^ "Александр Моисеевич Городницкий. «Если мною назовут пароход…»". Beiunsinhamburg.de (in Russian).

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alexander Gorodnitsky.


Authority control databases
Categories