Aleksandr Kushner

Alexander Kushner is a Soviet and Russian poet, whom his friend and colleague Joseph Brodsky put on a par with the outstanding lyricists of the 20th century and whose poems he recommended to read to everyone who cares about the Russian language. According to Alexander Semyonovich himself, there have been too many graphomaniacs and pseudo-critics who encourage them recently, because human interest in poetry has been lost, an intelligent person does not want to read what is now presented as poems.

Alexander Kushner speaks of himself as a person without a biography. Even at the institute, the teacher advised the aspiring poet to come up with an entertaining detail of fate in order to attract the reader, for example, to change his surname. But the student did not like this idea. Kushner cites the words of his beloved Brodsky, who said that the poet's biography is in his mastery of artistic means, in rhyme, in what he does with the material he has inherited.

Alexander was born in September 1936 in Leningrad. The father of the future writer was a highly educated man, a military engineer. In her youth, my mother studied in a theater studio, and worked as a secretary-machinist. Parents - Jews, originally from the Vitebsk region, grew up in a Russian environment and with the same interests. Little Sasha was read aloud by Samuil Marshak and Korney Chukovsky. When guests came to the house, the first thing he did was ask him to read a book to him.

His great-uncle, the futurist poet Boris Kushner, was shot in 1937. The aunt, who survived the blockade, was afraid to take calls because of the “doctors' case”. Therefore, Kushner's memories of childhood, which fell during Stalin's time, are bleak.

When the war began, all the children, including little Sasha, were sent away from the bombing, to a village in the Novgorod region. The father, who fought at the front, found out about this and ordered to return the child to the city. Evacuation mother and son lived in Syzran, with relatives. Kushner does not talk about what was difficult, he believes that he has no right to complain, given how many peers died of hunger in Leningrad.

The school in which Sasha studied was male, the barracks reigned order. Alexander and his friends were interested in everything that happened in the country and in the world. He loved to read, enjoyed literature lessons, recited poetry at school evenings.

In 1954, Alexander graduated from high school with a gold medal and tried to enter a state university, but because of the fifth column in his passport he was not accepted. The young man managed to take the documents to the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute named after M. N. Pokrovsky at the Faculty of Philology.

There, according to the poet, were the best teachers who could not find a place at the university. The national question prevented Kushner from staying in graduate school. But later Alexander Semenovich noted that he did not suffer from anti-Semitism.

As a student, Kushner met the poets Gleb Semyonov, Andrey Bitov, Alexander Gorodnitsky. He began to visit the literary association at the Mining Institute, which at that time was considered the center of the city's creative intelligentsia.

Alexander Semenovich recalled that he began to write poetry at the age of eight. Father, noticing his son's passion, read with him Pushkin and Lermontov, Ovid and Homer's Iliad. Since then, according to the poet's memoirs, he fell in love with the times of antiquity.

Kushner's first book of poetry was published in 1962. “First Impressions” came out in a respectable print run of 10 thousand copies for the young poet. As the author says, now one can only dream of such volumes of poetry books.

Criticism greeted the new writer with devastating articles, including for the titles of the poems - "Tape recorder", "Vase", "Glass", "Decanter". And the readers sold out the entire circulation in a week. Alexander then taught at the school for working youth, but no one - neither colleagues nor students - remembered critical articles. The writer felt tacit support.

School earnings helped Kushner not depend on writing fees. The poet advises young colleagues to acquire a second, "bread" profession, so as not to feel the need:

According to Alexander, he was able to live a normal life by poetry only in new times, when he began to receive awards. The next collection - "Night Watch" - came out in 1966, and then Kushner's works were published with enviable regularity.

In his works, there is not a fraction of socialist realism and glorification of the existing government - only lyrics, which easily turned into songs, were used in cartoons and performances.

The poems of Alexander Semenovich are the absence of violent passions and life for show, such as, "What else, guitar!" Joseph Brodsky had a significant influence on Kushner's work.

The latter was very touched by the "My light, the mirror, perhaps, will say" addressed to him. As Academician D.S.Likhachev said, Kushner sings about life. That is why the spring clouds sparkle so temptingly and the scent of lilac is so clear, the sea waves roll on the coast so rhythmically and earthly love means so much.

Alexander does not consider the young audience to be secondary. The poet was happy to write poems for children and published for young readers the books "City as a Gift", "Merry Walk", "Big News".

Alexander Semenovich considers it impossible to talk about his personal life, does not see the point in this - he has already said everything in poetry, since "poetry cannot be imagined without love." Nothing is known about the poet's first wife. Kushner married a few years after graduation, after an unsuccessful assignment trip to a provincial town and returned to Leningrad. The family had a son who now lives in Israel.

According to Alexander, he is an amorous man, and there were many romantic stories in his life. However, when he was already over 40, Kushner met Elena Nevzgyadova, whom he calls his greatest friend. The couple has a complete understanding at a glance. Elena is also a philologist, writes articles, composes poetry.

The couple love to travel, they have a special passion for Venice and Amsterdam. But the best place to live for Kushner is at the dacha, when summer comes, the poet feels like in another country and is truly happy.

Alexander Semenovich is often asked a question with a line of his famous poem, which inspired the bard Sergei Nikitin for a song - whether he still believes that "times are not chosen." The poet has one answer - there is no easy time.

Those who were born in the second half of the 20th century were lucky in comparison with the generations, who have suffered revolutions, wars, repressions. Before you start complaining about your difficult lot, it is enough to recall the life of Marina Tsvetaeva or Mikhail Zoshchenko, Osip Mandelstam or Anna Akhmatova.

Kushner did not want to live in another time, because the experience gained in this life teaches us to value simple things. In addition, evil cannot be removed from modernity, it goes in one team with good. Even if we manage to straighten it out, to replace

Recently, due to his age, Alexander Semyonovich has not been easy to hear what he is being told, but this does not in the least interfere with the sound of the inner poetic tuning fork. Over the past 8 years, Kushner has published 5 books.

As "Novaya Gazeta" wrote, in a deaf and insensitive (especially to poetry) time, Kushner continues to write, as if not noticing this defect of society.

The poet's creative baggage includes over 50 collections of poems; his books have been translated into the main European languages, as well as into Japanese, Chinese and Hebrew.

1962 - "First Impression" 1966 - "Night Watch" 1975 - "Direct Speech" 1978 - "Voice" 1984 - "Tauride Garden" 1988 - "Hedgehog" 1991 - "Night Music" 1994 - "On a Gloomy Star" 2000 - "The Fifth Element" 2005 - "Cold May" 2010 - "Chalk and Coal" 2013 - "Evening Light" 2015 - "Gravity"

Aleksandr Kushner 's estimated Net Worth, Salary, Income, Cars, Lifestyles & many more details have been updated below.

Let's check, How Rich is Aleksandr Kushner in 2021 ?

Aleksandr Kushner Net Worth 2022

Aleksandr Kushner 's revenue is $1.7M in 2022. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Aleksandr Kushner and could vary in the range between $643.2K - $1.2M.

Aleksandr Kushner Net Worth 2021

Aleksandr Kushner 's revenue is $1.2M in 2021. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Aleksandr Kushner and could vary in the range between $777.7K - $2M.

Aleksandr Kushner Net Worth 2020

Aleksandr Kushner 's revenue is $1.9M in 2020. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Aleksandr Kushner and could vary in the range between $614.7K - $1.2M.

Aleksandr Kushner Net Worth 2019

Aleksandr Kushner 's revenue is $1.1M in 2019. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Aleksandr Kushner and could vary in the range between $717K - $1M.

Aleksandr Kushner Net Worth 2018

Aleksandr Kushner 's revenue is $1.5M in 2018. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Aleksandr Kushner and could vary in the range between $877.7K - $1.5M.

Aleksandr Kushner Net Worth 2017

Aleksandr Kushner 's revenue is $1.6M in 2017. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Aleksandr Kushner and could vary in the range between $836.4K - $1.8M.

Aleksandr Kushner Net Worth 2016

Aleksandr Kushner 's revenue is $1.2M in 2016. It is an approximate forecast of how rich is Aleksandr Kushner and could vary in the range between $887K - $1.9M.

It is an overall forecast for the net worth of Aleksandr Kushner. The evaluation covers the latest 5 years and an approximation for next year. See above to learn how much money does Aleksandr Kushner makes a year.

The range above shows an estimation based on evaluation generated by public information about sponsorships or other sources found on the internet. It's summarized data from Aleksandr Kushner's projects existing in AidWiki's repository. It's an approximation of the revenue compiled by AidWiki and may not correspond with the real amount.