Lidiya Vertinskaya

Lidiya Vertinskaya was born Lidiya Vladimirovna Tsirgvava on April 14, 1923, in Kharbin, China, into a family of emigrants from Georgia, a former part of the collapsed Russian Empire. Her parents were highly educated aristocrats who belonged to Georgian Landed Gentry, they emigrated with the White Russians, after destruction of their wealth in the Russian Communist Revolution of 1917.

In China, at the age of 16, she met popular Russian actor Aleksandr Vertinskiy, who performed at his cabaret called "Gardenia" catering to a small Russian community in Shanghai. There, after two years of courtship and romance, Vertinsky married young Lidia Vladimirovna Tsirgvava. Their first daughter, Marianna Vertinskaya was born on a train to Shanghai in 1943.

During the Second World War, Lidiya Vertinskaya together with Aleksandr Vertinskiy moved to Moscow. Their second daughter, Anastasiya Vertinskaya was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1944. At that time Lidiya Vertinskaya was raising her two young daughters, while her famous husband was sent to perform at hospitals to entertain the wounded Red Army troops and proletarians with an official instruction to sing mostly patriotic songs in order to receive redemption. Regardless of the political restrictions on his creativity and acting career, her husband managed to support his family.

In 1948, when the Soviet leadership launched massive attacks on Russian intellectuals, Vertinsky was blacklisted by the Soviet Communist ideologist, Andrei Zhdanov, and his life and career was at risk. Joseph Stalin decided to leave Vertinsky alone and personally crossed his name out of the dangerous "black list", so Vertinsky was spared. After that he was allowed to resume his film career. In 1951 he was awarded the State Stalin's Prize for the supporting role as Brinch, an anti-Communist Cardinal in Zagovor obrechyonnykh (1950) by director Mikhail Kalatozov. However, Aleksandr Vertinsky still remained under suspicion and was banned from recording of his songs as well as from publications of his writings for the rest of his life in the Soviet Union. He was also restricted from performing before big audiences, while the Soviet censorship put pressure on many Russian cultural figures, such as Anna Akhmatova and Boris Pasternak, among others. After the death of Joseph Stalin things began to change because Nikita Khrushchev initiated the "Thaw" and eased a few bans and restrictions.

Lidiya Vertinskaya became a single mother with two teenage daughters in 1959, after the death of her husband. However, she managed to raise her daughters and both became successful in their acting careers. Lidiya Vertinskaya made several film appearances during the 1950s and 1960s, such as The Phoenix in Sadko (1953), and The Duchess in Don Kikhot (1957) by director Grigoriy Kozintsev. She amassed a significant collection of music records and memorabilia related to her famous husband, Aleksandr Vertinskiy, and also wrote her memoirs. Lidiya Vertinskaya is living in Moscow, Russia.