Iosif Prut

Iosif Leonidovich Prut Russian: Прут, Иосиф Леонидович (6 November 1900 – 16 July 1996) was a Russian playwright and the first Soviet screenwriter. Prut was awarded the title of Honoured Artist of the RSFSR (1983).

Iosif Prut was born on November 18, 1900 in the city of Taganrog, in tne Don Host Oblast of the Russian Empire. In 1901 his immediate family were diagnosed with acute tuberculosis and they travelled to Leysin, Switzerland, for a treatment in a local clinic. His father soon died of complications and was buried in Gerbersdorf, Germany. Iosif stayed in Leysin for treatment until 1908.

After returning several times to Taganrog and studying for a while at a Rostov on Don gymnasium, he moved to Switzerland for permanent residence with his aunt Anne Helghi and entered the École Nouvelle, a private school in Chailly near Lausanne. Among his alumni and close friends were Edward "Donnie" Donegall (1915-1918), a well-known war journalist, Constantine "Costa" Gratsos, vice president of Onassis' Victory Carriers, and Frédéric Siordet, lawyer, author and vice president of the International Red Cross.

In 1918 he graduated from the École Nouvelle and enlisted to the École Polytechnique in Paris, but quit and volunteered to serve in the Russian expeditionary corps. Iosif Prut was decorated with a Transfiguration cross.

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