Mikhail Nikolayevich Zadornov
| Mikhail Zadornov | |
|---|---|
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| Birth name | Mikhail Nikolayevich Zadornov |
| Born |
July 21, 1948 Jūrmala, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Years active | 1974 – present |
| Genres | Satire |
| Website | http://www.zadornov.net/ |
Mikhail Nikolayevich Zadornov (Russian: Михаи́л Никола́евич Задо́рнов; born July 21, 1948 in Jūrmala, Latvian SSR, USSR) is a Soviet and Russian stand-up comedian and writer. Zadornov was born in an artistic family, his father Nikolai Zadornov being a notable writer from Riga. Zadornov’s mother, Elena Matusevich, (1909-1992), came from an old noble family, which can trace its roots to the Polish king Stephen Bathory. As Zadornov’s father was a well-known writer, he used to listen to his father reading him works of literature before he went to sleep, such as classic writings of adventure and suspense, and poems. Zadornov’s parents wanted their son to become an engineer, so he went to an engineering institute. Mikhail Zadornov graduated from Moscow Aviation Institute. However, in the early 1980s he started a career as a humorist, and later mockingly remembered his engineering days.
Mikhail Nikolayevich Zadornov had a long career path with different challenges. Zadornov's work was printed and first seen in 1976. In 1984 Zadornov appeared for the first time on T. V. In 1984-1985 he worked as a leader of a group of satire and humor in the magazine called Humor. Stories called “An Open Letter to the General Secretary” and “The Ninth Wagon” were written by Zadornov for the show "Around the Laughter" and also in the magazine called The Art of Cinema. Those pieces spread across the USSR quickly gained him popularity. During that period, a person saying, in public, anything negative or insultive to the government, was in high risk of being arrested and jailed – surprisingly Zadornov was not. New York Times had made a conclusion that “reconstruction has really started in USSR” (“что в СССР действительно началась перестройка”). In 1998 Zadornov published four volumes of his incomplete works. Many plays were performed, written, and played based on those volumes. In parallel with writing pieces Zadornov started performing and making his own concerts where he would compare life in Russia and other countries of the world, tell stories about his experience in other countries. His jokes in the end of 20th century concentrated more on satirizing USSR and its inhabitants, and later shifted to mockery and criticizing of the West. His most common stories are comparing Russians to Americans. In later concerts he praised the Soviet education system.
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