Soviet radio announcer (1914?1983)
Yuri Levitan
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![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Yuri_Borisovich_Levitan.jpg/220px-Yuri_Borisovich_Levitan.jpg) Levitan in 1944
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Born
| (
1914-10-02
)
2 October 1914
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Died
| 4 August 1983
(1983-08-04)
(aged 68)
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Occupation
| Radio announcer
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A characteristic wartime announcement by Levitan on 8 May 1945
Yuri Borisovich Levitan
[a]
(
Russian
:
Юрий Борисович Левитан
; 2 October 1914 ? 4 August 1983) was the primary Soviet radio announcer during and after
World War II
. He announced on
Radio Moscow
all major international events in the 1940s?60s including the
German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941
, the
surrender of Germany on 9 May 1945
, the
death of Joseph Stalin on 5 March 1953
, and the
first manned spaceflight on 12 April 1961
.
[1]
Biography
[
edit
]
Born in a Jewish family in
Vladimir
to a
tailor
and a housewife, Levitan traveled to
Moscow
in the early 1930s, hoping to become an actor, but was rejected because of his provincial accent. However, he secured a position on a Moscow radio station owing to his characteristic deep voice. In January 1934, after hearing Levitan broadcasting,
Joseph Stalin
called up the radio station and requested that from then on Levitan read his announcements. Consequently, Levitan became not only the personal announcer for Stalin, but the leading Soviet
radio personality
.
[1]
Yuri Levitan reads out the Act of unconditional surrender of Germany, May 9, 1945
After the
German invasion
(22 June 1941) Levitan was evacuated (autumn 1941) to
Sverdlovsk
, as Moscow radio stations were taken down to avoid German bombardment. At the time he lived in a secret location due to his importance as the nation's foremost radio personality. In March 1943 he was secretly transported to
Kuybyshev
, where the
Soviet radio committee
met.
During all those years away from Moscow, his reports began with his trademark "Attention, this is Moscow speaking!" (
Russian
:
Внимание, говорит Москва!
,
romanized
:
Vnimanie, govorit Moskva!
) Levitan made some 2000 radio announcements during the war; he recorded recreations of many of them in the 1950s, when he reproduced them in studio for archiving purposes.
[1]
After the war, Levitan reported events in
Red Square
and state proclamations. Between 1978 and 1983 he announced the annual "
Minute of Silence
" to commemorate
Victory Day
in the Soviet Union. In 1980 he was awarded the title of
People's Artist of the USSR
. He died from a
heart attack
in 1983, and was buried in the famed
Novodevichy Cemetery
in Moscow.
[1]
Legacy
[
edit
]
Levitan on a 2016 stamp of Russia
In Vladimir, the birth town of Levitan, there is a street named after him and a monument of Levitan. His monuments were also erected at his grave in Moscow, and in
Volgograd
,
[2]
and streets were named after him in
Almaty
,
Dnipro
,
Odesa
,
Orsk
,
Tver
and
Ufa
.
[3]
An
Aeroflot
passenger plane
[4]
and a container cargo ship carry his name.
[5]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Also transliterated as
Yury
References
[
edit
]
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International
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National
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Artists
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Other
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