Gelman Alexander Isaakovich - a famous poet, prose writer, screenwriter, playwright, as well as an active public figure and politician.
Biography
The famous playwright and screenwriter Alexander Gelman was born on October 25, 1933 at a small station in the Kingdom of Romania, which now belongs to Moldova.
The childhood of Alexander Isaakovich was tragic. Shuni's parents, as he was called as a child, tried to save the children from trouble, but they seemed to chase them. At the beginning of the war, the family of Gelman Isaac Davidovich was expelled to the Bershad ghetto in Transnistria. The entire Jewish family of Gelman prisoners went on foot to their place of detention, but since the conditions of this death march were unbearable, the grandmother died first, and then the younger brother of the writer.
But those who survived found it difficult, because the conditions in the ghetto were terrible. Soon, the mother of the future writer and screenwriter also died. In 1942, Manya Shaevna Gelman died, shortly before her release.
It is known that almost the entire Gelman family, which consisted of fourteen people, died. In 1944, only Alexander Gelman and his father were able to free themselves.
When the war ended, Alexander and his surviving father returned to their homes. Here the boy studied at the school for three more years, and after graduation he entered the professional technical school of knitwear in Chernivtsi in 1948.
After graduating from this training in 1951, Gelman entered evening school, as he realized that he would need further education. In order to have means of living, he worked part-time at the Lviv hosiery factory. Education in the evening school gave Alexander the opportunity after graduating in 1952 to enter the military-political school, which was located in Lviv. In 1954, he graduated from the Department of Ground Forces.
Start of work
After graduating from the Lviv school, Alexander Gelman in 1854 went to serve in the army. For six years, he has served from the senior lieutenant to the commander of a unit of the Black Sea Fleet, and then a separate unit of the military communications center of the Pacific Fleet.
But already in 1960 Gelman completed his military career and moved to live in Chisinau. In this city, he entered the famous Electrotochpribor factory. While working as a milling machine operator, Alexander studied at the University of Chisinau for three years at the correspondence department. After that, he moved to Kirishi and got a job as a dispatcher at the Glavzapstroy trust, where he worked on the construction of a special oil refinery. And in 1966 there was a new relocation. This time, Alexander Gelman, whose photo is presented in this article, went to Leningrad.
Dramaturgy
In 1966, having moved to Leningrad, Alexander Isaakovich became a correspondent in the newspaper. This served as a great start so that in the future everything that he saw and observed was transferred to his works. Already in 1970, Gelman was elected to the trade union committee of playwrights, in which until 1976 he was an active participant.
It is known that Alexander Isaakovich began to publish his first essays and stories in 1950, when he still served in Kamchatka. Later, in 1970, many of his plays were staged at the Moscow Art Theater. The following plays are considered the most famous: “Feedback”, “Alone with everyone”, “Zinulya”, “Bench” and others.
In 1994, the Moscow Art Theater named after A. Chekhov became interested in the plays of Alexander Gelman. The play “Mishin's Anniversary” was staged on its stage, which, like the other dramatic works of Alexander Isaakovich, touches on acute and topical issues. In the future, the plays of the popular and famous playwright A.I. Gelman were staged by many theaters in the world. It is known that more than thirty countries saw performances based on the dramatic works of Alexander Isaakovich Gelman.
But in the years when perestroika began in the country, Gelman stopped writing his plays, and went into journalism. He returned to drama only in 2000, when he published two of his poetry collections.
Cinema
In 1970, the famous prose writer and playwright Alexander Gelman moved from drama to scripts for films. At first, he wrote scripts only for documentaries, and soon, together with his wife, Tatyana Kaletskaya, created the feature film “The Night Shift”. And then they co-wrote several more scripts for feature films.
The playwright and screenwriter Alexander Gelman gained fame and popularity only in 1974, when the film "Prize", created according to his script, was released on the screens. Later, according to the same scenario, the play “Minutes of one meeting” will be staged, which will be first staged at the BDT, and then at the Moscow Art Theater.
To date, Alexander Isaakovich has already written more than thirty scripts, which were shot many wonderful films. Many well-known filmmakers and screenwriters became its co-authors, including Pavel Movchanov, Roman Kachanov, and Vladimir Menshov.
Social and political activities
Alexander Isaakovich Gelman, after moving to the capital in 1990, was elected a member of the CPSU Central Committee. But two years later he was removed from the squad, as he himself left the party.
It is known that Gelman always led an active social life. In 1993, he signed the acclaimed “42’s Letter, ” and in 2001, a letter in support of the NTV television channel, and in 2014, a letter from the Union of Russian Filmmakers to Ukrainian colleagues who condemned Russian military intervention.
During perestroika, Gelman became interested in politics. Alexander Isaakovich became the co-chairman of the board of founders of the well-known and popular newspaper Moscow News at that time. On its pages he published his articles in which he reviewed political news. Therefore, already in 1989 Gelman was honorably elected from the Russian Union of Cinematographers as a People's Deputy of the Soviet Union. He was in good business relations with Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.
