Mikhail Tanich

Mikhail Tanich was a Russian poet-songwriter known for such hits as "Black Cat" and "Komarovo" among other popular songs. He was born Mikhail Isaevich Tankhilevich on 15 September 1923, in Taganrog, Soviet Union (now Taganrog, Russia). His father, Isaiah Tankhilevich, was executed by the gunshot under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin; at the same time, his mother was imprisoned.

Young Tanich was raised by his grandfather; he graduated from high school in June 1941, when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in WWII. He became an artillery officer, fought against the Nazis on the Belorussian Front, and was decorated for his courage in battles, ending the war near Berlin, on the river Elbe. After the war he studied architecture. At that time Tanich praised the advancements of the Western technology and mentioned that the German radio made by Telefunken was better than a Soviet-made radio.

For that comment Tanich was arrested in 1947, and imprisoned in Solikamsk Gulag camp in Siberia.

Tanich made his first publications in the 1950s, during the cultural Thaw under Nikita Khrushchev. He shot to fame with his songwriting debut, "Tekstilny Gorodok," a popular song of the 60s, co-written with the composer Yan Frenkel. At that time, Tanich became part of the Moscow cultural milieu among such figures as Bulat Okudzhava, Klavdia Shulzhenko, Nikita Bogoslovskiy, Vladimir Shainsky, Oskar Feltsman, Arkadi Ostrovsky, Yuriy Saulskiy, and Igor Nikolayev, among others. His songs were sung by such Russian singers as Iosif Kobzon, Eduard Khil, Muslim Magomayev, Maia Kristalinskaya, Edita Pekha, Alla Pugacheva, Alena Apina, Valeriy Leontev and Larisa Dolina.

There he served 6 years until the death of Stalin in 1953.

In 1990 Tanich became the founding member of the popular Russian band, Lesopoval.

He co-wrote about a hundred songs for the band, making it a successful show and recording project during the 1990s and 2000s. He also collaborated with the younger generation of Russian singers, such as Igor Nikolaev, Arkadi Ukupnik, and Viacheslav Malezhik. Mikhail Tanich was a member of the Union of Soviet and Russian Writers, and the author of 15 books.

He received numerous awards and decorations from the Russian and Soviet state, including the "Ovation" National Prize (1997), and was designated Honorable Cultural Figure of Russia (2001).