Viktor Ardov

Vuktor Yefimovich Zilberman (pseudonym - Ardov) was born on November 21, 1900, in Voronezh, Russia. He was raised in a traditional Russian-Jewish family.

Viktor Ardov published his first short stories in 1921. He also was a talented illustrator and published collections of his short stories with his own illustrations. He published in total over forty books of his short stories and plays.

His first theatrical play 'Imeninnitsa' (1924) had a successful run at the Moscow Theatre of Satire.

He graduated from the Economy Department of the Plekhanov Institute in Moscow, in 1925.

In 1933 Ardov married actress Nina Antonovna Olshevskaya, and became a stepfather of her son Aleksey Batalov. Their apartment No. 13 on Bolshya Ordynka was a popular meeting place for important Russian intellectuals, such as Mikhail A. Bulgakov, Mikhail Zoschenko, Boris Pasternak Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and many others. Ardov collaborated with the famous Russian comedian Arkady Raykin, for whom he wrote satirical sketches. Viktor Ardov was a life-long friend of Anna Akhmatova.

He wrote about Akhmatova in his memoirs, "Anna Andreevna lived with us in our home from 1934-1966, just as much time as she spent in her place in Leningrad. " Ardov and his family comforted Akhmatova and shielded her from the severe political attacks during the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. Anna Akhmatova was one of the last living classics of the Russian literature at that time. She was reinstated as the member of the Union of the Soviet Writers in Moscow, upon the recommendations of Viktor Ardov and his colleagues.

Ardov wrote the film script for 'Svetly Put' (The Shining Path, 1940 aka. . Tanya), starring Lyubov Orlova and directed by Grigoriy Aleksandrov.

For this film he was awarded the State Stalin's Prize and received the award from Joseph Stalin in 1941.