Eduard Volodarsky

Eduard Yakovlevich Volodarsky (; 3 February 1941 – 8 October 2012) was a Soviet and Russian screenwriter, writer and playwright. He was named Honoured Artist of the RSFSR in 1987, awarded the Order of Honour in 2002 and 4th class Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" in 2011 for his contribution to the development of national cinema.

Biography Eduard Volodarsky was born in Kharkov (today's Kharkiv, Ukraine) to a Russian mother and a Jewish father who had recently graduated from a technical university. His mother Maria Yakovlevna Brigova came from peasants of the Oryol Governorate. With the start of the Great Patriotic War they were evacuated to Aktyubinsk, Kazakh SSR. Eduard never knew his father, Yakov Isaakovich Volodarsky, who was killed at front. His mother served as an NKVD investigator and married an NKVD officer.

Volodarsky was baptized at the age of six under the Fyodor name and remained in the Russian Orthodox Church for the rest of his life. He started writing stories and poetry at school. Upon graduation he tried to enter the MSU Faculty of Geology, but failed and joined a geological expedition. He spent some years working as a driller at the Russian North. At one point he sent his stories to the contest organized by the VGIK Screenwriting Faculty and received an invitation. The film crew was awarded the USSR State Prize for it in 1988. Same happened to My Friend Ivan Lapshin which was shelved for three years and then awarded the Vasilyev Brothers State Prize of the RSFSR.

Volodarsky also experienced a successful theatre career after rewriting his early unfilmed screenplay into the Our Debts play. Staged by Oleg Yefremov at the Moscow Art Theatre, it drew a full house for 10 years straight and was eventually adapted into a movie. He was among the few Soviet screenwriters still in great demand after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Among his last works was a TV adaptation of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate novel released posthumously. Volodarsky was survived by his wife Farida Abdurrahmanovna Volodarskaya (née Tagirova, born 1939). They met as VGIK students and spent over 40 years together, yet they left no children.

Selected filmography

1969 – White Explosion 1971 – Trial on the Road 1974 – At Home Among Strangers 1977 – Our Debts 1977 – Hatred 1978 – Pugachev 1980 – The Smoke of Fatherland 1983 – Demidovs 1985 – My Friend Ivan Lapshin 1987 – Farewell, Moscow Gang 1987 – Moonzund 1989–1990 – War on the Western Front (TV series) 1991 – To the Last Limit 1993 – Trotsky 1995 – Lonely Gambler 2000 – Ordinary Bolshevism (documentary) 2002 – Diary of a Kamikaze 2003 – The Fifth Angel (TV series) 2003 – Bayazıt (TV series) 2004 – The Penal Battalion (TV series) 2006 – Stolypin... Unlearned Lessons (TV series) 2007 – Russian Translation (TV series) 2008 – Black Hunters 2008 – Dark Planet 2009 – Wolf Messing: Who Saw through Time (TV series) 2011 — Dostoevsky (TV series) 2011 — Burnt by the Sun 2: The Citadel 2012 – Life and Fate (TV series) 2013 – Pyotr Leschenko. Everything That Was... (TV series) 2013 – Vasiliy Stalin (TV series) 2014 – Grigoriy R. (TV series) 2017 – Demon of the Revolution (TV series, based on the novel)