- Sasha Krasny
Sasha Krasny ( _ru. Саша Красный) was the pen-name of Aleksandr Davydovich Bryansky ( _ru. Александр Давыдович Брянский;
1882 ? –1995 ), aRussia n poet and song-writer. His first book was published inOdessa in 1912 and the last in 1993. His son Boris Bryansky (1928-1972) was also a poet and song-writer.Biography
Aleksandr Bryansky was born in 1882 in
Sevastopol into aJewish family. After graduating from Odessa Art College in 1908, Bryansky performed on stage under the pseudonym of Sasha Krasny. In 1914 he was drafted into Russian Army and fought in theWorld War I . According to his own account, he was wounded and awarded with aSt. George's Cross , 4th Degree.After the
October Revolution he joined theRed Army and became one ofVladimir Lenin 's bodyguards. Along with fellow Odessite writers such asIlya Ilf andYevgeny Petrov he published his poems in the "Gudok" newspaper, a mouthpiece for the Soviet Ministry of Transport. He helped initiate theagitprop movement of "Blue shirts" which took its name from his 1923 collection of poetry, "The Blue Blouse" (Russian: Синяя блуза).In the mid-1920s Krasny led a circle of amateur performers who sought to popularize Bolshevik ideology by touring the country with skits, songs, and recitations of poems. The show was called the Sasha Krasny Theatre and continued well into the 1930s. He also found time to publish several collections of songs.
Krasny was not active as a poet from that time until the 1980s. When he finally joined the
USSR Union of Writers in 1984, he was already 102 years old. As strange as it may seem, in his extremely old age he concentrated on love themes. His collection "The Contrasts" appeared in 1990 and "Only About Love" three years later. This last collection of verse was published when he was 111.Sasha Krasny died at the age of 113 in
Moscow and was buried at the NewDonskoy Cemetery there. Hissupercentenarian age was never independently confirmed and, given his lack of activity before 1908, his age claim may be viewed as questionable. His final publication was a memoir aboutSergei Yesenin .References
"This article is based on a translation of the equivalent article of the
Russian Wikipedia on2 October 2007 ".External links
* [http://moscow-tombs.narod.ru/1995/bryansky_ad.htm Bryansky's tomb]
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