Yuri Bogatyryov

Yuri Bogatyrev (2nd of March 1947, Riga, Latvian SSR – 2nd of February 1989, Moscow, Russian SFSR) – a famous Russian actor.

The beautiful is always strange… it always contains a touch of strangeness—naive, unintentional, unconscious… and this strangeness becomes a special property of Beauty. Charles Baudelaire.

Yuri Bogatyrev, a man of rare acting talent, was born in Riga on March 2, 1947, into the family of a naval officer. Yuri was the youngest child in the family and enjoyed special affection, especially from his mother, Tatyana. In 1953, his father was transferred to Moscow, and the Bogatyrev family left Riga.

As a boy, he was teased by other boys for preferring the company of girls. He played “mothers and daughters” with them, staged puppet theatre performances, and was seriously interested in drawing. His father hoped he would continue the family’s military tradition and enrolled ten-year-old Yuri in the Nakhimov Naval School, but the boy did not adapt there.

After completing eight grades in 1964, he enrolled in the Mikhail Kalinin Art and Industrial School to train as a carpet designer. During the summers, Bogatyrev worked as an artist on archaeological excavations in the picturesque Moscow region, where he happened to meet peers who were members of the “Globus” puppet theatre. A year later, he found himself once again among young puppeteers—together they attended theatres, cinemas, museums, evenings at the Actors’ House, and performed in cultural centers.

A versatile and gifted personality, Bogatyrev longed for something more serious, and in 1967 he entered the Boris Shchukin Theatre School in Moscow (the famous “Shchuka”). His classmates on that “golden course” included Natalya Gundareva, Konstantin Raikin, and Natalya Varley, who affectionately nicknamed him “pelmen” (Rus. dumpling). Together they mastered the fundamentals of acting. In 1970, Bogatyrev made his screen debut in Nikita Mikhalkov’s graduation film A Quiet Day at the End of the War, playing a German submachine gunner. In 1971, after graduating, he joined the troupe of the Sovremennik Theatre, where he played Duke Orsino in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Mark in Viktor Rozov’s play Forever Alive.

In November 1974, Mikhalkov’s famous film At Home Among Strangers, a Stranger Among His Own was released, in which Bogatyrev played the leading role of Yegor Shilov. From that moment on, he became known throughout the country. The film was shot in Chechnya, where the role required him to ride horseback with confidence. Within two months, Bogatyrev mastered riding so well that it seemed as if he had been born in the saddle.

In 1977, director Oleg Yefremov invited Bogatyrev to join the Moscow Art Theatre. For some time, the actor worked in two theatres while also acting extensively in films, including such audience favorites as A Slave of Love (1975), where he played Maksakov; An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977), as Voynitsev; and the romantic drama Declaration of Love (1977), as Filippok. In 1979, Bogatyrev delivered a remarkable performance in Mikhalkov’s A Few Days from the Life of Oblomov, playing Stolz. In 1980, he took on another major role—that of Stasik in Mikhalkov’s film Relatives. This brilliant character was very close to him, sharing his vulnerability and sense of being different from others. As art historian and television and radio host Vitaly Wulf observed: “A talented boy came to Sovremennik… so unlike others, so defenseless before the world… Yura had an astonishing irony toward everything—a very rare acting quality… he was a very harmonious person, yet lived very inharmoniously.”

Despite his vulnerability, Bogatyrev received the Lenin Komsomol Prize and was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1981, and People’s Artist of the RSFSR in 1988. He was also a gifted painter, creating portraits of friends and compositions inspired by his favorite films and plays. Thanks to his many talents, he was always at the center of attention—he improvised on the piano, danced beautifully, and sang well.

His friend and director Nikita Mikhalkov once described him with striking precision: “Yura was a man of Renaissance talent: very musical, a capable painter—he could have been a singer, a conductor, an illustrator. But he became a great actor. People treated him like a child.” On one occasion, the director remarked on the way his favorite performer clapped: “He claps with his upper legs,” referring to his large, imposing figure and big hands.

The years 1986 and 1989 enriched Soviet cinema with films such as Dark Eyes, where Bogatyrev played Alexander, the local leader of the nobility club, and Don César de Bazan, where he portrayed King Carlos II. This role became the last in the life of the great actor.

Bogatyrev always admired women but loved them platonically, as if they were goddesses. One of them was Iya Savvina, perhaps his closest friend, with whom he was completely open. Among actors, Bogatyrev was considered a wealthy man, as he worked extensively in radio, film, and theatre. Many borrowed money from him but never repaid it—he could give away his last ruble and never regretted it.

In late January 1989, Bogatyrev was preparing his first solo exhibition of paintings on Tverskoy Boulevard in Moscow. He selected the works and even was thinking on the names. The exhibition was scheduled to open on February 6, 1989. But tragedy struck. The actor had long suffered from depression, and it turned out that antidepressants and alcohol were incompatible. On the eve of his death, he had been celebrating with friends the remuneration he received for Dark Eyes.

Yuri Bogatyrev died in his one-room apartment on Gilyarovsky Street on February 2, 1989. He was only forty-one years old. On the day his exhibition was to open, he was buried on Writers’ Alley at Vagankovo Cemetery in Moscow.

Sergey Chukhin