Arkadiy Raykin

Biography

Arkady Isaakovich Raikin (Russian: Аркадий Исаакович Райкин; 24 October [O.S. 11 October] 1911 – 17 December 1987) was a Soviet stand-up comedian, theater and film actor, and stage director. He led the school of Soviet and Russian humorists for about half a century. Raikin was born into a Jewish family in Riga, in the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire (present-day Latvia). He graduated from the Leningrad Theatrical Technicum in 1935 and worked in both state theatres and variety shows. In 1939, he founded his own theatre in Leningrad, where he used skits and impersonations to ridicule the inefficiency of Communist bureaucracy and the Soviet way of life. In the Stalinist police sta...