Viktor Luferov

Viktor Luferov was a Russian poet, musician, singer-songwriter, audio engineer and conceptual artist, best known as the founder and leader of the post-punk psychedelic rock band Grazhdanskaya Oborona ( Russian: Гражданская Оборона, lit. 'Civil Defense'). He was also the founder of the conceptual art avant-garde project Kommunizm and psychedelic rock outfit Egor i Opizdenevshie. Letov collaborated with singer-songwriter Yanka Dyagileva and other Siberian underground artists as a record engineer and producer. He was born on May 20, 1945, in Moscow to a Jewish family. During the Great Patriotic War (WWII), he was evacuated with his family to Novokuznetsk, where his mother, Etel Viktorovna Gerts, was a prominent cardiologist and head of the cardiology department in a hospital for wounded soldiers. His father, Samuil Mikhaylovich Berkovsky, was drafted and mobilized on the first day of the war, serving in the infantry. After graduating from high school in 1982, Letov left for Moscow, where he received a degree from Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys. In 1985, Letov came back to Omsk to work in the "Dneprostal" factory. In order to better learn his profession, Letov voluntarily chose to work as a factory worker, and by 1987 he became head of the factory's technological department. In 1987, Letov returned to Moscow for PhD studies at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys. He received a PhD degree in 1991, and stayed on at the institute first as an instructor, and later as associate professor. Practically all his life Letov composed music. He wrote the music for about 300 songs. Many of these became very popular in the Soviet Union and Russia: "Everything Goes According to Plan" (text by Yegor Letov), "Russian Field of Experiments" (text by Yegor Letov), "We Want Changes!" (text by Viktor Tsoi), "The Optimism of the Dead" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Last Autumn" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Red Flag" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Wind" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Motherland Hears" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Spring" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Winter" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Summer" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Fall" (text by Yegor Letov), "The End of the Century" (text by Yegor Letov), "The New World" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Old World" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Totalitarianism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Democracy" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Anarchy" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Communism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Capitalism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Fascism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Nazism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Stalinism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Leninism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Trotskyism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Maoism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Marxism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Socialism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Humanism" (text by Yegor Letov), "The Nihilism" (text by Yegor Letov), and many others. Letov worked closely with Yanka Dyagileva on composing music for the theater and movies, such as "Mary Poppins", "Skates", "Sea Gates", "A Big Doctor's Tale", "Ali-Baba and 40 Songs of the Persian Bazaar", and songs for the children's show "Alarm Clock". He sang in a hoarse voice styled after the Russian bard Vladimir Vysotsky, self-accompanied on guitar, or occasionally a synthesizer. He had a repertoire of nearly 300 songs, of which some became hits and classics of Russian rock music. Letov died on March 1, 2010 in his apartment in Omsk, from lymphoma. He was buried at the Florus and Laurus Church in the village of Yam in Domodedovsky District, Moscow Oblast .