Alexander Polovets Soviet-American publisher, writer, publicist and public figure Date of Birth: 12.07.1935 Country: USA

1. Early Life and Career in the USSR
2. Protest and Emigration
3. Establishing a Publishing Career in the US
4. Panorama and Literary Contributions
5. Other Affiliations and Recognition
6. Family

Early Life and Career in the USSR

Alexander Polovets was born in Moscow near the Krasnye Vorota district. He graduated from the Moscow Polygraphic Institute and worked in publishing, collaborating with the Committee on Inventions and Discoveries of the USSR. As Chief Technologist and First Deputy Director of the enterprise "Patent," he oversaw its 24 branches throughout the republics of the USSR.

Protest and Emigration

Polovets protested against an anti-Semitic campaign instigated by A.Ya. Pelshe, which resulted in the dismissal of the general director of "Patent," M. Kagan. He subsequently resigned from his position. Actively involved in the production and distribution of samizdat literature, he established connections with oppositional figures in literature and art. In 1976, he emigrated to the United States with his 12-year-old son and mother.

Establishing a Publishing Career in the US

Working as a photographer while aspiring to continue his publishing career, Polovets founded the "Almanakh" publishing house in California in 1977. He also published the small-format newspaper "Obozrenie" and the directory "California: Businesses and Organizations Where Russian Is Spoken." Among the notable works published by "Almanakh" were the two-volume Russian-English anthology of Russian jokes "Nedozvolennyy Smekh," Lev Khalif's "Tsentrainyy Dom Literatorov," and Peter Weil and Alexander Genis' "Russkaya Kukhnia v Izgnanii."

From 1978 onward, Polovets published a Russian-language supplement to the English newspaper of the Jewish community of Los Angeles, which quickly gained popularity. In 1980, it became the standalone Russian newspaper "Panorama," the largest independent Russian-language weekly outside the USSR.

Panorama and Literary Contributions

"Panorama" featured original content from leading Soviet writers who were allowed to travel to the US, as well as renowned émigré writers. Among those who published in "Panorama" were Vasily Aksyonov, Anatoly Gladilin, Sergey Dovlatov (for whom Polovets specifically commissioned the novella "Inostranka"), Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Vladimir Kunin, Ephraim Sevela, Sasha Sokolov, and others. In response to the shift in trend towards "pirate" reprints from the Russian press in the 1990s, Polovets urged his colleagues to resist these changes at the Congress of Foreign Russian Periodicals in 1998, but his views were not widely shared.

Other Affiliations and Recognition

Polovets played a key role in establishing the Media Analysis Foundation, serving as its Vice President and, from 2009, its President. Since 1991, he has been President of the American Cultural Bulat Okudzhava Foundation, which supports the Okudzhava Museum in Peredelkino, organizes festivals and concerts, and presents literary awards. In 1999, Polovets was included in the Jewish Journal's list of the "100 Most Influential Jews in Los Angeles."

Family

Polovets' mother was Dina Abramovna Polovets, the subject of Okudzhava's poem "Zvezda Gollyvuda" (Hollywood Star). His wife from 1960 to 1969 was Olga Iosifovna Samoylovich, who tragically died in 1969. Their son, Stanislav, was born in 1963 and became the founder of the "Attention" Foundation in Moscow, supporting children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He also leads the "Genesis" charity fund and serves on the boards of trustees for Stanford University, the Hoover Institution, and various energy and PR companies.