Boris Laskin was born in 1914 in the town of Orsha, in a Jewish family. He had an older brother named Mark. According to Mark's recollections, the Laskins had lived in Orsha for a very long time. Their great-grandfather, born in the early 19th century, was the caretaker of an estate, and, reportedly, an avid chess player. Their father, Savely Laskin, a dentist by trade, died in 1919. Their mother, Rosa Laskin, who had finished the gymnasium with a gold medal, became a widow at the age of thirty-two. She worked at the editorial office of the local newspaper Nabat (“Tocsin”); later, in Moscow, she would work at the printing house of the leading official Soviet daily, Pravda.
From an early age, Boris exhibited an extraordinary talent for poetry. At the age of 6-7, he began to come up with rhymes for different words and compose humorous poems.
In 1922, Rosa Laskin and her sons moved to Moscow. After finishing school, Boris was trained as a librarian and sent to work in a village in the Tula region, where he helped set up libraries and schools, as part of the campaign to eliminate illiteracy. However, he soon decided to switch careers, and from 1932 on he worked in the film industry, dubbing silent films and making noise. He also took part in mass scenes in various films, and even gained some experience as an assistant director. Simultaneously, he enrolled in the Scripting department of the Institute of Cinematography, and graduated from it in 1935. Although he had yet to write a single script, he was already a renowned lyricist, writing the lyrics to some very popular movie songs, such as “The Three Tankmen” and “March of the Soviet Tankmen” from the film Tractor Drivers (1939), by the prominent Soviet director Ivan Pyryev. While these songs originally referred to the soldiers who fought in the Soviet-Finnish Winter War, their lyrics would be modified after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, and nowadays they are perceived as songs about the war against the Nazis.
During the Soviet-German War (1941-1945), Laskin, who had been assigned the rank of major, worked as a war correspondent for the main military newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda (“The Red Star”). He wrote sketches, articles, and reports for different press organs, along with some scripts for the stage. In August 1945, he was sent to Berlin to make a newspaper feature about the capital of the vanquished enemy, and about the postwar conference of the “Big Three” at Potsdam. During his stay there, he wrote a very interesting and vivid diary, which included descriptions of everyday life of Berlin, portraits of different people, and historical impressions. In addition to Berlin and Potsdam, Laskin also visited other cities and historical sites in Germany, and gave public readings of his stories to Soviet officers.
After the war, Boris Laskin appeared on the radio, reading his short stories and humorous sketches. He wrote primarily in the genre of the feuilleton (a brief, humorous story), which was beloved by the reading public. From 1940 to 1979, he penned more than twenty movie scripts, including the one for the celebrated Soviet comedy Carnival Night (1956). Laskin also wrote plays for the theater, one of which was titled Heavenly Creatures. Its subject matter was the all-female flying regiment that Laskin had visited during the war. He spent several days with the regiment, and got to know many of the aviatrixes. These women were nicknamed “Night Witches” by the Nazis, because their nightly raids were very effective. The majority of these pilots were killed in action in the course of the war. Numerous collections of Laskin's stories were published in his lifetime.
Boris Laskin died in Moscow in 1983.
Related resources
The excerpt from the Diary of Boris Laskin (August 1945)
The Silesian railway station. It is grandiose. Berlin makes a rather unpleasant impression – and not for ephemeral political reasons, but just because of its look. It is a grey city, with a prison-like contrast.
And how ruined it is!
I would never have imagined that such things could be done to a city. Now, I got to see Krasnodar (to pick one example), and it seemed terrible to me at the time. But Krasnodar is child's play compared to this city. The Frankfurter Allee – a meandering, very long street – had been almost totally destroyed. Your drive along a graveyard of houses, and they are scorched. Occasionally, on a grey façade, you spy a lonely, colorful display letter, red as a drop of blood. The Allies have given the city quite a "light"! Unter den Linden. I used to visualize it as a lush, verdant, broad avenue. Paradoxically, there are no linden trees on Unter den Linden! They were cut down on Hitler's orders in 1938. The city received a small "favor". The Kurfürstendamm – there are only a few pathetic traces left of the past grandeur. The Brandenburg Gate – grey, dour, and so un-festive that the former Red Gate (to pick an example) looks positively Greco-Roman in comparison. I have read somewhere – I can't remember where – that German sculpture is gaudy and rather unexpressive. The Victory Column. A heavy, gilded lady. It is heavy, even though it has been raised to such a height.
From: Yad Vashem Archives, O.33.
