Maria Yudina facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Maria Yudina
Maria Yudina
Background information
Native name	Мари́я Вениами́новна Ю́дина
Birth name	Mariya Veniaminovna Yudina
Born	9 September [O.S. 28 August], 1899 Nevel, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	19 November 1970(1970-11-19) (aged 71) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Instruments	Piano

Maria Veniaminovna Yudina (Russian: Мари́я Вениами́новна Ю́дина, Mariya Veniaminovna Yudina; 9 September 1899 – 19 November 1970) was a famous Soviet pianist. She was known for her strong playing style and deep spiritual beliefs.

Early Life and Education

Maria Yudina was born into a Jewish family in Nevel, which was part of the Russian Empire at the time. She was the fourth child of Veniamin Yudin, a well-known expert in physiology.

Maria studied piano at the Petrograd Conservatory. Her teachers included famous pianists like Anna Yesipova and Leonid Nikolayev. She also had classmates who became very famous, such as Dmitri Shostakovich. In 1919, Maria changed her faith from Judaism to Orthodox Christian. She even studied theology at Petrograd University.

Career as a Musician

After finishing her studies, Maria Yudina was invited to teach at the Petrograd Conservatory. She taught there until 1930. However, she lost her job because of her strong religious beliefs. At that time, the Soviet government did not like people who were openly religious.

After being without a job for some years, Maria was invited to teach piano in Tbilisi from 1932 to 1933. In 1936, she joined the piano faculty at the Moscow Conservatory, where she taught until 1951. She also taught at the Gnessin Institute from 1944 to 1960.

In 1960, Maria was fired from the Gnessin Institute. This happened because of her religious views and her support for modern Western music. Even though she was fired, she continued to perform concerts for the public. However, her performances were often not allowed to be recorded.

There was a time when she was banned from performing for five years. This happened after she read poetry by Boris Pasternak on stage during a concert. This was not allowed by the authorities. When the ban was lifted in 1966, she gave a series of lectures about Romantic music at the Moscow Conservatory.

Stories About Maria Yudina

There are some interesting stories about Maria Yudina, though they might not all be true. One story says that in 1944, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin heard her play Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 on the radio. He liked it so much that he asked for a copy. Since it was a live broadcast, officials supposedly woke Maria up in the middle of the night. They quickly gathered an orchestra and made her record the concerto. A single copy was then made for Stalin.

Another story says that Maria won a big award called the Stalin State Prize. She supposedly donated the money from this award to the Russian Orthodox Church. She said it was for prayers for Stalin's sins. However, a researcher named Elizabeth Wilson looked into these stories. She found no proof in Maria's recordings or in Stalin's records. She concluded that these stories are probably not true.

Maria Yudina did not openly criticize political figures or the Soviet system. But she always stayed true to her religious beliefs. She passed away in Moscow in 1970.

Her Unique Playing Style

Maria Yudina's piano playing was very special. She was known for her amazing skill, deep spiritual feeling, and strong, thoughtful approach. Her style was very unique. The famous pianist Sviatoslav Richter once said about her playing:

• She was incredibly talented.
• She loved and played music by modern composers like Stravinsky and Hindemith. These composers were not well-known or even allowed in the Soviet Union at the time.
• When she played Romantic music, it was impressive. But she often played it in her own way, not exactly as written.
• Richter said that when she played some pieces, they sounded less like the original composer and more like "Yudina."

Maria Yudina had many famous friends. These included the composer Shostakovich and the writer Pasternak. Pasternak even read his famous novel Doctor Zhivago for the first time at Maria's apartment. She was also friends with writers and thinkers like Osip Mandelstam and Mikhail Bakhtin.

Thanks to her friends in Russia, Maria Yudina's letters and writings were published in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Maria Yudina in Fiction

Maria Yudina has appeared as a character in several fictional works:

• She was a character in Aleksei Losev's novel Woman as Thinker. The character was a musician and philosopher, but not always perfect. Maria was offended by the book and ended her friendship with Losev in 1934.
• In 1989, David Zane Mairowitz wrote a radio play called The Stalin Sonata. This play was loosely based on a meeting between Stalin and Yudina. It won an award.
• Maria Yudina also appears in the French graphic novel La mort de Staline. This book tells the story of the Mozart concerto and shows her writing a strong letter to Stalin, which supposedly leads to his death. In the 2017 movie The Death of Stalin, based on this novel, she is played by Olga Kurylenko.

See also

In Spanish: Mariya Yúdina para niños