Vladimir Posner
Encyclopedia
Vladimir Vladimirovich Posner (also spelled "Pozner"; in Russian, Владимир Владимирович Познер), born 1 April 1934, is a Russia
n journalist best known in the West for appearing on television to represent and explain the views of the Soviet Union
during the Cold War
. He was a memorable spokesman for the Soviets in part because he had grown up in the United States
and spoke flawless American English
with a New York
accent.
to a Russian
-Jewish father, Vladimir Aleksandrovich Pozner
and French mother, Géraldine Lutten. The couple separated shortly after his birth. When Vladimir was 3 months old he and his mother moved to New York City, where Géraldine's mother and younger sister lived. In the spring of 1939 Pozner's parents reunited and the family returned to Paris, France.
After the outbreak of World War II
and the invasion of France
the Pozners fled Paris in the fall of 1940, traveling via Marseille
s in the Free Zone
, Madrid
, Barcelona
, and Lisbon
, before sailing back to America. The escape was partially financed by a Jewish family whose adult daughter traveled with the Pozners disguised as Vladimir's "nanny".
Back in New York Vladimir attended Caroline Pratt's City and Country School and later Stuyvesant High School
in Manhattan
. Robert Hollander, an elementary school friend of Pozner, remembered him most vividly for "his capacities for, one, having extraordinarily attractive fantasies and, two, for getting the rest of us to believe them."
In 1946, with the advent of McCarthyism
, Pozner Sr. began to have serious problems with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
, because of his pro-Soviet views and correctly suspected cooperation with the Soviet intelligence services. The documents which conclusively proved the secret service connections of his father were published in 1996 in the USA.
As a result, the Pozners intended to return to France, but Pozner Sr., was refused a French visa
after being denounced to the French Foreign Ministry as a "subversive element" and a "spy". So, the Pozners moved in 1948 to the Soviet sector of Berlin
where Pozner Sr. was offered a position with "SovExportFilm", an international distributor
of Soviet films. At some point Pozner Jr. claimed to have stayed behind in New York, attending Columbia College between 1950 and December 1953, however there appears to be no record of him at Columbia; currently he tells of attending a Russian military-style high school in Berlin run by the Soviet occupation authorities
during that time.
Later, in 1952, the family moved to Moscow
.
In 1953 Pozner enrolled at Moscow State University, Faculty of Biology and Soil Science, majoring in human physiology
. He graduated in 1958.
, a renowned Russian writer, poet and translator; to supplement his modest salary he free-lanced as a Russian-to-English translator of scientific texts. While in Marshak's employ, Pozner was introduced to many popular literary figures of the Khrushchev Thaw
.
In 1961 Pozner was offered the position of senior editor with Novosty Press Agency's Soviet Life
magazine. In 1967 he transferred to a sister publication, Sputnik
, leaving it in February 1970 for a job in broadcasting.
He worked as chief commentator for the North American
service of the Radio Moscow
network. In the early 1970s, he was a regular guest on Ray Briem
's talk show on KABC
in Los Angeles
. During the 1980s, he was a favourite guest on Ted Koppel
's Nightline'Lonersner was the host of Moscow Meridian, an English-language current affairs program focusing on the Soviet Union; the show was produced by Gosteleradio, the Soviet State Committee for Television and Radio and broadcast on the Satellite Program Network
. He also often appeared on The Phil Donahue Show
.
In his Western media appearances Pozner was a charismatic and articulate apologist of some of the Soviet Union's most controversial foreign and domestic policy decisions. A master of tu quoque
, he would frequently draw parallels and point out similarities between Soviet and Western policies as well as candidly admit the existence of certain problems in the USSR. However, while stopping short of unequivocal endorsement and support, he nevertheless rationalized, among others, the arrest and exiling
of Andrei Sakharov
, the invasion of Afghanistan
and shooting down of KAL 007. In his 1990 autobiography Parting with Illusions. he wrote that some of the positions he had taken were wrong and immoral. In a 2005 interview with NPR
's On the Media
, Posner spoke openly about his role as a Soviet spokesman, stating bluntly, "What I was doing was propaganda." Comparing his former role to that of Karen Hughes
, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, he commented that, "You know, as someone who's gone through this and someone who regrets having done what he's done, and who spent many, many years of his life, and I think probably the best years of my life, doing something that was wrong, I say it just isn't worth it".
In spite of his frequent appearances in the Western media and his near-celebrity status as the principal spokesman for the Soviet Union Pozner remained virtually unknown at home.
This changed in the mid-80s, when Pozner co-hosted several bilateral, televised discussions (or "spacebridges") between audiences in the Soviet Union and the US, carried via satellite. These included "Moscow Calling San Diego: Children and Film" (with Mike Cole), "Remembering War" (May 7, 1985, with Fred Starr
), "Citizens Summit I - Leningrad/Seattle" (December 29, 1985) and "Citizens Summit II: Women to Women - Leningrad/Boston" (May 20, 1986) - both with Phil Donahue
. The programs marked a dramatic turning point in Pozner's career, garnering him instant renown and wide popularity and acclaim from domestic audiences in the USSR. He was promoted to the position of "political observer of Central Television", the highest journalistic rank at Gosteleradio
, and started to work on programs that were broadcast domestically. However, in 1991 Pozner was asked to resign after being quoted voicing his support for Boris Yeltsin
over Mikhail Gorbachev
.
Later that year Pozner received an offer to work with Phil Donahue and moved to the United States. From 1991 to 1994 they co-hosted Pozner/Donahue, a weekly, issues-oriented roundtable program, which aired both on CNBC
and in syndication. While living in New York, Pozner regularly commuted to Moscow to tape his programs that aired in Russia.
He returned to Moscow in 1997, continuing his work as an independent television journalist.
In 1997, Posner founded the School for Television Excellence («Школу телевизионного мастерства») in Moscow to educate and promote young journalists.
From its foundation in 1994 until 2008 Pozner was president of the Russian Television Academy, which annually awards the prestigious TEFI
trophy.
Posner also worked for the Institute for US and Canadian Studies
, a Soviet think tank
.
Since 2004 with his brother Pavel, he co-owns a French brasserie
in Moscow, Жеральдин (Chez Géraldine), named after their mother.
, Vladimir Posner delivered the nightly "Radio Moscow News and Commentary" program on the North America Service with his signature greeting, "Thank you and good evening".
Pozner was the host of several shows on Russian TV, among them the US-Soviet space bridges, "Mi" (translated "Us"), "Vremya i Mi" ("The Time and Us"), "Voskresnyi Vecher s Vladimirom Poznerom" ("Sunday Night with Vladimir Pozner"), "Chelovek v maske" ("A Man in the Mask"), "Vremena" ("Times"). Most of these followed a talk show
format, with varying numbers of guests and varying degree and manner of audience participation.
Since 2004 Pozner has been contributing his time as the host of "Vremya Zhyt' !" ("A time to live!"), a series of talk shows about the problem of HIV/AIDS
. The programs are produced and broadcast by regional television stations and focus on addressing the local challenges that exist in different parts of Russia.
In 2008 Pozner, with Ivan Urgant
and Brian Kahn
, released "Odnoetazhnaya Amerika" ("One-Storied America"), a 16 episode travel documentary
based on the 1937 book "Little Golden America" by Ilya Ilf and Yevgenyi Petrov
.
Pozner and Urgent also collaborated on a subsequent project, "Tour de France", set to air in the fall of 2010.
Today (2010) he hosts an eponymous interview show "Pozner" on Russia's Channel One
He has a lively and unconstrained style of hosting, often firing poignant off-the-cuff remarks at his guests. He frequently comments on how this or that political or economic decision, presently at issue in his show, could affect the common people of Russia.
As a freshman at Moscow State University he once again fell in love with an older woman named Zhenya (Eugenia), moving in with her in a rented room of a communal apartment. Both his and her families disapproved of the torrid affair, which came to an end when Pozner flunked the final exams and was expelled from the university, although later his father managed to persuade the dean to reinstate him on a provisional basis.
In his last year at Moscow University (1958) Pozner married Valentina Tchemberdji, a fellow student at the department of Philology. Two years later they had a daughter, Katia. They divorced in 1968.
Pozner's daughter, composer Katia Tchemberdji, currently lives in Berlin
Around the time of his divorce Pozner met his second wife, Ekaterina Orlova, while they both worked for Novosti Press Agency's Sputnik magazine. They were married for 35 years. Orlova, an accomplished journalist in her own right, was a co-founder of the Pozner School for Television Excellence.
Since 2005 Pozner has been linked with Nadezhda Soloviova, а leading Russian show business impresario
.
Pozner holds 3 citizenships: French - by birth, Russian (initially, Soviet) - presumably by descent and US - obtained in the early 1990s by naturalization. Interestingly, in 1968, while attempting to renounce his French nationality so that he could visit France without fear of prosecution for failure to serve in the Algerian War, he was formally notified by the Soviet Foreign Ministry that his Soviet passport, initially granted to him in 1950, at 16, was issued in error, and that he in fact was not a citizen of the USSR. Much to Pozner's amusement this also technically invalidated, among other things, his membership in the CPSU
, his marriage and divorce, propiska
and his rank of lieutenant in the reserves
.
Pozner is a fan of tennis
and baseball
. In 1992 he co-founded The Moscow Dummies (Московские Чайники, lit. the Moscow Teapots), an amateur baseball team. He is a cigar
aficionado. He also collects turtle
figurine
s and fountain pen
s. He enjoys playing charades
.
He is an atheist and has spoken critically of the Russian Orthodox Church
and the resurgence of religion in post-Soviet Russia.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n journalist best known in the West for appearing on television to represent and explain the views of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. He was a memorable spokesman for the Soviets in part because he had grown up in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and spoke flawless American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
with a New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
accent.
Early life
Vladimir Pozner was born on April 1, 1934 in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to a Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
-Jewish father, Vladimir Aleksandrovich Pozner
Vladimir Pozner
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Pozner , was a Russian-Jewish émigré to the United States. During World War II he spied for Soviet intelligence while being employed by the United States Government....
and French mother, Géraldine Lutten. The couple separated shortly after his birth. When Vladimir was 3 months old he and his mother moved to New York City, where Géraldine's mother and younger sister lived. In the spring of 1939 Pozner's parents reunited and the family returned to Paris, France.
After the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the invasion of France
Battle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
the Pozners fled Paris in the fall of 1940, traveling via Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
s in the Free Zone
Zone libre
The zone libre was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during the Second World War, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on June 22, 1940. It lay to the south of the demarcation line and was administered by the French government of Marshal Philippe Pétain based in Vichy,...
, Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, and Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, before sailing back to America. The escape was partially financed by a Jewish family whose adult daughter traveled with the Pozners disguised as Vladimir's "nanny".
Back in New York Vladimir attended Caroline Pratt's City and Country School and later Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. Robert Hollander, an elementary school friend of Pozner, remembered him most vividly for "his capacities for, one, having extraordinarily attractive fantasies and, two, for getting the rest of us to believe them."
In 1946, with the advent of McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
, Pozner Sr. began to have serious problems with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
, because of his pro-Soviet views and correctly suspected cooperation with the Soviet intelligence services. The documents which conclusively proved the secret service connections of his father were published in 1996 in the USA.
As a result, the Pozners intended to return to France, but Pozner Sr., was refused a French visa
Visa (document)
A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...
after being denounced to the French Foreign Ministry as a "subversive element" and a "spy". So, the Pozners moved in 1948 to the Soviet sector of Berlin
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
where Pozner Sr. was offered a position with "SovExportFilm", an international distributor
Film distributor
A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing...
of Soviet films. At some point Pozner Jr. claimed to have stayed behind in New York, attending Columbia College between 1950 and December 1953, however there appears to be no record of him at Columbia; currently he tells of attending a Russian military-style high school in Berlin run by the Soviet occupation authorities
Soviet Military Administration in Germany
The Soviet Military Administration in Germany was the Soviet military government, headquartered in Berlin-Karlshorst, that directly ruled the Soviet occupation zone of Germany from the German surrender in May 1945 until after the establishment of the German Democratic Republic in October...
during that time.
Later, in 1952, the family moved to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
In 1953 Pozner enrolled at Moscow State University, Faculty of Biology and Soil Science, majoring in human physiology
Human physiology
Human physiology is the science of the mechanical, physical, bioelectrical, and biochemical functions of humans in good health, their organs, and the cells of which they are composed. Physiology focuses principally at the level of organs and systems...
. He graduated in 1958.
Career
After graduation, Pozner became a secretary for Samuil MarshakSamuil Marshak
Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak was a Russian and Soviet writer, translator and children's poet. Among his Russian translations are William Shakespeare's sonnets, poems by William Blake and Robert Burns, and Rudyard Kipling's stories. Maxim Gorky proclaimed Marshak to be "the founder of [Russia's ]...
, a renowned Russian writer, poet and translator; to supplement his modest salary he free-lanced as a Russian-to-English translator of scientific texts. While in Marshak's employ, Pozner was introduced to many popular literary figures of the Khrushchev Thaw
Khrushchev Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...
.
In 1961 Pozner was offered the position of senior editor with Novosty Press Agency's Soviet Life
Russian Life
Russian Life, previously known as The USSR and Soviet Life, is a 64-page color bimonthly magazine of Russian culture. It celebrated its 50th birthday in October 2006. The magazine is written and edited by American and Russian staffers and freelancers...
magazine. In 1967 he transferred to a sister publication, Sputnik
Sputnik (magazine)
Sputnik was a Soviet magazine published from 1967 until 1991 by the Soviet press agency Novosti in several languages, targeted at both Eastern Bloc countries and Western nations. It was intended to be a Soviet equivalent to the Reader's Digest, publishing news stories excerpted from the Soviet...
, leaving it in February 1970 for a job in broadcasting.
He worked as chief commentator for the North American
North American
North American generally refers to an entity, people, group, or attribute of North America, especially of the United States and Canada together.-Culture:*North American English, a collective term used to describe American English and Canadian English...
service of the Radio Moscow
Voice of Russia
Voice of Russia is the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service owned by the All-Russia State Television and Radio Company. Its predecessor Radio Moscow was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.-Early years:Radio Moscow...
network. In the early 1970s, he was a regular guest on Ray Briem
Ray Briem
Ray Briem is a radio personality who worked in Los Angeles most of his career, most notably at KABC. He was noted for his conservative viewpoints, historical knowledge, polished delivery, and love of Big Band music. He was especially capable of debating liberal callers and guests, but his shows...
's talk show on KABC
KABC (AM)
KABC is a Los Angeles radio station, and a West Coast flagship station for the Cumulus Media company. A pioneer of the talk radio format, the station went "all-talk" in 1960 and was one of the first stations to do so...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. During the 1980s, he was a favourite guest on Ted Koppel
Ted Koppel
Edward James "Ted" Koppel is an English-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline from the program's inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005. After leaving Nightline, Koppel worked as managing editor for the Discovery Channel before resigning in 2008...
's Nightline'Lonersner was the host of Moscow Meridian, an English-language current affairs program focusing on the Soviet Union; the show was produced by Gosteleradio, the Soviet State Committee for Television and Radio and broadcast on the Satellite Program Network
Satellite Program Network
Satellite Program Network, or SPN, was a satellite and cable TV network which broadcast in the United States from 1979 to the mid 1980s. SPN was created by Ed Taylor, an associate of Ted Turner and the head of the Southern Satellite Systems company...
. He also often appeared on The Phil Donahue Show
The Phil Donahue Show
The Phil Donahue Show, also known as Donahue, is an American television talk show that ran for 26 years on national television. Its run was preceded by three years of local broadcast in Dayton, Ohio, and it was broadcast nationwide between 1967 and 1996.In 2002, Donahue was ranked #29 on TV Guide's...
.
In his Western media appearances Pozner was a charismatic and articulate apologist of some of the Soviet Union's most controversial foreign and domestic policy decisions. A master of tu quoque
Tu quoque
Tu quoque , or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a kind of logical fallacy. It is a Latin term for "you, too" or "you, also". A tu quoque argument attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting his failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a...
, he would frequently draw parallels and point out similarities between Soviet and Western policies as well as candidly admit the existence of certain problems in the USSR. However, while stopping short of unequivocal endorsement and support, he nevertheless rationalized, among others, the arrest and exiling
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
of Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist. He earned renown as the designer of the Soviet Union's Third Idea, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov was an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the...
, the invasion of Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
and shooting down of KAL 007. In his 1990 autobiography Parting with Illusions. he wrote that some of the positions he had taken were wrong and immoral. In a 2005 interview with NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's On the Media
On the Media
On the Media is an hour-long weekly radio program, hosted by Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone, covering journalism, technology, and First Amendment issues. It is produced by WNYC in New York City...
, Posner spoke openly about his role as a Soviet spokesman, stating bluntly, "What I was doing was propaganda." Comparing his former role to that of Karen Hughes
Karen Hughes
Karen Parfitt Hughes is the Global Vice Chair of Burson-Marsteller. She served as the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the U.S. Department of State with the rank of ambassador. She resides in Austin, Texas.-Early life:Born in Paris, France, she is the daughter...
, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, he commented that, "You know, as someone who's gone through this and someone who regrets having done what he's done, and who spent many, many years of his life, and I think probably the best years of my life, doing something that was wrong, I say it just isn't worth it".
In spite of his frequent appearances in the Western media and his near-celebrity status as the principal spokesman for the Soviet Union Pozner remained virtually unknown at home.
This changed in the mid-80s, when Pozner co-hosted several bilateral, televised discussions (or "spacebridges") between audiences in the Soviet Union and the US, carried via satellite. These included "Moscow Calling San Diego: Children and Film" (with Mike Cole), "Remembering War" (May 7, 1985, with Fred Starr
S. Frederick Starr
Stephen Frederick Starr is the founder and Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. He is also a noted musician.-Academic career:...
), "Citizens Summit I - Leningrad/Seattle" (December 29, 1985) and "Citizens Summit II: Women to Women - Leningrad/Boston" (May 20, 1986) - both with Phil Donahue
Phil Donahue
Phillip John "Phil" Donahue is an American media personality, writer, and film producer best known as the creator and host of The Phil Donahue Show. The television program, also known as Donahue, was the first to use a talk show format. The show had a 26-year run on U.S...
. The programs marked a dramatic turning point in Pozner's career, garnering him instant renown and wide popularity and acclaim from domestic audiences in the USSR. He was promoted to the position of "political observer of Central Television", the highest journalistic rank at Gosteleradio
Television in the Soviet Union
Television in the Soviet Union was owned by the state and was under its tight control and Soviet censorship.The governing body in the former Soviet Union was "USSR State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting or USSR Gosteleradio , which was in charge both of Soviet Central...
, and started to work on programs that were broadcast domestically. However, in 1991 Pozner was asked to resign after being quoted voicing his support for Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
over Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
.
Later that year Pozner received an offer to work with Phil Donahue and moved to the United States. From 1991 to 1994 they co-hosted Pozner/Donahue, a weekly, issues-oriented roundtable program, which aired both on CNBC
CNBC
CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
and in syndication. While living in New York, Pozner regularly commuted to Moscow to tape his programs that aired in Russia.
He returned to Moscow in 1997, continuing his work as an independent television journalist.
In 1997, Posner founded the School for Television Excellence («Школу телевизионного мастерства») in Moscow to educate and promote young journalists.
From its foundation in 1994 until 2008 Pozner was president of the Russian Television Academy, which annually awards the prestigious TEFI
TEFI
TEFI is an annual award given in the Russian television industry, presented by the Russian Academy of Television. It has been awarded since 1994. TEFI is presented in various sectors , such as television shows, notable people in the television industry, journalists, channels...
trophy.
Posner also worked for the Institute for US and Canadian Studies
Institute for US and Canadian Studies
Institute for US and Canadian Studies - is a Russian think tank which is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, specializing on the comprehensive studies of the United States and Canada....
, a Soviet think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
.
Since 2004 with his brother Pavel, he co-owns a French brasserie
Brasserie
In France and the Francophone world, a brasserie is a type of French restaurant with a relaxed, upscale setting, which serves single dishes and other meals. The word 'brasserie' is also French for "brewery" and, by extension, "the brewing business"...
in Moscow, Жеральдин (Chez Géraldine), named after their mother.
Shows
For many years during the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, Vladimir Posner delivered the nightly "Radio Moscow News and Commentary" program on the North America Service with his signature greeting, "Thank you and good evening".
Pozner was the host of several shows on Russian TV, among them the US-Soviet space bridges, "Mi" (translated "Us"), "Vremya i Mi" ("The Time and Us"), "Voskresnyi Vecher s Vladimirom Poznerom" ("Sunday Night with Vladimir Pozner"), "Chelovek v maske" ("A Man in the Mask"), "Vremena" ("Times"). Most of these followed a talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
format, with varying numbers of guests and varying degree and manner of audience participation.
Since 2004 Pozner has been contributing his time as the host of "Vremya Zhyt' !" ("A time to live!"), a series of talk shows about the problem of HIV/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
. The programs are produced and broadcast by regional television stations and focus on addressing the local challenges that exist in different parts of Russia.
In 2008 Pozner, with Ivan Urgant
Ivan Urgant
Ivan Andreevich Urgant is a Russian television personality, showman, and an actor.Ivan Urgant was born in Leningrad in a family of actors Andrey Urgant and Valeriya Kiseleva....
and Brian Kahn
Brian Kahn
Brian Kahn is an American author and radio host. His program Home Ground is broadcast and distributed throughout Wyoming and Montana, and was named Montana's Outstanding Non-Commercial Radio Program in 2002. Kahn is the winner of the 2009 Montana Governor's Award for the Humanities and a former...
, released "Odnoetazhnaya Amerika" ("One-Storied America"), a 16 episode travel documentary
Travel documentary
A travel documentary is a documentary film or television program that describes travel in general or tourist attractions in a non-commercial way....
based on the 1937 book "Little Golden America" by Ilya Ilf and Yevgenyi Petrov
Ilf and Petrov
Ilya Ilf Ilya Ilf Ilya Ilf (Ilya Arnoldovich Faynzilberg and Evgeny or Yevgeni Petrov (Yevgeniy Petrovich Kataev or Katayev were two Soviet prose authors of the 1920s and 1930s...
.
Pozner and Urgent also collaborated on a subsequent project, "Tour de France", set to air in the fall of 2010.
Today (2010) he hosts an eponymous interview show "Pozner" on Russia's Channel One
Channel One (Russia)
Channel One is the first television channel to broadcast in the Soviet Union. The channel was renamed Ostankino Channel 1 in 1991, after the Soviet Union broke up and the Russian SFSR became the Russian Federation. According to a recent government publication, the Russian government controls 51%...
He has a lively and unconstrained style of hosting, often firing poignant off-the-cuff remarks at his guests. He frequently comments on how this or that political or economic decision, presently at issue in his show, could affect the common people of Russia.
Personal life
While living in New York, at the age of 12, the young Vladimir ("Vova") had a boyhood crush on a certain Mary, a "stunning" Irish-American woman more than 20 years his senior with a "mane of copper hair" who took him to the movies and served him cocktails at her home. When Pozner returned to the United States after a 38-year absence, she, however, did not wish to see him, preferring instead to be remembered the way she once was.As a freshman at Moscow State University he once again fell in love with an older woman named Zhenya (Eugenia), moving in with her in a rented room of a communal apartment. Both his and her families disapproved of the torrid affair, which came to an end when Pozner flunked the final exams and was expelled from the university, although later his father managed to persuade the dean to reinstate him on a provisional basis.
In his last year at Moscow University (1958) Pozner married Valentina Tchemberdji, a fellow student at the department of Philology. Two years later they had a daughter, Katia. They divorced in 1968.
Pozner's daughter, composer Katia Tchemberdji, currently lives in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
Around the time of his divorce Pozner met his second wife, Ekaterina Orlova, while they both worked for Novosti Press Agency's Sputnik magazine. They were married for 35 years. Orlova, an accomplished journalist in her own right, was a co-founder of the Pozner School for Television Excellence.
Since 2005 Pozner has been linked with Nadezhda Soloviova, а leading Russian show business impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
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Pozner holds 3 citizenships: French - by birth, Russian (initially, Soviet) - presumably by descent and US - obtained in the early 1990s by naturalization. Interestingly, in 1968, while attempting to renounce his French nationality so that he could visit France without fear of prosecution for failure to serve in the Algerian War, he was formally notified by the Soviet Foreign Ministry that his Soviet passport, initially granted to him in 1950, at 16, was issued in error, and that he in fact was not a citizen of the USSR. Much to Pozner's amusement this also technically invalidated, among other things, his membership in the CPSU
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, his marriage and divorce, propiska
Propiska
Propiska was both a residence permit and migration recording tool in the Russian Empire before 1917 and from 1930s in the Soviet Union. It was documented in local police registers and certified with a stamp in internal passports....
and his rank of lieutenant in the reserves
Military reserve
A military reserve, tactical reserve, or strategic reserve is a group of military personnel or units which are initially not committed to a battle by their commander so that they are available to address unforeseen situations or exploit suddenly developing...
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Pozner is a fan of tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
and baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
. In 1992 he co-founded The Moscow Dummies (Московские Чайники, lit. the Moscow Teapots), an amateur baseball team. He is a cigar
Cigar
A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, and the Eastern...
aficionado. He also collects turtle
Turtle
Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield...
figurine
Figurine
A figurine is a statuette that represents a human, deity or animal. Figurines may be realistic or iconic, depending on the skill and intention of the creator. The earliest were made of stone or clay...
s and fountain pen
Fountain pen
A fountain pen is a nib pen that, unlike its predecessor the dip pen, contains an internal reservoir of water-based liquid ink. The pen draws ink from the reservoir through a feed to the nib and deposits it on paper via a combination of gravity and capillary action...
s. He enjoys playing charades
Charades
Charades or charade is a word guessing game. In the form most played today, it is an acting game in which one player acts out a word or phrase, often by pantomiming similar-sounding words, and the other players guess the word or phrase. The idea is to use physical rather than verbal language to...
.
He is an atheist and has spoken critically of the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
and the resurgence of religion in post-Soviet Russia.