Jean Arutyunovich Tatlian (russian: Жан Арутюнович Татлян; born 1 August 1943,

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

) is a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

singer of Armenian ancestry. In the late 1960s he enjoyed great popularity in the USSR. He emigrated to France in 1971. Jean Tatlian considers himself the first chansonnier of the Soviet Union. Жан Татлян

Biography

Tatlian was born in an Armenian family in

, on 1 August, 1943. He was the youngest of three children. In 1947 the family moved to the USSR, to the

Armenian SSR The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic,; russian: Армянская Советская Социалистическая Республика, translit=Armyanskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika) also commonly referred to as Soviet A ...

and then to Abkhasia. As a schoolboy, Tatlian bought himself a guitar with money he earned from painting houses. He studied guitar at the Sukhumi Philharmonia and before the age of 16 was already earning money from concerts in nearby republics, in which he performed songs by French and Italian chansonniers. Later he studied in a workshop of variety art in

Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

, where the 19-year-old (not yet 18 according to other sources) was noticed by the conductor of the State Armenian Orchestra, Konstantin Orbelian, who invited him to join the orchestra as a soloist in a tour across Ukraine. Around the same time, in the early 1960s, he had his first success, with the song "Street Lamps" ("Уличные фонари"), for which a video was shot and shown on television. The song became popular. After a while Tatlian moved to Leningrad. He loved the city and lived there from then on. In Leningrad he founded his own orchestra and would give 350–400 concerts per year working with Lenconcert (a concert association that organized concerts in Leningrad) until the late 1960s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, following a disagreement with a female director of the Orel Philharmony, Tatlian was effectively banned from any concert activity (and also, from the very beginning, he was de facto banned from leaving the Soviet Union), and in 1971 emigrated to France. Among the songs Tatlian is most known for are: "Street Lamps" ("Уличные фонари"), "Autumn Light" ("Осенний свет"), "Song About Water Drops uring a Thaw ("Песня о капели"), "Old Tower" ("Старая башня"), "Starry Night" ("Звёздная ночь"), "Воздушные замки", "Бумажный голубь", "Осенние следы", "Ты поверь", "Самая красивая", "Свет маяка", "Ласточка". He also was the original performer of the song "Best City in the World" ("Лучший город Земли", about Moscow) composed by

Arno Babajanian Arno Harutyunovich Babajanian ( hy, Առնո Բաբաջանյան; russian: Арно Арутюнович Бабаджанян; January 22, 1921 – November 11, 1983) was a Soviet and Armenian composer and pianist. He was made a People's Artist o ...

and best known for the version sung by Muslim Magomaev, who recorded it a year later.

References

External links

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Official youtube chanel

Jean Tatlian in the program "Meetings on the Mokhovaya" – February 11, 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tatlian, Jean 1943 births Greek people of Armenian descent Soviet Armenians French people of Armenian descent Soviet male singers 20th-century Armenian male singers Soviet emigrants to France Living people Greek emigrants to the Soviet Union 20th-century French male singers Singers from Thessaloniki