Nikolai Morse '24
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
On March 13, 2024, Professor Paul Stephan’s Emerging Markets class hosted a screening of Oleg: The Oleg Vidov Story. The documentary, narrated by Brian Cox,[1] covered the life of Oleg Vidov, a Russian film star who defected to the United States in 1985. The screening was followed by a brief question and answer session with Vidov’s widow, Joan Borsten. Called the “James Dean of Russia,” Vidov’s defection from the USSR to the United States was particularly notable due to his high profile. The film provided a peek into the life of an artist whose ambitions were cabined by the goals of state propaganda, who had to give up a life in his home country to escape persecution, and who ultimately found a new path late in life which combined his artistic and political sensibilities.
Vidov was born near Moscow in 1943 to Varvara Ivanovna Vidova, a school teacher. His mother met Vidov’s father during World War II while he was recuperating in a hospital where she was a nurse. Having heard that his father died during the war, Vidov grew up raised by a single mother. Vidov and his mother moved around regularly because she was dispatched to different parts of the USSR to teach in Soviet schools. As a result, Vidov spent his childhood living in Russia, Mongolia, and East Germany. When his mother was sent to China, Vidov was sent to live with his aunt in Kazakhstan.
Vidov’s uncle had been sent to the Gulag, and Vidov grew up hearing from his family about how his uncle was unjustly imprisoned. Vidov’s aunt told him often that he could not rely on or trust the state, and must always be self-sufficient. His aunt also provided him with his first exposure to cinema, seeing movies such as Tarzan, Grapes of Wrath, and Stagecoach. It was then that he decided he wanted to be an actor.
Eventually, Vidov’s mother faced a politically motivated attack, lost employment opportunities, and eventually even had her pension cut. Vidov, then fourteen years old, worked full-time and enrolled in night school for acting. Seeking movie roles, he was told that he would not receive roles without “knowing the right people.” Needing to support his family, he worked in construction before being accepted into the state university for film.
Vidov began to receive film roles. He contributed nearly all of his paychecks to support his mother and aunt, helping them to insulate the shed they lived in with cardboard. After a while, he was recruited by a director to film a movie in Denmark, which provided his first opportunity to travel and experience life outside of the Eastern Bloc. Though he was originally told by a group of KGB officials that he could not go because he was not a party member, Vidov was ultimately allowed to travel to Denmark after signing an agreement that he would not sleep with Western women and would be a good Soviet gentleman. The film was selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival and was reviewed favorably.
Returning to the USSR, Vidov encountered a Soviet government that was imposing an increasing number of restrictions on art, literature, and movies. While Vidov continued to receive leading roles, he became increasingly disillusioned with the government’s elevation of propaganda over artistic integrity.
It was during this time that he met his first wife, Natalia Vasilievna Fedotova, who was best friends with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev’s daughter, Galina. While they had a son in 1971, their marriage was unfortunately not a happy one. As Vidov traveled extensively to film in various locations, his wife grew dissatisfied with his salary and urged him to leave acting and take up a role as a Soviet minister.
After five years, they agreed to separate. Natalia then filed for divorce and obtained all their communal property. During the divorce hearing, a judge took him aside and told him that while there were laws, there were also telephone calls. And the judge had received a telephone call from a high-ranking Communist Party official. After their divorce, Vidov received fewer and fewer roles and for five years did not receive a single leading role. He knew that he would have to escape the Soviet Union if he was to have any future in film.
After befriending a Yugoslav actress, Vidov married her friend and got permission to live in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. But after some time, his wife divorced him because she did not want to be a wife only on paper. He was instructed to appear at the Interior Ministry in Moscow, but because the local officials liked his movies, he was given leave to arrange his own travel rather than be taken into custody. It was during this time that he talked with an actor friend who had a restaurant on the Yugoslav-Austrian border and convinced an official at the Yugoslavian embassy to stamp Vidov’s passport to allow him to cross.
After a harrowing cross, Oleg was relieved to escape, but it soon sunk in that he was a stateless person. After being put into contact with actors (including the woman who would later become his wife, Joan Borsten) in the West, they helped him to immigrate to America as an individual seeking political asylum. After a few years, he ended up getting the animation and story rights to Russian movies and stories, and he produced them with the famous ballet dancer, Mikhail Berizhnikov. This led to his renewed fame in Russia and his ability to return home and reunite with his family, including his son, Slava.
The documentary provided an intimate view into a fascinating life with various chapters, told by his friends and family. It ended with an intonation by Vidov that “[h]appiness belongs to the risk takers…I always followed my heart, and that is my freedom.” Asked what she hoped viewers would take away from this film, Borsten responded with a reference to the similarities between Vidov’s strained life in the USSR and modern-day Russia, “I hope this film gives you some insight into what Russia was, and what it could have become.”
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Cpg9jy@virginia.edu
[1] There is nothing quite as soothing and terrifying as listening to Logan Roy hold forth for several hours.