Aleksandr Arkadyevich Galich -real surname Ginzburg- (19/10/1918 - 15/12/1977) is a prominent Russian poet, scriptwriter, songwriter and singer. Galich is his penname, an acronym of his last name, first name and patronymic. Aleksandr Galich became one of the brightest representatives of the genre of Russian author’s song (on a par with Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okoudjava), which was developed by bards and became very popular in the epoch of tape recorders. Aleksandr Ginzburg was born on October 19, 1918 in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk) into a family of Jewish intellectuals. He spent most of his childhood in Sevastopol. Before World War Two he entered the Gorky Literature Institute and then moved to Stanislavsky Opera and Drama Studio and later to A. Arbuzov and V. Pluchek Theatre Studio (1939). In the early period of his creativity Galich wrote a number of theatre songs and film scripts. From the late 1950s he started writing songs and performing them to the accompaniment of his seven-string guitar. In some way springing from the romance tradition and the art of Aleksandr Vertinsky, Galich developed his own trend within this genre.