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THE WORLD-FAMOUS ORIGINAL
Don Cossack Chorus Serge Jaroff

Ivan Assur (Èâàí Âëàäèìèðîâè÷ Àññóð)

Ivan Assur (Èâàí Âëàäèìèðîâè÷ Àññóð)
(aka John Assur)

Ivan Vladimirovich Assur (July 4, 1929, Ober-Schlizien, Germany - April 16, 2006, Rezekne, Latvia) - singer, soloist of the Don Cossack Chorus of Serge Jaroff and Ataman Platov Cossack Choir under the direction of N.F. Kostryukov.

He was born in the city of Ober-Schliesen where his parents worked in a German school.

His father Vladimir Vladimirovich Assur was philosopher and historian, descendant of Russified Swedes, hereditary nobleman, graduate of St. Petersburg University. Before the Revolution he taught at the Mitava Real School (Latvia). Vladimir Vladimirovich was a deeply religious person. He actively participated in parish life, with the blessing of Metropolitan Veniamin (Fedchenkov) he preached in churches. His mother Nina Mikhailovna was born in Nizhny Novgorod. She was graduated from the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens with honors.

In 1929 after the birth of their youngest son Andrei the family moved from Germany to Poland, but did not take root there and in 1933 moved to Latvia. Here Vladimir Vladimirovich found work at the Russian gymnasium in Yaunlatgale (now the town of Pytalovo, Pskov region). After teaching langiage at the gymnasium was switched to Latvian the Assurs moved to Rezekne where lived many Russians. There were Orthodox churches and a Russian gymnasium. In Rezekne Ivan began to sing in the church choir.

In 1940 the Baltic states were occupied by Soviet troops. Although Vladimir Assur did not serve in any of the White armies on July 6, 1940 he was arrested as a White emigrant. On November 11, 1941 he died in the prison hospital. They Soviet authotities did not have time to repress the family: the Soviet army was driven out of Latvia by the Germans. The end of the war Nina Mikhailovna Assur with her sons Ivan, Andrey and daughter Vera met in a camp for displaced persons in Germany. They managed to get into the American occupation zone and thus avoid deportation. For five years the Assurs lived in refugee camps near Stuttgart. Ivan worked in a music publishing house - he received and mailed orders. In his spare time he studied singing with Massimiliano Sera - the famous bass who sang at the Milan opera La Scala.

Ivan Assur in concert (A Lia Production, CFS-3130)
Side 1 Track 1: Prince Igor’s aria (Opera «Prince Igor») (Alexander Borodin) Side 2 Track 1: Oh, If only I could express in sounds (L. Malashkin, lyrics by G. Lishin)
Side 1 Track 4: Elegy (J. Massenet) Side 2 Track 2: The first slaigh ride by (A. Chernevsky)

In 1950 the Assurs received visas to the United States. In New York Nina Mikhailovna went to work as a maid. Ivan got a job at a weaving factory. Two years later he was accepted at the Ford plant where he worked in the assembly shop. Later he received builder's diploma and, already being a famous soloist of the opera and Cossack choirs did not abandon physical labor: a lot of home furniture and other necessary items were made by himself.

In his spare time Ivan Vladimirovich Assur sang at charity concerts in favor of the disabled of the White Army and orphans as well as at parish holidays. In the early 1950s he was already quite famous as a performer of romances and operatic arias. The rich voice range allowed him to perform not only the parts of "his" register but also those written for the high bass and for the tenor.

In 1956 Ksenia Vasilievna Denikina the chairman of the committee of the Society of Former Pupils of Institutes for Noble Maidens invited him to perform at an evening organized by her in New York. Among the guests was the maestro of the world-famous Don Cossack Chorus Sergey Alekseevich Jaroff. He immediately appreciated Assur's baritone and invited the 27-year-old singer to become a soloist of the Cossack choir.

For the next thirty years - until the Zharov choir ceased to exist - Ivan Vladimirovich Assur performed in the famous "Don Cossack Chorus Serge Jaroff choir". In addition, he sang in another no less remarkable musical group of the Russian diaspora - the Ataman Platov Cossack Choir under the direction of N.F. Kostryukov. He also gave recitals.

Over time he moved from New York to California and from there to Oregon. In the early 1980s the singer at his own expense and literally with his own hands built in Oregon next to the house where his family lived a wooden church consecrated in honor of Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

Ivan Vladimirovich Assur closely followed what was happening in Russia, read published articles about Russian history and the Russian Church in emigre newspapers. In 1985 at the invitation of his cousin V.L. Assur for the first time after a long break came to his homeland. Since then he has repeatedly given concerts in Russia and Latvia, gave interviews, talked about the choirs of Jaroff and Kostryukov, participated in the filming of the film “Don Cossack Chorus Serge Jaroff choir". In 1997 he returned to Rezekne where he spent his childhood.


Sources:
http://www.bfrz.ru/index.php?mod=arhiv&fond_id=51
https://www.vsetutonline.com/forum/showthread.php?t=208715


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