Vladimir Zhirinovsky

At 78 years old, Vladimir Zhirinovsky physical status not available right now. We will update Vladimir Zhirinovsky's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky (Russian: Владимир Вольфович Жириновский, né Eidelstein, Эйдельштейн; born 25 April 1946) is a Russian politician and leader of the LDPR party (formerly Liberal Democratic Party of Russia).

He is fiercely nationalist and has been described as "a showman of Russian politics, blending populist and nationalist rhetoric, anti-Western invective and a brash, confrontational style".

His views have been described as fascist.

Early life and background

Zhirinovsky was born in Almaty, the capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, modern-day Kazakhstan. His father, Volf Isaakovich Eidelshtein, was a Ukrainian Jew from Kostopil in western Ukraine, and his mother, Alexandra Pavlovna (née Makarova), was of Russian background from Mordovia region. Zhirinovsky inherited his surname through Andrei Vasilievich Zhirinovsky, Alexandra's first husband. His paternal grandfather was a wealthy industrialist in Kostopil, who owned the largest sawmill in (what is now) Ukraine and was head of the Jewish community. His grandfather's mill today has an income of $32 million a year, and over the years Zhirinovsky demanded successive Ukrainian governments return it to him.

In July 1964, Zhirinovsky moved from Almaty to Moscow, where he began his studies in the Department of Turkish Studies, Institute of Asian and African Countries at Moscow State University (MSU), from which he graduated in 1969. Additionally, he studied law and international relations at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Zhirinovsky entered military service in Tbilisi during the early 1970s and worked at posts in state committees and unions. He was awarded a Dr.Sci. in philosophy by MSU in 1998.

Although he participated in some reformist groups, Zhirinovsky was little known in Soviet political developments during the 1980s. While he contemplated a role in politics, a nomination attempt for a seat as a People's Deputy in 1989 was quickly abandoned. In 1989, he served as a director of Shalom, a Jewish cultural organization; unknown in Jewish circles before, he is thought to have been invited to join by the Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public, but subsequently forcefully opposed its influence in the group.

Four of Zhirinovsky's relatives were murdered during the Holocaust. Zhirinovsky's parents separated while he was still an infant. Abandoning the family, Zhirinovsky's father, Volf Eidelshtein, immigrated to Israel in 1949 (together with his new wife Bella and his brother), where he worked as an agronomist in Tel Aviv. Zhirinovsky's father was a member of the right-wing nationalist Herut party in Israel, and died in 1983 when he was run over by a bus near Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv.

Zhirinovsky did not find out the details of his father's life in Israel until many years later, or even that he had died. Zhirinovsky said that he was an Orthodox Christian. In 1994, presented with a birth certificate indicating his original name as Eidelshtein, Zhirinovsky said the document was faked.

Zhirinovsky denied his father's Jewish origins until Ivan Close Your Soul, published in July 2001, in which he described how his father, Volf Isaakovich Eidelshtein, changed his surname from Eidelshtein to Zhirinovsky. He rhetorically asked, "Why should I reject Russian blood, Russian culture, Russian land, and fall in love with the Jewish people only because of that single drop of blood that my father left in my mother's body?"

According to Zhirinovsky, "My mother was Russian and my father was a lawyer". Zhirinovsky later disowned the statement after researching his father's life in Israel. Discussing the statement, Zhirinovsky says: "Journalists mocked me: for saying I was the son of a lawyer. And I am really the son of an agronomist."

Discussing his father, Zhirinovsky said with tears in his eyes: "All my life I was looking for him. I believed that he was alive. I believed that someday he would find me... But there is a silver lining. I tried to imitate him... And I was able to achieve a certain position in life, even without the support of my father."

Zhirinovsky's Israeli relatives included an uncle and cousin, meeting and befriending them for the first time only after discovering more about his family's story in Israel. Zhirinovsky's Israeli family did not know that he was a politician in Russia but responded warmly to his invitation to stay with him in Moscow.

Personal life

Zhirinovsky married Galina Lebedeva, a lawyer and daughter of a retired general in the early 1970s. The couple had three children, two sons and a daughter. Zhirinovsky was a polyglot and was fluent in English, French, German, and Turkish.

Other individuals have alleged Zhirinovsky was gay, but closeted. In 1996 he was outed in a newspaper by journalist Yaroslav Mogutin.

In February 2022, Zhirinovsky was hospitalized in critical condition in Moscow with COVID-19. In March, he was reportedly placed in a medically induced coma, and underwent treatment for COVID-19 complications such as sepsis and respiratory failure. Zhirinovsky claimed to have been vaccinated against COVID-19 eight times.

On 25 March 2022, Zhirinovsky was reported to have died in a hospital. Despite confirmation from several sources, including his own political party, the news was quickly denied by family members. On 6 April 2022, Vyacheslav Volodin, the Speaker of the Duma, announced that Zhirinovsky had died following a long illness. He was 75. In a statement after Zhirinovsky died, president Vladimir Putin said he "always defended his patriotic position and Russia's interests before any audience and in the fiercest of debates".

Zhirinovsky's funeral was officiated by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Rus' in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, at the presence of several high-ranking politicians, including Putin, Volodin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu.

Source