Records Show Zhirinovsky Had a Jewish Name

Public records show that Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, the Russian ultranationalist leader who campaigns on anti-Semitic themes, had a Jewish last name until age 18.

Zhirinovsky vehemently denies that he or his parents are Jewish. Zhirinovsky’s origins have political significance in Russia because of his attacks on Jews, and the documents raise questions about his candor.

The public records were found by a reporter working for the Associated Press and Cable News Network in four archives in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the city where Zhirinovsky was born and raised.

Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party won 23.5% of the national vote in December’s parliamentary elections, and he has said he will run for Russia’s presidency in 1996. Much of his political strength rests on extreme nationalists who are virulently anti-Semitic.

Although the records do not say specifically who his father was, Zhirinovsky’s surname was listed on his birth registration as Eidelshtein. Documents show he applied for and received permission to change his name from Eidelshtein to Zhirinovsky in June, 1964.

That was just before he moved to Moscow from Kazakhstan, in what was then Soviet Central Asia, for higher education. Ethnic quotas for universities at the time held back many Jewish or Jewish-sounding students. Zhirinovsky won a place in the prestigious Institute of Oriental Languages, affiliated with Moscow State University.

The worn, handwritten documents at the Almaty (formerly Alma-Ata) archives were retrieved from dusty shelves and cardboard boxes in response to a reporter’s inquiries. Officials at the archives said they were authentic.

In Moscow, Grigory Serebrennikov, a spokesman for Zhirinovsky’s party, said, “The documents clearly have been forged.”

Zhirinovsky’s autobiography, “The Final March South,” claims that his father was named Volf Andreyevich Zhirinovsky, but no records could be found for such a man in Almaty. Details about the father in the autobiography seem to combine elements from his mother’s two husbands.

One husband was Andrei Vasilyevich Zhirinovsky who, documents show, died of tuberculosis in August, 1944, 18 months before Zhirinovsky’s birth on April 25, 1946.

A marriage registration shows that five months before Zhirinovsky was born, his mother married Volf Isakovich Eidelshtein, who was officially listed as Jewish.