stage name BORIS BORSUKS
(18.03.1922. Pasiene parish, Latvia – 14.10.2010. Fréjus, Côte d’Azur, France)
“…seemingly without any secret tricks, one after the other, he pulls a dozen or more pink pong balls out of his mouth, each of which, as if coming from inside his head, hits the brightly smiling teeth with a loud clatter. The balls are followed by an egg, which, if you roll over it, turns out to be real, uncooked and would probably cost 45 fen in the market.
But this is just an introduction. The artist then goes to the gentlemen /../ and invites them to come and assist him in the middle of the hall. Usually only a few follow, while others stiffen themselves and do not come.
Borsuks walks from one to the other, never lingering any longer than necessary to make two or three statements and listen to two or three replies. Then he returns to the middle of the hall and – pulls from his pockets the watches, wallets, mouthpieces, cigarette cases that were in the possession of those who spoke to him only a moment ago.
/../ After the first surprise, Boris Borsuks calls the gentlemen into the middle of the hall – he warns them that he is going to rob them, and then – in a short time – he does just that: he removes watches that he has apparently never touched, takes out wallets from inside pockets, yes – every evening he removes the suspenders of at least one gentleman and ties the neckband of one so neatly that the robbed man does not even notice it. /…/ allows his victim to return to the scene, only to ask: “Sir, why have you come tonight with such a strange tie?” – Or again, “Don’t you feel that your trousers have become loose around the hips?”
On the one hand, a traditional manipulator’s repertoire; on the other, the virtuosity and charm that have made the pickpocket artist one of the world’s leading figures in his genre.
For Jāzeps Borsuks, the Latvian circus was a time of youth and first steps. Of course, at the beginning there was work in the ranks of the unformists (manege workers), probably as early as the end of the 1930s, but certainly from December 1940, as evidenced by the entry in the Riga Circus Workers’ List. He also starts the 1941/42 season as a member of the show’s maintenance staff – he is a spotlight man, now I would say a lighting man or lighting designer, but from January 1942 Borsuks is already a performer. His time as a worker at the manege is very creative. While working in uniform, he quietly prepared a number for himself. At that time, in the winter of 1940, the Estonian artist Konstantin Kala was working in the Riga programme, and was accepted by the public as the “living aquarium” Mohamed Ali. In January 1942, the Riga Circus placed a special advertisement in the newspaper, dedicated exclusively to Borsuks: “Borsuks – the miracle of medicine”. The following is the story of the Latvian juggler Trofim Roklinski: “Borsuks swallowed three coloured stones and, according to the audience’s wish, swallowed the desired colour. He pressed it to his right side and the stones came out. He swallowed the watch and it ticked in his stomach. The audience could listen. He was naked on top, and to see that there was no deception, he also swallowed a light bulb, pressed a switch, and it glowed from inside. The main trick was when he swallowed an aquarium with a live frog. He lifted the frog by the leg into the air and it croaked. It also squawked when he swallowed it back.” T. Roklinskis also told us that once there was a mishap, because when the fountain swallowed the aquarium back, the lunch came out with the water… “Normally he didn’t eat, he only ate in the evening after the show, but here he had a drink and a bite to eat with”, the old juggler concluded his story with a smile. Yes, Jāzeps Borsuks never drank alcohol or smoked again in his later life.
Jāzeps watches and learns. In his memoirs to a Latvian emigre journalist in Germany, he mentions that he was an aerial acrobat in Riga. There are no proven facts about this yet, but he did learn magic tricks here. During the summer months of 1943-44, a travelling circus-variety with the same Latvian circus performers who periodically worked in the Riga programmes performed on Latvian stages. Here, in bold letters, the programme of the circus-variety highlighted “Man, living aquarium Bor-Suk, sensation”. The programme also promises a “Magic Artist”, but without a name… Researching the line-up of participants, it is possible that it was also Jāzeps. There is a nice note about these guest performances in the Ventspils newspaper. It was not the result of a bud budding in the branches of a tree. No! It was a simple advertising leaf announcing that a circus-variety would arrive in Ventspils on Monday… But what did people say? Nothing. They all enjoy the nice weather and laugh when they hear one of the circus performers drinking thirty litres of water and swallowing pocket watches with all the chains. This time, however, he will probably have to swallow his own, because in these times it is a greater risk to give someone a watch, and a stranger at that, who wants to swallow it for his own and others’ pleasure, than it was for spring, which had arrived well before the time set by the calendar.”
The war continues, but at the end of 1943 and the beginning of ’44 Borsuks goes to Austria, to Vienna, to work. Borsuks has been in Germany since 1946, where he tours American army clubs as part of the “Special Service” troupe, entertaining and surprising the guests. The first performance venue where the “very American-looking young man” started working independently in 1949 was the Kurpark Casino in the spa town of Bad Kissingen (Bad Kissingen is in the Lower Franconia region of Bavaria). Next comes Hamburg, already with a contract for touring shows in the USA. He is grateful to the Latvian artist, former Riga Circus beret and director, Kārlis Pētersons, who is already in America working in the huge Barnum and Bailey Circus, but who also helps other Latvian artists who have dispersed to Europe during the war years to find work across the ocean.
Since Jāzeps Borsuks started working abroad, his stage name is BORIS BORSUKS.
Boris Borsuks, a magician, is in Paris at the Cirque Medrano during the 1950 New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Although the artist does not meet other Latvians on a daily basis, he speaks excellent Latvian and enjoys meeting reporters from Latvian emigration newspapers. 1952 – “The Thief of Baghdad” Boris Borsuks tours Germany with the Big Bush Circus. Together with a journalist, Borsuks walks the streets of Berlin and demonstrates how all sorts of things disappear in the blink of an eye. At the end of the walk, “the two visited the burgomaster of Berlin-Wilmersdorf. As the latter said goodbye, the “Thief of Baghdad” gave him the watch he had appropriated during the conversation. “Thank you”, said the burgomaster with a smile, “but, Mr. Borsuks, are you in need of anything?” The artist was puzzled, but now the burgomaster, bowing, handed him the salary envelope that the much-praised and admired “thief” had pulled out of his pocket. “I am attending school with the son of Stosh-Sarasani,” explained the burgomaster. “I still know a few tricks.” And the “robbed thief” could only marvel…”
Borsuks also received special attention at the Bush Circus Gala in Hamburg, when former world boxing champion Max Schmeling was chosen as the “sacrificial lamb” of the “Thief of Baghdad” (Stosch-Sarrasani is the founder of the Sarrasani Circus, one of the most famous in Germany until World War II, and Max Schmeling was world heavyweight champion in the 1930-1932 period).
It is interesting that Latvian emigre newspaper correspondents often ask J. Borsukas a traditional question – how much money does he make? They usually get an answer to their question, too, because the artist is not ashamed of his fees. For example: in 1968, working in the Italian Riviera spa of Alassio from June to September again for the second season, and having already signed a contract for the following summer, “he performs only once each evening – for 15 minutes – and receives a fabulously high remuneration – 40 000 lire per evening. That’s for 15 minutes, without any income tax. In English money, that’s £26 and 14 shillings, about the average weekly wage of a well-paid automotive worker after tax. From 1 October, Borsuk starts his annual tour to Malta, Baghdad, Tehran, Beirut and elsewhere, on 35,000 liras a day.”
As Jāzeps Borsuks himself has said, he has travelled around the world four times in his tours and can converse in 12 languages.
The claim that Borsuks is one of the best cabaret artists in the world is no idle boast either. In professional texts on the genre in Italian, English and French, he is listed among the great masters of his time (1950s-1980s). Working in France, he creates his own stage legend, a very extravagant performance style. To the public, he is Boris Borsuks. The books Siro Ferrone. Visione critiche: Recensioni teatrala da “l’Unita-Toscana”(1975-1983). Firenze University Press, 2016, page 314:
“/…/ The disturbing gaze of Boris Borsuks (as in Verne’s novels), who steals watches and wallets and suspenders and handkerchiefs: the mystery of Strogoff and Rasputin is embodied by a big face spitting ping-pong balls.” By the way, Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar is a novel written by Jules Verne in 1876 and considered by critics to be one of his best books.
2 more excerpts from editions:
“At the beginning of his career in January 1950, in a programme at the Cirque Medrano in Paris, the young Boris Borsuks bowed amidst applause and pirouetted and announced: “I am a Russian. I left home because there was nothing to steal.” The Russian-born Parisian magician, in his half Strogoff, half Rasputin operetta man costume, cheerfully steals from the audience, walking towards them in the room or inviting them into a circle or onto the stage.”
And a memory of his performance in the Rancy-Carrington circus, shared by Sabine Rancy, one of the Rancy dynasty. She compares Borsuks to another famous “pickpocket” artist, the Serbian-born Austrian manipulator Charly Borra (Borislav Milojkovic, 1921-1998), who was already better known in France at the time: “The cunning one who fools the Soviets”… Everyone still remembers this poster in the various “Rancy-Carrington” formats, telling the story of Boris Borsuks, the famous pickpocket, but less famous than Charly Borra, who was applauded by the “Rancy” a few years ago…
The Russian-born Parisian Boris Borsuks, however, had many points in common with the great Borre. Even his name begins with the letter “B”. Borsuks equally surprised the unprepared spectators by stealing their watches, bracelets, suspenders, ties, papers, etc… nobody noticed anything. However, unlike Borras, he did not try to blend in and identify himself as one of the spectators before the show started. This saved him from unpleasant surprises, such as the one that once happened to his ‘rival’ in 1968, when an audience member called the police.”
The Russian adventurer is just one of the characters in Borsuks’ scouting party. Another circus poster from 1963, from performances in French and Dutch circuses, has survived, advertising Boris Borsuks as a pickpocket wanted by the police: height: 1, m 73 , nose: prominent, hair: blond, eyes: blue, age: over 30, pickpocket – extraordinary, thief – outstanding…
Jāzeps Borsuks’ skills have also been recognised by police officers. He has given lectures and masterclasses at police stations on numerous occasions, introducing criminal police officers to pickpocketing techniques in Germany – in Bielenfeld, Karlruhe, as well as in Agly – in a special performance he treated the Scotland Yard detectives.
He married a French woman, Geneviève. A son was born in 1953. The family moved from Germany to France. For the rest of their lives they are residents of Saint-Maxime in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, 90 km from Nice. He once built his villa in central Italy, on the Adriatic coast. It has been inherited by a son and three grandchildren.
One of the last news about the activities of Jāzeps Borsuks can be found in the regional newspaper “Var-matin” in the issue of January 1, 2005, in an article about those who do winter swimming: “Boris Borsuks, 83 years old: This man, also Latvian by origin and adopted in Maxim, swims every day. “I am happy to answer this call every year. It is not an insurmountable mission for me. And if my participation, given my age, can encourage young people to do the same, I will be happy.””
This article is dedicated to one of the Latvians in the world, whose achievements we can be proud of. The remarkable number of his anniversary has served as an inspiration to focus on his life. The contribution of Jāzeps’ relative Ludmila to both the writing of the article and the collection of information is significant. Jāzeps Borsuks is her grandfather’s brother’s son. She first told me about her “circus” relative in 2008, when she attended a performance at our circus and before she went to visit France. At that time, I sent our circus greetings to the grey artist, because I knew of him only as a representative of the exotic “man-acquarium” genre. It was only later that I gathered material about him as a great master of the genre of manipulation. Some of the photographs on display come from Ludmila’s collections.
When our illusionist-bubble magic masters Dace and Enrico Pecolli organised the Magic-Mania illusionist battles in 2019, the world’s best-known object swallower Stevie Starr from England took part. It was in the context of his guest appearances that I first recalled that we have a unique personality in our circus history. In 2020, Dace and Enrico Pecolli opened their Illusionism theatre and museum Mystero. This museum has an exhibition dedicated to Jāzeps Borsuks. This article is the first step in the realisation of this intention. The second step is to celebrate the artist’s centenary together with the Ludza Municipal Library and hope that other relatives will come forward with their memories. Borsuks is a prolific family!
