46.4775° N, 30.7326° E

ODESSA

Most Famous People Born in Odessa, Ukraine

Notable people
883
Peak decade
1900s
Median birth year
1919
Most distinctive
Violin 24.0×

Catherine the Great's Black Sea port was the most literary and musical city of the late Russian Empire, and the panel still shows it cold. A Violin bench running twenty-four times the global baseline is basically the Stolyarsky school that produced half the twentieth-century Soviet string section, with Pianist, Conductor and Mathematician lines stacking underneath and a Chess cluster at better than twelve times the norm — Isaac Babel's Moldavanka made legible as data, right up until the pogroms and the Civil War scattered it across three continents.

Through the Decades

One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Odessa during each.

Notable Births by Decade

Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1900s with 98 notable births.

What Odessa Is Known For

Click any row to filter the list of people below.

Football is Odessa's biggest profession — 13% of all notables (114).

Odessa over-indexes on violin24.0× the global rate.

Odessa under-produces politician — only 0.3× the global rate.

  1. Football114
  2. Actor43
  3. Writer37
  4. Painter37
  5. Politician32
  6. Skater30
  7. Mathematician24
  8. Chess23
  1. Violin1524.0×
  2. Skater3014.1×
  3. Chess2312.8×
  4. Dancer1010.6×
  5. Pianist229.3×
  6. Mathematician245.4×
  7. Conductor104.4×
  8. Economist102.7×
  1. Politician320.3×

Profession Mix Over Time

Each band shows a profession family's share of Odessa's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.

180018251850187519001925195019752000
  • Sports
  • Science
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Film & TV
  • Art & Design
  • Other
All883
Sort By

Showing 95 of 883 notable people

0002 WRITER

Isaac Babel

1894 - 1940

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0008 MILITAR

Rodion Malinovsky

1898 - 1967

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0011 WRITER

Valentin Kataev

1897 - 1986

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0020 CONDUCTOR

Leonid Utyosov

1895 - 1982

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0021 POET

Eduard Bagritsky

1895 - 1934

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0023 POET

Vera Inber

1890 - 1972

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0026 WRITER

Ilya Ilf

1897 - 1937

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0027 ACTOR

Ida Kamińska

1899 - 1980

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0036 ARCHITECT

Boris Iofan

1891 - 1976

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0048 MUSIC

Irving Mills

1894 - 1985

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0053 MATHEMATICIAN

Pavel Urysohn

1898 - 1924

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0054 PIANIST

Benno Moiseiwitsch

1890 - 1963

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0060 PIANIST

Samuil Feinberg

1890 - 1962

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0063 LYRICIST

Lew Brown

1893 - 1958

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0071 CONDUCTOR

Aleksandr Gauk

1893 - 1963

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0072 ASTRONOMER

Dmitry Dmitrievich Maksutov

1896 - 1964

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0078 MILITAR

Yaakov Dori

1899 - 1973

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0088 ARCHITECT

Gregori Warchavchik

1896 - 1972

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0093 PIANIST

Simon Barere

1896 - 1951

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0134 SCREENWRITER

Samuel Hoffenstein

1890 - 1947

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0136 WRITER

Mark Slonim

1894 - 1976

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0137 SCIENTIST

Anna Pankratova

1897 - 1957

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0139 ACTOR

Mikhail Rasumny

1890 - 1956

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0151 BOTANIST

Heinrich Walter

1898 - 1989

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0153 LINGUIST

Olga Freidenberg

1890 - 1955

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0155 THEOLOGIAN

Nicholas Afanasiev

1893 - 1966

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0190 PIANIST

Léo Poll

1899 - 1988

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0192 POLITICIAN

Nikolai Gikalo

1897 - 1938

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0197 ACTOR

Fania Marinoff

1890 - 1971

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0202 PAINTER

Robert Brackman

1898 - 1980

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0209 COMPOSER

Jacobo Ficher

1896 - 1978

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0217 ASTROPHYSICIST

Grigory Shajn

1892 - 1956

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0223 AVIATOR

Vsevolod Abramovich

1890 - 1913

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0229 CHESS

Yakov Vilner

1899 - 1931

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0234 LITERARY

Constantin Motchoulski

1892 - 1948

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0235 WRITER

Juri Nikolajewitsch Libedinski

1898 - 1959

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0236 ACTIVIST

Halina Krahelska

1892 - 1945

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0239 PAINTER

Yitzhak Frenkel

1899 - 1981

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0244 VIOLIN

Toscha Seidel

1899 - 1962

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0250 POLITICAL

Joseph Schechtman

1891 - 1970

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0251 COMPOSER

Leff Pouishnoff

1891 - 1959

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0259 COMPOSER

Alexander Alexandrowitsch Dawidenko

1899 - 1934

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0293 PAINTER

Philippe Hosiasson

1898 - 1978

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0297 ARCHITECT

Jewgeni Adolfowitsch Lewinson

1894 - 1968

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0305 SOLDIER

Evgeny Messner

1891 - 1974

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0311 MUSIC

Ania Dorfmann

1899 - 1982

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0312 PHOTOGRAPHER

Eleazar Langman

1895 - 1940

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0327 ACTIVIST

Becky Edelsohn

1892 - 1973

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0358 WRITER

Alexandre Stepanov

1892 - 1965

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0366 ENGINEER

Boris Pregel

1893 - 1976

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0370 PRIEST

Stanisław Szulmiński

1894 - 1941

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0391 MOBSTER

Jacob Shapiro

1899 - 1947

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0392 PAINTER

Jacques Gotko

1899 - 1944

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0400 ENGINEER

Jerzy Rudlicki

1893 - 1977

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0419 ANTHROPOLOGIST

Shmuel Yeivin

1896 - 1982

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0420 FOOTBALL

Grigori Bogemsky

1895 - 1957

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0435 ACTOR

Zygmunt Chmielewski

1894 - 1978

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0439 ECONOMIST

Lew Natanowitsch Krizman

1890 - 1938

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0451 INTELLIGENCE

Wilfred Dunderdale

1899 - 1990

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0461 ARCHAEOLOGIST

Raissa Calza

1897 - 1979

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0521 LAWYER

Cezary Berezowski

1898 - 1970

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0526 PAINTER

Eugeniusz Arct

1899 - 1974

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0530 VIOLIN

Boris Kroyt

1897 - 1969

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0552 ECONOMIST

Alexander von Schelting

1894 - 1963

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0556 CHEMIST

Boris Alexandrowitsch Kasanski

1891 - 1973

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0563 WRITER

Sofiya Pregel

1894 - 1972

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0564 CHEMIST

Adolf Josifowitsch Rabinowitsch

1893 - 1942

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0566 PIANIST

Pierre Luboshutz

1891 - 1971

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0611 SINGER

Alexandra Čvanová

1897 - 1939

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0616 COMMUNIST

Nathan Gregory Silvermaster

1898 - 1964

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0620 MÖRDER

Nikolai Andrejew

1890 - 1919

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0648 LAWYER

Nahum Het

1896 - 1990

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0669 FLYING ACE

Antoni Mroczkowski

1896 - 1970

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0704 OFFICER

Wladimir Jefimowitsch Zessarski

1895 - 1940

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0733 INSTRUCTOR

Boris Sacharow

1899 - 1959

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0743 BALLET

Nikolai Yavorsky

1891 - 1947

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0749 POET

Perikl Stavrov

1895 - 1955

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0760 FILM

Max Terr

1890 - 1951

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0761 MISSING

Semyon Zapadny

1899 - 1938

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0763 PAINTER

André Aaron Bilis

1893 - 1971

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0766 PAINTER

Nechama Szmuszkowicz

1895 - 1977

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0779 PHILOSOPHER

Wassili Nikiforowitsch Ralzewitsch

1893 - 1957

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0780 PRIEST

Alex Shevelev

1896 - 1974

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0789 ACTOR

Nan Halperin

1898 - 1963

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0790 POLITICIAN

Theodor Beutling

1898 - 1942

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0806 MISSING

Nadja Stein

1891 - 1961

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0807 VIOLIN

Leo Cherniavsky

1890 - 1974

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0817 PAINTER

Vladimir Barjansky

1892 - 1968

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0838 ONCOLOGIST

Simon Holdin

1896 - 1975

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0844 BASEBALL

Reuben Ewing

1899 - 1970

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0850 PAINTER

Marija Felixowna Bri-Bein

1892 - 1968

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0862 WRITER

Marie Waife

1892 - 1985

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0865 VIOLIN

Michael Schugalté

1890 - 1954

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0871 ARTIST

Harold Tishler

1893 - 1993

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0879 POET

Eduard Bagrítzky

1895 - 1934

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