Viktor Tsoi
Soviet rock musician (1962-1990)
Viktor Robertovich Tsoi (Russian: Виктор Робертович Цой, IPA: [ˈvʲiktər ˈrobʲɪrtəvʲɪtɕ ˈtsoj]; 21 June 1962 – 15 August 1990) was a Soviet singer-songwriter, artist and actor who co-founded Kino, one of the most popular and influential bands in the history of Russian music.
Born and raised in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) to a Russian mother and Koryo-saram father, Tsoi started writing songs as a teenager. Throughout his career, Tsoi contributed a plethora of musical and artistic works, including ten albums. After Kino appeared and performed in the 1987 Soviet film Assa, the band's popularity surged, triggering a period referred to as "Kinomania", and leading to Tsoi's leading role in the 1988 Kazakh new wave art film The Needle. In 1990, after a high-profile concert at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, Tsoi briefly relocated to Latvia with bandmate Yuri Kasparyan to work on the band's next album. Two months after the concert, Tsoi died in a traffic collision.
Tsoi was one of the most important pioneers of rock music in Russia and is credited with popularizing the genre throughout the Soviet Union. Becoming popular by combining his music and lyrics with philosophy, he retains a devoted following throughout the former Soviet Union, where he is known as one of the most influential and popular people in the history of Russian music.
Life and career
Early years
Viktor Robertovich Tsoi was born on 21 June 1962, in a maternity hospital on Kuznetsovskaya Street in Leningrad. He was the only child of Valentina Vasilyevna Tsoi (née Guseva), a Russian schoolteacher, and Robert Maximovich Tsoi, a Soviet Korean engineer from Kyzylorda, Kazakhstan, where his Korean parents had been exiled after Stalin's 1937 deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Viktor Tsoi” is soviet rock musician (1962-1990). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Viktor, Tsoi and Soviet, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “soviet rock musician (1962-1990)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q487125. VIAF identifies the subject as 289758028. The Library of Congress control number is nr95031808. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1962, 1990, 1987 and 1988.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Viktor Tsoi”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Viktor Tsoi primary sources, Viktor Tsoi archive and Viktor research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Viktor Tsoi”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Viktor Tsoi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.