View source for Yul Brynner

===In Russia===
[[File:Yul Brynner's birthplace.jpg|thumb|left|upright|The Briner family mansion in [[Vladivostok]], [[Russia]], where Yul Brynner was born and lived from 1920 to 1927]]
Yul Brynner was born Yuliy Borisovich Briner on July 11, 1920,<ref name="Social Security Death Index">Record of Yul Brynner, #108-18-2984. Social Security Administration. [http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/ Born in 1920 according to the Social Security Death Index (although some sources indicate the year was 1915)] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121127100448/http://searches.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ssdi.html |date=November 27, 2012}} Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2006.<br /> In his biography of his father, Rock Yul Brynner, he asserts that he was born in the later year (1920).</ref><ref name="Intent p 21">United States Declaration of Intent (Document No. 541593), Record Group 21: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685–2004, filed June 4, 1943</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.imninalu.net/famousGypsies.htm |title=Famous Gypsies |website=www.imninalu.net |access-date=2011-01-31 |archive-date=2016-03-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160326095726/http://www.imninalu.net/famousGypsies.htm |url-status=dead}}</ref> in the city of [[Vladivostok]].<ref>[http://www.biography.com/people/yul-brynner-9542628 "Yul Brynner Biography"]. [[FYI (U.S. TV channel)|bio.]] Retrieved October 19, 2016.</ref> He had Swiss-German, Russian, and [[Buryats|Buryat]] (Mongol) ancestry. While he also claimed [[Romani people|Romani]] ancestry, no evidence has been found to support this.<ref name=hancock>{{cite journal |last=Hancock |first=Ian |author-link=Ian Hancock |title=The acquisition of English by American Romani children |journal=WORD |volume=27 |year=1971 |issue=1–3 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |pages=353–362 |doi=10.1080/00437956.1971.11435631 |quote=There are many such individuals (ie, who have Romani ancestry but who are ignorant, at least at first hand, of their language and culture)-Yul Brynner and Ava Gardner are two well-known examples.|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Klímová-Alexander, Ilona|title=The Development and Institutionalization of Romani Representation and Administration. Part 3b: From National Organizations to International Umbrellas (1945–1970)—the International Level|journal=[[Nationalities Papers]]|volume=35|issue=4|year=2007|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=627–661|doi=10.1080/00905990701475079|s2cid=154810008|quote=Yul Brynner (the half-Romani Hollywood star)}}</ref><ref name="Vera1" /><ref name="Vera2" /> He was born at his parents' home, a four-storey house on 15 Aleutskaya Street, Vladivostok, into a wealthy Swiss Russian family of landowners and [[silver]] mining developers in [[Siberia]] and the [[Far East]]. He was named after his grandfather merchant Yuliy Ivanovich Brinner.

The Briner family enjoyed a good life at their four-storey mansion. At the time of his birth, Vladivostok was under [[Japanese intervention in Siberia|Japanese occupation]], while the territory was controlled by the [[Far Eastern Republic]]—a [[History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917–1927)|communist Russian]] [[buffer state]]. The [[Red Army]] occupied Vladivostok in October 1922, and most of the Briner family's wealth was confiscated by the state at the end of the [[Russian Civil War]]. The Briner family, including Yul's elder sister Vera, continued living in their house under a temporary status, even though the house had been seized.<ref name="bryners.ru">{{Cite web |url=http://www.bryners.ru/main.php?bryner=5 |title=Yul Brynner and the Bryners family history |access-date=May 20, 2022 |archive-date=October 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231030220257/http://www.bryners.ru/main.php?bryner=5 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/Vladivostok/Bryner.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090822191641/http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/Vladivostok/Bryner.htm|url-status=dead|title=Briner Residence|archive-date=August 22, 2009}}</ref><ref>"[https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/bryner-vera-d-1967 Bryner, Vera (d.1967)]," encyclopedia.com. Retrieved August 29, 2020.</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite web |url=http://www.bryners.ru/main.php?bryner=2 |title=Russian biography of Boris Brinner, the father of Yul Brynner |access-date=May 20, 2022 |archive-date=March 14, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220314042125/http://bryners.ru/main.php?bryner=2 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Later in his life, Brynner humorously enjoyed telling tall tales and exaggerating his background and early life for the press, claiming that he was born Taidje Khan of a [[Mongol]] father and Roma mother on the Russian island of [[Sakhalin]].<ref name="rockbrynner">Brynner, Rock. ''Yul: The Man Who Would Be King'', Berkeley Books: 1991; {{ISBN|0-425-12547-5}}</ref> He occasionally referred to himself as Julius Briner,<ref name="Social Security Death Index" /> Jules Bryner,{{notetag|"Yul" is simply the short form of his given name "Yuliy", which itself is the Russian form of the name "Julius"; "Jules" is its French form.}} or Youl Bryner.<ref name="Intent p 21" /> The 1989 biography by his son, Rock Brynner, clarified some of these issues.{{how|date=February 2026}} <ref name="rockbrynner" />

Brynner's father, Boris Yuliyevich Briner, was a [[Mining engineering|mining engineer]] and inventor of Swiss German and Russian descent. He graduated from [[Saint Petersburg Mining University|Mining University]] in [[Saint Petersburg]] in 1910. The actor's grandfather Jules Briner ([[:ru:Бринер, Юлий Иванович|Бринер, Юлий Иванович]]) was a Swiss citizen who had moved to Vladivostok in the 1870s and established a successful import/export company.<ref name=Rochman>Rochman, Sue. [http://www.cancertodaymag.org/Winter2011/Pages/yul-brynner-lung-cancer.aspx "A King's Legacy"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161102211932/http://www.cancertodaymag.org/Winter2011/Pages/yul-brynner-lung-cancer.aspx |date=November 2, 2016}}, ''Cancer Today'' magazine, Winter 2011 (December 5, 2011). Retrieved January 20, 2013.</ref>
Brynner's paternal grandmother, Natalya Yosifovna Kurkutova, was a native of [[Irkutsk]] and a Eurasian of partial [[Buryats|Buryat]] ancestry.

Brynner's mother, Maria (Marousia) Dimitrievna (née Blagovidova, Мария Дмитриевна Благовидова),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Мария и Вера Благовидовы-Бринер |url=http://bryners.ru/main.php?bryner=12 |access-date=2024-06-25 |website=bryners.ru}}</ref> hailed from the Russian [[intelligentsia]] and had studied to be an actress and singer. According to her son, she was of Russian Roma ancestry,<ref name=hancock /> but documents examined by modern historians of Vladivostok claimed the Briner family had no blood connections with Roma. Yul came into close contact with Roma culture in exile while working with his sister, singer Vera Brinner, and they were looking for a stage image. Vera later sharply objected to this appropriation.<ref name="Vera1">{{Cite web |last=Жукова |first=Елена |date=2020-07-22 |title=Цыган, монгол или сахалинец? |url=https://vl.aif.ru/culture/cygan_mongol_ili_sahalinec |access-date=2024-06-25 |website=AiF |language=ru}}</ref><ref name="Vera2">{{Cite web |title=Вера Бриннер |url=http://bryners.ru/main.php?bryner=4 |access-date=2024-06-25 |website=bryners.ru}}</ref> Brynner felt a strong personal connection to the Roma. In 1977, he was named honorary president of the [[International Romani Union]], a title he kept until his death.<ref name="book">{{cite book |author=Daniel C. Blum |title=Great Stars of the American Stage |publisher=[[Grosset & Dunlap]] |year=1954 |page=137}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Pankok, Moritz |date=April 12, 2015 |title=The Roma Theatre Pralipe |url=https://www.romarchive.eu/en/theatre-and-drama/institutional-theatre/roma-theatre-pralipe/ |access-date=2017-06-26 |website=romarchive.eu}}</ref>

In 1922, after formation of the [[Soviet Union]], Yul's father, Boris Briner, was required to relinquish his Swiss citizenship. All family members were made Soviet citizens. Brynner's father's work required extensive travel, and in 1923 in Moscow, he fell in love with actress Katerina Ivanovna Kornakova. She was the ex-wife of actor [[Aleksei Dikiy]] and the stage partner of [[Michael Chekhov]] at the [[Moscow Art Theatre]]. Many years later, Katerina Kornakova would help Brynner with her letter of recommendation asking Michael Chekhov to employ him in his theatre company in the United States.

In 1924, Yul's father divorced his mother, Marousia, but continued to support her and their children. His father also adopted a girl because his new wife was childless. Many years later, after the death of his father, Brynner took this adopted sister into his care. The father and son relationship remained complex and emotionally traumatic for Brynner.

After leaving his children and his former wife in Vladivostok, Boris Briner lived briefly in Moscow with Katerina Ivanovna Kornakova, but eventually they moved to [[Harbin]], [[Manchuria]]. At that time, Manchuria remained under Japanese control. Briner established a business in international trade.<ref name="bryners.ru" /><ref name="ReferenceA" />