The pseudonym "Dziga Vertov" literally translates as "spinning, turning". The artist adopted this moniker whilst experimenting with film and audio recordings in the mid-1910s, and kept it for the rest of his career.
Born in Bialystok, Poland, studied music and enrolled in St. Petersburg Neurological Institute in 1916. Worked on first Soviet newsreel, Kinonedelia (1918-1919), then on subsequent newsreel series (inc. Kinopravda, 1922-1925).