Russian writer. Born on May 1, 1924 in Ovsyanka, Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the family of a peasant. Parents were dekulakized, Astafiev was in an orphanage. During the Great Patriotic War he went to the front as a volunteer, fought as a simple soldier, was seriously wounded. Returning from the front, Astafiev worked as a locksmith, an auxiliary worker, a teacher in the Perm region. In 1951, the newspaper “Chusovsky worker” published his first story “Civil man”. In Perm, the first book of Astafyev Before Next Spring (1953) was published.
In 1959-1961 he studied at the Higher Literary Courses in Moscow. At this time, his stories began to be published not only in the publishing houses of Perm and Sverdlovsk, but also in the capital, including in the magazine “New World”, headed by A. Tvardovsky. Already for the first stories of Astafiev was characterized by attention to “little people” – Siberian Old Believers (the story Starodub, 1959), orphanages of the 1930s (the story of theft, 1966). Stories dedicated to the fate of people whom the prose writer met during his orphaned childhood and youth are combined by him in the cycle The Last Bow (1968-1975) - a lyrical narrative about the national character.
In the work of Astafiev, two important themes of Soviet literature of the 1960-1970s were equally embodied - military and rural. In his work, including in works written long before Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, the Patriotic War appears as a great tragedy.
The novella The Shepherd and the Shepherd (1971), the genre of which was designated by the author as “modern pastoral”, tells about the hopeless love of two young people, briefly reduced and forever separated by war. In the play Forgive Me (1980), which takes place in the military infirmary, Astafiev also writes about love and death. Even more harshly than in the works of the 1970s, and absolutely without pathetic, the face of war is shown in the novel So Want to Live (1995) and in the novel Cursed and Killed (1995). In his interviews, the prose writer has repeatedly stressed that he does not consider it possible to write about the war, guided by ostentatious patriotism. Shortly after the publication of the novel Cursed and Killed, Astafiev was awarded the Triumph Prize, annually awarded for outstanding achievements in literature and art.
The village theme was most fully and vividly embodied in the story of the Tsar-fish (1976; State Prize of the USSR, 1978), the genre of which Astafiev designated as “narrative in stories”. The plot of the Tsar-fish was the impression of the writer from a trip to his native Krasnoyarsk Territory. The documentary-biographical basis is organically combined with lyrical and journalistic deviations from the smooth development of the plot. At the same time, Astafyev manages to create the impression of complete authenticity even in those chapters of the story where fiction is obvious - for example, in the chapters-legends Tsar-fish and Dream of the White Mountains. The prose writer bitterly writes about the destruction of nature and names the main cause of this phenomenon: the spiritual impoverishment of man. Astafyev did not bypass in the Tsar-fish the main “stumbling stone” of village prose – the opposition of the urban and rural man, which is why the image of “not remembering kinship” Gogi Hertsev turned out one-dimensional, almost caricatured.
The writer was not enthusiastic about the changes that occurred in human consciousness at the beginning of perestroika, he believed that if the moral foundations of human society, which was characteristic of Soviet reality, were violated, universal freedom could only lead to rampant crime. This idea is expressed in the novel The Sad Detective (1987). Its protagonist, policeman Soshnin, tries to fight criminals, realizing the futility of his efforts. The hero – and with him the author – is horrified by the mass decline of morality, leading people to a series of cruel and unmotivated crimes. This author's position corresponds to the style of the story: The sad detective, more than other works of Astafiev, is characterized by publicity.
During the years of perestroika, Astafiev tried to get involved in the struggle between various writers’ groups. However, his talent and common sense helped him avoid the temptation of political bias. Perhaps this was largely facilitated by the fact that after long wanderings around the country, the writer settled in his native Ovsyanka, consciously distancing himself from the bustle of the city. Oatmeal Astafiev became a kind of “cultural Mecca” of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Here the novel was repeatedly visited by prominent writers, cultural figures, politicians and simply grateful readers.
The genre of miniature essays, in which Astafiev worked a lot, he called Zatesy, symbolically linking his work with the construction of a house. In 1996, Astafiev received the State Prize of Russia, in 1997 – the Pushkin Prize of the Alfred Tepfer Foundation (Germany).
Astafiev died in the village of Ovsyanka Krasnoyarsk Krai on November 29, 2001, buried there.