Aleksandr Serafimovich

Soviet writer Alexander Serafimovich, by his real name Popov, was born in the village of Nizhnekurmoyarsk, Rostov region in 1863. His biography was strongly influenced by political events that entered history. In his student years, while studying at St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, he fell into the circle of revolutionaries and became acquainted with Marxism. For participating in the revolutionary movement together with his friend A.I. Ulyanov and the assassination more

Soviet writer Alexander Serafimovich, by his real name Popov, was born in the village of Nizhnekurmoyarsk, Rostov region in 1863. His biography was strongly influenced by political events that entered history. In his student years, while studying at St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, he fell into the circle of revolutionaries and became acquainted with Marxism. For participating in the revolutionary movement together with his friend A.I. Ulyanov and the assassination attempt on Alexander III, Serafimovich was arrested and then exiled to the Arkhangelsk province. There he wrote his first story “On the Ice” (1889).

In 1902 Serafimovich returned to Moscow, actively participating in the literary life of the city. He became a member of the literary group “Sreda”, and in 1918, having joined the Bolshevik party, he headed the lithotdesk of the newspaper “Izvestia”. In Moscow, he departs from the genre of everyday essays and creates the novel “City in the Steppe”, showing the construction and growth of a new, capitalist city in the deserted steppe.

During his years, Serafimovich created a large number of stories that have an essay character. They reflected the hard, unbearable work, hopeless need and lack of rights of the working masses of tsarist Russia. During the years of Serafimovich’s work in Russian News, he received wide recognition and honor from V. I. Lenin, who addressed a letter to the writer that his work is important and necessary for the people.

In 1924, in the collection “Nedra”, the Russian writer published the work “Iron Stream”, which put Serafimovich in the best ranks of creative people of that time. The heroic epic is created on the basis of an understanding of specific facts of historical reality and has a deeply generalizing meaning. According to literary critics, this work is not about specific heroes, but about the fate of the people as a whole.

For his labors and exorbitant love for the Russian people, reflected in his works, Serafimovich received the Stalin Prize of the first degree (1943). Volgograd State Pedagogical University was also named after him.

Alexander Serafimovich died on January 19, 1949. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow. /