1924-2001
Konstantin Yakovlevich Lagunov, a famous Tyumen writer, was born on September 16, 1924 in the large village of Staraya Maina, Ulyanovsk region, in a teacher's family. The childhood of the writer passed in Malozorkaltsevo, Tobolsk district. He studied at Golyshmanovskaya secondary school, which he graduated a few days before the war. He was not drafted into the army because of poor eyesight, and since July 1941 his work biography began.
He worked as a teacher and then director of the Golyshmanovsky orphanage. From 1942 to 1956 he was a freed Komsomol worker, including in Lithuania and Tajikistan. Overemployment in the Komsomol work did not prevent Lagunov in 1950 to finish the Tyumen Pedagogical Institute.
Since 1956 he has been seriously engaged in literary creativity: he edits the newspaper Komsomolets of Tajikistan, the almanac Literary Tajikistan, the republican magazine Guliston, writes the first books. In 1958, in Dushanbe came the story “My path”, followed by a book of essays “Only forward”.
In 1959, K. Lagunov was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR. At the same time, he is engaged in science, finishes correspondence postgraduate studies at the Tajik University, defends his PhD thesis in history. In 1961 he came to Tyumen. For two years he headed the Tyumen Book Publishing House and for twenty years (from 1963 to 1983) was the executive secretary of the Tyumen Regional Writers’ Organization, created a whole school of creative seminars, which helped many to enter an independent writing path. He was a member of the journal editorial boards, was a member of the boards of the JV of the USSR and JV of the RSFSR.
The creative evolution of the writer can be divided into three stages. At the first (Tajik) there was an accumulation of skill (the story “My Path”, 1958; the novel “Morning of the Golden Valley”, 1961). The second stage is mainly associated with the chronicle of the oil and gas epic, the affirmation of everything positive that happened at that time. Lagunov’s novels Ordalia (1970), Obsessed (1974), Painful Coast Cool (1979) are full of bright, impressive pictures of Siberian nature, characters with integral characters, whose power and will move events. Without detracting from the working heroism of the pioneers, K.Y. Lagunov already then, in the 70-80s, spoke about the contradictions of development, about the moral price of victories.
The writer always worried about another topic - the history of the region. In 1966, in Sverdlovsk published his novel “So it was” – about the life of the Trans-Ural village in the difficult war years. In 1978, the same Middle Ural publishing house published the novel “Red Roosters”, dedicated to the peasant war of 1921.
The third stage of creativity is the early 80s. The spiritual, moral and philosophical attitude to modernity, social criticism of many aspects of reality come to the fore. Lagunov’s new works (Bronze Dog, 1982; Breakfast on the Grass, 1987) come to the reader with a great delay, overcoming the prohibitions of the powerful. It was only in 1994 that the full chronicle of the West Siberian Peasant Uprising “Snow Falls Hard” (Twenty-First, 1991) was published. A year earlier, the story “Irinarch” was published in Surgut - about the rector of the Obdor mission, the enlightener of the peoples of the Far North in the 90s of the XIX century.
K.J. Lagunov, the only one of the Tyumen writers, held his personal moral judgment, reviewed his experiences in his autobiographical essay Before God and People (1993). For the first time in the history of regional culture, he wrote a book on contemporary Tyumen literature “Portraits without retouch” (1994); he analyzed local current journalism in a textbook “Through Calvary to Olympus” (1995). In 1996, Lagunov amazed many with the publication of the epic "The Denial of Negation", - the history of the region was comprehended by him for several centuries. Acute modern problems, a new round of the battle between good and evil are shown in the novels “Devil’s Prey” (1997) and “Absurd” (1998), these works are included in the new (1999) book of the writer. In the same year, the publishing house of the Tyumen State University released a three-volume collection of K. Ya Lagunov.
Impressive is the writer’s creative range. In addition to 12 novels that have become Russian classics, stories, novels, poems, dramatic works are written; a rich journalistic heritage. According to the novels “So it was”, “Red Roosters”, “Obsessives” performances were staged in the Tyumen Drama Theater. On "Obsessives" was filmed feature film "On the taiga winds". K.Y. Lagunov is also known as a children's writer, fairy tales "The Town on the Bougrain" (1969), "Romka-Ramazan" (1977), "Romka, Fomka and Artos" (1984), etc. children know and love. Books by K.Y. Lagunov (more than fifty!) are published and reprinted by the capital and many peripheral publishing houses, translated into many languages of the peoples of the world. The circulation of children's books has long crossed the millionth line.
Konstantin Yakovlevich was long and firmly associated with Tyumen State University, in 1992 he founded the Department of Journalism and headed it for 5 years. Having plunged into interesting and difficult work with young people, he led the only creative seminar in the country, during which the first books of his wards were born.
For many years of fruitful work in the Komsomol, for great merits in the development of literature, Konstantin Yakovlevich was awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples, the Badge of Honor, and many medals. K.Y. Lagunov - Academician of the provincial academy, honorary citizen of Tyumen (1994), Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation (1995), laureate of many awards, was awarded the TSU gold medal "For outstanding merits".
. . . He left in the midst of working on a novel about current fathers and children, about the terrible, rampant narcotization of young people. He was buried on July 21, 2001 at Chervishevsky cemetery. In memory of this remarkable man, the Union of Journalists established the K.Y. Lagunov Prize “Publicist of the Year”.