Narovchatov, Sergei

Born Oct. 3, 1919, in the city of Khvalynsk, in what is now Saratov Oblast. Soviet Russian poet. Member of the CPSU since 1943.

Narovchatov graduated from both the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History and from the M. Gorky Institute of Literature in 1941. He then served in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45. In his collections of verses The Campfire (1948), Soldiers of Freedom (1952), and The Exacting Wayfarer (1963), the military theme predominates. In his later books, A Quarter of a Century (1965), Through the War (1968), and Noon (1969), the main motifs are the continuity of revolutionary and fighting traditions and philosophical musings about his own experience. Narovchatov’s lyric poetry is openly civic-minded and is marked by clarity and simplicity of style.

Narovchatov is also a literary critic. His works Uncommon Literary Criticism (1970) and Atlantis is at Your Side: Criticism, Polemics, Reflections (1972) include many of his views on classical Russian and contemporary Soviet poetry. In 1973 he published the narrative poem Vasilii Buslaev.

Narovchatov is a secretary of the Writers’ Union of the USSR and first secretary of the Moscow branch of the Writers’ Union of the RSFSR (since 1971). He has been awarded the Order of Lenin and three other orders, as well as a number of medals.