Popovkin, Evgenii Efimovich

Born Feb. 13 (26), 1907, in the village of Petroostrov, now in Novomirgorod Raion, Kirovograd Oblast; died Feb. 15, 1968, in Moscow. Soviet Russian writer. Member of the CPSU from 1927.

Popovkin began publishing in 1923. He graduated from the department of philology at Moscow State University in 1931. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) he was editor of an army newspaper. From 1958 to 1968 he was the editor in chief of the journal Moskva.

Popovkin’s novella The Great Flood (1940; novel of the same name, 1955) dealt with the organization of kolkhozes on the Don, and the novel The Family Rubaniuk (1947–50; State Prize of the USSR, 1952) was about the struggle of the Ukrainian people against the fascist occupiers. He also wrote the novel Taurida (1968) and the book On the Road and at Home: Travel Sketches (1964). Popovkin was awarded three orders and several medals.