Panferov, Fedor

Born Sept. 20 (Oct. 2), 1896, in the village of Pavlovka, now in Ul’ianovsk Oblast; died Sept. 10, 1960, in Moscow. Soviet Russian writer. Member of the CPSU from 1926.

The son of a peasant, Panferov began publishing in 1918. He studied at the University of Saratov from 1923 to 1925. After the October Revolution he worked for the Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) and was editor of a district newspaper. From 1925 to 1927 in Moscow he edited the journal Krest’ianskii Zhurnal, thus helping propagandize the advantages of collective farming.

Panferov’s first published works were essays, short stories, and plays on the socialist reconstruction of the countryside. In his novel Bruski (books 1–4, 1928–37), the first multithematic work of Soviet literature on collectivization, he created vivid portraits of the resistant property owners and of representatives of the new countryside. The postwar development of agriculture was the theme of his trilogy Mother Volga, comprising the novels The Blow (1953), Meditation (1958), and In the Name of the Young (1960).

Panferov also published the novels The Struggle for Peace (books 1–2,1945–47; State Prize of the USSR, 1948), In the Landof the Vanquished (1948; State Prize of the USSR, 1949), and Great Art (1954). Between 1931 and 1960 he was intermittently the editor of the journal Oktiabr’. His works have been translated into many languages. Panferov was a deputy to the second, third, and fourth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded five orders and several medals.