Sergei TretIakov

Born June 8 (20), 1892, in the city of Kuldīga, in what is now the Latvian SSR; died Aug. 9,1939. Soviet Russian writer.

Tret’iakov graduated from the faculty of law at Moscow University in 1915; he served in the Civil War of 1918–20. His first published works, which appeared in 1913, were futurist poems. As one of the theorists of LEF (Left Front of the Arts), Tret’iakov was an adherent of the literature of fact, which was reflected in his journalistic plays Are You Listening, Moscow?! and Gas Masks, both of which were staged in 1924 at the First Workers’ Theater of Proletkul’t by S. Eisenstein. Other works written in this vein are the play Roar, China! (staged at the V. Meyerhold Theater, 1926) and the documentary novels Teng Shih-Hua (1930), The Challenge (1930), and The Country of A-E (1932). He published the poetry collections The Iron Pause (1919), Iasnysh (1922), and Altogether (1924). His propaganda poems clearly show the influence of V. V. Mayakovsky. Screen versions of Tret’iakov’s works include Eliso (1928), Salt for Svanetia (1930), and Out of the Way! (1931). Tret’iakov’s works have been translated into foreign languages.