Vasilenko, Ivan

Vasilenko, Ivan Dmitrievich

 

Born Jan. 8 (20), 1895, in the city of Makeevka; died May 29, 1966, in Moscow. Soviet Russian writer. Member of the CPSU from 1920.

Vasilenko studied at the Belgorod Teachers’ Institute, from which he was expelled for participation in the student movement. After the October Revolution he worked in the public education system. In 1938 he published the novella The Magic Box, the first of a series of novellas about the life and adventures of a boy cobbler; it was followed by the novellas Artemka at the Circus (1940), The Bewitched Show (1950), and Golden Slippers (1958). His best-known novella is Little Star (1948; State Prize of the USSR, 1950), which deals with the life of child artisans during the Great Patriotic War. Vasilenko was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor and medals.

WORKS

Izbrannoe: Povesti i rasskazy. Moscow, 1958.
Zhizn’ i prikliucheniia Zamorysha. Rostov-on-Don, 1959.
Plan zhizni: Rasskazy. Moscow, 1965.
Rasskazy. Moscow, 1965.
Rasskazy. Dushanbe, 1966.

REFERENCES

Veresaev, V. “O detskom pisatele I. Vasilenko.” Literaturnaia gazeta, November 11, 1944.
Konovalova, V. “Pisatel’ strany detstva.” Uchitel’skaia gazeta, February 9, 1965.

V. A. KALASHNIKOV