Vasilev, Pavel

Born Dec. 12 (25), 1910; died 1937. Soviet Russian poet.

Vasil’ev was born in the city of Zaisan, now in Votochnyi Kazakhstan Oblast. In his verses and narrative poems (Song About the Destruction of the Cossack Army, 1928-32; The Salt Rebellion, 1933; The Khristoliubov Cottons, 1935-36) Vasil’ev gave a memorable description of the everyday life of the Semirech’e Cossacks, an environment from which the author himself came, the events of the Civil War, and collectivization. Characteristic for Vasil’ev’s heroes, as well as for their author, was a tormented conquest of vestiges of the past along the road to the revolutionary truth of the people. Vasil’ev’s poetry with its sharp conflicts, reflecting the social contradictions of his time, was marked by powerful and expressive images, which, to a great degree, had their roots in folklore.