Sofronov, Anatolii Vladimirovich

Born Jan. 6 (19), 1911, in Minsk. Soviet Russian writer and playwright. Member of the CPSU since 1940.

Sofronov graduated from the literature department of the Rostov Pedagogical Institute in 1937. He was a special correspondent for hvestiia during the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). First published in 1929, he became editor in chief of the journal Ogonek in 1953. Sofronov is the author of several volumes of collected verse, including Sunny Days (1934), Over the Don River (1938), Feather Grass (1944), I Love You (1962), We Are Both From Rostov (1964), and All That Happened in the War (1972). The principal themes of his poems are love for his native land and the struggle for peace. He has written the lyrics to many songs, including The Briansk Forest Fiercely Roared (music by S. Kats) and From the Volga to the Don (music by S. Zaslavskii).

Sofronov’s plays include In a Certain Town (1946; staged by the Mossovet Theater, 1948; State Prize of the USSR, 1948), The Moscow Character (1948; staged by the Malyi Theater, 1949; State Prize of the USSR, 1949), Beketov’s Career (1949; second version, 1972), The Heart Does Not Forgive (1953), Money (1954), A Million for a Smile (1959), The Cook (1959, staged by the Vakhtangov Theater, 1959), The Cook Married (1961), Take Care of Your Living Sons (1963), A Luckless Lot (1963), Pavlina (1964), The Labyrinth (1968), The Inheritance (1970), and Hurricane (1972). The plays, often depicting comic and vaudevil-lian situations, deal with the moral standards and behavior of Soviet man. They are staged in theaters all over the country. Sofronov has also published volumes of essays, among them A Trip I Would Like to Take Again (1964) and The Inheritance (1973); some of his works have been translated.

From 1948 to 1953, Sofronov was secretary of the Writers’ Union of the USSR; in 1958 he became deputy chairman of the Soviet Committee for Solidarity of Asian and African Countries. He has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, and various medals.