Perventsev, Arkadii

Born Jan. 13 (26), 1905, in the village of Nagut, now Nagutskoe, Stavropol’ Krai. Soviet Russian writer. Member of the CPSU since 1950.

Perventsev studied at the Bauman Higher Technical School in Moscow from 1929 to 1933 and began publishing in 1937. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 he was a war correspondent for Izvestiia. His first novel, Kochubei (books 1-2, 1937; film of the same name, 1958), is a romantic narrative about a hero of the Civil War of 1918-20. The novels Fiery Land (1945) and Honor Since Youth (1948; State Prize of the USSR, 1949) depict the heroism of the Soviet people in the struggle against fascism. Perventsev has also published the short story collections From the Same Crew (1954) and The Girl from Taman’ (1959) and the novels Sailors (1961), Gamaiun, the Prophetic Bird (1963), The Olive Branch (1965), and The Secret Front (1972). He wrote the screenplays for The Third Blow (1948; remade as Southern Junction) and The Shipka Heroes (1955). Perventsev has been awarded the Order of Lenin, four other orders, and several medals.