Shamota, Nikolai Zakharovich

Born Dec. 4 (17), 1916, in Poltava. Soviet literary scholar, critic, and public figure. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1967); member of the academy’s presidium and academiciansecretary of the division of literature, language, and art (1966–71). Member of the CPSU since 1945.

Shamota took part in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45. He graduated from the Nezhin Pedagogical Institute in 1939 and from the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1953. From 1961 to 1978 he served as director of the T. G. Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Shamota’s first published works appeared in 1946. His most important works deal with the theory of socialist realism, the contemporary literary process, and Soviet Ukrainian writers. His books have been translated into many languages, both in the USSR and abroad.

Shamota became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine in 1976. He was a deputy to the eighth and ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Shamota has been awarded the Order of Lenin, four other orders, and various medals.