Vsevolod Viacheslavovich Ivanov

Born Feb. 12 (24), 1895, in the village of Lebiazh’e, in present-day Pavlodar Oblast; died Aug. 15, 1963, in Moscow. Soviet Russian writer.

Ivanov was the son of a rural schoolteacher. He left home early to seek work and traveled extensively. His work first appeared in print in 1915. Ivanov’s first book, The Forks, was published in 1919. He lived in Petrograd from 1921. M. Gorky played a major role in Ivanov’s life.

Ivanov belonged to the Serapion Brothers literary group. His novellas “The Partisans” (1921), “Armored Train 14–69” (1922), and “Colored Winds” (1922) were included in the collection The Knolls: Partisan Stories (1923), an important landmark of Soviet prose. The collection gave bright and original expression to the subject of the Civil War and the struggle of the people for land and freedom.

Ivanov’s oeuvre of the 1920’s was complicated and contradictory. An exaggerated interest in the biological side of man’s nature was reflected in such works as The Mystery of Mysteries (1927) and “The Private House” (1928). Yet, at the same time, Ivanov was writing “Khabu” (1925), “The Destruction of the Iron Division” (1928), “Journey to the Land That Does Not Yet Exist” (1930), and the play Armored Train 14–69 (1927). The main protagonists of these stories and of the play are Communists, active participants in the Civil War, and leaders in socialist construction. Armored Train 14–69 is firmly established as one of the best works of Soviet dramaturgy.

Ivanov went on to write the autobiographical novel The Adventures of a Fakir (1934—35; rev. ed. , 1960), the novel Park-homenko (1939; the film Aleksandr Parkhomenko was produced in 1942), the reminiscences Meetings with Maxim Gorky (1947), the drama Lomonosov (1953), and stories and magazine articles. His reminiscences, diaries, and novel Volcano (1966–68) were published posthumously. Many of Ivanov’s works have been translated into European and Oriental languages. He received two orders and also medals.