Zadornov, Nikolai

Born Nov. 22 (Dec. 5), 1909, in Penze. Soviet Russian writer, Honored Cultural Worker of the Latvian SSR since 1969.

Zadornov is the author of two cycles of historical novels on the assimilation of the Far East by the Russian people in the 19th century and the heroic exploits of the explorers. The first cycle consists of four novels: The Distant Land (books 1-2, 1946-49), The First Discovery (1969; original title, Toward the Ocean, 1949), Captain Nevel’skoi (books 1-2, 1956-58), and War for the Ocean (books 1-2, 1960-62). The second cycle, which is about the development of the Far East by peasant settlers and is connected with the first in its theme, consists of two novels: Amur the Father (books 1-2, 1941-46) and Gold Fever (1969). In 1971 he published the novel Tsunami, which is devoted to the expedition of Admiral E. V. Putiatin to Japan in 1845-55. He is also the author of Yellow, Green, Blue. . . (book 1, 1967), a novel about the contemporary period, and The Blue Hour (1968), travel essays. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1952 for the novels Amur the Father, The Distant Land, and Toward the Ocean. He has been awarded three orders, as well as medals.