Bondarev, Iurii Vasilevich

Born Mar. 15, 1924, in Orsk. Soviet Russian writer. Member of the CPSU since 1944. Participant in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45. Bon-darev graduated from the Gorky Institute of Literature in 1951. He began to be published in 1949. His first collection of short stories was On the Big River (1953). In the novellas The Battalions Are Asking for Fire (1957) and The Last Salvos (1959; film of the same name, 1961) and in the novel Hot Snow (1969), Bondarev portrays the heroism of Soviet soldiers, officers, and generals and the psychology of the participants in the war. The novel The Stillness (1962; film of the same name, 1964) and its sequel, the novel The Two (1964), portrays postwar life, in which people who have gone through the war look for their niche and calling. The collection of short stories In the Late Evening (1962) and the novella Relatives (1969) are devoted to contemporary young people. Bondarev is one of the coauthors of the screenplay for the film Liberation (1970). Dramatic moral conflicts and acute social problems characterize Bondarev’s works. He has been awarded the Badge of Honor and medals.