Arkadii Aleksandrovich Kuleshov

Born Jan. 24 (Feb. 6), 1914, in the village of Samotevichi, now in Kostiukovichi Raion, Mogilev Oblast. Soviet Byelorussian poet. People’s Poet of the Byelorussian SSR (1968). Member of the CPSU since 1941. Son of a schoolteacher.

Kuleshov took part in the Great Patriotic War (1941-45). His works were first published in 1926. Kuleshov’s poetry collections include The Flowering of the Land (1930), After the Song, After the Sun! (1932), Copper Shower (1932), The Communists (1949), A New Book (1964), and Pine and Birch (1970). He wrote the narrative poems Amonal (1933), The Hunchback (1935), Baranov Vasilii (1937), In a Green Oak Woods (1939), Lads From the Recent War (1942), The Brigade Banner (1943; State Prize of the USSR, 1946), The Adventures of the Cymbals (1945), House No. 24 (1945), A New Course (1948; State Prize of the USSR, 1949), Ordinary People (1949), Only Forward (1950), The Menacing Forest (1956), and ,4 Long Way to the Ocean (1970-71). He also wrote the screenplay Red Leaves with A. Kuchar (1958).

Kuleshov’s poetry, folklike in its structure, deals with signifi-cant contemporary events and people. Kuleshov is a master of the epic form, possessing a vivid, metaphorical style; he is a poet of intense lyrical thought and emotion. He has successfully translated Russian, Ukrainian, and foreign classical poetry. Kuleshov was a deputy to the second through eighth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR. He has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and medals.