Iakobson, August

(August Jakobson). Born Aug. 20 (Sept. 2), 1904, in the settlement of Rääma, near Pärnu; died May 23, 1963, in Tallinn. Soviet Estonian writer and state figure. People’s Writer of the Estonian SSR (1947). Member of the CPSU from 1942.

In 1927, Iakobson published the novel The Village of Poor Sinners. In his numerous novels, novellas, and short stories he depicted depressing scenes of the injustice of bourgeois society. Abandoning the biological naturalism of his early works, Iakobson achieved an analytical understanding of social processes in his cycle of novels The Eternal Estonians (vols. 1–4, 1937–40).

In 1940, Iakobson began to work for the Soviet press. In the postwar years he wrote the publicist plays Life in the Citadel (1946; State Prize of the USSR, 1947) and Struggle Without Front Lines (1946; State Prize of the USSR, 1948). He dealt with tense international relations in the plays Two Camps (1948) and The Jackals (1951). Iakobson also published the dramatic chronicle Storm Centers (vols. 1–2, 1962). His works heartily affirm socialism. They have been translated into many of the languages of the peoples of the USSR and foreign languages.

Iakobson was chairman of the administrative board of the Writers’ Union of the Estonian SSR from 1950 to 1954. He was a deputy to the first, third, and fourth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. From 1950 to 1958 he was chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR and deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Iakobson was awarded two Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and several medals.