Fyodor Aleksandrovich Abramov Born February 29, 1920, village of Verkola, Arkhangelsk province Date of death May 14, 1983, Leningrad — Russian Soviet writer, literary critic, publicist. One of the most famous representatives of the so-called “village prose”, a significant trend in Soviet literature of the 1960-1980s.
Biography
Fyodor Abramov was born into a peasant family, the youngest of five children. Father: Alexander Stepanovich Abramov (1878-1921), worked as a driver in Arkhangelsk. Mother: Stepanida Pavlovna, née Zavarzina (1883-1947), an Old Believers peasant. When Fedor was 1 year old, his father died. After graduating from the Verkolsky four-year elementary school, Abramov went to the 5th grade at the Kushkopalsky school. In 1933, Fedor moved to the regional center — the village of Karpogory (45 km from Verkola) to finish ten years of school. In 1938, after graduating with honors from high school, he was enrolled without exams in the philological faculty of Leningrad University.
After the third year, on June 22, 1941, he volunteered for the people’s militia. He served as a machine gunner in the 377th artillery and machine gun battalion; in September 1941 he was wounded in the arm, and after a short treatment he returned to the front line. In November 1941, he was seriously wounded (both legs were broken by a bullet); it was only by chance that he was discovered by a member of the funeral team collecting the dead. He spent the blockade winter of 1941-1942 in a Leningrad hospital, and in April 1942 he was evacuated across the ice of Lake Ladoga by one of the last vehicles.
Due to injury, he received leave for 3 months and taught at the Karpogorsk school. Recognized as fit for non-combatant service, from July 1942 he was deputy company commander in the 33rd reserve rifle regiment in the Arkhangelsk Military District, from February 1943 — assistant platoon commander of the Arkhangelsk Military Machine Gun School. From April 1943, he was transferred to the counterintelligence department «Smersh» to the position of assistant reserve detective, from August 1943 — investigator, from June 1944 — senior investigator of the investigative department of the counterintelligence department.
He wrote an autobiographical story about that time, “Who is He?”, published by his widow after his death. Demobilized in the fall of 1945. Member of the CPSU(b) since 1945. He graduated with honors from the Faculty of Philology of Leningrad State University (1948) and entered graduate school at Leningrad State University. In 1949, while a graduate student, he took part in the persecution of “cosmopolitan” professors (Boris Eikhenbaum, Grigory Gukovsky, Mark Azadovsky and others). Abramov was subsequently ashamed of these episodes in his career. While studying, he met his future wife Lyudmila Krutikova (later a literary critic and researcher of the works of I. A. Bunin). In 1951, he married and defended his PhD thesis on the works of M. A. Sholokhov. In 1951-1960 he was a senior lecturer, then an associate professor and head of the department of Soviet literature at Leningrad State University.
At the beginning of the Khrushchev Thaw in 1954, he published an article in the magazine “New World”, “People of the Collective Farm Village in Post-War Literature,” in which he spoke out against glossing over the state of affairs in the countryside. Under threat of dismissal from Leningrad State University, he was forced to admit the error of his article. During the summer holidays of 1950, on the Dorishche farm in the Novgorod region, Abramov began writing his first novel, “Brothers and Sisters,” which was completed six years later.
For two years the novel was not accepted for publication; the writer was rejected by the magazines “October” and “New World”. In 1958, the novel was published in the Neva magazine and was well received by critics. In 1960, Abramov left the department and became a professional writer. In 1963, the magazine “Neva” published the story “Around and Around,” which caused a resolution of the Leningrad City Committee of the CPSU on the distortion of collective farm life; the editor of the magazine was fired. At first, positive reviews by G. Radov “All the salt is in the position” (March 5, 1963) and V. Chalmaev “I am the people” (March 26, 1963) appeared in Literary Gazette, but then devastating articles followed in “Soviet Russia” (Kolesov V. “Really, around the bush.” 04/13/63), “Leningradskaya Pravda” (Belyaev N. “No, this is not the truth of life.” 04/28/63), magazine “Communist” (Stepanov V. “Rural theme in the writer’s essays” No. 13 1963), etc. Positive reviews were removed from already collected issues of newspapers and magazines. The story was called “ideologically vicious,” and F.
Abramov was not published anywhere for several years. In June 1963, the Flegon Press publishing house published the story in London, translated by David Floyd, as a separate book entitled “The Cunning Ones.” At the beginning of June 1963, the newspaper “Pinezhskaya Pravda”, and a little later in the newspapers “Pravda Severa” and “Izvestia”, published an open letter from allegedly fellow countrymen of Fyodor Abramov to the writer “Why are you calling us, fellow countryman?” However, it later turned out that the letter was brought to Verkola from the regional center and people who had not read the story “Around the Bush” were forced to sign it. In 1979, in the Pinezhskaya Pravda newspaper, Fyodor Abramov published an open letter to his fellow countrymen “What do we live and feed on?”, which caused conflicting responses from Pinezh residents.
The letter was reprinted in the Pravda newspaper with abbreviations and changes to the text without the knowledge of the author. Awarded the Order of Lenin (1980), the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, and the medals “For the Defense of Leningrad” and “For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.” On October 30, 1981, Fyodor Abramov spoke at an author’s evening in Ostankino, which was broadcast on television throughout the country. A transcript of this four-hour talk was published in 1993. F. A. Abramov died on May 14, 1983 in Leningrad. He was buried in the village of Verkola on the right bank of the Pinega River; on the left bank there is the Artemiyevo-Verkolsky Monastery, the restoration of which Abramov was preoccupied with at the end of his life.
The Abramov Museum has been opened in Verkola. Schools and streets in Verkola, Karpogory, Arkhangelsk, St. Petersburg are named after Fyodor Abramov; libraries in Karpogory and St. Petersburg; street in St. Petersburg (2010); asteroid (3409) Abramov (1995); motor ship «Fyodor Abramov» (1988), All-Russian theater festival «Spring Word», All-Russian Literary Prize named after. F. Abramova.
On February 28, 2015, anniversary celebrations dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the writer’s birth took place.
In St. Petersburg on this day, February 28, a ceremony of laying flowers took place at the memorial plaque installed in honor of the writer on a house on Michurinskaya Street, at his last address. The commemorative ceremony was attended by the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky, Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg Vladimir Kirillov, Chairman of the Committee for Culture of St.
Petersburg Konstantin Sukhenko, People’s Artist of Russia, performer of one of the roles of the legendary play “Brothers and Sisters” Igor Sklyar, etc. . In Arkhangelsk, the anniversary of Fyodor Abramov coincided with the beginning of the Year of Literature. The regional library named after Dobrolyubov has created a unique exhibition “Pure Book”, dedicated to the iconic but unfinished work of the writer.
This project received a grant from the President of the Russian Federation. In honor of Abramov’s anniversary, the play “Pelageya and Alka” is again staged on the stage of the Arkhangelsk Regional Drama Theater named after Lomonosov. If Fyodor Alexandrovich’s native village could not be replaced by any other, then Leningrad became his hometown. In St. Petersburg, in the library named after the writer (by the way, the name of the wonderful Russian writer was assigned to the St. Petersburg library in 2000) the XVI St. Petersburg Abramov meetings were held. By the way, these meetings take place every year and invariably attract a large number of admirers of Fedor Abramov’s talent.
This year the meetings were in a conference format, and were called “Writer Fyodor Abramov – a Leningrader.” On the occasion of the anniversary, another significant event took place for the cultural life of St. Petersburg — the legendary play “Brothers and Sisters” appears on the stage of the Maly Drama Theater with a new cast. Over the past years, dozens of performers have played in the play, making up several generations of theater artists, but only one of them, Sergei Vlasov, who plays the role of Yegorsha, took part in all performances of “Brothers and Sisters”, starting with the very first, diploma, first shown in June 1978 Literary activity Since 1949 he published literary critical articles about Soviet literature.
The first novel “Brothers and Sisters” (1958), together with the novels “Two Winters and Three Summers” (1968) and “Crossroads” (1973), formed the epic cycle “Pryasliny” (Pryasliny — a peasant family, about whose fate the novels narrate) . For the trilogy “Pryaslina” F. Abramov was awarded the USSR State Prize (1975). The continuation of the cycle was the novel “Home” (1978). Author of stories and essays about collective farm life, the stories “Fatherlessness” (1961), “Pelageya” (1969), “Wooden Horses” (1970), “Alka” (1972), where the peasant world of the Russian North is shown in its everyday worries and sorrows and joys. Despite the laureate, many of Abramov’s works (like those of other country writers) were not easily published, with censorship, causing accusations of exaggerating dark colors. After the writer’s death, the novel “A Clean Book” was published — the first book in a trilogy conceived by F. Abramov, dedicated to thoughts about the fate of Russia
