Vitaly Nikolaevich Semin Born 1927, Rostov-on-Don, Date of death May 10, 1978, Koktebel — Russian writer.

Biography

Born July 12, 1927 in Rostov-on-Don in a family of employees;
1942-1945 — forced labor in Germany as an Ostarbeiter;
1948-1953 — studied at the literature department of the Rostov Pedagogical Institute (expelled when it became known about his stay in Germany)
1953-1954 — administratively sent to work on the construction of the Kuibyshev Hydroelectric Power Station;
1954-1957 — correspondence study at the Taganrog Pedagogical Institute;
1954-1956 — rural school teacher
1956-1957 — received permission to return to Rostov, teacher at the road technical school;
1958-1962 — literary employee of the newspaper «Evening Rostov»;
since 1963 — editor of literary and dramatic programs of Rostov television;
He died in Koktebel on May 10, 1978.

Creative work

Most of his works are autobiographical: childhood on the Lower Don in the 1930s and early 1940s, Nazi labor camps in Germany during World War II, work at the Kuibyshev hydroelectric power station, teaching, journalistic experience, life on the outskirts of Rostov. Everyday life in the south of Russia in the middle of the 20th century is described in detail, people’s emotional experiences are revealed, especially moral suffering and heroism in connection with the events of the Great Patriotic War, the spiritual maturation of young heroes, the romance of post-war labor enthusiasm and the search for personal purpose in life.

Semin’s prose is built into an autobiographical narrative, replete with characters, digressions, details, convincing, however, with its clarity and sincerity

… of all this wealth, V. Lakshin only noticed that the story «The Ladies’ Master», the story of A. Solzhenitsyn «Matryona’s House» and the story of V. Semin «Seven in One House».
— Al. Dymshits «Literary Criticism and the Sense of Life» Yuri Dombrovsky wrote to Semin about the story «Seven in One House», published in the magazine «Novy Mir» in 1965: «You were not tempted by a single winning moment, you did not encroach on or step over everyday life anywhere. This is where the enormous moral and artistic gain of your story comes from. It is all without shouts, without exotic suffering, without tragedies and philosophical monologues — they simply build a house and that’s it — and what a power of understanding everything and everyone»