Victor Petrovich Astafyev

He was born in the village of Ovsyanka in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Viktor Petrovich Astafyev was orphaned at the age of seven: first, his father, Pyotr Pavlovich, was accused of "sabotage" and arrested, and a few years later his mother, Lidiya Ilyinichna, drowned in the river. After his mother's death, the boy lived with her parents. Viktor Astafyev told about his grandmother, Katerina Petrovna, who left the brightest memories in the writer's soul in the first part of his book "The Last Bow".

With his father, who was released from prison, and his stepmother, Astafyev moved to Igarka, where his grandfather Pavel, who had been dispossessed, was exiled with his family. The "wild earnings" that his father had hoped for did not turn out, and the relationship with his stepmother did not work out. The boy lost his home, and then ended up in an orphanage. "I started my independent life right away, without any preparation," Astafyev later wrote.

The teacher of the boarding school turned out to be the famous Siberian poet Ignaty Dmitrievich Rozhdestvensky. He noticed in Astafyev a penchant for literature and developed it. An essay about a favorite lake, published in a school magazine, will unfold later in the story "Vasyutkino Lake."

After graduating from boarding school, the teenager Astafyev began working in a Kureika machine. After collecting money for a ticket, he left for Krasnoyarsk, where he enrolled in a factory training school. After graduating, he worked as a train compiler at the Bazaiha station near Krasnoyarsk.

In the autumn of 1942, Astafyev volunteered for the Red Army, and in the spring of 1943 he went to the front. He fought on the Bryansk, Voronezh and Steppe fronts, which later merged into the 1st Ukrainian. He was seriously injured several times. In the fall of 1945, Astafyev was discharged from the army and, together with his wife, Private Maria Semyonovna Koryakina, came to her homeland, the city of Chusovoy in the Urals. Due to his health condition, Astafyev could not return to his profession and worked as a locksmith, laborer, loader, carpenter, meat carcass cleaner, and a watchman at a meat processing plant.

In 1951 Astafyev wrote the story "The Civilian Man," which he would later call "The Siberian." From 1951 to 1955, Astafyev was a literary employee of the newspaper Chusovskaya Rabochy. In 1953, his first book of short stories for children, "Until Next Spring," was published in Perm, and in 1955, the second, "Lights." In 1955-1957, the novel "Snow Melts," was published, and two more books for children were published — "Vasyutkino Lake" (1956) and "Uncle Kuzya, chickens, the Fox and the Cat" (1957), published essays and short stories in magazines and collections.

Since April 1957, V. P. Astafyev was a special correspondent for the Perm Regional Radio. In 1958, Astafiev was accepted into The Writers' Union of the RSFSR. In 1959-1961 he studied at the Higher Literary Courses at the Gorky Literary Institute. The end of the 1950s was marked by the flourishing of Astafiev's lyrical prose. The novellas "The Pass" (1958-1959) and "Starodub" (1960), the novella "Starfall", written in a few days (1960), brought him wide fame.

In 1962, the Astafiev family moved to Perm, and in 1969 to Vologda. In the 1960s, the novel "The Theft" (1961-1965) and the short stories that later made up the story in the stories "The Last Bow" were written. In 1968, the novel was published in Perm as a separate book. Since 1973, works have appeared in print that later formed the famous narrative in the stories "The King Fish". The story "The Tsar-fish" was first published in the book "The Boy in the White Shirt", published by the publishing house "Molodaya Gvardiya" in 1977.

In 1975, Astafyev was awarded the Gorky State Prize of the RSFSR. In 1978, V. P. Astafyev was awarded the USSR State Prize for his narration in the stories "The Tsar-Fish".

From 1978 to 1982, Astafyev worked on the novel "The Sighted Staff", published only in 1988. In 1991, the writer was awarded the USSR State Prize for this novel. In 1980 Astafyev returned to his homeland, Krasnoyarsk. In Krasnoyarsk and in Ovsyanka, the village of his childhood, he wrote the novel "Sad Detective" (1985), the short stories "Bear's Blood" (1984), "Life to Live" (1985), "Vimba" (1985), "Doomsday" (1986), "Blind Fisherman" (1986), "Minnow fishing in Georgia" (1986), "Vest from the Pacific Ocean" (1986), "Blue Field under blue skies" (1987), "Smile of the Wolf" (1989), "Born of Me" (1989), "Lyudochka" (1989), "Conversation with an old gun" (1997).

In his homeland, Astafyev created his main book about the war, the novel "Cursed and Killed," which took away a lot of strength and health from the writer and caused a heated debate among readers.

In 1989 Astafyev was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1994, the writer was awarded the Russian Independent Prize "Triumph" for his outstanding contribution to Russian literature. In 1995, Astafyev was awarded the State Prize of Russia for his novel "Cursed and Killed."

In 1997, the writer completed the novel "The Merry Soldier", begun in 1987. In 1997-1998, a collection of works by Viktor Astafyev in 15 volumes was published in Krasnoyarsk, with detailed comments by the author.

Viktor Petrovich died on November 29, 2001 in Krasnoyarsk.