Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeyev (russian: link=no, Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Фаде́ев; – 13 May 1956) was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
writer, one of the co-founders of the
Union of Soviet Writers
The Union of Soviet Writers, USSR Union of Writers, or Soviet Union of Writers (russian: Союз писателей СССР, translit=Soyuz Sovetstikh Pisatelei) was a creative union of professional writers in the Soviet Union. It was founded ...
and its chairman from 1946 to 1954.
Biography
Fadeyev was born in
Kimry
Kimry (russian: Ки́мры), formerly Kimra (), is a town in the south of Tver Oblast, Russia, located on the Volga River at its confluence with the Kimrka River, to the east of Tver. Population:
History
The town was known as Kimra until the ...
,
Tver Governorate
Tver Governorate (russian: Тверская губерния, ''Tverskaya guberniya'') was an administrative division (a ''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, Russian SFSR, which existed from 1796 ...
. From 1908 to 1912, he lived in
Chuguyevka,
Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai (russian: Приморский край, r=Primorsky kray, p=prʲɪˈmorskʲɪj kraj), informally known as Primorye (, ), is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia, located in the Far East region of the country and is a part of the ...
. He joined the
Bolshevik Party
" Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
in 1918 and took part in the guerrilla movement against the Japanese
interventionists and the
White Army
The White Army (russian: Белая армия, Belaya armiya) or White Guard (russian: Бѣлая гвардія/Белая гвардия, Belaya gvardiya, label=none), also referred to as the Whites or White Guardsmen (russian: Бѣлогв ...
during the
Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
. In 1927, he published the novel ''The Rout'' (also known as ''The Nineteen''), in which he described youthful guerrilla fighters. In 1930, he published the first part of the novel ''The Last of the
Udege'', on which he continued working the rest of his life (an edition containing the second volume, all he was able to complete, was published in 1940.) In it, Fadeyev intended to show "that an extremely primitive people may experience a leap from tribal communism to the complex collective organization of the twentieth century, skipping over the intervening historical stages: family, private property, slavery, feudalism, capitalism and socialism.
..Uneven though it is, ''The Last of the Udegs'' contains some of Fadeyev's best pages, and the fact that he spent his energies on literary administration rather than on the completion of this novel is a minor tragedy."
In 1945, he wrote the novel, ''
The Young Guard'' (based upon real events of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
) about the underground
Komsomol
The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (russian: link=no, Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи (ВЛКСМ), ), usually known as Komsomol (; russian: Комсомол, links=n ...
organization named
Young Guard, which fought against the Nazis in the occupied city
Krasnodon
Krasnodon (Ukrainian, Russian: Краснодон) is a city in Luhansk Oblast (region) of eastern Ukraine. It is incorporated as a city of oblast significance and serves as the administrative center of Krasnodon Raion (district), though it d ...
(in the
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...
). For this novel, Fadeyev was awarded the
Stalin Prize Stalin Prize may refer to:
* The State Stalin Prize in science and engineering and in arts, awarded 1941 to 1954, later known as the USSR State Prize
The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, ...
(1946). In 1948, a Soviet film ''
The Young Guard'', based on the book, was released, and later revised in 1964 to correct inaccuracies in the book.
Fadeyev was a champion of
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
, proclaiming him "the greatest humanist the world has ever known". During the 1940s, he actively promoted
Zhdanovshchina
The Zhdanov Doctrine (also called Zhdanovism or Zhdanovshchina; russian: доктрина Жданова, ждановизм, ждановщина) was a Soviet cultural doctrine developed by Central Committee secretary Andrei Zhdanov in 1946. I ...
, a campaign of criticism and
persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...
against many of the Soviet Union's foremost writers and composers. However, he was a friend of
Mikhail Sholokhov
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov ( rus, Михаил Александрович Шолохов, p=ˈʂoləxəf; – 21 February 1984) was a Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is known for writing about life ...
. Fadeyev married a famous stage actress,
Angelina Stepanova
Angelina Iosifovna Stepanova ( rus, links=no, Ангели́на Ио́сифовна Степа́нова, , ɐnɡʲɪˈlʲinə ɪˈosʲɪfəvnə sʲtʲɪˈpanəvə; 23 November 1905 – 17 May 2000) was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actre ...
(1905–2000). He fathered
Masha Enzenberger from an alliance with the poet
Margarita Aliger
Margarita Iosifovna Aliger ( rus, Маргари́та Ио́сифовна Алиге́р, p=mərɡɐˈrʲitə ɪˈosʲɪfəvnə ɐlʲɪˈɡʲɛr, a=Margarita Iosifovna Aliger.ru.oga; – August 1, 1992) was a Soviet Union, Soviet and Russian po ...
(1943).
In the last years of his life, Fadeyev developed a nervous condition, exacerbated by the prolonged abuse of alcohol. Some sources claim that this was mostly due to the denunciation of
Stalinism
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
during the
Khrushchev Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw ( rus, хрущёвская о́ттепель, r=khrushchovskaya ottepel, p=xrʊˈɕːɵfskəjə ˈotʲ:ɪpʲɪlʲ or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period ...
. He eventually committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart at his dacha in
Peredelkino
Peredelkino ( rus, Переде́лкино, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈdʲelkʲɪnə) is a dacha complex situated just to the southwest of Moscow, Russia.
History
The settlement originated as the estate of Peredeltsy, owned by the Leontievs (maternal rela ...
, leaving a suicide note which made clear his negative attitude to both the old and the new leaders of the Party. Fadeyev referred to Stalin as a "satrap" in the note. His suicide occurred after he was denounced by his friend
Mikhail Sholokhov
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov ( rus, Михаил Александрович Шолохов, p=ˈʂoləxəf; – 21 February 1984) was a Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is known for writing about life ...
; he was also blamed for the poor state of Soviet literature at the 20th Party Congress. In his suicide note, Fadeyev attacked the Stalinists who had "physically exterminated" the best Soviet authors, and said that they had "brought us
ritersdown to the level of children; they destroyed us; they threatened us ideologically and called this 'the Party spirit'". He attacked the new members of the Soviet leadership, claiming that they were uneducated people who manifested "primitivism and ignorance--along with a disgraceful share of self-assurance" in their attempts to promote Soviet literature.
Fadeyev's death occasioned an epigram by
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (; rus, Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к, p=bɐˈrʲis lʲɪɐˈnʲidəvʲɪtɕ pəstɛrˈnak; 30 May 1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, composer and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pa ...
, his neighbor. He is buried in the
Novodevichy Cemetery
Novodevichy Cemetery ( rus, Новоде́вичье кла́дбище, Novodevichye kladbishche) is a cemetery in Moscow. It lies next to the southern wall of the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist ...
in Moscow.
Legacy
In her memoirs,
Nadezhda Mandelstam
Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam ( rus, Надежда Яковлевна Мандельштам, p=nɐˈdʲeʐdə ˈjakəvlʲɪvnə mənʲdʲɪlʲˈʂtam, , Хазина; 29 December 1980) was a Russian Jewish writer and educator, and the wife of ...
, after describing Fadeyev's seemingly affectionate farewell to
Osip Mandelstam
Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam ( rus, Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам, p=ˈosʲɪp ɨˈmʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mənʲdʲɪlʲˈʂtam; – 27 December 1938) was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Acm ...
just before his final arrest, wrote: "Liuba
hrenburghas told me that Fadeyev was a cold and cruel man – something quite compatible with emotionalism and the ability to shed a tear at the right moment. This became very clear, according to Liuba, at the time of the execution of the
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
writers. Then also it was a case of tearful farewell embraces after he had signified his formal agreement to their arrest and liquidation – even though the Yiddish writers, unlike Mandelstam, were his friends." And
Korney Chukovsky
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky ( rus, Корне́й Ива́нович Чуко́вский, p=kɐrˈnʲej ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ tɕʊˈkofskʲɪj, a=Kornyey Ivanovich Chukovskiy.ru.vorb.oga; 31 March NS 1882 – 28 October 1969) was one of the most p ...
wrote the following in his diary entry after Fadeyev's suicide:
I feel very sorry for dear Alexander Alexandrovich: one could sense a man of stature, a Russian brand of natural genius under all the layers — but, good lord, what layers there were! All the lies of the Stalinist era, all its idiotic atrocities, all its horrific bureaucracy, all its corruption and red tape found a willing accessory in him. An essentially decent human being who loved literature “to tears” had ended by steering the ship of literature into the most perilous, most shameful of waters and attempting to combine humaneness with the secret-police mentality. Hence the zigzags in his behavior, hence the tortured conscience of his final years. He wasn't born to be a loser; he was so accustomed to being a leader, the arbiter of writers' fates, that having to withdraw from the position of literary marshal was agony for him. None of his friends was willing to tell him that his ''Metallurgy'' was worthless, that the articles he had been writing during the past few years — cowardly, turbid, and full of normative pretensions — could only lower him in the eyes of the reading public, that reworking ''The Young Guard'' to suit the powers-that-be was shameful. Conscientious, talented, and sensitive as he was, he was floundering in oozy, putrid mud and drowning his conscience in wine.[Kornei Chukovsky, ''Diary, 1901–1969'' (Yale University Press, 2005: ), p. 406.]
Bibliography
Collected editions
*''Sobraniye sochineniy'', 7 vols. Moscow, 1969–71.
Fiction
*''Protiv techeniya''
gainst the Current Moscow, 1924; reissued as ''Amgun'skii polk''
he Amgunsk Regiment Moscow, 1934, and as ''Rozhdenie Amgun'skogo polka''
he Birth of the Amgunsk Regiment Moscow, 1934.
*''Razliv''
he Flood Moscow, 1924.
*''Razgrom''. Moscow, 1927; as ''Razgrom/The Rout'', edited by Roger Cockrell, London, Bristol Classical Press, 1995; translated as ''The Nineteen'', by R. D. Charques, London, Martin Lawrence, 1929; reprinted Westport, Connecticut, Hyperion Press, 1973; also translated as ''The Rout'', by O. Gorchakov, Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, c. 1957.
*''Posledniy iz udege''
he Last of the Udege
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
Moscow, 1930–1941.
*''Molodaya gvardiya''. Moscow, 1946; translated as ''The Young Guard'', by Violet Dutt, Moscow, Progress, 1958; reprinted Moscow,
Raduga Publishers
Raduga Publishers (russian: радуга, English: "rainbow") was a Soviet publishing house of innovative children's books, which has been described as "one of the most important book publishers of its type" during the early twentieth century.And ...
, 1987.
*''Chernaya metallurgiya''
errous Metallurgy Moscow, 1951–56.
Memoirs, letters, and literary criticism
*''Leningrad v dni blokady: Iz dnevnika''. Moscow, 1944; translated as ''Leningrad in the Days of the Blockade'', by R. D. Charques, London, Hutchinson, 1946; Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1971.
*''Za tridtsat' let: Izbrannye stat'i, rechi i pis'ma o literature i iskusstve''
ver Thirty Years: Selected Articles, Speeches and Letters on Literature and Art edited by S. Preobrazhenskii, 2nd edition, Moscow, 1959.
*''Pis'ma 1917–1956''
etters 2nd edition, Moscow, 1959.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fadeyev, Alexander
1901 births
1956 suicides
People from Kimry
People from Korchevskoy Uyezd
Bolsheviks
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union candidate members
Second convocation members of the Soviet of the Union
Third convocation members of the Soviet of the Union
Fourth convocation members of the Soviet of the Union
People of the Russian Civil War
Socialist realism writers
Soviet novelists
Soviet male writers
20th-century male writers
Stalin Prize winners
Suicides by firearm in the Soviet Union
Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery
1956 deaths
Soviet politicians who committed suicide