Alexander Petrovich Stein (Александр Петрович Штейн, born Rubinstein, 28 September

1906 Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...

– 5 October

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

) was a Soviet

Russian writer Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By the Ag ...

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

, scriptwriter and memoirist. Alexander Stein was a recipient of several high-profile state awards, including the Order of the Patriotic War, the

Order of the Red Star The Order of the Red Star (russian: Орден Красной Звезды, Orden Krasnoy Zvezdy) was a military decoration of the Soviet Union. It was established by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 6 April 193 ...

and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour (twice), as well as two Stalin Prizes (1949, 1951).

Biography

Alexander Petrovich Rubinstein was born in

Samarkand fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, ...

, Russian Empire (now Uzbekistan) to a middle-class

Jewish family Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

. In the early 1920s, as a member of the Samarkand Special Purpose Forces battalion, he took part in fighting the White Army, for the establishment of the Soviet power in the Central Asia. In

Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...

, he started contributing to a local military paper, then wrote for the newspapers ''Pravda Vostoka'' (1920–23) and (after a one-year stint at Petrograd University) ''Leningradskaya Pravda'' (1924–29). In 1930-1939 Stein (now a Soviet Communist Party member) edited ''Rabochy i Teatr'' (Worker and Theatre) magazine.

Literary career

In 1929 Alexander Stein published his debut play ''Oil'', co-authored by the Tur brothers. It was followed by ''Utopia'' (1930) and ''The Talent'' (1936). In 1934 he became the member of the Soviet Union of Writers. In 1941–1946 Stein worked first as a senior politruk on board the

battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

'' Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsya'', then as a battalion

commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eas ...

and the editor the Soviet Navy newspaper ''Oktyabrsky Luch'' (October Beam). All through the

Siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad (russian: links=no, translit=Blokada Leningrada, Блокада Ленинграда; german: links=no, Leningrader Blockade; ) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the Soviet city of L ...

he stayed in the starving city, as a special correspondent for the ''Krasny Flot'' newspaper. After the War Stein continued writing, his plays ''Admiral's Flag'' (1950, Stalin Prize in 1951), ''The Ocean'' (1961), ''Applause'' (1967) and autobiographical ''Once There Was Me'' (1977) rated among his best. Some of his works caused controversy. ''Prologue'' originally featured a scene involving Stalin in his youth, which was withdrawn by the author in 1955, after the Soviet leader's death. ''Law of Honour'' (1948, the Stalin Prize) supported the so-called anti-cosmopolitism campaign. ''Between the Showers'' (1964) was criticized in '' Pravda'' for portraying Vladimir Lenin as a schematic, lifeless figure. In 1957 Stein started editing the ''Teatr'' magazine. In his later years he published several acclaimed books of memoirs, including ''How Plots Come into Life'' (1964), ''The Second Entracte'' (1975), ''Skies in Diamonds'' (1976) and ''Alone With the Audience'' (1982). Alexander Stein died on 5 October 1993. He was buried at the Vagankovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stein, Alexander Soviet writers 1906 births 1993 deaths Stalin Prize winners Russian dramatists and playwrights Russian male dramatists and playwrights