Lidiya Nikolaevna Seifullina (russian: Ли́дия Никола́евна Сейфу́ллина; 23 March 1889 – 25 April 1954) 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, ...

journalist, playwright, novelist, and short story writer. Her short story "Virineia" serves as the basis for an opera by

Sergei Slonimsky Sergei Mikhailovich Slonimsky (russian: Серге́й Миха́йлович Слони́мский; 12 August 1932 – 9 February 2020) was a Russian and Soviet composer, pianist and musicologist. Biography He was the son of the Soviet wri ...

Biography

Born near

Magnitogorsk Magnitogorsk ( rus, Магнитого́рск, p=məɡnʲɪtɐˈɡorsk, ) is an industrial city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the eastern side of the extreme southern extent of the Ural Mountains by the Ural River. Its population ...

, Seifullina was the daughter of a peasant woman, who died when she was five, and a

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

raised by an

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

priest; her father would go on to become a priest himself. She began working at 17, publishing her first short stories in 1917 and graduating from the Moscow Higher Pedagogical Courses in 1920. She moved to

Novosibirsk Novosibirsk (, also ; rus, Новосиби́рск, p=nəvəsʲɪˈbʲirsk, a=ru-Новосибирск.ogg) is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the Russian Census ...

and there wrote the short novel ''Four Chapters'', which was published in 1922 and earned her some notice. She continued to write stories and novels depicting the clash between the new order and the old. After the 1920s she turned more to journalism and education. She is best known for her short story "Virineia", about a peasant woman who, having become a believer in Soviet ideals, begins to chafe at the restrictions placed on her by traditional patriarchal society. It serves as the basis for an opera by

, completed in 1967. Seifullina was married to the literary critic and journalist Valerian Pravdukhin, who assisted in adapting "Virineia" as a play that was greatly popular in Soviet theaters. He was executed in 1939 during the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...

, and some sources claim that as the wife of an "enemy of the people" she was arrested and sent to the

gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

, released only after the death 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 ...

. Other sources state that she remained free and living in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, aiding the

war effort In politics and military planning, a war effort is a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and human—towards the support of a military force. Depending on the militarization of the culture, the relative size ...

. It was in that city that she died.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seifullina, Lidiia 1889 births 1954 deaths People from Chelyabinsk Oblast People from Troitsky Uyezd Tatar people of the Soviet Union Soviet novelists Soviet women novelists Soviet short story writers Soviet journalists Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour