Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov (russian: Михаил Аркадьевич Светлов), born Scheinkman (russian: Шейнкман) (,

Yekaterinoslav Dnipro, previously called Dnipropetrovsk from 1926 until May 2016, is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper Rive ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

(present Dnipro,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

) – 28 September 1964,

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 ...

, RSFSR,

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

) was a

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

poet.

Biography

Svetlov was born into a poor

Jewish 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""The ...

family.Biography in ''Chronos'' Online Encyclopedia

He has been published since 1917. A member of Komsomol since 1919, Svetlov was sent to the First Congress of Proletarian Writers in

in 1920 and took part in the

Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...

as a volunteer

rifleman A rifleman is an infantry soldier armed with a rifled long gun. Although the rifleman role had its origin with 16th century hand cannoneers and 17th century musketeers, the term originated in the 18th century with the introduction of the ri ...

in the same year. Two years later, Svetlov published his first collection of poems, ''Rails''. The main theme of his works in the 1920s was the

. Probably the best known poem written by Svetlov, is ''Grenada'', published in 1926. Between 1927 and 1928 he studied at the

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

. One of Svetlov's most significant works from the 1930s was the ''Song of

Kakhovka Kakhovka ( uk, Кахо́вка, ) is a port city on the Dnieper River in Kakhovka Raion, Kherson Oblast, of southern Ukraine. It hosts the administration of the Kakhovka urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. It had a population of It ...

'' (1935, composer

Isaak Dunayevsky Isaak Osipovich Dunayevsky (russian: Исаак Осипович Дунаевский ; also transliterated as Dunaevski or Dunaevskiy; 25 July 1955) was a Soviet film composer and conductor of the 1930s and 1940s, who composed music for operett ...

), which became extremely popular among Soviet soldiers during the

Second World War 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 opposi ...

. After 1935 Svetlov turned to dramaturgy, publishing several plays prior to 1940 and after the war. Between 1941 and 1945, Svetlov was a special correspondent of the '' Red Star'' at the Leningrad Front, and also worked for other Soviet front newspapers. The most notable work of that period was a monologue-style poem ''Italian Cross'' (1943), full of dreams of peace and the fraternity of nations. After a gap of about 14 years, during which Svetlov was writing only plays, he published several collections of poems, including the ''Horizon'' (1959) and the ''Shooting Box'' (1964). He also wrote songs for the 1958 animated film ''

Beloved Beauty ''Beloved Beauty'' (russian: Краса́ ненагля́дная, Krasa nenaglyadnaya) is a 1958 feature-length stop motion-animated film from the Soviet Union. The film, which was made at the Soyuzmultfilm studio, is based on Russian folk ta ...

'' (Краса ненаглядная). In 1967 he was awarded the Lenin Prize posthumously for the book ''Verses of the Last Years''.

Legacy

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''mino ...

3483 Svetlov, discovered by

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

astronomer Lyudmila Ivanovna Chernykh in 1976, is named after him. In the Soviet-era film comedy ''

The Diamond Arm ''The Diamond Arm'' (russian: Бриллиантовая рука ''Brilliantovaya ruka'') is a Soviet crime comedy film made by Mosfilm and first released in 1969. The film was directed by director Leonid Gaidai and starred several famous Soviet ...

'', the male lead takes a vacation abroad (a very rare occurrence under Communist rule) on an ocean liner named in honor of Svetlov. In December 2022 the Mikhail Svetlov street in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

was renamed to (part of the so-called ''

Executed Renaissance The Executed Renaissance (or "Red Renaissance", uk, Розстріляне відродження, Червоний ренесанс, translit=Rozstriliane vidrodzhennia, Chervonyi renesans) is a term used to describe the generatio ...

'') street.

Quote

* Eveybody's being rounded up, literally everyone. Commissars and their deputies are being moved to the Lubianka. But what is ridiculous and tragic is that we walk among these events without understanding a thing about them... We are just pathetic remnants of an era that has died... This isn't trial, but organized murder.

Donald Rayfield Patrick Donald Rayfield OBE (born 12 February 1942, Oxford) is an English academic and Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London. He is an author of books about Russian and Georgian literature, and about Jos ...

, ''Stalin and His Hangmen'', page 327. ** Commenting on

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 Secretar ...

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 Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...

Partial list of poems

*''Grenada'' (1926) *''Song of Kakhovka'' (1935) *''Italian Cross'' (1943)

Bibliography

*Mikhail Svetlov, ''Selected poems'', Russian texts and English translations, Moscow Raduga Publishers, 1983

References

External links

* *
Biography of Mikhail Svetlov (in Russian)Lib.Ru: Михаил Светлов
{{DEFAULTSORT:Svetlov, Mikhail Arkadyevich 1903 births 1964 deaths Writers from Dnipro People from Yekaterinoslav Governorate Russian Jews Russian-language poets Russian male poets Jewish poets Soviet poets Soviet male writers 20th-century Russian male writers Soviet Jews Moscow State University alumni Deaths from lung cancer Deaths from cancer in the Soviet Union Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Recipients of the Lenin Komsomol Prize Recipients of the Lenin Prize