28 Facts About Aleksandr Tvardovsky

Aleksandr Tvardovsky is best known for his epic poem Vasili Tyorkin.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky was born into a Russian family in Zagorye, in the Smolensky Uyezd of the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky's father, the son of a landless soldier, was a blacksmith by trade.

The farm was situated on poor land, but Aleksandr Tvardovsky's father loved it and was proud of what he had acquired through years of hard labor.

From an early age, Aleksandr Tvardovsky became familiar with the works of Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolay Nekrasov and others.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky's first published poem was "A New Hut", which was printed in the newspaper, Smolensk Village.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky later acknowledged Isakovsky's influence, saying that he had been the only Soviet poet who had had a beneficial effect on him.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky left the village school because of poverty after attending only four classes and devoted himself entirely to literature.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky completed his education later at the Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature in Moscow.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky was awarded the Stalin Prize for The Land of Muravia.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky's father was accused of being a kulak during the period of collectivisation in the Soviet Union.

In 1930, after Aleksandr Tvardovsky had moved to Smolensk, his father ran away from the family home fearing arrest.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky acknowledged the guilt he felt about his father in his late poem, "By Right of Memory".

Aleksandr Tvardovsky joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1940 and was a war correspondent during World War II.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky became the chief editor of Novy Mir in 1949.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky was dismissed from his post in 1954 for publishing officially unacceptable articles by V Pomerantsev, Fyodor Abramov and M Shcheglov.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky was made chief editor again in July 1958.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky fought hard to maintain the traditional independence Novy Mir had, even against official disapproval.

In January 1963, Aleksandr Tvardovsky was attacked in Izvestia for publishing Yashin's story, which was considered too pessimistic.

Attacks on Aleksandr Tvardovsky persisted for three months, but he did not issue any apology or retraction.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky wrote this poem in 1954, but it was banned for nine years, and was one of the reasons that he was temporarily dismissed from the editorship of Novy mir.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky gave us some great art, but he ended without recognition and without honour.

In January 1965, a few month after Khrushchev had been ousted, Aleksandr Tvardovsky wrote an article commemorating 40 years of Novy Mir, in which he singled out several new young writers for praise, including Andrei Sinyavsky.

The method chosen for Aleksandr Tvardovsky was to take away his off-spring, his passion, his journal.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky received the Stalin Prize, the USSR State Prize, and the Lenin Prize for the large poem, Distance After Distance, a collection of poetic impressions and meditations on Russian life first conceived during a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky was awarded his second Stalin Prize for Vasili Tyorkin.

Aleksandr Tvardovsky's wife wrote in 1943: "I have the impression that it is getting dangerous here to pronounce your name aloud", but the poem's popularity saved it from the censorship.

In 1963, Aleksandr Tvardovsky published Tyorkin in the Other World, a satire on the everyday life in the Soviet Union and Stalinism.