25 Facts About Viktor Astafyev

Viktor Petrovich Astafyev spelled Astafiev or Astaf'ev, was a Soviet and Russian writer, playwright and screenwriter.

Viktor Astafyev was recognized with the title Hero of Socialist Labour in 1989.

Viktor Astafyev was born in the village of Ovsyanka on the bank of the Yenisey river.

Viktor Astafyev's father, Pyotr Pavlovich Astafyev, was a son of a relatively rich mill-owner, mother Lydia Ilyinichna Astafyeva came from a peasant family.

In July 1931 Lydia Ilyinichna, Viktor Astafyev's mother drowned in the Yenisey as the boat which she was rowing, carrying food to the Krasnoyarsk prison where her arrested husband was kept, got upturned.

That year Pyotr Viktor Astafyev received 5 years of prison as an "Enemy of the people" and was sent to the infamous Belomorkanal building-site.

Seven-year-old Viktor Astafyev found himself in the house of Yekaterina Petrovna and Ilya Yevgrafovich Potylitsyns, his mother's parents who gave the boy all their love and care.

In 1934 Pyotr Viktor Astafyev returned from labour camp and married again.

Viktor Astafyev took Viktor to his new place, a small forest village Sosnovka, then in 1935 moved the family to Igarka where they settled as spetspereselentsy.

On 1 May 1941, Viktor Astafyev graduated from the school and joined a brickyard as a transport worker.

In October 1942 Viktor Astafyev volunteered for the Soviet Army and, after six months spent in reserve units in April 1943 was moved to the Kaluga region as a soldier of the 92nd Howitzer brigade of the Kiev-Zhitomir division.

On 17 September 1944, Viktor Astafyev was badly injured near the Polish town of Dukla and spent the next 8 months in hospitals.

The horrible experience of war remained with Viktor Astafyev, becoming the major incentive to become a writer.

In 1954 Viktor Astafyev was for the first time published by a Moscow magazine.

Also in the late 1950s Viktor Astafyev joined the regional Perm radio.

On 1 October 1958 Viktor Astafyev became the member of the RSFSR Union of Writers.

In 1959, Viktor Astafyev enrolled in the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow; he became friends with Sergey Vikulov, Yevgeny Nosov and a group of Vologda authors.

On 19 October 1978, for the Tsar-Fish book Viktor Astafyev received the USSR State Prize.

The first TV documentary "Viktor Astafyev" was shown in 1983.

Viktor Astafyev is credited with being one of the major proponents of the so-called The Truth from the Trenches movement which brought authenticity and harsh realism to the Soviet war literature.

Viktor Astafyev has always been a highly individual writer who conforms to no movements or stereotypes.

Viktor Astafyev has always remained true to himself, and has retained a certain hard-edged integrity.

Viktor Astafyev's novel Prokliaty i ubity [The Damned and the Dead] is a gritty, typically uncompromising picture of war, with many naturalistic descriptions in a style the author has developed since the cathartic Pechal'nyi detektiv.

Viktor Astafyev remains very much a writer who refuses to be easily categorized: he is neither a Village Prose Writer, nor a writer of "war prose", nor a writer who explores the mistakes of the recent Soviet past.

Capable of surprising and even shocking his reader, Viktor Astafyev maintains a deep lyrical sense that has produced what Eidel'man called "the best descriptions of nature for decades".