Valentin Ovechkin | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1904-06-22)22 June 1904 Taganrog, Russian Empire |
| Died | 27 January 1968(1968-01-27) (aged 63) |
Valentin Vladimirovich Ovechkin (Russian:Валентин Владимирович Овечкин; 22 June 1904 – 27 January 1968) was a Soviet writer, playwright and journalist.
Valentin was born inTaganrog, the son of an office employee.[1] He studied at the Taganrog Technical School from 1913 to 1919.[2] He began writing early, while he was still a member of theKomsomol. His first storySaveliev was published in the newspaperBednota (The Poor) in 1927. Other early works appeared in provincial papers. He stopped writing for several years and worked as a chairman of an agricultural commune[3] on theDon River, and later inKuban. In 1934 he became a traveling correspondent[3] for the newspapersMolot (Hammer) andKolkhoznaya Pravda, both published inRostov-on-Don, and for newspapers inArmavir andKrasnodar.[1]
His first bookKolkhoz Stories was published in Rostov-on-Don in 1935.[3] His second collection was published in Krasnodar in 1938. In 1939 his work began to appear in theMoscow magazineKrasnaya Nov, including the novellasGuests in Stukachi,Praskovia Maximovna, and the sketchWithout Kith or Kin.[1] At the outbreak ofWorld War II, he was mobilized and sent to work as a front-line agitator and correspondent[3] on theCrimean and Southern fronts, and later toStalingrad andUkraine. In 1945, the May issue of the magazineOktyabr published his novellaGreetings from the Front, which was given a wide response in the press.[1]
Valentin was connected with theVillage Prose movement, and the majority of his works deal with life on rural collective farms, though his most popular work, the novellaGreetings from the Front focused on the war.[1] The writerSergey Zalygin gave the following assessment of Ovechkin in the January 1956 issue ofNovy Mir:
"Valentin Ovechkin has a number of followers. I think that among the very active and quite numerous group of writers, predominantly young, who write about the village, there are many whom Ovechkin has helped to find the way. I myself owe him a great deal. I think that much of my work would not have been written were it not for his stories."[1]
His sketches and stories of collective farm life gathered in the collectionDistrict Routine (1952–56), while loyal to the officialparty line, often expose managerial inefficiency, the self-interest of party functionaries, and other shortcomings in the rural Soviet Union.[3]
He gave a speech at the 1954 All-Union Writers Congress, criticizing the main address byAlexey Surkov, who spoke on "the conditions and tasks of Soviet literature". Ovechkin commented on the mediocrity of much of Soviet literature, and on the "system of awardingStalin Prizes", which was done hastily and without regard for the opinions of the reading public. His speech produced a strong effect on the delegates, and found further support in the speech byMikhail Sholokhov that followed.[1] Ovechkin gave another critical speech at the 1955 Congress. His well-meant criticism went unheeded, shrugged off by reviewers as relating to the past only, and his deep disappointment led to a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt.[3] In October 1955,Liu Binyan, a Chinese author, acted as the interpreter for him when he visitedChina. Ovechkin later tried to help Liu Binyan, who emulated Ovechkin's works and was prosecuted byChinese Communist Party by writing a letter toZhou Enlai.[4]
Ovechkin is also the author of the playsNastia Kolosova (1949),To Meet the Wind (1958),Summer Showers (1959), andA Time to Reap (1960), as well as numerous sketches and essays. From 1963 he lived inTashkent, where he worked on the autobiographical cycleUninvented Sketches (published 1972), which he never finished.[2]
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