Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov

views updated May 21 2018

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov

The Russian poet and novelist Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov (1915-1979) is best known for his patriotic verse dealing with World War II and for his vivid prose descriptions of Soviet troops in action during the war.

Konstantin Simonov was born on Nov. 28, 1915, in St. Petersburg. His father took an active part in the revolution and served throughout the civil war as a commander in the Red Army. Simonov traveled with his father's division and received his secondary education at various provincial schools, chiefly in Ryazan and Saratov. He finished school in 1930. Between 1930 and 1934 Simonov attended university part-time while working as a lathe operator in Saratov and Moscow. In 1934 he entered the Gorky Institute of Literature, studying there until 1939. He received his degree in literature and completed a year of graduate study at the institute.

Simonov's first verses were published in 1934. He continued to write poetry throughout the 1930s, and his first book, Verses, 1939, was published in 1940. Much of its contents was inspired by a trip that Simonov made to Mongolia in 1939 as a war correspondent. In 1939 Simonov became a member of the Communist party, and in June 1941 he was called to military duty as a correspondent for the journal Red Star. His wartime dispatches were read by a wide audience, and he was awarded several medals for his work, including the Stalin Prize. After World War II Simonov traveled extensively as a member of various literary and journalistic delegations, visiting Japan, China, the United States, and Western Europe. A member of the editorial boards of various Soviet journals and publishing houses, Simonov twice served as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

Simonov's literary output was large and varied. He is primarily known for his poetry about the suffering that war causes both to men at war and to their families. Although not innovative, his poetry communicates a personal compassion for its subjects. Its style often draws on colloquial speech and conversational rhythms. Simonov's prose is also noteworthy. His most widely read novel is Days and Nights (1944), which deals with the courage of Soviet forces during the siege of Stalingrad. Simonov does not limit himself to the depiction of heroic acts alone but also portrays the deep emotions of men under stress. His prose exhibits an economy of style and a sense of dramatic action unusual in war novels of the cold-war era, which generally glorified the Soviet government and were expected to function as propaganda for the Soviet system. Simonov's postwar novels deal largely with the conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. In Smoke of the Fatherland (1947), he blames the United States for the cold war but asserts the need for common understanding.

Simonov was a proponent of conventional values in officially acceptable Soviet literature, the only literary expression possible for a writer after modernism and the expression of individual vision or creativity were suppressed in the 1920s and 1930s. In the less repressive Khrushchev era after 1953, he was able to create more independent characters who revealed more of the true circumstances of Soviet life. While he was editor of the distinguished journal Novy Mir (1954-57), he published an essay criticizing Soviet Realism, the doctrine that all literature must further the goals of the Soviet political system and present only a positive view of Soviet life. In 1957 he was removed as editor for publishing controversial works.

In 1968 he and other high-ranking members of the Union of Soviet Writers refused to sign a statement of official support for the government's invasion of Czechoslovakia; yet he remained an esteemed member of the Soviet literary establishment. Throughout the 1970s he served as secretary of the Union of Writers. He died in Moscow in 1979.

Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich

views updated May 09 2018

SIMONOV, KONSTANTIN MIKHAILOVICH

(1915–1979), Russian writer and Writers' Union official who specialized in describing the Great Patriotic War.

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov was born in Petrograd, the son of a military schoolteacher. He entered a factory school and began working in various factories while he began writing poetry. He published his first poems in 1934 and enrolled in the Gorky Literary Institute. After graduation in 1938, he worked as a journalist and served as a correspondent for Red Star (Krasnaya zvezda ) during the war.

During the war, he began to write plays and fiction about his experiences and became quite popular during the 1940s and 1950s. The novel Days and Nights described the battle of Stalingrad in a realistic, natural manner. His other work was noted for its adherence to dictates of Socialist Realism. He won numerous awards, including six Stalin prizes, a Lenin prize, and the Hero of Socialist Labor medal.

Simonov served in many editorial and administrative positions during his career. He was editor-in-chief of Literaturnaia Gazeta (1950–1953), a secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers (1946–1950, 1967–1969), a member of Central Committee of Communist Party (1952–1956), and a deputy to the Supreme Soviet. Most interestingly, he was editor-in-chief of Novyi mir from 1954–1958, where he presided over the publication of Vladimir Dudintsev's Not by Bread Alone (Ne khlebom edinim ). Under attack, he soon retreated from this liberal position and thereafter remained within the official bounds of propriety.

In his posthumous memoirs, Through the Eyes of a Man from My Generation (Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia ), Simonov provides great insight into the world of Soviet literary politics under Stalin and after. His life and work demonstrate the compromises some writers chose as they negotiated the contours of official Soviet culture.

See also: journalism; novy mir; world war ii