Anatoly Rybakov

Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov ( _ru. Анатолий Наумович Рыбаков OldStyleDate|January 14|1911|January 1 - December 23 1998) was a Russian writer, the author of the anti-Stalinist "Children of the Arbat trilogy", novel "Heavy Sand", and many popular children books including "Adventures of Krosh", "Dirk", "Bronze Bird", etc. One of the last of his works was his memoir "The Novel of Memoirs" (Роман-Воспоминание) telling about all the different people (from Stalin and Yeltsin to Okudzhava and Tendryakov) he met during his long life. Writer Maria Rybakova is his granddaughter.

Biography

Rybakov was born in the city of Chernigov ("now Chernihiv, Ukraine") in a Jewish family [ [http://magazines.russ.ru/druzhba/1999/3/rybak.html Interview with Rybakov] (in Russian) – an article in "Druzhba Narodov" literary magazine, 1999.] . In 1934 he was arrested by NKVD and exiled to Siberia. After the end of his exile he worked as a transport worker. During the World War II he was a tank commander.

In 1948, he wrote popular children's book "Dirk" (Кортик). In 1950, he published novel "Drivers" (Водители) and in 1979, the novel "Heavy Sand" (Тяжелый Песок) about the fate of a Jewish family under Nazi occupation.

"Heavy sand" is an epic story of four generations of a Jewish family living in Communist Russia and its life in a ghetto during the Nazi occupation, culminating in their participation in a ghetto uprising. Though the story of the ghetto uprising is fictional, some details of it seem to be based on the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. It is believed that the novel is based on numerous stories collected by Rybakov from people who survived Nazi occupation of Ukraine. This story was dubbed the "first Russian Holocaust novel" by one of the Western newspapers of the time.

His most popular novel "Children of the Arbat" was written and distributed via Samizdat in 1960's, but was not published until 1987 despite having been officially announced for publication in 1966 and 1978 (in both cases publication was canceled at the very last moment by the Soviet Government). The eventual publication of the novel and its sequels-Fear (1993)and Dust & Ashes (1996) were considered a landmark of the nascent Glasnost, as the first in the trilogy was one of the earliest publications of previously forbidden anti-Stalin literature.

Rybakov was a laureate of the USSR and RSFSR state awards. Almost all his books have been made into movies. Rybakov’s books have been published in 52 countries, with overall distribution exceeding 20 million copies.

Marina Goldovskaya, a famed Russian-born documentary maker forged a deep friendship with Rybakov after meeting him at the French Consulate in Moscow Goldovskaya filmed Rybakov for over a decade; seven years after he passed away in 2006 she released her latest film - a Rybakov documentary titled "" (Анатолий Рыбаков: Послесловие).

References

External links

* [http://russia-ic.com/culture_art/literature/323/ Writer Anatoli Rybakov: Records of Youthful Heroic Dreams]
* [http://www.mit.edu/people/fjk/Buro/sr07-rybakov.html Biography] ru icon