- Vera Panova
Vera Fyodorovna Panova ( _ru. Вера Фёдоровна Панова; OldStyleDate|March 20|1905|March 7 -
March 3 1973 ) was aSoviet Russia n writer.Vera was born to the family of an impoverished merchant (later an accountant) in
Rostov-on-Don ,Russia . When she was five, her father drowned in the Don River. Before theOctober Revolution she took four years of a private gymnasium, then her formal education was stopped because of money problems in her family.At the age of 17 she started to work as a journalist in a Rostov newspaper "Trudovoy Don" (Working Don), publishing articles as V. Staroselskaya (her first husband's surname) and Vera Veltman. In 1933 she started to write plays.
In 1935 her second husband
Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist "Boris Vakhtin" was arrested and imprisoned onSolovki where he died (the exact death date is unknown, probably later 30ies). Her only meeting with Boris allowed by theGULAG authorities she described in her story "Svidanie". Trying to escape from theGreat Purge Fact|date=February 2007 she moved to the Ukrainian village of "Shishaki" (Poltava Oblast ) were her relatives lived. Where she started her first serious works: plays "Ivan Kosogor" (1939) and "In the Old Moscow" (1940).From 1940 she lived in Leningrad. Unexpected advance of the
Nazi Germany onLeningrad Front took her inTsarskoe Selo . She and her daughter were put in aconcentration camp nearPskov , but they managed to escape toNarva where they lived illegally in a destroyedSynagogue and then moved to the village of Shishaki to stay with relatives.In 1943, when the Germans retreated from Ukraine, she moved to
Perm (called Molotov at that time). She worked for a Perm newspaper and published her first novel "Family of Pirozhkovs" (later renamed "Yevdokiya", the base of a Soviet film of 1961). In 1944, as journalist, she was embedded for two months with a hospital train. She wrote a novel "Sputniki" (1946) that brought her aStalin Prize of 1947. There was a Soviet Film "Poezd Miloserdiya" (the "Train of Mercy" of 1961) and another TV-film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0198798/ Na Vsyu Ostavshuyuysya Zhizn'] ("For the rest of the life" 1975) based on the novel, the scenario for the later film was written by Panova's sonBoris Vakhtin .She returned to Leningrad. In 1947 she published the novel "Kruzhilikha" (Stalin Prize of 1948) about people working on a
Ural plant. In 1949 she wrote the novel "Yasny Bereg" (Stalin Prize of 1950) about people working in akolkhoz .With the onset of the
Khrushchev Thaw she wrote "Vremena Goda" ("The seasons of a year", 1953) about the relations of "fathers" and "sons" within the Soviet Intelligentsia. in 1955 she wrote novel "Seryozha" one of the stories about children of the Soviet Literature. In 1958 she wrote an autobiographic "Sentimental Novel".In her later life she published many short stories (mostly autobiographical and based on Russian history of the 17th century), plays and film scripts. She helped many younger writers who later become famous. Among them are
Yury Pavlovich Kazakov ,Sergei Dovlatov (her secretary for many years),Viktor Konetzky ,Andrei Bitov ,Viktor Golyavkin and many others.Her son
Boris Vakhtin (1930-1981) was a notable dissident and Russian writer, the founder of the group "Gorozhane". Her third husbandDavid Dar (1910-1980) was a notable Russian Sci-fi writer.Vera Panova died in Leningrad in 1973 and buried in Komarovo near
Anna Akhmatova .References
* [http://www.krugosvet.ru/articles/89/1008927/1008927a1.htm Panova's article in Encyclopedia "Krugosvet"]
External links
* [http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/P/PANOVA_Vera_Fedorovna/_Panova_V._F..html Works of Panova]
*Imdb name|0659726
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.