Aleksandr Georgievich Malyshkin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Гео́ргиевич Малы́шкин; 21 March 1892 – 3 August 1938) was a Russian Soviet writer.

Biography

Malyshkin was born in to a large family of Russian peasants in Penza. His father worked as a clerk. In 1916, Malyshkin graduated from the Faculty of Philology of

Petrograd University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

. Already while studying at the university, he wrote realistic stories about county life which were published in the magazines such as ''

Mir Bozhiy ''Mir Bozhiy'' (God's World, Мир божий) was a Russian monthly magazine published in Saint Petersburg in 1892–1906. It was edited first by Viktor Ostrogorsky (1892–1901), then by Fyodor Batyushkov (1902–1906). In July 1906 ''Mir Bozhi ...

'' and '' Nasha Zarya''. After graduating from the university, Malyshkin was drafted into the army, promoted to ensign ahead of schedule and sent to Sevastopol, to the active

Black Sea Fleet The Black Sea Fleet () is the Naval fleet, fleet of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Mediterranean Sea. The Black Sea Fleet, along with other Russian ground and air forces on the Crimea, Crimean Peninsula, are subordin ...

. From 1918 to 1920 he participated on side of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

in the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

on the Eastern Front,

Turkestan Turkestan,; ; ; ; also spelled Turkistan, is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and East Turkestan (Xinjiang). The region is located in the northwest of modern day China and to the northwest of its ...

and Southern fronts; took part in operations to capture Crimea. In 1925, after serving in the Red Army, he headed the naval department of the '' Krasnaya Zvezda'' newspaper. Malyshkin became famous for his story “The Fall of Dair,” written in 1923, one of the first attempts in Soviet literature to demonstrate the popular character of the revolution and depict the heroism of the Red Army. He was a member of the literary organization Pereval in the 1920s. He became a member of the board of the

Union of Soviet Writers The Union of Soviet Writers, USSR Union of Writers, or Soviet Union of Writers () was a creative union of professional writers in the Soviet Union. It was founded in 1934 on the initiative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (1932) a ...

after its foundation and a member of the editorial board of the ''

Novy Mir ''Novy Mir'' (, ) is a Russian-language monthly literary magazine. History ''Novy Mir'' has been published in Moscow since January 1925. It was supposed to be modelled on the popular pre-Soviet literary magazine ''Mir Bozhy'' ("God's World"), w ...

'' magazine. His novel ''People from the Outback'', unfinished due to his early death, brought wide reader recognition, which was the pinnacle of the writer's work. The novel carefully develops the theme of re-education of people in the process of post-revolutionary transformations. The writer came to Penza at the end of January 1938 to collect materials “about the new industrial Penza”; he was going to write a play for the Penza theater, but on August 3, a message came about his unexpected death. In 1950, his collection “Stories, Essays, Film Scripts” was published in Penza.

References

1892 births 1938 deaths Russian male writers Soviet male writers {{USSR-stub