The Voice of Russia ( RUSSIAN PROSE IN THE YEARS OF WORLD WAR II [ Konstantin Simonov] )

KONSTANTIN SIMONOV

November this year marked the 85th birthday of the prominent Russian writer, poet and playwright Konstantin Simonov.

Born in 1915 into a military family Konstantin Simonov studied at the Literary Institute in Moscow and began his career as a poet. From the very start Simonov established himself as a poet writing about wars. He is the author of historical poems called "Suvorov" and "Battle on a Frozen Lake" about the heroism of Russian people and poems about international brigades that came to the rescue of Spanish

Republicans. As a journalist, Simonov travels to the battle fields during a military conflict with the Japanese army. And as a war correspondent, he writes notes in verse and reports. The idea of a looming big war is central in his poems, his play "A guy from our city", after which one of the best post-war films was made.

The four years of the Great Patriotic War Konstantin Simonov spent on the frontlines. His reports, notes and lyrics tell about the heroism of Soviet soldiers and army brotherhood, devotion and love. Simonov's prose about the war years is documentary and has lyrical notes. At intervals between the battles and during his short trips to Moscow Simonov writes the novel "Days and Nights" about the Battle of Stalingrad, stories. And his play called "Russian people" was written at that time too.

Working without rest during the war Simonov continues to work as much in the years that followed. He becomes one of the leaders of the Union of Writers, the chief editor of the "Novy mir" literary magazine and then of the "Literaturnaya Gazeta" newspaper and is taking an active part in public activity. In addition to that all, foreign trips follow one after another. The bulk of what the writer created in those years is the result of his trips to faraway countries. His play "The Russian Problem" telling about the start of the Cold War was staged in many theatres across the country. The writer works a lot making documentary films too. Reacting to the Vietnam war he makes the film "Shared Grief". And - back to the theme of the Great Patriotic War. His trilogy "Live and Dead" is based on the writer's personal experience, diary notes and numerous meetings with war veterans. Close to the trilogy is his novels "Comrades-in-arms" about the pre-war years and "Lopatin's Notes". Many of Simonov's works have been made into films and translated into foreign languages. Volumes of memoirs have been written about the prominent literary figure and interesting person, who contributed so much to literature. Konstantin Simonov died on August 28th 1979.