Alexander Serafimovich

{{short description|Russian and Soviet writer}} {{Infobox writer  | name = Alexander Serafimovich | image = Alexander Serafimovich.jpg | imagesize = 200px | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1863|1|19}} | birth_place = stanitsa Nizhnekurmoyarskaya, Don Host Oblast, Russian Empire (present-day Tsimlyansky District, Rostov Oblast, Russia) | death_date = {{death date and age|1949|1|19|1863|1|19}} | death_place = Moscow, USSR | genre = Fiction | notableworks = ''The Iron Flood'' }} '''Alexander Serafimovich''' (born '''Alexander Serafimovich Popov'''; {{langx|ru|Алекса́ндр Серафимо́вич Попо́в}}; O.S. January 7 (N.S. January 19), 1863 – January 19, 1949) was a Russian and Soviet writer and a member of the Moscow literary group Sreda.<ref>A Writer Remembers, Hutchinson, NY, 1943.</ref>

==Biography== He was born in a Cossack village on the Don River. His father served as a paymaster in a Cossack regiment. He attended a grammar school, then studied in the Physics and Mathematics faculty of St. Petersburg University. During his time at the university, he became friends with Aleksandr Ulyanov, Lenin's older brother, who introduced him to Marxism. He was later exiled to Mezen, a town in northern Russia, for spreading revolutionary propaganda. While in exile he wrote his first story, which was published in ''Russkie Vedomosti''. It was then that he began using the pseudonym "Serafimovich".<ref name="In the Depths 1987">In the Depths: Russian Stories, Raduga Publishers, 1987.</ref> After his exile ended, he spent many years living under police supervision.

In 1902, he moved to Moscow and became a member of the literary group "Sreda" (Wednesday). During World War I, he was a war correspondent for ''Russkie Vedomosti''.

At the start of the 1917 Russian Revolution he joined the Bolsheviks, and became a member of the Russian Communist Party (b). In 1918, he became the literary editor of ''Izvestia''. His best known work of this time is the novel ''The Iron Flood'' (1924) set during the Russian Civil War and based on a real incident of the Red Taman Army escaping encirclement by the enemy Whites.<ref>J.N. Westwood (1993) ''Endurance and Endeavor: Russian History 1812-1992''. OUP: 261-2</ref><ref>[http://www.sovlit.net/ironflood/ The Iron Flood]</ref> He also wrote a stage adaptation of ''The Iron Flood'', which was produced by Nikolay Okhlopkov at the {{ill|Realistic Theatre|ru|Реалистический театр}} in Moscow and was the subject of several film proposals by Sergei Eisenstein.<ref>The Soviet Union: A Biographical Dictionary, Macmillan, 1990.</ref> ''The Iron Flood'' was widely translated into a variety of languages, such as Korean<ref>[http://www.ryongnamsan.edu.kp/univ/en/research/articles/f2708856060b3b50379aeb13c54a563e?cp=1 Even with one piece of foreign literary work]</ref> and used to advance Soviet and Communist ideology. [[File:Могила писателя Александра Серафимовича.JPG|thumb|Grave of Alexander Seframovich athe Novodevichy Cemetery ]] After ''The Iron Flood'', he published stories, sketches and plays about the building of the Soviet state and the growth of Soviet culture. From November 1926 to August 1929 Serafimovich was the editor-in-chief of the magazine ''Oktyabr''. In 1927 he was the first to read the manuscript of Mikhail Sholokhov's novel ''And Quiet Flows the Don'' and published the book in the magazine in 1928.

In 1934, he was elected to the governing board of the Union of Soviet Writers. He died in Moscow in 1949.<ref name="In the Depths 1987" />

==Legacy== Serafimovich's works were praised by many of his fellow writers. Maxim Gorky especially appreciated his talent, introducing him into the Sreda group in Moscow and publishing his works in the ''Znanie'' collections. Leo Tolstoy liked his short novel ''Sand''. thumb|left|Soviet 1963 commemorative stamp for Serafimovich's 100th birthday The Nobel Laureate Mikhail Sholokhov said of him: <blockquote>"Serafimovich was a great man, a real artist whose stories are near and dear to us; he was one of that generation of writers from whom we learned in our youth."<ref name="Sand">Introduction to ''Sand and Other Stories'' by Serafimovich, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow.</ref></blockquote> thumb|Bust of Alexander Seframovich in front of the Volgograd State Pedagogical University Vladimir Korolenko said of Serafimovich's first story ''On the Ice'' (1889):<blockquote>"Splendid language, full of imagery, terse and powerful, the descriptions bright and lucid."<ref name="Sand"/></blockquote>

==Awards and honors== *Order of Lenin (1933) *Stalin Prize, 1st class (1943) - for long-term excellence in literature *Order of the Badge of Honour (1939) *Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1943) *Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" <ref>According to Alexander Serafimovich article at Ru.wikipedia.</ref>{{Circular inline|date=January 2023}}

==English translations== *''The Iron Flood'', Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1956. *''Sand and Other Stories'', Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1956. *''Nikita'', ''The Little Miner'' and ''Bombs'', from ''In the Depths'', Raduga Publishers, Moscow, 1987.

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * [http://www.sovlit.net/bios/serafimovich.html SovLit, encyclopedia of Soviet writers]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Serafimovich, Alexander}} Category:1863 births Category:1949 deaths Category:19th-century male writers from the Russian Empire Category:19th-century pseudonymous writers Category:20th-century pseudonymous writers Category:20th-century Russian male writers Category:People from Don Host Oblast Category:Saint Petersburg State University alumni Category:Members of the Central Committee of the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Category:Recipients of the Order of the Badge of Honour Category:Recipients of the Order of Lenin Category:Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Category:Recipients of the Stalin Prize Category:Bolsheviks Category:Socialist realism writers Category:Soviet dramatists and playwrights Category:Soviet magazine editors Category:Soviet male journalists Category:Soviet male writers Category:Soviet Marxists Category:Soviet novelists Category:Soviet short story writers Category:Writers from the Russian Empire Category:Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery