Vasily Shukshin

Vasily Makarovich Shukshin (; 25 July 1929 – 2 October 1974) was a Soviet and Russian writer, actor, screenwriter and film director from the Altai region who specialized in rural themes. A prominent member of the Village Prose movement, he began writing short stories in his early teenage years and later transitioned to acting by his late 20s.

Biography Vasiliy Makarovich Shukshin was born on 25 July 1929 to a peasant family of assimilated Moksha Mordvin origin in the village of Srostki near Biysk in Siberian Krai, Soviet Union (now in Altai Krai, Russia). In 1933, his father, Makar Leontievich Shukshin, was arrested and executed on the charges of participating in an "anti-kolkhoz plot" during the Soviet collectivization. He was only rehabilitated 23 years later, in 1956. His mother, Maria Sergeyevna (née Popova), thus had to look after the survival of the entire family. By 1943, Shukshin had finished seven years of village school and entered an automobile technical school in Biysk. In 1945, after two and a half years at the school but before finishing, he quit to work in a kolkhoz.

In 1946, Shukshin left his native village and worked as a metal craftsman at several enterprises in the trust Soyuzprommekhanizatsiya: at the turbine plant in Kaluga, at the tractor plant in Vladimir, etc. In 1949, Shukshin was drafted into the Navy. He first served as a sailor in the Baltic Fleet, then a radio operator on the Black Sea. In 1953, he was demobilized due to a stomach ulcer and returned to his native village. Having passed an external exam for high school graduation, he became a teacher of Russian, and later a school principal in Srostki.

Shukshin died suddenly of a supposed heart attack on 2 October 1974, on the motor ship Dunai, on the Volga River, while filming They Fought for Their Country. He is buried in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

English translations I Want to Live, Progress Publishers, 1978. Snowball Berry Red and Other Stories, Ardis Publishers, 1979. Short Stories, Raduga Publishers, 1990. Roubles in Words, Kopeks in Figures, Marion Boyars, 1994. Stories from a Siberian Village, Northern Illinois University Press, 1996.

Theatre adaptation Latvian theatre director Alvis Hermanis adapted eight of Shuksin's short stories for stage, in a collaboration with the Theatre of Nations in Moscow, entitled Shuksin's Stories or Shuksin's Tales. it is still touring the world, having first being staged in around 2009, and has won several awards. Starring Yevgeny Mironov, the play was staged at The Barbican in London in October 2019.

Filmography

1956: The Killers (Short) as Ole Andreson 1957: And Quiet Flows the Don as minor role (uncredited) 1958: Two Fyodors as Great Fyodor 1959: The Golden Eshelon as Andrey Nizovtsev 1960: A Simple Story as Ivan Lykov 1961: Mission as combine operator 1962: Alyonka as Stepan Revan 1962: When the Trees Were Tall as chairman of the kolkhoz 1963: We, Two of Men as Mikhail Gorlov 1964: There Is Such a Lad (director, screenwriter) 1965: Your Son and Brother (director, screenwriter) 1967: The Journalist 1967: The Commissar as The Commandant 1968: Three Days of Viktor Chernyshov as Kravchenko 1969: Strange People (director, screenwriter) as Nikolay Nikolayevich Larionov 1970: By the Lake as Vasily Chernykh 1970: Liberation I: The Fire Bulge as Gen. Konev 1970: Liberation II: Breakthrough as Gen. Konev 1970: Lyubov Yarovaya as Roman Koshkin 1971: Dauria as Vasily Ulybin 1971: Liberation III: Direction of the Main Blow as Gen. Konev 1971: Liberation IV: The Battle of Berlin as Ivan Konev 1971: Liberation V: The Last Assault as Ivan Konev 1971: Soldier Came From The Front (screenwriter) 1972: Happy Go Lucky (director, screenwriter) as Ivan Rastorguyev 1974: The Red Snowball Tree (director, screenwriter) as Yegor Prokudin 1974: If You Want To Be Happy as Vladimir Fedotov 1974: Fellows (screenwriter) 1975: They Fought for Their Country as Piotr Lopakhin 1976: I Want the Floor as Fedya, plawright (final film role) 1977: Call Me To The Light Far (screenwriter) 1988: Yolki-palki (writer) 2004: High Boots (writer)