(September 15, 1922 – December 25, 1988)
AKULOV Ivan Ivanovich (15.09.1922-25.12.1988), the writer.
He was born in the Urals in the Urusovo village of the Irbit district in a peasant family. He studied at the Pedagogical Institute. He worked as a teacher in a rural school, then in the newspaper “Ural worker”. Participated in the Great Patriotic War, was wounded three times. He began to fight with the rank and file, finished with the major. After the war he graduated from the Higher Literary Courses at the Literary Institute. In the 1960s he bought a dacha in the village. Semhoz near Sergiev Posad and immediately merged into the literary patriotic detachment “Radonezhtsy.” Peru Akulov’s novels “In eternal debt,” “Baptism,” “Kasyan Ostudny,” “Do not Make Mistakes, Miluya.” The last two were written in Semkhoz.
Among the numerous works of art about the Great Patriotic War, Akulov’s
novel “Baptism” stands out for its incorruptible objective truth, in which, as in a monolith, a tragic and heroic unity is combined. This could only create a gifted artist of the word, personally passed through a flurry of fire and metal, through frost-covered frosty snow, who has seen death in his face many times. Significance and strength of the novel “Baptism” gives not only the eventual truth, but also classical artistry, the richness of the Russian folk language, the bulk and variety of created characters and images. His characters, both rank and file, are flashed with a bright light penetrating into their psychology and spiritual world. All this applies equally to Akulov’s novel Kasyan Ostudny, written after “Baptism.” In the novel Kasyan Ostudny, the writer raises the deep layers of Soviet reality, the position of the Russian village in the dramatic period of her life is a turning point in collectivization. Akulova does not mind Sholokhov’s “Virgin Soil Upturned” and other books devoted to collectivization. He has his own view, his own arena of events
is Siberia. Akulov explores the life and psychology of various characters, their actions, deeds and thoughts. And each character is a person, written out with a fine brush of the artist of the word. Akulov does not have caricature, superficial characters, whether it’s a businessman and a careerist, or an honest, decent citizen. The characters of his novel are alive, with all their weaknesses and virtues. In creating characters, Akulov is a great master. He is a serious analyst and in the description of events, an artist of broad thinking. He is a Russian patriot writer,
