Vsevolod Ivanov

Vsevolod Ivanov (Lebyazhye, 1895 – Moscow, 1963) was a Soviet writer of Russian origin, born in what is now northern Kazakhstan to a family of teachers. He wrote mainly short stories and novels set in the Asian regions of the former Russian Empire, and his name is linked to the literature of the Civil War and to the early years of Soviet culture.

His youth was unsettled. He worked as an assistant to a shopkeeper, at a printing house in Pavlodar, and as a fakir in a travelling circus. His first story, published in 1915, caught the attention of Maxim Gorky, who advised him for much of his career. During the Civil War he joined the Red Army and fought in Siberia. That experience gave rise to Partisans and Armoured Train 14-69, which brought him early fame. His novels Colored Winds and Azure Sands helped create the Asian-set genre in Soviet fiction. In the early 1920s he was one of the most widely read writers in the country and joined the Serapion Brothers literary group.

From the late 1920s he drank heavily and wrote less. Some critics felt that his later work never matched the quality of his early years. During the Great Purge he declared a "creative hatred" for those labelled enemies of the people, an attitude Leon Trotsky criticised. During the Second World War he worked as a war correspondent for Izvestia. His last novel, The Taking of Berlin (1945), and his memoirs of Gorky (1953) closed a career that combined official recognition with growing doubts from critics.

His legacy is closely tied to his family: his son Vyacheslav Ivanov became one of the leading Indo-Europeanists of the twentieth century. Today he is remembered as a writer of revolutionary adventure whose reputation suffered under official criticism.