Valentin Rasputin

David Gillespie (University of Bath)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

Born 15 Mar 1937
Died 14 Mar 2015
Activity 1961-1989

Places

Born in Russia
Active in Russia

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Story-writer

Resources

Rasputin's Works

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In the 1970s Valentin Grigor'evich Rasputin became one of the best-known writers in the USSR, allied to the “village prose” movement. He was famous above all for four novellas (or

povesti

), written between 1967 and 1976. These explore the social, cultural and psychological effects of urbanisation on rural areas in his native Siberia, and the huge cost, in spiritual and moral terms, as he saw it, of the drive to modernise the country. In particular, the construction of the Bratsk hydro-electric power station in 1961 plays a major role in his characters' lives and environment. In his later life, he was still active both in his writing career and as a local activist, most notably in defending Lake Baikal from the depredations of industry; and both his fiction and non-fiction regularly…

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1982 words

Citation: Gillespie, David. "Valentin Rasputin". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 July 2003; last revised 22 July 2022. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5424, accessed 22 November 2024.]