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Tvardovsky, Aleksandr Trofimovich
(1910-1971)
poet and editor
An accomplished poet, Tvardovsky is perhaps
best remembered as the editor of the influential
literary journal
Novyi mir
(
New World
) during the
period of cultural de-Stalinization. Tvardovsky
was born to a peasant family in the Smolensk
region that was later classified as
KULAK
and
stripped of its possessions. He graduated from
the Moscow Institute of Philosophy and Litera-
ture in 1939 and joined the
COMMUNIST PARTY
in
1940. During the 1930s his poetry lauded collec-
tivization and he became the most popular poet
in the country while a war correspondent from
1939 onward. Tvardovsky first reported on the
collectivization of agriculture for local newspa-
pers, and he was later a war correspondent dur-
ing World War II. The rural themes of his youth
inform his best poetry, as in
Muravia Country
(1936), and his masterpiece and most popular
work, the long narrative poem
Vasilii Terkin
(Tyorkin),
a brilliant picture of the life and travails
of a simple Russian private soldier. Appointed
editor of
Novyi mir
in 1950, he was well posi-
tioned to help shape the post-Stalin cultural
thaw once it became politically possible to do so.
He published his poem
Far Distances,
a critique of
the mechanisms that ensured literary confor-
mity, as well as nonconformist articles by young
critics. He was dismissed from the editorship in
1954 but reinstated in 1958 in a more favorable
political climate. During his tenure as editor,
Novyi mir
became a hugely influential literary
journal. In 1962, with
KHRUSHCHEV
's permission,
he published Aleksandr
SOLZHENITSYN
's
One Day
in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,
about the previously
taboo topic of life in the slave labor camp system.
With the consolidation of the
BREZHNEV
regime
and a more conservative cultural climate, his
influence waned. In 1966, his closeness to
Solzhenitsyn cost him the status of candidate
member of the Central Committee that he had
received in 1961. A sequel to
Vasily Terkin
was
bitter and morose. He was ousted as editor in
1970 and died the following year. He was buried
in Novodevichy Cemetery. In 1988 Mikhail
GOR
-
BACHEV
decided to donate the royalties from his
works to a foundation to erect a memorial to
Tvardovsky.
Tver
A city in western Russia with a population of
almost half a million, Tver was one of the
ancient cities that competed unsuccessfully with
MOSCOW
in the 14th and 15th centuries. Tver
was founded in 1135 at the confluence of the
Volga and Tversa Rivers. In the early 14th cen-
tury Tver emerged from a period of fluid political
boundaries as a major competitor of the princi-
palities of Moscow, Vladimir, and Rostov for
political hegemony in the area. Some of the
princes of Tver held the rank of grand prince, but
they served at the mercy of the Mongol khans. In
1327 the Mongols sent a punitive expedition
against Tver that devastated the town. In the
mid-14th century Tver again challenged Moscow
for supremacy but lost out, remaining an inde-
pendent principality until 1485, when Mus-
covite troops annexed it during the reign of
IVAN
III
. Much of the city was destroyed by fire in
1763. In the late 19th century members of the
Tver gentry were known for their liberalism. In
1862 the provincial assembly of Tver gentry
renounced their privileges and called for a con-
stituent assembly. In 1878 the Tver gentry called
for the establishment of a constitution along the
lines of the one
ALEXANDER II
had granted to
newly independent Bulgaria. From 1933 to
1990, during the Soviet era, Tver was known as
Kalinin, in honor of Mikhail Kalinin, ceremonial
head of state of the Soviet Union from 1919 to
1946. With a 1995 population of close to
480,000 Tver remains an important manufactur-
ing center.
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