Vera Panova Biography and List of Works

Soviet writer and journalist, who followed socialist realism quite faithfully in her works, and emphasised kindness and sympathy between people. Panova won three State Prizes and her books were published in more than 50 languages. Several of her best stories were devoted to children and explored the problems of moral upbringing.

"While you're still a kid, you can't imagine what a man's life is like. You think when your Dad's done his seven or eight hours he's finished for the day. Apart from a bit of voluntary work he may have to do, of course, or a meeting. But when you begin to grow up and go on your own, to the left and right of the gate, then you see what a mass of different things men have to occupy their time. Take the motor cyclists, for instance, taking their driving tests every day in Stable Square. There's the examiner, a lieutenant of the militia, watching someone doing figures of eight on his motorbike. And there's a regular crowd of men, young and old, standing round. Rooted to the spot they are, won't move an inch. Just stand there looking on, criticising."
(from 'The Boys at the Cafe', in An Anthology of Soviet Short Stories, trans. by Robert Daglish, 1976)

Vera Panova was born in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia. Her father, who was a bank clerk, drowned when she was only six years old. Her mother worked as a bookkeeper. For financial reasons Panova could continue her education at the gymnasium school. She had started to write poetry and prose at an early age, and in 1922 she joined the staff of a small local newspaper, Trudovoi Don. She also worked as a correspondent for other newspapers, writing mostly book reviews, and on publications for children.

In 1937 Panova left Rostov with her family and settled in Ukraine. In 1933 she began to write plays, but, by her own admission, did not succeed well. Her first play, IL'IA KOSOGOR, was published in 1939. By the beginning of World War II she lived in the town of Pushkin. When the town fell to the Nazis she was due to be deported to a German concentration camp. Panova managed to escape and returned to Ukraine.

After the liberation of Ukraine, she moved to the city of Perm in the Urals where she worked for local newspaper and radio. During the war years she began writing the factory novel KRUZHILIKHA (1947). Often her characters were not only good or bad citizens, and in the portrayal of Listopad, an egocentric, she showed her skills in creating a likeable "negative hero". In 1944 she was invited to travel from Perm on board a hospital train. This journey formed the basis for her popular novel SPUTNIKI (1946, The Train), which won Panova a Stalin Prize. Later it was adapted into screen under the title The Charity Train and in 1975 it was turned into a four-part television film. The plotless story was composed of series of episodes, and depicted human relationships and suffering under war conditions.

Despite criticism she won a second prize for Kruzhilikha, and her third Stalin Prize was awarded for The Bright Shore (1949). From the early 1950's Panova wrote regularly for the journal Novyi mir. SENTIMENTALNYI ROMAN (1958) was largely an autobiographical work and reflected some of her experiences as a young reporter. SEREZHA (1955, Time Walked / A Summer to Remember) marked the beginning of a new cycle of stories about children. It was a psychological novella written with gentle humour. The story is seen through the eyes of a small boy, who divides his life between his mother and stepfather. Serezha was turned into a film in 1960, which received the main prize at the 12th International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary. In 1967 Panova suffered a serious stroke. She died in Leningrad on March 3rd, 1973. Panova was married three times: Arsenii Starosel'skii (1925, divorced in 1927), Boris Vakhtin (separated), Davisd Iakovlevich (from 1945).

"Panova was essentially a Party writer, whose books were considered (on the whole) ideologically sound. Against a generally mediocre socialist realist background, however, she was noted for her vivid descriptions of real-life situations. Furthermore, the reader could identify with her characters who were not portrayed in purely black-and-white terms as either heroes or villains... Her style was warm and vivid and, for an ordinary Soviet reader brought up on stodgy ideologically sound prose, her books represented in comparative terms a "good read"."
( Anna Pilkington in Reference Guide to Russian Literature, ed. by Neil Cornwell, 1998)

Among Panova's later works is VREMA GODA (1954), which depicted everyday life in the Soviet Union. It was one of the early works that signalled hopes of change in the Stalinist cultural policy. In the 1960s Panova travelled to the United States as a part of a delegation of Soviet authors and described her impressions in From My American Encounter. Panova also published plays, film scenarios, memoirs O MOJEI ZHIZNI, KNIGAH I TSHITATELJAH (1975), and some historical novellas about Russian princes and saints.

For further reading: V mire geroev Very Panovoi by S. Fradkina (1961); Tvorchestvo Very Panovoi by L.A. Plotkin (1962); Women in Soviet Fiction by Xenia Gasiorowska (1968); Soviet Russian Literature since Stalin by Deming Brown (1978); Vera Panova by A. Ninov (1980); Vera Panova: stranitsy zhizni: k biografii pisatel'nitsy by Serafina Iur'eva (1993); Women's Literature, ed. by Claire Buck (1992); Reference Guide to Russian Literature, ed. by Neil Cornwell (1998)

SPUTNIKI, (1946)