Alexander Fadeyev (writer)
- For the figure skater, see Alexander Fadeev (skater).
Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeyev (Russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Фаде́ев; 24 December [O.S. 11 December] 1901 –May 13, 1956) was a Soviet writer, one of the co-founders of the Union of Soviet Writers and its chairman from 1946 to 1954.
Fadeyev was brought up in Chuguyevka, Primorsky Krai and took part in the guerrilla movement against the Japanese interventionists and the White Army during the Russian Civil War. In 1927, he published the novel The Rout (also known as The Nineteen), in which he described youthful guerrilla fighters.
In 1945, he wrote the novel, The Young Guard, which was based on real events of World War II. The novel was about an underground anti-fascist Komsomol organization named Young Guard, which fought against the Nazis in the occupied city Krasnodon (in the Ukrainian SSR). In 1948, a Soviet movie Molodaya Gvardiya (The Young Guard in English), based on the book, was released, and later revised in 1964 to correct inaccuracies in the book.
Fadeyev was a champion of Joseph Stalin, proclaiming him "the greatest humanist the world has ever known". During the 1940s, he actively promoted Zhdanovshchina, a campaign of criticism and persecution against many of the Soviet Union's foremost composers. However, he was a friend of Mikhail Sholokhov. Fadeyev married a famous stage actress, Angelina Stepanova (1905–2000).
In the last years of his life Fadeyev became an alcoholic. Some sources claim, that this was mostly due to the denunciation of Stalinism during the Khrushchev Thaw. He eventually committed suicide at his dacha in Peredelkino, leaving a dying letter, from which one can see Fadeyev's strictly negative attitude to new leaders of the Party. His death occasioned an epigram by Boris Pasternak, his neighbor.
Alexander Fadeyev is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.