Kazin, Vasilii Vasilevich

Born July 25 (Aug. 6), 1898, in Moscow. Soviet Russian poet.

Kazin was among the first to incorporate the theme of labor into Soviet lyric poetry. He was a founder of the Smithy, a literary group of proletarian writers. He first published his work in 1914. His collection of verses Workers’May (1922) celebrated free and joyous labor. The simplicity and concreteness of Kazin’s verse (“The Mason” and “The Plane”) distinguish it favorably from the cosmic and abstract qualities of other Smithy poets.

Kazin’s major narrative poems are The Fox Coat and Love (1926), in which he denounced petit bourgeois morality; The White Sea Poem (1937); which depicts the new Soviet man’s upbringing in labor; and The Great Beginning (1954), which is about the first Communist Subbotniks. Kazin was awarded two orders and various medals.