Kozhevnikov, Aleksei Venediktovich

Born Mar. 6 (18), 1891, in the village of Khabazy, in present-day Kirov Oblast. Soviet Russian writer. The son of a peasant.

Kozhevnikov fought in the Civil War of 1918–20. He worked as a village teacher and then studied at the V. la. Briusov Higher Literary and Artistic Institute (1922–25). His works began to appear in print in 1924. They include the novellas Man-Song (1927) and Tansyk (1931), the novels The Golden Poor (1927), Hello, Road! (1936; first published as Highway in 1934), The Ocean’s Brother (1939), and Living Water (1950; State Prize of the USSR, 1951), and stories and novellas for children and young people. The transformation of Siberia and the creative labor of the Soviet people are the basic themes in his works.