Mariia Nikolaevna Smirnova

Born Apr. 1 (14), 1905, in the village of Samaikino, now in Novospasskoe Raion, Ul’ianovsk Oblast. Soviet screenwriter. Member of the CPSU since 1954.

Smirnova graduated from L. V. Kuleshov’s workshop in the acting department of the State Institute of Cinematography in 1927. She wrote her first screenplay in 1929. Her most important works were the screenplays for Peasant Women (1940), A Village Schoolteacher (1947; State Prize of the USSR, 1948), The Tale of a Real Man (1948; adapted from B. N. Polevoi’s novel), and Journey Beyond the Three Seas (1958; with Kh. A. Abbas). Smirnova also wrote the screenplays for Her Path (1929; with D. A. Poznanskii), Aina (1931), The Country Doctor (1952), Poliushko-pole (1957), Story of a First Love (1957), and Under One Roof (1963). She is the author of the play A Heroic Deed (1974). Smirnova has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and several medals.