Skliarenko, Semen Dmitrievich

Born Sept. 13 (26), 1901, in the village of Prokhorovka, in what is now Drabov Raion, Cherkassy Oblast; died Mar. 7, 1962, in Kiev. Soviet Ukrainian writer. Member of the CPSU from 1946.

Skliarenko published his first work in 1918. He served in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). His works include the short-story collection Wind From the Hills (1930), the novellas The Quiet Dock (1929) and The Sailor Isai (1930), and the novels The Breaker (1932), Prologue (1936; Russian translation, 1937), and The Joy of Human Existence (1937). Skliarenko’s trilogy, The Road to Kiev (1937–40; Russian translation, 1970), deals with the Civil War and the establishment of Soviet power in the Ukraine. His works of the war years include the short-story collections Always Together (1942) and The Report (1945) and the novella The Ukraine Is Calling (1943).

After the war, Skliarenko wrote the novels Masters (1948), which deals with the restoration of a kolkhoz village, and The Carpathians (1952-54; Russian translation, 1960), which deals with the workers of Transcarpathia and their struggle for liberation and reunification with the Soviet Ukraine. Skliarenko also wrote the well-known historical novels Sviatoslav (1959; Russian translation, 1961) and Vladimir (1962; Russian translation, 1963), which re-create life in the Kievan State in the tenth century. Skliarenko’s novels have been translated into the languages of the peoples of the USSR and into foreign languages. Skliarenko was awarded three orders and various medals.