Bazhov, Pavel

Born Jan. 15, (27), 1879, at the Sysert’ Plant, near Ekaterinburg; died Dec. 3, 1950, in Moscow; buried in Sverdlovsk. Russian Soviet writer. Member of the CPSU since 1918. Born into the family of a skilled workman at a metallurgical plant.

Bazhov graduated from the Perm’ Theological Seminary in 1899 and taught in Ekaterinburg and Kamyshlov. He fought in the Civil War and later collected folklore at factories in the Urals. He wrote a book of essays, True Stories From the Urals (1924), and five other books of essays, primarily about the history of the Revolution and the Civil War in the Urals and Siberia. He also wrote an autobiographical novella, The Green Grasshopper (1939), and a book of memoirs, The Distant Is Near (1949). Bazhov’s main work is his collection of tales, The Malachite Box (Sverdlovsk, 1939; State Prize of the USSR, 1943), which was later supplemented by new tales from collections such as The Keystone (1942), Tales About the Germans (1943), and others. Bazhov’s works, which are derived from the “secret tales” of the Urals—that is, the oral tradition of the miners and prospectors—combined realistic, everyday elements with fantastic ones. These tales, imbued with the plot themes, color, and language of folk traditions and folk wisdom, also embody modern philosophical and ethical ideas. The motion picture Stone Flower (1946), S. S. Prokofiev’s ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower (staged in 1954), and the opera of the same name by K. V. Molchanov (staged in 1950), as well as numerous musical works, sculptures, and paintings have been based on the motifs of these tales. Bazhov was a deputy to the second and third convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded the Order of Lenin.