Troepolskii, Gavriil

Born Nov. 16 (29), 1905, in the village of Novospasovka, in what is now Griba-novskii Raion, Voronezh Oblast. Soviet Russian writer.

Troepol’skii worked as a village teacher and as an agronomist. He began publishing in 1937, and his works have appeared in print regularly since 1953. The film Land and People (1955) was based on his cycle of satirical short stories From an Agronomist’s Notes (1953); in this cycle he emerged as one of the pioneers of a new approach to the depiction of rural life, an approach marked by truthfulness and topicality. Among Troepol’skii’s other works are the satirical novella Candidate of Sciences (1958); the novel Chernozem (books 1–2,1958–61), which dealt with life in the Soviet countryside during the 1920’s; the journalistic sketch “About Rivers, Soils, and the Like” (1965); and the play Lodgers (1971). New facets of Troepol’skii’s talent were revealed in the lyrical novella In the Reeds (1963) and the novella White Bim With the Black Ear (1971), which raises complex moral questions. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1975 for the latter work. His works have been translated into various Soviet and foreign languages.

Troepol’skii has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.