Sartakov, Sergei Venediktovich

Born Mar. 13 (26), 1908, in Omsk. Soviet Russian writer. Son of an office worker. Member of the CPSU since 1951.

Sartakov published his first work in 1934. His first short-story collection, Aleksei Khudonogov, appeared in 1945. Sartakov is the author of the children’s novellas Through the Rapids of the Chuna (1946) and The Raft Floats to the North (1949) and the plays Song Over the River (1947) and The Stern Avenger Arises (1955). He has also written the short-story collections The Distant Village (1947) and The Little Garden Under the Windows (1959) and a novel based on revolutionary history, The Saian Mountains (books 1–3, 1940–54). The development of Siberia’s natural resources, the heroic labor of Soviet citizens, and the formation of the personality in socialist society are depicted in the novella The Stone Foundation (1950), the novels The Ice Treasure (1961) and The Philosophers’ Stone (books 1–2, 1966–71), and the trilogy Barbin’s Novellas. The last work, for which he was awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1970), consists of the novellas Mountain Wind (1957), Don’t Surrender the Queen (1960), and Slow Gavotte (1967; original title Goat Face). In the short-story collection First Encounter (1967), Sartakov addresses himself to the subject of Lenin, and the novel Shine, Star (books 1–2, 1974–75) is devoted to the life of the Leninist revolutionary I. F. Dubrovinskii.

Sartakov’s books are characterized by love for Siberia and the people who are transforming that region. They are written in a lyrical style and convey a sense of the author’s real involvement with his subject. Some of these works have been translated into languages of the peoples of the USSR and into foreign languages. In 1967, Sartakov became secretary of the Writers’ Union of the USSR. He has been awarded the Order of Lenin and two other orders.