Zaitsev, Evgenii Alekseevich

Born Dec. 21, 1907, (Jan. 3, 1908), in Nevel’, present-day Pskov Oblast. Soviet painter. People’s Artist of the Byelorussian SSR from 1964. Became a member of the CPSU in 1939.

Zaitsev studied at the Vitebsk Art Technicum from 1926 to 1930 and at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad under A. A. Osmerkin from 1930 to 1937. He began working in Byelorussia in 1938. From 1948 to 1950 he was the chairman of the administration of the Union of Artists of the Byelorussian SSR. In addition to his densely populated paintings dealing with the history of the struggle for Soviet power and the great Patriotic War, Zaitsev has painted portraits and landscapes. His work The Entry of the Red Army Into Minsk in 1920 (1940) has not been preserved. The paintings A Hero’s Funeral (1946), The Defense of Brest Stronghold in 1941 (1950), Konstantin Zaslonov (1957), and Requiem, or Vow to ITich (1970), are all in the Byelorussian Art Museum in Minsk. Between 1963 and 1967, Zaitsev painted a triptych entitled My Republic in Patriotic Fervor. He has been awarded three orders and various medals.