Background
Fadeyev was born on December 24, 1901, in Kimry, Tver Governorate, Russian Empire (now Russia). From 1908 to 1912, he lived in Chuguyevka, Primorsky Krai.
State Prize badge
Soviet stamp featuring Fadeyev.
Fadeyev was born on December 24, 1901, in Kimry, Tver Governorate, Russian Empire (now Russia). From 1908 to 1912, he lived in Chuguyevka, Primorsky Krai.
Fadeyev joined the Bolshevik Party in 1918 and took part in the guerrilla movement against the Japanese interventionists and the White Army during the Russian Civil War. In 1927, he published the novel The Rout (also known as The Nineteen), in which he described youthful guerrilla fighters. In 1930, he published the first part of the novel The Last of the Udege, on which he continued working the rest of his life.
In 1945, he wrote the novel, The Young Guard, based upon real events of World War II. In 1948, a Soviet film The Young Guard, based on the book, was released.
He committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart at his dacha in Peredelkino, leaving a letter.
Fadeyev proclaiming Joseph Stalin "the greatest humanist the world has ever known". During the 1940s, he actively promoted Zhdanovshchina, a campaign of criticism and persecution against many of the Soviet Union's foremost writers and composers.
In his suicide note, he attacked the Stalinists who "physically exterminated" the best people in Soviet Literature and said they had "brought us (writers) down to the level of children; they destroyed us; they threatened us ideologically and called this 'the Party spirit'". He attacked the new Soviet leadership as being full of uneducated people who manifested "primitivism and ignorance - along with a disgraceful share of self-assurance" in their attempts to lead Soviet literature.
Fadeev firmly believed in his vulnerable purity. He proved that he was doing everything possible to help people, even those whom he was supposed to pursue. He needed to feel like a hero and a decent man.
Physical Characteristics: In the last years of his life Fadeyev developed a nervous condition, exacerbated by the prolonged abuse of alcohol.
Fadeyev married a famous stage actress, Angelina Stepanova (1905–2000).