Gladkov, Feodor Vasilyevich

Gladkov, Feodor Vasilyevich (fyô`dər vəsē`lyəvĭch glətkôf`), 1883–1958, Russian author. Born into poverty, Gladkov spent his youth wandering along the Volga and in the N Caucasus reading and teaching. He described this period in Story of My Childhood (1949), which reflects the influence of Gorky's tales of his own youth. This work was awarded a Stalin Prize. Gladkov's enormously popular novel Cement (1925, tr. 1929), was set in the period of industrialization after the end of the Russian revolution.