Nikitin, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Nikitin, Nikolai Nikolaevich 

Born July 27 (Aug. 8), 1895, in St. Petersburg; died Mar. 26, 1963, in Leningrad. Soviet Russian writer.

Nikitin studied at Petrograd University from 1915 to 1918. In 1918 he volunteered for the Red Army. A meeting with M. Gorky in 1920 encouraged him to undertake literary work. From 1921 he was a member of the Serapion Brothers literary group. Nikitin’s first novella was Fort Vomit (1922). The novels Kirik Rudenko’s Crime (1927) and It Began in Kokand (alternate title, It Happened in Kokand, 1939) are devoted to socialist construction and the friendship of peoples. Aurora Borealis was published in 1950 (State Prize of the USSR, 1951); it was based on the Anglo-American intervention in the North in 1918–19. This novel was translated into a number of foreign languages. Nikitin received the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and various medals.

WORKS

Izbr. proizv., vols. 1–2. [Introductory article by N. S. Tikhonova.] Leningrad, 1968.
Severnaia Avrora. Leningrad, 1971.

REFERENCES

Lugovtsov, N. “Iskatel’ i trudoliubets.” Neva, 1966, no. 2.
Russkie sovetskie pisateli-prozaiki: Biobibliograficheskii ukazatel’, vol. 3. Leningrad, 1964.

V. N. DMITRIEVSKII