WAR-INFLUENCED BIOGRAPHY OF TYUMEN MEN OF LETTERS, THE ALUMNI AND FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TYUMEN

Abstract

In the face of increasing falsification of the Great Patriotic War facts, the evidence of contemporary witnesses and the objective coverage of those events are becoming increasingly important. In this regard, the creative writing by Russian writers and poets is especially significant, especially first and foremost by those who personally took part in combat during the military operations against the Nazi aggression or worked on the home front. The following article is devoted to writers and poets of Tyumen, namely to the alumni and faculty from the University of Tyumen, on whose fate and creative writing the Great Patriotic War left its deep trails, becoming the major topic of their writing. Their names and biographies were revealed in the course of research in 2015-2020. The authors have collected the students’ and academic staff’s stories about their parts in the war and their meditations, which has substantially supplemented the data about the University’s history during the war and its contribution to the Victory. Using the historical biographical and comparative approaches, the authors have studied war-time biographies of the Tyumen authors, presented little known facts of their frontline and working life, as well as analyzed their reflections in the following literary creative work of the Tyumenians, of which memoirs and non-fiction prose have become the most prolific genres. This article comprises biographical data on eleven war veterans, home front workers, and children of war — writers and poets, closely related to one of the leading university of Tyumen and the Tyumen Region.