Author of How the Steel Was Tempered, paragon of socialist realism
Life is given to us but once. So live that, dying, you can say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in the world — the fight for the liberation of humankind.
Bolshevik activist from age 13, Red Army cavalryman in Kotovsky's brigade, and Komsomol organizer, Nikolai Ostrovsky wrote How the Steel Was Tempered (1932–1934) after ankylosing spondylitis left him blind and paralyzed at 25. Dictating to volunteer secretaries through a writing frame, he produced a semi-autobiographical novel whose protagonist Pavel Korchagin became the moral template for generations of Soviet, Chinese, and Korean communists. With 36.4 million copies sold, it remains the best-selling book in the Russian language and one of the best-selling books of all time. Awarded the Order of Lenin in 1935, Ostrovsky died at 32, his life itself a testament to the revolutionary will his novel celebrated.
Career Timeline
- 1917Bolshevik underground courier, Shepetivka
- 1919Joined Komsomol and Red Army; served in Kotovsky cavalry brigade
- 1921–1923Electrician and Komsomol secretary, Kyiv railway workshops
- 1924Joined Communist Party; district Komsomol secretary, Berezdiv and Iziaslav
- 1930–1934Wrote How the Steel Was Tempered while blind and paralyzed
- 1935Awarded the Order of Lenin
- 1936Began Born of the Storm; died before completing it