Valentin Savvich Pikul is a man with a difficult fate, who managed to break out into the literary elite of the Soviet Union. His historical novels were so popular that, despite quite extensive criticism, they were instantly sold out by readers. And even today, Pikul's novels are a real "Window to the Past", historically accurate canvases of the era in which the most ordinary people lived.
Biography
Valentin Savvich was born into a family of ordinary peasants in 1928 on July 13, in the city of Leningrad. From an early age, he strove for sports and was involved in athletics, while at school he always studied excellently. When the boy was in grade 4, the family decided to move to the city of Molotovsk. Valentin continued his studies at a new place. After successfully completing the fifth grade, he and his mother went to visit their grandmother in Leningrad, but they were not destined to return home by the fall.
The Great Patriotic War began, and the city was blockaded. The very young Pikul had to endure the most terrible period of the siege of Leningrad, the winter of 1941-42. The family was seriously lucky - they managed to leave the city along the then existing "Road of Life", which passed on the ice of Lake Ladoga. Under continuous enemy fire, with the constant risk of forever remaining at the bottom of the famous lake, Pikul and his mother were able to get out of the hellish trap. By that time, the child was suffering from dystrophy due to a long lack of nutrition.
The family was transported to Arkhangelsk, but the boy had already firmly decided that he would not sit idly by. He escaped from his mother and went to Solovki, where he graduated in 1943 from the boy's school and immediately went to the destroyer "Grozny". At the time of the Victory over Nazi Germany, Pikul was only 17 years old.
When the war ended, the command helped the guy become a cadet of the Leningrad military school, but a year later he was expelled - the lack of basic knowledge affected. Ultimately, the future writer was limited to five classes of education, and he decided to fill the gaps in knowledge on his own with the help of books.
Writing career
As a writer, Valentin Pikul first tried his hand at the time of visiting the literary courses of the Ketlinskaya Vera Kazimirovna. The first attempts at writing did not satisfy the author himself and were thrown aside. Only the third work, "Ocean Patrol", reached the publishing house. After a successful publication, Valentin Savvich immediately becomes a member of the Writers' Union.
Already in the status of a famous Soviet writer, the author publishes Bayazet, a novel describing the events of the Russian-Turkish war. Pikul considered this book the start of his real literary activity. It was after her that he began to be published regularly, his works were published in various literary publications of that time, but the greatest success came only in 1971. Then in the popular magazine "Zvezda" was published the novel "Pen and Sword".
During his rather long creative career, the writer has published 23 novels and more than 150 historical miniatures. Film adaptations have been repeatedly shot based on his works, for example, "Moonzund" and "Requiem for the PQ-17 Caravan"
Despite the fact that all of Pikul's works are filled with fiction, he was a very meticulous researcher and paid great attention to historical accuracy. His novels combined exciting and romantic adventures with the harsh and cruel realities of life.
Personal life
The famous Soviet writer was married three times. His first wife is a casual acquaintance Zoya Chudakova, whom he met immediately after the war. The girl was a little older than the young front-line soldier and gave birth to his daughter. The second time Valentine formalized the marriage in 1958, with the sister of the familiar science fiction writer Vera Gansovsky, who died in 1980. The third marriage was the last. Pikul's widow, Antonina Ilinichna, diligently keeps her husband's legacy and writes books about him.
Death
Valentin Savvich Pikul died in 1990 on July 16. The cause of death was a heart attack. He was buried in Riga in a small picturesque forest cemetery. Later, his wife Antonina said that in one of the books she found an entry made by Valentine's own hand, in which he predicted the date of his own death - and there he was mistaken by only three days.
