Victor Rozov


Viktor Sergueïevitch Rozov was a Russian Soviet dramatist. He was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1967. He wrote more than 20 dramatic pieces and 6 film scripts, including Вечно живые/Life Eternal, the basis for his film script The Cranes Are Flying. He was a member of the Russian Academy of Letters, and was the president of the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts and a member of the Union of Soviet Writers.

Biography

Viktor Rozov was the son of accountant Sergueï Fiodorovitch Rozov et Ekaterina Ilinitchna. During the Yaroslavl rebellion in 1918, the family home was burned, the family moved to Vetlouga. It was there that Viktor complete three years of primary education. From 1923, he lived and studied in Kostroma. In 1929, he failed the entrance exams at the Russian State University of Agriculture in Moscow and started working in a textile factory in Kostroma. That same year, he became a regular actor and spectator of Kostroma's youth theater. In 1932 he entered the Technical School in Kostroma. In 1934, he entered the Theatre of Revolution School in Moscow.
After the entry into war of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Rozov joined the 8th National Division Popular militia in the Krasnopresnenskaya district. In the autumn of that year, he was seriously injured. He left hospital in mid-1942, and led a propaganda group at the front; at the same time, he took correspondence courses at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. At the end of the war, he interrupted his studies at the institute and founded the Theatre for children and youth of Almaty. Returning to Moscow, he worked as an actor and director at the Theatre of the Central House of Railway Culture. In 1953, Rozov completed his studies at the Institute of Literature.
From 1949, his plays have been staged in various theatres. His play Friends, presented in 1949 at the Central Youth Theatreh failed to see the light because it was considered "too sentimental". Director Anatoly Efros directed Rozov's "Well and good!", "Finding Joy", "The Wedding Day" and "Before Dinner"), with Oleg Yefremov. Mikhail Kalatozov's The Cranes Are Flying, was an adaptation of Rozov's "Life Eternal". He received the Palme d'Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival "for his humanism, his unity and his high artistic quality".
Rozov died at the age of 91 and was interred at Vagankovo Cemetery, Moscow.

Personal life

Rozov married Nadiejda Varfolomiéiévna Kozlova. He had a daughter, Sergueï - a director -, and a daughter, Tatiana – an actress at the Moscow Art Theatre.

Works

Plays

He received Russian and Soviet orders and awards, such as: