Dementiev, Alexander Grigorievich

Alexander Grigorievich Dementiev was born on April 4 (17), 1904 in the village of Bolshoy Murashkino of the Knyagininsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod province . Since his parents were prosperous peasants before the revolution, and according to the Soviet classification they were fists, in the mid-twenties they were deprived of suffrage, becoming the so-called " deprived people " . This fact further complicated Alexander Dementiev's party career.

In 1925, Dementyev graduated from the socio-economic faculty of the Nizhny Novgorod Pedagogical Institute and was sent as a teacher of history and literature to one of the schools in the city of Tuapse . Three years later, he moved to Leningrad and for some time taught at school No. 70 and the technical school at the Electrosila plant .

In 1932, Dementyev entered the graduate school of the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History and became a candidate member of the CPSU (B.) . Immediately after graduate school he was offered a teaching position at Leningrad University . And suddenly the “kulak" past of his father was revealed. The party committee of the university immediately removed Dementyev from the candidates for party membership, to which he filed a cassation appeal. While the complaint went to the authorities, Dementiev managed to get a Ph.D. in philology . But this circumstance had no effect on the party career of a critic. Only in 1939, Dementyev was allowed to submit a new application for admission to the party. He became a member of the CPSU (b) in the spring of 1941 .

First appeared in print in 1939.

With the outbreak of World War II, he left for the Leningrad people's militia. Due to severe myopia, he could not serve in the combat troops. From the beginning of 1942, he was a correspondent in the military newspaper of the 42nd Army, “Blow to the Enemy,” then the head of the agitation machine.

Member of the Union of Writers of the USSR since 1948.

In 1948-1953 he headed the department of Soviet literature at Leningrad State University; in 1949 - headed the press sector of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks; in 1951-1953 - the criticism department of Zvezda magazine .

In the fall of 1949 he participated in the persecution of Boris Eichenbaum in the press ^[1] . On the article by Dementiev, Eichenbaum responded in his diary as follows:

The article is simply cheating and ignorant to the point of horror. And most importantly - vile. <...> “Overpower time" is impossible, but it so happened that we are not needed now. It’s a pity, of course, that we need scoundrels and fools, but we must be comforted by the fact that this is not everywhere, but in our small area, which turned out to be in the margins. In fact, what do we mean next to the atomic bomb? ^[2]

In 1953-1955 and from the end of 1959, he was deputy editor-in-chief of the New World magazine .

In 1957-1959 he was the chief editor of the journal Literary Issues .

Edited by A. G. Dementiev

• History of Russian Soviet Literature: In three volumes. - M., 1958-1961.
• The history of Russian Soviet literature in 4 volumes. - M., 1967-1971.
• Russian periodicals (1702-1894): Reference book / also under the editorship of A.V. Zapadova and M.S. Cherepakhova . - M., 1959.
• Essays on the history of Russian Soviet journalism (1917-1932). - M., 1966.
• Essays on the history of Russian Soviet journalism (1933-1945). - M., 1968.

• Essays on the history of Russian journalism of 1840-1850. - M.-L., 1951.
• At a new stage. - M., 1965.
• V.I. Lenin and Soviet literature. - M., 1977.
• Articles about Soviet literature. - M., 1983.

Order of the Red Star (1944) ^{[3] [4]}

• Dementiev, Alexander G. // Brief Literary Encyclopedia / Ch. ed. A.A. Surkov . - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia , 1962-1978.
• Tvardovskaya V. A. A. G. Dementiev against the “Young Guard” (Episode from the ideological struggle of the 60s)
• Ogryzko V.V. Commissioner Appointed to Twardowski // Literary Russia
• Tuapsinets became the "right hand" of Alexander Twardowski