Isay Kalistratovich Kalashnikov

Isay Kalistratovich Kalashnikov was a Soviet writer, a member of the Union of Soviet Writers of the USSR (1963), People's Writer of Buryatia (1973), and a laureate of the State Prize of the Buryat ASSR (1970). He is best known as the author of the historical novel about Genghis Khan, "The Cruel Age" (1978). He was born in the village of Sharaldai in the Buryat ASSR. After completing four grades of school he began working as a shepherd, then in a tractor brigade, and from 1950 worked as a lumberman, on log driving, as a carpenter and a turner.

His first story, "Sashka," was published in the newspaper Buryat-Mongolskaya Pravda. From 1954 Kalashnikov worked at the newspaper Buryat-Mongolsky Komsomolets. He received his secondary education at an evening school. In 1959 his first novel, "The Last Retreat," dedicated to the civil war in Transbaikal, was published in the magazine Svet nad Baikalom (Light over Baikal). In 1963 Kalashnikov became a member of the Union of Soviet Writers and attended the Higher Literary Courses in Moscow (1963–1965). After that he was elected responsible secretary of the board of the Union of Writers of the Buryat ASSR (1965).

In 1970 Kalashnikov published the novel "Torn Grass" about the life of Old Believer peasant families in Transbaikal, for which he received the State Prize of the Buryat ASSR. In 1973 he was awarded the title People's Writer of Buryatia. Besides "The Cruel Age" (1978), he wrote the novellas "Let the Sapling Grow," "To the People," "Through the Bogs," "The Investigation," as well as numerous short stories and the novel "Not a Field to Cross" (1982). A film titled "Cry of Silence" was made based on his novella "The Investigation." Kalashnikov's works have been translated into many languages. The writer died on May 30, 1980, in Moscow.