Mikhail Kuzmich Lukonin

Mikhail Kuzmich Lukonin – a Russian Soviet poet, journalist, and war correspondent. He was born on 29 October 1918 in the village of Kilinchi (now Privolzhsky District, Astrakhan Oblast). He spent his childhood in the village of Bykovy Khutora on the Volga. When Lukonin turned twelve, the family moved to Stalingrad. There he became a pupil at a factory-and-plant school and worked at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. In the 7th grade he attended a literary circle and played football for the factory team. In 1937 he graduated from the Stalingrad Teacher's Institute, while simultaneously working as a literary contributor for the newspaper "Young Leninist". From 1938 to 1941 he studied at the Literary Institute.

  

He took part in the Soviet–Finnish War of 1939–1940, serving as a rifleman in a ski battalion. In September 1941 he was called up again to the Red Army by the Main Political Directorate. During the Great Patriotic War he was a war correspondent for the army newspaper "Son of the Motherland." On 10 October 1941 he was wounded in the battle for the village of Negino. He was a member of the VKP(b) from 1942. He joined the Union of Soviet Writers in 1946 and served as Secretary of its board from 1971. Mikhail Kuzmich Lukonin died on 4 August 1976 and was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (plot No. 9).