Fedin, Konstantin Aleksandrovich (1892–1977)

Russian novelist and literary official. His Cities and Years 1924 revived the traditional realistic novel in postrevolutionary Russia. Later, he embraced socialist realism. Fedin's main themes are the Russian Revolution and Civil War, the impact of the USSR on Western Europe, and the role of the intellectual in Soviet society.

In the 1920s, he was a member of Evgeni Zamyatin's literary group the Serapion Brothers. Fedin's later works include The Brothers 1928, An Extraordinary Summer 1948, and The Bonfire 1962–65. As secretary to the Soviet Writers' Union, he was responsible for banning publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel Rakovy corpus/Cancer Ward in 1968.