Vasily Shukshin is a very significant figure, who left his mark in the history of Soviet cinema. He managed to visit both a writer, an actor, and a director, taking part in the creation of very significant films of the Soviet era.
Shukshin was born in a peasant family in the small Altai village of Srostki. When the boy was 4 years old, his father was shot, and the care of the family fell on the shoulders of the mother. After the execution of his father and until his majority, Basil bore the name of his mother – Popov. After 7 classes of school, Shukshin entered the technical school, but he never finished it. Young Shukshin worked as a mechanic at factories throughout Russia for several years until he was called up for military service. Four years later, Shukshin showed a stomach ulcer, and he was fired into the reserve.
When he returned home, Shukshin at once passed the exams for all classes of the school and began to teach Russian. For some time he even headed the local school. Shukshin dreamed of enrolling in VGIK. To buy a ticket for his son in the capital, his mother had to sell a cow. The victim was not in vain – Shukshin entered the university and studied at the director. Shukshin’s actor’s career began with an almost imperceptible role in “The Quiet Don” – the sailor in his performance was to look out from behind the fence. The main role in the debut feature film Shukshin played his college friend, the future famous actor Leonid Kuravlev.
Vasily Shukshin combined his work in the cinema with writing – he wrote down his works at night in a student’s notebook. Shukshina’s last film, “Kalina Krasnaya”, won both film critics who awarded him the first prize of the All-Union Film Festival and ordinary Soviet citizens. During the shooting of the film by Sergey Bondarchuk, Shukshin died of a heart attack on board the ship where the film crew lived. By this time he was left to play in the last episode of the picture.
