Lev Abramovich
Kassil
1905-1970
Lev Abramovich Kassil was a Soviet writer and screenwriter, winner of the Stalin Prize (1951), corresponding member of the APN of the USSR (1965). He was born in the family of doctor Abram Kassil and musician, then dentist Anna Perelman. After finishing Unified Labour School in 1923, he moved to Moscow and entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow State University, but soon became interested in literature. He began writing letters home describing life in Moscow. These letters became the basis for the cycle “Letters from Moscow”, published in a local newspaper. From 1925, Kassil began to actively engage in literature, and in 1928-1937 he worked as an essayist and feuilletonist, as well as a special correspondent for the Izvestia newspaper. In 1937 and again in 1941-1942, he was the executive editor of the children’s magazine Murzilka. During the Great Patriotic War, he performed on the radio and in schools, visited military units and enterprises in Moscow and the Urals. After the war, he headed the commission on children’s literature of the USSR Writers’ Union and led a seminar on children’s literature at the Gorky Literary Institute. One of the most notable events of his career was his work with children’s literature. His first major work, presented by V.V. Mayakovsky in the Novy LEF magazine in 1927, was the book “Conduit and Schwambrania” (1928-1931), written on the basis of autobiographical events, telling about the life of high school students in pre-revolutionary Russia and during the Civil War of 1917-1919. The book was not republished for a long time after the arrest of the writer’s younger brother Joseph in 1937, but was not withdrawn from libraries. Kassil’s other significant work was the novel “Goalkeeper of the Republic” (1937), the first Soviet novel about sports. Kassil was also a member of the literary groups “LEF” and “REF”. Kassil initiated the Book’s Name Day, which eventually became Children’s Book Week. In Moscow, a memorial plaque was installed on the house where L.A. Kassil lived from 1947 to 1970.
Address: Moscow, Kamergersky lane, 5/7
