How the Steel Was Tempered

Nikolai Alexeevich Ostrovsky 1904–1936 – a Soviet writer, participant in the Civil War. At the age of fifteen, Ostrovsky joined the Komsomol and immediately went to the front as a volunteer. “It was such that together with the Komsomol card we received a rifle and two hundred bullets.” A young fighter with boundless energy, he quickly became the organizer of the Komsomol in the ranks of the Red Army. After a severe injury to his back, Nikolai Ostrovsky returned to a full life. He entered the Kiev Electrical Engineering School, then a technical school, and worked as an assistant electrician. Young Ostrovsky always sought to be where he was most needed by his homeland. At a Komsomol construction site of a railway branch in Kiev, Nikolai caught a severe cold and fell ill with typhus. At the age of eighteen, Ostrovsky was recognized as disabled but continued to work diligently. He wrote his novel “How the Steel Was Tempered” in 1934 while confined to bed. It became the autobiography of the writer. Ostrovsky's severe condition did not prevent him from creating the most famous and widely read work of Soviet literature. The events of the novel unfold against the backdrop of the Civil War of 1917–1922; it depicts the formation of socialism in the country and the restoration of the national economy. The main character – Pavel Korchagin became an example of courage and the strength of the human spirit for many generations.