Vladimir Alekseevich Soloukhin is a flamboyant representative of Soviet village-prose writing, who became prominent in the 1960s. His literary output included novels, short novels, stories, poems, and essays. He began his writing career as a poet and produced collections of poetry throughout his life. In his poetry Soloukhin expresses his reflections on personal life, Russian history, and nature; in his essays he presents himself as a monarchist and nationalist and criticizes Communist ideology. Soloukhin's views derive from his childhood experience of the collectivization Joseph Stalin imposed on the Russian peasantry in the 1920s and 1930s, and most of his essays and stories include strong autobiographical overtones. The beginning of Soloukhin's career coincides with the post-World War II economic recovery of the countryside, to which Soviet authorities expected writers to contribute. In response, Soloukhin and such authors as Valentin Vladimirovich Ovechkin, Iurii Pavlovich Kazakov, and Vladimir Fedorovich Tendriakov resurrected...