Arkady Gaidar

Arkady Petrovich Golikov (Russian: Арка́дий Петро́вич Го́ликов; 22 January [O.S. 9 January] 1904 – 26 October 1941), better known as Arkady Gaidar (Арка́дий Гайда́р), was a Russian Soviet writer, whose stories were very popular among Soviet children.

Gaidar was born in the town of Lgov in Imperial Russia (now in Kursk Oblast, Russian Federation), to a family of teachers. In 1912 the family moved to Arzamas where in 1914 Arkady enrolled into a local secondary school. In 1917, an ardent 13-year-old Bolshevik follower, started to distribute leaflets and patrolling the streets. During one of such missions he received his first injury, a stab in the chest.

In 1918 Golikov applied for the Communist Party membership and started working for the local newspaper Molot as a correspondent. In August 1918 he became a party member and in December volunteered for the Red Army, having lied about his age. In January 1919 Golikov went to the frontline as a Special Unit's commander's adjutant, to fight what the Soviet biographies referred to as the 'kulak gangs'.

Fresh from the 7th Moscow Red Commanders' courses Gaidar went to the Ukrainian (later Polish) front as a company commander. In December 1919, injured and shell-shocked, he was demobilized, but in March 1920 returned to the Red Army, to the Caucasian Front's 9th Army, 37th Kuban division, as a company commander again. In summer 1920 Gaidar took part in fighting generals Geyman and Zhitikov units.

In 1921, Gaidar participated in the suppression of several anti-communist uprisings, among them Antonovshchina. In 1922 he was moved to the Mongolian border (where the Red Army was fighting White Army units led by colonels Oliferov and Solovyov) but later that year got hospitalized with traumatic neuroses. He retired from the army in 1924 due to a contusion.

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