Fridrikh Gorenshtein

Friedrich Naumovich Gorenstein
Friedrich Naumovich Gorenstein in 1994
Born	Friedrich Naumovich Gorenstein March 18, 1932 Kiev
Died	March 2, 2002(2002-03-02) (aged 69) Berlin
Occupation	Author and screenwriter
Language	Russian
Nationality	Soviet
Ethnicity	Jewish
Notable works	"Дом с башенкой" (The House with the Tower) (1964) Solaris (1972)

Friedrich Naumovich Gorenstein (Russian: Фридрих Наумович Горенштейн), or Fridrikh Gorenshtein (1932–2002) was a Soviet/Russian author and screenwriter. His works primarily deal with Stalinism, anti-Semitism, and the philosophical-religious view of a peaceful coexistence between Jews and Christians.

Gorenstein's father, Naum Isaevich Gorenstein (1902—1937), was a professor of political economy. His mother, Enna Abramovna Prilutskaya, was an educator. During the Stalinist repressions, his father was arrested in 1935 and exiled to a gulag. He was shot in 1937 after trying to escape. After the arrest of his father, Friederich bore the name of the mother (Felix Prilutsky). He later regained his original name. His mother was the director of a home for juvenile offenders in Berdichev, Ukraine. During the Nazi invasion of 1941, he and his mother were evacuated to Orenburg in the Urals. His mother died of tuberculosis in 1943 in Orenburg. Frederick was placed in an orphanage. After the war, he was raised by his aunts, Zloty and Rachel, in Berdichev.

Following World War II, Gorenstein struggled as an unskilled worker, until Nikita Krushchev's De-Stalinization allowed him to return to Kiev. He studied mining in Dnipropetrovsk in the 1950s and worked as a miner and mining engineer in the Ural Mountains and Ukraine.

Gorenstein moved to Moscow in 1962 to complete his scenarist course at the State Film University. He began writing screenplays to support himself. Most of his adaptions were censored, but he managed to finish his works, including writing the script for the 1972 science fiction film Solaris, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. He also wrote books, but none were published except "Дом с башенкой" (The House with the Tower) (1964).