Vladimir Krupin

Vladimir Krupin
Vladimir Krupin in 2011
Born	(1941-09-07)September 7, 1941 v.Kilmez, Kirovskaya Oblast, USSR
Education	Krupskaya Pedagogical Institute
Period	1974 - present
Genre	Fiction
Subject	Russian village Orthodoxy
Notable works	Aqua Vitae (1980)

Vladimir Nikolayevich Krupin (Russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Крупи́н, September 7, 1941, village Kilmez, Kirovskaya Oblast, USSR) is a Soviet Russian writer, editor, religious author and tutor. The major proponent of the Village prose movement, noted for his eccentric, folklore-rooted style of writing, Krupin is best known for his 1980 Novy Mir-published satirical novel Zhivaya Voda (Aqua Vitae).

Vladimir Krupin was born in Kirovskaya Oblast, to a local forester. In 1957, after graduating form school, he joined a local newspaper. In 1961, having demobilized from the Soviet Army, Krupin became a member of the CPSU. In 1967 he graduated from N.K.Krupskaya Moscovskaya Oblast Pedagogical Institute and spent several years teaching Russian language in schools. Krupin joined the Sovremennik Publishers as an editor and at one point became its partorg, but was fired after the publication of Georgy Vladimov's Three Minutes of Silence.

In 1974 Vladimir Krupin published his first book, the collection of short stories "Zyorna" (Grains). That year also saw the publication of his short novels Varvara and The Yamshchik Tale. In 1980 the satirical short novel Aqua Vitae, dealing with the degradation of the Soviet rural community, steeped in mass alcoholism, made Krupin a well-known author. The publication of another novel, The 40th Day in Nash Sovremennik cost Yuri Seleznyov his post of deputy editor. In 1980-1982 Krupin edited the literary Moskva magazine. His 1980s works, notably Bokovoy veter (The Side Wind, 1982) and Povest o vom, kak... (The Tale of How..., 1985), examined hardships of life in the Soviet village.