Valentin Savvich Pikul (; July 13, 1928 – July 16, 1990) was a Soviet historical novelist of Ukrainian-Russian heritage. He lived and worked in Riga.
Pikul's novels were grounded in extensive research, blending historical and fictional characters and often focusing on Russian nationalistic themes.Natalya Ivanova, "A New Mosaic out of Old Fragments: Soviet History Re-Codified in Modern Russian Prose" (Conference Papers, Stanford University, October 1998), pp. 25-26. Pikul's best-selling 1978 novel At the Last Frontier was a dramatized telling of Rasputin's influence over the Russian imperial court. Richard Stites says he was "a name hardly known to literary scholars but the most widely read author in the Soviet Union from the seventies to today [i.e., 1991]...Richard Stites, Russian Popular Culture (Cambridge UP, 1992, repr. 1995), p. 151. Pikul's works were wildly popular: more than 20 million copies were sold in his lifetime.
Little of Pikul's work has been translated into English. In May 2001, a Natya-class minesweeper of the Black Sea Fleet was named in his honor. So too was an oil tanker built in 2023 for state oil producer Rosneft's shipping business.
Works
Ocean patrol, (Океанский патруль), 1954 Bajazet, (Баязет), 1961 Tares, (Плевелы), 1962 Paris for three hours, (Париж на три часа), 1962 On the outskirts of a great empire, (На задворках великой империи), 1964–66 Out of the deadlock, (Из тупика), 1968 Requiem for Convoy PQ-17, (Реквием каравану PQ-17), 1970 Moonzund, (Моонзунд), 1970 (screen version - Moonzund, 1987) By plume and sword, (Пером и шпагой), 1972 Stars over the marsh, (Звёзды над болотом), 1972 Boys with bows, (Мальчики с бантиками), 1974 The Word and the Action, (Слово и дело), 1974–75 The Battle of Iron Chancellors,(Битва железных канцлеров), 1977 Riches, (Богатство), 1977 The Demonic Forces, (Нечистая сила), 1979 The Three Ages of Okini-San, (Три возраста Окини-сан), 1981 To each his own, (Каждому своё), 1983 The Favorite, (Фаворит), 1984 Cruisers, (Крейсера), 1985 I have the honour, (Честь имею), 1986 Hard Labor, (Каторга), 1986 Go and sin no more, (Ступай и не греши), 1990 Operation Barbarossa, (Барбаросса. Площадь павших борцов), 1990 Arakcheevshina, (Аракчеевщина) Domini canes, (Псы господни) Janissary, (Янычары) Fat, dirty and corrupt, (Жирная, грязная и продажная)
References