Viktor Rozov

Viktor Sergeyevich Rozov (Виктор Сергеевич Розов; 21 August 1913, Yaroslavl – 28 September 2004, Moscow) was a Soviet and Russian dramatist and screenwriter.

He wrote more than 20 dramatic pieces and 6 film scripts, including Вечно живые/Life Eternal, the basis for his film script The Cranes Are Flying.

He was a member of the Russian Academy of Letters, and was the president of the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts and a member of the Union of Soviet Writers.

Viktor Rozov was the son of accountant Sergei Fyodorovich Rozov (a soldier who fought in World War I) and Yekaterina Ilyinichna.

During the Yaroslavl rebellion in 1918, the family home was burned, forcing the family to move to Vetluga.

It was there that Viktor completed three years of primary education.

Rozov married to Nadezhda Varfolomeyevna Kozlova (born 1919).

From 1923, he lived and studied in Kostroma.

In 1929, he failed the entrance exams at the Russian State University of Agriculture in Moscow and started working in a textile factory in Kostroma.

That same year, he became a regular actor and spectator of Kostroma's youth theater.

In 1932 he entered the Technical School in Kostroma.

In 1934, he entered the Theatre of Revolution School in Moscow (under the direction of Maria Babanova).

After the entry into war of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Rozov joined the 8th National Division Popular militia in the Krasnopresnenskaya district.

In the autumn of that year, he was seriously injured.

He left hospital in mid-1942, and led a propaganda group at the front; at the same time, he took correspondence courses at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute.

At the end of the war, he interrupted his studies at the institute and founded the Theatre for children and youth of Almaty.

Returning to Moscow, he worked as an actor and director at the Theatre of the Central House of Railway Culture.

From 1949, his plays have been staged in various theatres.

His play Friends, presented in 1949 at the Central Youth Theatreh failed to see the light because it was considered "too sentimental".

In 1953, Rozov completed his studies at the Institute of Literature.

He had a son, Sergei (born 1953) - a director, and a daughter, Tatiana (born 1960) – an actress at the Moscow Art Theatre.

He received Russian and Soviet orders and awards, such as:

Director Anatoly Efros directed Rozov's "Well and good!", "Finding Joy", "The Wedding Day" and "Before Dinner"), with Oleg Yefremov. Mikhail Kalatozov's The Cranes Are Flying, was an adaptation of Rozov's "Life Eternal". He received the Palme d'Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival "for his humanism, his unity and his high artistic quality".

Rozov died at the age of 91 and was interred at Vagankovo Cemetery, Moscow.