Yevgeny Kulkin: Poet, Novelist, and Guardian of Cossack Heritage

Kulkin Evgeny Alexandrovich

Member of the Union of Writers of Russia, Head of the Volgograd Branch of the F. Ushakov Center for Spiritual Culture

Born on May 15, 1929, in the town of Novoanninsk, Volgograd Region.

Among the constellation of Volgograd writers whose works reflect the history of our region, Evgeny Kulkin occupies a special place.

Evgeny Alexandrovich entered literature as a poet. He is the author of six poetry collections: "First Book," "Special Signs," "I Answer the Call," "Commandment," "Sudden Rain," and "Song Dock."

Readers know not only his poems; he is also well known as the author of the trilogies "Deadly Sin," "The Forgiven Age," "Khazaran," novels about the Battle of Stalingrad "Saint from the Minefield," about the historical past of Tsaritsyn "Sign of Trouble," the novella about Cossack childhood "The Last Day of Summer," and many other books. For the trilogy "Deadly Sin," the writer became the first laureate of the Volgograd Hero City Prize.

The heroes of two collections of short stories, published in Moscow and Volgograd — "Arc with a Bell" and "Widow's Haymaking" — are dedicated to this theme.

For many years, Evgeny Kulkin worked as a journalist, radio editor, and is well acquainted with the life of the countryside. He is a master of painting with words. This characteristic of the writer’s creativity led the Institute for Research on the History of the Russian Language at Volgograd State University to study his unique figurative thinking and compile a dictionary for the novel "Deadly Sin," listing the pages where each word form appears, a necessary step for creating a dictionary of Don dialects.

For the trilogy "The Forgiven Age" (the novels "Crash," "Assassination," "Temptation"), E. Kulkin became the laureate of the All-Russian "Stalingrad" Prize in the anniversary year of the Stalingrad victory in 2003.

The Institute for Research on the History of the Russian Language prepared a number of PhD and doctoral theses on the works of E. Kulkin and won two grants from the Russian Academy of Sciences for research on the writer’s work.

Having started his career in 1956, the writer prepared a 15-volume collection of his works for publication by his 80th birthday, some of which had never been published before, such as the novels "No Right to Personal Life," the trilogy "Mania," and the short story collections "Lure for the Dragonfly," "Single Mother," and "Traces on the Ceiling."

Evgeny Kulkin is the executive secretary of the literary and artistic newspaper "Parnas," which celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2009. All these years, he has written essays, reports, and essays about outstanding people in the city and region.

He is actively involved in working with the growing literary generation and participates in the public life of the city and region.

Evgeny Alexandrovich Kulkin is a laureate of the State Prize of the Volgograd Region, the "Imperial Culture" Prize, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR Prize.

The title "Honorary Citizen of the Volgograd Region" was awarded by the decision of the Volgograd Regional Duma on December 15, 2005, No. 21/632.