Sever Gansovsky

Sever Gansovsky studied at Faculty of Philology of Saint Petersburg State University. The recorded working language is Russian. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are speculative fiction. Distinctions recorded are Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class and Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class.

Sever Gansovsky was born in the family of Ella-Johanna May, a singer from Latvia. During one of the tours in Poland she met Felix Gansovsky and married him. In 1918 they had two children, Sever and Veronika. Felix disappeared soon after their birth, and Ella moved to Leningrad. During Stalinist repressions in the 1930s she was arrested and shot in prison. Sever Gansovsky worked as a cabin boy and sailor in Murmansk, and later as an electrician in Leningrad. He graduated from the evening school. In 1940 he entered the Leningrad State University, but in 1941 volunteered to join the army for the Great Patriotic War. He served as a marine sniper and the scout. Gansovsky was seriously wounded in 1942, but survived, although his relatives were initially told that he had been killed in action and buried. After demobilization he worked as a postman, teacher, and had some other jobs. He graduated from the Leningrad State University in 1951 (Faculty of Philology). In 1954 he married Evgenia Sergeyeva, in 1955 they had a daughter called Ilona. He started publishing his written works in magazines in 1950, while studying at the university. In 1959 he was awarded the First Prize at the USSR All-Union Competition for the short play To the Northwest of Berlin and the Second Prize for another play People in This Hour. In the 1960s he switched to science fiction. His first published work in that genre was The Guest from the Stone Age (1960). Algis Budrys compared his "A Day of Wrath" to the works of John W. Campbell. In 1989 he won the Aelita Prize for his collection of short stories Instinct?. Several of his works were adapted into films. Gansovsky was also famous for his illustrations, particularly to the first edition of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky's novel Snail on the Slope. His daughter Ilona became a painter and illustrator. She died in a car crash on December 23, 2008.

"Vincent Van Gogh", published in Aliens, Travelers and Other Strangers: New Science Fiction from the Soviet Union, edited by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky.