UTKIN Joseph P.

Utkin, Joseph P. (1903 - 1944), poet.

Born on May 13 at the station Hingan Chinese Eastern Railway, which built his parents. After his son's birth the family returned to his native city of Irkutsk, where the future poet lived until 1920.

He studied at the three-year primary school, then - in a four-year middle school, from the last class of which he was expelled for bad behavior and free-thinking. I had to go to work: a marker of the tannery, was selling newspapers, carried the telegram.

In 1919 during the anti-revolt in Irkutsk joined the workers' militia, which was before the establishment of Soviet power. In 1920, sent a volunteer with the first group of Komsomol of the Irkutsk on the Far Eastern Front. The Army was a field informant, military commissar replacement companies, military commissar repair shops.

In 1922 he worked as a reporter in the newspaper "The Power of Labor", in the Provincial Committee of the Komsomol - secretary of the Komsomol newspaper, political director at the youth of premilitary age. In 1924, sent to study in Moscow at the Institute of Journalism.

Since 1922 in the Siberian press published his poems, but on arrival in Moscow began to be published in Moscow publications. In 1925 the first book "The Story of a red Motel ...", in 1926 - the first book of poems.

From 1925 he worked in "Komsomolskaya Pravda" zavlitotdelom. After graduating from the institute in 1927, was sent along with the poets Zharov and Bezymensky abroad, where he stayed for two months. Worked as head of the department of poetry in the Publishing House fiction. In 1928 wrote and published the poem "Sweet Children".

Since the beginning of World War II goes to the front, fighting under the Bryansk, where he was wounded, treated in Tashkent. He wrote the book "I saw myself, the verses of which read in the editorial" Komsomolskaya Pravda ". Contrary to the opinions of physicians returning to the front, although the injured lost four fingers on his right hand.

Participates in the battles, making big jumps from soldiers. He wrote songs, marches. Many of his poems were set to music, sung at the front.

Returning from the Front on Nov. 13, 1944, I. Utkin, died in a plane crash.