Great Terror. For a while it was not clear if the work would be published. The imminent war and the need to revive Russia's military past finally tipped the scales in its favor. In 1939–1940 Sevastopol Labors was published, and in 1941 the writer received the Stalin Prize instead of being sent to the Gulag. It is also probable that the fact that he lived so far from the centers of power in the Soviet Union was another factor in saving him (Sergeyev-Tsensky had been given an apartment on Tverskaya Street in Moscow, but he still spent most of his time in the Crimea). His story was not unlike that of Maximilian Voloshin, poet, artist and critic who also lived in the Crimea all his life and survived the 1930s.". "With the outbreak of World War II it became easier for many decent writers, in particular Sergeyev-Tsensky, to wholeheartedly support the Soviet regime. He wrote patriotic articles encouraging the war effort.". "After the war Sergeyev-Tsensky's position as a leading Soviet Russian writer, as he was then known, was firmly established. Nevertheless, he continued to work feverishly, produced an incredibly large number of works, including several thousand poems and fables. His 80th birthday was widely celebrated in 1955, and he also received the Lenin Prize." He died on December 3, 1958 in Leningrad, aged 83. "It is important to note, however, that his best works were devoted to the military, whom he knew so well from his first-hand experience before the revolution. Readers who do not have a taste for military subjects find Sergeyev-Tsensky rather dull. Perhaps his best pages were devoted to the 1916 Brusilov Offensive in World War I and to General Brusilov himself. But his failing health and the difficulty of dealing with Soviet reality prevented him from completing Russia's Transfiguration. Despite the fact that Sergeyev-Tsensky may seem old-fashioned to some readers, his books continued to be published in large printings during perestroika, and he will always be read by the general reader, to say nothing of intellectuals.". Bibliography Brusilov's Break-Through: a Novel of the First World War , translated into English by Helen Altschuler, Hutchinson & Co, London, 1945. Tundra (1902, The Tundra) Preobrazhenye zapiski (1914–40, The Transfiguration) References External links Selected Bio from biography.com Bibliography (in Russian) 1875 births 1958 deaths People from Rasskazovsky District People from Tambovsky Uyezd Russian male short story writers Russian male