" The late 1930s were a particularly dangerous time , and to weather it Sergeyev-Tsensky had the brilliant idea to write a work about the Crimean War . His father 's library included an excellent selection of books about the siege of Sevastopol , and he set to work , producing three volumes in 1936 – 1938 , the worst years of the 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 . "
Great Terror
Great Purge
Sergei Sergeyev-Tsensky