Vladislav Krapivin

Vladislav Petrovich Krapivin (1938 –2020) was a Soviet and Russian children's books writer.

Krapivin has been a full-time writer since 1965. His first book, The Voyage of Orion, was printed by the Sverdlovsk Publishing House in 1962. Over the course of his literary career, Krapivin became the author of more than 200 publications, many of which have been translated.

In 1961 Vladislav Krapivin founded a youth group called "Caravel" with the main activities for the kids that of journalism, fencing, sailing and all things maritime.

"Caravel" exists to this day, led by its former graduates, wearing berets.

Uladzimir Karatkievich

Uladzimir Karatkievich (1930 –1984) was a Belarusian romantic writer.

Vladimir learned to read at the age of 3 1/2. As a child, he not only liked to listen to fairy tales and stories that were read to him by his elders, but tried to think of plot development. From the earliest childhood he was interested in history, especially the history of Belarus. The diversity of his talents was manifested in a penchant for drawing, which lasted a lifetime. Also, he had perfect pitch, while engaged in a music school.

His first published poem was in 1951, which was followed by three collections of verses. Later, he turned to prose and subsequently published many short stories in collections entitled Chazenia, The Eye of the Typhoon, From Past Ages, and others. He also wrote the novels Unforgettable and The Dark Castle Olshansky. The novel King Stakh's Wild Hunt (1964) is probably his most popular work.

Éric Zemmour

Éric Justin Léon Zemmour (1958) is a French far-right politician, essayist, writer and former political journalist and pundit. He unsuccessfully ran in the 2022 French presidential election, in which he placed fourth in the first round.

Zemmour is well known for his controversial views regarding immigration and Islam in France. He has extensively supported the idea of the "great replacement", a conspiracy theory contending that France's native population will be replaced by non-European people.

He self-identifies as Gaullist and Bonapartist.

Yuri Dimitrin

Yuri Georgievich Dimitrin (real name Michelson1934 - 2020) was a Russian playwright, librettist and writer.

Together with the composer A. Zhurbin, Dimitrin became the creator of the first Russian rock opera "Orpheus and Eurydice ". Staged in 1975, the rock opera has been performed more than two and a half thousand times.

Dimitrin is the author of a textbook on the theory and practice of libretto (2012), a number of books and articles on the problems of musical dramaturgy.

Alexander Moiseyevich Piatigorsky

Alexander Moiseyevich Piatigorsky (1929 –2009) was a Soviet dissident, Russian philosopher, scholar of Indian philosophy and culture, historian, philologist, semiotician and a writer.

Well-versed in the study of language, he knew Sanskrit, Tamil, Pali, Tibetan, German, Russian, French, Italian and English. In an obituary appearing in the English-language newspaper The Guardian, he was cited as "a man who was widely considered to be one of the more significant thinkers of the age and Russia's greatest philosopher."

Departing the Soviet Union in 1974 for Israel, Piatigorsky made his way to Oxford University where he had been invited to give some lectures. Early times in London were severe for his family, earning only 6.5 pounds a day. He accepted some invitations to lecture but decided to stay in London. At Oxford he quickly became acquainted with Isaiah Berlin and Leszek Kołakowski. He joined the staff of the School of Oriental and African Studies, The University of London, as lecturer in 1975 with the commendation of Berlin who at one point is reported to have said: "Piatigorsky is quite simply a genius! It is remarkable that Piatigorski didn't consider himself a dissident, he left Soviet Union just because he was bored, he felt that something was missing there.

Valery Nikolaevich Cherkesov

Valery Nikolaevich Cherkesov (1947) worked as a correspondent for district and regional newspapers and studied in absentia at the Blagoveshchensk Pedagogical Institute.

Since May 1982 he has been living in Belgorod and for more than forty-five years, he worked in the editorial offices of the newspapers of the Amur region and the Belgorod region. In 1992, he created the Center for the Development of Literary Creativity "Native Lyre" at the Belgorod State Children's Library, which he still manages to this day.

Cherkesov is the author of twenty-three books of poetry, prose, journalism and works for children.

Aidas Marčėnas

Aidas Marčėnas (1960) is a Lithuanian poet, critic, member of the Lithuanian Writers' Union and laureate of the National Prize.

He has collaborated in periodicals as a literary press reviewer and has published many essay reviews of Lithuanian literature and critical articles about its various authors and phenomena in the monthly Metai and weekly magazines Literature and Menas. He revived the sonnet genre in Lithuanian poetry.

Jonas Strielkūnas

Jonas Strielkūnas (1939 - 2010) was a Lithuanian poet, translator and publicist.

He started to publish poems in 1958. Many of his poems became songs for which music was written by Benjaminas Gorbulskis, Vygandas Telksnys and Algimantas Raudonikis.

The prevailing motive is the connection with the native land as the basis of human existence, the measure of ethical values. The author poetizes the nature of his homeland, expresses patriotic feelings with images of the specifics of rural existence, historical and cultural memories. The poetry of Strielkūnas is characterized by the transparency of the image, calm contemplation, spontaneous simplicity, motifs of folklore, the lyricism of Lithuanian songs and sensuality is combined with material concreteness.

Evgeny Vladimirovich Artemenko

Evgeny Vladimirovich Artemenko is a Cossack general of the (Russian) Don army and was part of the Cossack troops fighting in Abkhazia against Georgia during the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict in the 90s (what the Russians like to call the "liberation of Abchazia"). 

Artemenko is now a heraldist, writer and conceptual artist. A Russian nationalist, he was always interested in Crimea, writing and designing the travel book I love you, Crimea, dedicated to the return to Russia.

Skorinkin Vladimir Maksimovich

Skorinkin Vladimir Maksimovich is a Belarusian poet and translator.

During the Great Patriotic War, he and his mother were taken to labor camps: first to Libau (now Liepaja, Latvia), and then to Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz, Poland).

From 1955 he has published a series of poetry, wrote children’s books and translated into Belarusian the collections of poems by N. Rubtsov "Russian Light", N. Vingranovsky "Ukrainian Prelude", Dante's poem "The Divine Comedy" and J. Byron's poems "Don Juan" and "Dante's Prophecy".

Vitaly Bianki

Vitaly Bianki is a Russian ornithologist, ecologist, Doctor of Biological Sciences and Leading Researcher of the Kandalaksha State Reserve.

He was born in 1926 in Leningrad. His grandfather - Valentin Bianchi - was an ornithologist, founder and head of the Zoological Museum in St. Petersburg, where Vitaly subsequently worked as a guide in the winter. His father - Vitaly Bianchi – is Russia’s most famous children's author of books about nature.

After graduating from university in 1955, Bianchi Jr. was sent to work in the Kandalaksha Reserve, where he has been working for 66 years. He is called a pioneer in the study of seabird colonies in Onega Bay. In addition, Vitaly Bianchi actively participated in the expedition to design the Pasvik Nature Reserve.

He published more than 200 scientific papers and more than 180 popular science articles, and wrote three books. At 97, Vitaly Vitalievich considers himself a happy person. He says that he lived his life the way he wanted, doing his favorite thing with pleasure.

Vitaly Alekseevich Dikson

Vitaly Alekseevich Dikson (1944) is a Russian prose writer.

From 1964-1990 he did active service in the Armed Forces of the USSR, graduated from the Leningrad Higher Military School of the Red Banner. A member of International PEN (Russian PEN Center ), he terminated his membership in 2017 in protest against the policies and practices of the leadership. Since October 10, 2018, he has been a member of the new writers' human rights organization PEN-Moscow, created within the structure of the PEN International Club and approved at the 84th Congress of the International PEN Club.

Alexey Timofeevich Prasolov

Alexei Timofeevich Prasolov (1930 - 1972) was a poet, prose writer and essayist as well as a member of the USSR Union of writers.

Aleksey Timofeevich worked as a schoolteacher before becoming a proof-reader in the editorial office of newspaper "Molodoy kommunar" (1953-1955) and a staff member of a number of district newspapers of Voronezh region (Rossosh, Novaya Kalitva, Petropavlovka, Anna, Repievka, Hohol and others). During his lifetime he published several collections of poems.

Konstantin Vasilievich Gnetnev

Konstantin Vasilievich Gnetnev (1947 - 2022 ) was a Soviet (Russian) documentary writer, journalist, ‘Honored Journalist of the Republic of Karelia’ and an ‘Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation’.

Born in a large family from parents that came from families of dispossessed peasants and Cossacks, they evicted to the north of the RSFSR in the early 1930s. Gnetnev spent his childhood in the village at the 17th lock of the White Sea-Baltic Canal.

In February 2022, he supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Valériy Khmelkó

Valériy Khmelkó (1939 –2021) was a Ukrainian sociologist, Professor at the Sociology Department of the National University of Kiev-Mohyla Academy, and President of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

From 1975 to 1990, he was a researcher at the Institute of Party History of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Khmelko was a visiting professor in 1993 and a visiting scholar in 1992, 2000 and 2001 at the Sociology Department of Johns Hopkins University(United States).

Viktor Volodymyrovych Neborak

Viktor Neborak, a tall imposing figure with a booming voice that makes a microphone come to life when he performs his poetry, was born in 1961 and is one of the leading representatives of the mid-to-late 1980s cultural revival in Ukraine. 

He is best known as a poet and founding member (along with Yuri Andrukhovych and Oleksander Irvanets) of the Bu-Ba-Bu literary performance group that gained enormous popularity in the late 1980s and 1990s in Ukraine. The syllables of the group\'s name stand for burlesque (burlesk), a puppet show or farce (balahan), and buffoonery (bufonada). 

Neborak has also been active as a prose writer, translator, essayist, and cultural activist, as well as a performer with the rock band Neborok, which was extremely popular in Western Ukraine and Poland.

Yosyp Georgiyovych Strutsyuk

Yosyp Georgiyovych Strutsyuk (1934) is a Ukrainian writer and poet of the Sixties. 

The Sixtiers ("People of the 60s") were representatives of а new generation of the Soviet Intelligentsia, who entered the cultural and political life of the USSR during the late 1950s and 1960s, after the Khrushchev Thaw.

Matchy - Matchy

Not available at South Pacific Berets, but for those are keen to dress like their dog/cat and vice versa, have a look here.  

IcreamTrees Studio’s Matchy-Matchy Berets Set includes one Pet Beret & one Human Beret of the same color, one 'I❤️MOM' 1" Pin and one 'Happy Dog Mom' or 'Happy Cat Mom' 1" Pin.

Ted Cohen

Ted Cohen (1939 - 2014) was an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. His interests included philosophy of art, history of the philosophy of art, especially in the 18th-century, and the philosophy of language.

Cohen received his Bachelor of Arts (BA) from the University of Chicago in 1962, a Master of Arts (MA) from Harvard in 1965 and a PhD from Harvard in 1972 (The grammar of taste). He taught at the University of Chicago from 1967.

Anatoliy Dimarov

Anatoliy Dimarov (born Anatoly Andronikovych Harasyuta, 1922—2014) was a Ukrainian writer.

His father was married to a priest's daughter and was later declared a Kulak. Dimarov later said "My path to the world was completely closed to me. And my unfortunate mother for the sake of us, two children, gave up her personal life. She went to Myrhorod, found her friends, and begged them to testify in the Myrhorod court that she had lost her children's metrics and that we were the children of teacher Dimarov, who died. Since then, I became Dimarov, not Garasyuta”.

 "I couldn't go anywhere, not even to the Komsomol, I was afraid that they would start studying my biography and find out that I was the son of a kulak." As a child, Anatoliy survived the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-1933. At the beginning of World War II, he fought on the Southwestern Frontand in 1941, was seriously injured. After recovery he found himself in the occupied territories. He became the commander of a partisan detachment, had several injuries and contusions, and became disabled at a young age. He was awarded orders and medals. In 1944 he came to Lutsk, where he lived for six years. And it was there, as the writer admitted, that the national consciousness awoke in him. "It never occurred to me that I was Ukrainian!"

The novelist's books have been translated into Russian, English, French and many other foreign languages.

Stanislav Komárek

Stanislav Komárek (1958) is a biologist, philosopher and writer, professor of philosophy and history of natural sciences at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Charles University in Prague.

Komárek is a critic of our contemporary society. “The pandemic and hysterical measures have accelerated the historical turning point we are currently experiencing”. According to Professor Komárek, the state is becoming more and more powerful today, and the citizen is becoming not only its cherished object, but also its plaything.

Asked whether he is an optimist or pessimist, he answered “An old joke from the previous regime said that a pessimist is a well-informed optimist“...

Mykola Ivanovich Stratilat

Mykola Ivanovich Stratilat (1942 —2023) was a graphic artist, a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences (1980), Honored Artist of Ukraine (1996) and People's Artist of Ukraine (2008).

He graduated from the Kyiv Art and Craft School No. 16, majoring in alfresco painting (1961) and the Ukrainian Polygraphic Institute (1972).

A significant place in his creative work is occupied by illustrations for the books of prominent Ukrainian writers.

Volodymyr Stepanovych Fedynyshnets

Volodymyr Stepanovych Fedynyshnets (1945 - 2018) was a Ukrainian writer and poet.

Fedynyshnets graduated from the Philological Faculty of Uzhhorod State University. He wrote in Ukrainian and Russian.

Since 1989, he  supported the ideology of "Carpatho-Rusynism". He was co-founder of the "Society of Carpathian Ruthenians", which in 1990 petitioned for the granting of sovereignty to the Transcarpathian region.

The proposal to name one of the streets of Uzhgorod in honor of Fedynyshnets caused protests from Ukrainian patriots.