How the Steel Was Temperred

How the Steel Was Tempered is a socialist realist novel written by Nikolai Ostrovsky (1904-1936) during Stalin's era. Pavel Korchagin is the central character.

The USSR adapted part of the novel to a film titled Pavel Korchagin in 1956. In this film, Korchagin was acted by Vasily Lanovoy.

As late as 2000, China adapted the novel to a TV series of the same title, and all the members in the cast were from Ukraine.

The novel's protagonist, Pavel Korchagin, is fighting on the side of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War (1918-1921). He is a quintessential positive hero of socialist realism. The story is a fictionalized autobiography. In real life, Ostrovsky's father died, and his mother worked as a kitchen chef. As he joined the war with the red army of communist party, he lost his right eye because of an infection.

Author: Nikolai Ostrovsky

Publisher: Progress

Released Date: 1981