Full Name: Vasily Grossman

Novelist and historian

Vasily Grossman was a Russian novelist, essayist, and historian. Born in 1905 in Odessa, Ukraine, Grossman grew up in a family of Jewish intellectuals and was heavily influenced by the works of Tolstoy and Chekhov. He studied law at Moscow State University before serving in the Soviet military during World War II. After the war, Grossman returned to academia and began writing novels, essays, and biographies on histor...