Владимир Киршон

Vladimir Kirshon (19 {O.S. 6} August 1902, Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, Russian Empire — 28 July 1938, Moscow, USSR) was a Soviet playwright, poet, publicist and screenwriter. He is best known for the 1936 poem "I've Asked an Ash-tree" (Ya Sprosil u Yasenya, "Я спросил у ясеня"). Arranged as a song by Mikael Tariverdiev for the 1975 film The Irony of Fate (a New Year's Eve classic akin to Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life), it became one of the staples of the vernacular "city romance" ("городской романс") genre in the Soviet Union and modern Russia. In April 1937, Kirshon was expelled from the Communist Party and fired from the Writer's Union board for his associations with Genrikh Yagoda (1891—1938), former Director of NKVD ("People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs") and one of Joseph Stalin's close party comrades in the past, and prominent literary critic Leopold Averbakh (1903—1937) — both arrested and accused of treason. Vladimir Kirshon was one of the "collateral damage" victims, alongside Alexander Afinoghenov (1904—1941), Bruno Jasieński (1901—1938), and several other writers and literary functionaries who held various government posts. In late August, he was arrested and accused of participating in the counterterrorist organization. In March 1938, Vladimir Kirshon was sentenced to death and executed four months later. He was rehabilitated posthumously in November 1955.