Born Kiev, Ukraine, 1898; died near Yaroslavl, 1956

Sergei Dmitrievich Spasskii studied at Moscow University from 1915 to 1918. At the time, he was an avant-garde poet, friendly with Vladimir Maiakovskii and Boris Pasternak. He left the university before graduation in order to work with Proletkult—a government-sponsored organization for revolutionary culture—in Kuibyshev (Samara) and to serve briefly in the Red Army. After a sojourn in Moscow, Spasskii dedicated himself to a literary career in 1924 and settled in Leningrad. In the 1930s, Spasskii worked as an editor for the Leningrad Writers’ Publishing House. At the beginning of World War II, the writer volunteered for the defense force on the Leningrad front, worked for Leningrad radio, and contributed verse to posters published by the workshop Boevoi karandash. He joined the TASS studio for several months at the end of 1943, producing texts for several posters. At the end of the war, he was decorated for his service. He was arrested in 1951 and sentenced to ten years of hard labor but was released in 1954.

_{Petr Ashotovich Sarkisian and Sergei Dmitrievich Spasskii. Novograd-Volynskii Is Ours!, January 5, 1944. Ne boltai! Collection.}