Lidiya Seifullina

Lidiya Nikolaevna Seifullina (Russian: Ли́дия Никола́евна Сейфу́ллина; 23 March 1889 – 25 April 1954) was a Soviet journalist, playwright, novelist, and short story writer.

She began working at 17, publishing her first short stories in 1917 and graduating from the Moscow Higher Pedagogical Courses in 1920.

[1] She is best known for her short story "Virineia", about a peasant woman who, having become a believer in Soviet ideals, begins to chafe at the restrictions placed on her by traditional patriarchal society.

[3] Seifullina was married to the literary critic and journalist Valerian Pravdukhin, who assisted in adapting "Virineia" as a play that was greatly popular in Soviet theaters.

He was executed in 1939 during the Great Purge, and some sources claim that as the wife of an "enemy of the people" she was arrested and sent to the gulag, released only after the death of Joseph Stalin.