[2][3][4] A prominent member of the Village Prose movement, he began writing short stories in his early teenage years and later transition to acting by his late 20s.

In 1933, his father, Makar Leontievich Shukshin, was arrested and executed on the charges of participating in an "anti-kolkhoz plot" during the Soviet collectivization.

[8] In 1954 Shukshin entered the directors' department of the VGIK; he studied under Mikhail Romm and Sergei Gerasimov, and graduated in 1960.

Shukshin was decorated with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1967), and was designated Distinguished Artist of the RSFSR (1969).

[9] Shukshin's main interest lay in the situation of ordinary, simple people in the Soviet Union of his time.

[10] Shukshin died suddenly on 2 October 1974, on the motor ship Dunai, on the Volga River, while filming They Fought for Their Country.