The Tale of a Real Man

Boris Nikolaevich Polevoy (1908–1981) — a famous Soviet prose writer, screenwriter, and journalist, laureate of state awards, author of the legendary "The Tale of a Real Man," which has undergone dozens of reprints and has been translated into many languages.
The... foundation of the "Tale" is the amazing fate of the Soviet ace pilot Alexei Petrovich Maresyev, whose life became an example of courage, indomitable will, and resilience. Polevoy, as a correspondent for the newspaper "Pravda," went through the Great Patriotic War and collected a vast amount of factual material. The meeting with the celebrated pilot took place in August 1943, and the writer recorded his story in the "Diary of the 3rd Squadron's Flight." Three years later, Polevoy returned to his "Diary" and in a few weeks created a book about the feat of the legless pilot.
The "Tale" was published in 1946 and brought the author nationwide love and fame, and just two years later, a feature film was made based on it, starring Pavel Kadotchikov in the leading role, and the eponymous opera by Sergei Prokofiev was staged.
For this edition, the illustrations were drawn by the remarkable St. Petersburg artist Mikhail Bychkov.