Anton Brinský (1906–1981) — documentary writer, partisan commander.
His comrades in arms and in letters called Anton Petrovich Brinský — Hero of the Soviet Union, partisan commander during the war years and documentary writer in peacetime — a man of rare courage, great straightforwardness, and a "wise father figure." When, at a writers' gathering in the 1970s, he was presented with the Honorary Badge of a Great Patriotic War veteran, Brinský snapped to attention and declared: "I serve the working people!" — "Anton!" the older generation of writers moved to correct him. "That's how they answered forty years ago. Today one says: 'I serve the Soviet Union!'" But Anton Petrovich disagreed, noting that it was precisely in those words that he, a common soldier of the First Cavalry Army, was once supposed to answer his squadron commander — and that motto summed up his entire life.
Brinský was right. Yes, he always served his working people. He served until the end of his life. Anton Petrovich was born in the summer in the village of Andreyevka in western Ukraine. His family were peasants, and from an early age he was forced to work for hire. In 1919 he went to the city of Kamenets-Podolsky, worked in a forge, studied at a technical college, was a member of the ChON (Special Purpose Units), and took part in the fight against banditry. In September 1928 he was conscripted into the Red Army. He served as a cadet, platoon commander, secretary of the regimental Komsomol organization, political officer of a battery, and regimental commissar. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War he was stationed right on the border, and entered his first battle against the enemy on 22 June 1941. He took part in the defense of the Osovets fortress. After withdrawing to the east, Brinský received orders to switch to partisan methods of warfare and began commanding a partisan detachment. He fought deep behind enemy lines for nearly three years. Brinský's partisans fought not only on Belarusian soil; the name of the famous "Uncle Petya" was well known among Slovak and Polish partisans as well. In his autobiography, Anton Petrovich Brinský wrote of his wartime exploits: his fighters carried out more than 5,000 acts of sabotage behind enemy lines, blew up over 800 railway trains, and tens of thousands of fascists met their end from the mines, grenades, and bullets of his courageous partisans. Brinský's name stands in the history of intelligence work alongside those of Sorge, Kuznetsov, Abel, and other celebrated soldiers of the invisible front. In April 1944 the ailing Anton Petrovich was evacuated from behind enemy lines to Moscow. He returned to the army only after the war had ended. In the 1950s his service took him to City of Gorky, where he remained after retiring with the rank of colonel. A new life began for Brinský. At the threshold of his fiftieth year he decided to devote himself to writing, choosing as his literary mentor Boris Yefremovich Pilnik — a man held in high regard in professional circles who had himself, like Brinský, been a military commander. Their first co-authored book was published in 1954. Its title, "On the Other Side of the Front," immediately became widely known. The success was enormous. The first volume, like the second that followed, went through several editions. Brinský then published books under his own name: "Partisan Courier," "My Fighting Companions," "The Girl from Maryina Roshcha," "The Beardless Squad," "My Andreyevka," and "About Friends and Comrades." Having himself served as the prototype for one of the young heroes in Vladimir Belyaev's novella "The White Fortress," Brinský went on to create his own images of heroic characters in partisan tales drawn from life. Together with his friend in the writers' organization — Ivan Ivanovich Berezhnoy, a wartime intelligence officer in Kovpak's unit — Brinský gave everyone around him lessons in kindness and warmth, honesty and heartfelt responsiveness, as well as composure and steadfastness of principle.