Vasily Makarovich Shukshin (Russian: Васи́лий Мака́рович Шукши́н; 25 July 1929 – 2 October 1974) was a Soviet/Russian actor, writer, screenwriter and movie director from the Altay region who specialized in rural themes.
Vasiliy Makarovich Shukshin was born on 25 July 1929 to a peasant family in the village of Srostki in Altai Krai, USSR, now Altai Krai, Russia. In 1933, his father, Makar Leont'evich Shukshin, was arrested and shot during repressions associated with mandated collectivization. His mother, Maria Sergeyevna (née Popov), had to look after the survival of the entire family. By 1943 Shukshin had finished 7 years of village school and entered an automobile technical school in Biysk. In 1945, after two and a half years at the school, but before finishing, he quit to work in a kolkhoz.
In 1946 Shukshin left his native village and worked as a metal craftsman at several enterprises in the trust Soyuzprommekhanizatsiya: at the turbine plant in Kaluga, at the tractor plant in Vladimir, etc. In 1949, Shukshin was drafted into the Navy. He first served as a sailor in the Baltic Fleet, then a radio operator on the Black Sea. In 1953 he was demobilized due to a stomach ulcer and returned to his native village. Having passed an external exam for high school graduation, he became a teacher of Russian, and later a school principal in Srostki.