Author. His books “The Family Chronicle” (1856) and “Years of Childhood” (1858) are considered among the finest of Russian memoirs.  Sergei Timofeyevich Aksakov was born in Ufa, Russia, into a distinguished family that traced its roots back to Novgorod in the 11th Century. He fought in the Napoleonic Wars, an experience that shocked him so badly he retreated to his isolated estate for over a decade.  From 1826 to 1838 he lived in Moscow, where he was employed as a censor and began to publish semi-autobiographical sketches on hunting, fishing, and other pastoral pursuits. These brought him fame and the friendship of author Nikolai Gogol, who encouraged him to write more ambitious works.  Of Aksakov’s fiction the tale “The Scarlet Flower”, a variation of “Beauty and the Beast”, is probably best known; it was made into a 1952 Soviet animated feature. Originally buried at Moscow’s Simonov Monastery, he was reinterred at Novodevichy Cemetery in 1930. (bio by: Bobb Edwards)