Mikhail Kuzmich Lukonin was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer and war correspondent. He was born in Kilinchi and in his youth worked in the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. He started publishing poetry in his teens. He attended the Gorky Institute of Literature from 1937 to 1941. He was a veteran of the Winter War and also worked as a war correspondent in the Great Patriotic War. In October 1941, he was wounded in the village of Negino. The following year, he joined the Communist Party.
