Born Kirill into the fading Russian aristocracy in 1915, the man who became Konstantin Simonov could barely pronounce his own birth name because of a severe speech impediment. He reinvented himself entirely, hiding his Rurikid and Tsarist-officer lineage behind years of factory labor to forge impeccable proletarian credentials before entering the Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow.

As a frontline war correspondent holding military rank, Simonov witnessed the brutal defense of the Bunichi fields and channeled that reality into his work, most famously the intimate poem "Wait For Me," which millions of soldiers carried in their pockets. He rose to become a powerful Soviet literary insider, surviving through compromise, before a final defeat over an archive of raw soldier memories revealed the limits of his power.

• Why his aristocra ...