Vasily Belov was a harsh critic of the Soviet rural policies (particularly collectivization), which he felt were dominated by the cosmopolitan doctrines aiming at repressing the Russian national identity. Even detractors, though, praised Vasily Belov's tough stance on ecological issues and his activities aimed at restoration of the old Russian historic sites and churches. A great admirer of Ivan Ilyin and his legacy, Belov financed the publication of the first Complete Ilyin collection and wrote a preface for it.
Vasily Belov, the USSR State Prize (1981) and the State Prize of the Russian Federation (2003) laureate, was also a recipient of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1982), the Order of Lenin (1984), the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 4th class (2003) and the Order of Honour (2003).
Vasily Ivanovich Belov was born in Timonikha, Kharovsky District, Northern Krai, now Vologda Oblast, into a peasant family, the eldest of five children. His father Ivan Belov was killed in 1943 in the Second World War. While at school, Vasily had to work at the local kolkhoz, helping his mother to raise the family. His main memory of childhood, as Belov once recalled, was that of "overbearing hunger, for food and books." In 1949 he joined a professional college in Sokol, Vologda Oblast to learn the craft of carpenter and joiner. After the army he worked in one of the Molotov factories, then in 1956 moved back to Vologda where he started contributing to the regional Communard newspaper. Supported by Aleksander Yashin, an established Vologda writer, Belov in 1959 enrolled into the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow.

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