Valerian Romanovich Vasiliev was a Yakut graphic artist whose short career helped establish the foundations of modern Yakut graphic art and book illustration. His work combined lyrical, psychologically charged imagery with the visual traditions of Yakutia, working across linocut, woodcut, lithography, gouache and original graphic art.

Born in 1938 in Yakutsk, Vasiliev graduated in 1962 from the Faculty of Industrial Arts at the Moscow Higher School of Art and Industry, formerly the Stroganov School, where he studied under V. E. Egorov and B. N. Lange. He returned to Yakutsk and began exhibiting in 1963. He became a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR in 1964, and his work was primarily devoted to the landscapes, people, history and cultural traditions of Yakutia.

Vasiliev worked in several printmaking techniques, including linocut, woodcut and lithography, as well as gouache and book illustration. His major series included Old Yakut Masters, New and Old, Thoughts About Time, Diamond Mirny and Olenka. His 1969 woodcut triptych Nurgun Bootur the Impetuous, based on the Yakut heroic epic Olonkho, focused on the epic's spiritual and philosophical themes rather than simply illustrating its narrative. His work also reflected his interest in Mexican muralists and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

Vasiliev was one of the artists who helped move Yakut graphic art beyond ethnographic representation toward a more individual and contemporary visual language. His work combined elements of traditional Yakut imagery with the formal possibilities of twentieth-century graphic art, and his illustrations became important examples of Yakut book graphics. His work was exhibited in Soviet and international exhibitions, and is held by the National Art Museum of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

Vasiliev died in Yakutsk in 1970 at the age of 32. He was awarded the P. A. Oyunsky State Prize of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), and in 1999 an independent award for young artists in Yakutia was established in his name.