Valentin Kataev

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Valentin Petrovich Katayev

Born January 28, 1897 (1897-01-28)
Odessa
Died April 12, 1986 (aged 89)
Moscow
Nationality Russian
Relative(s) Yevgeny Petrov (brother)
Influences
Influenced

Valentin Petrovich Kataev (also spelled Katayev) (Russian: Валентин Петрович Катаев) (January 28 [O.S. January 16] 1897) – April 12, 1986) was a Russian novelist and playwright who managed to create penetrating works discussing postrevolutionary social conditions without running afoul of the demands of official Soviet style, an impressive accomplishment. His brother was Yevgeny Petrov. Kataev is credited with suggesting the idea for the Twelve Chairs to him and Ilya Ilf. In return, Kataev insisted that the novel be dedicated to him, in all editions and translations [1].

Kataev was born in Odessa, Ukraine into the family of a teacher, and began writing while he was still in gimnaziya (high school). He did not finish the gimnaziya but volunteered for the army in 1915, serving in the artillery; after the October Revolution he was mobilized into the Red Army, where he fought against General Denikin and served in the Russian Telegraph Agency. In 1920, he became a journalist in Odessa; two years later he moved to Moscow, where he working on the staff of Gudok ("The Whistle") writing humorous pieces under various pseudonyms.

His first novel, Rastratchiki (1926; The Embezzlers), was first printed in the journal "Krasnaya Nov". It is a satire of the new Soviet bureaucracy in the tradition of Gogol; the protagonists "are two Soviet officials... who more or less by instinct or by accident conspire to defraud the Soviet state".
[2] The novel was well-received, and the theatre director Stanislavsky asked him to turn it into a play, which was staged in 1928. A film was made in 1931.

His comic play Kvadratura kruga (1928; Squaring the Circle) portrays the effect of the housing shortage on two married couples who share a room, satirizing both the shortage and Communist marriage folkways.

Kataev's Vremya, vperyod! (1932; Time, Forward!) describes workers' attempts to build the huge steel plant at Magnitogorsk in record time, and was inspired by a visit to the town. "The title... was taken from a poem by Mayakovsky, and its theme is the speeding up of time in the Soviet Union where the historical development of a century must be completed in ten years" [3]. The heroes are described as "being unable to trust such a valuable thing as time, to clocks, mere mechanical devices."

His novel Beleyet parus odinoky (1936; Lonely White Sail, or A White Sail Gleams) treats the 1905 revolution and the Potemkin uprising from the viewpoint of two Odessa schoolboys, inspired by the author's memories of childhood. In 1937, Vladimir Legoshin directed a film version, which became a classic children's adventure. The screenplay was provided by Kataev himself, who took an active part in the filming proccess, finding locations and acting as an historical advisor. Many of his contemporaries considered the novel as a prose poem.

During the 1950s and 1960s Kataev edited the magazine Yunost ("Youth"), publishing some of the most promising literary talent of the young generation, including Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Bella Akhmadulina. Kataev himself developed a style he called "lyrical diary," mixing autobiography and fiction, and in 1966 the literary magazine Novy Mir printed his Trava zabveniya (The Grass of Oblivion, published in book form two years later as Svyatoy kolodets: Trava zabveniya [The Holy Well]), "a tribute to the Russian writers who were forced to choose their path during the revolution and the civil war... In all of Soviet literature it would be difficult to find tragic images comparable to the two poets in this narrative (Bunin and Mayakovsky) who are compelled, finally and irrevocably, either to accept or reject the role offered to them by the new social order" [4]. Katayev weaves scenes of his family, friends, and lovers, events of Soviet history, and his travels in America into a kind of stream-of-consciousness autobiography, considered by some critics to be the summary work of his career. Katayev's relentless imagination, sensitivity, and originality made him one of the most distinguished Soviet writers. He died in Moscow.

Kataev was proud of being a Soviet writer, and related the following account.

Returning home one day, a long time ago, I found an envelope with foreign stamps on it in my letter-box. Inside there was an invitation from the Pen Club, an international literary association, to attend its next conference, in Vienna. I was a young writer then, and I was greatly flattered. I told everyone I met about the remarkable honour that had been accorded me. When I ran into Vladimir Mayakovsky in one of the editorial offices I showed him the letter from abroad. He calmly produced an elegant envelope exactly like mine from the pocket of his jacket. "Look," he said. "They invited me too, but I'm not boasting about it. Because they did not invite me, of course, as Mayakovsky, but as a representative of Soviet literature. The same applies to you. Understand? Reflect, Kataich (as he called me when he was in a good mood), on what it means to be a writer in the Land of Soviets."

Mayakovsky's words made a lasting impression on me. I realized that I owed my success as a creative writer to the Soviet people, who had reared me. I realized that being a Soviet writer means marching in step with the people, that it means being always on the crest of the revolutionary wave.

Dodona Kiziria [5] calls Kataev "one of the most brilliant writers of modern Russia. Of the authors writing in Russian, only Nabokov could be considered a worthy rival in his ability to convey with almost cinematic precision the images of visually perceived reality."

[edit] References

  1. ^ related in Kataev's volume of memoirs "My Emerald Crown".
  2. ^ (Brown, p. 101)
  3. ^ (Brown, p. 102)
  4. ^ (Kiziria, p. 647)
  5. ^ (p. 648)
  • Martin Seymour-Smith, Funk & Wagnalls Guide to Modern World Literature (1973), p. 951
  • Edward J. Brown, Russian Literature Since the Revolution (rev. ed. 1982), pp. 101-2, 341-2
  • Dodona Kiziria, "Four Demons of Valentin Kataev" (Slavic Review Vol. 44, No. 4, Winter, 1985, pp. 647-662)
  • Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature (1995), p. 623

See also:

Yevgeny Petrov

[edit] External links