Valentin Petrovich Kataev (russian: Валенти́н Петро́вич Ката́ев; also spelled Katayev or Kataiev; – 12 April 1986) was a Russian and Soviet novelist and playwright who managed to create penetrating works discussing post-revolutionary social conditions without running afoul of the demands of official Soviet style. Kataev is credited with suggesting the idea for ''

The Twelve Chairs ''The Twelve Chairs'' ( rus, Двенадцать стульев, Dvenadtsat stulyev) is a classic satirical novel by the Odesan Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, published in 1928. Its plot follows characters attempting to obtain jewelry hidden ...

'' to his brother Yevgeny Petrov and

Ilya Ilf Ilya Arnoldovich Ilf (born Iehiel-Leyb Aryevich Faynzilberg, russian: Иехи́ел-Лейб Арьевич Фа́йнзильберг) ( in Odessa – 13 April 1937, Moscow), was a popular Soviet journalist and writer of Jewish origin who usu ...

. In return, Kataev insisted that the novel be dedicated to him, in all editions and translations. Kataev's relentless imagination, sensitivity, and originality made him one of the most distinguished Soviet writers.

Life and works

Kataev was born in

Odesa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrative ...

(then

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, now

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

) into the family of Pyotr Vasilyevich Kataev, a

Court councillor The Russian court councillor (russian: надворный советник) was a civilian rank of the 7th class in the Table of Ranks. Table of Ranks The Table of Ranks was a system of ranks that tied a person's social standing to service in th ...

and a teacher at the Odesa

Female seminary A female seminary is a private educational institution for women, popular especially in the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when opportunities in educational institutions for women were scarce. The movement was a sign ...

, and Eugenia Ivanovna Bachei who belonged to a noble family of the

Poltava Governorate The Poltava Governorate (russian: Полтавская губерния, Poltavskaya guberniya; ua, Полтавська Губернія, translit=Poltavska huberniia) or Poltavshchyna was a Governorate (Russia), gubernia (also called a provin ...

. Thus it's no coincidence that the main character in Kataev's semi-autobiographical novel ''

A White Sail Gleams A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...

'' is named Pyotr Bachei. His father came from a long line of Russian

clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

originally from Vyatka where Valentin's grandfather served as a

protoiereus A ''protoiereus'' (from grc, πρωτοϊερεύς, "first priest", Modern Greek: πρωθιερέας) or protopriest in the Eastern Orthodox Church is a priest usually coordinating the activity of other subordinate priests in a bigger church. T ...

. His maternal grandfather was a

major general Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

in the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...

. Despite the obvious

class conflict Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor. The forms ...

, Kataev never tried to hide his origins during the Soviet period. He began writing while he was still in ''gimnaziya'' (high school). He was then a sympathizer of the

Union of the Russian People The Union of the Russian People (URP) (russian: Союз русского народа, translit=Soyuz russkogo naroda; СРН/SRN) is a loyalist far-right nationalist political party, the most important among Black-Hundredist monarchist politi ...

and wrote nationalistic and

anti-Semitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

poetry (ironically, later in his life he married a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

woman, Esther Brenner (1913-2009)). He did not finish the ''gimnaziya'' but volunteered for the army in 1915, serving in the artillery. After the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

he was mobilized into the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

, where he fought against General

Denikin Anton Ivanovich Denikin (russian: Анто́н Ива́нович Дени́кин, link= ; 16 December Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_December.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New St ...

and served in the

Russian Telegraph Agency Russian Telegraph Agency (russian: Российское телеграфное агентство, ''Rossiyskoye telegrafnoye agentstvo''), abbr. ROSTA, was the state news agency in Soviet Russia (1918-35). After the creation of Telegraph Agency ...

. In 1920, he became a journalist in Odesa; two years later he moved to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, where he worked on the staff of ''The Whistle'' (''Gudok''), writing humorous pieces under various

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

s. His first novel, ''

The Embezzlers ''The Embezzlers'' (russian: Растратчики, translit=Rastratchiki) is a 1926 satirical novel by Valentin Katayev first published in the October-December (Nos. 10, 11, 12) issues of ''Krasnaya Nov'' magazine. The play of the same name, bas ...

'' (''Rastratchiki'', 1926), was printed in the journal ''

Krasnaya Nov ''Krasnaya Nov'' (russian: Красная новь, lit='Red Virgin Soil') was a Soviet monthly literary magazine. History ''Krasnaya Nov'', the first Soviet "thick" literary magazine, was established in June 1921. In its first 7 years, under e ...

''. In the

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

of the new Soviet bureaucracy in the tradition of

Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, ...

, the protagonists are two bureaucrats "who more or less by instinct or by accident conspire to defraud the Soviet state". The novel was well received, and the seminal

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

theater practitioner

Konstantin Stanislavski Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski ( Alekseyev; russian: Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈgʲejɪvʲɪtɕ stənʲɪˈslafskʲɪj; 7 August 1938) was a seminal Russian Soviet Fe ...

asked Kataev to adapt it for the stage. It was produced at the world-famous

Moscow Art Theatre The Moscow Art Theatre (or MAT; russian: Московский Художественный академический театр (МХАТ), ''Moskovskiy Hudojestvenny Akademicheskiy Teatr'' (МHАТ)) was a theatre company in Moscow. It was f ...

, opening on 20 April 1928. A cinematic adaptation was filmed in 1931. His

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

Quadrature of the circle Squaring the circle is a problem in geometry first proposed in Greek mathematics. It is the challenge of constructing a square with the area of a circle by using only a finite number of steps with a compass and straightedge. The difficulty ...

'' (''Kvadratura kruga'', 1928) satirizes the effect of the housing shortage on two married couples who share a room. His novel ''

Time, Forward! ''Time, Forward!'' (russian: Время, вперёд!, ''Vremya, vperyod!'') is a 1965 Soviet drama film directed by Sofiya Milkina and Mikhail Schweitzer based on a novel with the same name and a screenplay by Valentin Kataev. The film was pr ...

'' (''Vremya, vperyod!'', 1932) describes workers' attempts to build the huge steel plant at

Magnitogorsk Magnitogorsk ( rus, Магнитого́рск, p=məɡnʲɪtɐˈɡorsk, ) is an industrial city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the eastern side of the extreme southern extent of the Ural Mountains by the Ural River. Its population ...

in record time. "The title...was taken from a poem by

Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...

, 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." The heroes are described as "being unable to trust such a valuable thing as time, to clocks, mere mechanical devices." Kataev adapted it as a screenplay, which was filmed in 1965. ''

'' (''Beleyet parus odinoky'', 1936) treats the

1905 revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...

and the Potemkin uprising from the viewpoint of two Odesa schoolboys. In 1937,

Vladimir Legoshin Vladimir may refer to: Names * Vladimir (name) for the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak and Slovenian spellings of a Slavic name * Uladzimir for the Belarusian version of the name * Volodymyr for the Ukr ...

directed a film version, which became a classic children's adventure. Kataev wrote its screenplay and took an active part in the filming process, finding locations and acting as an historical advisor. Many of his contemporaries considered the novel to be a

prose poem Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associat ...

. During the 1950s and 1960s Kataev edited the magazine ''

Yunost ''Yunost'' (russian: Ю́ность, ''Youth'') is a Russian language literary magazine created in 1955 in Moscow (initially as a USSR Union of Writers' organ) by Valentin Kataev, its first editor-in-chief, who was fired in 1961 for publishing Va ...

'' (Youth), publishing some of the most promising literary talent of the young generation, including

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko ( rus, links=no, 1=Евге́ний Алекса́ндрович Евтуше́нко; 18 July 1933 – 1 April 2017) was a Soviet and Russian poet. He was also a novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, ...

and

Bella Akhmadulina Izabella Akhatovna Akhmadulina ( rus, Бе́лла (Изабе́лла) Аха́товна Ахмаду́лина, tt-Cyrl, Белла Әхәт кызы Әхмәдуллина; 10 April 1937 – 29 November 2010) was a Soviet Union, Soviet and ...

. Kataev himself developed a style he called "lyrical diary," mixing

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

and

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...

. In 1966 the literary magazine ''

Novy Mir ''Novy Mir'' (russian: links=no, Новый мир, , ''New World'') is a Russian-language monthly literary magazine. History ''Novy Mir'' has been published in Moscow since January 1925. It was supposed to be modelled on the popular pre-Soviet ...

'' printed his ''The Grass of Oblivion'' (''Trava zabveniya''), which was published under the title '' The Holy Well'' (''Svyatoy kolodets: Trava zabveniya'') two years later. In it, Kataev weaves scenes from the lives of his family, friends, and lovers, events of Soviet history, and memories of his travels in America into a kind of

stream-of-consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in ''First Li ...

autobiography, considered by some critics to be the summary work of his career. Dodona Kiziria describes this work as "a tribute to the Russian writers who were forced to choose their path during the revolution and the civil war", adding that "in all of Soviet literature it would be difficult to find tragic images comparable to the two poets in this narrative (

Bunin Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin ( or ; rus, Ива́н Алексе́евич Бу́нин, p=ɪˈvan ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ˈbunʲɪn, a=Ivan Alyeksyeyevich Bunin.ru.vorb.oga; – 8 November 1953) was the first Russian writer awarded the ...

and

) who are compelled, finally and irrevocably, either to accept or reject the role offered to them by the new social order". Kataev was proud of being a Soviet writer, and related the following account. Dodona Kiziria describes Kataev as "one of the most brilliant writers of modern Russia. Of the authors writing in Russian, only

Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...

could be considered a worthy rival in his ability to convey with almost cinematic precision the images of visually perceived reality.Kiziria (1985, 648).

English translations

*''

'' (novel), Dial Press, 1929. *''Squaring the Circle'' (play), Samuel French, 1936. *''Peace is Where the Tempests Blow'' (novel), Farrar & Rinehart, 1937. *''The Blue Handkerchief'' (play), University of California Press, 1944. *''The Small Farm in the Steppe'' (novel), Lawrence & Wishart, 1958. *''A White Sail Gleams'' (novel), Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954. *"Our Father Who Art in Heaven" (story), in ''Great Soviet Short Stories'', Dell, 1962. *"The Beautiful Trousers", "The Suicide", "A Goat in the Orchard" and "The Struggle Unto Death" (stories), in ''The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire'', Macmillan, NY, 1965. *''The Grass of Oblivion'' (memoirs), McGraw-Hill, 1970. *''Mosaic of Life'' (memoirs), The Book Service Ltd, 1976. *"The Sleeper" (story), in ''The New Soviet Fiction'', Abbeville Press, 1989. *''Time, Forward!'' (novel), Northwestern University Press, 1995.

References

Sources

* Benedetti, Jean. 1999. ''Stanislavski: His Life and Art''. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1988. London: Methuen. . * Brown, Edward J. 1982. ''Russian Literature Since the Revolution''. Revised edition. 101-2, 341-2. * Kiziria, Dodona. 1985. "Four Demons of Valentin Kataev." ''Slavic Review'' 44.4 (Winter): 647-662. * ''Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature'' (1995), p. 623 * Seymour-Smith, Martin. 1973. ''Funk & Wagnalls Guide to Modern World Literature''. 951.

External links

Kataev's novel ''A White Sail Gleams''

Kataev's novel ''The Cottage in the Steppe''

Full text in English of Kataev's story "Rainbow Flower"Works

"Son of the Regiment" (summary)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kataev, Valentin 1897 births 1986 deaths 20th-century memoirists 20th-century pseudonymous writers 20th-century Russian male writers 20th-century Russian screenwriters 20th-century Russian short story writers Writers from Odesa People from Odessky Uyezd Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Members of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, 1947–1951 Heroes of Socialist Labour Stalin Prize winners Recipients of the Cross of St. George Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 4th class Socialist realism writers Yunost editors Russian children's writers Russian humorists Russian magazine editors Russian male dramatists and playwrights Russian male novelists Russian male poets Russian male short story writers Russian male writers Russian memoirists Russian military personnel of World War I Russian screenwriters Soviet children's writers Soviet dramatists and playwrights Soviet magazine editors Soviet male poets Soviet male writers Soviet memoirists Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War Soviet novelists Soviet screenwriters Soviet short story writers Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery