Valentin Petrovich Kataev (; also spelled Katayev or Kataiev; – 12 April 1986) was a Soviet writer and editor 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'' () is a Russian classic satirical picaresque novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, published in 1928. Its plot follows characters attempting to obtain jewelry hidden in a chair. A sequel was published in 1931. The ...

'' to his brother Yevgeny Petrov and

Ilya Ilf Ilya Arnoldovich Ilf (born Iehiel-Leyb Aryevich Faynzilberg; ; – 13 April 1937) was a Soviet journalist and writer of Jewish origin who usually worked in collaboration with Yevgeny Petrov during the 1920s and 1930s. Their duo was known simp ...

. 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

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

Kherson Governorate Kherson Governorate, known until 1803 as Nikolayev Governorate, was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Kherson. It encompassed in area and had a population of 2,733,612 inhabitants. At t ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(now

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

) into the family of Pyotr Vasilyevich Kataev, a

Court councillor The Russian court councillor () 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 the military, in civil service, or at the imp ...

and a teacher at the Odesa

Female seminary A female seminary is a Private school, private educational institution for women, popular especially in the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when opportunities in Women's education in the United States, educational in ...

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

Poltava Governorate Poltava Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. It was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Little Russia Governorate (1796–1802), Little Russia Governorate and had its capital in Polt ...

. Thus it's no coincidence that the main character in Kataev's semi-autobiographical novel '' A White Sail Gleams'' 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 , "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 larger church. The title is roughly equiv ...

. His maternal grandfather was a major general in the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

. Despite the obvious

class conflict In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequali ...

, Kataev never tried to hide his origins during the Soviet period. He began writing while he was still in

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

. He was then a sympathizer of the

Union of the Russian People The Union of the Russian People (URP) (; СРН/SRN) was a royalist, loyalist Far-right politics, far-right Nationalism, nationalist political party, the most important among Black Hundreds, Black-Hundredist Monarchism, monarchist political organ ...

and wrote nationalistic and anti-Semitic poetry (later in his life he married a Jewish woman, Esther Brenner (1913-2009)). He did not finish school, but volunteered for the army in 1915, serving in the artillery. After the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

, he was mobilized into the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, where he fought against

Anton Denikin Anton Ivanovich Denikin (, ; – 7 August 1947) was a Russian military leader who served as the Supreme Ruler of Russia, acting supreme ruler of the Russian State and the commander-in-chief of the White movement–aligned armed forces of Sout ...

and served in the

Russian Telegraph Agency Russian Telegraph Agency (, ROSTA) was the state news agency in Soviet Russia between 1918 and 1935. It was the central information organ of the Soviet Union. After the creation of Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union in 1925, it remained the ne ...

. In 1920, he became a journalist in Odessa. He moved to Moscow in 1922, where he worked on the staff of ''The Whistle'' (''Gudok''), writing humorous pieces under various pseudonyms. His first novel, ''

The Embezzlers ''The Embezzlers'' () 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, based upon the novel and written in 1927, premiered in ...

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

Krasnaya Nov ''Krasnaya Nov'' () 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 editor-in-chief Alexander Voronsky, it reached a circ ...

''. In the satire of the new Soviet bureaucracy in the tradition of

Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; ; (; () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol used the Grotesque#In literature, grotesque in his writings, for example, in his works "The Nose (Gogol short story), ...

, 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

theatre practitioner A theatre practitioner is someone who creates theatrical performances and/or produces a theoretical discourse that informs their practical work. A theatre practitioner may be a director, dramatist, actor, designer or a combination of these tradi ...

Konstantin Stanislavski Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski ( rus, Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ stənʲɪˈslafskʲɪj, links=yes; ; 7 August 1938) was a seminal Russian and Sovie ...

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

Moscow Art Theatre The Moscow Art Theatre (or MAT; , ''Moskovskiy Hudojestvenny Akademicheskiy Teatr'' (МHАТ) was a theatre company in Moscow. It was founded in by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright ...

, opening on 20 April 1928. A cinematic adaptation under the title '' The Virtuous Sinner'' was filmed in 1931. His comedy ''Squaring the Circle'' (''Kvadratura kruga'', 1928) satirizes the effect of the housing shortage on two married couples who share a room. His novel ''

Time, Forward! ''Time, Forward!'' (, ''Vremya, vperyod!'') is a 1965 Soviet part industrial drama film directed by Sofiya Milkina and Mikhail Schweitzer based on the 1932 novel and a screenplay by Valentin Kataev. The film was produced by Mosfilm, a unit of ...

'' (''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, on the eastern side of the extreme southern extent of the Ural Mountains by the Ural River. Its population is curre ...

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

Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist mov ...

, 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 into a screenplay, which was released as the eponymously titled film in 1965. '' A White Sail Gleams'' (''Beleyet parus odinoky'', 1936) treats the

Russian Revolution of 1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...

and the Potemkin uprising from the viewpoint of two Odessa schoolboys. In 1937, Vladimir Legoshin 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 a 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 otherwise deferring to poetic devices to make meaning. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associated with poetry. However, it make ...

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

Yunost ''Yunost'' (, ''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 Vasily Aksyonov's ''Tick ...

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

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko (; 18 July 1933 – 1 April 2017) was a Soviet and Russian poet, novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, publisher, actor, editor, university professor, and director of several films. Biography Early lif ...

and

Bella Akhmadulina Izabella Akhatovna Akhmadulina (, ; 10 April 1937 – 29 November 2010) was a Soviet Union, Soviet and Russian poet, short story writer, and translator, known for her apolitical writing stance. She was part of the Russian New Wave literary movem ...

. During the second half of the 1960s, Kataev began moving away from official socialist realism, developing his own

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

style, "Mauvism" (from the French word ''mauvais'', "bad"). Kataev himself developed a style he called "lyrical diary," mixing autobiography and fiction. In 1966 the literary magazine ''

Novy Mir ''Novy Mir'' (, ) 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 literary magazine ''Mir Bozhy'' ("God's World"), w ...

'' 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. It is usually in the form of an interior monologue which i ...

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 ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪdʑ ˈbunʲɪn, a=Ivan Alyeksyeyevich Bunin.ru.vorb.oga; – 8 November 1953)Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist mov ...

) 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.

Returning home one day, a long time ago, I found an envelope with foreign stamps on it in my mail box. Inside the envelope, there was an invitation from the Pen Club, an international literary association, to attend its next conference, in
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
. I was a young writer then, and was greatly flattered. I told everyone I met about the remarkable honor that had been accorded me. When I ran into
Vladimir Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, Russian Revolution, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Ru ...
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 bragging about this. Because they did not invite me, of course, as Mayakovsky, but as a representative of the Soviet literature. The same applies to you. Get it? 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 backed me. I realized that being a Soviet writer meant marching in synch with the people, being always on the crest of revolutionary wave.

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 ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

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 Holy Well'', Harvill, 1967. *''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. . * * 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 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 Recipients of the Stalin Prize 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 Soviet magazine editors Russian male dramatists and playwrights Russian male novelists Russian male poets Russian male short story writers Russian memoirists Russian military personnel of World War I Soviet children's writers Soviet dramatists and playwrights Soviet male poets Soviet male writers Soviet memoirists Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War Soviet novelists Soviet screenwriters Soviet male screenwriters Soviet short story writers Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery