Valentin Petrovich Kataev
Valentin Petrovich Kataev was a notable Russian writer born in 1897 in Odessa, Ukraine, whose literary career spanned the significant revolutionary and Communist periods of the twentieth century. Initially serving as an artillery officer in World War I, Kataev's political journey led him to join the White Army during the Russian Revolution, after which he was imprisoned and later fought for the Red Army. Settling in Moscow in the early 1920s, he transitioned from journalism to writing fiction, producing satirical works that critiqued early Soviet life, including his well-regarded novel "The Embezzlers."
Throughout his career, Kataev adapted his writing to align with the changing political climate, experiencing both criticism and favor under Stalin's regime. He published several successful works, including children's novels and wartime literature, earning a Stalin Prize in 1945. In the latter part of his life, he contributed to the development of modernist and postmodernist literature, influencing younger Russian authors. Kataev remained active in literary circles, editing prominent journals and continuing to write until his death in Moscow in 1986. His legacy reflects the complexities of navigating artistic expression in a politically charged environment.
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Valentin Petrovich Kataev
- Born: January 28, 1897
- Birthplace: Odessa, Russia
- Died: April 12, 1986
- Place of death: Moscow, Russia
Biography
Valentin Petrovich Kataev’s long and prolific life covered practically all of the revolutionary and Communist period of twentieth century Russian history. His work proves that it was possible for writers to survive the worst excesses of the Stalinist regime and retain creativity and artistic integrity.
Kataev was born in 1897 in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, which features widely in his later novels. His father, Petr Vasil’evich, was a school teacher, and his mother, Evgeniia Bachei, came from a Ukrainian military family. During World War I, Kataev fought as an artillery officer until the Russian Revolution, when he joined the White Army. He was imprisoned for this service and later fought for the Red Army. In the early 1920’s, he joined a Soviet propaganda team, eventually settling in Moscow, where he married Anna Kovalenko in 1923. From then on, he devoted his life to writing.
His first efforts were sketches for the newspaper Trud, pamphlets, and journalistic pieces. He eventually published several satirical short stories on the inefficiencies of early Soviet life and two adventure novels: Ostrov Erendorf and Povelitel’ zheleza. Better work was to follow. Rastratchiki (1927; The Embezzlers, 1927) was a satirical novel about the endemic corruption of Russian society, achieving some popularity.
He then turned to satirical comedy, including the playKvadratura kruga (1928, Squaring the Circle, 1934), which achieved great success in the Soviet Union and abroad. However, under the regime of Joseph Stalin, the ideology of Socialist Realism found no place for satire, and Kataev was publicly criticized. Kataev bowed to the criticism and produced a more politically correct work, Vremya, vpered! (1932; Time, Forward!, 1933), a novel about a construction team beating a world record for mixing concrete. In 1935, Kataev married his second wife, Ester Brenner, by whom he had two children.
In 1936, he published his first children’s novel, Beleet parus odinokyi (Lonely White Sail: Or, Peace Is Where the Tempest Blows, 1937). The book was the first of a series of four novels, with the final book, Katakomby, published in 1961. By the late 1930’s, Kataev was back in the good graces of the Communist Party and was a member of the executive board of the Union of Soviet Writers.
During World War II, Kataev returned to journalism, covering the war for Russian newspapers. He also wrote several short stories and novels about the war, and one of these novels, Syn polka, won a Stalin Prize in 1945. After World War II, Kataev edited the journal Novyi mir, and in 1955 he became founding editor of a new journal, Iunost’. He finally joined the Communist Party in 1958, which enabled him to travel abroad.
Beginning in the 1960’s, he promoted more modernist and postmodernist styles of writing, greatly influencing a younger generation of Russian authors. His novel Malen’kaia zheleznaia dver’ v stene is probably the best example of this new style of writing. Though ostensibly about Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the book was autobiographical, as were Kubik and Razbitaia zhizn’: Ili, Volshebnyi rog Oberona (1973; The Mosaic of Life: Or, The Magic Horn of Oberon, Memoirs of a Russian Childhood, 1976). A number of his later works were published abroad. His last novel, Iunosheskii roman, appeared in 1983, again autobiographical and a further attempt to recapture time past. Kataev died in Moscow in 1986, at the age of eighty-nine.