Ensk travel. Letter to readers

Despite the fact that the work was created in the Soviet era, it is, as it were, out of time, because it tells about the eternal - love, friendship, determination, faith in a dream, devotion, betrayal, mercy. Two storylines - adventure and love mutually complement each other and make the novel more realistic, because, you see, a person's life cannot consist only of amorous experiences or only of work. Otherwise, it is inferior, which cannot be said about Kaverin's work.

Part one "Childhood"

Sanya Grigoriev lives in the small river town of Ensk. He is not alone in the world, he has a family - father, mother and sister Sasha (yes, what a coincidence!) Their house is small, with a low ceiling, walls with newspapers instead of wallpaper and a cold crack under the window. But this small world Sana likes it, because this is his world.

However, everything in him changed dramatically when one day the boy secretly got out to the pier to fish for crayfish.

Little Sanya witnessed the murder of a postman. In a hurry, he lost his father's knife at the crime scene, which he took with him, and dad was sent to prison. Sanya was the only witness to the crime, but he could not speak in court in defense of his father - Sanya was mute from birth.

The mother is having a hard time with her husband's imprisonment, her chronic illness worsens, and Sanya and Sasha are sent to the village, where they spend the winter in their father's dilapidated house under the supervision of the same dilapidated old woman Petrovna. Sanya has a new acquaintance - Dr. Ivan Ivanovich, who teaches him to speak. The boy begins to utter his first hesitant words - the doctor explains that his dumbness is psychological. The terrible news that his father died in prison becomes a heavy blow for Sanya, he falls into a fever and begins to talk ... however, it's too late - now there is no one to testify in court.

Mother is getting married soon. The stepfather turns out to be despotic and cruel man. He brings his mother, who is in poor health, to death. Sanya hates his stepfather and runs away from home with his friend Petka Skovorodnikov. The guys give each other an oath “Fight and seek, find and not give up”, which will become their motto for life, and go to warm Turkestan. Many months of wandering almost cost two homeless children their lives. By the will of fate, the friends part, and Sanya ends up in a Moscow commune school with Nikolai Antonovich Tatarinov.

Part 2: Something to think about

Sanya's life began to improve little by little - no more hunger strikes and overnight stays under open sky, at school, besides, it turned out to be quite interesting. The boy made new friends - Valka Zhukov and Mikhail Romashov, nicknamed Chamomile. He also met an old woman, whom he helped carry bags to the house. Her name was Nina Kapitonovna, and it was she who introduced Sanya into the Tatarinov family.

The apartment of the Tatarinovs seemed like a “cave of Ali Baba” to a kid from seedy Ensk, there were so many “treasures” there - books, paintings, crystal and various other unknown gizmos. And they lived in this “treasury” Nina Kapitonovna - grandmother, Marya Vasilievna - her daughter, Katya - granddaughter, the same age as Sanya, and ... Nikolai Antonovich. The latter was Katya's paternal cousin uncle. He was passionately in love with Maria Vasilievna, but she did not reciprocate his feelings. She was totally weird. Despite her beauty, she always wore black, studied at the institute, spoke little, and sometimes sat for a long time in an armchair with legs and smoked. Then Katya said that “my mother is sad.” It was said about her husband and father Katya Ivan Lvovich that he either went missing or died. And Nikolai Antonovich often recalled how he helped his cousin, how he brought him to the people, helped him enter the seafarer, which ensured him a brilliant career as a sea captain.

In addition to Sanya, whom Nikolai Antonovich clearly did not like, there was another frequent guest in the Tatarinovs' apartment - geography teacher Ivan Pavlovich Korablev. When he crossed the threshold, Maria Vasilievna seemed to come out of her dream, put on a dress with a collar, smiled. Nikolai Antonovich hated Korablev and removed him from lessons for too obvious signs of attention.

Part three “Old letters”

The next time we meet with matured seventeen-year-old Sanya. He participates in a school scene based on “Eugene Onegin”, to which Katya Tatarinova also came. She's not as bad as she was when she was a child, and she's also become very beautiful. Little by little, feelings flare up between the young people. Their first explanation happened at a school ball. Romashka overheard him, secretly in love with Katya, and reported everything to Nikolai Antonovich. Sanya was no longer allowed into the Tatarinovs' house. In a fit of anger, he beat the vile Chamomile, whom he had previously considered a friend.

However, this insignificant meanness could not separate the lovers. They spend time together in Ensk, Sanya and Katya's hometown. There, Grigoriev finds the old letters of the postman, which once washed ashore. Aunt Dasha read them aloud every day, and some of them so often that Sanya memorized them. Then he understood little in the appeal of some navigator Klimov to some Marya Vasilyevna, but after re-reading these letters many years later, he seemed to realize that they were addressed to Katya's mother! They say that the expedition of Ivan Lvovich was ruined on land, that inventory and provisions were unusable and the whole team was sent to certain death. And he was engaged in the organization ... Nikolai Antonovich. True, the name of the culprit was washed away with water, as well as most text, but Sanya remembered the letter by heart.

He immediately told Katya about everything and they went to Moscow to Marya Vasilyevna to reveal to her the truth about Nikolai Antonovich. She believed... and committed suicide. Nikolai Antonovich managed to convince everyone that the letters were not about him and that Sanya was to blame for the death of Marya Vasilievna, who at that time had already become his wife. Everyone turned away from Grigoriev, even Katya.

To drown out the pain from the loss of his beloved and unfair slander, Sanya is intensively preparing to enter the flight school. Now he has a big goal - to find the expedition of Captain Tatarinov.

Part Four "North"

Having successfully studied at the flight school, Sanya seeks an assignment to the North. There he finds and deciphers the diaries of the navigator Ivan Klimov, as well as the hook from the ship "Saint Mary". Thanks to these invaluable finds, now he knows how to find the forgotten expedition, and on his return to Moscow he is going to make a short report.

Meanwhile, on the "mainland" sister Sasha marries Petka. They live in St. Petersburg and study to be artists. Chamomile has become the closest person in the Tatarinov family and is going to marry Katya. Sanya goes crazy, what will be their meeting with Katya, and suddenly they are not destined to see each other again, and suddenly she has stopped loving him. After all, the search for the lost expedition primarily stimulates his love for her. Sanya concludes his painful mental dialogue on the way to Moscow with the words: “I would not forget you even if you stopped loving me.”

Part Five "For the Heart"

The first meeting between Sanya and Katya was tense, but it was clear that their mutual feeling was still alive, that Chamomile was simply being imposed on her as a husband, that it was still possible to save. Korablev played a big role in their reunion, and both Sanya and Romashov attended the pedagogical anniversary. Sanya also learned that Nikolai Antonovich was also preparing a report on the expedition of Captain Tatarinov's brother and was going to present his truth about the events of the past. It will be difficult for Grigoriev to cope with such an authoritative opponent, but he is not a timid one, especially since the truth is on his side.

In the end, Katya and Sanya are reunited, the girl firmly decides to leave home and start working as a geologist. On the last day before Sanya's departure for the Arctic, Romashov appears in his hotel room. He offers Grigoriev documents confirming the guilt of Nikolai Antonovich in exchange for the fact that Sanya will break up with Katya, because he, Romashka, loves her so sincerely! Sanya pretends that he needs to think, and he immediately calls Nikolai Antonovich on the phone. Seeing his teacher and mentor, Chamomile turns pale and begins to uncertainly deny what has just been said. However, Nikolai Antonovich does not care. Only now Sanya noticed how old this man is, it is difficult for him to speak, he can barely stand on his feet - the death of Marya Vasilievna completely deprived him of his strength. “Why did you invite me here? asked Nikolai Antonovich. - I'm sick ... You wanted to assure me that he was a scoundrel. This is not news to me. You wanted to destroy me again, but you cannot do more than you have already done for me - and irreparably.

Sanya fails to quarrel Romashka and Nikolai Antonovich, because the latter no longer has the strength to resist, except for the scoundrel Romashov, he has no one else.

Sanya's article, with minor corrections, is published in Pravda; she and Katya read it in the train car, leaving for new life.

Volume Two: Parts Six-Ten (some narrated from the perspective of Katya Tatarinova)

Sanya and Katya are happily spending time in St. Petersburg together with Sasha and Petya, who have just become young parents and have a son. The first terrible omen of future misfortunes is Sasha's sudden death from illness.

Sana has to put aside her dreams of a polar expedition as the war begins. Ahead is the front and a long separation from his beloved, at that time already his wife. During the war, Katya is in besieged Petersburg, she is starving. She is literally saved by the suddenly appeared Romashov. He talks about the horrors of the war, about the fact that he met Sanya, about how he pulled him in his arms from the battlefield and about how he went missing. This is practically true, except that Romashov did not save Sanya, but rather left the wounded Grigoriev to his fate, taking away weapons and documents.

Romashka is convinced that his rival is dead and sooner or later he will be able to take possession of Katya, as his mentor Nikolai Antonovich once did in relation to Katya's mother. However, Katya continues to believe that her husband is alive. Fortunately, this is true - Sanya miraculously managed to escape. After recuperating in the hospital, he goes in search of his beloved, but they always warm up.

Sanya is called to the North, where the service continues. After one of the air battles, Sanin's plane makes an emergency landing at the place where Tatarinov's expedition supposedly ended. Having overcome kilometers of snowy desert, Grigoriev finds a tent with the body of the captain, his letters and diaries - the main evidence of Grigoriev's rightness and Nikolai Antonovich's guilt. Inspired, he goes to Polyarny to his old friend Dr. Ivan Ivanovich and, lo and behold (!) Katya is waiting for him there, the lovers will not part again.

The novel "Two Captains": a summary

Hamlet of the Ensky district. The genesis of the plot in Kaverin's novel "Two Captains" 

V.B. Smirensky

This poem is encrypted.

V. Kaverin. "Fulfillment of desires".

Analyzing the plot of the novel by V. Kaverin "Two Captains", the authors of the critical essay "V. Kaverin" O. Novikova and V. Novikov 1 believe that the novel is marked by a special affinity for folk fantasy narrative and therefore it is advisable to draw an analogy not with specific fairy tale plots, but with the very structure of the genre described in V.Ya. 2. According to the authors, almost all (thirty-one) functions of Propp find one or another correspondence in the plot of the novel, starting with the traditional plot "One of the family members leaves home" - in the novel, this is the arrest of Sanya's father on a false charge of murder. Further, the authors cite Propp's clarification: "An enhanced form of absence is the death of parents." So it goes with Kaverin: Sanya's father died in prison, and some time later his mother died.

According to O. Novikova and V. Novikov, the second function "The hero is treated with a ban" is transformed in the novel into the story of Sanya's muteness. When the “prohibition is violated,” that is, Sanya acquires speech and begins to read Captain Tatarinov’s letters by heart everywhere, the “antagonist” (that is, Nikolai Antonovich) comes into play. Perhaps absent, the authors believe, is only the fourteenth function "A magical agent comes into the possession of the hero", that is, a miracle in literally. However, this is compensated by the fact that the hero achieves his goal and defeats opponents only when he acquires willpower, knowledge, etc.

In this regard, O. Novikova and V. Novikov believe that although folklore elements in literature are being qualitatively transformed, nevertheless, it seems legitimate to them that modern writers try to use the energy of a fairy tale, matching it with a realistic narrative. Propp's list of functions can serve as a kind of connecting link, a special language into which not only fairy tale plots, but also literary plots are translated. For example, "The hero leaves the house"; "The hero is tested, questioned, attacked..."; "The hero arrives unrecognized at home or in another country"; "The false hero makes unfounded claims"; "The hero is offered a difficult task"; "A false hero or antagonist, a pest is exposed"; "The enemy is punished" - all this is in the "Two Captains" - up to the final, until the thirty-first move: "The hero marries and reigns." The whole plot of "Two Captains", according to O. Novikova and V. Novikov, is based on the test of the hero, "this is a framing short story, centralizing all the other plot threads."

In addition, researchers see in "The Two Captains" a reflection of a whole range of varieties of the novel genre and, in particular, Dickens' plots. The story of Sanya and Katya's relationship is reminiscent of a medieval chivalric romance and a sentimental romance of the 18th century at the same time. "Nikolai Antonovich resembles a hero-villain from a Gothic novel" 3.

At one time, A. Fadeev also noted that the novel "Two Captains" was written "according to the traditions not of Russian classical literature, but of Western European literature, in the manner of Dickens, Stevenson" four . It seems to us that the plot of "Two Captains" has a different basis, not directly related to folklore traditions. Recognizing the links with the traditions of the novel genre, our analysis shows a much more striking similarity and close connection between the plot of Kaverin's novel and the plot of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy Hamlet.

Let's compare the plots of these works. Prince Hamlet receives "news from the next world": the ghost of his father told him that he - the king of Denmark - was treacherously poisoned by his own brother, who seized his throne and married the queen - Hamlet's mother. "Farewell and remember me," calls the Illusive Man. Hamlet is shocked by these three monstrous crimes committed by Claudius: murder, seizure of the throne, and incest. He is also deeply hurt by the act of his mother, who so soon agreed to the marriage. Trying to make sure that the ghost of his father told, Hamlet with visiting actors plays a play about the murder of the king in the presence of Claudius, Gertrude and all the courtiers. Claudius, losing his temper, gives himself away (the so-called "mousetrap" scene). Hamlet reproaches his mother for betraying her husband's memory and denounces Claudius. During this conversation, Polonius, eavesdropping, hides behind a carpet, and Hamlet (unintentionally) kills him. This entails Ophelia's suicide. Claudius sends Hamlet to England with secret orders to kill him upon arrival. Hamlet escapes death and returns to Denmark. Laertes, furious at the death of his father and sister, agrees with the king's insidious plan and tries to kill Hamlet in a duel with a poisoned rapier. In the finale, all the main characters of the tragedy die.

The basic construction of the plot of "The Two Captains" largely coincides with the plot of Shakespeare. At the very beginning of the novel, Sanya Grigoriev, a boy from the city of Ensk, receives "news from the other world": Aunt Dasha reads letters every evening from the bag of a drowned postman. Some of them he learns by heart. They deal with the fate of an expedition lost and probably lost in the Arctic. A few years later, fate brings him in Moscow with the addressees and characters of the found letters: the widow (Maria Vasilievna) and daughter (Katya) of the missing captain Ivan Tatarinov and his cousin Nikolai Antonovich Tatarinov. But at first Sanya does not know about it. Maria Vasilievna marries Nikolai Antonovich. She speaks of him as a man of rare kindness and nobility, who sacrificed everything to equip his brother's expedition. But Sanya by this time already has a strong distrust of him. Arriving in his native Ensk, he again turns to the surviving letters. "Like lightning in a forest illuminates the area, so I understood everything by reading these lines." In the letters it was said that the expedition owed all the failures to Nikolai (that is, Nikolai Antonovich). He was not named by his last name and patronymic, but it was him, Sanya is sure.

So, like Claudius, Nikolai Antonovich committed a triple crime. He sent his brother to certain death, since the schooner had dangerous side cutouts, worthless dogs and food, etc. In addition, he not only married Maria Vasilievna, but also made every possible effort to appropriate the glory of his brother.

Sanya exposes these crimes, but his revelations lead to Maria Vasilievna's suicide. Returning to Moscow, Sanya tells her about the letters and reads them by heart. According to the signature "Montigomo Hawk Claw" (although erroneously pronounced Sanya - Mongotimo), Maria Vasilievna made sure of their authenticity. The next day she got poisoned. Compared with Shakespeare's Gertrude, her betrayal of her husband's memory is somewhat softened at first. At first, she "ruthlessly" treats all attempts by Nikolai Antonovich to look after her and take care of her. He achieves his goal only after many years.

It is important to motivate Sanya's behavior that relations in the Tatarinov family strikingly remind Sanya of the events that took place in his own family: after the death of his father, his beloved mother marries the "buffoon" Gayer Kuliy. Stepfather, a man with a "fat face" and a very nasty voice, causes Sanya great dislike. However, his mother liked him. "How could she fall in love with such a person? Involuntarily, Maria Vasilievna also came to mind, and I decided once and for all that I did not understand women at all." This Gaer Kuliy, who sat down in the place where his father sat and liked to lecture everyone with endless foolish reasoning, demanding for this that they also thanked him, in the end, caused the premature death of his mother.

When Sanya met Nikolai Antonovich, it turned out that, like Gaer Kuliy, he was the same lover of tedious teachings: “Do you know what“ thank you ”is? Keep in mind that depending on whether you know or not. .." Sanya understands that he is "talking nonsense" specifically to annoy Katya. At the same time, like Gaer, he expects gratitude. So, there is symmetry in the relationship of the characters: Sanya's father, mother, stepfather, Sanya, on the one hand, and the deceased captain Tatarinov, Maria Vasilievna, Nikolai Antonovich, Katya, on the other.

At the same time, the teachings of the stepfathers in the novel are consonant with the speeches of the hypocrite Claudius. Let us compare, for example, such quotes: "King. The death of our beloved brother is still fresh, and it is fitting for us to bear pain in our hearts ..." "Nikolai Antonovich not only talked to me about his cousin. This was his favorite topic." "He made it very clear to him why he loved to remember him so much." Thus, due to the double reflection in the novel of the relationship of the main characters of Hamlet, the motive of "the betrayal of her husband's memory" ultimately turns out to be strengthened by V. Kaverin. But the motive of "restoring justice" is also getting stronger. Gradually, the orphan Sanya Grigoriev, looking for traces and recreating the history of the "St. Mary" expedition, seems to find his new, this time spiritual father in the form of Captain Tatarinov, "as if instructed to tell the story of his life, his death."

Having found the expedition and the body of Captain Tatarinov frozen into the ice, Sanya writes to Katya: “As if from the front, I am writing to you - about a friend and father who died in battle. Sorrow and pride for him excite me, and before the spectacle of immortality, my soul passionately freezes ..." As a result, external parallels are reinforced by internal psychological motivations 5.

Continuing to compare the episodes of the novel and the tragedy, we note that although the revelations of Hamlet shocked the queen, their consequences turned out to be completely unexpected. The unexpected murder of Polonius led to the insanity and suicide of the innocent Ophelia. From the point of view of "normal" or life logic, Maria Vasilievna's suicide is more justified than Ophelia's suicide. But this example shows how far Shakespeare is from ordinary life logic and everyday ideas. Suicide of Maria Vasilievna– a natural event in the overall plot structure of the novel. Ophelia's suicide is a tragedy in high tragedy, which in itself has the deepest philosophical and artistic sense, an unpredictable plot twist, a kind of intermediate tragic finale, thanks to which the reader and viewer delve into the "inscrutable meaning of good and evil" (B. Pasternak).

Nevertheless, from a formal (plot, or event) point of view, one can state the coincidence of the episodes: both in the tragedy and in the novel, one of the main characters commits suicide. And one way or another, the hero is burdened by an involuntary feeling of guilt.

Nikolai Antonovich seeks to turn Sanya's evidence of guilt against him. "This is the man who killed her. She is dying because of a vile, vile snake who says that I killed her husband, my brother." "I threw him away like a snake." Here you can already pay attention to the vocabulary and phraseology of the characters in the novel, to their similarity with the translation of "Hamlet" by M. Lozinsky, which was published in 1936 and with which V.A. Kaverin was probably familiar by the time the novel was written: "The ghost. The snake that hit your father put on his crown."

Sanya intends to find the missing expedition and prove his case. He makes these promises to himself, to Katya and even to Nikolai Antonovich: "I will find the expedition, I do not believe that it has disappeared without a trace, and then we'll see which of us is right." The oath runs through the novel as a leitmotif: "Fight and seek, find and not give up!" This oath and promises resonate with Hamlet's oath and promises to avenge his father: "From now on, my cry is:" Farewell, farewell! And remember me. "I swore an oath," although, as you know, the role of Hamlet goes far beyond the usual revenge.

In addition to the most important plot coincidences in the tragedy and the novel, one can note coincidences that relate to the details of the behavior of the characters.

Sanya comes to Korablev, but at this time Nina Kapitonovna also comes to Korablev. Korablev leads Sanya into the next room with a holey green curtain in place of the door and tells him: "And listen - it's good for you." Sanya hears all this important conversation in which they talk about him, Katya and Romashka and looks through the hole in the curtain.

The circumstances of the episode are reminiscent of the scene of the meeting between Hamlet and the queen, when Polonius is hiding behind the carpet. If in Shakespeare this detail is important from many sides (characterizes the spy zeal of Polonius and becomes the cause of his death, etc.), then in Kaverin given scene, apparently, is used only so that Sanya quickly learns important news for him.

Claudius, frightened and angered by the revelations, sends Hamlet to Britain with a letter, where there was an order, "that immediately after reading, without delay, without looking whether the ax was sharpened, they would have blown my head away," as Hamlet later tells Horatio about this.

In the novel, Sanya, organizing an expedition to search for Captain Tatarinov, learns from Nina Kapitonovna that Nikolai Antonovich and Romashka "... they write about everything. Pilot G., pilot G. Denunciation, go ahead." And she turns out to be right. Soon an article appears, which, indeed, contains a real denunciation and slander against Sanya. The article said that a certain pilot G. in every possible way denigrates a respected scientist (Nikolai Antonovich), spreads slander, etc. "The Directorate of the Main Northern Sea Route should pay attention to this man, who dishonors the family of Soviet polar explorers with his actions." If we take into account that the case takes place in the fateful thirties (Kaverin wrote these episodes in 1936-1939), then the effectiveness of the denunciation-article could be no less than the treacherous letter of Claudius dooming Hamlet to execution to the British king. But, like Hamlet, Sanya avoids this danger with his energetic actions.

You can pay attention to further coincidences in the character system. Lonely Hamlet has only one true friend– Horatio:

"Hamlet. But why aren't you in Wittenberg, student friend?" Marcellus calls Horatio "the scribe".

Sanya has more friends, but Valka Zhukov stands out among them, who is interested in biology at school. Then he was a "senior scientific specialist" on an expedition to the North, then a professor. Here we see coincidences in the type of activity of the friends of the heroes: their distinguishing feature- learning.

But Romashov, or Chamomile, plays a much larger role in the novel. Even at school, his deceit, hypocrisy, double-dealing, denunciation, greed, espionage, etc., are manifested, which he tries, at least sometimes, to hide under the guise of friendship. Early enough, he becomes close to Nikolai Antonovich, later becoming his assistant and the closest person in the house. By position in the novel and by its extremely negative properties, he combines all the main characteristics of the courtiers of Claudius: Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Katya thinks that he looks like Uria Gip, the character of C. Dickens. Perhaps that is why both A. Fadeev and the authors of the essay "V. Kaverin" suggested that Dickens' plot was reflected in the novel.

In fact, for understanding this image, it is essential that in the novel he also performs the function of Laertes, which consists in the fact that he. engages in mortal combat with the hero. If Laertes is driven by revenge, then Romashov is driven by envy and jealousy. At the same time, both the one and the other character act in the most treacherous way. So, Laertes uses a poisoned rapier, and Chamomile leaves Sanya, seriously wounded during the war, stealing a bag of crackers, a flask of vodka and a pistol from him, that is, dooming him, it would seem, to certain death. At least he himself is sure of it. "You will be a corpse," he said haughtily, "and no one will know that I killed you." Assuring Katya that Sanya is dead, Romashka apparently believes in it himself.

Thus, as in the case of the suicide of Maria Vasilievna, we see that in the novel, in comparison with the tragedy, there is a redistribution of plot functions between the characters.

The vocabulary used by V. Kaverin to characterize Romashov is based on keyword"scoundrel". More on school lesson Sanya on a bet gives Chamomile to cut his finger. “Cut,” I say, and this scoundrel coldly cuts my finger with a penknife. Further: "Chamomile rummaged in my chest. This new meanness struck me"; "I will say that Chamomile is a scoundrel and that only a scoundrel will apologize to him." If in the novel these expressions are "scattered" throughout the text, then in M. Lozinsky's translation they are collected "in a bouquet" in a monologue, where Hamlet, choking with anger, says about the king: "Scoundrel. Smiling scoundrel, damned scoundrel! - My tablets, - you need to write down that you can live with a smile and be a scoundrel with a smile.

In the final scene of the showdown, Sanya says to Romashov: "Sign, scoundrel!" – and gives him to sign the "testimony of M.V. Romashov", which says: "Meanly deceiving the leadership of the Main Northern Sea Route, etc." "O regal villainy!" - exclaims Hamlet, shocked by the treacherous letter of Claudius.

Key scenes in Hamlet include the Ghost scene and the mousetrap scene in which the antagonist is exposed. In Kaverin, similar scenes are combined into one and placed at the end of the novel, where, finally, justice finally triumphs. It happens in the following way. Sanya managed to find photographic films of the expedition that had lain in the ground for about 30 years and developed some of the footage that seemed to be lost forever. And now Sanya demonstrates them at his report in the Geographical Society, dedicated to the materials found. Katya, Korablev, and Nikolai Antonovich himself are present on it, that is, as in the "mousetrap" scene, all the main characters of the novel.

"The lights went out, and a tall man in a fur hat appeared on the screen ... He seemed to have entered the hall - a strong, fearless soul. Everyone stood up when he appeared on the screen (Compare Shakespeare's remark: The Phantom Enters.) And in this solemn silence I read the report and the captain's farewell letter: "We can safely say that we owe all our failures only to him." And then Sanya reads out a document-commitment, where the culprit of the tragedy is directly indicated.Finally, in conclusion, he says about Nikolai Tatarinov: "Once in a conversation with me, this man said that he recognizes only one witness: the captain himself. And now, with a m, the captain now calls him - his full name, patronymic and surname!

Shakespeare the king's dismay climax, which comes in the "mousetrap" scene, conveys through the exclamations and remarks of the characters:

About f e l and I. The king is up!

HAMLET What? Scared of a blank shot?

Queen. What about your majesty?

P about l about n and y. Stop the game!

King. Give fire here. - Let's go!

In with e. Fire, fire, fire!

In the novel, the same task is solved by descriptive means. We see how Nikolai Antonovich "suddenly straightened up, looked around when I loudly called this name." "In my life I have not heard such a diabolical noise," "a terrible turmoil arose in the hall." Comparing these episodes, we see that Kaverin seeks to solve the climax and denouement of his novel with a spectacular scene in which he tries to merge the emotional tension that arises in the tragedy "Hamlet" in the scenes with a ghost and in the "mousetrap" scene.

O. Novikova and V. Novikov, the authors of the essay "V. Kaverin", believe that in the work on "Two Captains" "the author of the novel, as it were," forgot "about his philological erudition: no quotations, no reminiscences, no parody-stylization moments not in the novel, and this may be one of the main reasons for good luck" 6.

However, the evidence presented suggests otherwise. We see a fairly consistent use of the Shakespearean plot and the system of characters in the tragedy. Consistently reproduce the plot functions of their prototypes Nikolai Antonovich, Captain Tatarinov, Valka Zhukov and himself main character. Maria Vasilievna, repeating the fate of Gertrude, commits suicide, like Ophelia. One can quite clearly trace the correspondence to the prototypes and their actions in the image of Romashov: espionage and denunciation (Polonius), feigned friendship (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern), an attempted insidious murder (Laertes).

O. Novikova and V. Novikov, trying to bring the novel "Two Captains" closer to the structure of the genre described in "The Morphology of a Fairy Tale" by V. Ya. Propp, are right in the sense that in Kaverin's novel, as in a fairy tale, discovered by Propp: if a set of permanent characters changes in a fairy tale, then between them there is a redistribution or combination of plot functions 7. Apparently, this regularity operates not only in folklore, but also in literary genres, when, for example, this or that plot is reused. O. Revzina and I. Revzin gave examples of combining or "gluing" functions - the roles of characters in A. Christie's novels 8. Differences associated with the redistribution of functions are of no less interest for plot and comparative studies than close coincidences.

The identified coincidences and consonances make one wonder how consciously Kaverin used the plot of the tragedy. It is known how much attention he paid to the plot and composition in his works. "I have always been and remain a story writer," great value compositions... underestimated in our prose",– he emphasized in the "Outline of work" 9. The author has described in some detail here the work on "Two Captains".

The idea of ​​the novel was associated with an acquaintance with a young biologist. According to Kaverin, his biography so captivated the writer and seemed so interesting that he "made a promise to himself not to give free rein to the imagination." The hero himself, his father, mother, comrades are written exactly as they appeared in the story of a friend. "But the imagination still came in handy," admits V. Kaverin. Firstly, the author tried to "see the world through the eyes of a young man shocked by the idea of ​​justice." Secondly, "it became clear to me that something extraordinary was about to happen in this small town (Ensk). The 'extraordinary' I was looking for was the light of the Arctic stars, accidentally falling into a small abandoned city" 10.

So, as the author himself testifies, the basis of the novel "Two Captains" and the basis of its plot, in addition to the biography of the hero-prototype, formed two major lines. Here we can recall the technique that Kaverin first tried to use in his first story.

In the trilogy "Illuminated Windows" V. Kaverin recalls the beginning of his writing career. In 1920, while preparing for an exam in logic, he read for the first time summary non-Euclidean geometry of Lobachevsky and was struck by the courage of the mind, who imagined that parallel lines converge in space.

Returning home after the exam, Kaverin saw a poster announcing a competition for novice writers. In the next ten minutes, he made the decision to leave poetry for good and switch to prose.

"Finally - this was the most important thing - I managed to think over my first story and even called it: "The Eleventh Axiom." Lobachevsky crossed parallel lines at infinity. What prevents me from crossing two pairs at infinity allelic plots? It is only necessary that, regardless of time and space, they eventually unite, merge ... ".

Arriving home, Kaverin took a ruler and drew a sheet of paper lengthwise into two equal columns. In the left, he began to write the story of a monk who loses faith in God. In the right is the story of a student who loses his possessions at cards. At the end of the third page, both parallel lines converged. The student and the monk met on the banks of the Neva. This short story was submitted to the competition under the meaningful motto "Art must be based on the formulas of the exact sciences", received an award, but remained unpublished. However, "the idea of ​​"The Eleventh Axiom" is a kind of epigraph to all Kaverin's work. And in the future he will look for a way to cross parallel ..." 11

Indeed, in the novel "Two Captains" we see two main lines: in one storyline, techniques are used adventure novel and a travel novel in the spirit of J. Verne. The bag of the drowned postman with soaked and partially damaged letters, which speak of the missing expedition, cannot but resemble the letter found in the bottle in the novel "Captain Grant's Children", where, by the way, the search for the missing father is also described. But the use of authentic documents in the novel, reflecting the real and dramatic story researchers of the Far North Sedov and Brusilov, and, most importantly, the search for evidence leading to the triumph of justice (this line turned out to be based on Shakespeare's plot), made the plot not only fascinating, but also literary more significant.

The third storyline, on which Kaverin initially relied, “works” in a peculiar way in the novel - a true biography of a biologist. Rather, here, from the point of view of comparative plot, the combination of this line with the two above is of interest. In particular, the beginning of the novel, which describes the homelessness and hungry wanderings of Sleigh. If Shakespeare's main character, who is destined to take on the heavy burden of restoring violated justice, is Prince Hamlet, then in the novel the main character is at first a homeless child, that is, "n and sh and y." This well-known literary opposition turned out to be organic, because, as O. Novikova and V. Novikov rightly point out, in overall structure"Two Captains" clearly manifested the tradition of the novel of education. "Traditional techniques have vigorously earned, applied to cutting-edge material" 12.

In conclusion, let us return to the question, how conscious was Kaverin's use of Shakespeare's plot? A similar question was asked by M. Bakhtin, proving the genre proximity of the novels by F.M. Dostoevsky and the ancient menippea. And he answered him resolutely: "Of course not! He was not at all a stylizer of ancient genres ... Speaking somewhat paradoxically, one can say that not Dostoevsky's subjective memory, but the objective memory of the very genre in which he worked, preserved the features of the ancient menippea." 13

In the case of V. Kaverin's novel, we still tend to attribute all the intertextual coincidences noted above (in particular, lexical coincidences with M. Lozinsky's translation of Hamlet) to the writer's "subjective memory". Moreover, he probably left a certain "key" for the attentive reader to decipher this riddle.

As you know, the author himself dates the emergence of his idea for "Two Captains" to 1936. 14. Work on the novel "Fulfillment of desires" has just been completed. One of the indisputable successes in it was a fascinating description of the decoding by the hero of the novel of the tenth chapter of "Eugene Onegin". Perhaps, while working on The Two Captains, Kaverin tried to solve the opposite problem: to encrypt the plot of the greatest and well-known tragedy into the plot of a modern novel. It must be admitted that he succeeded, since so far no one seems to have noticed this, despite the fact that, as V. Kaverin himself pointed out, the novel had "meticulous readers" who saw some deviations from the text of the documents used 15. Such a connoisseur of plot construction as V. Shklovsky, who noticed at one time that two novels were inserted into the novel "Fulfillment of Desires" 16.

How did Kaverin manage to transform the tragic Shakespearean story so skillfully? S. Balukhaty, analyzing the genre of melodrama, noted that one can "read" and "see" the tragedy in such a way that, omitting or weakening its thematic and psychological materials, turn the tragedy into a melodrama, which is characterized by "convex, bright forms, sharply dramatic conflicts, in-depth plot" 17.

These days, the time for close attention to the novel is gone. However, this should not affect the theoretical interest in his study. As for the "key" to unraveling the plot, which the author left, it is connected with the title of the novel, if one recalls one of the final solemn lines of Shakespeare's tragedy:

Let Hamlet be raised to the platform,

Like a warrior, four captains.

Finally, the last "syllable" of the Kaverin charade is associated with the name hometown Sled. In general, such names as the city of N. or N, N-sk, etc., have a tradition in literature. But, melting the Shakespearean plot into the plot of his novel, Kaverin could not help but recall his predecessors, and among them the famous story related to the Shakespearean theme - "Lady Macbeth Mtsensk district". If Leskov's heroine was from Mtsensk, then my hero, pilot G., let him be just from ... Enska, Kaverin might have thought and left a rhyming trail for future clues: Ensk - Mtsensk - Lady Macbeth - Hamlet .

5 V. Borisova, Roman V. Kaverin "Two Captains" (See V. Kaverin. Collected works in 6 volumes, vol. 3, M., 1964, p. 627).

8 O. Revzina, I. Revzin, Toward a formal analysis of plot composition. – "Collection of articles on secondary modeling systems", Tartu, 1973, p.117.

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// In kN.: Smirensky V. Analysis of plots.
- M. - AIRO-XX. - With. 9-26.
Among Chekhov's literary connections is one of the most important and permanent - Shakespeare. new material for the study of Chekhov's literary connections gives his play "Three Sisters and Shakespeare's tragedy" King Lear ".

I have already had the opportunity to answer your letters about my novel The Two Captains, but many of you must not have heard my answer (I spoke on the radio) because the letters keep coming. Leaving letters unanswered is impolite, and I take this opportunity to apologize to all my correspondents, young and old.
The questions that my correspondents ask concern primarily the two main characters of my novel - Sanya Grigoriev and Captain Tatarinov. Many guys ask: did I not tell my own life in The Two Captains? Others are interested: did I invent the story of Captain Tatarinov? Still others look for this surname in geographical books, in encyclopedic dictionaries - and are perplexed, convinced that the activities of Captain Tatarinov did not leave noticeable traces in the history of the conquest of the Arctic. Still others want to know where Sanya and Katya Tatarinova currently live and what military rank Sana was given after the war. Fifths share their impressions of the novel with me, adding that they closed the book with a feeling of cheerfulness, energy, thinking about the benefits and happiness of the Fatherland. These are the dearest letters that I could not read without joyful excitement. Finally, the sixths consult with the author on what cause to dedicate their lives to.
The mother of the most mischievous boy in the city, whose jokes sometimes bordered on hooliganism, wrote to me that after reading my novel her son had completely changed. The director of the Belarusian theater writes to me that the youthful oath of my heroes helped his troupe to restore the theater destroyed by the Germans with their own hands. An Indonesian youth who went to his homeland to defend it from the attack of the Dutch imperialists wrote to me that the "Two Captains" put a sharp weapon into his hands and this weapon is called "Fight and seek, find and not give up."
I wrote the novel for about five years. When the first volume was completed, the war began, and only at the beginning of the forty-fourth year did I manage to return to my work. The first thought about the novel arose in 1937, when I met a man who, under the name of Sanya Grigoriev, was introduced in The Two Captains. This man told me his life, full of work, inspiration and love for his Motherland and his work.
From the first pages, I made it a rule not to invent anything or almost nothing. And indeed, even such extraordinary details as the dumbness of little Sanya were not invented by me. His mother and father, sister and comrades are written exactly as they first appeared to me in the story of my casual acquaintance, who later became my friend. About some of the heroes of the future book I learned very little from him; for example, Korablev was depicted in this story with only two or three features: a sharp, attentive look that invariably forced schoolchildren to tell the truth, a mustache, a cane, and the ability to sit up over a book until late at night. The rest had to be completed by the imagination of the author, who aspired to paint the figure of a Soviet teacher.
In essence, the story I heard was very simple. It was the story of a boy who had a difficult childhood and was raised Soviet society- people who became family to him and supported the dream, with early years burned in his ardent and just heart.
Almost all the circumstances of the life of this boy, then a young man and an adult are preserved in The Two Captains. But his childhood passed on the Middle Volga, school years- in Tashkent - places that I know relatively poorly. Therefore, I moved the scene to my hometown, calling it Anskom. It is not for nothing that my countrymen easily guess the true name of the city in which Sanya Grigoriev was born and raised! My school years (the last classes) passed in Moscow, and in my book I could draw the Moscow school of the early twenties with more fidelity than the Tashkent school, which I had no opportunity to draw from nature.
Here, by the way, it would be appropriate to recall another question that my correspondents ask me: to what extent is the novel "Two Captains" autobiographical? To a large extent, everything that Sanya Grigoriev saw from the first to the last page was seen by the author with his own eyes, whose life went parallel to the life of the hero. But when Sanya Grigoriev's profession entered the plot of the book, I had to leave the "personal" materials and start studying the life of a pilot, about which I knew very little before. That is why, dear guys, you can easily understand my pride when I received a radiogram from a plane that flew in 1940 under the command of Cherevichny to explore high latitudes, in which navigator Akkuratov welcomed my novel on behalf of the team.
I must note that Senior Lieutenant Samuil Yakovlevich Klebanov, who died a hero's death in 1943, rendered me enormous, invaluable help in studying flying. He was a talented pilot, a selfless officer and a wonderful, pure person. I was proud of his friendship.
It is difficult or even impossible to fully answer the question of how this or that figure of the hero of a literary work is created, especially if the story is told in the first person. In addition to those observations, memories, impressions that I wrote about, my book includes thousands of others that were not directly related to the story told to me and which served as the basis for The Two Captains. Of course, you know what a huge role the imagination plays in the work of a writer. It is about him that it is necessary to say first of all, moving on to the story of my second main character - Captain Tatarinov.
Do not look for this name, dear guys, in encyclopedic dictionaries! Do not try to prove, as one boy did in a geography lesson, that the Tatars, and not Vilkitsky, discovered Severnaya Zemlya. For my "senior captain" I used the story of two brave conquerors of the Far North. From one I took a courageous and clear character, purity of thought, clarity of purpose - everything that distinguishes a person of a great soul. It was Sedov. The other has the actual history of his journey. It was Brusilov. The drift of my "St. Mary" exactly repeats the drift of Brusilov's "St. Anna." The diary of the navigator Klimov, given in my novel, is completely based on the diary of the navigator “St. Anna", Albanov - one of the two surviving participants in this tragic expedition. However, only historical materials seemed insufficient to me. I knew that the artist and writer Nikolai Vasilievich Pinegin, a friend of Sedov, lives in Leningrad, one of those who, after his death, brought the schooner “St. Foka" to the mainland. We met - and Pinegin not only told me a lot of new things about Sedov, not only painted his face with extraordinary clarity, but explained the tragedy of his life - the life of a great explorer and traveler, who was not recognized and slandered by the reactionary sections of the society of tsarist Russia.
In the summer of 1941, I worked hard on the second volume, in which I wanted to make extensive use of the story of the famous pilot Levanevsky. The plan was already finally thought over, the materials were studied, the first chapters were written. The well-known polar explorer Wiese approved the content of the future "Arctic" chapters and told me a lot of interesting things about the work of the search parties. But the war broke out, and for a long time I had to abandon the very thought of ending the novel. I wrote front-line correspondence, military essays, stories. However, the hope of returning to the "Two Captains" must not have completely abandoned me, otherwise I would not have turned to the editor of Izvestia with a request to send me to the Northern Fleet. It was there, among the pilots and submariners of the Northern Fleet, that I realized in which direction I needed to work on the second volume of the novel. I realized that the appearance of the characters in my book would be vague, unclear if I did not talk about how they, along with everything the Soviet people endured the hardships of the war and won.
From books, from stories, from personal impressions, I knew what life in peacetime was like for those who, sparing no effort, selflessly worked to turn the Far North into a cheerful, hospitable land: discovered its innumerable riches beyond the Arctic Circle, built cities, wharves, mines, factories. Now, during the war, I saw how all this mighty energy was thrown into the defense of their native places, how the peaceful conquerors of the North became indomitable defenders of their conquests. It may be objected to me that the same thing has happened in every corner of our country. Of course, yes, but the harsh environment of the Far North gave this turn a special, deeply expressive character.
The unforgettable impressions of those years entered my novel only to a small extent, and when I leaf through my old notebooks, I want to start writing a long-planned book dedicated to the history of the Soviet sailor.
I re-read my letter and became convinced that I failed to answer the vast, overwhelming majority of your questions: who served as the prototype for Nikolai Antonovich? Where did I get Nina Kapitonovna from? To what extent is the love story of Sanya and Katya truthfully told?
To answer these questions, I should at least approximately weigh the extent to which the creation of this or that figure participated real life. But in relation to Nikolai Antonovich, for example, nothing will have to be weighed: only some features of his appearance are changed in my portrait, depicting exactly the director of that Moscow school, which I graduated in 1919. This also applies to Nina Kapitonovna, who until recently could be met on Sivtsev Vrazhek, in the same green sleeveless jacket and with the same wallet in her hand. As for the love of Sanya and Katya, I was told only the youthful period of this story. Taking advantage of the right of a novelist, I drew my own conclusions from this story - natural, it seemed to me, for the heroes of my book.
Here is a case that, although indirectly, still answers the question of whether the love story of Sanya and Katya is true.
One day I received a letter from Ordzhonikidze. “After reading your novel,” a certain Irina N. wrote to me, “I am convinced that you are the person whom I have been looking for for eighteen years now. I am convinced of this not only by the details of my life mentioned in the novel, which could be known only to you, but by the places and even the dates of our meetings - on Triumphalnaya Square, near Bolshoi Theater... "I replied that I had never met my correspondent either in Triumphal Square or at the Bolshoi Theater, and that I could only make inquiries with that polar pilot who served as a prototype for my hero. The war began, and this strange correspondence was cut short.
Another incident came to my mind in connection with a letter from Irina N., who involuntarily put a complete equal sign between literature and life. During the blockade of Leningrad, in the harsh, forever memorable days of the late autumn of 1941, the Leningrad Radio Committee asked me to speak on behalf of Sanya Grigoriev with an appeal to the Komsomol members of the Baltic. I objected that although in the person of Sanya Grigoriev he was brought out certain person, a bomber pilot who operated at that time on the Central Front, nevertheless, this is still a literary hero.
“We know that,” was the reply. “But that doesn't stop anything. Speak as if your last name literary hero can be found in the phone book.
I agreed. On behalf of Sanya Grigoriev, I wrote an appeal to the Komsomol members of Leningrad and the Baltic - and in response to the name of the "literary hero" letters rained down containing a promise to fight to the last drop of blood and breathing confidence in victory.
I would like to end my letter with the words that, at the request of Moscow schoolchildren, I tried to define main idea of his novel: “Where did my captains go? Look at the tracks of their sleigh in the dazzling white snow! This is the railroad track of science that looks ahead. Remember that there is nothing more beautiful than this hard way. Remember that the most powerful forces of the soul are patience, courage and love for one's country, for one's work.

For the first time, the first book of Veniamin Kaverin's novel "Two Captains" was published in the magazine "Bonfire", Nos. 8-12, 1938; Nos. 1, 2, 4-6, 9-12, 1939; Nos. 2-4, 1940. The novel was published in Kostra for almost two years in 16 issues (Nos. 11-12 in 1939 was doubled).
It should be noted that excerpts from the first book were published in many editions ("Spark", 1938, No. 11 (under the title "Father"); "Cutter", 1938, No. 7 (under the title "Mystery"); "Spark", 1938 , No. 35-36 (under the title "Boys"); "Leningradskaya Pravda", 1939, January 6 (under the title "Native Home"); "Change", 1939, No. 1 (under the title "First Love. From the novel "So be ""); "Cutter", 1939, No. 1 (under the name "Crocodile Tears"); "30 days", 1939, No. 2 (under the name "Katya"); "Krasnoflotets", 1939, No. 5 (under the name "Old Letters"); "Change", 1940, No. 4, "Literary Contemporary", 1939, No. 2, 5-6; 1940, No. 2, 3).
The first book edition was published in 1940, the first edition of the fully completed novel, already containing two volumes, was published in 1945.
It seems interesting to compare two versions of the novel - the pre-war version and the full version (in two books), completed by the writer in 1944.
Separately, it should be noted that the novel published in the Bonfire is a completely finished work. Coinciding with almost all storylines with the first book of the novel we know, this version also contains a description of the events that we know from the second book. In the place where the first book of editions of 1945 and subsequent years ends, there is a continuation in the “Bonfire”: the chapters “The Last Camp” (about the search for the expedition of I. L. Tatarinov), “Farewell Letters” (the last letters of the captain), “ Report” (report by Sanya Grigoriev at the Geographical Society in 1937), “Again in Ensk” (Sanya and Katya’s trip to Ensk in 1939 - actually combines two trips in 1939 and 1944, described in the second book) and an epilogue.
Thus, already in 1940, readers knew how the story would end. The expedition of Captain Tatarinov will be found back in 1936 (and not in 1942), because no one prevented Sana from organizing the search. The report in the Geographical Society will be read in 1937 (and not in 1944). We say goodbye to our heroes in Ensk in 1939 (the date can be determined from the mention of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition). It turns out that while reading the magazine version of the novel now, we find ourselves in a new, alternative world in which Sanya Grigoriev is 6 years ahead of his “double” from our version of the novel, where there is no war, where everyone remains alive. This is a very optimistic option.
It should be noted that upon completion of the publication of the first version of the novel, V. Kaverin intended to immediately begin writing the second book, where the main attention would be paid to Arctic adventures, but the outbreak of war then prevented the implementation of these plans.
Here is what V. Kaverin wrote: “I have been writing the novel for about five years. When the first volume was completed, the war began, and only at the beginning of the forty-fourth year did I manage to return to my work. In the summer of 1941, I worked hard on the second volume, in which I wanted to make extensive use of the story of the famous pilot Levanevsky. The plan was already finally thought over, the materials were studied, the first chapters were written. The well-known polar explorer Wiese approved the content of the future "Arctic" chapters and told me a lot of interesting things about the work of the search parties. But the war broke out, and for a long time I had to abandon the very thought of ending the novel. I wrote front-line correspondence, military essays, stories. However, the hope of returning to the "Two Captains" must not have completely abandoned me, otherwise I would not have turned to the editor of Izvestia with a request to send me to the Northern Fleet. It was there, among the pilots and submariners of the Northern Fleet, that I realized in which direction I needed to work on the second volume of the novel. I realized that the appearance of the heroes of my book would be vague, unclear if I did not tell about how they, together with the entire Soviet people, endured the hard trials of the war and won..

Let us dwell in more detail on the differences in the versions of the novel.

1. Features of the magazine version
Even a cursory acquaintance with the version of "Bonfire" makes it possible to make sure that the novel was printed at the same time as it was written. Hence the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the chapters as they were published, as well as the change in the spelling of names and titles.
In particular, this happened with the breakdown of the novel in parts. At the beginning of publication in No. 8 in 1938, there is no indication of parts, only chapter numbers. This continues until Chapter 32. After this, with the chapter "Four Years" begins the second part, also entitled "Part Two". There is no title for it in the magazine. It is easy to verify that in modern version The third part of the novel, Old Letters, begins with this chapter. Thus, in fact, the unspecified "first part" of the journal publication combines the first and second parts of the novel. Even more interesting with the next part, which becomes not the third, as the readers of "Bonfire" should have expected, but the fourth. She already has a name. The same as in the modern version - "North". Similarly with the fifth part - "Two Hearts".
It turns out that at the time of publication it was decided to split the first part into two and renumber the remaining parts.
However, it seems that with the publication of the fourth and fifth parts, not everything was so simple. In the sixth issue in 1939, after the completion of the publication of the second part, the editors published the following announcement: "Guys! In this issue we have finished printing the third part of V. Kaverin's novel "Two Captains". There remains the last, fourth part, which you will read in the following issues. But already now, having read most of the novel, you can judge whether it is interesting. Now the characters of the heroes and their relationship to each other are already clear, now it is already possible to guess about their future fate. Write us your opinion about the chapters you've read".
Very interesting! After all, the fourth part (Nos. 9-12, 1939) was not the last, the final fifth part was published in 1940 (Nos. 2-4).
Another interesting fact. Despite the fact that the magazine indicates that the abridged version is being printed, a comparison of the variants shows that there is practically no abbreviation. The text of both variants coincides verbatim for most of the text, with the exception of the peculiarities of the pre-war spelling. Moreover, in the magazine version there are episodes that did not fall into final version novel. The last four chapters are the exception. However, this is understandable - they were rewritten anew.
Here's how these chapters have changed. Chapter 13 of the fifth part of the magazine edition "The Last Camp" became chapter 1 of part 10 of the second book "Clue". Chapter 14 of the fifth part of the magazine edition "Farewell Letters" became chapter 4 of part 10. Chapter 15 of the fifth part of the magazine edition "Report" - chapter 8 of part 10. And, finally, the events of chapter 16 "Back in Ensk" of the fifth part of the magazine edition were partially described Chapter 1 of Part 7 "Five Years" and Chapter 10 of Part 10 "The Last".
The peculiarities of the journal publication can also explain the errors in the numbering of chapters. So we have two twelfth chapters in the second part (one twelfth chapter in the spirit of different numbers), as well as the absence of a chapter under No. 13 in the fourth part.
Another omission is that in the chapter "Farewell Letters" having numbered the first letter, the publishers left the rest of the letters without numbers.
In the magazine version, we can observe a change in the name of the city (first N-sk, and then Ensk), the names of heroes (first Kiren, and then Kiren) and individual words (for example, first "popindicular" and then "popendicular").

2. About the knife
In contrast to the version of the novel known to us, in "Bonfire" the protagonist loses not a repair knife, but a penknife near the corpse of a watchman ( "Secondly, the penknife is missing"– chapter 2). However, already in the next chapter this knife becomes a monter ( “Not he, but I lost this knife - an old monter's knife with a wooden handle”).
But in the chapter "The first date. The first insomnia ”the knife again turns out to be a penknife: “So it was when, as a boy of eight, I lost my penknife near the murdered watchman on the pontoon bridge”.

3. About the time of writing memoirs
Chapter 3 was originally “Now, remembering this 25 years later, I begin to think that the officials who sat in N-s presence behind high barriers in dimly lit halls would not have believed my story anyway”, became “Now, remembering this, I begin to think that the officials who sat in the Ens presence behind high barriers in dimly lit halls would not have believed my story anyway”.
Of course, 25 years is not an exact date, in 1938 - at the time of the publication of this chapter, 25 years have not yet passed from the events described.

4. About the travels of Sanya Grigoriev
In chapter 5, in the magazine version, the hero recalls: “I was on Aldan, I flew over the Bering Sea. From Fairbanks I returned to Moscow via Hawaii and Japan. I studied the coast between the Lena and the Yenisei, crossed the Taimyr Peninsula on reindeer.. In the new version of the novel, the hero has other routes: "I flew over Beringovo, over Barents Seas. I was in Spain. I studied the coast between the Lena and the Yenisei".

5. Related service
And this is one of the most interesting differences in the editions.
In chapter 10 of the magazine edition, Aunt Dasha reads a letter from Captain Tatarinov: “Here’s how much this sister service cost us.”. Attention: "related"! Of course, in the new version of the novel, the word "related" is not. This word immediately kills all the intrigue and makes the variant with von Vyshimirsky impossible. Probably later, when it was necessary to complicate the plot and bring von Vyshimirsky into action, Kaverin realized that the word “related” in the letter was clearly superfluous. As a result, when the same letter is quoted in The Bonfire in the chapters "Old Letters" and "Slander", the word "related" of their text disappears.

6. What is the name of Timoshkina
Interesting metamorphoses occurred Timoshkin (aka Gaer Kuliy). Initially, in the magazine version, his name was Ivan Petrovich. Subsequently, in the new version of the novel, he becomes Pyotr Ivanovich. Why is unclear.
Another detail related to Gaer Kuliy is his flight, described in chapter 13: “A bag on my shoulder - and for ten years this person disappeared from my life”. In the new version it became “A bag on my shoulder - and for many years this person disappeared from my life”.

7. "Fight and go"
The legendary lines of Alfred Tennyson: "To strive, to seek, to find and not yield" in the magazine version have two translations.
In chapter 14, the heroes take an oath with the classic . However, an alternative variant appears in the title of the next chapter: "Fight and go, find and don't give up". It is these words that Petka Sanka says in despair, throwing his hat on the snow. Exactly such words in the oath are recalled by Sanka in the chapter “Silver fifty kopecks”. But then twice in the text - after the meeting between Sanka and Petka in Moscow and again in the epilogue: "Fight and seek, find and never give up".

8. About the distributor of Narobraz
This description of the distributor from the magazine version is not in subsequent editions. “Have you ever seen Salvator Rosa's Bandit Camp in the Hermitage? Transfer the beggars and robbers from this picture to the former workshop of painting and sculpture at the Nikitsky Gates, and the Narobraz distributor will appear before you as if alive..

9. Lyadov and Alyabyev
In the magazine version, in the chapter "Nikolai Antonych" they protest "against the real school Alyabyeva". In the new version - Lyadov's school.

10. Quote and Quote
In the magazine version, the Quote is called the Quote.

11. Katya and Katya
An interesting detail. Almost everywhere in the first parts of the novel in "Bonfire" Sanya calls Katya Katya. Katya - very rarely. In the new version of the novel, "Katka" remained in some places, but in most places she is already referred to as "Katya".

12. Where did Marya Vasilievna study
In the 25th chapter of the magazine version of "The Tatarinovs" about Marya Vasilievna: "She went to medical school". This has since been slightly modified: “She studied at the medical faculty”.

13. About diseases
As is known from the novel, immediately after the Spanish flu, Sanya fell ill with meningitis. In the magazine version, the situation was much more dramatic; and the chapter itself was called "Three Diseases": “Do you think, perhaps, that once I woke up, I began to get better? Nothing happened. As soon as I recovered from the Spanish flu, I fell ill with pleurisy - and not just any, but purulent and bilateral. And again Ivan Ivanovich did not agree that my card was beaten. At a temperature of forty-one, with a pulse that fell every minute, I was put in a hot bath, and, to the surprise of all the patients, I did not die. Pricked and cut, I woke up a month and a half later, just at the moment when they fed me milk porridge, I recognized Ivan Ivanovich again, smiled at him, and by the evening lost consciousness again.
What I fell ill this time, this, it seems, could not be determined even by Ivan Ivanovich himself. I only know that he sat by my bed for hours, studying strange movements which I made with my eyes and hands. It was, it seems, some kind of rare form of meningitis - a terrible disease from which people recover very rarely. As you can see, I didn't die. On the contrary, in the end I came to my senses again and, although I lay for a long time with my eyes rolled up to the sky, I was already out of danger..

14. New meeting with the doctor
Details and dates that were in the magazine version are removed in the book version. It was: “It’s amazing how little he has changed in these four years.”, became: “It’s amazing how little he has changed over the years.”. It was: "In 1914, as a member of the Bolshevik Party, he was exiled to hard labor, and then to an eternal settlement", became: "As a member of the Bolshevik Party, he was exiled to hard labor, and then to an eternal settlement".

15. Ratings
"Poses" - "mediocre" magazine version become "failures" in the book.

16. Where is the doctor going?
In the magazine version: "To the Far North, to the Kola Peninsula". In the bookstore: "To the Far North, beyond the Arctic Circle".
Wherever the Far North is mentioned in the magazine version, the Far North is mentioned in the book edition.

17. How old was Katya in 1912?
Chapter "Katkin's father" (magazine version): “She was four years old, but she clearly remembers this day when her father left”. Chapter "Katya's father" (book version): “She was three years old, but she clearly remembers the day when her father left”.

18. After how many years did Sanka meet with Gaer Kuliy?
Chapter “Notes in the margins. Valkin rodents. Old friend "(magazine version): “For a minute I doubted - after all, I had not seen him for more than ten years”. Ten years - this period completely coincides with what was indicated earlier in chapter 13.
Now for the book version: “For a minute I doubted - after all, I had not seen him for more than eight years”.
How many years have passed - 10 or 8? Events in the variants of the novel begin to diverge in time.

19. How old is Sanya Grigorieva
Again, about the discrepancies in time.
Chapter "Ball" (magazine version):
"- How old is she?
- Fifteen".
Book version:
"- How old is she?
- Sixteen".

20. How much did a ticket to Ensk cost?
In the magazine version (chapter "I'm going to Ensk"): “I only had seventeen rubles, and the ticket cost exactly three times”. Book version: “I had only seventeen rubles, and the ticket cost exactly twice”.

21. Where is Sanya?
Was Sanya Grigorieva at school when her brother came to Ensk? Mystery. In the journal version we have: “Sanya has been at school for a long time”. In the bookstore: “Sanya has long been at the lesson of her artist”. And further, in "Bonfire": “She will come at three o’clock. She has six lessons today.". The book simply: "She will come at three o'clock".

22. Professor-zoologist
In the magazine version in the chapter "Valka": "It was the famous zoologist professor M."(it is also mentioned later in the chapter "Three years"). In book version: "It was the famous Professor R.".

23. Apartment or study?
What was located on the first floor of the school? Magazine version (chapter "Old friend"): “On the landing of the first floor, near Korablev’s apartment, stood a woman in a black fur coat, with a squirrel collar”. Book version: “On the landing of the first floor, near the geographical office, there was a woman in a fur coat with a squirrel collar”.

24. How many aunts?
Chapter "Everything could have been different" (magazine version): “For some reason, she said that she had two aunts living there who did not believe in God and were very proud of it, and that one of them graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Heidelberg”. In book version: "three aunts".

25. Who is Gogol's non-smoker?
Magazine version (chapter "Marya Vasilievna"): “I answered that in Gogol all the heroes are sky-smokers, except for the type of artist from the story “Portrait”, who nevertheless did something according to his ideas”. Book version: “I answered that in Gogol all the heroes are non-smokers, except for the type of Taras Bulba, who nevertheless did something according to his ideas”.

26. Summer 1928 or summer 1929?
In what year did Sanya enter flight school? When did he turn 19: in 1928 (as in the book) or in 1929 (as in The Bonfire)? Magazine version (chapter "Flight School"): "Summer 1929". Book version: "Summer 1928".
When the theoretical studies are over, there is no doubt - in both cases: “This is how this year passed - a difficult but wonderful year in Leningrad”, “A month passed, another, a third. We finished the theoretical studies and finally moved to the Corps airfield. It was a "big day" at the airfield - September 25, 1930".

27. Did Sanka see the professors?
In the magazine version, describing her sister's wedding, Sanya claims that "to tell the truth, for the first time in my life I saw a real professor". Of course it isn't. He saw it at the zoo "the famous professor-zoologist M.". Sanka's forgetfulness has been corrected in the book version: "I once saw a real professor at the Zoo".

28. Who translates to the North?
In August 1933, Sanya went to Moscow. In the magazine version: “Firstly, I had to stop by Osoaviakhim and talk about my transfer to the North, and secondly, I wanted to see Valya Zhukov and Korablev”. Book version: “Firstly, I had to stop by the Glavsevmorput and talk about my transfer to the North; secondly, I wanted to see Valya Zhukov and Korablev ”.
Osoaviakhim or Glavsevmorput? In "Bonfire": “I was received very politely at Osoaviakhim, then at the Office of the Civil Air Fleet”. In subsequent editions: “I was very politely received at the Main Northern Sea Route, then at the Office of the Civil Air Fleet”.

30. How many years did Sanya not communicate with Katya?
Magazine option: “Of course, I had absolutely no intention of calling Katya, especially since in these two years I only received greetings from her once - through Sanya, - and everything was long over and forgotten”. Book version: “Of course, I had absolutely no intention of calling Katya, especially since over the years I only received greetings from her once - through Sanya - and everything was long over and forgotten”.

31. Sal steppes or the Far North?
Where was Valya Zhukov in August 1933? Magazine version: “I was politely informed - from the laboratory of Professor M. that the assistant Zhukov was in the Salsky steppes and would hardly return to Moscow earlier than in six months”. Book version: “I was politely informed that assistant Zhukov was in the Far North and would hardly return to Moscow earlier than in six months.”. It is possible that the meeting in the North of Grigoriev and Zhukov was not originally planned by the author.

32. Where is this house?
Journal version (chapter "At the Doctor's in the Arctic"): "77"... It was not difficult to find this house, because the whole street consisted of only one house, and all the rest existed only in the imagination of the builders of the Arctic". In the book version, 77 is missing. Where did this house number come from? The doctor gave the address "Arctic, Kirov street, 24". Nowhere else is the 77th house number mentioned in the text of the novel.

33. Albanov's diaries
Unlike book publications, the magazine publication of the chapter “Reading the Diaries” contains a note indicating the source: “This chapter uses the diaries of the navigator V.I. Albanov, published in 1914, a member of the expedition of Lieutenant Brusilov on the schooner “St. Anna”, who left St. Petersburg in the summer of 1912 with the aim of going to Vladivostok and went missing in the Great Polar Basin”.

34. Who is Ivan Ilyich?
In the magazine version, an unknown character appears in the diaries of Klimov / Albanov: “I can’t get Ivan Ilyich out of my head - at that moment when, seeing us off, he said farewell speech and suddenly fell silent, clenching his teeth and looking around with a sort of helpless smile., “I observed the most severe form of scurvy in Ivan Ilyich, who had been ill with it for almost half a year and only by an inhuman effort of will forced himself to recover, that is, he simply did not allow himself to die”, “Thinking about Ivan Ilyich again”.
Of course, Tatarinov's name was Ivan Lvovich. In the book edition, this name and patronymic are indicated. Where did Ivan Ilyich come from in the Bonfire? Author's carelessness? Posting error? Or some other, unknown reason? Unclear…

35. Differences in dates and coordinates in diary entries
Magazine option: "It seems to me, recent times he was a little crazy on this earth. We saw her in August 1913.".
Book version: “It seems to me that lately he has been a little obsessed with this earth. We saw her in April 1913.".
Magazine option: "On ESO, the sea is ice-free to the horizon", book version: "On OSO, the sea is ice-free to the horizon".
Magazine option: “Ahead, on ENE, it seems to be very close, a rocky island is visible behind the solid ice”, book version: “Ahead, on ONO, it seems to be very close, a rocky island is visible behind the solid ice”.

36. When was Klimov's diary deciphered?
The log version contains an obvious error: “Late at night in March 1933, I copied the last page of this diary, the last one that I managed to make out”. In March 1933, Grigoriev was still at the Balashov school. Without a doubt, the correct variant in the book edition is: "in March 1935".
For the same reason, journal articles are not convincing: “It will soon be twenty years since the “childish”, “reckless” idea was expressed to leave the ship and go to the land “St. Mary"". The book version corresponds to 1935: “Twenty years have passed since the “childish”, “reckless” idea was expressed to leave the ship and go to the Land of Mary”.

37. Pavel Ivanovich or Pavel Petrovich
In the magazine version, Pavel Ivanovich shows the fox kitchen in the chapter “We seem to have met ...”, in the book version - Pavel Petrovich.

38. About Luri
In the book version, describing the events related to Wanokan, Sanya first constantly calls his flight mechanic by his first name - Sasha, and then only by his last name. It seems that the author came to the conclusion that two Sashas at once is too much, and with further publication of the chapters, as well as in the book version, all the same events are described with the mention of only the name of the flight engineer - Luri.

39. Six year old Nenets
There is an obvious typo in the 15th chapter "The Old Brass Hook" of the magazine edition. A sixty-year-old Nenets in the "Bonfire" became a six-year-old.

40. About melancholic mood
There is one funny moment in the first chapter of the fifth part. In the classic book version: “In hotels, I always get a melancholic mood”. The magazine was much more interesting: “In hotels, I am always drawn to drink, and the mood becomes melancholic”. Alas, the option of drinking in hotels has not stood the test of time.

41. Central Organ "Pravda"
Almost everywhere (with rare exceptions) the author calls central authority printing full title with the abbreviation TsO "Pravda" - as it was accepted at that time. In the book edition, only "Truth" remained.

42. 1913?
There is a clear error in the journal version of the chapter “I am reading the article “On a Forgotten Expedition””: “He came out in the autumn of 1913 on the schooner St. Maria", in order to go through the northern sea route, that is, by the same Glavsevmorput, in whose control we are". What is it: a typo, the consequences of editing or an author's mistake - it is not clear. Of course, we can only talk about the autumn of 1912, as indicated in the book edition.

43. Meeting with Ch.
Details of Sani's meeting in Moscow with legendary pilot Ch. in the magazine and book versions differ. By "Bonfire" "He will arrive from the airfield at eight o'clock", in the book: "at ten". From Pravda to Ch. "at least four kilometers"(in "Bonfire") and "at least six kilometers" in the book.

44. "From"?
In chapter 14 of the fifth part "Farewell Letters" of the magazine version, there is an obvious typo: "parallel to the movement of the Nansen "From"". In the book edition, the correct version is "Fram".

45. What was in the Report
There are significant differences in the Report of Captain Tatarinov in magazine and book versions. In "Bonfire": “In the latitude of 80°, a wide strait or gulf was found running from the point under the letter “C” in the north direction. Starting from the point under the letter "F", the coast turns sharply in the west-south-west direction ". In the book: “In the latitude of 80°, a wide strait or gulf was found running from the point under the letter C in the OSO direction. Starting from the point under the letter F, the coast turns sharply in the south-south-west direction ".

46. ​​The polar life is over
A curious detail from the alternative magazine ending of the novel. Sanya Grigoriev says goodbye to the North: “In 1937 I entered the Air Force Academy and since then the North and everything that was associated with it since childhood has moved away and become a memory. My polar life is over, and, contrary to Piri's assertion that once you look into the Arctic, you will strive there to the grave, I will hardly return to the North. Other things, other thoughts, another life".

47. Date of death of I. L. Tatarinov
In the epilogue in "Bonfire" there is an inscription on the monument: “Here lies the body of Captain Tatarinov, who made one of the most courageous journeys and died on his way back from Severnaya Zemlya discovered by him in May 1915”. Why May? In the chapter "Farewell Letters", the last report of Captain Tatarinov was written on June 18, 1915. Therefore, the only correct date is the date in the book version: "June 1915".

About illustrations
Ivan Kharkevich became the first illustrator of The Two Captains. It was with his drawings that the novel was printed in the Bonfire for two years. The exception is numbers 9 and 10 in 1939. These two issues contain drawings by Joseph Yetz. And then, with No. 11-12, the publication continued with drawings by I. Kharkevich. What caused this temporary replacement of the artist is unclear. It should be noted that Iosif Yetz illustrated other works by Kaverin, but his drawings for the first chapters of the fourth part do not at all correspond to the style of Kharkevich's drawings. Readers are used to seeing Sanya, Petka and Ivan Ivanovich as different.
There are 89 illustrations in the magazine: 82 by I. Kharkevich and 7 by I. Etz.
Of particular interest is the title illustration, published in each issue. Having carefully studied this drawing, it is easy to make sure that the episode depicted on it is not in the novel. An airplane flying over an ice-bound ship. What's this? The artist's fantasy, or "tech. task” of the author – after all, the novel had not yet been completed in 1938? One can only guess. It is even possible that the author later planned to tell readers about how the schooner "Saint Mary" was found. Why not?

Drawings by Ivan Kharkevich (Nos. 8-12, 1938; Nos. 1, 2, 4-6, 1939)

I went down to the flat bank and kindled the fire.

The watchman took a deep breath, as if in relief, and everything became quiet…

“Your honor, how is it,” said the father. - Why take me?

We went to the "presence" and carried the petition.

“Ear vulgaris,” he announced with pleasure, “ordinary ear.”

The old man was making glue.

We sat in the cathedral garden.

And now look, Aksinya Fedorovna, what your son is doing ...

Aunt Dasha was reading, looking at me...

- Not for sale! cried Aunt Dasha. - Get out!

In the evening he invited guests and delivered a speech.

- Who are you burying, boy? the old man asked me quietly.

He put on three tunics.

He took off his hat and threw it on the snow.

The man in the leather coat held my hand tightly.

- Look, Ivan Andreevich, what a sculpture!

A girl opened the kitchen door and appeared on the threshold.

I hit Stepa.

“Ivan Pavlovich, you are my friend and our friend,” said Nina Kapitonovna.

- Ivan Pavlich, open it, it's me!

Nikolai Antonych opened the door and threw me onto the stairs.

Everywhere I went with my goods, everywhere I stumbled upon this man.

Ivan Ivanovich was sitting by my bed.

I was surprised that the room was such a mess.

Tatyana and Olga did not take their eyes off him.

We drove to the other side of the rink.

- It's my business who I'm friends with!

It was Gaer Kuliy.

Valka did not take his eyes off his feet.

I was expecting Katya at Ruzheinaya.

Chamomile rummaged through my chest.

- Well, prodigal son he said and hugged me.

We stopped in front of a warrior from the time of Stefan Batory.

When we arrived at the platform, Katya was already standing on the platform of the car.

You will be expelled from school...

- I consider Romashov a scoundrel and I can prove it ...

I saw a long red-haired guy on the threshold.

- Valya! Is that you?

The Nenets plagues were visible in the distance.

Korablev greeted von Vyshimirsky.

Vyshimirsky's daughter talked about Romashov.

She began to straighten her headdress.

Korablev was working when I arrived.

Katya left this house forever.

Nikolai Antonich stopped at the threshold.

Under the tent we found the one we were looking for...

I read the captain's farewell letter.

He put down his suitcase and began to explain...

We met Aunt Dasha at the market.

Until late at night we sat at the table.

Any writer has the right to fiction. But where does it pass, the line, the invisible line between truth and fiction? Sometimes truth and fiction are so closely intertwined, as, for example, in Veniamin Kaverin's novel "Two Captains" - work of art, which most reliably resembles the real events of 1912 on the development of the Arctic.

Three Russian polar expeditions entered the North Ocean in 1912, all three ended tragically: the expedition of Rusanov V.A. died entirely, the expedition of Brusilov G.L. - almost entirely, and in the expedition of Sedov G. I three died, including the head of the expedition . In general, the 20s and 30s of the twentieth century were interesting for through voyages along the Northern Sea Route, the Chelyuskin epic, and Papanin heroes.

The young, but already well-known writer V. Kaverin became interested in all this, became interested in people, bright personalities, whose deeds and characters aroused only respect. He reads literature, memoirs, collections of documents; listens to the stories of N. V. Pinegin, a friend and member of the expedition of the brave polar explorer Sedov; sees finds made in the mid-thirties on nameless islands in the Kara Sea. Also during the Great Patriotic War he himself, being a correspondent for Izvestia, visited the North.

And in 1944, the novel "Two Captains" was published. The author was literally bombarded with questions about the prototypes of the main characters - Captain Tatarinov and Captain Grigoriev. “I took advantage of the history of two brave conquerors of the Far North. From one I took a courageous and clear character, purity of thought, clarity of purpose - everything that distinguishes a person of great soul. It was Sedov. The other has the actual history of his journey. It was Brusilov, ”Kaverin wrote about the prototypes of Captain Tatarinov in such an inspired way.

Let's try to figure out what is true, what is fiction, how the writer Kaverin managed to combine the realities of the expeditions of Sedov and Brusilov in the history of the expedition of Captain Tatarinov. And although the writer himself did not mention the name of Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov among the prototypes of his hero Captain Tatarinov, we take the liberty of asserting that the realities of Rusanov's expedition were also reflected in the novel "Two Captains". This will be discussed later.

Lieutenant Georgy Lvovich Brusilov, a hereditary sailor, in 1912 led an expedition on the steam-sailing schooner "Saint Anna". He intended to go with one wintering from St. Petersburg around Scandinavia and further along the Northern Sea Route to Vladivostok. But "Saint Anna" did not come to Vladivostok either a year later or in subsequent years. At west coast On the Yamal peninsula, the schooner was covered with ice, it began to drift north, to high latitudes. The ship failed to break out of ice captivity in the summer of 1913. During the longest drift in the history of Russian Arctic research (1,575 kilometers in a year and a half), the Brusilov expedition conducted meteorological observations, measured depths, studied currents and ice conditions in the northern part of the Kara Sea, which until then was completely unknown to science. Almost two years of ice captivity passed.

On April 23 (10), 1914, when the "Saint Anna" was at 830 north latitude and 60 0 east longitude, with the consent of Brusilov, eleven crew members left the schooner, led by navigator Valerian Ivanovich Albanov. The group hoped to get to the nearest coast, to Franz Josef Land, in order to deliver the expedition materials, which allowed scientists to characterize the underwater relief of the northern part of the Kara Sea and identify a meridional depression at the bottom about 500 kilometers long (the St. Anna trench). Only a few people reached the Franz Josef archipelago, but only two of them, Albanov himself and sailor A. Konrad, were lucky enough to escape. They were discovered quite by accident at Cape Flora by members of another Russian expedition under the command of G. Sedov (Sedov himself had already died by this time).

The schooner with G. Brusilov himself, sister of mercy E. Zhdanko, the first woman participating in the high-latitude drift, and eleven crew members disappeared without a trace.

The geographical result of the campaign of the navigator Albanov's group, which cost the lives of nine sailors, was the assertion that King Oscar and Peterman, previously noted on maps of the Earth, do not actually exist.

The drama of "Saint Anne" and her crew we are in in general terms we know thanks to Albanov's diary, which was published in 1917 under the title "South to Franz Josef Land". Why were only two saved? This is quite clear from the diary. The people in the group that left the schooner were very diverse: strong and weak, reckless and weak in spirit, disciplined and dishonorable. Those who had more chances survived. Albanov from the ship "Saint Anna" mail was transferred to the mainland. Albanov reached, but none of those to whom they were intended received the letters. Where did they go? It still remains a mystery.

And now let's turn to Kaverin's novel "Two Captains". Of the members of the expedition of Captain Tatarinov, only the long-distance navigator I. Klimov returned. Here is what he writes to Maria Vasilievna, the wife of Captain Tatarinov: “I hasten to inform you that Ivan Lvovich is alive and well. Four months ago, in accordance with his instructions, I left the schooner and with me thirteen members of the crew. I will not talk about our difficult journey to Franz Josef Land on floating ice. I can only say that from our group I alone safely (except for frostbitten legs) reached Cape Flora. The “Saint Foka” of the expedition of Lieutenant Sedov picked me up and delivered me to Arkhangelsk. “Saint Mary” froze in the Kara Sea and since October 1913 has been constantly moving north along with the polar ice. When we left, the schooner was at latitude 820 55'. She stands quietly in the middle of the ice field, or rather, she stood from the autumn of 1913 until my departure.

Almost twenty years later, in 1932, Sanya Grigoriev's senior friend, Dr. Ivan Ivanovich Pavlov, explains to Sanya that the group photograph of Captain Tatarinov's expedition members was “given by the navigator of the St. Mary, Ivan Dmitrievich Klimov. In 1914, he was brought to Arkhangelsk with frostbitten legs, and he died in the city hospital from blood poisoning. After Klimov's death, two notebooks and letters remained. The hospital sent these letters to the addresses, and Ivan Ivanych kept the notebooks and photographs. Persistent Sanya Grigoriev once told Nikolai Antonych Tatarinov, cousin of the missing captain Tatarinov, that he would find the expedition: "I don't believe that she disappeared without a trace."

And so, in 1935, Sanya Grigoriev, day after day, analyzes Klimov’s diaries, among which he finds an interesting map - a map of the drift of “Saint Mary” “from October 1912 to April 1914, and the drift was shown in those places where the so-called Earth lay. Peterman. “But who knows that this fact was first established by Captain Tatarinov on the schooner “Holy Mary”?” exclaims Sanya Grigoriev.

Captain Tatarinov had to go from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok. From the captain's letter to his wife: “It's been about two years since I sent you a letter through a telegraph expedition to Yugorsky Shar. We walked freely along the intended course, and since October 1913 we have been slowly moving north along with the polar ice. Thus, willy-nilly, we had to abandon the original intention to go to Vladivostok along the coast of Siberia. But there is no evil without good. A completely different thought now occupies me. I hope it does not seem to you - as to some of my companions - childish or reckless.

What is this thought? Sanya finds the answer to this in the notes of Captain Tatarinov: “The human mind was so absorbed in this task that its solution, despite the harsh grave that travelers mostly found there, became a continuous national competition. Almost all civilized countries took part in this competition, and only there were no Russians, and meanwhile, the Russian people's ardent impulses for the discovery of the North Pole manifested themselves even in the time of Lomonosov and have not faded to this day. Amundsen wants at all costs to leave Norway the honor of discovering the North Pole, and we will go this year and prove to the whole world that the Russians are capable of this feat. "(From a letter to the head of the Main Hydrographic Department, April 17, 1911). So, this is where Captain Tatarinov was aiming! "He wanted, like Nansen, to go as far north as possible with drifting ice, and then get to the pole on dogs."

Tatarinov's expedition failed. Even Amundsen said: "The success of any expedition depends entirely on its equipment." Really, " disservice"In the preparation and equipment of the Tatarinov expedition, his brother Nikolai Antonych provided. Tatarinov's expedition, for reasons of failure, was similar to the expedition of G. Ya. Sedov, who in 1912 tried to penetrate to the North Pole. After 352 days of ice captivity off the northwestern coast of Novaya Zemlya in August 1913, Sedov brought the ship "The Holy Great Martyr Fok" out of the bay and sent it to Franz Josef Land. The place of the second wintering "Foki" was Tikhaya Bay on Hooker Island. On February 2, 1914, despite complete exhaustion, Sedov, accompanied by two volunteer sailors A. Pustoshny and G. Linnik, headed for the Pole on three dog sleds. After a severe cold, he died on February 20 and was buried by his companions at Cape Auk (Rudolf Island). The expedition was poorly prepared. G. Sedov was not well acquainted with the history of the exploration of the Franz Josef Land archipelago, he did not know well the latest maps of the section of the ocean along which he was going to reach the North Pole. He himself had not carefully checked the equipment. His temperament, his desire to conquer the North Pole at all costs prevailed over the precise organization of the expedition. So these are important reasons for the outcome of the expedition and the tragic death of G. Sedov.

We have already mentioned the meetings between Kaverin and Pinegin. Nikolai Vasilievich Pinegin is not only an artist and writer, but also an explorer of the Arctic. During the last expedition of Sedov in 1912, Pinegin took the first documentary about the Arctic, the footage of which, together with the artist’s personal recollections, helped Kaverin to more vividly present the picture of the events of that time.

Let's return to Kaverin's novel. From a letter from Captain Tatarinov to his wife: “I am also writing to you about our discovery: there are no lands to the north of the Taimyr Peninsula on the maps. Meanwhile, being at latitude 790 35', east of Greenwich, we noticed a sharp silvery strip, slightly convex, coming from the very horizon. I am convinced that this is the earth Until I called it by your name. Sanya Grigoriev finds out that it was Severnaya Zemlya, discovered in 1913 by Lieutenant B. A. Vilkitsky.

After the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, Russia needed to have its own way of escorting ships to the Great Ocean so as not to depend on the Suez or other channels of warm countries. The authorities decided to create a Hydrographic Expedition and carefully survey the least difficult section from the Bering Strait to the mouth of the Lena, so that they could go from east to west, from Vladivostok to Arkhangelsk or St. Petersburg. At first, A. I. Vilkitsky was the head of the expedition, and after his death, since 1913, his son, Boris Andreevich Vilkitsky. It was he who, in the navigation of 1913, dispelled the legend of the existence of Sannikov Land, but discovered a new archipelago. On August 21 (September 3), 1913, a huge archipelago covered with eternal snow was seen north of Cape Chelyuskin. Consequently, from Cape Chelyuskin to the north is not an open ocean, but a strait, later called the B. Vilkitsky Strait. The archipelago was originally named the Land of Emperor Nicholas 11. It has been called Severnaya Zemlya since 1926.

In March 1935, pilot Alexander Grigoriev, having made an emergency landing on the Taimyr Peninsula, accidentally discovered an old brass hook, green with time, with the inscription "Schooner" Holy Mary ". Nenets Ivan Vylko explains that local residents found a boat with a hook and a man on the coast of Taimyr, the closest coast to Severnaya Zemlya. By the way, there is reason to believe that it was no coincidence that the author of the novel gave the Nenets hero the surname Vylko. A close friend of the Arctic explorer Rusanov, a member of his 1911 expedition, was the Nenets artist Vylko Ilya Konstantinovich, who later became the chairman of the council of Novaya Zemlya (“President of Novaya Zemlya”).

Vladimir Alexandrovich Rusanov was a polar geologist and navigator. His last expedition on the Hercules, a motor-sailing ship, entered the Arctic Ocean in 1912. The expedition reached the Svalbard archipelago and discovered four new coal deposits there. Rusanov then made an attempt to pass through the Northeast Passage. Having reached Cape Desire on Novaya Zemlya, the expedition went missing.

Where the Hercules died is not exactly known. But it is known that the expedition not only sailed, but also walked for some part, because the Hercules almost certainly died, as evidenced by objects found in the mid-30s on the islands near the Taimyr coast. In 1934, on one of the islands, hydrographers discovered a wooden pole with the inscription "Hercules" -1913. Traces of the expedition were found in the Minin skerries off the western coast of the Taimyr Peninsula and on Bolshevik Island (Severnaya Zemlya). And in the seventies, the search for Rusanov's expedition was conducted by the expedition of the newspaper " TVNZ". Two gaffs were found in the same area, as if to confirm the intuitive guess of the writer Kaverin. According to experts, they belonged to the “Rusanovites”.

Captain Alexander Grigoriev, following his motto "Fight and seek, find and not give up", in 1942 nevertheless found the expedition of Captain Tatarinov, or rather, what was left of it. He calculated the path that Captain Tatarinov had to take, if we consider it indisputable that he returned to Severnaya Zemlya, which he called "Mary's Land": from 790 35 latitude, between the 86th and 87th meridians, to the Russian Islands and to the Nordenskiöld archipelago. Then, probably after many wanderings, from Cape Sterlegov to the mouth of the Pyasina, where the old Nenets Vylko found a boat on a sled. Then to the Yenisei, because the Yenisei was the only hope for Tatarinov to meet people and help. He walked along the seaward side of the coastal islands, if possible - directly Sanya found the last camp of Captain Tatarinov, found his farewell letters, photographic films, found his remainsCaptain Grigoriev conveyed to the people the farewell words of Captain Tatarinov: if they didn’t help me, but at least didn’t interfere. What to do? One consolation is that by my labors new vast lands have been discovered and annexed to Russia.

At the end of the novel we read: “The ships entering the Yenisei Bay from afar see the grave of Captain Tatarinov. They pass by her with their flags at half mast, and the mourning salute rumbles from the cannons, and a long echo rolls without ceasing.

The grave was built of white stone, and it sparkles dazzlingly under the rays of the never-setting polar sun.

At the height of human growth, the following words are carved:

“Here lies the body of Captain I. L. Tatarinov, who made one of the most courageous journeys and died on his way back from Severnaya Zemlya discovered by him in June 1915. Fight and seek, find and not give up!

Reading these lines of Kaverin's novel, one involuntarily recalls the obelisk erected in 1912 in the eternal snows of Antarctica in honor of Robert Scott and his four comrades. It has a tombstone on it. And the final words of the poem "Ulysses" by Alfred Tennyson, a classic of British poetry of the 19th century: "To strive, to seek, to find and not yield" (which in English means: "Struggle and seek, find and not give up!"). Much later, with the publication of Veniamin Kaverin's novel "Two Captains", these very words became the life motto of millions of readers, a loud appeal for Soviet polar explorers of different generations.

Probably, the literary critic N. Likhacheva was wrong when she attacked The Two Captains when the novel had not yet been fully published. After all, the image of Captain Tatarinov is generalized, collective, fictional. The right to fiction gives the author an artistic style, not a scientific one. Best Features characters of Arctic explorers, as well as mistakes, miscalculations, historical realities of the expeditions of Brusilov, Sedov, Rusanov - all this is connected with Kaverin's favorite hero.

And Sanya Grigoriev, like Captain Tatarinov, is an artistic fiction of the writer. But this hero also has its prototypes. One of them is professor-geneticist M.I. Lobashov.

In 1936, in a sanatorium near Leningrad, Kaverin met the silent, always inwardly concentrated young scientist Lobashov. “He was a man in whom ardor was combined with straightforwardness, and perseverance with amazing definiteness of purpose. He knew how to succeed in any business. A clear mind and a capacity for deep feeling were visible in his every judgment. In everything, the character traits of Sani Grigoriev are guessed. Yes, and many of the specific circumstances of Sanya's life were directly borrowed by the author from Lobashov's biography. These are, for example, Sanya's muteness, the death of his father, homelessness, the school-commune of the 20s, types of teachers and students, falling in love with the daughter of a school teacher. Talking about the history of the creation of "Two Captains", Kaverin noticed that, unlike the parents, sister, comrades of the hero, whom the prototype of Sanya told about, only separate strokes were outlined in the teacher Korablev, so that the image of the teacher was completely created by the writer.

Lobashov, who became the prototype of Sanya Grigoriev, who told the writer about his life, immediately aroused the active interest of Kaverin, who decided not to give free rein to his imagination, but to follow the story he heard. But in order for the hero's life to be perceived naturally and vividly, he must be in conditions personally known to the writer. And unlike the prototype, born on the Volga, and graduated from school in Tashkent, Sanya was born in Ensk (Pskov), and graduated from school in Moscow, and she absorbed a lot of what happened at the school where Kaverin studied. And the state of Sanya the young man also turned out to be close to the writer. He was not an orphanage, but he recalled the Moscow period of his life: “A sixteen-year-old boy, I was left completely alone in huge, hungry and deserted Moscow. And, of course, I had to spend a lot of energy and will not to get confused.

And the love for Katya, which Sanya carries through his whole life, is not invented or embellished by the author; Kaverin is here next to his hero: having married a twenty-year-old youth to Lidochka Tynyanov, he remained true to his love forever. And how much in common are the moods of Veniamin Alexandrovich and Sanya Grigoriev when they write to their wives from the front, when they are looking for them, taken from besieged Leningrad. And Sanya is fighting in the North also because Kaverin was a TASS military commissar, and then Izvestia was in the Northern Fleet and knew firsthand both Murmansk and Polyarnoye, and the specifics of the war in the Far North, and its people.

Another person who was well acquainted with aviation and knew the North very well, a talented pilot S. L. Klebanov, a wonderful, honest man, whose advice in the study of aviation by the author was invaluable, helped Sana "fit in" with the life and life of polar pilots. From the biography of Klebanov, the story of a flight to the remote camp of Vanokan entered the life of Sanya Grigoriev, when a catastrophe broke out on the way.

In general, according to Kaverin, both prototypes of Sanya Grigoriev resembled each other not only by their stubbornness of character and extraordinary determination. Klebanov even outwardly resembled Lobashov - short, dense, stocky.

The artist's great skill lies in creating such a portrait in which everything that is his own and everything that is not his will become his own, deeply original, individual. And this, in our opinion, was succeeded by the writer Kaverin.

Kaverin filled the image of Sanya Grigoriev with his personality, his life code, his writer's credo: "Be honest, do not pretend, try to tell the truth and remain yourself in the most difficult circumstances." Veniamin Alexandrovich could be mistaken, but he always remained a man of honor. And the hero of the writer Sanya Grigoriev is a man of his word, honor.

Kaverin has a remarkable property: he gives the heroes not only his own impressions, but also his habits, and relatives and friends. And this cute touch makes the characters closer to the reader. With the desire of his older brother Sasha to cultivate the power of sight, looking for a long time at the black circle painted on the ceiling, the writer endowed Valya Zhukov in the novel. Dr. Ivan Ivanovich, during a conversation, suddenly throws a chair to the interlocutor, which must certainly be caught - this was not invented by Veniamin Alexandrovich: K. I. Chukovsky liked to talk so much.

The hero of the novel "Two Captains" Sanya Grigoriev lived his own unique life. Readers seriously believed in him. And for more than sixty years, this image has been understandable and close to readers of several generations. Readers bow before his personal qualities of character: will power, thirst for knowledge and search, loyalty to the given word, selflessness, perseverance in achieving the goal, love for the motherland and love for his work - all that helped Sanya to solve the mystery of Tatarinov's expedition.

In our opinion, Veniamin Kaverin managed to create a work in which the realities of the real expeditions of Brusilov, Sedov, Rusanov and the fictional expedition of Captain Tatarinov were skillfully intertwined. He also managed to create images of people seeking, resolute, courageous, such as Captain Tatarinov and Captain Grigoriev.