V.Zherdeva:

April 19th marked the 100th birthday anniversary of a notable Russian writer Veniamin Kaverin, whose name became a symbol of excellent literary mastery, unique decency and polymathy. His novels are not as worldwide known as novels by Russian maitres Feydor Dostoevsky or Leo Tolstoy, but still he is a prominent figure in the national literature.

Regarding the ways of the development of the Russian literature, Veniamin Kaverin said: "I see literature in which young and elderly people are not tired to teach and study, in which critics analyze literary works from a writer's position and refuse to measure anything by their own yardstick. They do remember the words by Pushkin that a work of art should be judged by laws that it has recognized for itself. I see literature in which labeling is disgraceful and prosecuted; literature that does not leg behind the life, but just the contrary, leads it.

His literary biography could be described with only one word - working. Veniamin Kaverin was writing much and fruitfully, most of his works that he wrote over 60 years of writer's activity, were based on his own experience.

His surname Kaverin is an artistic pen-name. The real surname is Zilber. When he was a young man he was greatly influenced by his brother Lev, the famous scientist microbiologist and immunologist, academician of the Academy of medical sciences of the USSR and one of the authors of the virus theory of cancer. Moreover, his brother's professional activity was a basis for some of Kaverin's works. For instance, in a novel "An Open Book" one of the characters - Dmitry L'vov offers an paradoxical for that time idea of the virus nature of cancerous tumors.

The first book by Kaverin "Masters and Apprentices" that consisted of six stories was published in 1923 and praised by the Russian classical writer Maxim Gorky who was patronizing young writers. Gorky described Kaverin as an extremely original writer and said to him: "I am writing to you not as a "teacher", I always hated this role, but I'm writing to you as a friend and literary man who naturally expect your talent to worthily express itself." Kaverin remembered this praise and after he became a well-known writer, he also patronized young literary men.

Kaverin has never been a "cabinet" writer, far from his contemporaries. He was tackling many issues of morals that the society was reoccupied with, in such his novels as "A Double Portrait". It speaks of a conflict between an eminent scientist and biologist , professor Zenkevich and his opponent and adventurer. In the 1940-1950s the Soviet biology was in a crisis, numerous advanced trends were called false and prominent scientists were not allowed working. In the novel Kaverin went deeper in the collisions of Soviet scientists' life and activity.

Most of his novels' characters are talented and bright but, at the same time, ordinary people. They did not belong to the top of society, were not prominent scientists or public's darlings. They were ordinary workers, not prophets of truth. Kaverin was describing both their virtues and shortcomings. They were "new people" that had to built up communist future in Russia.

One of the most significant novels by Kaverin was "Two Captains". The novel's title is largely metaphorical and brings together historically distant events and lives of two main characters - captain Tatarinov who was living before the Revolution and the Soviet pilot Grigoriev.

Captain Tatarinov (The Russian discoverers of Arctic Regions Sedov and Brusilov were his foretype) devoted his life to science and Motherland discovering the North. He died together with his Polar expedition, was forgotten and regarded as guilty of the tragedy. Alexander Grigoriev who accidentally learned the disaster's details devoted his life to searches of truth and redeeming captain Tatarinov's honest name.

The novel ends with a symbolic epilogue - the description of an obelisk put up on an Arctic cliff in commemoration of Tatarinov. This is also a monument to Grigoriev because there is a inscription of a promise that Grigoriev made in childhood and became a slogan of a whole generation of young people - "To struggle and search, to find and not weaken".

The novel "Two Captain" was written from 1936 to 1944 and time-tested. It is still read both by teenagers and adults. Two feature films based on the novel were made. Now there is musical play "Nord-Ost" on the Moscow stage and it is also based on the novel by Kaverin. It is quite curious that several days ago a team of the play's actors and organizers has an expedition to in the North Pole and put up a flag there. Then they listened to some fragment of their musical.

Werken:

Het einde van Chaza (1925)

Negen tienden van het lot (1926)

De onruststoker (1928)

De kunstenaar is onbekend (1931)

De vervulling van verlangens (1935)

Twee kapiteins (1939)

Het open boek (3 dln. 1949-57).

Uitgave:

Verzamelde werken (6 dln. 1963-66)