"Armored Train No. 14-69": history of creation, author, brief history and analysis of the play

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The play "Armored train 14-69" was written by the Soviet writer Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Ivanov in 1927. It was a dramatization of the story of the same name by this author, written and published in the fifth issue of the Krasnaya Nov magazine six years earlier. From the moment of its appearance, this story has become a landmark event in Soviet literature. What was the impetus for creating the most famous theatrical production based on it?

History of the creation of the play

In the first years of Soviet power, the Proletkult organization, which advocated the development of proletarian culture and the complete rejection of the so-called “bourgeois” culture, repeatedly put forward a demand to close the Art Theater, allegedly contradicting the proletarian ideology and not corresponding to the class interests of the hegemon of the revolution. To protect themselves from such accusations, the theater management decided to stage an ultra-revolutionary play aboutmodern heroes and in full accordance with the ideology of the ruling class. Moreover, the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution was approaching. However, no suitable play could be found.

Then the leaders of the Art Theater invited young talented writers and invited each to write a major episode on the theme of the revolution. It was planned to include the most successful of them in the festive performance. Among those who responded to this proposal was Vsevolod Ivanov. He staged for the theater an episode from his story "Armored Train 14-69", which was called "On the Bell Tower".

K. S. Stanislavsky did not like the idea of a performance consisting of disparate episodes from the very beginning. Having familiarized themselves with the proposed passage by Ivanov, the management of the Moscow Art Theater invited him to stage his story in full. Ivanov enthusiastically took up this work. Thus, the Moscow Art Theater initiated the creation of one of the most powerful Soviet revolutionary plays.

History of writing the story

In his memoirs, Vsevolod Ivanov tells about the events that prompted him to create the story “Armored Train 14-69”.

In the early twenties, he quite often spoke to the Red Army with lectures on the work of Russian writers, in particular, Leo Tolstoy. Once he happened to give such a lecture to the crew of an armored train. At the end of the lecture, the fighters began to discuss not the work of Tolstoy, but how their armored train operated during the Civil War. This discussion is alsomemories of V. Ivanov himself about the events described in the Siberian divisional newspaper, where he worked earlier, became the impetus for writing the story "Armored Train 14-69".

A newspaper article described how a detachment of Siberian partisans, armed only with rifles and hunting Berdans, captured a white armored train equipped with guns, machine guns, grenades and driven by an experienced team. The details of this capture inspired the writer to create a story about these heroic events.

A few words about the author

These events were close to Vsevolod Ivanov, who took an active part in revolutionary activities and the Civil War. He was born in Kazakhstan, where his Polish mother was exiled. His father was a mine worker who later became a village teacher.

The early death of his father did not allow Ivanov to finish school. I had to make a living on my own. He spent his youth in Western Siberia, having mastered many professions, including publishing his stories in newspapers.

Vsevolod Ivanov began his revolutionary activities as a Socialist-Revolutionary, Menshevik, later joined the Bolshevik Party. In the early twenties, he went to Petrograd on behalf of the newspaper Sovetskaya Sibir. There he meets M. Gorky and begins to publish in the Krasnaya Nov magazine.

Subsequently, Vsevolod Ivanov became a member of the Writers' Union of the USSR, during the Great Patriotic War he was a front-line correspondent.

What is the play about?

Whattakes place in the play "Armored Train 14-69"? The summary already makes it possible to clearly understand the intensity and strength of the class struggle in Russia during the Civil War.

The only armored train numbered 14-69 left by the Whites in the Far East guards a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The near end of the Directory is obvious. An uprising of the Bolsheviks is brewing, the Japanese are in charge in Vladivostok and its environs, the peasants are partisans in the taiga. Captain Nezelasov, commander of the armored train 14-69, must deliver reinforcements to Vladivostok to suppress the impending uprising. His family remains in the city, although many of his associates have already safely gone abroad. The captain understands the hopelessness of the enterprise, but, nevertheless, after saying goodbye to his wife, he sets off on his last flight with his assistant, Ensign Obab.

Far Eastern peasants are not eager to give their lives for Soviet power. However, the arrival of a Japanese detachment, burning villages and killing civilians, pushes them into the forest, to the red partisans, who are faced with the task of stopping the white armored train, preventing it from entering Vladivostok. Awareness of the importance of this task, a patriotic upsurge and an ideological breakthrough in consciousness allow people armed only with hunting rifles to stop the armored monster. For this purpose, the life of a man who agreed to lie on the rails had to be sacrificed. The engineer leaned out of the engine for a second to look at the body, and was shot dead by the partisans. Next, the partisans dismantle the rails aroundstopped armored train and capture it. As a result, an armored train under a red flag is sent to Vladivostok, saving the Bolshevik uprising.

Characters

In the play "Armored Train 14-69" the analysis of the characters should start with the peasant Nikita Yegorovich Vershinin. At first, this powerful man does not want to interfere in military and political games. He just wants to live, following the eternal, simple and measured peasant way of life. When the revolutionary Znobov asks Vershinin to hide the underground Bolshevik Peklevanov in the taiga, he at first flatly refuses to do so. However, the attack of the Japanese detachment on his native village and the death of his own children push Vershinin onto the path of guerrilla warfare. It is he who will become the commander of the heroic partisan detachment, who stopped the armored train almost with his bare hands.

Revolutionary Peklevanov does not look like an "inflexible" "reinforced concrete" Bolshevik without fear and reproach. Clumsy, short-sighted, with an intelligent beard, Peklevanov is calm and laconic. And, perhaps, precisely because of this, he managed to pick up the key to Vershinin's soul and convince him of the need to join the struggle on the side of the Bolsheviks.

Another bright character in the play is Vaska Okorok, secretary of the partisan headquarters, Vershinin's right hand. He is young, energetic, active and perceives the revolution as a holiday. It was he who wanted to lie down on the rails to stop the armored train. However, this mission is voluntarily taken on by the Chinese peasant Sin-Bing-U, and Vershinin orders Hamreturn.

Opposing Forces

The main conflict of the play "Armored Train 14-69", the content of which cannot be fully disclosed without examining the images of the White Guards, is precisely their opposition, their antagonism with the masses. Of course, in his play "Armored Train 14-69" Ivanov tried to portray them in the most unattractive form. However, despite all the attempts of the author to denigrate the image of the “class enemy”, using the entire set of ideological clichés for this, the modern viewer involuntarily imbued with respect for Captain Nezelasov and Ensign Obab, who, despite the hopelessness of the situation, which both clearly understand, all they go to do their duty. And they carry it out to the end. When the partisans, who stormed the armored train, burst into the headquarters car, Captain Nezelasov poured fire on everyone from a machine gun and, in the end, died from a merciful bullet. Heroism - it remains heroism, regardless of who shows it - red or white.

First staging of the play

The team of the Art Theater at an accelerated pace prepared a performance for the tenth anniversary of October. It employed the famous Mkhatovites Kachalov and Knipper-Chekhova, as well as talented youth - Khmelev, Batalov, Kedrov, Tarasova. The production was directed by Sudakov and Litovtsev, the general direction was provided by Stanislavsky.

Tickets for this performance were not on sale, they were distributed among Moscow plants and factories. This event caused a great resonance. For the Moscow Art Theater, this was not just a premiere. The theater passed an exam, according to the results of whichdetermined his future. And it must be admitted that he withstood it with honor. The performance was a resounding success. It was a victory.

After the premiere, Lunacharsky called the play a triumph. One of the main acting achievements in this production was the role of Peklevanov performed by Khmelev. Having played the image of the Bolshevik Peklevanov, the leader of the uprising, without excessive pathos and monumentality, accepted at that time, Khmelev managed to achieve an amazing impact of this image on the viewer.

The stage fate of the play

After the sensational premiere at the Moscow Art Theater, the play "Armored Train 14-69" became very popular. All the theaters of the country sought to stage it. The triumphal procession of the play across the expanses of a vast country began. It was staged in Odessa and Baku, Yaroslavl and Yerevan, Tashkent and Minsk, Kyiv, Kazan, Krasnoyarsk. The play has gone through countless amateur productions.

In the post-war years, the play was not staged so often. It was made into a radio play in the mid-seventies.

Abroad, the play "Armored Train 14-69" was staged by theaters in Paris, Sydney, Sofia, Wroclaw and Warsaw, Leipzig, Belgrade and Bucharest.