Valentin Petrovich Katayev

Valentin Petrovich Katayev , 1897-1986, Russian novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. Katayev's novels portray almost the entire range of Soviet life, from the period of the New Economic Policy ( The Embezzlers, 1926, tr. 1929) through the first Five-Year Plan ( Time, Forward!, 1932, tr. 1933) to World War II ( The Wife, 1944, tr. 1946). In Peace Is Where the Tempests Blow (1936, tr. 1937) he described a pleasant childhood in Odessa against the background of the Revolution of 1905. Katayev's comedies became very popular, especially Squaring the Circle (1928, tr. 1934), a farce about Soviet marriage and housing conditions. His later works include The Holy Well (1966, tr. 1967) and a volume of reminiscences, Grass of Oblivion (1967, tr. 1969). His younger brother, Yevgeny, collaborating with Ilya Ilf under the name Yevgeny Petrovich Petrov .

Katayev, Valentin Petrovich (1897–1986), Soviet dramatist. His most successful play was Squaring the Circle (1928), a comedy about two ill-assorted couples compelled to live in one room because of the housing shortage who finally change partners. First produced at the Moscow Art Theatre, it was seen in New York in 1935 (London, 1938). Katayev wrote a number of other comedies, including The Primrose Path (1934), which the Federal Theatre Project produced in New York in 1939, and an amusing trifle called The Blue Scarf (1943). Among his more serious plays are Lone White Sail (1937), adapted from his novel, which, in a revised version, had a successful run in 1951; I, Son of the Working People (1938); a play for children, Son of the Regiment (1946); and All Power to the Soviets (1954), the last two being based on his own novels. Violet (1974) deals with the moral problems of those who lived through Stalin's rule.