V. P. Kataev’s comedy Time, forward!: The artistic image of the main character in the context of the variants of the work

The article studies the variants of Valentin Kataev’s comedy Time, forward! in order to identify edits that influenced the author’s expression and the reader’s perception of the image of the main character. While researching comedy variants, it was found that the authors interested in Kataev’s work avoided the comedy Time, forward!. In our opinion, knowing about the corrections of the text of the play, Soviet critics, guided by political correctness, did not dare to engage in public polemics and literary-critical discussion around the famous writer. In the post-Soviet period, Kataev’s dramaturgy lost its relevance, did not kindle the interest of specialists. This study was conducted on the material of the comedy editions published during the author’s lifetime. Its relevance is justified by establishing the originality of the image of the main character of the main version of the work, reflecting the characters, emotions and feelings of people of its era. As part of the sample analysis it was found that by making corrections to the climactic scenes of the ending of the 1934 play, the author leaves the plot, the sequence of scenes, the system of images, the general idea of the work unchanged. During the comparison of the variants of the work, the edits made by the author to the two scenes of the finale were revealed. These scenes, connecting with the preceding scene, create a single plot and ideological and emotional node of the climax of the work. The image of the characters and the hero acquire a completely different appearance. With the appearance of comedy in public and up to the present, it has been believed that the image of the main character is a passionate and uncompromising fighter for the communist attitude to work. The edits revealed in the study in the version of the comedy of 1934, without dismissing the hero’s struggle for the result, a high pace in the socialist competition, indicate self-assertion of personality: high morality, friendly feelings. The image of the communist hero, which did not correspond to the literary and political canon, caused acute criticism and was the reason for suppressing the work. The results of the study give ground to consider the version of the play Time, forward! of 1934, a valuable source reflecting the characters, emotions and feelings of the heroes of its time.    

V. P. Kataev, L. D. Margulies, time, forward!, Soviet dramaturgy, USSR, socio-heroic comedy