The play “Armored Train 14-69” was written by the Soviet writer Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Ivanov in 1927. It was a re-enactment of the novel of the same name by this author, written and published in the fifth issue of Krasnaya Nov magazine six years earlier. Since its inception, this story has become a landmark event in Soviet literature. What was the impetus for the creation on its basis of the famous theatrical production?
The story 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, which allegedly contradicted proletarian ideology and did not correspond to the class interests of the hegemon of revolution. To protect themselves from such accusations, the theater management decided to stage an ultra-revolutionary play on the stage that tells about modern heroes and is in full accordance with the ideology of the ruling class. Moreover, the anniversary, tenth anniversary of the October Revolution was approaching. However, a suitable play was never found.
Then the leaders of the Art Theater invited talented young writers and invited everyone 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 "At the Belfry."
KS Stanislavsky did not like the idea of ​​a performance consisting of isolated episodes from the very beginning. After reviewing the proposed passage of Ivanov, the Moscow Art Theater invited him to stage his story completely. 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 a story
In his memoirs, Vsevolod Ivanov talks about the events that prompted him to create the story Armored Train 14-69.
In the early twenties, he often spoke to the Red Army with lectures on the work of Russian writers, in particular, Leo Tolstoy. Once he had a chance to give such a lecture to an armored train team. At the end of the lecture, the fighters began to discuss not Tolstoy’s work, but how their armored train acted during the Civil War. This discussion, as well as the memoirs 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”.
The newspaper article described how a detachment of Siberian partisans, armed only with rifles and hunting reeds, seized an armored white armored train equipped with guns, machine guns, grenades and controlled 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 themselves 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 rural teacher.
The early death of his father did not allow Ivanov to graduate from school. I had to earn 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 Social Revolutionary, a Menshevik, and 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 be published in the Krasnaya Nov magazine.
Subsequently, Vsevolod Ivanov became a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, during the Great Patriotic War he was a front-line correspondent.
What is the play about?
What happens 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, which remained with the whites in the Far East, guards a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The close end of the Directory is obvious. The rebellion of the Bolsheviks is brewing, the Japanese are bossing 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 rebellion. He still has a family in the city, although many of his associates have already safely gone abroad. The captain understands the entire hopelessness of the enterprise, but, nevertheless, having said 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 the 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, not to let it go to Vladivostok. Awareness of the importance of this task, a patriotic upsurge and an ideological breakthrough in the mind allow people armed only with hunting rifles to stop the armored monster. For this purpose, I had to sacrifice the life of a man who agreed to lie on the rails. The engineer leaned out of the engine for a second to look at the body, and was shot dead by the partisans. Then the partisans dismantle the rails around the stopped armored train and capture it. As a result, an armored train flying the red flag goes to Vladivostok, saving the Bolshevik uprising.
Characters
In the play “Armored Train 14-69”, the analysis of the characters should begin with the peasant Nikita Egorovich Vershinin. At first, this powerful man does not want to interfere in military and political games. He wants to just live, following the eternal, simple and measured peasant way of life. When the revolutionary Znobov asks Vershinin to hide the Bolshevik underground worker Peklevanov on the taiga’s taiga, he at first flatly refuses to do this. However, the attack of the Japanese detachment on his native village and the death of his own children, push Vershinin on the path of guerrilla warfare. He will become the commander of the heroic partisan detachment, which stopped the armored train with almost bare hands.
The revolutionary Peklevanov does not look like an “unbending” “reinforced concrete” Bolshevik without fear and reproach. Clumsy, shortsighted, with an intellectual beard, Peklevanov is calm and laconic. And, perhaps, precisely because of this, he managed to pick up a 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. He wanted to lie on the rails to stop the armored train. However, the Chinese peasant Sin-Bin-Wu voluntarily takes on this mission, and Vershinin orders the Hams to return.
Opposing forces
The main conflict of the play “Armored Train 14-69”, the contents of which cannot be fully disclosed without exploring 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 unsightly form. However, even in spite of all the author’s attempts to denigrate the image of the “class enemy”, using the whole set of ideological cliches for this, the modern viewer involuntarily enjoys respect for Captain Nezelasov and Ensign Obab, who, despite the hopelessness of the situation, which both clearly understand, still go to do their duty. And carry it out to the end. When the partisans who stormed the armored train burst into the staff carriage, Captain Nezelasov fires everyone with a machine gun and, in the end, dies from a merciful bullet. Heroism - it remains heroism, regardless of who shows it - red or white.
The first production of the play
The staff of the Art Theater at an accelerated pace prepared the performance for the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. The famous Mkhatovites Kachalov and Knipper-Chekhov, as well as talented youth - Khmelev, Batalov, Kedrov, Tarasova were employed in it. The directors were engaged in the production of Sudakov and Litovtsev, the general management was carried out by Stanislavsky.
Tickets for this performance were not on sale; they were distributed among Moscow factories. This event caused a great resonance. For the Moscow Art Theater it was not just a premiere. The theater passed an exam, the results of which determined its further fate. And it must be admitted that he stood it with honor. The performance was a resounding success. It was a victory.
After the premiere, Lunacharsky called the performance triumphant. 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, adopted at that time, Khmelev managed to achieve the amazing power of the impact of this image on the viewer.
Stage fate of the play
After the sensational premiere at the Moscow Art Theater, the play “Armored Train 14-69” became very popular. She sought to put all theaters in the country. The triumphal procession of the play across the vastness of a vast country began. It was installed in Odessa and Baku, in Yaroslavl and Yerevan, in Tashkent and Minsk, in Kiev, Kazan, Krasnoyarsk. The play has survived countless amateur productions.
In the postwar years, the play was staged not so often. In the mid-seventies, a radio performance was made on it.
Abroad, the performance “Armored Train 14-69” was staged by the theaters of Paris, Sydney, Sofia, Wroclaw and Warsaw, Leipzig, Belgrade and Bucharest.