Stories

Alexander Valentinovich Vampilov (1937 — 1972) — a Russian Soviet prose writer.

A brilliant playwright who tragically ended his earthly journey, Alexander Vampilov was not published during his lifetime. The writer’s works were published and received recognition only after his death. In his short life, Vampilov produced plays—both major multi-part works and single-act pieces—as well as short prose works. The themes raised by Alexander Valentinovich inspired theater and film directors to stage them. Even an opera was produced based on a play by Alexander Vampilov.

During 1968–1972, the most well-known plays appeared: “The Older Son,” “Duck Hunt,” “Last Summer in Chulimsk.” They were taken to be staged in provincial theaters, but Moscow and Leningrad were closed to Vavilov. It’s sad, but interest in the playwright’s work began not long before his death, in 1972. It’s hard to say why the capital theaters paid attention to him, but the plays were staged by the BDT (Bolshoi Drama Theatre), the Stanislavsky Theater. Even Lenfilm signed a contract with Vavilov to write an original screenplay. Unfortunately, Alexander Vampilov never saw brilliant productions of his plays in Moscow: his life was tragically cut short.

Viktor Vladimirovich Golyavkin (1929 — 2001) — a Russian Soviet writer and artist.

Alongside his painting work, Golyavkin creates short stories. The inability to publish works that didn’t fit official aesthetics led to the fact that first, stories for children were printed in journals “Koster” and “Murzilka.” In 1959, when Golyavkin was already thirty, his first book of children’s stories, “Notebooks in the Rain,” was published. Adult stories first appeared in samizdat in 1960 in the journal of Alexander Ginzburg “Syntax”; official publication took place much later. Some early stories were printed in 1999–2000.

A distinctive feature of the writer’s stories is their brevity combined with witty, benevolent humor. Such a concise style is a rare literary feature—brevity. This highly capacious, short form requires special authorial mastery, which Golyavkin possessed like no other. The characters in his stories are always funny, but also active and charming. Long stories are rare. Among the shortest are such stories as “Drawing,” “Four Colors,” “Friends,” and “Sick People.”