of the early twenties with greater authenticity than I could have
achieved with a Tashkent school.
I might mention another question which my correspondents ask me,
namely, to what extent the novel Two Captains is autobiographical. To
a considerable extent everything, from the first to the last page, that
Sanya Grigoriev has seen has been seen by the author with his own eyes.
6
Our two lives ran parallel, so to speak. But when Sanya Grigoriev's
profession came into the book I had to drop the "personal" material and
make a study of the life of pilots, of which I had known very little until
then.
Invaluable assistance in studying aeronautics was given me by Senior
Lieutenant S. Y. Klebanov, who died the death of a hero in 1943. He was
a talented pilot, a brave officer and a fine, upright man. I was proud of
his friendship. During my work on the second volume I came across
(among the materials of the War Study Commission) testimonials of
Klebanov's brother-officers showing that my high opinion of him was
shared by his comrades.
It is difficult, well nigh impossible, to give any complete answer to the
question of how one or another character of a literary work is created,
especially if the narrative is in the first person. Apart from those
observations, reminiscences, and impressions which I have mentioned,
my book contains thousands of others which had no direct bearings on
the story as told to me and which served as the groundwork for Two
Captains. Imagination, as everyone knows, plays a tremendous role in a
writer's work. And it is on this that one must speak before passing to the
story of my second principal character Captain Tatarinov.
Don't look for his name in encyclopaedias or handbooks. Don't try to
prove, as one pupil did at a geography lesson, that it was Tatarinov and
not Vilkitsky who discovered Novaya Zemlya. For the older of my two
captains I used the story of two brave explorers of the Arctic. One of
them supplied me with the courageous character of a man pure in
thought and clear in aim-qualities that bespeak a noble soul. This was
Sedan. From the other I took the actual story of his voyage. This was
Brusilov. The drift of my St. Maria repeats exactly the drift of Brusilov's
St. Anne. The diaries of Navigating Officer Klimov quoted in my novel
are based on the diary of Albanov, Navigating Officer of the St. Anne,
one of the two surviving members of that tragic expedition. The
historical material alone, however, did not seem enough to me. I knew
that there lived in Leningrad a painter and writer by the name of Nikolai
Pinegin, a friend of Sedov's and one of those who had brought his
schooner the St. Phocas back to the mainland after the death of Sedov.
We met, and Pinegin not only told me a lot more about Sedov and gave
me a vivid picture of the man, but explained the tragedy of his life, the
life of a great explorer slandered and refused recognition by reactionary
circles of society in tsarist Russia. Incidentally, during one of my
meetings with Pinegin the latter treated me to some tinned food which
he had picked up at Cape Flora in 1914, and to my amazement I found it
excellent. I mention this trivial detail because it is characteristic of
Pinegin and of the range of interests into which I was drawn during my
visits to this "Arctic home".
Later, when the first volume had already appeared, Sedov's widow
gave me a lot of interesting information. The summer of 1941 found me
working hard on the second volume, in which I intended to make wide
use of the story of the famous airman Levanevsky. My plan was thought
out, the materials were studied and the first chapters written. V. Y. Vize,
the well-known scientist and Arctic explorer, approved the contents of
the future "Arctic" chapters and told me many interesting things about
the work of search parties. But the war broke out and I had to dismiss
for a long time the very idea of finishing the novel. I wrote front-line
7
reportage, war sketches and short stories. However, the hope of being
able to take up the novel again apparently did not leave me, otherwise I
would not have found myself asking the editor of Izvestia to send me to
the Northern Front. It was there, among the airmen and submarines of
the Northern Fleet that I realised that the characters of my book would
appear blurred and sketchy if I did not describe how, together with all
the Soviet people, they had borne the dreadful ordeals of the war and
won it.
I had known from books, reports and personal impressions what
peacetime life was like among those people, who had worked to turn the
Northern Country into a smiling hospitable land, who had tapped the
incalculable resources that lay within the Arctic Circle, who had built
towns, docks, mines and factories there. Now, during the war, I saw all
this prodigious energy dedicated to the defence of this land and of these
gains. I might be told that the same thing happened in every corner of
our land. Of course it did, but the severe conditions of the North gave to
it a special, expressive touch.
I don't think I have been able to answer all the questions of my
correspondents. Who served as the prototype of Nikolai Antonich?
Where did I get Nina Kapitonovna? What truth is there in the story of
Sanya's and Katya's love?
To answer these questions I would have to ascertain, if only
approximately, to what extent one or another figure was an actor in real
life. As regards Nikolai Antonich, for instance, no such effort on my part
would be needed. I have changed only a few outward features in my
portrait of the real headmaster of the Moscow school which I finished in
1919. The same applies to Nina Kapitonovna, who could but recently be
met in Sivtsev Vrazhek, wearing the same green jacket and carrying the
same shopping bag. As for the love of Sanya and Katya, I had had only
the youthful period of this story told to me. Exercising the prerogative of
the novelist, I drew from this story my own conclusions, which seemed
to me only natural for the hero of my book.
One schoolboy, by the way, wrote telling me that exactly the same
thing had happened to him-he had fallen in love with a girl and kissed
her in the school grounds. "So that now that your book Two Captains is
finished, you can write about me," the boy suggested.
Here is another incident which, indirectly, answers the question as to
what truth there is in the love of Sanya and Katya. One day I received a
letter from Ordzhonikidze (Northern Caucasus) from a lady named
Irina N. who wrote, "After reading your novel I feel certain that you are
the man I have been looking for these last eighteen years. I am
persuaded of this not only by the details of my life given in the novel,
which could be known to you alone, but also by the places and even the
dates of our meetings in Triumfalnaya Square and outside the Bolshoi
Theatre..." I replied that I had never made any dates with my
correspondent in Triumfalnaya Square or outside the Bolshoi Theatre,
and that I would have to make inquiries of the Arctic pilot who had
served as the prototype for my hero. But the war started and this
strange correspondence broke off.
Irina N.'s letter reminds me of another incident, which equated
literature, as it were, with real life. During the blockade of Leningrad, in
the grim, forever memorable days of late autumn of 1941, the Leningrad
Radio Broadcasting Committee asked me to convey a message to the