Secrets and Tragedies of "Two Captains": Real prototypes of the heroes of the famous novel by Kaverin

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

May 5 marks the 141th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding polar explorer Georgy Sedov, whose expedition to the North Pole ended dramatically. In the same 1912, two more attempts were made to get to the Arctic, but they also ended in tragedy. In these historical events there were no less secrets and mysteries than in the novel "Two Captains", written on their basis.

The central events of the novel - the search for the missing expedition of Captain Tatarinov - evoke several historical analogies. In 1912, 3 expeditions set out to explore the Arctic: Lieutenant Georgy Sedov on the Svyataya Foka ship, geologist Vladimir Rusanov on the Hercules boat and Lieutenant Georgy Brusilov on the Svyataya Anna schooner. Very little is known about Rusanov's expedition - she went missing. Her search is reminiscent of the search for the crew of "St. Mary" in the novel by Kaverin.

The schooner "Saint Mary" in the novel actually repeats the travel dates and the route of the schooner "Saint Anna" Brusilov. But the character traits, views and appearance of Captain Tatarinov resemble Georgy Sedov. He was the son of a poor fisherman with many children, and by the age of 35 he had achieved a lot, becoming a senior lieutenant in the fleet. In the description of the expedition of Captain Tatarinov, facts from the expedition of Georgy Sedov were used: the supply of unusable dogs and supplies, the inability to find a radio operator, the discovery of cuts in the hull of the ship, the report of Sedov to the hydrographic department is cited. The expedition doctor wrote: "". In 1914, during a trip to the Pole, Georgy Sedov died. The rest of the expedition, except for the mechanic who died of scurvy, returned to their homeland.

The fate of the navigator of the “Saint Mary” Ivan Klimov echoes the true events of the life of the navigator of the “Saint Anna” Valerian Albanov, who took part in Brusilov's expedition. He became one of only two surviving team members who managed to return to Russia. Kaverin was familiar with Albanov's recordings. The navigator published the book "To the South, to Franz Josef Land!", Thanks to which it became known about the tragic fate of this expedition. In October 1912, the schooner was squeezed by ice and began to drift far from the intended course. She drifted for two years. In April 1914, the navigator, together with a group of 11 people, left the schooner to make the transition on drifting ice to Franz Josef Land. Only two survived. They were picked up by the schooner "Saint Foka" - the same one on which Lieutenant Sedov went on the expedition - and brought them to land.

There was a version that the navigator Albanov decided to leave the schooner because of a conflict with Captain Brusilov, which could flare up because of the woman. Yerminiya Zhdanko took part in the expedition as a ship's doctor, and some researchers suggest that love for her became a bone of contention between the captain and the navigator. The fate of the crew that remained on the ship, led by Brusilov, remained a mystery - the "Saint Anna" disappeared, her search did not lead to anything. Because of this, in 1917 Albanov suffered a nervous breakdown and left military service, and in 1919 he died. Only in 2010 were the traces of the Saint Anne's crew discovered, but the vessel itself was never found.

Many entries from Albanov's diaries echo the text of Kaverin's novel. For example, the diaries contained the following lines: "". And the central idea of the novel was the motto: "Fight and seek, find and not give up."

In the novel "Two Captains" the schooner "Saint Mary" also drifts in the ice, and only a few sailors, led by the navigator Klimov, manage to escape. They saved letters that did not reach the addressees in due time. It was these letters that Sanya Grigoriev heard as a child, having burst into flames with the idea to unravel the mystery of the death of the "St. Mary" expedition.

The main character Sani Grigoriev had several prototypes. The idea of creating a novel was born to Kaverin after a meeting with a young geneticist Mikhail Lobashev in a sanatorium near Leningrad in the 1930s. He told the writer that in childhood he suffered from a strange dumbness, about how he was an orphan and a homeless child, studied at a commune school in Tashkent, and then entered the university and became a scientist. "", - Kaverin said about him. Many of Lobashev's features and details of his biography became the basis for creating the image of the main character, Sani Grigoriev. Another prototype was the military fighter pilot Samuil Klebanov, who died in 1942. He initiated the writer into the secrets of flying skills.

The novel by Veniamin Kaverin "Two Captains" became his most famous work, although the author himself was surprised. In his declining years, he admitted: "".

The film, based on Kaverin's novel, became a real hit: Behind the scenes of the film "Two Captains".