«Armored Train 14-69» by Vsevolod Ivanov: a genetic dossier

The paper reviews the essays by the Vsevolod Ivanov that make up the genetic dossier of the classic work on the Civil War - «Armored train 14-69». Written during 1919 - early 1920s, they represent the writer’s creative comprehension of the events of Russian history of the end of the first decade of the 20th century. The author identifies two groups of essays: the Omsk - revealing certain features of the life of the «third capital», and the military - showing the events on the «white» front, the attitude of soldiers and officers to the war. The autobiographical basis of Ivanov’s documentary prose of this period is revealed: his work in the newspapers «Zemlya i trud», «Vpered», «Sibirskiy kazak», the magazine «Edinaya Rossiya». The real historical contexts of known and previously unknown texts are characterized, in particular, the policy of the Supreme Ruler of Russia A. V. Kolchak in connection with the situation at the front in different periods of 1919. The problem of authorship of the text «Petropavlovsk» is investigated: the arguments have been found confirming that this poem belongs to Vs. V. Ivanov, not to Vs. N. Ivanov. Figurative, motivational, thematic, stylistic roll calls between essays and «Armored train 14-69» - a story of 1921, a play of 1927 and a script of 1963 are traced. The images of fog and foam, which will pass from the documentary into the artistic prose, are revealed. The development of the narrative manner of the writer is shown by comparing the essay «Ataman Vershinin», an early version of the chapter from the «Armored Train 14-69» with its magazine version. The «front-line essays» traces the fuzziness of the opposition «friend-or-foe», traditional for military journalism, which will be emphasized by other artistic means in the artistic prose of the writer. The analysis of the author-narrator image in the essays, practically everywhere acting as an inactive witness of events or a listener, shows that already in 1919, Ivanov’s ambiguous position towards the events of the Civil War was determined. Being reflected in the story «Armored train 14-69», this position was noted in the 1920s by critics of Russian abroad and Soviet Russia. Subsequently, while the editions of different years were published, the «Armored train 14-69» was corrected by ideologically vigilant editors, with the proofs given in the paper. A conclusion is drawn that the texts that made up the genetic dossier of the «Armored train 14-69» allow recreating the Vs. Ivanov’s path to the comprehension of the tragic contradictions of such a large-scale historical event as the Civil War in Russia.

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