Not only these lines, many phrases from Korostylev’s scripts have reached the people for a long time. Remember “Aibolit-66”: “Normal heroes always go around…”. Or “Vovka in Far Far Away”: “So what are you going to eat sweets for me?! – Aha!”. Or, for example, “The Queen of the Toothbrush”: “Soap bubbles are the most durable thing in the world!”… Is it fair to repeat words, and not really know anything about their author?
By the way, at the age of 14, Vadim Korostylev tried to enter the acting studio of Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky himself; they did not accept him because he was too young. And he started the Great Patriotic War: he enrolled as a volunteer in the Komsomol battalion, they were thrown into digging trenches, wounded and shell-shocked. They did not take him to the front, and then he entered the Literary Institute at the poetry department. But in the last year he quit, he enlisted in the North, the leader of the Kara scientific and fishing expedition. Upon his return, he married the daughter of a Soviet party member, one of the secretaries of the Communist Party of Iran, Avetis Sultan-Zade, who was shot in 1938. And he continued to write.
In children’s literature, Vadim Korostylev continued the traditions of Korney Chukovsky.
Throughout the country they staged their “Invisible Dimka”, “What the magicians told”, “The King of the Bang-Bang”. In children’s literature, he continued the traditions of Korney Chukovsky. But … he still has a lot of “adult” plays, why didn’t they sound? “RG” asked the daughter of the writer, theater critic, head of information projects of the TV channel “Culture” Marina Korostyleva.
Marina Vadimovna, many kind and cheerful book authors turn out to be gloomy people in life. Was Vadim Korostylev by chance not like that?
Marina Korostyleva: No, he was witty and easy for those with whom he spoke the same language. He taught me how to cook Korostylev’s signature veal. The theatrical circle always met with us, and sometimes their winter friends came too. Geologists are completely different people. Talking all night…
By the way, about the northern adventure, did the Arctic prevent Vadim Nikolaevich from becoming a “serious” poet, as he dreamed of?
Marina Korostyleva: She wrote poetry all her life, but she did not publish it. I have a lot of them, maybe he considered them not good enough. Yes, and it was much more interesting for him to work in plays.
“Vovka in Far Far Away”. From cartoon to book. Photo: provided by the editors of the publishing house “Kid” “AST”
He was also once called a “not Soviet enough” writer and accused of “worshipping the West.” What is scandalous in his work?
Marina Korostyleva: At the end of the Thaw, one of your first plays, Brigantine, dedicated to your wife Zaire, could not be performed in 73 theaters at once. In a play about children in 1937 whose parents were arrested, the Pope described a true story, but it was considered implausible and impossible. In the play, the first secretary of the Komsomol district committee offered the girl to join the Komsomol in exchange for a public resignation from her father, she threw an inkwell at him, he dodged, and the ink fell on Stalin’s portrait . behind him… I don’t know how my father survived all the accusations, but he was persistent, the temper of the North. Besides, the play was eventually staged anyway. Like “Commander steps”, and “Don Quixote goes to battle”, and others. It was not possible to “break” only the production of the play “Ten minutes of hope.” Even Sergo Zakariadze, with the awards and merits from him, could not: they found a terrible “abstract humanism” in the work. But in all the theaters for young audiences in the country, his plays were a success.
A rare photo: Vadim Nikolaevich is cheerful! Photo: From the personal archive of MV Korostyleva
I love the cartoon “Vovka in Far Far Away.” Did Vovka have a specific prototype?
Marina Korostyleva: Ironically, dad wrote Vovka, to some extent, from me. He was a handsome teenager: he ran, fell from trees, bikes, always with broken knees. Now an ice cream for me, then a cake, and so that everything appears by itself.
But dad easily and not edifyingly managed to talk about fundamental things not only with me, but with all the children, through his works.
I remember her line about a certain man who stole her idea for a play and then tried to renew their friendship. Dad then said, “I don’t like hot soup.”
“Vovka in the Kingdom of Far Far Away” is now being published by the “Kid” edition of the “AST” publishing house in the form of a comic. Does this genre of fashion bother you?
Marina Korostyleva: I am not at all interested in comics, but I understand that many young readers like it. That’s good – let the new generation of boys and girls fall in love with this story in this version.
Among his poems there is one that is relevant at all times: “Let’s stay a little boy / and the world will not dance at gunpoint: / after all, cannons will become toys, / let’s stay a little boy.” You probably have your favorite lines, why not publish a collection of Korostylev’s poetry?
Marina Korostyleva: I love your poem dedicated to Otar Megvinetukhutsesi, a Georgian actor who played in adult plays by Vadim Korostylev, all staged in Georgia. As for the collection of poems, let what remains in the public space be what the author himself has wanted to reveal to the reader and viewer.
