The novel “Two Captains” is the most famous book of the Soviet writer Veniamin Kaverin. The first chapters of the novel were published in 1938 in the magazine “Koster” (Campfire), and the full edition was published seven years later. The book has been translated into many languages and reprinted hundreds of times.
The main storyline of the novel is based on the story of Valerian Albanov, who was a navigator and explorer of the Arctic and the North. He managed to survive after going adrift on Brusilov’s ship “Saint Anna” during the expedition of 1912, where 22 people died.
The boy Sanya from the provincial town of Ensk is one of the two captains in the novel. He was destined to go through the trials of orphanhood, coming of age and war to finally win the heart of the girl he loved and solve the mystery with which their fate is closely connected. As a child, the boy listened to his neighbor reading letters from the bag of a drowned postman, and memorized the words of the polar explorers whose ship froze in the Kara Sea. Later, Sasha found out about the missing expedition of Captain Tatarinov at the North Pole.
“Two Captains” is the story of a boy who decides to find the truth at all costs. A touching and fascinating story about the power of love, justice and strength of character. The book’s slogan perfectly conveys the mood of the story: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!”
The author of the novel, Veniamin Alexandrovich Kaverin, was a Russian writer, playwright and screenwriter, and a member of the “Serapion Brothers” literary group. His real name is Silber. For his adventure novel “Two Captains” he was awarded the Stalin Prize of the second degree.
The “Detgiz” (“Children’s Main Publishing House”) book publishing house for children and youth was established in 1933, with branches in Moscow, Leningrad and Novosibirsk. It was actively supported by popular writers, such as Maxim Gorky, Samuil Marshak, Korney Chukovsky, and Arkady Gaidar. Detgiz published books by Boris Zhitkov, Daniil Kharms, Aleksey Tolstoy, and Evgeny Schwartz. In its first year alone, the publishing house printed almost 8,000 book titles.
Detgiz was called a “university” for illustrators of children’s books. The artist Vladimir Lebedev taught many Leningrad illustrators who later became masters of book graphics: Yuri Vasnetsov, Alexei Pakhomov, Nikolay Tyrsa, Vladimir Konashevich, Yevgeny Charushin. Throughout the years, the publishing house changed its name several times and is still active.
