Narrative
The Embezzlers
Растратчики
Valentin Kataev · 1926
Synopsis
Filipp Stepanovich Prokhorov, a conscientious chief accountant, hides an adventurer's streak. With the cashier Vanechka, he withdraws twelve thousand roubles from the bank for the payroll; a drunken evening goes wrong, and the two men find themselves on a train to Leningrad with the beautiful Isabelle, relieved of part of the money. In Leningrad, they live it up, play cards and roulette, then, led towards the south by a stranger, continue their escapade as far as Vanechka's home region.
Context
The book grew out of the party's campaign against embezzlement and real cases reported by periodicals such as Krokodil. It appeared in 1926 in the journal Krasnaya nov, and the Moscow Art Theatre made a production of it, staged from 1928 in a staging by Nikolai Gorchakov. A German adaptation by Alfred Polgar was a success in Berlin and was made into a film in 1931. In French, the narrative appeared with Gallimard, as early as the 1930s.
Who it is for
A fast-moving, burlesque satire, staged as soon as it appeared, which reads in one sitting like a comedy of manners.
Prizes and reception
The book that brought its author into the mainstream of Soviet literature; Stanislavski praised it.