Valentin Krasnogorov is one of the few playwrights who wrote a lot both in the Soviet years and continues to work actively today. His plays are very different in genre, subject matter, and the number of characters in them.
A new full-length feature film based on his script is being prepared for release on the screens of the country.
“Mr. Krasnogorov, how does it happen that people are visited by a muse? Who does she choose first? How did it happen that you, a chemist-technologist by education, Doctor of technical sciences, became a playwright?”
“I indeed graduated from Tallinn Polytechnic Institute with a degree in chemical fuel technology, and I have been doing this all my life. The quantitative result of this activity is two dissertations, a doctorate, several books, about a hundred publications in scientific journals in Russia, the USA, England, Germany, and a dozen patents.
“I don't know what is closer to me by nature, the humanities or the exact sciences. On the one hand, I have a PhD in engineering and have done chemical engineering with interest. I love logic, order, and clarity of thought. Lack of clarity in thoughts irritates me. I like to plan and organize my time. I like accuracy in deadlines and promises.
“On the other hand, I like literature, history, music, literary criticism, art, nature. All these are the signs of a humanitarian mindset.
“I was born to the family of an engineer and a teacher in Leningrad. When I was not yet seven years old, the war began, which brought twelve years of terrible hunger, poverty and nomadism. During my school years I read, besides textbooks, only two books that happened to be at home: a collection of African fairy tales ‘How the Brother Rabbit Defeated the Lion’ and ‘Animal Life’ by Bram. I lived in small towns until I was seventeen and had never been to a theater, museum, exhibition or symphony concert. There was no television back then, and not every house got a radio. You can imagine what kind of outlook I had. But I did go through the school of life, which hardened me for all the following years.
“When I got to the institute and somehow realized that I was a man of little culture, I meticulously (at sixteen years old) worked on the self-improvement plan and began to implement it. There was the Public Library next to the dormitory, ten meters away, opposite the Tallinn Dome Cathedral in the former building of the Knights' Assembly. That's where I spent all evenings. From time to time I would sneak out of it in my summer coat (I didn't get a coat until my third year) and run through the cold to the dormitory, eat my usual gray loaf of eggplant pate there, and go back to my books.
There was a noble silence in the reading room. And I read there many hundreds of books by classical authors, from ancient to modern classics, Russian, European, Eastern. I went to symphony concerts and opera productions all the time.
“My five years as a student whipped me into shape. Interestingly, I was not driven by any practical motives, such as reading in order to brag of in front of others and to stand out. On the contrary, I knew that I was considered a bit of an odd bird for doing so, and I hid my studies rather than flaunted them. Nor did I intend to make a career out of writing or acting. It never even crossed my mind. I just felt I needed it for my soul. But I wasn't a bookworm. I liked to be in a company of students, played sports, and liked to wander around the city for long periods of time.
“I continued to educate myself even after graduation. I studied eight foreign languages, went to theaters, museums and exhibitions and read a huge number of art books. Knowing languages broadened my horizons immensely, and I am glad that I took up studying them at a young age, even though it seemed like an unnecessary hobby at first.
“In Leningrad, I worked at the Public Library (now the Russian National Library) almost every day for 30 years, and there almost the whole world became an open book for me. French novels, American scientific journals, German treatises, Italian art books – everything became available to me.
So, I became gradually what I am now.”
“How many plays have you written and how many productions have you staged?”
“The English writer Somerset Maugham once published a wonderful book called ‘Summing up.’ More recently, I decided to sum up something, too. Of course, I did not compete with Maugham, but limited myself to pallid statistics.
“As of November 2022, the results of my literary work are as follows: more than 50 multi-act plays, and more than 30 one-act plays. They have been translated into many languages, staged in many countries, and the total number of productions exceeds 1,300. In addition, novels, stories, and screenplays have been written, some of which have been filmed, and many articles about drama and theater.
“And finally, collections of plays, scientific and fiction books, and two books on drama theory have been published
‘Four Walls and One Passion,’ which the great stage director Georgy Tovstonogov highly appreciated, and ‘Fundamentals of Drama. Theory, Technique and Practice of Drama.’
I appreciate these books as much as any of my plays.”
“What makes you write a new play each time?”
“The desire to free myself from the countless ideas swarming in my head. The desire to experiment, to solve another artistic problem and have fun with it.
‘Even at school I fell in love with chess, and within a year and a half I reached the level of candidate master. Perhaps chess helps you to develop your dramatic thinking. Of course, drama is not only an interesting intellectual game but also self-expression, the need to realize something important both for oneself and for others, the attempt to create one's own world and tell the others about it.”
“How, after all, did it happen that you, a professional scientist, began to write plays?”
“One day I decided to write a play. Now I don't even remember what it was about. Having written about half of it, I had the nerve to bring it to the Leningrad Comedy Theater, then directed by the great Nikolai Akimov. We actually met. It was very short and the only one. Akimov said something like that: “This play is bad, and it's not even finished. But you have talent. Keep writing.” I was not sure if I was talented but I saw myself that the play is absolutely helpless. I didn't finish it, but I read a few books about drama. Then I was neck-deep in scientific work and forgot about literature.
“But after a few years, I suddenly set pen to paper again. In three weeks, the play ‘Real Man’ was finished. The story lien was taken from the surrounding reality, so usually all aspiring authors do it. I knew the life of scientific teams perfectly well, and satirical comedy was written easily and cheerfully. I decided to take the play to several theaters. Nobody wanted to read a play by some chemist.
I had already forgotten about the play, but one day in the spring of 1976, walking along Vosstaniya Square near Moskovsky Railway Station, I was suddenly surprised to see a huge banner saying “Soon! ‘The Real Man,’ the premiere of V. Krasnogorov's comedy, at the Theater on Liteyny!”
“It turns out that the head of this theater Yakov Khamarmer spent seven years to get my play through the barriers of eight-step censorship. ‘The Real Man’ immediately became the theater's favorite play and was played to full houses over 500 times over the course of nine years. It was almost universally banned in other Russian cities, but was staged in Poland with great success.
“That's how I became an “established playwright.” All my life I have been writing what I am interested in but not the producers, who think they know what the market is interested in. Maybe this is why, once on stage, my plays do not leave the repertoire.”
СОurtesy of V. Krasnogorov