Две Одессы Валентина Катаева

Abstract

The article describes the phenomenon of using «visionary techniques» (E. Said) to creating an image of Odessa city in the XX century in fiction of native Odessa’s authors, who came into the «large» literature at 1910-1920’s. In the beginning of their literary careers they left their hometowns for the capitals, lived the biggest part of their life there and sometimes came back to Odessa as important residents. The image of any city due to the author’s way of determination of his biographical place of residence quality, i.e. the city becomes a peculiar representant of geographical measurement author biography. Odessa holds a special place in the Kataev's art: it is a place of action or it is referred to in almost all novels of this writer. The polarization of image of the „city of three lighthouses” was determined biographicaly as, on the one hand, the „adolescent paradise”, and on the other – „dream-nightmare”; as South center which was opposed to Moscow as the North center; as exotic place, which needs permanent writer's efforts to turn it into a space worthy of description or self-sufficient, i.e which doesn’t need strong artistic tools. At the intersection of these trends is formed peculiar type of patriot of Odessa and „Odessa dandy”, which V. Kataev maintained all his life.