“A Jest from the Country of Soviets”: Valentin Katayev’s Vaudeville Squaring the Circle on Broadway (1935)
- Issue:
- Received: 18 Apr. 2026
- Approved after reviewing: 16 May 2026
- Date of publication: 25 Jun. 2026
- УДК / UDK: 821.111(73).0+821.161.1Р.0
- Publication Type: Research Article
- DOI:
- EDN:
- Abstract:
The study focuses on the stage existence of Valentin Katayev’s vaudeville Squaring the Circle (Kvadratura kruga, 1928) in the USA. Its stage production on Broadway (1935) is investigated in the wide context of political and cultural Soviet-American connections during the interwar period. The production became the most merchantable one of all few Soviet plays on Broadway (1935). The study dedicated to the reception of Katayev’s play and its production in the USA draws on the materials from the collections of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Chicago Public Library and the Houghton Library (Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.) as well as Valentin Katayev’s archive at the Odessa Literary Museum, Museum of the Moscow Academic Art Theater, Russian State Archives. The memoirs of the writer’s granddaughter, Valentina Katayeva, are also used to analyze the problem. The study provides a brief biographical sketch and a characteristics of Eugene Lyons and Charles Malamuth, the copyright holders of Katayev’s vaudeville in the United States. The paper gives some vivid examples of the changes and insertions they made to the Soviet original play, which sparked a debate in American criticism. The study is aimed at expanding the existing knowledge about the stage history of Soviet plays in the USA and Soviet-American literary and cultural links during the interwar period.
The author of the article expresses his deep gratitude to Valentina Katayeva, writer’s granddaughter, for her support, rare documents, and memories, as well as to Mary Haegert, Maya Terhune and Christine Jacobson, the staff of the Houghton Library (Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.), for their attention and generously donated materials about the Broadway production of Squaring the Circle from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana papers. In addition, this research would not have been possible without the help and valuable advice of Sergei Belyakov, a reputed Russian expert on the Valentin Katayev’s works, and the author of the book Two Brothers: Valentin Katayev and Evgeny Petrov on the Ship of Soviet History (Moscow: AST Publ., 2025). The author is also grateful to Eduard Fomchenko, the Chief Curator of the Moscow Art Theatre Museum, for the materials on the Moscow Art Theatre production of Squaring the Circle (1928).
- Keywords: Valentin Katayev, play Squaring the Circle (Kvadratura kruga), Soviet dramaturgy, American theatre, Broadway, “Red Thirties” in US History, Soviet-American cultural links
- For citation:
Gudkov, Maxim. “‘A Jest from the Country of Soviets’: Valentin Katayev’s vaudeville Squaring the Circle on Broadway (1935).” Literature of the Americas, no. 20 (2026): 342–381. https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2026-20-342-381
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