The article researches the problems and the poetics of the play by V. Katayev «A Million Pangs»: devices of creating satirical images are regarded; the problem of a literary dialogue of the author with his contemporaries (M. Bulgakov, N. Erdman, I. Ilf and E. Petrov) is revealed; the peculiarity of Katayev’s satire on pre-revolutionary intelligentsia is identified.
