Seeking a story about a boy who wanted to be a ship captain

Question

I am trying to find a science fiction (sort of, because I think it was set in some dystopian society) story I read decades ago.

It is about a boy who wanted to be a ship captain but was not deemed talented enough by some kind of totalitarian career counseling committee/board that ultimately decided which school every kid goes to. He barely made it to the naval school/academy and struggled there, but eventually he succeeded against all odds.

I believe the author was from former Soviet Union and I read it in mid 1980s so it is probably from that era or older. I am pretty sure I read the (Serbian translation of) story in a magazine called "Galaksija"

Answer 1

Ok, I found it. I started by first locating this archive of scanned "Galaksija" magazines, but unfortunately most of the 80's are not there. Then I found this archive, and after a couple of hours going through them there it was, pages 54 and 55 of August 1987 issue.

As for story synopsis, my memory has served me pretty well (the society does not seem to be dystopian but other than that the description was correct).

The story title is "Test" and the author is Mikhail Veller. Looking at the dates of his published works, this story is most probably from his 1983 collection of short stories titled "I Want To Be A Yard-Sweeper" ("Хочу быть дворником").

I was not able to locate English translation, but there is Russian one (probably original) available online here (My English is not that good so I will not even try to translate on my own, Google Translate will probably do a better job). Also, for those who understand Russian (I don't), or just want to hear how it sounds, there is a youtube video of a Russian lady reading the whole story