The plot of V. Shalamov’s stories is a painful description of the prison and camp life of prisoners of the Soviet Gulag, their similar tragic destinies, in which chance, merciless or merciful, an assistant or a murderer, the tyranny of bosses and thieves rule. Hunger and its convulsive saturation, exhaustion, painful dying, slow and almost equally painful recovery, moral humiliation and moral degradation - this is what is constantly in the focus of the writer’s attention.

Funeral word

The author remembers his camp comrades by name. Evoking the mournful martyrology, he tells who died and how, who suffered and how, who hoped for what, who and how behaved in this Auschwitz without ovens, as Shalamov called the Kolyma camps. Few managed to survive, few managed to survive and remain morally unbroken.

Life of engineer Kipreev

Having not betrayed or sold out to anyone, the author says that he has developed for himself a formula for actively defending his existence: a person can only consider himself human and survive if at any moment he is ready to commit suicide, ready to die. However, later he realizes that he only built himself a comfortable shelter, because it is unknown what you will be like at the decisive moment, whether you simply have enough physical strength, and not just mental strength. Engineer-physicist Kipreev, arrested in 1938, not only withstood a beating during interrogation, but even rushed at the investigator, after which he was put in a punishment cell. However, they still force him to sign false testimony, threatening him with the arrest of his wife. Nevertheless, Kipreev continued to prove to himself and others that he was a man and not a slave, like all prisoners. Thanks to his talent (he invented a way to restore burnt-out light bulbs, repaired an X-ray machine), he manages to avoid the most difficult work, but not always. He miraculously survives, but the moral shock remains in him forever.

To the show

Camp molestation, Shalamov testifies, affected everyone to a greater or lesser extent and occurred in the most different forms. Two thieves are playing cards. One of them is lost to the nines and asks you to play for “representation”, that is, in debt. At some point, excited by the game, he unexpectedly orders an ordinary intellectual prisoner, who happened to be among the spectators of their game, to give him a woolen sweater. He refuses, and then one of the thieves “finishes” him, but the sweater still goes to the thieves.

At night

Two prisoners sneak to the grave where the body of their deceased comrade was buried in the morning, and remove the dead man’s underwear to sell or exchange for bread or tobacco the next day. The initial disgust at taking off their clothes gives way to the pleasant thought that tomorrow they might be able to eat a little more and even smoke.

Single metering

Camp labor, which Shalamov clearly defines as slave labor, is for the writer a form of the same corruption. The poor prisoner is not able to give the percentage, so labor becomes torture and slow death. Zek Dugaev is gradually weakening, unable to withstand a sixteen-hour working day. He drives, picks, pours, carries again and picks again, and in the evening the caretaker appears and measures what Dugaev has done with a tape measure. The mentioned figure - 25 percent - seems very high to Dugaev, his calves ache, his arms, shoulders, head hurt unbearably, he even lost the feeling of hunger. A little later, he is called to the investigator, who asks the usual questions: name, surname, article, term. And a day later, the soldiers take Dugaev to a remote place, fenced with a high fence with barbed wire, from where the whirring of tractors can be heard at night. Dugaev realizes why he was brought here and that his life is over. And he only regrets that he suffered the last day in vain.

Rain

Sherry Brandy

A prisoner-poet, who was called the first Russian poet of the twentieth century, dies. It lies in the dark depths of the bottom row of solid two-story bunks. He takes a long time to die. Sometimes some thought comes - for example, that the bread that he put under his head was stolen from him, and it is so scary that he is ready to swear, fight, search... But he no longer has the strength for this, and the thought of bread also weakens. When the daily ration is placed in his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to tear it and gnaw it with his scurvy, loose teeth. When he dies, he is not written off for another two days, and inventive neighbors manage to distribute bread for the dead man as if for a living one: they make him raise his hand like a puppet doll.

Shock therapy

Prisoner Merzlyakov, a man of large build, finds himself in general labor and feels that he is gradually giving up. One day he falls, cannot get up immediately and refuses to drag the log. He is beaten first by his own people, then by his guards, and they bring him to the camp - he has a broken rib and pain in the lower back. And although the pain quickly passed and the rib has healed, Merzlyakov continues to complain and pretends that he cannot straighten up, trying to delay his discharge to work at any cost. He is sent to the central hospital, to the surgical department, and from there to the nervous department for examination. He has a chance to be activated, that is, released due to illness. Remembering the mine, the pinching cold, the empty bowl of soup that he drank without even using a spoon, he concentrates all his will so as not to be caught in deception and sent to a penal mine. However, the doctor Pyotr Ivanovich, himself a former prisoner, was not a mistake. The professional replaces the human in him. Most He spends his time precisely on exposing malingerers. This pleases his pride: he is an excellent specialist and is proud that he has retained his qualifications, despite a year of general work. He immediately understands that Merzlyakov is a malingerer, and anticipates the theatrical effect of the new revelation. First, the doctor gives him Rausch anesthesia, during which Merzlyakov’s body can be straightened, and a week later he undergoes the so-called shock therapy procedure, the effect of which is similar to an attack of violent madness or an epileptic seizure. After this, the prisoner himself asks to be released.

Typhoid quarantine

Prisoner Andreev, having fallen ill with typhus, is quarantined. Compared to general work in the mines, the position of the patient gives a chance to survive, which the hero almost no longer hoped for. And then he decides, by hook or by crook, to stay here as long as possible, in the transit train, and then, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the gold mines, where there is hunger, beatings and death. At the roll call before the next sending to work of those who are considered recovered, Andreev does not respond, and thus he manages to hide for quite a long time. The transit is gradually emptying, and Andreev’s turn finally reaches. But now it seems to him that he has won his battle for life, that now the taiga is saturated and if there are any dispatches, it will be only for short-term, local business trips. However, when a truck with a selected group of prisoners, who were unexpectedly given winter uniforms, passes the line separating short-term missions from distant ones, he realizes with an internal shudder that fate has cruelly laughed at him.

Aortic aneurysm

Illness (and the emaciated state of the “gone” prisoners is quite equivalent to a serious illness, although it was not officially considered such) and the hospital are an indispensable attribute of the plot in Shalamov’s stories. Prisoner Ekaterina Glovatskaya is admitted to the hospital. A beauty, she immediately attracted the attention of the doctor on duty Zaitsev, and although he knows that she is on close terms with his acquaintance, prisoner Podshivalov, the head of an amateur art group (“serf theater,” as the head of the hospital jokes), nothing prevents him in turn try your luck. He begins, as usual, with a medical examination of Glowacka, with listening to the heart, but his male interest quickly gives way to purely medical concern. He finds that Glowacka has an aortic aneurysm, a disease in which any careless movement can cause death. The authorities, who have made it an unwritten rule to separate lovers, have already once sent Glovatskaya to a penal women's mine. And now, after the doctor’s report about the prisoner’s dangerous illness, the head of the hospital is sure that this is nothing more than the machinations of the same Podshivalov, trying to detain his mistress. Glovatskaya is discharged, but as soon as she is loaded into the car, what Dr. Zaitsev warned about happens - she dies.

The last battle of Major Pugachev

Among the heroes of Shalamov’s prose there are those who not only strive to survive at any cost, but are also able to intervene in the course of circumstances, stand up for themselves, even risking their lives. According to the author, after the war of 1941–1945. Prisoners who fought and were captured by Germans began to arrive in the northeastern camps. These are people of a different temperament, “with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and intelligence officers..." But most importantly, they had an instinct for freedom, which the war awakened in them. They shed their blood, sacrificed their lives, saw death face to face. They were not corrupted by camp slavery and were not yet exhausted to the point of losing strength and will. Their “fault” was that they were surrounded or captured. And Major Pugachev, one of these not yet broken people, is clear: “they were brought to their death - to replace these living dead” whom they met in Soviet camps. Then the former major gathers equally determined and strong prisoners to match himself, ready to either die or become free. Their group included pilots, a reconnaissance officer, a paramedic, and a tankman. They realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they had nothing to lose. They've been preparing their escape all winter. Pugachev realized that only those who avoid general work could survive the winter and then escape. And the participants in the conspiracy, one after another, are promoted to servants: someone becomes a cook, someone a cult leader, someone who repairs weapons in the security detachment. But then spring comes, and with it the planned day.

At five o'clock in the morning there was a knock on the watch. The duty officer lets in the camp cook-prisoner, who has come, as usual, to get the keys to the pantry. A minute later, the guard on duty finds himself strangled, and one of the prisoners changes into his uniform. The same thing happens to the other duty officer who returned a little later. Then everything goes according to Pugachev’s plan. The conspirators break into the premises of the security detachment and, having shot the duty officer, take possession of the weapon. Holding the suddenly awakened soldiers at gunpoint, they change into military uniform and stock up on provisions. Having left the camp, they stop the truck on the highway, drop off the driver and continue the journey in the car until the gas runs out. After that they go into the taiga. At night - the first night of freedom after long months of captivity - Pugachev, waking up, remembers his escape from a German camp in 1944, crossing the front line, interrogation in a special department, being accused of espionage and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He also remembers visits to German camp emissaries of General Vlasov, who recruited Russian soldiers, convincing them that for Soviet power All of them, captured, are traitors to the Motherland. Pugachev did not believe them until he could see for himself. He looks lovingly at his sleeping comrades who believed in him and stretched out their hands to freedom; he knows that they are “the best, the most worthy of all.” And a little later a battle breaks out, the last hopeless battle between the fugitives and the soldiers surrounding them. Almost all of the fugitives die, except for one, seriously wounded, who is cured and then shot. Only Major Pugachev manages to escape, but he knows, hiding in the bear’s den, that they will find him anyway. He doesn't regret what he did. His last shot was at himself.

Retold

report inappropriate content

Current page: 1 (book has 1 pages in total)

Font:

100% +

Varlam Shalamov
Shock therapy

* * *

Even in that fertile time, when Merzlyakov worked as a groom, and in a homemade cereal jar - a large tin can with a punched bottom like a sieve - it was possible to prepare cereals for people from oats obtained for horses, cook porridge and with this bitter hot mash to stifle and appease hunger , even then he was thinking about one simple question. Large mainland convoy horses received a daily portion of government oats, twice as large as the squat and shaggy Yakut horses, although both carried equally little. The bastard Percheron Grom had as much oats poured into the feeder as would be enough for five “Yakuts”. This was correct, this was how things were done everywhere, and this was not what tormented Merzlyakov. He did not understand why the camp human ration, this mysterious list of proteins, fats, vitamins and calories intended for absorption by prisoners and called the cauldron sheet, was compiled without taking into account the living weight of people. If they are treated like working animals, then in matters of diet they need to be more consistent, and not adhere to some kind of arithmetic average - a clerical invention. This terrible average, at best, was beneficial only to the short, and indeed, the short reached it later than others. Merzlyakov’s build was like a Percheron Grom, and the measly three spoons of porridge for breakfast only increased the sucking pain in his stomach. But apart from rations, the brigade worker could get almost nothing. All the most valuable things - butter, sugar, and meat - did not end up in the cauldron in the quantities written on the cauldron sheet. Merzlyakov saw other things. The tall people died first. No habit of hard work changed anything here. The puny intellectual still lasted longer than the giant Kaluga resident - a natural digger - if they were fed the same, in accordance with the camp rations. Increasing rations for percentages of production was also of little use, because the basic design remained the same, in no way designed for tall people. In order to eat better, you had to work better, and in order to work better, you had to eat better. Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians were the first to die everywhere. They were the first to get there, which always caused comments from doctors: they say that all these Baltic states are weaker than the Russian people. Is it true, native life Latvians and Estonians were further away from camp life than the life of a Russian peasant, and it was more difficult for them. But the main thing was something else: they were not less hardy, they were simply larger in stature.

About a year and a half ago, Merzlyakov, after scurvy, which quickly overwhelmed the newcomer, happened to work as a freelance orderly in a local hospital. There he saw that the choice of dose of medicine was made by weight. Testing of new drugs is carried out on rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and the human dose is determined based on body weight. Doses for children are less than doses for adults.

But the camp ration was not calculated based on the weight of the human body. This was the question, the wrong solution of which surprised and worried Merzlyakov. But before he completely weakened, he miraculously managed to get a job as a groom - where he could steal oats from horses and fill his stomach with them. Merzlyakov already thought that he would spend the winter, and then God willing. But it didn't turn out that way. The head of the horse farm was removed for drunkenness, and a senior groom was appointed in his place - one of those who at one time taught Merzlyakov how to handle a tin grinder. The senior groom himself stole a lot of oats and knew perfectly how it was done. In an effort to prove himself to his superiors, he, no longer needing oatmeal, found and broke all the oatmeal with his own hands. The oats began to be fried, boiled and eaten in natural form, completely equating your stomach to that of a horse. The new manager wrote a report to his superiors. Several grooms, including Merzlyakov, were put in a punishment cell for stealing oats and sent from the horse base to where they came from - to general work.

While doing general work, Merzlyakov soon realized that death was near. It swayed under the weight of the logs that had to be dragged. The foreman, who did not like this lazy forehead (“forehead” means “tall” in the local language), each time put Merzlyakov “under the butt”, forcing him to drag the butt, the thick end of the log. One day Merzlyakov fell, could not get up immediately from the snow and, suddenly making up his mind, refused to drag this damned log. It was already late, dark, the guards were in a hurry to go to political classes, the workers wanted to quickly get to the barracks, to get food, the foreman was late for the card battle that evening - Merzlyakov was to blame for the whole delay. And he was punished. He was beaten first by his own comrades, then by the foreman, and by the guards. The log remained lying in the snow - instead of the log they brought Merzlyakov to the camp. He was released from work and lay on a bunk. My lower back hurt. The paramedic smeared Merzlyakov’s back with solid oil - there had been no rubbing products in the first-aid post for a long time. Merzlyakov lay half-bent the entire time, persistently complaining of pain in his lower back. There had been no pain for a long time, the broken rib healed very quickly, and Merzlyakov tried to delay his discharge to work at the cost of any lie. He was not discharged. One day they dressed him, put him on a stretcher, loaded him into the back of a car and, together with another patient, took him to the regional hospital. There was no X-ray room there. Now it was necessary to think about everything seriously, and Merzlyakov thought. He lay there for several months, without straightening up, was transported to the central hospital, where, of course, there was an X-ray room and where Merzlyakov was placed in the surgical department, in the wards of traumatic diseases, which, in the simplicity of their souls, the patients called “dramatic” diseases, without thinking about the bitterness of this pun.

“Here’s another one,” said the surgeon, pointing to Merzlyakov’s medical history, “we’ll transfer him to you, Pyotr Ivanovich, there’s nothing to treat him in the surgical department.”

– But you write in the diagnosis: ankylosis due to spinal injury. What do I need it for? - said the neuropathologist.

- Well, ankylosis, of course. What else can I write? After a beating, not such things can happen. Here I had a case at the “Grey” mine. The foreman beat up a worker...

“Seryozha, I have no time to listen to you about your cases.” I ask: why are you translating?

“I wrote: “For examination for activation.” Poke it with needles, activate it - and off to the ship. Let him be a free man.

– But you took pictures? Violations should be visible even without needles.

- I did. Here, if you please, see. “The surgeon pointed a dark film negative at the gauze curtain. - The devil will understand in such a photo. Until there is good light, good current, our X-ray technicians will give such dregs all the time.

“It’s truly dreary,” said Pyotr Ivanovich. - Well, so be it. - And he signed his last name on the medical history, consenting to Merzlyakov’s transfer to himself.

In the surgical department, noisy, confused, overcrowded with frostbite, dislocations, fractures, burns - the northern mines were not joking - in a department where some of the patients lay right on the floor of the wards and corridors, where one young, endlessly tired surgeon worked with four paramedics: all they slept three to four hours a day - and there they could not closely study Merzlyakov. Merzlyakov realized that in the nervous department, where he was suddenly transferred, the real investigation would begin.

end of introductory fragment

Attention! This is an introductory fragment of the book.

If you liked the beginning of the book, then full version can be purchased from our partner - distributor of legal content, LLC liters.

Shock therapy

“Back in that fertile time, when Merzlyakov worked as a groom, and in a homemade cereal jar - a large tin can with a pierced bottom like a sieve - it was possible to prepare cereal for people from oats obtained for horses, cook porridge and drown out, calm down with this bitter hot mess hunger, even then he was thinking about one simple question..."

Varlam Shalamov Shock therapy

* * *

Even in that fertile time, when Merzlyakov worked as a groom, and in a homemade cereal jar - a large tin can with a punched bottom like a sieve - it was possible to prepare cereals for people from oats obtained for horses, cook porridge and with this bitter hot mash to stifle and appease hunger , even then he was thinking about one simple question. Large mainland convoy horses received a daily portion of government oats, twice as large as the squat and shaggy Yakut horses, although both carried equally little. The bastard Percheron Grom had as much oats poured into the feeder as would be enough for five “Yakuts”. This was correct, this was how things were done everywhere, and this was not what tormented Merzlyakov. He did not understand why the camp human ration, this mysterious list of proteins, fats, vitamins and calories intended for absorption by prisoners and called the cauldron sheet, was compiled without taking into account the living weight of people. If they are treated like working animals, then in matters of diet they need to be more consistent, and not adhere to some kind of arithmetic average - a clerical invention. This terrible average, at best, was beneficial only to the short, and indeed, the short reached it later than others. Merzlyakov’s build was like a Percheron Grom, and the measly three spoons of porridge for breakfast only increased the sucking pain in his stomach. But apart from rations, the brigade worker could get almost nothing. All the most valuable things - butter, sugar, and meat - did not end up in the cauldron in the quantities written on the cauldron sheet. Merzlyakov saw other things. The tall people died first. No habit of hard work changed anything here. The puny intellectual still lasted longer than the giant Kaluga resident - a natural digger - if they were fed the same, in accordance with the camp rations. Increasing rations for percentages of production was also of little use, because the basic design remained the same, in no way designed for tall people. In order to eat better, you had to work better, and in order to work better, you had to eat better. Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians were the first to die everywhere. They were the first to get there, which always caused comments from doctors: they say that all these Baltic states are weaker than the Russian people. True, the native life of Latvians and Estonians was further from camp life than the life of a Russian peasant, and it was more difficult for them. But the main thing was something else: they were not less hardy, they were simply larger in stature.

But the camp ration was not calculated based on the weight of the human body. This was the question, the wrong solution of which surprised and worried Merzlyakov. But before he completely weakened, he miraculously managed to get a job as a groom - where he could steal oats from horses and fill his stomach with them. Merzlyakov already thought that he would spend the winter, and then God willing. But it didn't turn out that way. The head of the horse farm was removed for drunkenness, and a senior groom was appointed in his place - one of those who at one time taught Merzlyakov how to handle a tin grinder. The senior groom himself stole a lot of oats and knew perfectly how it was done. In an effort to prove himself to his superiors, he, no longer needing oatmeal, found and broke all the oatmeal with his own hands. They began to fry, boil and eat oats in their natural form, completely equating their stomach to that of a horse. The new manager wrote a report to his superiors. Several grooms, including Merzlyakov, were put in a punishment cell for stealing oats and sent from the horse base to where they came from - to general work.

Varlam Shalamov

Shock therapy

Even in that fertile time, when Merzlyakov worked as a groom, and in a homemade cereal jar - a large tin can with a punched bottom like a sieve - it was possible to prepare cereals for people from oats obtained for horses, cook porridge and with this bitter hot mash to stifle and appease hunger , even then he was thinking about one simple question. Large mainland convoy horses received a daily portion of government oats, twice as large as the squat and shaggy Yakut horses, although both carried equally little. The bastard Percheron Grom had as much oats poured into the feeder as would be enough for five “Yakuts”. This was correct, this was how things were done everywhere, and this was not what tormented Merzlyakov. He did not understand why the camp human ration, this mysterious list of proteins, fats, vitamins and calories intended for absorption by prisoners and called the cauldron sheet, was compiled without taking into account the living weight of people. If they are treated like working animals, then in matters of diet they need to be more consistent, and not adhere to some kind of arithmetic average - a clerical invention. This terrible average, at best, was beneficial only to the short, and indeed, the short reached it later than others. Merzlyakov’s build was like a Percheron Grom, and the measly three spoons of porridge for breakfast only increased the sucking pain in his stomach. But apart from rations, the brigade worker could get almost nothing. All the most valuable things - butter, sugar, and meat - did not end up in the cauldron in the quantities written on the cauldron sheet. Merzlyakov saw other things. The tall people died first. No habit of hard work changed anything here. The puny intellectual still lasted longer than the giant Kaluga resident - a natural digger - if they were fed the same, in accordance with the camp rations. Increasing rations for percentages of production was also of little use, because the basic design remained the same, in no way designed for tall people. In order to eat better, you had to work better, and in order to work better, you had to eat better. Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians were the first to die everywhere. They were the first to get there, which always caused comments from doctors: they say that all these Baltic states are weaker than the Russian people. True, the native life of Latvians and Estonians was further from camp life than the life of a Russian peasant, and it was more difficult for them. But the main thing was something else: they were not less hardy, they were simply larger in stature.

End of free trial.