The theme of the tragic fate of a person in a totalitarian state in the "Kolyma Tales" by V. Shalamov
I've lived in a cave for twenty years
Burning with the only dream
breaking free And moving
shoulders like Samson
stone vaults on perennial
this dream.
V. Shalamov
The Stalin years are one of the tragic periods in the history of Russia. Numerous repressions, denunciations, executions, a heavy, oppressive atmosphere of lack of freedom - these are just some of the signs of the life of a totalitarian state. The terrible, cruel machine of auto-ritualism ruined the fates of millions of people, their families and friends.
V. Shalamov is a witness and participant in those terrible events that the totalitarian country was going through. He went through both exile and the Stalinist camps. Other thoughts were brutally persecuted by the authorities, and the writer had to pay too dear price for the desire to tell the truth. Varlam Tikhonovich summarized the experience gained from the camp in the collection “Kolymskie Stories”. " Kolyma stories"- a memorial to those whose lives were ruined for the sake of the personality cult.
Showing in the stories the images of those convicted under the fifty-eighth, "political" article and the images of criminals who are also serving sentences in camps, Shalamov reveals many moral problems. Finding themselves in a critical life situation, people showed their true "I". Among the prisoners were traitors, cowards, scoundrels, and those who were "broken" by the new circumstances of life, and those who managed to preserve the human in themselves in inhuman conditions. The latter were the least of all.
The most terrible enemies, "enemies of the people", were political prisoners for the authorities. It was they who were in the camp in the most severe conditions. Criminals - thieves, murderers, robbers, whom the narrator ironically calls "friends of the people", paradoxically, aroused much more sympathy from the camp authorities. They had various indulgences, they could not go to work. They got away with a lot.
In the story "For the Presentation" Shalamov shows a game of cards, in which the personal belongings of the prisoners become the prize. The author draws images of the criminals Naumov and Sevochka, for whom human life is worthless and who kill engineer Garkunov for a woolen sweater. The author's calm intonation, with which he ends his story, says that such scenes for the camp are a common, everyday occurrence.
The story "At Night" shows how people blur the line between good and bad, how the main goal became - to survive on their own, no matter what the cost. Glebov and Bagretsov take off the corpse's clothes at night with the intention of obtaining bread and tobacco instead. In another story, the convicted Denisov with pleasure pulls the footcloths off a dying, but still living comrade.
The life of the prisoners was unbearable, it was especially hard for them in the severe frosts. The heroes of the story "Carpenters" Grigoriev and Potashnikov, intelligent people, for the sake of saving their own lives, in order to spend at least one day in the warmth, go to deception. They go to carpentry, not knowing how to do this, by which they save themselves from the severe frost, get a piece of bread and the right to warm themselves by the stove.
The protagonist of the story "A Single Frozen", a recent university student, exhausted by hunger, receives single measurement... He is unable to complete this task completely, and his punishment for that is shooting. The heroes of the story "Tombstone" were also severely punished. Weakened from hunger, they were forced to engage in backbreaking work. For the request of Brigadier Dyukov to improve food, the entire brigade was shot along with him.
The destructive influence of the totalitarian system on the human personality is very clearly demonstrated in the story "The Parcel". It is very rare for political prisoners to receive parcels. This is a great joy for each of them. But hunger and cold kills the human in a person. The prisoners are robbing each other! “Our envy was dull and powerless from hunger,” says the story “Condensed Milk”.
The author also shows the brutality of the guards, who, having no sympathy for their neighbors, destroy the pitiful pieces of prisoners, break their bowlers, the convicted Efremov is beaten to death for stealing firewood.
The story "Rain" shows that the work of "enemies of the people" takes place in unbearable conditions: waist-deep in the ground and in the incessant rain. For the slightest mistake, each of them will die. It is a great joy if someone cripples himself, and then, perhaps, he will be able to avoid the hellish work.
Prisoners live in inhuman conditions: “In a barrack filled with people, it was so cramped that it was possible to sleep while standing ... to lean somewhere on a bunk, on a post, on someone else's body - and sleep ... ".
Crippled souls, crippled destinies ... "Everything inside was burned out, devastated, we didn't care", - sounds in the story "Condensed Milk". In this story, the image of the "informer" Shestakov arises, who, hoping to attract the narrator with a can of condensed milk, hopes to persuade him to escape, and then inform about it and receive a "reward". Despite extreme physical and moral exhaustion, the narrator finds the strength to see through Shestakov's plan and deceive him. Unfortunately, not everyone turned out to be so quick-witted. "They fled in a week, killed two not far from the Black Keys, three were tried in a month."
In the story "The Last Battle of Major Pugachev," the author shows people whose spirits were not broken by either the Nazi or Stalinist concentration camps. “These were people with different skills, habits acquired during the war - with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and scouts, ”the writer says about them. They make a daring and courageous attempt to escape from the camp. The heroes understand that their salvation is impossible. But for a breath of freedom, they agree to give their lives.
"The last battle of Major Pugachev" clearly shows how the Motherland dealt with the people who fought for it and were guilty only of the fact that, by the will of fate, they were in German captivity.
Varlam Shalamov is a chronicler of the Kolyma lagers. In 1962 he wrote to AI Solzhenitsyn: “Remember the most important thing: the camp is a negative school from the first to the last day for anyone. The person - neither the boss nor the prisoner, does not need to see him. But if you saw him, you must tell the truth, no matter how terrible it may be. For my part, I decided long ago that I would devote the rest of my life to this very truth. ”
Shalamov was true to his words. "Kolyma Tales" became the pinnacle of his work.
The huge double door opened and a distributor entered the transit barracks. He stood in a wide strip of morning light reflected by the blue snow. Two thousand eyes looked at him from everywhere: from below - from under the bunks, directly, from the side and from above - from the height of the four-story bunks, where those who still retained their strength climbed up the stairs. Today was a herring day, and a huge plywood tray was being carried behind the distributor, caved in under a mountain of herrings, chopped in half. Behind the tray was the guard on duty in a white sheepskin sheepskin coat, shining like the sun. Herring was handed out in the morning - every other day in half. What calculations of proteins and calories were made here, no one knew, and no one was interested in such scholasticism. The whispers of hundreds of people repeated the same word: tails. Some wise boss, taking into account the prison psychology, ordered to issue either herring heads or tails at the same time. The advantages of both have been discussed many times: there seemed to be more fish meat in the tails, but the head gave more pleasure. The process of absorbing food lasted until the gills were sucked, the head was eaten away. The herring was given out unpeeled, and everyone approved of this: after all, they ate it with all the bones and skin. But the regret for the fish heads flashed and disappeared: the tails were a given, a fact. In addition, the tray was approaching, and the most exciting moment came: how big the cut would be, it was impossible to change, to protest too, everything was in the hands of luck - the card in this game with hunger. A person who inattentively cuts herring into portions does not always understand (or simply forgot) that ten grams more or less - ten grams, seemingly ten grams to the eye - can lead to drama, to bloody drama, maybe. There is nothing to say about tears. Tears are frequent, they are understandable to everyone, and they do not laugh at the crying.
As the dispenser approaches, everyone has already calculated which piece will be extended to him with this indifferent hand. Everyone has already managed to be upset, rejoice, prepare for a miracle, reach the edge of despair, if he was mistaken in his hasty calculations. Some closed their eyes, unable to control their excitement, to open them only when the dispenser pushed him and held out the herring ration. Grabbing the herring with dirty fingers, stroking it, squeezing it quickly and gently to determine whether the portion was dry or fat (however, Okhotsk herrings are never greasy, and this finger movement is also an expectation of a miracle), he cannot help but glance at the hands of those who surround him and who are also stroking and crushing the herring pieces, fearing to hasten to swallow this tiny tail. He doesn't eat herring. He licks her, licks her, and little by little the ponytail disappears from his fingers. Bones remain, and he chews the bones gently, chews gently, and the bones melt and disappear. Then he takes bread - five hundred grams is given out for a day in the morning - pinches off a tiny piece and sends it into his mouth. Everyone eats bread at once - so no one will steal it and no one will take it away, and there is no strength to save it. You just don't need to rush, you don't need to drink it with water, you don't need to chew. You gotta suck it like sugar, like candy. Then you can take a mug of tea - lukewarm water, blackened with a burnt crust.
A herring was eaten, bread was eaten, tea was drunk. It immediately gets hot and you don't want to go anywhere, you want to go to bed, but you already have to get dressed - pull on the torn quilted jacket that was your blanket, tie the soles of the soles to the torn cloaks of quilted cotton wool, cloaks that were your pillow, and you need to hurry, because the doors are open again and behind the barbed wire fence of the courtyard there are guards and dogs ...
We are in quarantine, in typhoid quarantine, but we are not allowed to mess around. They drive us to work - not according to lists, but simply counting the fives at the gate. There is a fairly reliable way of getting into comparatively lucrative jobs every day. All that is needed is patience and endurance. A profitable job is always a job where few people are hired: two, three, four. The work where they take twenty, thirty, one hundred is hard work, earthy for the most part... And although the prisoner is never announced the place of work in advance, he learns about it on the way, luck in this terrible lottery goes to people with patience. It is necessary to huddle behind, in other people's ranks, step aside and rush forward when they build a small group. For large parties, the most profitable is the bulkhead of vegetables in the warehouse, the bakery, in a word, all those places where work is associated with food, future or present - there are always leftovers, fragments, trimmings of what you can eat.
We were lined up and taken along a dirty April road. The escorts' boots spanked cheerfully through the puddles. We were not allowed to break the formation in the city limits - no one bypassed the puddles. Legs were damp, but they did not pay attention to it - they were not afraid of colds. They have chilled a thousand times already, and moreover, the most formidable thing that could happen - pneumonia, say, - would lead to the coveted hospital. They whispered abruptly through the rows:
- To the bakery, hey, to the bakery!
There are people who always know everything and guess everything. There are those who want to see the best in everything, and their sanguine temperament in the most difficult situation is always looking for some kind of formula for harmony with life. For others, on the contrary, events develop for the worse, and they perceive any improvement with distrust, as a kind of oversight of fate. And this difference in judgments depends little on personal experience: it is, as it were, given in childhood - for life ...
The wildest hopes came true - we stood in front of the gates of the bakery. Twenty people, with their hands in their sleeves, stamped their feet, exposing their backs to the piercing wind. The escorts, stepping aside, lit a cigarette. From a small door cut in the gate, a man came out without a hat, in a blue robe. He spoke to the guards and came up to us. Slowly he looked around everyone. Kolyma makes everyone a psychologist, but he had to figure out a lot in one minute. Among the twenty ragamuffins it was necessary to choose two to work inside the bakery, in the shops. It is necessary that these people were stronger than others, so that they could carry a stretcher with broken bricks left over after re-laying the stove. So that they are not thieves, thieves, because then the working day will be spent on all sorts of meetings, the transfer of "ksiv" - notes, and not at work. It is necessary that they do not even reach the border, beyond which everyone can become a thief from hunger, because no one will guard them in the shops. It is necessary that they are not inclined to escape. Necessary...
And all this had to be read on twenty prisoners' faces in one minute, and then he had to choose and decide.
“Come out,” the man without the hat said to me. “And you,” he poked at my freckled, omniscient neighbor. “I'll take these,” he said to the guard.
“Okay,” he said indifferently. Envious glances followed us.
In humans, all five human senses never act simultaneously with full tension. I can't hear the radio when I read it carefully. The lines jump before my eyes when I listen to the radio broadcast, although the automatism of the reading remains, I follow the lines with my eyes, and suddenly it turns out that I do not remember anything from what I have just read. The same happens when one thinks about something else in the middle of reading - these are some kind of internal switches at work. A popular saying - when I eat, I am deaf and dumb - is known to everyone. You could add: "and blind", because the function of vision with such a meal with appetite focuses on helping taste perception... When I feel something with my hand deep in the closet and perception is localized at the fingertips, I see and hear nothing, everything is superseded by the tension of the tactile sensation. So now, having crossed the threshold of the bakery, I stood, not seeing the sympathetic and benevolent faces of the workers (both former and current prisoners worked here), and did not hear the words of the master, a familiar person without a hat, explaining that we should pull out broken brick into the street that we should not go to other workshops, that we should not steal, that he will give bread anyway - I have not heard anything. I didn’t feel that warmth of a hotly heated workshop, the warmth that the body yearned for so much during the long winter.
I breathed in the scent of bread, the thick scent of loaves, where the scent of burning butter mingled with the scent of toasted flour. I greedily caught the smallest part of this overwhelming aroma in the morning, pressing my nose to the crust of the ration that had not yet been eaten. But here he was in all its density and power, and seemed to tear my poor nostrils.
The master interrupted the charm.
“Looked in,” he said. - Let's go to the boiler room. We went down to the basement. In a clean-swept boiler room, my partner was already sitting at the fireman's table. The fireman, in the same blue dressing gown as the master, smoked by the stove, and through the holes in the cast-iron door of the firebox, one could see how flames rushed and sparkled inside - now red, now yellow, and the walls of the boiler trembled and buzzed from the convulsions of the fire.
The master put the kettle on the table, a mug of jam, put a loaf of white bread.
“Give them a drink,” he said to the fireman. - I'll be back in twenty minutes. Just don't wait, eat faster. In the evening we will give you more bread, break it into pieces, otherwise they will take it away from you in the camp.
The master is gone.
“Look, bitch,” said the fireman, twirling a loaf in his hands. - Sorry for thirty, bastard. Well, wait.
And he went out after the master and a minute later returned, tossing a new loaf of bread in his hands.
“Lukewarm,” he said, tossing the loaf to the freckled guy. - From thirty. And then you see, I wanted to get off half-white! Give it here. - And, picking up the loaf that the master had left us, the stoker opened the boiler door and threw the loaf into the humming and howling fire. And slamming the door, he laughed. “That's it,” he said cheerfully, turning to us.
- Why is this, - I said, - it would be better if we took it with us.
“We’ll give you some more with us,” said the fireman. Neither I nor the freckled guy could break the loaves.
- Do you have a knife? I asked the stoker.
- Not. Why a knife?
The fireman took the loaf in two hands and easily broke it. Hot, fragrant steam came from the broken rug. The fireman jabbed a finger at the crumb.
- Fedka bakes well, well done, - he praised. But we didn't have time to find out who Fedka was. We started eating, scalding ourselves with bread and boiling water, in which we kneaded the jam. Hot sweat poured from us in a stream. We were in a hurry - the master came back for us.
He had already brought a stretcher, dragged them to the pile of broken bricks, brought in shovels, and filled the first box himself. We got to work. And suddenly it became clear that for both of us the stretchers were unbearably heavy, that they were pulling on the veins, and that the hand was suddenly weakened, losing strength. My head was spinning, we were shaken. I loaded the next stretcher and put in half the first load.
“Enough, enough,” said the freckled guy. He was even paler than me, or the freckles accentuated his pallor.
“Relax, guys,” a baker passing by said cheerfully and not at all mockingly, and we obediently sat down to rest. The master passed by, but did not tell us anything.
After resting, we set to work again, but after every two stretchers we sat down again - the pile of garbage did not subside.
“Have a smoke, guys,” said the same baker, reappearing.
- No tobacco.
- Well, I'll give you a cigarette. You just have to get out. You cannot smoke here.
We shared the makhorka, and each lit his own cigarette - a luxury long forgotten. I took several slow puffs, gently extinguished the cigarette with my finger, wrapped it in a piece of paper and hid it in my bosom.
“That's right,” said the freckled guy. - I didn’t think.
By lunchtime, we got used to it so much that we looked into adjacent rooms with the same baked ovens. Everywhere from the ovens creeped out iron molds and sheets, and bread and bread lay everywhere on the shelves. From time to time a trolley on wheels came, the baked bread was loaded and taken away somewhere, just not where we had to return in the evening - it was white bread.
Through a wide window without bars, the sun could be seen moving towards sunset. A chill came from the door. The master came.
- Well, finish it. Leave the stretcher on the trash. Little did they do. You won't be able to drag this heap of workers in a week.
We were given a loaf of bread each, we broke it into pieces, filled our pockets ... But how much could go into our pockets?
“Hide it right in your trousers,” the freckled guy commanded.
We went out into the cold evening courtyard — the party was already under construction — they took us back. On the camp watch they did not search us - no one carried bread in their hands. I returned to my place, shared the bread that I had brought with the neighbors, lay down and fell asleep as soon as my wet, stiff legs warmed up.
All night long loaves of bread and the mischievous face of a stoker who threw bread into the fiery mouth of the furnace flashed in front of me.
Consider the collection of Shalamov, on which he worked from 1954 to 1962. Let's describe its brief content. "Kolyma Tales" is a collection, the plot of stories of which is a description of the camp and prison life of the Gulag prisoners, their tragic fates, similar to each other, in which chance rules. The author's focus is constantly on hunger and satiety, painful dying and recovery, exhaustion, moral humiliation and degradation. You will learn more about the problems raised by Shalamov by reading the summary. "Kolyma Tales" is a collection that is a comprehension of what the author experienced and saw for 17 years, which he spent in prison (1929-1931) and Kolyma (from 1937 to 1951). Photo of the author is presented below.
Eulogy
The author recalls his comrades from the camps. We will not list their names as we are compiling a summary. "Kolyma Stories" is a collection in which artistry and documentary are intertwined. However, all the murderers are given their real surname in the stories.
Continuing the story, the author describes how the prisoners died, what torments they endured, talks about their hopes and behavior in "Auschwitz without furnaces," as Shalamov called the Kolyma camps. Only a few managed to survive, but only a few managed to survive and not break morally.
"Life of engineer Kipreev"
Let us dwell on the following curious story, which we could not help but describe, making up a summary. "Kolyma Stories" is a collection in which the author, who has not sold or betrayed anyone, says that he has worked out a formula for himself to protect his own existence. It consists in the fact that a person can withstand, if he is ready to die at any moment, he can commit suicide. But later he realizes that he only built a comfortable refuge for himself, since it is not known what you will become in the decisive moment, whether you will have enough not only mental strength, but also physical strength.
Kipreev, an engineer-physicist, arrested in 1938, not only was able to withstand interrogation and beatings, but even attacked the investigator, as a result of which he was put in a punishment cell. But all the same, they are trying to get him to give false testimony, threatening to arrest his wife. Kipreev nevertheless continues to prove to everyone that he is not a slave, like all prisoners, but a man. Thanks to the talent (he repaired the broken one, he found a way to restore the burnt out light bulbs), this hero manages to avoid the most difficult work, but not always. Only by a miracle does he survive, but the moral shock does not let him go.
"For presentation"
Shalamov, who wrote "Kolyma stories", the summary of which interests us, testifies that the camp corruption affected everyone to one degree or another. It took place in different forms... Let us describe in a few words one more work from the collection "Kolyma Stories" - "For the Presentation". Summary his plot is as follows.
Two thieves are playing cards. One loses and asks to play debt. Infuriated at some point, he orders the unexpectedly prisoner of the intelligentsia, who happened to be among the spectators, to hand over his sweater. He refuses. One of the thieves "finishes" him, but the blatar goes to the sweater anyway.
"At night"
We pass to the description of one more work from the collection "Kolyma stories" - "At night". Its summary, in our opinion, will also be of interest to the reader.
Two prisoners sneak to the grave. The body of their comrade was buried here in the morning. They take off the dead man's linen in order to exchange it tomorrow for tobacco or bread, or sell it. Disgust for the clothes of the deceased is replaced by the thought that, perhaps, tomorrow they will be able to smoke or eat a little more.
There are a lot of works in the collection "Kolyma Stories". "The Carpenters", the summary of which we have omitted, follows the story "Night". We suggest that you familiarize yourself with it yourself. The work is small in volume. The format of one article, unfortunately, does not allow describing all the stories. Also a very small work from the collection "Kolyma Stories" - "Berries". A summary of the main and most interesting, in our opinion, stories is presented in this article.
"Single metering"
Defined by the author as slave labor camp is another form of corruption. The prisoner, exhausted by him, cannot work out the norm, labor turns into torture and leads to slow mortification. Dugaev, a convict, is getting weaker and weaker because of the 16-hour workday. He pours, kailite, carries. In the evening, the caretaker measures what he has done. The figure of 25%, named by the caretaker, seems very large to Dugaev. His hands and head are unbearable, his calves ache. The prisoner does not even feel hungry anymore. Later he was summoned to the investigator. He asks: "Name, surname, term, article." The soldiers take the prisoner away every other day to a remote place surrounded by a fence with barbed wire. At night, the noise of tractors can be heard from here. Dugaev guesses why he was brought here, and realizes that life is over. He only regrets that he was tormented in vain for an extra day.
"Rain"
You can talk for a very long time about such a collection as "Kolyma Stories". The summary of the chapters of the works is for informational purposes only. We bring to your attention the following story - "Rain".
"Sherry Brandy"
The prisoner poet, who was considered the first poet of the 20th century in our country, is dying. He lies on the bunk, in the depths of their bottom row. The poet dies for a long time. Sometimes soap comes to him, for example, that someone stole the bread from him, which the poet put under his head. He is ready to search, fight, swear ... However, he has no strength for this anymore. When a daily ration is put into his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to gnaw and tear with loose scurvy teeth. When a poet dies, he is not written off for another 2 days. When distributing, neighbors manage to receive bread for him as if he were alive. They arrange so that he raises his hand like a puppet.
"Shock therapy"
Merzlyakov, one of the heroes of the collection "Kolmyskie Stories", the summary of which we are considering, is a large-build convict, in general works he understands that he is giving up. He falls, cannot get up and refuses to take the log. First, they beat him up, then the guards. He is brought to the camp with lower back pain and a broken rib. After his recovery, Merzlyakov does not stop complaining and pretends that he cannot straighten up. He does this in order to delay the discharge. He is sent to the surgical department of the central hospital, and then to the nervous one for research. Merzlyakov has a chance to be written off due to illness. He tries his best not to be exposed. But Pyotr Ivanovich, a doctor who was himself a prisoner in the past, exposes him. Everything human in him supplants the professional. He spends most of his time on exposing those who pretend. Pyotr Ivanovich anticipates the effect that the case of Merzlyakov will produce. The doctor first gives him anesthesia, during which it is possible to straighten Merzlyakov's body. A week later, the patient is prescribed shock therapy, after which he asks to be discharged himself.
"Typhoid quarantine"
Andreev goes into quarantine after contracting typhus. The position of the patient compared to working in the mines gives him a chance to survive, which he almost did not hope for. Then Andreev decides to stay here as long as possible, and then, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the golden slaughter, where death, beatings, hunger. Andreev does not respond to the roll call before sending the recovered to work. He manages to hide in this way for a long time. The transit line is gradually emptying, the turn comes, finally, to Andreev. But it seems to him now that he won the battle for life, and if now there are dispatches, it will only be for local, close business trips. But when a truck with a group of prisoners, who were given unexpectedly winter uniforms, crosses the line separating long and short business trips, Andreev realizes that fate has laughed at him.
In the photo below - on the house in Vologda, where Shalamov lived.
"Aortic aneurysm"
In Shalamov's stories, illness and the hospital are an indispensable attribute of the plot. Ekaterina Glovatskaya, a prisoner, goes to the hospital. This beauty immediately liked Zaitsev, the doctor on duty. He knows that she is in a relationship with convict Podshivalov, his acquaintance, who runs a local amateur art circle, the doctor nevertheless decides to try his luck. As usual, he begins with a medical examination of the patient, listening to the heart. However, male interest is replaced by medical concern. In Glovatskaya, he discovers This is a disease in which every careless movement can provoke death. The bosses, who made it a rule to separate lovers, once already sent the girl to the penalty female mine. The head of the hospital, after the doctor's report about her illness, is sure that this is the intrigue of Podshivalov, who wants to detain his mistress. The girl is discharged, but during loading she dies, as Zaitsev warned about.
"The last battle of Major Pugachev"
The author testifies that after the Great Patriotic War, prisoners who fought and went through captivity began to arrive in the camps. These people are of a different temper: they know how to take risks, they are brave. They only believe in weapons. Camp slavery did not corrupt them, they were not yet exhausted to the point of losing their will and strength. Their "fault" was that these prisoners were in captivity or surrounded. It was clear to one of them, Major Pugachev, that they had been brought here to die. Then he gathers strong and decisive, to match himself, prisoners who are ready to die or become free. The escape is prepared all winter long. Pugachev realized that after having survived the winter, only those who manage to avoid common work can escape. One by one, the participants in the conspiracy are promoted to the subservient. One of them becomes a cook, the other becomes a culture dealer, the third repairs weapons for the guards.
One spring day, at 5 am, they knocked on the watch. The attendant lets in the prisoner-cook, who, as usual, has come to fetch the keys from the pantry. The cook strangles him, and another prisoner changes into his uniform. The same thing happens with the other attendants who returned a little later. Then everything happens according to Pugachev's plan. The conspirators burst into the security room and take possession of the weapon, having shot the officer on duty. They stock up on food and put on military uniform, keeping the suddenly awakened fighters at gunpoint. After leaving the camp, they stop the truck on the highway, disembark the driver and drive until the gasoline runs out. Then they leave for the taiga. Pugachev, waking up at night after many months of captivity, recalls how in 1944 he escaped from a German camp, crossed the front line, survived interrogation in a special department, after which he was accused of espionage and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He remembers as well as in german camp emissaries of General Vlasov came, who recruited Russians, convincing that the captured soldiers for Soviet power- traitors to the Motherland. Then Pugachev did not believe them, but soon he was convinced of this. He looks lovingly at his comrades who are sleeping next to him. A little later, a hopeless battle ensues with the soldiers who surrounded the fugitives. Almost all of the prisoners die, except for one who is healed after being seriously wounded in order to be shot. Only Pugachev manages to escape. He hid in a bear den, but knows that he too will be found. He does not regret what he did. His last shot was at himself.
So, we have reviewed the main stories from the collection, the author of which is Varlam Shalamov ("Kolyma stories"). The summary introduces the reader to the main events. You can read more about them on the pages of the work. The collection was first published in 1966 by Varlam Shalamov. "Kolyma stories", a brief summary of which you now know, appeared on the pages of the New York edition of "Novy Zhurnal".
In New York in 1966, only 4 stories were published. In the next, 1967, 26 stories by this author, mainly from the collection of interest to us, were translated into German in the city of Cologne. During his lifetime, Shalamov never published the collection "Kolyma Stories" in the USSR. The summary of all chapters, unfortunately, is not included in the format of one article, since there are a lot of stories in the collection. Therefore, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the rest yourself.
"Condensed milk"
In addition to those described above, we will tell you about one more work from the collection "Kolyma Stories" - Its summary is as follows.
Shestakov, an acquaintance of the narrator, did not work at the mine in the face, since he was a geological engineer, and he was taken to the office. He met with the narrator and said that he wanted to take the workers and go to the Black Keys, to the sea. And although the latter understood that this was impracticable (the way to the sea is very long), he nevertheless agreed. The narrator reasoned that Shestakov probably wants to surrender all those who will participate in this. But the promised condensed milk (to overcome the path, it was necessary to refresh himself) bribed him. Going to Shestakov's, he ate two cans of this delicacy. And then he suddenly announced that he had changed his mind. A week later, other workers fled. Two of them were killed, three were tried a month later. And Shestakov was transferred to another mine.
We recommend that you read other works in the original as well. Shalamov wrote "Kolyma Stories" very talentedly. The summary ("Berries", "Rain" and "Children's Pictures" we also recommend reading in the original) conveys only the plot. The author's style and artistic merit can only be appreciated by getting acquainted with the work itself.
Not included in the collection "Kolyma Stories" "Sentence". We did not describe the summary of this story for this reason. but this work is one of the most mysterious in the work of Shalamov. Fans of his talent will be interested in getting to know him.
The story was written in 1967, after V.T. Shalamov left the camp. The author spent a total of eighteen years in prison, and all his work is devoted to the theme of camp life.
A distinctive feature of his characters is that they no longer hope for anything and do not believe in anything. They have lost all human senses except hunger and cold. It is in the story of ChKh that such a characteristic of the prisoner manifests itself especially clearly. The comrade entrusted the main character with a little bag of bread.
It was extremely difficult for him to restrain himself and not touch the ration: + I did not sleep + because I had bread in my head + You can imagine how hard it was for the prisoner then.
But the main thing that helped to survive was self-respect. You cannot compromise your pride, conscience and honor under any circumstances. AND main character showed not only all these qualities, but also strength of character, will, endurance. He did not begin to eat the bread of his comrade, and thus, as it were, did not betray him, he remained faithful to him. I believe that this act is important, first of all, for the hero himself. He remained faithful not so much to his comrade as to himself: And I fell asleep, proud that I had not stolen my comrade's bread.
This story made a big impression on me. It fully reflects those terrible, unbearable conditions in which the prisoner's life passed. And yet the author shows that the Russian person, in spite of everything, does not deviate from his convictions and principles. And this helps him to survive to some extent.
The fusion of romanticism and realism, with which he began his creative way M. Gorky, was a new progressive step in the development of Russian literature. The first brilliant work with which Gorky entered literature was “Makar Chudra”.
About the cruel events of the Soviet era in Russia, described in the works of Solzhenitsyn, Shalamov, Dombrovsky and Vladimov.
The reform only exacerbated the already difficult position of the peasants in Russia. My beloved writer I. A. Bunina could not leave indifferent such a situation of workers who feed the fatherland with bread.
In Sholokhov's story "The Fate of a Man", through the fate of a simple hard worker, the fate of the entire people was shown. during the war years, such a life could be repeated many times. The main new device is story within story.
The path that fell to Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov was incredibly difficult, sometimes tragic. He spent seventeen years in prisons and camps: from 1929 to 1932 in the North Ural camps, from 1937 to 1951 in the Kolyma camps.
V fiction of the post-war decades, the themes of the experience experienced during the war and the rethinking of the events of those years come to the fore. It is to this period that the work of V. Bykov.
“Kolyma Stories” is a collection of stories included in the Kolyma epic of Varlam Shalamov. The author himself went through this "most icy" hell of the Stalinist camps, so each of his stories is absolutely reliable.
V last years we got the opportunity to get acquainted with many works from which the willful decision of the communist ideologists were forcibly excommunicated.
The works of the famous Belarusian writer Vasil Bykov are of great interest. A large number of stories, stories were dedicated to the Great Patriotic War, to the heroism and courage of our people.
This time was very difficult for the peasants and left a big mark on the history of our country. If we look at collectivization on the surface, one gets the impression that it was a difficult but rewarding time.
I would like to acquaint you with the work of Andrei Platonovich. Platonov is a Russian Soviet writer, in his works he creates a special world that amazes us and makes us think.
The subtle lyricist and psychologist - Ivan Alekseevich Bunin in the story "The gentleman from San Francisco" seems to be deviating from the laws of realism, approaching the romantic symbolists.
The main theme of A.I. Solzhenitsyn is the exposure of the totalitarian system, proof of the impossibility of human existence in it.
The "camp" theme again rises sharply in the twentieth century. Many writers such as Shalamov, Solzhenitsyn, Sinyavsky, Aleshkovsky, Ginzbur, Dombrovsky, Vladimov testified about the horrors of camps, prisons, and isolation wards.
The main theme, the main plot of Shalamov's biography, of all his books Kolyma stories”Is a search for an answer to the question: can a person withstand extreme conditions and remain human? What is the price and what is the meaning of life if you have already been “on the other side”? Revealing his understanding of this problem, Varlam Shalamov helps the reader to more accurately understand the author's concept, actively applying the principle of contrast.
The ability '' to be combined in a single material by a contradiction, a mutual reflection of different values, destinies, characters, and at the same time to represent a certain whole ” - one of the stable properties of artistic thought. Lomonosov called it "conjugation of distant ideas", P. Palievsky - "thinking with the help of living contradiction."
Contradictions are rooted within the material and are extracted from it. But out of all their complexity, out of the threads intricately intertwined by life itself, the writer isolates a certain dominant that drives the emotional nerve, and it is this that he makes the content of a work of art based on this material.
Both paradox and contrast, so abundantly used by Shalamov, contribute to the most active emotional perception of the work of art. And in general "on how strong the artist's ability to combine heterogeneous, incompatible, largely depends on the imagery, freshness, novelty of his works" .
Shalamov makes the reader shudder when he remembers Leite-Nanta tank troops Svechnikov ('' Domino '), who was caught in the mine' 'of eating the meat of human corpses from the morgue ”. But the effect is strengthened by the author due to a purely external contrast: this cannibal is a “gentle rosy-cheeked youth”, calmly explaining his addiction to “not fat, of course,” human flesh!
Or the meeting of the narrator with the Comintern activist Schneider, the most educated man, a connoisseur of Goethe ('Typhoid quarantine'). In the camp he is in the retinue of the blatars, in the crowd of beggars. Schneider is happy that he was entrusted to scratch the heels of the thieves' leader Senechka.
The understanding of moral degradation, immorality of Svechnikov and Schneider, victims of the GULAG, is achieved not by verbose reasoning, but by using an artistic technique of contrast. Thus, the contrast in the structure of the work of art fulfills both communicative, and substantial, and artistic functions. It makes you see and feel the world around you in a sharpened, new way.
Shalamov attached great importance to the composition of his books and carefully arranged the stories in a certain sequence. Therefore, the appearance of two works, contrasting in their artistic and emotional essence, side by side is not an accident.
The plot basis of the story "Shock Therapy" is paradoxical: a doctor, whose vocation and duty is to help those in need, directs all his strength and knowledge to expose the convict-simulator who is "terrified of the world from where he came to the hospital and where he is. I was afraid to return. " The story is filled with detailed description barbaric, sadistic procedures carried out by doctors in order not to give the exhausted, emaciated "goner" "free". Next in the book is the story "Stlanik". This lyrical story gives the reader an opportunity to take a break, to move away from the horrors of the previous story. Nature, unlike people, is humane, generous and kind.
Shalamov's comparison of the natural world and the world of people is always not in favor of man. In the story “Tamara Bitch” the head of the site and the dog are contrasted. The boss put the people subordinate to him in such conditions that they were forced to denounce each other. And next to him was a dog, whose moral firmness especially touched those who saw the species and who were in all the bindings of the inhabitants of the village. "
In the story “Bears” we meet a similar situation. In the conditions of the Gulag, each convict only cares about himself. The bear '', met by the prisoners, clearly assumed the danger,ort, the male, sacrificed his life to save his girlfriend, he distracted death from her, he covered her escape ”.
The camp world is essentially antagonistic. Hence, Shalamov's use of contrast at the level of the image system.
The hero of the story "Aneurysm of the aorta", doctor Zaitsev, a professional and humanist, is opposed to the immoral head of the hospital; in the story “Descendant of the Decembrist”, essentially contrasting heroes constantly collide: the Decembrist Mikhail Lunin, “a knight, a clever man, a man of immeasurable knowledge, whose word did not differ from his deed”, and his direct descendant, immoral and selfish Sergei Mi -haylovich Lunin, doctor of the camp hospital. The difference between the heroes of the story “Ryabokon” is not only internally, essential, but also external: “The huge body of the Latvian looked like a drowned man - blue-white, swollen neck, swollen from hunger ... Ryabokon did not look like a drowned man. Huge, bony, with withered veins. " People of different life orientations collided at the end of their lives in a common hospital space.
"Sherri-brandy", a story about the last days of Osip Man-delshtam's life, is all permeated with oppositions. The poet dies, but life again enters him, giving rise to thoughts. He was dead, and he is alive again. He thinks about creative immortality, having already stepped over, in essence, the life line.
A dialectically contradictory chain is being built: life - death - resurrection - immortality - life. The poet remembers, composes poetry, philosophizes - and immediately cries that he didn’t get the bread roll. The one who just quoted Tyutchev, '' was biting the bread with scurvy teeth, his gums were bleeding, his teeth were loose, but he did not feel pain. With all his might he pressed to his mouth, stuffed bread into his mouth, sucked it, tore it, gnawed ... ”Such duality, internal dissimilarity, contradictoriness are characteristic of many of Shalamov's heroes who found themselves in the hellish conditions of the camp. A zeka often recalls himself with surprise - another, former, free.
It is scary to read the lines about the camp konogon Glebov, who became famous in the barracks for having "forgotten his wife's name a month ago." In his' free 'life, Glebov was ... a professor of philosophy (story' 'Funeral word').
In the story "The First Tooth" we learn the story of the sectarian Pyotr Zayets - a young, black-haired, black-browed giant. A lame, gray-haired old man who coughs up blood, met after a while by the narrator, is he.
Such contrasts within the image, at the level of the hero, are not only an artistic device. This is also an expression of Shalamov's conviction that normal person unable to withstand the hell of GU-LAG. The camp can only be trampled and destroyed. In this, as is known, V. Shalamov was at odds with Solzhenitsyn, who was convinced of the possibility of remaining a man in the camp.
In Shalamov's prose, the absurdity of the Gulag world is often manifested in the discrepancy between the real situation of a person and his official status. For example, in the story "Typhoid quarantine" there is an episode when one of the heroes achieves an honorable and very profitable job ... as a barrack sewer.
The plot of the story "Aunt Fields" is built on a similar contrasting inconsistency. The heroine is a prisoner taken as a servant by the head. She was a slave in the house and at the same time “an unspoken arbiter in quarrels between husband and wife”, “a person who knew the shadow sides of the house”. She is well in slavery, she is grateful to fate for the gift. Aunt Polya, who was ill, was placed in a separate ward, from which they had previously '' dragged ten half corpses into the cold corridor to make way for the day chief ”. The military, their wives came to Aunt Pole at the hospital with a request to put in a word for them forever. And after her death, the “all-powerful” Aunt Paul deserved only a wooden tag with a number on her left shin, because she is just a “prisoner”, a slave. Instead of one day, another will come, the same nameless, with only the number of the personal file behind the soul. A human person is worth nothing in a camp nightmare.
It has already been noted that the use of the contrast technique activates the reader's perception.
Shalamov, as a rule, is stingy with detailed, detailed descriptions. When they are used, they are for the most part a detailed opposition.
Extremely indicative in this regard is the description in the story "My Trial": "There are few spectacles as expressive as the redheads set next to them from alcohol, the beefy, overweight, fat-heavy figures of the camp authorities in shiny, like the sun, brand new , stinking sheepskin sheepskin coats, in fur painted Yakut malakhais and mittens - ”leggings” with a bright pattern - and figures of “goners”, torn off “wicks” with “smoking” shreds of cotton wool of worn-out quilted jackets, “goners” with the same filthy bony faces and hungry gleam of sunken eyes ”.
Hyperbolization, pedaling of negatively perceived details in the guise of the 'camp bosses' are especially noticeable in comparison with the dark, dirty mass of 'goners'.
A contrast of this kind is also in the description of the bright, colorful, sunny Vladivostok and the rainy, gray-dull landscape of the Nagaevo Bay ('' The pier of hell ”). Here, the contrasting landscape expresses the differences in the inner state of the hero - hope in Vladivostok and the expectation of death in the Nagaevo Bay.
An interesting example of a contrasting description is in the story “Marcel Proust”. A small episode: the Dutch communist prisoner Fritz David was sent in a parcel from the house velvet trousers and a silk scarf. Emaciated Fritz David died of hunger in these smart, but useless clothes in the camp, which "could not be exchanged even for bread at the mine." In terms of the strength of its emotional impact, this contrasting detail can be compared with the horrors in the stories of F. Kafka or E. Po. The difference is that Shalamov did not invent anything, did not construct an absurd world, but only remembered what he had witnessed.
By characterizing different ways the use of the artistic principle of contrast in Shalamov's stories, it is appropriate to consider its implementation at the level of the word.
Verbal contrasts can be divided into two groups. The first includes words, the very meaning of which is contrasted, opposed and out of context, and the second - words, the combinations of which create a contrast, a paradox already in a specific context.
First, examples from the first group. “Immediately, prisoners are being taken in clean, well-proportioned parties up into the taiga, and in a dirty heap of off-throws - from above, back from the taiga” (“The Conspiracy of Lawyers”). The double opposition (“clean” - “dirty”, “up” - “on top”), aggravated by the diminutive suffix, on the one hand, and the reduced phrase “a lot of garbage”, on the other, creates an impression seen in reality a picture of two opposite streams of people.
“I rushed, that is, trudged off to the workshop” ('' Handwriting ”). Clearly contradictory lexical meanings here they are equal to each other, telling the reader about the extreme degree of exhaustion and weakness of the hero much more vividly than any lengthy description. In general, Shalamov, recreating the absurd world of the GULAG, often unites, rather than opposes, words and expressions that are antinomic in their meaning. In several works (in particular, in the stories "Brave Eyes" and "Resurrection of the Larch") equalsmoldering, moldandspring, lifeanddeath:”...mold also looked like spring, green, seemed alive too, and dead trunks spewed out the smell of life. Green mold ... seemed like a symbol of spring. But in fact it is the color of decrepitude and decay. But Kolyma asked us questions and harder, and the similarity of life and death did not bother us”.
Another example of contrasting similarity: '' Graphite is eternity. The highest hardness, which has passed into the highest softness ”(’ ’Graphite”).
The second group of verbal contrasts is oxymorons, the use of which gives rise to a new semantic quality. The “inverted” world of the camp makes possible such expressions: “fairy tale, joy of solitude”, “dark cozy punishment cell”, etc.
The color palette of Shalamov's stories is not very intense. The artist sparingly paints the world of his works. It would be excessive to say that the writer always deliberately chooses this or that paint. He uses color and unintentionally, intuitively. And, as a rule, the paint has a natural, natural function. For example: '' the mountains were reddened by lingonberries, blackened by a dark blue blue, ... a large yellow watery mountain ash was poured ... ”('' Kant '). But in a number of cases, the color in Shalamov's stories carries a meaningful and ideological load, especially when a contrasting color scheme is used. This is what happens in the story "Children's Pictures". While tearing apart the garbage heap, the prisoner-narrator found a tete-radka with children's drawings in it. The grass on them is green, the sky is blue-blue, the sun is scarlet. The colors are clean, bright, without halftones. Typical palette of children's drawing But: '' People and houses ... were fenced in with yellow even fences entwined with black lines of barbed wire. '
Childhood impressions of a little Kolyma resident run up against yellow fences and black barbed wire. Shalamov, as always, does not lecture the reader, does not indulge in discussions on this matter. The collision of flowers helps the artist to enhance the emotional impact of this episode, to convey the author's idea of the tragedy not only of prisoners, but also of Kolyma children who became adults early.
The artistic form of Shalamov's works is also interesting for other manifestations of the paradoxical. I have noticed a contradiction based on the discrepancy between the manner, pathos, “tonality” of the narrative and the essence of what is described. This artistic technique is adequate to that Shalamov camp world, in which all values are literally turned upside down.
There are many examples of "mixing styles" in stories. A characteristic technique for the artist is the technique in which he speaks pathetically and sublimely about everyday events and facts. For example, about food intake. For a convict, this is by no means an ordinary event of the day. This is a ritual act that gives '' a passionate, selfless feeling ”(“ At night ”).
The description of the herring breakfast is striking. Artistic time here is stretched to the limit, as close as possible to real. The writer noted all the details, nuances of this exciting event: '' While the distributor was approaching, everyone had already calculated which piece would be extended by this indifferent hand. Everyone has already managed to get upset, rejoice, prepare for a miracle, reach the edge of despair, if he was mistaken in his hasty calculations ”('' Bread”). And all this gamut of feelings is caused by the expectation of a village ration!
The can of condensed milk seen by the narrator in a dream, compared to the night sky, is grand and majestic. '' The milk was soaked and flowed in a wide stream Milky way... And I easily reached up to the sky with my hands and ate thick, sweet, star milk ”(“ Condensed milk ”). Not only comparison, but also inversion ("and I easily got it") help here to create a solemn pathos.
A similar example is in the story “How It Began”, where the guess that “boot lubricant is fat, oil, food” is compared with Archimedes's “eureka”.
The description of the berries, touched by the first frost (“Berries”), is sublime and delightful.
Awe and admiration in the camp is caused not only by food, but also by fire and warmth. In the description in the story, "The Carpenters" - truly Homeric notes, the pathos of sacred rites: "The newcomers knelt in front of the open door of the stove, before the god of fire, one of the first gods of mankind ... They stretched out their hands to the warmth ..."
The tendency to elevate the ordinary, even the low, is also manifested in those stories of Shalamov, where it is a question of deliberate self-management in the camp. For many prisoners, this was the only, last chance to survive. Making yourself a cripple is not easy. It took a lot of preparation. '' The stone should have collapsed and shattered my leg. And I am forever disabled! This passionate dream had to be calculated ... The day, hour and minute were appointed and came ”('' Rain”).
The beginning of the story "A Piece of Meat" is full of sublime vocabulary; here are mentioned Richard III, Macbeth, Claudius. The titanic passions of Shakespeare's heroes are equated with the feelings of the convict Golubev. He sacrificed his appendix to escape the hard labor camp in order to survive. “Yes, Golubev made this bloody sacrifice. A piece of meat is cut from his body and thrown at the feet of the almighty god of the camps. To appease God ... Life repeats Shakespearean stories more often than we think. "
In the writer's stories, the sublime perception of a person is often contrasted with his true essence, as a rule, low status. A fleeting meeting with “some former or existing prostitute” allows the narrator to speculate “about her wisdom, about her great heart”, to compare her words with Goethe's lines about mountain peaks (“Rain”). The distributor of herring heads and tails is perceived by the prisoners as an almighty giant (“Bread”); the doctor on duty at the camp hospital is likened to an angel in a white coat (Glove). In the same way, Shalamov shows the reader the camp world of Kolyma that surrounds the heroes. The description of this world is often upbeat, pathetic, which contradicts the essential picture of reality. "In this white silence, I heard not the sound of the wind, I heard a musical phrase from the sky and a clear, melodic, sonorous human voice ..." ("Chasing steam locomotive smoke").
In the story "The Best Praise" we find a description of the sounds in prison: "This special ringing, and even the thunder of a door lock, locked for two turns, ... and the clicking of a key on a copper belt buckle ... here are three elements of the symphony." 'concrete' prison music that is remembered for life.
The unpleasant metal sounds of the prison are compared to the luscious sound of a symphony orchestra. I would like to note that the examples of the “sublime” tone of the narrative are taken from those works, the hero of which either has not yet been in the terrible camp (prison and loneliness are positive for Shalamov), or is no longer in it (the narrator has become a paramedic). In the works, however, there is practically no place for pathos about the camp life. The only exception is, perhaps, the story “Bogdanov”. The action takes place in 1938, the most terrible year for Shalamov and for millions of other prisoners. It so happened that NKVD authorized Bogdanov tore into shreds the letters of his wife, from whom the narrator had no information for two terrible Kolyma years. In order to convey his strongest shock, Shalamov, recalling this episode, resorts to a pathos which, in general, is unusual for him. An ordinary case grows into a true human tragedy. "Here are your letters, fascist bastard!" “Bogdanov tore into shreds and threw into the burning furnace letters from my wife, letters that I had been waiting for more than two years, waiting in blood, in arrows, in the beatings of the gold mines of Kolyma.”
In his Kolyma epic, Shalamov also uses the opposite method. It consists of an everyday, even reduced tone of narration about facts and phenomena that are exceptional, tragic in their consequences. These descriptions are marked with epic calmness. “This is calmness, slowness, lethargy - not only a technique that allows us to take a closer look at this transcendental world ... The writer does not allow us to turn away, not to see” .
It seems that the epic calm narrative reflects the prisoners' habit of death and the cruelty of camp life. To what E. Shklovsky called "the routine of agony" }