Regional state budgetary professional educational institution "Zelenogorsk technical school of industrial technologies and services"

Literature

Pedagogical technology "Method of dialectical teaching"

Questions-judgments to the story of VT Shalamov "Condensed milk" (II course, grade 11)

prepared

teacher of Russian language and literature

Azarova Svetlana Vasilievna

Zelenogorsk

1.How to explain that the prisoners were jealous of Shestakov?

2.How to prove that the hero is constantly hungry?

3. When did the hero of the story meet Shestakov?

4. In what case could a prisoner get a job in a specialty camp?

5. How does Shestakov work out his "warm" place?

6. As a result of what the hero refused Shestakov's offer to escape?

7. Why did the hero first eat condensed milk and then refuse to escape?

Answers:

1. “At the mine, Shestakov did not work in the face. He was a geological engineer, and he was hired to work in geological exploration, in an office. " The inmates were jealous of those who "managed to get to work in the office, in the hospital, in the stable - there was not many hours of hard physical labor." The working day lasted sixteen hours, few prisoners could endure.

2. The hero is constantly hungry. Standing at the grocery store, unable to buy, he cannot "take his eyes off the chocolate-colored bread loaves." He stands, looks at the bread, and he has no strength to go to the barrack. “Choking with happiness,” the hero “orders” Shestakov for canned milk, and at night he sees in a dream a huge can of condensed milk. “A huge can, blue as the night sky, was pierced in a thousand places, and the milk seeped and flowed in a wide stream of the Milky Way. And I easily reached up to the sky with my hands and ate thick, sweet, starry milk. " While waiting, the hero did not remember what he was doing and how he worked that day. Having received the promised condensed milk, he ate two cans at once.

3. The hero met Shestakov while still on the "Big Land", in the Butyrka prison, he was sitting with him in the same cell.

4. Most often, the prisoner got a job in his specialty, “in the office,” if he agreed to fulfill all the requirements of his superiors: to collect and report the necessary information, arrange provocations among prisoners, etc. “... And suddenly I got scared of Shestakov, the only one of us who got a job in his specialty. Who got him there and at what cost? You have to pay for everything. Someone else's blood, someone else's life. "

5. Shestakov persuaded five prisoners to escape. "... Two were killed near the Black Keys, three were tried a month later." Shestakov was transferred to another mine. "He did not receive an additional term for escaping - the authorities played fair with him."

2.1 General analysis of the "Kolyma Tales"

It is difficult to imagine what emotional stress these stories cost Shalamov. I would like to dwell on the compositional features of the "Kolyma stories". At first glance, the plots of the stories are unrelated to each other; nevertheless, they are compositionally holistic. “Kolyma stories” consists of 6 books, the first of which is called “Kolyma stories”, then the books “Left Bank”, “Shovel Artist”, “Sketches of the Underworld”, “Resurrection of the Larch”, “Glove, or KR-2 ".

V. Shalamov's manuscript "Kolyma Stories" contains 33 stories - both very small (1 - 3 pages), and more. It is immediately felt that they were written by a qualified, experienced writer. Most are read with interest, have a poignant plot (but the plotless short stories are thoughtfully and interestingly constructed), are written in a clear and figurative language (and even, although they mainly tell about the "thieves' world", the manuscript does not feel a passion for argotism). So, if we are talking about editing in the sense of stylistic editing, "shaking" the composition of stories, etc., then the manuscript, in essence, does not need such revision.

Shalamov is a master of naturalistic descriptions. Reading his stories, we plunge into the world of prisons, transit points, camps. The stories are told from the third person. The collection is like an eerie mosaic, each story is a photographic piece of the everyday life of prisoners, very often “blatars”, thieves, swindlers and murderers in prison. All of Shalamov's heroes are different people: military and civilian, engineers and workers. They got used to camp life, absorbed its laws. Sometimes, looking at them, we do not know who they are: whether they are rational creatures or animals in which only one instinct lives - to survive at all costs. A scene from the story "Duck" seems comical to us, when a person tries to catch a bird, and that one turns out to be smarter than him. But we are gradually realizing the tragedy of this situation, when the “hunt” did not lead to anything but to forever frostbitten fingers and lost hopes about the possibility of being deleted from the “sinister list”. But in people there are still ideas of mercy, compassion, conscientiousness. It's just that all these feelings are hidden under the armor of a camp experience that allows you to survive. Therefore, it is considered disgraceful to deceive someone or eat food in front of hungry companions, as the hero of the story "Condensed Milk" does. But most of all in prisoners is the thirst for freedom. Let for a moment, but they wanted to enjoy it, feel it, and then die is not scary, but in no case is it a prisoner - there is death. Therefore, the protagonist of the story "The Last Battle of Major Pugachev" prefers to kill himself, but not to surrender.

“We have learned humility, we have forgotten how to be surprised. We did not have pride, selfishness, pride, and jealousy and passion seemed to us Martian concepts, and, moreover, trifles, ”wrote Shalamov.

The author in the most detailed way (by the way, there are a number of cases when the same - literally, literally - descriptions of certain scenes are found in several stories) describes everything - how they sleep, wake up, eat, walk, dress, work, " the prisoners are having fun; how brutally the escorts, doctors, camp authorities treat them. Each story speaks of a continually sucking hunger, constant cold, illness, unbearable hard labor, from which people fall off their feet, about incessant insults and humiliations, about the fear that never leaves the soul of being offended, beaten, crippled, stabbed by "blatars ", Which the camp authorities are also afraid of. Several times V. Shalamov compares the life of these camps with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the House of the Dead" and each time comes to the conclusion that Dostoevsky's "House of the Dead" is an earthly paradise in comparison with what the characters of "Kolyma Tales" experience. The only ones who thrive in the camps are thieves. They rob and kill with impunity, terrorize doctors, feign, do not work, give bribes to the right and left - and they live well. There is no government on them. Constant torment, suffering, exhausting work, driving them into the grave - this is the lot of honest people who are driven here on charges of counter-revolutionary activity, but in fact are people innocent of anything.

And here we see the "shots" of this terrible story: murders during a card game ("Presentation"), digging up corpses from graves for robbery ("Night"), insanity ("Rain"), religious fanaticism ("Apostle Paul" ), death ("Aunt Fields"), murder ("First Death"), suicide ("Seraphim"), the unlimited dominion of thieves ("Snake Charmer"), barbaric methods of identifying simulation ("Shock Therapy"), murder of doctors (" Red Cross "), killing prisoners by an escort (" Berries "), killing dogs (" Tamara Bitch "), eating human corpses (" Golden taiga "), and so on and so forth.

Moreover, all descriptions are very visible, very detailed, often with numerous naturalistic details.

Through all the descriptions, the main emotional motives pass - the feeling of hunger, which turns every person into a beast, fear and humiliation, slow dying, boundless arbitrariness and lawlessness. All this is photographed, strung together, horrors are piled up without any attempts to somehow comprehend everything, to understand the causes and consequences of what is described.

If we talk about the skill of Shalamov as an artist, about his manner of presentation, then it should be noted that the language of his prose is simple, extremely accurate. The intonation of the story is calm, without strain. Severely, concisely, without any attempts at psychological analysis, even somewhere in a documentary, the writer speaks about what is happening. Shalamov achieves a stunning effect on the reader by contrasting the calmness of the unhurried, calm narration of the author and explosive, terrifying content

Surprisingly, the writer nowhere falls into a pathetic anguish, nowhere does he crumble in curses on fate or power. He leaves this privilege to the reader, who, willy-nilly, will shudder at reading each new story. After all, he will know that all this is not a fiction of the author, but a cruel truth, albeit clothed in an artistic form.

The main image that unites all the stories is the image of the camp as an absolute evil. Shalamova views the GULAG as an exact copy of the model of a totalitarian Stalinist society: “... The camp is not a contrast between hell and paradise. and the cast of our life ... The camp ... is world-like. " Camp - hell is a constant association that comes to mind while reading the Kolyma Tales. This association arises not even because you are constantly faced with the inhuman torments of prisoners, but also because the camp seems to be the kingdom of the dead. So, the story "The Gravestone" begins with the words: "Everyone died ..." On each page you meet with death, which here can be named among the main characters. All heroes, if we consider them in connection with the prospect of death in the camp, can be divided into three groups: first - heroes who have already died, and the writer remembers them; the second, those who will almost certainly die; and the third group - those who might be lucky, but this is not certain. This statement becomes most obvious if we recall that the writer in most cases talks about those whom he met and whom he survived in the camp: a man who was shot for not fulfilling the plan by his section, his classmate, whom he met 10 years later in Butyrskaya's cell. prison, a French communist whom the brigadier killed with one blow of his fist ...

Varlam Shalamov lived his whole life anew, having written quite hard work. Where did he get the strength? Perhaps everything was so that one of those who survived would convey in words the horrors of a Russian person on their own land. My idea of ​​life as a blessing and happiness has changed. Kolyma taught me something completely different. The principle of my century, my personal existence, my whole life, the conclusion from my personal experience, the rule assimilated by this experience, can be expressed in a few words. First you need to return slaps in the face and only secondarily - alms. Remembering evil before good. Remembering all the good is a hundred years, and all the bad is two hundred. This is what distinguishes me from all Russian humanists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ”(V. Shalamov)

2.2 Analysis of the story "Introduce"

Each story by V. Shalamov is unique, because it refers to an unusual and frightening topic for us - the life of prisoners, well, to be more precise, not life, but existence, where every second for a person is a struggle. People have neither past nor future, there is only "now" and nothing else.

According to Elena Mikhailik: “Shalamov images, as a rule, are polysemantic and multifunctional. So, for example, the first phrase of the story "Into the Presentation" sets the intonation, creates a false trail - and at the same time gives the story three-dimensionality, introduces the concept of historical time into its frame of reference. The erased memory of the characters multiplies the impression made on the reader. "

Igor Sukhikh in his work "Life after Kolyma" notes that "... Shalamov's personal, internal theme is not a prison, not a camp in general, but Kolyma with her experience of a grandiose, unprecedented extermination of man and suppression of the human. "Kolyma Stories" is an image of new psychological patterns in human behavior, people in new conditions. "

The interest in this work is not accidental, because in it literally on the surface lie all the secrets and horrors of camp life, and the process of the card game stands out especially clearly as something devilish and fatal.

The story "Into the Presentation" begins with the phrase: "We played cards at the horseman Naumov" (5, p. 182). As noted by Elena Mikhailik, this phrase “sets intonation, makes a false trail - and at the same time gives the story a dimension, introduces it into the reference system of the concept of historical time, because a“ minor night incident ”in the Konogon barracks appears to the reader as a reflection, a projection of Pushkin's tragedy. Shalamov uses the classic plot as a probe - by the degree and nature of the damage, the reader can judge the properties of the camp universe. " The writer, as it were, takes us back several centuries in order to show all the backwardness and underdevelopment of camp life, because Kolyma is completely unsuitable for life, the whole "world of the Gulag" is closed, limited. Such a concept as freedom is not applicable here at all, a person is even afraid to think, all his thoughts are focused on how to survive. Even dreams do not allow his soul to rest - they are empty.

It’s safe and warm in the barracks by the horse. And it was this "warm place" that was chosen by the thieves for card fights.

A duel is a confrontation, most often the spirit of the parties, often with sad consequences.

Night is the time of the devil, when all evil spirits come out of the ground. The people believe that it is easier for people to sin at night, as if the Lord God would not notice. “... And thieves gathered there every night” (5, p. 182).

At first glance, there is nothing strange in this phrase, since night is the only free time for prisoners, but if we draw an analogy with the classics of Russian literature, it can be noted that at that time card games were banned and they were played mainly at night. Thus, we again note the destructiveness of the camp life.

It is dark in the barracks, the only light comes from the kolyma. The light from it is dim, dim with a tinge of red, so that the horse's hut looks more like hell than living space.

And just in this place the players gathered for a duel. “There was a dirty down pillow on the blankets, and partners were sitting on both sides of it, folded in the Buryat style ...” (5, p. 182).

The Soviet power, having come to control, destroyed the noble society and everything connected with it. During this period, card games were strictly prohibited, and cards could not be bought, however, "Russia is full of talents" and there were craftsmen who made cards on their own.

“There was a brand new deck of cards on the pillow ...” (5, p. 182). As in the classic game of chance, the new game starts with a new deck of cards. But these cards are extraordinary, they are made from a volume by Victor Hugo. Let us suggest that, perhaps, from the text of the same novel, which also refers to the convicts "Les Miserables", thus, we can draw a parallel with the world of the times of the French Revolution. We do this in order to see the detrimental effect of the disunity and underdevelopment of society during the repression. Cards are played on a pillow, which is absolutely impossible to do, since the energy of the cards is negative and affects the subconscious of a person.

These deviations from the rules of the classic game become a wake-up call to the reader that the heroes of the story are forced to play in order to survive in this camp chaos.

“The suits did not differ in color - and the difference is not needed by the player” (5, p. 183). We see a complete depersonalization of space, this is due to the fact that in the world of camp life there are no colors, everything is the same: gray and black.

Everything in life has a downside, an opposite, and cards too. The suits "black" (clubs and spades) are opposite to "red" (worms and tambourines), just as evil is opposite to good, and life is death.

The ability to independently make cards was considered the norm of decency among the "knights-convicts", and playing cards was almost mandatory among the prison elite. “A brand new deck of cards lay on the pillow” (5, p. 183) was washed away, the meaning of this phrase fully and completely corresponds to the phrase “A brand new deck of cards lay on the pillow”. Perhaps the author wants to show by this repetition that the fate of the players is already predetermined and it is impossible to break this vicious circle. “... One of the players patted it with a dirty hand with thin, white non-working fingers” (5, p.183). This is the hand of Sevochka, a local baron. This hero is two-faced - the opposition of white and black. “The nail of the little finger was of supernatural length ...” (5, p. 183) Since ancient times, people have believed that in the appearance of the devil certain signs of the beast are always preserved - horns, hooves, claws. We could consider this semantic connection accidental, however, in the text there is a lot of evidence and relations between Sevochka and the devil: “Sevochka's nail traced intricate patterns in the air. The cards disappeared from his palm, then appeared again ”(5, p.185).

Based on the foregoing, let us assume that Naumov, without realizing it, signed his own verdict - he sat down to play cards with "devilry", and if he comes out of this fight alive, then he will definitely not become a winner.

But Naumov is not as clean as it seems: on his chest there is a quote from Yesenin's poem "How few roads have been traveled, how many mistakes have been made." Yesenin is a kind of political hooligan, which is why he is recognized by convicts as a poet. Naumov does not believe in God, however, there is a cross on his chest. The cross on the body of an unbeliever testifies to the venality of the soul. In the thieves' semantics, the cross is a sign of high society.

Sevochka starts the game. “Sevochka shuffled the cards ...” (5, p.185). The narration is conducted directly from the person of the narrator. He and his comrade Garkunov are daily witnesses to the games. Meanwhile, Naumov managed to lose everything, except for worthless and unnecessary government items. “According to the rules, the fight cannot be ended while the partner can still respond with something else” (5, p. 185).

“Naumov is putting on the line some kind of pouch with a displaced profile of Gogol” (5, p.185), this direct appeal to the Ukrainian period of Gogol’s work naturally connects “To the Presentation” with the “Evenings on a Farm Near Dykanka” saturated with a kind of devilry. Thus, references to folklore and public literary works firmly introduce the thieves gambler into the informal associative array. Naumov is ruined. The only hope is the risk - to go for the show. Representation is like a “for hire” bet, an opportunity to win back without having anything. Sevochka was a little capricious and, in the end, in the role of such a benefactor, agreed to give him a chance.

"He played the blanket, pillow, trousers - and again lost everything." “A heavy black gaze circled those around him. The hair is tangled ”(5, p. 186) - Naumov seems to be going crazy. He is painfully aware of the horror of the situation. The phrase dropped by Sevochka: “I will wait” - refers not only to the proposal to brew the chifirk, but also directly to Naumov's loss. The presentation was given only for an hour, and card debt is a matter of honor. A thought suddenly appeared in his head: "If there are no things left to buy back, you need to take them from the weaker one!" Two more heroes appear on the arena of the card duel - the narrator and his friend Garkunov. Finding that it is possible to profit from something only from Garkunov, Naumov beckons him to her. This textile engineer is a man not broken by the camp life. (The hero is unusual already in that he has a profession that is not typical for the camp) The textile engineer creates, connects, ... and in the camp there is only one devastation and nothing else.) He, like chain mail, is protected by a sweater tied by his wife from the surrounding abomination. This thing is his memory of a past life, he does not lose hope of returning.

To Garkunov's negative answer regarding the sweater, several people rushed at him and knocked him down, but in vain. Garkunov was not going to give up so easily. In the camp, there is no place for light feelings such as friendship, loyalty, or just justice. Servant Naumov, like a faithful squire of a knight, attacked the engineer with a knife ...

“... Garkunov sobbed and began to fall on his side.

Could it have been without it! ”Shouted Sevochka."

This hero seems to blame everyone for what happened, but in reality he is just upset that the goods are slightly spoiled.

“Sashka pulled off the victim's sweater” (5, p. 187) The blood on the red sweater is not visible - Garkunov's life is worthless, and, in the end, another drop in the sea of ​​blood means absolutely nothing.

“Now I had to look for another partner for sawing wood” ...

In the camp, human life is NOTHING, and the person himself is an insect, although that one has more rights to life than the people in the camp.

There is no person - another will come in his place, and this whole devilish machine will work in the same rhythm, no matter what.

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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 one another, in which chance rules. The author's attention is constantly focused 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 murderers are given a real name 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 shelter 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 the 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 camp corruption affected everyone to one degree or another. It took various forms. Let us describe in a few words one more work from the collection "Kolyma Stories" - "For the Presentation". A summary of 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 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 provisions and don military uniforms, 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 also recalls how emissaries of General Vlasov came to the German camp, who recruited Russians, convincing that the captured soldiers were traitors to the Motherland for the Soviet regime. 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. However, 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 first half of the 20th century became a truly bloody time for Russia. Naturally, wars, a series of revolutions, the period of collectivization, the emergence of fascist and Stalinist camps should have sharpened interest in the problem of death in literature, but the problem of the tragic was comprehended in the literature of the Soviet period, then “ distorted and largely selective“Ideological censorship also played an important role in this. G. Mitin noted a kind of historical paradox of what was happening: “ When the era of death ended in the life of our society, only then did death enter our literature» .

One of those who were not afraid to address the topic of death in Soviet literature was V.T. Shalamov. And it could not be otherwise. It is known that the Kolyma camps, about which he wrote, were the most severe: “ It was considered a miracle to return from there alive, physically and with a living soul.". Therefore, it is not surprising that the characters “ Kolyma stories"Doomed people have become. V.T. Shalamov often depicts the death of his characters, describing physiological signs of dying quite naturally (his medical education affected), but thanks to multilayered metaphors, symbols, intertextual connections in his almost essay prose, a philosophical subtext is created, which allows the author to reflect not only on physical death, but also about spiritual death, while noting that “ there is nothing in the camp that would not be free, in its social and spiritual structure". M. Ya. Geller wrote about this: “ Kolyma stories"- a book about the camp, but above all about the world that created the camp, the place where a person was exterminated. Destruction even when the person survived. "

V.T. Shalamov describes in detail the forces that killed people in Kolyma: “ The most, perhaps, the most terrible, merciless was the cold ... The very first frostbites: fingers, hands, nose, ears, everything that can be grabbed by the slightest movement of air". Winter for Kolyma residents is the most terrible time of the year. V " Kolyma stories»Permafrost, cold and snow are not only a real threat to people, but also a symbol of hopelessness, loss, death. It was in the last minutes before leaving " on an icy night ... in this indecisive hustle and bustle at the ajar doors, from where the icy steam creeps, the human character is felt. One, overpowering a shiver, walked straight into the darkness, the other was hastily sucking out the cigarette butt that had come from nowhere, where there was neither a smell nor a trace of tobacco; the third shielded his face from the cold wind; the fourth stood over the stove, holding mittens and gaining warmth in them» (« Conspiracy of lawyers"). This is how V.T. Shalamov, the departure of a person into oblivion.

In many stories, the writer shows how the cold gets not only to the bones, but also to the human soul: “ The gimmicks just crossed the boundaries of good and evil, warmth and cold» (« Glove»); « So the soul, it froze, shrank and maybe it will forever remain cold» (« Carpenters"). It is no longer the physical sensations of people that are emphasized, but the state of their soul, the existential state when a person is in “ border situation"Between life and death.

Hunger was no less terrible, killing the body and soul of a person in a short time. V.T. In many of his stories, Shalamov describes with medical accuracy the physiological processes occurring in the body of a person exhausted by hunger: “ I understood that the body, and therefore the brain cells, are receiving insufficient nutrition, my brain has long been on a starvation diet and that this will inevitably affect madness, early sclerosis, or something else ...» (« Rain"). Hunger made people speech difficult, memory weakened: “ Words were pronounced slowly and difficult - it was like a translation from a foreign language. I forgot everything. I lost the habit of remembering", - notes the hero of the story" Dominoes". In the story " Sherry brandy»Hunger takes on additional metaphorical meaning. Shalamov describes the poet's death from hunger: life now leaves him, then comes back again, “ like poetry, like inspiration"; before death " it was given to him to know that life was an inspiration". The writer asks the question: “ What does it mean: died as a poet?". According to Shalamov, a poet dies when he cannot create. The Austrian scientist V. Frankl, who worked with prisoners of concentration camps for decades, noted in his writings that it is vitally important for a person to be able to realize his “productive creative actions” and obtain values ​​as a result “ constructive". V.T. Shalamov has repeatedly described how the camp kills creativity in people, thereby deforming their psyche and killing them.

No less than cold and hunger, backbreaking work and physical abuse ruined a person. V.T. Shalamov describes cases when people fell dead while working and were fatally beaten, during which all the entrails were beaten off to prisoners. But even if a person was not killed, violence against a person, constant suppression of it, was destructive. The author describes the process of dulling the feelings of a person who is at the mercy of someone else's will: “ Nothing bothered us any more, it was easy for us to live in the grip of someone else's will. We didn’t even bother to preserve our lives, and if we slept, then we also obeyed the order, the schedule of the camp day", - the heroes of the story tell about their lives" Dry ration". In the prisoner, his individuality, self-esteem was suppressed, as a result, the person died as a person. According to F. Apanovich, “ power becomes for Shalamov a synonym for evil, metaphysical evil that permeates the entire basis of existence and at the same time puts existence under attack, trying to bring it to death, to non-being". According to the observations of V.T. Shalamova: " The camp was a great test of human moral strength, ordinary human morality, and ninety-nine percent of the people could not stand this test": Many prisoners began to believe that the truth of camp life at" blatars", Almost everyone learned to steal. Analyzing the behavior of prisoners in the camp, V. Esipov cites the words of B. Bettelheim (a former prisoner of Dachau and Buchenwald): “ The camp was a training ground for the transformation of free and honest people not just into whimpering slaves, but slaves who had learned in many ways the values ​​of their masters.» .

In identifying the causes of spiritual death of people, V.T. Shalamov is in many ways close to existentialists, but in an emotional attitude to death " future dead”, About which he writes, and the existential heroes of Western European philosophers and writers, significant differences can be identified. So, the awareness of the finiteness, temporality of life causes disappointment, melancholy, boredom in the characters of Sartre and Camus. According to K. Jaspers, " fear intensifies in consciousness of the inevitability to disappear as a lost point in empty space, for all human connections are significant only in time". Characters " Kolyma stories”Amaze with their indifference to death, lack of fear of it, around them there is no specific aura of death - neither horror nor disgust, it becomes an everyday phenomenon. A.I. Bunin showed in his story “ Gentleman from san francisco”, As people are indifferent and casual about the death of another person, while Shalamov's characters are just as indifferent, doomed to their death.

Many of Shalamov's psychological discoveries coincide with scientific research by psychologists who have gone through concentration camps. So, I. Cohen and V. Frankl, describing the psychology of people who survived the concentration camps, considered their lack of fear as a kind of psychological defense mechanism. At first, a person in a camp experiences a shock from the mismatch of reality, as it should be, and the reality into which he fell (“ admission shock" or " primary reaction phase"). V.T. Shalamov in the story " Single metering"Describes Dugaev's emotions:" Everything that he saw and heard here surprised him more than frightened him."; upon learning that they were taking him to execution, " Dugaev regretted that he had worked in vain, in vain suffered this last day". Psychologists define the second phase as “ adaptation phase". Describing it, V. Frankl recalls F.M. Dostoevsky, who noticed that man is a being who gets used to everything. Cohen also noted “ great»Physical and spiritual adaptability of a person. According to V.T. Shalamov, a man became a man " because he was physically stronger, harder than all animals, and later because he made his spiritual beginning successfully serve the physical» .

V.T. Shalamov, like V. Frankl and I. Cohen, raised the problem of suicide in the camp, noting that their number was relatively small, given the unthinkable living conditions. They all concluded that, first, the life instinct plays an important role in this: “ Hungry and angry, I knew that nothing in the world would force me to commit suicide. It was at this time that I began to understand the essence of the great instinct of life", - said the hero of the story" Rain"; secondly, apathy, which, like shock, is a protective reaction of the body. Almost all the characters of V.T. Shalamov, after spending considerable time in the camp, become fatalists. They don't count " your life further, like a day ahead". It all boils down to meeting immediate needs: “ So, stirring up "star" questions in the brain(about soup, stove and cigarettes - A.A.), I waited, drenched to the skin, but calm"- says a man who spent three days in a cold pit in the incessant rain (" Rain"). Man begins to live with the lowest animal instincts, he is reduced to an animal state and, according to V. Frankl, “ falls into cultural hibernation". Shalamov was convinced that human culture turned out to be “ extremely fragile»: « A person becomes a beast in three weeks - with hard work, cold, hunger and beatings» .

Despite all the protective reactions of the body, cases of suicide did occur in the camp. People voluntarily left life, having lost the meaning of existence. This psychological phenomenon was well known to Shalamov. So, in the story “ Rain"The narrator, hearing the cry of his comrade:" I realized that there is no meaning in life", Rushes to save him, even before he attempted suicide. V. Frankl in his book cites similar observations of the military psychiatrist Nardini, who stated that the chance of survival in prison depends on a person's attitude to life, he should be aware that “ survival is his duty, that it makes sense". Speaking about the meaning of life as a factor contributing to survival in the camp, V. Frankl noted that “ not a single psychiatrist and not a single psychotherapist - including a speech therapist - can tell the patient what the meaning is". However, he has the right to assert that “ life has meaning and even, moreover, that it retains this meaning in any conditions and under any circumstances ..."[Ibid: 40]. He was convinced that “ ... suffering, guilt, death ... in no way diminish the meaning of life, but, on the contrary, in principle, they can always transform into something positive. There is no doubt that a poet is incomparably better and easier than a scientist to convey to the inexperienced reader the essence of such a premise."[Ibid: 23].

« Kolyma stories Shalamova is an artistic and philosophical study of the inner world of a person in a death camp. In particular, they analyze the psychology of bodily and spiritual dying. When creating the "poetics of death" the writer uses the language of symbols, metaphors, allusions, reminiscences.

List of used literature

1. Apanovich F... Philippica against force // Shalamov collection. Vologda, 1997. Issue. 2.

2. Geller M. Ya... "Kolyma Tales" or "Left Bank"? // Russian thought = La pensee russe. Paris, 1989.22 Sept. No. 3794.

3. Esipov V... The Norm of Literature and the Norm of Being: Notes on the Writer's Destiny: Notes on the Writer's Destiny of Varlam Shalamov / / Free Thought. M., 1994. No. 4.

5. Mishin G. About life. About death. About the eternal // Literature at school. 1995. No. 3.

6. Toper P... Tragic in the art of the XX century // Literature Voprosy. 2000. No. 2.

7. Shalamov V.T. Favorites. SPb., 2003.

8. Shalamov V.T. New book: Memories. Notebooks. Correspondence. Investigative cases. M, 2004.

9. Shalamov V.T. About prose // V. Shalamov. Several of my lives. Prose. Poetry. Essay. M., 1996.

10. Frankl W. A man in search of meaning. M., 1990.

11. Jaspers K... Spiritual situation of time // Jaspers K. The meaning and purpose of history. M., 1994.

The article is posted on a hard-to-reach Internet resource in a pdf extension, I duplicate it here.

The documentary artistry of the stories "The Sending" by V.T. Shalamov and G.S. Zhzhenova

The article is related to the topic of the Kolyma convict camps and is devoted to the analysis of the documentary-artistic world of the stories "The Sending" by V.T. Shalamov and G.S. Zhzhenova.

The exposition of Shalamov's story "The Parcel" directly introduces into the main event of the story - the receipt of a parcel by one of the prisoners: “Parcels were given out on watch. The foremen verified the identity of the recipient. Plywood broke and cracked in its own way, in a plywood way. The local trees did not break like that, they shouted in a different voice. " It is no coincidence that the sound of parcel plywood is compared to the sound of breaking Kolyma trees, as if symbolizing two oppositely polar modes of human life - life in freedom and life in prison. The "different polarity" is clearly felt in another no less important circumstance: a prisoner who comes to receive the parcel notices behind the barrier people "with clean hands in an overly neat military uniform." The contrast from the very beginning creates an insurmountable barrier between the powerless prisoners and those who stand above them - the arbiters of their destinies. The attitude of the "masters" to "slaves" is also noted in the plot of the plot, and the mockery of the prisoner will vary until the end of the story, forming a kind of event constant that emphasizes the absolute lack of rights of an ordinary inhabitant of the Stalinist labor camp.

The article deals with the GULAG theme. The author made an attempt to analyze the documentary and fi ction worlds of the two stories.

LITERATURE

1. Zhzhenov G.S. Sleigh // From "Capercaillie" to "Firebird": a story and stories. - M .: Contemporary, 1989.
2. Cress Vernon. Zekameron XX century: a novel. - M .: Art. lit., 1992.
3. Shalamov V.T. Collected Works. In 4 volumes. T. 1 // comp., Prepared. text and notes. I. Sirotinskaya. - M .: Art. lit., 1998.
4. Shalamov V.T. Collected Works. In 4 volumes. T. 2 // comp., Prepared. text and notes. I. Sirotinskaya. - M .: Art. lit., 1998.
5. Schiller F.P. Letters from a dead house / comp., Trans. with it., note., afterword. V.F. Diesendorf. - M .: Obshchest. acad. sciences grew. Germans, 2002.

NOTES

1. Note that dreams about food and bread do not give a hungry prisoner rest in the camp: "I slept and still saw my constant Kolyma dream - loaves of bread floating in the air, filling all houses, all streets, all the land."
2. Philologist F.P. Schiller wrote to his family in 1940 from a camp in the Nakhodka Bay: "If you have not sent your boots and top shirt yet, then do not send it, otherwise I am afraid that you will send something completely inappropriate."
3. Shalamov recalls this case both in "Sketches of the Underworld" and in the story "Tombstone": “Burkas cost seven hundred, but it was a profitable sale.<…>And I bought a whole kilogram of butter at the store.<…>I also bought bread ... ".
4. Due to the constant hunger of prisoners and exhausting hard work, the diagnosis of "alimentary dystrophy" in the camps was common. This became a fertile ground for making adventures of unprecedented proportions: "all products were written off to the camp that matured for the shelf life."
5. Something similar to this feeling is experienced by the hero-narrator of the story "The Conspiracy of Lawyers": “I have not been pushed out in this brigade yet. There were people here and weaker than me, and this brought some kind of comfort, some unexpected joy. " Kolyma resident Vernon Kress writes about human psychology in such conditions: “Our comrades pushed us, because the sight of a person who has reached it always irritates the healthier one, he guesses his own future in it, and besides, he pulls to find an even more defenseless one, to take revenge on it<...>» .
6. Not only the Blathari loved theatricality, other representatives of the camp population were also interested in it.

Cheslav Gorbachevsky, South Ural State University