The plot of V. Shalamov’s stories is a painful description of the prison and camp life of prisoners of the Soviet Gulag, their similar tragic destinies, in which chance, merciless or kind, rules -stivy, assistant or killer, arbitrariness of bosses and thieves. Hunger and its convulsive satiation, exhaustion, painful dying, slow and almost equally painful recovery, moral humiliation and moral degradation - that’s what we find constantly in the center of the writer's attention.

Funeral word

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

Life of engineer Kipreev

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

For pre-bet

Camp molestation, Shalamov testifies, affected everyone to a greater or lesser extent and occurred in the most different forms. Two thieves are playing cards. One of them loses like crazy and asks to play for a “pre-bet”, that is, on credit. At some point, infuriated by the game, he unexpectedly orders an ordinary prisoner of intellectuals, who happened to be among the spectators of their game, to give a woolen sweater. He refuses, and then one of the thieves “finishes” him, and the sweater still goes to the thieves.

At night

Two prisoners sneak to the grave where the body of their dead comrade was buried in the morning, and remove the dead man’s underwear to sell or exchange for bread or tobacco the next day. The initial disdain for removing clothes is replaced by the pleasant thought that tomorrow they may be able to eat a little more and even smoke.

Single metering

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

Rain

Rozovsky, working in the pit, suddenly, despite the threatening gesture of the guard, calls out to the narrator working nearby to share his soul. - with a revealing revelation: “Listen, listen! I've been thinking! And I realized that there is no meaning to life... No..." But before Rozovsky, for whom life has now lost its value, manages to rush at the guards, the narrator manages to run up to him and, saving him from a reckless and disastrous act, tell the approaching guards that he was ill. A little later, Rozovsky attempts suicide by throwing himself under a trolley. He is tried and sent to another place.

Sherry Brandy

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

Shock therapy

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

Typhoid quarantine

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

Aortic aneurysm

Illness (and the exhausted state of the prisoners, the “goons”, is quite equivalent to a serious illness, although officially it was not considered such) and the hospital are an indispensable attribute of the plot in Shalamov’s stories. tics. Prisoner Ekaterina Glovatskaya ends up in the hospital. A beauty, the doctor on duty Zaitsev immediately liked her, and although he knows that she is in close relations with his acquaintance, the prisoner Podshi-valov, the head of the department. The head of the circle of artistic self-activity, (“the serf theater,” as the head of the hospital jokes), nothing prevents him, in turn, from trying his luck. He begins, as usual, with a medical examination of Glowacka, with listening to the heart, but his male curiosity quickly gives way to purely medical concern -chen-no-stu. He finds Glowacka has an aortic aneurysm - a disease in which any careless movement can cause death. The authorities, who have made it an unwritten rule to separate lovers, have already sent Glovatskaya to a penal women's mine once. And now, after the doctor’s report about the prisoner’s dangerous illness, the head of the hospital is sure that this is nothing more than the machinations of the same Podshi-va-lov, trying to detain his mistress. Glovatskaya is discharged, but already when loading into the car, what Dr. Zaitsev warned about happens - she dies.

The last battle of Major Pugachev

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

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

In the evening, while winding up the tape measure, the caretaker said that Dugaev would receive a single measurement the next day. The foreman, who was standing nearby and asked the caretaker to lend him “a dozen cubes until the day after tomorrow,” suddenly fell silent and began to look at the evening star flickering behind the crest of the hill. Baranov, Dugaev’s partner, who was helping the caretaker measure the work done, took a shovel and began to clean up the face that had been cleaned long ago.

Dugaev was twenty-three years old, and everything he saw and heard here surprised him more than frightened him.

The brigade gathered for roll call, handed over their tools and returned to the barracks in uneven prison formation. The difficult day was over. In the dining room, Dugaev, without sitting down, drank a portion of thin, cold cereal soup over the side of a bowl. The bread was given in the morning for the whole day and was eaten long ago. I wanted to smoke. He looked around, wondering who he could ask for a cigarette butt. On the windowsill, Baranov collected shag grains from an inside out pouch into a piece of paper. Having collected them carefully, Baranov rolled up a thin cigarette and handed it to Dugaev.

“You can smoke it for me,” he suggested.

Dugaev was surprised - he and Baranov were not friends. However, with hunger, cold and insomnia, no friendship can be formed, and Dugaev, despite his youth, understood the falsity of the saying about friendship being tested by misfortune and misfortune. In order for friendship to be friendship, it is necessary that its strong foundation be laid when conditions and everyday life have not yet reached the final limit, beyond which there is nothing human in a person, but only mistrust, anger and lies. Dugaev remembered well the northern proverb, the three prison commandments: do not believe, do not be afraid and do not ask...

Dugaev greedily sucked in the sweet tobacco smoke, and his head began to spin.

“I’m getting weaker,” he said. Baranov remained silent.

Dugaev returned to the barracks, lay down and closed his eyes. Lately he slept poorly, hunger did not allow him to sleep well. The dreams were especially painful - loaves of bread, steaming fatty soups... Oblivion did not come soon, but still, half an hour before getting up, Dugaev had already opened his eyes.

The crew came to work. Everyone went to their own slaughterhouses.

“Wait,” the foreman said to Dugaev. - The caretaker will put you in charge.

Dugaev sat down on the ground. He had already become so tired that he was completely indifferent to any change in his fate.

The first wheelbarrows rattled on the ramp, shovels scraped against the stone.

“Come here,” the caretaker told Dugaev. - Here's your place. “He measured the cubic capacity of the face and put a mark - a piece of quartz. “This way,” he said. - The ladder operator will carry the board for you to the main ladder. Take it where everyone else goes. Here's a shovel, a pick, a crowbar, a wheelbarrow - take it.

Dugaev obediently began work.

“Even better,” he thought. None of his comrades will grumble that he works poorly. Former grain farmers are not required to understand and know that Dugaev is a newcomer, that immediately after school he began studying at the university, and exchanged his university bench for this slaughter. Every man for himself. They are not obliged, should not understand that he is exhausted and hungry for a long time, that he does not know how to steal: the ability to steal is the main northern virtue in all its forms, starting from the bread of a comrade and ending with issuing thousands of bonuses to the authorities for non-existent, non-existent achievements. Nobody cares that Dugaev cannot stand a sixteen-hour working day.

Dugaev drove, picked, poured, drove again and again picked and poured.

After the lunch break, the caretaker came, looked at what Dugaev had done and silently left... Dugaev again kicked and poured. The quartz mark was still very far away.

In the evening the caretaker appeared again and unwound the tape measure. – He measured what Dugaev did.

“Twenty-five percent,” he said and looked at Dugaev. - Twenty-five percent. Can you hear?

“I hear,” said Dugaev. He was surprised by this figure. The work was so hard, so little stone could be picked up with a shovel, it was so difficult to pick. The figure - twenty-five percent of the norm - seemed very large to Dugaev. My calves ached, my arms, shoulders, and head ached unbearably from leaning on the wheelbarrow. The feeling of hunger had long since left him.

Dugaev ate because he saw others eating, something told him: he had to eat. But he didn't want to eat.

“Well, well,” said the caretaker, leaving. - I wish you good health.

In the evening, Dugaev was summoned to the investigator. He answered four questions: first name, last name, article, term. Four questions that are asked to a prisoner thirty times a day. Then Dugaev went to bed. The next day he again worked with the brigade, with Baranov, and on the night of the day after tomorrow the soldiers took him behind the conbase and led him along a forest path to a place where, almost blocking a small gorge, there stood a high fence with barbed wire stretched across the top, and from there at night the distant whirring of tractors could be heard. And, realizing what was the matter, Dugaev regretted that he had worked in vain, that he had suffered this last day in vain.

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov

« Kolyma stories»

Summary

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

Funeral word

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

Life of engineer Kipreev

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

To the show

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

At night

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

Single metering

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

Rain

Sherry Brandy

A prisoner-poet, who was called the first Russian poet of the twentieth century, dies. It lies in the dark depths of the bottom row of solid two-story bunks. He takes a long time to die. Sometimes some thought comes - for example, that the bread he put under his head was stolen, and it is so scary that he is ready to swear, fight, search... But he no longer has the strength for this, and neither does the thought of bread weakens. When the daily ration is placed in his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to tear it and gnaw it with his scurvy, loose teeth. When he dies, he is not written off for another two days, and inventive neighbors manage to distribute bread for the dead man as if for a living one: they make him raise his hand like a puppet doll.

Shock therapy

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

Typhoid quarantine

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

Aortic aneurysm

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

The last battle of Major Pugachev

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

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

Shock therapy

One of the prisoners named Merzlyakov, while at general work, felt that he was getting worse and worse. When he fell while carrying a log one day, he refused to get up. For this, he was beaten first by his own people, then by the guards. He arrived at the camp with a broken rib and lower back pain. The rib healed and the pain went away, but Merzlyakov did not show this, trying to stay longer in the infirmary. Realizing that doctors cannot cure the prisoner, he is taken to a local hospital to be examined by specialists. There is a chance for him to be activated for health reasons, because with such illnesses he will not be sent again to the machinations, where it was damp, cold, and fed with an incomprehensible soup, where there was only water, which could easily be drunk without the help of a spoon. Now he concentrated entirely on his behavior, so as not to be carried away in a lie and not earn himself further fines.

But Merzlyakov had no luck with the doctor. He was treated by Pyotr Ivanovich, a doctor who specialized in exposing malingerers. And although he himself had one year of imprisonment, he was guided by truly medical principles. Realizing that Merzlyakov is a malingerer, he first sends the patient to raush anesthesia, which allows him to sort of straighten out the patient, and then to shock therapy, after which the patient himself asked to be discharged.

Typhoid quarantine

After contracting typhus, prisoner Andreev is placed under quarantine. At the mines themselves, compared to general work, health plays a role big role. Andreev awakens to the long-hushed hope of not returning to where dampness, hunger and death reigned. He hopes to stay longer in transit, and then maybe he’ll be lucky enough not to be returned to the mines. Andreev did not respond to the line-up of prisoners before departure, since he was considered not yet recovered. He was in the transit until it was empty and the line came to him. It seemed to Andreev that he had conquered death, that the path to the mines in the taiga was already closed to him, that now he would only be sent on local business trips. But when a truck with prisoners who were given winter clothes suddenly crosses the dividing line between short and long-distance business trips, Andreev realizes that the essence simply mocked him, and that everything starts all over again.

Aortic aneurysm

Prisoner Ekaterina Glovatskaya ends up in the hospital where the emaciated, emaciated prisoners were kept. She was pretty, which immediately attracted Zaitsev, the doctor on duty at the hospital. He is aware that Katya and his prisoner friend Podshivalov, who was the leader of an amateur art group, had a relationship. But this did not stop him, and Zaitsev decides to try his own luck.

He began, as befits a doctor, with a medical examination of the patient-prisoner. But that male and interest in beautiful woman quickly changes to medical concern when he finds out that Katya suffers from an aortic aneurysm - a disease that, at the slightest wrong movement, can lead to death. The authorities thought that this was Podshivalov’s trick, so that his beloved would stay nearby longer, and gave the command to Zaitsev to discharge the patient.

The next day, when the prisoners were loaded into the car, what the doctor warned about happened - Catherine was dying.

Essays

Shalamov - Kolyma stories

Reading time: 15–20 min.

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

Funeral word

Life of engineer Kipreev

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

To the show

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

Single metering

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

Sherry Brandy

A prisoner-poet, who was called the first Russian poet of the twentieth century, dies. It lies in the dark depths of the bottom row of solid two-story bunks. He takes a long time to die. Sometimes some thought comes - for example, that the bread he put under his head was stolen, and it’s so scary that he’s ready to swear, fight, search... But he no longer has the strength for this, and neither does the thought of bread weakens. When the daily ration is placed in his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to tear it and gnaw it with scurvy, loose teeth. When he dies, he is not written off for another two days, and inventive neighbors manage to distribute bread for the dead man as if for a living one: they make him raise his hand like a puppet doll.

Shock therapy

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

Typhoid quarantine

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

Aortic aneurysm

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

The last battle of Major Pugachev

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

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

Bibliography

All the masterpieces of world literature in summary. Plots and characters. Russian literature of the 20th century / Ed. and comp. V. I. Novikov. - M.: Olympus: ACT, 1997. - 896 p.

That is why the narrative in “Kolyma Stories” records the simplest, most primitive things. Details are selected sparingly, subjected to strict selection - they convey only the main, vital things. The feelings of many of Shalamov’s heroes are dulled.

“The workers were not shown a thermometer, but there was no need to do so - they had to go to work at any degree. In addition, the old-timers almost accurately determined the frost without a thermometer: if there is frosty fog, it means that it is forty degrees below zero outside; if the air when breathing comes out noisily, but it’s still not difficult to breathe - that means forty-five degrees; if the breathing is noisy and shortness of breath is noticeable - over fifty-five degrees - the spit has been freezing on the fly for two weeks.” ("The Carpenters", 1954).

It may seem that the spiritual life of Shalamov’s heroes is also primitive, that a person who has lost touch with his past cannot help but lose himself and ceases to be a complex, multifaceted personality. However, it is not. Take a closer look at the hero of the story “Kant”. It was as if there was nothing left for him in life. And suddenly it turns out that he looks at the world through the eyes of an artist. Otherwise, he would not be able to perceive and describe the phenomena of the surrounding world so subtly.

Shalamov's prose conveys the feelings of the characters, their complex transitions; narrator and heroes " Kolyma stories» constantly reflect on their lives. It is interesting that this introspection is perceived not as an artistic technique of Shalamov, but as a natural need of developed human consciousness to comprehend what is happening. This is how the narrator of the story “Rain” explains the nature of the search for answers to, as he himself writes, “star” questions: “So, mixing “star” questions and little things in my brain, I waited, soaked to the skin, but calm. Was this reasoning some kind of brain training? In no case. It was all natural, it was life. I understood that the body, and therefore the brain cells, were receiving insufficient nutrition, my brain had long been on a starvation diet and that this would inevitably result in madness, early sclerosis or something else... And it was fun for me to think that I would not live , I won’t have time to live to see sclerosis. It was raining."

Such introspection simultaneously turns out to be a way to preserve one’s own intellect, and often the basis for a philosophical understanding of laws human existence; it allows you to discover something in a person that can only be talked about in a pathetic style. To his surprise, the reader, already accustomed to the laconicism of Shalamov’s prose, finds in it such a pathetic style.

In the most terrible, tragic moments, when a person is forced to think about hurting himself in order to save his life, the hero of the story “Rain” remembers the great, divine essence of man, his beauty and physical strength: “It was at this time that I began to understand the essence of the great instinct of life - the very quality that is endowed in highest degree man" or "...I understood the most important thing that man became man not because he is God's creation, and not because he has an amazing thumb on each hand. But because he was (physically) stronger, more resilient than all animals, and later because he forced his spirituality successfully serve the physical principle.”

Reflecting on the essence and strength of man, Shalamov puts himself on a par with other Russian writers who wrote on this topic. His words can easily be placed next to Gorky’s famous statement: “Man – that sounds proud!” It is no coincidence that, talking about his idea to break his leg, the narrator recalls the “Russian poet”: “Out of this unkind weight, I thought of creating something beautiful - in the words of the Russian poet. I thought of saving my life by breaking my leg. Truly it was a wonderful intention, a phenomenon completely aesthetic kind. The stone should have fallen and crushed my leg. And I am forever disabled!”

If you read the poem “Notre Dame”, you will find there the image of “evil heaviness”, however, in Mandelstam this image has a completely different meaning - this is the material from which poems are created; i.e. words. It is difficult for a poet to work with words, so Mandelstam speaks of “unkind heaviness.” Of course, the “evil” heaviness that Shalamov’s hero thinks about is of a completely different nature, but the fact that this hero remembers Mandelstam’s poems - remembers them in the hell of the Gulag - is extremely important.

The sparseness of the narrative and the richness of reflections force us to perceive Shalamov’s prose not as fiction, but as documentary or memoir. And yet we have before us exquisite artistic prose.

"Single metering"

"Single metering" - short story about one day in the life of prisoner Dugaev - the last day of his life. Or rather, the story begins with a description of what happened on the eve of this last day: “In the evening, while winding up the tape measure, the caretaker said that Dugaev would receive a single measurement the next day.” This phrase contains an exposition, a kind of prologue to the story. It already contains the plot of the entire story in a condensed form and predicts the course of development of this plot.

However, we do not yet know what the “single measurement” portends for the hero, just as the hero of the story does not know. But the foreman, in whose presence the caretaker utters words about “single measurement” for Dugaev, apparently knows: “The foreman, who was standing nearby and asked the caretaker to lend “ten cubes until the day after tomorrow,” suddenly fell silent and began to look at the flickering with the crest of the hill the evening star.”

What was the foreman thinking? Are you really daydreaming while looking at the “evening star”? It’s unlikely, since he asks that the team be given the opportunity to deliver the quota (ten cubic meters of soil taken from the face) later than the due date. The foreman has no time for dreams now; the brigade is going through a difficult moment. And in general, what kind of dreams can we talk about? camp life? Here they only dream in their sleep.

The “detachment” of the foreman is the exact artistic detail necessary for Shalamov to show a person who instinctively strives to separate himself from what is happening. The foreman already knows what the reader will understand very soon: we're talking about about the murder of prisoner Dugaev, who does not work out his quota, and therefore is a useless person in the zone from the point of view of the camp authorities.

The foreman either does not want to participate in what is happening (it’s hard to be a witness or accomplice to the murder of a person), or is to blame for this turn of fate for Dugaev: the foreman in the brigade needs workers, not extra mouths to feed. The last explanation for the foreman’s “thoughtfulness” is perhaps more plausible, especially since the supervisor’s warning to Dugaev immediately follows the foreman’s request to postpone the work deadline.

The image of the “evening star” that the foreman was staring at has one more artistic function. The star is a symbol of the romantic world (remember at least the last lines of Lermontov’s poem “I go out alone on the road...”: “And the star speaks to the star”), which remained outside the world of Shalamov’s heroes.

And finally, the exposition of the story “Single Measurement” concludes with the following phrase: “Dugaev was twenty-three years old, and everything that he saw and heard here surprised him more than frightened him.” Here he is, main character a story that has a little time left to live, just one day. And his youth, and his lack of understanding of what is happening, and some kind of “detachment” from the environment, and the inability to steal and adapt, as others do - all this leaves the reader with the same feeling as the hero, surprise and acute feeling anxiety.

The laconicism of the story, on the one hand, is due to the brevity of the hero’s strictly measured path. On the other hand, this is the one artistic device, which creates the effect of reticence. As a result, the reader experiences a feeling of bewilderment; everything that happens seems as strange to him as it does to Dugaev. The reader does not immediately begin to understand the inevitability of the outcome, almost together with the hero. And this makes the story especially poignant.

The last phrase of the story - “And, having realized what the matter was, Dugaev regretted that he had worked in vain, that he had suffered in vain this last day” - this is also its climax, at which the action ends. Further development actions or an epilogue are neither necessary nor possible here.

Despite the deliberate isolation of the story, which ends with the death of the hero, its raggedness and reticence create the effect of an open ending. Realizing that he is being led to be shot, the hero of the novel regrets that he worked and suffered through this last and therefore especially dear day of his life. This means that he recognizes the incredible value of this life, understands that there is another free life, and it is possible even in the camp. By ending the story in this way, the writer makes us think about the most important issues human existence, and in the first place is the question of a person’s ability to feel inner freedom regardless of external circumstances.

Notice how much meaning Shalamov contains in each artistic detail. First we just read the story and understand it general meaning, then we highlight phrases or words that have something more behind them than their direct meaning. Next, we begin to gradually “unfold” these moments that are significant for the story. As a result, the narrative ceases to be perceived by us as stingy, describing only the momentary - by carefully selecting words, playing on halftones, the writer constantly shows us how much life remains behind the simple events of his stories.

"Sherry Brandy" (1958)

The hero of the story “Sherry Brandy” is different from most of the heroes of “Kolyma Stories”. He is a poet. A poet on the edge of life, and he thinks philosophically. As if he is observing from the outside what is happening, including what is happening to himself: “...he slowly thought about the great monotony of dying movements, about what doctors understood and described earlier than artists and poets.” Like any poet, he speaks of himself as one of many, as a person in general. Poetic lines and images emerge in his mind: Pushkin, Tyutchev, Blok... He reflects on life and poetry. The world is compared in his imagination to poetry; poems turn out to be life.

“Even now the stanzas stood up easily, one after another, and, although he had not written down and could not write down his poems for a long time, the words still stood up easily in some given and each time extraordinary rhythm. Rhyme was a seeker, a tool for magnetic search for words and concepts. Each word was part of the world, it responded to rhyme, and the whole world rushed by with the speed of some electronic machine. Everything screamed: take me. I am not here. There was no need to look for anything. I just had to throw it away. There were, as it were, two people - the one who composes, who launched his turntable with all his might, and the other, who selects and from time to time stops the running machine. And, seeing that he was two people, the poet realized that he was now composing real poetry. What's wrong with the fact that they are not written down? Recording, printing - all this is vanity of vanities. Everything that is born unselfishly is not the best. The best thing is what is not written down, what was composed and disappeared, melted away without a trace, and only the creative joy that he feels and which cannot be confused with anything, proves that the poem was created, that the beautiful was created.”