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Review of a work of modern Russian literature. (Based on the novel A

Among works of art about the difficult thirties, the novel "Children of the Arbat" is of particular importance. After its first publication (1988), it was unanimously singled out by both readers and critics. He received more responses, both laudatory and abusive. Moreover, interest in the work was due not only to artistic qualities, as a rule, they are not discussed. For the first time after so many years of silence at the center of the plot of a large epic work the figure of a statesman who was the arbiter of the destinies of millions for a whole historical period in the life of the country and at the same time - a mysterious figure, although his name was on everyone's lips. And even now, in essence, only fragments of information, individual episodes, traits of a portrait and traits of character, contradictory assessments of certain words and deeds of this person, taken in the memoirs of various figures of the Stalin era, reach us. After all, in fact, no real generalizing and analytical work about Stalin was published in our country, unless, of course, we count the official parade biography released immediately after the war.

After the first publication of the work, A. Rybakov was literally attacked by journalists and critics. From his numerous interviews, it is known that the novel was conceived a quarter of a century ago as a broad narrative about the fate of the first generation of Soviet people. Its heroes were those who were born around 1914 and whose conscious life began after the revolution and the civil war, who, having passed through the boundaries of the thirties, at the age of physical and spiritual maturity, met the Great Patriotic War.

The writer himself belonged to this generation, who fully shared both the bitter and the bright in the fate of the first Soviet people.

November 1933 - December 1934. This is how the time frame of the first novel from the epic canvas widely conceived by A. Rybakov is determined. Critic Bocharov wrote an article about "Children of the Arbat", where he argued that the writer "based the plot ... on the usual" eventless year ", but perhaps this is not entirely true.

A lot of things happened this year. If you leaf through the newspaper files, you can read about the rescue of the "Chelyuskinites", about the first congress of writers, and so on. But this is not important for Rybakov, he has his own truth, which made it possible to vividly reflect the contradictions of the time, which are more clearly visible to him.

Nevertheless, 1934 was called a special, landmark year in the pre-war period of the country's history.

Only ten years have passed since the mournful January 1924, the feeling of unity that seized the whole people at the hour of farewell to Ilyich is still alive in people.

And the atmosphere of the fierce struggle with the opposition that unfolded immediately after the death of the leader is alive. A struggle in which the authority of the General Secretary of the Central Committee, Stalin, who continued the Leninist idea of the unity of the Bolshevik Party, grew so much.

The fighters of the “Iron Guard of Lenin’s forging”, who were hardened in the underground, went through the revolution and the civil war, and then for some time held key positions in the party, state and economic leadership, are still held in high esteem.

But they are already being replaced by new leaders of the “Stalinist school”, the apparatus that was created during the years of the first five-year plans.

Thus, of the seven members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of 1924, by the beginning of the 30s, only the General Secretary remained in it.

Quite recently, Stalin toured the newly opened White Sea-Baltic Canal. It was built by the labor of tens of thousands of prisoners, the overwhelming majority of them were "under the kulaks" and "foreign elements", and immediately named after Stalin. These are original relics, fragments of the NEP, the liquidation of which took place extremely harshly.

In January 1934, the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, called the "Congress of the Winners," meets. At one of its meetings, an episode took place, which was perceived by everyone very cheerfully, but turned out to be in fact terrible prophecy. The workers of the Tula Arms Plant presented Stalin with a sample of a new sniper rifle. Rising above the presidium table and slightly smiling through his mustache, he jokingly took aim at the meeting room applauding him.

In December of the same 1934, Kirov was killed, and years later the XVII Party Congress will be referred to as the "Congress of the Executed".

This is how 1934 went down in history. And what was it like for contemporaries? What did the direct participants in what was happening, the heroes of the novel “Children of the Arbat” see, feel and understand in this “eventless” time? "Most big house on the Arbat between Nikolsky and Denezhny lanes, now they are called Plotnikov lane and Vesnina street ”... This phrase opens the novel by A. Rybakov.

The choice of location was greatly influenced by personal and life experience the author of the work: he repeatedly mentioned that his childhood and youth were spent on this very street, in this very courtyard. But this is only the outer side of the choice.

The Arbat and the entire Arbat region are special places not only for the poor part of the population, but also for the rich stratum of the inhabitants of Moscow in the thirties. Let us recall the novel by M. Bulgakov. He also settled his heroes, the Master and Margarita, in the Arbat alleys! What did this part of Moscow mean? Business and shopping street, which occupies a central position between the then periphery of the city and its center. Very close - Vozdvizhenka, Manege, the Kremlin. But nearby is the Smolensky market, and there it is within easy reach of Dorogomilov and Maiden's field - the outskirts of Moscow. And as soon as you step aside from the noisy street, you will find yourself in quiet, almost provincial lanes: Stolovy, Skaterny. Starokonyushenny, Dog's playground, with green islands and mansions that have preserved the atmosphere of the last century.

"Tram traffic has been stopped on the Arbat, the street has been asphalted." - Sasha learns from letters during the exile and with difficulty tries to imagine the changed places of his childhood. Yes, in the early thirties the Arbat became a regime street. There is a path from the Kremlin to the nearest dacha of Stalin, and special vehicles pass several times a day along the newly paved pavement.

I want to pay special attention to this very significant beginning. It seems that the first lines are purely informational in nature, but it is here, pointing to a real-life house, that the author asserts, as it were, the reality of the children of the Arbat themselves. There is an atmosphere of a certain historical narrative. The heroes of Rybakov, the residents of this house, may have really existed. Everything that happens to them on the pages of the novel is quite likely real events. But, besides this, the writer specifies the coordinates of the house, which arose already in the years of the publication of the work. That is, already at the very beginning, a thread of time connection is stretched: the past does not die and is not subject to oblivion!

They live in the house, study at the same school, very different young people grow up, both in origin (for that time - a very important sign!) And in their outlook on life. Sasha Pankratov from an intelligent family, the son of a tailor (according to the questionnaire - a worker) Yura Sharok, professorial children Vika and Vadim Morasevichi. orphan sisters Nina and Varya Ivanov, the son of a stoker Maxim Kostin. Emphasizing the origin, indicating the occupations and past of young people - this is the special author's intention. That is why one of the critics of the novel even gave the house on the Arbat a biblical name - "Noah's Ark": Rybakov placed in his house completely different people, "clean" and "impure", and showed in their destinies the fate of the whole country.

And nearby there are other layers of life, to which the threads are stretched through the same children of the Arbat: a schoolmate Lena Budyagina is friends with them - the daughter of a member of the Central Committee, a major diplomat, and now deputy people's commissar, a friend of Stalin still in exile. And Sasha Pankratov's uncle is a big business executive, whom Ordzhonikidze appreciates very much.

But the first pages of the story still do not promise anything strict, much less black.

Pre-holiday, carefree Moscow evening. “At the cinema“ Arbatsky Ars ”the girls were already walking in pairs, Arbat girls and Dorogomilovsky, and girls from Plyushchikha, coat collars casually raised, lips made up, eyelashes curled, expectant eyes, a colored scarf around the neck - autumn Arbat chic. With one of these girls. Katya, and the hero of the work of student Sasha Pankratov will have a love and at the same time some very mundane date in her friend’s room somewhere on the working outskirts, not far from the Novodevichy Convent. Everything is described very casually and somehow erased. You hardly see the characters. Perhaps this was the intention of the author, who focused on the details of everyday life. A poor festive table, pies with soy, potatoes, cabbage, a bottle of vodka. The tightness of the overpopulated "communal". Children, so as not to interfere, are sent to the neighbors ...

But the reader will meet descriptions of other apartments in the novel. The same communal apartment, but already inhabited by residents of a different circle. An apartment in a prominent house on the Arbat, where the Potapovs occupy two rooms, and in those days - almost a luxury! A. Rybakov will show a separate apartment of the deputy people's commissar's family in a government building, where the walls are armored with bookshelves, and on round table under a wide low lampshade lies an open box of marmalade.

The details, written out in detail or dropped in passing, not only recreate the picture of life in the early 1930s, but also serve as a kind of signals of changes that have already begun, signals that are incomparably more acutely perceived by today's readers than by the characters of the novel themselves.

Here Mark Alexandrovich Ryazanov, Sasha's uncle, is walking from the Arbat to the Business House on Nogin Square. On the way, his gaze glides over such a familiar picture: "A large crowd was waiting for the opening of the Voentorg store, and another, smaller one, huddled near Kalinin's reception."

And on a peaceful summer day, a group of young people in Serebryany Bor hears a pleasant baritone sound above the hushed dacha village of old Bolsheviks and respondent workers:

"And why I love you, quiet night...

He sings well, - said Yura, - who is this?

Our neighbor, Lena answered, is an employee of the Central Committee. Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov.

Vadim shook his head as a sign that he heard this name for the first time.

And he knew all the names.

I don't know who he is, - Yura said, - but he sings well.

A very good person,” Lena said.

It is worth noting that here the author, striving for a strong effect, as researchers of Rybakov's work noted, allows a certain exaggeration. N. I. Yezhov by 1934 was quite well known not only in leading circles. The fame of him was already not the best. In 1928-1930, Yezhov, the Deputy People's Commissar for Agriculture, zealously pursued, on Stalin's instructions, the line of complete collectivization and the elimination of the kulaks as a class. After the publication of the article “Dizziness from Success”, he was not only not brought to party responsibility, like a number of leaders of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, but was appointed head of the Distribution Department and the Personnel Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. By the summer of 1934, Yezhov had been Stalin's first assistant for four years in carrying out his personnel policy, which is expressively mentioned in the novel by A. Rybakov: “All the time it is necessary to break these existing apparatuses, these clips of ripened people, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.”

These are the different heroes of Rybakov, but the fate and life of each will be either directly or indirectly connected with the "arbiter of fate", with Stalin, and it is important for the author to understand the origins and consequences of the tragedy of the thirties. The fate of Sasha Pankratov is at the center of the novel.

After the very calm, even somewhat slowed-down scene of Sasha Pankratov and Katya's love meeting, which opens the novel, there follows a chapter about a meeting of the party bureau of the institute, where the case of student Pankratov should be discussed. Sasha expressed public dissatisfaction with the fact that the accounting teacher, instead of presenting the basics of the subject, "exposes bourgeois views on the economy." But main question at the meeting - this is the case of the deputy director of the institute Krivoruchko, a member of the party since 1914, a man with a legendary military biography. The construction of the student hostel was not completed on time. They didn’t provide materials for the construction, all the funds were chosen by Magnitostroy, but ... But the answer to all this is obvious: “We are not interested in objective reasons! Funds transferred to shock construction sites? You are not responsible for Magnitogorsk, but for the Institute. Why didn't they warn that the deadlines were unrealistic? Ah, the deadlines are real ... Why not met? Have you been in the party for twenty years?.. For past merits, we will bow at the feet, but for mistakes we will beat.

And the attitude towards Sasha and his case now completely depends on what position he will take in relation to Krivoruchko, whether he will support or not support the prosecution. Sasha did not support, and his question was submitted for discussion to the Komsomol organization: let the youth sort it out themselves. It would seem democratic? But here the rules of a “different game” come into force, which Sasha does not suspect at first. It’s one thing to condemn in a narrow circle and punish on behalf of the party bureau, it’s another thing to achieve public repentance or public condemnation, and then make a decision based on the “fury of the masses” (there was such a wording in those years).

"Yanson! Janson! Let Janson say!..

Comrades, the issue we are discussing is very important.

We know this even without you, - they shouted from the hall.

But one must separate objective results from subjective motives.

Same!

Don't philosophize!

No, it's not the same thing. But let me finish my thought...

We won't allow it! Enough!..

Pankratov took an apolitical and, consequently, philistine position.

Few! Few!

There is nothing to listen to!

And then the scale of action expands and becomes larger. Summoned to Moscow, Mark Alexandrovich Ryazanov is going to talk about Sasha's case with his old acquaintance, deputy Ordzhonikidze and member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Budyagin. “These working intellectuals, who changed the commissar’s overcoat for an embassy tailcoat, the leather jacket of the chairman of the gubchek for the suit of the director of the trust, always personified the formidable spirit of the Revolution for Mark Alexandrovich. the all-destroying power of the Dictatorship.

But Sasha's fate in a conversation between old acquaintances is not the main thing - the fate of the fourth blast furnace at the metallurgical plant, which Ryazanov is building, is being decided. The blast furnace must be blown out by the 17th Party Congress, in five months, and not in eight, as was envisaged by the plan. Both Ryazanov and Budyagin understand that "economic expediency is sacrificed to political necessity", but such is Stalin's will.

But Stalin, at a personal meeting, suddenly unexpectedly supported Ryazanov. He liked the phrase that the head of the construction of a metallurgical plant is not a technical adventurer. “So there are technical adventurers in the Central Committee?” Stalin suddenly asked cheerfully. And Mark Alexandrovich, who admired the leader's wisdom and foresight, was unaware that he, with the phrase about "technical adventurism", was already aiming at Deputy People's Commissar Budyagin, and through him at Ordzhonikidze. Just as Sasha was unaware that they were cracking down on Krivoruchko, in fact, not for the hostel, but for the fact that he had once been in the opposition, "signed letters", "joined the platforms" and only formally admitted mistakes, but "not disarmed."

And the end of Ryazanov's conversation with Stalin casts another reflection on the emerging atmosphere of the 1930s. The remark dropped by Ryazanov that one of the adjacent plants fails him with supplies leads to the following:

“Stalin asked who was the director of this plant. Hearing the answer, he said:

A stupid person will fail.

His eyes became yellowish, heavy, tiger-like, anger flashed in them towards the man whom Mark Alexandrovich knew as a good man who found himself in difficult conditions, "in any situation he is true to his Komsomol ethics. At a factory or at an institute, in Butyrki or on the Angara.

And oddly enough, its strength lies in its idealism, in its romantic vision of a new, perfect society. That is why Dyakov fails to break Sasha and force him to sign a testimony about the presence of a counter-revolutionary organization in the institute. The ingenious tricks of the investigator do not work on this student, who lives according to the norms of real revolutionaries.

Apart from history at the institute, I don't know anything about myself.

So you were arrested for no reason at all? Are we planting innocent people? Even here you continue counter-revolutionary agitation, and yet we are not the gendarmerie, we are not the Third Section, we are not just punitive organs. We are an armed detachment of the party. And you're a double-dealer, Pankratov, that's who you are!

You don't dare to call me that!

Dyakov slammed his fist on the table.

I'll show you what I dare and what I don't dare! Do you think you have arrived at the sanatorium? We have other conditions here for people like you. Double Dealer! You have been sitting on the neck of the working class all your life and are still sitting on the neck of the state, it teaches you, pays you a stipend, and you are deceiving it!”

Indeed, Pankratov relies on the example of the Bolsheviks, who stood for the truth in the tsarist prisons no matter what. Like them, he rebels during interrogations, demonstrates stamina, like them, tries to educate himself even in a cell.

“In the afternoon, an unfamiliar overseer appeared with a piece of paper and a pencil in his hands.

Write a request to the library

Library allowed!

Sasha doesn't know how many books and for how long. But he did nothing to show his ignorance. An experienced prisoner is given more consideration by the staff than an inexperienced one.

Tolstoy - "War and Peace", Gogol - " Dead Souls”, Balzac - “Lost Illusions” ... Latest numbers magazines "Krasnaya nov". New world". "October". "Young Guard", "Star" ... He wrote without hesitation, there was no time to think, the man was waiting, the prisoner must decide in advance what he needs, he wrote what came to mind, it is important to get books, thicker books, so that Enough until the next time, which is not known when.

He deliberately demanded only one thing - the “Code of Criminal Procedure”. He won't get it. And yet he wrote: "The Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR", expressing at least this protest against his position.

Later, in exile, he will unselfishly help the collective farmers, despite the fact that he is actually a political outcast there. He will also refuse the plan proposed to him to "go underground": enter into a fictitious marriage, change his surname and passport, and renounce his past. “She offers him the option of a hare life, under a false name, with a foreign passport. And if he ever meets a friend somewhere, he will have to explain to him that he is no longer Pankratov, but Iskhakov, he, you see, got married. And if the clerks nevertheless get to him, they will gloat and triumph: he tried to hide behind his wife’s back, no, my friend, you can’t hide from us behind anyone’s back. And it is no coincidence that you live with a fake passport, an honest Soviet person does not need a fake passport, an honest Soviet person does not change his surname.

Enough, - said Sasha, - the conversation becomes meaningless. I was born with this name, and I will die with it. There will be no change."

Throughout the novel, this internal confrontation runs between two characters who will never meet each other, Stalin with his regime and a simple student, Sasha Pankratov. In the novel, they embody the original ideological and moral epicenters of the work. The author uses the opposition of these two heroes not only in the plot itself, but also in separate phrases. “At the very time when Muscovites were walking through the Red Square illuminated by searchlights, greeting Stalin standing on the mausoleum, the hour of supper came in Butyrskaya prison.”

This brings us back to the traditions of L. Tolstoy. His writing techniques are based on exposing negative characters through details. Same with Rybakov. An example is Stalin's "sovereign pipe". She appears in numerous literary works, films, paintings of artists as a symbol of the wisdom of the leader. But in "Children of the Arbat" it turns into a completely different detail: the rotten, sooty teeth of an inveterate smoker. And the “golden color of the eyes”, mentioned in the memoirs, gets a completely different meaning: “Stalin looked at Kirov from under his brows, his eyes were yellow, tiger-like.” This is a very important detail that conveys the inner essence of the leader's character, the impression that he made on his interlocutors.

The scenes of Sasha Pankratov's stay in prison are the strongest in the novel and for the accuracy of the details. In addition, they open spiritual world hero, reveal the process of maturation and maturation of character young man. It is here that the fundamental forces that determine the social behavior of a person collapse: fear and calculation. And most importantly, the blind, unconditional faith in the wisdom of the leader's policy disappears. “Sasha did not experience such longing either in Butyrka, or during the transfer, or at the stage. There was hope in Butyrka - they would figure it out, they would let him out, at the stage there was a goal - to reach the place, settle down, patiently wait out his term. Hope made him a man, the goal helped to live. There is no hope or purpose here. He wanted to help people use the separator, he was accused of wrecking. Alferov proved it to him with iron logic. And Alferov can crush him at any moment by using Ivan Parfenovich's statement. Is it possible to live like this? Why textbooks French, which he expects from Moscow, books on political economy and philosophy? To whom will he express them, with whom will he speak French? With bears in the taiga? Even if Alferov does not touch him, how and on what can he live here? Hemming felt boots - he can learn this. Here is his lot. Forget, forget everything! The idea on which he grew up has been taken over by the Baulins, the Lozgachevs, the Stolpers, they are trampling on this idea and trampling on people devoted to it. Previously, he thought that in this world you need to have strong hands and an unbending will, otherwise you will die, now he understands: you will die with strong hands and unbending will, for your will will collide with a will even more unbending, your hands with hands even stronger - they have power. In order to survive, one must submit to someone else's will, someone else's strength, be protected, adapt, live like a hare, afraid to lean out from behind a bush, only at such a price can he save himself physically. Is it worth living?

Critic V. Kozhinov said: “Pankratov, by its very essence, is a child of the system with which he found himself in conflict ... All the main issues of life are resolved for him, as it were, in advance, and he is ready to mercilessly defend his indisputable rightness.”

I think that the critic in this case is not quite right. Yes, Pankratov is a child of time. He picks up the baton of the first years of the revolution - the time of hot, uncompromising fights. But is it a child of the system that was taking shape at the turn of the 20-30s? Doubtful! Judging by his fate, he is precisely "breaking out" of her oppressive regime.

Among younger generation Yury Sharok is especially disliked. “When Sharok was accepted into the Komsomol, Sasha said a short “I don’t trust” and abstained from voting.” And in this case, Pankratov was right. His mistrust is not based on conjectures and suspicions: he saw Yure looking for bypass places in life. Suffice it to recall the practice at the plant.

In general, Sharok only imitates conviction and "obsession with an idea." Calculating, assertive and cynical. “He did not know what exactly the revolution had hurt him, but from childhood he grew up in the consciousness that it hurt him. I could not imagine how he would have lived under a different system, but he had no doubt that it was better. From a hidden, cautious candidate for legal advisers, he turns into an investigator - a sadist, a catcher of souls, especially sophisticated, doubly insidious. He knew how to win over, ingratiate himself, pretend to be understanding, entering into a position.

And among the inhabitants of the Arbat there are many like him: the same Vika Morasevich and her brother Vadim. They all live on their own minds, wait, gain. And, perhaps, they will never be able to understand the purity and disinterestedness, sincere joy and pride in Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk, such as Sasha, Lena, Maxim Kostin and others. They are far from those of whom they say: “Here it is, their country, the shock brigade of the world proletariat, the stronghold of the coming world revolution. Yes, they live on the cards, deny themselves everything, but they are building a new world.

The whole trouble is, A. Rybakov convincingly shows, that an act, even the most direct and honest, can be interpreted by the system. And here time imposes its pressure on the consciousness of all people, including Pankratov. Already in prison, he thinks: “Why should he hide Krivoruchko’s words about “a cook who cooks spicy dishes”? Let Comrade Krivoruchko himself explain what he meant. And Sasha does not understand that such a confession will turn into a denunciation. However, Sasha did not sign a direct denunciation about the presence of an enemy organization in the institute, clearly understanding what it means to give up oneself.

The same resistance to fear and calculation governs all of Sasha's behavior in exile. And in his confrontation with Timothy, who is ready to kill the exile just because he is defenseless. And in his moral duel with the commissioner of the NKVD Alferov.

And yet... Scenes in exile evoke a feeling of dissatisfaction and lead to reflection. Sasha Pankratov, having got to Siberia as an exile, inevitably faces a new world for himself. But how miserable and soulless this world is! Of course, the wave of collectivization and dispossession that swept through Siberia, the imposition of a policy of fear left its mark, but did not kill all living things in the Siberian village! Suffice it to recall that the Siberian peasant always had a special attitude towards the exiles.

Stalin and a simple student Sasha Pankratov will never meet. But they are opposed to each other: one - by that terrible regime that suppresses everything around, the other - by honesty, sincerity, love, high morality, nobility. What is characteristic of Stalin?

One of the most expressive scenes of the novel is Stalin's internal monologue, in which he evaluates his associates. Everything is almost the same as Lenin once did in his Letter to the Congress, but Stalin's logic is completely different. He looks for in everyone either a dark spot in the biography, or at least some kind of weakness that can turn into direct guilt before Stalin, and therefore before the party. And the course of Stalin's reasoning turns out to be similar to the line of thought of one of the ordinary executors of his line, an NKVD investigator. “Dyakov did not believe in the real guilt of people, but in the general version of guilt. This general version should be applied to this person and create a specific version. At the same time, Dyakov is by no means represented in the novel as a complete scoundrel, unlike his assistant Yuri Sharok. The investigator is sincerely convinced of the harmony, logic and correctness of his reasoning.

Such a system is based on complete subordination to the regime. Actions can occur only according to a given mechanism of relationships. Nothing personal in a person is taken into account. And therefore, when any deviations from the established “scheme” appear, the question inevitably arises of who is behind the back of the person who committed the act?

Stalin did not like at all when they did at least something behind his back. By the way, in support of this, the author points to a very interesting detail. The scene of the leader's communication with the dentist Lipman fully shows Stalin's incredulity, alertness and suspiciousness. The doctor sets up a chair in front of the patient's eyes, and then explains to him each of his actions. In any suspicious situation that goes beyond logic, he immediately looks for the usual: who sent it? Whose position does he state? What do they want from Comrade Stalin?

That is why his reaction in the episode with the dentist cannot be explained only by a momentary whim. It's not that the doctor exchanged a few phrases on the beach with Kirov, with whom relations are spoiled and, apparently, forever. Here is a chain of events. The doctor is a good specialist, but... Firstly, he may not agree with the desire of Comrade Stalin and at the same time not be afraid of his directly expressed dissatisfaction.

I ask you, Comrade Stalin, to wear this prosthesis for only one day. See which one is more convenient and decide for yourself.

Stalin raised his eyebrows in surprise. After all, he told him that he prefers gold, even hit the chair with his fist, and the doctor's soul went to the heels. And yet he stubbornly insists on his own. God knows, maybe that's how it should be.

Good,” Stalin reluctantly agreed.

Secondly, he is capable, if not of deceit, then at least of hiding from Comrade Stalin the reasons for the delay in completing the task. Here again, the logical train of thought of Stalin is obvious: “So,” Stalin said emphatically, “keep in mind: you CAN tell Comrade Stalin everything, you NEED to tell Comrade Stalin everything, you CANNOT hide anything from Comrade Stalin. And one more thing: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HIDE from Comrade Stalin. spoken with force keywords this phrase: it is possible, it is necessary, it is impossible, it is impossible - they determine the logic of Stalin's attitude towards people. And logic, even if simplified, has always been a strong point in his reasoning.

Third: Lipman was offered to work on a book, and he goes to the beach. For what? To establish contacts with Kirov behind Comrade Stalin's back? For a job well done, he received his sieve of grapes, but it is impossible to keep him close not only to himself, but also to Comrade Stalin's inner circle. He is potentially dangerous, so the issue with him has been resolved: “Replace Dentist Lipman with another ... fire him from the Kremlin hospital, but do not touch him.”

Behind the logic of Stalin's relationship with the dentist, his main line of relationships with people can be traced. Of greatest interest, in my opinion, is the figure of Ryazanov, who has so far remained on the periphery of the narrative. The young, energetic, knowledgeable "captain of the new industry" impresses Stalin. And Ryazanov admired the wisdom and will of the leader, sincerely learns his style of work. It is enough to pay attention to his attitude towards Comrade Stalin. What is a brief scene in a barbershop. “He was calm and unruffled. He was disturbed only by a strange, hairdresser's smell. It is absurd to appear in the Kremlin, to see Stalin, so fresh. He went back to the barbershop and washed his face and head. The hairdresser, leaving the client sitting in the chair, stood in front of him with a towel in his hands. That good-natured Mark Alexandrovich, who had joked with him about balding men half an hour ago, no longer existed. The imperious face, especially now that he had taken off his glasses, seemed merciless.

However, Ryazanov is close to Ordzhonikidze and Budyagin, has his own view on the construction of the plant, is capable of independent, sometimes unpredictable actions. So far, this suits Stalin, since, without suspecting it himself. Ryazanov helps him in opposing Ordzhonikidze, so he does not rush to Ryazanov, moreover, he brings him closer to him, despite the arrest of his nephew.

Let us follow once again how the thoughts of Stalin and Ryazanov echo.

“In order to turn a peasant country into an industrial country in the shortest possible time, innumerable material and human sacrifices are needed. If several million people die in the process, history will forgive Comrade Stalin.”

And here is Ryazanov’s reaction to the words of his fellow traveler on the train, a Belgian socialist: “The Belgian noticed that this grandiose program (industrialization) is feasible only at the expense of other industries, primarily at the expense of Agriculture. Mark Alexandrovich knew these Menshevik arguments...”

And the closer Ryazanov is to Stalin, the more firmly he learns the logic of his thoughts and actions. Mark Alexandrovich internally approved Budyagin's withdrawal from the Central Committee, because the time for general leaders had come, and the time for specialists had passed. He also takes for granted the fate of his nephew: if they put him in prison, then it means he is guilty. Although he had previously spoken about his fate with Budyagin and agreed with what he had heard that "we are imprisoning Komsomol members."

It would seem that Ryazanov, both as a worker and as a person personally devoted to him, suits Stalin the most, arguing that “the party does not need to flaunt shades of thought. Party needs business work. Anyone who does not understand this is not needed by the party!”

However, proximity to Stalin will not save Ryazanov. Mark Alexandrovich will turn out to be too independent, and his end is predicted. By renouncing his nephew, he betrays himself. And soon the sister's prophecies will come true.

Don’t make a fuss, don’t worry,” she [Sofya Alexandrovna, Sasha’s mother] continued calmly, “I’ll tell you what, Mark: you offered me money, you can’t pay off with money. They raised the sword against the innocent, against the defenseless, and you yourself will perish by the sword!

She tilted her gray head, looked at her brother from under her brows, and extended her finger.

And when the hour comes, Mark, you will remember Sasha, think about it, but it will be too late. You didn't protect the innocent. There will be no one to protect you either."

The children of the Arbat will pass, test and feel this Stalinist system, which was established by the mid-thirties. Time scatters the once friendly, noisy, Arbat company, although formal relations are still preserved. The work seems to be divided into separate stories with one character or another. This is how a kind of love triangle appears: the growing NKVD officer Yura Sharok, secret informant Vika Morasevich and daughter former diplomat Lena Budyagina. An almost "theatrical" novel by Vari Ivanova with the "mysterious" villain and adventurer Kostya, and then her growing attraction to Sasha Pankratov, who is in a distant exile. Here is the story of Nina Ivanova and Maxim Kostin.

The novel "Fly Arbat" tells not only about the breakdown of ties between generations, as the most difficult drama of the era, but also establishes the baton of generations.

In this article, we will talk about a very interesting novel and detail its summary. "Children of the Arbat" was written at the end of the 20th century by the remarkable Russian writer Anatoly Rybakov. This trilogy is about young people born in the 30s. The novel was a shocking discovery for many - no one has ever described this period so truthfully. Not surprisingly, it was not published for the first time until 1987, when censorship was no longer particularly severe.

About the work

First, let's talk a little about the novel, and then consider its summary. "Children of the Arbat" includes three books: "Thirty-fifth and other years", "Fear", "Dust and Ashes".

The first part is considered the most successful among critics. Subsequent books continued the story of the heroes. But they were rated by critics as less significant in artistically. In general, the trilogy is Rybakov's most famous and outstanding work.

"Children of the Arbat" (book): summary. tie

The novel begins with a description of big house on the Arbat. It stands between Money and Nikolsky lanes. It is inhabited by four people who were once classmates. Three of them were activists as children. These are Sashka Pankratov, the secretary of the school Komsomol cell, Maxim Kostin, the son of an elevator operator, Yura Sharok, the son of a tailor, joined them. He differs from them in cunning and special caution in matters of politics. In his family, the recently arrived "masters of life" were contemptuously called "comrades." Lena Bulyagina, the daughter of a Bolshevik diplomat, once joined them.

Tells about the life of ordinary boys and girls caught in a whirlpool historical events, the trilogy "Children of the Arbat" (a summary confirms this). So, our heroes recently graduated from high school. Nina became a teacher, Lena became a translator, Maxim graduated from an infantry school, Yura studied at a law school, and Sasha at a technical university. Their company also includes Vadim Marasevich, the son of a renowned doctor. The young man aims at theatrical and literary critics. Nina's sister Varya and Vika, Vadim's sister, often come by. With the whole company they meet 1934.

Sasha's arrest

Our summary continues (“Children of the Arbat”). Sasha is in big trouble - he was expelled from the Komsomol and the institute. And all because of the fact that his epigram in the wall newspaper was rated by the authorities as hostile to the Soviet regime. After that, he visited the Central Control Commission, and he was reinstated. But one night the bell rang, and Sasha was taken away by the Red Army. Now he is in Butyrka.

During interrogation, they ask him why Sasha went to jail. The young man suggests that the case may be in Mark Ryazanov, his uncle, the country's first metallurgist. Mark is already aware of what happened to his nephew and is trying to figure out what's wrong.

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Rybakov depicts reality that is not embellished with socialist realism, which is also confirmed by the summary (“Children of the Arbat”). Berezin, deputy head of the OPTU, knows perfectly well that Sasha is innocent. But his business is moving on. From the hands of Krivoruchko, deputy director of the Sashkin Institute, it falls to the deputy commissar of heavy industry. And the people's commissar in those years was Ordzhonikidze. But what is the reason for this, Berezin, who is a member of the NKVD collegium, does not even guess. And the thing is that Stalin does not fully trust Ordzhonikidze.

Sofya Alexandrovna, Sasha's mother, was allowed to see her son and was told to take food and warm clothes for him. This means that the prisoner has already been sentenced. Varya Ivanova, introducing Sophia, helped her carry packages and go for groceries. She accompanied Maxim Kostin to Far East and accidentally saw how two Red Army soldiers were leading Sasha, who was overgrown with a beard. The pale guy walked obediently, carrying a suitcase in his hands, and a bag hung over his shoulders.

There is almost no one left of the former company. Maxim went to the Far East, the innocent ideological Sasha was sent into exile. But the two-faced Sharok got a job in the prosecutor's office and became the arbiter of destinies. And the rest live their own lives.

New acquaintances

Rybakov perfectly depicts not only the era, but also human relationships in his trilogy. “Children of the Arbat” (the summary is a direct proof of this) talks about how quickly school friends become strangers to each other.

Once Varya accidentally met the beauty Vika Marasevich on the Arbat. The girl was in the company of a smart man and invited Varia to visit and call. Although Varya had never done this before, she decided to take advantage of the invitation. The girl was in a completely different world. Foreign fashion reigns here and they drink coffee with liquor, and do not huddle in communal apartments and stand in lines.

Varya started a different life. A native Muscovite, she only heard such names as "Savoy", "Metropol", "National". With Kostya, one of her new acquaintances, she goes to rest on the sea. This self-confident man is not at all like Sasha, he certainly will not submit to the executioners.

Upon returning, Varya and Kostya move in with Sasha's mother. They visit expensive restaurants, go to theaters.

exile life

Shows the other side Soviet life summary. Rybakov's "Children of the Arbat" reflect many facets of reality, and one of them was life in exile.

The first letter from Sasha came from the village of Boguchany, in the Kansk province. He tells how a friend told him about local life. Where Sasha was sent, you can meet Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Trotskyists, anarchists, national deviationists. During the journey, he met many exiles, and not all of them were interested in politics.

Sasha's place of exile was the village of Mozgova. He has to rent an apartment. Sometimes Sasha repairs the old public separator. One day, the device breaks down and he is accused of intentionally damaging property. An NKVD officer has to give explanations. They promise to give Sasha at least 10 years for sabotage and take him under arrest. But he is soon released. The hero is despondent and disappointed. He grew up in the hope of a great future, was a staunch communist and believed in the party, and in the end he was exiled to Siberia for no reason.

denouement

The novel "Children of the Arbat" is coming to an end (summary). Sharok is transferred to the Leningrad department of the NKVD. Stalin is dissatisfied with the behavior of the "Zinoviev opposition" and plans to start terror in St. Petersburg. Its organization is entrusted to Zaporozhets, the head of Sharok. Berezin begins to guess about the plans of the leader and conveys his fears to Ordzhonikidze, but he does not even know what such events will lead to.

Varya finds out that Kostya has a wife, and besides, he is a player. The girl decides that it's time to arrange her own life and gets a job as a draftsman. Relations with the young man are deteriorating, and Varya decides to break up. The girl increasingly begins to remember Sasha, and eventually decides to write to him.

Having received the message, the exile realizes that he still loves Varya. Sasha again thinks about the future, it seems to him that not everything is lost. But soon the news of the murder of Kirov in Leningrad reaches him. This indicates that dark times are coming.

Characteristics of heroes

Let's talk a little about the heroes of the book "Children of the Arbat". Summary chapter by chapter made us understand that the main actors are Sharok, Sasha and Varya. Minor characters- Nina Ivanova, Lena Budyagina, Vadim Marasevich and Maxim Kostin.

The main antipodes of the novel, on which the entire narrative is built, are Yuri Sharok and Sasha Pankratov.

The first, the son of a tailor, whose workshop was taken away during the revolution, cannot forgive the Soviet government for nationalization. Yuri is an individualist who is focused only on his career and life.

Sasha is different, this is a hero close to the author. He is the voice of his generation. However, the author practically does not depict him inner peace, the hero lacks introspection. The concept of the character is visible to the reader, but there is no individually unique character.

Varya is different from both characters, and at the same time absorbs their traits. The girl, initially in love with Sasha, finds herself in a new world and begins to despise her former lover. To appreciate the dignity of Pankratov, she has to find out what lies behind the brilliance and luxury.

Among works of fiction about the difficult thirties, the novel "Children of the Arbat" is of particular importance. After its first publication (1988), it was unanimously singled out by both readers and critics. He received more responses, both laudatory and abusive. Moreover, interest in the work was due not only to artistic qualities, as a rule, they are not discussed. For the first time after so many years of silence, in the center of the plot of a large epic work, there is a figure of a statesman who was the arbiter of the fate of millions over a whole historical period in the life of the country and at the same time a mysterious figure, although his name was on everyone's lips. And even now, in essence, only fragments of information, individual episodes, traits of a portrait and traits of character, contradictory assessments of certain words and deeds of this person, taken in the memoirs of various figures of the Stalin era, reach us. After all, in fact, no real generalizing and analytical work about Stalin was published in our country, unless, of course, we count the official parade biography released immediately after the war.

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State budget professional educational institution Moscow region

"Agro-Industrial College"

LITERARY RESEARCH

based on the novel by A. Rybakov

"Children of the Arbat"

"Those difficult thirties"

Lecturer: Evergetova V.S.

2014

PLAN.

The novel "Children of the Arbat".
Great historical work.
"Essentially, this is a novel about Stalin." (I. Anninsky)
"Children of the Arbat" - a novel about the fate of the first generations of Soviet people.
These difficult thirties.
1. "Eventless" time (1933-1934):
a) 1934 is the milestone year;
b) the formation of the Stalinist system;
Time connection:
a) Arbat in the thirties: pictures of life;
b) a house on the Arbat - "Noah's Ark".
Causes and consequences of the tragedy of the thirties:
The image of Sasha Pankratov:
a) “the case of the director of the institute Krivoruchko”;

c) opposition of Sasha Pankratov to Stalin and his regime;
Yura Sharok, Vika and Vadim Morasevich.
The personality of I. V. Stalin:
a) an episode with a dentist;
b) the attitude of M. A. Ryazanov to the leader.
A revolution is great not for what it destroys, but for what it creates.
My take on the novel.

These difficult thirties

Therefore, the vast majority of readers perceived A. Rybakov's novel as a kind of missing link in historical knowledge, "filling the gap," as it was often said in critical articles. And it is evaluated precisely as a historical work, causing disagreements in judgments, necessary additions. clarifications and even contradictions. "IN entities is a novel about Stalin. - wrote, for example, L. Anninsky in 1987.

After the first publication of the work, A. Rybakov was literally attacked by journalists and critics. From his numerous interviews, it is known that the novel was conceived a quarter of a century ago as a broad narrative about the fate of the first generation of Soviet people. Its heroes were those who were born around 1914 and whose conscious life began after the revolution and the civil war, who, having passed through the thirties, met the Great Patriotic War at the age of physical and spiritual maturity.

The writer himself belonged to this generation, who fully shared both the bitter and the bright in the fate of the first Soviet people.

And yet 1934 was called special, frontier year in the pre-war period of the country's history.

Only ten years have passed since the mournful January 1924, the feeling of unity that seized the whole people at the hour of farewell to Ilyich is still alive in people.

But new leaders of the “Stalinist school” are already coming to replace them, device, created during the first five-year plans.

Thus, of the seven members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of 1924, by the beginning of the 30s, only the General Secretary remained in it.

The country is picking up the pace of socialist construction. The USSR “rises with glory towards the day”, as was sung in the most popular “Song of the Counter” by B. Kornilov and D. Shostakovich. It seemed that the excesses and “dizziness from successes” in agriculture were forever behind, and the terrible famine of 1931-1932 caused by them in the richest black earth lands was almost forgotten (at least officially). At the turn of 1934 and 1935, ration cards will be abolished. Soon, Stalin's words that "life has become better, life has become more fun" will sound throughout the country, sincerely and enthusiastically picked up by millions.

In January 1934, the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, called the "Congress of the Winners," meets. At one of his meetings, an episode took place, which was perceived by everyone very cheerfully, but in fact turned out to be a terrible prophecy. The workers of the Tula arms factory presented Stalin with a sample of a new sniper rifle. Rising above the presidium table and slightly smiling through his mustache, he jokingly took aim at the meeting room applauding him.

In December of the same 1934, Kirov was killed, and years later the XVII Party Congress will be referred to as the "Congress of the Executed".

“The largest house on the Arbat between Nikolsky and Denezhny lanes, now they are called Plotnikov lane and Vesnina street” ... This phrase opens the novel by A. Rybakov.

The choice of the scene of action was greatly influenced by the personal and life experience of the author of the work: he repeatedly mentioned that his childhood and youth were spent on this very street, in this very courtyard. But this is only the outer side of the choice.

"Tram traffic has been stopped on the Arbat, the street has been asphalted." - Sasha learns from letters during the exile and with difficulty tries to imagine the changed places of his childhood. Yes, the Arbat is becoming in the early thirties regime street. There is a path from the Kremlin to the nearest dacha of Stalin, and special vehicles pass several times a day along the newly paved pavement.

I want to pay special attention to this very significant beginning. It seems that the first lines are purely informational in nature, but it is here, pointing to a real-life house, that the author asserts, as it were, the reality of the children of the Arbat themselves. There is an atmosphere of a certain historical narrative. The heroes of Rybakov, the residents of this house, may have really existed. Everything that happens to them on the pages of the novel is quite likely real events. But, besides this, the writer specifies the coordinates of the house, which arose already in the years of the publication of the work. That is, already at the very beginning a thread is stretched time links: The past does not die and cannot be forgotten!

They live in the house, study at the same school, very different young people grow up, both in origin (for that time - a very important sign!) And in their outlook on life. Sasha Pankratov from an intelligent family, the son of a tailor (according to the questionnaire - a worker) Yura Sharok, professorial children Vika and Vadim Morasevichi. orphan sisters Nina and Varya Ivanov, the son of a stoker Maxim Kostin. Emphasizing the origin, indicating the occupations and past of young people - this is the special author's intention. That is why one of the critics of the novel even gave the house on the Arbat a biblical name - "Noah's Ark": Rybakov placed completely different people, "clean" and "unclean" in his house, and showed in their destinies the fate of the whole country.

But the first pages of the story still do not promise anything strict, much less black.

Pre-holiday, carefree Moscow evening. “At the cinema“ Arbatsky Ars ”the girls were already walking in pairs, Arbat girls and Dorogomilovsky, and girls from Plyushchikha, coat collars casually raised, lips made up, eyelashes curled, expectant eyes, a colored scarf around the neck - autumn Arbat chic. With one of these girls. Katya, and the hero of the work of student Sasha Pankratov will have a love and at the same time some very mundane date in her friend’s room somewhere on the working outskirts, not far from the Novodevichy Convent. Everything is described very casually and somehow erased. You hardly see the characters. Perhaps this was the intention of the author, who focused on the details of everyday life. not rich festive table, pies with soy, potatoes, cabbage, a bottle of vodka. The tightness of the overpopulated "communal". Children, so as not to interfere, are sent to the neighbors ...

But the reader will meet descriptions of other apartments in the novel. The same communal apartment, but already inhabited by residents of a different circle. An apartment in a prominent house on the Arbat, where the Potapovs occupy two rooms, and in those days - almost a luxury! A. Rybakov will show a separate apartment of the deputy people's commissar's family in a government building, where the walls are armored with bookshelves, and an open box of marmalade lies on a round table under a wide low lampshade.

And on a peaceful summer day, a group of young people in Serebryany Bor hears a pleasant baritone sound above the hushed dacha village of old Bolsheviks and respondent workers:

"And why I love you, quiet night...

He sings well, - said Yura, - who is this?
Our neighbor, Lena answered, is an employee of the Central Committee. Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov.

Vadim shook his head as a sign that he heard this name for the first time.

And he knew all the names.

I don't know who he is, - Yura said, - but he sings well.
A very good person,” Lena said.

It is worth noting that here the author, striving for a strong effect, as researchers of Rybakov's work noted, allows a certain exaggeration. N. I. Yezhov by 1934 was quite well known not only in leading circles. The fame of him was already not the best. In 1928-1930, Yezhov, the Deputy People's Commissar for Agriculture, zealously pursued, on Stalin's instructions, the line of complete collectivization and the elimination of the kulaks as a class. After the publication of the article “Dizziness from Success”, he was not only not brought to party responsibility, like a number of leaders of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, but was appointed head of the Distribution Department and the Personnel Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. By the summer of 1934, Yezhov had been Stalin’s first assistant for four years in carrying out his personnel policy, which is expressively stated in the novel by A. Rybakov: “All the time it is necessary to break these established apparatuses, these clips of ripened people, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.”

After the very calm, even somewhat slowed-down scene of Sasha Pankratov and Katya's love meeting, which opens the novel, there follows a chapter about a meeting of the party bureau of the institute, where the case of student Pankratov should be discussed. Sasha expressed public dissatisfaction with the fact that the accounting teacher, instead of presenting the basics of the subject, "exposes bourgeois views on the economy." But the main issue at the meeting is the case of the institute's deputy director Krivoruchko, a party member since 1914, a man with a legendary military biography. The construction of the student hostel was not completed on time. They didn’t provide materials for the construction, all the funds were chosen by Magnitostroy, but ... But the answer to all this is obvious: “We are not interested in objective reasons! Funds transferred to shock construction sites? You are not responsible for Magnitogorsk, but for the Institute. Why didn't they warn that the deadlines were unrealistic? Ah, the deadlines are real ... Why not met? Have you been in the party for twenty years?.. For past merits, we will bow at the feet, but for mistakes we will beat.

"Yanson! Janson! Let Janson say!..

Comrades, the issue we are discussing is very important.
We know this even without you, - they shouted from the hall.
But one must separate objective results from subjective motives.
Same!
Don't philosophize!
No, it's not the same thing. But let me finish my thought...
We won't allow it! Enough!..
Pankratov took an apolitical and, consequently, philistine position.
Few! Few!
There is nothing to listen to!

There is a student dormitory, here is a blast furnace, on the launch of which the five-year plans of many factories depend. The scales are different, but the essence is the same: neither people, nor their lives, nor the real possibilities of completing the task are taken into account.

“Stalin asked who was the director of this plant. Hearing the answer, he said:

A stupid person will fail.

Apart from history at the institute, I don't know anything about myself.

So you were arrested for no reason at all? Are we planting innocent people? Even here you continue counter-revolutionary agitation, and yet we are not the gendarmerie, we are not the Third Section, we are not just punitive organs. We are an armed detachment of the party. And you're a double-dealer, Pankratov, that's who you are!
You don't dare to call me that!

Dyakov slammed his fist on the table.

I'll show you what I dare and what I don't dare! Do you think you have arrived at the sanatorium? We have other conditions here for people like you. Double Dealer! You have been sitting on the neck of the working class all your life and are still sitting on the neck of the state, it teaches you, pays you a stipend, and you are deceiving it!”

“In the afternoon, an unfamiliar overseer appeared with a piece of paper and a pencil in his hands.

Write a request to the library

Library allowed!

Sasha doesn't know how many books and for how long. But he did nothing to show his ignorance. An experienced prisoner is given more consideration by the staff than an inexperienced one.

Tolstoy - "War and Peace", Gogol - "Dead Souls", Balzac - "Lost Illusions" ... The latest issues of the magazines "Krasnaya Nov". New world". "October". "Young Guard", "Star" ... He wrote without hesitation, there was no time to think, the man was waiting, the prisoner must decide in advance what he needs, he wrote what came to mind, it is important to get books, thicker books, so that Enough until the next time, which is not known when.

She offers him an option hare life, under someone else's name, with someone else's passport. And if he ever meets a friend somewhere, he will have to explain to him that he is no longer Pankratov, but Iskhakov, he, you see, got married. And if the clerks nevertheless get to him, they will gloat and triumph: he tried to hide behind his wife’s back, no, my friend, you can’t hide from us behind anyone’s back. And it is no coincidence that you live with a fake passport, an honest Soviet person does not need a fake passport, an honest Soviet person does not change his surname.

Enough, - said Sasha, - the conversation becomes meaningless. I was born with this name, and I will die with it. There will be no change."

“At the very time when Muscovites were walking through the Red Square illuminated by searchlights, greeting Stalin standing on the mausoleum, the hour of supper came in Butyrskaya prison.”

This brings us back to the traditions of L. Tolstoy. His writing techniques are based on exposing negative characters through details. Same with Rybakov. An example is Stalin's "sovereign pipe". She appears in numerous literary works, films, canvases of artists as a symbol of the wisdom of the leader. But in "Children of the Arbat" it turns into a completely different detail: the rotten, sooty teeth of an inveterate smoker. And the “golden color of the eyes”, mentioned in the memoirs, gets a completely different meaning: “Stalin looked at Kirov from under his brows, his eyes were yellow, tiger-like.” This is very important detail, conveying the inner essence of the character of the leader, the impression that he made on his interlocutors.

The scenes of Sasha Pankratov's stay in prison are the strongest in the novel and for the accuracy of the details. In addition, they open the spiritual world of the hero, reveal the process of maturation and maturation of the character of a young man. It is here that the fundamental forces that determine the social behavior of a person collapse: fear and calculation. And most importantly, the blind, unconditional faith in the wisdom of the leader's policy disappears.

“Sasha did not experience such longing either in Butyrka or during the transfer, neither at the stage. There was hope in Butyrka - they would figure it out, they would let him out, at the stage there was a goal - to reach the place, settle down, patiently wait out his term. Hope made him a man, the goal helped to live. There is no hope or purpose here. He wanted to help people use the separator, he was accused of wrecking. Alferov proved it to him with iron logic. And Alferov can crush him at any moment by using Ivan Parfenovich's statement. Is it possible to live like this? Why the French language textbooks he is waiting for from Moscow, books on political economy and philosophy? To whom will he express them, with whom will he speak French? With bears in the taiga? Even if Alferov does not touch him, how and on what can he live here? Hemming felt boots - he can learn this. Here is his lot. Forget, forget everything! The idea on which he grew up has been taken over by the Baulins, the Lozgachevs, the Stolpers, they are trampling on this idea and trampling on people devoted to it. He used to think that in this world you need to have strong hands and an unbending will, otherwise you will die, now he understands: you will die precisely with strong arms and inflexible will, for your will will collide with an even more inflexible will, your hands with even stronger hands - they have power. In order to survive, one must submit to someone else's will, someone else's strength, be protected, adapt, live like a hare, afraid to lean out from behind a bush, only at such a price can he save himself physically. Is it worth living?

Among the younger generation, Yuri Sharok is especially disliked. “When Sharok was accepted into the Komsomol, Sasha said a short “I don’t trust” and abstained from voting.” And in this case, Pankratov was right. His mistrust is not based on conjectures and suspicions: he saw Yure looking for bypass places in life. Suffice it to recall the practice at the plant.

In general, Sharok only imitates conviction and "obsession with an idea" Calculating, assertive and cynical. “He did not know what exactly the revolution had hurt him, but from childhood he grew up in the consciousness that it hurt him. I could not imagine how he would have lived under a different system, but he had no doubt that it was better. From a hidden, cautious candidate for legal advisers, he turns into an investigator - a sadist, a catcher of souls, especially sophisticated, doubly insidious. He knew how to win over, ingratiate himself, pretend to be understanding, entering into a position.

The whole trouble is, A. Rybakov convincingly shows, that an act, even the most direct and honest, can be interpreted system. And here time imposes its pressure on the consciousness of all people, including Pankratov. Already in prison, he thinks: “Why should he hide Krivoruchko’s words about “a cook who cooks spicy dishes”? Let Comrade Krivoruchko himself explain what he meant. And Sasha does not understand that such a confession will turn into a denunciation. However, Sasha did not sign a direct denunciation about the presence of an enemy organization in the institute, clearly understanding what it means to give up oneself.

One of the most expressive scenes of the novel is Stalin's internal monologue, in which he evaluates his associates. Everything is almost the same as Lenin once did in his Letter to the Congress, but Stalin's logic is completely different. He searches in each or a dark spot in the biography, or at least some kind of weakness that can turn into direct guilt before Stalin, and therefore, And before the party. And the course of Stalin's reasoning turns out to be similar to the ranks thoughts one of the ordinary executors of his line, the investigator NKVD. "Dyakov did not believe in the real guilt of people, but in the general version guilt. This general version should be applied to this person and createspecific version. Atthis Dyakov is by no means represented in the novel complete villain,unlike his assistant Yuri Sharok. Investigatorsincerely convinced ofharmony, consistency and correctness of their reasoning.

Such a system is based on complete subordination to the regime. Actions can occur only according to a given mechanism of relationships. Nothing personal in person is not taken into account. AND so when it appears any deviation from established "scheme" inevitably arisesthe question of whostanding behind the person who did the deed?

Stalin did not like when he has at least doing something behind the back. By the way, inconfirmation of thispoints to a very interesting detail. Communication scene chief with a dentist Lipman shows to the fullest extent the incredulity, wariness and suspiciousness of Stalin. The doctor sets up a chair before through the eyes of the patient, and then explains to him each of his actions. In any suspicious situation that goes beyond logic, he immediately looks for the usual: who sent it? Whose position does he state? What do they want from Comrade Stalin?

I ask you, Comrade Stalin, to wear this prosthesis for only one day. See which one is more convenient and decide for yourself.

Good,” Stalin reluctantly agreed.

Secondly, he is capable, if not of deceit, then at least of hiding from Comrade Stalin the reasons for the delay in completing the task. Here again, the logical train of thought of Stalin is obvious: “So,” Stalin said emphatically, “keep in mind: you CAN tell Comrade Stalin everything, you NEED to tell Comrade Stalin everything, you CANNOT hide anything from Comrade Stalin. And one more thing: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HIDE from Comrade Stalin. The key words of this phrase spoken with force: it is possible, it is necessary, it is impossible, it is impossible - they determine the logic of Stalin's attitude towards people. And logic, even if simplified, has always been a strong point in his reasoning.

“He was calm and unruffled. He was disturbed only by a strange, hairdresser's smell. It is absurd to appear in the Kremlin, to see Stalin, fresh. He went back to the barbershop and washed his face and head. The hairdresser, leaving the client sitting in the chair, stood in front of him with a towel in his hands. That good-natured Mark Alexandrovich, who had joked with him about balding men half an hour ago, no longer existed. The imperious face, especially now that he had taken off his glasses, seemed merciless.

However, Ryazanov is close to Ordzhonikidze and Budyagin, has his own view on the construction of the plant, is capable of independent, sometimes unpredictable actions. So far, this suits Stalin, since, without suspecting it himself. Ryazanov helps him in countering Ordzhonikidze, so he does not hurry up Ryazanov, moreover, brings him closer to her, despite the arrest of his nephew.

Let us follow once again how the thoughts of Stalin and Ryazanov echo.

"To in the shortest possible time country turn the peasant into country industrial, incalculable material and human sacrifices are needed. If several million people die in the process, history will forgive Comrade Stalin.”

And here is Ryazanov’s reaction to the words of his fellow traveler on the train, a Belgian socialist: “The Belgian noticed that this grandiose program (industrialization) is feasible only at the expense of other industries, primarily through agriculture. Mark Alexandrovich knew these Menshevik arguments...”

And the closer Ryazanov is to Stalin, the more firmly he learns the logic of his thoughts and actions. Mark Aleksandrovich internally approved Budyagin's withdrawal from CC, because that the time of general leaders has come, and the time for specialists has passed. He also takes for granted the fate of his nephew: if they put him in prison, then it means he is guilty. Although he had previously spoken about his fate with Budyagin and agreed with what he had heard that "we are imprisoning Komsomol members."

It would seem that Ryazanov, both as an employee and as a person personally devoted to him, most of all suits Stalin, who claims that “the party does not need to flaunt shades thoughts. The party needs business work. Anyone who does not understand this is not needed by the party!”

She tilted her gray head, looked at her brother from under her brows, and extended her finger.

And when the hour comes, Mark, you will remember Sasha, think about it, but it will be too late. You didn't protect the innocent. There will be no one to protect you either."

The children of the Arbat will pass, test and feel this Stalinist system, which was established by the mid-thirties. Time scatters the once friendly, noisy, Arbat company, although formal relations are still preserved. The work seems to break up into separate stories with certain characters. This is how a kind of love triangle appears: the growing NKVD officer Yura Sharok, secret informant Vika Morasevich and the daughter of the former diplomat Lena Budyagin. An almost "theatrical" novel by Vari Ivanova with the "mysterious" villain and adventurer Kostya, and then her growing attraction to Sasha Pankratov, who is in a distant exile. Here the story of Nina Ivanova and Maxim Kostin.

The novel "Fly Arbat" tells not only about the breakdown of ties between generations, as the most difficult drama of the era, but also establishes the baton of generations.

It is possible that Budyagin is the closest hero from the generation of youth fathers of the thirties to the author. It is in his words that Rybakov puts the main idea of \u200b\u200bthe work: the true revolution "is great not for what destroys, but for those who create."

Stalin, reflecting on the further course of events, reads Pushkin"Boris Godu new". He is especially attracted by the characteristic of the people, given"Evil blackling" in the omitted scene of the tragedy: “Our stupid people are lightweightren: glad to marvel at miracles andnovelty "... "Exactly said! - comments Stalin. - Stupid and gullible:essence of the people.

However, all the content of Pushkin's tragedy refutes the Evil Devil netza". And Stalin - smart, experienced politician, who also knows the art welltoriyu, could not understand this.And a parallel is hardly appropriate here, whichhe allegedly does among themselves and impostor Grigory Otrepiev.

And here, in my opinionopinion, a strange paradox of the narrative is revealed.After all, M. A. Ryazanov, who learnedStalin's logic, thinks about the inevitable end« wild, filthy, blind, torn and ignorant village "...

Are not the Siberian scenes novel voluntarily or involuntarilyconfirmation of such a characteristic of the Russian village?

I think I managed to touch upon the main questions that worried the author of "Children of the Arbat": what was the fate of the first generation of Soviet people, what were the main causes of the tragedy of the thirties, what did the "Stalinist system" carry.

But, unfortunately, many of them still cannot be answered. According to critics, the novel turned out to be a pioneer in mastering an unusually complex and difficult area of historical knowledge of the period of the thirties: the trends in the life of the party and ordinary citizens, the specifics of building socialism in our country.

It all started with the children of Nicholas.
What did they mutter as they died
In a creepy basement?
All the same words
As the unfortunate children of the Arbat.
Time is omnivorous. Fate is to blame
Not for anything - but rewarded in full.
S. Kunyaev
I would like to review the book "Children of the Arbat" by Anatoly Rybakov, which is my favorite work of modern Russian literature. It was written in the "dark" times, but arrived in time for the "light". It was endured and written during times of stagnation, as we say. The novel "Children of the Arbat" is autobiographical, in the image of the main character Sasha Pankratov there are many realities of the fate of the writer himself. Somewhere Rybakov mentioned that Sasha's path is his, Rybakov's, path, only Sasha is better than his prototype. I am worried and worried about the events that took place in our country in the pre-war period. Now, when there is democracy and openness in our country, it is necessary to highlight all the dark spots of our history. And this is the huge role of literature, which is served by the wonderful work "Children of the Arbat". Undoubtedly, Anatoly Rybakov should be credited with the desire to eliminate several such stains. For the first time, the writer boldly, fearlessly took up the problem of the answer: what is the role of I. V. Stalin. And this gives A. Rybakov, in my eyes, a complete tribute. Obviously, one of the main tasks of the novel "Children of the Arbat" is to show how the cult of Stalin was established. I believe that the success of the novel lies in the fact that this task itself was set by the writer correctly, because it was precisely from 1934, when the action of "Children of the Arbat" unfolded, that this cult began to turn into something grandiose and exceptional. Stalin in the novel - historical figure who was able to subjugate millions of people to his will, determine the path of development of a huge country. The writer sought to comprehend the outwardly contradictory logic of the tyrant's actions. Here, for example, the episode with the dentist is one of the most lively in Stalin's scenes. An excellent specialist shows professional pride, they decided to make a lamellar prosthesis for Stalin, despite the fact that the tall patient insists on byugelnosh. Stalin agrees to test a new prosthesis, to vilify only one day, as the doctor asks, and admits that the doctor is right. He recognizes and even sets an example of an exemplary attitude to business, but nevertheless ordered the dentist to be replaced by another and dismissed from the Kremlin hospital. Why? There is no proper fear, unquestioning obedience. He dares to object, but in the environment other people are needed, who do not object, do not reason, blindly devoted. Stalin in Rybakov's novel is deeply lonely. He consciously places himself outside of human relations. Stalin does not need friends and relatives. We need executors of his will. Performers who will eventually be replaced by others when they refuse to follow his instructions or think too much of themselves. After reading the novel "Children of the Arbat", I clearly and more fully understood why and how things happened in the thirties tragic events, better realized that Stalin himself led and directed the arbitrariness, the destruction of many innocent people. I understood more deeply what motives guided him, how terrible it was. He made me think. "Children of the Arbat", I think everyone should read. After all, this book does not just open their eyes to the painful reality of our recent history - it does not allow them to be diverted from this reality any longer; stirs the soul, telling the truth about the Stalin era. People should know the true state of affairs in those thirties. And then sometimes you hear remarks: “Stalin would be now ...”, “But under Stalin ...” Do they want to be exiled, or even shot. But Stalin is one of the two main characters. Rybakov wrote a novel about Stalin and Sasha Pankratov, because he saw the main conflict of the time in the confrontation between these two personalities.
Young people who grew up in Moscow's Arbat lanes and entered the age of responsibility by the mid-thirties were brought up on the same idea - with what joyful hope they enter the world. Youth is shown warmly, sincerely: Sasha Pankratov and his entourage. Pankratov - one of the main non-historical characters of the novel - is really good and fair man who never acts against his conscience, he is always driven by a sense of justice. Sasha is a person with a pronounced social temperament. By itself, this temperament can take dangerous forms. Sharok recalls how Sasha refused to vote for him when he was admitted to the Komsomol, briefly saying: "I don't believe it." It is easy to imagine how such people in the atmosphere of the thirties gave up their "I don't believe" not only to people like Sharok. But Sasha has one quality that makes him vulnerable. Morality for him is a human value that stands above all. He cannot, for example, bear false witness against the deputy director of the institute, Krivoruchko. He has a choice: Sasha can betray Krivoruchko, saying what they demand about him, and thereby save his fate. But he does not want to cheat, maneuver, pretend, hide thoughts and feelings. After all, Sasha strong-willed, a highly moral person, a truly Russian intellectual. I believe that this noble act of Sasha can be called a feat. Sasha's business arose as a result of his personal independence, which then grew like a snowball. The wall newspaper is already an anti-party leaflet, a political sabotage organized by a group entrenched in the institute, headed by Krivoruchko. As a result, a search, an arrest, the horror of a shocked mother, a prison, interrogations, exile and a long way of the cross along the roads of Siberia. The path of the spiritual formation of the personality, the path of the final elimination of illusions and attempts to gain a new faith. Sasha's ideas about unity as the basis of society are scattered. The myth of the justice of the violence of the majority over the minority is scattered. Sasha Pankratov himself, by the will of fate, fell into the minority. In "Children of the Arbat", Nina Ivanova, Sasha Pankratov's former classmate, is at first stunned by Sasha's arrest. The undoubted leader of the class, the school, honest, believing in the ideals by which they all live - how can he be an enemy? The misunderstanding, of course, will soon be sorted out. But they don't "understand". And changes are taking place in Nina's mind, and now she is already telling Sasha's mother that, they say, the intensification of the class struggle requires "special clarity of positions, and Sasha, unfortunately, sometimes put his own understanding of things and events above the point of view of the collective." You can always find explanations for why the punishing sword fell on another, and cherish the hope that it will not touch you.
“He was strong among the strong, they pulled him out of his usual environment, deprived him of the environment in which he existed, and it immediately became clear that he had nothing to rely on, in itself he was nothing,” Sasha Pankratov, indeed, strong and remaining no matter what, until the end of the novel strong man. By the end of the novel, we know one thing - Sasha survived, and not least because he knew - "even in these wild conditions, the highest human values \u200b\u200bare affirmed. Compassion is one of them." "The human in man has not been killed and will never be killed." Sasha meets this consciousness in December 1934, when the long-awaited mail arrives, where in one of his mother's letters he finds Varia's postscript. The postscript to which Varya has been going for so long and which Sasha can also understand only after his long journey: “Everything is still ahead, damn it, everything is still ahead! He has Varya, now he knows it for sure. There is Varya, there is a mother, people around, there are his thoughts, his thoughts. Everything that makes a man a Man.
Sasha Pankratov, with his twisted fate, evokes my deep regret and even pain for the entire generation of young people whose fates were also broken by Stalin's repressions. A. Rybakov's novel gave me a lot of food for reflection on time, on history, on the psychology of society, and finally, on the fate of the generation that is in the center of the writer's attention.
I think the most important thing in it is two lessons - a lesson in history and a lesson in morality. That's why the main idea novel - one must live in such a way that history and morality are inseparable. No that's not historical narrative which is read with peace of mind. And the pain and passion of the book is not only in the past day, but also in the present days.
After reading Anatoly Rybakov's novel "Children of the Arbat", I realized that only the truth educates people who are courageous, loyal and honest. And this is the main moral lesson that follows for me from the book of Anatoly Rybakov.

1. The main idea and main characters of the novel.

2. Youth of the Stalin era.

3. Sasha Pankratov is a hero of his time.

4. The relevance of Rybakov's novel today.

The main idea of the novel is to show the reader how the personality cult of Stalin was born and developed, and this task was fully completed by the author. In the times described in "Children of the Arbat" (since 1934), Stalin was not just the head of state - he was a great leader, "wise, just and all-powerful." He managed to completely subjugate millions of people with different social status, views on life, and beliefs to his will.

One of the most striking scenes of the novel, showing the character of Stalin and his attitude towards people, is the episode where the leader meets with the dentist. A qualified specialist, realistically assessing the state of the oral cavity, makes Stalin a removable lamellar prosthesis, while the "father of the peoples" insists that he be given a clasp prosthesis. The doctor manages to convince his patient that the plate prosthesis will also look natural and will be much more convenient to use. After some time, Stalin agrees with the doctor, admits that he was right, but at the same time fires the dentist from the Kremlin hospital. The only reason for this injustice is salient feature character of the leader - intolerance to disobedience, self-will, the presence of one's own thoughts. The doctor objected to his high-ranking patient and was punished for it, despite the fact that his advice turned out to be correct.

Stalin in the novel "Children of the Arbat" is placed by the author, as it were, outside normal human relationships. He has no relatives and friends - only blind and unquestioning executors of his will, orders, sometimes unfair and cruel. Disobedient performers are immediately replaced by others, obedient and weak-willed.

The value of Rybakov's work, in my opinion, lies in the fact that the author reveals the essence of arbitrariness and lawlessness that reigned during the reign of Stalin, makes it possible to feel the atmosphere of those times.

Young people living in the Stalin era were brought up for a "bright future". They entered the adult world with joy, hope, confidence in tomorrow. The central figure among the motley crowd of young people is Sasha Pankratov, and his friends also occupy an important place. Sasha is an honest, straightforward person who cannot resist his own conscience, fights for justice, protests against false accusations. But it is precisely this feature that becomes main reason life drama that happened to Sasha. For him, morality is not a "traditional truth", but the most important human value, regardless of the circumstances and events taking place around. Even when faced with the need to save own destiny, of his future, the young man cannot prevaricate: if he had given false evidence against the deputy director of the institute, Krivoruchko, Sasha would not have been accused of anything, but he could not pretend, hide own feelings. This is the feat of the main character - upholding personal independence in difficult and tragic times.

The spiritual formation of Sasha's personality proceeded in extremely difficult conditions. He had to go through all the circles of hell that many citizens of the Soviet Union went through: search in the house, arrest, tears of relatives and friends, cruel morals and horrific prison environment, interrogations using prohibited methods and means, exile in a remote area, long and painful wandering along the Siberian routes.

Sasha begins to understand that a single opinion, a single morality, widely promoted by the ruling circles, is nothing but a beautiful fairy tale, in no way corresponding to reality. The majority subjugates those around them, and those who disagree are eliminated not only morally, but also physically: through arrests, executions, exiles.

In the mind of Nina Ivanova, a classmate and friend of Pankratov, global changes are also taking place. Sasha, in her view, has always been an ideal, an undisputed leader, a real Soviet person. That is why for Nina, the arrest of Sasha becomes a real disaster - how can a person who sincerely believes in existing ideals turn out to be an enemy of the people? She vainly hopes that there was a misunderstanding and that after a while the authorities will figure everything out, but the expected outcome does not happen. And Nina is trying to comprehend what is happening already from the point of view of the majority: she even tells Sasha’s mother that the ongoing class struggle “requires special clarity of positions, and Sasha, unfortunately, sometimes put his own understanding of things and events above the point of view of the team.”

The author writes about his hero: "... he was strong among the strong, they pulled him out of his usual environment, deprived him of the environment in which he existed, and it immediately became clear that he had nothing to rely on, he was nothing in itself." Sasha, in spite of everything, remains a strong and uncompromising person, survives in cruel, difficult conditions, because he does not renounce existing human values, the conviction is clearly traced in his mind: “The human in a person has not been killed and will never be killed.” And Varya's attitude becomes clear to him only after he has endured so much hardship and suffering. A short postscript to his mother's letter causes him many conflicting feelings, which ultimately boil down to one thing: “Still ahead, damn it, still ahead! He has Varya, now he knows this for sure. There is Varya, there is a mother, people around, there are his thoughts, his thoughts. Everything that makes a man a man ... "

For the modern reader, Sasha's life, his beliefs and aspirations evoke a mixed feeling of pity and bewilderment. Many of modern people without hesitation, they would have compromised in order to avoid unjust punishment, they would have obeyed the opinion of the majority, trying to save their lives and the peace of their loved ones. But during the reign of Stalin, there were other people - honest, straightforward, confident in their own rightness. In order to defend their convictions, they, without hesitation, sacrificed everything: work, freedom, life. And only truth, honesty, sincerity contributed to the education of real people, heroes of their time.

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