Shalamov Kolyma stories rain analysis. Analysis of several stories from the cycle "Kolyma stories

Help find an analysis of any "Kolyma story" by V. T. Shalamov and got the best answer

Answer from LEGE artis[guru]
Varlam Shalamov is rightly considered the pioneer of the camp theme in Russian literature of the 20th century. But it turned out that his works became known to the reader after the publication of A. compared with her And it immediately catches the eye: Shalamov is tougher, more merciless, more unambiguous in describing the horrors of the Gulag than Solzhenitsyn
In One Day of Ivan Denisovich and in The Gulag Archipelago, there are many examples of human baseness, meanness, hypocrisy. Nevertheless, Solzhenitsyn notes that it was mainly those who had already been prepared for this in the wild who were prepared to learn flattery that succumbed to moral corruption in the camp , lies, "small and large meanness" is possible everywhere, but a person must remain a person even in the most difficult and cruel conditions. Moreover, Solzhenitsyn shows that humiliation and trials awaken inner reserves in a person and spiritually free him
In "Kolyma Tales" (1954-1973) Shalamov, on the contrary, tells how the convicts quickly lost their former "face" and often the beast was more merciful, fairer and kinder than them.
And indeed, the characters in Shalamov, as a rule. lose faith in goodness and justice, present their souls as morally and spiritually devastated, the writer concludes, “turn up to complete corruption” “In the camp, it’s every man for himself,” the prisoners “immediately learned not to stand up for each other.” In the barracks, the author notes, disputes often arose, and they all ended almost always the same way -
fights. “But the participants in these disputes are former professors, party members, collective farmers, military leaders.” According to Shalamov, there is moral and physical pressure in the camp, under the influence of which "everyone can become a thief from hunger."

That is why the narration in Kolyma Tales captures the simplest, primitively simple things. Details are selected sparingly, subjected to a rigorous selection - they convey only the main, vital. The feelings of many of Shalamov's heroes are blunted.

“They didn’t show the workers a thermometer, and it wasn’t necessary - 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, then it’s forty degrees below zero outside; if the air while breathing comes out noisy, but breathing is not yet difficult - that means forty-five degrees; if breathing is noisy and shortness of breath is noticeable - fifty degrees. Over fifty-five degrees - the spit freezes on the fly. The spit has been frozen on the fly for two weeks already. " ("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 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 like there was nothing left for him in life. And suddenly it turns out that he looks at the world with 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; The narrator and the characters of the Kolyma Tales are constantly reflecting on their lives. It is interesting that this introspection is perceived not as Shalamov's artistic device, but as a natural need of a 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 trifles 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 not getting enough nutrition, my brain had long been on a starvation diet, and that this would inevitably lead to insanity, early sclerosis, or something else ... And it was fun for me to think that I would not live to see , I will not have time to live up to a sclerosis. It rained."

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

In the most terrible, tragic moments, when a person is forced to think about injuring himself in order to save his life, the hero of the story “Rain” recalls the great, divine essence of man, his beauty and physical strength: “It was at this time I began to understand the essence of the great instinct of life - the very quality that a person is endowed with in the highest degree "or" ... I understood the most important thing that a person became a man not because he is God's creation, and not because he has an amazing thumb on every hand. But because he was (physically) stronger, more enduring than all animals, and later because he forced his spiritual principle to 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. It is quite possible to put his words next to Gorky's famous statement: "Man - it sounds proud!". It is no coincidence that when talking about his idea to break his own leg, the narrator recalls the “Russian poet”: “Out of this unkind gravity, I thought to create something beautiful - according to the Russian poet. I thought to save my life by breaking my leg. Indeed, it was a beautiful intention, a phenomenon of a completely aesthetic kind. The stone was supposed to collapse and crush my leg. And I am forever disabled!

If you read the poem “Notre Dame”, you will find there an image of “bad gravity”, however, in Mandelstam this image has a completely different meaning - this is the material from which poetry is created; i.e. words. It is difficult for a poet to work with the word, so Mandelstam speaks of the "unkind heaviness." Of course, the “bad” 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 stinginess of the narration and the richness of reflections make us perceive Shalamov's prose not as artistic, but as documentary or memoir. And yet we have before us exquisite artistic prose.

"Single freeze"

"Single metering" is a short story about one day in the life of the prisoner Dugaev - the last day of his life. Rather, the story begins with a description of what happened on the eve of this last day: "In the evening, 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 whole story in a collapsed form, predicts the course of development of this plot.

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

What was the brigadier thinking? Really daydreaming, looking at the "evening star"? It is unlikely that once he asks to give the brigade the opportunity to pass the norm (ten cubic meters of soil selected from the face) later than the due date. The foreman is not up to dreams now, the brigade is going through a difficult moment. And in general, what kind of dreams can we talk about in camp life? Here they dream only in a dream.

The “detachment” of the brigadier is the exact artistic detail that Shalamov needs to show a person who instinctively strives to separate himself from what is happening. The brigadier already knows what the reader will understand very soon: we are talking about the murder of the prisoner Dugaev, who does not work out his norm, which means that he is useless, from the point of view of the camp authorities, a person in the zone.

The foreman either does not want to participate in what is happening (it is hard to be a witness or an accomplice in the murder of a person), or is guilty of such a turn in Dugaev’s fate: the foreman in the brigade needs workers, not extra mouths. The last explanation of the foreman's "thoughtfulness" is perhaps more plausible, especially since the warden's warning to Dugaev follows immediately after the foreman's request for a delay in the production period.

The image of the “evening star”, which the foreman stared at, has another 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 he saw and heard here surprised him more than frightened him.” Here he is, the main character of the story, who has a little bit 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 a keen sense of anxiety.

The laconicism of the story, on the one hand, is due to the brevity of the hero's rigidly measured path. On the other hand, this is the artistic technique that creates the effect of reticence. As a result, the reader experiences a sense of bewilderment; everything that happens seems to him as strange as to Dugaev. The reader begins to understand the inevitability of the outcome not immediately, almost along with the hero. And that makes the story especially compelling.

The last phrase of the story - "And, realizing what was the matter, Dugaev regretted that he had worked in vain, that this last day had been tormented in vain" - this is also its climax, at which the action ends. Further development of the action or an epilogue is not needed and impossible here.

Despite the deliberate isolation of the story, which ends with the death of the hero, its abruptness and reticence create the effect of an open ending. Realizing that he is being led to the execution, the hero of the novel regrets that he worked, suffered 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. Finishing the story in this way, the writer makes us think about the most important issues of human existence, and in the first place is the question of a person's ability to feel inner freedom, regardless of external circumstances.

Pay attention to how much meaning Shalamov contains in every artistic detail. First, we simply read the story and understand its general meaning, then we highlight such phrases or words that have something more than their direct meaning. Next, we begin to gradually “unfold” these moments significant for the story. As a result, the narrative is no longer perceived by us as mean, describing only the momentary - carefully choosing words, playing on semitones, 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 Tales". This is a poet. A poet who is on the edge of life, and he thinks philosophically. As if from the outside, he observes what is happening, including what is happening to him: “... he slowly thought about the great monotony of death 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. Poetry lines and images emerge in his mind: Pushkin, Tyutchev, Blok ... He reflects on life and poetry. The world is compared in his imagination with poetry; poems are 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, nevertheless the words easily stood up in some given and each time extraordinary rhythm. Rhyme was a finder, a tool for magnetic search of 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 kind of electronic machine. Everything screamed: take me. I am not here. There was nothing to look for. I just had to throw it away. It was as if there were two people here - the one who composes, who launched his turntable with might and main, 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 poems. What if they are not recorded? Write down, print - all this is vanity of vanities. Everything that is born unselfishly is not the best. The best thing that 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.

Sections: Literature

Lesson Objectives:

• introduce the tragic fate of the writer and poet Varlam Shalamov; identify the features of the plot and poetics of "Kolyma Tales";
• develop the skills of literary analysis, the ability to conduct a dialogue;
• to form the civic position of high school students.

Equipment: portrait of V.Shalamov, multimedia presentation

During the classes

1. Stage of goal setting.

Music. "Requiem" by W. Mozart

Teacher(reading with music in the background)

To everyone who was branded by the fifty-eighth article,
who in a dream was surrounded by dogs, a fierce convoy,
who by court, without trial, by a special meeting
was doomed to a prison uniform to the grave,
who was betrothed by fate with shackles, thorns, chains
to them our tears and sorrow, our eternal memory! (T.Ruslov)

Today in the lesson we have to talk about political repressions in the Soviet Union, about the people who suffered from them, about the writer of amazing fate - Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov - and his prose. Open your notebooks and write down the topic of today's lesson

(slide 1). At home you read the stories of Varlam Shalamov. What is our goal for today's lesson? (Student answers: get acquainted with the work of V. Shalamov, his biography, comprehend his works).

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov spent almost 20 years in Soviet camps, survived, withstood and found the strength to write about it in the work "Kolyma Tales", some of which you managed to get acquainted with. How did you receive these stories? What surprised, amazed, outraged? (Student answers)

What is the mystery of "Kolyma Tales"? Why does the author himself consider his works "new prose"? These are the key questions of our lesson (slide 2).

2. Actualization of students' knowledge.

But in order to understand Shalamov's prose, one must have a good idea of ​​the historical events of those years.

Student's message "History of repressions in the USSR"

AI Solzhenitsyn said: "No Genghis Khan has destroyed so many peasants as our glorious Organs, led by the Party." Of course, all this could not touch the literary process. Let's remember some facts.

Student's message "Repression in Literature"(The following facts should be mentioned: Alexander Blok suffocated from the lack of air of freedom in 1921. Shot: Nikolai Gumilyov in 1921 on charges of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy, Boris Pilnyak in April 1938, Nikolai Klyuev and Sergei Klychkov in October 1937, Isaac Babel in January 1940. Osip Mandelstam died in a camp in 1938. Sergei Yesenin in 1925, Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1930, Marina Tsvetaeva in 1941. Died in exile, Ivan Bunin, Zinaida Gippius , Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Igor Severyanin, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Konstantin Balmont, Iosif Brodsky, Alexander Galich. Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Boris Pasternak were persecuted. Passed the Gulag Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Anatoly Zhigulin, Nikolai Zabolotsky, Yaroslav Smelyakov, Joseph Brodsky. In the House of Writers in Moscow there is a memorial plaque in memory of those writers who died in the war - 70 people. repressed by the exchanges, but then they realized that there would not be enough space. All walls will be painted.)

Teacher. Let's name one more name on this mournful list - V.T. Shalamov, one of those who set it as their task to survive and tell the truth. This theme also sounds in the works of A. Solzhenitsyn, and Yuri Dombrovsky, and Oleg Volkov, and Anatoly Zhigulin, and Lydia Chukovskaya, but the power of V. Shalamov's books is simply amazing (slide 3).

In the fate of Shalamov, two principles collided: on the one hand, his character, beliefs, on the other, the pressure of time, the state, which sought to destroy this person. His talent, his passionate thirst for justice. Fearlessness, readiness to prove the word by deed: All this was not only not in demand by time, but also became too dangerous for him.

3. Learning new material. Work in groups to study the biography of Varlam Shalamov.

Group work. (Students are divided into groups in advance).

On each table there are texts with a biography of V.T. Shalamov. Read, highlight the main milestones of the biography (with a marker), be prepared to answer questions.

Questions:

1. Where and when was Shalamov born? What can be said about his family?
2. Where did V. Shalamov study?
3. When was V. Shalamov arrested and for what?
4. What was the verdict?
5. When and where did Shalamov serve his sentence?
6. When was Shalamov arrested again? What is the reason?
7. Why was his term extended in 1943?
8. When is Shalamov released from the camp? When will he return to Moscow?
9. In what year did he start working on Kolyma Tales?

(Answers to questions are accompanied by slides with photos)

Teacher: Varlam Shalamov died on January 17, 1982, having lost his hearing and sight, completely defenseless in the House of Invalids of the Litfond, having drunk the cup of non-recognition to the end during his lifetime.

• "Kolyma stories" - the main work of the writer. He gave 20 years to create them. The reader learned 137 stories collected in 5 collections:
• "Kolyma stories"
• "Left Coast"
• "Shovel Artist"
• "Resurrection of the Larch"
• "Glove, or KR-2"

4. Analysis of "Kolyma stories".

• What stories have you read? (Student answers)

Work in pairs.

Let's make a cluster with the word "Kolyma". Try to reflect in it your perception of the world of Kolyma, what feelings prevail in it? We work in pairs, we try to agree. Clusters are attached to the board and read out.

Let's turn to the story "Tombstone". Questions for analysis:

1. What is the impression of a story that begins with the words: "Everyone is dead:"? Everyone: who, why, how? (answers) Yes, these are people about whom Shalamov himself will say: "This is the fate of martyrs who were not, did not know how and did not become heroes." But they remained people in such conditions - and this means a lot. The writer shows this laconic, just one detail. The detail is very important in Shalamov's prose. Here is such, for example, a small detail: ": foreman Barbe is a comrade who helped me pull a large stone out of a narrow pit." The brigadier, who is usually an enemy in the camp, a murderer, is called a comrade. He helped the prisoner, but did not beat him. What opens up behind it? (With comradely relations, the plan was not carried out, because it could only be carried out under an inhuman, lethal load. Barbe was reported, and he died.)

2. Scary stories, creepy stories. What do people dream about on Christmas Eve? (answers) And here is the voice of Volodya Dobrovoltsev (pay attention to the surname): “And I,” and his voice was calm and unhurried, “I would like to be a stump. A human stump, you know, without arms, without legs. Then I would have found I have the strength to spit in their faces for everything they do to us." And why does he want to be a stump?

3. What is the plot of the story? (Death). Death, non-existence is the artistic world in which the action of the story unfolds. And not only here. The fact of death precedes the beginning of the plot. Agree that this is unusual for Russian prose.

Let's work with the story "The Snake Charmer". Each group gets its own task. Group 1 - Read the beginning of the story, find words and phrases that affect the reader's feelings. What feelings arise? Group 2 - What "thin" and "thick" questions did you have while reading the story? Group 3 - What fragments of the story require reflection and reflection?

In the process of analyzing the story, we will definitely pay attention to those difficult questions that you have. Let's try to figure it out together.

• Why is the story called "The Snake Charmer"? Who can be considered a snake charmer?
• Why did Platonov agree to tell novels after all? Is it possible to condemn him?
• Is Platonov's consent to "squeeze novels" a sign of strength or weakness?
• Why did Platonov develop heart disease?
• What is the author's attitude to such a way to improve one's position? (Sharply negative)
• How is Senechka depicted? What does he personify?

(At first glance, it seems that the story is about the confrontation between the political and the thieves, but if you look deeper, then it is no accident that Platonov - the screenwriter-intellectual opposes the blatars, that spirituality opposes brute force. But there is another plan related to the theme "artist and power", "artist and society". "Squeezing novels" - this phrase from thieves' jargon is in itself a powerful satirical metaphor: such "squeezing" for the sake of the powerful of this world is an ancient and hard to get rid of feature of literature, Shalamov managed to show his negative attitude both "snakes" and "casters".)

The story "The last battle of Major Pugachev". Valery Esipov, a researcher of Shalamov's creativity, writes that "Shalamov did not write a single word just like that."

• What is this story about?
• Why does the author compare the arrests of the 1930s and 1940s at the beginning of the story? How did former front-line soldiers differ from other prisoners?
• Tell us about the fate of Major Pugachev. What is the fate of his comrades? How did the experience of the war affect them?
• How did the prisoners behave during the escape?
• Why were there no wounded prisoners in the hospital? Why was Soldatov treated?
• Why does the story end with the death of Pugachev?

What is the feeling after reading the story? How is the author's attitude towards the characters manifested? (The surname Pugachev speaks of the author's attitude towards the heroes, and the fact that the author constantly calls him by rank - major, emphasizing that he is a fighter who challenged the camp authorities, and the smile of the major when remembering his dead comrades before his own death. Shalamov will say about him - "a difficult male life", before his death he will give him a tasteless cranberry berry, repeat the words "best people" twice and remember his smile, experiencing the joy that a person has a spiritual height.)

Why did Shalamov, who claimed that there could be no successful escapes in Kolyma, glorified Major Pugachev? What is the feat of Major Pugachev? (The feat of Pugachev and his comrades is not that they defended their freedom with weapons in their hands, not that they turned their machine guns against the Soviet regime, not that they - every single one - preferred death to surrender. They became heroes because they refused to accept the system of thinking and feeling imposed on them. Realizing the camp as an extrahuman system, they refused to exist in it. Escape - from the camp to the taiga - from the Camp to the World - was undoubtedly a miracle of physical courage, but above all brave thought.)

Having written a fairy tale, very important for the writer personally, Shalamov deduces a new camp law - the law of the preservation of personality, answers the question of how to get out of this world of death. At that moment, when Shalamov set himself the task of "remembering and writing," he, like Pugachev and his comrades, fought according to his own rules - from a Prisoner he became a Writer, he transferred the battle with an extrahuman system to an alien camp and his own territory of culture.

Teacher: Guys, did you and I manage to get closer to unraveling the mystery of the Kolyma Tales? What features of Shalamov's prose, called "new prose", will we note?

(The secret of the "Kolyma Tales" is that, with all the negative things, the author managed to show that people remain people even in inhuman conditions, there is a way to fight this system - not to accept its rules, to defeat it with the power of art and harmony. Features of the "new prose" Shalamova: documentary, laconic narration, the presence of a detail-symbol.)

Let's try to make syncwines in groups on the topics: "Kolyma stories", "Man", "Varlam Shalamov", so that you can express your feelings after our lesson.

Homework: write a review of one of Shalamov's stories using the "criticism" pyramid; watch the film "Lenin's Testament".

Literature.

2. Valery Esipov. "Dispel this fog" (V. Shalamov's late prose: motivations and problems) // www.shalamov.ru/research/92/

3. N.L. Krupina, N.A. Sosnina. Complicity of time. - M., "Enlightenment", 1992

The theme of the tragic fate of a person in a totalitarian state in the "Kolyma stories" by V. Shalamov

I've been living in a cave for twenty years

Burning with a single dream

breaking free and moving

shoulders like Samson, I'll bring down

stone vaults

this dream.

V. Shalamov

The Stalin years are one of the tragic periods in the history of Russia. Numerous repressions, denunciations, executions, a heavy, oppressive atmosphere of non-freedom - these are just some of the signs of the life of a totalitarian state. The terrible, cruel machine of authoritarianism broke the fate of millions of people, their relatives and friends.

V. Shalamov is a witness and participant in those terrible events that a totalitarian country was going through. He went through both exile and Stalin's camps. Other thinking was severely persecuted by the authorities, and the writer had to pay too high a price for the desire to tell the truth. Varlam Tikhonovich summarized the experience taken from the camps in the collection "Kolymsky stories". "Kolyma Tales" is a monument to those whose lives were ruined for the sake of the cult of personality.

Showing in the stories the images of those convicted under the fifty-eighth, “political” article and the images of criminals who are also serving sentences in camps, Shalamov reveals many moral problems. Finding themselves in a critical life situation, people showed their true "I". Among the prisoners there were traitors, and cowards, and scoundrels, and those who were "broken" by the new circumstances of life, and those who managed to preserve the human in themselves in inhuman conditions. The last one was the least.

The most terrible enemies, "enemies of the people", were political prisoners for the authorities. It was they who were in the camp in the most severe conditions. Criminals - thieves, murderers, robbers, whom the narrator ironically calls "friends of the people", paradoxically, aroused much more sympathy from the camp authorities. They had various indulgences, they could not go to work. They got away with a lot.

In the story “At the Show”, Shalamov shows a game of cards in which the personal belongings of the prisoners become the prize. The author draws images of Naumov's and Sevochka's criminals, for whom human life is worth nothing and who kill engineer Garkunov for a woolen sweater. The author's calm intonation, with which he ends his story, says that such camp scenes are a common, everyday occurrence.

The story “Night” shows how people blur the lines between good and bad, how the main goal became to survive on their own, no matter what the cost. Glebov and Bagretsov take off clothes from a dead man at night with the intention of obtaining bread and tobacco instead. In another story, the condemned Denisov with pleasure pulls footcloths from a dying, but still living comrade.

The life of the prisoners was unbearable, it was especially hard for them in severe frosts. The heroes of the story "Carpenters" Grigoriev and Potashnikov, intelligent people, in order to save their own lives, in order to spend at least one day in the warmth, go to deceit. They go to carpentry, not knowing how to do it, than they are saved from the bitter frost, they get a piece of bread and the right to warm themselves by the stove.

The hero of the story "Single measurement", a recent university student, exhausted by hunger, receives a single measurement. He is unable to complete this task completely, and his punishment for that is execution. The heroes of the story "Tombstone Word" were also severely punished. Weakened from hunger, they were forced to do overwork. For the request of foreman Dyukov to improve nutrition, the entire brigade was shot along with him.

The destructive influence of the totalitarian system on the human personality is very clearly demonstrated in the story "The Parcel". It is very rare for political prisoners to receive parcels. This is a great joy for each of them. But hunger and cold kill the human in man. The prisoners are robbing each other! “From hunger, our envy was dull and powerless,” says the story “Condensed Milk”.

The author also shows the brutality of the guards, who, having no sympathy for their neighbors, destroy the miserable pieces of prisoners, break their bowlers, beat the condemned Efremov to death for stealing firewood.

The story "Rain" shows that the work of the "enemies of the people" takes place in unbearable conditions: waist-deep in the ground and under the incessant rain. For the slightest mistake, each of them is waiting for death. Great joy if someone cripple himself, and then, perhaps, he will be able to avoid hellish work.

Prisoners live in inhuman conditions: “In the barracks, packed with people, it was so crowded that you could sleep standing up ... The space under the bunks was packed with people to capacity, you had to wait to sit down, squat down, then lie down somewhere on a bunks, on a pole, on someone else's body - and fall asleep ... ".

Crippled souls, crippled destinies... "Inside, everything was burned out, devastated, we didn't care," sounds in the story "Condensed Milk". In this story, the image of the “snitch” Shestakov arises, who, hoping to attract the narrator with a can of condensed milk, hopes to persuade him to escape, and then report it and receive a “reward”. Despite the extreme physical and moral exhaustion, the narrator finds the strength to figure out Shestakov's plan and deceive him. Not everyone, unfortunately, turned out to be so quick-witted. “They fled in a week, two were killed near the Black Keys, three were tried in a month.”

In the story "Major Pugachev's Last Fight", the author shows people whose spirit was not broken by either fascist concentration camps or Stalinist ones. “These were people with different skills, habits acquired during the war, with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and scouts,” the writer says about them. They make a daring and daring attempt to escape from the camp. The heroes realize that their salvation is impossible. But for a sip of freedom, they agree to give their lives.

“The Last Fight of Major Pugachev” clearly shows how the Motherland treated the people who fought for it and were guilty only of being captured by the Germans by the will of fate.

Varlam Shalamov - chronicler of the Kolyma camps. In 1962, he wrote to A. I. Solzhenitsyn: “Remember the most important thing: the camp is a negative school from the first to the last day for anyone. A man - neither the chief nor the prisoner, do not need to see him. But if you saw him, you must tell the truth, no matter how terrible it may be. For my part, I decided a long time ago that I would devote the rest of my life to this very truth.

Shalamov was true to his words. "Kolyma stories" became the pinnacle of his work.

Reads in 10-15 minutes

original - 4-5 hours

The plot of V. Shalamov's stories is a painful description of the prison and camp life of the prisoners of the Soviet Gulag, their tragic destinies similar to one another, in which chance, merciless or merciful, helper or murderer, arbitrariness of bosses and thieves dominate. Hunger and its convulsive satiety, exhaustion, painful dying, slow and almost equally painful recovery, moral humiliation and moral degradation - this is what is constantly in the center of the writer's attention.

For the show

Camp corruption, Shalamov testifies, affected everyone to a greater or lesser extent and took place in a variety of forms. Two thieves are playing cards. One of them is played down and asks to play for a "representation", that is, in debt. At some point, irritated by the game, he unexpectedly orders an ordinary intellectual prisoner, 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.

Single metering

Camp labor, unequivocally defined by Shalamov as slave labor, is for the writer a form of the same corruption. A goner-prisoner is not able to give a percentage rate, so labor becomes torture and slow death. Zek Dugaev is gradually weakening, unable to withstand the sixteen-hour working day. He drives, turns, pours, again drives and again turns, and in the evening the caretaker appears and measures Dugaev's work with a tape measure. The mentioned figure - 25 percent - seems to Dugaev to be very large, his calves are aching, his arms, shoulders, head are unbearably sore, he even lost his sense of hunger. A little later, he is called to the investigator, who asks the usual questions: name, surname, article, term. A day later, the soldiers take Dugaev to a remote place, fenced with a high fence with barbed wire, from where the chirring of tractors can be heard at night. Dugaev guesses why he was brought here and that his life is over. And he regrets only that the last day was in vain.

Shock therapy

Prisoner Merzlyakov, a man of large build, finds himself at common work, feels that he is gradually losing. One day he falls, cannot get up immediately and refuses to drag the log. He is beaten first by his own people, then by the escorts, 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 grew together, 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 research. He has a chance to be activated, that is, written off due to illness at will. Remembering the mine, aching cold, a bowl of empty soup that he drank without even using a spoon, he concentrates all his will so as not to be convicted of deceit and sent to a penal mine. However, the doctor Pyotr Ivanovich, himself a prisoner in the past, was not a blunder. The professional replaces the human in him. He spends most of his time exposing the fakers. This amuses his vanity: he is an excellent specialist and is proud that he has retained his qualifications, despite the year of general work. He immediately understands that Merzlyakov is a simulator and looks forward to the theatrical effect of a new exposure. First, the doctor gives him roush anesthesia, during which Merzlyakov's body can be straightened, and a week later, the procedure of the so-called shock therapy, the effect of which is similar to an attack of violent madness or an epileptic seizure. After it, the prisoner himself asks for an extract.

Major Pugachev's last fight

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, to stand up for themselves, even risking their lives. According to the author, after the war of 1941-1945. prisoners who fought and passed German captivity began to arrive in the northeastern camps. These are people of a different temper, “with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and scouts...”. But most importantly, they possessed the instinct of 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 their strength and will. Their “guilt” was that they were surrounded or captured. And it is clear to Major Pugachev, one of these people who have not yet been broken: “they were brought to their death - to change these living dead,” whom they met in Soviet camps. Then the former major gathers prisoners who are just as determined and strong, to match, ready to either die or become free. In their group - pilots, scout, paramedic, tanker. They realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they had nothing to lose. All winter they are preparing an escape. Pugachev realized that only those who bypassed the general work could survive the winter and then run away. And the participants in the conspiracy, one by one, advance into the service: someone becomes a cook, someone a cultist who repairs weapons in the security detachment. But spring is coming, and with it the day ahead.

At five o'clock in the morning there was a knock on the watch. The attendant lets in the camp cook-prisoner, who, as usual, has come for the keys to the pantry. A minute later, the duty officer is strangled, and one of the prisoners changes into his uniform. The same thing happens with another, who returned a little later on duty. Then everything goes according to Pugachev's plan. The conspirators break into the premises of the security detachment and, having shot the guard on duty, take possession of the weapon. Keeping the suddenly awakened fighters at gunpoint, they change into military uniforms and stock up on provisions. Leaving the camp, they stop the truck on the highway, drop off the driver and continue on their way in the car until the gas runs out. After that, they go to the taiga. At night - the first night at liberty after long months of captivity - Pugachev, waking up, recalls his escape from the German camp in 1944, crossing the front line, interrogation in a special department, accusation of espionage and sentence - twenty-five years in prison. He also recalls the visits to the German camp of the emissaries of General Vlasov, who recruited Russian soldiers, convincing them that for the Soviet authorities all of them, who were captured, are traitors to the Motherland. Pugachev did not believe them until he could see for himself. He lovingly looks over the sleeping comrades who believe in him and stretch out their hands to freedom, he knows that they are "the best, worthy of all." And a little later, a fight ensues, 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 a bear's lair, that he will be found anyway. He doesn't regret what he did. His last shot was at himself.