Who was the author of the story The Thaw? Silantiev Roman Nikolaevich Khrushchev Thaw

Plot: http://briefly.ru/erenburg/ottepel/

Ehrenburg (1891-1967) – poet, prose writer, international journalist. Was in the Bolshevik underground organization. A genius of form and discoverer of new literary techniques. He invented the Soviet epic as a genre. “The Tempest” - 1949. The genre of a picaresque novel. "Julio Jorenito." The first began to use biblical allusions (later Bulgakov). I tried to apply an artistic effect when writing poetic works in one line. This is the invention of Maria Shkapskaya, but was applied by Ehrenburg. Ehrenburg had an almost bestial social sensitivity.

"Thaw". The main idea is related to the events that shape society. The emergence of a man with enough courage to say what he thinks. It depicts the Khrushchev amnesty and the consequences of it. Depicted the changed relationship with the West. The hero argues with his superiors. He's a writer. His works are discussed, he argues.

Ehrenburg knew how to find words to name social phenomena. Thaw - most often there is temporary warming, then it will freeze again. Ehrenburg's merit is his sense of time and linguistic mastery. Ehrenburg was very controversial. The novel "The Tempest" was much criticized. For him, the opinion of readers was more important than that of critics. Stalin loved him very much. He was called the last Russian European.

Following the story “The Thaw,” the story appeared Panova "Seryozha". Several stories from the life of a little boy. 1955. A child perceives the world good-naturedly and says everything he thinks (Uncle Petya, you are a fool!). We need to give things their names, then life will return to normal.

1956 – A. Yashin “Levers”- story. Vologda writer. In this story, people in the party want freedom in decisions, but they wait until they are given orders.

Pavel Nilin "Cruelty". A criminal investigation officer travels through villages. The issue of justice is incredibly difficult. Ends with the hero's suicide.

Vladimir Dudintsev “Not United by Bread.” There are no opportunities for the full realization of will for a creative person.

1956-57 – Sholokhov “The Fate of Man.” All that was left of socialist realism was a happy ending, from the point of view of modern analysts. Andrei Sokolov is the same age as the century (1900). Maybe it's autobiographical. In the civil war he loses all his loved ones. In the 20s he became a driver - an advanced profession. Marries, two children. Son Anatoly, very talented, dies on May 9, 1945. Sokolov ended up in a concentration camp, drank vodka with Müller. The war took everything from him. Leaves Voronezh and lives in an apartment. I picked up the homeless orphan Vanyushka. Sokolov is afraid to die in his sleep - he will scare Vanyushka. This is a story of great hope. We must remain a person, feeling and sensitive.

The Stalin era eliminated the human factor. There are no irreplaceable people. According to Stalin, prisoners of war were considered traitors, so Sholokhov discovered new topic. It was impossible to write about them.

Changes in the linguistic qualities of literature in Sholokhov and Nilin. Sholokhov has unique speech characteristics of his characters.

A person’s life is determined by love, according to Sholokhov. Sokolov, while fighting, remembers his family, not Stalin. He is worried that he pushed his wife Irina before leaving.

A significant artistic achievement of the writer was the story "The Fate of Man" published on the pages of Pravda in 1957. The story quickly became known throughout the world. Based on it, the talented Soviet film director and actor S. Bondarchuk created a wonderful film under the same name.

Roman Abramova “Brothers and Sisters” ».

Bright focus of the administrative system.

Pery raised the problem of the state's responsibility to the individual.

Abramov did not see any changes in the literature after the 1952 article. I decided to leave my job at Uni. I began to write a novel myself according to my own criteria. 1958 – novel “Brothers and Sisters.”

Lev Abramovich Dodin - play “Brothers and Sisters”. He is already 40 years old. Theater of Europe on Rubinstein in St. Petersburg.

During the "thaw" Russian lyrical prose appears. Stories by Yuri Kazakov (“In Autumn in Oak Forests”).

Youth prose: Granin, Trifonov, Vasily Aksenov. Urban prose.

The tragic conflict between ideal and reality in P. Nilin’s story “Cruelty” (1956).

If V. Dudintsev, in his novel “Not by Bread Alone,” was one of the first to try to answer the question “what is the essence of the system?”, “What is it based on?”, then another Russian writer P. Nilin in his story “Cruelty” was the first to ask an incredibly important question: when did this start, when was a system based on lies, fear and hypocrisy born? In 1937 or much earlier? The period of action of P. Nilin’s story is winter 1922 – summer 1923. Location: Siberia, Krasnoyarsk region. The heroes of the work are criminal investigation officers, security officers, fighting with gangs consisting of local peasants who do not want to submit to Soviet power. It is not for nothing that the writer puts the word “cruelty” in the title of the story. It was cruelty that was the first fruit of the system. Is cruelty necessary, asks 18-year-old security officer Venka Malyshev, and is lying necessary? Pavel Nilin creates the image of an idealist who believes in the rightness of the revolutionary cause, convinced that revolutionary truth does not need deception and embellishment. Venka Malyshev, believing in the reformation of the bandit Baukin, used his help to capture the ataman of the gang, Konstantin Vorontsov. But the victory achieved by Malyshev with the help of military cunning and revolutionary truth turns into lies, betrayal and deception in the hands of the head of the criminal investigation department and journalist Uzelkov, who oppose Malyshev. The latter see lies as a political tool necessary to achieve victory. If for the idealist Venka Malyshev it is important not only to win, but also how to fight, then for his opponents only victory is important. The main conflict is related to different attitudes towards people, towards people. Venka Malyshev believes in people, recognizes their right to make mistakes, and, therefore, the need for conviction. For his opponents, people, as individuals, do not exist, they are “studs” that “in a huge state... you won’t notice.” The head of the criminal investigation department arrests Baukin, and honest Malyshev finds himself in the position of a deceiver. He is ashamed to look Baukin in the eyes, he is hurt for the undermined authority of the Soviet government. Not seeing a place for himself in the emerging system, Venka shoots himself. Referring to the image of the “repentant security officer,” P. Nilin expresses tragic conflict between ideal and reality, between faith in the power of an idea and faith in simply strength, between trust and suspicion, between humanity and cruelty. Thus, the significance of P. Nilin’s story lies in the fact that it shows that “evil” was born in the first years of the revolution...

21. Ideological and artistic originality of the story by V.G. Rasputin "Farewell to Matera".

Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin was born in 1937 in the village of Ust-Uda, which is located on the Angara, almost halfway between Irkutsk and Bratsk. After school in 1959 he graduated Department of History and Philology at Irkutsk University, then took up journalism. Rasputin’s first essays and stories were written as a result of correspondent work and trips to Siberia, which was close to his heart; they contained observations and impressions that became the basis for the writer’s thoughts about the fate of his native land. Rasputin loves his homeland. He cannot imagine life without Siberia, without these bitter frosts, without this blinding sun. That is why in his works the writer reveals taiga romance, the unity of people with nature, and portrays characters that captivate with their strength, pristineness, and naturalness. Rasputin discovered such characters in Siberian villages. Based on material from a Siberian village, such stories as “The Deadline* (1970), “Money for Maria” (1967), and “Up and Down the Stream” were written. Here the author raises high moral problems of goodness and justice, sensitivity and generosity of the human heart, purity and frankness in relations between people. However, Rasputin was interested not only in the individual with his spiritual world, but also in the future of this individual. And I would like to talk about just such a work, which poses the problem human existence on Earth, the problem of the life of generations, which, replacing each other, should not lose touch. This is the story “Farewell to Matera”. I would like to note that Rasputin tried to return interest in the ancient Russian narrative genre of the story.

“Farewell to Matera” - a unique drama of folk life - was written in 1976. Here we are talking about human memory and loyalty to one’s family.

The action of the story takes place in the village of Matera, which is about to perish: a dam is being built on the river to build a power plant, so “the water along the river and rivers will rise and spill, flooding...”, of course, Matera. The fate of the village is decided. Young people leave for the city without hesitation. The new generation has no desire for the land, for the Motherland; it still strives to “move on to a new life.” Of course, life is a constant movement, change, that you cannot remain motionless in one place for centuries, that progress is necessary. But people who entered the era of scientific and technological revolution must not lose touch with their roots, destroy and forget centuries-old traditions, cross out thousands of years of history, from whose mistakes they should have learned, and not made their own, sometimes irreparable ones.

All the heroes of the story can be divided into into "fathers" and "sons".“Fathers* are people for whom breaking with the earth is fatal; they grew up on it and absorbed love for it with their mother’s milk. This is Bogodul, and grandfather Egor, and Nastasya, and Sima, and Katerina.

“Children” are those youth who so easily left the village to the mercy of fate, a village with a history of three hundred years. This is Andrey, and Petrukha, and Klavka Strigunova. As we know, the views of “fathers” differ sharply from the views of “children”, therefore, the conflict between them is eternal and inevitable. And if in Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons” the truth was on the side of the “children”, on the side of the new generation, which sought to eradicate the morally decaying nobility, then in the story “Farewell to Matera” the situation is completely opposite: youth are destroying the only thing that makes it possible preservation of life on earth (customs, traditions, national roots).

The main ideological character of the story - old woman Daria. This is the person who, until the end of his life, until the last minute, remained devoted to his homeland. Daria formulates the main idea of ​​the work, which the author himself wants to convey to the reader: “The truth is in memory. He who has no memory has no life.” This woman is a kind of guardian of eternity. Daria is a true national character. The writer himself is close to the thoughts of this sweet old woman. Rasputin gives her only positive traits, simple and unpretentious speech. It must be said that all the old residents of Matera are described by the author with warmth. How skillfully Rasputin portrays scenes of people parting with the village. Let us read again how Yegor and Nastasya postpone their departure again and again, how they do not want to leave their native land, how Bogodul desperately fights to preserve the cemetery, because it is sacred to the inhabitants of Matera: “...And the old women crawled around until the last night cemetery, put the crosses back in, installed bedside tables.”

All this once again proves that It is impossible to tear a people away from the land, from its roots; such actions can be equated to brutal murder.

The author very deeply comprehended the problem that faced society in the era of scientific and technological revolution - the problem of the loss of national culture. From the entire story it is clear that this topic worried Rasputin and was also relevant in his homeland: it is not for nothing that he locates Matera on the banks of the Angara,

Matera is a symbol of life. Yes, she was flooded, but her memory remained, she will live forever.

"Farewell to Matera" - generalized symbolic in meaning a drama that deals with human memory, loyalty to one's family . main character- Daria. One of her main character traits is sense of preserving memory, responsibility toancestors. The same question addressed to oneself and children, to past and future generations, posed by Anna Stepanovna (“The Deadline”), now with new strength sounds both in Daria’s speeches and in the entire content of the work: “And who knows the truth about a person: ...What should a person, for whose sake many generations have lived, feel? He doesn't feel anything. He doesn’t understand anything.” Daria finds main part answer: “The truth is in memory. He who has no memory has no life.” The story describes the conflict between “fathers andchildren”, since Daria’s moral home is opposedthe position of Andrey’s grandson, inspired by everything new and progressive. The story is full of symbolism: in Matera we guess this the ox of life, and perhaps our land; in Daria - the keeper this life, the mother through whose lips the truth itself speaks. This story is a kind of warning about dangers, threatening Mother Earth, “like an island,” lost “in the ocean of space.” There are many other symbolic images in the story: more symbolicallya Chinese image of the hut that Daria dresses up before burning; thatman, who hides the island. And, only abstracting from the real specificity of the content, the determination of Daria and her friends not to part with Matera (land) and to share its fate becomes clear. In general, the story is characterized by sharp journalisticism, high Tolstoy edification, and apocalyptic worldview. The sound of the central theme carries a high biblical tragedy. The ending of the story was disputed in criticism; objections were raised by the concept of the work, which conflicted with the ideas of progress.

22. Ideological and artistic originality of the story by V.P. Astafiev "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess".

A little more than half a century that has passed since the Great Patriotic War, did not weaken public interest in this historical event. The time of democracy and openness, which illuminated many pages of our past with the light of truth, poses new and new questions for historians and writers. And along with the traditionally considered works of Yu. Bondarev, V. Bykov, V. Bogomolov, our lives include the “not tolerant of half-truths” novels by V. Astafiev “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess”, V. Grossman’s “Life and Fate”, novels and stories by V. Nekrasov, K. Vorobyov, V. Kondratiev.

“The fatal obstacle on the noble human path has been and remains war - the most immoral act of all that man has generated*. And therefore the war does not cease in the work of Viktor Astafiev. About those young guys with whom the writer had to fight, but who did not live to see the Victory, he wrote one of the best, in my opinion, one of the most “difficult and most painful things that he inherited” - the story “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess”. This story recreates the image of pure love, the life of human souls, not crushed or suppressed by war.

"Modern Pastoral" (Pastoral is a genre in literature, painting, music and theater that poetizes peaceful and simple rural life.) - such a subtitle, which defines and clarifies a lot in the ideological sound of the work, was given by the writer to his story, in which there is love, there is happiness - these are the main signs of traditional pastoral.

But it’s not for nothing that the writer put the word “modern” next to the word “pastoral”, as if thereby emphasizing the cruel certainty of the time, merciless to human destinies, to the most subtle and reverent impulses of the soul.

There is a very important contrast in the story - the childhood memory of the main character, Lieutenant Boris Kostyaev, about a theater with columns and music, about white sheep grazing on a green lawn, about a dancing young shepherd and shepherdess who loved each other, and “were not ashamed of this love, and who were not afraid for her, sharply, screamingly contrasts, outwardly restrained, but internally amazingly deep and emotional, with the heightened pain and heart-aching sadness of the written scene about the murdered old men, the farm shepherd and shepherdess, “embracing devotedly at the hour of death.”

“A volley of artillery barrage pinned the old people behind the bathhouse - it almost killed them. They lay there, covering each other. The old woman hid her face under the old man's arm. And the dead were hit by fragments, their clothes were cut...” This short scene, the symbolism of which is especially obvious in contrast with the theatrical idyll, is perhaps the central one in the work. It seems to be concentrated in it the tragedy of war, its inhumanity. And now we cannot perceive the further narrative, follow the short love story of Boris and Lucy, like the flash of a rocket, or the fates of other characters, except through the prism of this scene.

Showing the inhumane essence of war, which breaks and distorts destinies and does not spare life itself, is the main task that V. Astafiev set for himself in the story.

The writer immerses us in an atmosphere of war, densely saturated with pain, fury, bitterness, suffering, and blood. Here is a picture of the night battle: “Melee began. Hungry, demoralized by the environment and the cold, the Germans climbed forward madly and blindly. They were quickly finished off with bayonets. But behind this wave came another, a third. Everything changed, the trembling of the earth, the screeching recoils of the guns, which were now hitting both their own people and the Germans, without knowing who was where. And it was impossible to make out anything anymore.” This scene is intended to lead the reader to the main idea of ​​the story: about the unnaturalness that forces people to kill each other.

Without this main idea, it is impossible to understand the tragedy of the story of Lieutenant Boris Kostaev, who died in a sanitary hospital, to whom the war gave love and immediately took it away. “Nothing could be corrected or returned. Everything was and everything is past.”

In the story “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess,” a work of great philosophical meaning, along with people of high spirit and strong feelings, the writer creates the image of Sergeant Major Mokhnakov, capable of violence, ready to cross the line of humanity and neglect the pain of others. The tragedy of Boris Kostaev becomes even clearer if you take a closer look at one of the central images - Sergeant Major Mokhnakov, who, not by chance, is passing next to the main character.

One day, in a conversation with Lyusya, Boris will say very important words about how scary it is to get used to death, to come to terms with it. And with Boris and with Mokhnakov, who was on the front line, constantly seeing death in all its manifestations, what Kostaev feared happens, They are used to death.

V. Astafiev’s story warns: "People! This must not happen again! »

23. Ideological and artistic originality of Y. Trifonov’s story “Exchange.”

At the center of Yuri Trifonov’s story “Exchange” are the attempts of the protagonist, an ordinary Moscow intellectual Viktor Georgievich Dmitriev, to exchange an apartment and improve his living conditions. To do this, he needs to move in with his seriously ill mother, who realizes that she does not have long to live. The son assures her that he really wants to live with her in order to take better care of her, but the mother guesses that he is primarily interested not in her, but in the living space, and that he is in a hurry with the exchange for fear that if she dies, he will lose mother's room. Material interest replaced Dmitriev's feeling of filial love. And it’s no coincidence that at the end of the story, his mother tells him that she used to want to live with him, but now she doesn’t, because: “You’ve already exchanged, Vitya. The exchange took place... It was a very long time ago. And it always happens, every day, so don’t be surprised, Vitya. And don't be angry. It’s just so unnoticeable...” Dmitriev, initially a good person, gradually under the influence of his wife’s egoism, and his own, exchanged moral principles for bourgeois well-being. True, having managed to move in with his mother literally on the eve of her death, he takes this death, perhaps slightly accelerated by the hasty exchange, hard: “After the death of Ksenia Fedorovna, Dmitriev had a hypertensive crisis, and he lay at home for three weeks on strict bed rest.” After all this, he passed and looked like “not yet an old man, but already elderly.” What is the reason for Dmitriev’s moral decline?

As the story progresses, the grandfather, an old revolutionary, says to Victor, “You are not a bad person. But not surprising either.” Dmitriev has no high idea that inspires his life, no passion for any business. No, which turns out to be very important in this case, and willpower, Dmitriev cannot resist the pressure of his wife Lena, who strives to obtain the benefits of life at any cost. At times he protests, makes scandals, but only to clear his conscience, because he almost always ultimately capitulates and does as Lena wants. Dmitriev’s wife has long been putting her own success at the forefront. And she knows that her husband will be an obedient instrument in achieving her goals: “...She spoke as if everything was predetermined and as if it was also clear to him, Dmitriev, that everything was predetermined, and they understood each other without words.” Regarding people like Lena, Trifonov said in an interview with critic A. Bocharov: “Selfishness is the most difficult thing in humanity to overcome.” And at the same time, the writer is far from sure whether it is, in principle, possible to completely overcome human egoism, whether it would be wiser to try to bring it within some moral limits, to set certain boundaries for it. For example, the following: the desire of each person to satisfy his own needs is legal and fair as long as it does not harm other people. After all, selfishness is one of the most powerful factors in the development of man and society, and this cannot be ignored. Let us remember that Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky wrote about “reasonable egoism” with sympathy and almost as an ideal of behavior in his novel “What is to be done?” The trouble, however, is that in real life it is very difficult to find the line that separates “reasonable egoism” from “unreasonable.” Trifonov emphasized in the aforementioned interview: “Egoism disappears where an idea arises.” Dmitriev and Lena do not have such an idea, so selfishness becomes the only moral value for them. But this idea and the joys of those who oppose them do not exist - Ksenia Fedorovna, Victor’s sister Laura, the cousin of the main character Marina... And it is no coincidence that in a conversation with another critic, L. Anninsky, the writer objected to him: “You pretended that I idolize the Dmitrievs (meaning all representatives of this family, except Viktor Georgievich - B.S.), and I'm making fun of them " The Dmitrievs, unlike the Lena family, the Lukyanovs, they are not very adapted to life, they do not know how to benefit themselves either at work or at home. They do not know how and do not want to live at the expense of others. However, Dmitriev’s mother and his relatives are by no means ideal people. They are characterized by one vice that really bothered Trifonov - intolerance. Ksenia Fedorovna calls Lena a bourgeois, and she calls her a hypocrite. Dmitriev’s mother, in fact, is hardly fair to consider a hypocrite, but her inability to accept and understand people with different behavioral attitudes makes her difficult to communicate with, and this type of people is unviable in the long term. Grandfather Dmitriev was still inspired by the revolutionary idea. For subsequent generations, it has greatly faded due to comparison with the very far from ideal post-revolutionary reality. And Trifonov understands that at the end of the 60s, when “Exchange” was written, this idea was already dead, and the Dmitrievs had no new one. This is the tragedy of the situation.On the one hand, there are the Lukyanov acquirers, who know how to work well (that Lena is valued at work is emphasized in the story),They know how to arrange their life, but they don’t think about anything other than this. On the other hand, the Dmitrievs, who still retain the inertia of intellectual decency, but over time, lose more and more of it, not supported by an idea. The same Viktor Georgievich has already “got crazy” - probably this process will accelerate in the new generation. The only hope is that the main character will awaken his conscience. Still, the death of his mother caused him some kind of moral shock, which, apparently, was also associated with Dmitriev’s physical ailment. However, the chances of it moral rebirth A little. The worm of consumerism has already deeply eroded his soul, and weakness of will prevents him from taking decisive steps towards fundamental changes in life. And it is not without reason that in the last lines of the story the author reports that he learned the whole story from Viktor Georgievich himself, who now looks like a sick man, crushed by life. The exchange of moral values ​​for material ones, which took place in his soul, led to a sad result. A reverse exchange is hardly possible for Dmitriev.

24. Ideological and artistic originality of A. Platonov’s story “Return”.

Biography of Platonov, written by Brodsky:

“Andrei Platonovich Platonov was born in 1899 and died in 1951 from tuberculosis, having become infected from his son, whose release from prison he, after much effort, achieved, only for the son to die in his arms. Trained as a land reclamation engineer (Platonov worked for several years on various irrigation projects), he began writing quite early, at twenty-something years old, that is, in the twenties of our century. He participated in the Civil War, worked in various newspapers and, although they published him reluctantly, gained fame in the thirties. Then his son was arrested on charges of anti-Soviet conspiracy, then the first signs of official ostracism appeared, then the Second World War began, during which Platonov served in the army, working in a military newspaper. After the war he was forced into silence; his story, published in 1946, was the reason for a devastating article for the whole strip Literary newspaper“, written by a leading critic, and that was the end. After that, he was only allowed to occasionally do something as a freelance anonymous literary staff member, for example - edit some fairy tales for children. Nothing else. But by this time his tuberculosis had worsened, so he could do almost nothing anyway. He, his wife and daughter lived on the salary of his wife, who worked as an editor; he sometimes worked as a janitor or stagehand at a theater nearby.”

The genre uniqueness of A. Platonov’s stories is manifested in the way of constructing the image of the hero and in the organization of narrative action in them. In many stories by A. Platonov the conflict was based on the opposition of an untrue understanding of life to a true one. Narrative action in A. Platonov’s stories, as a rule, focuses on depicting the hero's transition from one way of understanding life to another, at the same time, the hero’s consciousness is rebuilt in the most radical way, and along with it, the very scale of comprehension of life and the depth of its comprehension change. In the spiritual feat of forgiveness and philanthropy, in the return to the true moral foundations of life, the hero of the story “The Return” (1946), the Russian man Alexei Ivanov, finally defeats the destructive consequences of the war and gains spiritual integrity. Not so much the hero's return home to his family, but "return to self" lost four years ago.

The terrible test that a person goes through in war is not limited to physical pain, deprivation, horror, and the constant presence of death. In the story “Return” Platonov said about the main evil that war brings - bitterness. The loss of emotional connections with loved ones became Ivanov’s tragedy . He sees Petrushka, a pitiful man in need of love and care, but feels only coldness, indifference and irritation. The child, who, due to the war, had to grow up quickly and painfully, does not understand why his father denies him sincere love. And Ivanov leaves the family, and only the children running after him, and then falling, exhausted, break the wall of indifference.Self-love, interest - everything goes somewhere far away, and only a “naked heart” remains, open to love.

Ivanov’s soul is incapable of touching someone else’s soul. His long absence from home isolated him from his family. He believes that he accomplished feats in the war, and they lived a “normal” life here. Ivanov decides to leave; in the middle of the work, Ivanov’s sharp dialogues with his loved ones are replaced by the author’s monologue (as at the beginning of the story), but the author names his hero differently than at the beginning of the story - “Ivanov”, but “their father”.

When the children run after him: And then they fell to the ground again,” and suddenly Ivanov “he himself felt how hot it became in his chest, as if the heart, imprisoned and languishing in him, had been beating for a long time and in vain all his life and only now it broke free, filling his entire being with warmth and shuddering.”

We need to build the future not at the expense of those who live in the present.

25. Drama of the second half of the twentieth century. General characteristics. Analysis of one work (student's choice).

Drama (Old Greekδρᾶμα - deed, action) - one of the three types of literature, along with epic and lyric poetry, belongs simultaneously to two types of art: literature and theater. Intended for performance on stage, drama formally differs from epic and lyric poetry in that the text in it is presented in the form of character remarks and author's remarks, usually divided into actions and phenomena.

A unique type of literature. First, lyricism arose, then epic art, then drama. Translate monologue speech into dialogic speech- a very difficult task. Intermediality of the text – the use of different sign systems. One critic believed that before Ostrovsky there were only three playwrights in Russia: Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Sumarokov. Plus “The Inspector General” by Gogol. Then Chekhov, Gorky, Andreev, Blok, Mayakovsky, Bulgakov, and then there was a lull. In the 50s, a revival of drama began.

Several directions . The most famous -production drama :Ignatius Dvoretsky “Man from the Outside”, Bokarev “Steelworkers”, Alexander Gelman “Minutes of One Meeting” (screen adaptation of Panfilov’s “Prize”). Minutes of one meeting of the party committee. A quarterly bonus is given to a brigade, but the entire brigade comes and refuses. The workers say they have not fulfilled the plan and want to work honestly. The problem is the responsibility of each person for what happens in this world. There are no ordinary people. This is approximately was the essence of production drama . Kitchen democracy – discussions are bold in kitchens, but not elsewhere. Serious social problems became the subject of public discussion. A signal that true democracy could begin. Peculiarities:

But all the plays were only journalistic in nature

Excluded family conflicts

Such dramaturgy strictly limited the idea of ​​artistic space, that is, the events took place in the premises for official meetings, in the bosses' offices

Raising a particular case to unfounded generalizations is the biggest drawback. One case turned into an alleged typicality, although this is not so.

This dramaturgy was a step towards the theory of conflictlessness.

Second direction - lyrical melodrama . Alexander Volodin is a Leningrad playwright. His classic "Five Evenings". His productions are staged at the Youth Theater on Fontanka. Leonid Zorin "Warsaw Melody" at the Alexandrinsky Theater. Peculiarities:

Narrowing of space and narrowing of time. In “Five Evenings” everything happens in a communal apartment

Refusal of socially significant issues. Volodin said: “We refuse officialdom”

Raised questions about the meaning of human life and the way of human existence

Rejection of happy endings. This was a direct challenge to the theory of non-conflict.

Third direction - military drama. Opening – Viktor Rozov “Forever Living” (1956). This is a play about war, written in line with military prose. Not a single shot. About events in the rear. About love, waiting, fidelity. The war was won through the willpower of a huge number of people, united by a fantastic desire for victory.

Fourth direction - satirical drama . Soviet satire – Shukshin. The play "Energetic People". Energetic people - the Chichikovs of the Soviet era.

Analysis of one work (student's choice):

Alexander Valentinovich Vampilov (1937-1972). Loves Gogol, Chekhov. He was a classmate of Valentin Rasputin. Faculty of History and Philology, Irkutsk University. Vampilov wrote 10 humorous stories. The fame of a humorist was assigned to him. Then he had “Provincial Anecdotes”. Everyone began to believe that he was a satirical playwright. He himself was a deeply tragic figure. He was talented and incredibly proud. About the same aura that Zakhar Prilepin now possesses. Vampilov's plays are staged in every city in Russia. He died tragically on Lake Baikal with frequent visits to Moscow. I went fishing with a friend to Lake Baikal. The boat capsized in icy water. The comrade held onto the edges of the boat and called for help. But Vampilov did not like to call for help, because the wrestler began to swim to the shore, and his legs cramped, and he died in front of everyone. He believed that everyone should choose themselves. His personality as a playwright:

In his plays, an accident, a trifle, a coincidence of circumstances always becomes the most dramatic moment in a person’s life. Test situation.

Vampilov's man - an ordinary person. His heroes, as a rule, are heroes of the Russian hinterland. He introduced the concept of province. It was reminiscent of Chekhov's concept of the province. At that time, Moscow snobbery was on a large scale.

Vampilov he knew how to convey in a micro-scene, in detail, in a gesture, in a short monologue, the feeling of the hero’s entire previous life.

Wide genre range: from lyric-comedy skit to tragicomedy

When life goes to pieces, a person’s only hope is in himself. Vampilov was for such people. Which can withstand the whole world. What is wrong with today's world? This is one of Vampilov’s questions."Provincial jokes." An anecdote is not a fictional, extraordinary incident with a paradoxical ending.. For Vampilov, these are anecdotes made on local material in local space. The main characters are characters unmarked by time. "Twenty minutes with an angel."

"Provincial jokes"- these are two one-act plays: “The Story with the Pageant” and “Twenty Minutes with an Angel”, which were written Alexander Vampilov in the early sixties, much earlier than they were combined into “Provincial Anecdotes,” which probably happened in the first half of 1968.

The content of the article

LITERATURE OF THE THAW, conventional name for the period of literature of the Soviet Union of the 1950s–early 1960s. The death of Stalin in 1953, the XX (1956) and XXII (1961) congresses of the CPSU, which condemned the “cult of personality”, the easing of censorship and ideological restrictions - these events determined the changes reflected in the work of writers and poets of the Thaw.

In the early 1950s, articles and works began to appear on the pages of literary magazines that played the role of stimulating public opinion. The story of Ilya Ehrenburg caused heated controversy among readers and critics Thaw. The images of the heroes were given in an unexpected way. The main character, parting with a loved one, the director of the plant, an adherent of Soviet ideology, in his person breaks with the country's past. In addition to the main storyline, describing the fate of two painters, the writer raises the question of the artist’s right to be independent of any attitudes.

In 1956, a novel by Vladimir Dudintsev was published Not by bread alone and stories by Pavel Nilin Cruelty, Sergei Antonov It happened in Penkovo. Dudintsev's novel traces the tragic path of an inventor in a bureaucratic system. The main characters of the stories by Nilin and Antonov were attracted by their lively characters, their sincere attitude to the events around you, in search of your own truth.

The most striking works of this period were focused on participation in solving pressing socio-political issues for the country, on reconsidering the role of the individual in the state. Society was in the process of mastering the space of newly opened freedom. Most of the participants in the debate did not abandon socialist ideas.

The preconditions for the Thaw were laid in 1945. Many writers were front-line soldiers. Prose about the war by real participants in hostilities, or, as it was called, “officer’s prose,” carried an important understanding of the truth about past war.

He was the first to raise this topic, which became central in military prose 1950–1960, Viktor Nekrasov in the story In the trenches of Stalingrad, published in 1946. Konstantin Simonov, who served as a front-line journalist, described his impressions in a trilogy Living and dead(1959–1979). In the stories of front-line writers Grigory Baklanov inch of land(1959) and The dead have no shame(1961), Yuri Bondarev Battalions ask for fire(1957) and Last salvos(1959), Konstantin Vorobyov Killed near Moscow(1963), against the backdrop of a detailed, unvarnished description of military life, the theme of conscious personal choice in a situation between life and death was heard for the first time. Knowledge front-line life and the experience of surviving in the camps formed the basis of the work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who subjected the Soviet regime to the most consistent criticism.

Issues played a major role in the “warming” process literary almanacs And periodicals– various literary magazines. It was they who reacted most vividly to new trends, contributed to the emergence of new names, and brought the authors of the 1920s–1930s out of oblivion.

From 1950 to 1970, the New World magazine was headed by A.T. Tvardovsky. As editor-in-chief, he contributed to the appearance of bright and bold publications in the magazine, gathering around himself best writers and publicists. “Novomirskaya Prose” brought to the attention of readers serious social and moral problems.

In 1952, a series of essays by Valentin Ovechkin was published in Novy Mir. District everyday life, where the topic of optimal management of agriculture was first discussed. It was discussed which is better: volitional pressure or provision agriculture necessary independence. This publication marked the beginning of a whole movement in literature - “village prose”. Leisurely reflections Village Diary Efim Dorosh about the fate of rural residents was side by side with the nervous, electrified prose of Vladimir Tendryakov - stories Potholes, Mayfly – short lifespan. Village prose showed the wisdom of peasants living with nature in the same rhythm and sensitively reacting to any falsehood. One of the most prominent “villageists” later, Fyodor Abramov, began publishing in Novy Mir as a critic. His article was published in 1954 People of a collective farm village in post-war prose, where he called for writing “only the truth—direct and impartial.”

In 1956, two issues of the almanac “Literary Moscow” were published, edited by Emmanuel Kazakevich. I. Erenburg, K. Chukovsky, P. Antokolsky, V. Tendryakov, A. Yashin and others, as well as poets N. Zabolotsky and A. Akhmatova, published here; for the first time after a 30-year break, the works of M. Tsvetaeva were published. In 1961, the almanac “Tarussa Pages” was published, edited by Nikolai Otten, where M. Tsvetaeva, B. Slutsky, D. Samoilov, M. Kazakov, and the story of the war by Bulat Okudzhava were published Be healthy, student, chapters from golden rose and essays by K. Paustovsky.

Despite the atmosphere of renewal, opposition to new trends was significant. Poets and writers who worked according to the principles of socialist realism consistently defended them in literature. Vsevolod Kochetov, editor-in-chief of the magazine “October,” conducted a polemic with “New World.” Discussions on the pages of magazines and periodicals maintained an atmosphere of dialogue in society.

In 1955–1956, many new magazines appeared - “Youth”, “Moscow”, “Young Guard”, “Friendship of Peoples”, “Ural”, “Volga”, etc.

“Youth prose” was published mainly in the magazine “Yunost”. Its editor, Valentin Kataev, relied on young and unknown prose writers and poets. The works of the young people were characterized by a confessional intonation, youth slang, and a sincere upbeat mood.

In the stories of Anatoly Gladilin published on the pages of Youth Chronicle of the times of Viktor Podgursky(1956) and Anatoly Kuznetsov Continuation of the legend(1957) described the younger generation’s search for their path at the “construction sites of the century” and in their personal lives. The heroes were also attractive because of their sincerity and rejection of falsehood. In the story by Vasily Aksenov Star ticket , published in Youth, was described new type Soviet youth, later called “star boys” by critics. This is a new romantic, thirsting for maximum freedom, believing that in searching for himself he has the right to make mistakes.

During the Thaw period, many new bright names appeared in Russian literature. For short stories Yuri Kazakov is characterized by attention to shades psychological state ordinary people from the people (stories Manka, 1958, Trali-wali, 1959). A postman girl, a drunken beacon man, singing old songs on the river - they embody their understanding of life, focusing on their own idea of ​​​​its values. Ironic story Constellation Kozlotur(1961) brought popularity to the young author Fazil Iskander. The story ridicules the emasculated bureaucratic functioning that creates fuss around unnecessary “innovative undertakings.” Subtle irony has become not only characteristic feature Iskander’s author’s style, but also migrated into oral speech.

The genre continues to develop science fiction, the traditions of which were laid in the 1920s–1930s. Significant works were written by Ivan Efremov - Andromeda's nebula (1958), Heart of the Snake(1959). Utopian novel Andromeda's nebula resembles a philosophical treatise on the cosmic communist future to which the development of society will lead.

In the 1950s, brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky came to literature - From outside (1959), Country of Crimson Clouds (1959), The path to Amalthea (1960), Noon, 21st century (1962), Distant Rainbow (1962), It's hard to be a god(1964). Unlike other science fiction writers who dealt with the themes of cosmic messianism in an abstract and heroic manner, the problems of cosmic “progressors” were revealed by the Strugatskys at the level of philosophical understanding of the mutual influences of civilizations different levels. In the story It's hard to be a god the question is raised which is better: slow, painful, but natural development society or the artificial introduction and expansion of the values ​​of a more civilized society into a less developed one in order to direct its movement to a more progressive direction. In subsequent books by the authors, reflection on this issue becomes deeper. There comes an awareness of moral responsibility for considerable sacrifices - the so-called payment. "primitive" societies for the progress imposed on them.

It was in the 1960–1980s that Yuri Trifonov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Venedikt Erofeev, and Joseph Brodsky came to realize themselves as writers and poets.

So, in 1950 Trifonov’s story was published Students. During his years of exile and teaching in the Ryazan region, Solzhenitsyn worked on a novel Cancer building, research Gulag Archipelago; in 1959 he wrote the story One day of Ivan Denisovich, published in 1962. In the 1950s, Venedikt Erofeev led the life of a student, wandering around different universities. He tried his pen on lyrical diary Notes from a Psychopath(1956–1957), where a special Erofeev style was already felt.

The thaw period was accompanied by the flowering of poetry. The euphoria from the new possibilities required an emotional outburst. Since 1955, the country began to celebrate Poetry Day. On one September Sunday, poems were read in libraries and theaters all over the country. Since 1956, an almanac began to appear with same name. Poets spoke from the stands and packed stadiums. Poetry evenings in Polytechnic Museum attracted thousands of enthusiastic listeners. Since the monument to the poet was inaugurated on Mayakovsky Square in 1958, this place has become a place of pilgrimage and meeting for poets and poetry lovers. Here poetry was read, books and magazines were exchanged, and there was a dialogue about what was happening in the country and the world.

The greatest popularity during the period of the poetic boom was gained by poets with a bright journalistic temperament - Robert Rozhdestvensky and Evgeny Yevtushenko. Their civil lyrics was imbued with the pathos of understanding the place of her country in the scale of world achievements. Hence a different approach to understanding civic duty and social romance. The images of leaders were revised - the image of Lenin was romanticized, Stalin was criticized. Many songs were written based on Rozhdestvensky’s poems, which formed the basis of “ big style"in the genre of Soviet pop song. Yevgeny Yevtushenko, in addition to civil topics, was known for his deep and quite frank love lyrics, cycles written based on impressions from trips to countries around the world.

The no less popular Andrei Voznesensky was more focused on aesthetics new modernity– airports, neon, new brands of cars, etc. However, he also paid tribute to attempts to comprehend the images of Soviet leaders in a new way. Over time, the theme of searching for the true values ​​of existence began to emerge in Voznesensky’s work. The chamber, intimate motifs of Bella Akhmadulina, her unique, melodious author's style of performance were subtly reminiscent of the poetess Silver Age, attracting many fans to her.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the art song genre became popular. Most a prominent representative and the founder of this direction was Bulat Okudzhava. Together with Rozhdestvensky, Yevtushenko, Voznesensky and Akhmadulina, he performed at noisy poetry evenings at the Polytechnic Museum. His work became Starting point, the impetus for the emergence of a galaxy of popular domestic bards - Vizbor, Gorodnitsky, Galich, Vladimir Vysotsky, etc. Many bards performed songs not only on own words, lines of poets of the Silver Age - Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam - were often set to music.

The entire palette of the poetic process of the Thaw period was not limited to the bright young voices that were widely heard by the general reader. The collections of poets of the older generation - Nikolai Aseev - are imbued with a premonition of change Thoughts(1955), Leonid Martynov Poetry(1957). Understanding the lessons of war - main topic front-line poets Semyon Gudzenko, Alexander Mezhirov, Olga Berggolts, Yulia Drunina. The motives of courageous asceticism, which helped to survive in the camps, were heard in the works of Yaroslav Smelyakov. “Quiet lyricists” Vladimir Sokolov and Nikolai Rubtsov turned to nature in search of authenticity of being and harmony with the world. David Samoilov and Boris Slutsky based their work on broad cultural and historical reflection.

In addition to the generally recognized published authors, there were a significant number of poets and writers who were not published. They united in groups - poetry circles of like-minded people, which existed either as private associations or as literary associations at universities. In Leningrad, the association of poets at the university (V. Uflyand, M. Eremin, L. Vinogradov, etc.) was inspired by the poetry of the Oberiuts. In the circle at Leningradsky Institute of Technology(E. Rein, D. Bobyshev, A. Naiman), whose common hobby was Acmeism, a young poet Joseph Brodsky appeared. He attracted attention for his lack of conformity - his reluctance to play by the accepted rules, for which in 1964 he was brought to court for “parasitism.”

Most creative heritage The Moscow “Lianozov group”, which included G. Sapgir, I. Kholin, Vs. Nekrasov, was published only 30–40 years after it was written. The Lianozovites experimented with colloquial, everyday speech, achieving paradoxical connections and consonances through dissonance. In Moscow at the end of the 1950s there was also a circle of students at the Institute of Foreign Languages, which included the poet Stanislav Krasovitsky. In 1964, on the initiative of the poet Leonid Gubanov, the student association of poets and artists SMOG was born (V. Aleinikov, V. Delone, A. Basilova, S. Morozov, V. Batshev, A. Sokolov, Yu. Kublanovsky, etc.), which, in addition to literary experiments carried out radical actions, which accelerated its collapse.

The reaction of the authorities to the publications of some authors abroad was painful and acute. This was given the status of almost high treason, which was accompanied by forced expulsion, scandals, trials, etc. The state still considered itself to have the right to determine the norms and boundaries of thinking and creativity for its citizens. That is why in 1958 a scandal broke out over the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Boris Pasternak for a novel published abroad. Doctor Zhivago. The writer had to refuse the prize. In 1965 there followed a scandal with the writers Andrei Sinyavsky (stories The trial is underway, Lyubimov, treatise What's happened socialist realism ) and Julius Daniel (stories Moscow speaks, Redemption), who published their works in the West since the late 1950s. They were sentenced “for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” to five and seven years in the camps. Vladimir Voinovich after the publication of the novel in the West Life and extraordinary adventures soldier Ivan Chonkin had to leave the USSR because He could no longer hope to publish his books in his homeland.

In addition to tamizdat characteristic phenomenon society of that time becomes “samizdat”. Many works passed from hand to hand, reprinted on typewriters or simple duplicating equipment. The very fact of prohibition fueled interest in these publications and contributed to their popularity.

After Brezhnev came to power, it is believed that the “thaw” ended. Criticism was allowed within limits that did not undermine the existing system. There was a rethinking of the role of Lenin - Stalin in history - different interpretations were proposed. Criticism of Stalin waned.

Essential for understanding the boundaries of freedom was the attitude towards literary heritage beginning of the century. The event was the last work of Ilya Erenburg - memoirs People, years, life(1961–1966). For the first time, many learned about the existence of such historical figures as Mandelstam, Balmont, Tsvetaeva, Falk, Modigliani, Savinkov, etc. Names suppressed by Soviet ideology, described in detail and vividly, became reality national history, the artificially interrupted connection between the eras - pre-revolutionary and Soviet - was restored. Some of the authors of the Silver Age, in particular Blok and Yesenin, already began to be mentioned and published in the 1950s. Other authors were still banned.

Self-censorship developed. The internal censor told the author which topics could be raised and which should not be discussed. Certain elements of ideology were perceived as a formality, a convention that must be taken into account.

Olga Loshchilina

DRAMATURGY OF “THAW”

The “Thaw” not only debunked the myth of the holiness of the “father of all nations.” For the first time, it allowed the ideological decorations to be raised above Soviet scene and dramaturgy. Of course, not all, but a very significant part of them. Before talking about the happiness of all mankind, it would be nice to think about the happiness and unhappiness of an individual person.

The process of “humanization” declared itself in playwrights both in its literary basis and in its production.

Search artistic means, capable of conveying the leading trends of the time within the framework of everyday, chamber drama, led to the creation of such significant work, like a play by Alexei Arbuzov Irkutsk history(1959–1960). The depiction of everyday human drama rose in it to the height of poetic reflections on moral principles contemporary, and the appearance of the heroes themselves vividly captured the features of the new historical era.

At the beginning, the heroine of the play, a young girl Valya, experiences a state of deep mental loneliness. Having lost faith in the existence of true love, she lost faith in people, in the possibility of happiness for herself. She tries to compensate for the painful spiritual emptiness, boredom and prose of everyday work with a frequent change of love affairs, the illusory romance of a thoughtless life. Loving Victor, suffering humiliation from him, she decides to “revenge” him - she marries Sergei.

Another life begins, Sergei helps the heroine find herself again. He has a strong-willed, strong, persistent and at the same time humanly charming character, full of warmth. It is this character that makes him, without hesitation, rush to the aid of a drowning boy. The boy is saved, but Sergei dies. The tragic shock experienced by the heroine completes the turning point in her soul. Victor also changes; the death of his friend forces him to reconsider many things in his own life. Now, after real tests, it becomes possible real love heroes.

It is significant that Arbuzov widely used stage convention techniques in the play. A sharp mixture of real and conventional plans, a retrospective way of organizing action, transferring events from the recent past to the present day - all this was necessary for the author in order to activate the reader, viewer, make his contact with the characters more lively and direct, as if bringing problems to the surface. space for broad, open discussion.

The Chorus occupies a prominent place in the artistic structure of the play. He introduces into this drama journalistic elements that were extremely popular in the society of that time.

“Even the day before death is not too late to start life over again” - this is the main thesis of Arbuzov’s play My poor Marat(1064), the approval of which the heroes come to in the finale after many years of spiritual quest. Both plot-wise and from the point of view of the dramatic techniques used here My poor Marat constructed as a chronicle. At the same time, the play is subtitled “dialogues in three parts.” Each such part has its own precise, up to month, designation of time. With these constant dates, the author seeks to emphasize the connection of the heroes with the world around them, evaluating them throughout the entire historical period.

The main characters are tested for mental strength. Despite the happy ending, the author seems to be saying: everyday life, simple human relationships require great spiritual strength if you want your dreams of success and happiness not to collapse.

In the most famous dramatic works of those years, problems of everyday life, family, and love are not separated from issues of moral and civic duty. At the same time, of course, the severity and relevance of social and moral issues in themselves were not a guarantor creative success– it was achieved only when the authors found new dramatic ways of considering life’s contradictions and sought to enrich and develop the aesthetic system.

The work of Alexander Vampilov is very interesting. His main achievement is a complex polyphony of living human characters, in many ways dialectically continuing each other and at the same time endowed with pronounced individual traits.

Already in the first lyrical comedy Farewell in June(1965) The signs of a hero were clearly identified, who then passed through Vampilov’s other plays in different guises.

Busygin takes complex psychological paths to achieve spiritual integrity, main character plays by Vampilov Eldest son(1967). The plot of the play is constructed in a very unusual way. Busygin and his random travel companion Sevostyanov, nicknamed Silva, find themselves in the Sarafanov family, unknown to them, who are going through difficult times. Busygin unwittingly becomes responsible for what is happening to his “relatives”. As he ceases to be a stranger in the Sarafanovs’ house, the previous connection with Silva, who turns out to be an ordinary vulgar, gradually disappears. But Busygin himself is increasingly burdened by the game he has started, by his frivolous but cruel act. He discovers a spiritual kinship with Sarafanov, for whom, by the way, it doesn’t matter at all whether the main character is a blood relative or not. Therefore, the long-awaited revelation leads to a happy ending to the entire play. Busygin takes a difficult and therefore conscious, purposeful step forward in his spiritual development.

The problem is solved even more complexly and dramatically moral choice in the play Duck hunting(1967). The comic element, so natural in Vampilov’s previous plays, is here reduced to a minimum. The author examines in detail the character of a person drowned in the vanity of life, and shows how, by making immorality the norm of behavior, without thinking about the good for others, a person kills the humanity in himself.

The duck hunt, which the hero of the drama Viktor Zilov is going on throughout the entire action, is not at all an expression of his spiritual essence. He is a bad shot because he admits that he feels bad about killing ducks. As it turns out, he feels sorry for himself, too, although once he reaches a dead end in his senseless whirling among seemingly beloved women and men who seem to be friends with him, he tries to stop everything with one shot. Of course, there was not enough strength for this.

On the one hand, comic, obviously invented, and on the other, small everyday situations in which Vampilov places his heroes, with a more serious acquaintance with them, each time turn out to be serious tests for a contemporary trying to answer the question: “Who are you, man?”

Ethical problems were clearly revealed in the drama of Viktor Rozov On your wedding day(1964). Here, quite young people are tested for moral maturity. On the wedding day, the bride suddenly declares that the wedding will not happen and that she is parting with the groom forever, although she loves him endlessly. Despite all the unexpectedness of such a decisive act, the behavior of the heroine - Nyura Salova, the daughter of a night watchman in a small Volga town - has its own inexorable internal logic, leading her close to the need to renounce happiness. As the story progresses, Nyura becomes convinced of a bitter but immutable truth: the man she is marrying has long loved another woman.

The uniqueness of the conflict situation that arises in the play lies in the fact that the struggle does not flare up between the characters within a closed and fairly traditional love “triangle”. Rozov, having retrospectively outlined the real origins of the acute conflict that has arisen, follows, first of all, the intense confrontation that takes place in the soul of the heroine, because ultimately she herself must make a conscious choice, utter the decisive word.

Rozov opposed the dogmatic concept of " ideal hero”, which certainly manifests itself against a historical and social background. The action of his plays always takes place in a narrow circle of characters. If this is not a family, then a group of graduates and classmates gathered at school for their evening after for long years separation. Sergei Usov, the main character of the play Traditional collection(1967), directly speaks about the value of the individual, independent of professional achievements, positions, social roles– the fundamental principles of human spirituality are important to him. Therefore, he becomes a kind of arbiter in the dispute between matured graduates trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in assessing the viability of this or that fate. The gathering of graduates becomes a review of their moral achievements.

In the same way, Alexander Volodin separates and disconnects his characters from numerous public connections - Elder sister(1961),Purpose(1963); Edward Radzinsky - 104 pages about love(1964),Filming (1965).

This is especially typical for female images, to whom the author's undivided sympathy is given. The heroines are touchingly romantic and, despite the very difficult relationship with those around them, as if pushing them to give up any dreams, they always remain true to their ideals. They are quiet, not very noticeable, but, warming the souls of loved ones, they find strength for themselves to live with faith and love. Girl stewardess ( 104 pages about love), a chance meeting with which the hero, the young and talented physicist Electron, did not foretell, seemingly, any changes in his rationally correct life, in fact showed that a person without love, without affection, without a sense of his daily need for another person is not at all Human. In the finale, the hero receives unexpected news about the death of his girlfriend and realizes that he will never again be able to feel life the way he once did - that is, just three and a half months ago...

Interestingly, much changed in the 1960s even for so-called revolutionary drama. On the one hand, she began to resort to the possibilities of documentary filmmaking, which is largely explained by the desire of the authors to be reliable down to the smallest detail. On the other hand, images historical figures acquired the features of completely “alive” people, that is, contradictory, doubting people going through an internal spiritual struggle.

In the play by Mikhail Shatrov sixth of july(1964), called in the subtitle “an experience in documentary drama,” the history of the revolution itself was directly recreated in a dramatic combination of circumstances and characters. The author set himself the task of discovering this drama and introducing it into the framework theatrical action. However, Shatrov did not take the path of simply reproducing the chronicle of events; he tried to reveal their internal logic, revealing the socio-psychological motives for the behavior of their participants.

The historical facts underlying the play - the Left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion in Moscow on July 6, 1918 - gave the author ample opportunity to search for exciting stage situations and free flight of creative imagination. However, following the principle he had chosen, Shatrov sought to discover the power of drama in the very real story. Intensity dramatic action intensifies as the political and moral combat between the two intensifies politicians– Lenin and the leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries Maria Spiridonova.

But in another play, Bolsheviks(1967), Shatrov, by his own admission, is already in many ways moving away from the document, from the exact chronology “for the sake of creating a more integral artistic image era." The action takes place over just a few hours on the evening of August 30, 1918 (with the stage time more or less exactly corresponding to the real one). Uritsky was killed in Petrograd, and an attempt was made on Lenin's life in Moscow. If in Sixth of July the main spring of the stage action was the rapid, condensed movement of events, the development of historical fact, then in Bolsheviks emphasis shifted to artistic comprehension fact, to penetrate into its deep philosophical essence. Not the tragic events themselves (they happen behind the scenes), but their refraction in the spiritual life of people, the moral problems they put forward form the basis of the ideological and artistic concept of the play.

The clash of different views on moral duties individuals in society, the processes of the hero’s internal, spiritual development, the formation of his ethical principles, which takes place in intense and acute mental struggles, in difficult searches, in conflicts with others - these contradictions constitute the driving principle of most plays of the 1960s. By turning the content of their works primarily to issues of morality and personal behavior, playwrights significantly expanded the range of artistic solutions and genres. The basis of such searches and experiments was the desire to strengthen the intellectual element of the drama, and most importantly, to find new opportunities for identifying spiritual and moral potential in a person’s character.

Elena Sirotkina

Literature:

Goldstein A. Farewell to Narcissus. M., UFO, 1997
Matusevich V. Notes of a Soviet editor. M., UFO, 2000
Weil P., Genis A. 1960s: the world of Soviet man. M., UFO, 2001
Voinovich V. Anti-Soviet Soviet Union . M., Mainland, 2002
Kara-Murza S. "Scoop" remembers. M., Eksmo, 2002
Savitsky S. underground. M., UFO, 2002
Soviet wealth. St. Petersburg, Academic project, 2002

I always wanted to read “The Thaw” by Ilya Ehrenburg, but I didn’t have time, and recently I found it on the Internet. I’ll say right away: the story seemed weak and boring. The characters are lifeless, the plot is a complete mess. Naturally, the question arose: why did this particular thing give its name to an entire historical period?
And I wanted to see how “The Thaw” was received when it was published, what they wrote about it. Was she really admired?

The story was published in May 1954 in Znamya. Konstantin Simonov was one of the first to respond to it. At that time he was at the peak of his popularity, the second person in the leadership of the Union of Writers of the USSR, and headed the “New World”.

Konstantin Simonov published a large article “The New Story of Ilya Ehrenburg” in two issues of Literaturnaya Gazeta (Nos. 85, 86 of July 17 and 20, 1954). Here's what he says about the plot: “The story of Lena Zhuravleva told in the story and the problems associated with it deserve attention. Ehrenburg tells the story of how a young woman, a teacher, who got married while still a student, gradually begins to understand that her husband has turned into a careerist, indifferent to people and even ready to step over their interests and rights for the sake of his career. Lena Zhuravleva leaves her husband, takes the child, begins independent life, and the writer claims the right to take this step; Zhuravlev's moral deformation destroyed their love, family, and further living together two people alien to each other cease to correspond to the norms of socialist morality. Along with this, creating negative image Zhuravlev, who found himself in the post of director of the plant, Ehrenburg rightfully asks: can people be led by a person who does not love them, a person who blasphemously covers up his reluctance to care for people with supposedly state interests, that is, who completely does not understand these state interests? And he answers: no, he can’t!”

How do other characters feel about Lena’s action? Do they consider her a fool who squandered her happiness? Konstantin Simonov also asks: “Why, remembering the positive heroes of I. Ehrenburg, along with sympathy for them, do you also experience a feeling of dissatisfaction when you take in the big picture?”

This means that the author of the review also doubted the correctness of Lena’s action? No! He was confused by something else: “Here is Lena, a good young, intelligent woman. This is how she looks in the story. However, when other characters start talking about her, these qualities begin to take on a tinge of exclusivity and emphasis. "Smart a woman you rarely see in Moscow,” - Koroteev thinks about her..."

And this is how Konstantin Simonov generally evaluates the story “The Thaw”: “Far from artistic, fragmentary protocol recording is characteristic of many pages of “The Thaw” - a work where the fluency and superficiality of observations most strikingly affected not only its ideological side, but with no less negative force on the artistic side. But in the end, we have before us a story that, in my opinion, is much weaker than everything that Ilya Erenburg created over the last decade and a half of his work in literature... In the end, the whole story, despite some good pages, seems to be a sad failure of the author for our literature.”

At the Second Congress of Writers, which took place in the same 1954, where both the report and the co-report called the story “The Thaw” unsuccessful, Ilya Erenburg said in his speech: "If I can still write new book, then I will try to make it a step forward from my last story, and not a step to the side.”

Mikhail Sholokhov, in his speech at this Congress, ironically commented on Ehrenburg’s words: “Compared with “The Tempest” and “The Ninth Wave” (novels by Ilya Erenburg, awarded Stalin Prize) The “Thaw” undoubtedly represents a step back. Now Ehrenburg promises to take a step forward. I don’t know what these dance steps are called in another language, but in Russian it sounds like “treading water.” You promised us little consolation, dear Ilya Grigorievich!”

Why a short but such a significant segment of our history was named after this generally accepted weak story remains a mystery to me... But from today we can offer such a version. The assessments of the literary “Thaw” can probably be applied to the political “Thaw” - fluency and superficiality, failure, despite some good pages.

Tatiana ZHARIKOVA

Khrushchev's thaw

This is a period in the history of the USSR after the death of I.V. Stalin (late 1950s - early 1960s), characterized by the weakening of totalitarian power, relative freedom of speech, relative democratization of political and social life, and greater freedom of creative activity. The expression “Khrushchev’s thaw” is associated with the title of Ilya Ehrenburg’s story “The Thaw”.

The starting point of the “Khrushchev Thaw” was the death of Stalin in 1953.

With Khrushchev strengthening in power, the “thaw” began to be associated with the condemnation of Stalin’s personality cult. On XX Congress of the CPSU in 1956 Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech in which Stalin's cult of personality and Stalin's repressions were criticized. Many political prisoners in the USSR and countries socialist camp were released and rehabilitated. The majority of peoples deported in the 1930s and 1940s were allowed to return to their homeland.

During the period de-Stalinization Censorship has noticeably weakened, primarily in literature, cinema and other forms of art, where more open coverage of reality has become possible. During the "thaw" there was a noticeable rise in literature and art, which was greatly facilitated by the rehabilitation of some cultural figures repressed under Stalin. For the first time, many learned about the existence of such figures as Mandelstam, Balmont, Tsvetaeva, Modigliani, Savinkov and others. The artificially interrupted connection between the eras - pre-revolutionary and Soviet - was restored. Some of the authors of the Silver Age, in particular Blok and Yesenin, already began to be mentioned and published in the 1950s. Other authors were still banned.

In the early 1950s, articles and works began to appear on the pages of literary magazines that played the role of stimulating public opinion. The main platform for supporters of the “thaw” was the literary magazine "New world". From 1950 to 1970, the magazine "New World" was headed by A.T. Tvardovsky. As editor-in-chief, he contributed to the appearance of bright and bold publications in the magazine, gathering around him the best writers and publicists. "Novomirskaya Prose" brought to the attention of readers serious social and moral problems .

In 1952, a series of essays by Valentin Ovechkin was published in Novy Mir. Regional everyday life. This publication marked the beginning of a whole movement in literature - "village prose". Village prose showed the wisdom of peasants living with nature in the same rhythm and sensitively reacting to any falsehood. One of the brightest subsequently "villageists", Fedor Abramov, began publishing in Novy Mir as a critic. His article was published in 1954 “People of a collective farm village in post-war prose”, where he called for writing “only the truth - direct and impartial.”

In 1955-1956, many new magazines appeared - “Youth”, “Moscow”, “Young Guard”, “Friendship of Peoples”, “Ural”, “Volga”, etc.

Knowledge of front-line life and experience of survival in the camps formed the basis of creativity Alexandra Solzhenitsyn, who subjected the Soviet regime to the most consistent criticism. Some works of this period became famous in the West, including the novel by Vladimir Dudintsev “Not by Bread Alone” and the story by Alexander Solzhenitsyn "One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich."

The preconditions for the Thaw were laid in 1945. Many writers were front-line soldiers. Prose about the war by real participants in hostilities, or, as it was called, “officer’s prose,” carried an important understanding of the truth about the past war. The first to raise this topic, which became central in military prose of 1950-1960, was Viktor Nekrasov in the story “ In the trenches of Stalingrad", published in 1946. Konstantin Simonov, who served as a front-line journalist, described his impressions in the trilogy “ Living and Dead"(1959-1979). In the stories of front-line writers Grigory Baklanov “ An inch of land"(1959) and "The dead have no shame"(1961), Yuri Bondarev "The battalions are asking for fire"(1957), Konstantin Vorobyov "Killed near Moscow"(1963), against the backdrop of a detailed, unvarnished description of military life, the theme of conscious personal choice in a situation between life and death was heard for the first time.

The thaw period was accompanied by the flowering of poetry. The euphoria from the new possibilities required an emotional outburst. Since 1955, the country began to celebrate Poetry Day. On one September Sunday, poems were read in libraries and theaters all over the country. Since 1956, an almanac with the same name began to be published. Poets spoke from the stands and packed stadiums. Poetry evenings at the Polytechnic Museum attracted thousands of enthusiastic listeners. Since the monument to the poet was inaugurated on Mayakovsky Square in 1958, this place has become a place of pilgrimage and meeting for poets and poetry lovers. Here poetry was read, books and magazines were exchanged, and there was a dialogue about what was happening in the country and the world. The greatest popularity was gained by poets with a bright journalistic temperament - Robert Rozhdestvensky and Evgeny Yevtushenko. No less popular Andrey Voznesensky was more focused on the aesthetics of new modernity - airports, neon, new brands of cars. Chamber, intimate motives Bella Akhmadulina, her unique, melodious author's style of performance subtly resembled the poetesses of the Silver Age, attracting many fans to her. "Silent Lyricists" Vladimir Sokolov and Nikolai Rubtsov turned to nature in search of authenticity of being and harmony with the world.

A young poet appeared in a circle at the Leningrad Technological Institute (E. Rein, D. Bobyshev, A. Naiman), whose common hobby was Acmeism Joseph Brodsky.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the art song genre became popular. The most prominent representative and pioneer of this trend was Bulat Okudzhava. Together with Rozhdestvensky, Yevtushenko, Voznesensky and Akhmadulina, he performed at noisy poetry evenings at the Polytechnic Museum. His work became the starting point, the impetus for the emergence of a galaxy of popular domestic bards - Vizbor, Gorodnitsky, Galich, Vladimir Vysotsky and others. Many bards performed songs not only with their own words, often lines of poets of the Silver Age - Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam were set to music.

"Youth prose" was published mainly in the magazine "Youth". Its editor, Valentin Kataev, relied on young and unknown prose writers and poets. The works of the young people were characterized by a confessional intonation, youth slang, and a sincere upbeat mood.

However, the thaw period did not last long. Already with the suppression of the Hungarian uprising 1956 years have appeared clear boundaries openness policy. Khrushchev's persecution of Boris Pasternak, who was awarded Nobel Prize in literature, outlined the boundaries in the field of art and culture. The final completion of the “thaw” is considered to be the removal of Khrushchev and the coming to leadership of Leonid Brezhnev in 1964.

With the end of the “thaw”, criticism of Soviet reality began to spread only through unofficial channels, such as Samizdat.

Rubashkin A.

There are works in the history of literature that have left their mark on public consciousness primarily due to the timeliness of their publication. After them, books that are artistically more significant may come out, but they won’t be remembered that way. Ehrenburg’s “Thaw” determined the turn of our lives; the very concept of the “post-Stalin Thaw” came from this story. The name has become a household name.

The story says nothing about the March days of 1963, when we mourned, saying goodbye to the past. Stalin's name is not mentioned at all - all this happened after him, in a different era. In “The Thaw” there is an atmosphere of the autumn of 1953 - winter of 1954, a story about what the author and his heroes experienced at a turning point in our existence... Monuments to Stalin still stood firmly, his seventy-fifth birthday was still celebrated in the press, but something was already leaving. And the story was perceived as anti-cult even before the official condemnation of what was later called the “cult of personality.”

What is this anti-cultism? In approaching a person. For years it has been argued that a person is a cog in a huge state mechanism. And here, through the mouth of his hero, the old Bolshevik Andrei Ivanovich Pukhov, the author proclaimed: “Society consists of living people, you can’t solve anything with arithmetic. It is not enough to develop reasonable measures, you need to be able to implement them, and every person is responsible for this. You can’t reduce everything to the protocol of “listened and decided.”

It is not easy for the heroes to achieve their happiness - it is difficult for them to understand their feelings. Lena reaches out to Koroteev and is tormented: how to leave Zhuravlev, after all, they have a daughter, and she chose it herself. At his age, Dr. Scherer does not want to believe in the possibility of happiness with Sokolovsky. Sonya Pukhova suffers herself and torments her chosen one, making her equal with others when “on a sultry August he walked across the steppe with a retreating division.” During the war, he lost his love; before the war, his faith was undermined. Is it possible to calculate what was more bad or good in Koroteev’s life?

There is no broad canvas of life in Ehrenburg's story, but his characters knew what he knew. Everyone had problems not only of a personal nature. The quarrelsome Sokolovsky is at the same time silent, he seems strange to people, but much is clarified from the details of his biography that are given in the story. Old Bolshevik, participant civil war, a talented engineer, he is gripped by fear that he will be reminded of his adult daughter living abroad. “Is the questionnaire really the most important thing?” - he thinks. Sokolovsky has already suffered because of the questionnaire, he was driven out of the Ural plant, a feuilleton about him appeared in the newspaper. And here comes the same threat again, now Zhuravlev is ready to remind him of his Belgian kinship. Upon learning of this, Sokolovsky becomes seriously ill...

Maybe Ehrenburg is “stimulating” bitter fates? But he knows that Sokolovsky’s generation drank much more than this hero. His peers not only read feuilletons about themselves, but also lost their lives in Stalin’s dungeons, like the writer’s Bolshevik friend Semyon Chlenov, like his Bolshevik comrade in Spain Mikhail Koltsov.

The writer knew that the drama of the past years was greater than he could say about it, he knew that Simonov did not remain ignorant. The (then secret) poems of Olga Berggolts had already been written - “No, not from our meager books...” Ehrenburg read them. And he knew about Akhmatova’s “Requiem” from the author himself. So Ehrenburg was sincere when he wrote: “I would not dispute the judgments of K. Simonov if they were limited to an assessment artistic merit or the shortcomings of my story." It was about something else. About the characteristics of time, about the colors with which our lives are painted.

Now is the time to turn to 1954. Warm winds had already blown, but there were still so many ice sheets and shadowy sides. At active participation The same Simonov was once again “worked” by Zoshchenko. Articles by Mikhail Livshits, Vladimir Pomerantsev, and Fyodor Abramov published in Novy Mir were sharply criticized. All of them were included in the slanderers. As a result of this criticism, the editor of the magazine, Alexander Tvardovsky, was removed from his post for the first time. Instead they appointed... Simonov. So Ehrenburg was not alone in his experiences. One year later. criticism fell on Pavel Nilin - he wrote the story “Cruelty”, talked about how time tested a person to the breaking point, argued that it is impossible to achieve high goals by immoral methods...

As for Ehrenburg, his “Thaw” was on the “black board” for a long time. I didn’t like the characters, I didn’t like the way the writer spoke about art. Simonov devoted more than half of his article to this, arguing that the author gives “an incorrect assessment of our art and promotes incorrect views on the path of its development.”

Meanwhile, in his short story, Ehrenburg did not even think of presenting a “picture of the state of art.” In it, along with other characters, there are two artist-antagonists - Pukhov and Saburov, there is individual statements about books and plays. It is clear that the author looks at many things critically. And it's not just about art. “She (Tanya - A.R.) played in a Soviet play a laboratory assistant who exposes a professor guilty of sycophancy.” It is unlikely that a play with such a conflict can be good, therefore the situation itself in which such conflicts are possible is more important. And Ehrenburg himself had to hear these reproaches of “sycophancy.”

Perhaps most of all, the story talks about painting. The cynical artist Pukhov, who has already betrayed art, reflects on her. For these reflections, the author was criticized most of all: he, they say, does not expose Pukhov, making him almost a victim of circumstances. Along the way, critics, and above all Simonov, argued that Ehrenburg should have shown a wide palette of art and his achievements. “The author of the story considered it good to close his eyes and see through the crack only the Poohs and Saburovs Tanya.”

In the Ehrenburg archive there is a letter to him from director Grigory Lozintsev: “Even the most dashing critics did not reproach Ostrovsky for the fact that in “The Forest” he distorted the entire state of Russian theatrical art, in which both Shchepkin and Martynov were then; and Sadovsky... And the most lively official pen would not dare to ask Ostrovsky a question - who does he classify himself as, Neschastlivtsev or Arkashka, and yet there were no other theater figures in the play.”

Pukhov and Saburov are different poles of art. The first is alien to Ehrenburg, who sees him as an opportunist, a hack, while the author deeply sympathizes with the second. Of course, there are artists of a different kind, but the writer talks about what worries him and focuses his attention on these phenomena. Simonov “guessed” in the story some influential and high-ranking opportunists, much more noticeable and therefore harmful, such as the artist Alexander Gerasimov. As for the other pole, at that time one could occasionally see first of all Falk, a wonderful landscape painter, who was not recognized and was “beaten with the ruble,” accusing, of course, of formalism.

The desire of the critics of that time for Ehrenburg to at least “hint” that everything is not limited to these poles is very strange, the writer is talking about real phenomena artistic life, without pretending to review them. Otherwise, he could have “hinted” at a lot of things: for example, how his favorite composers, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, were treated in the forties (one of the latter’s symphonies is mentioned in “The Thaw”), how the theater was closed and thus the life of a wonderful director was shortened. He could also recall the fate of Akhmatova and Zoshchenko.

Without whitewashing the Pukhovs, Ehrenburg emphasizes that society has the conditions for their emergence, that our art contains many unnecessary regulations and established stereotypes. The same Simonov “agrees” - let Pukhov appear in the story, but the author must expose him more definitely. As if the hero doesn’t expose himself enough. “Of course, I’m a hack, but in general everyone is more or less a hack, only some don’t want to understand this.” Does Volodya Pukhov really think so? Rather, he calms himself down. This “everything” removes responsibility, it makes life easier. “After all, everyone maneuvers, cheats, lies, some are smarter, others are stupider,” Pukhov repeats to himself. Those “everyone” again. But do all artists paint paintings under the odious title “Feast on the Collective Farm”? Does everyone agree to draw a portrait of Zhuravlev, realizing that he “has a face like dirty cotton wool between two frames”? Does everyone write such novels and such music? From the story it is clear - not everything. There is Saburov, who will not refer to the era (“Now everyone is shouting about art and no one loves it,” Pukhov justifies himself), there are writers about whom the heroes of the story want to argue. Koroteev directly repeats Ehrenburg’s assessment of Vasily Grossman’s novel “For a Just Cause”: “He showed the war honestly, that’s how it really happened...”

Not everyone maneuvers, not everyone remains silent, seeing the disgrace. The elder Pukhov is not silent, he attacks both the director of the plant and the newspapermen - Sokolovsky (“they described the plant as if it were heaven”). Volodya Pukhov is left with a consolation born of the passing time: “I didn’t drip on anyone, I didn’t drown anyone.” The fact that he betrayed himself and art does not seem to count.

Critics found Saburov's image unexpected and unjustifiably elevated. They didn’t see how polemical the author is in portraying just such an artist, whose paintings are not bought or exhibited. Time seems to have left him no place in art. There was a simplified, pragmatic idea of ​​the tasks of painting; a monumental, large-scale one was supported. Everything else went under the rubric of “formalism.” And I was already dreaming that Ehrenburg was calling all our art to “take the path of Saburov, the path of isolation, separation from life.” Of course, the writer was ironic when talking about another of Pukhov’s hackworks - a panel for an agricultural exhibition depicting cows and chickens. No one would see a “break from life” here, but the portrait of the artist Saburov’s wife, his landscapes are something not “mainstream”, outdated, like discussions about Raphael, about the sense of color, about composition.

Ehrenburg argued in his objections to critics that his story was not dedicated to art. But he hoped for a renewal of society, the entire atmosphere of life. What has become a pattern of life these days was a revelation in 1954. The characters talk about what they don’t want to put up with. Saburov - about photographs replacing paintings, engineer Savchenko - about double-mindedness that has settled in people. “You probably haven’t been to such discussions for a long time, but a lot has changed... The book touched a sore spot - people too often say one thing, but act differently in their personal lives.” Sokolovsky cannot find the words to explain himself to Vera Grigorievna; he is not a timid boy and expresses his condition, feeling the severity of what he has experienced: “It seems that our hearts are frozen through.”