Our counters. We read, reread, discuss The Sun of the Dead Ivan Shmelev analysis
“The Sun of the Dead” describes the months Shmelev lived in Crimea under the “Red Terror” after the defeat of the White Army, and reflects all his hatred towards the Soviet regime and the Red Army.
The narrator, an elderly intellectual who remained in Crimea after the evacuation of General Wrangel’s Volunteer Army from there, reveals to us the fate of the inhabitants of the peninsula, torn apart by hunger and fear. In this book, which is essentially a diary, the author describes how hunger gradually destroys everything human that is in a person - first feelings, then will. And little by little everything dies under the rays of the “laughing sun.”
This novel is a merciless testimony not only to the slow death of people and animals, but also, mainly, to moral loneliness, human misfortune, the destruction of everything living and spiritual in a humiliated people turned into slaves. Shmelev exposes in his book all the countless wounds of the Russian people, who have become both a victim and an executioner.
Thirty-five chapters of the epic “Sun of the Dead” - as Shmelev calls his work - are imbued with unquenchable love and heartbreaking pain for torn Russia. This amazing book, an autobiographical and historical document, a painful farewell to the entire bygone world, a doomed and destroyed civilization, reflects the horror of the loneliness of this era abandoned by God, worthy of Greek tragedy and the horrors of Dante. The power of suffering, reminiscent of many literary critics of Dostoevsky, empathy and sympathy for any suffering, wherever it reigns, finds its most complete expression in The Sun of the Dead. The inhumanity of the Red Guard is the main motive of these pages: and as Marcel Proust said about completely different historical events, this indifference towards suffering is a monstrous and indispensable form of cruelty. The straightforwardness and realism with which the ugliness and perversions of the Soviet regime are described should make even the most callous reader tremble with horror.
Occasionally, Shmelev manifests himself as a lyric poet, but his lyricism is, so to speak, the groans of his agonizing homeland written and described in his blood. Shmelev’s “Sun of the Dead” is not only, although primarily, an irreplaceable historical document, as Thomas Mann defined it, but also an epic work of a great writer, translated into twelve languages. It is also necessary to understand that this book became for the newly minted Soviet criticism something of a symbol of all Russian emigrant literature, as evidenced, among other things, by the bile article by critic Nikolai Smirnov “The Sun of the Dead. Notes on emigrant literature". For the majority of Russian exiles, this novel became the cry of all tormented humanity and a dying civilization.
It is not surprising that this tragic epic, a real prayer and requiem for Russia, was appreciated not only by Thomas Mann, but also by such diverse writers as Gerhart Hauptmann, Selma Lagerlöf and Rudyard Kipling; and it is also not surprising that in 1931 Thomas Mann nominated Shmelev as a candidate for the Nobel Prize.
When you read Shmelev’s works, written in exile, what is first striking is the desire of the author, faithful to the memory of his lost homeland, to rediscover and revive Russia - the best thing about it that hides behind its so different faces.
“The Sun of the Dead,” which is often called the most tragic book in the history of world literature, was created by Shmelev between March and September 1923 in Paris and at the Bunins’ villa in Grasse. In this work, the writer tries to comprehend the terrible catastrophe that happened to Russia. Shmelev himself experienced severe trauma in the years 1920–22 - first he lost his only son, shot by the Bolsheviks, then he had to leave his native country. The writer called “Sun of the Dead” an epic. And this name is absolutely justified. In “Sun of the Dead,” Shmelev comprehends what happened not only on a national, but also on a global scale. Readers are presented with a tragedy akin to the ancient Greek one.
Nobel Prize winner for literature Thomas Mann wrote about The Sun of the Dead: “A nightmarish document of an era, shrouded in poetic brilliance, ... read if you have the courage ....” The philosopher and friend of Shmelev, Ilyin, believed that the book “will forever remain one of the most significant and thoughtful historical monuments of our era.” Critic Julius Aikhenvald called the work “the apocalypse of Russian history.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn praised “The Sun of the Dead”: “It’s so true that you can’t even call it art. In Russian literature there is the first real evidence of Bolshevism. Who else conveyed the despair and general death of the first Soviet years and war communism in such a way?”
The book consists of small sketches telling about the death of all living things in the Crimea occupied by the Bolsheviks. The sun, which has become the “sun of the dead,” watches this from the sky. The work lacks a plot. Shmelev refuses a beginning and a clear end, central and secondary characters, plotting, climax and denouement. The chapters are linked together using the internal psychological experiences of the hero-narrator - a witness to the events taking place. The artistic time of “Sun of the Dead” does not have a single speed. Individual personal chronologies appear.
The author's position in "The Sun of the Dead" is distinguished by open partiality, which makes the book close to Bunin's "Cursed Days". Shmelev affirms the intrinsic value of human life sent down from above and opposes the use of personality as a means in any social experiments.
The security officers in the work are deliberately impersonal. It is said about them: “people with red stars”, “those who go to kill” and so on. Sometimes Shmelev uses animal-likeness. For example, Shurka Sokol has “small teeth, like a snake,” and he also “smells of blood like a vulture.” An important role in the book is played by the contrast between the satiety of the Bolsheviks who came to Crimea and the hungry life of ordinary people. While “everyone is getting thin, everyone’s eyes are sunken and their faces are blackened,” the new owners are feasting - they have a lot of wine from the looted Crimean cellars, and enough food. While ordinary people walk around in rags, the security officers wear normal things - Comrade Deryabin has a beaver hat, a pair of fur coats - fox and ferret.
The people in the book are represented by the fates of the hero-narrator, the old doctor Mikhail Vasilyevich, the young writer Boris Shishkin, the short-sighted teacher Pribytko and her tireless old mother Maria Semyonovna, the eight-year-old girl Lyalya and others. They are all different, but they have one thing in common - the need to fight for life in the most difficult conditions of hunger and rampant Red Terror. In addition, these people feel like “former”: “Everything is in the past, and we are already superfluous.”
The most important role is played by the images-symbols that permeate Shmelev’s book. The main one is the image-symbol of the sun. Ilyin noted: “The title of “Sun of the Dead” - in appearance, everyday, Crimean, historical, is fraught with religious depth: for it points to the living Lord in heaven, sending people both life and death, - and to people who have lost Him and become dead in all over the world." Recalling the pre-revolutionary past, the hero-narrator says: “People got along with the sun, created gardens in the desert.” After the Bolsheviks came to power, everything changed. People who had previously lived in unity with God now turned away from him. Therefore, the sun scorches the earth, dooming all living things to suffer from hunger.
“Sun of the Dead” is a dark, heavy, terrible work, but there was also a place for light and hope in it. Shmelev's faith in the spiritual powers of man turns out to be dominant. At the beginning of the book and at the end, a singing thrush appears, which personifies the idea of the triumph of life.
December 26, 2016“The Sun of the Dead” (Ivan Shmelev) was called by critics the most tragic work in the entire history of world literature. What is so terrible and amazing about it? The answer to this and many other questions can be found in this article.
History of creation and genre features
The second - emigration - stage of Ivan Shmelev’s work was marked by the work “Sun of the Dead”. The genre chosen by the writers for their creation is epic. Let us remember that this type of work describes outstanding national historical events. What is Shmelev talking about?
The writer chooses a truly memorable event, but there is nothing to be proud of. It depicts the Crimean famine of 1921-1922. "Sun of the Dead" is a requiem for those who died in those terrible years - and not only from lack of food, but also from the actions of the revolutionaries. It is also important that Shmelev’s son, who remained in Russia, was shot in 1921, and the book was published in 1923.
“Sun of the Dead”: summary
The action takes place in August on the coast of the Crimean Sea. All night the hero was tormented by strange dreams, and he woke up from a squabble between his neighbors. He doesn’t want to get up, but he remembers that the Feast of the Transfiguration is beginning.
In an abandoned house along the road, he sees a peacock who has been living there for a long time. Once he belonged to the hero, but now the bird is a nobody's, like himself. Sometimes the peacock returns to him and picks grapes. And the narrator chases him - there is little food, the sun has scorched everything.
On the farm, the hero also has a turkey and poults. He keeps them as a memory of the past.
Food could be bought, but because of the Red Guards, ships no longer enter the port. And they also don’t allow people near the provisions in the warehouses. There is a dead silence all around the churchyard.
Everyone around is suffering from hunger. And those who recently marched with slogans and supported the Reds in anticipation of a good life, no longer hope for anything. And above all this the cheerful hot sun shines...
Baba Yaga
The Crimean dachas were empty, all the professors were shot, and the janitors stole their property. And the order was given over the radio: “Place Crimea with an iron broom.” And Baba Yaga got down to business, sweeping.
The doctor comes to visit the narrator. Everything was taken away from him, he didn’t even have a watch left. He sighs and says that now it is better underground than on earth. When the revolution broke out, the doctor and his wife were in Europe, romanticizing about the future. And he now compares the revolution with Sechenov’s experiments. Only instead of frogs, people’s hearts were cut out, stars were placed on their shoulders, and the backs of their heads were crushed with revolvers. 
The hero looks after him and thinks that now nothing is scary. After all, Baba Yaga is now in the mountains.
A neighbor's cow was slaughtered in the evening, and the owner strangled the killer. The hero came to the noise, and at that time someone slaughtered his chicken.
A neighbor's girl comes and asks for cereal - their mother is dying. The narrator gives everything he had. A neighbor appears and tells how she exchanged a gold chain for food.
Playing with death
The action of the epic “Sun of the Dead” (Ivan Shmelev) continues to develop. The narrator sets out early in the morning to cut down a tree. Here he falls asleep and is woken up by Boris Shishkin, a young writer. He is not washed, ragged, with a swollen face, with uncut nails.
His past was not easy: he fought in the First World War, he was captured, and was almost shot as a spy. But in the end they were simply sent to work in the mines. Under Soviet rule, Shishkin was able to return to his homeland, but immediately ended up with the Cossacks, who barely let him go.
News arrives that six prisoners of the Soviet regime have escaped nearby. Now everyone faces raids and searches. 
End of September. The narrator looks at the sea and mountains - everything is quiet around. He remembers how he recently met three children on the road - a girl and two boys. Their father was arrested on charges of killing a cow. Then the children went in search of food. In the mountains, the Tatar boys liked the eldest girl, and they fed the children and even gave them food to take with them.
However, the narrator no longer walks the road and does not want to communicate with people. It's better to look into the eyes of the animals, but there are only a few of them left.
Disappearance of the Peacock
“The Sun of the Dead” tells about the fate of those who rejoiced and welcomed the new government. The summary, although not in the original volume, conveys the evil irony of their lives. Previously, they went to rallies, shouted, demanded, but now they died of hunger and their bodies have been lying there for the 5th day and cannot even wait for the burial pit.
At the end of October, the peacock disappears, and the hunger becomes more severe. The narrator remembers how a hungry bird came for food a few days ago. Then he tried to strangle her, but could not - his hand did not rise. And now the peacock has disappeared. A neighbor boy brought some bird feathers and said that the doctor must have eaten it. The narrator takes the feathers gently, like a fragile flower, and places them on the veranda.
HE thinks that everything around him is the circles of hell that are gradually shrinking. Even a family of fishermen perishes from hunger. The son died, the daughter gathered for the pass, Nikolai, the head of the family, also died. There is only one mistress left.
Denouement
The epic “Sun of the Dead” is coming to an end (summary). November has arrived. The old Tatar returns the debt at night - he brought flour, pears, tobacco. News arrives that the doctor has burned down in his almond orchards, and his house has already begun to be robbed.
Winter has come, the rains have come. The famine continues. The sea completely stops feeding the fishermen. They come to ask representatives of the new government for bread, but in response they are only called to hold on and come to rallies.
At the pass, two people were killed who were exchanging wine for wheat. The grain was brought to the city, washed and eaten. The narrator reflects on the fact that you can’t wash everything away.
The hero is trying to remember what month it is... December, it seems. He goes to the seashore and looks at the cemetery. The setting sun illuminates the chapel. It's like the sun smiles on the dead. In the evening, the father of the writer Shishkin comes to him and tells him that his son was shot “for robbery.”
Spring is coming.
"Sun of the Dead": analysis
This work is called Shmelev's most powerful work. Against the backdrop of the impassive and beautiful Crimean nature, a real tragedy unfolds - hunger takes away all living things: people, animals, birds. The writer raises in the work the question of the value of life in times of great social changes.
It is impossible to stand back and not think about what is more important when reading Sun of the Dead. The theme of the work in a global sense is the struggle between life and death, between humanity and the animal principle. The author writes about how need destroys human souls, and this frightens him more than hunger. Shmelev also raises such philosophical questions as the search for truth, the meaning of life, human values, etc.
Heroes
More than once the author describes the transformation of a person into a beast, into a murderer and a traitor in the pages of the epic “Sun of the Dead”. The main characters are also not immune to this. For example, the doctor - the narrator's friend - gradually loses all his moral principles. And if at the beginning of the work he talks about writing a book, then in the middle of the story he kills and eats a peacock, and at the end he begins to use opium and dies in a fire. There are also those who became informers for bread. But these, according to the author, are even worse. They have rotted from the inside, and their eyes are empty and lifeless.
There is no one in the work who would not suffer from hunger. But everyone experiences it differently. And in this test it becomes clear what a person is truly worth.
article
Chumakevich E.V.
GENRE-STYLE SEARCH IN I. SHMELEV’S EPIC “THE SUN OF THE DEAD” (advisory materials for studying the writer’s work at a university)
The work of the famous Russian writer I.S. Shmelev fell on the tragic era of historical upheavals in Russia - the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. This period was marked by the emergence and formation of a new literary movement - neorealism (synthetism), which combined the features of classical realism of the 19th century and elements of modernism, with the predominance of symbolist artistic practice of perceiving the world. Researcher Davydova T.T. distinguishes three stages or “waves” in neorealism (1900-1910s; 1920s; 1930s), classifying the work of I.S. Shmelev among the writers of the “first wave” of religious flow.
Neorealist writers created a modernist picture of the world, put forward new concepts of the essence of man, developed and deepened the theme of the “little man” in Russian literature, and continued to search for new artistic methods. The searches of neorealists in the field of genre and style are especially valuable. At the turn of the century, there was a rapid process of genre overflow, a mixture of different types and forms in literary works. The features of the conflict, plot (up to its absence in the traditional sense), composition (mosaic, fragmentary, splintered, kaleidoscopic), type of narration, imagery, language have changed, numerous appeals to the treasures of folklore and their original interpretation have appeared. In the spirit of symbolism, writers turned to the spiritual, hidden in man, and used the technique of creating the oneirosphere (a form of dream) for a deeper penetration into the inner world of man. All this was reflected in I.S. Shmelev’s autobiographical documentary epic novel “The Sun of the Dead.”
Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev (1873-1950) was a well-known Russian fiction writer even before the 1917 revolution. From 1912 to 1918, the Moscow Writers' Publishing House published his eight-volume collection of stories and short stories. But the works that are the pinnacle in terms of artistic mastery are “The Sun of the Dead”, “Praying Mantis”, “The Summer of the Lord”, “Love Story” were created by the writer in exile (1922-1950). A talented representative of neorealism, I.S. Shmelev was born in Moscow, or more precisely, in Zamoskvorechye, into a merchant family. “Autobiography,” written by him in May 1913 at the request of S.A. Vengerov, gives a vivid idea of the formation of the worldview of the future writer.
I.S. Shmelev’s creative activity began early: while studying in the eighth grade at the gymnasium, he wrote his first story, “At the Mill.” In the summer of 1885, while a second-year student at the Faculty of Law at Moscow University, I.S. Shmelev made a trip to Valaam as a honeymoon. A visit to the Valaam Transfiguration Monastery was a vague call of the soul, a desire to understand for myself the complex issues of life and faith. The creative result of this trip was the autobiographical book of artistic essays “On the Rocks of Valaam” (1897). This work became the beginning of Shmelev’s writer’s biography. The fate of the book turned out to be sad: it was severely shortened by the censorship committee and was not sold out. Shmelev had a hard time with the failure of the book, and after that he did not write a single line for ten years.
In 1898, after graduating from the university, Shmelev served his military service and entered the legal profession. The joyless years of dull service came “when I had to remind some merchant about the forgotten five.” The writer always regretted that he chose the profession of a lawyer, but he needed funds to feed his family. At the same time, Shmelev felt that a way out of the unbearable situation was approaching. One day, while walking, Shmelev saw in the sky a wedge of cranes flying south. He observed the same picture ten years ago on Valaam. The writer felt a surge of creative strength, just as he had in his youth. “I knew that I was already starting to live,” he recalled.
The oppressive, hopeless melancholy of the previous years was the torment of the lack of demand for talent, yearning for freedom from ten years of imprisonment. Shmelev well remembered the censorship history of the publication of the essays “On the Rocks of Valaam”, so he perceived the social movement of the 1900s primarily as an opportunity to work without censorship, as freedom of speech, the triumph of human dignity, and the opportunity to breathe deeply. This was the first stage when the reality of freedom was considered only theoretically. There was a joyful rapture from the opportunity to finally express everything that had accumulated over many years. The opening prospects could not leave Shmelev indifferent; he enthusiastically welcomed the light of dawning freedom. The feeling of joyful liberation, renewal of life and change was experienced by the majority of people from the democratically minded intelligentsia.
Shmelev has always been far from politics. The events of 1905 attracted the writer with their novelty and expectation of a better life for the people. He knew well the life of the artisan people, saw poverty and lack of rights, and with all his soul wanted changes for the better. Shmelev, as a sincere and honest person, took the promises of numerous speakers to give freedom to the people at face value. He had a rare quality: an inner disposition towards goodness, the ability to see, first of all, the good in the world around him, and most often kept silent about the bad, as shameful and unworthy. This feature of Shmelev’s worldview affected both his life and his subsequent work.
Critics M. Dunaev and O. Mikhailov directly linked the resumption of Shmelev’s writing activity with the 1905 revolution. But revolution for Shmelev and for us are in many ways different things. Shmelev began his literary career as a writer who deeply and sincerely sympathized with the people, but he saw the reasons for the tragic situation of the masses not in social injustice, but in the immoralism of individual “world-eating villains.” In the early Shmelev one can often hear sentimental motives and preaching of universal reconciliation. The main theme of his works is the image of a person’s consciousness awakening under the influence of revolutionary events. The story “The Sergeant-Major” and many others reflected the author’s attitude towards revolutionary events and revolutionaries, although there is little or no direct depiction of these people in the works themselves. The writer expresses his sympathies and sympathy for the cause of the revolution either by condemning the enemies of the people, or by showing sympathy for the revolutionaries from passive witnesses of revolutionary events. Often the writer portrays the enemies of the revolution as people shocked by what is happening, who have lost the sense of justice and the necessity of their cause. For Shmelev, the revolution meant, first of all, the creation of a new life. The writer, like his heroes, could not fully understand the ultimate goals of the revolution: behind the loud slogans, a specific future life did not emerge. Thus, the merchant Gromov, initially captured and inspired by the revolutionary speaker, after thinking, seeks to find peace and consolation in religion (“Ivan Kuzmich”, 1907).
Having reflected in the works of that time the people's reaction to what was happening, their caution, their reluctance to destroy their lives and rush headlong into the unknown, Shmelev could not ignore the leaders of the revolution themselves. According to the writer’s romantic ideas, these were lone terrorists hiding somewhere underground, very similar in their aspirations to Robin Hood, people’s intercessors, laying down their lives on the altar of freedom and justice. Shmelev’s attitude towards them was also mixed with a “fatherly” feeling, since they were all young people. But with all the desire to give them the aura of martyrs for the people's cause, their world remains a mystery for the writer, and the stories look like some kind of romantic tales, they give a generalized picture of the struggle of goodness and truth with violence and tyranny. From Shmelev's stories, the reader cannot determine the essence of the revolutionaries' activities. It is significant that at this time Gorky, for example, already depicted individual proletarian fighters. It is noteworthy that in Shmelev’s works there is not a single negative characteristic of revolutionaries. The writer always paid attention to moral problems; he was interested primarily in the moral foundations that guide a person in assessing events and choosing a position in life. In his subsequent work, the author sometimes deliberately obscured social contradictions, trying to show and analyze what does not separate, but brings people together on aesthetic, but not social, principles common to all. The writer had great hopes for the moral improvement of people. Shmelev, who knew the psychology of the masses well, intuitively felt the weakness of the revolutionary theories of the proletarian agitators. Years passed, and in reality nothing remained of the democratic slogans of 1905. Violence and anarchy in the country were gaining momentum. The consequences of the 1917 revolution were terrible for the writer. Describing them, Shmelev, who now fully understood the “class essence of the events taking place,” did not consider it necessary to obscure them, as was the case in the 1910s, when the writer still hoped for the best.
In the first time after the revolution of 1917, inspired by the jubilation of the people, Shmelev made a number of trips around the country, spoke at rallies and meetings before workers, met with political prisoners returning from Siberia, who spoke with gratitude about the writer’s work and recognized him as “theirs.” He wrote about this fact, which amazed the writer, to his son Sergei in the active army. But, despite the enthusiasm that reigned after the victory of the revolution, the writer in his soul did not believe in the possibility of rapid transformations in Russia: “Deep social and political restructuring is immediately unthinkable even in the most cultured countries, and even more so in ours. Our uncultured, dark people are not can perceive the idea of reorganization even approximately,” he asserted in a letter to his son dated June 30, 1917. During this period, the writer was acutely concerned with the problem of the meaninglessness of wars. In 1918, he created the story "The Inexhaustible Chalice", and in 1919 - the story "It Was", where he defines war as a type of mass psychosis.
I.S. Shmelev did not seek to leave the country. After waiting for his son to return from the war, the writer in 1920 bought a house with a plot of land in Alushta. The writer's son, Sergei, a 25-year-old artillery officer, sick with tuberculosis as a result of a German gas attack, enters service in the commandant's office in Alushta. After the retreat of Wrangel’s troops, he remained in Crimea, believing the pardon promised by the Bolsheviks, especially since due to illness he did not take part in hostilities on the side of the Whites. However, he was arrested and, after spending a month in the basements of the Feodosia Cheka, was shot without trial.
Knowing about their son's arrest, the unfortunate parents did everything possible to find and save him. From December 1920 to March 1921. The painful search continued. Shmelev sent letters and telegrams to Serafimovich, Lunacharsky, Veresaev, Voloshin, Gorky, Rabenek, traveled to Simferopol and Moscow, but nothing could be learned about the fate of his son. The writer was advised not to stir up this matter - “there was such a mess in Crimea!” - and here is the fate of one person! Shmelev did not know that his son had been shot back in January 1921.
He wrote down the dreams that Shmelev saw during the search for his son. In them, Sergei appeared to his father with a yellow, puffy face, once with a smear of blood on his neck, in his underwear, and he always had to go somewhere, someone demanded him to come to them. For the writer, a man of fine mental organization, dreams were “prophetic”; the past and future were revealed in them. Shmelev's premonitions did not deceive him. Yu.A. Kutyrina, the writer’s niece, publishes a whole collection called “Dreams about a son,” in which, with dates indicated, the reader is presented with a string of dreams foreshadowing death.
After the failure in Moscow, hope of finding his son gave way to despair. The health of Shmelev and his wife deteriorated. Thanks to the efforts of fellow writers, he was allowed to travel to Germany for treatment. On November 20, 1922, the Shmelevs left for Berlin. From a letter to a niece dated November 23, 1922: “We are in Berlin! No one knows why. I fled from my grief, in vain... Olya and I are heartbroken and wander around aimlessly... And even for the first time, visible foreign countries do not touch us... A dead soul does not need freedom.”
Abroad, the Shmelevs continue to search for their son. Without knowing anything specific about his fate, they send requests to various public organizations, thinking that their son somehow miraculously managed to escape. But this also turned out to be in vain. On January 17, 1923, the Shmelevs left for Paris at the invitation of the Bunins, who sought to revive them, warm them up, and save them from loneliness. After the tragedy they experienced, the Shmelev family decides not to return to Russia, where they not only had their son taken away from them, but also could not indicate where his grave was.
The grief that befell the Shmelevs in Crimea was embodied in the epic “Sun of the Dead.” The events that took place on this earth from November 1920 to February 1922 unfold before the reader. In the epic, the author-narrator acts as a witness to the ruin and desolation of the once rich and well-fed Crimea, and in general - the entire Russian land. The grief of losing his son merged with the grief of losing a country experiencing the horrors of terror. “Sun of the Dead” is an artistic chronicle of a crime against an entire people and, at the same time, a tragic part of the author’s biography and soul.
Shmelev is painfully searching for an answer to the question: how could such madness happen to people? What are the reasons for the cruelty that has overwhelmed everything and everyone? The writer, like a chronicler, brings into his accusatory epic day after day, showing what the position of the people, the intelligentsia, and the population of Crimea, which varied in social status, became under the Bolsheviks. He lists what this fertile land has lost in just a year.
The first-person narration brings us closer to the autobiographical hero, creating the effect of a confidential conversation between the author and each specific reader. A remarkable philosopher and literary critic, Shmelev’s friend I.A. Ilyin wrote in a book about him: “A real artist does not “occupy” or “entertain”: he masters and concentrates.” Thanks to Shmelev’s talent, the reader, like a shadow, follows the main character of the epic, enduring with him inescapable torment.
The writer managed to create an amazingly powerful effect of stopped time. Life as a creative process is over. Everything that happens in the book is regression, degradation, fleeting gangrene, destruction of everything physical and spiritual. Below, under the mountain, the well-fed, drunk, well-dressed new Bolshevik owners are killing hundreds of people, and hunger and extreme impoverishment reign among the “perpetual convicts” living on the mountain slopes. Even the fear of death disappeared. Almost disembodied people, old people, children of all classes and nationalities are quietly dying of hunger, animals are dying, birds are disappearing.
The state of slow death lasts forever. This impression is achieved by the techniques of contrast, opposition, personification, repetition, and the use of metaphors and oxymorons. Shmelev describes with admiration the beautiful landscapes of Crimea, vineyards and generous sun. But these pictures are deceiving. The vineyards are empty, the sun, life-giving from time immemorial, now looks into dead eyes, at the dead earth. The soul has been taken out of everything, everything has been trampled, polluted, desecrated. The richest Crimea in the past has now been turned into a hungry desert. Many of the Russian intellectuals dying in Crimea remember Paris, London, and free life as a fantastic dream. I can’t believe that somewhere there are stores that stock bread until the evening. From the pages of his work, Shmelev appeals to Europeans with a request to pay attention to the situation in Russia, at least to sympathize with the innocent civilian population, because it is impossible to understand the madness that is happening.
The hero’s only daily thought is to “kill” the next day if it comes. An exhausted person has difficulty remembering what date it is today - “a person with an unlimited term does not need a calendar.” From the town, the wind faintly carries the ringing of bells - the Transfiguration holiday. The word “holiday” itself sounds wild. In the hero’s brain, like the sound of a distant bell, calling to live, reminding of life, one word echoes heavily: “We must!” We must start the day, we must dodge thoughts, we must get wrapped up in trifles, we must walk along the rafters every day in search of fuel for the winter, we must open the shutters, we must take advantage of the weather while we can walk.”
The hero of "The Sun of the Dead" appears before the reader already broken, heartbroken. He no longer lives and has come to terms with this, but there is no escaping his own thoughts: “I walk and walk around the garden, taking care of what I need. Am I looking for something to help myself? Still can’t help but think? I can’t turn into stone! Since childhood, I’ve been accustomed to looking for Sun of Truth. Where are You, Unknown?! What is Your face?... I want the Immeasurable - I feel His breath. I don’t see Your face, Lord! I feel the immensity of suffering and anguish... I comprehend with horror Evil, clothed in flesh. It is gaining strength. I hear its roar loud, animalistic sound..." The hero’s state is most fully conveyed by his dreams, waking dreams, hungry hallucinations, which begin literally from the first page: “All these months I have been dreaming lush dreams. ... Palaces, gardens ... I walk and walk through the halls - looking for ... Whom am I looking for with great agony - Don't know".
The autobiographical hero painfully tries to understand the meaning of what is happening, to determine his place in this world, in this country, once painfully dear, but now changed beyond recognition. For him, there is nothing worse than destruction and death. The hero cannot even kill his own chicken in order to live a few more days; he perceives animals as martyrs. For him, they are God's creatures suffering in vain. Man is to blame for their suffering. You can't betray them. The hero buries the chicken that died in his arms, although his eyes are blurry from hunger. “Now everything bears the stamp of care. And it’s not scary.” As evidence of Shmelev’s Christian worldview, the phrase addressed to the dying chicken sounds: “The Great One gave you life, and me... and this eccentric ant. And He will take it back.”
A characteristic feature of the writer’s creative manner of perceiving everything around him as alive is also manifested in “The Sun of the Dead.” For him, every blade of grass is alive, “the distance is smiling,” “the heavens are watching,” “the sea is sighing,” “the mountains are watching,” “the earth is writhing in agony and incredible suffering.”
"Sun of the Dead" is characterized by an extraordinary concentration of thought and density of content (signs of neorealism). Even in the most insignificant, at first glance, episodes, Shmelev demonstrates the depth of philosophical generalizations. In the description of the Tamarka cow one sees the fate of the mother-nurse of Russia, once abundant and fertile, but now bleeding, sick, and emaciated.
In the first chapters of the book, the hero mentally searches for a way out of the current situation, thinks about what to do, how to survive. “Read books? All the books have been read, they were wasted. They talk about that life... which has already been driven into the ground. But there is no new one... And there won’t be. The old life, the cave life, of the ancestors has returned.” The hero's neighbor, an old lady, caught in grief with two other people's children, resists death with her last strength: she corrects the children's speech mistakes, she is going to study French with the girl Lyalya. Observing these convulsions, the hero thinks: “No, she’s right, dear old lady: you need to learn French, and geography, and wash your face every day, clean the door handles and beat out the rug. Cling on and not give in.” But the rapidly approaching emptiness crushes people like blades of grass. Evil is stronger.
Shmelev's philosophical thoughts about the unity of the universe, about the dependence and close connection of man with all living things, receive real confirmation and development in the epic. A soulless, insane attitude towards the world around us, a severance of eternal ties, plunged peoples into terrible torment. Hell has come on earth, its laws, the laws of absurdity and death, rule. The new masters of life do not notice the land on which they walk and which feeds them, nor the mountains, nor the sun. They are obsessed with the insane idea of destruction.
In the chapter “About Baba Yaga,” the author compares the rampant terror with Baba Yaga flying in a mortar, sweeping the ground with an “iron broom.” The order to “sweep Crimea with an iron broom” was given by Trotsky. Bela Kun - "swept". Baba Yaga, in contrast to the interpretation of this image in Russian folklore, appears as a monster that destroys everything in its path. “It makes noise and thunders through the mountains, through black oak forests, such a humming roar! Baba Yaga rolls and rolls in her iron mortar, drives with a pestle, covers the trail with a broom... with an iron broom.” The impression is enhanced by rhythmic speech.
In the epic “Sun of the Dead,” nowhere is it directly said about the execution of Shmelev’s son, Sergei. But indirectly, the writer blurts this out several times, although only people familiar with the writer’s biography can understand him. By showing the tragedy of hundreds of people who lived in Crimea, naming their real names, Shmelev hid his personal grief. On one of the mournful pages, the writer casually reports: “Walnut, handsome... He is coming into his strength. Having conceived for the first time, he gave us three nuts last year - equally for all... Thank you for the affection, dear. Now there are only two of us...” Elsewhere, the author mentions the shooting by the Bolsheviks of a young man with tuberculosis, a participant in the First World War. Shmelev could not write about the death of his son, could not utter the terrible thing. The very word “killed” would mean recognition and understanding of the fact. But for the unfortunate father this was impossible. Continuing his monologue, the hero pays tribute to the memory of all those who died: “And how many great ones there are now who knew the sun, and who leave in the darkness! Not a whisper, not the caress of a native hand...”. And, finally, a direct appeal to the readers: “And you, mothers and fathers who defended their homeland... may your eyes not see the clear-eyed executioners dressed in the clothes of your children, and daughters raped by murderers, giving themselves up to caresses for stolen clothes!..”.
How did this happen to Russia? With the human soul? This thought is persistent, it gives no rest. Oddly enough, it is precisely the absurdity of what is happening that strengthens the hero’s hopes for change for the better. He, a thinking man, cannot believe that the leaders of the revolutionary armies do not understand what total destruction and mass executions of people will lead to the country. The author’s assessments of the Bolsheviks are cruel, but they can be understood, given the many months of humiliation of going through the authorities and the large number of commissars of all ranks with whom Shmelev had to communicate, begging to give up at least his son’s corpse. Now the writer looks at the representatives of the “defenders of the people” as animals, monsters: “This is them, I know. Their backs are wide, like a slab, their necks are the thickness of a bull; their eyes are heavy, like lead, in a blood-oil film, well-fed; hands like flippers, they can kill with a flat blow. But there is something else: their backs are narrow, fish-like backs, their necks are a cord of cartilage, their sharp eyes, with a gimlet, their hands are grippy, with lashing veins, they crush with pincers..."
To the writer’s credit, it should be noted that he does not indiscriminately accuse all Bolsheviks. He divides them into two “waves” according to the time of invasion. The first sincerely believed that they were protecting the people, freeing them for a better life. In their temper, they could have shot, but their souls had not yet petrified, the compassion inherent in the Russian character was alive in them, their faith in God and universal morality was alive, they could be convinced and persuaded. Thus, at the beginning of the revolution, Professor Ivan Mikhailovich escaped from execution, recognizing from a reprimand one of the soldiers his fellow countryman and, in the end, convincing the Red Army soldiers of the pointlessness of executing civilians. As an example, we can quote the “speech” at a meeting of one of these naive sailors, intoxicated with victory: “Now, comrades and workers, we have finished off all the bourgeoisie... who, having run away, were drowned in the sea! And now our Soviet power, which is called communism! So "We'll live! And we'll all even have cars, and we'll all live... in bathrooms! So don't live, but motherfucker! So... we'll all sit on the fifth floor and smell roses!"
These Red Army soldiers mostly died in battle, never having had time to take advantage of what they had won, and they were replaced by other people, methodically killing and clearing their way to power. Shmelev insists that the Bolsheviks were joined by many worthless, vile people who did not want to work, who later became arbiters of their destinies. In the epic, this is the former musician Shura-Sokol, as he calls himself, a certain Uncle Andrei, who takes away the last things from the hungry, Fyodor Lyagun, who lives by denunciations. The revolution brought to life these disgusting spiritual monsters.
In the tragic events taking place, fear turns out to be worse than hunger. The new owners, who sleep during the day, go out at night to administer justice and rob. Hearing screams from a nearby house, neighbors cover their ears with pillows and shake with fear until the morning, waiting for their turn. Now everyone is “former” and guilty. “I know well how people are afraid of people - are they people? - how they poke their heads into cracks, how numbly they dig their own graves. ... And those who go out to kill will not be frightened even by the eyes of a child.” From the pages of his work, the writer addresses the top of the Bolshevik government with a terrible prediction: “Blood is not shed in vain! It will be measured!”
Shmelev continues his great investigation and testimony. How does the very people live for whose sake and in whose name the revolution took place? The people are deceived and robbed, human life is worthless, there is no one to seek protection from. At the rallies they promised to divide the lord's goods equally to everyone, but no one called to start working hard, restoring the conquered state, or preserving existing values. Divide, and then “smell the roses”—that’s what the workers heard. Many of them immediately settled in the dachas of the bourgeoisie who fled abroad, but no one plowed or sowed, so they had to exchange all the food, every last thread, both from the dachas and from themselves. In addition, those who moved in without permission could also be evicted by those stronger and with weapons, and killed for resistance. An ordinary person could not find a job to feed his children. Crimean fishermen were forced at gunpoint to go out to sea, and the fish were then taken for the army. The writer shows a typical picture: “A barefoot, dirty woman hobbles, with a tattered herbal bag - an empty bottle and three potatoes - with a tense face without a thought, stupefied by adversity: “But they said - everything will be!”.
But this is only the beginning of the famine. The further development of events is terrible: they ate all the plants, all the animals, including dogs and cats (a crow hit by a stone is happiness), flocks of feral dogs stay away from people, feeding on random carrion. And the last stage of hunger: “They lie in wait for the children - they throw stones at them and drag them away...”
The hero watches how until recently good, honest people, who worked hard all their lives, turn into animals. The only way to feed dying children is to steal from equally poor neighbors. A terrible kaleidoscope of events is spinning. The former postman Drozd is a righteous man, a stranger did not take the thread - and is “beating in a noose.” Old man Glazkov is killed by his neighbor Koryak for allegedly stealing a cow from him. The hero's neighbor looks on, condemning Glazkov. The author, having described the wild scene in detail, predicts: “She looks, unhappy, and does not feel what awaits her. The knot of her miserable life gets tangled there: blood seeks blood.”
The most terrible pages of the epic are about the suffering of children. Children, not understanding anything about what is happening, say what they hear from adults. In the innocent mouth of a child, the words that a neighbor ate a red dog with a bouquet of tails sound terrible, that they also eat cats.
Hunger rapidly destroys all connections, making people enemies. Moral foundations crumble to dust. Only the fulfillment of moral laws makes people human. If moral deformation occurs, then moral norms become meaningless for a person. An alienated life sets in. In his thoughts, the hero turns to Christianity as a single principle that cements society. The revolution abolished faith in God. The churches became empty, the priests were methodically destroyed. The priest who remained in the town, a fighter for justice and intercessor of the suffering, goes to Yalta on foot to rescue another victim from the basements of the Cheka. People feel that he won't have long to walk. Evil has obscured the light of reason. Shmelev, through the mouth of his autobiographical hero, exclaims: “Now I don’t have a temple. I don’t have God: the blue sky is empty.” A terrible loss of self-awareness, of the personal “I” knocks the ground out from under your feet. The hero conducts an audit in the area of eternal values, and it turns out that “... now there is no soul, and there is nothing sacred. The veils have been torn off from human souls. Neck crosses have been torn off and soaked through.”
In "Sun of the Dead" a lot of space is devoted to the intelligentsia. After the revolution, Crimea was the last refuge for most scientists, professors, artists, and musicians. Their reaction to the events taking place is presented most fully, since the author himself was one of them. During this difficult time, scientists continued to work on their research, gave lectures, tried to write in a new way of life and be useful. It turned out that their knowledge was not needed by the new government.
Professor Ivan Mikhailovich, the brilliant mind of Russia, who wrote many books and a world-famous study about Lomonosov, awarded a gold medal, is now forced to beg at the market, since the Soviet government assigned him a pension - a pound (380g.) of bread... per month. He had long ago sold his gold medal to a Tatar for a bag of flour. The Red Army soldier advises him to “die quickly” and not eat the people’s bread. In the end, Ivan Mikhailovich, completely exhausted, was beaten to death by the cooks in the Soviet kitchen. He tired of them with his bowl, requests, trembling.
The hero has long conversations with Dr. Mikhail Vasilyevich, who is conducting an experiment on himself on the effect of fasting on the human body. Offers the hero a way to commit suicide if it becomes unbearable to endure. He buried his beloved wife in a kitchen cabinet with glass doors - locked with a key. The doctor's monologue about the victims of terror is a terrible evidence of the insane experiment carried out by the “bloody sect” over Russia. The doctor predicts that this experience will soon spread to representatives of the new government. The decomposition process cannot bypass them. The author partly blames the intelligentsia for the rampant murders. Its representatives, understanding everything, went to meetings, flattered the Bolsheviks, shook their hands. They grinned behind their backs, ridiculed the stupidity of the sailors and immediately denounced each other.
Sun of the Dead shows summer, autumn, winter and the beginning of spring. The first shoots appear, nature comes to life, but “the evenings are quiet, sad, the blackbird sings sad things. It’s already night. The blackbird has fallen silent. The dawn will begin again... We will listen to it - for the last time.”
These are the last words of the epic. Shmelev ends the story on a painful note of ongoing torment, hopelessness, hopelessness. The work of the writer, whose lines are imbued with faith in a higher meaning, defines the main idea for the modern reader: a person without moral guidelines, left to himself, his plans and ideas (the so-called “freedom”) is terrible.
Practical part.
When preparing for a seminar lesson, students can use the materials of this article to familiarize themselves with the facts of the writer’s biography, the main stages of creativity, the peculiarities of the development of the author’s individual creative style, his worldview, changes that occurred during the historical shifts in the country during the years of the revolution and civil war . The basis for the seminar lesson is the texts of the novel “The Sun of the Dead”, “Autobiographies” by I.S. Shmelev, read by students, article materials and recommended literature.
The following plan is offered to students:
1. I.S. Shmelev during the years of revolution and civil war.
" attitude towards the revolutions of 1905 and 1907;
"The tragedy of losing my son.
2. Autobiographical narration.
3. Deepening real facts to historical and philosophical understanding.
"man and nature in the epic;
"images of children;
"changes in people's psychology;
"Images of revolutionaries;
"intelligentsia in the novel;
"folklore motives;
"The meaning of the symbol "sun of the dead".
4. Features of the composition: lack of plot, mosaic, polyphony.
5. The writer’s humanism in highlighting “eternal” issues for humanity.
Literature:
1. Shmelev I.S. Sun of the dead. // Volga, 1989 No. 11.
2. Adamovich, G. Shmelev // Adamovich G. Loneliness and freedom: literary critical articles. St. Petersburg, 1993. pp. 37-45.
3. Ilyin, I. About darkness and enlightenment: a book of artistic criticism: Bunin. Remizov. Shmelev M., 1991.
4. Kutyrina Yu.A. The tragedy of Shmelev // Word. 1991. No. 11.
5. Kutyrina, Yu. A. Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev Paris, 1960.
6. Sorokina, O. Moskoviana: The Life and Work of Ivan Shmelev M., 1994.
7. Chernikov, A.P. Prose of I.S. Shmeleva: the concept of the world and man. Kaluga,
1995.
8. Chumakevich, E.V. The artistic world of I.S.Shmelev.-Brest.: BrGU named after. A.S. Pushkin, 1999.-110 p.
9. Davydova, T.T. Russian neorealism: ideology, poetics, creative evolution: textbook. allowance / T.T. Davydova. - M.: Flinta: Nauka, 2005. - 336 p.
10. Shmelev I.S. Autobiography // Russian. lit. 1973. No. 4.
11. Shmelev I.S. May the power of life protect you. // Word. 1991. No. 12.
Morning
Crimea, by the sea, early August. The morning began with a noise through a dream: “It’s Tamarka again pushing against my fence, a beautiful Simmental, white, with red spots, the support of the family that lives above me, on the hill. Every day three bottles of milk - foamy, warm, smelling like a live cow!” The narrator is tormented by strange dreams, filled with luxury, pomp and painful searches for someone or something unknown.
The dreams are all the more strange because there is hunger all around. I don't want to wake up. “But you still have to get up. What day is it today? Month - August. And the day... Days are useless now, and there is no need for a calendar. For an indefinite term, everything is the same! Yesterday there was a blast in the town... I picked up the green “calville” - and remembered: Transfiguration!
I had to get up and get dressed: “I’m putting on rags... The rag man will laugh at him and stuff him into a bag. What ragpickers understand! They will even hook a living soul in order to exchange it for pennies.”
All around are seaside views and vineyards. In the distance is the teacher's former dacha, Yasnaya Gorka. “Is there a caring housewife somewhere now? Somewhere. Stinking vinegar trees grew near the blind veranda.
The dacha is vacant and ownerless, and the peacock took it over.”
Birds
The “tramp peacock” spends the night on the fence railing, where the dogs won’t reach him. “Mine once. Now it’s a nobody’s, just like this dacha. There are no one's dogs, and there are no one's people. So the peacock is nobody's.
Sometimes he visits the narrator. He picks grapes, the narrator chases the bird, because grapes will become food, which is in short supply. The sun burned everything.
In addition to the expelled peacock, the hero also has a turkey and poults. He keeps them because “they connect us to the past. We will share with them until the last grain.”
Both the peacock and the turkey went to the basin where the Greeks planted wheat. But the Greeks removed the wheat, and the birds - both domestic and wild, pigeons - finished off what was left. “Not a grain remained - and the basin fell silent.”
Desert
The cow Tamarka tried to penetrate the narrator’s pitiful garden and was met with a cry: “Get back!!..” “Here it is, our garden... pitiful! And how much frantic labor I threw into this loose slate! He picked out thousands of stones, carried bags of earth from the beams, beat his feet against stones, clawing his way up the steep slopes...
What is all this for?! It kills thoughts."
And in the distance there is an illusion of calm and beauty. Sea, mountains, town. But... “This silence is not blissful: it is the dead silence of a churchyard. Under every roof there is one and one thought - bread!
And it’s not the shepherd’s house near the church, but a prison basement... It’s not the church watchman sitting at the door: a stupid guy with a red star on his cap sits, digging out cellars: - Hey!.., move away!..
And the sun plays on the bayonet.”
Blood splattered all around. The summer residents left or were killed. Ships do not enter harbors and goods cannot be purchased. “To whom should we sell, buy, roll, roll lazily golden Lambat tobacco? Who should swim?.. Everything has dried up. It went into the ground - or there, overseas.”
And the only thing you can see on the seaside road is “a barefoot, filthy woman hobbling with a tattered grass bag, an empty bottle and three potatoes, with a tense face without a thought, stupefied by adversity:
And they said - everything will be!..”
In a grape beam
Grape beam - “from now on this is my temple, office and basement of supplies. I come here to think.” In the grape beam there are apples, grapes, pears. “Walnut, handsome... He is coming into force. Having conceived for the first time, he gave us three nuts last year - equally for all... Thank you for your affection, dear. Now there are only two of us... and today you are more generous, you brought seventeen. I’ll sit under your shadow and start thinking...”
And all around you can hear the voices of the rare people remaining by the sea. A child asking for “bread-a-ba-aaaa... sa-my-sa-aaa in the button-uuu... sa-a-my-sa-aaaa...”, an old lady, “trapped with others in a loop,” raising other people’s children and talking about Paris. “Paris... - and here they take away the salt, turn them against the walls, catch cats in traps, rot them and shoot them in basements, surrounded houses with barbed wire and created “human slaughterhouses”! In what world is this happening? Paris... - and here animals walk in iron, here people devour their children, and animals experience horror!..” - the narrator reflects. Armless, a mechanic from Sukhaya Balka, recently ate a dog.
And the sun shines brightly, as if mocking.
Daily bread
The narrator meets eight-year-old Lyalya, a girl living with an old lady. The girl said that cars in Yalta catch green people - those who “are buried in the forests in the mountains”; Mints's cow was stolen; The fisherman sold the cow; Verba's goose was stolen.
“There are also children’s voices, there is affection. Now people say breakdown, look unsteadily in the eyes. Others begin to growl,” the narrator sighs. The narrator releases the birds, afraid that they might be taken away. A hawk flies: “Bay farewell to the hawks: this is THEIR daily bread.
We eat a leaf and tremble before the hawks! The winged vultures are frightened by Lyalya’s voice, and those who go out to kill are not frightened even by the eyes of a child.”
Why do they go out to kill?
A horseman appeared. “Musician Shura. As he calls himself - “Shura-Falcon”. What a dashing name! “And I know that this is a small vulture,” the narrator characterizes the man and thinks about who created the vulture.
The narrator talks about one of his meetings with such a person: “Once, also on a hot afternoon, I was carrying a bag of earth. And so, when I trudged along the stone, and my head was a stone - happiness! - a vulture rose as if from the ground, on a skate, and showed its small, snake-like teeth - white, in a black head. He shouted cheerfully, shaking his elbows:
God loves work!
Sometimes vultures talk about God!
That’s why I’m hiding: I can smell the vulture’s blood.”
And he explains what he doesn’t like about the “vulture”: everyone around is in rags, hungry, and he is in new clean clothes, with a rounded pink face. This is one of those who goes out to kill. When thousands of people hid in basements, “those who kill” gained power. The narrator recalls how, during the appearance of “those who kill,” “a peaceful man, a lame architect,” came to him. He himself was afraid. That’s why he served by going out to kill.” He described and selected the books because he was ordered.
The chicken Torpedka died - she passed away quietly, in the narrator’s arms, and he was even glad about it: after all, she was leaving in good hands, and how many people die without hearing a word of consolation...
Nanny's tales
In the evening, the narrator met with a neighbor's nanny, who was returning from the city. He knew that she would complain, but he could not help but listen, because “she is from the people, and her word is from the people.” The nanny talked about how the commissar was killed at the pass, about the children who gnawed the hooves of a fallen horse. And just recently, the nanny believed in the bright future promised by the sailor at the rally: “Now, comrades and workers, we have finished off all the bourgeoisie... who ran away - we drowned them in the sea! And now our Soviet power, which is called communism! So let's live! And everyone will even have cars, and we will all live... in bathrooms! So don’t live, but fuck your mother. So... we’ll all sit on the fifth floor and smell the roses!..”
She met in the city with Ivan Mikhailovich, a former neighbor who had become completely impoverished. The nanny left, and the narrator plunged into memories. He tells a fairy tale to the chicken Zhadnyukha. Ivan Mikhailych wrote about Lomonosov, for which he received a gold medal at the Academy of Sciences. This gold medal had to be sold for a pound of flour. He began to teach people, and for each lesson he received half a pound of bread and logs. “And soon they stopped giving logs: there was no one to study, there was hunger. And so, in response to Ivan Mikhailych’s requests, they sent him a paper and a pension! Three spools of bread a day!” This amount of bread is only enough for a chicken...
About Baba Yaga
The professors' dachas were empty, the professors' janitors and gardeners stole everything valuable. They shot one professor, a quiet old man. “They got down to business: don’t go shopping for tomatoes in your overcoat!”
Cars are rolling towards Yalta. A fairy tale is happening in the world, only a terrible fairy tale. “I know: from a thousand miles away, an order-word came over the radio and fell on the blue sea: “Place Crimea with an iron broom!” in the sea!"
Baba Yaga rolls and rolls over the mountains, through the forests, through the valleys - sweeping with an iron broom. A car is rushing past Yalta.
Business, of course. Who will ride around now without anything to do? »
On a visit
“Scarecrow Doctor” Mikhailo Vasilich came in “for a visit.” They confiscated everything from the doctor, including his shoes and rations from the medical union: “Colleagues say that now “life is a struggle,” but I don’t practice! And “he who does not work, let him not eat!”
The doctor sadly expresses the thought that reigns under the southern sun: “It’s better now in the earth than on the earth.”
The doctor sighs: now he can’t hold the watch, everything has been taken away from him.
"Memento Mori"
The doctor asks the narrator to publish his story about the “onion” clock: “So publish: “Memento Mori”, or “The Onion” of the former doctor, the inhuman slave Michael." It will be very successful: “inhuman”! Or better: inhuman!"
He and his wife traveled through Europe just as the revolution was being romanticized. The doctor bought the watch in some dirty shop, selling it, they told him: “A revolutionary, an Irishman, but don’t show what you know.”
And the revolutionaries took this watch from him. The doctor sees a parallel in this story.
Almost saying goodbye, he says that he would like to publish a book with his thoughts and conclusions, which he would title “Almond Orchards.”
"Almond Orchards"
As soon as he arrived in Crimea, the doctor chose a vacant lot and planted it with almond trees. “...There were almond orchards that bloomed every spring and gave joy. And now I have - “almond orchards”, in quotes - the results and experience of life!..”
“No, now you can’t lure me into school. “Our Father” was forgotten. And they won’t study,” says the doctor. And all his almonds were torn off, the trees were being cut down. The doctor compares the revolutionary events with Sechenov’s experiments, and people with frogs: “Two million “frogs” were torn to pieces: their breasts were cut out, “stars” were put on their shoulders, and the backs of their heads were crushed with revolvers over retreats, and the walls in the basements were smeared with brains... " The doctor says that everyone is almost dead, and all this is hunger, dark spots before the eyes from weakness - the threshold of death.
The doctor sums up his reasoning: “... since the fairy tale has already arrived, life has already ended, and now nothing is scary. We are the last atoms of prosaic, sober thought. Everything is in the past, and we are already superfluous. And this,” he pointed to the mountains, “it just seems so,” after which he goes to the neighbors. The narrator looks into the distance and understands: “Now nothing is scary. Now everything is a fairy tale. Baba Yaga in the mountains..."
Wolf's Lair
The narrator was walking around the garden in the evening and heard: something was happening in the “professor’s corner.” “Voices are roaring below - someone still lives there! The dens still remain.
Oh, people are kind-and-and...
There are no people, no good ones.”
They slaughtered a cow, and Koryak strangled the cow cutter. While the narrator peered and listened, a hawk killed his chicken Greedy. “The turkey stands under the cedar tree, its pupil gleaming towards the sky. The chickens are huddling close to her - now there are only four of them, the last ones. Trembling in their graveyard. My pathetic ones... and you, like everyone else around you, face hunger and fear and death. What a huge churchyard! And how much sun! The mountains are hot from the light, the sea is in a blue fluid shine...”
And the narrator walks around the garden, reproaching himself for the fact that he can still think and look for the Sun of Truth.
Uncle Andrey from the police officer's dacha, passing by, advises to exchange the peacock for something - bread or tobacco. The narrator thinks about this question (it really would be possible to use tobacco), but understands that he will not do this.
Wonderful necklace
The narrator is looking forward to the night: “...when will the night cover this jubilant cemetery?!” Night has come. A neighbor came up and sat down next to the narrator and said: “My head has become cloudy, I can’t think of anything. The kids are melting, I have stopped sleeping completely. I walk and walk like a pendulum.” A girl, Anyuta, came “from the Mazero dacha” and asked for “grains for porridge” because “our little one is dying, he screamed.” The narrator gave him some cereal - all he had...
A neighbor, an old lady, said that she exchanged a gold chain for bread, now she only had rock crystal beads left: “I understand: these crystal balls contain pieces of her soul,” says the narrator. - But now there is no soul, and there is nothing sacred. The veils have been torn from human souls. Neck crosses have been torn off and soaked through. The dear eyes-faces are torn to shreds, the last smiles-blessings fumbled from the heart... the last words-caresses are trampled by boots into the night mud, the last call from the pit flutters along the roads... - carried by the winds.” The lady was offered to exchange a necklace made by an Italian master for three pounds of bread, she was perplexed: such a luxury, a jewel, “so many... facets” - and for only three pounds! The narrator thinks: “And how many facets there are in the human soul! What necklaces have been crushed to dust... and the masters have been beaten..."
And at night they start robbing. People from the Department may appear...
In a deep beam
Dawn. “It’s time to go to Glubokaya Balka, in the cold, to chop.” In the deep ravine it is gloomy, the slopes are overgrown with bushes, in which all sorts of figures can be seen: a candelabra, a cross, a question mark... “Things live in the Deep ravine, they live and scream.” Three years ago, “rabid sailor hordes encamped here, rushing to take power,” and now one of the few survivors is chopping wood in the beam.
The narrator mentally addresses the Europeans, “enthusiastic connoisseurs of “daring”,” inviting them not to glorify “the global reshaping of life,” but to observe: “you will see living souls covered in blood, abandoned like rubbish.”
Playing with death
The narrator dozed off under the Cross tree and was woken up. He was “a ragged man, dark-haired, with a swollen yellow face, not shaved or washed for a long time, wearing a wide-brimmed straw with holes in it, in Tatar beds showing his clawed fingers. The white cotton shirt is pulled up with a strap, and yellow spots on the body can be seen through its holes. He looks like a ragamuffin from the pier.” This is the young writer Boris Shishkin. The narrator has a hard time with him, it seems like something will happen to Shishkin. The young writer has one dream: to go anywhere, even underground, and devote himself to writing. Boris Shishkin “is talented, his soul is tender and sensitive, and in his very short life there was such a terrible and great thing that it would be enough for a hundred lives.
He was a soldier in the great war, in the infantry, and on the most dangerous - the German front.” He was captured, almost shot as a spy, starved and forced to work in the mines. Already under Soviet rule, Shishkin returned to Russia, he was captured by the Cossacks, and miraculously released. They offered to become a communist, “but he filed for illness and finally received his freedom. Now he could walk around the gardens - work for half a pound of bread and write stories." Now he is going to live in the rocks and write the story “The Joy of Life.” “His swollen yellow face - the face of the area - says clearly that they are starving. And yet he is happy,” the narrator notes.
Shmelev says that prisoners of the Soviet regime have escaped, and now all coastal residents are threatened with searches and raids. But the narrator rejoices: “At least six lost their lives!”
Voice from Under the Mountain
The narrator is sitting on the threshold of his hut, and the former postman Drozd approaches him. This is “the righteous in the damned life. There are few of these in the town. They exist all over corrupting Russia.” Previously, Drozd dreamed of giving his children an “outside” education, was proud of his postman’s mission, and “respected European politics and European life.” Now he talks about life differently. “The whole civilization is coming into crisis! And even... in-ti-li-gencia! - he hisses in the brushwood, looking timidly around. - But as Mr. Nekrasov said: “Sow what is reasonable, good, eternal!” They will thank you endlessly! Russian people!!" And they steal from the old woman! All positions have been lost - both culture and morality.”
Drozd leaves, and the narrator sums up his visit: “The righteous... In this dying crevice, by the falling asleep sea, there are still righteous people left. I know them. There are not many of them. There are very few of them. They did not bow to temptation, did not touch someone else’s thread, and they are fighting in a noose. The life-giving spirit is in them, and they do not succumb to the all-crushing stone. Is the spirit dying? No - alive. It’s dying, dying... I can see it so clearly!”
On an empty road
September is “leaving”, the vineyards and forests are drying up, Mount Kush-Kai seems to be watching everything that happens by the sea. “It’s so quiet all around... But I know that in all these stones, in the vineyards, in the hollows, insects-people are huddled, squeezed into the cracks and hidden, living - not breathing,” says the narrator. The narrator recalls how he recently wandered along the shore, along the road, hoping to exchange a shirt for something edible, and met three children. The children, two girls and a boy, laid out food on the road - flatbread, lamb bones, sheep's cheese. When the narrator appeared, they tried to hide all this, but he calmed them down and heard the story. The children's father was arrested and accused of killing someone else's cow. The children went to look for food in the mountains and came across Tatar sheepfolds. The Tatar boys liked the eldest girl, they fed the children and gave them food with them.
Having parted with the children, the narrator met Fyodor Lyagun on the road. Lyagun realized in time what the emergence of the communists was bringing with him, and defected to them, gaining some power. “The communists have their own law... the party is obliged to report even one’s mother!” - said Fyodor Lyagun. And he reported - if it was not possible to come to an agreement with the “bourgeois”. The narrator says: “He cuts his finger across my pockmarked palm and pulls himself into my eyes. I'm stuffy from the rotten fumes...
I no longer walk on the roads, I don’t talk to anyone. Life burned out. Now it's smoking. I look into the eyes of animals. But there are not many of them.”
Almonds are ripe
The narrator is sitting on an almond tree - the almonds are ripe. And looks at the city from above. The tinsmith Kulesh died, who at first worked for money, then for bread, roofed roofs, riveted stoves and cut weather vanes. “We can’t help but go for a walk... with the commissars! Ooh... a terrible dream... Borshchik would at least have had his fill at last... and there!..,” said Kulesh before his death.
I tried to go to the hospital, hoping that at least they would feed me - they promised to do everything for the people - but in the hospital they themselves were starving. And Kulesh died. “For the fifth day, Kulesh has been lying in a human greenhouse. Everything is waiting to be sent: it cannot reach the pit. Not alone, but with Gvozdikov, a tailor, a friend; alive, the third, they are waiting. Both insisted - made noise at rallies, demanded property. They took everything under popular law: they took away the wine cellars - even if you want to go swimming, they took away the gardens and tobacco plants, and dachas.” The old watchman says that he has nothing to bury, and nothing to take from the dead. They will have to wait for someone richer... The narrator says that none of the victims, deceived by the revolution, will remain on the pages of history. And he sums it up: “Sleep in peace, stupid, calmed down Kulesh! You are not the only one who has been deceived by loud words of lies and flattery. Millions of these have been deceived, and millions more will be deceived...”
“Once upon a time there lived a gray goat with my grandmother”
“I want to move away from the melancholy of the desert that surrounds me. I want to go back in time, when people got along with the sun, created gardens in the desert...” says the narrator. There used to be a vacant lot on Quiet Pier; a retired police officer came and created a “wonderful “pink kingdom.” Now the “rose kingdom” is dying.
Teacher Pribytko has two children, and she cannot give in to difficult times. They have a goat, Prelest, and a goat, the envy of the neighbors.
The teacher talks about her goat, that in the area cows are being slaughtered, dogs and cats are being caught. And the narrator thinks: “I listen, sitting on an almond tree, watching the eaglets frolic over Caste-lyo. Suddenly the thought comes: what are we doing? Why am I in rags, climbing a tree? a gymnasium teacher - barefoot, with a bag, ragged in pince-nez, crawling through the gardens after carrion... Who is laughing at our lives? Why do she have such frightened eyes?
The end of the peacock
End of october. Hunger is getting closer. The peacock Pavka disappeared: “I remember with reproach that quiet evening when the hungry Pavka trustingly came to the empty cup, knocked with his nose... He knocked for a long time. They become tame from hunger... Now everyone knows that. And they quiet down." The narrator then tried to strangle the peacock, but could not.
A neighbor boy assumes that the doctor ate the peacock and brings the narrator some feathers. “I take the remains of my - not mine - peacock and with a quiet feeling, like a delicate flower, I place it on the veranda - to the drying “calville”. The last one to leave. There is more and more emptiness. The last one is warming up. Ah, what nonsense!..”
Circle of hell
The narrator says: “...there is hell! Here he is and his deceptive circle... - the sea, the mountains... - a wonderful screen. Days go in circles - aimless, constant shift. People are confused in their days, rushing about, looking... looking for a way out.” And he thinks: maybe he should leave? But he won’t leave, even though he’s run out of tobacco and has to smoke chicory; there are no books, and why would they...
The narrator reflects on life and death. Those who come to power kill everyone. They killed a young man for being a lieutenant; an old woman - holding a portrait of her husband, a general, on the table. And those who are not killed die themselves.
On a quiet pier
The quiet pier is calming, there is still a glimmer of life there: an old woman is milking a goat, still trying to run the farm.
Marina Semyonovna and Uncle Andrey communicate. Marina Semyonovna says that her interlocutor has “messed up”: he used to work, but now he steals and drinks wine. And there was nothing else left for him: the revolutionary sailor took the cow from him. “A person is dying before our eyes...,” Marina Semyonovna says with her heart. “I tell him: get things going!”<...>He says there is no order, you won’t understand! This is where everything falls apart!<...>And everyone shouted - ours! The narrator remarks about her: “She cannot believe that life wants peace, death: it wants to be covered with stone; what floats before our eyes like snow in the sun.”
Chatyrdag is breathing
“Farewell, Rybachykhino family!” - the narrator exclaims. The Fisherwoman’s daughters went beyond the pass, and she herself was crying over her only son, who had died. The narrator recalls a conversation with Nikolai, an old fisherman, the husband of the Fisherwoman. He visited representatives of his government and was perplexed: how can this be? The people were promised prosperity, but they themselves live wonderfully, and people die of hunger.
The fisherman Pashka, the “dashing guy”, swears: “When you come from the sea, they take everything, they leave ten percent for the whole artel! They came up with a clever idea - it’s called a commune.”
Righteous ascetic
The shoemaker Prokofy's wife, Tanya, lives in a clay shack. Prokofy himself “went out to the embankment, went to the military post and sang: “God save the Tsar!” He was severely beaten on the shore, put in a cellar and taken over the mountains. He soon died."
Tanya is going beyond the mountains to “change the wine”: “Fifty miles away, across the pass, where the snow has already fallen, she will carry her labor wine...<...>Passers-by are stopped there. There are green ones, red ones, who else?.. There are seven hanging over the iron bridge, on branches. Who they are is unknown. Nobody knows who hung them.<...>There is wolf squabbling and a dump there. The ongoing battle of the Iron Age people is in the stones.”
Downwind
The narrator went to the doctor's almond orchards to say goodbye. He says goodbye to everything, going through the last circle of hell. The doctor conducts his experiment: he lives on almonds and opium. He notes that his eyes have become worse. The doctor draws conclusions: “We are not taking something into account! Not everyone dies! This means that life will go on... it goes on, it goes on with those who are killing! but only! This is what life is all about—killing!” Hope is a function, retribution is a strengthening of the function. The doctor notices that people are afraid to speak, and “soon they will be afraid to think.”
There below
Ivan Mikhailovich, who wrote about Lomonosov, is finishing his last work. He dreams of going back to his homeland, the Vologda province. And he regrets one thing: if he dies, his works will be lost. “It would be better if the sailors drowned me then...”
The narrator meets an old Tatar and hopes to exchange flour with him, but he doesn’t have any.
The end of the bubble
Marina Semyonovna's goat went missing - it was taken away from the shed. “This is not theft, but infanticide!..” she says.
The soul is alive!
November. It started to rain. The cow Tamarka rejoices: the branches are wet and can be gnawed.
At night there was a knock on the narrator’s door, a Tatar came and brought a debt for a shirt: “Apples, pear... flour? and a bottle of bekmes!..” And the narrator exclaims: “No, not that. Not tobacco, not flour, not pears... - Heaven! The sky has come from the darkness! Heaven, oh Lord!.. The old Tatar sent... the Tatar...”
The earth is groaning
There is a fire in the almond orchards. The doctor burned down. “The sailor says... it was burning inside,” says neighbor Yashka. And the narrator notes: “The doctor burned out like a twig in a stove.”
The end of the doctor
Before the doctor had time to burn down, his old house was robbed: “There is a wake for Michal Vasilich, the old house is torn apart the next day. They're dragging around, who and what."
The end of Tamarka
The winter rains have arrived. People are starving. The fishermen were left without a catch: there were storms at sea. They ask for bread in the city, but they are not given it: “Everything will happen in due time!” Nice fishermen! You have maintained the discipline of the proletariat with honor...keep it tight!..I call for a rally...an urgent task!..to help our heroes of Donbass!..”
The cow Tamarka was taken away. They took Andrei Krivoy and Odaryuk for this. “The slide is noisy: they found cow tripe and lard under the floor of Grigory Odaryuk. Have taken. Odaryuk’s boy died and suffered, as if he had eaten too much tripe. A sailor found a cow skin: it was buried in the ground.”
Bread with blood
Odaryuk’s little daughter, Anyuta, came to the narrator. “She’s shaking and crying into her hands, little one. What can I do?! I can only squeeze my hands, squeeze my heart, so as not to scream.”
At the pass they killed the nanny's son and son-in-law Koryak, who exchanged wine for grain. “The worst has come: Alyosha sent wheat with blood. You need to eat something, wash it and wash it off. You just can’t wash everything...”
Thousands of years ago...
“Thousands of years ago... - many thousands of years - here there was the same desert, and night, and snow, and the sea, black emptiness, rumbled just as dully. And man lived in the desert and did not know fire.
He strangled the animal with his hands, knocked it over with a stone, crushed it with a club, hid in caves...” says the narrator. And that time has returned again: people are walking around with stones. They told him: “They bury themselves along mountain roads, behind stones... they lie in wait for the guys... and - with a stone! And they drag..."
Three ends
Andrey Krivoy and Odaryuk died. And Uncle Andrei confessed to stealing the goat and cow. He was also released. And he died. “So all three walked away, one by one, and melted away. Those awaiting their death, hungry, said:
They ate someone else’s cow meat... and then they died.”
The end of all
“What month is it now - December? The beginning or the end? All the ends, all the beginnings are tangled,” says the narrator. He sat on a hillock and looked at the cemetery. “When the sun goes down, the cemetery chapel glows magnificently with gold. The sun laughs at the Dead. I watched and solved a riddle about life and death.”
The father of Boris Shishkin came to the narrator and said that both of his sons were shot “for robbery.”
Almond blossoms. Spring came...
The tragedy of perception of revolutionary events
Shmelev received the first revolution enthusiastically; his main works of that time - “The Sergeant” (1906), “Disintegration” (1906), “Ivan Kuzmich” (1907), “Citizen Ukleikin” - were marked by the first Russian revolution. He considered the revolutionary upsurge to be a cleansing force capable of raising the downtrodden and humiliated and awakening humanity. But Shmelev didn’t know the fighters against autocracy well, so the revolution in his works is conveyed through the eyes of other heroes, passive and uninformed people.
In 1922, Shmelev emigrated, thereby showing his attitude to the second revolution.
His epic “Sun of the Dead” is a fierce protest against the injustice of the new government. It shows the stark contrast between the promise of a bright future and the grim reality. This contrast is noted even in the contrast between seaside beauties and poor, hungry people doomed to painful death.
