Vorontsov's image of farewell to his mother. The meaning of the story “Farewell to Matera”

In his story "Farewell to Matera" V. Rasputin explores national peace, his value system and his fate in the crisis of the twentieth century. For this purpose, the writer recreates a transitional, borderline situation, when death has not yet occurred, but it can no longer be called life.

The plot of the work tells us about the island of Matera, which is about to sink due to the construction of a new hydroelectric power station. And along with the island, the life that has developed here for three hundred years will have to disappear, that is, plot-wise, this situation depicts the death of the old patriarchal life and the reign of a new life.

The inscription of Matera (the island) into the infinity of the natural world order, its location “within” it is complemented by the inclusion of Matera (the village) in the movement historical processes, not as consistent as natural ones, but along with them are an organic part of human existence in this world. More than three hundred years old Matera (the village), she saw the Cossacks sailing to settle Irkutsk, she saw exiles, prisoners and Kolchakites. Important, that social history villages (Cossacks setting up the Irkutsk prison, merchants, prisoners, Kolchakites and Red partisans) have a duration in the story that is not as extended as the natural world order, but presupposes the possibility of human existence in time.

Combining, the natural and social introduce into the story the motif of the natural existence of Matera (islands and villages) in a single stream of natural and historical existence. This motif is complemented by the motif of the ever-repeating, endless and stable cycle of life in this repetition (the image of water). At the level of the author’s consciousness, the moment of interruption of the eternal and natural movement opens, and modernity appears as a cataclysm that cannot be overcome, like the death of the previous state of the world. Thus, flooding begins to mean not only the disappearance of the natural (Matera-island), but also the ethical (Matera as a system of generic values, born both from being in nature and being in society).

In the story, two levels can be distinguished: life-like (documentary beginning) and conventional. A number of researchers define the story "Farewell to Matera" as mythological story, which is based on the myth of the end of the world (eschatological myth). The mythological (conventional) plan is manifested in the system of images and symbols, as well as in the plot of the story (the name of the island and the village, Larch, the owner of the island, the ritual of seeing off the deceased, which is the basis of the plot, the ritual of sacrifice, etc.). The presence of two plans - realistic (documentary-journalistic) and conventional (mythological) is evidence that the author explores not only the fate of a particular village, not only social problems, but also the problems of human existence and humanity in general: what can serve as the basis for the existence of humanity, current state existence, prospects (what awaits humanity?). The mythological archetype of the story expresses the author's ideas about the fate of the "peasant Atlantis" in modern civilization.

In his story, V. Rasputin explores past national life, traces changes in values ​​over time, and reflects on what price humanity will pay for the loss traditional system values. The main themes of the story are the themes of memory and farewell, duty and conscience, guilt and responsibility.

The author perceives the family as the basis of life and the preservation of tribal laws. In accordance with this idea, the writer builds a system of characters in the story, which represents a whole chain of generations. The author examines three generations born on Matera and traces their interactions with each other. Rasputin explores the fate of moral and spiritual values ​​in different generations. Most Interest Rasputin feels for the older generation, because it is they who are the bearer and guardian national values, which civilization is trying to destroy by eliminating the island. Older generation The “fathers” in the story are Daria, “the oldest of the old,” the old woman Nastasya and her husband Yegor, the old women Sima and Katerina. The generation of children is Daria's son Pavel, Katerina Petrukha's son. Generation of grandchildren: Daria’s grandson Andrey.

For the old women, the inevitable death of the island is the end of the world, since they cannot imagine themselves or their lives without Matera. For them, Matera is not just land, but it is part of their life, their soul, part of the common connection with those who have left this world and with those who are to come. This connection gives the old people the feeling that they are the owners of this land, and at the same time a sense of responsibility not only for native land, but also for the dead, who entrusted them with this land, but they could not preserve it. “They’ll ask: how did you allow such rudeness, where did you look? They’ll say they relied on you, what about you? But I have nothing to answer. I was here, it was up to me to keep an eye on it. And if it gets flooded with water, it seems like it’s also my fault,” - Daria thinks. The connection with previous generations can be traced in the system moral values.

Mothers treat life as a service, as a kind of debt that must be carried to the end and which they have no right to shift to anyone else. Mothers also have their own special hierarchy of values, where in the first place is life in accordance with conscience, which used to be “very different”, not like in the present time. Thus, the foundations of this type of folk consciousness (ontological worldview) are perception natural world as spiritual, recognition of one's specific place in this world and the subordination of individual aspirations to collective ethics and culture. It was these qualities that helped the nation continue its history and exist in harmony with nature.

V. Rasputin is clearly aware of the impossibility of this type of worldview in new history, so he is trying to explore other variants of popular consciousness.

A period of heavy thoughts, vague state of mind Not only the old women are worried, but also Pavel Pinigin. His assessment of what is happening is ambiguous. On the one hand, it is closely connected with the village. Arriving in Matera, he feels like time is closing behind him. On the other hand, he does not feel that pain behind native home, with which the souls of old women are filled. Pavel recognizes the inevitability of change and understands that the flooding of the island is necessary for the common good. He considers his doubts about resettlement to be a weakness, because young people “do not even think of doubting.” This type of worldview still retains the essential features of ontological consciousness (rootedness in work and home), but at the same time resigns itself to the onset of machine civilization, accepting the norms of existence set by it.

Unlike Pavel, according to Rasputin, the young people had completely lost their sense of responsibility. This can be seen in the example of Daria’s grandson Andrey, who left the village a long time ago, worked at a factory and now wants to get into the construction of a hydroelectric power station. Andrey has his own concept of the world, according to which he sees the future exclusively as technological progress. Life, from Andrei’s point of view, is in constant motion and one cannot lag behind it (Andrei’s desire to go to the hydroelectric power station - the country’s leading construction project).

Daria, on the other hand, sees the death of man in technological progress, since gradually man will obey technology, and not control it. “He’s a small man,” says Daria. “Small”, that is, one who has not gained wisdom, far from the boundless mind of nature. He still does not understand that it is not in his power to control modern technology which will crush him. This contrast between Daria’s ontological consciousness and the “new” consciousness of her grandson reveals the author’s assessment of the technocratic illusions of the reorganization of life. The author's sympathies are, of course, on the side of the older generation.

However, Daria sees not only technology as the cause of a person’s death, but mainly in alienation, his removal from home, his native land. It is no coincidence that Daria was so offended by Andrei’s departure, who did not even look at Matera once, did not walk around her, did not say goodbye to her. Seeing the ease with which the younger generation lives, getting into the world technical progress and forgetting moral experience previous generations, Daria thinks about the truth of life, trying to find it, because she feels responsible for the younger generation. This truth is revealed to Daria in the cemetery and it lies in memory: “The truth is in memory. He who has no memory has no life.”

The older generation in modern society sees the blurring of the boundaries between good and evil, the combination of these principles, incompatible with each other, into a single whole. The embodiment of the destroyed system of moral values ​​were the so-called “new” masters of life, the destroyers of the cemetery, who deal with Matera as if it were their own property, not recognizing the rights of the elderly to this land, and therefore, not taking their opinions into account. The lack of responsibility of such “new” owners can also be seen in the way the village was built on the other bank, which was built not with the expectation of making life convenient for people, but with the expectation of completing the construction faster. Marginal characters of the story (Petrukha, Vorontsov, cemetery destroyers) - the next stage of deformation folk character. The marginalized (“Arkharovites” in “Fire”) are people who have no soil, no moral and spiritual roots, so they are deprived of family, home, and friends. It is this type of consciousness, according to V. Rasputin, that the new technological era is giving birth to, completing the positive national history and signifying the catastrophe of the traditional way of life and its value system.

At the end of the story, Matera is flooded, that is, the destruction of the old patriarchal world and the birth of a new one (village).

Characteristic literary hero Matera is an island and a village. The name means “mother”, “mother land”. For its inhabitants, M. symbolizes the whole world and ensures the normal natural course of life. In the land of M. lie the ancestors of its inhabitants, who gave this land to their children for use, and these children must pass it on to their own, etc. The story shows those times when the village “withered,... became rooted, went off its usual course.” A power plant was being built down the Angara. As a result, the water in the river rose and gradually flooded M. The inhabitants of the island were moved to “ mainland", in town. M. is shown as the ark, the guardian moral laws, human soul: “...from edge to edge, from coast to coast, it had enough expanse, and wealth, and beauty, and wildness, and every creature in pairs - having separated from the mainland, it held everything in abundance.” At the end of the story, M. disappears into the depths of the waters along with its faithful inhabitants - the old women, Bogodul and Kolka. These people could not “fit in” with new life, fruitlessly vain, not giving a person the opportunity to look back and be alone with himself.

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2. Farewell to Matera Having stood for more than three hundred years on the banks of the Angara, the village of Matera has seen everything in its lifetime. “In ancient times, bearded Cossacks climbed past her up the Angara to set up the Irkutsk prison; merchants scurrying around Read More ......
3. Petrukha Characteristics of the literary hero Petrukha (Nikita Alekseevich Zotov) is Katerina’s dissolute son, an “unhappy drunkard.” No one called him by name, but everyone called him by the nickname P., given to him for his simplicity and worthlessness. P. really wants to leave Matera and start a new Read More......
4. Vorontsov Characteristics of a literary hero Vorontsov is the chairman of the council in the new village. Responsible for the sanitary condition of Matera before the flooding. His first clash with the inhabitants of the island occurs over the destruction of a cemetery by a sanitary brigade. Old man Karpov explains to the hero the difference between him and the old people Read More ......
5. Bogodul Characteristics of the literary hero Bogodul is an old man who strayed to Matera. He was very fond of Russian swearing, for which he was nicknamed “blasphemy” (“God-blooded”). In the summer, the hero sometimes left Matera, but in the winter he lived here constantly, mostly with old women, sometimes spending the night in the bathhouse. Read More......
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7. Pavel Pinigin Characteristics of a literary hero Pavel Pinigin is the son of Daria Pinigina, 50 years old. P. is a representative of the middle generation in the story. He cannot, as recklessly as Andrey, tear himself away from Matera, from her life principles, absorbed with mother's milk. P. suffers Read More ......

Summary"Farewell to Matera" by Rasputin allows you to find out the features of this work Soviet writer. It is rightfully considered one of the best that Rasputin managed to create during his career. The book was first published in 1976.

Plot of the story

A summary of Rasputin’s “Farewell to Matera” allows you to get acquainted with this work without reading it in its entirety, in just a few minutes.

The story takes place in the 60s of the 20th century. At the center of the story is the village of Matera, which is located in the middle of the great Russian river Angara. Changes are coming in the lives of its residents. Soviet Union builds the Bratsk hydroelectric power station. Because of this, all the inhabitants of Matera are relocated, and the village is subject to flooding.

The main conflict of the work is that the majority, especially those who have lived in Matera for decades, do not want to leave. Almost all old people believe that if they leave Matera, they will betray the memory of their ancestors. After all, in the village there is a cemetery where their fathers and grandfathers are buried.

main character

A summary of Rasputin's "Farewell to Matera" introduces readers to the main character named Daria Pinigina. Despite the fact that the hut is going to be demolished in a few days, she whitewashes it. She refuses her son’s offer to transport her to the city.

Daria strives to stay in the village until the last moment; she does not want to move, because she cannot imagine her life without Matera. She is afraid of change, does not want anything to change in her life.

Almost all residents of Matera are in a similar situation, who are afraid of moving and living in a big city.

The plot of the story

Let's begin the summary of Rasputin's "Farewell to Matera" with a description of the majestic Angara River, on which the village of Matera stands. Literally before her eyes, a considerable part of Russian history. The Cossacks went up the river to set up a fort in Irkutsk, and merchants constantly stopped at the island-village, scurrying back and forth with goods.

Prisoners from all over the country who found refuge in that same prison were often transported past. They stopped on the shore of Matera, prepared a simple lunch and moved on.

For two whole days, a battle broke out here between the partisans who stormed the island and Kolchak’s army, which held the defense in Matera.

The village’s special pride is its own church, which stands on a high bank. IN Soviet time it was converted into a warehouse. It also has its own mill and even a mini-airport. Twice a week the “corn farmer” sits in the old pasture and takes the residents to the city.

Dam for hydroelectric power station

Everything changes radically when the authorities decide to build a dam for the Bratsk hydroelectric power station. The power plant is most important, which means several surrounding villages will be flooded. First in line is Matera.

Rasputin's story "Farewell to Matera", a summary of which is given in this article, tells how local residents perceive the news of an imminent move.

True, there are few inhabitants in the village. Mostly only old people remained. Young people moved to the city for more promising and light work. Those who remained now think of the upcoming flooding as the end of the world. Rasputin dedicated “Farewell to Matera” to these experiences of the indigenous people. A very brief summary of the story is not able to convey all the pain and sadness with which the old-timers bear this news.

They oppose this decision in every way. At first, no amount of persuasion can convince them: neither the authorities nor their relatives. They are encouraged to common sense, but they flatly refuse to leave.

They are stopped by the familiar and lived-in walls of houses, a familiar and measured way of life that they do not want to change. Memory of ancestors. After all, in the village there is an old cemetery where more than one generation of Matera residents is buried. In addition, there is no desire to throw away a lot of things that you couldn’t do without here, but in the city no one will need them. These are frying pans, grips, cast iron, tubs, but you never know in the village useful devices that in the city have long replaced the benefits of civilization.

They are trying to convince the elderly that in the city they will be accommodated in apartments with all the amenities: cold and hot water at any time of the year, heating, which you don’t need to worry about and remember when last time lit the stove. But they still understand that, out of habit, they will be very sad in a new place.

The village is dying

Lonely old women who do not want to leave are the least in a hurry to leave Matera. They witness how the village begins to be set on fire. The abandoned houses of those who have already moved to the city are gradually burning down.

At the same time, when the fire has calmed down and everyone begins to discuss whether it happened on purpose or by accident, then everyone agrees that the houses caught fire by accident. Nobody dares to believe in such extravagance that someone could raise their hands on residential buildings just recently. I especially can’t believe that the owners themselves could have set the house on fire when they left Matera for the mainland.

Daria says goodbye to the hut

In Rasputin's "Farewell to Matera", you can read the summary in this article, old-timers say goodbye to their homes in a special way.

The main character Daria, before leaving, carefully sweeps the entire hut, tidies up, and then also whitewashes the hut for the upcoming happy life. Already leaving Matera, she is most upset because she remembers that she forgot to grease her home somewhere.

Rasputin in his work “Farewell to Matera,” a summary of which you are now reading, describes the suffering of her neighbor Nastasya, who cannot take her cat with her. Animals are not allowed on the boat. Therefore, she asks Daria to feed her, without thinking that Daria herself is leaving in just a few days. And for good.

For the residents of Matera, all things and pets with whom they spent so many years side by side become as if alive. They reflect the entire life spent on this island. And when you have to leave for good, you must thoroughly clean up, just as a deceased person is cleaned and preened before sending him to the next world.

It is worth noting that the church and Orthodox rituals are not supported by all residents of the village, but only by the elderly. But the rituals are not forgotten by anyone; they exist in the souls of both believers and atheists.

Sanitary brigade

Valentin Rasputin describes in detail the upcoming visit of the sanitary team in “Farewell to Matera,” a summary of which you are now reading. It is she who is tasked with razing the village cemetery to the ground.

D Arya opposes this, uniting behind her all the old-timers who have not yet left the island. They cannot imagine how such outrage could be allowed to happen.

They send curses on the heads of offenders, call on God for help, and even engage in real battle, armed with ordinary sticks. Defending the honor of her ancestors, Daria is militant and assertive. Many would have resigned themselves to fate if they were in her place. But she is not satisfied with the current situation. She judges not only strangers, but also her son and daughter-in-law, who without hesitation abandoned everything they had acquired in Matera and moved to the city at the first opportunity.

She also scolds modern youth, who, in her opinion, are leaving the world they know for the sake of distant and unknown benefits. More often than anyone else, she turns to God so that he can help her, support her, and enlighten those around her.

Most importantly, she does not want to part with the graves of her ancestors. She is convinced that after death she will meet her relatives, who will definitely condemn her for such behavior.

The denouement of the story

On the last pages of the story, Daria's son Pavel admits that he was wrong. The summary of Rasputin's story "Farewell to Matera" cannot be completed without the fact that the end of the work focuses attention on the monologue of this hero.

He laments that so much wasted work was required from the people who lived here for several generations. In vain, because everything will eventually be destroyed and go under water. Of course, it is pointless to speak out against technological progress, but human attitude is still most important.

The simplest thing is not to ask these questions, but to go with the flow, thinking as little as possible about why everything happens this way and how it works. the world. But it is precisely the desire to get to the bottom of the truth, to find out why it is this way and not otherwise, that distinguishes a person from an animal,” concludes Pavel.

Prototypes of Matera

The writer Valentin Rasputin spent his childhood years in the village of Atalanka, located in Irkutsk region on the Angara River.

The prototype of the village of Matera was presumably the neighboring village of Gorny Kui. All this was the territory of the Balagansky district. It was he who was flooded during the construction of the Bratsk hydroelectric power station.

The story “Farewell to Matera” is based on an autobiographical fact: the village of Ust-Uda, Irkutsk region, where Rasputin was born, subsequently fell into a flood zone and disappeared. The conflict of the story is from the category of eternal: the conflict of old and new. At what cost is something new approved? By sweeping away and destroying the old or by transforming it?

Changes await the island of Matera: people are going to be resettled on the other side of the Angara, where a large new village: down the river they are building a dam for “a power plant, the water will rise and spill...” People have been settling on Matera for a long time: “The first man who decided to settle on the island more than three hundred years ago was a keen-sighted and profitable man, who correctly judged that He couldn’t find better land than this.” “The village has seen everything in its lifetime. In ancient times, bearded Cossacks climbed past it up the Angara to set up the Irkutsk prison; merchants, scurrying in this and that direction, turned up to spend the night with her; they were transporting prisoners by water.” “And so the village lived, overcoming any time and adversity, for three hundred years. more than a year, until one day a rumor broke out that the village would not live or exist any further. For Matera, it remained last summer: in the fall “the water will rise.” The land on which people have lived for centuries is being taken out of economic use and is being destroyed.

The main character of the story, old Daria Pinigina, has a “strict and fair character.” The “weak and suffering” are drawn to her, she personifies the people’s truth, she is the bearer of the memory of their ancestors, the keeper of their traditions. At Daria’s place, friends gathered over the samovar and had a “rare conversation.” From the conversation of old women, we learn about the life of the village, about experiences, anxiety about life in a new village. someone city ​​life attracts. Nastasya says: “I was visiting my daughter in the city - it’s amazing: here you don’t leave your place, and the Angara, and the forest, and the restroom-bathhouse, even if you don’t show your face on the street for a year. You turn the faucet, just like a samovar, and the water runs, cold in one faucet, hot in the other. And don’t throw wood on the stove, also with a tap, if you press it, the heat comes out...”

Bogodul (“an old man who has wandered from foreign lands”) appears on the threshold of the hut and reports: the dead are being robbed in the cemetery. The women were alarmed and ran to look. Having run to the cemetery, the old women saw that two people in canvas overalls were removing crosses and fences from the graves. Women began to shame the “asps.” Soon people came running from almost the entire village. “Comrade Zhuk from the department for the flood zone” began to explain to the angry people that this was a necessary measure: “You know, the sea will overflow in this place, large ships will come, people will go...” But grandfather Yegor replied to this: “They came from Otkulev, go there... Otherwise I’ll take the Berdyanka.” With their joint efforts, the old-timers of Matera managed to defend the cemetery. And the old women crawled around the cemetery until late at night, sticking crosses back in, setting up bedside tables.

Bogodul appeared in the village a long time ago. First he came to exchange goods (“exchanged an awl for soap”). This is what he fed on. The old women in the village loved Bo-godul. No matter who he came to, everyone welcomed him and fed him. “And since the old women loved him, it’s clear that the old men didn’t love him.” When rumors about the resettlement began, the old women began to ask him where he would go. He answered: “Not a single step…” The next day, after the story at the cemetery, Bogodul “dragged” to Daria. Daria “sat silently” on the trestle bed and did not want to talk to him. They sat in silence for a long time. Having made tea, Daria “finally started talking” to Bogodul: she had milked the cow, but there was no one to drink the milk, her son Pavel rarely came, the milk would turn sour... “And she turned the conversation around”, began to remember the incident at the cemetery and said that the buried relatives would ask for it that she allowed this to happen. Remembering all the buried relatives and friends, Daria complained to Bogodul: “I don’t sleep at night after the evening and I keep thinking and thinking... I’ve never been afraid of cholera, but now I’m afraid...” She decided to go look at the cemetery. But, exhausted from a long walk, she sank to the ground and looked around: “... the island lay quietly, calmly, the native land destined by fate itself...” Daria thinks with bitterness that soon, soon everything will end: “It was worth living a long time.” and a publican’s life, so that in the end she would admit to herself: she didn’t understand anything about it.”

Son Pavel comes to Daria. Daria began asking how they lived there in the new village, and found out that in the new house there was water in the cellars and there was no place to store potatoes. Pavel was Daria's second son. The eldest died in the war. “And she lost another son during the war, he remained at home due to his childhood, but here he died in a logging site thirty kilometers from Matera.” Daria told Pavel about what happened at the cemetery and asked him to move it “if the grandparents wanted.” But Pavel replied: “Now there’s no time for that, mother...”

“Some of the young people who had already left and did not leave were happy about the changes and did not hide it, the rest were afraid of them, not knowing what lay ahead...” On the last day before leaving the village, “Nastasya did not sleep all night, she was burning a fire... Every now and then she realized that she had forgotten one thing or another, she rushed to look and did not find it... Nastasya froze: where was she - at home; not at home?" In the evening, grandfather Yegor and Nastasya began to collect the remaining things and finally sat down at the table and drank weak red wine. During the conversation, Nastasya said with a feeling of bitter loss: “We lost the guys... where can we get them now? And the two of us... maybe nothing... There, I guess, there are people too... - Let's get to know each other. But no, we’ll be together... Don’t cry, Egor.”

Early in the morning Nastasya got up and brought firewood: “And he heated it, warmed the last food, swept the coals into the fire, warmed the samovar for the last time...” When they began to get ready for the journey, Daria came to their hut to say goodbye. The women asked each other for forgiveness through tears. Then other neighbors came into the yard to see Nastasya and Yegor off. We sat down at the table, drank red wine, and then went to the boat. Grandfather Yegor turned his face to the shore and bowed to Matera three times - to the right, to the left and straight ahead.

On a September night, Petrukhin’s hut was burning. As the villagers guessed, the hut caught fire due to “execution own desire» Petrukha. His mother, the old woman Katerina, transferred her simple belongings to Daria: Daria lived more confidently and seriously, her son took her into account, she was not the last person on the state farm, in addition, Daria had a character that “has not softened over the years, has not been damaged, and on occasion “I knew how to stand up not only for myself.”

It was not easy for the settlers to settle in a new place. “One of the difficult tasks that tormented the new authorities was where to push the numerous former collective farm officials, people from the middle and top ranks, who had known at least a little, but power from which they could not suddenly get rid of, who had learned to command and who, of course, had forgotten how to work under a command.” .

Pavel worked as a foreman repairing equipment. Having learned that Katerina had gone to live with Daria, he felt calmer, he could worry less about his mother. Pavel could not understand why the people of Matera had to endure such losses; he could not “accept this new village, although he knew that one way or another he would have to live in it. that life will eventually get better there.” Returning from the village to the village, Pavel felt like a lodger, “because the house is not yours and you can’t behave like a master in it, but you show up for the ready work: don’t chop wood, don’t light the stove...” But his wife, Sonya, she was very glad that the apartment had both “a bath and a toilet, there were flower petals on the walls” that didn’t need to be whitewashed... she immediately set about arranging the apartment. Pavel understood “that the mother would not get used to it here. Not at all. For her, this is someone else’s paradise... She can’t handle these changes.” Pavel “was afraid of the day when he would have to take her away from Matera.”

Petrukha left the day after the fire and did not make himself known for a week. Katerina lived with Daria, felt orphaned, could not calm down for a long time, worried about the arson of her hut, and scolded her son, the eccentric Petrukha, in her hearts. It was easier for the women to live together. Often fellow villagers who still remained in Matera came to talk to them.

Haymaking burst into life on Matera. Half the village returned to the village to cut hay. “And they worked with joy, with passion, which they had not experienced for a long time... And the already middle-aged women grew younger in front of each other’s eyes...” “Mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers brought their children with them, invited even strangers to to show the land from which they came and which later will no longer be seen or found. It seemed that half the world knew about Matera’s fate.”

Andrei came to Daria - younger son Pavel. Andrei convinces his grandmother: “What good is it that you have lived your whole life, without moving from your spot? We must not give in to fate, we must control it ourselves.” He tries to explain: Matera will be flooded because “electricity is required.” The father wanted to persuade his son to stay in the village: “I would take it and stay here. We need drivers. You’ll get a new car...” Andrei objected: “So you go to work. Work, it also seems to be based on age. Where there are new construction projects, where it is most difficult - there are young people. Where it’s easier, more familiar - others..."

The time has come autumn rains. To escape the dampness, stoves were lit in the village. Katerina moved to live with Nastasya. She was glad that maybe there would be a “dry corner” for her Petrukha, who wandered around the village “like God’s dandelion.” On these rainy days, people often began to get together and have anxious conversations about moving from village to village. “But why is my soul so anxious, so confused?.. What, what consolation can I soothe my soul?..” On one of these rainy days, Vorontsov arrived and with him a representative from the region, responsible for clearing the lands that would go under water. Having gathered people in the former collective farm office, they announced that it was necessary to harvest the state farm potatoes and finish haymaking. They also remembered from this meeting that Vorontsov asked not to wait “ last day and gradually burn everything that is not absolutely necessary.”

Andrey, returning home, told in detail everything that was discussed at the meeting. After listening to her grandson, Daria said: “That’s how it would be for a person. If they had told me when to die, then I would have known and prepared...” “But it would have been funny. That means you are alive and healthy, and in your passport, where the year of birth is, the year of death is next to it,” Andrei laughed and supported the words of his grandmother.

Suddenly the sun came out, “breaking through the clouds.” Life in the village continued. “Now, in the sun, mid-September seemed very close - just a stone’s throw away, and there were still so many worries, so much hassle about moving - where could I get the energy and time?” Reproaching her son and grandson for not going to haymaking in the rain and now they won’t have time, Daria complained: “As long as you can’t move the grave, I won’t let you leave Matera. If not, I’ll stay here myself.” Andrei looked at his father and grandmother in surprise and could not understand why this needed to be done. The next day, Pavel was urgently called to the village: one of his repair workers had put his hand into a machine and was left disabled.

Andrey was mowing the grass alone. Daria began to worry about her son. She learned that “they were setting up a boat for the village to get food, and she immediately jumped in: let Andrei swim, let him find out what happened to his father.” She found Andrey in the plot where he was supposed to mow hay, but it turned out he was collecting sorrel. “Lord, just a child!” - Daria thought with annoyance. In the meadow, Daria looked at how her grandson was mowing the grass and noticed that “the mowing was wavy, the windrows had time to wither and dry out.” The old woman realized with a bitter, unpleasant feeling that “nothing will happen, there’s no point in hoping. It’s all for nothing.” Andrey swam away and disappeared. Daria worked in the garden to somehow occupy her time and thought with annoyance that the cucumbers were gone and there was no one to eat them. Returning three days later, Andrei said that his father was being dragged around to commissions and that they would no longer mow. Daria was not upset about the hay, she was worried about Pavel. The grandson began to explain to his grandmother that nothing would happen to his father for this: “They’ll drag you around, they’ll fray your nerves, well, they’ll give you a reprimand just in case of emergency. That's all." In the evening, Andrei began to pack his things and, as Daria noticed, he did it with great joy. In the morning Andrei left, Daria accompanied him to the boat and thought with annoyance that her grandson was not at all sorry to part with Matera.

Katerina moved back to Daria. In the village, “they were digging up young potatoes with all their might and frying them with boletus, which poured out apparently and invisibly.” “In general, this last summer, as if knowing that it was the last, was fruitful for berries and mushrooms.”

Daria began to think about what awaited her: “Maybe I should go for a visit first and have a look?” But she still decided for herself: “No, we need to see Matera off first.” The old woman began to remember her husband and other relatives buried here in Matera.

About thirty people came to the village from the city to harvest the crops. On the first day, everyone got drunk and got into fights. One day in Matera was enough to scare me to death..."

In Daria's hut in the evenings the women talked about everyone and everything. Katerina learned that her Petrukha was setting fire to abandoned houses. Having come to terms with the loss of her hut, Katerina could not forgive Petrukha for burning strangers’. The old woman thought: “Should I go there?... To bewitch him?”

As soon as the bread was removed, the visitors, having finished collecting the bread, left Matera. The village became easier, calmer. Before leaving, they walked: “...they kept the village trembling all night, and in the morning, before sailing, as a fond memory, they set fire to the office in which they were lodging.” People took out potatoes and livestock, picked up the last thing that could still be useful. Pavel was almost the last to arrive for the cow.” Daria saw Maika off with tears. The mother began to reproach her son for not moving the graves. Pavel made excuses that he didn’t have time, he had a lot of work. Having seen off her son, the old woman went to the cemetery: “Daria bowed to the grave mound and sank to the ground next to her... “Here she comes. I became completely weakened, the cow and that sedni were taken away. You can die. And to die, auntie, I will have to pass by Matera. I won’t lie down with you, nothing will come of it...” For a long time Daria sat over the graves, saying goodbye to each of her relatives.”

People set fire to forests and houses. Nature resisted: “One surviving, rebellious “royal foliage” continued to dominate everything around. But there was nothing around him.” Daria decided to whitewash the hut. Usually the huts were whitewashed for the holidays, but now Daria decided that it was impossible to give “to death her native hut, from which her father and mother, grandfather and grandmother were carried out, in which she lived almost her entire life,” without ritualizing it. WITH with great difficulty The old woman whitewashed the hut and was very surprised that she could do it herself. In the morning, waking up just before dawn, the old woman “heated the Russian stove and warmed water for the floor and windows.” Having finished whitewashing and cleaning the hut, Daria sat down on the rubble and began to cry. “But those were her last tears. Having cried, she ordered herself that the latter, even if they burn her along with the hut, would endure everything and not make a peep.” Having arranged the benches and trestle bed, hung the curtains in the hut, the next morning Daria “packed up her plywood chest in which her funeral attire was kept, crossed the front corner for the last time, bowed at the threshold... and went out, closing the door behind her... “That’s it,” she told the burners. - Light it up.

But never set foot in the hut." Daria left the village. The old women looked for her, but could not find her. In the evening, Pavel sailed to Matera and found his mother near the “royal foliage.”

Nastasya arrived in the village, and through tears she shared her grief: “And Egor... Egor!..” The women did not want to believe that grandfather Egor was no more... Pavel arrived. He didn’t know what to do with his aunts: they wouldn’t fit in one boat. Pavel promised to come for them by boat in two days. And there were six of them left for the whole village.

Paul discusses his life: “That means life has passed, and not yet time, but passed. And after thinking about this, he remembered again about his mother, about the need to transport her somehow...” Vorontsov came and said that they urgently needed to be taken out, tomorrow there would be a state commission in the village. We decided to go get the money right away. But it took a long time to get ready and we left in the dark. We got on the boat and sailed away. There was fog, which made it difficult to navigate on the water. Having turned off the engine, they began to walk around the island and in the dark looked for the women remaining on it...

The main idea of ​​the story is that a good goal - the industrial development of the region, the construction of a power plant - is immoral to achieve at the cost of betraying the past. The reasons for what is happening, according to Daria, are in the human soul: the person is “confused, completely overplayed,” has too much confidence in himself, and has lost his conscience. “The truth is in memory. He who has no memory has no life,” says Daria. Many images in the story are symbolic. “Royal Larch” - old larch - a symbol of the power of nature. Neither fire, nor an ax, nor a chainsaw can cope with it. The image of the House is symbolic. He is depicted as spiritual, alive. Like a dead man before a funeral, Daria removes him before burning him. Main symbol- in the title. “Matera” is the name of a village, an island, an image of mother earth, and a metaphorical name for the homeland.

The inhabitants of the island of Matera are people different generations. Ancient old people, elderly people, people live here mature age, youth, children. All of them are united by one problem (one could say “trouble” if many did not treat it as something long-awaited) - the impending flooding of the island. Rasputin shows how differently different generations perceive the imminent separation from their native land.

Three prominent representatives different generations of the same family - main character the story of Daria, her son Pavel and grandson Andrei. For all of them, Matera is their homeland. They were all born and raised here. But how differently these people, dear to each other, relate to their homeland!

Here is Daria, a stern, unyielding woman for whom you feel involuntary respect when reading, perhaps because she does not allow herself to give in to weakness. Daria not only spent her entire life on Matera, she never even left it.* Matera feeds her all her life, generously giving her the most valuable things - bread and potatoes. In return, Daria put enormous effort into the land and looked after it.

But is it only the labor invested in the land that makes it dear to us? Yes, that too, but there is something that binds us even more strongly. These are family graves. You can't escape them. Only next to our loved ones do we want to lie in the ground, although, it would seem, won’t we all care after death? Daria is the person who thinks: no, it doesn’t matter. We are connected to our land by a chain of generations that came before us. People with high moral qualities, cannot help but have love for their land. Man, like a tree, is connected to the earth. No wonder Nastasya says: “Who replants an old tree?” It is not for nothing that the story draws an analogy between Daria and the “royal foliage” (the author does not compare them openly, but the comparison of a persistent tree and a stern old woman comes to mind naturally). Are only Daria and Nastasya so attached to their land? And Katerina, whose hut was set on fire by her own son? And the blasphemer Bogodul, who looks like a devil? For all of them, memory is sacred, the graves of their ancestors are inviolable. That's why they stay on the island until the last moment. They cannot betray their native land, even if it is devastated and burned to the ground.

Daria's son, Pavel, is a representative of the middle generation. He fluctuates in his beliefs between the old and the young, and is angry with himself for this. It pains him to part with Matera, but he is no longer as attached to the graves as his mother (maybe that’s why he never had time to move them). Pavel lives on two banks. Of course, he feels the pain of saying goodbye to Matera, but at the same time he feels that the truth is on the side of the young.

What about the young people? What is their relationship to the land that raised them? Here is Andrey. He lived in Matera for eighteen years. He ate bread and potatoes born from this land, he mowed, plowed and sowed, he put a lot of labor into the land, and received a lot, too, like his grandmother. Why does Andrei not only part with Matera without pity, but is also going to take part in the construction of a hydroelectric power station, that is, become a participant in the flooding? The fact is that young people’s connection with the earth is always much weaker than that of old people. Perhaps this is due to the fact that old people already feel the approach of death and this gives them the right and opportunity to think about the eternal, about the memory that they will leave behind, about the meaning of their existence. Young people are mostly focused on the future. They have no time to sit on a piece of land that bears the abstract name Motherland and grieve about it. They strive forward to implement high ideas, like Andrey. Or, like Klavka and Petrukha, to a more comfortable life. These two are even ready to set fire to their huts in order to quickly break free. Petrukha eventually sets fire to the house in which he grew up. However, he does not feel the slightest regret. But his mother, Katerina, a representative of the older generation, suffers.

It has been the custom since time immemorial that the old are the keepers of traditions, and the youth move progress forward. But, even while pursuing the best goals, should we forget our homeland, our roots? After all, your land is your mother. It is not for nothing that the word “Matera” is consonant with the word “mother”. One can, of course, condemn old people for their unwillingness to face the future, but we all need to learn from them love and respect for the Motherland.