Shalamov Kolyma stories summary h. Collection of stories "Kolyma Stories"

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

Funeral word

The author remembers his camp comrades by name. Evoking the mournful martyrology, he tells who died and how, who suffered and how, who hoped for what, who and how behaved in this Auschwitz without ovens, as Shalamov called the Kolyma camps. Few managed to survive, few managed to survive and remain morally unbroken.

Life of engineer Kipreev

Having not betrayed or sold out to anyone, the author says that he has developed for himself a formula for actively defending his existence: a person can only consider himself human and survive if at any moment he is ready to commit suicide, ready to die. However, later he realizes that he only built himself a comfortable shelter, because it is unknown what you will be like at the decisive moment, whether you simply have enough physical strength, and not just mental strength. Engineer-physicist Kipreev, arrested in 1938, not only withstood a beating during interrogation, but even rushed at the investigator, after which he was put in a punishment cell. However, they still force him to sign false testimony, threatening him with the arrest of his wife. Nevertheless, Kipreev continued to prove to himself and others that he was a man and not a slave, like all prisoners. Thanks to his talent (he invented a way to restore burnt out light bulbs, repaired the X-ray machine), he manages to avoid the most difficult work, but not always. He miraculously survives, but the moral shock remains in him forever.

To the show

Camp molestation, Shalamov testifies, affected everyone to a greater or lesser extent and occurred in the most different forms. Two thieves are playing cards. One of them is lost to the nines and asks you to play for “representation”, that is, in debt. At some point, excited by the game, he unexpectedly orders an ordinary intellectual prisoner, who happened to be among the spectators of their game, to give him a woolen sweater. He refuses, and then one of the thieves “finishes” him, but the sweater still goes to the thug.

Two prisoners sneak to the grave where the body of their dead comrade was buried in the morning, and remove the dead man’s underwear to sell or exchange for bread or tobacco the next day. The initial disgust at taking off their clothes gives way to the pleasant thought that tomorrow they might be able to eat a little more and even smoke.

Single metering

Camp labor, which Shalamov clearly defines as slave labor, is for the writer a form of the same corruption. The poor prisoner is not able to give the percentage, so labor becomes torture and slow death. Zek Dugaev is gradually weakening, unable to withstand a sixteen-hour working day. He drives, picks, pours, carries again and picks again, and in the evening the caretaker appears and measures what Dugaev has done with a tape measure. The mentioned figure - 25 percent - seems very high to Dugaev, his calves ache, his arms, shoulders, head hurt unbearably, he even lost the feeling of hunger. A little later, he is called to the investigator, who asks the usual questions: first name, last name, article, term. And a day later, the soldiers take Dugaev to a remote place, fenced high fence with barbed wire, from where you can hear the whirring of tractors at night. Dugaev realizes why he was brought here and that his life is over. And he only regrets that he suffered the last day in vain.

Sherry Brandy

A prisoner-poet, who was called the first Russian poet of the twentieth century, dies. It lies in the dark depths of the bottom row of solid two-story bunks. He takes a long time to die. Sometimes some thought comes - for example, that the bread he put under his head was stolen, and it’s so scary that he’s ready to swear, fight, search... But he no longer has the strength for this, and neither does the thought of bread weakens. When the daily ration is placed in his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to tear it and gnaw it with scurvy, loose teeth. When he dies, he is not written off for another two days, and inventive neighbors manage to distribute bread for the dead man as if for a living one: they make him raise his hand like a puppet doll.

Shock therapy

Prisoner Merzlyakov, a man of large build, finds himself in general labor and feels that he is gradually giving up. One day he falls, cannot get up immediately and refuses to drag the log. He is beaten first by his own people, then by his guards, and they bring him to the camp - he has a broken rib and pain in the lower back. And although the pain quickly passed and the rib has grown together, Merzlyakov continues to complain and pretends that he cannot straighten up, trying to at any cost delay your release to work. He is sent to the central hospital, to the surgical department, and from there to the nervous department for examination. He has a chance to be activated, that is, released due to illness. Remembering the mine, the pinching cold, the empty bowl of soup that he drank without even using a spoon, he concentrates all his will so as not to be caught in deception and sent to a penal mine. However, the doctor Pyotr Ivanovich, himself a former prisoner, was not a mistake. The professional replaces the human in him. Most He spends his time precisely on exposing malingerers. This pleases his pride: he is an excellent specialist and is proud that he has retained his qualifications, despite a year of general work. He immediately understands that Merzlyakov is a malingerer, and anticipates the theatrical effect of the new revelation. First, the doctor gives him Rausch anesthesia, during which Merzlyakov’s body can be straightened, and after another week the procedure of so-called shock therapy, the effect of which is similar to an attack of violent madness or an epileptic seizure. After this, the prisoner himself asks to be discharged.

Typhoid quarantine

Prisoner Andreev, having fallen ill with typhus, is quarantined. Compared to general work in the mines, the patient's position gives a chance to survive, which the hero almost no longer hoped for. And then he decides, by hook or by crook, to stay here as long as possible, in the transit train, and then, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the gold mines, where there is hunger, beatings and death. At the roll call before the next sending to work of those who are considered recovered, Andreev does not respond, and thus he manages to hide for quite a long time. The transit is gradually emptying, and Andreev’s turn finally reaches. But now it seems to him that he has won his battle for life, that now the taiga is saturated and if there are any dispatches, it will be only for short-term, local business trips. However, when a truck with a selected group of prisoners who were unexpectedly given winter uniforms passes the line separating short-term missions from long-distance ones, he realizes with an internal shudder that fate has cruelly laughed at him.

Aortic aneurysm

Illness (and the emaciated state of the “gone” prisoners is quite equivalent to a serious illness, although it was not officially considered such) and the hospital are an indispensable attribute of the plot in Shalamov’s stories. Prisoner Ekaterina Glovatskaya is admitted to the hospital. A beauty, she immediately attracted the attention of the doctor on duty Zaitsev, and although he knows that she is on close terms with his acquaintance, the prisoner Podshivalov, the head of an amateur art group (“the serf theater,” as the head of the hospital jokes), nothing prevents him in turn try your luck. He begins, as usual, with a medical examination of Glowacka, with listening to the heart, but his male interest quickly gives way to purely medical concern. He finds that Glowacka has an aortic aneurysm, a disease in which any careless movement can cause death. The authorities, who have made it an unwritten rule to separate lovers, have already once sent Glovatskaya to a penal women's mine. And now, after the doctor’s report about the prisoner’s dangerous illness, the head of the hospital is sure that this is nothing more than the machinations of the same Podshivalov, trying to detain his mistress. Glovatskaya is discharged, but as soon as she is loaded into the car, what Dr. Zaitsev warned about happens - she dies.

The last battle of Major Pugachev

Among the heroes of Shalamov’s prose there are those who not only strive to survive at any cost, but are also able to intervene in the course of circumstances, stand up for themselves, even risking their lives. According to the author, after the war of 1941-1945. Prisoners who had fought and gone through the war began to arrive in the northeastern camps. German captivity. These are people of a different temperament, “with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and intelligence officers...” But most importantly, they had an instinct for freedom, which the war awakened in them. They shed their blood, sacrificed their lives, saw death face to face. They were not corrupted by camp slavery and were not yet exhausted to the point of losing strength and will. Their “fault” was that they were surrounded or captured. AND Major Pugachev, one of these not yet broken people, it is clear: “they were brought to death - to replace these living dead” whom they met in Soviet camps. Then the former major gathers equally determined and strong prisoners to match himself, ready to either die or become free. Their group included pilots, a reconnaissance officer, a paramedic, and a tankman. They realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they had nothing to lose. They've been preparing their escape all winter. Pugachev realized that only those who avoid general work could survive the winter and then escape. And the participants in the conspiracy, one after another, are promoted to servants: someone becomes a cook, someone a cult leader, someone who repairs weapons in the security detachment. But then spring comes, and with it the planned day.

At five o'clock in the morning there was a knock on the watch. The duty officer lets in the prisoner camp cook, who has come, as usual, to get the keys to the pantry. A minute later, the guard on duty finds himself strangled, and one of the prisoners changes into his uniform. The same thing happens to the other duty officer who returned a little later. Then everything goes according to Pugachev’s plan. The conspirators break into the premises of the security detachment and, having shot the duty officer, take possession of the weapon. Holding the suddenly awakened soldiers at gunpoint, they change into military uniforms and stock up on provisions. Having left the camp, they stop the truck on the highway, drop off the driver and continue the journey in the car until the gas runs out. After that they go into the taiga. At night - the first night of freedom after long months of captivity - Pugachev, waking up, remembers his escape from a German camp in 1944, crossing the front line, interrogation in a special department, being accused of espionage and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He also remembers the visits of General Vlasov’s emissaries to the German camp, who recruited Russian soldiers, convincing them that for Soviet power All of them, captured, are traitors to the Motherland. Pugachev did not believe them until he could see for himself. He looks lovingly at his sleeping comrades who believed in him and stretched out their hands to freedom; he knows that they are “the best, the most worthy of all.” And a little later a battle breaks out, the last hopeless battle between the fugitives and the soldiers surrounding them. Almost all of the fugitives die, except for one, seriously wounded, who is cured and then shot. Only Major Pugachev manages to escape, but he knows, hiding in the bear’s den, that they will find him anyway. He doesn't regret what he did. His last shot was at himself.

G. Vladimov

Verny Ruslan

Reads in 10–15 minutes.

Original - in 2-3 hours.

The watchdog Ruslan heard something howling outside all night and the lanterns swinging with a grinding sound. It calmed down only in the morning. The owner came and finally took him to work. But when the door opened, a white bright light suddenly poured into my eyes. Snow - that's what howled at night. And there was something else that made Ruslan wary. An extraordinary, unheard of silence hung over the world. The camp gates are wide open. The tower was completely destroyed - one spotlight was lying below, covered with snow, the other was hanging on the wire. The white sheepskin coat, the earflaps, and the black ribbed trunk, always turned down, had disappeared from her somewhere. And in the barracks, Ruslan felt it immediately, there was no one. The losses and destruction stunned Ruslan. They ran away, the dog realized, and rage overwhelmed him. Pulling on the leash, he dragged the owner out the gate - to catch up! The owner shouted angrily, then let go of the leash and waved his hand. “Look” - that’s how Ruslan understood him, but he didn’t feel any trace and was confused. The owner looked at him, curling his lips unkindly, then slowly pulled the machine gun from his shoulder. And Ruslan understood: that’s it! It’s just not clear why? But the owner knows better what to do. Ruslan waited obediently. Something prevented the owner from shooting, there was some rattling and clanging. Ruslan looked back and saw an approaching tractor. And then something completely incredible followed - the driver, who looked little like a camp inmate, got out of the tractor and spoke to the owner without fear, assertively and cheerfully: “Hey, Vologda, is it a pity that the service is over? I wouldn't touch the dog. I would leave it to us. The dog is dear." “Go ahead,” said the owner. “You talk a lot.” The owner did not stop the driver even when the tractor began to destroy the camp fence posts. Instead, the owner waved his hand at Ruslan: “Go away. And so that I don’t see you again.” Ruslan obeyed. He ran along the road to the village, at first in grave bewilderment, and then, suddenly realizing where and why he had been sent, at full speed.

...On the morning of the next day, the railway workers at the station observed a picture that would probably have amazed them if they had not known its real meaning. A dozen or two dogs gathered on the platform near the dead end, walked or sat on it, barking in unison at passing trains. The animals were beautiful, worthy to be admired from afar, no one dared to climb onto the platform, the local people knew that it would be much more difficult to get off it. The dogs were waiting for the prisoners, but they were not brought in either that day, or the next, or a week later, or two weeks later. And the number of them coming to the platform began to decrease. Ruslan also ran here every morning, but did not stay, but, having checked the guard, ran to the camp - here, he felt it, his master still remained. He ran to the camp alone. Other dogs gradually began to settle in in the village, violating their nature, agreeing to serve with new owners or stealing chickens, chasing cats. Ruslan endured hunger, but did not take food from strangers. His only food was field mice and snow. From constant hunger and pain in the stomach, his memory weakened, he began to turn into a mangy stray dog, but did not leave the service - every day he appeared on the platform, and then fled to the camp.

One day he smelled the owner here in the village. The smell led him to the station buffet. The owner was sitting at a table with some shabby little man. “You’re late, sergeant,” Shabby told him. “All of your soles have been washed out a long time ago.” - “I carried out the task, guarded the archive. Now you are all free and you think that they can’t reach you, but you are all listed in the archives. Just a little bit, and all of you will be back at once. Our time will come." The owner rejoiced at Ruslan: “This is where our state stands.” He held out the bread. But Ruslan didn’t take it. The owner got angry, spread mustard on the bread and ordered: “Take it!” Voices were heard around: “Don’t torture the dog, guard!” - “We need to wean him off. Otherwise, you are all compassionate, but you have no pity to kill anyone,” the owner snapped. Reluctantly unclenching his fangs, Ruslan took the bread and looked around to see where he could put it. But the owner slammed his jaws shut with force. The poison burned from the inside, the flame flared up in the belly. But even worse was the betrayal of the owner. From now on, the owner became his enemy. And so the very next day Ruslan responded to the call of the Shabby One and followed him. Both were satisfied, Shabby, considering that he had acquired true friend and the defender, and Ruslan, who nevertheless returned to his previous service - escorting a camp prisoner, albeit a former one.

Ruslan did not take food from his new owners - he supplemented his income by hunting in the forest. Ruslan continued to appear at the station every day. But I didn’t run to the camp anymore, only memories remained from the camp. Happy people are about service. And unpleasant ones. Let's talk about their dog rebellion. This is when, in terrible frosts, in which they usually did not work, a camp informer ran to the chief and said something, after which the Chief and all the authorities rushed to one of the barracks. “Go to work,” the Chief ordered. Barack did not comply. And then, on the orders of the Chief, the guards dragged a long gut from a fire pump to the barracks, water gushed from this gut, washing away the prisoners from their bunks with its pressure, breaking out the glass in the windows. People fell, covered with an icy crust. Ruslan felt his rage boil at the sight of a thick, living, moving intestine from which water was gushing. Ingus, their smartest dog, was ahead of him - he tightly grabbed his sleeve with his teeth and did not react to the shouts of the guards. Ingus was shot from a machine gun by the Chief. But all the other camp dogs were already tearing the hose with their teeth, and the authorities were powerless...

One day Ruslan decided to visit the camp, but what he saw there stunned him: not a trace remained of the barracks - huge, half-glazed buildings stood there. And no barbed wire, no towers. And everything was so stained with cement and fires that the smell of the camp was gone...

And finally Ruslan waited for his service. A train approached the platform, and crowds of people with backpacks began to get out of it, and these people, as in the old days, lined up in columns, and in front of them the bosses spoke, only Ruslan heard some unfamiliar words: construction site, plant. Finally the columns moved, and Ruslan began his service. The only unusual thing was the absence of guards with machine guns and the overly cheerful behavior of those walking in the column. Well, it’s okay, Ruslan thought, at first everyone is noisy, then they will calm down. And indeed, they began to subside. This is when camp dogs began to run towards the column from the alleys and streets and line up along the edges, accompanying those walking. And the views of the locals from the windows became gloomy. Those walking still didn’t fully understand what was happening, but they were wary. And the inevitable happened - someone tried to leave the column, and one of the dogs rushed at the intruder. There was a scream and a fight began. Maintaining order, Ruslan watched the formation and saw the unexpected: camp dogs began to jump out of the column and cowardly go into the neighboring streets. Ruslan rushed into battle. The fight turned out to be unexpectedly difficult. People refused to obey the dogs. They beat Ruslan with sacks, sticks, and poles broken out of the fence. Ruslan was furious. He jumped, aiming for the young boy's throat, but missed and immediately received a crushing blow. With a broken ridge, he fell silent on the ground. A person appeared, perhaps the only one from whom he would accept help. “Why did they break the ridge,” said Poterty. - That's it. We have to finish it off. I feel sorry for the dog." Ruslan still found the strength to jump and intercept the shovel raised to strike with his teeth. The people retreated, leaving Ruslan to die. He, perhaps, could still survive if he knew why. He, who honestly performed the service that people taught him, was severely punished by them. And Ruslan had no reason to live.

S. Zalygin

On the Irtysh

Reads in 5–10 minutes.

It was March nine hundred and thirty-one. In the village of Krutiye Luki, the windows of the collective farm office were burning until late - either the board was meeting, or the men were simply meeting and endlessly judging and fussing about their affairs. Spring was approaching. Sowing. Just today the collective farm barn was completely filled up - this is after the floor was raised in the barn of Alexander Udartsev. The conversation now revolved around how not to confuse seeds of different varieties. And suddenly someone shouted from the street: “We’re burning!” They rushed to the windows - the grain barn was burning... The whole village put it out. They covered the fire with snow and pulled out the grain. Stepan Chauzov was at work in the thick of it. They snatched as much as they could from the fire. But a lot burned - almost a quarter of what was prepared. Afterwards they started talking: “But it caught fire for a reason. It couldn’t happen on its own” - and they remembered Udartsev: where is he? And then his wife Olga came out: “He’s gone. Run away." - "How?" - “He said that he was dressed up for the city. He got ready and the horseman went somewhere.” - “Or maybe he’s already home? - asked Chauzov. “Let’s go have a look.” Only old Udartsev met them at the house: “Well, get out of here, you damned ones! - And with a crowbar he moved towards the men. “I’ll kill anyone!” The men jumped out, but Stepan did not move from his place. Olga Udartseva hung onto her father-in-law: “Dad, come to your senses!” The old man stopped, trembled, dropped the crowbar... “Come on, get everyone alive out of here,” Chauzov commanded and ran out into the street. - Knock the crown off the floor, guys! Place the bed on the other side! And... they piled on." The men leaned against the wall, pushed, and the house crawled downhill along the beds. The shutter flew open, something cracked - the house hovered over the ravine and fell down, crumbling. “It was a good house,” sighed Deputy Chairman Fofanov. “Where did it come from, our common life...”

The excited men did not leave, they met again in the office, and there was a conversation about what kind of life awaits them on the collective farm. “If the authorities continue to divide us into kulaks and the poor, then where will they stop,” reasoned Lame Nechai. After all, a man, he is initially the owner. Otherwise he is not a man. But the new government does not recognize the owners. How then to work on the ground? The worker has no use for this property. He works by beep. What about the peasant? And it turns out that any of us can be declared a fist.” Nechai said this and looked at Stepan, right? Stepan Chauzov was respected in the village - both for his thriftiness, and for his courage, and for smart head. But Stepan was silent, not just everyone. And upon returning home, Stepan discovered that his wife Klasha had settled Olga Udartseva and her children in their hut: “You ruined their house,” said the wife. “Are you really going to let the kids die?” And Olga and the children stayed with them until spring.

And the next day, Yegorka Gilev, one of the most unlucky peasants in the village, came into the hut: “I’m behind you, Stepan. The investigator has arrived and is waiting for you.” The investigator began sternly and assertively: “How and why was the house destroyed? Who was in charge? Was this an act of class struggle? No, Stepan decided, you can’t talk to this - what does he understand in our lives, besides the “class struggle”? And he answered the investigator’s questions evasively, so as not to harm any of his fellow villagers. It seems that he fought back, and there was nothing unnecessary in the paper that he signed. It would have been possible to continue to live normally, calmly, but then Chairman Pavel Pechura returned from the district and immediately came to Stepan with a serious conversation: “I used to think that collective farms were a rural matter. but no, they are doing them in the city. And how! And I realized that I was no good. Here, not only a peasant mind and experience are needed. Here you need a strong character, and most importantly, to be able to handle the new policy. I will be chairman until spring, and then I will leave. And, in my opinion, you are needed as chairman, Stepan. Think about it". A day later, Egorka Gilev showed up again. He looked around and said quietly: “Lyaksandra Udartsev is calling you today.” - "Like this?!" - “He is buried in my hut. He wants to talk to you. Maybe they, the runaways, want to get a guy like you to join them.” - “What should I do with them together? Against who? Against Fofanov? Against Pechura? Against Soviet power? I’m not an enemy to my children when she promises them life... But you should be beaten to death, Yegorka! So as not to incite me. People like you are the main source of harm!”

“And what kind of life is this,” Stepan was angry, “one day is not given for a peasant to catch his breath and take care of the housework. I should lock myself in the hut, say that I’m sick, and lie on the stove.” But Stepan went to the meeting. He already knew what the meeting would be about. In the Pechura region, he received a task - to increase crops. Where can I get the seeds? Should the last one left for food be taken to the collective farm?.. The people were in the hut-reading room - they couldn’t breathe. Koryakin himself came from the region. He was one of the Krutoluchenskys, but now he is no longer a man, but a boss. The speaker, an investigator, began to talk about justice, about social labor as the most correct thing: “Now the cars have arrived, but who can buy them? Only the rich. This means that we need to unite.” “Yes, a car is not a horse,” Stepan thought, “it really requires different management.” Finally it came to the seeds: “Conscious people, dedicated to our cause, I think, will set an example and from their personal reserves will replenish the collective farm’s seed fund.” But the men were silent. “I’ll give it a pound,” said Pechura. “And how many Chauzov will give?” - asked the speaker. Stepan stood up. I stood there for a while. I looked. “Not a grain!” - and sat down again. Here Koryakin raised his voice: “To feed your family and the wife of a class enemy with children, there is grain, but not for the collective farm?” - “That’s because there are more eaters.” - “So, no grain?” - “Not a single one...” The meeting ended. And that same night, a troika met to identify the kulaks. No matter how hard Pechura and the investigator defended Chauzov, Koryakin insisted: to be declared a fist and evicted with his family. “I sent Gilev to him to say that Udartsev supposedly wanted to meet with him, but even though he didn’t go to the meeting, he didn’t tell us anything. Clearly the enemy."

...And so Klashka packs up some junk for the long journey, Stepan says goodbye to the hut in which he grew up. “Where they take you, what they do with you is none of your business,” he reasons. “If you’re there, then grab hold of life again, of the sad land, of some kind of hut...” The lame Nechai came in a sheepskin coat, with a whip: “Are you ready, Styopa? I'll take you. We are neighbors. And friends." Pechura came running to say goodbye when the sleigh had already started moving. “And why is this price set for our, for the peasant truth? - Pechura asked Nechai. - And who will use it for future use? A?" Nechai did not answer.

Cruelty

Reads in 5–10 minutes.

Original - in 2-3 hours.

District Siberian town of Dudari. 20s The narration is told from the perspective of a participant in the events described, which he recalls many years later.

The author of the story, who is never mentioned by name in the story (hereinafter referred to as the Author), works in the criminal investigation department together with his friend Veniamin Malyshev, whose position is assistant chief for the secret operational unit. Both of them are very young - they are not yet twenty years old. The main task of the criminal investigation at the described time is after the end civil war- clear Dudarinsky district from bandits hiding in the taiga. Bandits kill rural activists, attack cooperatives, and try to recruit as many accomplices as possible into their ranks.

The provincial newspaper's own correspondent, Yakov Uzelkov, comes to Dudari, writing under the pseudonym Yakuz, a young man of seventeen to nineteen. Yakuz gives the impression of an educated man to Venka Malyshev and his friend, since he really likes to use sophisticated words in his speech, for example: philanthropist, exaltation, pessimism, familiarity, etc., but for some reason his friends did not immediately like him, and his They find correspondence devoted to the everyday life of the criminal investigation and written in an excessively florid style to be untrue.

Criminal investigation officers are conducting an operation to neutralize Ataman Klochkov’s gang. During the operation, Venka is wounded. Klochkov and several gang members were killed, and the rest were arrested. Venka interrogates one of the arrested, Lazar Baukin, and comes to the conclusion that Baukin, a hunter and tar smoker, fell among the bandits by accident. During interrogations, Venka talks for a long time with Baukin, learns the details of his life and clearly sympathizes with this arrested bandit, who also admitted that it was he who wounded Venka. Soon Lazar and two other arrested people escape from custody. Venka is stunned by the escape of his charge.

In a grocery store located not far from the criminal investigation department, a pretty young cashier appears, whom both friends really like, but they are shy and do not dare to get to know her. Soon they learn from Uzelkov that her name is Yulya Maltseva and he knows her - he goes to visit her, they talk, discuss the books they have read. Friends, envious of Uzelkov’s education, sign up for the library and, despite the lack of time, read a lot. They soon learn from a librarian friend that all of Uzelkov’s education was gleaned from the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia.

Meanwhile, in a remote area of ​​the Dudarinsky district, the Voevodsky corner, a gang of Konstantin Vorontsov - “the emperor of the entire taiga,” as he calls himself - appears. And the capture of the elusive Kostya Vorontsov becomes the most important problem for the criminal investigation department. Venka Malyshev goes to the Voevodsky Corner, and no one knows what he is doing there, not even his best friend.

In Venka's absence, the Author accidentally meets Yulia Maltseva and, when Venka returns from the Voevodsky corner, introduces him to her. Venka loves Yulia, but believes that he is not worth her: several years ago he met a woman and then fell ill. Although he was soon cured, he nevertheless believes that he must tell Yulia about this. Venka writes a letter in which he declares his love to Yulia and admits that he is oppressed. Venka drops the letter that same night in Mailbox, and the next morning, as part of a detachment of six people, he goes into the taiga to capture Kostya Vorontsov.

The detachment approaches the village where Kostya’s beloved woman, Klanka Zvyagina, lives. After the conventional sign, the squad approaches the house, where they find Lazar Baukin, as well as tied up Kostya and several members of his gang. The detachment returns to Dudari; on the way it is surrounded by mounted police, who arrest Lazar. The head of the criminal investigation department informs Venka that he has been nominated for a reward for organizing the operation to capture Kostya Vorontsov. Venka refuses the award, believing that he did not deserve it - it was Lazar, whom Venka convinced of the merits of Soviet power, who detained Kostya, and the fact that Lazar was imprisoned “for verification” is unfair: he himself wanted everything to be according to the law, so that he would be judged for what he is guilty of, but there is no point in checking him after what he did.

Venka is waiting for a letter from Yulia in response to the confession sent the day before. Uzelkov arrives and asks Venka to let him see Vorontsov. Venka refuses him this, and then Uzelkov says that Venka is a narrow-minded person, which he knew before: today he accidentally read his love letter - it was in the book that he gave to Yulia to read.

That same evening, Venka commits suicide with a shot to the temple, never having learned that Yulia did not give Uzelkov his letter, and he himself, in her absence, took away his book with the letter enclosed in it.

V. Rasputin

Deadline

Reads in 5–10 minutes.

Original - in 2-3 hours.

Old woman Anna lies motionless, without opening her eyes; it has almost frozen, but life still glimmers. The daughters understand this by raising a piece of a broken mirror to their lips. It fogs up, which means mom is still alive. However, Varvara, one of Anna’s daughters, believes it is possible to mourn, to “voice her back,” which she selflessly does first at the bedside, then at the table, “wherever it’s more convenient.” At this time, my daughter Lucy is sewing a funeral dress tailored in the city. The sewing machine chirps to the rhythm of Varvara’s sobs.

Anna is the mother of five children, two of her sons died, the first, born one for God, the other for the soar. Varvara came to say goodbye to her mother from the regional center, Lyusya and Ilya from nearby provincial towns.

Anna can't wait for Tanya from distant Kyiv. And next to her in the village was always her son Mikhail, along with his wife and daughter. Gathering around the old woman on the morning of the next day after her arrival, the children, seeing their mother revived, do not know how to react to her strange revival.

“Mikhail and Ilya, having brought vodka, now did not know what to do: everything else seemed trivial to them in comparison, they toiled, as if passing through every minute.” Huddled in the barn, they get drunk with almost no snacks, except for the food that Mikhail’s little daughter Ninka carries for them. This causes legitimate female anger, but the first glasses of vodka give men a feeling of genuine celebration. After all, the mother is alive. Ignoring the girl collecting empty and unfinished bottles, they no longer understand what thought they want to drown out this time, maybe it’s fear. “The fear from the knowledge that the mother is about to die is not like all the previous fears that befall them in life, because this fear is the most terrible, it comes from death... It seemed that death had already noticed them all in the face and would no longer will forget."

Having gotten thoroughly drunk and feeling the next day “as if they had been put through a meat grinder,” Mikhail and Ilya are thoroughly hungover the next day. “How can you not drink? - says Mikhail. - Day, two, even a week - it’s still possible. What if you don’t drink at all until your death? Just think, there is nothing ahead. It's all the same thing. There are so many ropes that hold us both at work and at home that we can’t groan, there’s so much you should have done and didn’t do, you should, should, should, should, and the further you go, the more you should - let it all go to waste. And he drank, as soon as he was released, he did everything that was necessary. And what he didn’t do, he shouldn’t have done, and he did the right thing in what he didn’t do.” This does not mean that Mikhail and Ilya do not know how to work and have never known any other joy than from drunkenness. In the village where they all once lived together, there was a common work - “friendly, inveterate, loud, with a discord of saws and axes, with the desperate hooting of fallen timber, echoing in the soul with enthusiastic anxiety with the obligatory banter with each other. Such work happens once during the firewood harvesting season - in the spring, so that the yellow pine logs with thin silky skin, pleasant to the eye, have time to dry over the summer, are placed in neat woodpiles.” These Sundays are organized for oneself, one family helps another, which is still possible. But the collective farm in the village is falling apart, people are leaving for the city, there is no one to feed and raise livestock.

Remembering her former life, the city dweller Lyusya with great warmth and joy imagines her beloved horse Igrenka, on which “slam a mosquito, he will fall down,” which in the end happened: the horse died. Igren carried a lot, but couldn’t handle it. Wandering around the village through the fields and arable land, Lucy realizes that she does not choose where to go, that she is being guided by some outsider who lives in these places and professes her power. ...It seemed that life had returned back, because she, Lucy, had forgotten something here, had lost something very valuable and necessary for her, without which she could not...

While the children drink and indulge in memories, the old woman Anna, having eaten the children's semolina porridge specially cooked for her, cheers up even more and goes out onto the porch. She is visited by her long-awaited friend Mironikha. “Ochi-mochi! Are you, old lady, alive? - says Mironikha. “Why doesn’t death take you?.. I’m going to her funeral, I think she was kind enough to console me, but she’s still a tut.”

Anna grieves that among the children gathered at her bedside there is no Tatyana, Tanchora, as she calls her. Tanchora was not like any of the sisters. She stood, as it were, between them with her special character, soft and joyful, human. Without waiting for her daughter, the old woman decides to die. “She had nothing more to do in this world and there was no point in postponing death. While the guys are here, let them bury them, carry them out as is customary among people, so that they don’t have to return to this concern another time. Then, you see, Tanchora will come too... The old woman thought about death many times and knew it as herself. Behind last years they became friends, the old woman often talked to her, and death, sitting somewhere on the side, listened to her reasonable whisper and sighed knowingly. They agreed that the old woman would go away at night, first fall asleep, like all people, so as not to frighten death with open eyes, then she will quietly snuggle, take away her short worldly sleep and give her eternal peace.” This is how it all turns out.

V. Rasputin

Live and remember

Reads in 5–10 minutes.

Original - in 3-4 hours.

It so happened that during the last war year, he secretly returned from the war to a distant village on the Angara. local Andrey Guskov. The deserter does not think that he will be greeted with open arms in his father’s house, but he believes in his wife’s understanding and is not deceived. His wife Nastena, although she is afraid to admit it to herself, instinctively understands that her husband has returned, and there are several signs for him. Does she love him? Nastena did not marry for love, her four years of marriage were not so happy, but she is very devoted to her man, because, having been left without parents early, for the first time in her life she found protection and reliability in his house. “They came to an agreement quickly: Nastena was also spurred on by the fact that she was tired of living with her aunt as a worker and bending her back on someone else’s family...”

Nastena threw herself into marriage like water - without any extra thought: she’ll have to get out anyway, few people can do without it - why wait? And she had little idea what awaited her in a new family and a strange village. But it turned out that from a working woman she became a working woman, only the yard was different, the farm was larger and the demand was stricter. “Maybe the attitude towards her in the new family would be better if she gave birth to a child, but there are no children.”

Childlessness forced Nastena to endure everything. Since childhood, she had heard that a hollow woman without children is no longer a woman, but only half a woman. So by the beginning of the war, nothing came of the efforts of Nastena and Andrei. Nastena considers herself to blame. “Only once, when Andrei, reproaching her, said something completely unbearable, she answered out of resentment that it was still unknown which of them was the reason - she or he, she had not tried other men. He beat her to a pulp." And when Andrei is taken to war, Nastena is even a little glad that she is left alone without children, not like in other families. Letters from the front from Andrei come regularly, then from the hospital, where he is wounded, too, maybe he will soon come on vacation; and suddenly there was no news for a long time, only one day the chairman of the village council and a policeman came into the hut and asked to see the correspondence. “Did he say anything else about himself?” - “No... What’s wrong with him? Where is he?" - “So we want to find out where he is.”

When in family bath The Guskovs’ ax disappears, only Nastena wonders if her husband has returned: “Who would think of a stranger to look under the floorboard?” And just in case, she leaves bread in the bathhouse, and one day she even heats the bathhouse and meets someone in it whom she expects to see. The return of her husband becomes her secret and is perceived by her as a cross. “Nastena believed that in Andrei’s fate since he left home, in some way there was her participation, she believed and was afraid that she probably lived for herself alone, so she waited: here, Nastena, take it "Don't show it to anyone."

She readily comes to her husband’s aid, is ready to lie and steal for him, is ready to take the blame for a crime for which she is not guilty. In marriage you have to accept both the bad and the good: “You and I agreed to live together. When everything is good, it’s easy to be together, when everything is bad - that’s why people come together.”

Nastena's soul is filled with enthusiasm and courage - to fulfill her wifely duty to the end, she selflessly helps her husband, especially when she realizes that she is carrying his child under her heart. Meetings with her husband in the winter hut across the river, long mournful conversations about the hopelessness of their situation, hard work at home, insincerity settled in relations with the villagers - Nastena is ready for anything, realizing the inevitability of her fate. And although love for her husband is more of a duty for her, she pulls her life’s burden with remarkable masculine strength.

Andrei is not a murderer, not a traitor, but just a deserter who escaped from the hospital, from where, without proper treatment, they were going to send him to the front. Set to go on vacation after being away from home for four years, he can't resist the idea of ​​returning. How village man, neither urban nor military, he is already in the hospital and finds himself in a situation from which the only salvation is escape. This is how everything turned out for him, it could have turned out differently if he had been more steady on his feet, but the reality is that in the world, in his village, in his country there will be no forgiveness for him. Having realized this, he wants to delay until the last minute, without thinking about his parents, his wife, and especially about his future child. The deeply personal thing that connects Nastena with Andrey conflicts with their way of life. Nastena cannot raise her eyes to those women who are receiving funerals, she cannot rejoice as she would have rejoiced before when the neighboring men returned from the war. At a village celebration of the victory, she remembers Andrei with unexpected anger: “Because of him, because of him, she does not have the right, like everyone else, to rejoice in the victory.” The runaway husband posed a difficult and insoluble question to Nastena: who should she be with? She condemns Andrei, especially now, when the war is ending and when it seems that he would have remained alive and unharmed, like everyone who survived, but, condemning him at times to the point of anger, hatred and despair, she retreats in despair: yes after all, she is his wife. And if so, you must either completely abandon him, jumping onto the fence like a rooster: I am not me and the fault is not mine, or go with him to the end. At least on the chopping block. It is not without reason that it is said: whoever marries whom will be born into that one.

Noticing Nastena's pregnancy, her former friends begin to laugh at her, and her mother-in-law completely kicks her out of the house. “It was not easy to endlessly withstand the grasping and judgmental glances of people - curious, suspicious, angry.” Forced to hide her feelings, to restrain them, Nastena is increasingly exhausted, her fearlessness turns into risk, into feelings wasted in vain. It is they who push her to suicide, drag her into the waters of the Angara, shimmering as if from an eerie and beautiful fairy tale river: “She’s tired. If anyone knew how tired she is and how much she wants to rest.”

V. Rasputin

Farewell to Matera

Reads in 5–10 minutes.

Original - in 2-3 hours.

Standing for three hundred extra years on the banks of the Angara, Matera has seen everything in her 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 carried the prisoners across the water and, seeing the inhabited shore right at their nose, they also rowed towards it: they lit fires, cooked fish soup from fish caught right there; For two full days the battle rumbled here between the Kolchakites, who occupied the island, and the partisans, who went in boats to attack from both banks.” Matera has its own church on a high bank, but it has long been converted into a warehouse, there is a mill and an “airport” on an old pasture: twice a week people fly to the city.

But then one day they begin to build a dam for a power plant further down the Angara, and it becomes clear that many surrounding villages, and primarily the island of Matera, will be flooded. “Even if you put five of these islands on top of each other, it will still be completely flooded and you won’t be able to show where people settled there. We'll have to move." The small population of Matera and those associated with the city have relatives there, and those who are not connected with it in any way think about the “end of the world.” No amount of persuasion, explanation or appeal to common sense can force people to easily leave their habitable place. Here is the memory of our ancestors (the cemetery), and familiar and comfortable walls, and a familiar way of life, which, like a mitten from your hand, you cannot take off. Everything that was desperately needed here will not be needed in the city. “Grips, frying pans, kneading bowls, whorls, cast irons, tues, bowls, tubs, tubs, lagoons, tongs, crosses... And also: pitchforks, shovels, rakes, saws, axes (only one of the four axes was taken), a sharpener, an iron stove , cart, sled... And also: traps, loops, wicker snouts, skis, other hunting and fishing gear, all kinds of craftsman's tools. Why go through all this? Why execute the heart?” Of course, there is cold and hot water in the city, but there are so many inconveniences that you can’t count them, and most importantly, out of habit, it must become very dreary. Light air, open spaces, the noise of the Angara, tea drinking from samovars, leisurely conversations at a long table - there is no substitute for this. And burying in memory is not the same as burying in the ground. Those who were in the least hurry to leave Matera, weak, lonely old women, witness how the village is set on fire at one end. “As never before, the motionless faces of the old women in the light of the fire seemed molded, waxen; long ugly shadows jumped and wriggled.” In this situation, “people forgot that each of them was not alone, they lost each other, and there was no need for each other now. It’s always like this: during an unpleasant, shameful event, no matter how many people are together, everyone tries, without noticing anyone, to remain alone - it’s easier to free yourself from shame later. In their hearts they felt bad, embarrassed that they were standing motionless, that they didn’t try at all, when it was still possible, there was no point in trying to save the hut. The same will happen with other huts.” When, after a fire, women judge and decide whether such a fire happened on purpose or by accident, then the opinion is formed: by accident. No one wants to believe in such extravagance that the owner himself set fire to a good (“Christ-like”) house. Parting with her hut, Daria not only sweeps and tidies it up, but also whitewashes it, as if for the future happy life. She is terribly upset that she forgot to grease it somewhere. Nastasya is worried about the runaway cat, which will not be allowed on the transport, and asks Daria to feed it, not thinking that soon the neighbor will leave from here completely. And cats, and dogs, and every object, and huts, and the whole village are as if alive for those who have lived in them all their lives from birth. And since you have to leave, you need to tidy everything up, just as they clean up for the send-off of a dead person. And although rituals and the church exist separately for the generation of Daria and Nastasya, the rituals are not forgotten and exist in the souls of saints and immaculates.

The women are afraid that before the flooding, a sanitary brigade will arrive and raze the village cemetery to the ground. Daria, an old woman with a character under whose protection all the weak and suffering gather, organizes the offended and tries to speak out against. She does not limit herself only to cursing the heads of offenders, calling on God, but also directly enters into battle, armed with a stick. Daria is decisive, militant, assertive. Many people in her place would have come to terms with the current situation, but not her. This is by no means a meek and passive old woman; she judges other people, and first of all her son Paul and her daughter-in-law. Daria is also strict towards the local youth, she not only scolds them for leaving the familiar world, but also threatens: “You will regret it.” It is Daria who most often turns to God: “Forgive us, Lord, that we are weak, forgetful and ruined in soul.” She really doesn’t want to part with the graves of her ancestors, and, turning to her father’s grave, she calls herself “stupid.” She believes that when she dies, all her relatives will gather to judge her. “It seemed to her that she could see them clearly, standing in a huge wedge, spreading out in a formation that had no end, all with gloomy, stern and questioning faces.”

Not only Daria and the other old women feel dissatisfaction with what is happening. “I understand,” says Pavel, “that without technology, without the biggest technology, we can’t do anything today and we can’t go anywhere. Everyone understands this, but how to understand, how to recognize what was done to the village? Why did they demand that the people who live here work in vain? You can, of course, not ask these questions, but live as you live, and swim as you swim, but that’s what I’m involved in: to know what costs and what’s for what, to get to the bottom of the truth yourself. That’s why you’re a human.”

A. Solzhenitsyn

Matryonin yard

Reads in 4 minutes.

Original - in 30−30 minutes.

In the summer of 1956, at the one hundred and eighty-fourth kilometer from Moscow, a passenger gets off along the railway line to Murom and Kazan. This is the narrator, whose fate resembles the fate of Solzhenitsyn himself (he fought, but from the front he was “delayed in returning for ten years,” that is, he served in a camp, which is also evidenced by the fact that when the narrator got a job, every letter in his documents were “groped”). He dreams of working as a teacher in the depths of Russia, away from urban civilization. But it was not possible to live in a village with the wonderful name Vysokoye Polye, because they did not bake bread there and did not sell anything edible. And then he is transferred to a village with a monstrous name for his ears, Torfoprodukt. However, it turns out that “not everything is about peat mining” and there are also villages with the names Chaslitsy, Ovintsy, Spudny, Shevertny, Shestimirovo...

This reconciles the narrator with his lot, for it promises him “a bad Russia.” He settles in one of the villages called Talnovo. The owner of the hut in which the narrator lives is called Matryona Vasilyevna Grigorieva or simply Matryona.

Matryona's fate, about which she does not immediately, not considering it interesting for a “cultured” person, sometimes tells the guest in the evenings, fascinates and at the same time stuns him. He sees a special meaning in her fate, which Matryona’s fellow villagers and relatives do not notice. My husband went missing at the beginning of the war. He loved Matryona and did not beat her, like the village husbands of their wives. But it’s unlikely that Matryona herself loved him. She was supposed to marry her husband's older brother, Thaddeus. However, he went to the front in the First World War and disappeared. Matryona was waiting for him, but in the end, at the insistence of Thaddeus’s family, she married her younger brother, Efim. And then Thaddeus, who was in Hungarian captivity, suddenly returned. According to him, he did not hack Matryona and her husband to death with an ax only because Efim is his brother. Thaddeus loved Matryona so much that new bride I found one for myself with the same name. The “second Matryona” gave birth to six children to Thaddeus, but all the children from Efim (also six) of the “first Matryona” died without even living for three months. The whole village decided that Matryona was “corrupted,” and she herself believed it. Then she took in the daughter of the “second Matryona”, Kira, and raised her for ten years, until she got married and left for the village of Cherusti.

Matryona lived all her life as if not for herself. She constantly works for someone: for the collective farm, for her neighbors, while doing “peasant” work, and never asks for money for it. Matryona has enormous inner strength. For example, she is able to stop a running horse, which men cannot stop.

Gradually, the narrator understands that it is precisely on people like Matryona, who give themselves to others without reserve, that the entire village and the entire Russian land still hold together. But he is hardly pleased with this discovery. If Russia rests only on selfless old women, what will happen to it next?

Hence the absurdly tragic end of the story. Matryona dies while helping Thaddeus and his sons drag part of their own hut, bequeathed to Kira, across the railroad on a sleigh. Thaddeus did not want to wait for Matryona’s death and decided to take away the inheritance for the young people during her lifetime. Thus, he unwittingly provoked her death. When relatives bury Matryona, they cry out of obligation rather than from the heart, and think only about the final division of Matryona’s property.

Thaddeus doesn't even come to the wake.

A. Solzhenitsyn

One day of Ivan Denisovich

Reads in 5–10 minutes.

Original - in 80−110 minutes.

Peasant and front-line soldier Ivan Denisovich Shukhov turned out to be a “state criminal”, a “spy” and ended up in one of Stalin’s camps, like millions of Soviet people, convicted without guilt during the “cult of personality” and mass repressions. He left home on June 23, 1941, on the second day after the start of the war with Nazi Germany, “... in February of '42, their entire army was surrounded on the North-Western [Front], and they didn’t throw anything from the planes for them to eat, and there were no planes. They went so far as to cut the hooves off dead horses, soak that cornea in water and eat it,” that is, the command of the Red Army abandoned its soldiers to die surrounded. Together with a group of fighters, Shukhov found himself in German captivity, fled from the Germans and miraculously reached his own. A careless story about how he was in captivity led him to a Soviet concentration camp, since the state security authorities indiscriminately considered all those who escaped from captivity to be spies and saboteurs.

The second part of Shukhov’s memories and reflections during long camp labors and a short rest in the barracks relates to his life in the village. From the fact that his relatives do not send him food (he himself refused the parcels in a letter to his wife), we understand that they are starving in the village no less than in the camp. The wife writes to Shukhov that collective farmers make a living by painting fake carpets and selling them to townspeople.

If we leave aside flashbacks and random information about life outside the barbed wire, the entire story takes exactly one day. In this short period of time, a panorama of camp life unfolds before us, a kind of “encyclopedia” of life in the camp.

First of all, a whole gallery social types and at the same time, bright human characters: Caesar is a metropolitan intellectual, a former film figure, who, however, even in the camp leads a “lordly” life compared to Shukhov: he receives food parcels, enjoys some benefits during work; Kavtorang - a repressed naval officer; an old convict who had been in tsarist prisons and hard labor (the old revolutionary guard, who had not found common language with the policies of Bolshevism in the 30s); Estonians and Latvians are the so-called “bourgeois nationalists”; Baptist Alyosha is an exponent of the thoughts and way of life of a very heterogeneous religious Russia; Gopchik is a sixteen-year-old teenager whose fate shows that repression did not distinguish between children and adults. And Shukhov himself is a typical representative of the Russian peasantry with his special business acumen and organic way of thinking. Against the background of these people who suffered from repression, a different figure emerges - the head of the regime, Volkov, who regulates the lives of prisoners and, as it were, symbolizes the merciless communist regime.

Secondly, a detailed picture of camp life and work. Life in the camp remains life with its visible and invisible passions and subtle experiences. They are mainly related to the problem of getting food. They are fed little and poorly with terrible gruel with frozen cabbage and small fish. A kind of art of life in the camp is to get yourself an extra ration of bread and an extra bowl of gruel, and if you're lucky, a little tobacco. For this, one has to resort to the greatest tricks, currying favor with “authorities” like Caesar and others. At the same time, it is important to preserve your human dignity, not to become a “descended” beggar, like, for example, Fetyukov (however, there are few of them in the camp). This is important not even for lofty reasons, but out of necessity: a “descended” person loses the will to live and will certainly die. Thus, the question of preserving the human image within oneself becomes a question of survival. The second vital issue is the attitude towards forced labor. Prisoners, especially in winter, work hard, almost competing with each other and team with team, in order not to freeze and in a way “shorten” the time from overnight to overnight, from feeding to feeding. The terrible system of collective labor is built on this incentive. But nevertheless, it does not completely destroy the natural joy of physical labor in people: the scene of the construction of a house by the team where Shukhov works is one of the most inspired in the story. The ability to work “correctly” (without overexerting, but also without shirking), as well as the ability to get extra rations for yourself, is also high art. As well as the ability to hide from the eyes of the guards a piece of saw that turns up, from which the camp craftsmen make miniature knives for exchange for food, tobacco, warm things... In relation to the guards who are constantly conducting “shmons”, Shukhov and the rest of the Prisoners are in the position of wild animals: they must be more cunning and dexterous than armed people who have the right to punish them and even shoot them for deviating from the camp regime. Deceiving the guards and camp authorities is also a high art.

The day the hero talks about was, in his opinion, own opinion, successful - “they didn’t put him in a punishment cell, they didn’t kick out the brigade to Sotsgorodok (working in a bare field in winter - editor’s note), at lunch he made porridge (received an extra portion - editor’s note), the foreman closed the interest well (evaluation system camp labor - editor's note), Shukhov laid the wall cheerfully, didn't get caught with a hacksaw on a search, worked in the evening at Caesar's and bought tobacco. And he didn’t get sick, he got over it. The day passed, unclouded, almost happy. There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days in his period from bell to bell. Because of leap years- three extra days were added...”

At the end of the story, a brief dictionary of criminal expressions and specific camp terms and abbreviations that appear in the text is given.

A. Solzhenitsyn

Gulag Archipelago

Reads in an hour.

Original - 24-25 hours.

The plot of V. Shalamov’s stories is a painful description of the prison and camp life of prisoners of the Soviet Gulag, how they are similar to each other tragic destinies, in which chance, merciless or merciful, assistant or murderer, the arbitrariness of bosses and thieves rule. Hunger and its convulsive saturation, exhaustion, painful dying, slow and almost equally painful recovery, moral humiliation and moral degradation - this is what is constantly in the focus of the writer’s attention.

FUTURE WORD The author recalls the names of his camp comrades. Evoking the mournful martyrology, he tells who died and how, who suffered and how, who hoped for what, who and how behaved in this Auschwitz without ovens, as Shalamov called the Kolyma camps. Few managed to survive, few managed to survive and remain morally unbroken. THE LIFE OF ENGINEER KIPREEV Having not betrayed or sold out anyone, the author says that he has developed for himself a formula for the active defense of his existence: a person can only consider himself human and survive if at any moment he is ready to commit suicide, ready to die. However, later he realizes that he only built himself a comfortable shelter, because it is unknown what you will be like at the decisive moment, whether you simply have enough physical strength, and not just mental strength. Engineer-physicist Kipreev, arrested in 1938, not only withstood a beating during interrogation, but even rushed at the investigator, after which he was put in a punishment cell. However, they still force him to sign false testimony, threatening him with the arrest of his wife. Nevertheless, Kipreev continued to prove to himself and others that he was a man and not a slave, like all prisoners. Thanks to his talent (he invented a way to restore burnt-out light bulbs and repaired an X-ray machine), he manages to avoid the most difficult work, but not always. He miraculously survives, but the moral shock remains in him forever.

AT THE PRESENTATION Camp molestation, Shalamov testifies, affected everyone to a greater or lesser extent and occurred in a variety of forms. Two thieves are playing cards. One of them is lost to the nines and asks you to play for “representation”, that is, in debt. At some point, excited by the game, he unexpectedly orders an ordinary intellectual prisoner, who happened to be among the spectators of their game, to give him a woolen sweater. He refuses, and then one of the thieves “finishes” him, but the sweater still goes to the thug.

AT NIGHT Two prisoners sneak to the grave where the body of their dead comrade was buried in the morning, and remove the dead man’s underwear to sell or exchange for bread or tobacco the next day. The initial disgust at taking off their clothes gives way to the pleasant thought that tomorrow they might be able to eat a little more and even smoke.

SOLITARY MEASURING Camp labor, which Shalamov unambiguously defines as slave labor, is for the writer a form of the same corruption. The poor prisoner is not able to give the percentage, so labor becomes torture and slow death. Zek Dugaev is gradually weakening, unable to withstand a sixteen-hour working day. He drives, picks, pours, carries again and picks again, and in the evening the caretaker appears and measures what Dugaev has done with a tape measure. The mentioned figure - 25 percent - seems very high to Dugaev, his calves ache, his arms, shoulders, head hurt unbearably, he even lost the feeling of hunger. A little later, he is called to the investigator, who asks the usual questions: first name, last name, article, term. And a day later, the soldiers take Dugaev to a remote place, fenced with a high fence with barbed wire, from where the whirring of tractors can be heard at night. Dugaev realizes why he was brought here and that his life is over. And he only regrets that he suffered the last day in vain.

SHERRY BRANDY The prisoner-poet, who was called the first Russian poet of the twentieth century, dies. It lies in the dark depths of the bottom row of solid two-story bunks. He takes a long time to die. Sometimes some thought comes - for example, that the bread that he put under his head was stolen from him, and it is so scary that he is ready to swear, fight, search... But he no longer has the strength for this, and the thought of bread also weakens. When the daily ration is placed in his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to tear it and gnaw it with scurvy, loose teeth. When he dies, two more people do not write him off, and inventive neighbors manage to distribute bread for the dead man as if for a living one: they make him raise his hand like a puppet. SHOCK THERAPY Prisoner Merzlyakov, a man of large build, finds himself in general labor and feels that he is gradually giving in. One day he falls, cannot get up immediately and refuses to drag the log. He is beaten first by his own people, then by his guards, and they bring him to the camp - he has a broken rib and pain in the lower back. And although the pain quickly passed and the rib has healed, Merzlyakov continues to complain and pretends that he cannot straighten up, trying to delay his discharge to work at any cost. He is sent to the central hospital, to the surgical department, and from there to the nervous department for examination. He has a chance to be activated, that is, released due to illness. Remembering the mine, the pinching cold, the empty bowl of soup that he drank without even using a spoon, he concentrates all his will so as not to be caught in deception and sent to a penal mine. However, the doctor Pyotr Ivanovich, himself a former prisoner, was not a mistake. The professional replaces the human in him. He spends most of his time exposing malingerers. This pleases his pride: he is an excellent specialist and is proud that he has retained his qualifications, despite a year of general work. He immediately understands that Merzlyakov is a malingerer, and anticipates the theatrical effect of the new revelation. First, the doctor gives him Rausch anesthesia, during which Merzlyakov’s body can be straightened, and a week later the so-called procedure shock therapy, the effect of which is similar to an attack of violent madness or an epileptic fit. After this, the prisoner himself asks to be discharged.

TYPHUS QUARANTINE Prisoner Andreev, having fallen ill with typhus, is placed in quarantine. Compared to general work in the mines, the patient's position gives a chance to survive, which the hero almost no longer hoped for. And then he decides, by hook or by crook, to stay here as long as possible, in the transit train, and then, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the gold mines, where there is hunger, beatings and death. At the roll call before the next sending to work of those who are considered recovered, Andreev does not respond, and thus he manages to hide for quite a long time. The transit is gradually emptying, and Andreev’s turn finally reaches. But now it seems to him that he has won his battle for life, that now the taiga is saturated and if there are any dispatches, it will be only for short-term, local business trips. However, when a truck with a selected group of prisoners who were unexpectedly given winter uniforms passes the line separating short-term missions from long-distance ones, he realizes with an internal shudder that fate has cruelly laughed at him.

AORTIC ANEURYSM Disease (and the emaciated state of the “gone” prisoners is quite equivalent to a serious illness, although it was not officially considered as such) and the hospital are an indispensable attribute of the plot in Shalamov’s stories. Prisoner Ekaterina Glovatskaya is admitted to the hospital. A beauty, the doctor on duty Zaitsev immediately liked her, and although he knows that she is on close terms with his friend, the prisoner Podshivalov, the head of the circle amateur performances, (“the serf theater,” as the head of the hospital jokes), nothing prevents him, in turn, from trying his luck. He begins, as usual, with a medical examination of Glowacka, with listening to the heart, but his male interest quickly gives way to purely medical concern. He finds that Glowacka has an aortic aneurysm, a disease in which any careless movement can cause death. The authorities, who have made it an unwritten rule to separate lovers, have already once sent Glovatskaya to a penal women's mine. And now, after the doctor’s report about the prisoner’s dangerous illness, the head of the hospital is sure that this is nothing more than the machinations of the same Podshivalov, trying to detain his mistress. Glovatskaya is discharged, but as soon as she is loaded into the car, what Dr. Zaitsev warned about happens - she dies.

THE LAST BATTLE OF MAJOR PUGACHEV Among the heroes of Shalamov’s prose there are those who not only strive to survive at any cost, but are also able to intervene in the course of circumstances, stand up for themselves, even risking their lives. According to the author, after the war of 1941-1945. Prisoners who fought and were captured by Germans began to arrive in the northeastern camps. These are people of a different temperament, “with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and intelligence officers..." But most importantly, they had an instinct for freedom, which the war awakened in them. They shed their blood, sacrificed their lives, saw death face to face. They were not corrupted by camp slavery and were not yet exhausted to the point of losing strength and will. Their “fault” was that they were surrounded or captured. It is clear to Imajor Pugachev, one of these not yet broken people: “they were brought to death - to replace these living dead” whom they met in Soviet camps. Then the former major gathers equally determined and strong prisoners to match himself, ready to either die or become free. Their group included pilots, a reconnaissance officer, a paramedic, and a tankman. They realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they had nothing to lose. They've been preparing their escape all winter. Pugachev realized that only those who avoid general work could survive the winter and then escape. And the participants in the conspiracy, one after another, are promoted to servants: someone becomes a cook, someone a cult leader, someone who repairs weapons in the security detachment. But then spring comes, and with it the planned day.

At five o'clock in the morning there was a knock on the watch. The duty officer lets in the prisoner camp cook, who has come, as usual, to get the keys to the pantry. A minute later, the guard on duty finds himself strangled, and one of the prisoners changes into his uniform. The same thing happens to the other duty officer who returned a little later. Then everything goes according to Pugachev’s plan. The conspirators break into the premises of the security detachment and, having shot the duty officer, take possession of the weapon. Holding the suddenly awakened soldiers at gunpoint, they change into military uniforms and stock up on provisions. Having left the camp, they stop the truck on the highway, drop off the driver and continue the journey in the car until the gas runs out. After that they will go to the taiga. At night - the first night of freedom after long months of captivity - Pugachev, waking up, remembers his escape from a German camp in 1944, crossing the front line, interrogation in a special department, being accused of espionage and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He also remembers the visits of General Vlasov’s emissaries to the German camp, recruiting Russian soldiers, convincing them that for the Soviet regime, all of them who were captured were traitors to the Motherland. Pugachev did not believe them until he could see for himself. He looks lovingly at his sleeping comrades who believed in him and stretched out their hands to freedom; he knows that they are “the best of all, the most worthy of all*. And a little later a battle breaks out, the last hopeless battle between the fugitives and the soldiers surrounding them. Almost all of the fugitives die, except for one, seriously wounded, who is cured and then shot. Only Major Pugachev manages to escape, but he knows, hiding in the bear’s den, that they will find him anyway. He doesn't regret what he did. His last shot was at himself.

SINGLE METERING

Camp labor, which Shalamov clearly defines as slave labor, is for the writer a form of the same corruption. The living prisoner is not able to give the percentage norm, so labor becomes torture and slow death. Zek Dugaev is gradually weakening, unable to withstand a sixteen-hour working day. He drives, picks, pours, carries again and picks again, and in the evening the caretaker appears and measures what Dugaev has done with a tape measure. The mentioned figure - 25 percent - seems very high to Dugaev, his calves ache, his arms, shoulders, head hurt unbearably, he even lost the feeling of hunger. A little later, he is called to the investigator, who asks the usual questions: first name, last name, article, term. And a day later, the soldiers take Dugaev to a remote place, fenced with a high fence with barbed wire, from where the whirring of tractors can be heard at night. Dugaev realizes why he was brought here and that his life is over. And he only regrets that he suffered the last day in vain.

SHERRY BRANDY

A prisoner poet, who was called the first Russian poet of the twentieth century, dies. It lies in the dark depths of the bottom row of solid two-story bunks. He takes a long time to die. Sometimes some thought comes - for example, that his bread, which he put under his head, was stolen, and it is so scary that he is ready to swear, fight, search... But he no longer has the strength for this, and neither does the thought of bread weakens. When the daily ration is placed in his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to tear it and gnaw it with scurvy, loose teeth. When he dies, two more people do not write him off, and the inventive neighbors manage to distribute bread for the dead man as if for a living one: they make him, like a puppet, raise his hand.

SHOCK THERAPY

Prisoner Merzlyakov, a man of large build, finds himself in general labor and feels that he is gradually giving up. One day he falls, cannot get up immediately and refuses to drag the log. He is beaten first by his own people, then by his guards, and they bring him to the camp - he has a broken rib and pain in the lower back. And although the pain quickly passed and the rib has healed, Merzlyakov continues to complain and pretends that he cannot straighten up, trying to delay his discharge to work at any cost. He is sent to the central hospital, to the surgical department, and from there to the nervous department for examination. He has a chance to be activated, that is, released due to illness. Remembering the mine, the pinching cold, the empty bowl of soup that he drank without even using a spoon, he concentrates all his will so as not to be caught in deception and sent to a penal mine. However, the doctor Pyotr Ivanovich, himself a former prisoner, was not a mistake. The professional replaces the human in him. He spends most of his time exposing malingerers. This pleases his pride: he is an excellent specialist and is proud that he has retained his qualifications, despite a year of general work. He immediately understands that Merzlyakov is a malingerer, and anticipates the theatrical effect of the new revelation. First, the doctor gives him raushnarcosis, during which Merzlyakov’s body can be straightened, and after another week the procedure of so-called shock therapy, the effect of which is similar to an attack of violent madness or an epileptic seizure. After this, the prisoner himself asks to be discharged.

TYPHUS QUARANTINE

Prisoner Andreev, having fallen ill with typhus, is quarantined. Compared to general work in the mines, the patient's position gives a chance to survive, which the hero almost no longer hoped for. And then he decides, by hook or by crook, to stay here as long as possible, in the transit train, and then, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the gold mines, where there is hunger, beatings and death. At the roll call before the next sending to work of those who are considered recovered, Andreev does not respond, and thus he manages to hide for quite a long time. The transit is gradually emptying, and Andreev’s turn finally reaches. But now it seems to him that he has won his battle for life, that now the taiga is saturated and if there are any dispatches, it will be only for short-term, local business trips. However, when a truck with a selected group of prisoners who were unexpectedly given winter uniforms passes the line separating short-term missions from long-distance ones, he realizes with an internal shudder that fate has cruelly laughed at him.

AORTIC ANEURYSM

Illness (and the emaciated state of the prisoners’ “goons” is quite equivalent to a serious illness, although it was not officially considered such) and the hospital are an indispensable attribute of the plot in Shalamov’s stories. Prisoner Ekaterina Glovatskaya is admitted to the hospital. A beauty, she immediately attracted the attention of the doctor on duty Zaitsev, and although he knows that she is on close terms with his acquaintance, the prisoner Podshivalov, the head of an amateur art group (“the serf theater,” as the head of the hospital jokes), nothing prevents him in turn try your luck. He begins, as usual, with a medical examination of Glowacka, with listening to the heart, but his male interest quickly gives way to purely medical concern. He finds that Glowacka has an aortic aneurysm, a disease in which any careless movement can cause death. The authorities, who have made it an unwritten rule to separate lovers, have already once sent Glovatskaya to a penal women's mine. And now, after the doctor’s report about the prisoner’s dangerous illness, the head of the hospital is sure that this is nothing more than the machinations of the same Podshivalov, trying to detain his mistress. Glovatskaya is discharged, but as soon as she is loaded into the car, what Dr. Zaitsev warned about happens - she dies.

MAJOR PUGACHEV'S LAST BATTLE

Among the heroes of Shalamov’s prose there are those who not only strive to survive at any cost, but are also able to intervene in the course of circumstances, stand up for themselves, even risking their lives. According to the author, after the war of 1941-1945. Prisoners who had fought and survived German captivity began to arrive in the northeastern camps. These are people of a different temperament, “with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and intelligence officers..." But most importantly, they had an instinct for freedom, which the war awakened in them. They shed their blood, sacrificed their lives, saw death face to face. They were not corrupted by camp slavery and were not yet exhausted to the point of losing strength and will. Their “fault” was that they were surrounded or captured. And Major Pugachev, one of these not yet broken people, is clear: “they were brought to their death - to replace these living dead” whom they met in Soviet camps. Then the former major gathers equally determined and strong prisoners to match himself, ready to either die or become free. Their group included pilots, a reconnaissance officer, a paramedic, and a tankman. They realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they had nothing to lose. They've been preparing their escape all winter. Pugachev realized that only those who avoid general work could survive the winter and then escape. And the participants in the conspiracy, one after another, are promoted to servants: someone becomes a cook, someone a cult leader, someone repairs weapons in the security detachment. But then spring comes, and with it the planned day.

At five o'clock in the morning there was a knock on the watch. The duty officer lets in the prisoner's camp cook, who has come, as usual, to get the keys to the pantry. A minute later, the guard on duty finds himself strangled, and one of the prisoners changes into his uniform. The same thing happens to the other duty officer who returned a little later. Then everything goes according to Pugachev’s plan. The conspirators break into the premises of the security detachment and, having shot the duty officer, take possession of the weapon. Holding the suddenly awakened soldiers at gunpoint, they change into military uniforms and stock up on provisions. Having left the camp, they stop the truck on the highway, drop off the driver and continue the journey in the car until the gas runs out. After that they will go to the taiga. At night - the first night of freedom after long months of captivity - Pugachev, waking up, remembers his escape from a German camp in 1944, crossing the front line, interrogation in a special department, being accused of espionage and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He also remembers the visits of General Vlasov’s emissaries to the German camp, recruiting Russian soldiers, convincing them that for the Soviet regime, all of them who were captured were traitors to the Motherland. Pugachev did not believe them until he could see for himself. He looks lovingly at his sleeping comrades who believed in him and stretched out their hands to freedom; he knows that they are “the best of all, the most worthy of all*. And a little later a battle breaks out, the last hopeless battle between the fugitives and the soldiers surrounding them. Almost all of the fugitives die, except for one, seriously wounded, who is cured and then shot. Only Major Pugachev manages to escape, but he knows, hiding in the bear’s den, that they will find him anyway. He doesn't regret what he did. His last shot was at himself.

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov 1907-1982

How do they build a road through virgin snow? At first a man is walking in calm weather, leaving your mark on untouched snow. 3 others follow him, but without stepping on his tracks. After reaching the end of the path, they turn back to make the road wide and suitable for transport. Everyone who follows the trail must step on at least a small piece of virgin soil. Only readers ride tractors and horses, writers pave the way.

To the show

Gathering at Naumov's horse-driver was the safest place. The guards on duty never looked there. That is why card fights between thieves took place here every night. That evening the cards were made from a volume by V. Hugo. Every criminal should be able to draw them. This distinguished those gathered from the rest of the prisoners. Sevochka had all the qualities of a thief.

His face was forgettable, his hands were white and non-working. The nail of the little finger seemed longer than all the others. He was a cheater. His opponent in the game was Naumov. Naumov’s side put a suit on the line, Sevochka’s side put up a thousand rubles and several worn jumpers. The narrator and Garkunov, who were sawing wood for the Naumov barracks, watched the game. Naumov lost his suit, but was not going to give up. They put a blanket on the line.

Having lost all his things, Naumov offered to play in debt. Having examined those sitting in the barracks, he beckoned the narrator to him, but, not finding valuable things on him, he sat him down. Garkunov was wearing a wool sweater, which the players liked. The partner’s resistance was quickly suppressed. The players, satisfied, dispersed. The narrator now had to look for a new partner to cut wood.

After dinner, Glebov and Bagretsov went to the mountain where the deceased had recently been buried. While throwing stones, Bagretsov injured himself, and Glebov suddenly remembered that he had once been a doctor. But that didn't matter now. Having taken off the deceased’s clothes, Glebov felt uncomfortable. Tomorrow they will be able to use the proceeds from the sale of linen to buy bread and some tobacco.

Carpenters

It had been -50 degrees below zero for two weeks now. Potashnikov could no longer endure this cold. While working, he could not warm up. A meager lunch and dinner did not help restore strength. Yesterday his neighbor died - he just didn’t wake up. Potashnikov realized that something needed to be done. But he couldn’t think in the cold. It seemed that my soul was frozen.

Now he tried to simply survive these cold days. He had a chance to become a foreman, but he did not take advantage of it: he did not want to destroy his comrades. The team was offered to work as carpenters, and only Potashnikov and Grigoriev agreed. It turned out that neither of them knew how to do carpentry. But they didn’t care, the main thing was that they would spend at least two days warm. Carpenter Arnstrem, having seen how the arriving prisoners worked, allowed them to warm themselves by the stove for two days. After the expiration of the period, the frost dropped to thirty degrees. Winter 3 was coming to an end.

Single metering

In the evening, the caretaker said that tomorrow twenty-three-year-old Dugaev would receive a single measurement. This news alarmed the foreman. After dinner, Dugaev wanted to smoke. Suddenly his partner Baranov handed him a cigarette. Dugaev knew that no one could be trusted here. The next morning, the caretaker himself put Dugaev at his workplace. By evening he had completed only twenty-five percent of the necessary work. He was sent for questioning to an investigator.

After answering four standard questions: first name, last name, article, term, he went to the barracks and fell asleep. The next day, Bugaev again worked with his brigade, and in the evening he was taken under escort into the forest. Walking along the path, he suddenly realized that he had wasted his energy working on his last day.

Parcels are received on duty. Standing in line, the narrator dreamed that he would now receive sugar and shag, but his wife sent him unnecessary burkas and some prunes. Warden Boyko immediately offered to buy burkas for a hundred rubles. There was no other choice, so he sold. I decided to buy butter and bread with the money I received. He ran to the store manager, and then to Semyon Sheinin, Kirov’s former assistant. He ran for boiling water, but then the narrator was hit on the head and the food was taken away.

He returned to the barracks and began to cook the remaining prunes. Next to him, Sintsov and Gubarev were each cooking soup in their own pot. Suddenly the military burst in and scattered their dishes. The prisoners could only eat the remaining food from the floor. After some time, they brought Efremov, beaten half to death for stealing firewood.

“It has been raining for the third day. The authorities hoped that because of him the prisoners would work faster. They stood waist-deep in the ground and drilled rocks. Looking at the dying horses, the narrator realized that man became human because he was physically stronger than all other animals. He tested his viability recently, in the same pit. And I realized that I was not capable of self-harm. He had to wait until the end of the working day. And while he waited, he remembered the woman who passed them along the path yesterday. “Pointing to the sky, she said: “Soon, guys, soon.” Her support amazed the prisoner. At this time, a cry was heard from Rozovsky, who realized that there was no meaning to life. After some time, he was accused of attempted suicide and transferred to another place.

In Siberia, spring is always short. During this time, many plants have time to bloom. The prisoners went to collect dwarf wood. This plant was considered a useful cure for scurvy, although after some time it was proven that it did not benefit the body. For collecting elfin wood, there was a kanth - a short rest. The narrator’s partner has been going to the elfin wood gathering for a long time. He understood that with a narrator who was not accustomed to this work, he would not be able to fulfill the quota. The partner helped the narrator and urged him on. Having placed a stone in the bag for added weight, the prisoners hurried to dinner. They barely had time to get soup and tea.

Dry rations

Four prisoners were sent on a business trip to the Duskanya key to clear a clearing in the forest. The rations given to them were frighteningly small, but still they were glad to escape from the stuffy barracks into nature, where there was no convoy. All of them were exhausted by long years of imprisonment. Lack of food and frost affected their health. Ivan Ivanovich was once one of the best workers, but now he has weakened. He was happy to go on this business trip, because in the colony he had no authority, anyone could humiliate and beat him.

Fedya Shchapov, the youngest of the four, was sentenced to ten years for illegal slaughter of livestock. His natural love for work distinguished him from all other prisoners. Savelyev once studied at the Moscow Institute of Communications. He was sentenced to ten years for writing a letter to the leader about the horrors of prison life from the Butyreka prison, where he ended up on a trivial matter. The narrator loved to talk with him about Moscow. After working all day, they completed only ten percent of the quota. The foremen did not like this. The prisoners realized that they would now be sent back to the camp.

At night, Ivan Ivanovich hanged himself. Savelyev refused to take the dead man's things. He took an ax and, in front of the foreman, cut off four of his fingers. When they returned to the camp, a case was opened against Savelyev for premeditated self-harm. The narrator and Fedya continued their lives in the same tent from which they had gone on a forest business trip some time ago.

Injector

Report to the head of the mine, Comrade. A.S. Queen. On November 12th there was six hours of idle work for the fourth brigade. This was due to low temperatures reaching minus fifty degrees. As a result, the injector broke down. Having considered this report, Korolev decided to arrest the convict Inzhektor and bring him to legal responsibility. Instead, he suggested installing a civilian worker.

Apostle Paul

The narrator sprained his foot while going down the slippery stairs in the pit. He was sent to help carpenter Adam Frisorger, who had formerly been a pastor in a German village near Markstadt on the Volga. They already knew each other: they were sent together to coal exploration as servants. The narrator liked Frizorger for his peaceful nature. They never fought.

Once, during one of the conversations, the narrator corrected Adam, who called Paul an apostle. Frizorger sincerely repented of his mistake. He began to trust the narrator and even showed him a photograph of his only daughter. She did not write to him, and the boss offered to help find her. After some time, a statement came in which the daughter refused her father due to the fact that he was an enemy of the people. The narrator burned the statement, and then the one that arrived later letter. He was soon transferred to another location and never heard from Adam again.

The detachment had been waiting for the narrator for a long time: he fell under the weight of a log and could not get up. Only after the guard Seroshapka threatened to shoot him did the narrator stand up. The next day, Sero Hat took the prisoners out to collect fallen timber. He marked the territory beyond which it was forbidden to go. Rybakov, the narrator’s friend, was collecting rose hips. They promised to give him bread for this. Seeing that the jar is not completely filled, he enters forbidden territory. A shot is fired and Rybakov falls. When the detachment was built, Gray hat, looking at the narrator, said that he wanted to kill him, but he did not give a reason.

Bitch Tamara

She was brought from the taiga by the blacksmith Moisey Moiseevich Kuznetsov. He ended up in the camp following a denunciation from his own young wife. The authorities appreciated his skill and for this forgave him a lot. The dog immediately won over the entire camp. She only took food from her hands and never stole. Soon the bitch gave birth. When a group of operatives searching for escaped prisoners arrived at the camp, Tamara rushed at them and bit through the felt boots of the head of the task force, Nazarov. She was tied to a tree. It was clear from her behavior that this was not the first time she had encountered escorts. When the operatives were leaving, Nazarov, hearing the dog’s growl, fired a burst from a machine gun at it and disappeared into the forest. Nothing passes without a trace: Nazarov ran into a stump in the forest and died. The dog was skinned. Soon a forester bought it to sew “dog shoes.”

Sherry brandy

The poet was dying. He did not have the strength to argue with those who stole his bread. The mittens were also stolen by someone. He lay there and thought that man could be immortal. He himself gained creative immortality: his poems will live on after him. He thought that all life was created to inspire the poet. He compared the whole world to poetry.

Once in childhood, a Chinese man predicted a happy life for him, now he remembered this man without malice. He wanted to eat, but there was nothing. When the daily ration was handed out, he grabbed the bread with his loose teeth and greedily ate it. Everyone told him not to rush, that he could finish eating later. The poet suddenly asked himself: when then? In the evening he died. The neighbors received bread for the dead man for another two days.

Baby pictures

Prisoners were taken to work in groups of five. Today they were sawing wood. Having finished their work, the prisoners began to dig through the pile of garbage. They found torn socks, frozen bread and cutlets there. The narrator was especially jealous of his socks. He was lucky to find only a children's notebook. Looking at the drawings, he remembered the legend about the boy-god who created the taiga.

The child, judging by the drawings from the notebook, had seen very little in his life. All his drawings were dedicated to prison barriers and soldiers. The partner, having felt the sheets of the notebook, threw it back into the trash and advised him to look for a newspaper from which he could make cigarettes.

Condensed milk

Shestakov was the luckiest. He was the only one in the camp who got a job in his specialty. One day, when the narrator could not take his eyes off the loaves of bread in the store, Shestakov suggested that he run away. The narrator realized that this was a trap, that he would definitely deceive him, but he agreed, but first he needed to refresh himself.

He received two cans of condensed milk from Shestakov. Having immediately eaten them, he refused to participate in the escape. Those five whom Shestakov persuaded were soon either killed or their sentences were extended. The conspirator himself was transferred to another place, and when the narrator met him again, Shestakov did not greet him because of those two cans of condensed milk.

Today was distribution day. They gave out herring. Usually they got either heads or tails. Today were the last ones. Everyone waited their turn with bated breath, hoping for luck. What if he gets a piece ten grams more than the others? After eating the herring, the prisoners begin to eat bread. When everything is eaten, you need to get dressed and go to work.

Now everyone is in typhus quarantine, but even here they are forced to work. Every time prisoners are assigned to work, everyone tries to get to where they sort vegetables or some other food. In this lottery, some are lucky and others are not. When the detachment passed by the bakery, two were taken into the workshop. Everyone else could only envy their luck. The master fed both prisoners hot, freshly baked bread and led them to work. In the evening they were given a loaf of bread, and they went back to camp. The day ended well.

Snake charmer

Andrei Fedorovich Platonov told how he retold “Javkhara” to the thieves at the mine. Dumas, Conan Doyle, Wallace. He dreamed of writing the story “The Snake Charmer,” but three weeks after the conversation he died. The narrator decided to write this work for him himself. In The Snake Charmer, Platonov, having found himself in Dzhanhara, experienced the full power of the thieves. When he agreed to retell the novels to them, he found himself under their protection. Thanks to them, he ate well, slept well, and worked little. No one touched him, fearing reprisals from the thieves.

Tatar mullah and clean air

It was hot in the prison. The Tatar mullah, the investigative prisoner in the “Big Tatary” case, said that if he was not shot, he would live another ten years in the “clean air” in a camp or twenty in prison. The narrator knew that in the camp you could become exhausted after twenty to thirty days of working in “clean air.”

Many considered arrest and prison the most terrible event their lives. They rushed to the camp, thinking that it would be easier there. They were taken further north, where the country air gave way to the smell of fumes from the swamps and was overcome by the ubiquitous mosquitoes. The northern air was too heavy for the cores. No one moved here at a run, except perhaps the youngest. Reality has destroyed all illusions.

The only connection with the mainland was through parcels. Everyone knew that what was sent had to be used immediately, otherwise the thieves would take it away. No money was paid for the work. Sometimes the teams themselves decided who to give the overfulfilled percentage so that at least someone would receive a bonus. Having tasted camp life, the prisoners recalled the cell of the interrogation prison as something bright and the best thing that happened to them. If you count all the misfortunes and difficulties that overtake you in the camp, then you can no longer talk about beneficial properties"clean air".

First death

The prisoners who went to clear the road from snow drifts, were heavily guarded by a convoy. They could not get warm until the working day was over. Six hours later, no longer feeling anything, the prisoners think only about one thing: how not to freeze completely. The end of the day always comes unexpectedly, and everyone is so happy that they even find the strength to talk.

Kolya Andreev was a foreman. He always walked ahead of the squad, paving the way. That evening he led the brigade along the top of the snow-covered rampart. Suddenly he began to go down. There, mine investigator Shtemenko stood near the woman’s body. The mine manager's secretary, Anna Pavlovna, was killed. Shtemenko was sentenced to ten years for murder out of jealousy, but served his sentence elsewhere.

Aunt Polya

Aunt Polya died of stomach cancer. She was an orderly for the boss's wife. Aunt Polya was a great cook, for which she was highly valued. The woman helped her fellow Ukrainians, but only gave advice to the rest of the prisoners. Her bosses really liked her integrity. They patronized her and worked for her release. But Aunt Polya fell ill.

From the day she was admitted to the hospital, bosses began to come to her. One day Father Peter came to confess her. Everyone called him Petka Abramov, and it was unusual for them to see him in the role of a priest. When Aunt Polya died, Peter demanded to put a cross on the grave and write the real name of the deceased: Praskovya Ilyinichna Timoshenko.

Marusya Kryukova came to Moscow from Japan. When she was arrested and sentenced to twenty-five years, her leg was broken. In Kolyma, the authorities immediately saw her talent for embroidery, but never paid her for her work. Soon Marusya was sent to Dalstroy to embroider curtains. Two other girls worked there with her. A woman was assigned to watch them, who believed that at any second the girls could steal something. But they didn't steal. All three were arrested and sent to a camp under Article 58.

When Marusya was admitted to the hospital, she was diagnosed with osteomyelitis. Soon she was discharged, and she promised to embroider ties for the doctors. While Marusya was embroidering, Dolmatov came in and took away the ties. She was very upset, but she could not do anything. Dolmatov came to the next film show wearing one of the ties, and Marusya, gesticulating, showed the doctor that it was supposed to be his gift.

Taiga golden

In the small zone, prisoners are waiting to be sent further to work. The narrator, knowing this system, deceives the contractor who came to pick up the people: he pretends to be sick and unable to work, although there was no need to pretend in the camp. Remaining in the small zone, he hears how singers are brought to the thieves for entertainment, but he no longer cares. He tries to sleep as much as possible.

In the evening, the contractor angrily asks where he wants to go to work. The narrator doesn't want to go anywhere. He says he is sick and needs to go to the hospital. Three days later, a doctor comes and examines him, but does not send him to the hospital.

Vaska Denisov, pig thief

Vaska, in order to go to the village, borrowed a newer pea coat from his friend. He understood that in his dirty clothes he would be too noticeable for the freestyle girls.

Prisoners had to walk around the village under escort or with firewood on their backs. Vaska found the hidden log and knocked on the door. They opened the door for him and let him into the house. Having chopped wood, he began to wait until he was fed, but the owner gave him only three rubles. Hungry, he walked through the entire village and climbed into a house. There he found a raw, frozen pig in the pantry and was about to leave, when suddenly people began to come out of the rooms. He started to run. Hid in the house of the vitamin business trips management. Having barricaded himself in the room, he began to eat the pig. When the door was broken down, he managed to eat half of it.

Seraphim worked as a laboratory assistant in a chemical laboratory in the North. He left because of a “family disagreement,” believing distance to be the best cure for grief. After working for a year, he felt that love for his wife still lived in his heart. All this time, Seraphim hardly spoke to anyone, he only exchanged a few words with the head of the laboratory, Presnyakov.

One day he decided to go to another village to buy the necessary things. Arriving there, he discovered that he had forgotten his documents. The guards immediately grabbed him and sent him to the isolation ward. He sat in it for five long days. When they finally released him, beaten and hungry, Seraphim decided to commit suicide. The wife's letter, in which she demanded a divorce, was the last straw. He drank acid, but without feeling the effect, he tore the veins in his left arm. Not satisfied with this, he ran to the river and threw himself into the icy water. He was pulled out and sent to the hospital. There Seraphim underwent surgery on his stomach, but the acid had already done its work and he died.

Day off

Everyone relaxes in their own way at the camp. While walking in the forest, the narrator saw Zamyatin praying. He had no rank, but still often repeated Sunday service so as not to forget. Returning to the barracks, the author heard noise in the instrumental room. Going inside, he saw two thieves holding a puppy. They killed the animal with an ax and cooked soup from it in the evening. They offered the remains to the narrator, but he refused. Then they gave the soup to Zamyatin. When he ate it, the thugs revealed to him the secret of what the broth was made from. Zamyatin ran out of the barracks. He vomited. Later he admitted to the narrator that the meat seemed to him to taste no worse than lamb.

When the narrator was admitted to the hospital, his weight was forty-eight kilograms. The attending physician, Andrei Mikhailovich, allowed him to stay in the hospital for two months. One evening he called the patient into his room and invited him to play dominoes. The narrator did not like this game, but out of gratitude he agreed. The game was played slowly. They talked more. A few years later the narrator found himself in a small zone. He sought to be sent to the hospital. Having heard the name of Andrei Mikhailovich from the paramedic, he asked to give him a note. After waiting several weeks, he began to despair, but then he was called to the dentist. Andrei Mikhailovich was waiting for him in the corridor. During the time they did not see each other, he fell ill with tuberculosis. The doctor was already sailing to the mainland, when suddenly, following a denunciation, he was removed from the ship. When he recovered, he began working as a surgical resident. Thanks to Andrei Mikhailovich, the narrator managed to return to the mainland. He first worked for him as an orderly, then trained as a paramedic. One day in a conversation, the narrator finds out that Andrei Mikhailovich also does not like dominoes: for the first time he picked up dominoes. “I wanted to do something nice for you,” the doctor admits. Their term was supposed to end in one year, but Andrei Mikhailovich died earlier.

Hercules

Andrei Ivanovich Dudar was a little late for the silver wedding of the head of the hospital Sudarin. Having given the couple a rooster, he sat down at the table. After drinking a little, the guest of honor Cherpakov began to demonstrate his physical abilities: he lifted chairs and let them touch his biceps. After some time, he came up with another trick: taking a rooster, the guest of honor tore off its head. Admiring women rushed to wipe the blood from his trousers and shirt. When everyone went to dance, Andrei Ivanovich stepped on the corpse of his favorite rooster. He pushed it deeper under the table and went to dance.

Shock therapy

Merzlyakov often wondered why, when compiling rations for prisoners, no one looks at a person’s weight: a tall and large prisoner receives the same amount of bread as a thin and short one. He knew that the frail intellectual would live in the camp longer than any giant. He himself was tall and suffered greatly from lack of food.

When he was appointed groom, he began to steal oats and grind them. This is how he thought he would survive the winter. But soon the head of the horse farm was replaced by another senior groom, who reported to his superiors about the theft of oats. Merzlyakov was sent to general work. Having lost the rest of his strength, he fell under the weight of the log, thereby delaying the return of the brigade to the barracks. He was severely beaten and sent to the hospital.

Merzlyakov decided to pretend to be sick to the last, but one of the doctors, Pyotr Ivanovich, loved to expose the malingerers. He undertook to expose Merzlyakov. First, the doctor used Rausch anesthesia, under which it turned out that the patient was faking it. But Merzlyakov was not ready to give up. Then Pyotr Ivanovich used shock therapy. It was as follows: a large dose of camphor oil is injected into the patient’s blood, which leads to an attack. After the procedure, Merzlyakov agreed to leave the hospital.

Dwarf dwarf is the only evergreen plant in the North. This is a tree of hope. It doesn't like winter as much as the prisoners do. When the elfin wood rises from under the snow, it means the end of the cold weather has come. Even the warmth of a fire can cause a tree to awaken from its sleep. This is the most poetic wood, and it produces more warmth than other firewoods.

Red Cross

In the zone, only a doctor can really help a prisoner. He cares about people’s lives, protects them from the arbitrariness of their superiors, can send them to the hospital, apply for disability, and give them rest. But the doctor is also forced to survive in the camp conditions. Blatari play a big role in prison life. They bribe or intimidate doctors, authorities, and other prisoners. They are devoid of morality, shame, and conscience. They can steal, humiliate, kill.

Their lifestyle affects the fate of other prisoners. Those who end up in the camp are forced to adapt to the wishes of the thieves. By pleasing them, you can count on extending your life. In the camp main argument- force. If you are weak, you will suffer. An intellectual loses all his knowledge after a few weeks. He becomes a servant of thieves at the first blow. The opinions and tastes of thieves and murderers affect the entire camp life in Kolyma.

Lawyers' conspiracy

Andreev was transferred to Shmelev’s brigade, which consisted of “human slag” - all those who had visited the gold mines. He did not see the foreman's face, he only knew his hoarse voice. When the brigade was being built, Shmelev sent Andreev to the authorized Romanov. Arriving at the appointed time, Andreev knocked on the door. A plump man smelling of perfume let him in. He asked Andreev about his specialty. It turned out that he studied at Moscow University at the Faculty of Law. Romanov took him to another city, where senior commissioner Smertin was waiting for them. Andreev was put in a prison cell for the night. In the morning he was taken away by guards. Romanov gave him bread, two herrings and shag. Andreev was taken further. When the car approached the Serpentine investigative prison, he thought that his end had come, but the car moved on. The next stop was in the village of Yagodny. Andreev stayed there for two days. During the next trip, the convoy stopped at a road canteen. Andreev was placed on the floor next to another prisoner who was being taken to Magadan to be shot. After some time, they were put in the back of a car and again taken to an unknown destination. When they reached Sporny, the prisoners were numb from the cold. They were placed in an unheated isolation ward, where Andreev froze all ten of his toes. When they arrived in Magadan, the hero was sent to the regional department. There he was received by Captain Rebrov, who began to ask if he knew Parfentyev and Vinogradov. The first was once Andreev’s foreman, but he did not know the second. After interrogation, Andreev was sent to “Vaskov’s house” - a Magadan prison. After some time, it was announced that Rebrov had been arrested and all those convicted on his warrants were being released.

Typhoid quarantine

Andreev was sent to typhoid quarantine. There he felt that he was still able to respect himself and fight for life. He realized that he needed to avoid being seen by the contractor who was recruiting people for the gold mines for as long as possible. Andreev did not want to return there anymore. More than a thousand people were in quarantine. There was the same peace there as in the camp.

The thieves took places closer to the stove and ate more than everyone else. Andreev managed to deceive his superiors and was sent to do light work. Sometimes he was able to work alone, which was much preferable. When about thirty people remained in quarantine, Andreev was sent on a local business trip. But, to the surprise of the prisoners, they were given winter clothes. When they were put in the car, everyone realized that they were being sent north again, further than the Apple Ridge.

Kolyma stories by Shalamov. Summary

Reading time: 15–20 min.

The plot of V. Shalamov's stories is a painful description of the prison and camp life of prisoners of the Soviet Gulag, their similar tragic destinies, in which chance, merciless or merciful, an assistant or a murderer, the tyranny of bosses and thieves rule. Hunger and its convulsive saturation, exhaustion, painful dying, slow and almost equally painful recovery, moral humiliation and moral degradation - this is what is constantly in the focus of the writer’s attention.

Funeral word

The author remembers his camp comrades by name. Evoking the mournful martyrology, he tells who died and how, who suffered and how, who hoped for what, who and how behaved in this Auschwitz without ovens, as Shalamov called the Kolyma camps. Few managed to survive, few managed to survive and remain morally unbroken.

Life of engineer Kipreev

Having not betrayed or sold out to anyone, the author says that he has developed for himself a formula for actively defending his existence: a person can only consider himself human and survive if at any moment he is ready to commit suicide, ready to die. However, later he realizes that he only built himself a comfortable shelter, because it is unknown what you will be like at the decisive moment, whether you simply have enough physical strength, and not just mental strength. Engineer-physicist Kipreev, arrested in 1938, not only withstood a beating during interrogation, but even rushed at the investigator, after which he was put in a punishment cell. However, they still force him to sign false testimony, threatening him with the arrest of his wife. Nevertheless, Kipreev continued to prove to himself and others that he was a man and not a slave, like all prisoners. Thanks to his talent (he invented a way to restore burnt-out light bulbs and repaired an X-ray machine), he manages to avoid the most difficult work, but not always. He miraculously survives, but the moral shock remains in him forever.

To the show

Camp molestation, Shalamov testifies, affected everyone to a greater or lesser extent and occurred in a variety of forms. Two thieves are playing cards. One of them is lost to the nines and asks you to play for “representation”, that is, in debt. At some point, excited by the game, he unexpectedly orders an ordinary intellectual prisoner, who happened to be among the spectators of their game, to give him a woolen sweater. He refuses, and then one of the thieves “finishes” him, but the sweater still goes to the thug.

Two prisoners sneak to the grave where the body of their dead comrade was buried in the morning, and remove the dead man’s underwear to sell or exchange for bread or tobacco the next day. The initial disgust at taking off their clothes gives way to the pleasant thought that tomorrow they might be able to eat a little more and even smoke.

Single metering

Camp labor, which Shalamov clearly defines as slave labor, is for the writer a form of the same corruption. The poor prisoner is not able to give the percentage, so labor becomes torture and slow death. Zek Dugaev is gradually weakening, unable to withstand a sixteen-hour working day. He drives, picks, pours, carries again and picks again, and in the evening the caretaker appears and measures what Dugaev has done with a tape measure. The mentioned figure - 25 percent - seems very high to Dugaev, his calves ache, his arms, shoulders, head hurt unbearably, he even lost the feeling of hunger. A little later, he is called to the investigator, who asks the usual questions: first name, last name, article, term. And a day later, the soldiers take Dugaev to a remote place, fenced with a high fence with barbed wire, from where the whirring of tractors can be heard at night. Dugaev realizes why he was brought here and that his life is over. And he only regrets that he suffered the last day in vain.

Sherry Brandy

A prisoner-poet, who was called the first Russian poet of the twentieth century, dies. It lies in the dark depths of the bottom row of solid two-story bunks. He takes a long time to die. Sometimes some thought comes - for example, that the bread he put under his head was stolen, and it’s so scary that he’s ready to swear, fight, search... But he no longer has the strength for this, and neither does the thought of bread weakens. When the daily ration is placed in his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to tear it and gnaw it with scurvy, loose teeth. When he dies, he is not written off for another two days, and inventive neighbors manage to distribute bread for the dead man as if for a living one: they make him raise his hand like a puppet doll.

Shock therapy

Prisoner Merzlyakov, a man of large build, finds himself in general labor and feels that he is gradually giving up. One day he falls, cannot get up immediately and refuses to drag the log. He is beaten first by his own people, then by his guards, and they bring him to the camp - he has a broken rib and pain in the lower back. And although the pain quickly passed and the rib has healed, Merzlyakov continues to complain and pretends that he cannot straighten up, trying to delay his discharge to work at any cost. He is sent to the central hospital, to the surgical department, and from there to the nervous department for examination. He has a chance to be activated, that is, released due to illness. Remembering the mine, the pinching cold, the empty bowl of soup that he drank without even using a spoon, he concentrates all his will so as not to be caught in deception and sent to a penal mine. However, the doctor Pyotr Ivanovich, himself a former prisoner, was not a mistake. The professional replaces the human in him. He spends most of his time exposing malingerers. This pleases his pride: he is an excellent specialist and is proud that he has retained his qualifications, despite a year of general work. He immediately understands that Merzlyakov is a malingerer, and anticipates the theatrical effect of the new revelation. First, the doctor gives him Rausch anesthesia, during which Merzlyakov’s body can be straightened, and after another week the procedure of so-called shock therapy, the effect of which is similar to an attack of violent madness or an epileptic seizure. After this, the prisoner himself asks to be discharged.

Typhoid quarantine

Prisoner Andreev, having fallen ill with typhus, is quarantined. Compared to general work in the mines, the patient's position gives a chance to survive, which the hero almost no longer hoped for. And then he decides, by hook or by crook, to stay here as long as possible, in the transit train, and then, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the gold mines, where there is hunger, beatings and death. At the roll call before the next sending to work of those who are considered recovered, Andreev does not respond, and thus he manages to hide for quite a long time. The transit is gradually emptying, and Andreev’s turn finally reaches. But now it seems to him that he has won his battle for life, that now the taiga is saturated and if there are any dispatches, it will be only for short-term, local business trips. However, when a truck with a selected group of prisoners who were unexpectedly given winter uniforms passes the line separating short-term missions from long-distance ones, he realizes with an internal shudder that fate has cruelly laughed at him.

Aortic aneurysm

Illness (and the emaciated state of the “gone” prisoners is quite equivalent to a serious illness, although it was not officially considered such) and the hospital are an indispensable attribute of the plot in Shalamov’s stories. Prisoner Ekaterina Glovatskaya is admitted to the hospital. A beauty, she immediately attracted the attention of the doctor on duty Zaitsev, and although he knows that she is on close terms with his acquaintance, the prisoner Podshivalov, the head of an amateur art group (“the serf theater,” as the head of the hospital jokes), nothing prevents him in turn try your luck. He begins, as usual, with a medical examination of Glowacka, with listening to the heart, but his male interest quickly gives way to purely medical concern. He finds that Glowacka has an aortic aneurysm, a disease in which any careless movement can cause death. The authorities, who have made it an unwritten rule to separate lovers, have already once sent Glovatskaya to a penal women's mine. And now, after the doctor’s report about the prisoner’s dangerous illness, the head of the hospital is sure that this is nothing more than the machinations of the same Podshivalov, trying to detain his mistress. Glovatskaya is discharged, but as soon as she is loaded into the car, what Dr. Zaitsev warned about happens - she dies.

Last Stand Major Pugachev

Among the heroes of Shalamov’s prose there are those who not only strive to survive at any cost, but are also able to intervene in the course of circumstances, stand up for themselves, even risking their lives. According to the author, after the war of 1941-1945. Prisoners who fought and were captured by Germans began to arrive in the northeastern camps. These are people of a different temperament, “with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and intelligence officers...” But most importantly, they had an instinct for freedom, which the war awakened in them. They shed their blood, sacrificed their lives, saw death face to face. They were not corrupted by camp slavery and were not yet exhausted to the point of losing strength and will. Their “fault” was that they were surrounded or captured. And Major Pugachev, one of these not yet broken people, is clear: “they were brought to their death - to replace these living dead” whom they met in Soviet camps. Then the former major gathers equally determined and strong prisoners to match himself, ready to either die or become free. Their group included pilots, a reconnaissance officer, a paramedic, and a tankman. They realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they had nothing to lose. They've been preparing their escape all winter. Pugachev realized that only those who avoid general work could survive the winter and then escape. And the participants in the conspiracy, one after another, are promoted to servants: someone becomes a cook, someone a cult leader, someone who repairs weapons in the security detachment. But then spring comes, and with it the planned day.

At five o'clock in the morning there was a knock on the watch. The duty officer lets in the prisoner camp cook, who has come, as usual, to get the keys to the pantry. A minute later, the guard on duty finds himself strangled, and one of the prisoners changes into his uniform. The same thing happens to the other duty officer who returned a little later. Then everything goes according to Pugachev’s plan. The conspirators break into the premises of the security detachment and, having shot the duty officer, take possession of the weapon. Holding the suddenly awakened soldiers at gunpoint, they change into military uniforms and stock up on provisions. Having left the camp, they stop the truck on the highway, drop off the driver and continue the journey in the car until the gas runs out. After that they go into the taiga. At night - the first night of freedom after long months of captivity - Pugachev, waking up, remembers his escape from a German camp in 1944, crossing the front line, interrogation in a special department, being accused of espionage and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He also remembers the visits of General Vlasov’s emissaries to the German camp, recruiting Russian soldiers, convincing them that for the Soviet regime, all of them who were captured were traitors to the Motherland. Pugachev did not believe them until he could see for himself. He looks lovingly at his sleeping comrades who believed in him and stretched out their hands to freedom; he knows that they are “the best, the most worthy of all.” And a little later a battle breaks out, the last hopeless battle between the fugitives and the soldiers surrounding them. Almost all of the fugitives die, except for one, seriously wounded, who is cured and then shot. Only Major Pugachev manages to escape, but he knows, hiding in the bear’s den, that they will find him anyway. He doesn't regret what he did. His last shot was at himself. Retold by E. A. Shklovsky

Bibliography

All the masterpieces of world literature in summary. Plots and characters. Russian literature of the 20th century / Ed. and comp. V. I. Novikov. - M.: Olympus: ACT, 1997. - 896 p.