Message from Ivan Denisovich in prison. Ivan Denisovich as an ideal office worker

[in the camp]? [Cm. summary of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.”] After all, it’s not just the need to survive, not the animal thirst for life? This need alone produces people who are at the table, like cooks. Ivan Denisovich is at the other pole of Good and Evil. This is Shukhov’s strength, that despite all the moral losses inevitable for a prisoner, he managed to keep his soul alive. Such moral categories as conscience, human dignity, decency determine his life behavior. Eight years of hard labor did not break the body. They didn’t break their soul either. Thus, the story about the Soviet camps grows to the scale of a story about the eternal power of the human spirit.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One day of Ivan Denisovich. The author reads. Fragment

Solzhenitsyn's hero himself is hardly aware of his spiritual greatness. But the details of his behavior, seemingly insignificant, are fraught with deep meaning.

No matter how hungry Ivan Denisovich was, he did not eat greedily, attentively, and tried not to look into other people's bowls. And even though his shaved head was freezing, he always took off his hat while eating: “no matter how cold it is, he couldn't allow himself is in the hat." Or another detail. Ivan Denisovich smells the fragrant smoke of a cigarette. “...He was all tense in anticipation, and now this tail of a cigarette was more desirable to him than, it seems, the will itself,” but he wouldn't have dropped himself and I wouldn’t look into your mouth like Fetyukov.”

There is deep meaning in the words highlighted here. Behind them lies enormous internal work, a struggle with circumstances, with oneself. Shukhov “forged his soul himself, year after year,” managing to remain human. “And through that - a grain of his people.” Speaks about him with respect and love

This explains Ivan Denisovich’s attitude towards other prisoners: respect for those who survived; contempt for those who have lost their human form. So, he despises the goner and jackal Fetyukov because he licks bowls, that he “dropped himself.” This contempt is aggravated, perhaps, because “Fetyukov, of course, was a big boss in some office. I drove a car." And any boss, as already mentioned, is an enemy for Shukhov. And so he doesn’t want the extra bowl of gruel to go to this goon, he rejoices when he gets beaten. Cruelty? Yes. But we also need to understand Ivan Denisovich. It took him considerable mental effort to preserve his human dignity, and he earned the right to despise those who had lost their dignity.

However, Shukhov not only despises, but also feels sorry for Fetyukov: “To figure it out, I feel so sorry for him. He won't live out his time. He doesn’t know how to position himself.” Zek Shch-854 knows how to stage himself. But his moral victory is expressed not only in this. Having spent many years in hard labor, where the cruel “taiga law” operates, he managed to preserve his most valuable asset - mercy, humanity, the ability to understand and feel sorry for another.

All sympathies, all sympathy of Shukhov are on the side of those who survived, who have a strong spirit and mental fortitude.

Brigadier Tyurin is pictured in the imagination of Ivan Denisovich like a fairy-tale hero: “... the foreman has a steel chest /... / I’m afraid to interrupt his high thought /... / Stands against the wind - he won’t wince, the skin on his face is like oak bark.” (34) . Prisoner Yu-81 is the same. “...He spends countless hours in camps and prisons, how much Soviet power costs...” The portrait of this man matches the portrait of Tyurin. Both of them evoke images of heroes, like Mikula Selyaninovich: “Of all the hunched backs of the camp, his back was excellently straight /... / His face was all exhausted, but not to the weakness of a disabled wick, but to a hewn, dark stone” (102).

This is how “Human Fate” is revealed in “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” - the fate of people placed in inhuman conditions. The writer believes in the unlimited spiritual powers of man, in his ability to withstand the threat of brutality.

Re-reading Solzhenitsyn’s story now, you involuntarily compare it with “ Kolyma stories» V. Shalamova. The author of this terrible book draws the ninth circle of hell, where suffering reached such a degree that, with rare exceptions, people could no longer maintain their human appearance.

“Shalamov’s camp experience was bitterer and longer than mine,” writes A. Solzhenitsyn in “The Gulag Archipelago,” and I respectfully admit that it was he, and not me, who got to touch the bottom of brutality and despair to which the entire camp life pulled us " But while giving this mournful book its due, Solzhenitsyn disagrees with its author in his views on man.

Addressing Shalamov, Solzhenitsyn says: “Maybe anger is not the most durable feeling after all? With your personality and your poems, don’t you refute your own concept?” According to the author of “The Archipelago,” “...and in the camp (and everywhere in life) corruption does not occur without ascension. They are close".

Noting the fortitude and fortitude of Ivan Denisovich, many critics, however, spoke of the poverty and mundaneness of his spiritual world. Thus, L. Rzhevsky believes that Shukhov’s horizons are limited to “bread alone.” Another critic argues that Solzhenitsyn’s hero “suffers as a man and a family man, but to a lesser extent from the humiliation of his personal and civic dignity.”

IVAN DENISOVICH

IVAN DENISOVICH is the hero of A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (1959-1962). Image of I.D. as if the author were composed of two real people. One of them is Ivan Shukhov, an already middle-aged soldier of the artillery battery, which was commanded by Solzhenitsyn during the war. The other is Solzhenitsyn himself, who served time under the notorious Article 58 in 1950-1952. in the camp in Ekibastuz and also worked there as a mason. In 1959, Solzhenitsyn began writing the story “Shch-854” (the camp number of prisoner Shukhov). Then the story was called “One Day of One Prisoner.” The editors of the magazine “New World,” in which this story was first published (No. 11, 1962), at the suggestion of A.T. Tvardovsugo, gave it the name “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.”

Image of I.D. is of particular importance for Russian literature of the 60s. along with the image of Zhivago before time and Anna Akhmatova’s poem “Requiem”. After the publication of the story in the era of the so-called. Khrushchev’s Thaw, when Stalin’s “personality cult” was first condemned, I.D. became for the entire USSR of that time a generalized image of a Soviet prisoner - a prisoner of Soviet forced labor camps. Many former convicts under Article 58 recognized I.D. themselves and their destiny.

I.D. Shukhov is a hero from the people, from the peasants, whose fate is being broken by the merciless state system. Finding himself in the camp's hellish machine, grinding and destroying physically and spiritually, Shukhov tries to survive, but at the same time remain human. Therefore, in the chaotic whirlwind of camp oblivion, he sets a limit for himself, below which he cannot

must go down (not eat with a hat, don’t eat fish eyes swimming in gruel) - otherwise death, first spiritual, and then physical. In the camp, in this kingdom of continuous lies and deceit, those who die are those who betray themselves (lick bowls), betray their bodies (hang around in the infirmary), betray their own (snitch) - lies and betrayal destroy first of all those who obeys them.

Particular controversy was caused by the episode of “shock labor” - when the hero and his entire team suddenly, as if forgetting that they were slaves, with some kind of joyful enthusiasm began laying the wall.

L. Kopelev even called the work “a typical production story in the spirit of socialist realism.” But this episode has primarily a symbolic meaning, correlated with Dante’s “Divine Comedy” (the transition from the lower circle of hell to purgatory). In this work for the sake of work, creativity for the sake of creativity, I.D. He is no longer building the notorious thermal power plant, he is building himself, he remembers himself free - he rises above the camp slave non-existence, experiences catharsis, purification, he even physically overcomes his illness. Immediately after the release of One Day in Solzhenitsyn, many saw a new Leo Tolstoy, and in I.D. - Platon Karataev, although he is “not round, not humble, not calm, does not dissolve in the collective consciousness” (A. Arkhangelsky). In essence, when creating the image of I.D. Solzhenitsyn proceeded from Tolstoy’s idea that a peasant’s day could form the subject of a volume as voluminous as several centuries of history.

To a certain extent, Solzhenitsyn contrasts his I.D. “Soviet intelligentsia”, “educated people”, “paying taxes in support of obligatory ideological lies.” Disputes between Caesar and the kavtorang about the film “Ivan the Terrible” by I.D. are incomprehensible, he turns away from them as far-fetched, “lordly” conversations, as from a boring ritual. Phenomenon I.D. is associated with the return of Russian literature to populism (but not to nationalism), when in the people the writer no longer sees “truth”, not “truth”, but a comparatively smaller “touch of lies” compared to “education”.

The image of I.D., like Solzhenitsyn’s story itself, stands among such phenomena of Russian literature as “Prisoner of the Caucasus” by A.S. Pushkin, “Notes from the House of the Dead” and “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky, “ War and Peace" (Pierre Bezukhoe in French captivity) and "Resurrection" by Leo Tolstoy. This work became a kind of prelude for the book “The Gulag Archipelago”. After the publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Solzhenitsyn received a huge number of letters from readers, from which he later compiled the anthology “Reading Ivan Denisovich.”

Lit.: Niva Zh. Solzhenitsyn. M., 1992; Chalmaev V.A. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: life and work. M., 1994; Curtis J.M. Solzhenitsyn's traditional imagination. Athens, 1984; Krasnov V. Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky. Athens, 1980.

A.L. Tsukanov

Literary heroes. - Academician. 2009 .

See what "IVAN DENISOVICH" is in other dictionaries:

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Major General, then Privy Councilor, architect and professor at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Born in Yekaterinodar in 1811 and belonged to the Cossack class. I received a very meager primary education and for the past 12 years I have been planning...

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Yasnygin, Ivan Denisovich (1745 September 13 (25), 1824, Kaluga) architect, author of the urban development plan for the city of Kaluga. Born into the family of a soldier of the Perm regiment. Yasnygin Ivan Denisovich Date of birth: 1745 Date of death: September 13, 1824 Place... ... Wikipedia

Sofronov Ivan Denisovich mathematician ... Wikipedia

Gene. major; † 1872 Addition: Geshtovt, Ivan Denisovich, general. Major 1870 (?) †. (Polovtsov) ... Large biographical encyclopedia

One of the organizers of the partisan movement in Belarus during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45. Member of the CPSU since 1927. Born into a peasant family. IN… … Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Stolnik in 1692 and general under Peter I. (Polovtsov) ... Large biographical encyclopedia

- (born 09.09.1923) gunner radio operator, full holder of the Order of Glory, captain. Participant of the Great Patriotic War from March 1943. Fought in the 953rd Cap. He made 75 attack missions and shot down 2 enemy fighters in air battles. After… … Large biographical encyclopedia

Books

• "Dear Ivan Denisovich!.." Letters from readers 1962-1964, . The basis of the anniversary collection was made up of previously unpublished letters and responses from readers to the first publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in the magazine “New World” in 1962...

“Here, guys, the law is the taiga. But people live here too. This is who is dying in the camp: who licks the bowls, who relies on the medical unit, and who goes to knock on the godfather” - these are the three fundamental laws of the zone, told to Shukhov by the “old camp wolf” foreman Kuzmin and since then strictly observed by Ivan Denisovich. “Licking bowls” meant licking already empty plates in the dining room behind prisoners, that is, losing human dignity, losing one’s face, turning into a “gossip,” and most importantly, falling out of the fairly strict camp hierarchy.

Shukhov knew his place in this unshakable order: he did not strive to get into the “thieves”, to take a higher and warmer position, however, he did not allow himself to be humiliated. He did not consider it shameful for himself “to sew someone a mitten cover from an old lining; serve the rich brigadier dry felt boots directly on his bed...", etc. However, Ivan Denisovich never asked to pay him for the service rendered: he knew that the work performed would be paid according to its merits, and the unwritten law of the camp rests on this. If you start begging and groveling, it won’t be long before you turn into a “six”, a camp slave like Fetyukov, whom everyone pushes around. Shukhov earned his place in the camp hierarchy through deeds.

He also does not rely on the medical unit, although the temptation is great. After all, hoping for a medical unit means showing weakness, feeling sorry for yourself, and self-pity corrupts and deprives a person of his last strength to fight for survival. So on this day, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov “overcame”, and while working, the remnants of the illness evaporated. And “knocking on the godfather” - reporting one’s own comrades to the head of the camp, Shukhov knew, was generally the last thing. After all, this means trying to save yourself at the expense of others, alone - and this is impossible in the camp. Here, either together, shoulder to shoulder, do a common forced task, standing up for each other when absolutely necessary (as the Shukhov brigade stood up for their foreman at work in front of the construction foreman Der), or live trembling for your life, expecting that at night you will be killed by your own people. as comrades in misfortune.

However, there were also rules, not formulated by anyone, but nevertheless strictly observed by Shukhov. He firmly knew that it was useless to fight the system directly, as, for example, captain Buinovsky was trying to do. The falsity of Buinovsky’s position, refusing, if not to reconcile, then at least to outwardly submit to circumstances, was clearly manifested when at the end of the working day he was taken to an ice cell for ten days, which in those conditions meant certain death. However, Shukhov was not going to completely submit to the system, as if feeling that the entire camp order served one task - to turn adults, independent people into children, weak-willed executors of other people's whims, in a word - into a herd.

To prevent this, it is necessary to create your own little world, into which the all-seeing eye of the guards and their minions does not have access. Almost every camp inmate had such a field: Tsezar Markovich discusses issues of art with people close to him, Alyoshka the Baptist finds himself in his faith, Shukhov tries, as far as possible, to earn himself an extra piece of bread with his own hands, even if it requires him to sometimes even break the laws of the camp. So, he carries a hacksaw blade through the “shmon”, search, knowing what the discovery of it threatens him with. However, you can make a knife out of linen, with the help of which, in exchange for bread and tobacco, you can repair shoes for others, cut out spoons, etc. Thus, even in the zone, he remains a real Russian man - hardworking, economical, skillful. It is also surprising that even here, in the zone, Ivan Denisovich continues to take care of his family, even refuses parcels, realizing how difficult it will be for his wife to collect this parcel. But the camp system, among other things, strives to kill in a person this sense of responsibility for another, to break all family ties, to make the prisoner completely dependent on the rules of the zone.

Work occupies a special place in Shukhov’s life. He doesn’t know how to sit idle, he doesn’t know how to work carelessly. This was especially evident in the episode of building a boiler house: Shukhov puts his whole soul into forced labor, enjoys the very process of laying a wall and is proud of the results of his work. Work also has a therapeutic effect: it drives away illness, warms you up, and most importantly, brings members of the brigade closer together, returning to them the feeling of human brotherhood, which the camp system tried unsuccessfully to kill.

Solzhenitsyn also refutes one of the stable Marxist dogmas, simultaneously answering a very difficult question: how did the Stalinist system manage to raise the country from ruins twice in such a short period of time - after the revolution and after the war? It is known that much in the country was done by the hands of prisoners, but official science taught that slave labor was unproductive. But the cynicism of Stalin’s policy lay in the fact that the best people ended up in the camps for the most part - such as Shukhov, the Estonian Kildigs, cavalryman Buinovsky and many others. These people simply did not know how to work poorly; they put their souls into any work, no matter how hard and humiliating it was. It was with the hands of the Shukhovs that the Belomorkanal, Magnitka, and Dneproges were built, and the war-ravaged country was restored. Separated from their families, from home, from their usual worries, these people devoted all their strength to work, finding their salvation in it and at the same time unconsciously asserting the power of the despotic government.

Shukhov, apparently, is not a religious person, but his life is consistent with most Christian commandments and laws. “Give us this day our daily bread,” says the main prayer of all Christians, “Our Father.” The meaning of these deep words is simple - you need to take care only of the essentials, knowing how to give up what you need for the sake of what is necessary and be content with what you have. Such an attitude towards life gives a person an amazing ability to enjoy little things.

The camp is powerless to do anything with the soul of Ivan Denisovich, and he will one day be released as a man unbroken, not crippled by the system, who has survived the fight against it. And Solzhenitsyn sees the reasons for this perseverance in the primordially correct life position of the simple Russian peasant, a peasant who is accustomed to coping with difficulties, finding joy in work and in those small joys that life sometimes gives him. Like the great humanists Dostoevsky and Tolstoy once upon a time, the writer calls on us to learn from such people their attitude to life, to stand in the most desperate circumstances, and to save their face in any situation.

In the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” A. Solzhenitsyn talks about just one day in the camp, which became a symbol of the terrible era in which our country lived. Having condemned the inhumane system, the writer at the same time created the image of a truly national hero who managed to preserve the best qualities of the Russian people.

This image is embodied in the main character of the story - Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. It seems there is nothing special about this hero. So, for example, he sums up the results of his day: “He had a lot of successes during the day: he wasn’t put in a punishment cell, the brigade wasn’t sent to Sotsgorodok, at lunch he cut porridge... he didn’t get caught with a hacksaw on a search, he worked part-time 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.”
Is this really where happiness lies? Exactly. The author is not at all ironic about Shukhov, but sympathizes with him, respects his hero, who lives in harmony with himself and accepts his involuntary position in a Christian manner.

Ivan Denisovich loves to work. His principle: if you earn it, get it, “but don’t stretch your belly on other people’s property.” The joy of a master who is fluent in his craft is felt in the love with which he is busy with his work.
In the camp, Shukhov calculates his every step. He tries to strictly follow the regime, he can always earn extra money, he is thrifty. But Shukhov’s adaptability should not be confused with accommodation, humiliation, or loss of human dignity. Shukhov remembered well the words of Brigadier Kuzemin: “This is who is dying in the camp: who licks the bowls, who hopes for the medical unit, and who goes to knock on the godfather.”

This is how weak people are saved, trying to survive at the expense of others, “on the blood of others.” Such people survive physically, but perish morally. Shukhov is not like that. He is always happy to stock up on extra rations and get some tobacco, but not like Fetyukov, who “looks into your mouth and his eyes are burning,” and “slobbers”: “Let’s take one pull!” Shukhov would get tobacco so as not to drop himself: Shukhov saw that “his teammate Caesar smoked, and he smoked not a pipe, but a cigarette - which means he could get shot.” While standing in line to receive a package for Caesar, Shukhov does not ask: “Well, have you received it? - because it would be a hint that he took the turn and now has the right to a share. He already knew what he had. But he was not a jackal even after eight years of general work - and the further he went, the more firmly he became established.”

In addition to Shukhov, the story contains many episodic characters, whom the author introduces into the narrative to create a more complete picture of universal hell. On a par with Shukhov are the likes of Senka Klevshin, Latvian Kildigs, cavalier Buinovsky, assistant foreman Pavlo and, of course, foreman Tyurin himself. These are those who, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, “take the blow.” They live without losing themselves and “never lose words.” It is probably no coincidence that these are predominantly rural people.

Particularly interesting is the image of the foreman Tyurin, who ended up in the camp as the son of a dispossessed man. He is “father” to everyone. The life of the entire brigade depends on how he closed the outfit: “If he closed it well, it means that now there will be good rations for five days.” Tyurin knows how to live himself and thinks for others.

Cavtorang Buinovsky is also one of those “who takes the blow,” but, according to Shukhov, he often takes pointless risks. For example, during an inspection in the morning, the guards order you to unbutton your quilted jackets - “and they start to feel around to see if anything has been put on in violation of the regulations.” Buinovsky, trying to defend his rights, received “ten days of strict imprisonment.” The protest of the kavtorang is meaningless and pointless. Shukhov hopes for only one thing: “The time will come, and the captain will learn to live, but for now he doesn’t know how. After all, what is “Ten Strict Days”: “Ten days in the local punishment cell, if you serve them strictly and to the end, it means losing your health for the rest of your life. Tuberculosis, and you won’t get out of the hospital.”

Both Shukhov, with his common sense, and Buinovsky, with his impracticality, are opposed by those who avoid blows. This is the film director Caesar Markovich. He lives better than others: everyone has old hats, but he has a fur one (“Caesar greased someone up, and they allowed him to wear a clean new city hat”). Everyone is working in the cold, but Caesar is sitting warm in the office. Shukhov does not condemn Caesar: everyone wants to survive.

Caesar takes Ivan Denisovich's services for granted. Shukhov brings him lunch to his office: “Caesar turned around, extended his hand for the porridge, but didn’t look at Shukhov, as if the porridge itself had arrived by air.” This behavior, it seems to me, does not at all decorate Caesar.

“Educated conversations” is one of the hallmarks of this hero’s life. He is an educated person, an intellectual. The cinema that Caesar is engaged in is a game, that is, unreal life. Caesar tries to distance himself from camp life and plays. Even in the way he smokes, “to arouse a strong thought in himself and let it find something,” there is artistry.

Caesar loves to talk about movies. He is in love with his work, passionate about his profession. But one cannot help but think that the desire to talk about Eisenstein is largely due to the fact that Caesar sat warm all day. He is far from the camp reality. He, like Shukhov, is not interested in “inconvenient” questions. Caesar deliberately leaves them. What is justified for Shukhov is a disaster for the film director. Shukhov sometimes even feels sorry for Caesar: “He probably thinks a lot about himself, Caesar, but he doesn’t understand life at all.”

Ivan Denisovich himself understands more about life than others, with his peasant mentality, with a clear, practical view of the world. The author believes that there is no need to expect or demand from Shukhov to comprehend historical events.

The idea for the story came to the writer’s mind when he was serving time in the Ekibastuz concentration camp. Shukhov, the main character of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, is a collective image. He embodies the traits of the prisoners who were with the writer in the camp. This is the first work of the author to be published, which brought Solzhenitsyn worldwide fame. In his narrative, which has a realistic direction, the writer touches on the topic of the relationship between people deprived of freedom, their understanding of honor and dignity in inhuman conditions of survival.

Characteristics of the characters “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”

Main characters

Minor characters

This was an incomplete description of the heroes of the story, the list of which in the work “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” itself is much longer. This table of characteristics can be used to answer questions in literature lessons.

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