“A real writer is the same as an ancient prophet: he sees more clearly than ordinary people” ((Based on one or more works of Russian literature of the 20th century). “Peculiar weaves of the Russian soul” in the works of I

Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn - Soviet and Russian writer, publicist and social and political figure. Through his works, he helped the world understand the horrors that happened in the Gulags, the Soviet labor camps. In particular, Solzhenitsyn described his experience in the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” and the art-historical essay “The Gulag Archipelago” - two of his main works. We offer you a list of the writer's best books and Solzhenitsyn's deepest quotes about life, man and Russia.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was not just a brilliant writer, but a passionate devotee of his work. He considered it his moral duty to write down the true history of the USSR, despite the pressure of the totalitarian regime.

In 1974, the writer was expelled and Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia only in 1994. Before his deportation from the USSR Alexander Solzhenitsyn awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his lecture during the award ceremony, the writer quoted a Russian proverb: “One word of truth will conquer the whole world.” It was these words that succinctly described Solzhenitsyn’s literary credo. In an authoritarian country, Solzhenitsyn, like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, became an important source of spiritual help for his huge circle of readers.

THE BEST WORKS OF ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN WITH QUOTES

Alexander Solzhenitsyn during the presentation Nobel Prize

ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH (1962)

First published in 1962 in the magazine New world The story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” has become a classic of modern literature. This is the story of a labor camp prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, graphic description his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is a cruel, shattering portrait of the whole world of Stalin’s forced labor camps, of millions of people who abandoned hope for the future. The book will show you how important sometimes a piece of bread or an extra bowl of soup is when safety, warmth and food are the only things that worry you in life.

Still from the film “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (1970, Norway - Great Britain)

Reading “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” you find yourself in a world of imprisonment, cruelty, hard physical labor and cold, where every day you have to stand against heavy natural conditions and inhumane system. This story is one of the most amazing literary documents, which arose in the USSR and largely influenced its further development. This story confirmed Solzhenitsyn's prestige as a literary genius whose talent was on par with Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy.

• Work is like a stick, it has two ends: if you do it for people, it gives you quality; if you do it for your boss, it gives you show off.

• God crumbles the old month into stars.

• Who is the prisoner's main enemy? Another prisoner. If the prisoners didn't get into trouble with each other, the authorities wouldn't have any power over them.

• The brigadier is a force, but a convoy is a stronger force.

• Geniuses do not adjust their interpretation to the taste of tyrants!

Quotes from the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

GULAG ARCHIPELAGO (1973-1975)

Based on my own experience of imprisonment and exile, as well as on the testimony of more than 200 other prisoners and materials from Soviet archives, Alexander Solzhenitsyn depicts to us the entire apparatus of Soviet repression. This is a kind of state within a state, where management has unlimited power. Through portraits of almost Shakespearean victims - men, women, children - we encounter the work of the secret police... and something more.

"The Gulag Archipelago" is considered Solzhenitsyn's main masterpiece. This is a canvas consisting of many details, on which the author has collected camps, prisons, transit centers and the KGB, informants, spies and investigators. But the most important thing to see here is the heroism at the very heart of the Stalinist regime, where the key to survival lies not in hope, but in despair.

Gulag Archipelago on the map

• The universe has as many centers as there are living beings in it.

• But the line dividing good and evil crosses the heart of every person. And who will destroy a piece of his heart?.. During the life of one heart, this line moves on it, now crowded by joyful evil, now freeing up space for blossoming good.

• A person who is not internally prepared for violence is always weaker than the rapist.

• Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty

• And until there is an independent public opinion in the country, there is no guarantee that all the multimillion-dollar causeless destruction will not be repeated again, that it will not begin any night, every night - this very night, the first after today.

• Whether we are a great nation, we must prove not by the vastness of the territory, not by the number of ward nations, but by the greatness of our actions.

• The Panama Canal, 80 km long, took 28 years to build, the Suez Canal, 160 km long, took 10 years, the White Sea-Baltic Canal, 227 km long, took less than 2 years, wouldn’t you like?

Quotes from the art-historical essay by Alexander Solzhenitsyn “The Gulag Archipelago”

CANCER WARD (1967)

One of the greatest allegorical masterpieces of world literature. Cancer Ward is both a study of people living with an incurable disease and a magnificent dissection of a cancer-ridden state through the lens of the author's deep compassion for the people caught inside this mousetrap. Almost all the action takes place in the thirteenth (“cancer”) building of the hospital, where patients discuss among themselves different sides life.

In 1964, this story was banned from publication, but still, along with “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” “Cancer Ward” opened the world’s eyes to the atrocities that were happening right in front of them, awakening its conscience. As Independent correspondent Robert Service wrote after reading it: “In his fight against communism Solzhenitsyn preferred the rapier to the club.”

• If you don't know how to use a minute, you will waste an hour, a day, and your whole life.

• The hardest life is not for those who drown in the sea, dig in the ground or look for water in deserts. The hardest life is for the one who, every day, leaving the house, hits his head on the ceiling - it’s too low...

• That's how to live - rejoice in what you have! He is a wise man who is satisfied with little. Who is an optimist? Who says: in general, everything is bad in the country, everything is worse everywhere, everything is fine here, we are lucky. And he is happy with what he has, and is not tormented. Who is a pessimist? Who says: in general, everything is great in our country, everywhere is better, but here it’s just by chance that it’s bad.

• It is not the level of well-being that makes people happy, but the relationship of hearts and our point of view on our lives. Both are in our power, which means a person is always happy if he wants it, and nothing can stop him.

• But even the first step against pain is pain relief, there is also pain.

Quotes from the story “Cancer Ward” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

IN THE FIRST CIRCLE (1968)

The story of this novel fits into three Moscow days in 1949. Main character- Gleb Nerzhin, whose prototype was Alexander Solzhenitsyn himself, a prisoner engineer who, together with his colleague, must invent a device capable of recognizing voices. The management sets completely unrealistic deadlines for completing this task, since they now have in their hands a magnetic recording with the voice of the person who gave secret information to the US representative. Nerzhin faces a difficult dilemma: continue working for a system he hates or go to the periphery of the Gulag.

Still from the TV movie “The First Circle” (2005, Russia)

• It happens that thoughts that are unconditional at night in half sleep turn out to be untenable in the light of the morning.

• Satiety does not depend at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat! So is happiness, so is happiness, Lyovushka, it does not at all depend on the volume of external benefits that we snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude towards them! This was said in Taoist ethics: “He who knows how to be content will always be satisfied.”

• There are many smart things in the world, but few good things.

• Don’t be afraid of the bullet that whistles, if you hear it, it means it’s no longer hitting you. You won't hear the one bullet that will kill you. It turns out that death does not seem to concern you: you exist - it is not there, it will come - you will no longer be there.

• War is death. War is terrible not because of the advance of troops, not because of fires, not because of bombings - war is first of all terrible because it surrenders everything that thinks to the legitimate power of stupidity...

Quotes from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novel “In the First Circle”

RED WHEEL (1983)

This novel Alexandra Solzhenitsyn entered the TOP 10 best literary works of all time, according to The Guardian. In this novel, the writer conducted research on how communism began. Defeat is shown here in dramatic tones tsarist army at the Battle of Grunwald while Lenin secretly decided to take advantage of this weakness of the tsarist regime. And this is how Solzhenitsyn describes everything tragic events until the final victory of the Red Army. The author himself called “The Red Wheel” a narrative in a measured time frame.

• Everything seemed suppressed for a thousand years. And then a black Browning stuck out to them - and...

• The truth about Bogrov is terrible for the government and all those in power! Because: it is impossible for the government, it is a shame to admit that all their famous powerful state security fooled by a lonely, clever revolutionary. A pure case of superiority of a brilliant mind!

• What is important is the threat of terror, the systematic nature: we will come again! We'll get there! They must know that there is power coming to them! The point is not necessarily elimination, but intimidation.

• Executioners love to decorate themselves with legends.

• If only the revolutionary did not commit a crime against the holy spirit - against his party! Everything else will be forgiven him!

• Let him lie - but in the name of truth! Even if he kills - but in the name of love! The party takes all the blame, and then terror is not murder, and expropriation is not robbery.

• "Go, fight and die" - in in three words the whole life of a revolutionary.

Quotes from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s epic novel “The Red Wheel”

What a pity, but four and a half decades after the first publication of the famous essay Alexandra Solzhenitsyn“The Gulag Archipelago” begins to seem to us that it is unlikely that we will ever be able to see the Russian analogue of the Nuremberg trials. But, if at least one writer appears who will force modern Russians to look at modernity with horror, exactly as this period deserves, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn did this at the height of the power of the Soviet Empire and was able to outlast the USSR by as much as 17 years.

Solzhenitsyn's life itself - as it were additional volume his collected works. Most of the author's works are richly saturated with autobiographical material. Solzhenitsyn comes from a peasant family, whose representatives achieved good success (his grandfather was in charge of the economy before the revolution.) His father died 6 months before the writer’s birth while hunting. Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk in 1918, when the family's situation changed radically. A revolution took place, all property was lost. The mother made sacrifices for the sake of the child and devoted herself to his upbringing. After graduating from school, Solzhenitsyn graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics in Rostov-on-Don and, at the same time, feeling a literary gift in himself, entered IFLI.

During the war years - at the front. In 1945 he came under the supervision of counterintelligence, which illustrated his letters. In one of the letters to a friend, Lenin is called Vovka. For this he received 7 years of labor camp. This arrest changed the whole life of the future writer. He saw life from a side from which he did not know it at all. Particularly significant for Solzhenitsyn was his stay in the Marfino special prison near Moscow, where he ended up in 1947. Here Solzhenitsyn met the mathematician and philosopher Panin and became a deeply religious man. Under the influence of philologist Lev Kopelev, Solzhenitsyn took a shortened course in philology while in prison. Solzhenitsyn turned out to have an ideal memory. He remembered everything almost immediately and subsequently used almost everything he heard in his work.

Under the influence of Panin, Solzhenitsyn refused to take part in the development of the listening device, since he understood that the device was needed for a totalitarian regime to eavesdrop on dissidents. With Panin, they ended up doing general work (since 1950) in Ekibastuz. Here Solzhenitsyn also recognizes the hard physical work of a foundry worker and a mason. All this time, Solzhenitsyn studied the camp rules and composed. But the camp was regularly searched, so everything written had to be kept in mind. Solzhenitsyn writes plays in verse, a trilogy under the general title “1945” (“Feast of the Winners”, “Prisoners”, “Republic of Labor”). Special artistic merit These plays don't shine. Solzhenitsyn's artistic strength, as it turned out later, was in prose.

In 1952, Solzhenitsyn took part in the Ekibastuz prisoner uprising, caused by unbearable working conditions. Solzhenitsyn was lucky: shortly before the uprising, he was admitted to a camp hospital with cancer. After serving his sentence, he was exiled to one of the remote corners of Kazakhstan for eternal settlement. He had no right to leave the village of Kok-Terek. However, here Solzhenitsyn begins to transfer to paper and edit what he wrote in the camp, and since he knew that searches were possible, he hid the manuscripts in metal vessels. An unexpected complication of cancer made itself felt, and Solzhenitsyn, half-dead, reaches Tashkent, where he undergoes a successful operation. This finally convinces Solzhenitsyn that God saved his life so that he could tell about the Soviet camps.

After the 20th Congress, rehabilitated, he works as a physics teacher in the village of Torfoprodukt (Vladimir region). 1957 - restores his relationship with his wife and moves to Ryazan. She works as a mathematics teacher and writes all her free time. Secretly from everyone, he is working on the novel “In the First Circle.” This is the so-called “Circle-96”, the first edition (by the number of chapters). The most famous edition was the “Circle-87” edition, completed in 1968. The novel “In the First Circle” is Solzhenitsyn’s most significant work of art. It is autobiographical in nature and absorbs the writer’s experience in the Marfinsk special prison. Nerzhin’s prototype is Solzhenitsyn himself, Rubin’s prototype is Lev Kopelev, Solodin’s prototype is Panin. In recreating the relationship between Nerzhin and his wife, Solzhenitsyn used his wife’s diary entries. (If the wife did not renounce her arrested husband, all further paths in life were closed to her.) As researchers rightly note, Solzhenitsyn’s world is predominantly masculine. Women's images rare and less successful. Solzhenitsyn’s male world is always a world of trials: war, prison, camp, fatal illness.

The characters in the novel are placed in an extreme situation. They are brought to the very threshold, beyond which life turns into hell. This tension reflects the novel's extremely compressed chronotope. In the novel “In the First Circle,” the entire action takes place within three days. Solzhenitsyn's man is imprisoned in the microcosm of a cell, a camp or a hospital ward. His horizons are limited, but his vision becomes extremely sharp. Solzhenitsyn pays great attention description of the interior, as well as great place He is interested in psychological portraits. The prisoners studied each other's gestures, facial expressions, and peculiarities of speech thoroughly. Against the background of a regulated, unchanging way of life, human individuality emerges more clearly. A person is either reconciled with his situation or opposes the regime and society.

The Marfinsk special prison, according to Solzhenitsyn’s definition, is the first circle of hell, that is, it is far from the worst. This is the place where the scientific intelligentsia gathers. At the cost of slavish obedience, one can even settle down tolerably and get used to life without freedom. Some characters choose this path, but this path crushes a person morally and deprives him of the most important thing. The opposite can also happen - learning freedom in prison. It is no coincidence that Solzhenitsyn writes about his hero: “He needed prison as much as rain on parched ground,” in order, through personal experiences, to become convinced of the inhumanity of the existing system; prison cuts you off from the world, but a person has the opportunity to go deep into himself - this path, the path to God, is what Nerzhin goes through, just as Solzhenitsyn himself went through it. Nerzhin says that he feels like one of the Knights of the Grail. (Devotion to high Christian and humanistic ideals. The hero now shares them and acts as an opponent of terror.)

The novel has a socio-philosophical character. It is distinguished by an increased degree of intellectual saturation: in the “sharashka” there may not be the best minds in Russia, but educated and thinking people. Characterized by an abundance of philosophical debates and monologues. Laughter plays a liberating role in Solzhenitsyn. The hierarchy is ridiculed, starting with Stalin and ending with his petty minions. (Scene of the impromptu trial of Prince Igor. The prisoners show what Soviet justice would have done with the captured prince.) Solzhenitsyn’s irony and sarcasm are directed against all manifestations of the totalitarian system. The novel is polyphonic. But, one way or another, all storylines converge towards prison. This is the most characteristic symbol of the Stalin era, Solzhenitsyn proves by the content of his work. The author seeks to evoke in the reader a feeling of pain and protest.

The “offshoot” of the novel was the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”: “a compressed, condensed, popular version of the prisoner’s epic.” The publication of “One Day” in the wake of Khrushchev’s revelations makes Solzhenitsyn famous. The story was nominated for the Lenin Prize, but opponents of the Thaw made every effort to prevent the prize from being awarded.

The writer also creates works about modernity: the cycle of miniatures “Tiny” (1961, prose poems), in which native nature is poeticized; a number of stories, among which “Matryonin’s Dvor” attracted attention. The most detailed picture of Soviet society is in the novel “Cancer Ward.” This is like a cross-section of Soviet society through the tumor of totalitarianism that is corroding it. The “cut into the soul” of the Stalinist Rusanov turned out to be especially successful. This is a man who has always served totalitarianism in everything. Now that the thaw has come, he has no thoughts of condemning himself. He is overcome by fear of exposure and fear of losing the privileges that totalitarianism gave him. Most of all, Rusanov hopes that the thaw will not last forever and it will be possible to end it. Thus, already in 1966 Solzhenitsyn warned about the possibility of a Stalinist restoration. The writer condemns people like Rusanov, saying that they have cancer of conscience. Solzhenitsyn’s thoughts related to his ideas about unpreparedness are also alarming masses to the coming changes. The ending of the novel: here, the powerless Soviet society, muzzled during the Stalin years, is likened to a menagerie, where animals different breeds kept in cages. Solzhenitsyn stands for reasonable freedom, for the gradual arrival of society towards this freedom.

The author handed over “Cancer Ward” to Tvardovsky, the manuscript was edited, but did not pass censorship. The fact is that from the moment the thaw ended, searches were carried out at the homes of dissidents. In 1965, a search was conducted at the home of Solzhenitsyn’s close friend, Teush, and the play “1945” was found. The already recruited “Cancer Corps” was scattered, and Solzhenitsyn began to be subjected to various kinds of provocations. One of the KGB officers was tasked with injecting Solzhenitsyn with a poisoned needle.

Feeling the beginning of repression, the writer moves to a position of dissidence. He has been working (since 1958) on the book “The Gulag Archipelago” while living in the Baltic states. By creating this work, Solzhenitsyn sought to reveal the true face of the socio-political formation that turned the country into a large prison. Attracted historical essay, the ethnography of the Gulag is recreated (a parody of a treatise on anthropology), testimonies of former prisoners are given, who after the release of “One Day” came to the author in whole bags. We have a confession before us.

The author did not have any access to the KGB archives. Therefore, he introduces into the text of “Archipelago” characteristic passages from unpublished works: Shalamova, Ginzburg, Adamova-Sliozberg, which he refers to as literary fact. The work is structured as a guide to an unknown archipelago, and the author himself acts as its discoverer. The narrative is imbued with tragic sarcasm: Solzhenitsyn constantly ironizes, mocks orders and statements Soviet power. Georges Nivat: “Irony is the lime that holds this gigantic mass of writing together.” Solzhenitsyn himself characterizes “The Archipelago” as an artistic study and explains that he did not have all the completeness of the documents, so he resorted to artistic typification. While “The Archipelago” was being written, the author never had the opportunity to read it in its entirety, from beginning to end. This explains the roughness of the artistic plan.

“Archipelago” recreates a tragedy that had no analogues either in Russia or in the world. In comparison with the pre-revolutionary prison, the inhumanity of the Soviet prison is highlighted. "An explosion of atavism." The reason for the emergence and existence of the Gulag is the moral, mental and civil weakness of society in front of the state, plus the unprecedented cruelty of the authorities, as if taking revenge on their subjects for not being what they should be according to Marxist teachings.

Examples from the past: the Inquisition justified its cause by defending the ideals of Christianity, the colonialists claimed that they were bringing civilization to the enslaved countries, the fascists put the ideal of race first, the Jacobins and Bolsheviks - freedom, equality, brotherhood.

Communist terror led to the destruction of entire social strata (the clergy, the non-communist part of the intelligentsia, the wealthy peasantry). The Bolsheviks tried to physically exterminate all these groups, not to mention the nobility, whose membership was considered criminal. More than 60 million people were subjected to repression.

Unlike Shalamov, “ Kolyma stories” which is told about tragedy without catharsis, Solzhenitsyn offers catharsis. The first part reflects the country's slide to the bottom of violence and lawlessness back in Lenin's times. The second book is the most “pressing”, it tells about the classical period of the Gulag. It is especially difficult to read about women and children in the Gulag. At the same time, the author makes it clear, not everyone here has lost their human appearance; life ideals are also being tested. Most decent people in the conditions of the camp, either believers remained (their beliefs did not allow them to do evil, and they were ready to accept martyrdom), or true intellectuals, “whose interests and will to the spiritual side of life are persistent and constant.” The most enlightened is the third book of the Archipelago. The author shows that the situation in the camps began to change after the war. A large number of prisoners of war come - people who have gone through everything and do not intend to endure humiliation. Front-line soldiers began to physically destroy criminals and informers. The Soviet government also realized that it had let the criminals loose too much, and turned a blind eye to what was happening. The front-line soldiers are finally taking power away from the thieves, and the moral atmosphere is improving. Escapes from the camps begin. The pinnacle of the confrontation was the first armed uprising of prisoners in the USSR in Ekibastuz (1951). Describing such speeches, Solzhenitsyn shows that a system based on violence is doomed and will sooner or later be overthrown. The authorities were especially afraid of this thought.

Starting with “Archipelago” Solzhenitsyn switches from language literary prose into the language of moral preaching: archaizes vocabulary, imitating Avvakum, Leo Tolstoy and Old Testament prophets. “This is the language of the new messiah, the teacher of humanity” (Georges Nivat). Solzhenitsyn is developing a genre of letters: a letter to Patriarch Pimen, in which the excessive statization of the church is exposed; a letter to the Minister of the Interior, which contains harsh statements against the legal concept of registration. An open letter to the Writers' Congress attempts to prove that censorship in the USSR is illegal. As a result, in 1968 Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Writers' Union.

In 1970, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Nominated him for the François Mauriac Prize. The formulation of the Nobel Committee: “For moral strength, with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature as a writer of the modern era." Solzhenitsyn was not allowed to leave the country to receive the prize. The persecution begins and grows more and more. In 1972, Solzhenitsyn, with the help of Vadim Andreev, the son of Leonid Andreev, transported the Gulag Archipelago abroad. At that time, a car with KGB officers was on duty near Solzhenitsyn’s apartment, telephones were tapped, and it was dangerous to go out into the street. Not knowing how it will all end, Solzhenitsyn gives instructions to his lawyer in Switzerland “to publish the novel in the event of my unexpected death.”

1973 - Voronyanskaya hanged herself at home, she typed 5 copies of “Archipelago” and one for herself. The KGB was on her trail, and the suicide was either imitated or actually committed out of understanding of her betrayal. One way or another, “Archipelago” falls into the hands of the KGB. Solzhenitsyn was extremely worried about this: the book begins with a list of names of people whose materials about imprisonment in the camps he used. In order to protect these people, he prints the book in other countries of the world. Gradually the work was published in more than 30 countries. Under the influence of the international resonance, Solzhenitsyn hoped, they would not dare to commit open reprisals.

1974 was the apogee of the persecution of Solzhenitsyn. They call him the literary Vlasov, a man who sold out to the CIA, and they try to discredit him in every possible way, starting with his nationality (allegedly his real name is Solzhenitser). It doesn’t end there: in February 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and imprisoned in Lefortovo. The writer understood that everything was heading towards this: he had a camp padded jacket prepared in advance. However, the authorities could not apply the same methods to a person who had already received the Nobel Prize as to others. Solzhenitsyn spent two days in prison, and there the deportation order was read to him. The writer was dressed in more decent clothes, put on a plane under escort and taken to Germany.

Although Solzhenitsyn's fame continued to grow abroad, his texts remained banned at home. If anyone was found to have a copy of Solzhenitsyn's text, such a person received prison term. The anti-totalitarian stories created in his homeland, permeated with rejection of inhumanity, remained the pinnacle of Solzhenitsyn’s literary creativity, although he continued his literary work abroad.

Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn said in one of his interviews: “I gave almost my entire life to the Russian revolution.”

The task of testifying to the hidden tragic turns of Russian history led to the need to search for and understand their origins. They are seen precisely in the Russian revolution. “As a writer, I am really put in the position of speaking for the dead, but not only in the camps, but for those who died in Russian revolution“, - this is how Solzhenitsyn outlined the task of his life in an interview in 1983. - I have been working on a book about the revolution for 47 years, but in the course of working on it I discovered that the Russian year of 1917 was a rapid, as if compressed, outline of the world history of the 20th century. That is, literally: the eight months that passed from February to October 1917 in Russia, then furiously scrolled, are then slowly repeated by the whole world throughout the entire century.<...>In recent years, when I have already finished several volumes, I am surprised to see that in some indirect way I also wrote the history of the Twentieth Century” (Publicism, vol. 3, p. 142).

A witness and participant in Russian history of the 20th century. Solzhenitsyn himself was there. He graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Rostov University and entered adult life fell on 1941. On June 22, having received his diploma, he comes for exams at the Moscow Institute of History, Philosophy, Literature (MIFLI), where he had been studying correspondence courses since 1939. The next session falls at the beginning of the war. In October he was mobilized into the army, and soon entered the officer school in Kostroma. In the summer of 1942 - the rank of lieutenant, and at the end - the front: Solzhenitsyn commanded a sound battery in artillery reconnaissance. Solzhenitsyn's military experience and the work of his sound battery are reflected in his military prose of the late 90s. (two-part story “Zhelyabug settlements” and story “Adlig Schvenkitten” - “New World”. 1999. No. 3). As an artillery officer, he travels from Orel to East Prussia and is awarded orders. Miraculously, he finds himself in the very places of East Prussia where the army of General Samsonov passed. The tragic episode of 1914 - the Samson disaster - becomes the subject of depiction in the first “Knot” of the “Red Wheel” - in “August the Fourteenth”. On February 9, 1945, Captain Solzhenitsyn was arrested at the command post of his superior, General Travkin, who, a year after the arrest, would give his former officer a reference, where he would remember, without fear, all his merits, including the night withdrawal from the encirclement of the battery in January 1945 when the battles were already in Prussia. After the arrest - camps: in New Jerusalem, in Moscow at the Kaluga outpost, in special prison No. 16 in the northern suburbs of Moscow (the same famous Marfinsk sharashka described in the novel “In the First Circle”, 1955-1968). Since 1949 - camp in Ekibastuz (Kazakhstan). Since 1953, Solzhenitsyn has been an “eternal exiled settler” in a remote village in the Dzhambul region, on the edge of the desert. In 1957 - rehabilitation and rural school in the village of Torfoprodukt near Ryazan, where he teaches and rents a room from Matryona Zakharova, who became the prototype of the famous hostess of “Matryona’s Yard” (1959). In 1959, Solzhenitsyn “in one gulp”, in three weeks, created a revised, “lightened” version of the story “Shch-854”, which, after much trouble, A.T. Tvardovsky and with the blessing of N.S. himself. Khrushchev was published in “New World” (1962. No. 11) under the title “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.”

By the time of his first publication, Solzhenitsyn had serious writing experience behind him—about a decade and a half: “For twelve years I calmly wrote and wrote. Only on the thirteenth did he falter. It was the summer of 1960. From writing many things - both with their complete hopelessness and complete obscurity - I began to feel overwhelmed, I lost the lightness of concept and movement. In the literary underground, I began to run out of air,” Solzhenitsyn wrote in his autobiographical book “A Calf Butted an Oak Tree.” It was in the literary underground that the novels “In the First Circle,” several plays, and the film script “Tanks Know the Truth!” were created. about the suppression of the Ekibastuz prisoner uprising, work began on “The Gulag Archipelago”, a novel about the Russian revolution codenamed “R-17” was conceived, which was embodied decades later in the epic “The Red Wheel”.

In the mid-60s. the story “Cancer Ward” (1963-1967) and a “light” version of the novel “In the First Circle” were created. It was not possible to publish them in Novy Mir, and both were published in 1968 in the West. At the same time time is running work begun earlier on “The Gulag Archipelago” (1958-1968; 1979) and the epic “Red Wheel” (intensive work on a large historical novel“R-17”, which grew into the epic “Red Wheel”, started in 1969).

In 1970, Solzhenitsyn became a Nobel Prize laureate; He does not want to leave the USSR, fearing to lose his citizenship and the opportunity to fight in his homeland, so the personal receipt of the prize and the speech of the Nobel laureate are postponed for now. The story of receiving the Nobel Prize is described in the chapter “Nobeliana” (“The calf butted with an oak tree”). At the same time, Solzhenitsyn’s position in the USSR is increasingly deteriorating: principled and uncompromising ideological and literary position leads to expulsion from the Writers' Union (November 1969), a campaign of persecution against Solzhenitsyn unfolds in the Soviet press. This forces him to give permission for the publication in Paris of the book “August the Fourteenth” (1971) - the first volume of the epic “The Red Wheel”. In 1973, the Paris publishing house “YMCA-PRESS” published the first volume of “The Gulag Archipelago”.

Solzhenitsyn not only does not hide his ideological opposition, but also directly declares it. He's writing whole line open letters: Letter IV All-Union Congress Union of Soviet Writers (1967), Open letter To the Secretariat of the Writers' Union of the RSFSR (1969), Letter to the leaders of the Soviet Union (1973), which is sent by mail to the addressees of the CPSU Central Committee, and without receiving a response, is distributed in samizdat. The writer creates a series of journalistic articles that are intended for the philosophical and journalistic collection “From Under the Blocks” (“On the return of breath and consciousness”, “Repentance and self-restraint as categories of national life”, “Education”), “Live not by lies!” (1974).

Of course, there was no need to talk about the publication of these works - they were distributed through samizdat.

In 1975, the autobiographical book “The Calf Butted an Oak Tree” was published, which is a detailed story about creative path writer from the beginning literary activity before the second arrest and deportation and an outline of the literary environment and morals of the 60s - early 70s.

In February 1974, at the peak of the unbridled persecution launched in the Soviet press, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and imprisoned in Lefortovo prison. But his incomparable authority among the world community does not allow the Soviet leadership to simply deal with the writer, so he is deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled from the USSR. In Germany, which became the first country to accept an exile, he stays with Heinrich Böll, after which he settles in Zurich (Switzerland). Solzhenitsyn’s second autobiographical book, “A Grain Landed Between Two Millstones,” tells about life in the West, which he began publishing in Novy Mir in 1998 and then continued in 1999.

In 1976, the writer and his family moved to America, to Vermont. Here he is working on his complete works and continues historical research, the results of which form the basis of the epic “Red Wheel”.

Solzhenitsyn was always confident that he would return to Russia. Even in 1983, when the idea of ​​a change in the socio-political situation in the USSR seemed incredible, when asked by a Western journalist about the hope of returning to Russia, the writer replied: “You know, in a strange way, I not only hope, I am internally convinced of it. I just live in this feeling: that I will definitely return during my lifetime. By this I mean the return of a living person, and not of books; books, of course, will return. This contradicts all reasonable reasoning; I cannot say for what objective reasons this could be, since I am no longer a young man. But history often goes so unexpectedly that we cannot foresee the simplest things” (Publicism, vol. 3, p. 140).

Solzhenitsyn's prediction came true: already in the late 80s. this return began to gradually take place. In 1988, Solzhenitsyn’s USSR citizenship was returned; in 1989, they published Nobel lecture and chapters from “The Gulag Archipelago”, and then, in 1990, the novels “In the First Circle” and “Cancer Ward”. In 1994, the writer returned to Russia. Since 1995, Novy Mir has published a new cycle - “two-part” stories.

The purpose and meaning of Solzhenitsyn’s life is writing: “My life,” he said, “passes from morning to late evening at work. There are no exceptions, distractions, vacations, trips - in this sense, I really do what I was born for” (Publicism, vol. 3, p. 144). Several desks with dozens of open books and unfinished manuscripts constitute the main everyday environment of the writer - both in Vermont, in the USA, and now, upon returning to Russia. Every year new works of his appear: the journalistic book “Russia in Collapse” about the current state and fate of the Russian people was published in 1998. In 1999, “New World” published new works by Solzhenitsyn, in which he addresses previously uncharacteristic topics military prose.

Solzhenitsyn's work can be divided into three periods: 1. 50-mid 60's; 2. Second half of the 60s - early 70s; 3. 70-90s. The first is characterized by secret writing, these are mainly stories where he acted as a fiction writer; the second period is associated with journalism, with autobiography. Solzh's journalism can be divided into artistic-narrative (“A calf butted an oak tree”), literary-critical (“My tripod shakes”); political (“From Under the Blocks”); positive-“recommendatory”, in which the author offers his own options for the internal arrangement of the state (“How can we arrange Russia”, “Russia in collapse”, “Towards the current state of Russia”). The third period is the period of the epic, the Red Wheel.

Solzhenitsyn's artistic method can be defined as “epistemological centrism” - an understanding of artistic creativity as a form of knowledge of life. With this approach, the main criterion of aesthetic value becomes the measure and degree of compliance of the work with the so-called historical truth. Another criterion is “realism-centrism”: the postulate that only realistic art is the most adequate form of comprehending the truth of life and that only realistic forms are the most productive ways of display. Solzhenitsyn has always been and remains committed to realism, and is openly hostile to modernism and the avant-garde, dismissing the latter as a “dangerous anti-cultural phenomenon.”

In the 1960s, when literature about folk life entered the center of public attention, Solzhenitsyn became its most important writer, ahead of his time. His works of this time: “One day...”, “ Matryonin's yard", "Zakhar-Kalita", "Cancer Ward" and "In the First Circle", published in samizdat, marked a new level of truth, a new type of artistic consciousness. The idea of ​​the intrinsic value of the human personality turned out to be unexpected for his contemporaries, as was his entire system of moral coordinates associated with the folk Christian ethical ideal. A new scale of values, new ideas, a new understanding of history and modernity have determined the significance of works of art and Solzhenitsyn's journalism. His artistic thought was chained to tragic fate people and country. The idea of ​​national revival was embodied by the writer in the characters of people living according to their conscience.

“One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich” 1959. (published in 1962). After the story was published, one critic wrote: “He will never share with anyone, he is a skilled, resourceful and ruthless jackal. A complete egoist who lives only for his belly.” This statement proves that readers and critics have largely misunderstood the story. Let's try to figure it out. The story became important step writer in understanding the phenomenon of the common man. It is not the camp theme that is important in the story (although it is precisely the frankness of the depiction camp life he created a sensation both at home and abroad), and what is important is the spiritual potential of a person, his opposition to the system.

The main character is a man of the people, a Russian man who goes through the path of “education”, the path of fate together with the people. The example of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov shows how a Russian person becomes a prisoner. I.D. goes through all stages of transformation, he was an ordinary peasant, then a soldier, and finally a prisoner. The system is gradually destroying ordinary people, Despite everything.

In the story, Solzhenitsyn shows the norm of life from the point of view of the character, hence the dense psychologism in the depiction of the hero’s consciousness (stream of consciousness) and the dense everyday life in the depiction of camp life. Everything here is determined by physiological processes, and they are described in detail and clearly. In the hero’s mind there is no duality in the perception of the camp (this is good, this is bad), he is involved in the absurdity of the world around him, he is involved in this life, therefore the slave psychology is reflected in him, therefore he is in no way a righteous person. He adapts to the life of the camp, became his own person here, thoroughly studied and accepted the laws of the camp, developed a lot of adaptations for survival and leaves many moral principles, he has shifted general system moral values, turned inside out, he can “earn extra money”, humiliate himself, can take away the bowl from the weaker, he settled down in this world of the Gulag, developed a lot of adaptations for life and learned its philosophy, for example: “Prisoners are not given time, they have time management knows”, “It’s just the way it’s supposed to be - one works, one watches.” From Shukhov’s point of view, only a beginner can rebel in this world, like captain Buinovsky, without realizing the futility and danger of his efforts.

Here Solzhenitsyn’s reflections on subordination as the genetic memory of the Russian people arise; these are not Russophobic sentiments, but an attempt to understand and analyze human consciousness, so the writer comes to the conclusion that the Russian is characterized by extremes: either survive in any conditions, or die. For Solzhenitsyn, it is important not only to survive, but to survive with dignity, without losing conscience, to morally resolve the problem of lack of freedom, not to get into trouble, but also not to give up.

According to Shukhov, only by following the rules of the camp can one survive. Therefore, the story shows two important physiological processes, with the help of cats. and it is possible to survive - food and labor. For Shukhov, the formula for survival is the simplest acquisition of freedom: “one’s own” time + food, these are two moments when a person is his own master, even in a camp. All moral values ​​are replaced by food, it serves as a guarantee of human salvation, a person, preserving himself, his body, health, gets the opportunity to preserve his “I”, treating food and bread with respect, a person leaves himself the opportunity to work to preserve his dignity. As one of the critics rightly noted, “kaksha is the only value in the creeping reality of this scary world" Shukhov’s perception of other people is connected with the episodes of eating. For example, the director Caesar never shares the parcels that he regularly receives from home, the tall old man Yu-81 behaves in a very special way in the dining room, never slouches, never bends over the plate, always carries the spoon high to his mouth, chews long and slowly, although he already There is not a single tooth, he rises above all other people, and this dignity distinguishes him. That’s why Shukhov stands somewhere next to this old man, he treats food as a sacrament, poetizes it, suppresses animal instincts, and the process of eating reflects a particle of freedom in Ivan Denisovich.

Another process in realizing one’s freedom in an unfree world is work. Internal stability determines the measure of human dignity as internal freedom in a situation of maximum external absence. The means to survive and realize this freedom is work. The work combines two themes - the search for freedom and holiness people's labor. In this sense, Shukhov also behaves morally, for he lives only by his labor, not by denunciations, not by jackaling. In this sense, the camp is not able to kill the gift of creativity that is inherent in a person. But still, this gift of a craftsman and master, this zeal of the owner, unable to let any good disappear, be it the remainder of a solution or a piece of a hacksaw - all this works for the Gulag, serves to strengthen its walls, increases its wealth, and therefore the preservation of its dominion, its tyranny over millions of the same Ivanov Denisovichs. So Ivan Denisovich’s enthusiasm is tragic. Thus, in the work on Solzh. the opportunity to preserve oneself is expressed; the peasant consciousness and memory of labor remain in Shukhov. The writer’s hope is that the people have preserved creative instincts and the people will build. In this sense, the story glorifies professional work, free from ideology. Professionalism is the main thing in a person; he must go about his business, regardless of the circumstances. On the other hand, Ivan Denisovich’s patience is patience, devoid of a high moral aura

Another theme of the story is the relationship between the people and the intelligentsia. In the camp there is no difference between people, everyone equally finds themselves in a situation of unfreedom, however, the episode of conversation about Eisenstein’s film “Ivan the Terrible” models the double opposition in the story. Firstly, there is a conflict within the intelligentsia between the director Caesar Markovich and X-123: an esthete-formalist and a supporter of the ethical understanding of art. Secondly, the opposition is between the people and the intelligentsia, and in it both disputants are equally opposed to Shukhov. They simply don’t notice him, this is unforgivable blindness, since Iv.Den. there is an exponent of the author’s point of view, this isolation from the people is costly.

In understanding the story, the position of the author is also important. All the events of the story are given only from Shukhov’s point of view, so he evaluates the day he lived as almost happy. The reader, who lived this day together with Ivan Denisovich, who has been everywhere he goes, experiences a terrible shock; a catharsis appears that arises between the hero’s well-being and the reader’s perception. The last phrase of the story includes the author’s consciousness: “There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days in his camp life. Because of leap years, there were three extra days.” These emphatically neutral words emanate a deep sadness of understanding - an understanding not only of the absurdity of this time, but also an understanding of the blatant inconsistency of the character of an ordinary Soviet person. Solzh relies on the tradition of the 19th century, where a person is thought of as a spiritual being, in order to get rid of the Gulag, one must repent. Through the renunciation of one's selfishness, through repentance, come to God, to the moral revival of the nation.

The first novel written by Solzhenitsyn was "In the first circle"(1955-58, distorted 1964, restored 1968). Everyone who wrote about this novel noted that it was masterfully made. On the one hand, it is very close to the tradition of the classic Russian novel - it has a large number of characters, many plot branches, a number of spatial platforms, numerous excursions into the past, leisurely conversations between characters and a commentary by the author-demiurge. On the other hand, unlike contemporary novels of the 50s, Solzh's novel. compositionally strict and compact: all the figures are arranged into a system, the plot is sharply screwed up with detective intrigue, all plot branches are pulled together into one node. Main aesthetic principle The novel is a total rejection of the substantive and formal principles of socialist realism; it is a fundamentally anti-socialist realist work.

The title of the novel itself is semantically multi-layered. The first meaning: prison, it is the beginning - the first circle of Gulag hell, then it happens in a descending manner. The first circle of Dante's hell contains pagan scientists, sages, "bright-minded men", in addition, the "sharashka" at the end of the first part of the novel is likened to Noah's Ark, and the entire outside world - to the black ocean. Therefore, it can be argued that the stable principle of the poetics of the novel is the coupling of naturalistic accuracy with a certain conditional reality, which gives the image a generalized symbolic sound. This is immediately stated by the timing of the novel - three days before and after Christmas. It is the collision of different points of view that allows us to define this novel as an ideological novel and, to some extent, a novel of education.

In the novel Solzh. two forces are opposed in the most traditional for ideological novel opposition: one social camp is the oppressors, the other is the oppressed. Therefore, the space of the novel, depending on these two camps, is divided into free and unfree.

Consider the world of oppressors. Here the writer openly uses the grotesque style. Central location occupied by Stalin. All five chapters dedicated to him are in the pamphlet genre (see chapter titles). The author uses deadly satire and does not skimp on the most merciless epithets. Thus, in contrast to all his titles, a murderous description of his appearance is given, especially intensively when depicting Stalin, the novelist uses a caustic parody of Stalin’s very way of thinking, cat. characterized by inverted logic. The servants of the regime are depicted in the same grotesque light in the novel. This is the all-powerful Minister of State Security Abakumov, “a piece of meat wrapped in a jacket”; the head of the special equipment department, Major General Oskolupov, “a stump, a long-decided stump,” party organizer Stepanov and, in general, the mechanical doll-people of Lubyanka. The monstrous nature of the images of those holding power turns out to be quite natural in the novel against the background of the general absurdity of the state; it is enough to imagine those accusations, according to the cat. people find themselves in sharashka. Potapov received ten years for selling the already blown up DneproGES to the Germans. The main principle, on the cat. all state absurdity holds is a lie. Lies become a connecting link, cat. unites all representatives of power, the lower one lies to the higher one and so on until Stalin himself, this is the only way to save yourself. An example of such a lie is the chapter “Three Liars,” where only a lie can save your life. Another feeling is fear. Everyone is afraid, even Stalin, the cat. has manic suspicion and fear. Therefore, the entire space of Russia is a prison, absolute lack of freedom.

The space of the “Sharashka”, the world of the oppressed, on the contrary, is free. Marfinsk prisoners are people, for cats. freedom of thought is the most important condition for truly human existence. And for the sake of implementation free activity Spiritually, they do not need power, material values, they simply do not need them. Sharashka is an island of freedom in the middle of an ocean of violence. However, here too there is an ideological struggle; it is this process that is shown by the author. In the spiritual space of the novel, a large place is occupied by disputes, “games”, and dialogues: this is the trial of Prince Igor, the conversation between Chelnov and Rubin about Moses, the conversation between Innocent and Uncle Avenir. The central place in the intellectual field of the novel is occupied by the dispute between different historiosophical concepts - different versions historical fate Russia in the twentieth century. The bearers of these concepts are three central characters: Nerzhin, Rubin, Sologdin. Their dispute forms the intellectual core of the novel, to a cat. All plot lines are pulled together. Each of them is a convinced Knight of the idea, he lives by the idea and is devoted to it, there is nothing more expensive than the idea, therefore each of them is an ideologist, ready to defend his beliefs. Central idea The novel becomes an understanding of freedom and slavery, beauty, truth, goodness (chapter “Castle of the Holy Grail”). Solzh's man is a knight, the cat must fight alone against evil and the enslavement of the soul. Therefore, prison helps a real person realize himself, his “knighthood”. It cleanses the soul and rids it of bad acquisitions. Prison is self-restraint; being in a situation of being thrown out of everyday life makes it easier for a person to give up his vices. According to Solzh, evil is in every person, it is personal, overcoming it stems from conscience. Each person carries within himself the image of Perfection, and the main thing in life is not to lose this image.

Gleb Nerzhin is a staunch opponent of the regime, he is in prison for his way of thinking, he is a historian by vocation. The main goal of his life is to understand history, its patterns, the main question: how did it happen that Russia, having first soared to unprecedented freedom, ended in the worst of tyranny.

Dmitry Sologdin is also in opposition to the existing system. That complex of ideas, cat. Sologdin professes what can be called enlightened national conservatism. He remains an aristocrat even in prison: strict self-discipline, strict control of his desires, the highest sense of self-esteem, all this allows him to find an opportunity for self-realization in prison. But at the same time, Dmitry is subject to irony from the author, he is a snob towards simple people, his behavior is often theatrical, picturesque and funny, his desire to come up with some strange and funny language, replacing all foreign words with Russian equivalents.

Lev Rubin is an ideal Soviet man of the Korchagin type. He is devoted to Soviet power, believes that in his case there was a mistake and defends the state machine with foam at the mouth. He is a fanatic of his idea, which is noted by other characters (chapter 69).

In full accordance with the laws of the ideological novel, the consistency of all concepts is tested by the choice of the hero. The choice made becomes the final assessment of the cost of the idea. the character confesses. The choice is determined by a threat to life, exile to Kolyma, or general future well-being. In this situation, Nerzhin categorically refuses and goes to Kolyma, Rubin happily agrees, seeing in himself the savior of the idea of ​​revolution and the Owls. authorities, Sologdin agrees, carried away scientific discovery. Thus, everyone acts in accordance with their convictions, but their actions are correlated with the pictures of the time, where any compromise with violence, with the oppressors, humiliates the moral dignity of the individual, making him a servant of tyranny.

The choice is also made by the other heroes of the novel, but this choice and the path to it are shown in detail using the example of one character - Innokenty Volodin. As a person, he developed in Soviet times and fully complied with Soviet standards, serves as a diplomat, traveled all over the world, his main credo is life is given only once, take everything from it. Why did he go against the state by deciding to give out secret information? The author explains this by those discoveries, cat. he committed. He made his first discovery six years before the events described, when he accidentally stumbled upon his mother’s archive. Through his mother's perception of the time of the beginning of the century, Innocent begins to think about the true history of the country. He makes the second discovery through communication with his uncle, his mother’s brother (p. 357). And the third discovery is a trip to the village of Christmas, where, in complete contrast to the name, space and beauty of nature, he sees the decay and death of the Russian village. Therefore, when performing his act, Innocent clearly separates his love for the fatherland and his love for the government; he believes that his act is a benefit for the people and the country. Therefore, in the finale, the author shows his descent into the hell of the Gulag, which is a literal action on the part of Volodin, he is ready to give himself for his idea, which is a confirmation of his inner freedom.

According to Solzhenitsyn, the spiritual strongholds of freedom are four categories: people, God, asceticism and the Word. The people are like the soul of Russia, God is like a moral imperative, asceticism is like a feeling of complete freedom, because people give up everything that is dear to them in order to preserve themselves. This is a very tragic situation, because for freedom a person loses everything that is written in his family - family, love, friendship, the joy of seeing the world, enjoying beauty. This is a very high moral standard, but Solzhenitsyn sets it for absolutely everyone, in this he is a maximalist. The word acts as hope for the future. This hope is reflected in Nerzhin’s monologue; it is his position to see everything, to find out the whole truth to the end, to translate it into words, so that the word destroys lies, that occupies an important place in the novel.

Summing up the analysis of the novel “In the First Circle,” it should be said that the realistic method plays a basic role. On the other hand, the novel largely parodies the methods of socialist realism, which is expressed primarily in the poetics of the industrial novel. However, it should be noted that the politicization of artistic thought and teaching pathos do not diverge from the partisanship postulated by socialist realism and educational function art. But the writer updates the method of socialist realism with the principles of romanticism, first of all, the traditions of high spiritual and religious aesthetics. This is reflected in the monologues of the artist Kondrashev-Ivanov, cat. calls for insight into spiritual reality.

Solzhenitsyn's next work is "Cancer Ward" (1965-66). In this story Solzh. realizes the possibilities of one of the most developed genres of realism - the socio-psychological story. The characters of the story, collected in the ward for cancer patients, represent a micromodel of the entire Soviet society, each bears the stamp of the state system, cat. one way or another influenced his spiritual appearance. By placing his characters in an existential situation, the author reveals the sources of the disease not only individuals, but also society as a whole, cat. infected with a tumor and forgets about spiritual values, it is absolutely not free.

The characters in the story represent different National composition(Russians, Uzbeks, Germans, Ukrainians), various age categories (from 16 to 80 years old), various social strata (prisoners, party workers, security guards, intellectuals, etc.), they are all sick, but differ according to three criteria: the ability to renounce egoism, the potential for pity and love for others and attitude towards death.

At the lowest level is Pavel Nikolaevich Rusanov, a Soviet official. He is afraid of death to the point of animal fear. Next comes Chaly: “Whoever talks less, grieves less.” Further, Vadim Zatsyrko is a young scientist-enthusiast, he thinks in Korchagin’s way - to live these last days with dignity, but he values ​​the lives of other people less than his own. Next comes Efrem Podduev, a completely material man, but who has the courage to accept death and think about it. Then Dr. Dontsova, cat. soberly assesses her situation and has the courage to admit her illness, however, she is also afraid of death and shifts responsibility for her treatment to others. And finally, Oleg Kostoglotov, who believes that now we can talk about death.

A person's attitude towards death, i.e. to exacting judgment over oneself, determines a person’s ability or inability to repent. Therefore, Rusanov is doomed, he is unable to repent and has preserved his infallibility; Podduev and Shulubin, on the contrary, come to death with repentance and thereby rise above their physical death. For Oleg, a courageous attitude towards death is the basis of his worldview. He never takes anyone's word for it, first of all. existing system and finds the opportunity through a demanding inner court, through the desire not to hide from the disease, to find deliverance from the disease. His recovery can be divided into three periods: the first is associated with disbelief, nihilism, aggressiveness and is characterized by the complete influence of the disease on Oleg; the second is the recovery of the body, when a man awakens in Oleg, attraction to Zoya; the third is love for Vera Gangart, recovery of the soul. The recovery of the soul brings a feeling of freedom, which allows Oleg to openly relate to the world. But the healing achieved is inevitably paid for by losses. This is precisely the metaphorical meaning of Oleg’s journey; having recovered from the tumor, he loses his masculine strength and love. What awaits him in the future is unknown; in this sense, Oleg’s character carries that novelistic incompleteness that deprives the author of his didacticism and allows him to reflect the diversity of life.

The story is largely metaphorical and allegorical; at the center of the debate is the question of meaning. human life, begun by the parable of L.N. Tolstoy “How does a person live?” Everyone answers this question due to their needs, views, education, but only Oleg is able to understand and overcome the disease, his discharge from the hospital and immersion in the natural world, in the world of life, show that the supply of goodness and conscience in this person is inexhaustible.

Solzh's next milestone work is an epic "Red Wheel". The idea for the book of the Revolution dates back to 1936. In 1965, the name was determined - “Red Wheel”, since 1967 - the principle of nodes (“a dense presentation of events in compressed periods of time”). Since 1971, publication abroad begins. Throughout his emigration, Solzhenitsyn collected various materials relating to the period of the First World War and both revolutions; he met with many representatives of the first emigration, worked in the archives of Zurich, and in the Library of the US Congress. The novel was published in 1988 and consisted of 8 volumes. Two more volumes were published in the early 90s. The narrative was supposed to reach 1922, but ends in April 1917. It consists of four parts or nodes: August 14, October 16, March 17 and April 17. The chronotope plays a primary role in the composition. Chronologically, the action lasts two years and eight months, in nodes it fits into 58 days. Spatially covers: the People's Will movement, Russian-Japanese war, World War I, October 1916, February Revolution, March, April 1917. Events also extend deep into biblical tales and legends.

The poetics of the novel's title are as follows. The first meaning is associated with the biblical red wheel, the cat appears in the book of Elijah, the second coming of Christ will be accompanied by 4 wheels of fire, burning everything in its path, this is the punishment of people for their sins. The second meaning is associated with Gogol’s reoriented image of Russia as a bird of three. This is a troika that has lost its wheel, there is no movement. And the third meaning is associated with the wheels of the train, the cat is usually red. In this meaning, the wheel crushes a person under itself, destroys him. “The big red wheel of the locomotive is almost as tall as it is. No matter how wary and prudent you are, life lulls you to sleep. And in the shadow of something big, without having looked at it, you lean against a massive cast-iron support as if against a wall - and it suddenly moves, and it turns out to be a big red wheel of a steam locomotive, a huge long rod turns it, and already your back is twisted - there ! Under the wheel! And, floundering with your head against the rails, you are too late to realize how stupid danger has crept up in a new way.”(These are Lenin's thoughts).

According to critics (Yudin B.A.), Solzhenitsyn’s goal in the Wheel is to artistically recreate the patterns and accidents of social and spiritual life. Therefore, the author of the epic is attracted by those historical events, which are repeated at least twice - first as a tragedy, then as a farce, the latter, in turn, can have a bloody tragic outcome.

The composition of the novel is interesting in that it consists of four nodes, each of which has its own role in the overall whole of the novel and in the course of the revolution as a whole. The novel begins in August 14, where the beginning of the First World War is shown, the victorious offensive of Samsonov’s army in Prussia and the first defeats that occurred from the carelessness of the Russians, from the inability to wage war, from the ambitions of the highest military commanders. Also in the first node appear those heroes who will hold the romance together throughout all the nodes. This is Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, the royal family, Lenin - specific historical figures and literary characters- Sanya (Isaac) Lazhenitsyn, Georgy Aleksandrovich Vorotyntsev, Zakhar Fedorovich Tomchak and his family, Olda Orestovna Andozerskaya. The novel ends on April 17 - the end of the democratic revolution, the policy of the Cadets, who made up the majority in the Provisional Government, did not take place, now nothing will stop the Bolsheviks, those. There is no October Revolution as such in the novel, but its irreversible consequences are visible already in April 17.

The plot of the novel reflects Time itself, which contains turning points historical stages, at the same time not consistently chronicle, but “interrupted”, dotted. The author selects from the sea of ​​facts and events shock moments, turning points social conflicts, fateful phenomena and concentrates his attention on them. History consists of several knots, there is no integrity in it, just as there is none in life itself, in the destinies of people, so often the knots are not connected. In this sense, The Wheel is a non-genre formation, however, the features of an epic are present.

One of the significant features of the novel is its focus on understanding the key ideas for the fate of the state. The image of Olda Orestovna Andozerskaya, professor of history of the Middle Ages, is based on philosophical views Ivana Alexandrov Ilyina. Andozerskaya actively develops the concept of autocracy, consonant with the views of Ilyin and the author himself. The monarchy is based on the trinity of faith (Orthodoxy), statehood, and nationality. It is these foundations that have been rocking for several decades, in this sense Solzh argues with Tolstoy, the cat does not want to pull the “big cart of the state,” but calls for anarchy. Therefore, Tolstoyan Sanya Lazhenitsyn volunteers to go to the front to defend the faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland. Also, in creating a philosophy of history, Solzh relies on the views of Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Camus, Kafka, but his concept was born in a dispute with them. Solzh's concept of Russian history is entirely opposed to Berdyaev's. Berdyaev saw in the revolution of 17 the pinnacle of achievements of Russian maximalism, and argued that Peter’s personality had similarities with the Bolsheviks. Solzh speaks about the foreignness of the roar for Russia, it is arranged by strangers to culture, faith, and the Russian people paid the price. The author transfers very strong guilt to the Russian intelligentsia, who, in his opinion, fell for the promises of freedom of radical politicians, prepared the roar of 17 and was caught in their own desire for freedom. In this sense, the idea is interesting February Revolution at the third node. This is a spontaneous event that destroyed the usual way of life and played a fatal role in the future.

Based on the above, we can assume that one of the leading motives of the novel is the motive of faith, because the foundations of Russian life are the foundations of faith, and the new progressive forces of Russia, already without faith, do not see that sacred saving spiritual power in Orthodoxy, so the Bolsheviks did not make much effort to eradicate faith, it no longer existed in the circles of the intelligentsia.

In answer to the question Who is to blame? Solzh shows, first of all, not the terrorist acts of the Bolsheviks, although that happened, but the history of the royal family, and above all, the figure of Nicholas II, who was distinguished by such qualities as indecisiveness, inability and reluctance to govern such a complex and large state. It is the conflict between the executive and representative branches of government that interests the author; the king was unable to resolve this conflict, because he depended on his personal preferences and was under the influence of his wife. The most strong pages The first node is dedicated to the Stolypin reforms and the figure of this man; according to Solzh, it is in the failure of economic reforms, in their incompleteness, that further problems are rooted, therefore the murder of Stolypin is interpreted as the elimination of a very useful and smart person, the cat was betrayed to the throne.

Thus, the epic showed the author’s subjective concept of the history of Russia in the twentieth century and shed new light on the events of history.

Stories from the 90s were written on a historical theme - the history of anti-Soviet uprisings on usury.

Modernism. A distinctive feature of modernism is the creation of a different, parallel reality, ideal, which is opposed to the external - vulgar, absurd world. In modernism, dual worlds determine the position of the author, the plot, the system of characters. Modernism is distinguished by its attitude towards myth - neomythologism. The artist's surreal, subjective attitude to reality, the creation of a subjective myth. The author in modernism is absolutely free, internal spiritual freedom is postulated when he has the right to create his own world and isolate himself from external reality (Nabokov “the will of the author is everything”). Hence creativity is understood as a second reality, when the harmonious world of a work is built out of the chaos of the surrounding world.

The main motive of modernism alienation. A person is portrayed as an extreme pessimist; he is alienated not only from the world, but also from himself, therefore, in an individually constructed world, he retains his inner freedom. Modernism realized itself as an absolute opposition: at its core is the conflict “I-others”, this is the concept of “not-me”, the struggle with the “other” - legalized, social, traditional. This does not mean that fashion does not believe in anything: myth, beauty, truth, the mystery of being as the furnace reincarnations of being, its many faces. In modernism, the cult of the new is important, understood as the complete and uncompromising opposite of the old. Mod self-awareness presupposes a real struggle against routine, automatism. Language material is used as construction material to constantly create something new.

V. Aksenov “Overstocked barrels.” 1968. Leader of “youth” ironic, “confessional” prose. In the early 60s he made his debut in the magazine “Youth”, under the auspices of V. Kataev. A whole galaxy of young authors: A. Gladilin, A. Kuznetsov, V. Amlinsky.

“Colleagues”, “Star Ticket”, “Oranges from Morocco”, stories: “Halfway to the Moon”, “Handsome Comrade Furazhkin”, “What a pity that you were not with us”...

He created the image of a young romantic hero who finds a place for heroism in everyday life, in the everyday honest performance of his duties. A hero who does not conform to generally accepted norms of behavior. He defends his system of values, among which are not last place occupies irony, criticism of the norms and morals of the fathers, slang (language for initiates, so as not to be like everyone else), high self-esteem, the desire for absolute personal freedom. There is nothing outside freedom. Romance, the Road, Revolution become the ideals of this generation, then a moral breakdown occurs, the infantilism of man is shown, his constant reflection, escape from the arranged life, rebellion and return, acceptance of the rules of the game of society, formation mass man. 68-69 Burn, 77-81 Crimea Island, 85 Say raisins, 93-94 Moscow Saga, 2001-02 Caesarean glow. Left in 1980. and others from this circle did not find their place in further development literature, the current does not receive its development.

Epigraph: “Reality is so absurd that using the method of absurdization and surrealism, Aksenov does not introduce absurdity into his literature, but, on the contrary, with this method he seems to be trying to harmonize the falling apart reality.”

The story challenged the literature of “well-intentioned romance.” The story has a parable basis, which reveals an understanding of the tragic essence of everyday Soviet reality. Philosophically, the main thing in the story is the idea of ​​​​the intrinsic value of the human person, the right of everyone to live according to the laws established for themselves, we're talking about not about anarchy, but about the inner need for self-respect.

Character System: Introduced different ages, psychology, social status, a teacher, a driver, an intellectual, a military man, an old man and an old woman, schoolchildren, policemen, but they are all alike in the face of an incident that tore them out of everyday life, in the face of a barrel.

The plot mechanisms are people who are torn out of everyday life and find themselves in a single closed, cage-like space. The second is the pressure of unconscious mechanisms. People fall into the same dreams, the same image of a Good Man haunts them, becomes the embodiment of their hopes. The idea of ​​social and moral equality is solved simply - each of the characters is assigned its own place, everyone is equal and everyone is individual, everyone moves and stands still, everyone is closed and open in space. Bochkotara turns into a symbol of a new existence, an opportunity to look at oneself in a new way. Therefore, the real journey of the heroes to the Koryazhsk station turns into a symbolic one - to oneself, and the real plan gradually turns into a fantastic, grotesque one (accident, endless gasoline, collective dreams). Therefore, the desire for a Good person can be considered as a desire for a better self. In the finale, the subject of the story changes from 3rd person to 1st person. The boundaries of the text are blurred, the reader turns out to be the same character as everyone else. In that literary device The hope for unification and the acquisition of elusive ideals is still alive.

The story is dominated by the element of deliberately distorted reality: a sign, a symbol, a model, the story was a turning point in the literature of the 60s and early 70s: from modernism (confidence in the transformative power of the word) to postmodernism (there is a desire for transformation, but there is no sufficient basis, there is no word , simulacrum). In this sense it is characteristic creativity of Sasha Sokolov, a writer of the third wave of emigration, who in three novels consistently showed how the loss of words, hope, and faith in the transformation of reality occurs. "School for Fools" (1976).

M. A. Bulgakov’s story “The Heart of a Dog” undoubtedly belongs to the best in the writer’s work. The determining factor in the story “Heart of a Dog” is satirical pathos (by the mid-20s, M. Bulgakov had already proven himself as a talented satirist in short stories, feuilletons, and the stories “Diaboliad” and “Fatal Eggs”).

IN " Heart of a Dog"The writer uses satire to expose the complacency, ignorance and blind dogmatism of other government officials, the possibility comfortable existence for “labor” elements of dubious origin, their impudence and feeling of complete permissiveness. The writer’s views fell out of line with those generally accepted then, in the 20s. However, ultimately, M. Bulgakov’s satire, through ridicule and denial of certain social vices, carried within itself the affirmation of enduring moral values. Why did M. Bulgakov need to introduce metamorphosis into the story, to make the transformation of a dog into a man the spring of intrigue? If in Sharikov only the qualities of Klim Chugunkin are manifested, then why shouldn’t the author “resurrect” Klim himself? But before our eyes, the “gray-haired Faust”, busy searching for means to restore youth, creates a man not in a test tube, but by transforming himself from a dog. Dr. Bormenthal is a student and assistant to the professor, and, as befits an assistant, he takes notes, recording all stages of the experiment. We have before us a strict medical document that contains only facts. However, soon the emotions overwhelming the young scientist will begin to be reflected in changes in his handwriting. The doctor's guesses about what is happening appear in the diary. But, being a professional, Bormenthal is young and full of optimism, he does not have the experience and insight of a teacher.

What stages of formation does the “new man” go through, who recently was not only nothing, but a dog? Even before the complete transformation, on January 2, the creature cursed its creator for his mother, and by Christmas his vocabulary was replenished with all kinds of swear words. A person’s first meaningful reaction to the creator’s comments is “get off, you nit.” Dr. Bormental puts forward the hypothesis that “we have before us the unfolded brain of Sharik,” but we know thanks to the first part of the story that there was no swearing in the dog’s brain, and we are skeptical about the possibility of “developing Sharik into a very high mental personality,” expressed by the professor Preobrazhensky. Smoking is added to the swearing (Sharik did not like tobacco smoke); seeds; balalaika (and Sharik did not approve of music) - and balalaika at any time of the day (evidence of attitude towards others); untidiness and bad taste in clothing. Sharikov's development is rapid: Philip Philipovich loses the title of deity and turns into a “daddy.” These qualities of Sharikov are accompanied by a certain morality, more precisely, immorality (“I’ll register, but fighting is a piece of cake”), drunkenness, and theft. This process of transformation “from the sweetest dog into scum” is crowned by a denunciation of the professor, and then an attempt on his life.

Talking about Sharikov's development, the author emphasizes the remaining dog traits in him: attachment to the kitchen, hatred of cats, love for a well-fed, idle life. A man catches fleas with his teeth, barks and yelps indignantly in conversations. But it is not the external manifestations of canine nature that disturb the inhabitants of the apartment on Prechistenka. Insolence, which seemed sweet and harmless in a dog, becomes unbearable in a man who, with his rudeness, terrorizes all the residents of the house, with no intention of “learning and becoming at least somewhat acceptable member of society.” His morality is different: he is not a NEPman, therefore, he is a hard worker and has the right to all the blessings of life: thus Sharikov shares the idea of ​​“dividing everything,” which is captivating for the mob. Sharikov took the worst, most terrible qualities from both the dog and the person. The experiment led to the creation of a monster who, in his baseness and aggressiveness, will not stop at meanness, betrayal, or murder; who understands only power, ready, like any slave, to take revenge on everything he has submitted to at the first opportunity. A dog must remain a dog, and a person must remain a person.

Another participant dramatic events in the house on Prechistenka - Professor Preobrazhensky. The famous European scientist is searching for means to rejuvenate the human body and has already achieved significant results. The professor is a representative of the old intelligentsia and professes the old principles of life. Everyone, according to Philip Philipovich, in this world should do his own thing: sing in the theater, operate in the hospital, and then there will be no devastation. He rightly believes that achieving material well-being, the benefits of life, and a position in society can only be achieved through labor, knowledge and skills. It is not origin that makes a person a person, but the benefit that he brings to society. The conviction is not driven into the enemy’s head with a club: “Nothing can be done with terror.” The professor does not hide his dislike for the new order, which has turned the country upside down and brought it to the brink of disaster. He cannot accept new rules (“to divide everything,” “who was nobody will become everything”) that deprive true workers of normal working and living conditions. But the European luminary still compromises with the new government: he returns her youth, and she provides him with tolerable living conditions and relative independence. To stand in open opposition to the new government means to lose your apartment, the opportunity to work, and maybe even your life. The professor made his choice. In some ways this choice is reminiscent of Sharik’s choice. The image of the professor is given by Bulgakov in an extremely ironic manner. In order to provide for himself, Philip Philipovich, who resembles a French knight and king, is forced to serve scum and libertines, although he tells Dr. Bormental that he does this not for money, but out of scientific interests. But, thinking about improving the human race, Professor Preobrazhensky is so far only transforming depraved old men and prolonging their opportunity to lead dissolute lives.

The professor is omnipotent only for Sharik. The scientist is guaranteed security as long as he serves those in power, as long as the representatives of power need him, he can afford to openly express his dislike for the proletariat, he is protected from the libels and denunciations of Sharikov and Shvonder. But his fate, like the fate of the entire intelligentsia, trying to fight against the stick with words, was guessed by Bulgakov and predicted in Vyazemskaya’s story: “If you were not a European luminary and people who, I am sure, we still would not stand up for you in the most outrageous way Let’s make it clear, you should have been arrested.” The professor is worried about the collapse of culture, which manifests itself in everyday life (the history of the Kalabukhov House), in work and leading to devastation. Alas, Philip Philipovich’s remarks are too modern that the devastation is in the minds, that when everyone goes about their business, “the devastation will end by itself.” Having received an unexpected result from the experiment (“changing the pituitary gland does not give rejuvenation, but complete humanization”), Philip Philipovich reaps its consequences. Trying to educate Sharikov with words, he often loses his temper from his unheard-of rudeness, breaks into a scream (he looks helpless and comical - he no longer convinces, but orders, which causes even greater resistance from the pupil), for which he reproaches himself: “We must still restrain myself... A little more, he will begin to teach me and he will be absolutely right. I can’t control myself.” The professor cannot work, his nerves are frayed, and the author's irony is increasingly replaced by sympathy.

It turns out that it is easier to carry out a complex operation than to re-educate (and not educate) an already formed “person” when he does not want, does not feel the inner need to live as he is offered. And again one involuntarily recalls the fate of the Russian intelligentsia, who prepared and practically accomplished socialist revolution, but somehow forgot that she had to not educate, but re-educate millions of people, tried to defend culture, morality and paid with her life for the illusions embodied in reality.

Having received an extract of the sex hormone from the pituitary gland, the professor did not assume that there were many hormones in the pituitary gland. An oversight and miscalculation led to the birth of Sharikov. And the crime that the scientist Dr. Bormenthal warned against was nevertheless committed, contrary to the views and beliefs of the teacher. Sharikov, clearing a place for himself in the sun, does not stop either at denunciation or at the physical elimination of the “benefactors.” Scientists are no longer forced to defend their beliefs, but their lives: “Sharikov himself invited his death. He raised left hand and showed Philip Philipovich a bitten shisha with an unbearable cat smell. And then with his right hand, directed at the dangerous Bormental, he took a revolver out of his pocket.” Forced self-defense, of course, somewhat softens the responsibility of scientists for Sharikov’s death in the eyes of the author and reader, but we Once again We are convinced that life does not fit into any theoretical postulates. The genre of a fantastic story allowed Bulgakov to safely resolve dramatic situation. But the author’s thought about the scientist’s responsibility for the right to experiment sounds cautionary. Any experiment must be thought through to the end, otherwise its consequences can lead to disaster.