Solzhenitsyn one day of Ivan a year of writing. Dinner in the zone

Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn wrote the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in 1959. It became the first work about Soviet concentration camps, bringing him worldwide fame. This is a story about one day of an ordinary Soviet prisoner. The events of the story written by Solzhenitsyn take place at the beginning of the 51st year of the 20th century.

It was winter. At 5 am in the camp, as always, the rise was announced. It was dark and cold outside. And in the large barracks for hundreds of people there was also a terrible cold. Prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov was sick, so he really didn’t want to get up.

Today their team was supposed to be transferred to the construction of another facility. Because of the terrible cold, no one wanted this. The foreman, Andrei Prokofievich Tyurin, had to negotiate the cancellation of the transfer to a new facility for a bribe, of course, a kilogram of lard.

Shukhov decided to go to the medical unit. He has already served 8 years out of the required 10. Shukhov was transferred to this camp from another: he previously served his sentence in Ust-Izhma. The duty officer turned to Shukhov and said that he would receive three days in a punishment cell for failure to comply with the lifting time. The entire 104th brigade saw Ivan Denisovich being taken away from the barracks.

The duty officer took Shukhov to the headquarters barracks, where he had to wash the floor. Ivan was very happy about this, because it was flooded here. He got to work. Having wiped the floors under the close attention of the guards, Shukhov went to the dining room for another portion of gruel.

It was cold in the dining room. Black cabbage with millet was eaten in hats. Teammate Fetyukov was guarding Shukhov’s already cold breakfast. Ivan took off his hat; he always had a spoon with him, in his felt boots. Slowly, he ate it all, breaking off pieces of the almost frozen porridge.

After breakfast, Shukhov remembered that he had agreed to buy two glasses of samosada from the Latvian from the neighboring barracks. But the medical unit was more needed. There was only one guy there in the morning - paramedic Kolya. Nikolai Semenovich knew that Shukhov was not faking. But he could not be released from work, since two prisoners were much more seriously ill.

Ivan Denisovich went to work with a slight fever. Along the way he received a ration of bread weighed down and walked morning check for prohibited products and letters. Local artist I updated the number Shch-854 on Shukhov’s padded jacket so that it can be seen better. Otherwise, you could end up in a punishment cell.

In the new year, Shukhov had the right to two letters, but he himself did not want more. Ivan Denisovich left home on June 23, 1941, immediately after the start of the war. His family also wrote to him twice a year. Shukhov did not understand their life, their problems. His wife was waiting for Ivan with the hope that when he returned, he would earn a lot of money and put his children on their feet. Shukhov was not very hopeful: he didn’t know how to cheat, he didn’t take or give bribes.

Work went to each of the brigade: some carried water, others carried sand, others cleared snow. Shukhov, as the first master, got the job of laying the walls with cinder blocks. He carried it out together with his partner, the Latvian Kildiks, whose prison term was 25 years. Until noon, cinder blocks were lifted by hand to the second floor. For lunch, the workers were given oatmeal. Shukhov got a double portion.

Work on laying the wall continued. Considering the frost, there was no time to hesitate: the solution set quickly. Shukhov admired the well-done work late in the evening, when everyone had left.

After dinner and the evening check, Ivan Denisovich climbed onto his bed and lit a cigarette. He didn’t want to sleep at all, because the day had turned out to be successful:

• They didn’t put me in a punishment cell;
• A brigade was not sent for new construction;
• For lunch he received a double portion of porridge;
• The foreman closed the interest well;
• Shukhov laid out the wall cheerfully;
• I didn’t get caught on a search with a hacksaw found, from which I was going to make a shoe knife;
• I bought two glasses of samosada tobacco for 2 rubles;
• Almost recovered without getting sick.

And there were 3653 such days in his period from call to call.

The story teaches moral overcoming, preserving human dignity even in conditions in which survival can be very difficult.

Picture or drawing One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich

Other retellings for the reader's diary

• Summary of Asimov's Bicentennial Man

  The work belongs to the writer’s science fiction prose and the main theme represents humanity and artificial intelligence, slavery and freedom, life and death.

  Tenth year of the war between the Trojans and Achaeans. The Greeks lay siege to the main wall of the city, but the enemy firmly holds the siege. Both people and the Olympian gods wage war.

The story of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (1959).

“At five o’clock, as always, the clock struck the rise.” But they didn’t go to open the barracks. Shukhov never woke up. Before the divorce, I had an hour and a half of personal time, and it could be used to earn extra money: sew a cover for someone’s mittens, give a rich brigade worker dry felt boots in bed so that he doesn’t have to trample after them barefoot, serve someone, sweep or bring something. -You can go to the dining room and put the dirty bowls in the dishwasher - they will feed you for that. But there are many hunters there; and most importantly, if there is anything left in the bowl, you won’t be able to resist and start licking it. And Shukhov well remembered the order of foreman Kuzemin, the old camp wolf, who had been imprisoned for twelve years since 1943, that the law here was the taiga. “But people live here too. In the camp, this is who is dying: who licks the bowls, who hopes at the medical unit, and who goes to knock on their godfather.” But today Shukhov did not get up right away. He had been feeling unwell since the evening and had not gotten warm during the night. I regretted that morning had already come. The barracks are huge, the windows are frozen over, the ice inside is two fingers thick, and there is a fringe of frost on the ceiling.
In the morning there is a certain life: the orderlies take out an eight-bucket bucket and throw in a bunch of dry felt boots. The brigadier went to the bread-slicer, and the foreman went to the headquarters barracks to get work orders. Shukhov hears all this, lying covered with a blanket, pea coat and padded jacket.
It’s not easy to go to the contractors every day. They want to send their brigade to the “socialist town” from the construction of workshops. And this is a snow field. First, you need to dig holes for the posts, string barbed wire over them so that the prisoners don’t run away, and then start building the town. And in the cold you can’t light a fire: there’s nothing to heat it with. Here comes the foreman best job, and not empty-handed, but with half a kilo of fat or even a kilogram. Shukhov thinks about going to the medical unit and trying his luck. He listens to his condition: it would be better if it shook properly or went away, otherwise he is neither sick nor healthy. Those coming from the street report that the frost is at least thirty degrees. The duty officer approached the lying Shukhov and made a remark: “Shch-854. - Three days of condominium with withdrawal!” Shukhov asked plaintively: “For what?” Immediately the others began to move, not yet standing up, so as not to end up in a punishment cell for violating the regime. Shukhov is offended that he always got up first, but here... But you can’t ask Tatarin for time off, Shukhov knows this. He quickly dresses and goes out to fetch Tatar. No one stood up for one of the brigade members. The brigadier could have said a word, but he was no longer there. In the headquarters barracks, it turned out that Shukhov would not have any punishment cell, but simply needed to wash the floor in the guard's room. For this purpose there was a special prisoner who did not go to the zone, but for some time he considered that washing the floor for ordinary guards was “kind of low” for him. That's why they hired hard workers to wash the floors. Shukhov went to the well to get water, where he saw that the foremen were checking the temperature. Frost was 27.5. Everyone is scolding the faulty thermometer. In the room, Shukhov took off his shoes so as not to wet his felt boots, and generously poured water under the guards’ felt boots. They began to swear that he did not know how to wash the floors. They told him to just wipe it a little and get out of there. Shukhov managed it smartly, he learned well: “Work is like a stick, there are two ends to it: if you do it for people, give it quality, if you do it for bosses, give it show.” Otherwise, everyone would have died long ago. Shukhov threw an unwrung rag behind the stove, “poured water on the path where the bosses were walking, and moved into the dining room. Surprisingly, there was no line. It’s cold in the dining room, so everyone sits in hats. They eat slowly, spitting out the bones on the table when they’re ready.” If there's a pile, they sweep it onto the floor, but for some reason spitting on the floor right away is considered sloppy.
Teammate Fetyukov took care of Shukhov’s breakfast. Ivan Denisovich took off his hat from his shaved head - he could not eat in a hat. He slowly began to eat the cooled gruel. The best time for campers to eat is June: every vegetable runs out and is replaced with cereal. And July is the hungriest - nettles are whipped into the cauldron. Shukhov did not enter the barracks, so he did not receive a ration of bread and ate without it. After breakfast I went to the medical unit, but then I remembered that I needed to buy two glasses of samosad from the Long Latvian, tomorrow there would be no samosad, so Shukhov trotted off to the medical unit to quickly resolve the matter. The paramedic told Ivan Denisovich that he had arrived late, but still gave him a thermometer. The temperature was 37.2. The paramedic said that if it had been thirty-eight, he could have released him, but now he can’t.
Shukhov ran into the barracks, the brigadier gave him a ration of bread with a mound of sugar, and then they kicked him out for inspection.
The one hundred and fourth brigade, in which Shukhov was a member, again went to its column; apparently, the foreman carried the lard. And the poorest and stupidest went to build the “town”, well, it will be fierce there in an open field at twenty-seven degrees below zero. The brigade was already waiting for the search1, and Shukhov settled down next to Caesar, who was smoking a cigarette; he, without finishing smoking, gave it to Ivan Denisovich. In the morning the bustle is light. As long as they don’t carry three kilograms of food with them to escape, in the evening it’s a different matter. They are looking for knives and all sorts of prohibited things. The cold has entered under the clothes, now you can’t get it out. Those leaving are carefully counted. God forbid you make a mistake, you will lay down your head. Therefore, the guards count carefully.
Shukhov put a cloth over his face - the wind was headwind. He lowered the visor of his hat and raised the collar of his peacoat. Some eyes remained open. Finally, the order of movement was read, and the column moved off. Due to the fact that I ate without bread and everything was cold, I did not feel full. Ivan Denisovich, in order to distract himself, began to think about how he would write a letter home. The new year came, 1951, and Shukhov had the right to write a letter home, as soon as you write in it, in this letter.
Shukhov left home on June 23, 1941. Now there was little that connected him with his family; there was more to talk about with Kildigs, with the Latvian. And from home they wrote the same thing: the chairman of the collective farm was replaced, the collective farm was enlarged, the norms were increased, the vegetable gardens were cut to fifteen acres. My wife also wrote that after the war, neither the girls nor the boys returned to the collective farm, they settled in factories and factories. Almost half of the men returned from the war, but even those do not go to the collective farm, they work on the side. “The collective farm is being pulled together by those women who have been driven in since the thirties, but when they fall, the collective farm will die.” The men work as carpet dyers; they can paint a picture on any sheet in an hour. The wife hopes that Shukhov will return and also become a “dyeer”. And they too will rise out of poverty. They installed all the dyes on their new houses for twenty-five thousand under iron roofs. Although Shukhov still has about a year to sit, these carpets have unnerved him. My wife reports that drawing is easier than ever - “I put a stencil on it and brush it on it. Yes, there are three types of carpets: “Troika” - a troika is carrying a hussar officer in a beautiful harness, the second carpet is “Deer”, and the third is Persian. But for these carpets they freely receive fifty rubles, since the real ones cost thousands.”
From the stories of free drivers and excavator operators, Shukhov knows that the direct road is blocked, but people do not get lost: they take a detour and thus survive. Shukhov would have taken a detour to keep up with his fellow villagers. But, to my liking, Ivan Denisovich doesn’t want to take on carpets. He doesn’t dream about freedom yet: will they even let him into freedom, maybe they’ll give him another ten for nothing.
Shukhov looked around and caught sight of the foreman. He is strong, strong. He's already serving his second term. “The foreman in a camp is everything: a good foreman will give you a second life, a bad foreman will force you into a wooden pea coat.” We entered the zone, and while the foremen were getting work, the crew huddled in the warmth and “stocked up” on it for the day. Shukhov now has not only aching back, but also his legs. He took out half a ration of bread and began to chew slowly, otherwise he wouldn’t make it until lunch—five hours. Shukhov learned to eat only in the camp, and over the course of eight years he began to enjoy chewing and mashing heavy, raw bread in his mouth for a long time. Cavorang Buynovsky sits nearby. He speaks to everyone in a commanding tone - he is used to commanding in the navy. If it doesn't subside, the camp will break it. Senka Klevshin is deaf. I sat in German camps, even cheated death in Buchenwald. Now he is serving his sentence quietly. Two Estonians, like brothers, never separate. They divide everyone in half, although they met only in the camp. Latvian Kildiks grieves that there have been no snowstorms all winter. Then it’s not like going to work, they’re afraid to let people out of the barracks, you can only get to the canteen by following a rope, otherwise you’ll get lost. They don’t work during a snowstorm, but then they work on the weekend, and still people wait for the snowstorm.
The foreman came and sent everyone out to work: some to carry cement, some to carry water and sand, some to clean the snow and heat the stove in the thermal power plant that had not been completed since the fall. Only the masters Shukhov and the Latvian remained. The foreman said that they had to block up the windows with something, otherwise they would freeze in the engine room like dogs. Latvian remembered that he saw a huge roll of roofing felt near the prefabricated houses. They decided to board up the windows with them. Kildigs name is Yan, but Shukhov calls him Vanya. Before going for roofing felt, Shukhov took out a trowel from his stash. According to the rule, you need to hand over tools in the evening and receive them in the morning, but Shukhov has contrived this and now with his personal trowel.
You can't carry it flat - they'll take it away. Therefore, they squeezed each other and walked to the thermal power plant, huddled closely together. My hands just became numb in thin mittens. The roofing felts are already twice as big, so we need slats, but where to get them - the railings were broken off, now we have to walk without yawning so as not to fall, but there is no other way out. The windows need to be insulated. In order for the prisoners to work without being pushed, they are grouped into teams. They feed you for work, so you can’t mess around here. “You don’t work, you bastard, and because of you I’m going to sit hungry? Well, work hard...” And if it’s frosty, like now, you won’t be able to sit still. If they don’t provide heating in two hours, everyone will freeze to death. Shukhov is not thinking about anything now, but only about how to connect the pipes and remove them so that they don’t smoke. The foreman went to close the interest rate, a lot depends on this interest: an extra two hundred grams for prisoners, bonuses for guards and authorities, thousands for the camp from construction...
They began to board up the windows, the stove was flooded, people reached out for warmth, but the assistant foreman dispersed them to make mortar boxes. The Latvian egged on Ivan Denisovich about the end of his term. Shukhov was pleased that he was finishing his sentence, but he could not believe that he would be released. Are you really going to stomp your feet into freedom? “It is believed that Shukhov was imprisoned for treason against his homeland. And he gave evidence that yes, he surrendered, wanting to betray his homeland, and returned from captivity because he was carrying out a task for German intelligence.” But neither Shukhov nor the investigator could come up with what task. So it remained - just a “task”. During interrogations by counterintelligence, Shukhov was beaten a lot. And he calculated that if he did not sign this lie, then he would have only one thing left - a “wooden pea coat.” But in reality it was like this: in February 1942, their army was surrounded in the North-West, there was nothing to eat, even the horses’ hooves were already being trimmed. There was nothing to shoot with. The Germans caught them in the forests and took them. Shukhov remained in captivity for two days, and then escaped, not just one, but five of them. Three died in the wanderings. But two made it, and if they had been smarter, they would not have mentioned the two days of captivity, but they were glad that they had escaped from German captivity. They were immediately put behind bars as fascist agents.
Staring at the fire, Ivan Denisovich remembered his seven years in the north. When you had to work at night, if you didn’t do it daily norm. Before you have time to return to the camp, you are sent back to work. It's quieter in this camp. After work, everyone goes to the camp and the ration is a hundred grams more. “You can live here.” One objected, how much more peaceful it would be if people were slaughtered in their beds. But they correct him that they are not people, but informers. The whistle from the energy train sounded - lunch break. It was warmer outside, eighteen degrees. In the dining room, some of the portions float away to feed the six on duty, but how can you check? “And all those who steal do not use a pickaxe themselves. And you, work hard and take what they give you and move away from the window.”
Today, oatmeal is a hearty porridge.
The foreman is given a double portion, but Tyurin gives it to his assistant Pavel. When handing over bowls of porridge and dirty ones, the cook lost count; Shukhov repeated to Pavel the same number as before these bowls, but the cook noticed, and Pavel told the correct count. Having given extra bowls to the Estonians, Shukhov forced the cook to give them extra. Shukhov hoped that out of the two “mown portions” at least one would go to him. The owner of the extra ones was Pavel, and Ivan Denisovich waited to see how he would dispose of them. Pavel ate his two portions, and gave the extra portions to Shukhov so that he would eat one and take the other to Caesar. Ivan Denisovich was afraid that the extra portion would be given to Fetyukov, “he’s a master at shacking, but he wouldn’t have the courage to screw up.” Kavtorang sat nearby. Not knowing that there were extra portions, he ate his own and enjoyed the peace. Pavel gave him an extra portion, and the officer looked at it as if it were a miracle. Shukhov approved of Pavel. The time will come, and Kavtorang will learn to live in the camp, but for now he needs to be supported. Shukhov took the portion to Caesar. The office was as hot as a bathhouse. Shukhov thought that Caesar would treat him to a smoke, but, after standing around in vain, he went to work.
The crew cheered up: they closed the interest rate well, now there will be good rations for five days.
The brigade huddled around the stove, where the foreman told how he was driven out of the military school for his father, a kulak, and then during the transfer he learned that the entire school administration had been shot, and then he thought: “You are still there, Creator, in heaven. You endure for a long time, but you hit hard.”
Shukhov borrowed tobacco from the Estonians to smoke.
And the foreman kept telling how he was traveling on a train, sheltered by four student girls. (He later met one at a transit point and helped her get a job in a tailor’s shop, otherwise she would have died, she was completely finished.)
I came home secretly, talked to my mother, she was already preparing for the stage, but my father was driven away. That same night he left with his brother. He took him to Frunze, there he gave his brother to the thieves so that they could teach him life, he never saw his brother again. Now Tyurin regretted that he himself did not bother the thieves then. Having told about himself, the foreman sent everyone to work. They decided to do the masonry with four people so that the mortar would not get cold: Ivan Denisovich, a Latvian, a foreman and Klevshin. At first Ivan Denisovich looked at the zone from above, and then there was no time. All I could see was the wall I was laying. Shukhov saw that before him the wall was laid somehow, clumsily or half-heartedly. Now Ivan Denisovich was thinking about how to fix the depressions and bumps in the masonry. The masons first sweated from their work and then dried out. An inspector from the prisoners - Der - came and began to shout at Tyurin that the foreman would get a third term, but the prisoners surrounded him, and the foreman threatened: if only he uttered a word, this would be his last day of life. Dar immediately calmed down and began to persuade those around him that he had been misunderstood. Dare asked what he would say to the foreman, the foreman advised him to say, this is what happened when the one hundred and fourth brigade arrived.
The foreman demanded that a lift be installed; it was difficult to lift the mortar and cinder blocks to the second floor. He was told that it was impossible to set up the lift and that he would have to “implode” further.
The masons were already laying the fifth row when the working day ended. But they diluted a lot of mortar, and they had to put the wall further, otherwise the mortar would disappear. Everyone is in a hurry, no one thinks about the quality of the masonry. Shukhov walks around and makes adjustments so that the corner does not fall down or there is no bubble on the wall. Everyone left to hand over their tools, line up for roll call, and Shukhov and Klevshin were laying down everything and laying down the wall to finalize the solution. The prisoners have already lined up, the guards are counting, and Shukhov and Glukhoy are running quickly so that they don’t get beaten for being late. But everything went well, the foreman explained the reason. The convoy cannot count one. The prisoners are angry that their personal time is running out, but that’s no good. Until they find one, they won’t move. They began to sort through the teams to determine who was missing. It was determined that the thirty-second brigade was short of a man. Within half an hour everyone was frozen. Finally we saw the missing one. Everyone hooted and howled. It turns out that the Moldovan climbed onto the scaffolding, got warm and fell asleep; they barely found him. Finally we moved. They ran to the camp almost at a trot. Now another search.
Shukhov warns Tsezar that he will run to get in line at the parcel station. He says that maybe there is no parcel, it’s not a burden for Shukhov, and maybe someone else can sell the queue. We passed the last gate. Now the prisoner is left to his own devices. Shukhov rushed to the parcel post.
While in line, Shukhov learned that there would be no next Sunday, it was always the case that out of five days off, only three were given, two were “healed.”
But even Sunday could be ruined in the zone: they would start rebuilding the bathhouse, clearing the yard, or taking inventory. “What probably annoys them most is if the prisoner sleeps after breakfast.” Caesar finally came for the parcel, and gave his dinner to Shukhov. “...This is what Shukhov was waiting for.”
Having run into the barracks, Ivan Denisovich determined that the rations hidden in the mattress were intact, this was already luck. Then he ran to the dining room, just in time with his people. Ivan Denisovich contrived and got a tray, and got himself a bowl with a thicker gruel. He got four hundred grams of his own bread, and received two hundred grams for Caesar and ate it slowly. He had a holiday today - he tore off two servings for lunch, and two for dinner, such luck rarely occurs. Shukhov decided to leave the bread for tomorrow. After the dining room, Ivan Denisovich decided to go to the Latvian for samosad. They didn’t pay any money in the camp; they could only withdraw it once a month upon application. But Shukhov made money by sewing slippers and mending padded jackets and pea coats.
In the evening, Kavtorang Buinovsky was taken to a punishment cell for swearing at his superiors. After serving in a stone bag for ten days in such frost, and even with feeding on the third, sixth and ninth days, you will probably develop tuberculosis, and after fifteen days - a grave. Shukhov took pity on Caesar and taught him how to protect the parcel while there was a night search.
Finally Ivan Denisovich lay down. “Thank you, Lord, another day has passed. Thank you for not sleeping in the punishment cell, it’s still possible here.”
We had just decided that we could sleep when the second check began.
For his help with the parcel, Caesar gave Shukhov two cookies, pieces of sugar and a circle of sausage.
“Shukhov fell asleep completely satisfied. Today he had a lot of successes: he wasn’t put in a punishment cell, a brigade wasn’t sent to Sotsgorodok, he missed lunch, the foreman closed the interest well, Shukhov laid the wall cheerfully, he didn’t get caught with a hacksaw on a search, he worked at Caesar’s in the evening and bought tobacco. And he didn’t get sick, he got over it.
The day passed unclouded, almost happy.
...There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days in his term from bell to bell.
Because of leap years“Three extra days were added.”

Among the works of Russian literature there is a whole list of those that were dedicated to contemporary reality by the authors. Today we will talk about one of the works of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn and present its brief content. “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is the story that will serve as the topic of this article.

Facts from the author's biography: youth

Before describing the summary of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” I would like to dwell on some information from the writer’s personal life in order to understand why such a work appeared among his creations. Alexander Isaevich was born in Kislovodsk in December 1918 in an ordinary peasant family. His father was educated at the university, but his life was tragic: he took part in the bloody First World War, and upon returning from the front, by an absurd accident, he died without even seeing the birth of his son. After this, the mother, who came from a “kulak” family, and little Alexander I had to huddle in corners and removable shacks for more than 15 years. From 1926 to 1936, Solzhenitsyn studied at school, where he was bullied due to disagreement with certain provisions of communist ideology. At the same time, he first became seriously interested in literature.

Constant persecution

Studying at the correspondence department of the literary faculty at the Institute of Philosophy was interrupted by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Despite the fact that Solzhenitsyn went through it all and even rose to the rank of captain, in February 1945 he was arrested and sentenced to 8 years in camps and lifelong exile. The reason for this was the negative assessments of the Stalin regime, the totalitarian system and Soviet literature saturated with falsehood. Only in 1956 the writer was released from exile by a decision of the Supreme Court. In 1959, Solzhenitsyn created famous story about a single, but not at all the last day of Ivan Denisovich, a brief summary of which will be discussed further. It was printed in periodical « New world"(issue 11). To do this, the editor, A. T. Tvardovsky, had to enlist the support of N. S. Khrushchev, the head of state. However, since 1966, the author was subjected to a second wave of repression. He was deprived Soviet citizenship and sent to West Germany. Solzhenitsyn returned to his homeland only in 1994, and only from that time his creations began to be appreciated. The writer died in August 2008 at the age of 90.

“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”: the beginning

The story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” a summary of which could not be presented without analysis turning points the life of its creator, tells the reader about the camp existence of a peasant, a worker, a front-line soldier, who, due to the policies pursued by Stalin, ended up in a camp, in exile. By the time the reader meets Ivan Denisovich, he is already an elderly man who has lived in similar inhumane conditions about 8 years old. Lived and survived. He got this share because during the war he was captured by the Germans, from which he escaped, and was later accused by the Soviet government of espionage. The investigator who examined his case, of course, was unable not only to establish, but even to come up with what the espionage could consist of, and therefore simply wrote a “task” and sent him to hard labor. The story clearly resonates with other works of the author on similar topics - these are “In the First Circle” and “The Gulag Archipelago”.

Summary: “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” as a story about a common man

The work opens with the date 1941, June 23 - exactly at this time main character left his native village of Temgenevo, left his wife and two daughters in order to devote himself to defending his homeland. A year later, in February, Ivan Denisovich and his comrades were captured, and after a successful escape to his homeland, as mentioned above, he was counted among the spies and exiled to Soviet concentration camp. For refusing to sign the protocol drawn up, they could have been shot, but this way the man had the opportunity to live at least a little longer in this world.

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov spent 8 years in Ust-Izhma, and spent the 9th year in Siberia. There is cold and monstrous conditions all around. Instead of decent food - a disgusting stew with fish remains and frozen cabbage. That is why Ivan Denisovich and those around him minor characters(for example, the intellectual Caesar Markovich, who did not have time to become a director, or the naval officer of the 2nd rank Buinovsky, nicknamed Kavtorang) are busy thinking about where to get food for themselves in order to last at least one more day. The hero no longer has half of his teeth, his head is shaved - a real convict.

A certain hierarchy and system of relationships have been built in the camp: some are respected, others are disliked. The latter includes Fetyukov, a former office boss who avoids work and survives by begging. Shukhov, like Fetyukov, does not receive parcels from home, unlike Caesar himself, because the village is starving. But Ivan Denisovich does not lose his dignity; on the contrary, on this day he tries to lose himself in construction work, only devoting himself more diligently to the work, without overexerting himself and at the same time not shirking his duties. He manages to buy tobacco, successfully hide a piece of a hacksaw, get an extra portion of porridge, not end up in a punishment cell and not be sent to Social Town to work in the bitter cold - these are the results the hero sums up at the end of the day. This one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich (the summary will be supplemented by an analysis of the details) can be called truly happy - this is what the main character himself thinks. Only he already has 3,564 such “happy” camp days. The story ends on this sad note.

The nature of the main character

Shukhov Ivan Denisovich is, in addition to all of the above, a man of word and deed. It is through labor that a person comes from common people does not lose face under the current conditions. Village wisdom dictates to Ivan Denisovich how to behave: even in such debilitating circumstances one must remain an honest man. For Ivan Denisovich, humiliating himself in front of others, licking plates and making denunciations against fellow sufferers seems low and shameful. The key settings for it are simple folk proverbs and sayings: “He who knows two things with his hands can also do ten.” Mixed in with them are the principles acquired already in the camp, as well as Christian and universal postulates, which Shukhov truly begins to understand only here. Why did Solzhenitsyn create exactly such a person as the main character of his story? “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” a brief summary of which was discussed in this material, is a story that affirms the opinion of the author himself that driving force development of the state, one way or another, there was, is and always will be ordinary people. Ivan Denisovich is one of its representatives.

Time

What else allows the reader to establish both the full and brief content? “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is a story, the analysis of which cannot be considered complete without analyzing the time component of the work. The time of the story is motionless. Days follow each other, but this does not bring the end of the term any closer. The monotony and mechanicalness of life were yesterday; they will be there tomorrow too. That is why one day accumulates the entire camp reality - Solzhenitsyn did not even have to create a voluminous, weighty book to describe it. However, in the vicinity of this time, something else coexists - metaphysical, universal. What matters here is not the crumbs of bread, but the spiritual, moral and ethical values ​​that remain unchanged from century to century. Values ​​that help a person survive even in such harsh conditions.

Space

In the space of the story, a contradiction with the spaces described by the writers of the golden age is clearly visible. Heroes XIX century they loved freedom, vastness, steppes, forests; heroes of the 20th century prefer cramped, stuffy cells and barracks to them. They want to hide from the eyes of the guards, get away, run away from wide open spaces and open areas. However, this is not all that allows us to determine both the full and brief content. “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is a story in which the boundaries of imprisonment remain extremely blurred, and this is a different level of space. It seems that the camp reality has swallowed up the entire country. Taking into account the fate of the author himself, we can conclude that this was not too far from the truth.

All works school curriculum on literature in summary. 5-11 grades Panteleeva E.V.

“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (Story) Retelling

"One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich"

(Story)

Retelling

Describes how the morning began next day for the main character. Through the eyes of Shukhov, watching the awakening of the camp, the life of the prisoners, their daily worries and troubles is shown. The reader quickly learns about the laws of “camp ethics” and the rules of the science of survival behind barbed wire, which were learned by Ivan Denisovich from the very first days of his stay here. Despite waking up early, Shukhov feeling unwell I didn’t get up on the rise and received a punishment for it. The guard (Tatar) took pity on Ivan Denisovich, instructing him only to clean up the guard’s room. While cleaning, Shukhov listens to the guards' conversations and learns about their problems.

After cleaning, Shukhov hurries with everyone to the dining room: not so much because of hunger, but because of the fear of being late and for this reason being punished. The author tells in detail how the prisoners started breakfast. Much space is devoted to the description of the camp gruel, which allows you to delve deeper into the intricacies of local life and into the psychology of the people who find themselves in this world. Food is that time, not counting sleep, when the camper “lives for himself.” ABOUT moral qualities people here are often judged by how they treat other people's food - gruel and rations.

After breakfast, Shukhov heads to the medical unit, hiding from the guards and regretting that he did not have time to buy a samosad from his neighbor from the seventh barracks. However, ill health forces you to forget about everything else and go to the paramedic with the faint hope that today you will be released from work. Once again, the author shows the destructive influence of camp conditions on a person: now Shukhov would be very happy to “get sick,” whereas during the war he rushed from the medical unit to the front untreated. “A warm, cold person will only ever understand”: the paramedic (who in fact was not a paramedic at all, but simply became an assistant to the local doctor) told Shukhov not to look for trouble, but to return to work.

Returning to the barracks, Ivan Denisovich received the rations hidden for him by the foreman’s assistant and began to think about how best to deal with the bread. Finally, Shukhov decided that he needed to divide the rations in half, but not eat any of the halves, but have time to hide each one in the apartment before the divorce. discreet place- one in the mattress, the other in a secret pocket. Shukhov managed on time and, together with the entire brigade, left the barracks at the call of the contractor.

Just half an hour outside the walls of the barracks - and Shukhov is already in the thick of everyday camp affairs. Ivan Denisovich managed to update the number on his clothes, get a “half-smoke” from fellow brigade Caesar, witness how personal items of clothing were taken away from prisoners, go through the pre-zone and finally find himself outside the camp gates. Everything here serves as frozen evidence of the labor of prisoners: a woodworking plant, residential barracks, new club- all this was built by prisoners for those who are free (“free”). On the way, Shukhov, in order to distract himself from “unfree”, “camp” thoughts, thinks about correspondence with his wife and is unpleasantly surprised at how life has changed in freedom. There, in the village, it turns out there is also bondage: young people are fleeing to the city, the few men who returned from the front do not want to work on their land. Ivan Denisovich has little idea what he will do in native village after release and how the family will cope if “people’s direct path is blocked.”

With these thoughts in mind, Shukhov and his brigade reached a construction site where work awaited the prisoners: some were working on the panels of prefabricated houses, some were starting brickwork, etc. Ivan Denisovich curiously studies the faces around him, as if re-recognizing his fellow brigade members. WITH special attention he looks closely at the foreman, who is the first person for prisoners at work. Much depends on the personal qualities of the foreman. Shukhov was lucky with Brigadier Tyurin: he is always ready to cover his people in front of the camp authorities, as long as they regularly carry out their tasks and obey him. Before receiving a task, prisoners try to take a moment to relax, be alone with themselves, and chat with friends. Shukhov, taking advantage of the temporary lull, ate half of the rations hidden in his pocket.

No matter how long the delay before the work stretched, foreman Tyurin soon appeared and gave everyone a task, including Shukhov. He sent Ivan Denisovich, together with the Latvian Kildigs, to insulate the machine room in one of the neighboring buildings (thermal power plant), which was supposed to be used as a mortar and heating room at once. For insulation, the Latvian suggested using the roofing felt he had hidden, and Shukhov, agreeing, figured out how to sneak a roll of roofing felt into the mortar without being noticed. This scene depicts new injustices of camp life: here, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try to complete the task, you will still find yourself at fault! You always have to be afraid of teething from the authorities, who do not provide the required materials or the required tools for the work. And meanwhile, the prisoners managed to do a great job: with their arrival, the abandoned and useless thermal power plant seemed to wake up.

Shukhov casually noticed how the foreman, having distributed tasks, left the prisoners and went to “close the interest,” that is, to report to the camp authorities about the work done. If you can convince him that his 104th brigade did their best, then each prisoner will receive an extra 200 grams of rations in the evening. “Two hundred grams rule life,” it’s not for nothing that the White Sea Canal was built on them. Meanwhile, the work began to boil, Shukhov and others (kavtorang) had already forgotten about their desire to lie down and take a nap: “if you’re told to do it, then do it!” That’s why they take the task very seriously. Although there are also those (“wicks”) who strive to shirk and pass their work onto others. But there are few of these in the 104th Brigade. At work and time goes faster: Shukhov, who had forgotten about his illness, did not notice how lunch had come.

During the lunch break, until they were called to the dining room, Shukhov and other workers sat down to rest and warm up by the stove. Through the conversations of the prisoners, the “pre-camp” story of Ivan Denisovich and his friends is revealed. It turns out that many of them, including the main character, came here after miraculously surviving fascist captivity. Installation Soviet power the fact that “only traitors are captured” ruined the lives of many war heroes. Some of the German prisoners were lucky during the check, while others turned out to be among the enemies in their own country. Some of Shukhov's brigade mates were sent to Stalin's camps straight from Hitler's concentration camps. Ivan Denisovich himself was beaten by counterintelligence officers and forced to confess to spying for Germany, for which he was given a prison sentence. Shukhov has a hard time experiencing the injustice of the authorities: those who fought are behind bars, and those who hid from the Fritz in the forest are free.

And again the author talks about the pitiful camp food, while emphasizing the very importance of meals for all prisoners. Details are given of how the camp porridge is prepared and how much each person gets. The cook keeps count of the bowls and tries to deceive, and sometimes he actually makes mistakes - then he suspects the prisoners of deception, who by cunning want to get a double portion. When an extra portion of porridge was discovered, the brigadier ordered Shukhov to take the bowl to Caesar to the office. There he witnessed a “dangerous” conversation about art: the old “twenty-year-old” argued to Caesar that real art should not just be beautiful - it should awaken good feelings in the soul.

Returning to the site, Shukhov learned the good news: the foreman “closed the interest rate well,” which means that now the brigade will be given good rations for five days in a row. Ivan Denisovich, together with the entire brigade, gathered as big family, listens to the brigadier’s story about his youth and how he ended up in the camps because he was “the son of a kulak.” Shukhov was surprised that Tyurin told about his misadventures without pity, as if about a stranger. After listening to the foreman’s story, the prisoners somehow obediently and even joyfully set to work. The task was completed ahead of schedule, and the brigade began returning to camp ahead of time.

The prisoners try to return from the facility as quickly as possible, because according to camp laws, whoever comes first is the master. The convoy is delayed: they cannot accurately count those who have returned. During the “five by five” recount, Shukhov starts a conversation with the kavtorgang about the month, revealing Ivan Denisovich’s commitment folk beliefs, which touch the reader with their naivety, although they seem wild (especially due to the criticism of the captain who knows astronomy). Meanwhile, the guards raised a commotion because they missed a man in the 32nd brigade - a Moldovan spy. Finally they found him, to the joy of the others, who had already shivered in the cold. The security urges them on, checks others to see if there are any knives, and demands that they hand over the collected wood chips so that they can then light the stove and warm up. During the shift, Shukhov already remembered about the hacksaw that he accidentally found at the thermal power plant, which he took with him to make a tailor’s knife. I had to belatedly think about how to get it past the security. Ivan Denisovich hid the hacksaw in his mitten, and the old warden did not suspect anything.

When Shukhov was safely inside the camp, he hurried to take a turn at the parcel office, where prisoners received parcels from the outside. Ivan Denisovich, as he believed, was lucky: there were only 15 people in front of him, which meant that he would have to stand until lights out, waiting for the authorities to “shuffle” the packages. Shukhov was waiting for parcels not for himself, but for his fellow brigade members. He himself strictly forbade his wife to send anything from outside: she shouldn’t be separated from the children, and it’s pointless, since here they’ll “halve” anyway.

Meanwhile, it was time for dinner, and Shukhov and the rest of the prisoners hurried to the dining room. Here he barely managed to get through the crowd to his fellow brigade members: otherwise he would have been left without food. The author again returns to the story about the order in the camp kitchen, about the dishonesty and arrogance of the cooks.

After dinner, while there was little time left before lights out, Shukhov ran to the Latvian for a samosad and took the ration to Caesar in the hope that he would share with him, since Denis Ivanovich took Caesar’s turn for the parcel. Shukhov was not deceived: all the rations went to him. Shukhov is happy - he was lucky today. But the cavalry officer was unlucky: he was taken to a punishment cell for 10 days for calling one of the guards a “non-Soviet person.” Meanwhile, the evening check began. Ivan Denisovich “covered” Caesar so that his guards or other prisoners (who were dishonest) would not steal the package.

Shukhov is happy with how the day went: he ate a lot, worked quickly, helped people, didn’t get sick, even though he wasn’t feeling well in the morning. And the bosses didn’t offend me either. Ivan Denisovich thanked God. Alyoshka, a Baptist barracks neighbor, hearing this, started a conversation about how you can’t restrain your soul if it wants to communicate with God: you need to read prayers every day. Shukhov objected that prayers are the official language, the language of bosses and bureaucrats. Can not peasant son to say so, and God will not answer these prayers. Having argued with the Baptist, Shukhov stood his ground.