Writer. Autobiographical nature of the story. In class. Lessons in courage. V. Rasputin “French Lessons”. Kindness. Remember. The feeling that you have done at least a drop of good to people. Dictionary. Biography of V. Rasputin. Lessons in kindness. Epigraph. Portrait of A. Vampilov’s mother. French lessons. Books by V. Rasputin. The word "lesson".
“Valentin Rasputin life and work” - Life path and the work of V. Rasputin. The main character. The writer's homeland. The heroine of Rasputin's story “French Lessons” was called Lydia Mikhailovna Molokova. Subject human soul. Story. V.G. Rasputin is a Siberian. Characteristics of the teacher. Fire. French lessons. Farewell to Matera. Matera. First publication. Live and remember. The creative path of V. Rasputin. What does farewell to Matera mean for the inhabitants of the island?
“Farewell to Matera” - Matera and Telikovka. The pathos of the story. What are we saying goodbye to? Small homeland. A house is a symbol of moral, family, and social foundations. Fog. Shake. Author's position. Daria's Testaments. Writer's creativity. The main questions of the story. Symbolic images stories. Language of the story. Old Man Bogodul. The owner of the island. Questions for discussing the story. Let's analyze the story. Character system. Burners. What does home mean to us?
“Valentin Rasputin “French Lessons”” - Lidia Mikhailovna plays for money with the main character. Main character. From the history of the creation of the story. What feelings does the hero experience when he finds himself in the regional center? After university he worked as a correspondent for Soviet Youth. All neat, smart, beautiful both in clothes and appearance. Valentin Rasputin "French Lessons". Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin. Born on March 15, 1937 in the village of Ust-Uda Irkutsk region.
“Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin” - The birthplace of the writer. Valentin Rasputin. V.G. Rasputin. “...I am sure: a writer begins in childhood from the impressions with which he is imbued precisely then.” V. Rasputin. Biography and books. Writer in Optina Pustyn. At the grave of Vasily Belov's mother. Daughter, wife and mother of a writer. The history of the creation of the story “French Lessons”. Artist B. Alimov. Photo by A. Zabolotsky, 1982. Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin. Parents: Nina Ivanovna and Grigory Nikitich.
“Writer Valentin Rasputin” - After school he entered the Faculty of History and Philology. Rasputin Valentin Grigorievich. Biography. Main topic works of Valentin Rasputin. "French Lessons". "Ivan's daughter, Ivan's mother." Everything that happens is for the better. Socio-political activity. Since 1966, Rasputin has been a professional writer. Screen adaptations. Awards. Tamara Ivanovna. Childhood and his creativity.
Summary"Farewell to Matera" by Rasputin allows you to find out the features of this work Soviet writer. It is rightfully considered one of the best that Rasputin managed to create during his career. The book was first published in 1976.
Plot of the story
A summary of Rasputin’s “Farewell to Matera” allows you to get acquainted with this work without reading it in its entirety, in just a few minutes.
The story takes place in the 60s of the 20th century. At the center of the story is the village of Matera, which is located in the middle of the great Russian river Angara. Changes are coming in the lives of its residents. Soviet Union builds the Bratsk hydroelectric power station. Because of this, all the inhabitants of Matera are relocated, and the village is subject to flooding.
The main conflict of the work is that the majority, especially those who have lived in Matera for decades, do not want to leave. Almost all old people believe that if they leave Matera, they will betray the memory of their ancestors. After all, in the village there is a cemetery where their fathers and grandfathers are buried.
Main character
A summary of Rasputin's "Farewell to Matera" introduces readers to the main character named Daria Pinigina. Despite the fact that the hut is going to be demolished in a few days, she whitewashes it. She refuses her son’s offer to transport her to the city.
Daria strives to stay in the village until the last moment; she does not want to move, because she cannot imagine her life without Matera. She is afraid of change, does not want anything to change in her life.
Almost all residents of Matera are in a similar situation, who are afraid of moving and living in a big city.
The plot of the story
Let's begin the summary of Rasputin's "Farewell to Matera" with a description of the majestic Angara River, on which the village of Matera stands. Literally before her eyes, a considerable part of Russian history. The Cossacks went up the river to set up a fort in Irkutsk, and merchants constantly stopped at the island-village, scurrying back and forth with goods.
Prisoners from all over the country who found refuge in that same prison were often transported past. They stopped on the shore of Matera, prepared a simple lunch and moved on.
For two whole days, a battle broke out here between the partisans who stormed the island and Kolchak’s army, which held the defense in Matera.
The village’s special pride is its own church, which stands on a high bank. IN Soviet era it was converted into a warehouse. It also has its own mill and even a mini-airport. Twice a week the “corn farmer” sits in the old pasture and takes the residents to the city.
Dam for hydroelectric power station
Everything changes radically when the authorities decide to build a dam for the Bratsk hydroelectric power station. The power plant is most important, which means several surrounding villages will be flooded. First in line is Matera.
Rasputin's story "Farewell to Matera", a summary of which is given in this article, tells how local residents perceive the news of the imminent move.
True, there are few inhabitants in the village. Mostly only old people remained. Young people moved to the city for more promising and light work. Those who remained now think of the upcoming flooding as the end of the world. Rasputin dedicated “Farewell to Matera” to these experiences of the indigenous people. A very brief summary of the story is not able to convey all the pain and sadness with which the old-timers bear this news.
They oppose this decision in every way. At first, no amount of persuasion can convince them: neither the authorities nor their relatives. They are urged to use common sense, but they flatly refuse to leave.
They are stopped by the familiar and lived-in walls of houses, a familiar and measured way of life that they do not want to change. Memory of ancestors. After all, in the village there is an old cemetery where more than one generation of Matera residents is buried. In addition, there is no desire to throw away a lot of things that you couldn’t do without here, but in the city no one will need them. These are frying pans, grips, cast iron, tubs, but you never know in the village useful devices that in the city have long replaced the benefits of civilization.
They are trying to convince old people that in the city they will be accommodated in apartments with all the amenities: cold and hot water at any time of the year, heating, which they don’t need to worry about and remember when last time lit the stove. But they still understand that, out of habit, they will be very sad in a new place.
The village is dying
Lonely old women who do not want to leave are in the least hurry to leave Matera. They witness how the village begins to be set on fire. The abandoned houses of those who have already moved to the city are gradually burning down.
At the same time, when the fire has calmed down and everyone begins to discuss whether it happened on purpose or by accident, then everyone agrees that the houses caught fire by accident. Nobody dares to believe in such extravagance that someone could raise their hands on residential buildings just recently. I especially can’t believe that the owners themselves could have set the house on fire when they left Matera for the mainland.
Daria says goodbye to the hut
In Rasputin's "Farewell to Matera", you can read the summary in this article, old-timers say goodbye to their homes in a special way.
The main character Daria, before leaving, carefully sweeps out the entire hut, tidies up, and then also whitewashes the hut for the upcoming happy life. Already leaving Matera, she is most upset because she remembers that she forgot to grease her home somewhere.
Rasputin in his work “Farewell to Matera,” a summary of which you are now reading, describes the suffering of her neighbor Nastasya, who cannot take her cat with her. Animals are not allowed on the boat. Therefore, she asks Daria to feed her, without thinking that Daria herself is leaving in just a few days. And for good.
For the residents of Matera, all things and pets with whom they spent so many years side by side become as if alive. They reflect the entire life spent on this island. And when you have to leave for good, you must thoroughly clean up, just as a deceased person is cleaned and preened before sending him to the next world.
It is worth noting that the church and Orthodox rituals are not supported by all village residents, but only by the elderly. But the rituals are not forgotten by anyone; they exist in the souls of both believers and atheists.
Sanitary brigade
Valentin Rasputin describes in detail the upcoming visit of the sanitary team in “Farewell to Matera,” a summary of which you are now reading. It is she who is tasked with razing the village cemetery to the ground.
D Arya opposes this, uniting behind her all the old-timers who have not yet left the island. They cannot imagine how such outrage could be allowed to happen.
They send curses on the heads of offenders, call on God for help, and even engage in real battle, armed with ordinary sticks. Defending the honor of her ancestors, Daria is militant and assertive. Many would have resigned themselves to fate if they were in her place. But she is not satisfied with the current situation. She judges not only strangers, but also her son and daughter-in-law, who without hesitation abandoned everything they had acquired in Matera and moved to the city at the first opportunity.
She also scolds modern youth, who, in her opinion, are leaving the world they know for the sake of distant and unknown benefits. More often than anyone else, she turns to God so that he can help her, support her, and enlighten those around her.
Most importantly, she does not want to part with the graves of her ancestors. She is convinced that after death she will meet her relatives, who will definitely condemn her for such behavior.
The denouement of the story
On the last pages of the story, Daria's son Pavel admits that he was wrong. The summary of Rasputin's story "Farewell to Matera" cannot be completed without the fact that the end of the work focuses attention on the monologue of this hero.
He laments that so much wasted work was required from the people who lived here for several generations. In vain, because everything will eventually be destroyed and go under water. Of course, it is pointless to speak out against technological progress, but human attitude is still most important.
The simplest thing is not to ask these questions, but to go with the flow, thinking as little as possible about why everything is happening this way and how the world around us works. But it is precisely the desire to get to the bottom of the truth, to find out why it is this way and not otherwise, that distinguishes a person from an animal,” concludes Pavel.
Prototypes of Matera
The writer Valentin Rasputin spent his childhood years in the village of Atalanka, located in the Irkutsk region on the Angara River.
The prototype of the village of Matera was presumably the neighboring village of Gorny Kui. All this was the territory of the Balagansky district. It was he who was flooded during the construction of the Bratsk hydroelectric power station.
Characteristic literary hero Matera is an island and a village. The name means “mother”, “mother land”. For its inhabitants, M. symbolizes the whole world and ensures the normal natural course of life. In the land of M. lie the ancestors of its inhabitants, who gave this land to their children for use, and these children must pass it on to their own, etc. The story shows those times when the village “withered,... became rooted, went off its usual course.” A power plant was being built down the Angara. This caused the water in the river to rise and gradually flood M. The inhabitants of the island were resettled to the “mainland”, to the city. M. is shown as an ark, the keeper of moral laws, the human soul: “... from edge to edge, from coast to coast, there was enough in it, and expanse, and wealth, and beauty, and wildness, and every creature in pairs - everything, separated from the mainland , she kept it in abundance.” At the end of the story, M. disappears into the depths of the waters along with its faithful inhabitants - the old women, Bogodul and Kolka. These people could not “fit” into the new life, which is fruitlessly vain and does not give a person the opportunity to look back and be alone with himself.
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- Farewell to Matera, who stood for three hundred extra years on the banks of the Angara, the village of Matera has seen everything in its lifetime. “In ancient times, bearded Cossacks climbed past her up the Angara to set up the Irkutsk prison; merchants scurrying around Read More ......
- Petrukha Characteristics of the literary hero Petrukha (Nikita Alekseevich Zotov) is Katerina’s dissolute son, an “unhappy drunkard.” No one called him by name, but everyone called him by the nickname P., given to him for his simplicity and worthlessness. P. really wants to leave Matera and start a new Read More......
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- Bogodul Characteristics of the literary hero Bogodul is an old man who wandered to Matera. He was very fond of Russian swearing, for which he was nicknamed “blasphemy” (“God-blooded”). In the summer, the hero sometimes left Matera, but in the winter he lived here constantly, mostly with old women, sometimes spending the night in the bathhouse. Read More......
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- Pavel Pinigin Characteristics of a literary hero Pavel Pinigin is the son of Daria Pinigina, 50 years old. P. is a representative of the middle generation in the story. He cannot, as recklessly as Andrey, tear himself away from Matera, from her life principles, absorbed with mother's milk. P. suffers Read More ......
Pinigina Daria
The main character of the work is an eighty-year-old elderly woman named Pinigina Daria Vasilievna, presented by the writer in the image of a native inhabitant of the island of Matera.
Daria Vasilievna is described in the story as a tall, lean old woman with a bloodless face, toothless mouth, dry lips, who lived through a difficult life. human life, but without losing her own energy. Despite her age, Daria Pinigina independently takes care of her large farm in the form of a vegetable garden, livestock and household work. Characteristics the heroine is her truthfulness, conscientiousness and justice, which attract people to her local residents islands who love to come for a cup of tea from Daria Vasilievna’s favorite samovar. The heroine has a special love for her native places, where her ancestors are buried, and prefers to stay on Matera, despite the flooding of the island.
Pavel Mironovich
Also, the key character of the story is the son of Daria Pinigina, Pavel Mironovich, a fifty-year-old man working on a state farm as a tractor driver, tired of the constant change from state farm foreman to garage manager. Pavel is characterized in the story as a simple, honest, hardworking man who treats his mother well and tries to provide her with any help. Pavel Mironovich has a family consisting of a wife and three sons, the youngest of whom, Andrei, having returned from the army, lives with his parents. In the situation with the island, associated with its flooding and the resettlement of local residents, Pavel feels great pity for Matera, is tired of his own experiences and rejoices when he realizes that certainty is coming.
Andrey Pinigin
Pavel's son, Andrei Pinigin, is one of the minor heroes of the work, and is a young twenty-two-year-old man, healthy in appearance, recently returned from the army, distinguished by his head held high and a soldier's bearing. Andrey is characterized in the story as a reasonable, adult person who builds his own life according to a plan developed in advance by him, wishing to implement labor activity at an important facility for the state, where advanced youth work without wasting energy on living in the wilderness.
Bohodul
Also minor character The story presents the old man Bogodul, who settled on the island in ancient times, but is not its native inhabitant. Bogodul positions himself as a representative of the Polish nation, does not like to speak Russian, but loves to use it in his speech swear words and expressions. The old man's appearance resembles a fairy-tale goblin, distinguished by a shaggy head, red eyes, huge hands and almost no all year round shoes on your feet. Local women are sympathetic to Bogodul, but the men avoid him, not understanding the eccentric nature of Bogodul.
Petrukha
One of the inhabitants of Matera is Petrukha, minor character story, a forty-year-old man, the son of one of the old women Katerina, who has the name given at birth Nikita Alekseevich Zotov. The local population calls him Petrukha, because in life the man manifests himself as a worthless, dissolute slob, who does not work, has no property except his beloved accordion, loves to chat and drink, characterized by laziness and stupidity. After the resettlement begins, Petrukha sets fire to her own hut in order to receive compensation, presenting it as an accident, and then sets fire to the houses of her neighbors.
Katerina Zotova
In addition, the island's inhabitants are portrayed in the story by Katerina Zotova, Petrukha's mother, who is a sweet and kind old woman, and the spouses Egor and Nastasya, who moved to the city from Matera due to the flooding, where old Egor, homesick for his homeland, dies, and Nastasya returns to the island to the remaining residents, as well as the old woman Sima with her grandson Kolya, left to her by her dumb daughter, and Boris Andreevich Vorontsov, who holds the position of chairman of the state farm.
Master island
Throughout the story, the writer uses the image of the Master of the island, described as invisible, fairy-tale creature, guarded by Materu, conducting nightly inspections of the doomed island settlement.
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In the story “Farewell to Matera,” analysis helps to grasp an objective reflection of subjective reality, evaluate the place and role of man in the modern world, the impact of scientific and technological progress on nature, and take a fresh look at the problem of mutual understanding in society and family.
Valentin Rasputin "Farewell to Matera"
Valentin Rasputin was born in 1937 on the Angara River, like the main characters of the story “Farewell to Matera”. The writer’s small homeland is a village located near Irkutsk. Rasputin's works are autobiographical and imbued with love for his native land.
Work on “Farewell to Matera” was completed in 1976. The history of creation was preceded by an essay about the fate of the village in the flood zone up and downstream.
IN brief retelling a picture of the end of the existence of the village of Matera is conveyed. In the story, the author describes the fate of residents seeking answers to eternal questions about the meaning of life, the relationship between generations, morality and memory.
Chapter 1
The last spring of a village and an island bearing the same name, Matera, is described. There is a spirit of uncertainty in the air: some homes are empty, while others retain a semblance of normal life.
Over its three-hundred-year history, the village has seen bearded Cossacks, prisoners, Kolchak battles, and partisans. Both the church and the mill have been preserved on the island, providing recent years even a plane arrives. And with the construction of the power plant came lately for Matera.
Chapter 2
The old women of the village spend a typical day talking over the samovar at Daria's. The old women remember the past, but everyone’s thoughts are occupied with the future. Everyone is afraid of the prospect of city life in cramped apartments devoid of soul. Nastasya and Yegor, who buried all four children, were supposed to be the first to move to the city, but they kept putting it off.
Old woman Sima does not know how her life will turn out with her five-year-old grandson. Not long ago, her mute daughter Valka went on a spree and disappeared. Sima herself ended up in Matera by chance, trying to arrange her life with the local grandfather Maxim. But the matchmaking failed and now the old woman lives in a hut on the lower edge with her grandson Kolka.
An old man nicknamed Bogodul comes to the house and shouts about strangers running the cemetery.
Chapter 3
At a cemetery outside the village, two workers, by order of the sanitary and epidemiological station, are preparing sawn-down gravestones and crosses for burning.
The old women and Bogodul came running, and then all the residents prevented the destruction. The persuasion of Chairman Vorontsov and Comrade Zhuk from the flooding department does not help.
Residents are driving outsiders away and restoring destroyed monuments.
Chapter 4
The story of Bogodula's appearance in the village and his relationship with the local old women is told.
The morning after the commotion with the cemetery, Daria drinks tea with Bogodul, remembers the past, her parents, and again returns to the resettlement. Thoughts drive the old woman out of the house. She finds herself on the mountain and looks around her native surroundings. She is overcome by a premonition of the end and her own uselessness. Life has been lived, but not understood.
Chapter 5
In the evening, Daria’s eldest son, Pavel, now fifty, comes to see her. The first son died in the war and was buried in unknown lands, youngest son during the war years he died in a logging camp and was buried in Matera in closed coffin. Eldest daughter died in Podvolochnaya during the second birth, and the other daughter lives in Irkutsk. Another son lives in a timber industry enterprise not far from his native village.
The conversation turns to a vague future and the establishment of a farm in a new place. Young people are in a hurry to get rid of village housing and get money. New life attracts Klavka Strigunova and Nikita Zotov, nicknamed Petrukha.
Chapter 6
At night, Matera is visited by a mysterious owner, a small animal, the island's brownie. The owner runs around the sleeping village, knowing that soon the end of everything will come and the island will cease to exist.
Chapter 7
Two weeks pass, and on Wednesday Nastasya and grandfather Yegor leave the village. The old woman plans to come dig potatoes in the fall and is worried about her cat. A difficult farewell is said to fellow villagers, and the old people set sail on a boat down the river.
Chapter 8
At night, Petrukhin’s hut burned down in two hours. Before this, he sent his mother Katerina to live with Daria. Depressed people watched the fire, assuming that Zotov himself had set the hut on fire.
The owner saw everything, and saw future fires, and further...
Chapter 9
Pavel rarely visits his mother, who remains with Katerina. He is overcome by work and sadness over the disappearance of his rich native land.
The move was difficult for him, unlike his wife Sonya, who quickly settled into the city.
He worries about his mother, who cannot imagine life outside of Matera.
Chapter 10
After the fire, Petrukha disappeared, leaving his mother without everything in Daryino’s care. Katerina gave birth to a son from a married fellow villager, Alyosha Zvonnikov. The son took after his father in his ease and talkativeness, but everything was out of place for him. By the age of forty, Petrukha had not settled down, for which her mother blamed herself.
Chapter 11
The last haymaking begins on Matera, bringing together half the village. Everyone wants to extend these happy days.
Petrukha unexpectedly returned and handed his mother 15 rubles, and after reproaches from her, he added another 10. He continues to carouse, either in the village or at home.
It's starting to rain.
Chapter 12
On the first rainy day, Daria’s grandson Andrei, one of Pavel’s three sons, comes to see her. He is in a hurry to do everything in life, to visit everywhere and wants to take part in the large construction of a hydroelectric power station on the Angara. But for now he agrees to stay and help with haymaking and moving graves.
Chapter 13
We've arrived rainy days, increasing the anxiety state of people. On a day that cleared in the morning, everyone came to Pavel, as a foreman, to inquire about work. But it started pouring again, and people started talking. Afanasy Koshkin, Klavka Strigunova, Vera Nosareva, Daria, Andrey again talk about the fate of Matera.
One day Vorontsov arrives with a representative from the Pesenny district. The chairman informs the meeting that the island should be cleared by mid-September, and a commission will arrive on the twentieth.
Chapter 14
Andrey tells his grandmother what was discussed at the meeting. Daria cannot come to terms with the fate of the island and talks about it with her grandson. She remembers death, but looking up she sees the sun peeking out from behind the clouds. Her face brightens, because life continues to bubble up around her.
Chapter 15
The rains stop and people get to work. Daria is worried about her son who has left and sends Andrei to find out what’s going on.
It was August, everything around was ripe, and a lot of mushrooms appeared in the forests.
Chapter 16
We came from the city to harvest grain, and later another brigade transported cattle from neighboring Podmoga. Then Pomoga Island was set on fire to clean it up. Strangers burned down the mill, then, at Klavka’s request, her hut.
Daria and Katerina, returning from saying goodbye to the burning mill, found a frightened Sima and Kolka on the porch. We all spent the night together.
Chapter 17
In the evenings, Daria has long conversations about everything. Katerina is upset because of her son, who receives money for setting fire to other people's huts. Sima still dreams of some old man; she believes that living together would be easier.
Chapter 18
The bread was removed, and the visitors, to the joy of the locals, left. Schoolchildren were brought to the state farm to harvest potatoes. The timber industry men came to burn the forest.
There were a lot of potatoes, Pavel and Sonya arrived with their laughing friend Mila. The harvest was harvested, Nastasya never arrived, and her garden was also removed. Everything was slowly transported. Pavel was the last to arrive for the cow, but the line never reached the graves.
Daria goes to the cemetery to say goodbye to her family and observes smoke from the fires around her.
Chapter 19
While clearing the island, the workers also begin to clean up the royal foliage. But people are unable to cope with it, and the tree remains adamantly standing amid the destruction.
Chapter 20
Daria is putting the hut in order for the last time: whitewashing the ceiling, walls, greasing the Russian stove. On her last morning she whitewashes the forgotten shutters. In all of Matera, only the old women and Bogodul remain.
Daria spends her last night at home alone in a tidy hut decorated with fir branches. The next morning she gives the arsonist permission to light the fire, and she leaves the village. In the evening, Paul, who arrived, finds her near the royal foliage. Nastasya has arrived.
Chapter 21
Old man Pavel leaves the old women on the island for two days, so that he can then pick them all up together on a boat. The night is spent in the Kolchak barracks near Bogodul. Nastasya talks about living in the city and how grandfather Yegor died of melancholy.
Chapter 22
Vorontsov and Petrukha come to Pavel Mironovich, who has returned from Matera. The chairman swears because they didn’t bring people and orders them to immediately gather for the old people.
Fog fell on the Angara, forcing mechanic Galkin to run at low speeds. In the night, the boat can’t find the island; they wander in the fog, screaming and calling for those remaining on Matera.
The old people wake up and first hear the Master’s farewell howl, and then the noise of the engine.
The story ends.
What problems does the author raise in the work?
On the pages of the book, Rasputin clearly demonstrates the problems modern world. These are environmental issues and concerns about the future path of civilization, about the cost of scientific and technological progress. The author raises moral problems, separation from the small homeland and generational conflict.
Analysis of the work
Rasputin wrote about real historical events through the prism of perception of village inhabitants. In the genre of a philosophical parable, the author describes the colorful life and fate of the inhabitants of Matera.
He argues for nepotism, connection with roots, small homeland and the older generation.
Characteristics of heroes
The heroes of the story are people associated with Matera and observing the last months of the island’s existence:
- Daria is an old resident of the village, no longer remembering exactly her age, reasonable strong woman, uniting the elderly. Although she lives alone, having lost her husband, who died hunting in the taiga when he was barely over fifty, she has a strong family. Children revere their mother and always call to them. Daria feels part of Matera, deeply worried about her inability to influence the course of events. Family and the connection between generations are important to her, so she has a hard time with the unrealized transportation of the graves of her relatives;
- Katerina is Daria’s friend, who meekly endures the blows of fate and the antics of her unlucky son. She was never married and loved one man, someone else’s husband and her father Petrukha. Katerina always tries to justify her son and everyone around her, hoping for correction and the manifestation of better qualities;
- Nastasya is Daria’s neighbor and friend, who cannot find a place for herself outside of Matera. Her fate is not easy, she outlived her children and focused on her husband, about whom in her old age she began to tell tales. Perhaps, by inventing Yegor’s non-existent illnesses and misfortunes, she is trying to protect the only remaining loved one. She began acting weird after the death of four children, two of whom did not return from the war, one fell through the ice with a tractor, and her daughter died of cancer;
- Sima is Daria’s younger friend, who ended up in the village by chance with her grandson Kolka. A helpful and quiet woman, the youngest of all the old women. Her life was not easy; she was early left alone in her arms with her mute daughter. Dreams on the quiet family life did not materialize, daughter Valka began to go out with men and disappeared, leaving her son in the care of her mother. Sima endures troubles without complaint, continuing to believe in the responsiveness and kindness of people;
- Bogodul is the only man in the company of old women who has arrived in the village from foreign lands. He calls himself a Pole, speaks little, mostly in Russian, for which, apparently, he was called a blasphemer. And the village ones were converted into Bogodul. At Bohodul's characteristic appearance: shaggy hair and an overgrown face with a fleshy, hummocky nose. He walks all year round barefoot, on calloused, coarse legs, with a slow and heavy gait, with a bent back and a raised head with red, bloodshot eyes;
- Egor, Nastasya’s husband, becomes the first victim of separation from the island. In the city he dies of melancholy, cut off from his small homeland. Egor is a thorough and thoughtful man, he deeply conceals his sadness and experiences, gradually fencing himself off from people and from life;
- Pavel is Daria's son, standing between the younger generation fleeing the village and the old people who do not have the strength to part with their native roots. He tries to adapt to his new life, but appears confused and trying to reconcile those around him;
- Sonya, Pavel’s wife, easily and joyfully endured the move to a new urban-type settlement, happily adopted city habits and fashion;
- Andrei, the son of Paul, sees in the destruction of Matera human strength and power striving for progress. He seeks active action and new experiences;
- Petrukha is Katerina’s son, carefree, looking for fun and an easy life. He has no connection with his small homeland, he easily parts with his house and property, without thinking about the future and the people around him.
Conclusion
The work contains deep moral meaning and requires thoughtful, meaningful reading. Quotes from the book are imbued with many years of folk wisdom. “...Life, that’s what life is for, to continue, it will endure everything and will be accepted everywhere...”