In his “Kolyma Tales,” Shalamov deliberately builds on Solzhenitsyn’s narrative. If “In one day...” work is spiritual liberation, then for Shalamov work is hard labor, “the camp was a place where they were taught to hate physical labor, hate work in general.”
And if for a moment Shalamov’s hero’s work may seem like “melody,” “music,” “symphony” (“The Shovel Artist”), then the very next moment it is cacophony, grinding and ragged rhythm, deception and lies. For Varlam Shalamov, catharsis, i.e. a positive lesson from being in the camps is impossible.
However, one should pay tribute to the 16 years of imprisonment of the writer, who wandered “from the hospital to the slaughter.” Varlam Shalamov is in many ways Virgil, driving his car through the circles of hell. (Documentary story “The Lawyers’ Conspiracy” - bright that example). The writer was convicted under Article 58. and ended up in “criminal camps” where “domestic workers” and political prisoners were kept.
“...trolleys and carriages float along a rope to a butara - to a washing device, where the soil is washed under a stream of water, and gold settles to the bottom of the deck.” “But this is none of your business.” Butariat (sprinkle the soil with spatulas) is not wheelbarrow-making. The fifty-eighth is not allowed anywhere near gold.
The following phrase of the author is very symbolic: “... the wheelbarrow driver does not see the wheel... He must feel the wheel.” Here Shalamov talks about the specific work of a wheelbarrow driver. But the image should be understood much more broadly: the wheelbarrow driver is a person who does not see the wheel, he does not see the wheel of repression, but he feels it very well. He does not see those who set this wheel in motion, all the perpetrators of the feudal camp system of our century. Shalamov would like to tear off the mask of uncertainty from everyone, by name. This “veil of the unknown” mask grows on them, fuses with their skin. And the sooner this veil is torn off, the better.
There is such a thing as “beyond-text, off-screen characters” of a work (fate and chance in Nabokov, for example). They are never mentioned by Shalamov, but their presence is “felt.” And we can only know an approximate amount.
“The work of the foreman is very carefully (officially) monitored by... a caretaker. The superintendent is supervised by the senior superintendent, the senior superintendent is supervised by the site foreman, the foreman is supervised by the site manager, and the site manager is supervised by chief engineer and the head of the mine. I don’t want to lead this hierarchy higher - it is extremely branched, diverse, and gives scope for the imagination of any dogmatic or poetic inspiration.”
After all, E.P. Berzin and I.V. Stalin did not work together. There were millions of people who agreed with the machination of slavery in the 20th century.
But who are they? Where to look for them? Later, answers to these questions can be found in the works of Sergei Dovlatov, who said that “Hell is ourselves.”
* * *
Charles Francois Gounod believed that freedom is nothing more than conscious and voluntary submission to unchanging truths. These truths are most likely love, friendship, honor and truth. Based on this, we can say that Shalamov’s heroes do achieve this freedom in the story “The Last Battle of Major Pugachev” (all 12 fugitives achieve inner freedom at the cost of their lives).
But even Shalamov doesn’t paint his stories with just black paint. The story “Injector” is a crumb of humor in the entire Kolyma epic. One day, at the production site, an injector (a jet pump for supplying water under pressure to steam boilers) wore out and broke. The foreman writes a report to his superiors - so they say, the injector is out of working condition,” it is necessary to either correct this one or send a new one (the writing style has been preserved by the author). The boss’s answer follows immediately: “If the prisoner Injector does not go to work from the next day, then he should be placed in a punishment cell... And kept there as long as necessary... Until he gets into a work rhythm.”
Let's look at Shalamov's collection, on which he worked from 1954 to 1962. Let us describe its brief content. " Kolyma stories" is a collection whose plot of stories is a description of the camp and prison life of Gulag prisoners, their tragic destinies, similar to one another, in which chance rules. The author’s focus is constantly on hunger and satiety, painful dying and recovery, exhaustion, moral humiliation and degradation. You will learn more about the problems raised by Shalamov by reading the summary of “Kolyma Stories” - a collection that is an understanding of what the author experienced and saw during the 17 years he spent in prison (1929-1931) and Kolyma (from 1937 to 1937). 1951). Photo of the author is presented below.
Funeral word
The author recalls his comrades from the camps. We will not list their names, since we are making a brief summary. "Kolyma Stories" is a collection in which fiction and documentary are intertwined. However, all killers are given a real last name in the stories.
Continuing the narrative, the author describes how the prisoners died, what torture they endured, talks about their hopes and behavior in “Auschwitz without ovens,” as Shalamov called the Kolyma camps. Few managed to survive, and only a few managed to survive and not break morally.
"The Life of Engineer Kipreev"
Let us dwell on the following interesting story, which we could not help but describe when compiling a summary. “Kolyma Stories” is a collection in which the author, who has not sold or betrayed anyone, says that he has developed for himself a formula for protecting his own existence. It consists in the fact that a person can survive if he is ready to die at any moment, he can commit suicide. But later he realizes that he only built a comfortable shelter for himself, since it is unknown what you will become at the decisive moment, whether you will have enough not only mental strength, but also physical strength.
Kipreev, a physics engineer arrested in 1938, was not only able to withstand interrogation and beating, but even attacked the investigator, as a result of which he was put in a punishment cell. But still they are trying to get him to give false testimony, threatening to arrest his wife. Kipreev nevertheless continues to prove to everyone that he is not a slave, like all prisoners, but a human being. Thanks to his talent (he fixed a broken one and found a way to restore burnt out light bulbs), this hero manages to avoid the most difficult work, but not always. It is only by a miracle that he survives, but the moral shock does not let him go.
"To the show"
Shalamov, who wrote “Kolyma Stories,” a brief summary of which interests us, testifies that camp corruption affected everyone to one degree or another. It was carried out in various forms. Let us describe in a few words another work from the collection “Kolyma Tales” - “To the Show”. Summary its plot is as follows.
Two thieves are playing cards. One loses and asks to play in debt. Enraged at some point, he orders an unexpectedly imprisoned intellectual, who happened to be among the spectators, to give up his sweater. He refuses. One of the thieves “finishes” him, but the sweater goes to the thieves anyway.
"At night"
Let's move on to the description of another work from the collection "Kolyma Stories" - "At Night". Its summary, in our opinion, will also be interesting to the reader.
Two prisoners sneak towards the grave. The body of their comrade was buried here in the morning. They take off the dead man's linen in order to exchange it for tobacco or bread tomorrow or sell it. Disgust towards the clothes of the deceased is replaced by the thought that perhaps tomorrow they will be able to smoke or eat a little more.
There are a lot of works in the collection "Kolyma Stories". "The Carpenters", a summary of which we have omitted, follows the story "Night". We invite you to familiarize yourself with it. The product is small in volume. The format of one article, unfortunately, does not allow us to describe all the stories. Also a very small work from the collection "Kolyma Tales" - "Berry". A summary of the main and, in our opinion, most interesting stories is presented in this article.
"Single metering"
Defined by the author as slave labor in camps, it is another form of corruption. The prisoner, exhausted by it, cannot work his quota; labor turns into torture and leads to slow death. Dugaev, a prisoner, is becoming increasingly weaker due to the 16-hour working day. He pours, picks, carries. In the evening, the caretaker measures what he has done. The figure of 25% mentioned by the caretaker seems very large to Dugaev. His hands, head, and calves ache unbearably. The prisoner no longer even feels hungry. Later he is called to the investigator. He asks: “Name, surname, term, article.” Every other day, soldiers take the prisoner to a remote place surrounded by a fence with barbed wire. At night you can hear the noise of tractors from here. Dugaev realizes why he was brought here and understands that his life is over. He only regrets that he suffered an extra day in vain.
"Rain"
You can talk for a very long time about such a collection as “Kolyma Stories”. The summary of the chapters of the works is for informational purposes only. We bring to your attention the following story - "Rain".
"Sherry Brandy"
The prisoner poet, who was considered the first poet of the 20th century in our country, dies. He lies on the bunks, in the depths of their bottom row. It takes a long time for a poet to die. Sometimes a thought comes to him, for example, that someone stole bread from him, which the poet put under his head. He is ready to search, fight, swear... However, he no longer has the strength to do this. When the daily ration is placed in his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to gnaw and tear with his loose, scurvy-infested teeth. When a poet dies, he is not written off for another 2 days. During the distribution, the neighbors manage to get bread for him as if he were alive. They arrange for him to raise his hand like a puppet.
"Shock therapy"
Merzlyakov, one of the heroes of the collection “Kolma Stories”, a brief summary of which we are considering, is a convict of large build, and in general work he understands that he is failing. He falls, cannot get up and refuses to take the log. First his own people beat him, then his guards. He is brought to camp with lower back pain and a broken rib. After recovery, Merzlyakov does not stop complaining and pretends that he cannot straighten up. He does this in order to delay discharge. He is sent to the surgical department of the central hospital, and then to the nervous department for examination. Merzlyakov has a chance to be released due to illness. He tries his best not to be exposed. But Pyotr Ivanovich, a doctor, himself a former prisoner, exposes him. Everything human in him replaces the professional. He spends most of his time exposing those who are simulating. Pyotr Ivanovich anticipates the effect that the case with Merzlyakov will produce. The doctor first gives him anesthesia, during which he manages to straighten Merzlyakov’s body. A week later, the patient is prescribed shock therapy, after which he asks to be discharged himself.
"Typhoid quarantine"
Andreev ends up in quarantine after falling ill with typhus. The patient's position, compared to working in the mines, gives him a chance to survive, which he almost did not hope for. Then Andreev decides to stay here as long as possible, and then, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the gold mines, where there is death, beatings, and hunger. Andreev does not respond to the roll call before sending those who have recovered to work. He manages to hide in this way for quite a long time. The transit bus gradually empties, and finally it’s Andreev’s turn. But it seems to him now that he has won the battle for life, and if there are any deployments now, it will only be on local, short-term business trips. But when a truck with a group of prisoners who were unexpectedly given winter uniforms crosses the line separating long- and short-term business trips, Andreev realizes that fate has laughed at him.
The photo below shows the house in Vologda where Shalamov lived.
"Aortic aneurysm"
In Shalamov's stories, illness and hospital are an indispensable attribute of the plot. Ekaterina Glovatskaya, a prisoner, ends up in the hospital. Zaitsev, the doctor on duty, immediately liked this beauty. He knows that she is in a relationship with prisoner Podshivalov, an acquaintance of his who runs a local amateur art group, but the doctor still decides to try his luck. As usual, he begins with a medical examination of the patient, listening to the heart. However, male interest is replaced by medical concern. In Glowacka he discovers this is a disease in which every careless movement can provoke death. The authorities, who have made it a rule to separate lovers, have once already sent the girl to a penal women's mine. The head of the hospital, after the doctor’s report about her illness, is sure that this is the machinations of Podshivalov, who wants to detain his mistress. The girl is discharged, but during loading she dies, which is what Zaitsev warned about.
"The Last Battle of Major Pugachev"
The author testifies that after the Great Patriotic War Prisoners who fought and went through captivity began to arrive at the camps. These people are of a different kind: they know how to take risks, they are brave. They only believe in weapons. Camp slavery did not corrupt them; they were not yet exhausted to the point of losing their will and strength. Their “fault” was that these prisoners were captured or surrounded. It was clear to one of them, Major Pugachev, that they had been brought here to die. Then he gathers strong and determined prisoners to match himself, who are ready to die or become free. The escape is prepared all winter. Pugachev realized that only those who manage to escape after surviving the winter can escape. general work. One by one, the participants in the conspiracy are promoted to service. One of them becomes a cook, another becomes a cult leader, the third repairs weapons for security.
One spring day, at 5 am, there was a knock on the watch. The duty officer lets in the prisoner cook, who, as usual, has come to get the keys to the pantry. The cook strangles him, and another prisoner dresses in his uniform. The same thing happens to other duty officers who returned a little later. Then everything happens according to Pugachev’s plan. The conspirators burst into the security room and seize weapons, shooting the guard on duty. They stock up on provisions and put on military uniforms, holding the suddenly awakened soldiers at gunpoint. Having left the camp, they stop the truck on the highway, disembark the driver and drive until the gas runs out. Then they go into the taiga. Pugachev, waking up at night after many months of captivity, recalls how in 1944 he escaped from a German camp, crossed the front line, survived interrogation in a special department, after which he was accused of espionage and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He also recalls how emissaries of General Vlasov came to the German camp and recruited Russians, convincing them that the captured soldiers were traitors to the Motherland for the Soviet regime. Pugachev did not believe them then, but soon became convinced of this himself. He looks lovingly at his comrades sleeping nearby. A little later, a hopeless battle ensues with the soldiers who surrounded the fugitives. Almost all of the prisoners die, except one, who is nursed back to health after being seriously wounded in order to be shot. Only Pugachev manages to escape. He is hiding in a bear's den, but he knows that they will find him too. He doesn't regret what he did. His last shot is at himself.
So, we looked at the main stories from the collection, authored by Varlam Shalamov (“Kolyma Stories”). A summary introduces the reader to the main events. You can read more about them on the pages of the work. The collection was first published in 1966 by Varlam Shalamov. "Kolyma Stories", a brief summary of which you now know, appeared on the pages of the New York publication "New Journal".
In New York in 1966, only 4 stories were published. The following year, 1967, 26 stories by this author, mainly from the collection of interest to us, were published in translation into German in the city of Cologne. During his lifetime, Shalamov never published the collection “Kolyma Stories” in the USSR. A summary of all the chapters, unfortunately, is not included in the format of one article, since there are a lot of stories in the collection. Therefore, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the rest.
"Condensed milk"
In addition to those described above, we will tell you about one more work from the collection “Kolyma Stories” - Its summary is as follows.
Shestakov, an acquaintance of the narrator, did not work at the mine face, because he was a geological engineer, and he was taken into the office. He met with the narrator and said that he wanted to take the workers and go to the Black Keys, to the sea. And although the latter understood that this was impracticable (the path to the sea is very long), he nevertheless agreed. The narrator reasoned that Shestakov probably wants to hand over all those who will participate in this. But the promised condensed milk (to overcome the journey, he had to refresh himself) bribed him. Going to Shestakov, he ate two jars of this delicacy. And then he suddenly announced that he had changed his mind. A week later, other workers fled. Two of them were killed, three were tried a month later. And Shestakov was transferred to another mine.
We recommend reading other works in the original. Shalamov wrote “Kolyma Tales” very talentedly. The summary ("Berries", "Rain" and "Children's Pictures" we also recommend reading in the original) conveys only the plot. The author's style and artistic merits can only be assessed by becoming familiar with the work itself.
Not included in the collection "Kolyma Stories" "Sentence". We did not describe the summary of this story for this reason. However this work is one of the most mysterious in Shalamov’s work. Fans of his talent will be interested in getting to know him.
The first half of the 20th century became a truly bloody time for Russia. Naturally, wars, a series of revolutions, the period of collectivization, the emergence of fascist and Stalinist camps should have sharpened interest in the problem of death in literature, but the problem of the tragic was conceptualized in the literature of the Soviet period, then “ in a distorted form and largely selective“Ideological censorship also played a big role in this. G. Mitin noted a peculiar historical paradox of what was happening: “ When the era of death ended in the life of our society, only then did death enter our literature» .
One of those who were not afraid to address the topic of death in Soviet literature, was V.T. Shalamov. And it couldn’t have been any other way. It is known that the Kolyma camps, which he wrote about, were the harshest: “ To return from there alive physically and with a living soul was considered a miracle". Therefore, it is not surprising that the characters “ Kolyma stories“People became doomed. V.T. Shalamov often depicts the death of his characters, quite naturalistically describing the physiological signs of dying (his medical education had an impact), but thanks to multi-layered metaphors, symbols, intertextual connections, a philosophical subtext is created in his almost sketchy prose, which allows the author to reflect not only on physical death, but also about spiritual death, while noting that “ there is nothing in the camp that would not be in the wild, in its social and spiritual structure". M.Ya. Geller wrote about this: “ Kolyma stories" is a book about the camp, but above all about the world that created the camp, the place of human destruction. Destruction even when a person survived."
V.T. Shalamov describes in detail the forces that killed people in Kolyma: “ Perhaps the most terrible, merciless thing was the cold... The first frostbite: fingers, hands, nose, ears, everything that could be grabbed by the slightest movement of air". Winter for Kolyma residents is the most terrible time of the year. IN " Kolyma stories“Permafrost, cold and snow are not only a real threat to people, but also a symbol of hopelessness, loss, and death. It was in the last minutes before leaving " on an icy night... in this indecisive hustle and bustle at the slightly open doors, from which icy steam creeps, human character is revealed. One, overpowering his trembling, walked straight into the darkness, the other hastily sucked on the butt of a shag cigarette that had come from nowhere, where there was no smell or trace of shag; the third shaded his face from the cold wind; the fourth stood over the stove, holding mittens and drawing heat into them» (« Lawyers' conspiracy"). This is how V.T. described it. Shalamov's departure of man into oblivion.
In many stories, the writer shows how the cold reaches not only the bones, but also human soul: « The goners simply crossed the boundaries of good and evil, heat and cold» (« Glove»); « So is the soul, it is frozen, shrunk and perhaps will forever remain cold» (« Carpenters"). It is no longer the physical sensations of people that are emphasized, but the state of their soul, the existential state when a person is in “ border situation"between life and death.
No less terrible, killing the body and soul of a person in short term, there was hunger. V.T. In many stories, Shalamov describes with medical precision the physiological processes occurring in the body of a person exhausted by hunger: “ I understood that the body, and therefore the brain cells, were receiving insufficient nutrition, my brain had long been on a starvation diet, and that this would inevitably result in madness, early sclerosis, or something else...» (« Rain"). Because of hunger, people had difficulty speaking and their memory weakened: “ The words were pronounced slowly and difficultly - it was like a translation from foreign language. I forgot everything. I'm out of the habit of remembering", notes the hero of the story " Domino" In the story " Sherry brandy"hunger takes on additional metaphorical meaning. Shalamov describes the poet’s death from hunger: life then leaves him, then returns again, “ like poetry, like inspiration"; before death" it was given to him to know that life was an inspiration" The writer asks the question: “ What does it mean: died as a poet?" According to Shalamov, a poet dies when he cannot create. The Austrian scientist W. Frankl, who worked with concentration camp prisoners for decades, noted in his writings that it is vital for a person to be able to realize his “productive creative actions” and obtain values as a result “ creative". V.T. Shalamov has repeatedly described how the camp kills people’s creative abilities, thereby deforming their psyche and killing them.
No less than cold and hunger, overwork and physical abuse destroyed a person. V.T. Shalamov describes cases when people fell dead while working and were subjected to fatal beatings, during which all the innards of the prisoners were beaten off. But even if the person was not killed, violence against the individual, constant suppression of it, was destructive. The author describes the process of dulling the feelings of a person who is at the mercy of someone else’s will: “ Nothing bothered us anymore; it was easy for us to live at the mercy of someone else’s will. We didn’t even care about saving our lives, and if we slept, we also obeyed the order, the camp daily routine", the characters in the story talk about their lives. Dry rations" The prisoner's individuality and self-esteem were suppressed, and as a result the person died as an individual. According to F. Apanovich, “ For Shalamov, force becomes synonymous with evil, metaphysical evil, permeating the entire basis of existence and at the same time putting existence under attack, trying to lead it to death, to non-existence". According to the observations of V.T. Shalamova: “ The camp was a great test of human moral strength, ordinary human morality, and ninety-nine percent of the people failed this test": many prisoners began to believe that the truth of camp life was " thugs", almost everyone learned to steal. Analyzing the behavior of prisoners in the camp, V. Esipov quotes the words of B. Betteleim (former prisoner of Dachau and Buchenwald): “ The camp was a training ground for the transformation of free and honest people not just whining slaves, but slaves who have internalized many of the values of their masters» .
In identifying the causes of spiritual death of people V.T. Shalamov is in many ways close to the existentialists, but in emotionally to death" future dead”, about which he writes, and the existential heroes of Western European philosophers and writers, significant differences can be identified. Thus, awareness of the finitude and temporality of life causes disappointment, melancholy, and boredom in the characters of Sartre and Camus. According to K. Jaspers, “ fear is intensified in the consciousness by the inevitability of disappearing like a lost point in empty space, because everything human connections significant only in time". Characters « Kolyma stories“they are striking in their indifference to death, lack of fear of it, there is no specific aura of death around them - neither horror, nor disgust, it becomes an everyday phenomenon. A.I. Bunin showed in his story “ Mister from San Francisco“, how people indifferently and casually treat the death of another person, and Shalamov’s heroes of his works treat their own death with the same indifference and doom.
Many of Shalamov’s psychological discoveries coincide with scientific research psychologists who went through concentration camps. Thus, I. Cohen and V. Frankl, describing the psychology of people who survived concentration camps, considered their lack of fear to be a kind of psychological defense mechanism. At first, a person in the camp experiences shock from the discrepancy between reality as it should be and the reality in which he finds himself (“ admission shock" or " primary reaction phase"). V.T. Shalamov in the story “ Single metering"describes Dugaev's emotions: " Everything he saw and heard here surprised him more than frightened him."; upon learning that he was being taken to be shot, “ Dugaev regretted that he had worked in vain, that he had suffered this last day in vain" Psychologists define the second phase as “ adaptation phase" Describing her, V. Frankl recalls F.M. Dostoevsky, who noted that man is a creature that gets used to everything. Cohen also noted " great» physical and spiritual adaptability of a person. According to V.T. Shalamov, man became man " because he was physically stronger, more resilient than all animals, and later because he forced his spiritual principle to successfully serve the physical principle» .
V.T. Shalamov, like V. Frankl and I. Cohen, raised the problem of suicide in the camp, noting that their number was relatively small, given the unimaginable living conditions. They all concluded that, firstly, the instinct of life plays a big role in this: “ Hungry and angry, I knew that nothing in the world would make me commit suicide. It was at this time that I began to understand the essence of the great instinct of life", stated the hero of the story " Rain"; secondly, apathy, which, like shock, is a protective reaction of the body. Almost all the characters in V.T. Shalamov, having spent considerable time in the camp, become fatalists. They don't count " your life further, like a day ahead" It all comes down to meeting immediate needs: “ Like this, mixing “star” questions in the brain(about soup, stove and cigarettes - A.A.), I waited, soaked to the skin, but calm", says a man who spent three days in a cold pit under incessant rain (" Rain"). A person begins to live by the lowest animal instincts, he is reduced to an animal state and, according to V. Frankl, “ falls into cultural hibernation" Shalamov was convinced that human culture turned out to be " extremely fragile»: « A person becomes a beast after three weeks - with hard work, cold, hunger and beatings» .
Despite all the body’s protective reactions, suicides still occurred in the camp. People voluntarily left life, having lost the meaning of existence. This psychological phenomenon was well known to Shalamov. So, in the story “ Rain"The narrator, hearing his comrade shout: " I realized that there is no meaning to life", rushes to save him, even before he attempted suicide. V. Frankl in his book cites similar observations of the military psychiatrist Nardini, who stated that the chance of surviving in prison depends on a person’s attitude to life; he must realize that “ survival is his duty, that it makes sense". Speaking about the meaning of life as a factor contributing to survival in the camp, V. Frankl noted that “ not a single psychiatrist and not a single psychotherapist - including a logotherapist - can tell a patient what the meaning is" However, he has the right to assert that “ life has meaning and, moreover, it retains this meaning in any conditions and under any circumstances..."[Ibid: 40]. He was convinced that " ...suffering, guilt, death... in no way detract from the meaning of life, but, on the contrary, in principle, they can always be transformed into something positive. There is no doubt that a poet will convey the essence of such a premise incomparably better and more simply than a scientist."[Ibid: 23].
« Kolyma stories» Shalamov is an artistic and philosophical study inner world a person in a death camp. In particular, they analyze the psychology of physical and spiritual dying. When creating the “poetics of death,” the writer uses the language of symbols, metaphors, allusions, and reminiscences.
List of used literature
1. Apanovich F. Philippika against force // Shalamov collection. Vologda, 1997. Vol. 2.
2. Geller M. Ya. “Kolyma Tales” or “Left Bank”? // Russian thought = La pensee russe. Paris, 1989. 22 September. No. 3794.
3. Esipov V. The norm of literature and the norm of being: Notes on writer's fate: Notes on the writing life of Varlam Shalamov // Free Thought. M., 1994. No. 4.
5. Mishin G. About life. About death. About the eternal // Literature at school. 1995. No. 3.
6. Topper P. Tragic in the art of the 20th century // Questions of literature. 2000. No. 2.
7. Shalamov V. T. Favorites. St. Petersburg, 2003.
8. Shalamov V. T. New book: Memories. Notebooks. Correspondence. Investigative cases. M, 2004.
9. Shalamov V. T. About prose // Shalamov V. Several of my lives. Prose. Poetry. Essay. M., 1996.
10. Frankl V. Man in search of meaning. M., 1990.
11. Jaspers K. The spiritual situation of the time // Jaspers K. The meaning and purpose of history. M., 1994.
Subject tragic fate person in totalitarian state in “Kolyma Stories” by V. Shalamov
I've been living in a cave for twenty years,
Burning with the only dream that
breaking free and moving
shoulders like Samson, I will collapse
stone vaults For many years
this dream.
V. Shalamov
The Stalin years are one of the tragic periods in the history of Russia. Numerous repressions, denunciations, executions, a heavy, oppressive atmosphere of lack of freedom - these are just some of the signs of life in a totalitarian state. The terrible, cruel machine of authoritarianism ruined the destinies of millions of people, their relatives and friends.
V. Shalamov is a witness and participant in the terrible events that the totalitarian country experienced. He went through both exile and Stalin's camps. Dissent was brutally persecuted by the authorities, and the writer had to pay too high a price for his desire to tell the truth. Varlam Tikhonovich summarized the experience gained from the camps in the collection “Kolyma Stories.” “Kolyma Tales” is a monument to those whose lives were ruined for the sake of the cult of personality.
Showing in his stories images of those convicted under the fifty-eighth, “political” article and images of criminals also serving sentences in camps, Shalamov reveals many moral problems. Finding themselves in a critical life situation, people showed their true selves. Among the prisoners there were traitors, cowards, scoundrels, those who were “broken” by the new circumstances of life, and those who managed to retain humanity in themselves under inhuman conditions. There were fewer of the latter.
The most terrible enemies, “enemies of the people,” for the authorities were political prisoners. They were the ones who were in the camp under the most severe conditions. Criminals - thieves, murderers, robbers, whom the narrator ironically calls “friends of the people,” paradoxically, aroused much more sympathy among the camp authorities. They had various concessions and did not have to go to work. They got away with a lot.
In the story “To the Show,” Shalamov shows a card game in which the personal belongings of the prisoners become the winnings. The author draws images of the criminals Naumov and Sevochka, for whom human life is worthless and who kill engineer Garkunov for a woolen sweater. The author's calm intonation with which he completes his story suggests that such scenes for the camp are a common, everyday occurrence.
The story “At Night” shows how people blurred the lines between good and bad, and how the main goal became to survive, no matter what the cost. Glebov and Bagretsov take off the dead man’s clothes at night with the intention of getting bread and tobacco for themselves instead. In another story, the convicted Denisov takes pleasure in pulling off the footcloths from his dying but still living comrade.
The life of the prisoners was unbearable; it was especially difficult for them in the severe frosts. The heroes of the story “The Carpenters” Grigoriev and Potashnikov, intelligent people, in order to save their own lives, in order to spend at least one day in the warmth, resort to deception. They go to work as carpenters, not knowing how to do it, which saves them from the severe frost, gets a piece of bread and the right to warm themselves by the stove.
The hero of the story “Single Measurement,” a recent university student, exhausted by hunger, receives single metering. He is unable to complete this task completely, and his punishment for this is execution. The heroes of the story “Tombstone Sermon” were also severely punished. Weakened by hunger, they were forced to do backbreaking labor. For Brigadier Dyukov’s request to improve food, the entire brigade was shot along with him.
The destructive influence of the totalitarian system on human personality in the story "The Parcel". Very rarely do political prisoners receive parcels. This is a great joy for each of them. But hunger and cold kill the humanity in a person. Prisoners are robbing each other! “From hunger our envy was dull and powerless,” says the story “Condensed Milk.”
The author also shows the brutality of the guards, who, having no sympathy for their neighbors, destroy miserable pieces of prisoners, break their bowlers, and beat the convicted Efremov to death for stealing firewood.
The story “Rain” shows that the work of the “enemies of the people” takes place in unbearable conditions: waist-deep in the ground and under incessant rain. For the slightest mistake, each of them will die. It will be a great joy if someone injures himself, and then, perhaps, he will be able to avoid hellish work.
The prisoners live in inhuman conditions: “In a barracks filled with people, it was so cramped that one could sleep standing up... The space under the bunks was filled to capacity with people, you had to wait to sit down, squat down, then lean somewhere against a bunk, against a post, against someone else’s body - and fall asleep...”
Crippled souls, crippled destinies... “Everything inside was burned out, devastated, we didn’t care,” sounds in the story “Condensed Milk.” In this story, the image of the “informer” Shestakov arises, who, hoping to attract the narrator with a bank of condensed milk, hopes to persuade him to escape, and then report this and receive a “reward.” Despite extreme physical and moral exhaustion, the narrator finds the strength to see through Shestakov’s plan and deceive him. Not everyone, unfortunately, turned out to be so quick-witted. “They fled a week later, two were killed near the Black Keys, three were tried a month later.”
In the story “The Last Battle of Major Pugachev,” the author shows people whose spirit was not broken by either the fascist concentration camps or Stalin’s. “These were people with different skills, habits acquired during the war - with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and intelligence officers,” the writer says about them. They make a daring and brave attempt to escape from the camp. The heroes understand that their salvation is impossible. But for a breath of freedom they agree to give their lives.
“The Last Battle of Major Pugachev” clearly shows how the Motherland treated people who fought for it and whose only fault was that, by the will of fate, they ended up in German captivity.
Varlam Shalamov is a chronicler of the Kolyma camps. In 1962, he wrote to A.I. Solzhenitsyn: “Remember the most important thing: the camp is a negative school from first to last day for anyone. The person - neither the boss nor the prisoner - does not need to see him. But if you saw him, you must tell the truth, no matter how terrible it may be. For my part, I decided long ago that I would devote the rest of my life to this truth.”
Shalamov was true to his words. “Kolyma Tales” became the pinnacle of his work.