Life and art.
Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov(June 5 (June 18) 1907 - January 17, 1982) - Russian prose writer and poet of the Soviet era. Creator of one of the literary cycles about Soviet camps.
Varlam Shalamov was born on June 5 (June 18), 1907 in Vologda in the family of priest Tikhon Nikolaevich Shalamov. Varlam Shalamov's mother, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, was a housewife. In 1914 he entered the gymnasium, but completed his secondary education after the revolution. In 1923, after graduating from the Vologda second-level school, he came to Moscow and worked for two years as a tanner at a tannery in Kuntsevo. From 1926 to 1929 he studied at the Faculty of Soviet Law of Moscow State University.
In his autobiographical story about his childhood and youth, “The Fourth Vologda,” Shalamov told how his beliefs were formed, how his thirst for justice and his determination to fight for it strengthened. The Narodnaya Volya became his youthful ideal - the sacrifice of their feat, the heroism of resistance to the full might of the autocratic state. Already in childhood, the boy’s artistic talent is evident - he passionately reads and “plays” for himself all the books - from Dumas to Kant.
Repression
On February 19, 1929, Shalamov was arrested for participating in an underground Trotskyist group and distributing an addition to Lenin's Testament. Out of court, as a “socially dangerous element,” he was sentenced to three years in the camps. He served his sentence in the Vishera camp (Northern Urals). In 1932, Shalamov returned to Moscow, worked in departmental magazines, published articles, essays, feuilletons.
In January 1937, Shalamov was again arrested for “counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities.” He was sentenced to five years in the camps and spent this term in Kolyma (SVITL). Shalamov went through gold mines, taiga business trips, worked at the Partizan, Black Lake, Arkagala, Dzhelgala mines, and several times ended up in a hospital bed due to the difficult conditions of Kolyma. On June 22, 1943, he was again sentenced to ten years for anti-Soviet agitation, which consisted - according to the writer himself - of calling Bunin a Russian classic.
“...I was condemned to war for declaring that Bunin was a Russian classic.”
In 1951, Shalamov was released from the camp, but at first he could not return to Moscow. Since 1946, having completed an eight-month paramedic course, he began working at the Central Hospital for Prisoners on the left bank of the Kolyma in the village of Debin and on a forest “business trip” for lumberjacks until 1953. Shalamov owes his career as a paramedic to the doctor A. M. Pantyukhov, who, risking his career as a prisoner doctor, personally recommended Shalamov for paramedic courses. Then he lived in the Kalinin region, worked in Reshetnikovo. The results of the repression were family breakdown and poor health. In 1956, after rehabilitation, he returned to Moscow.
Creativity, participation in cultural life
In 1932, Shalamov returned to Moscow after his first term and began publishing in Moscow publications as a journalist. He also published several short stories. One of the first major publications was the story “The Three Deaths of Doctor Austino” in the magazine “October” (1936).
In 1949, on the Duskanya key, for the first time in Kolyma, while a prisoner, he began to record his poems.
After his release in 1951, Shalamov returned to literary activity. However, he could not leave Kolyma. Only in November 1953 permission to leave was received. Shalamov comes to Moscow for two days, meets with Pasternak, his wife and daughter. However, he could not live in large cities, and he left for the Kalinin region, where he worked as a peat mining foreman and a supply agent. And all this time he obsessively wrote one of his main works - the Kolyma Stories. The writer created “Kolyma Stories” from 1954 to 1973. They were published as a separate publication in London in 1978. In the USSR they were mainly published in 1988-1990. The writer himself divided his stories into six cycles: “Kolyma Tales”, “Left Bank”, “Shovel Artist”, as well as “Sketches of the Underworld”, “Resurrection of Larch” and “The Glove, or KR-2”. They are completely collected in the two-volume “Kolyma Stories” in 1992 in the series “The Way of the Cross of Russia” by the publishing house “Soviet Russia”.
In 1962, he wrote to A.I. Solzhenitsyn:
“Remember, the most important thing: camp is a negative school from the first to the last day for anyone. The person - neither the boss nor the prisoner - needs to see him. But if you have seen him, you must tell the truth, no matter how terrible it may be... For my part, I long ago decided that I would devote the rest of my life to this truth.”
He met with B. L. Pasternak, who spoke highly of Shalamov’s poems. Later, after the government forced Pasternak to refuse to accept the Nobel Prize, their paths diverged.
He completed the collection of poems “Kolyma Notebooks” (1937-1956).
...Mr. Solzhenitsyn, I willingly accept your funeral joke about my death. It is with great feeling and pride that I consider myself the first victim of the Cold War to fall at your hands...
(From an unsent letter from V. T. Shalamov to A. I. Solzhenitsyn)
Since 1956, Shalamov lived in Moscow, first on Gogolevsky Boulevard, from the late 1950s - in one of the writers' wooden cottage houses on Khoroshevskoye Shosse (no. 10), from 1972 - on Vasilievskaya Street (no. 2, building 6 ). He was published in the magazines “Yunost”, “Znamya”, “Moscow”, communicated a lot with N. Ya. Mandelstam, O. V. Ivinskaya, A. I. Solzhenitsyn (relations with whom later turned into polemics); was a frequent guest in the house of the famous philologist V.N. Klyueva (Arbat Street, 35). Both in prose and in Shalamov’s poems (the collection “Flint”, 1961, “Rustle of Leaves”, 1964, “Road and Fate”, 1967, etc.), which expressed the difficult experience of Stalin’s camps, the theme of Moscow also sounds (the collection of poems “ Moscow clouds", 1972). In the 1960s he met A. A. Galich.
From 1973 until 1979, when Shalamov moved to live in the Home for the Disabled and Elderly, he kept workbooks, the analysis and publication of which is still continued by I. P. Sirotinskaya, to whom V. T. Shalamov transferred the rights to all his manuscripts and compositions.
Critics call the Russian poet and writer, prisoner of Stalin's camps Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov "the Dostoevsky of the 20th century." He spent half his life behind the barbed wire of the Kolyma camps - and only miraculously escaped death. Later came rehabilitation, and fame, and short-lived international fame, and the Freedom Prize of the French Pen Club... and the lonely death of a forgotten person... What remained was the main thing - the work of Shalamov’s entire life, made on a documentary basis and embodying terrible evidence Soviet history. In “Kolyma Stories”, with stunning clarity and truthfulness, the author describes the camp experience, the experience of living in conditions incompatible with human life. The strength of Shalamov’s talent is that he makes you believe in the story “not as information, but as an open heart wound.”
Last years
The seriously ill Shalamov spent the last three years of his life in the Literary Fund's Home for the Disabled and Elderly (in Tushino). Nevertheless, even there he continued to write poetry. Probably Shalamov’s last publication took place in the Parisian magazine “Vestnik RHD” No. 133, 1981. In 1981, the French branch of the Pen Club awarded Shalamov the Freedom Prize.
On January 15, 1982, after a superficial examination by a medical commission, Shalamov was transferred to a boarding school for psychochronic patients. During transportation, Shalamov caught a cold, contracted pneumonia and died on January 17, 1982.
“The noise that a group of his well-wishers raised around him in the second half of 1981 also played a certain role in this transfer. Among them, of course, there were really kind people, and there were also those who worked out of self-interest, out of a passion for sensation. After all, it was from them that Varlam Tikhonovich had two posthumous “wives” who, with a crowd of witnesses, besieged the official authorities. His poor, defenseless old age became the subject of the show.”
Despite the fact that Shalamov was an unbeliever all his life, E. Zakharova, one of those who were close to Shalamov during the last year of his life, insisted on his funeral service. The funeral service for Varlam Shalamov was conducted by Archpriest. Alexander Kulikov, now rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in Klenniki (Maroseyka).
Shalamov is buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow. About 150 people attended the funeral. A. Morozov and F. Suchkov read Shalamov’s poems.
Russian writer. Born into a priest's family. Memories of parents, impressions of childhood and youth were later embodied in the autobiographical prose Fourth Vologda (1971).
In 1914 he entered the gymnasium, in 1923 he graduated from the Vologda school of the 2nd level. In 1924 he left Vologda and got a job as a tanner at a tannery in Kuntsevo, Moscow region. In 1926 he entered Moscow State University at the Faculty of Soviet Law.
At this time, Shalamov wrote poetry, participated in literary circles, attended O. Brik’s literary seminar, various poetry evenings and debates. He sought to actively participate in the public life of the country. Established contact with the Trotskyist organization at Moscow State University, participated in the opposition demonstration for the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution under the slogans “Down with Stalin!” On February 19, 1929 he was arrested. In his autobiographical prose, Vishersky’s anti-novel (1970–1971, unfinished) wrote: “I consider this day and hour the beginning of my public life - the first true test in harsh conditions.”
Shalamov was sentenced to three years, which he spent in the northern Urals in the Vishera camp. In 1931 he was released and reinstated. Until 1932 he worked on the construction of a chemical plant in Berezniki, then returned to Moscow. Until 1937 he worked as a journalist in the magazines “For Shock Work,” “For Mastery of Technology,” and “For Industrial Personnel.” In 1936, his first publication took place - the story The Three Deaths of Doctor Austino was published in the magazine "October".
On January 12, 1937, Shalamov was arrested “for counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities” and sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment in camps with physical labor. He was already in a pre-trial detention center when his story Pava and the Tree was published in the magazine Literary Contemporary. Shalamov’s next publication (poems in the magazine “Znamya”) took place in 1957.
Shalamov worked in the faces of a gold mine in Magadan, then, having been sentenced to a new term, he ended up doing earthworks, in 1940–1942 he worked in a coal face, in 1942–1943 at a penal mine in Dzhelgal. In 1943, he received a new 10-year sentence “for anti-Soviet agitation,” worked in a mine and as a lumberjack, tried to escape, and then ended up in a penalty zone.
Shalamov’s life was saved by doctor A.M. Pantyukhov, who sent him to paramedic courses at a hospital for prisoners. After completing the courses, Shalamov worked in the surgical department of this hospital and as a paramedic in a lumberjack village. In 1949, Shalamov began writing poetry, which formed the collection Kolyma Notebooks (1937–1956). The collection consists of 6 sections entitled Shalamov's Blue Notebook, The Postman's Bag, Personally and Confidentially, Golden Mountains, Fireweed, High Latitudes.
In his poetry, Shalamov considered himself the “plenipotentiary” of the prisoners, whose anthem was the poem Toast to the Ayan-Uryakh River. Subsequently, researchers of Shalamov’s work noted his desire to show in poetry the spiritual strength of a person who is capable, even in camp conditions, of thinking about love and fidelity, about good and evil, about history and art. An important poetic image of Shalamov is dwarf dwarf - a Kolyma plant that survives in harsh conditions. The cross-cutting theme of his poems is the relationship between man and nature (Praxology to Dogs, Ballad of a Calf, etc.). Shalamov's poetry is permeated with biblical motifs. One of Shalamov’s main works was the poem Avvakum in Pustozersk, in which, according to the author’s commentary, “the historical image is combined with both the landscape and the features of the author’s biography.”
In 1951, Shalamov was released from the camp, but for another two years he was forbidden to leave Kolyma; he worked as a paramedic at a camp and left only in 1953. His family fell apart, his adult daughter did not know her father. His health was undermined, he was deprived of the right to live in Moscow. Shalamov managed to get a job as a supply agent at peat mining in the village. Turkmen Kalinin region. In 1954 he began work on the stories that formed the collection Kolyma Stories (1954–1973). This main work of Shalamov’s life includes six collections of stories and essays - Kolyma Stories, Left Bank, Shovel Artist, Sketches of the Underworld, Resurrection of Larch, Glove, or KR-2. All stories have a documentary basis, they contain an author - either under his own name, or called Andreev, Golubev, Krist. However, these works are not limited to camp memoirs. Shalamov considered it unacceptable to deviate from the facts in describing the living environment in which the action takes place, but he created the inner world of the heroes not through documentary, but through artistic means. The writer's style is emphatically antipathetic: terrible life material demanded that the prose writer embody it exactly, without declamation. Shalamov's prose is tragic in nature, despite the presence of a few satirical images in it. The author has spoken more than once about the confessional nature of the Kolyma stories. He called his narrative style “new prose,” emphasizing that “it is important for him to revive the feeling, extraordinary new details, descriptions in a new way are needed to make you believe in the story, in everything else not as information, but as an open heart wound.” . The camp world appears in the Kolyma stories as an irrational world.
Shalamov denied the need for suffering. He became convinced that in the abyss of suffering, it is not purification that occurs, but the corruption of human souls. In a letter to A.I. Solzhenitsyn, he wrote: “The camp is a negative school from the first to the last day for anyone.”
In 1956, Shalamov was rehabilitated and moved to Moscow. In 1957 he became a freelance correspondent for the Moscow magazine, and his poems were published at the same time. In 1961, a book of his poems was published. In 1979, in serious condition, he was placed in a boarding house for the disabled and elderly. He lost his sight and hearing and had difficulty moving.
Books of Shalamov's poems were published in the USSR in 1972 and 1977. Kolyma stories were published in London (1978, in Russian), Paris (1980–1982, in French), and New York (1981–1982, in English). After their publication, Shalamov gained worldwide fame. In 1980, the French branch of the Pen Club awarded him the Freedom Prize.
In the tragic chorus of voices chanting the horrors of Stalin’s camps, Varlam Shalamov performs one of the first roles. The autobiographical “Kolyma Tales” tell of the inhuman trials that befell an entire generation. Having survived the circles of hell of totalitarian repression, the writer refracted them through the prism of artistic expression and stood among the classics of Russian literature of the 20th century.
Childhood and youth
Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov was born in Vologda on June 5, 1907. He came from a hereditary family of priests. His father, like his grandfather and uncle, was a pastor of the Russian Orthodox Church. Tikhon Nikolaevich was engaged in missionary work, preached to the Aleut tribes on distant islands (now the territory of Alaska) and knew English perfectly. The writer's mother raised children, and in the last years of her life she worked at a school. Varlam was the fifth child in the family.
The boy learned to read at the age of 3 and greedily devoured everything he came across in the family library. Literary passions became more complex with age: he moved from adventures to philosophical writings. The future writer had a subtle artistic taste, critical thinking and a desire for justice. Under the influence of books, ideals close to the Narodnaya Volya were formed in him early on.
Already in childhood, Varlam wrote his first poems. At the age of 7, the boy is sent to a gymnasium, but his education is interrupted by the revolution, so he finishes school only in 1924. The writer summarizes the experience of childhood and adolescence in “The Fourth Vologda” - a story about the early years of life.
After graduating from school, the guy goes to Moscow and joins the ranks of the capital's proletariat: he goes to a factory and for 2 years hones his tanner's skills in a leather production. And from 1926 to 1928 he received higher education at Moscow State University, studying Soviet law. But he is expelled from the university, having learned from denunciations of fellow students about his “socially objectionable” origin. This is how the repressive machine for the first time invades the biography of the writer.
During his student years, Shalamov attended a literary circle organized by the magazine “New LEF”, where he met and communicated with progressive young writers.
Arrests and imprisonments
In 1927, Shalamov took part in a protest dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. As part of a group of underground Trotskyists, he speaks with the slogans “Down with Stalin!” and calls for a return to the true covenants. In 1929, for participation in the activities of the Trotskyist group, Varlam Shalamov was first taken into custody and “without trial” was sent to correctional camps for 3 years as a “socially harmful element.”
From this time on, his long-term ordeal as a prisoner began, which lasted until 1951. The writer served his first term in Vishlag, where he arrived in April 1929 from Butyrka prison. In the north of the Urals, prisoners are participating in the largest construction project of the first five-year plan - they are building a chemical plant of all-Union significance in Berezniki.
Released in 1932, Shalamov returned to Moscow and made a living as a writer, collaborating with industrial newspapers and magazines. However, in 1936, the man was again reminded of his “dirty Trotskyist past” and accused of counter-revolutionary activities. This time he was sentenced to 5 years and in 1937 he was sent to harsh Magadan for the hardest work - gold mining.
The sentence ended in 1942, but the prisoners were refused to be released until the end of the Great Patriotic War. In addition, Shalamov was constantly being given new sentences under various articles: here was the camp “lawyers’ case” and “anti-Soviet statements.” As a result, the writer's term increased to 10 years.
Over the years, he managed to change five mines in the Kolyma camps, wandered around the villages and mines as a miner, lumberjack and digger. He had to stay in the medical barracks as a “walker” who was no longer capable of any physical labor. In 1945, exhausted from unbearable conditions, he tries to escape with a group of prisoners, but only aggravates the situation and, as punishment, is sent to a penal mine.
Once again in the hospital, Shalamov remains there as an assistant, and then receives a referral to a paramedic course. After graduating in 1946, Varlam Tikhonovich worked in camp hospitals in the Far East until the end of his prison term. Having received his release, but having lost his rights, the writer worked in Yakutia for another year and a half and saved money for a ticket to Moscow, where he would return only in 1953.
Creation
After serving his first prison term, Shalamov worked as a journalist in Moscow trade union publications. In 1936, his first fiction story was published on the pages of “October”. The 20-year exile influenced the writer’s work, although even in the camps he did not give up trying to write down his poems, which would form the basis of the “Kolyma Notebooks” series.
“Kolyma Tales” is rightfully considered Shalamov’s programmatic work. This collection is dedicated to the powerless years of Stalin’s camps using the example of the life of prisoners of Sevvostlag and consists of 6 cycles (“Left Bank”, “Shovel Artist”, “Essays on the Underworld”, etc.).
In it, the artist describes the life experiences of people broken by the system. Deprived of freedom, support and hope, exhausted by hunger, cold and overwork, a person loses his face and very humanity - the writer is deeply convinced of this. The prisoner's capacity for friendship, compassion and mutual respect atrophies when the issue of survival comes to the fore.
Shalamov was against the publication of “Kolyma Stories” as a separate edition, and in the complete collection they were published in Russia only posthumously. A film was made based on the work in 2005.
In the 1960s and 70s, Varlam Tikhonovich published collections of poetry, wrote memoirs about his childhood (the story “The Fourth Vologda”) and the experience of his first camp imprisonment (the anti-novel “Vishera”).
The last cycle of poems was published in 1977.
Personal life
The fate of an eternal prisoner did not prevent the writer from building his personal life. Gudz Shalamov met his first wife Galina Ignatievna in the Vishera camp. There, he said, he “took” her away from another prisoner whom the girl came to visit. In 1934, the couple got married, and a year later their daughter Elena was born.
During the second arrest of the writer, his wife was also subjected to repression: Galina was exiled to a remote village in Turkmenistan, where she lived until 1946. The family gets together only in 1953, when Shalamov returns from the Far Eastern settlements to Moscow, but already in 1954 the couple divorces.
Varlam Tikhonovich's second wife was Olga Sergeevna Neklyudova, a member of the Union of Soviet Writers. Shalamov became her fourth and last husband. The marriage lasted 10 years, the couple had no children.
After the divorce in 1966 and until his death, the writer remained lonely.
Death
In the last years of his life, the writer’s health condition was extremely difficult. Decades of exhausting work at the limit of human resources were not in vain. Back in the late 1950s, he suffered severe attacks of Meniere's disease, and in the 70s he gradually lost his hearing and vision.
The man is unable to coordinate his own movements and has difficulty moving, and in 1979, friends and colleagues transport him to the Invalides Home. Experiencing difficulties with speech and coordination, Shalamov does not give up trying to write poetry.
In 1981, the writer suffered a stroke, after which a decision was made to send him to a boarding house for people suffering from chronic mental illness. There he dies on January 17, 1982, the cause of death is lobar pneumonia.
The son of a priest, Shalamov always considered himself an unbeliever, but he was buried according to the Orthodox rite and buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow. Photos from the writer's funeral have been preserved.
Several museums and exhibitions located in different parts of the country are dedicated to Shalamov’s name: in Vologda, in the author’s small homeland, in Kolyma, where he worked as a paramedic, in Yakutia, where the writer served his last days of exile.
Bibliography
- 1936 - “The Three Deaths of Doctor Austino”
- 1949-1954 - “Kolyma notebooks”
- 1954-1973 - “Kolyma Stories”
- 1961 - “Flint”
- 1964 - “The Rustle of Leaves”
- 1967 - “Road and Destiny”
- 1971 - “Fourth Vologda”
- 1972 - “Moscow Clouds”
- 1973 - “Vishera”
- 1973 - “Fedor Raskolnikov”
- 1977 - “Boiling Point”
18.06.1907 – 17.01.1982
Writer Varlam Shalamov was born in Vologda in the family of priest Tikhon Nikolaevich Shalamov and his wife Nadezhda Alexandrovna. In 1914 he entered the gymnasium named after Alexander the Blessed in Vologda. In 1923 he graduated from the second-level unified labor school No. 6, located in the former gymnasium. In 1924 he left Vologda and went to work as a tanner at a tannery in the city of Kuntsevo, Moscow region.
In 1926, he entered the 1st year of the Moscow Textile Institute from the factory and at the same time, through free admission, entered the Faculty of Soviet Law of Moscow State University. Chooses Moscow State University.
On February 19, 1929, he was arrested during a raid on an underground printing house while printing leaflets entitled “Lenin’s Testament.” For this, as a “socially dangerous element,” he receives 3 years of imprisonment in camps. After being kept in the Butyrka prison, he arrives with a convoy to the Vishera camp (Northern Urals). Works on the construction of the Berezniki chemical plant under the leadership of E.P. Berzin, the future head of the Kolyma Dalstroy. In the camp he meets Galina Ignatievna Gudz, his future first wife (they got married in 1934).
In October 1931, he was released from a forced labor camp and his rights were restored. In 1932 he returned to Moscow and began working in the trade union magazines “For Shock Work” and “For Mastering Technology”, and from 1934 - in the magazine “For Industrial Personnel”.
In 1936, Shalamov published his first short story, “The Three Deaths of Doctor Austino,” in the magazine “October” No. 1.
On January 13, 1937, the writer was arrested for counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities and again placed in Butyrka prison. At a special meeting he was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment in forced labor camps with heavy labor. On August 14, with a large party of prisoners, the ship arrives in Nagaevo Bay (Magadan). Until December 1938 he worked in the gold mining faces of the Partizan mine. In December 1938, he was arrested in the camp “lawyers’ case.” He is in a remand prison in Magadan (“Vaskov House”), after which he was transferred to the typhoid quarantine of the Magadan transit prison. From April 1939 to May 1943 he worked in a geological exploration party at the Chernaya Rechka mine, in the coal faces of the Kadykchan and Arkagala camps, and in general work at the Dzhelgala penal mine.
In May 1943, he was arrested following a denunciation by fellow prisoners “for anti-Soviet statements” and for praising the writer I.A. Bunina. June 22, 1943 at the trial in the village. Yagodny was sentenced to 10 years in the camps for anti-Soviet agitation. In the fall of 1943, in a state of “gone”, he ended up in the Belichya camp hospital near the village. Berry. After discharge, he works in a mine at the Spokoiny mine. In the summer of 1945, he was seriously ill in the Belichya hospital. With the help of sympathetic doctors, he emerges from his dying state. He remains temporarily in the hospital as a cult organizer and auxiliary worker.
In the fall of 1945, he worked with lumberjacks in the taiga in the Diamond Key zone. Unable to withstand the load, he decides to escape. As punishment, he is sent to general work at the Dzhelgala penal mine. In the spring of 1946 he was doing general work at the Susuman mine. Suspected of dysentery, he is again admitted to the Belichya hospital. After recovery with the help of doctor A.M. Pantyukhova is heading to a paramedic course at a camp hospital 23 kilometers from Magadan. After completing the courses, he is sent to work as a medical assistant in the surgical department at the Central Hospital for Prisoners “Left Bank” (Debin village, 400 km from Magadan). He will work as a paramedic in the lumber camp “Klyuch Duskanya”. He begins to write poetry, which was later included in the “Kolyma Notebooks” cycle. In 1950 – 1951 works as a paramedic in the emergency room of the Left Bank hospital.
On October 13, 1951, the prison term ended. In the next two years, in the direction of the Dalstroy trust, he works as a paramedic in the villages of Baragon, Kyubyuma, Liryukovan (Oymyakonsky district, Yakutia) in order to earn money to leave Kolyma. He continues to write poetry and sends what he has written through a friend, doctor E.A. Mamuchashvili to Moscow to B.L. Pasternak. Receives an answer. A correspondence between the two poets begins.
November 12, 1953 returns to Moscow and meets with his family. Immediately meets with B.L. Pasternak, who helps to establish contacts with literary circles. In 1954, Shalamov began work on his first collection, Kolyma Stories. The divorce from G.I. Gudz dates back to the same time.
In 1956 he moved to Moscow and married O.S. Neklyudova. Works as a freelance correspondent for the magazine “Moscow”, publishes the first poems from the “Kolyma Notebooks” in the magazine “Znamya”, No. 5. In 1957 - 1958 suffers from a serious illness, attacks of Meniere's disease, and is treated at the Botkin Hospital.
In 1961 he published his first book of poems, Flint. Continues to work on “Kolyma Tales” and “Essays on the Underworld.” In 1964 he published a book of poems, “The Rustle of Leaves.” A year later, he completed the collections of short stories from the Kolyma cycle, “The Left Bank” and “The Shovel Artist.”
In 1966, Shalamov divorced O.S. Neklyudova. Meets I.P. Sirotinskaya, at that time an employee of the Central State Archive of Literature and Art.
In 1966 – 1967 creates a collection of short stories “Resurrection of Larch”. In 1967 he published a book of poems, “The Road and Fate.” In 1968 – 1971 working on the autobiographical story “The Fourth Vologda”. In 1970 - 1971 - on “Vishera anti-novel”.
In 1972, Kolyma Stories was published in the West, by the Posev publishing house. Shalamov writes a letter to Literaturnaya Gazeta protesting against unauthorized illegal publications that violate the author's will and rights. Many fellow writers perceive this letter as a rejection of “Kolyma Tales” and break off relations with the writer.
In 1972, Shalamov published a book of poems “Moscow Clouds”. Accepted into the USSR Writers' Union. In 1973 – 1974 works on the cycle “The Glove, or KR-2” (the final cycle of “Kolyma Tales”). In 1977 he published a book of poems, “Boiling Point”. In connection with his 70th anniversary, he was nominated for the Order of the Badge of Honor, but did not receive the award.
In 1978, in London, Overseas Publications published the book “Kolyma Stories” in Russian. The publication was also carried out outside the will of the author. Shalamov's health is deteriorating sharply. He begins to lose hearing and vision, and attacks of Meniere's disease with loss of coordination of movements become more frequent. In 1979, with the help of friends and the Writers' Union, he was sent to a boarding house for the elderly and disabled.
In 1980, he received news that he had been awarded a prize from the French Pen Club, but he never received the prize. In 1980 - 1981 - suffers a stroke. In moments of getting up, he reads poetry to the visiting poetry lover A.A. Morozov. The latter publishes them in Paris, in the “Bulletin of the Russian Christian Movement”.
On January 14, 1982, based on the conclusion of the medical board, he was transferred to a boarding house for psychochronic patients. January 17, 1982 dies of lobar pneumonia. He was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow.
Biography compiled by I.P. Sirotinskaya, clarifications and additions by V.V. Esipov.