« ... I know I won't be old”- so Alexander wrote in his notebooks in his youth. He really lived an undeservedly short life, but he understood so much about life and about all of us ... His simple and bright works, at the same time deep, poignant and paradoxical confessional plays, remain completely unsolved. What did he write about and why?
But who are we and where are we from?
When from all those years
Remaining gossip,
Are we not in the world?"
B.Pasternak
The future famous playwright was born in the regional center near Irkutsk, “ similar to all regional centers of Russia”, in 1937 in a family of teachers.
At that difficult time, their family, like many other families, was not spared by trouble. A denunciation was written against his father, a Buryat by nationality, classifying him among the "pan-Mongolists" advocating the secession of Buryatia from the USSR. Such an accusation was considered especially serious, and the father was shot in 1938.
The mother was left alone with four small children in her arms. Hard times came for the Vampilov family, they had to live under the sidelong glances of others. The father's relatives did not help them at all, because they did not like his Russian wife.
Only 19 years later, his honest name was returned to his father.
After graduating from school, Vampilov entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Irkutsk University on the second attempt, he already understood that literature was his vocation. In 1961, a separate book was published with his short humorous stories. True, in order to avoid criticism, he used a pseudonym - A. Sanin. The young author was noticed and invited to work in a publishing house.
But soon Vampilov leaves the publishing house, deciding to devote himself entirely to writing.
At first, everything goes well, in one of the magazines his first play, “The House with Windows in the Field”, is published.
Encouraged by this success, Vampilov goes to Moscow, takes another of his plays there - Farewell in June. But all attempts to offer the play in the capital's theaters were in vain, the capital refused to accept it. Among other things, the author was pointed out that his plays did not correspond to the spirit of the times, the Soviet way of life and the general line of the party.
Vampilov in his plays revealed the forgotten world of the Soviet "outback", but this world for the capital turned out to be both uninteresting and unnecessary. But everyday provincial life is fraught with many spiritual dramas and broken destinies, and they are perceived there much sharper. But although there is a lot of pessimism and melancholy in Vampilov's plays, they always show a ray of hope, which, fortunately, he managed to keep in his soul.
The impossibility of changing anything becomes unbearable for Vampilov, he falls into despair, he simply gives up.
But in 1972, hope finally dawned - the attitude in the capital towards his plays gradually began to change. Many new plans appeared, rehearsals began in theaters.
However, unfortunately, he did not live to see the Moscow premieres; on August 17, 1972, Alexander Vampilov died on Lake Baikal. The motorboat in which he was sailing with his friend overturned. The friend remained near the boat, holding on to the bottom, while Alexander swam for help. And he almost swam to the shore, but his heart could not stand it. In two days he would have turned 35 years old.
A year after his death, the triumphant procession of Vampilov's plays began in the theaters of the country, who just did not undertake to stage them. They were also successfully held in the most famous theaters - Sovremennik, the Moscow Art Theater and the Bolshoi Theater.
« It seems that the main question that Vampilov constantly asks is: will you, a man, remain a man? Will you be able to overcome all the false and unkind that is prepared for you in many life's trials, where love and betrayal, passion and indifference, sincerity and falsehood, goodness and enslavement... "(V. Rasputin).
eldest son
When Yevgeny Leonov fell into the hands of the play "The Elder Son", he immediately realized that the role of Andrei Grigoryevich Sarafanov was written about him, the author in some incomprehensible way was able to look into his soul.And then a miracle happened - director Vitaly Melnikov called Leonov, who had just taken up the shooting of "The Elder Son" and said that he saw only him in the role of Sarafanov.
Looks like fate...
During the filming of the film, Evgeny Leonov wrote to his son: “ So they worked on the set, they were so smart and had fun, I even wanted you to be here and see it for yourself. Have you read the play "The Elder Son"? I haven't been this excited about a play or a script in a long time. What a writer this Siberian boy Vampilov is! Mighty talent!»
The funny and the sad are always intertwined in Vampilov's works.
The author called this play a comedy.
It really has a lot of funny things in it, and it starts with a rather ridiculous situation.
Two students who were seeing off the girls are late for the last train and in an unfamiliar place try to find a place to sleep under the delusional pretext that one of them is the illegitimate son of the father of the family and came to visit him. And, oddly enough, they believed ...
This stupid lie leads to such dramatic events that it was impossible to imagine. And the question arises before the participants of all these events - what is more important - a “white lie” or a “bitter” truth ...
duck hunting
At the cost of incredible tricks, director Melnikov managed to film even the most forbidden play by Vampilov, Duck Hunt, example of pessimism”, as officials commented on it.This play, written in 1967, is indeed Vampilov's most bitter and desolate play, deeply suffered by him. It is about the generation whose mature age fell on an era of stagnation, saturated with lies and hypocrisy.
Vampilov only shows us his hero Zilov, but does not give a direct answer to the question: “Who really is this cynic, behind whom many sins stretch, but in which, nevertheless, there is something irresistibly attractive? What do we see - a mask or his true face, and is it possible to get through to his heart?
Vampilov, who himself is always sensitive to good, looks at his restless, reflective hero with bitterness and regret, but does not condemn him. After all, he himself had such periods in his life.
"The soul is empty, as in the decanter of an alcoholic. Everything was spent stupidly, drunkenly, scattered, confused. I can hear the wind howling in my chest, like in a chimney. There is nothing more terrible ... Completely empty, completely dark ...' he wrote in his diary.
This role seemed to have been specially written for Oleg Dal and it became one of his best roles. He seemed to be able to guess all the nuances of the character of his hero and, as if, even feel the smallest movements of his soul. The actor gave a lot of energy to this role, but the film did not wait for the release. For eight years the picture lay on the shelf.
Genre features of A. Vampilov's plays
"Elder Son" and "Duck Hunt"
Creativity A.V. Vampilov occupies a worthy place in the history of Russian literature. Plays by A.V. Vampilov's works form an original, multifaceted and bright artistic phenomenon, rightfully called by the researchers "Vampilov's Theatre".
Represented by plays of various genres, ranging from lyrical comedy to psychological drama, Vampilov's theater has a profound psychological impact, makes viewers and readers rethink their own existence and the philosophical foundations of life.
Alexander Valentinovich Vampilov passed away early. Almost unnoticed during his lifetime, praised after his death, A. Vampilov became one of the mysterious figures in the history of Soviet and Russian drama. He had a significant impact on the development of modern drama.
"Alexander Vampilov's Theatre" is viewed as a developing artistic phenomenon, in which the social and moral problems of their time turn into the plan of universal "eternal questions" of spiritual existence. It should be noted that the majority of dramaturgy researchers A.V. Vampilov find it difficult to accurately define the genre of his plays, speaking only about their genre originality and highlighting the presence of various genre forms, which, in turn, leads to the emergence of such terms as “poly-genre”, “genre synthesis”, “genre polyphonism”, genre syncretism.
A.V. Vampilov already in his early plays-stories of the late 50s - early 60s shows the genre originality of his dramaturgy, experimenting with dramatic genres and creating an innovative play based on the traditions of the lyrical drama of I.S. Turgenev, satirical comedy N.V. Gogol and psychological dramaturgy of A.P. Chekhov, building the action as a psychological experiment.
The playwright owes his real theatrical fame mainly to the play "The Elder Son", which for several years occupied a leading place in his repertoire.
Freedom of fiction and poetics distinguish the play "The Elder Son", the play gravitates towards non-everyday, phantasmagoric, parable forms that take them beyond the scope of an everyday anecdote. The play "Elder Son" carries quite specific and recognizable motives of the era. The theme of sudden or false acquisition of relatives, which is widespread in world dramaturgy, also receives its historically determined popularity in these years.
On the one hand, comedy is characterized by frank gaiety. A. Vampilov uses such well-known comedic plot development techniques as eavesdropping, the issuance of one character for another, imposture, sincere belief in a hoax. Vampilov masterfully masters the techniques of creating comic positions and characters. He knows how to introduce his peculiar hero, not without comic features, into the most ridiculous situations.
On the other hand, the play "The Elder Son" reproduces the atmosphere of an unsettled life, disintegrating family ties so psychologically accurately and correctly, as was characteristic of the psychological drama of the 60s of the XX century.
Due to the fact that in the comedy several moral and aesthetic perspectives of depicting reality are set simultaneously, “The Elder Son” acquires the features of a tragicomedy, which complicates the genre of lyrical comedy.
The play is fitted by the young playwright into a classical trinity. And at the same time, there is no dramatic predetermination in it. On the contrary, she is characterized by absolute spontaneity, the unintentionality of what is happening: Busygin and Silva actually get to know each other before our eyes, not to mention the Sarafanov family, with whom both the viewer and the characters get to know each other at the same time.
The comedy "The Elder Son" is built on a hard paradoxical breakdown, a paradoxical transformation of events arising from the "wrong", non-canonical reaction of the characters to circumstances.
From the very beginning, the reputation of the most mysterious and complex play by A.V. Vampilov, including at the level of defining the genre of a work. In "Duck Hunt", the tone of the story and the whole sound of the play are serious. "Duck Hunt" is built as a chain of Zilov's memories.
Consistently staged, but scattered, memorable episodes from the hero's past life present not only to the reader and the viewer, but also to Zilov himself the story of his moral decline. Thanks to this, from the very first episode of the play, a real drama of human life, built on deceit, unfolds before us. The drama of Zilov's life gradually turns into a tragedy of loneliness: indifference or feigned participation of friends, loss of a sense of filial affection, vulgarization of the sincere feeling of a girl in love with him, the departure of his wife ... Signs of tragicomedy in the play are obvious (Zilov's conversation with Galina at the time of her departure; Zilov's public denunciation of vices friends; preparing Zilov for suicide).
However, the leading methods of constructing a play, creating a genre orientation of the work, are the methods of psychological drama. For example, the hero A.V. Vampilov is shown at the moment of an acute spiritual crisis, shown from the inside, with all his experiences and problems, almost ruthlessly turned inside out, psychologically naked. The playwright focuses on the content of the moral world of his contemporary, while there is no definition of the hero as good or bad, he is internally complex, ambiguous. The finale of "Duck Hunt" is complicated: the play could have been completed before the main finale twice: when Zilov put a gun to his chest or shared property with Sayapin (then it would be more in line with the canons of tragicomedy). The main ending of the play is open and solved in the tradition of psychological drama.
A play by A.V. Vampilov's "Duck Hunt" is usually regarded as a socio-psychological drama (less often as a tragicomedy with elements of industrial conflict, farcical and melodramatic inserts), in which the playwright revises the problems of his early works.
In criticism of the 70s - 90s. there has been a tendency to interpret "Duck Hunt" primarily as a drama of losses, since the play consistently exposes value ranks: the hero realizes, or makes visible for awareness, what could become a solid support in his life, but no longer. And yet, "Duck Hunt" is, first of all, a tragicomedy of existence and self-valuable awareness: its conflict is born where reality, taking the form of a mercilessly objective mirror, provides the hero with the opportunity to look at himself from the outside.
With the playwright's constant attraction to the genre of comedy throughout his creative life, tragicomedy nevertheless became the genre dominant of his work.
Genre features of plays A. Vampilova
"Elder Son" and "Duck Hunt"
Creativity A.V. Vampilov occupies a worthy place in the history of Russian literature. Plays by A.V. Vampilov's works form an original, multifaceted and bright artistic phenomenon, rightfully called by the researchers "Vampilov's Theatre".
Represented by plays of various genres, ranging from lyrical comedy to psychological drama, Vampilov's theater has a profound psychological impact, makes viewers and readers rethink their own existence and the philosophical foundations of life.
Alexander Valentinovich Vampilov passed away early. Almost unnoticed during his lifetime, praised after his death, A. Vampilov became one of the mysterious figures in the history of Soviet and Russian drama. He had a significant impact on the development of modern drama.
"Alexander Vampilov's Theatre" is viewed as a developing artistic phenomenon, in which the social and moral problems of their time turn into the plan of universal "eternal questions" of spiritual existence. It should be noted that the majority of dramaturgy researchers A.V. Vampilov find it difficult to accurately define the genre of his plays, speaking only about their genre originality and highlighting the presence of various genre forms, which, in turn, leads to the emergence of such terms as “poly-genre”, “genre synthesis”, “genre polyphonism”, genre syncretism.
A.V. Vampilov already in his early plays-stories of the late 50s - early 60s shows the genre originality of his dramaturgy, experimenting with dramatic genres and creating an innovative play based on the traditions of the lyrical drama of I.S. Turgenev, satirical comedy N.V. Gogol and psychological dramaturgy of A.P. Chekhov, building the action as a psychological experiment.
The playwright owes his real theatrical fame mainly to the play "The Elder Son", which for several years occupied a leading place in his repertoire.
Freedom of fiction and poetics distinguish the play "The Elder Son", the play gravitates towards non-everyday, phantasmagoric, parable forms that take them beyond the scope of an everyday anecdote. The play "Elder Son" carries quite specific and recognizable motives of the era. The theme of sudden or false acquisition of relatives, which is widespread in world dramaturgy, also receives its historically determined popularity in these years.
On the one hand, comedy is characterized by frank gaiety. A. Vampilov uses such well-known comedic plot development techniques as eavesdropping, the issuance of one character for another, imposture, sincere belief in a hoax. Vampilov masterfully masters the techniques of creating comic positions and characters. He knows how to introduce his peculiar hero, not without comic features, into the most ridiculous situations.
On the other hand, the play "The Elder Son" reproduces the atmosphere of an unsettled life, disintegrating family ties so psychologically accurately and correctly, as was characteristic of the psychological drama of the 60s of the XX century.
Due to the fact that in the comedy several moral and aesthetic perspectives of depicting reality are set simultaneously, “The Elder Son” acquires the features of a tragicomedy, which complicates the genre of lyrical comedy.
The play is fitted by the young playwright into a classical trinity. And at the same time, there is no dramatic predetermination in it. On the contrary, she is characterized by absolute spontaneity, the unintentionality of what is happening: Busygin and Silva actually get to know each other before our eyes, not to mention the Sarafanov family, with whom both the viewer and the characters get to know each other at the same time.
The comedy "The Elder Son" is built on a hard paradoxical breakdown, a paradoxical transformation of events arising from the "wrong", non-canonical reaction of the characters to circumstances.
From the very beginning, the reputation of the most mysterious and complex play by A.V. Vampilov, including at the level of defining the genre of a work. In "Duck Hunt", the tone of the story and the whole sound of the play are serious. "Duck Hunt" is built as a chain of Zilov's memories.
Consistently staged, but scattered, memorable episodes from the hero's past life present not only to the reader and the viewer, but also to Zilov himself the story of his moral decline. Thanks to this, from the very first episode of the play, a real drama of human life, built on deceit, unfolds before us. The drama of Zilov's life gradually turns into a tragedy of loneliness: indifference or feigned participation of friends, loss of a sense of filial affection, vulgarization of the sincere feeling of a girl in love with him, the departure of his wife ... Signs of tragicomedy in the play are obvious (Zilov's conversation with Galina at the time of her departure; Zilov's public denunciation of vices friends; preparing Zilov for suicide).
However, the leading methods of constructing a play, creating a genre orientation of the work, are the methods of psychological drama. For example, the hero A.V. Vampilov is shown at the moment of an acute spiritual crisis, shown from the inside, with all his experiences and problems, almost ruthlessly turned inside out, psychologically naked. The playwright focuses on the content of the moral world of his contemporary, while there is no definition of the hero as good or bad, he is internally complex, ambiguous. The finale of "Duck Hunt" is complicated: the play could have been completed before the main finale twice: when Zilov put a gun to his chest or shared property with Sayapin (then it would be more in line with the canons of tragicomedy). The main ending of the play is open and solved in the tradition of psychological drama.
A play by A.V. Vampilov's "Duck Hunt" is usually regarded as a socio-psychological drama (less often as a tragicomedy with elements of industrial conflict, farcical and melodramatic inserts), in which the playwright revises the problems of his early works.
In criticism of the 70s - 90s. there has been a tendency to interpret "Duck Hunt" primarily as a drama of losses, since the play consistently exposes value ranks: the hero realizes, or makes visible for awareness, what could become a solid support in his life, but no longer. And yet, "Duck Hunt" is, first of all, a tragicomedy of existence and self-valuable awareness: its conflict is born where reality, taking the form of a mercilessly objective mirror, provides the hero with the opportunity to look at himself from the outside.
With the playwright's constant attraction to the genre of comedy throughout his creative life, tragicomedy nevertheless became the genre dominant of his work.
The work of A. Vampilov played a big role in changing the nature of Russian drama in the 1970s. Vampilov's plays were distinguished by the ambiguity of the author's assessment of the characters, which was obligatory in the contemporary literature of the 1960s-70s. His hero was somehow insufficiently defined, ambivalent. In one work, elements of different genres were synthesized (farce, vaudeville, psychological and everyday drama, tragicomedy and sitcom).
The play "Farewell in June" (1965) at first glance is a rather simple and uncomplicated play from student life, of which there were many in the "thaw" years of the heyday of "youth" literature. Her hero, biology student Kolesov, is graduating from university and wants to do science. A little self-confident, sometimes unceremonious talented varmint - a typical figure of the Aksyonov type. But already in this play, A. Vampilov shows that in the clutch of life situations it is important to preserve inner freedom as the only wealth. Honesty towards oneself, one's own freedom, impossible under the condition of compromises, are the moral compass, very sensitive to the slightest deviations, which corrects the life route of the hero A. Vampilov. Kolesov commits the first and only act - he tears up his diploma, refusing to join the corporation of bribe-takers. Illogical from an everyday point of view, incomprehensible within the limits of public morality, this act is natural for a Vampilian hero who does not want to submit to the prevailing conformism.
Vampilov's second play, The Elder Son (1967), to some extent continues the ideas laid down in Farewell in June. Starting with an irresponsible lie, with an almost vaudeville situation, the play acquires a genuine drama that is resolved only in the last scene. Vampilov ties up the intrigue with an eccentric trick, but all the action subsequently develops in accordance with the logic of the characters. It turns out (in relation to Vampilian dramaturgy one often has to resort to the word “it turns out”, since much develops contrary to stereotypes) that not everything in life is subject to simple moral rules, that life is immeasurably more complicated, more intricate; it is necessary that the moral postulate should still be spiritualized by feeling. Everyone knows that lying is bad, but sometimes a lie is more humane than the truth.
The action develops dynamically, moving from Busygin's thesis “People have thick skin and it is not so easy to break through it. It is necessary to lie properly, only then will they believe and sympathize with you ”- to Sarafanov’s conviction“ All people are brothers. At first it seems that Busygin is right: after all, no one wanted to let young people warm up when they said that they were late for the last train. But now Silva, overshadowed by a phrase accidentally thrown by Busygin, begins the game. Busygin, accustomed to not attaching any importance to common slogans, says to Vasenka: "Man is a brother to man, I hope you have heard about this." Of course, how not to hear if these words are repeated constantly and worn out to such an extent that the meaning has disappeared, only one shell remains. Nernichaya, Busygin tries to restore content, to realize what has turned into a metaphor: “Brother, suffering, hungry, cold, stands at the threshold ...” It is for the word “brother”, which has a general meaning, that Silva seizes, giving it a specific meaning of related relations. Busygin joins the game - deceit willy-nilly. He expects to warm up a bit and leave. But the spring has already been released, and events unwind beyond logic.
Busygin did not expect that an adult, already an elderly person, would so recklessly believe lies, with such generosity and openness would accept him - his eldest son. Growing up without a father, Busygin, perhaps for the first time felt love for himself, materialized
Falling into the word "son". This moment becomes decisive. Volodya Busygin is inexplicably worried about everything that happens in the Sarafanov family. He, having lied so irresponsibly, feels his responsibility for Vasenka, who does not want to love "who is supposed to", but is in love with a frivolous person, who is also ten years older than him. Busygin wants to protect Nina from marriage with "positive in all respects" Kudimov. He, a stranger, is trying to rally this strange family in which everyone quarrels with each other, but in essence they love each other - madly, somehow twisted. Busygin does not just "enter the role" of the eldest son, he feels like him. Therefore, trying three times to leave, to stop the protracted performance, each time he hesitates: he is not released by responsibility for the family. When it is finally revealed that everything is fiction, a lie, and he is no son, it no longer matters. Busygin himself has matured, reborn, he will not be able to brush aside the worries about the people who accepted him as their own.
Busygin is the son of Sarafanov not by blood, but by spirit. He talked about thick skin, but he himself was not capable of cruelty. Like Sarafanov, he is sympathetic and kind and also looks like a "blissful" person, taking on the problems of strangers. Sarafanov's ex-wife called her husband "blessed" for his openness, inability to stand up for himself, and adapt. But it is interesting that not with her - a serious one who knows the price of everything - the children remained, but with the "blessed" father, for he could give something that you cannot buy and cannot replace with anything - love. Sarafanov says: “What happened - all this does not change anything ... Whatever it is, I consider you my son. You are my children because I love you; ... I love you, and this is the most important thing. If you think about it, what a deep Christian thought: "you are my children because I love you" and not "I love you because you are my children." In light of this, the title of Sarafanov's oratorio "All people are brothers" is filled with special spirituality. Love reveals the falsity of Busygin's premise about the thick skin of people, affirms the truth of another thesis -
About their brotherhood.
Vampilov destroys stereotypes like "bitter truth is better than sweet lies." Even M. Gorky in the play "At the Bottom" posed the problem of truth and lies, the solution of which is not at all as simple as it was for a long time interpreted in school textbooks. The textbook denial of the necessity and humanity of Luke's consoling tales is not entirely correct, and certainly not the only interpretation of Gorky's play.
Vampilov's ideal postulate is filled with real life. And it turns out that sometimes a vice is a reckless truth. There are also lies in the Sarafanovs' house: the father lies to the children that he still works at the Philharmonic; the children, knowing that he has been playing in the funeral band for a long time, pretend that they believe their father, that is, they also lie. But the lie is here for the sake of preserving the peace of mind of the father, so that he does not lose his dignity. This is what Kudimov did not feel - in all respects he is an absolutely positive person. Busygin gives him an ironic description, made up of common behavioral norms: “He is big and kind. Ugly, but charming. Cheerful, attentive, easy-going in conversation. Willful, purposeful. He knows exactly what he needs in life. He does not take much upon himself, but he is the master of his word. He is never late, he knows what awaits him tomorrow, he always speaks only the truth. He doesn't rest until he proves himself right. All these qualities are good, but they are not inspired by love. Kudimov is like a well-oiled mechanism, following the pattern and incapable of any spiritual impulses. He is not a bad person. Just different, not fitting into the system of vampy-like values, where the most important thing is the ability to feel another, to love.
Silva is close to Kudimov. He also hardly lies: neither when he goes to the cinema with Makarskaya, nor when, in a fit of anger, “reveals” that Busygin is not Sarafanov’s son at all. Silva is not capable of love, can only flirt with girls. This is some kind of operetta character that jumped out with ease into life. No wonder he has such a nickname, operetta. Silva is related to Kudimov not by external behavioral parameters, but by the deafness of the soul, inhibition of feelings.
The play "The Elder Son" carried the recognizable motives of the time. The 1960s, with the moral code of the builder of communism, which had to be memorized at school, with the already begun splitting of morality into personal and public, are recognized both by the social status of the heroes (student, intellectual) and by the social role (dude and dude ), and according to the dramatic stereotype (teenager Vasenka in the spirit of pink boys, rebelling against the lies of adults). Vampilov caught the essential tendencies of the time, showed the nature of the deepening contradictions.
It is difficult to determine the genre of Vampilov's play, although it is called a comedy. Beginning with a vaudeville intrigue, “Senior. son ”continues as an everyday drama, ending as a melodrama or a lyrical comedy. The cohesion of different elements reflects the heterogeneous nature of life itself, its "diversity - evenness". It is interesting that in the play the law of classical poetics about three unities in the drama is observed with amazing accuracy - place (the house of the Sarafanovs), time (one day), action (development of one storyline). As in a classic comedy, the hero makes three attempts to get out of the situation he created. But each fails because of the paradoxical reaction of the characters and the hero himself. Another feature observed in the comedies of classicism is also characteristic - the dual existence of heroes. The hero appears in two forms: as something imaginary, whom he pretends to be (remember the plays of Moliere, Beaumarchais), and in his real essence. In The Elder Son, Busygin is also an imaginary son. But unlike the plays of classicism, where the imaginary in the finale was recognized and ridiculed as falsehood and: hypocrisy, in Vampilov the imaginary turns out to be an essence, turns into a true kinship of souls and cordiality. In the finale, when Sarafanov Sr. does not want to believe that Busygin is not his son, the hero admits: “Frankly, I myself no longer believe that I am not your son.” So the game, pretense reveal the deep, innermost essence of the characters.
Vampilov's plays, possessing the energy of timeliness, nevertheless were born in the 1960s, bearing the signs of those years. According to them, one can trace how the moral climate in society changed, what happened to a person who did not want to lose his inner freedom. The heroes of Vampilov, who had matured by the beginning of the 1970s, are already different. These are tragic characters. They failed to realize the ideals of youth; hypocrisy, double morality, which have become the law of social life, corrode their souls. They live an untrue life, which, however, the whole society lives, the falsity of which penetrates so deeply that it deforms a person. He is still trying to resist, floundering, but the very forms of resistance to the environment have been irreparably mutilated, moral guidelines have been overturned, and the criteria for evaluating good and bad have been shifted. The hero experiences a deep mental crisis, but he does not come out of it cleansed. Such is the hero of the tragicomedy "Duck Hunt" (1970) Zilov, who is tormented by an existential longing for a different - real - life.
Alexander Vampilov left a small legacy - four one-act and four multi-act plays. Nevertheless, the concept of "Vampilov's theater" has become stronger in literature and theatrical art. This means that the playwright created his own unique artistic world, his own aesthetic system. All Vampilov's pieces are polyphonic, allowing different interpretations, despite the fact that the author's ideal is expressed quite clearly. It would be possible to call Vampilov a playwright-everyday-wik. Indeed, his characters live in everyday life, surrounded by everyday realities. In the sphere of everyday life, a social picture of time is realized. But everyday life accommodates the existential problems of being and expands to a philosophical understanding of human life, to the problems of universal brotherhood or universal alienation, the loss of one's own "I" or self-identification.
Being a reflection of the morality and ideas of the time, Vampilov's heroes also carry a general philosophical potential, which determines their constant relevance.
Vampilov came to literature in the late 1960s, his plays appeared against the backdrop of the Arbuzov-Rozovsky dramaturgy, which destroyed the concept of a cog-man. Unlike playwrights of the older generation, who saw the sources of conflicts in the past, Vampilov showed negative trends in contemporary life, discovered the growing lack of spirituality in society. He wrote about people experiencing everyday life, a calm and well-fed life. These tests turned out to be dramatic, filled with deep conflicts. Later, already in the mid-1970s, a “post-Vampilian” drama, or a “new wave” drama appeared, which expanded the sphere of everyday life in its impact on the character, showed the abysses and gaps in the life of a new - marginal, transitional hero. But it was already another - not for you - Pilov's hero. The playwrights of the "new wave" did not try to "solder together" their characters with love, as was the case in Vampilov's plays.
Vsevolod Sakharov
The fate of the Irkutsk playwright Alexander Vampilov (1937-1972) in many ways, as it were, anticipated the fate of Vasily Shukshin: an early death - and the subsequent rapid growth in the interest of theaters, critics and audiences in Vampilov's plays. In this interest, the share of vain curiosity, the fashion “for Vampilov”, is also noticeable, and at the same time it is clear that success was predetermined by the playwright himself, who managed to create not just a few successful plays (in this case, no fashion would help him) , but something integral - a theater that is rapidly developing, subject to its own laws, a special aesthetics.
Here, for example, "The Elder Son" - perhaps the most stage play by Vampilov. Take a closer look at it, and you will see that in a cramped box, scenes are played out, helping one another, as many as two plays. It is difficult for viewers to immediately figure out which of them is more important. But it is clear which is more fun, more dynamic - of course, a comedy about a dashing insolent and heartthrob Silva.
This clown is a favorite of the public, a man-spring, regularly spinning the wheel of action. He jokes, plays the guitar, sings, etc. - in a word, the whole evening on the carpet. And if this play by Vampilov can be called a comedy, then the main reason for this is the replicas and deeds of Silva that amuse the audience.
Behind Silva, the main thing that he so diligently serves is not always distinguishable - a conversation about loneliness and unity. These themes exclude each other, and their merciless struggle is the basis of Alexander Vampilov's dramaturgy.
At the beginning of "The Elder Son" - cold, darkness, cruel, piercing wind. And two in the wind, surrounded by carefully curtained windows and securely closed doors. And student Busygin calmly says to Silva, who is about to call for help: “Who are you, what do they care about you? .. People have thick skin, and it’s not so easy to break through it.” On the street in front of the locked doors, one can feel the weight of these hackneyed truths, indicating, it would seem, the only way out of this situation - the path of evil, loneliness and distrust.
In Vampil's plays, this path is always offered to the characters. But at the same time they are given the opportunity to choose. In The Elder Son, Busygin and Silva easily choose evil, and the playwright emphasizes the thoughtlessness of this act. They invade someone else's life, into the already dysfunctional, decaying Sarafanov family. This is where this crazy, reckless deception, cruel imposture begins: Silva declares Busygin the eldest son of the head of the family, and the student agrees to this game.
And suddenly, in a conversation between uninvited guests and a confused Vasenka, Sarafanov's youngest son, for the first time this word pops up - "brother". “What do we need? Trust... Man is a brother to man, I hope you heard about it... A suffering, hungry, cold brother stands at the doorstep, and he won't even offer him to sit down," Busygin reproaches Vasenka. And already from the very tone it is clear that the word "brother" has long lost its meaning and effectiveness for the speaker, turned into a worn out stamp, into rhetoric. This whole conversation is, in essence, a shameless game of trust, a continuous exchange of lofty words and concepts, a lowering of spiritual values.
In The Elder Son, conversations follow conversations, new characters appear. But the main event has already happened: the doors opened and people met. The word “brother” is uttered, and the same word sounds in response, but with a different meaning: the head of the Sarafanov family has been writing the oratorio “All people are brothers” all his life. And all the further action of the play is devoted to the resurrection of the old, eternal meaning of this word - "brother".
This work is completed successfully: people who were previously divided, absorbed by everyday life, trifles, who built their lives according to everyday recipes (like Ninina: “I don’t need Cicero, I need a husband”), eventually unite into a friendly family. It's all good - that's what comedy is for. But now Silva is running away from these people, and with him the superficial, self-contained comedy is leaving. The main theme remains, which has stood the test of the stage. The audience followed her, and Silva's tricks and jokes, having amused the audience, did not obscure this topic at all.
The theme of "Elder Son" is not new: the art of human communication, unity, spiritual brotherhood. But Vampilov is talking about something else here - about how hard, painstaking work it is, how expensive it is to establish such simple, everyday relations between people, to improve everyday ethics. And here there is no longer any comedic serenity, no lyricization of everyday life. Vampilov's comedy always threatens to turn into a tragedy, and in the incessant struggle and impending troubles, losses are sometimes more serious than gains. Small victories come at an unheard of cost, they require constant spiritual sensitivity, and ethical deafness, on the contrary, greatly simplifies, makes life easier, showing a person the way of ready-made solutions. Everything seems to be correct in the square cadet Kudimov, and yet he is deeply unsympathetic. And Busygin, who at first is neither cold nor hot, enters the Sarafanov family, becomes a brother and son, because he is not unambiguous, although not ideal. He is capable of both deep affection and new faith in old words.
But what makes these people overcome spiritual coldness and loneliness and find unity and warmth? And who so fearlessly demanded a considerable payment from them for such an ordinary, small victory? Vampilov, of course, could say enough big words here. But his explanation is simple: “Whatever you say, life is always smarter than all of us, living and wise. Yes, life is fair and merciful. She makes heroes doubt, and those who did little, and even those who did nothing, but lived with a pure heart, she will always console. Of course, Vampilov's play is not about doubting heroes and not about little people. It is about ordinary people who managed to endure the test and unite. And life paid them for this with warmth, light, a sense of unity.
In The Elder Son, the student Busygin, an intelligent but tired man, gradually takes over the action. For Vampilov, this is the main, most interesting type of personality that runs through all his plays. This young man came to the comedy "Elder Son" from "Farewell in June", an early play, still largely imperfect. In Eldest Son, this hero, with the help of those around him, eventually wins. In "Farewell in June" he is broken.
This Vampilian play, for all its emphasized "youthfulness", is a sad story about a compromise that destroyed an outstanding personality. The hero of this sad comedy, student Kolesov, was let down by a reckless faith in the iron worldly scheme of a scientist’s career: diploma, graduate school, academic degree, etc. He is a talented botanist and cannot imagine life outside high science, outside the beautiful world of herbs and flowers. But it is no coincidence that in Vampilov's play the song is heard all the time: "It's all the lilies of the valley to blame ..."
For the sake of his herbs and flowers, Kolesov takes the path of compromise and eventually comes to betrayal. Friendship and love are traditionally betrayed. In this betrayal there is nothing terrible, amazing - an ordinary deception, where one offers a diploma and graduate school, the other - human dignity. This is just a disgusting bargain that people have entered into of their own free will. Everything is clear here. Something else is interesting: Kolesov's insecurity, his readiness for such a compromise.
High science has not been united here with high ethics, and therefore all his betrayals by the Vampilian hero are committed precisely for the sake of science. The alliances concluded by Kolesov with Repnikov and Zolotuev are characteristic.
The rector of the institute, Repnikov, is a failed scientist who amuses himself with administrative work. Once he was broken, he compromised. That is why I could not become a scientist. In Kolesovo, Repnikov suddenly saw himself, his youth, and therefore feels a strange sympathy for him, mixed with hatred. It is no coincidence that he says confidentially: "Agree, you and I have something in common ... Who once stumbled hard, he limps all his life." And Repnikov is right: Kolesov, as it were, repeats his path.
Another friend of Kolesov is the old cynic Zolotuev, who speculates in flowers. “An honest man is one who is given little. You need to give so much so that a person cannot refuse, and then he will definitely take it! ”, - this is his symbol of faith, and Kolesov confirms this rule with his fate. He was given so much that he could not refuse. Of course, this is not vulgar money, but a subtle spiritual temptation. And Kolesov makes a decision: “I am not Romeo. It just seemed to me that I was Romeo ... I don’t have time for this ... ”And when Zolotuev asks how much Kolesov gave for a diploma, he replies:“ He gave a lot ... A lot, uncle, you never dreamed so much. ..” Indeed, a person who could not resist broke down. And it's unclear if he has the strength to get up. At the end of the play, Vampilov leaves his hero in an eloquent pose - with outstretched hand, as if begging for a little warmth and participation.
In "Farewell in June", a cruel test is arranged for the personality, the person's guilt is determined. And it would be possible to leave this hero and move on to other people and problems. But Vampilov did not calm down and in "The Elder Son" showed us the revival of the hero. But this difficult fate has another option. And it is given in "Duck Hunt", a little staged, controversial play by Alexander Vampilov.
"Duck Hunt" is an extremely strange play. It sometimes seems hopeless, turns into a gloomy grotesque. It is difficult, very difficult to see the light behind this darkness and not fall into destructive sarcasm, into "black" humor. Apparently, there is only one way out: when playing this play by Vampilov, it is necessary to reveal its whole idea, and not to beat up individual lines and scenes. And then the material itself will lead the performance, not allowing you to deviate from the main idea.
And it's easy to deviate. See how boldly, almost defiantly, Vampilov begins. A very serious boy brings a wreath to the main character in the morning with an inscription on a mourning ribbon: "To the unforgettable Viktor Aleksandrovich Zilov, untimely burnt at work, from inconsolable friends." Well, cruel joke. But Zilov is not an angel either. All his actions are a much more cruel game with people.
Duck Hunt is filled with conflict to the limit, and each of them, important enough in itself, speeds up the action. The play moves in jerks, revealing all the pitfalls, all the hidden flaws of these destinies. The blows mount: the breakup with his wife, trouble at work, the death of his father, the growing annoyance of friends. And all this ends with a grandiose scandal in a cafe, where Zilov tells each of his acquaintances what he thinks of him. “Your decency disgusts me,” he shouts with hysterical anguish. And the most terrible thing in this scene is that he tells the truth to everyone. All of them are good, all of them are smeared with one world, these people who are listed as Zilov's friends. One of them speaks for everyone: “If you look, life is essentially lost ...”
But there is no need to take Zilov for a sort of modern Chatsky, who saw terrible faces of monsters around him and rebelled. All his actions are, in essence, evil amusements of an immensely bored person, indifferent to life and people. Zilov has so mastered rhetoric, the poetry of empty beautiful words, that sometimes he believes himself. A great artist dies in it, having turned his whole life into one continuous play. He also has something like the "Moscow" of the Chekhov sisters - duck hunting, an infinitely distant beautiful life, where you can escape from the "lead abominations" and monsters. But all this is a game, a cruel theater that ends in nothing. Everything happened, everything is said. And everything remained the same.
Why did Vampilov show us this unsympathetic man and his friends? Why was he not afraid of reproaches of pessimism? After all, it would be much easier to write a bright lyrical comedy about young lovers or everyday scenes that tell about someone else's life ... But Alexander Vampilov does not write a sweet story, but a cruel drama that is merciless to the characters. He points to the phenomenon of life, shows it as it really is. And this is much more effective than caricatures and ridicule.
Vampilov's play is precisely high satire, overcoming the flaws of the soul, for it makes us look not only at Zilov, who has lost support, but also at ourselves.
Such a view of Vampilov on the role of the theater, among other things, returned to dramaturgy its strength and effectiveness. Everything is important in this cramped world, and Vampilov's strength lies precisely in this heightened sense of the theater, to which everything is subordinated, including the light, as if flying dialogue so beloved by the actors.
Vampilov did not write scripts, not texts for the theatre, but dramas that had only to be staged and played. And all the efforts of the director and actors were spent on this production, on revealing Vampilov's intention. This required professionalism. The success of the performance depended on the accuracy of the understanding of the play. Naturally, Vampilov's plays could not please the so-called "director's" theater, in which the playwright's text is just an excuse for another "interesting interpretation". This is easy to verify by looking at the theater posters.
"Duck Hunt" turned out to be too complicated for many, but it has a much lighter, comedic version - "Provincial Jokes". This comedy is composed of two one-act plays, between the writing of which there is a time interval of eight years. Therefore, it is difficult to distinguish the main idea in it, as if obscured by a brilliant comedy ... But here Vampilov himself helped us, placing an epigraph from Gogol at the beginning of his comedy.
Here is the first of these small plays - "The Story of the Metranpage". How easy it is to see in it the most witty mockery of the administrator Kaloshin, this reinforced concrete "bourbon" and fool, a vagrant set of official rules! Above the stage, the terrible, incomprehensible word for Kaloshin hangs all the time “metranpage”, and the administrator’s monologue about his work and positions perfectly fits into such an interpretation. There is a purely Gogolian situation, where the role of an auditor or a revived nose is played by a mythical metropolitan page. And one could laugh at the dunce Kaloshin and move on to the second play, if not for the epigraph.
This epigraph is taken from the same Gogol, on whose grave it was written: "I will laugh at my bitter word." And in Vampilov's "joke" one hears not a mocking giggle, but precisely bitter laughter. A bitter, mournful word is said about a man who gradually lost himself and came to a very tragic end. And no amount of irony will help this man. Moreover, it becomes clear that in such cases irony is powerless, for it satisfies the vanity of the mocker, but can do nothing with the real phenomenon of life.
Vampilov chooses something else: he plays out this whole story with the meter page primarily for Kaloshin, showing him all the monstrous absurdity of his life. The playwright helps a person who has put himself in a foolish position to get out of this situation. And for this, Kaloshin must look at himself, at his life from the outside.
In "History of Metranzhem" the strength of Vampilov's faith in man, in his hidden possibilities, is striking. It seems that he has become so ossified, Kaloshin has forgotten himself, that nothing can help him. But he was once alive, cheerful, able to feel. After all, he says to a friend: “Oh, Boris! There was only life that was in youth ... Do you remember, they worked on the river? .. The tugboat was "Grigory Kotovsky", remember? (Crying). From the past, only the names of steamships remained, but the feeling of a wrongly lived life has already come. Kaloshin is changing, reaching for a new life. True, for this he had to experience a cruel mockery of fate. But apparently it couldn't be otherwise.
And the second "joke" of Vampilov is also about the incredibly difficult work of the good. This is precisely the drama, in its tragedy not inferior to the "Duck Hunt". Vampilov seems to emphasize the kinship of these plays, connecting them with one eloquent detail: Zilov has not seen his parents for four years and is late for his father’s funeral because of his insignificant affairs, and the agronomist Khomutov in Twenty Minutes with an Angel for six years could not visit his mother and give her money and managed only for her funeral.
This Khomutov is the angel who, within twenty minutes, brought the ordinary clients of the Taiga Hotel into a state of some kind of evil obsession. One hundred of his rubles, saved up for his mother and generously donated to the businessmen who have gone on a trip, become a kind of symbol of a different attitude to life and that is why they lead everyone to extreme irritation. Khomutov's act is a challenge, a reproach that unerringly hits the target.
The “Angel” informs the shocked businessmen of rather simple, well-known truths: “It is not easy for all of us, mortals, and we must help each other. But how could it be otherwise?.. The hour comes, and we pay dearly for our indifference, for our egoism.” This is not newer than Sarafan's: "All people are brothers." But Khomutov paid so dearly for these old truths that he can no longer live as before.
That is why its very presence is unbearable for people who have become stagnant in shallowly floating everyday life, in stubborn distrust of lofty truths. That is why they are so cruel to the righteous man who has suddenly appeared among them, they are so stubbornly eager to find in him and his deed some underlying reason, a disgusting flaw.
Here again it is easy to misunderstand Vampilov. But if the playwright believed in Kaloshin, why should he place a pessimistic passage on the theme “All people are scoundrels” next to this generous story? Wouldn't it be better to assume that in the second "joke" the same theme of faith and hope is continued in other ways?
Let's think about this: all these different people dropped their daily routine and gathered around the bound "angel". They are furious, they wave their fists, they quarreled among themselves, and each frankly determines his own degree of disbelief in a person. But they all thought. Moreover, they already think together. In this scandal, something stable, unifying and enlightening is born.
Of course, Vampilov had no intention of ending the play with a brotherly embrace. It would be a lie from every point of view. He wanted to show and showed something else: that difficult work of thought and feeling that begins in all these people. This work will bear fruit not today and not tomorrow. But the grain is thrown into the ground. And Vampilov believes himself and makes us believe in a successful outcome.
"Provincial Anecdotes" with their very unfunny basis make one think about the genre nature of Vampil's plays. What is it - comedies, tragedies? The playwright himself thought about it too, and in the unfinished vaudeville "The Incomparable Tips" there was a delightful dialogue about the nature of drama. Actor Eduardov teaches the future playwright Nakonechnikov the basics of dramaturgy.
“Tips. They walk and talk... One kept silent, and then he says: further, he says, you can’t live like this, you, he says, are not people, but jerboas, it’s boring, he says. I will put you in jail, he says, and sit with you myself.
Eduardov. So. This is drama.
Tips. And I saw another, so there is more and more laughter. And the guy is funny. Of course, you took my wife away from me, of course, you also took my son away, you have, he says, other shortcomings, but now, he says, it’s a thing of the past and in general, he says, you are still not bad people. Therefore, he says, let's all have fun together,
Eduardov. And this is a comedy.
There is a lot of sarcasm here. Alexander Vampilov seemed to have foreseen the dispute about his dramaturgy and, as if by the way, expressed his opinion.
Alexander Vampilov's latest play, Last Summer in Chulimsk, is a drama in the full sense of the word. This is another play about a broken man. Everything here is addressed to investigator Shamanov, everything is done for him. But he himself cannot give anything in return, because he has long since lost the feeling of strength and fullness, the authenticity of his life. In Shamanovo, only the dead, the survivors remained. There is not even a desire to live, and this is especially evident when he gives the enraged Pashka his gun and, in essence, pushes him to kill. This once strong and courageous man is now a living dead, cast into dust. It seems that the abyss that accepted him is so deep; that you can't get out of it.
However, the play ends with the revival of Shamanov. But for this life, which this one: an outstanding person is still needed, commits a cruel deed.
Next to Shamanov, the playwright creates Valentina, a light and poetic being. To this girl, despite her tragedy, no dirt will stick. It is impossible to break it, because authenticity, organicity and strength of feelings and life sensations reign here. Valentina's naive, reckless faith in people even the extinguished Shamanov surprises and interests, although he tells her skeptically: "You place too high hopes on them."
It is no coincidence that critics were so carried away by Valentina, her calm faith, stubborn restoration of everything destroyed - from the devastated front garden to the broken fate of the investigator Shamanov. It does not immediately become clear that Valentine is a symbol of a wise life that heals all the wounds; calmly existing inside the merciless in its uncompromising realism of the Vampilian drama.
But Vampilov creates a high tragedy. In the world drama, tragedy often arose where an innocent, bright creature, a symbol of goodness, perished. The death of the devastated Shamanov could not teach anything, would not create a feeling of tragedy. But when misfortune overtakes Valentina, a strong feeling arises that shocked the audience and pulled Shamanov out of his spiritual sleep. And again Vampilov shows what price one has to pay for the revival of the human personality. His tragedy is played out at such heights of spirit that from the very beginning we forget about the provincial Chulimsk and think only about the lessons of humanity contained in this ordinary story.
The playwright sees the complexity of the life of modern man and believes in him, in his ability to endure and win. That is why Vampilov's plays are built as arguments in the great controversy about man. But in them there is no forgiveness, justification of everything human. Here everything inorganic, evil, leading a person away from the main path is condemned, mercilessly cut off. This theater is extremely demanding on its characters, because it strictly implements the old principle of our literature, formulated by Dostoevsky - "with full realism to find a person in a person."
Speaking about the dramaturgy of Alexander Vampilov, we must always remember the incompleteness and lack of composition of his theatre. He started well, but it's hard to judge the whole by a great start. Nevertheless, the very movement of dramatic material points in the right direction for further searches. Vampilov left us excellent plays, but they should not close the main thing - the idea of a new theater that holds them together. We will apparently return to this idea more than once in our disputes about modern dramaturgy.
Keywords: Alexander Vampilov, criticism of the work of Alexander Vampilov, criticism of the plays of Alexander Vampilov, analysis of the works of Alexander Vampilov, download criticism, download analysis, free download, Russian literature of the 20th century
