That is why the narration in Kolyma Tales captures the simplest, primitively simple things. Details are selected sparingly, subjected to a rigorous selection - they convey only the main, vital. The feelings of many of Shalamov's heroes are blunted.
“They didn’t show the workers a thermometer, and it wasn’t necessary - they had to go to work at any degree. In addition, the old-timers almost accurately determined the frost without a thermometer: if there is frosty fog, then it’s forty degrees below zero outside; if the air while breathing comes out noisy, but breathing is not yet difficult - that means forty-five degrees; if breathing is noisy and shortness of breath is noticeable - fifty degrees. Over fifty-five degrees - the spit freezes on the fly. The spit has been frozen on the fly for two weeks already. " ("Carpenters", 1954").
It may seem that the spiritual life of Shalamov's heroes is also primitive, that a person who has lost touch with his past cannot but lose himself and ceases to be a complex multifaceted personality. However, it is not. Take a closer look at the hero of the story "Kant". It was like there was nothing left for him in life. And suddenly it turns out that he looks at the world with the eyes of an artist. Otherwise, he would not be able to perceive and describe the phenomena of the surrounding world so subtly.
Shalamov's prose conveys the feelings of the characters, their complex transitions; The narrator and the characters of the Kolyma Tales are constantly reflecting on their lives. It is interesting that this introspection is perceived not as Shalamov's artistic device, but as a natural need of a developed human consciousness to comprehend what is happening. This is how the narrator of the story “Rain” explains the nature of the search for answers to, as he himself writes, “star” questions: “So, mixing “star” questions and trifles in my brain, I waited, soaked to the skin, but calm. Was this reasoning some kind of brain training? In no case. It was all natural, it was life. I understood that the body, and therefore the brain cells, were not getting enough nutrition, my brain had long been on a starvation diet, and that this would inevitably lead to insanity, early sclerosis, or something else ... And it was fun for me to think that I would not live to see , I will not have time to live up to a sclerosis. It rained."
Such introspection simultaneously turns out to be a way to preserve one's own intellect, and often the basis for philosophical understanding of the laws of human existence; it allows you to discover something in a person that can only be spoken of in a pathetic style. To his surprise, the reader, already accustomed to the laconicism of Shalamov's prose, finds in it such a style as a pathetic style.
In the most terrible, tragic moments, when a person is forced to think about injuring himself in order to save his life, the hero of the story “Rain” recalls the great, divine essence of man, his beauty and physical strength: “It was at this time I began to understand the essence of the great instinct of life - the very quality that a person is endowed with in the highest degree "or" ... I understood the most important thing that a person became a man not because he is God's creation, and not because he has an amazing thumb on every hand. But because he was (physically) stronger, more enduring than all animals, and later because he forced his spiritual principle to successfully serve the physical principle.
Reflecting on the essence and strength of man, Shalamov puts himself on a par with other Russian writers who wrote on this topic. It is quite possible to put his words next to Gorky's famous statement: "Man - it sounds proud!". It is no coincidence that when talking about his idea to break his own leg, the narrator recalls the “Russian poet”: “Out of this unkind gravity, I thought to create something beautiful - according to the Russian poet. I thought to save my life by breaking my leg. Indeed, it was a beautiful intention, a phenomenon of a completely aesthetic kind. The stone was supposed to collapse and crush my leg. And I am forever disabled!
If you read the poem “Notre Dame”, you will find there an image of “bad gravity”, however, in Mandelstam this image has a completely different meaning - this is the material from which poetry is created; i.e. words. It is difficult for a poet to work with the word, so Mandelstam speaks of the "unkind heaviness." Of course, the “bad” heaviness that Shalamov's hero thinks about is of a completely different nature, but the fact that this hero remembers Mandelstam's poems - remembers them in the hell of the Gulag - is extremely important.
The stinginess of the narration and the richness of reflections make us perceive Shalamov's prose not as artistic, but as documentary or memoir. And yet we have before us exquisite artistic prose.
"Single freeze"
"Single metering" is a short story about one day in the life of the prisoner Dugaev - the last day of his life. Rather, the story begins with a description of what happened on the eve of this last day: "In the evening, winding up the tape measure, the caretaker said that Dugaev would receive a single measurement the next day." This phrase contains an exposition, a kind of prologue to the story. It already contains the plot of the whole story in a collapsed form, predicts the course of development of this plot.
However, what the “single measurement” portends to the hero, we do not yet know, just as the hero of the story does not know either. But the foreman, in whose presence the caretaker utters the words about “single measurement” for Dugaev, apparently knows: “The foreman, who was standing nearby and asking the caretaker to lend “ten cubes until the day after tomorrow”, suddenly fell silent and began to look at the flickering behind crest of the hill the evening star.
What was the brigadier thinking? Really daydreaming, looking at the "evening star"? It is unlikely that once he asks to give the brigade the opportunity to pass the norm (ten cubic meters of soil selected from the face) later than the due date. The foreman is not up to dreams now, the brigade is going through a difficult moment. And in general, what kind of dreams can we talk about in camp life? Here they dream only in a dream.
The “detachment” of the brigadier is the exact artistic detail that Shalamov needs to show a person who instinctively strives to separate himself from what is happening. The brigadier already knows what the reader will understand very soon: we are talking about the murder of the prisoner Dugaev, who does not work out his norm, which means that he is useless, from the point of view of the camp authorities, a person in the zone.
The foreman either does not want to participate in what is happening (it is hard to be a witness or an accomplice in the murder of a person), or is guilty of such a turn in Dugaev’s fate: the foreman in the brigade needs workers, not extra mouths. The last explanation of the foreman's "thoughtfulness" is perhaps more plausible, especially since the warden's warning to Dugaev follows immediately after the foreman's request for a delay in the production period.
The image of the “evening star”, which the foreman stared at, has another artistic function. The star is a symbol of the romantic world (remember at least the last lines of Lermontov’s poem “I go out alone on the road ...”: “And the star speaks to the star”), which remained outside the world of Shalamov’s heroes.
And, finally, the exposition of the story “Single Measurement” concludes with the following phrase: “Dugaev was twenty-three years old, and everything he saw and heard here surprised him more than frightened him.” Here he is, the main character of the story, who has a little bit left to live, just one day. And his youth, and his lack of understanding of what is happening, and some kind of "detachment" from the environment, and the inability to steal and adapt, as others do - all this leaves the reader with the same feeling as the hero, surprise and a keen sense of anxiety.
The laconicism of the story, on the one hand, is due to the brevity of the hero's rigidly measured path. On the other hand, this is the artistic technique that creates the effect of reticence. As a result, the reader experiences a sense of bewilderment; everything that happens seems to him as strange as to Dugaev. The reader begins to understand the inevitability of the outcome not immediately, almost along with the hero. And that makes the story especially compelling.
The last phrase of the story - "And, realizing what was the matter, Dugaev regretted that he had worked in vain, that this last day had been tormented in vain" - this is also its climax, at which the action ends. Further development of the action or an epilogue is not needed and impossible here.
Despite the deliberate isolation of the story, which ends with the death of the hero, its abruptness and reticence create the effect of an open ending. Realizing that he is being led to the execution, the hero of the novel regrets that he worked, suffered this last and therefore especially dear day of his life. This means that he recognizes the incredible value of this life, understands that there is another free life, and it is possible even in the camp. Finishing the story in this way, the writer makes us think about the most important issues of human existence, and in the first place is the question of a person's ability to feel inner freedom, regardless of external circumstances.
Pay attention to how much meaning Shalamov contains in every artistic detail. First, we simply read the story and understand its general meaning, then we highlight such phrases or words that have something more than their direct meaning. Next, we begin to gradually “unfold” these moments significant for the story. As a result, the narrative is no longer perceived by us as mean, describing only the momentary - carefully choosing words, playing on semitones, the writer constantly shows us how much life remains behind the simple events of his stories.
"Sherry Brandy" (1958)
The hero of the story "Sherry Brandy" is different from most of the heroes of "Kolyma Tales". This is a poet. A poet who is on the edge of life, and he thinks philosophically. As if from the outside, he observes what is happening, including what is happening to him: “... he slowly thought about the great monotony of death movements, about what doctors understood and described earlier than artists and poets.” Like any poet, he speaks of himself as one of many, as a person in general. Poetry lines and images emerge in his mind: Pushkin, Tyutchev, Blok ... He reflects on life and poetry. The world is compared in his imagination with poetry; poems are life.
Even now the stanzas stood up easily, one after another, and although he had not written down and could not write down his poems for a long time, nevertheless the words easily stood up in some given and each time extraordinary rhythm. Rhyme was a finder, a tool for magnetic search of words and concepts. Each word was part of the world, it responded to rhyme, and the whole world rushed by with the speed of some kind of electronic machine. Everything screamed: take me. I am not here. There was nothing to look for. I just had to throw it away. It was as if there were two people here - the one who composes, who launched his turntable with might and main, and the other who selects and from time to time stops the running machine. And, seeing that he was two people, the poet realized that he was now composing real poems. What if they are not recorded? Write down, print - all this is vanity of vanities. Everything that is born unselfishly is not the best. The best thing that is not written down, what was composed and disappeared, melted away without a trace, and only the creative joy that he feels and which cannot be confused with anything proves that the poem was created, that the beautiful was created.
Consider Shalamov's collection, on which he worked from 1954 to 1962. Let's describe its brief content. "Kolyma Tales" is a collection, the plot of which is a description of the camp and prison life of the Gulag prisoners, their tragic destinies, similar to one another, in which chance rules. The author constantly focuses on hunger and satiety, painful dying and recovery, exhaustion, moral humiliation and degradation. You will learn more about the issues raised by Shalamov by reading the summary. "Kolyma stories" is a collection that is a reflection of what the author experienced and saw over the 17 years he spent in prison (1929-1931) and Kolyma (from 1937 to 1951). The photo of the author is presented below.
Gravestone
The author recalls his comrades from the camps. We will not list their names, as we are compiling a summary. "Kolyma stories" is a collection in which artistry and documentary are intertwined. However, all the murderers are given real names in the stories.
Continuing the story, the author describes how the prisoners died, what torments they experienced, talks about their hopes and behavior in "Auschwitz without ovens", as Shalamov called the Kolyma camps. Few managed to survive, but few survived and did not break morally.
"The Life of Engineer Kipreev"
Let us dwell on the following curious story, which we could not help but describe, making up a summary. "Kolyma Tales" is a collection in which the author, who has not sold or betrayed anyone, says that he has worked out 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 not known what you will become at a decisive moment, whether you will have enough not only mental strength, but also physical.
Kipreev, an engineer-physicist arrested in 1938, not only was able to withstand the interrogation with a beating, but even attacked the investigator, as a result of which he was put in a punishment cell. But all the same, they are trying to get him to give false testimony, threatening to arrest his wife. Nevertheless, Kipreev continues to prove to everyone that he is not a slave, like all prisoners, but a man. Thanks to his talent (he fixed the 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.
"For the show"
Shalamov, who wrote the Kolyma Tales, a summary of which interests us, testifies that the camp corruption affected everyone to one degree or another. It was carried out in various forms. Let us describe in a few words one more work from the collection "Kolyma stories" - "On the show". A summary of his story is as follows.
Two thieves play cards. One loses and asks to play on credit. Exasperated at some point, he orders an unexpectedly imprisoned intellectual, who happened to be among the spectators, to hand over his sweater. He refuses. One of the thieves "finishes" him, and the thieves get the sweater anyway.
"At night"
We turn to the description of another work from the collection "Kolyma Tales" - "At Night". A brief summary of it, in our opinion, will also be interesting to the reader.
Two prisoners sneak to 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 tomorrow for tobacco or bread, or sell it. Disgust for 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". "Carpenters", the summary of which we have omitted, follows the story "Night". We invite you to familiarize yourself with it. The product is small in size. The format of one article, unfortunately, does not allow describing all the stories. Also, a very small work from the collection "Kolyma stories" - "Berries". A summary of the main and most interesting, in our opinion, stories is presented in this article.
"Single freeze"
Defined by the author as slave camp labor - another form of corruption. The prisoner, exhausted by him, cannot work out the norm, labor turns into torture and leads to slow death. Dugaev, the convict, is getting weaker and weaker because of the 16-hour working day. He pours, kaylit, carries. In the evening, the caretaker measures what he has done. The figure of 25%, named by the caretaker, seems very large to Dugaev. His hands, head, aching calves are unbearable. The prisoner does not even feel hunger anymore. Later, he is called to the investigator. He asks: "Name, surname, term, article." The soldiers take the prisoner every other day to a remote place surrounded by a fence with barbed wire. At night, the sound of tractors can be heard from here. Dugaev guesses why he was brought here, and understands that life is over. He regrets only that he suffered in vain for an extra day.
"Rain"
You can talk for a very long time about such a collection as Kolyma Tales. A summary of the chapters of the works is for informational purposes only. We bring to your attention the following story - "Rain".
"Sherri Brandy"
The poet-prisoner, who was considered the first poet of the 20th century in our country, dies. He lies on the bunk, in the depths of their bottom row. The poet dies for a long time. 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 seek, fight, swear... However, he no longer has the strength to do so. When a daily ration is put into his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his strength, sucks it, tries to gnaw and tear with loose scurvy 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 it were alive. They arrange for him to raise his hand like a puppet.
"Shock therapy"
Merzlyakov, one of the heroes of the collection "Kolmysk Stories", a summary of which we are considering, a convict of large build, understands that he is failing at general work. He falls, cannot get up and refuses to take the log. First, he is beaten by his own, then by the escorts. He is brought to the camp with lower back pain and a broken rib. After recovering, Merzlyakov does not stop complaining and pretends that he cannot straighten up. He does this in order to delay the discharge. He is sent to the surgical department of the central hospital, and then to the nervous one for research. Merzlyakov has a chance to be written off due to illness. He tries his best not to be exposed. But Pyotr Ivanovich, a doctor, himself a former convict, exposes him. Everything human in him replaces the professional. He spends the bulk of his time precisely exposing those who feign. Pyotr Ivanovich is looking forward to the effect that the case with Merzlyakov will produce. The doctor first makes him anesthetized, during which he manages to unbend Merzlyakov's body. A week later, the patient is prescribed shock therapy, after which he asks to be discharged himself.
"Typhoid Quarantine"
Andreev enters quarantine, having contracted typhus. The position of the patient compared to the work in the mines gives him a chance to survive, which he hardly hoped 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 death, beatings, hunger. Andreev does not respond to the roll call before sending the recovered to work. He manages to hide in this way for quite a long time. The transit line is gradually emptying, and finally Andreev's turn comes. But now it seems to him that he has won the battle for life, and if now there will be dispatches, then only for local, close business trips. But when a truck with a group of prisoners who were unexpectedly given winter uniforms crosses the line separating long-distance and short-range business trips, Andreev realizes that fate has laughed at him.
In the photo below - on 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, is taken to the hospital. This beauty immediately attracted Zaitsev, the doctor on duty. He knows that she is in a relationship with the convict Podshivalov, his acquaintance, who leads the local amateur art circle, the doctor still decides to try his luck. As usual, he begins with a medical examination of the patient, with auscultation of the heart. However, male interest is replaced by medical concern. In Glovatskaya, he discovers This is a disease in which every careless movement can provoke death. The authorities, who made it a rule to separate lovers, once sent the girl to a penal female mine. The head of the hospital, after the doctor's report about her illness, is sure that these are the machinations of Podshivalov, who wants to detain his mistress. The girl is discharged, but she dies during loading, which Zaitsev warned about.
"Major Pugachev's last fight"
The author testifies that after the Great Patriotic War, prisoners began to arrive in the camps, who fought and went through captivity. These people are of a different temper: able to take risks, courageous. 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 "guilt" 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, to match himself, prisoners who are ready to die or become free. Escape is prepared all winter. Pugachev realized that after surviving the winter, only those who managed to bypass the common work could escape. One by one, the participants in the conspiracy are moving into service. One of them becomes a cook, the other becomes a cult trader, the third repairs weapons for the guards.
One spring day, at 5 am, they knocked on the watch. The attendant admits the prisoner-cook, who, as usual, came for the keys to the pantry. The cook strangles him, and another prisoner changes into his uniform. The same thing happens with other attendants who returned a little later. Then everything happens according to Pugachev's plan. The conspirators burst into the security room and take possession of the weapon, shooting the guard on duty. They stock up on provisions and put on military uniforms, holding suddenly awakened fighters at gunpoint. Leaving the territory of the camp, they stop the truck on the highway, drop the driver off and drive until the gas runs out. Then they go to 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, who recruited Russians, convincing them that the captured soldiers for the Soviet regime were traitors to the Motherland. Then Pugachev did not believe them, but soon he himself was convinced of this. He looks lovingly at his comrades sleeping beside him. A little later, a hopeless battle ensues with the soldiers who surrounded the fugitives. Almost all of the prisoners die, except for one, who is cured after a severe wound in order to be shot. Only Pugachev manages to escape. He is hiding in a bear den, but he knows that they will find him too. He does not regret what he did. His last shot is to himself.
So, we examined the main stories from the collection, the author of which is Varlam Shalamov ("Kolyma stories"). The 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 Tales", a summary of which you now know, appeared on the pages of the New York edition of "New Journal".
In New York in 1966, only 4 stories were published. The following year, 1967, 26 stories by this author, mostly from the collection we are interested in, were translated into German in the city of Cologne. During his lifetime, Shalamov never published the collection "Kolyma Tales" in the USSR. The summary of all 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 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 in the face, since he was a geological engineer, and he was taken to 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 not feasible (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 path, it was necessary to eat) bribed him. Going to Shestakov's, he ate two cans of this delicacy. And then suddenly he said 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, artistic merits can only be appreciated by getting acquainted 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 to get acquainted with him.
Literature lesson in grade 11
"Linguistic and stylistic analysis of V. Shalamov's stories "Berries", "Single metering"
Lesson Objectives:
1. Educational:
* Improving the skill of linguistic and stylistic text analysis;
* the formation of the ability to analyze the text of the artistic style;
* activation of cognitive research activity of students.
2. Developing:
*further development of communicative, linguistic and linguistic competence of students;
*development of students' creative abilities and activation of their mental activity through the use of critical thinking technology elements;
*improving the ability to argue and prove one's point of view on a problematic issue;
*development of social competence of students.
3.Educational:
* contribute to the moral development of the personality of students, their definition of true life values.
Technology: critical thinking technology; technology of problem-based learning, workshop of value orientations.
Tasks:
* to reveal the main idea of V. Shalamov's stories "Berries"
* conduct a linguo-stylistic analysis of the stories "Single Measurement"
* analyze linguistic (expressive) means.
Lesson type:a lesson in the integrated application of knowledge, skills and abilities of students.
Methods:problem-search, problematic
Type of lesson:workshop
Forms of work:frontal, individual.
On the desk:
Everything that was dear was trampled to dust; civilization and culture fly off a person in the shortest possible time, calculated in weeks.
The ovens of Auschwitz and the disgrace of Kolyma proved that art and literature are zero...
V. Shalamov
On the board: (concepts are written during the lesson)
Totalitarianism
suppression
Destruction of personality
Grain of sand
state machine
Camp
Society Model
At the end of the lesson, make sentences with these words - conclusions.
On the left wing:
Story
Composition
Means of artistic expression
During the classes:
1. Teacher's words
At home, you got acquainted with the stories of V. Shalamov. Have you read this author's work before?
Today we will discover the world of Shalamov's prose, the world is cruel and merciless and truthful to the limit. To understand the motives for writing such works, it is necessary to get acquainted with the short biography of the author.
2. Presentationprepared by a student - biography of V. Shalamov
3. Conversation
What is striking in the biography of the writer?
He spent 20 years in camps in Kolyma, was a political prisoner. Consequently, everything he wrote about was experienced and felt by the author himself. "Kolyma stories" - personal experience.
What do we know about those times, the camps?
4. A student's message about the system of punishments in the camps.
So what stories have you read?
- "Single metering", "Berries".
What theme unites these stories?
The main theme is the existence of man in the camp.
Where is the action taking place?
In the north. Kolyma, the most severe camps.
Who is at the center of the story?
Zeks (thieves, political prisoners), overseers.
What is the tone of the story?
The intonation is impassive, ordinary, without emotions. Such intonation gives the stories a note of doom.
As a rule, in any prose work of art there are all types of speech: narration, description, reasoning. What is in the stories of V. Shalamov? Prove it.
There is a story and a description.
Why is there no reasoning in the stories of V. Shalamov?
Zeke can't reason. He is a cog, "nobody", "camp dust".
In what episodes does the description occur?
These episodes are related to the description of food. This is a strong emotion in conditions of constant hunger. There is a clear parallel: food = life, man = animal.
Is there a story?
Yes, that's the basis of the stories. The life of a prisoner consists of a series of actions aimed at preserving and maintaining his own life: exhausting, meaningless work, fighting constant hunger and cold, and actions to get food.
What is the theme of stories?
1. The problem of confrontation between man and the totalitarian machine of the state. 2. The problem of change (deformation) of the value orientations of a person in the camp.
3. The problem of the price of human life.
5. Analysis of the story "Single measurement"
The genre is declared by V Shalamov in the title of the collection - “Kolyma stories”
What is a story? Let's turn to the dictionary.
A story is a small epic genre, a prose work of a small volume, in which, as a rule, one or more events of the hero's life are depicted.
What is the classic composition of the story?
The plot, the development of the action, the climax, the denouement.
Do V. Shalamov's stories correspond to the classical form?
No. There is no introduction, the climax is shifted towards the end of the work.
This is a deliberate departure from the literary canons. Shalamov was convinced that literature was dead (the one that "teaches" - the literature of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy).
The story of the last day of the hero of the story is ordinary, without emotion. Dugaev's death is a statistic.
Why is there no introduction and conclusion in the story?
V. Shalamov needs to show the essence, without burdening it with the background of the hero. In the conditions of the camp, it does not matter who the person was before. Shalamov writes about a man who stands at the line separating life and death.
Surroundings are indifferent to the fate of a comrade. (Read 1 paragraph of the story, analyze the behavior of a partner and foreman)
What does Dugaev feel in the camp?
The main feeling is hunger. It is he who determines the train of thought of the hero (read an excerpt). The second is indifference (read an excerpt).
In the camp, a person becomes dumb, turns into an animal. Dugaev does not know how to steal (and this is the “main northern virtue” in the camp), so he is quickly weakening. He tries to fulfill the norm (“None of the comrades will grumble that he does not fulfill the norm”). When Dugaev learns that he has completed only 25%, he is surprised because "the work was so hard." He was so tired that even "the feeling of hunger had long since left him."
Find the climax of the story and its denouement.
The climax and denouement are combined in the last paragraph (read out). When Dugaev realized why he was being led to a high fence with barbed wire, he "regretted that he had worked in vain, that last day had been tormented in vain."
6. Analysis of the story “Berries”
What do the stories “Single Size” and “Berries” have in common?
In the story "Berries" Shalamov draws camp everyday life, as in "Solitary Measurement". The hero, on whose behalf the story is told, like Dugaev, clings to life, although he understands that his life and the lives of his comrades are worthless.
1. In the camp, every man is for himself.
2. Hunger - a painful acute sensation that pushes a person to take risks and rash acts.
3. All moral qualities of a person have given way to physiological needs - to eat, sleep, be warm.
Why did Rybakov, the narrator's friend, pick up berries in a jar?
If Rybakov picks up a full can, the cook of the security detachment will give him bread. Rybakov's enterprise immediately became an important business.” Getting food is the most important thing in the camp.
Why didn't Rybakov ask for help picking berries?
He would have to share bread, and "camp ethics" does not involve such human actions. Consequently, Shalamov's idea is once again confirmed that in the camp it is every man for himself.
Which episode stands out in terms of intonation and content from the general narrative?
Episode description of berries. This is real poetry. The narrator with the intonation of a gourmet and connoisseur draws berries. Nothing in the life of a convict causes such strong emotions. Only food.
Analyze the episode that tells about the death of Rybakov.
Rybakov was shot dead by the guard Seroshapka because the convict violated the boundaries of the designated zone. Gray Hat did it casually, without regret. The guard knew that Rybakov would not run away, but he killed the convict with the first shot. The author draws the reader's attention to the fact that Rybakov was killed by the first shot, which should be a warning. The second was made formally - it is supposed to fire two shots. Neither the guard Seroshapka nor the convicts thought about observing the law, because the camp is a territory of lawlessness, and "the price of camp dust is zero"
The death of a friend is an ordinary event. There is no feeling of loss, trouble. Man is nothing. A jar of berries is a value, as it can be exchanged for bread.
Read the words of V. Shalamov about civilization and culture again. After reading the stories, did it become clear why the author adheres to this point of view? In your answer, use the key words written on the board during the lesson.
V. Shalamov thinks so, because the camp proved that the physical and spiritual forces of a person in a collision with the machine of a totalitarian state are limited. The forces of evil break and destroy a person, because the possibilities of a person are finite, and evil can be unlimited. The artist was not afraid to show the terrible in a person. Having shown the “dehumanization” of the world, Shalamov turned out to be a prophet: cruelty is growing everywhere, while never aestheticizing inhumanity. He wanted the reader to see and appreciate what it is like in real life. Everything is permitted - the terrible reality of the history of mankind, which must be confronted - the author of the Kolyma Tales leads the reader to such a conviction.
Homework: a review of V. Shalamov's story "Condensed Milk"
In his "Kolyma Tales" Shalamov deliberately builds on Solzhenitsyn's narrative. If “In one day ...” labor is spiritual liberation, then Shalamov’s work is hard labor, “the camp was a place where they taught to hate physical labor, to hate labor in general.”
And if for a moment the work of Shalamov’s hero may seem like “melody”, “music”, “symphony” (“Shovel Artist”), then in the next moment it is a cacophony, rattle and ragged rhythm, deceit and lies. For Varlam Shalamov, catharsis, i.e. the positive lesson of staying 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, rolling his wheelbarrow through the circles of hell. (The documentary story "Conspiracy of Lawyers" is a vivid example of this). The writer was convicted under Article 58. and ended up in "criminal camps", where "household workers" and political prisoners were kept.
“... trolleys and wagons float away on 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 that's none of your business." Butaryat (sprinkle the soil with spatulas) are not wheelbarrows. Fifty-eighth is not allowed close to gold.
The following phrase of the author is very symbolic: "... the wheelman does not see the wheel ... He must feel the wheel." Here Shalamov speaks about the concrete work of a wheelbarrow driver. But the image should be understood much more broadly: a wheelbarrow driver is a person who does not see the wheel, he does not see the wheel - repression, but feels it great. He does not see those who set this wheel in motion, all the perpetrators of the feudal camp system of our age. Shalamov would like to tear 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 broken, the better.
There is such a thing as “behind the text, offscreen characters” of a work (rock and chance in Nabokov, for example). They are never mentioned by Shalamov, but their presence is precisely “felt”. And we can only know the approximate number.
“The work of the brigadier is very carefully (officially) monitored ... by the caretaker. The superintendent is supervised by a senior superintendent, the senior superintendent is supervised by the foreman of the site, the superintendent is supervised by the head of the site, the head of the site is supervised by the chief engineer and head of the mine. I don’t want to lead this hierarchy higher - it is extremely branched, diverse, and gives room 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 those who agreed with the machine 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 work of Sergei Dovlatov, who said that "Hell is ourselves."
* * *
Charles Francois Gounod believed that freedom is nothing but conscious and voluntary submission to immutable truths. These truths are most likely love, friendship, honor and truth. Based on this, we can say that the heroes of Shalamov still achieve this freedom in the story "The Last Battle of Major Pugachev" (all 12 fugitives achieve inner freedom at the cost of their lives).
Lesson Objectives:
- introduce the tragic fate of the writer and poet Varlam Shalamov; identify the features of the plot and poetics of "Kolyma Tales";
- develop the skills of literary analysis, the ability to conduct a dialogue;
- to form the civic position of high school students.
Equipment: portrait of V.Shalamov, multimedia presentation
During the classes
1. Stage of goal setting.
Music. "Requiem" by W. Mozart
Teacher(reading with music in the background)
To everyone who was branded by the fifty-eighth article,
who in a dream was surrounded by dogs, a fierce convoy,
who by court, without trial, by a special meeting
was doomed to a prison uniform to the grave,
who was betrothed by fate with shackles, thorns, chains
to them our tears and sorrow, our eternal memory! (T.Ruslov)
Today in the lesson we have to talk about political repressions in the Soviet Union, about the people who suffered from them, about the writer of amazing fate - Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov - and his prose. Open your notebooks and write down the topic of today's lesson
(slide 1). At home you read the stories of Varlam Shalamov. What is our goal for today's lesson? (Student answers: get acquainted with the work of V. Shalamov, his biography, comprehend his works).
Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov spent almost 20 years in Soviet camps, survived, withstood and found the strength to write about it in the work "Kolyma Tales", some of which you managed to get acquainted with. How did you receive these stories? What surprised, amazed, outraged? (Student answers)
What is the mystery of "Kolyma Tales"? Why does the author himself consider his works "new prose"? These are the key questions of our lesson (slide 2).
2. Actualization of students' knowledge.
But in order to understand Shalamov's prose, one must have a good idea of the historical events of those years.
Student's message "History of repressions in the USSR"
AI Solzhenitsyn said: "No Genghis Khan has destroyed so many peasants as our glorious Organs, led by the Party." Of course, all this could not touch the literary process. Let's remember some facts.
Student's message "Repression in Literature"(The following facts should be mentioned: Alexander Blok suffocated from the lack of air of freedom in 1921. Shot: Nikolai Gumilyov in 1921 on charges of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy, Boris Pilnyak in April 1938, Nikolai Klyuev and Sergei Klychkov in October 1937, Isaac Babel in January 1940. Osip Mandelstam died in the camp in 1938. Sergei Yesenin in 1925, Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1930, Marina Tsvetaeva in 1941. Died in exile, Ivan Bunin, Zinaida Gippius , Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Igor Severyanin, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Konstantin Balmont, Iosif Brodsky, Alexander Galich. Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Boris Pasternak were persecuted. Passed the Gulag Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Anatoly Zhigulin, Nikolai Zabolotsky, Yaroslav Smelyakov, Joseph Brodsky. In the House of Writers in Moscow there is a memorial plaque in memory of those writers who died in the war - 70. They offered to hang the same plaque with the names of the repressed, but then they realized that there would not be enough space. All walls will be painted.)
Teacher. Let's name one more name on this mournful list - V.T. Shalamov, one of those who set it as their task to survive and tell the truth. This theme is heard in the works of A. Solzhenitsyn, and Yuri Dombrovsky, and Oleg Volkov, and Anatoly Zhigulin, and Lydia Chukovskaya, but the power of V. Shalamov's books is simply amazing (slide 3).
In the fate of Shalamov, two principles collided: on the one hand, his character, beliefs, on the other, the pressure of time, the state, which sought to destroy this person. His talent, his passionate thirst for justice. Fearlessness, readiness to prove the word by deed: All this was not only not in demand by time, but also became too dangerous for him.
3. Learning new material. Work in groups to study the biography of Varlam Shalamov.
Group work. (Students are divided into groups in advance).
On each table there are texts with a biography of V.T. Shalamov. Read, highlight the main milestones of the biography (with a marker), be prepared to answer questions.
Questions:
- Where and when was Shalamov born? What can be said about his family?
- Where did V. Shalamov study?
- When was V. Shalamov arrested and for what?
- What was the verdict?
- When and where did Shalamov serve his sentence?
- When was Shalamov arrested again? What is the reason?
- Why was his term extended in 1943?
- When is Shalamov released from the camp? When will he return to Moscow?
- In what year did he start working on Kolyma Tales?
(Answers to questions are accompanied by slides with photos)
Teacher: Varlam Shalamov died on January 17, 1982, having lost his hearing and sight, completely defenseless in the House of Invalids of the Litfond, having drunk the cup of non-recognition to the end during his lifetime.
- "Kolyma stories" - the main work of the writer. He gave 20 years to create them. The reader learned 137 stories collected in 5 collections:
- "Kolyma stories"
- "Left Coast"
- "Shovel Artist"
- "Resurrection of the Larch"
- "Glove, or KR-2"
4. Analysis of "Kolyma stories".
- What stories have you read? (Student answers)
Work in pairs.
Let's make a cluster with the word "Kolyma". Try to reflect in it your perception of the world of Kolyma, what feelings prevail in it? We work in pairs, we try to agree. Clusters are attached to the board and read out.
Let's turn to the story "Tombstone". Questions for analysis:
1. What is the impression of a story that begins with the words: "Everyone is dead:"? Everyone: who, why, how? (answers) Yes, these are people about whom Shalamov himself will say: "This is the fate of martyrs who were not, did not know how and did not become heroes." But they remained people in such conditions - and this means a lot. The writer shows this laconic, just one detail. The detail is very important in Shalamov's prose. Here is such, for example, a small detail: ": foreman Barbe is a comrade who helped me pull a large stone out of a narrow pit." The brigadier, who is usually an enemy in the camp, a murderer, is called a comrade. He helped the prisoner, but did not beat him. What opens up behind it? (With comradely relations, the plan was not carried out, because it could only be carried out under an inhuman, lethal load. Barbe was reported, and he died.)
2. Scary stories, creepy stories. What do people dream about on Christmas Eve? (answers) And here is the voice of Volodya Dobrovoltsev (pay attention to the surname): “And I,” and his voice was calm and unhurried, “I would like to be a stump. A human stump, you know, without arms, without legs. Then I would have found I have the strength to spit in their faces for everything they do to us." And why does he want to be a stump?
3. What is the plot of the story? (Death). Death, non-existence is the artistic world in which the action of the story unfolds. And not only here. The fact of death precedes the beginning of the plot. Agree that this is unusual for Russian prose.
Let's work with the story "The Snake Charmer". Each group gets its own task. Group 1 - Read the beginning of the story, find words and phrases that affect the reader's feelings. What feelings arise? Group 2 - What "thin" and "thick" questions did you have while reading the story? Group 3 - What fragments of the story require reflection and reflection?
In the process of analyzing the story, we will definitely pay attention to those difficult questions that you have. Let's try to figure it out together.
- Why is the story called "The Snake Charmer"? Who can be considered a snake charmer?
- Why did Platonov agree to tell novels after all? Is it possible to condemn him?
- Is Platonov's consent to "squeeze novels" a sign of strength or weakness?
- Why did Platonov develop heart disease?
- What is the author's attitude to such a way to improve one's situation? (Sharply negative)
- How is Senechka depicted? What does he personify?
(At first glance, it seems that the story is about the confrontation between the political and the thieves, but if you look deeper, then it is no accident that Platonov - the screenwriter-intellectual opposes the blatars, that spirituality opposes brute force. But there is another plan related to the theme "artist and power", "artist and society". "Squeezing novels" - this phrase from thieves' jargon is in itself a powerful satirical metaphor: such "squeezing" for the sake of the powerful of this world is an ancient and hard to get rid of feature of literature, Shalamov managed to show his negative attitude both "snakes" and "casters".)
The story "The last battle of Major Pugachev". Valery Esipov, a researcher of Shalamov's creativity, writes that "Shalamov did not write a single word just like that."
- What is this story about?
- Why does the author compare the arrests of the 1930s and 1940s at the beginning of the story? How did former front-line soldiers differ from other prisoners?
- Tell us about the fate of Major Pugachev. What is the fate of his comrades? How did the experience of the war affect them?
- How did the prisoners behave during the escape?
- Why were there no wounded prisoners in the hospital? Why was Soldatov treated?
- Why does the story end with the death of Pugachev?
What is the feeling after reading the story? How is the author's attitude towards the characters manifested? (The surname Pugachev speaks of the author's attitude towards the heroes, and the fact that the author constantly calls him by rank - major, emphasizing that he is a fighter who challenged the camp authorities, and the smile of the major when remembering his dead comrades before his own death. Shalamov will say about him - "a difficult male life", before his death he will give him a tasteless cranberry berry, repeat the words "best people" twice and remember his smile, experiencing the joy that a person has a spiritual height.)
Why did Shalamov, who claimed that there could be no successful escapes in Kolyma, glorified Major Pugachev? What is the feat of Major Pugachev? (The feat of Pugachev and his comrades is not that they defended their freedom with weapons in their hands, not that they turned their machine guns against the Soviet regime, not that they - every single one - preferred death to surrender. They became heroes because they refused to accept the system of thinking and feeling imposed on them. Realizing the camp as an extrahuman system, they refused to exist in it. Escape - from the camp to the taiga - from the Camp to the World - was undoubtedly a miracle of physical courage, but above all brave thought.)
Having written a fairy tale, very important for the writer personally, Shalamov deduces a new camp law - the law of the preservation of personality, answers the question of how to get out of this world of death. At that moment, when Shalamov set himself the task of "remembering and writing," he, like Pugachev and his comrades, fought according to his own rules - from a Prisoner he became a Writer, he transferred the battle with an extrahuman system to an alien camp and his own territory of culture.
Teacher: Guys, did you and I manage to get closer to unraveling the mystery of the Kolyma Tales? What features of Shalamov's prose, called "new prose", will we note?
(The secret of the "Kolyma Tales" is that, with all the negative things, the author managed to show that people remain people even in inhuman conditions, there is a way to fight this system - not to accept its rules, to defeat it with the power of art and harmony. Features of the "new prose" Shalamova: documentary, laconic narration, the presence of a detail-symbol.)
Let's try to make syncwines in groups on the topics: "Kolyma stories", "Man", "Varlam Shalamov", so that you can express your feelings after our lesson.
Homework: write a review of one of Shalamov's stories using the "criticism" pyramid; watch the film "Lenin's Testament".
Literature.
2. Valery Esipov. "Dispel this fog" (V. Shalamov's late prose: motivations and problems) // www.shalamov.ru/research/92/
3. N.L. Krupina, N.A. Sosnina. Complicity of time. - M., "Enlightenment", 1992
