Thaw in the literature of the Soviet era. Why "Thaw"

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THE LITERATURE OF THE THAW, conditional name for the period of literature of the Soviet Union in the 1950s-early 1960s. The death of Stalin in 1953, the 20th (1956) and XXII (1961) congresses of the CPSU, which condemned the “cult of personality”, the softening of censorship and ideological restrictions - these events determined the changes reflected in the work of writers and poets of the thaw.

In the early 1950s, articles and works began to appear on the pages of literary magazines, which played the role of stimulating public opinion. A sharp controversy among readers and critics was caused by the story of Ilya Ehrenburg Thaw. The images of the heroes were given in an unexpected way. The main character, parting with a loved one, the director of the plant, an adherent of the Soviet ideology, in his person breaks with the past of the country. In addition to the main storyline, describing the fate of two painters, the writer raises the question of the artist's right to be independent of any attitudes.

In 1956 a novel by Vladimir Dudintsev was published Not by bread alone and stories by Pavel Nilin Cruelty, Sergey Antonov It was in Penkovo. Dudintsev's novel traces the tragic path of the inventor in a bureaucratic system. The main characters of the stories Nilin and Antonov were attracted by their lively characters, their sincere attitude to the events around them, the search for their own truth.

The most striking works of this period were focused on participation in solving topical socio-political issues for the country, on revising the role of the individual in the state. The process of mastering the space of the opened freedom was going on in the society. Most of the participants in the disputes did not abandon socialist ideas.

The prerequisites for a thaw were laid in 1945. Many writers were front-line soldiers. The prose about the war of real participants in hostilities, or, as it was called, "officer prose", carried an important understanding of the truth about the past war.

The first to raise this topic, which became central in the military prose of 1950–1960, was Viktor Nekrasov in the story In the trenches of Stalingrad, published in 1946. Konstantin Simonov, who served as a front-line journalist, described his impressions in the trilogy Living and dead(1959–1979). In the stories of front-line writers Grigory Baklanov span of land(1959) and The dead have no shame(1961), Yuri Bondarev Battalions ask for fire(1957) and Last salvos(1959), Konstantin Vorobyov Killed near Moscow(1963), against the background of a detailed, unvarnished description of military life, the theme of a conscious personal choice in a situation between life and death was first heard. Knowledge of front-line life and experience of survival in the camps formed the basis of the work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who subjected the Soviet regime to the most consistent criticism.

Issues of literary almanacs and periodicals - various literary magazines - played an important role in the process of "warming". It was they who most vividly reacted to new trends, contributed to the emergence of new names, brought authors of the 1920s-1930s out of oblivion.

From 1950 to 1970, the Novy Mir magazine was headed by A.T. Tvardovsky. As editor-in-chief, he contributed to the appearance of bright and bold publications in the magazine, gathering around him the best writers and publicists. Novomirskaya Prose brought serious social and moral problems to the attention of readers.

In 1952, a series of essays by Valentin Ovechkin was published in Novy Mir. District weekdays, where for the first time the topic of optimal management of agriculture began to be discussed. It was discussed what is better: strong-willed pressure or granting the necessary independence to agriculture. This publication marked the beginning of a whole trend in literature - "village prose". leisurely reflections village diary Yefim Dorosh about the fate of rural residents side by side with the nervous, electrified prose of Vladimir Tendryakov - stories potholes, Mayfly - a short age. Rural prose showed the wisdom of the peasants, living with nature in the same rhythm and sensitively reacting to any falsehood. One of the brightest subsequently "villagers", Fyodor Abramov, began to be published in the "New World" as a critic. In 1954 his article was published People of the collective farm village in post-war prose, where he urged to write "only the truth - direct and impartial."

In 1956, two issues of the anthology "Literary Moscow" were published under the editorship of Emmanuil Kazakevich. I. Erenburg, K. Chukovsky, P. Antokolsky, V. Tendryakov, A. Yashin and others, as well as poets N. Zabolotsky and A. Akhmatova, were published here, for the first time after a 30-year break, the works of M. Tsvetaeva were published. In 1961, the almanac Tarusa Pages was published under the editorship of Nikolai Otten, where M. Tsvetaeva, B. Slutsky, D. Samoilov, M. Kazakov, the story of the war by Bulat Okudzhava were published Be healthy, schoolboy, chapters from golden rose and essays by K. Paustovsky.

Despite the atmosphere of renewal, opposition to new trends was significant. Poets and writers who worked according to the principles of socialist realism consistently defended them in literature. Vsevolod Kochetov, editor-in-chief of the Oktyabr magazine, argued with Novy Mir. The discussions unfolded on the pages of magazines and periodicals supported the atmosphere of dialogue in the society.

In 1955-1956, many new magazines appeared - Youth, Moscow, Young Guard, Friendship of Peoples, Ural, Volga, etc.

"Youth prose" was published mainly in the journal "Youth". Its editor, Valentin Kataev, relied on young and unknown prose writers and poets. The works of the young were characterized by confessional intonation, youth slang, sincere high spirits.

In the stories of Anatoly Gladilin published on the pages of "Youth" Chronicle of the times of Viktor Podgursky(1956) and Anatoly Kuznetsov Continuation of the legend(1957) described the young generation's search for their own path at the "construction sites of the century" and in their personal lives. Heroes were also attracted by sincerity and rejection of falsehood. In the story of Vasily Aksenov star ticket, published in "Youth", a new type of Soviet youth was described, later called by critics "star boys". This is a new romantic, longing for maximum freedom, believing that in search of himself he has the right to make mistakes.

During the thaw period, many new bright names appeared in Russian literature. Yuri Kazakov's short stories are characterized by attention to the nuances of the psychological state of ordinary people from the people (stories Manka, 1958, tralee wali, 1959). A postman girl, a drunkard buoy keeper singing old songs on the river - they embody their understanding of life, focusing on their own idea of ​​its values. ironic tale Constellation Kozlotur(1961) brought popularity to the young author Fazil Iskander. The story ridicules the emasculated bureaucratic functioning, creating fuss around useless "innovative undertakings". Subtle irony has become not only a characteristic feature of the author's style of Iskander, but also migrated to oral speech.

The genre of science fiction continues to develop, the traditions of which were laid down in the 1920s and 1930s. Significant works were written by Ivan Efremov - Andromeda's nebula (1958), Serpent's Heart(1959). Utopian novel Andromeda's nebula reminiscent of a philosophical treatise on the cosmic communist future, to which the development of society will lead.

In the 1950s, the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky came to literature - From outside (1959), Country of Crimson Clouds (1959), Path to Amalthea (1960), Noon, 21st century (1962), distant rainbow (1962), It's hard to be a god(1964). Unlike other science fiction writers who solved the themes of cosmic messianism in an abstract heroic way, the problems of cosmic "progressors" were revealed by the Strugatskys at the level of philosophical understanding of the mutual influences of civilizations of different levels. In the story It's hard to be a god the question is raised which is better: the slow, painful, but natural development of society or the artificial introduction and expansion of the values ​​of a more civilized society into a less developed one in order to direct its movement in a more progressive direction. In subsequent books by the authors, reflection on this issue becomes deeper. There comes an awareness of moral responsibility for considerable sacrifices - the payment of the so-called. "primitive" societies for the progress imposed on them.

It was in the 1960s-1980s that Yuri Trifonov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Venedikt Erofeev, Joseph Brodsky came to realize themselves as writers and poets.

So, in 1950, Trifonov's story students. Solzhenitsyn, during the years of exile and teaching in the Ryazan region, worked on the novel cancer corps, research Gulag Archipelago; in 1959 he wrote a story One day Ivan Denisovich, published in 1962. Venedikt Erofeev in the 1950s led the life of a student wandering around different universities. He tried his pen in a lyrical diary Psychopath Notes(1956-1957), where a special Erofeev style was already felt.

The thaw period is accompanied by the flourishing of poetry. The euphoria from the opened opportunities required an emotional outburst. Since 1955, the Poetry Day holiday has been held in the country. On one Sunday in September, poems were read throughout the country in the halls of libraries and theaters. Since 1956, an almanac with the same name began to appear. Poets spoke from the stands, gathered stadiums. Poetry evenings at the Polytechnic Museum attracted thousands of enthusiastic listeners. Since the monument to the poet was solemnly opened on Mayakovsky Square in 1958, this place has become a place of pilgrimage and meetings for poets and poetry lovers. Here poems were read, books and magazines were exchanged, there was a dialogue about what was happening in the country and the world.

The greatest popularity during the period of the poetic boom was won by poets of a bright journalistic temperament - Robert Rozhdestvensky and Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Their civic lyrics were imbued with the pathos of understanding the place of their country on the scale of world achievements. Hence a different approach to understanding civic duty and social romance. The images of the leaders were revised - the image of Lenin was romanticized, Stalin was criticized. Many songs were written to the verses of Rozhdestvensky, which formed the basis of the "grand style" in the genre of Soviet pop songs. Yevgeny Yevtushenko, in addition to civic themes, was known for deep and fairly frank love lyrics, cycles written based on impressions from trips around the world.

No less popular Andrei Voznesensky was more focused on the aesthetics of the new modernity - airports, neon, new brands of cars, etc. However, he paid his debt to attempts to comprehend the images of Soviet leaders in a new way. Over time, the theme of the search for the true values ​​​​of being began to sound in Voznesensky's work. The chamber, intimate motifs of Bella Akhmadulina, her peculiar, melodious author's manner of performance subtly resembled the poetesses of the Silver Age, attracting many admirers to her.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the art song genre became popular. The most prominent representative and initiator of this trend was Bulat Okudzhava. Together with Rozhdestvensky, Yevtushenko, Voznesensky and Akhmadulina, he performed at the Polytechnic Museum at noisy poetry evenings. His work became the starting point, the impetus for the emergence of a galaxy of popular domestic bards - Vizbor, Gorodnitsky, Galich, Vladimir Vysotsky and others. Many bards sang songs not only on their own words, often the lines of the Silver Age poets - Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam were set to music.

The entire palette of the poetic process of the thaw period was not limited to bright young voices that were well known to the general reader. The collections of poets of the older generation - Nikolai Aseev - are imbued with a premonition of change reflections(1955), Leonida Martynova Poetry(1957). Comprehension of the lessons of the war is the main theme of the front-line poets Semyon Gudzenko, Alexander Mezhirov, Olga Berggolts, Yulia Drunina. The motives of courageous asceticism, which helped to survive in the camps, sounded in the work of Yaroslav Smelyakov. "Quiet Lyricists" Vladimir Sokolov and Nikolai Rubtsov turned to nature in search of the authenticity of being and harmony with the world. David Samoilov and Boris Slutsky proceeded in their work from a broad cultural and historical reflection.

In addition to the generally recognized published authors, there were a significant number of poets and writers who did not publish. They united in groups - poetic circles of like-minded people that existed either as private associations or as literary associations at universities. In Leningrad, the association of poets at the university (V. Uflyand, M. Eremin, L. Vinogradov, etc.) was inspired by the poetry of the Oberiuts. In a circle at the Leningrad Technological Institute (E. Rein, D. Bobyshev, A. Naiman), whose common hobby was acmeism, a young poet Joseph Brodsky appeared. He attracted attention by his lack of conformity - unwillingness to play by the accepted rules, for which in 1964 he was brought to trial for "parasitism".

Most of the creative heritage of the Moscow "Lianozovo group", which included G. Sapgir, I. Kholin, Vs. Nekrasov, was published only 30-40 years after it was written. The Lianozians experimented with colloquial, everyday speech, achieving paradoxical connections and consonances at the expense of dissonance. In Moscow in the late 1950s there was also a circle of students of the Institute of Foreign Languages, which included the poet Stanislav Krasovitsky. In 1964, on the initiative of the poet Leonid Gubanov, the student association of poets and artists SMOG (V. Aleinikov, V. Delone, A. Basilova, S. Morozov, V. Batshev, A. Sokolov, Yu. Kublanovsky, etc.) was born, which, in addition to literary experiments carried out radical actions, which accelerated its collapse.

Painful and acute was the reaction of the authorities to the publications of some authors abroad. This was given the status of almost treason, which was accompanied by forced expulsion, scandals, legal proceedings, etc. The state still considered itself entitled to determine for its citizens the norms and boundaries of thinking and creativity. That is why in 1958 a scandal erupted over the award of the Nobel Prize to Boris Pasternak for a novel published abroad. Doctor Zhivago. The writer had to refuse the award. In 1965, a scandal followed with the writers Andrei Sinyavsky (novels Judgment is coming, Lyubimov, treatise What is socialist realism) and Julius Daniel (novels Moscow speaking, Redemption), who published their works in the West since the late 1950s. They were sentenced "for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" to five and seven years in the camps. Vladimir Voinovich after the publication of the novel in the West The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Soldier Ivan Chonkin had to leave the USSR, because. he could no longer hope for the publication of his books in his homeland.

In addition to “tamizdat”, “samizdat” became a characteristic phenomenon of the society of that time. Many works went from hand to hand, reprinted on typewriters or the simplest copying technique. The very fact of prohibition fueled interest in these publications and contributed to their popularity.

After Brezhnev came to power, it is believed that the "thaw" is over. Criticism was allowed within limits that did not undermine the existing system. There was a rethinking of the role of Lenin - Stalin in history - different interpretations were offered. Criticism of Stalin was on the wane.

Essential for understanding the limits of freedom was the attitude to the literary heritage of the beginning of the century. The event was the last work of Ilya Ehrenburg - memoirs People, years, life(1961–1966). For the first time, many learned about the existence of such historical figures as Mandelstam, Balmont, Tsvetaeva, Falk, Modigliani, Savinkov and others. The names hushed up by the Soviet ideology, described in detail and vividly, became the reality of national history, the artificially interrupted connection between the epochs - pre-revolutionary and Soviet - was restored. Some of the authors of the Silver Age, in particular Blok and Yesenin, were already mentioned and published in the 1950s. Other authors were still banned.

Self-censorship developed. The internal censor told the author which topics could be raised and which ones should not. Separate elements of the ideology were perceived as a formality, a convention that must be taken into account.

Olga Loshchilina

DRAMATURGY "THAW"

The “Thaw” not only debunked the myth of the holiness of the “father of all peoples”. For the first time, she made it possible to raise the ideological scenery above the Soviet stage and dramaturgy. Of course, not all, but a very significant part of them. Before talking about the happiness of all mankind, it would be nice to think about the happiness and unhappiness of an individual.

The process of "humanization" manifested itself in the playwrights, both in its own literary basis and in its staging.

The search for artistic means capable of conveying the leading trends of the time within the framework of everyday, chamber drama led to the creation of such a significant work as the play by Alexei Arbuzov Irkutsk history(1959–1960). The image of everyday human drama rose in it to the height of poetic reflections on the moral principles of a contemporary, and the features of the new historical era were vividly imprinted in the appearance of the heroes themselves.

At the beginning, the heroine of the play, the young girl Valya, experiences a state of deep mental loneliness. Believing in the existence of true love, she lost faith in people, in the possibility of happiness for herself. She tries to make up for the painful spiritual emptiness, boredom and prose of everyday work with a frequent change of love affairs, the illusory romance of a thoughtless life. Loving Victor, suffering humiliation from him, she decides to "revenge" him - she marries Sergei.

Another life begins, Sergey helps the heroine find herself again. He has a strong-willed, strong, persistent and at the same time humanly charming character full of warmth. It is this character that makes him, without hesitation, rush to the aid of a drowning boy. The boy is saved, but Sergei dies. The tragic shock experienced by the heroine completes the turning point in her soul. Victor is also changing, the death of a friend makes him reconsider a lot in his own life. Now, after real trials, the true love of the heroes becomes possible.

It is significant that Arbuzov widely used stage conventions in the play. A sharp mixture of real and conditional plans, a retrospective way of organizing the action, transferring events from the recent past to the present day - all this was necessary for the author in order to activate the reader, the viewer, to make his contact with the characters more lively and direct, as if bringing problems to open space for open discussion.

The choir occupies a prominent place in the artistic structure of the play. He introduces journalistic elements into this drama, unusually popular in the society of that time.

“Even the day before death, it’s not too late to start life anew” - this is the main thesis of Arbuzov’s play My poor Marat(1064), which the heroes come to the conclusion in the finale after many years of spiritual quest. Both in terms of the plot and in terms of the dramatic techniques used here My poor Marat built like a chronicle. At the same time, the play is subtitled "dialogues in three parts". Each such part has its exact, up to a month, designation of time. With these constant dates, the author seeks to emphasize the connection of the heroes with the world around them, evaluating them throughout the entire historical period.

The main characters are tested for mental strength. Despite the happy ending, the author, as it were, says: everyday life, simple human relationships require great spiritual strength if you want your dreams of success and happiness not to collapse.

In the most famous dramatic works of those years, the problems of everyday life, family, love are not separated from issues of moral and civic duty. At the same time, of course, the acuteness and relevance of social and moral problems in themselves were not a guarantee of creative success - it was achieved only when the authors found new dramatic ways of considering life's contradictions, sought to enrich and develop the aesthetic system.

The work of Alexander Vampilov is very interesting. His main achievement is the complex polyphony of living human characters, in many respects dialectically continuing each other and at the same time endowed with pronounced individual features.

Already in the first lyrical comedy Goodbye in June(1965) the signs of the hero were clearly identified, who later went through other plays by Vampilov in various guises.

Busygin, the protagonist of Vampilov's play, goes through complex psychological paths to gaining spiritual integrity. eldest son(1967). The plot of the play is very unusual. Busygin and his random companion Sevostyanov, nicknamed Silva, find themselves in an unknown family of Sarafanovs, who are going through difficult times for themselves. Busygin unwittingly becomes responsible for what is happening with the "relatives". As he ceases to be a stranger in the Sarafanovs' house, the former connection with Silva, who turned out to be an ordinary vulgar, gradually disappears. On the other hand, Busygin himself is becoming more and more weary of the game he has started, his frivolous but cruel act. He discovers a spiritual kinship with Sarafanov, for whom, by the way, it doesn’t matter at all whether the protagonist is a blood relative of him. Therefore, the long-awaited exposure leads to a happy ending to the whole play. Busygin makes a difficult and therefore conscious, purposeful step forward in his spiritual development.

The problem of moral choice in the play is solved even more complicated and dramatic. duck hunting(1967). The comic element, so natural in Vampilov's earlier plays, is here reduced to a minimum. The author examines in detail the character of a person who has drowned in the bustle of life, and shows how, by making immorality the norm of behavior, without thinking about the good for others, a person kills the human in himself.

Duck hunting, which the hero of the drama Viktor Zilov is going to during the whole action, is not at all an expression of his spiritual essence. He is a poor shooter because he admits that he is sorry to kill ducks. As it turns out, he feels sorry for himself, although once reaching a dead end in his senseless circling among the women he seems to love and the men who seem to be friendly with him, he tries to stop everything with one shot. Forces for this, of course, was not enough.

On the one hand, the comic, clearly invented, and on the other hand, petty everyday situations in which Vampilov places his heroes, with a more serious acquaintance with them, every time they turn out to be serious exams for a contemporary trying to answer the question: “Who are you, man?”

Ethical problems with great certainty were revealed in the drama of Viktor Rozov On the wedding day(1964). Here, quite young people are still being tested for moral maturity. On the day of the wedding, the bride suddenly declares that there will be no wedding and that she is forever parting with the groom, although she loves him endlessly. For all the unexpectedness of such a decisive act, the behavior of the heroine - Nyura Salova, the daughter of a night watchman in a small Volga city - has its own inexorable internal logic, which brings her to the point of giving up happiness. In the course of the action, Nyura becomes convinced of the bitter but indisputable truth: the man she marries has long loved another woman.

The peculiarity of the conflict situation that arises in the play lies in the fact that the struggle does not flare up between the characters within the closed and rather traditional love triangle. Rozov, having retrospectively outlined the real sources of the acute conflict that has arisen, follows, first of all, the tense confrontation that takes place in the soul of the heroine, because in the end she herself must make a conscious choice, utter the decisive word.

Rozov opposed the dogmatic concept of the "ideal hero", who certainly manifests himself against the historical and social background. The action of his plays always takes place in a narrow circle of characters. If this is not a family, then a group of classmates who have gathered at school for their evening after many years of separation. Sergei Usov, the protagonist of the play Traditional collection(1967), speaks directly about the value of the individual, which does not depend on professional achievements, positions, social roles - the fundamental principles of human spirituality are important to him. Therefore, he becomes a kind of arbiter in the dispute of grown-up graduates, who are trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in assessing the viability of a particular fate. The gathering of graduates becomes a review of their moral achievements.

In the same way, they separate, turn off their characters from numerous public relations Alexander Volodin - Elder sister(1961),Purpose(1963); Edward Radzinsky - 104 pages about love(1964),Filming a movie (1965).

This is especially characteristic of female images, to which the author's sympathies are undividedly given. The heroines are touchingly romantic and, despite the very difficult relationship with others, as if pushing them to give up any dreams, they always remain true to their ideals. They are quiet, not very noticeable, but, warming the souls of loved ones, they find the strength for themselves to live with faith and love. flight attendant girl 104 pages about love), a chance meeting with which did not foreshadow the hero, the young and talented physicist Electron, it would seem, no changes in his rationally correct life, in fact showed that a person without love, without affection, without feeling his everyday need for another person is not at all human. In the finale, the hero receives unexpected news of the death of his girlfriend and realizes that he will never again be able to feel life the way it once was - that is, only three and a half months ago ...

Interestingly, in the 1960s, much has changed even for the so-called revolutionary drama. On the one hand, she began to resort to the possibilities of documentary, which is largely due to the desire of the authors to be reliable to the smallest detail. On the other hand, the images of historical figures took on the features of completely “alive”, that is, contradictory, doubting, people going through an internal spiritual struggle.

In the play by Mikhail Shatrov sixth of july(1964), called in the subtitle "documentary drama experience", the very history of the revolution was recreated directly in a dramatic interplay of circumstances and characters. The author set himself the task of discovering this drama and introducing it into the framework of theatrical action. However, Shatrov did not follow the path of simply reproducing the chronicle of events, he tried to reveal their inner logic, exposing the socio-psychological motives of the behavior of their participants.

The historical facts underlying the play - the Left SR rebellion in Moscow on July 6, 1918 - gave the author ample opportunity to search for exciting stage situations, free flight of creative imagination. However, following the principle chosen by him, Shatrov sought to discover the power of drama in the real story itself. The intensity of the dramatic action intensifies as the political and moral duel between the two political figures, Lenin and the leader of the Left Social Revolutionaries, Maria Spiridonova, intensifies.

But in another play Bolsheviks(1967), Shatrov already in many ways, by his own admission, departs from the document, from the exact chronology "in order to create a more integral artistic image of the era." The action takes place over just a few hours on the evening of August 30, 1918 (the stage time more or less exactly corresponds to the real time). Uritsky was killed in Petrograd, and an attempt was made on Lenin's life in Moscow. If in sixth of july the main spring of the stage action was the rapid, condensed movement of events, the development of a historical fact, then in Bolsheviks the emphasis is shifted to the artistic comprehension of the fact, to the penetration into its deep philosophical essence. Not the tragic events themselves (they take place behind the scenes), but their reflection in the spiritual life of people, the moral problems put forward by them, form the basis of the ideological and artistic concept of the play.

The clash of different views on the moral obligations of the individual in society, the processes of the internal, spiritual development of the hero, the formation of his ethical principles, which takes place in intense and acute mental struggles, in difficult searches, in conflicts with others - these contradictions form the driving principle of most of the plays of the 1960s. . Turning the content of the works primarily to questions of morality, personal behavior, playwrights significantly expanded the range of artistic solutions and genres. At the heart of such searches and experiments was the desire to strengthen the intellectual beginning of the drama, and most importantly, to find new opportunities for revealing spiritual, moral potentialities in a person’s character.

Elena Sirotkina

Literature:

Goldstein A. Farewell to Narcissus. M., UFO, 1997
Matusevich V. Soviet editor's notes. M., UFO, 2000
Weil P., Genis A. 1960s: the world of the Soviet man. M., UFO, 2001
Voinovich V. Anti-Soviet Soviet Union. M., Mainland, 2002
Kara-Murza S. "Sovok" remembers. M., Eksmo, 2002
Savitsky C. underground. M., UFO, 2002
Soviet wealth. St. Petersburg, Academic project, 2002

In the club of a large industrial city - a full house. The hall is packed, people stand in the aisles. An extraordinary event: a novel by a young local writer is published. Participants of the reader's conference praise the debutant: everyday work is reflected accurately and vividly. The heroes of the book are truly the heroes of our time.

But one can argue about their "personal life", says one of the leading engineers of the plant Dmitry Koroteev. Not a penny is typical here: a serious and honest agronomist could not fall in love with a windy and flirtatious woman, with whom he has no common spiritual interests, in addition - the wife of his comrade! The love described in the novel seems to be mechanically transferred from the pages of bourgeois literature!

Koroteev's speech causes a heated debate. More discouraged than others - although they do not express it aloud - are his closest friends: the young engineer Grisha Savchenko and the teacher Lena Zhuravleva (her husband is the director of the plant, sitting on the presidium of the conference and frankly pleased with the sharpness of Koroteev's criticism).

The argument about the book continues at Sonya Pukhova's birthday party, where she comes straight from Savchenko's club. “A smart man, but he acted according to a stencil! Grisha gets excited. - It turns out that the personal has no place in literature. And the book touched everyone to the quick: too often we still say one thing, but in our personal lives we act differently. The reader yearned for such books! - “You are right,” one of the guests, the artist Saburov, nods. “It’s time to remember what art is!” - “But in my opinion, Koroteev is right,” Sonya objects. “Soviet people have learned to control nature, but they must also learn to control their feelings...”

Lena Zhuravleva has no one to exchange opinions with about what she heard at the conference: she has lost interest in her husband for a long time, it seems, from the day when, at the height of the “doctors’ case”, she heard from him: “You can’t trust them too much, that’s indisputable.” The dismissive and merciless “him” shocked Lena. And when, after a fire at the factory, where Zhuravlev showed himself to be a fine fellow, Koroteev spoke of him with praise, she wanted to shout: “You don’t know anything about him. This is a soulless person!”

That's also why Koroteev's speech at the club upset her: he seemed to her so whole, extremely honest both in public, and in a conversation face to face, and alone with his own conscience ...

The choice between truth and lies, the ability to distinguish one from the other - this calls for all the heroes without exception to lead the time of the "thaw". The thaw is not only in the social climate (Koroteev’s stepfather returns after seventeen years of imprisonment; relations with the West are openly discussed at the feast, the opportunity to meet with foreigners; there are always brave souls at the meeting, ready to contradict the authorities, the opinion of the majority). This is the thaw of everything “personal”, which for so long it was customary to conceal from people, not to let out of the door of one’s house. Koroteev is a front-line soldier, there was a lot of bitterness in his life, but this choice is given to him painfully. At the party bureau, he did not find the courage to stand up for the leading engineer Sokolovsky, to whom Zhuravlev feels hostility. And although after the ill-fated party bureau, Koroteev changed his mind and directly declared this to the head of the department of the city committee of the CPSU, his conscience did not calm down: “I have no right to judge Zhuravlev, I am the same as him. I say one thing, but I live differently. Probably, today we need other, new people - romantics, like Savchenko. Where can I get them? Gorky once said that we need our Soviet humanism. And Gorky has been gone for a long time, and the word "humanism" has disappeared from circulation - but the task remains. And solve it - today.

The reason for the conflict between Zhuravlev and Sokolovsky is that the director is disrupting the housing construction plan. The storm that swept over the city in the first days of spring, destroying several dilapidated barracks, causes a response storm - in Moscow. Zhuravlev goes to Moscow on an urgent call for a new appointment (of course, with a demotion). In the collapse of his career, he blames not the storm, and even more so not himself - Lena who left him: the departure of his wife is immoral! In the old days, for this ... And Sokolovsky is also to blame for what happened (he was almost in a hurry to report the storm to the capital): “It’s a pity, after all, that I didn’t kill him ...”

There was a storm - and it was gone. Who will remember her? Who will remember director Ivan Vasilyevich Zhuravlev? Who remembers the past winter, when loud drops fall from icicles, until spring is just a stone's throw away?..

Difficult and long was - like the path through the snowy winter to the thaw - the path to the happiness of Sokolovsky and the "pestician doctor" Vera Grigorievna, Savchenko and Sonya Pukhova, drama theater actress Tanechka and Sonya's brother artist Volodya. Volodya overcomes his temptation with lies and cowardice: at a discussion of an art exhibition, he falls upon his childhood friend Saburov - "for formalism." Repenting of his meanness, asking for forgiveness from Saburov, Volodya admits to himself the main thing that he did not realize for too long: he has no talent. In art, as in life, the main thing is talent, and not loud words about ideology and popular demands.

Lena is now striving to be needed by people, having found herself again with Koroteev. Sonya Pukhova also experiences this feeling - she confesses to herself that she loves Savchenko. In love, conquering trials in both time and space: they barely managed to get used to one separation from Grisha (after the institute, Sonya was assigned to a plant in Penza) - and here Grisha has a long way to go, to Paris, for an internship, in a group of young specialists.

Spring. Thaw. She is felt everywhere, everyone feels her: both those who did not believe in her, and those who were waiting for her - like Sokolovsky, going to Moscow, to meet his daughter Masha, Mary, a ballerina from Brussels, who was completely unknown to him and very dear, with whom he dreamed of seeing all his life.

I always wanted to read Ilya Ehrenburg's The Thaw, but I didn't have time, and recently I found it on the Internet. I must say right away: the story seemed weak, boring. The characters are lifeless, the plot is sucked from the finger. Naturally, the question arose: why did this thing give the name to a whole historical period?
And I wanted to see how the Thaw was received, when it was published, what was written about it. Has she been admired?

The story was published in May 1954 in Znamya. One of the first to respond to it was Konstantin Simonov. At that time, he was at the peak of his popularity, the second person in the leadership of the Union of Writers of the USSR, headed the "New World".

Konstantin Simonov published a long article "The New Tale of Ilya Ehrenburg" in two issues of the Literaturnaya Gazeta (Nos. 85, 86 of July 17 and 20, 1954). Here's what he says about the plot: “The story of Lena Zhuravleva told in the story and the problems associated with it deserve attention. Ehrenburg tells how a young woman, a teacher, who got married as a student, gradually begins to understand that her husband has become a careerist, indifferent to people and even ready to overstep their interests and rights for the sake of his career. Lena Zhuravleva leaves her husband, takes the child, begins an independent life, and the writer claims the right to take this step; Zhuravlev's moral deformation destroyed their love, family, and the further life together of two people alien to each other ceases to correspond to the norms of socialist morality. Along with this, creating a negative image of Zhuravlev, who turned out to be the director of the plant, Ehrenburg legitimately asks: can a person lead people who does not love them, a person who blasphemously covers up his unwillingness to take care of people with supposedly state interests, that is, who completely does not understand these state interests ? And he answers: no, he can't!

How do other characters relate to Lena's act? Do they think she's a fool who ruined her happiness? Konstantin Simonov also asks: “Why, remembering the positive heroes of I. Ehrenburg, along with sympathy for them, you also experience a feeling of dissatisfaction when you take in the big picture with your eye?”

Does this mean that the author of the review also doubted the correctness of Lena's act? Not! Something else bothered him: “Here is Lena, a good young intelligent woman. This is what she looks like in the story. However, when other characters talk about her, these qualities begin to acquire a tinge of exclusivity, emphasis. "Clever a woman, you rarely see such a woman in Moscow, - Koroteev thinks about her ... "

And this is how Konstantin Simonov evaluates the story "The Thaw" in general: “Far from artistry, a fragmentary protocol record is characteristic of many pages of The Thaw, a work where the fluency and superficiality of observations most strikingly affected not only its ideological side, but with no less negative force on the artistic side. And in the end, we have a story that, in my opinion, is much weaker than anything that Ilya Ehrenburg created over the past decade and a half of his work in literature ... In the end, the whole story, despite some good pages, seems to be a disappointing failure of the author for our literature " .

At the II Congress of Writers, which took place in the same 1954, where both in the report and in the co-report they called the story "The Thaw" unsuccessful, Ilya Ehrenburg said in his speech: “If I can still write a new book, I will try to make it a step forward from my last story, and not a step to the side.”

Mikhail Sholokhov, in his speech at this Congress, ironically commented on Ehrenburg's words: “Compared to The Tempest and The Ninth Wave (the Stalin Prize-winning novels by Ilya Ehrenburg), The Thaw undoubtedly represents a step backwards. Now Ehrenburg promises to take a step forward. I don’t know how these dance steps are called in another language, but in Russian it sounds: “marking time”. You promised us little consolation, dear Ilya Grigorievich!

Why a short, but so significant segment of our history was named after this generally recognized weak story, remained a mystery to me ... But from today's day, one can offer such a version. The assessments of the literary Thaw can probably be applied to the political Thaw as well - fluency and superficiality, a failure despite some good pages.

Tatiana ZHARIKOVA

Roman Silantiev.

Khrushchev thaw.

I want to write about this time especially. There's such a commotion in my heart right now

what a believer might feel when he is about to write about "the Nativity of Christ." True, they hastened to write an enormous amount of negativity about the Khrushchev era, that people began to forget the good and the good, and remember only the funny. You know what detractors do when they want to denigrate some historical figure who somehow did not suit them. This was done with Lenin, with Marx, even with the teacher Makarenko Anton Semyonovich.

But let's leave all their slander on their conscience. People should speak for their deeds, not their detractors. And since I am writing about Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, I will say the main thing right away. During the time he was in power (from 1956 to 1964), the country lived through the 2nd five-year plans and completed both in 4 years instead of five. During these 8 years, the volume of production in the USSR increased by 2.5 times. This is an average annual increase in production volumes of about 18%.

After the removal of Khrushchev, in the next five years, we moved down by 7% per year - isn't that convincing? (7% vs 18%?!).

And now I would like to write point by point for those who do not know what has been done in the country for 8 years. I write from memory:

The nuclear program was completed, on the basis of which a nuclear umbrella was created over the USSR.

A complete re-equipment of our army with the latest weapons was carried out, since we were again threatened from the West with nothing but nuclear bombs.

The country has mastered the virgin fallow lands, as a result of which an invisible grain crop was obtained, which ensured the food security of our country. And only through the fault of the pests that were in the Kremlin, which we now know firsthand, the virgin lands were subsequently practically destroyed.

A grandiose program of chemicalization of the country has been launched.

A large cascade of Siberian power plants was built, which marked the beginning of the energy re-equipment of the country. Railway electrification began.

The creation of a unified energy system of such a huge state began.

The reform of purchase prices for agricultural products made collective farms and state farms profitable.

A whole program of building standard livestock farms in the countryside according to the most modern designs was implemented.

A completely new branch of agricultural engineering was created, which gave the village completely new tractors, combines, plows and cultivators.

The new tractor "Kirovets" had no analogues in the world in terms of performance and technical capabilities.

Capital housing construction began in the village. The village for the first time received brick buildings and a modern level of life support. People stopped running from the village. Appliances appeared in every yard: cars and motorcycles. The villagers received passports. In detail, each of these events provided a completely different standard of living in the countryside.

In general, the accelerated construction of a residential complex began in the country. For 8 years, all people from the basements were resettled, which Stalin could not do in 36 years of his reign. After all, this is a fact.

A real cultural revolution began in the country: the system of public education was reorganized; mass production of popular science magazines was launched: "Knowledge is Power", "Science and Life", "Entertaining Physics", "Young Technician", "Wings of the Motherland" and many more magazines in which scientists got the opportunity to acquaint people with his discoveries in all branches of science and technology.

In the field of art and literature, that outlet was opened, which freed all the most advanced and fascinating, the most aesthetic and developing that was only in the then Soviet people. That is why the books and films of that time will live forever and be passed down from generation to generation.

The most advanced branches of science were created. The backlog in biology and genetics was eliminated. But this lag was inspired by those enemies of the people who were sitting nowhere but in the Kremlin.

And, finally, the main event held by Khrushchev, but which is especially diligently hushed up, as, indeed, the whole history of his reign. He made the only attempt in Soviet times to really democratize power in the country. To do this, our vast territory was divided into territorial divisions, united by common economic ties. To manage these units, "Sovnarhozy" (Councils of the National Economy) were created. Thanks to this, all executive power was transferred to the region. And thanks to this, all the planned programs for the social and economic reorganization of the country began to be implemented. The region earned money on its own and spent it on its own.

Imagine, asphalt began to appear not only in Moscow and Leningrad, but also in the regions. Housing construction began not only in the capital, but also in the regions. Transfers are gone. And life in the regions began to develop by itself, regardless of the wishes of Moscow officials. That's what could not be allowed in the capital. They are already accustomed to dispose of everything and have a “gain” from everything. Under Stalin, the people's money flowed like a river through the capital, and where did it go?.. And suddenly it all disappeared. Imagine who Khrushchev became for Moscow officials - enemy number one.

But if Khrushchev became a friend to people living in the regions, then who were the Moscow officials for those same people? I hope now it is not necessary to explain much why and where did "perestroika" come from?

Of course, I didn’t list everything - I didn’t write an essay, but simply recalled from memory, recalling how the country lived in those years, how I lived, in which I myself participated. In those years, everyone could say so about himself, since the whole country was building, developing, erecting, laying, connecting, opening. Space, seas, air space, new lands - everything was subject to the Soviet people, and everything was within their reach. Films were made about it, poems and songs were written, unforgettable books - all this remained in history for centuries and no one will belittle it, will not destroy it. People, if only they are people, should remember this. Although there were, of course, others, as in all times. But I am writing about such people who won the Second World War, who overcame devastation, mastered the virgin lands and built power plants. The whole burden of the accomplished feat always rests on the shoulders of such simple people. They are simple, normal people. Without bragging and ambition, they do the job, no matter how difficult it may be. If the country needs it, then it needs it.

In those post-war years, the coming to power of such an ambiguous figure as Khrushchev was a gift for our country, for its future destiny. For some 8 years, people have learned what they really are and what they can do - each, if they act together ... This is the moral and spiritual value of those years.

Khrushchev only opened a small door to the people's democracy that Marx and Lenin dreamed of, and people, even to this trifle, responded with unheard-of enthusiasm, believed that the country of the Soviets could do anything, that they could do anything. What a time it was! And we, suddenly, became "WE". I beg my peers - let's tell our youth the truth about that time, and not these "fables" about corn and Khrushchev's shoe. The enemies of our people (they really are enemies) just needed something to denigrate this objectionable person. And they did it, and millions believed, as they once believed Stalin and his lackeys about the fictitious "enemies of the people." Haven't our people learned anything yet?

Plot: http://briefly.ru/erenburg/ottepel/

Ehrenburg (1891-1967) - poet, prose writer, international journalist. Was in the Bolshevik underground organization. Genius of form and discoverer of new literary devices. He invented the Soviet epic as a genre. "The Tempest" - 1949. Genre of a picaresque novel. Julio Chorenito. The first one began to use biblical allusions (later Bulgakov). I tried to apply the artistic effect when writing poetic works in one line. This is an invention of Maria Shkapskaya, but Ehrenburg applied it. Ehrenburg possessed an almost bestial social sensitivity.

"Thaw". The main idea is related to the events that shape society. The appearance of a person who has the courage to say what he thinks. It depicts the Khrushchev amnesty, the consequences of this. Depicted the changed relationship with the West. The hero argues with the authorities. He is a writer. His works are discussed, he argues.

Ehrenburg knew how to find words for naming social phenomena. Thaw - most often temporarily warming, then it will freeze again. Ehrenburg's merit is a sense of time and language skills. Ehrenburg was very controversial. The novel "The Tempest" was criticized a lot. For him, the opinion of readers, not critics, was more important. Stalin loved him very much. He was called the last Russian European.

Following the story "The Thaw" appeared the story Panova "Seryozha". Some stories from the life of a little boy. 1955. The child perceives the world good-naturedly and says everything he thinks (Uncle Petya, you are a fool!). It is necessary to give things their names, then life will return to normal.

1956 - A. Yashin "Levers"- story. Vologda writer. In this story, the people in the party want the will to make decisions, but they are waiting for the order to be given to them.

Pavel Nilin "Cruelty". A criminal investigation officer travels through the villages. The problem of justice is incredibly difficult. Ends with the hero's suicide.

Vladimir Dudintsev "We are not united by bread". There are no opportunities for the full realization of the will for a creative person.

1956-57 - Sholokhov "The Fate of Man". From socialist realism there was only a happy ending, from the point of view of modern analysts. Andrei Sokolov is the same age as the century (1900). Maybe it's autobiographical. In the civil war, he loses all his loved ones. In the 20s he became a driver - an advanced profession. Marries, two children. Son Anatoly - very talented, dies on May 9, 1945. Sokolov ended up in a concentration camp, drank vodka with Muller. The war took everything from him. Leaves Voronezh and lives in an apartment. Picked up the homeless orphan Vanyushka. Sokolov is afraid to die in his sleep - he will scare Vanyushka. This is a story of great hope. We must remain human, feeling and sensitive.

The Stalin era ruled out the human factor. There are no irreplaceable people. According to Stalin, prisoners of war were considered traitors, so Sholokhov opened a new topic. You couldn't write about them.

Changes in the linguistic qualities of literature in Sholokhov and Nilin. Sholokhov has unique speech characteristics of the characters.

Human life is determined by love, according to Sholokhov. Sokolov, fighting, remembers his family, not Stalin. He is worried that he pushed his wife Irina before leaving.

A significant artistic achievement of the writer was the story "Destiny of Man" published on the pages of Pravda in 1957. The story quickly became known to the whole world. Based on it, the talented Soviet film director and actor S. Bondarchuk created a wonderful film under the same name.

Roman Abramova "Brothers and sisters ».

Bright focus of the administrative system.

Pery raised the problem of the state's responsibility to the individual.

Abramov did not see any changes in the literature after the 1952 article. Decided to quit my job at uni. He began to write his own novel according to his own criteria. 1958 - the novel "Brothers and Sisters".

Lev Abramovich Dodin - play "Brothers and Sisters". He is already 40 years old. Theater of Europe on Rubinstein in St. Petersburg.

Russian lyrical prose appears in the "thaw". Stories by Yuri Kazakov ("Autumn in oak forests").

Youth prose: Granin, Trifonov, Vasily Aksenov. Urban prose.

The tragic conflict between the ideal and reality in P. Nilin's story "Cruelty" (1956).

If V. Dudintsev in his novel “Not by Bread Alone” was one of the first to try to answer the question “what is the essence of the system?”, “What is it based on?”, then another Russian writer P. Nilin in his story “Cruelty” first asked an extremely important question: when did this start, when was the system based on lies, fear and hypocrisy born? In 1937 or much earlier? The duration of P. Nilin's story is the winter of 1922 - the summer of 1923. Location - Siberia, Krasnoyarsk Territory. The heroes of the work are employees of the criminal investigation department, security officers who are at war with gangs consisting of local peasants who do not want to obey the Soviet regime. It is not for nothing that the writer displays the word "cruelty" in the title of the story. It was cruelty that was the first fruit of the system. Is cruelty necessary, asks 18-year-old Chekist Venka Malyshev, and is a lie necessary? Pavel Nilin creates the image of an idealist who believes in the rightness of the revolutionary cause, convinced that revolutionary truth does not need to be deceived and embellished. Venka Malyshev, believing in the correction of the bandit Baukin, used his help to capture the ataman of the gang, Konstantin Vorontsov. But the victory obtained by Malyshev with the help of military cunning and revolutionary truth turns into lies, betrayal and deceit in the hands of the head of the criminal investigation department and journalist Uzelkov who oppose Malyshev. The latter see lies as a political tool necessary to achieve victory. If for the idealist Venka Malyshev it is important not only to win, but also how to fight, then only victory is important for his opponents. The main conflict is associated with different attitudes towards people, towards a person. Venka Malyshev believes in people, recognizes their right to make mistakes, and, consequently, the need for persuasion. For his opponents, people, as individuals, do not exist, they are “carnations”, which “you won’t notice in a huge state”. The head of the criminal investigation department arrests Baukin, and the honest Malyshev finds himself in the position of a deceiver. He is ashamed to look Baukin in the eye, it hurts him for the undermined authority of the Soviet government. Seeing no place for himself in the emerging system, Venka shoots himself. Referring to the image of the “repentant Chekist”, P. Nilin expresses the tragic conflict between the ideal and reality, between faith in the power of an idea and faith in mere strength, between trust and suspicion, between humanity and cruelty. Thus, the significance of P. Nilin's story lies in the fact that it shows that "evil" was born in the early years of the revolution ...

21. Ideological and artistic originality of V.G. Rasputin "Farewell to Matera"

Valentin Grigoryevich Rasputin was born in 1937 in the village of Ust-Uda, which stands on the Angara, almost halfway between Irkutsk and Bratsk. After school in 1959 he graduated historical and philological department of Irkutsk University, then took up journalism. The first essays and stories of Rasputin were written as a result of correspondent work, trips to Siberia close to his heart; observations and impressions were deposited in them, which became the basis for the writer's reflections on the fate of his native land. Rasputin loves his homeland. He cannot imagine life without Siberia, without these bitter frosts, without this blinding eye of the sun. That is why in his works the writer reveals taiga romance, the unity of people with nature, depicts characters that fascinate with their strength, primordialness, naturalness. Rasputin discovered such characters in Siberian villages. On the basis of the Siberian village, such novels as Deadline* (1970), Money for Mary (1967), Upstream and Downstream were written. Here the author raises the high moral problems of goodness and justice, sensitivity and generosity of the human heart, purity and frankness in relations between people. However, Rasputin was interested not only in the personality with its spiritual world, but also in the future of this personality. And I would like to talk about just such a work in which the problem is posed of human existence on Earth, the problem of the life of generations, which, replacing each other, should not lose touch. This is the story "Farewell to Matera". I would like to note that Rasputin tried to restore interest in the old Russian narrative genre, the story.

"Farewell to Matera" - a kind of drama of people's life - was written in 1976. Here we are talking about human memory and loyalty to one's family.

The action of the story takes place in the village of Matera, which is about to die: a dam is being built on the river to build a power plant, so “the water along the river and rivers will rise and spill, flood ...”, of course, Matera. The fate of the village is sealed. Young people leave for the city without hesitation. The new generation does not have a craving for the land, for the Motherland, it is always striving to "move to a new life." Of course, the fact that life is a constant movement, change, that one cannot remain motionless in one place for a century, that progress is necessary. But people who entered the era of scientific and technological revolution, should not lose touch with their roots destroy and forget centuries-old traditions, cross out thousands of years of history, on the mistakes of which they should learn, and not make their own, sometimes irreparable.

All the characters in the story can be conditionally divided into "fathers" and "children".“Fathers * are people for whom a break with the earth is fatal, they grew up on it and absorbed love for it with their mother's milk. This is Bogodul, and grandfather Yegor, and Nastasya, and Sima, and Katerina.

“Children” are those youth who so easily left the village to the mercy of fate, a village with a history of three hundred years. This is Andrey, and Petruha, and Klavka Strigunova. As we know, the views of the "fathers" differ sharply from the views of the "children", therefore the conflict between them is eternal and inevitable. And if in Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" the truth was on the side of the "children", on the side of the new generation, which sought to eradicate the morally decaying nobility, then in the story "Farewell to Matera" the situation is completely opposite: youth destroys the only thing that makes it possible preservation of life on earth (customs, traditions, national roots).

The main ideological character of the story - old woman Daria. This is the person who, until the end of his life, until his last minute, remained devoted to his homeland, Daria formulates the main idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe work, which the author himself wants to convey to the reader: “The truth is in memory. He who has no memory has no life." This woman is a kind of keeper of eternity. Daria is a true national character. The thoughts of this dear old woman are very close to the writer. Rasputin gives her only positive features, simple and unpretentious speech. I must say that all the old-timers of Matera are described by the author with warmth. How skillfully depicts Rasputin scenes of parting people with the village. Let us read again how Yegor and Nastasya postpone their departure again and again, how they do not want to leave their native land, how Bogodul desperately fights to preserve the cemetery, because it is sacred for the inhabitants of Matera: “... And the old women crawled along cemetery, stuck crosses back, installed bedside tables.

All this proves once again that it is impossible to tear a people away from the earth, from its roots, that such actions can be equated with brutal murder.

The author very deeply comprehended the problem that confronted society in the era of scientific and technological revolution - the problem of the loss of national culture. From the whole story it is clear that this topic worried Rasputin and was also relevant in his homeland: it is not for nothing that he places Matera on the banks of the Angara,

Matera is a symbol of life. Yes, she was flooded, but her memory remained, she will live forever.

"Farewell to Matera" - generalized symbolic in meaning a drama in which we are talking about human memory, loyalty to one's own kind . The main character is Daria. One of her main character traits is sense of memory, responsibility toancestors. The same question, addressed to herself and her children, to past and future generations, posed by Anna Stepanovna (“Deadline”), now sounds with renewed vigor in Daria’s speeches, and in the entire content of the work: “And who knows the truth about man: ... How should a man feel, for whom many generations have lived? He doesn't feel anything. He doesn't understand anything." Daria finds the main part of the answer: “The truth is in the memory. He who has no memory has no life." The story describes the conflict between "fathers andchildren", since Daria's moral home is opposed tothe position of Andrei's grandson, inspired by everything new, progressive. The story is full of symbolism: in Matera we guess sim the ox of life, and perhaps our land; in Daria - the keeper this life, the mother through whom truth itself speaks. This story is a kind of warning about danger, threatening mother earth, “like an island”, lost “in the cosmic ocean”. There are many other symbolic images in the story: symbolicallythe image of the hut that Daria decorates before being burned; thatman who hides the island. And, only digressing from the real concreteness of the content, it becomes clear the determination of Daria and her friends not to part with Matera (the earth) and share her fate. In general, the story is characterized by sharp publicism, high Tolstoy edification, apocalyptic worldview. The sound of the central theme carries a high biblical tragedy. The finale of the story was disputed in criticism, the concept of the work, which was in conflict with the ideas of progress, caused an objection.

22. Ideological and artistic originality of V.P. Astafiev "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess".

A little more than half a century that passed after the Great Patriotic War did not weaken the interest of society in this historical event. The time of democracy and glasnost, which illuminated many pages of our past with the light of truth, poses more and more questions to historians and writers. And along with the traditionally considered works by Y. Bondarev, V. Bykov, V. Bogomolov, our life includes “not tolerating half-truths” novels by V. Astafiev “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess”, V. Grossman “Life and Fate”, novels and stories by V. Nekrasov, K. Vorobyov, V. Kondratiev.

“War has been and remains a fatal obstacle on the noble human path - the most immoral act of all that man has created *. And that is why the war does not stop in the work of Viktor Astafiev. About those young guys with whom the writer had to fight, but who did not have a chance to live to see the Victory, he wrote one of the best, in my opinion, one of the most “difficult and more painful things he got” - the story “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess”. In this story, recreated an image of pure love, the life of human souls, not crushed or crushed by war.

"Modern pastoral" (Pastoral - a genre in literature, painting, music and theater, poetizing the peaceful and simple rural life) - such a subtitle, which determines and clarifies a lot in the ideological sound of the work, was given by the writer of his story, in which there is love, there is happiness - these are the main signs of the traditional pastoral.

But it is not for nothing that the writer put the word “modern” next to the word “pastoral”, as if emphasizing the cruel certainty of time, ruthless to human destinies, to the most subtle and quivering impulses of the soul.

There is a very important opposition in the story - the childhood memory of the protagonist, Lieutenant Boris Kostyaev, about a theater with columns and music, about white sheep grazing on a green lawn, about dancing young shepherds and shepherds who loved each other, and "were not ashamed of this love, and who were not afraid for her, sharply, screamingly contrasts, outwardly restrained, but inwardly amazingly deep and emotional, with the aggravated pain and aching sadness of the scene written about the murdered old men, the farm shepherd and the shepherdess, "embracing faithfully at the hour of death."

“A volley of artillery preparation pressed the old men behind the bath - they almost killed them. They lay, covering each other. The old woman hid her face under the old man's arm. And the dead were beaten with shrapnel, their clothes were cut...” This short scene, the symbolism of which is especially obvious in contrast to the theatrical idyll, is perhaps the central one in the work. It seems to be concentrated the tragedy of war, its inhumanity. And now we cannot perceive the further narrative, follow the short, like a flash of a rocket, the love story of Boris and Lucy, the fate of other characters, otherwise through the lens of this scene.

To show the inhumane essence of the war, breaking and distorting destinies, not sparing life itself, is the main task that V. Astafiev set for himself in the story.

The writer plunges us into the atmosphere of war, densely saturated with pain, fury, bitterness, suffering, blood. Here is a picture of a night battle: “Hand-to-hand combat has begun. Hungry, demoralized by the environment and the cold, the Germans climbed forward madly and blindly. They were quickly finished off with bayonets. But this wave was followed by another, a third. Everything changed, the trembling of the earth, the recoils of the cannons, worn with a screech, which now hit both their own and the Germans, not understanding who was where. Yes, and it was impossible to disassemble anything. ” This scene is intended to bring the reader to the main idea of ​​the story: the unnaturalness that makes people kill each other.

Outside of this main idea, one cannot understand the tragedy of the story of Lieutenant Boris Kostaev, who died in a sanitary hospital, to whom the war gave love and immediately took it away. “Nothing could be corrected and returned. Everything was and everything is gone.”

In the story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess", a work of great philosophical meaning, along with people of high spirit and strong feelings, the writer creates the image of foreman Mokhnakov, capable of violence, ready to cross the line of humanity, neglect the pain of others. The tragedy of Boris Kostaev becomes even clearer if you take a closer look at one of the central images - foreman Mokhnakov, who, not by chance, passes next to the main character.

Once, in a conversation with Lyusya, Boris will utter very important words that it is terrible to get used to death, to come to terms with it. And with Boris and Mokhnakov, who was on the front line, constantly seeing death in all its manifestations, something happens that Kostaev was afraid of, They are used to death.

The story of V. Astafiev warns: "People! This must not happen again! »

23. Ideological and artistic originality of Y. Trifonov's story "Exchange".

In the center of Yuri Trifonov's story "Exchange" are the attempts of the protagonist, an ordinary Moscow intellectual Viktor Georgievich Dmitriev, to exchange an apartment and improve his living conditions. To do this, he needs to move in with a seriously ill mother, who guesses that she does not have long to live. The son assures her that he really wants to live with her in order to take better care of her, but the mother guesses that he is primarily interested not in her, but in the living space and that he is in a hurry with the exchange because of fear that in the event of her death he will lose mother's room. Material interest replaced Dmitriev's feeling of sons' love. And it is no coincidence that at the end of the story, his mother tells him that she used to want to live with him, but now she doesn’t, because: “You have already exchanged, Vitya. The exchange took place... It was a very long time ago. And it always happens, every day, so don't be surprised, Vitya. And don't get angry. It’s just so imperceptible ... ”Dmitriev, a initially good person, gradually, under the influence of his wife’s egoism, and even his own, exchanged moral principles for philistine welfare. True, having managed to move in with his mother literally on the eve of her death, this death, perhaps a little accelerated by a hasty exchange, is going through hard: “After the death of Ksenia Fedorovna, Dmitriev had a hypertensive crisis, and he lay at home for three weeks in strict bed rest. After all this, he passed and looked like “not yet an old man, but already elderly.” What is the reason for Dmitriev's moral decline?

In the course of the story, the grandfather, an old revolutionary, says to Victor, “You are not a bad person. But not amazing either." In Dmitriev there is no lofty idea that inspires his life, there is no passion for any business. Not, which turns out to be very important in this case, and willpower, Dmitriev cannot resist the pressure of his wife Lena, who is striving to obtain life's blessings at any cost. At times he protests, makes scandals, but only to clear his conscience, because he almost always capitulates in the end and does as Lena wants. Dmitriev's wife has long been putting her own prosperity at the forefront. And she knows that her husband will be an obedient tool in achieving her goals: “... She spoke as if everything was predetermined and as if it was clear to him, Dmitriev, that everything was predetermined, and they understand each other without words.” Regarding people like Lena, Trifonov said in an interview with critic A. Bocharov: “Egoism is that in humanity that is most difficult to overcome.” And at the same time, the writer is far from sure whether it is possible in principle to completely defeat human egoism, or whether it would not be more reasonable to try to introduce it into some kind of moral limits, to set certain boundaries for it. For example, such: the desire of each person to satisfy their own needs is legitimate and fair as long as it does not harm other people. After all, egoism is one of the most powerful factors in the development of man and society, and this cannot be ignored. Let us recall that Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky wrote about “reasonable egoism” with sympathy and almost as an ideal of behavior in the novel What Is To Be Done? The trouble, however, is that it is very difficult in real life to find the line that separates "reasonable egoism" from "unreasonable." Trifonov emphasized in the mentioned interview: "Egoism disappears where an idea arises." Dmitriev and Lena do not have such an idea, so selfishness becomes their only moral value. But this idea and the comforts of those who oppose them do not exist - Ksenia Feodorovna, Victor's sister Laura, cousin of the protagonist Marina ... And it is no coincidence that in a conversation with another critic, L. Anninsky, the writer objected to him: “You pretended that I idolize the Dmitrievs (meaning all representatives of this family, except for Viktor Georgievich. - B.S.), and I mock them ". Dmitriev, unlike the family of Lena, Lukyanov, they are not very adapted to life, they do not know how to benefit for themselves either at work or at home. They do not know how and do not want to live at the expense of others. However, Dmitriev's mother and his relatives are by no means ideal people. They are characterized by one very disturbing vice of Trifonov - intolerance. Ksenia Fedorovna calls Lena a bourgeois, she is a hypocrite. In fact, Dmitriev's mother is hardly fair to consider a hypocrite, but the inability to accept and understand people with different behavioral attitudes makes her difficult to communicate, and this type of people is not viable in the long run. Grandfather Dmitriev was still inspired by the revolutionary idea. For subsequent generations, it has greatly faded due to comparison with the post-revolutionary reality, which is very far from ideal. And Trifonov understands that in the late 60s, when "Exchange" was written, this idea is already dead, and the Dmitrievs have no new one. This is the tragedy of the situation.On the one hand, there are Lukyanov's acquirers, who know how to work well (that Lena is valued at work is emphasized in the story),they know how to equip life, but they don’t think about anything other than this. On the other hand, the Dmitrievs, who still retain the inertia of intellectual decency, but with time are losing it more and more, not supported by the idea. The same Viktor Georgievich has already “became a fool”, - probably, in the new generation this process will accelerate. The only hope is that the conscience will awaken in the main character. Still, the death of his mother caused him some kind of moral shock, with which, apparently, Dmitriev's physical ailment was also connected. However, there is little chance of his moral revival. The worm of consumerism has already deeply drained his soul, and weakness of will prevents him from taking decisive steps towards fundamental changes in his life. And not without reason, in the last lines of the story, the author reports that he learned the whole story from Viktor Georgievich himself, who now looks like a sick man, crushed by life. The exchange of moral values ​​for material ones, which took place in his soul, led to a sad result. A reverse exchange is hardly possible for Dmitriev.

24. Ideological and artistic originality of A. Platonov's story "Return".

Biography of Platonov, written by Brodsky:

“Andrei Platonovich Platonov was born in 1899 and died in 1951 from tuberculosis, infected by his son, whose release from prison he achieved after much effort, only for his son to die in his arms. By education, an ameliorator engineer (Platonov worked for several years on various irrigation projects), he began to write quite early, at the age of twenty-something, that is, in the twenties of our century. He participated in the civil war, worked in various newspapers and, although he was reluctantly printed, gained fame in the thirties. Then his son was arrested on charges of an anti-Soviet conspiracy, then the first signs of official ostracism appeared, then the Second World War began, during which Platonov served in the army, working in a military newspaper. After the war, he was forced into silence; his story, published in 1946, served as a pretext for a devastating article to a whole page of the Literary Gazette, written by a leading critic, and that was the end. After that, he was only occasionally allowed to do anything as a freelance anonymous lits worker, such as - edit some fairy tales for children. Nothing else. But by this time, his tuberculosis had worsened, so he could do almost nothing anyway. He, his wife and daughter lived on the salary of his wife, who worked as an editor; he sometimes worked as a janitor or a stagehand at a theater nearby.”

The genre originality of A. Platonov's stories is also manifested in the way the image of the hero is constructed and in the organization of the narrative action in them. In many stories by A. Platonov the conflict was based on the opposition of the untrue understanding of life to the true. Narrative action in the stories of A. Platonov, as a rule, focused on depicting the hero's transition from one way of understanding life to another At the same time, the consciousness of the hero is rebuilt in the most radical way, and with it, the very scale of comprehension of life and the depth of its comprehension change. In the spiritual feat of forgiveness and philanthropy, in returning to the true moral foundations of life, the hero of the story "The Return" (1946), the Russian man Alexei Ivanov, finally defeats the devastating consequences of the war, acquires spiritual integrity. Not so much the return of the hero home to his family, but "return to yourself" lost four years ago.

The terrible test that a person goes through in war is not limited to physical pain, deprivation, horror, the constant presence of death. In the story "Return" Platonov said about the main evil that war brings - bitterness. The loss of emotional ties with loved ones became Ivanov's tragedy . He sees the pitiful Petrushka, in need of love and care, but feels only coldness, indifference and irritation. A child who, due to the fault of the war, had to grow up rapidly and painfully, does not understand why his father refuses him sincere love. And Ivanov leaves the family, and only children running after him, and then falling, exhausted, break the wall of indifference.Self-love, interest - everything goes somewhere far away, and only a “naked heart”, open to love, remains.

Ivanov's soul is incapable of touching someone else's soul. A long absence from home isolated him from his family. He believes that he accomplished feats in the war, while they lived a "normal" life here. Ivanov decides to leave, Ivanov's sharp dialogues with his relatives are replaced in the middle of the work by the author's monologue (as at the beginning of the story), but the author names his hero not as at the beginning of the story - "Ivanov", but "their father".

When the children run after him: And then they fell to the ground again, "and suddenly Ivanov" himself felt how hot it became in his chest, as if the heart, enclosed and languishing in him, had been beating long and in vain all his life and only now it broke free, filling his whole being with warmth and shudder."

It is necessary to build the future not at the expense of those who live in the present.

25. Dramaturgy of the second half of the twentieth century. General characteristics. Analysis of one work (at the student's choice).

Drama (other Greekδρᾶμα - deed, action) - one of the three types of literature, along with epic and lyrics, simultaneously belongs to two types of art: literature and theater. Intended to be played on stage, drama differs formally from epic and lyric poetry in that the text in it is presented in the form of replicas of characters and author's remarks, as a rule, is divided into actions and phenomena.

A unique kind of literature. First came the lyrics, then the epic art, then the dramaturgy. Translate monologue into dialogue is a very difficult task. The intermediality of the text is the use of different sign systems. One critic believed that before Ostrovsky there were only three playwrights in Russia: Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Sumarokov. Plus Gogol's Inspector General. Then Chekhov, Gorky, Andreev, Blok, Mayakovsky, Bulgakov, and then a lull came. In the 1950s, the revival of dramaturgy began.

Several directions . The most famous -production drama :Ignatius Dvoretsky "Man from outside", Bokarev "Steelworkers", Alexander Gelman "Minutes of one meeting" (film adaptation of Panfilov's "Award"). Minutes of one meeting of the party committee. A quarterly bonus is issued to the brigade, but the entire brigade comes and refuses. The workers say that they did not fulfill the plan and want to work honestly. The problem of the responsibility of each person for what is happening in this world. There are no ordinary people. In this approximately was the essence of industrial dramaturgy . Kitchen Democracy – Discussions are bold in kitchens, but not elsewhere. Serious social problems turned out to be the subject of public discussion. A signal that true democracy can begin. Peculiarities:

But all the plays had only a journalistic character.

Eliminate family conflicts

Such dramaturgy severely limited the idea of ​​​​artistic space, that is, events took place in the premises for official meetings, in the offices of chiefs

Raising a particular case to unfounded generalizations is the biggest drawback. One case turned into an alleged typicality, although this is not so.

This drama was a step towards the theory of non-conflict.

The second direction is lyrical melodrama . Alexander Volodin is a Leningrad playwright. His classic Five Evenings. In the Youth Theater on the Fontanka there are his productions. Leonid Zorin "Warsaw Melody" at the Alexandrinsky Theatre. Peculiarities:

Narrowing of space and narrowing of time. In "Five Evenings" everything happens in a communal apartment

Refusal of socially significant issues. Volodin said: “We are abandoning the bureaucracy”

Raised questions about the meaning of human life and the mode of human existence

Avoiding happy endings. This was a direct challenge to the conflict-free theory.

Third direction - military drama. Opening - Viktor Rozov "Forever Alive" (1956). This is a play about the war, written in the mainstream of military prose. Not a single shot. About events in the rear. About love, expectation, fidelity. The war was won by an effort of will of a huge number of people, united by a fantastic desire for victory.

The fourth direction satirical drama . Soviet satire - Shukshin. The play "Energetic people". Energetic people are the Chichikovs of the Soviet era.

Analysis of one work (at the student's choice):

Alexander Valentinovich Vampilov (1937-1972). He loves Gogol, Chekhov. He was a classmate of Valentin Rasputin. Faculty of History and Philology of Irkutsk University. Vampilov wrote 10 humorous stories. He became famous as a comedian. Then he had Provincial Anecdotes. Everyone began to believe that he was a satirist playwright. He himself was a deeply tragic figure. He was talented and incredibly proud. Approximately the same aura that Zakhar Prilepin now possesses. Vampilov's plays are staged in every city in Russia. He tragically died on Baikal with frequent visits to Moscow. I went fishing with a friend to Lake Baikal. The boat capsized in the icy water. The comrade held on to the edges of the boat and called for help. But Vampilov did not like to call for help, for the wrestler began to swim to the shore, and his legs cramped, and he died in front of everyone. He believed that everyone should choose for himself. His personality as a playwright:

In his plays, it is always an accident, a trifle, a combination of circumstances becomes the most dramatic moment in a person's life. The situation is a test.

Vampilov's Man - ordinary person. His heroes, as a rule, are the heroes of the Russian outback. He introduced the concept of a province. Reminiscent of Chekhov's concept of a province. At that time, Moscow snobbery was on a grand scale.

Vampilov in a microscene, in detail, in a gesture, in a short monologue, he was able to convey the feeling of the hero's entire previous life.

Large genre range: from lyric-comedy to tragicomedy

When life goes apart, the hope of a person is only on himself. Vampilov was for such people. Who can resist the whole world. What is wrong with today's world? This is one of Vampilov's questions."Provincial Anecdotes". An anecdote is not a fictional, extraordinary case with a paradoxical ending. For Vampilov, these are anecdotes made on local material in local space. The main characters are characters unmarked by time. "Twenty minutes with an angel."

"Provincial Jokes"- these are two one-act plays: "The Story of the Metranpage" and "Twenty Minutes with an Angel", which were written by Alexander Vampilov in the early 1960s, much earlier than they were merged into Provincial Jokes, which probably happened in the first half of 1968.