To live honestly, you have to rush, get confused, fight, make mistakes 8230 Based on Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace

Problems of morality and spirituality have always been the most important in the literature of the 19th century. Writers and their heroes were constantly worried about the deepest and most serious questions: how to live, what is the meaning of human life, how to come to God, how to change for the better not only their lives, but also the lives of other people. It is precisely these thoughts that overwhelm one of the main characters of the novel L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace" by Pierre Bezukhov.

At the beginning of the novel, Pierre appears to us as a completely naive, inexperienced young man who lived his entire youth abroad. He does not know how to behave in secular society; in Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s salon he causes concern and fear to the hostess: “Although indeed Pierre was somewhat larger than the other men in the room, this fear could only relate to that intelligent and at the same time timid, observant and natural look , which distinguished him from everyone in this living room.” Pierre behaves naturally, he is the only one in this environment who does not wear a mask of hypocrisy, he says what he thinks.

Having become the owner of a large inheritance, Pierre, with his honesty and faith in the kindness of people, falls into the net set by Prince Kuragin. The prince's attempts to take possession of the inheritance were unsuccessful, so he decided to get the money in another way: to marry Pierre to his daughter Helen. Pierre is attracted by her external beauty, but he cannot figure out whether she is smart or kind. For a long time he does not dare to propose to her, in fact he does not propose it, Prince Kuragin decides everything for him. After marriage, there comes a turning point in the hero’s life, a period of comprehension of his entire life, its meaning. The culmination of these experiences of Pierre was a duel with Dolokhov, Helen's lover. In the good-natured and peace-loving Pierre, who learned about the arrogant and cynical attitude of Helen and Dolokhov towards him, anger began to boil, “something terrible and ugly rose in his soul.” The duel highlights all of Pierre's best qualities: his courage, the courage of a man who has nothing to lose, his love of humanity, his moral strength. Having wounded Dolokhov, he waits for his shot: “Pierre, with a meek smile of regret and repentance, helplessly spreading his legs and arms, stood straight in front of Dolokhov with his broad chest and looked sadly at him.” The author compares Pierre with Dolokhov in this scene: Pierre does not want to harm him, much less kill him, and Dolokhov laments that he missed and did not hit Pierre. After the duel, Pierre was tormented by thoughts and experiences: “Such a storm of feelings, thoughts, memories suddenly arose in his soul that he not only could not sleep, but could not sit still and had to jump up from the sofa and walk quickly around the room.” He analyzes everything that happened, the relationship with his wife, the duel and understands that he has lost all life values, he does not know how to live further, he blames only himself for making this mistake - marrying Helen, reflects on life and death: “Who is right, who guilty? Nobody. But live and live: tomorrow you will die, just as I could have died an hour ago. And is it worth it to suffer when you only have one second to live compared to eternity? ...What's wrong? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? Why live and what am I? What is life, what is death? What force controls everything? In this state of moral doubt, he meets the freemason Bazdeev at an inn in Torzhok, and this man’s “strict, intelligent and insightful expression of gaze” amazes Bezukhov. Bazdeev sees the reason for Pierre’s misfortune in his lack of faith in God: “Pierre, with a sinking heart, looking into the Freemason’s face with shining eyes, listened to him, did not interrupt, did not ask him, but with all his soul believed what this stranger was telling him.” Pierre himself joins the Masonic lodge and tries to live according to the laws of goodness and justice. Having received life support in the form of Freemasonry, he gains self-confidence and purpose in life. Pierre travels through his estates, trying to make life easier for his serfs. He wants to build schools and hospitals for the peasants, but the cunning manager deceives Pierre, and there are no practical results from Pierre’s trip. But he himself is full of faith in himself, and during this period of his life he manages to help his friend, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who is raising his son after the death of his wife. Prince Andrei experiences disappointment in life after Austerlitz, after the death of the little princess, and Pierre manages to stir him up, awaken interest in his surroundings: “If there is a God and there is a future life, then there is truth, there is virtue; and man's highest happiness consists in striving to achieve them. We must live, we must love, we must believe that we do not live now only on this piece of land, but have lived and will live forever there, in everything.”

Tolstoy shows us how a period of comprehension of one’s life can be replaced by complete disappointment and despair, which is what happens to his favorite hero. Pierre loses faith in the teachings of the Freemasons when he sees that they are all busy not with the order of the world, but with their own career, well-being, and the pursuit of power. He returns to secular society and again lives an empty, meaningless life. The only thing he has in life is love for Natasha, but an alliance between them is impossible. The war with Napoleon gives meaning to Pierre's life: he is present at the Battle of Borodino, he sees the courage and heroism of Russian soldiers, he is next to them at the Raevsky battery, brings them shells, helps in any way he can. Despite his awkward appearance for battle (he arrived in a green tailcoat and white hat), the soldiers took a liking to Pierre for his courage and even gave him the nickname “our master.” The terrible picture of the battle struck Pierre. When he sees that almost everyone at the battery died, he thinks: “No, now they will leave it, now they will be horrified by what they did!” After the battle, Pierre reflects on the courage of the Russian soldiers: “To be a soldier, just a soldier! To enter this common life with your whole being, to be imbued with what makes them so... The most difficult thing is to be able to unite in your soul the meaning of everything... No, not to unite. You cannot connect thoughts, but connecting all these thoughts is what you need! Yes, we need to mate, we need to mate!” To connect his life with the life of the people - this is the idea Pierre comes to. Further events in Pierre's life only confirm this idea. An attempt to kill Napoleon in burning Moscow results in saving the life of a French officer, and rescuing a girl from a burning house and helping a woman results in being taken prisoner. In Moscow, Pierre accomplishes his feat, but for him this is natural human behavior, since he is brave and noble. Probably the most important events in Pierre's life take place in captivity. Acquaintance with Platon Karataev taught Pierre the necessary life wisdom that he lacked. The ability to adapt to any conditions and not lose humanity and kindness at the same time - this was revealed to Pierre by a simple Russian man. “For Pierre, as he presented himself on the first night, an incomprehensible, round and eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth, that is how he remained forever,” writes Tolstoy about Platon Karataev. In captivity, Pierre begins to feel his unity with the world: “Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the receding, playing stars. “And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me!”

When Pierre is released, when a completely different life begins, full of new problems, everything that he suffered and experienced is preserved in his soul. Everything Pierre experienced did not pass without a trace, he became a person who knows the meaning of life, its purpose. A happy family life did not make him forget about his purpose. The fact that Pierre joins a secret society, that he is a future Decembrist, is natural for Pierre. All his life he earned the right to fight for the rights of other people.

Describing the life of his hero, Tolstoy shows us a vivid illustration of the words that he once wrote in his diary: “To live honestly, you have to rush, get confused, fight, make mistakes, start and quit, and start again, and quit again, and forever struggle and lose. And calmness is spiritual meanness.”

Yaroslav Galan Belyaev Vladimir Pavlovich

“Calmness is spiritual meanness...”

Slavko was looking forward to the evening.

The habits in their family developed over the years. Now the father will cross the threshold and will definitely ask: “Well, how is life, Yaroslav Alexandrovich? What have you done today for immortality?..” He will spend a long time splashing around at the old washstand in the hallway, and just as long looking through newspapers, gloomily commenting on events, and quietly dozing on the sofa for another hour or two.

Things got interesting later. Reading. Father or mother took turns reading “War and Peace,” then Turgenev’s novels, then Pushkin’s poems.

The evenings were like twins, similar to each other. Yes, in fact, what could you do when the tedious autumn rains drummed sadly on the windows day after day, and, except for the monument to the famous King Jagiello on Market Square, there was absolutely nothing in Dynova that could stop the attention of not only the natives there places, a petty official Alexander Mikhailovich Galan, but even a “fresh”, visiting person.

My God,” my father sighed sadly over evening tea. - Somewhere people go to the theater, attend concerts, live fully and spiritually! Milan, Paris, St. Petersburg! And our Dynov! Listen, son,” he addressed Slavko, after drinking one or two glasses of slivovitz. - Listen to what awaits the “curious traveler,” as the gentlemen from the advertising bureau like to say, in our God-saved city!

My father took from the closet a tattered guidebook he had bought somewhere for the occasion and in a sing-song voice, clearly mocking and swaggering, began to read the lines that Yaroslav knew almost by heart: “The town of Dynov is located 49 kilometers from the city of Przemysl and one kilometer away from the station. A cab fare costs one crown. Dynow has 3,100 inhabitants, among them 1,600 Poles, 1,450 Jews and 50 Rusyns. You can spend the night in the inns of Jan Kędzierski and Joanna Tulinska. There is a buffet... The town was previously surrounded by ramparts, the remains of which have been preserved. On Market Square stands a monument to King Jagiello. The local church was built back in the 15th century at the expense of Malgorzata Wapowska and burned down twice, set on fire by the Tatars and Hungarians of Rakocs... The surroundings are beautiful in the valley of the San River, which turns from here through Dubetsko and Krasszga to Przemysl, forming a bizarre ravine under Slonny. There are oil wells and coal mines in the surrounding area. Twelve times a year, well-attended fairs are held in Dynova.”

And in this hole,” the father commented, “you, my friend, on the historic day for you, the twenty-seventh of July 1902, managed to be born... To be born,” the father taught, getting more and more tipsy, “to be born, dear, is the easiest thing.” How to live? That is the question, as the Prince of Denmark said... My only friends! Here they are. - Father’s eyes moistened as he carefully, with unusual tenderness, touched the spines of the books. Bound sets of “Niva” and “Motherland”, volumes of Tolstoy, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Dostoevsky, “Kobzar” by Shevchenko. The solid volumes of the Encyclopedic Dictionary gleamed with dull gold.

It always seemed incredible to Slavko that one person could read so many books.

Isn't that a lot! - Father put his hand on his shoulder. - I even envy you, son. Your acquaintance with all these and many, many other books is still ahead of you. This is incomparable. It's like living a thousand lives yourself...

When my father talked about books, he was transformed. It seemed that in the soul of this gloomy, despotic man, unknown secrets were revealed, which he jealously guarded from everyone who could touch them with a cold, indifferent word.

This happened shortly after his, Slavko’s, birthday.

There was no traditional reading that evening. Slavko and sister Stefa were put to bed earlier than usual. Huddled under the blanket and pretending to be asleep, Yaroslav listened to the voices coming from the other room:

It’s kind of scary, Sasha, to change everything at once. They seem to have settled in and settled down. And now - start all over again.

But there is no school in Dynova. He doesn't know how to grow.

“It’s true,” the mother sighed. - But where should we go? And how will everything work out for you with the service?

If only there was a neck, there would be a clamp! - the father joked gloomily. - I was thinking about Przemysl. After all, that’s where you come from. And there are friends there. It will be easier to settle in.

Slavko did not hear the end of the conversation. He was already traveling with his father and mother on a cart loaded with trunks and suitcases. A cheerful gentleman, who decided to have fun from his righteous labors in Lvov, hurried towards them on a rattling phaeton. Along the sides of the road stretched either a golden sea of ​​grain, or pitiful growth on ragged hills, separated by boundaries overgrown with quinoa and looking like a patchwork quilt. On one of the hills, a peasant was plowing on a cow, and a well-fed priest passing by hastily blessed the hard work of God's servant.

Then the muddy waters of the San appeared, and Slavko recognized the places where he and his father had wandered, heading out to hunt. They stopped at those white monastery buildings to have a snack and rest. Slavko did not have time to really get a good look at the monastery courtyard: both the fields and the brown cow harnessed to the plow - everything was touched by a gray haze, spinning, as if in a kaleidoscope, sounds and voices disappeared, and all this was replaced by calm silence and nothingness.

Slavko was sleeping.

At first, something like an “exclusion strip” emerged between Yaroslav and the class at Przemysl Primary School. He himself was to blame for this.

Yaroslav Domaradzki, the tough guy from the next desk, was the first to offer him friendship. He waddled up during recess and took me to the window.

Listen, is it you who hang around Sanya all the time or sit behind books? Boredom!.. And I’m bored,” he frankly admitted. - Shall we play catch?

That I’m a dog,” Slavko shrugged, “to run around pointlessly.” Now, if you play chess, go ahead. With pleasure.

Chess is boring. Sit and think...

A person differs from a calf in that he thinks all the time,” Slavko snapped.

Well as you know…

Apparently, this conversation became known in class. Galan was left alone, and when there was not enough man for any game, they waved their hand hopelessly: “Don’t mess with him. He will invite you to play chess..."

But one day everything changed.

There's a new kid in the class.

The name of? - Vasil immediately asked the bully, who never had a clue what to do with the energy bursting through him.

The appearance of a newcomer was a real treasure for him and promised great prospects for very ingenious combinations. The newcomer, Mikhailo, was from the village. He spoke drawlingly and slowly, pulling out each word like a bucket from a deep well.

So, Mikhailo,” Vasil stated joyfully, anticipating a rare sight. - What are you going to do here, Mikhailo?

Learn, - the guy squeezed out in a hunted manner.

- “Study!” - Vasil mimicked. - What do you already know?

Vasil did not have time to clarify this burning question: the teacher entered the class.

Having looked through the magazine and seeing a surname unfamiliar to him, he inquired:

New guy? Come to the board... Let's see, as they say, what you breathe...

Mikhailo trudged to the board.

Do you know what Jesus bequeathed to us?.. - the teacher began piously.

Shave in the morning and don’t blow your nose with your fingers,” Vasil instantly suggested, cupping his palms like a mouthpiece.

Mikhailo automatically repeated the answer.

The class crashed.

You, you... mock me! - the teacher jumped up.

I... I... didn’t want to... - Mikhailo began to make excuses.

“I forgive only for the first time,” said the teacher, turning green with rage. - Only for the first... But you deserve a deuce. Yes, I deserve it. - And he boldly wrote the number so adored by schoolchildren against the student’s surname.

The next day, when asked about dividing and adding numbers, Mikhailo, at Vasil’s prompting, confidentially told the teacher that “this is unknown to science.”

During the break, Galan approached Vasil.

“This is vile,” he muttered through his teeth. - You see, it’s vile!.. If only you answered like that yourself. But you take advantage of the fact that Mikhailo is slow-witted... And therefore, this, I repeat, is vile. If this happens again, then...

What then? - Vasil grabbed Yaroslav by the collar of his shirt. - Do you want to threaten?..

There was clearly a smell of fight in the air. Vasil and Yaroslav were surrounded by guys.

Give him one,” someone advised Yaroslav.

“I’ll give it to him,” Vasil got furious. - I told him...

He did not have time to finish his sentence when, knocked down by a sharp blow from Galan, he flew into the corner. Instantly jumping up, he furiously rushed at the enemy. Vasil found himself on the floor again.

“I warned you,” Yaroslav said quietly and left the class.

They didn't speak for two days. On the third, Vasil himself approached Galan.

Let's make peace! I'm wrong... And the guys are for you. I didn’t do this out of malice... I just wanted to joke.

They don't joke like that.

I know. That's why I came.

But the energy bubbling in Vasil could not remain locked in his frail body for a long time. She demanded a way out, and this time the catechite’s father, a teacher of the law, became the victim of Vaska’s machinations.

Having unexpectedly discovered for the “holy father” an amazing desire to study all the wisdom of the word of the Lord, Vasil asked the unfortunate shepherd one more tricky question than the other.

Can God get a runny nose?

Does Saint Peter like beer?

The class moaned with pleasure.

The shepherd’s patience ran out when Vasil asked with an innocent look:

Tell me, Holy Father, can the Pope ride a bicycle?

Father Catechite turned purple and was speechless with indignation.

“What are you talking about,” Galan added fuel to the fire. - It doesn’t suit dad to ride a bicycle. He flies in an airplane...

The class roared with laughter. Neither Vasil nor Yaroslav liked to remember what followed.

It seemed to the “Holy Father” that the “flock” entrusted to him had been pacified, befitting his rank and occupation, but the victims were hatching an ominous plan of revenge. And when one day during a lesson Galan was asked: “Why is the holy father called Pius?”, Yaroslav considered that the desired moment of revenge had come. He answered as simply as possible:

Because the holy father loves to drink...

“Before I had time to come to my senses,” Galan said, “my stomach found itself on the priest’s knee, and the sacred rod carved the Ten Commandments on my body.

The Lord did not endow me with humility, and, obviously, that’s why, upon returning home, I shouted to my mother from the doorway:

I spit on dad!

No one except my mother heard this, but apparently the omnipresent God informed his Roman governor, for from then on the Greek Catholic Church began a “cold war” against me.

And not only against me..."

Even the names of the streets of the capital of Galicia, Lvov (Sacramentok Street, Dominican Street, Franciscan Street, Tertsian Street, St. Martin Street) spoke of countless Catholic orders that have filled the long-suffering Western Ukraine since ancient times. The Vatican had three metropolises in Lviv, neighboring Przemysl: Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Armenian Catholic. They owned vast tracts of land. The Jesuits were given the entire educational system in the country, and they jealously ensured that no “free thinking” could penetrate “the souls of the young flock.” Referring to the Cathedral of St. Yura - the residence of Metropolitan Sheptytsky, the head of the Greek Catholic Church in Western Ukraine, Galan's friend, the poet A. Gavrilyuk, not without irony, stated this unfortunate circumstance: “Only the gloomy Yuri inadvertently spies with a Jesuit eye, watching everywhere so that the demon in I didn’t get through the seal and into school.” Galan later recalled with hatred his years at Przemysl Primary School.

The Przemysl primary school was supervised by the “holy fathers” from the Basilian monastic order. “The Basilians, this Ukrainian version of the Jesuits,” Galan later wrote, “were hated by the Ukrainian people, as the most faithful servants of the magnates and the pope. They were the vanguard of Catholicism's march to the East. They were the most cruel tormentors of the Ukrainian people.” The Basilians scolded Russia, the Russian people, Russian culture in every possible way; they became the spiritual fathers of Ukrainian nationalism. They instilled chauvinism, ignorance, and obedience in children at school. At the top of this entire multi-stage church ladder stood the head of the Greek Catholic Church in Galicia, Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky - a highly colorful figure.

This worthy church minister was one of the richest landowners in Galicia. There was no one among his worshipers who underestimated this fact. The Metropolitan himself knew how to use it. Delegations visiting the Metropolitan always asked for something. “For each of them, Sheptytsky had a kind word,” Galan wrote, “supported by a corresponding quotation from the Gospel, and a pastoral blessing. The count opened the box often, but sensibly and judiciously. He willingly gave financial assistance to talents, and even more willingly to institutions...”

Subsequently, Sheptytsky will become the main shareholder of the bank and an unofficial co-owner of many enterprises, primarily those that turn money into politics. He will build a hospital and a museum, create funds for the purchase of church bells, and the newspapers and magazines he finances will conscientiously sing the praises of their benefactor. Like an appanage prince, he will be surrounded by a court galaxy of writers and artists, pronouncing the name of their patron in a reverent whisper.

The Metropolitan knew how to show off when talking about “the holy and happy life of the Galician grain grower.” And Lenin’s Iskra, in its issue of October 15, 1902, wrote about the peasants of Western Ukraine, who made up ninety percent of its entire population: “The burden of taxes threw them into the arms of the usurer, and soon they began to divide all the income from their miserable plot between the fist and the treasury. They themselves and their families had nothing left, and in order to somehow feed themselves, they had to resort to selling their labor. The buyer was a landowner who lived nearby.” Landowner... That is, the same Count Sheptytsky.

As befits a ruler by the grace of God, he seems to avoid direct intervention in the internal political struggle, preferring the role of an arbiter. True, at decisive moments the count loses his composure, and then the planter, seriously alarmed by the growing wave of popular indignation, speaks through the lips of the metropolitan. The murder of the imperial governor Count Andrei Potocki in Lvov by student Miroslav Sechinsky in 1908 agitated Sheptytsky to such an extent that he, without the slightest hesitation, equated Potocki's death with the martyrdom of Christ. At the same time, he did not find a word of condemnation in his holy arsenal when Pototsky’s gendarmes brutally killed the innocent poor peasant Kaganets and his comrades in the struggle for demanding basic rights to work and bread. What about children? It was on them that the Jesuits relied, who sought to raise their wards as loyal soldiers of the Catholic Church and the Austrian Emperor.

Later, in the pamphlet “I Spit on the Lady,” Galan recalled: “Every Sunday the teacher took us in pairs to the church of the Basilian monastic order…. called to love Emperor Franz Joseph I and to hate the “Muscovites,” whom, he said, must be destroyed at the roots... However, instead of “beating” the Muscovites, Pan Father easily beat us, the schoolchildren.”

The ancient ramparts were overgrown with quinoa and thyme and collapsed in many places, exposing brown brick and stonework. It was quiet here. Only the lark rang in the sky and the grasshoppers sang in the tall grass.

If you rummaged carefully, you could find a lot of treasures on the ramparts: spent cartridges, fragments, sometimes a broken flat cleaver, or even an older Turkish scimitar.

But Yaroslav and his friends do not come here to look for military relics touched by rust. He is already a high school student, and he has more important concerns.

Sometimes, like today, he went to the ramparts with his friend Otto Axer.

They sat down somewhere in the shadow of the ruins and looked at the mountain for a long time. In the bluish haze of the hot afternoon, old towers and sharp roof spiers glowed blue.

I wonder how many years I'll think about it? - asked the thoughtful Galan.

They say different things... In any case, our Przemysl is one of the most ancient cities in Galicia. In the chronicle of Nestor he is mentioned already in 981.

You and I will not be included in the chronicle. That’s for sure,” Galan joked.

Who could have known then that thunderstorms and wars would pass through the land, that 1961 would come and the residents of Przemysl, celebrating the millennium since the founding of their hometown, would name one of its streets after the Ukrainian communist writer Yaroslav Galan, and students running to the pedagogical lyceum along shady alleys of Queen Jadwiga's park, they will get acquainted with his, Yaroslav's, books.

Did you bring books?

“But of course,” Akser smiled. - Two collections by Ivan Franko. Just an agreement: I give it for three days, no more. A lot of guys are asking.

Yaroslav is leafing through some chewed notebooks copied by hand.

Do you see how shabby they are? They went through dozens of hands.

It seems like someone from your class got caught?

Not just anyone, but ten people at once. We locked ourselves in an empty classroom and read Franco. Here the teacher covered them.

“It’s the same with us,” Yaroslav muttered. - Only less people got into trouble - six people.

What's wrong with them?

The teacher now places them in the sun in the most severe heat. And he still mocks, such a bastard! He says: “Aha! At the concert in honor of Franco, you recited: “We strive for the sun!” So ​​much for the sun. Warm yourself up!..”

We need to protest somehow.

Protest? To be in the sunshine again? Nooo! We'll arrange something for this bastard. So that the century remembers and cannot find out who taught it a lesson.

…There are people for whom the development of spiritual life proceeds especially intensively from youth. They complete their life journey when others are just beginning it. Remember when Lermontov and Polezhaev passed away - how old they were! What a mature man Alexander Fadeev was at eighteen years old! At the age of seventeen, Arkady Gaidar commanded a special-purpose regiment.

...A man walks along the ground. And when it becomes grass and flowers, memory and song, when the time allotted to it by fate is fulfilled, the distances and distances of the path, the milestones of which are life, become clear. People choose different roads. And the footprint on the ground of one is not similar to the footprint of the other. There are things that leave behind symphonies and gardens, songs and tracks ringing under taiga showers, books and blast furnaces raised to the sky. They decorate the earth, speeding up the passage of time and history.

There are also butterfly fates. Sometimes they seem bright. But their fake fire did not warm anyone, and not a single heart was touched by its spark. Beyond that distant line from which no one returns is the continuation of the emptiness of existence.

For some, youth is a time of inexperience. For others, like Galan, this is the time for the beginning of a conscious struggle.

Galan also became close to Akser because Otto’s father ran a small music school in Przemysl. Many Ukrainians came to him to learn to play the zither, mandolin and guitar. Galan also came and began taking violin lessons.

...The city seemed to be preparing for a holiday. Somewhere in the distance the brass of military bands thundered.

Parade again? - Galan looked at his comrade.

We'll see now.

They had barely reached the main street when a policeman stopped them. The troops marched, occupying the entire width of the paving stones.

The father was arrested at night.

There was a sharp knock on the door; and when the mother, hastily wrapping her robe around her, threw back the hook, a mustachioed gentleman in civilian clothes appeared on the threshold. Behind him loomed the figures of two Austrian gendarmes.

Roughly pushing their mother away, they entered the rooms.

Alexander Galan? - the mustache asked angrily.

Get ready!

This is some kind of misunderstanding... What's the matter?

Everything will be explained to you where necessary. But there is no misunderstanding. - Mustache grinned. - What kind of misunderstanding could there be? - The spy opened the bookcase. - All the literature of Muscovites is represented by... Enemies of the Empire.

Bound sets of “Niva”, “Awakening”, “Motherland”, volumes by Saltykov-Shchedrin, Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy flew to the floor...

So Galan’s father - an Austrian official, campaigner, pedant, conservative - found himself accused of malicious intent against the government and “sympathy for Russia.”

The father was taken away. The apartment after the search is like after an enemy raid. The mother became completely ill. Yaroslav, perhaps for the first time in his life, felt what an irreparable human misfortune was.

The year was 1914. Austria-Hungary was preparing for war. Surrounded by powerful forts built with the latest military technology of the time, Przemysl was an outpost aimed at southern Russia. In the cities, wild reprisals began against civilians who sympathized with Russia.

Even many years later, Galan could not write about these days of rampant nationalism without disgust and anger: “There was no such humiliation that the Ukrainians, suspected of sympathizing with Russia, would not have experienced then, and even their national name was an object of hatred.”

He observed “things that can only be compared with the massacre of Armenians in Turkey. In Przemysl, in broad daylight, 47 Ukrainians, including a seventeen-year-old teenager, were hacked to death by hussars.”

Already in his very early childhood, Galan saw the black and yellow banners of the Habsburgs with images of a predatory double-headed black eagle, reminiscent of an angry, angry vulture, sewn on silk panels. Austrian dragoons pranced dashingly under these banners - exercises took place in Przemysl.

Legends about the inaccessibility of the Przemysl forts were diligently spread interspersed with fables about the “Austrian paradise” for Galician Ukrainians. “We, and only we, have the Piedmont of Ukrainian culture,” teachers in the service of the Austrian monarch used to say to Przemysl schoolchildren and gymnasium students, among whom was Galan. And they called the young Galicians to prepare for that historical hour when they, the “young independent eagles,” will fly to golden-domed Kyiv, to its golden gates, to save greater Ukraine from the oppression of the “Muscovites.”

Among the people surrounding young Galan, there were those who seriously believed this vigorously propagated theory about “Galicia-Piedmont”.

While the Ukrainian bourgeoisie from Galicia rejoiced in straw boaters and black bowlers, dreaming how they would eventually become ministers of “all Ukraine” under the mace of the Ukrainian hetman from the Habsburg dynasty - Archduke Wilhelm, nicknamed “Vasily the Embroidered”, historian Mikhail rummaged in the silence of the night in the archives Grushevsky.

At the end of the last century, the brilliant Ivan Franko showed who was driving the pen of this hired historian. Bought with German marks and Austrian crowns, he wrote kilograms of paper, preparing spiritual food for people deceived by Ukrainian nationalists. The main goal of Grushevsky’s corrupt life was to drive a wedge between Ukraine and Russia. Everywhere and everywhere he proved that long before Vladimir Monomakh, Ukrainians were much closer in spirit, in kinship... to the Germans, Dutch, Belgians, Spaniards, than to the Russians.

Two days after his father’s arrest, Yaroslav’s mother was summoned to the gymnasium.

The dry, prim director didn’t even invite her to sit down.

“I’m sorry, lady,” he said slowly in an official tone. - I’m very sorry... But the son of a state criminal cannot study with us. Yes, it can't...

From tomorrow your son can be free. - And, turning sharply, he left the office, leaving Galan’s mother alone with her gloomy thoughts and her grief.

The Galan family was sent from the Przemysl fortress to Dynow.

And then the war broke out!

...Newspaper boys rushed through the streets of Dynov, shaking packs of sheets of the newspaper “Land of Przemyszsk” that still smelled of printing ink, and shouted news in hoarse voices: “The battle of Vladimir-Volynsky ...”, “The Anglo-French fleet is attacking Austrian ships”, “Austrian battleship “Erigny” is sunk”, “The French occupy new points in the Vosges”, “The Germans attack Dinan”, “Battles on the Austrian border at Krasnik, Gorodok and Stoyanov”, “The German offensive threatens Brussels”, “The king and the government move to Antwerp...”

Yaroslav saw that his mother was confused.

“Father is in Talergof,” she said wearily one day, returning from the city. She sat down on the bed and cried.

Yaroslav came up and put his arm around her shoulders.

Don't, mom!.. Tears won't help anything... How did you know?

They said at the commandant's office.

Have you been there?

Perhaps you can submit a petition?

What is this - Thalerhof?

Concentration camp... Not far from Graz. There are many people like my father...

As soon as the first volleys of Austrian and Russian guns thundered, gallows sprang up throughout Galicia. Lieutenant-auditors of military field courts of the Austro-Hungarian army often sentenced to death for one found Russian book or newspaper, and even if the defendant proudly said: “I am Russian!”, and not “Rusin”, as was customary in Austria- Hungary to call Ukrainians and Russians, then by doing so he signed his own death sentence...

Yaroslav now had plenty of time. He walked the streets, occasionally seeing guys he knew...

It seemed that Metropolitan Sheptytsky was most concerned about the fate of his flock in these menacing days. True, he is concerned in his own way. When the guns were already roaring at the fronts and thousands of wives and children were losing their husbands and fathers dressed in soldiers' greatcoats, he addressed the believers with a message: “All priests ... should explain to the believers and serve a solemn service for the most successful action of our weapons in this war.” .

The Count receives delegation after delegation - all, without exception, ultra-loyal, devoted to the tip of their nails to the Habsburgs and their state. The first Ukrainian “Sich Riflemen” appear before him, dressed in new uniforms, organized into a separate military unit by the grace of the aging monarch. The prince of the Uniate Church overshadows them, wishes them a speedy victory in the name of God, the Habsburgs and “native Ukraine.”

But so far events are not favorable to Sheptytsky’s plans: Russian troops are approaching the walls of Lvov. The Metropolitan decides to stay.

It seemed that nothing threatened him. The Metropolitan did not imagine that one of the tsarist Russian generals, Alexei Brusilov, would take decisive measures against him.

The Russian army occupied Eastern Galicia, besieged Przemysl, and then pushed the Austrians back to the Carpathians.

In the book “My Memoirs,” General Brusilov says: “The Uniate Metropolitan Count Sheptytsky, an obvious enemy of Russia, who has invariably campaigned against us for a long time, upon the entry of Russian troops into Lviv, was, on my orders, preliminarily arrested under house arrest. I asked him to come to me with an offer to give his word of honor that he would not take any hostile actions, either overt or secret, against us. In this case, I took upon myself to allow him to remain in Lvov to fulfill his spiritual duties. He willingly gave me this word, but, unfortunately, after this he began to stir things up again and deliver church sermons that were clearly hostile to us. In view of this, I sent him to Kyiv at the disposal of the commander-in-chief.”

Sheptytsky was taken to the depths of Russia and there, as an honorary prisoner, he remained in Kursk, Suzdal, and Yaroslavl for almost the entire war.

With the arrival of the Russian army, the Galans seemed to sigh: they no longer had to fear for their fate every day. But soon alarm entered their home again: Austro-German troops under the command of Mackensen broke through the front in June 1915, Russian troops were leaving Galicia.

What do we do? - asked the mother, having gathered Yaroslav, Ivan and Stefania in the room. - I'm afraid to stay here. The Austrians will return - they will not forgive us for our father’s moods... We need to leave.

Where? - Yaroslav burst out.

Most likely to Rostov. Or to Berdyansk. The Russian military commandant's office promised to help. We are not the only ones leaving - hundreds. Now get ready. Take only what you need.

Yaroslav put two books and a notebook with extracts in the bag. He personally didn’t have anything else that was “essential.”

Subsequently, the mother thanked fate that she made a firm decision to leave.

After the withdrawal of the Russian army from Galicia, the Austrian authorities brutally dealt with everyone suspected of sympathizing with the Russians. Over sixty thousand Galicians were hanged and shot! Many thousands of Galicians were exiled to the Thalerhof concentration camp. The atrocities committed by the Austrian gendarmes in this camp were monstrous.

...And the Galans were already approaching the big city.

What is it called? - Galan asked the railway worker when the massive building of the railway station appeared.

Rostov, they answered Yaroslav.

Yaroslav's family was called "refugees" in Rostov. But were the “refugees” from Galicia a one-faced mass? What did they think when they saw with their own eyes the order overshadowed by the double-headed imperial eagle?

Galan’s friend from Rostov-on-Don, engineer E. Shumelda, says: “We considered the system that existed then (in Russia - V.B., A.E.) to be evil. There were many refugees from Galicia in the city. Their composition was diverse in terms of political affiliation and social beliefs. There were many nationalists among them, who were actively working among the Ukrainian population of the city. Brought up in the spirit of love and respect for the Russian people, Galan could not sympathize with such propaganda and told me, recalls E. Shumelda, that it was in Rostov that he perceived and felt “kinship with the Russian people.”

Yaroslav continues his studies at the gymnasium.

Galan’s friend from Rostov-on-Don, now living in Lvov, I. Kovalishin, reveals the most interesting details of the life of young Yaroslav:

“...The system of teaching Latin in our gymnasium was such that the lessons were uninteresting... We had to spend a lot of time cramming and memorizing long, boring texts, which were also not always understandable to the students... It was difficult for the lively, rebellious teacher to get along with this method Galana. He often received undeserved bad grades. However, this had its good side. It was then, in the gymnasium, that Galan’s satirical experiments appeared, in which he ridiculed school practices, the scholastic methods of the classical gymnasium, and especially the teacher of the law, Father Apollinaris.”

And one more important circumstance: the future writer significantly expands his acquaintance with Russian literature. Galan, while studying at a Russian gymnasium, gradually studied the works of Lermontov, Pushkin, Krylov, Turgenev, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Tolstoy, read critical articles by Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, “The Past and Thoughts” by Herzen, and became acquainted with Gorky. Galan’s widow, M.A. Krotkova-Galan, repeats more than once: “Galan said that he became well acquainted with the works of Gorky and Saltykov-Shchedrin back in Russia, in Rostov-on-Don, and Belinsky from that time became his favorite critic.”

The picture is complemented by a letter from Galan’s comrade in Rostov, K. Bozhko: “He often visited the theater, especially admiring Chekhov’s productions. He was always seen with books. He was very fond of Lermontov and Byron, and later Herzen and Gorky. He and I often argued about Gorky.”

How did it start?

“Once,” recalls I. Kovalishin, “on the occasion of the successful completion of the school year, my sister bought tickets to the Russian Drama Theater.

They performed the play “Children of Vanyushin” by Naydenov. All evening, while the action was going on, until the curtain fell, Yaroslav Galan sat as if spellbound and did not give us the opportunity to even exchange a single word with him. This first meeting with the theater left a deep mark on his subsequent dramatic work and made the future writer friends with the theater forever. Sometimes the Ukrainian troupe “Gaidamaki” also visited Rostov-on-Don. The days of this talented group's tour were a real holiday for Galan. Galan's other passion was books. He read a lot.

In the gymnasium... there was a choir, an orchestra, and they learned Ukrainian folk songs. Only in the beginning there was no amateur theater of its own. But over time it also emerged. One of its organizers was young Galan. Together with him, Yaroslav, using the holidays, traveled throughout the Azov region and visited the Kuban ... "

So, a passion for theater appears.

“Memoirs of Galan the Playwright,” published in Lvov, by Professor Mikhail Rudnitsky, who knew the writer well, contains Galan’s interesting testimony about the Rostov period: telling Mikhail Rudnitsky about visiting the Rostov theater, Galan said: “These were the brightest moments among my... then days...”

Recalling his first theatrical impressions, Galan said that even then he was struck by the wide possibilities of dramatic art. Undoubtedly, M. Rudnitsky concludes, quite reasonably, that Galan’s turn to drama in the near future is closely connected with his Rostov impressions.

In Rostov, Yaroslav Galan had the opportunity to take a fresh look at the history of his native Ukraine. What he read in the Russian city was in no way similar to the sermons of the Basilian fathers.

It would be naive, of course, to assume that the official tsarist historiography told Galan the whole truth. But there are facts of history, the essence and meaning of which, as they say, “is independent of comments and commentators.” In any case, the Basilian fathers, in the light of everything that Galan became aware of, looked like the most ordinary petty swindlers. Yaroslav learned that in 1620, the hetman of the Zaporozhye Cossacks, Sagaidachny, sent a special embassy to Moscow, through which he conveyed his desire to serve the Russian state, that since 1648, a broad national liberation movement had unfolded throughout Ukraine for the liberation of Ukraine from the yoke of noble Poland and that he led this struggle Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

In 1648–1649, the rebellious peasant-Cossack masses won a number of remarkable victories (at Zheltye Vody, Korsun, Pilyavtsy in 1648, Zborov and Zbarazh in 1649). However, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, as an outstanding figure of his time, understood perfectly well that without unification with the Russian people it was impossible to achieve any solid success in the liberation of the Ukrainian people. Therefore, already in 1648 - the time of his greatest military successes against the Polish gentry - Bogdan Khmelnytsky, reflecting the aspirations and desires of the Ukrainian people, in his sheets (letters) addressed the Russian government with a request for help and the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. In October 1653, the Zemsky Sobor in Moscow made a historic decision on the reunification of Ukraine with Russia, and in January 1654, in Pereyaslav, the People's Rada confirmed the will of the Ukrainian people.

Meanwhile, the events of Rostov life seemed to overwhelm each other.

Rostov was seething. His nights were restless, and every morning could bring surprises.

The Bolsheviks, who numbered about three hundred people here by August 1917, were already working hard to Bolshevize the Rostov Soviet before October. In the city garden, where the Bolshevik Party Committee was housed in the pavilion, and in the surrounding streets there was an almost continuous meeting. Crowds of people listened and discussed the speeches of the Bolsheviks. Pravda was spreading. The local Bolshevik newspaper “Our Banner” was published in more than fifteen thousand copies. On September 6, the headquarters of the Red Guard was created in Rostov, and on October 1, a grandiose demonstration organized by the Bolsheviks took place in protest against the war.

“Bolsheviks”, “Socialist Revolutionaries”, “Mensheviks”... A whirlwind of new, often completely incomprehensible phenomena filled Yaroslav’s soul with anxiety and concern. How to understand what is happening? Which side should I take?

And again, like thunder, stunning news: the armed uprising was victorious in Petrograd. Decrees about peace, land, power - this is already clear to him. He is for"! This means that the war will end soon, and they will see their father again. If, of course, he is alive...

There are decrees on the walls of houses: The First All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets proclaimed Ukraine a republic of Soviets.

It was then that it became clear that “ours,” as he was accustomed to consider all refugees from Galicia, were not all his own. Actually, that’s when it all started: quarrels, curses, fighting, splitting not only groups, but even families. Later, Galan will tell about all this in the documentary story “The Unknown Petro.”

His classmate, Konstantin Bozhko, who lived in Rostov next door to Yaroslav and studied at the gymnasium next to Yaroslav’s gymnasium, writes: “Yaroslav took an active part in the life of the gymnasium. I remember how I once brought there several issues of the Bolshevik newspaper “Our Banner,” which I distributed to my comrades. We didn’t understand much at the time, but we followed everything closely. Together with Yaroslav, we walked in the ranks of the demonstration organized at the end of 1917 by the Bolsheviks against the war, ran to the city garden, where many rallies took place ... "

Bozhko recalls that Yaroslav’s brother Ivan was at one time fond of Tolstoyism. “I remember - I restored it in my memory, and then found it in books,” Yaroslav twice wrote out Tolstoy’s words “as a consolation” for his brother: “... It’s funny for me to remember how I thought... that you can create a happy and honest little world for yourself, in which it is calm , without mistakes, without remorse, without confusion, live slowly and do, slowly, carefully, only good things! Funny! You can’t... To live honestly, you have to rush, get confused, fight, make mistakes, start, and quit, and start again, and quit again, and always struggle, and lose. And calmness is spiritual meanness.”

At the same time, Yaroslav added:

In general, a person must have strong convictions. You can't live without it. And Ivan’s stupidity will soon come out.

That's how it all happened..."

Now every reader understands what was especially dear to Yaroslav in Tolstoy’s search formula: “Calmness is spiritual meanness.”

Nothing disgusted Galan more - neither a young man nor a mature fighter - than indifference of heart and political infantilism.

In Rostov-on-Don, Yaroslav first heard about Lenin. And then I realized that in life there is no place above the fight. Yes, he was a boy, but the memory of that age is the most tenacious memory. Just like the impressions of those years. It is not for nothing that Galan titled one of his first stories about the Rostov events of early 1918 so that in the very title he expressed his attitude towards them: “On unforgettable days.”

Galan witnessed how, despite the heroic resistance of the workers, the forces of counter-revolution were grouped in the south of Russia. The military ataman of the Don, General Kaledin, drove the White Guard units to Rostov. With the help of traitors from the Ukrainian Central Rada, which helped Kaledin transfer troops to the Don, the counter-revolution built a nest here in 1918. Hordes of White Guards, Haidamaks, and German occupiers sought to destroy Soviet power with fire and blood. “...There was melancholy, there was unbearable despair. The revolution was drowning in workers’ blood,” writes Galan. Not everyone passed this test. The hero of the story, Pyotr Grigoriev, a worker at the Asmolov tobacco factory, committed suicide, leaving a note: “The Haidamaks are coming at us, and the Germans are behind them. I can’t survive this, because the revolution is dying, the workers’ and peasants’ will is dying.”

With the entire course of events in the story, Galan condemns Grigoriev’s position. No, he was not a faithful soldier of the revolution, since at the most decisive moment he resigned from his post. Such a departure from life is not heroism, but cowardice. Peter was afraid of the enemy even before he met him in battle. The revolution does not need such “martyrs”, but those who, without loud words and to the end, to the last conceivable opportunity, with arms in hand, defend the workers’ cause.

The year is 1918... Galan is sixteen years old. An age when, during that time of fire, everyone had to decide for themselves with whom to go. The choice has been made. For life. Yaroslav recalled that at that time the top of the Galician emigration in Rostov did not want to lag behind their Kyiv colleagues and “recruited Galician youth into the White Guard troops of Kornilov, Drozdov, Denikin - the recruitment center was in Rostov.”

Go with those who are “drowning the revolution in workers’ blood”?

No! Never! They call it voluntary recruitment. And at the same time they grab the gun...

You need to leave Rostov...

The Habsburg Empire collapsed, and Galan and his family could now return home.

And now they are already in Przemysl, where they hugged their father, liberated from the Thalerhof camp. There were almost no old friends in the city: fate scattered them across different towns and villages.

And he, Yaroslav, became different. There was a feeling in his soul that he could no longer be the same, that it was time to clearly define the path and once again weigh everything that he had seen and experienced.

Anxiety settled in his soul. But this was a special kind of anxiety. And later, looking back at the roads he has traveled, he will write to his wife, summing up “everything connected with Rostov”:

“It was here, in this large city in the south of Russia, which was a crossroads of the major routes of the civil war, that my worldview as a future revolutionary began to take shape.”