Shtilmark is an heir from Calcutta. Book heir from calcutta read online

Robert Shtilmark's book “The Heir from Calcutta” has not only an interesting plot, but also an unusual creation story. The author was imprisoned in a forced labor camp and wrote a novel to order. One crime boss wanted to get an amnesty this way by sending the book to Stalin. It is for this reason that certain ideas can be traced in the novel that should have appealed to the “leader of the peoples.” In general, the novel amazes with the abundance of characters, diverse characters and the many questions raised. The writer here touched upon pirates, Jesuits, Indians, slave traders, sea battles, life on a desert island, politics and popular unrest, the theme of revenge and forgiveness. This is a voluminous work that tells about the destinies of many people.

The events of the novel take place in several countries and seas of the Indian Ocean. The time period is the end of the 18th century. Frederick Ryland, the heir to the count's family, was heading with his future wife from Calcutta to England. His ship was captured by pirates, led by Bernardito. He pursues his goals, and Ryland and his bride will have to comply with his conditions in order to save their lives. In the course of the events that follow, many secrets will be revealed that will seem simply incredible. The heroes will more than once be on the verge of death, but then miraculously be saved and continue to do their deeds, and they will not always bring good.

The work belongs to the Adventure genre. It was published in 1958 by Tsentrpolygraph publishing house. The book is part of the series "Magazine "Bolshoi Sport" 2014". On our website you can download the book “The Heir from Calcutta” in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format or read online. The book's rating is 4.43 out of 5. Here, before reading, you can also turn to reviews from readers who are already familiar with the book and find out their opinion. In our partner's online store you can buy and read the book in paper form.

"Heir from Calcutta"- an adventure historical novel by Soviet writer Robert Shtilmark, published in 1958.

Plot of the novel

The action takes place in the 18th century, during the era of the completion of the great geographical discoveries, the English industrial revolution and the formation of the British colonial empire.

L Istya quickly and ateli. Forest, e just recently P full of life And summer With good news now A lel crimson T onami autumn. E two noticeable l nanny's quacks V dying moss, O blooming heather, R yellow, dried P uncut strips l crime was given A Vgustov landscape G rustic, tender And purely A English shade. T theirs, as if O burned in R With the echo of flames, morning clouds in the east, cobwebs flying in the air, and the cold blue of the lake waters foreshadowed the imminent onset of bad weather and frost.

There was only one thing Vasilevsky did not take into account when, after finishing the book, he planned to kill Shtilmark with the hands of thieves, that they listened to every chapter of the work and eagerly awaited the continuation. It was they who later helped prove Shtilmark’s authorship in court.

In a letter to his son, Shtilmark reported that he “came up with something adventurous, insanely complex and entertaining, which did not interfere with anything.”

In 1955, Shtilmark was rehabilitated and he left for Moscow. He managed to transfer the manuscript to Ivan Efremov, who gave a good review for the Detgiz publishing house. Allan Efremov, the son of Ivan Antonovich, recalled: “My father first gave it to me and my friend to read. We read it avidly and expressed our delight to our father. He finally pushed through this adventure novel, and it was eventually published.” The novel was published in 1958 in the “Library of Adventure and Science Fiction” series and became a bestseller. On the cover, in addition to Shtilmark, Vasilevsky was also indicated as the author. In 1959, Shtilmark proved through court that he was the sole author.

"The Heir from Calcutta" - literature and folklore

The fact that modern literature - especially plot and adventure literature - is built using traditional folklore formulas and schemes is generally accepted. “Roman d`aventures” was written using inherited formulas,” argued A.N. Veselovsky, having every reason to do so. But this thesis is true not always, or far from completely. Formulas are made up of symbols (signs of a certain code) and their meanings not only in different cultures, but also in different eras, among different storytellers (writers) may be different. And if we are talking about a river, then this is not necessarily the River of Oblivion, the mountain is the Magic Mountain, and the tree is the World Tree. Many commentators impose an archetypal (and essentially dogmatic) perception of the works, without at all clarifying the author’s intention.

V. Blake called the Bible “the great code of art.” But the “code” is updated, and the formal similarity of signs does not always indicate the identity of meanings and sources. The meaning of the code (and the entire formula) depends on several variables, including the following.

2. The time of creation of the work (features of the civilization of this particular era, amendments that were made to the code);

4.Purposes of the work.

Variations from these variables on the theme of traditional formulas make it possible to achieve the variety of motives and plots that literature achieves (hiding or openly demonstrating its connections with folklore).

Literature often uses folklore motifs, but the general formula of the work derives its own. Attempts to explain literature through folklore sometimes turn out to be untenable. Here is an example: V.I. Eremina (Ritual and folklore, Leningrad, 1991) writes about the Count of Monte Cristo: “The Seal of the Grave lies on this reborn half-man, half-god" (p. 182) and, quoting one of the passages from the novel, states that "the count, having completed his mission as an avenger on earth, again leaves “this” world.” But in the text everything is not quite like that. Yes, according to the traditional formula, the dead man, having taken revenge on his enemies, is put to rest and returns to the grave. But Dumas would not have become a great novelist if he had followed only established formulas. He composed a different code: the count wants to die, but Hayde’s love brings him back: “You alone tie me to life,...you alone can give me happiness!”

Thus, Eremina’s statement that “before us... everything is the same,... a fully realized idea (colored in the novel with many incredible adventures) - a person is taken from life to death and returned to death" is incorrect. "Code" partly similar, but Dumas (and literature in general) is not an epigone of folklore, but an independent author, because the needs of his readers were different from those of listeners of archaic myths.

We can talk about direct connections between modern literature and folklore in the following cases: when a person with a pronounced folklore consciousness writes (sometimes this can look like primitive art). Further, when folklore plots and motifs are used. But these are too obvious connections, more often the writer , without openly declaring anything, relies in his writings on the “unassembled public” (to use a sociological term), which becomes his co-author, since the author reflects and expresses mass consciousness. And, instead of openly using folklore motifs, the fundamental possibility of semantic translation from the language of literature into the language of folklore. I will dwell on some of these connections in more detail, showing them with a specific example. We will talk about R. Shtilmark’s novel “The Heir from Calcutta.” It was very popular during the years of its first publication (1958), and again became widely known in the late 1980s, when a new generation could read it. Moreover, the novel, as we know, has a very interesting fate - very “folklore”. Here it is in a nutshell.

The novel was written by camp prisoners, on the order of another prisoner - an all-powerful criminal, who wanted to send the novel to Stalin and thereby earn himself an amnesty. All the moves of the novel were discussed collectively - around the fire, and the most, in general opinion, suitable plot twists were chosen. There is a "collective author" ", besides, the zone is a place rich in folklore, especially songs and "happenings". And the prisoner - the customer - set the following conditions: that the action should not take place in Russia (exotic), that it should be no closer than 200 years before present tense; so that there would be something “very scary” (a lion hunt) and something very pitiful (the kidnapping of a child). The carefully rewritten manuscript was called “The Heir from Calcutta” and had a significant subtitle: “A film without a screen.” Behind the fascinating narrative it seems like an author-storyteller who knows the tradition, knows his heroes, improvises, but is also aware of the laws by which he builds his story. (Here I will not touch upon the topic of reflection in the plot lines of the novel of Soviet ideology and the reading preferences of prisoners, “prisoners, as a nation ", in the words of A.I. Solzhenitsyn).

The most striking episodes of the novel are those that can be translated into the language of traditional folklore; these are the “folklore topoi” of the narrative. Let us dwell on the six most striking ones.

Episode 1. Dorothea talks about her lover - the pirate Grelly. "He was a simple sailor, I barely knew how to write, we loved each other. I was happy... (Giacomo) brought me such gifts that all the girls on our street died from envy!...When in Sorrento they learned that Bernardito and Giacomo drowned on the Black Arrow in distant waters, neighboring fishermen wooed me, but I did not believe in Giacomo’s death and waited for him for more than a year. And he came for me, came at night, when our entire village near Sorrento was sleeping. He was dressed like a noble signor, and ordered from now on to call him by a different name. For a long time I could not even remember this name and simply called him Federico. “I will take them away - both Dorotea and Anthony,” he told my mother, “to another country, but no one should know my past. One careless word will destroy us...”

There is a coincidence with the folklore code: before us is a terrible story, a tale. The arrival of a dead groom at night for his bride, under a new name... The everyday adventure novel transfers from the mystical aspect to the real: the pirate is alive, he escaped, changed his name, lives the life of another person (by the way, changing his faith - Catholic to Protestant). While maintaining a mystical connotation, this story could become a ballad, and told as in the novel - a cruel romance about a deceived girl (in a truncated version - about a girl who is waiting for her groom , although everyone is sure of his death).

Episode 2. "From early childhood, the boy became accustomed to disorder, the luxury of expensive hotels, the cushions of hired carriages, suitcases and cardboard boxes" ... The childhood of Giacomo Grelli - the son of a prima donna singer and a tall man, whom the servants called "Eccellenza", and Giacomo himself - he was taught that way - “your lordship.” He left his illegitimate son when he was 5 years old. Five years later, “the young couple got out of the carriage. A plume on a tall man’s hat flashed in front of Giacomo, who was sitting on the windowsill. Something familiar. it seemed to the boy in the posture of this man. The boy saw the high hairstyle of his beautiful companion. The couple entered the hall." Then - there were screams and noise - it was Giacomo's mother who stabbed this woman. The mother was sent to prison, and the boy was robbed and deceived, not allowing him to meet with Father...

All this is presented in the novel as a cruel romance would be presented in prose, the plot of which is a happy but unfaithful love, a bastard boy, the intervention of the lover’s evil father - he threatens to disinherit and curse his son if he does not leave his mistress and son.. .The abandoned woman kills her rival, grows old in prison, and the boy becomes beggary and takes revenge on everyone. Further events that occurred after Giacomo’s escape from the orphanage and his wanderings again return us to the reality of the cruel romance: the detachment stood in a bivouac, and “soldiers from Grelly’s platoon they surrounded the cart of a traveling cantina with laughter.... An elderly woman... desperately struggled... The woman's voice evoked vague, long-forgotten pictures in Giacomo's memory. He stopped his rioting soldiers, raised a lantern to the cantina's face and... recognized his mother, faded and gray." In a cruel romance there would not be incest, but incest is an archaic thing, not for a modern novel (at least adventure, not psychological). But the situation makes it possible for such a denouement, a sign of a potential folklore motive is given, in in the novel it is given in a truncated, euphemistic version.

Episode 3. Another ballad, a story about the heroic past of the pirate Bernardito Luis el Gorra - the son of an old hidalgo, who taught his son to “fence, keep his word and despise death.” The treacherous Don Salvator wooed Bernardito’s sister, but was refused. He kidnapped her and killed her .Bernardito and his friend, her sister’s fiancé, found her body and went to Madrid - to the king. On the way, they were captured by Salvator’s servants, and their friends were taken to execution. Bernardito managed to escape, but his friend was executed, and he died with the words “I’m dying innocent. There's the villain!" And instead of Bernardito, the executioners beheaded a straw effigy, and this was the first of many deaths, from which Bernardito emerged revived to life and revenge. The friendship of the groom and the bride's brother, the death of the bride from an insidious rival, slander and execution of an innocent, the revenge of the survivor - all these the motives are known to old folklore, ballads, and cruel romances. Both folklore and literature are equally attracted to these extraordinary events, many of their formulas coincide, but much exists independently.

After going through many trials, Bernardito becomes a pirate - the One-Eyed Devil, but he soon realized that “it is not through corsairship that one must fight the evil that rules the world!” And he saved many from those in trouble. And evil, which does not understand its inferiority, asserts itself, is doomed (like Giacomo Grelli). Speaking about the image of Grelli in the novel, we can talk about the archetype of a godless villain, and in the image of Bernardito - the archetype of a noble robber. Frederick Ryland, who saved Grelly, his enemy, leaves the stage - he has nothing to do in the adventure story with his Christian forgiveness. The main character is Bernardito, thirsting for revenge, but not giving it his whole heart.

Episode 4."...The figure of Bernardito, hung with weapons, appeared from the bushes. The blacks, warned in advance by Anthony, stood in front of the unknown "master of the island" and bowed to him.

You talk so loudly that you yourself give away your hiding place. I involuntarily overheard your conversation... Some dead people, Signor Anthony, manage to rise even twice... Signora Dorotea, your hopes are not in vain. Your son is alive, and in an hour you hug him... Anthony, support the signora, she feels bad! Poor thing, she's already unconscious."

Everything in the novel is contrasting, all the events are extraordinary and unexpected, despite the predetermination of the genre. The accidental rescue of Dorothea and Anthony on the island, their chance meeting with Bernardito, who was accidentally saved, the sentimental meeting of the mother with the son whom she buried long ago... The son who died for the mother was raised (initiated) by a pirate who died for everyone. And the resurrected pirate suddenly finds out that he, too, is a father, that he has a son. Happy Bernardito gains two sons at once... Dorothea becomes his wife, and fate rewards Bernardito for everything good, what did he do.

Episode 5. The rescue of those sentenced to death by the Indians occurs, of course, at the very last moment. Bernardito could not be late; neither Shtilmark himself, nor, especially, his listeners (perhaps still hoping that they, too, at the last moment) would have allowed this will be saved). They saw too many injustices of fate in their lives to allow it in the novel. Bernardito is a ghost who came from the other world, and his entire retinue consists entirely of people who accidentally escaped death. Although, of course, not by chance, but thanks to thirst life and justice. Bernardito saves his son and mother, his friends - who buried and mourned him long ago. To influence the carriers of archaic thinking - the Indians - Bernardito uses a special code that turns him in their eyes into a dead sorcerer, the "All-Seeing Eye", to whom what is not visible to the living is revealed. If the listeners and readers of the novel were at the level of the Indians, the potential archaism would be fully realized and the novel would go from everyday to fantastic. By the way, Bernardito, having found peace with his wife and son, ceases to administer justice himself - but arranges it so that his enemies themselves kill each other, go crazy, die from the sword of justice.

Episode 6." - Know that you are not my own son. Giacomo Grelli, insatiable spider, slave trader and bloodsucker - that’s who your own father is!

It would have been better for me to die without knowing anything about it.. It’s worse than being just an orphan.. I don’t even want to even in my thoughts call Leopard the word father...” But, having coped with the difficult news, Charlie says: “- My father is here.” he is here with me. The leopard, who dishonored my mother, remains for me the same hated enemy as for all honest people. I do not intend to lower my sword, friends! " The discovery of the secret of birth is a frequently encountered motif in folklore. In the archaic era, blood was always stronger than education, but even then the son took revenge on his father for the misfortunes of his mother. And one would not even be surprised if in the end Bernardito and Grelli turned out to be twin brothers. They were them when they were both ruthless pirates, but then they The paths diverged.

The sign system of the novel allows us to reconstruct it in folklore and mystical terms. A man who sold his soul to the devil (for money), committed treason, died - and returned to this world under a different name to do evil (Grelli) confronts another - the twice-dead Bernardito , whom one “death” revives to life (when he is rescued on the island) and another “death” revives him to love (the child of his enemy becomes his son). The dying Grelly repents, but then forgets his repentance and is reborn to evil. The plot is known. about the dead who continue their struggle with each other, embodied in this world...

So, several episodes of the novel (in principle there are many more), key to the narrative, turned out to be potentially transferable from the symbolic system of literature to the system of folklore, ballads and cruel romance. This does not indicate direct borrowings from the author or the implementation of old schemes in new conditions. In these places Folklore and literature intersected.

Bibliography

Vadim F. Lurie. "The Heir from Calcutta" - literature and folklore.

The Heir from Calcutta - description and summary, author Shtilmark Robert, read for free online on the website of the electronic library website

Robert Shtilmark was arrested in 1945 on charges of “counter-revolutionary agitation” and sentenced to ten years in prison. In a forced labor camp, he created the adventure novel “The Heir from Calcutta.” A certain criminal authority was going to send this work to I. Stalin under his name in order to receive an amnesty.

The novel takes place at the end of the 18th century in England, Italy, Spain and the seas of the Indian Ocean. A pirate ship led by the one-eyed captain Bernardito Luis El Gore captures a ship with the heir to the count's family, Fredrick Ryland, who is traveling to England from Calcutta with his bride Emilia... In the novel, all the features of the adventure genre were revealed in a vivid artistic form: unsolved secrets, amazing transformations, persecution , intrigue and, finally, the triumph of good over evil.

The bitter delight of memories...

Alfred de Musset

Two people carefully walked along a rocky path to a small cove between the rocks. A tall, hook-nosed gentleman in a dark green cloak and triangular hat walked ahead. From under the hat, a silver braid of a wig shone, tightly tied with a black ribbon so as not to be tousled by the wind. Sea boots with raised cuffs did not interfere with the man’s elastic gait. This gait was developed not by the parquet flooring of living rooms, but by the shaky flooring of a ship's deck.

The cloaked man's companion, a handsome young man in a groom's caftan, carried behind him a telescope in a black case and a hunting rifle. The barrel of the gun was made of the best steel - “bouquet Damascus”; The smoothly polished butt was decorated with mother-of-pearl inlays. This gun did not have a belt or even belt lugs - swivels: the owner did not need to carry his hunting equipment on his own shoulders - he did not go hunting without a squire.

The semicircle of the open bay was bordered by gray granite cliffs. The fishermen nicknamed it Old King's Cove: the jagged top of the median cliff resembled a crown. Seagulls flew low over the grey-green, iodine-smelling water. The morning was cloudy and drizzling. This was common summer weather here in Northern England on the Irish Sea coast.

The first shot echoed in the desert rocks. A disturbed flock of seagulls soared upward and scattered in all directions with piercingly sharp cries. In separate small flocks of birds, they rushed to the neighboring cliffs and there, on the other side of the bay, they began to descend again. The gentleman obviously missed: not a single shot bird fluttered on the foaming water.

- The gun is reloaded, your grace! - The young groom handed his master a gun, ready for a new shot; the shooter and his companion had already reached the top of the low cliff and were looking down. “The birds will now calm down and flock together again.”

“Hunting is never successful for me if I miss the first shot,” answered the gentleman. “Perhaps our walk today is completely useless: not a single sail is visible on the horizon.” Probably our Orion is anchored somewhere. But still I will stay here, watch the horizon. Keep the gun, Anthony. Give me the telescope and wait for me below, by the horses.

The groom handed the gentleman a case with a sliding pipe and began to descend onto the path. The rustling of pebbles falling from under his feet and the rustling of bushes soon died down below. The gentleman was left alone on the cliff.

The sea stirred restlessly under the rocks. A cloud from the ocean, slowly growing, enveloped the breaks in the coast. The outlines of distant capes and small islands were gradually hidden in a strip of rain and fog. From under this low veil appeared rows of brown sea swells; the shore opened up to them the stone embrace of bays and bays. Slowly waving their shaggy manes, the waves rammed the base of the cliff.

To the man standing at the top with a telescope, it seemed that the cliff itself, like a ship, was moving towards the ocean swells, cutting them with its stone chest, like the stem of a ship. Gusts of wind scattered the finest dust of salty spray in the air, and it settled on his hard, curly sideburns. Without looking up, he looked at the surf and counted the “ninth” waves, the largest and most maned.

Having crashed against the cliff, the wave rolled back and dragged boulders and gravel behind it back into the sea, until a new boiling wave picked up these stones to again throw them to the foot of the cliff...

A person’s thoughts are already far from this bay, from gray cliffs and seagulls with piercing voices; he sees nothing around him except angry, shaggy combs. There is no longer a rock under him! He remembers a long-lost ship...

Again, as of old, he stands, legs spread wide, at the bowsprit, tilted, as if a ship is flying through the waves. The wind whistles in the rigging, filling the slightly reefed sails... The waters of the warm sea phosphorescent overboard. Above the masts, in the deep blackness of the night sky, he sees not the three-star belt of Orion, but the shimmering gold of the Southern Cross. He always believed that among the luminaries of these two most beautiful constellations of the northern and southern sky there was also his lucky star, the star of his good luck!

...The schooner has been sailing for three months. After several short stops in minor ports and secluded bays on the west coast of Africa, the schooner rounded the Cape of Good Hope and, visiting the southern part of Madagascar, went deeper into the waters of the Indian Ocean.

The captain of the schooner, the one-eyed Spaniard Bernardito Luis el Gorra, recruited good fellows for the long voyage. Forty-six sailors, tattooed from head to toe, who have smelled gunpowder and know a lot about the weather; the old boatswain, nicknamed Bob the Shark for his ferocity; Captain's assistant Giacomo Grelli, who earned the nickname Leopard Grelli in boarding battles, and, finally, Bernardito himself, the One-Eyed Devil - this was the crew of the Black Arrow.

More than two weeks have passed since that early morning when the rocky coast with Cape Agulhas, where the waters of two oceans eternally argue with each other in the blue immensity, melted in the southwest behind the stern of the schooner, but not a single unguarded merchant ship has yet encountered the schooner in the vastness of the Indian Ocean.

- Blood and thunder! - Red Pugh swore on the forecastle, throwing a tin mug onto the deck. – Why the hell did Bernardito drag us on his boat into this shark-like hell? Spanish doubloons ring, in my opinion, no worse than Indian rupees!

“I’ve been sailing with you for three months now, but not a single farthing has yet fallen into the lining of my pockets!” – picked up Red Pugh’s interlocutor, a skinny hulk with a gold earring in his ear, nicknamed Jacob the Skeleton by the team. – Where are they, these cheerful yellow circles and beautiful rainbow pieces of paper? What will I show up with at the Salty Poodle Tavern, where God Himself only gets his punch in cash? I ask where is our ringing joy?

The day was drawing to a close. The sun was still high, but hidden in a foggy haze. In the morning, the captain reduced the portions of water and wine given to the crew. The thirsty sailors worked sluggishly and gloomily. The moist hot air relaxed people. A light breeze from the coast of Madagascar filled the sails, but this breeze was so warm that it did not refresh the hot faces and bodies.

- Let's sit down, Jacob. It's cooler here, under the boat. Half an hour later our watch begins, and my throat is dry, as if I had chewed and swallowed the Bible. Ax and gallows! When Black Woodrow was our boatswain, he always had an extra pint of dry Aragonese for me.

- Keep it down, Pew! They say the captain doesn't like it when Woodrow or Giuseppe are remembered.

“No one can hear us here.”

“Tell me, Pugh, are the boys correct in their interpretation that Woodrow and Giuseppe reached out for Bernardito’s leather bag?”

Red Pew smeared beads of sweat on his copper forehead with his greasy palm.

“If these old wolves had remained in our pack, we would not now be hanging around in this Indian tub like a dry cork, and would not be in need of anything.” But, Jacob, regarding Bernardito’s leather bag, I advise you to keep quiet for the time being. Bernardito has long arms, and he knows how to quickly pull the trigger... I’ve been on the Strela for over a year and I’ve seen this bag with my own eyes, but I’ll be damned if I say a word about it! Meanwhile, I once even looked out the window of the captain’s cabin when One-Eye was untying his bag...

A breath of wind rocked the schooner, and a stronger wave splashed against the side. Red Pew fell silent and looked around.

“Listen, Pew, last night Leopard Grelly, the captain’s mate, called me over to talk about something,” Jacob said quietly. “It seems to me that he doesn’t like One-Eye either.” Grelly says Woodrow and Giuseppe were the real deal... Tell me, Pugh, why Bernardito put them ashore?