One day by Ivan Denisovich terms. Literary direction and genre
The appearance of “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” caused a real shock: all newspapers and magazines responded to the publication of Solzhenitsyn’s work. Critics and most readers perceived the story as a blow to socialist realism, which dominates Soviet literature. Solzhenitsyn himself regarded the principles of the method of socialist realism in Soviet literature as a way of avoiding what the writer calls the “main truth,” meaning the truth about the totalitarian regime (“The Calf Butted an Oak Tree: Essays on Literary Life”).
In modern literary criticism, a certain duality has developed in defining the genre of the work under consideration: in some publications it is defined as a story, in others - as a story. Solzhenitsyn’s work attracted attention not only for its unexpected theme, the novelty of the material, but also for its artistic perfection. “You managed to find an exceptionally strong form,” Shalamov wrote to Solzhenitsyn. “The small form was chosen - this is an experienced artist,” Tvardovsky noted. Indeed, in the early days of his literary activity, the writer gave preference to the short story genre. He adhered to his understanding of the nature of the story and the principles of working on it. “In a small form,” he wrote, “you can fit a lot, and it is a great pleasure for an artist to work on a small form. Because in a small form you can hone the edges with great pleasure for yourself.” And Solzhenitsyn classified “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” as a short story: “Ivan Denisovich” is, of course, a story, albeit a big, loaded one.” The genre designation “story” appeared at the suggestion of Tvardovsky, who wanted to give the story “more weight.”
- New!
The name of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, which was banned for a long time, has finally rightfully taken its place in the history of Russian literature of the Soviet period. Alexander Isaevich was born in December 1918. After high school, Solzhenitsyn ends up in Rostov-on-Don...
The image of Ivan Denisovich arose on the basis of a real prototype, which was the soldier Shukhov, who fought with the author in the Soviet-German war (but never served his sentence), as well as thanks to observations of the life of prisoners and the author’s personal experience...
Alyoshka the Baptist is a prisoner. Eternal opponent of Ivan Denisovich on religious issues. Clean, washed up. His cheeks are sunken because he sits on rations and doesn’t work anywhere. The mood is always good, he smiles and enjoys the sun. Quiet, compliant,...
1. Camp is a special world. 2. Shukhov is the main character and narrator. 3. Ways to survive in the camp. 4. Features of the language of the story. A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is based on real events in the life of the author himself - his stay in...
Stenka Klevshin is a prisoner. I am deaf in one ear. During the war he was captured by the Germans and escaped. He was caught and sent to Buchenwald. There he was a member of an underground organization and carried weapons into the zone for the uprising. For this, the Germans brutally tortured Klevshin: they hung him up...
Half a century ago, in November 1962, in the eleventh issue of Novy Mir, a story by a then unknown author, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” was published - and the world heard this name for the first time: Solzhenitsyn. When the manuscript of “One Day” appeared in the editorial office of Novy Mir, Alexander Tvardovsky, before starting a difficult and, as it seemed then, almost certainly doomed to failure, struggle for it, gave it to some of his closest friends to read. Among its first readers (not counting the editorial staff) was Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak.
“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (the original author’s title was “Shch-854”) is the first published work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, which brought him world fame, the publication of which, according to historians and literary scholars, influenced the entire further course of the history of the USSR. By the author’s definition, it is a story, but when published in the magazine “New World”, by decision of the editors, it was called a story “for weight.”
It tells about one day in the life of a Soviet prisoner, Russian peasant and soldier Ivan Denisovich Shukhov:
It was just such a camp day, hard work, I was carrying a stretcher with my partner and I thought how I should describe the entire camp world - in one day. Of course, you can describe your ten years of the camp, the entire history of the camps, but it’s enough to collect everything in one day, as if in pieces; it’s enough to describe only one day of one average, unremarkable person from morning to evening. And everything will be.
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, after reading “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” said to Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya:
Every citizen of all two hundred million citizens of the Soviet Union must read this story and learn it by heart.
History of creation and publication
The story was conceived in a camp in Ekibastuz, northern Kazakhstan, in the winter of 1950-1951, written in 1959 (started on May 18, completed on June 30) in Ryazan, where Alexander Isaevich finally settled in June 1957 upon his return from eternal exile. The work took less than a month and a half.
In 1950, on one long winter camp day, I was carrying a stretcher with my partner and thought: how to describe our entire camp life? In fact, it is enough to describe just one day in detail, in the smallest detail, moreover, the day of the simplest worker, and our whole life will be reflected here. And there is no need to intensify any horrors, it is not necessary for this to be some kind of special day, but an ordinary one, this is the very day from which years are formed. I thought like this, and this idea remained in my mind, I didn’t touch it for nine years, and only in 1959, nine years later, I sat down and wrote it. ... I didn’t write it for long, just about forty days, less than a month and a half. It always turns out like this if you write from a dense life, the way of life of which you know too much, and not only that you don’t have to guess at something, try to understand something, but you only fight off unnecessary material, just so that the unnecessary does not creep in , but to accommodate the most necessary things.
In 1961, a “lighter” version was created, without some of the harshest judgments about the regime.
"Ivan Denisovich" was published
On November 18, 1962, the edition of the magazine “New World” No. 11 with “One Day” was printed and began to be distributed throughout the country. On the evening of November 19, about 2,000 copies of the magazine were brought to the Kremlin for participants in the next plenum of the CPSU Central Committee. Initially, the magazine's circulation was 96,900 copies, but with the permission of the CPSU Central Committee, another 25,000 were printed.
The news of this publication spreads all over the world. Solzhenitsyn immediately becomes a celebrity.
After a fairly short time - in January 1963 - the story was republished by Roman-Gazeta (No. 1/277, January 1963; circulation 700 thousand copies) and - in the summer of 1963 - as a separate book in the publishing house "Soviet Writer" (circulation 100 thousand copies).
Solzhenitsyn received a stream of letters from readers:
... when “Ivan Denisovich” was published, letters to me exploded from all over Russia, and in the letters people wrote what they experienced, what they had. Or they insisted on meeting me and telling me, and I started dating. Everyone asked me, the author of the first camp story, to write more, more, to describe this whole camp world. They did not know my plan and did not know how much I had already written, but they carried and brought me the missing material.
...so I collected indescribable material, which cannot be collected in the Soviet Union, only thanks to “Ivan Denisovich.” So it became like a pedestal for the “GULAG Archipelago”
On December 28, 1963, the editors of the magazine “New World” and the Central State Archive of Literature and Art nominated “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” for the Lenin Prize in Literature for 1964. The nomination of a literary work of “small form” for such a high prize was perceived by many “literary generals” as at least blasphemous; this had never happened in the USSR. Discussion of the story at meetings of the Prize Committee took the form of fierce debate. On April 14, 1964, the nomination was defeated in a vote by the Committee.
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer. Born on December 11 in Kislovodsk. The writer's paternal ancestors were peasants. Father, Isaac Semenovich, received a university education. From the university, he volunteered to go to the front during the First World War. Returning from the war, he was mortally wounded while hunting and died six months before the birth of his son.
Mother, Taisiya Zakharovna Shcherbak, came from the family of a wealthy Kuban landowner.
Solzhenitsyn lived his first years in Kislovodsk, and in 1924 he and his mother moved to Rostov-on-Don.
Already in his youth, Solzhenitsyn realized himself as a writer. In 1937, he conceived a historical novel about the beginning of the First World War and began collecting materials for its creation. Later, this plan was embodied in "August the Fourteenth": the first part ("knot") of the historical narrative "The Red Wheel".
In 1941, Solzhenitsyn graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Rostov University. Even earlier, in 1939, he entered the correspondence department of the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and Art. The war prevented him from finishing college. After studying at the artillery school in Kostroma in 1942, he was sent to the front and appointed commander of a sound reconnaissance battery.
Solzhenitsyn went through the military path from Orel to East Prussia, received the rank of captain, and was awarded orders. At the end of January 1945, he led the battery out of encirclement.
On February 9, 1945, Solzhenitsyn was arrested: military censorship drew attention to his correspondence with his friend Nikolai Vitkevich. The letters contained harsh assessments of Stalin and the order he established, and spoke of the falsity of modern Soviet literature. Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years in the camps and eternal exile. He served time in New Jerusalem near Moscow, then at the construction of a residential building in Moscow. Then - in the “sharashka” (a secret research institute where prisoners worked) in the village of Marfino near Moscow. He spent 1950-1953 in a camp (in Kazakhstan), doing general camp work.
After the end of his prison term (February 1953), Solzhenitsyn was sent into indefinite exile. He began teaching mathematics in the regional center of Kok-Terek, Dzhambul region of Kazakhstan. On February 3, 1956, the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union freed Solzhenitsyn from exile, and a year later declared him and Vitkevich completely innocent: criticism of Stalin and literary works was recognized as fair and not contrary to socialist ideology.
In 1956, Solzhenitsyn moved to Russia - to a small village in the Ryazan region, where he worked as a teacher. A year later he moved to Ryazan.
While still in the camp, Solzhenitsyn was diagnosed with cancer, and on February 12, 1952 he underwent surgery. During his exile, Solzhenitsyn was treated twice at the Tashkent Oncology Center and used various medicinal plants. Contrary to doctors' expectations, the malignant tumor disappeared. In his healing, a recent prisoner saw a manifestation of the Divine will - a command to tell the world about Soviet prisons and camps, to reveal the truth to those who know nothing about it or do not want to know.
Solzhenitsyn wrote his first surviving works in the camp. These are poems and a satirical play "The Feast of the Winners."
In the winter of 1950-1951, Solzhenitsyn conceived a story about one day in prison. In 1959, the story Shch-854 (One Day of One Prisoner) was written. Shch-854 is the camp number of the main character, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, a prisoner (zek) in a Soviet camp.
In the fall of 1961, the editor-in-chief of the New World magazine, A.T. Tvardovsky, became acquainted with the story. Tvardovsky received permission to publish the story personally from the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union N.S. Khrushchev. Shch-854 under the changed title - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - was published in No. 11 of the New World magazine for 1962. For the sake of publishing the story, Solzhenitsyn was forced to soften some details of the prisoners’ lives. The original text of the story was first published in the Parisian publishing house “Ymca press” in 1973. But Solzhenitsyn retained the title One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
The publication of the story was a historical event. Solzhenitsyn became known throughout the country.
For the first time, the undisguised truth was told about the camp world. Publications appeared claiming that the writer was exaggerating. But an enthusiastic perception of the story prevailed. For a short time, Solzhenitsyn was officially recognized.
The action of the story fits into one day - from waking up to lights out. The narration is told on behalf of the author, but Solzhenitsyn constantly resorts to improperly direct speech: in the author’s words one can hear the voice of the main character, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, his assessments and opinions (Shukhov, a former peasant and soldier, was sentenced as a “spy” to ten years in the camps for being captured).
A distinctive feature of the poetics of the story is the neutrality of tone, when terrible, unnatural events and conditions of camp existence are reported as something familiar, ordinary, as something that should be well known to readers. Thanks to this, the “effect of presence” of the reader during the events depicted is created.
Shukhov's day described in the story is devoid of terrible, tragic events, and the character evaluates it as happy. But Ivan Denisovich’s existence is completely hopeless: in order to ensure a basic existence (to feed himself in the camp, barter for tobacco, or carry a hacksaw past the guards), Shukhov must dodge and often risk himself. The reader is forced to conclude: what were Shukhov's other days like if this one - full of dangers and humiliations - seemed happy?
Solzhenitsyn portrays a heroine living in poverty, having lost her husband and children, but spiritually not broken by hardships and grief. Matryona is contrasted with selfish and unfriendly fellow villagers who consider her a “fool.” Despite everything, Matryona did not become embittered, she remained compassionate, open and selfless.
Matryona from Solzhenitsyn's story is the embodiment of the best features of a Russian peasant woman, her face is like the face of a saint on an icon, her life is almost a life. The house, the cross-cutting symbol of the story, is correlated with the ark of the biblical righteous man Noah, in which his family is saved from the flood along with pairs of all earthly animals. In Matryona's house, the animals from Noah's Ark are associated with a goat and a cat.
But the spiritually righteous Matryona is still not ideal. The deadening Soviet ideology penetrates into life, into the house of the heroine of the story (signs of this ideology in Solzhenitsyn’s text are a poster on the wall and an ever-incessant radio in Matryona’s house).
The life of a saint must end with a happy death, uniting her with God. This is the law of the hagiographic genre. However, Matryona's death is bitterly absurd. The brother of her late husband, the greedy old man Thaddeus, who once loved her, forces Matryona to give him the upper room (log hut). At a railway crossing, while transporting logs from a dismantled upper room, Matryona falls under a train, which personifies a mechanical, inanimate force hostile to the natural principle embodied by Matryona. The death of the heroine symbolizes the cruelty and meaninglessness of the world in which she lived.
In 1963-1966, three more stories about Solzhenitsyn were published in Novy Mir: “An Incident at Krechetovka Station” (No. 1 for 1963, the author’s title - “An Incident at Kochetovka Station” - was changed at the insistence of the editors due to the opposition of “New world" and the conservative magazine "October", headed by the writer V.A. Kochetov), "For the benefit of the cause" (No. 7, 1963), "Zakhar-Kalita" (No. 1, 1966). After 1966, the writer’s works were not published in his homeland until the turn of 1989, when the Nobel lecture and chapters from the book “The Gulag Archipelago” were published in the magazine “New World”.
While still in exile, in 1955, Solzhenitsyn began writing the novel “In the First Circle”; the last, seventh edition of the novel was completed in 1968.
In 1964, for the sake of publishing the novel in A.T. Tvardovsky’s “New World,” Solzhenitsyn reworked the novel, softening the criticism of Soviet reality. Instead of ninety-six written chapters, the text contained only eighty-seven. The original version told the story of a high-ranking Soviet diplomat's attempt to prevent Stalin's agents from stealing the secret of atomic weapons from the United States. He is convinced that with the atomic bomb, the Soviet dictatorial regime will be invincible and can conquer the still free countries of the West. For publication, the plot was changed: a Soviet doctor transmitted to the West information about a wonderful medicine, which the Soviet authorities kept in deep secret.
Censorship nevertheless prohibited publication. Solzhenitsyn later restored the original text, making minor changes.
Marfa prisoners are privileged prisoners. Here - compared to the camp - the food is good. After all, they are scientists working on the creation of ultra-modern equipment that Stalin and his henchmen need. The prisoners must invent a device that makes it difficult to understand overheard telephone conversations (an encoder).
One of the Marfa prisoners, the gifted philologist Lev Rubin (his prototype is the German philologist, translator L.Z. Kopelev), will say this about the “sharashka”: “No, dear, you are still in hell, but you have risen to its best highest round - to the first."
There are many plot lines in the novel. This is, first of all, the story of Gleb Nerzhin - a hero sympathetic to the author (his last name, obviously, means “not rusty in soul”, “not succumbing to rust / rust”). Nerzhin refuses to cooperate with the unjust authorities. He rejects the offer to work on secret inventions, preferring to return to the camp, where he could die.
In 1955, Solzhenitsyn conceived and in 1963-1966 wrote the story “Cancer Ward.” It reflected the author’s impressions of his stay at the Tashkent Oncology Clinic and the story of his healing. The duration of action is limited to several weeks, the place of action is the walls of a hospital (such a narrowing of time and space is a distinctive feature of the poetics of many of Solzhenitsyn’s works).
In the mid-1960s, when an official ban was imposed on discussing the topic of repression, the authorities began to view Solzhenitsyn as a dangerous adversary. In September 1965, a search was conducted at one of the writer’s friends who kept his manuscripts. The Solzhenitsyn archive ended up in the State Security Committee.
Since 1966, the writer’s works have ceased to be published, and those already published were removed from libraries. The KGB spread rumors that during the war Solzhenitsyn surrendered and collaborated with the Germans. In March 1967, Solzhenitsyn addressed the Fourth Congress of the Union of Soviet Writers with a letter, where he spoke about the destructive power of censorship and the fate of his works. He demanded that the Writers' Union refute the slander and resolve the issue of publishing Cancer Ward.
On February 12, 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested and a day later deported from the Soviet Union to West Germany. Immediately after the writer’s arrest, his wife Natalya Dmitrievna distributed in samizdat his article “Live not by lies” - a call on citizens to refuse complicity in the lies that the authorities demand of them. Solzhenitsyn and his family settled in the Swiss city of Zurich, and in 1976 moved to the small town of Cavendish in the American state of Vermont. In journalistic articles written in exile, in speeches and lectures delivered to Western audiences, Solzhenitsyn critically reflected on Western liberal and democratic values. He contrasts the law, justice, multi-party system as a condition and guarantee of human freedom in society with the organic unity of people, direct popular self-government; in contrast to the ideals of a consumer society, he puts forward ideas of self-restraint and religious principles (Harvard speech, 1978, article “Our Pluralists”, 1982, Templeton lecture, 1983). Solzhenitsyn's speeches caused a sharp reaction among part of the emigration, who reproached him for totalitarian sympathies, retrogradeness and utopianism. The grotesquely caricatured image of Solzhenitsyn, the writer Sim Simych Karnavalov, was created by V.N. Voinovich in the novel “Moscow-2042”.
In exile, Solzhenitsyn was working on the epic "The Red Wheel", dedicated to the pre-revolutionary years. "Red Wheel" consists of four parts - "nodes": "August the Fourteenth", "October the Sixteenth", "March the Seventeenth" and "April the Seventeenth". Solzhenitsyn began writing The Red Wheel in the late 1960s and completed it only in the early 1990s. “August the Fourteenth” and the chapters of “October the Sixteenth” were created in the USSR. "Red Wheel" is a kind of chronicle of the revolution, which is created from fragments of different genres. Among them are a report, a protocol, a transcript (a story about disputes between Minister Rittich and deputies of the State Duma; an “incident report” that analyzes street riots in the summer of 1917, fragments from newspaper articles of various political trends, etc.). Many chapters are like fragments of a psychological novel. They describe episodes from the life of fictional and historical characters: Colonel Vorotyntsev, his wife Alina and beloved Olda; the intellectual Lenartovich, who was in love with the revolution, General Samsonov, one of the leaders of the State Duma Guchkov and many others. The original fragments are called “screens” by the author - similarities to cinematic frames with editing techniques and zooming in or out of an imaginary film camera. “Screens” are full of symbolic meaning.
Thus, in one of the episodes reflecting the retreat of the Russian army in August 1914, the image of a wheel torn off from a cart, colored by fire, is a symbol of chaos, the madness of history. In "The Red Wheel" Solzhenitsyn resorts to narrative techniques characteristic of modernist poetics. The author himself noted in his interviews the importance of the novels of the American modernist John Dos Passos for The Red Wheel. "The Red Wheel" is built on the combination and intersection of different narrative points of view, while the same event is sometimes presented in the perception of several characters (the murder of P.A. Stolypin is seen through the eyes of his killer - terrorist M.G. Bogrov, Stolypin himself, General P.G. Kurlov and Nicholas II). The “voice” of the narrator, designed to express the author’s position, often enters into dialogue with the “voices” of the characters; the true author’s opinion can only be reconstructed by the reader from the whole text. Solzhenitsyn, a writer and historian, is especially fond of the reformer, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia P.A. Stolypin, who was killed several years before the start of the main action of the Red Wheel. However, Solzhenitsyn dedicated a significant part of his work to him. "Red Wheel" is in many ways reminiscent of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace". Like Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn contrasts the acting political characters (the Bolshevik Lenin, the Socialist Revolutionary Kerensky, the cadet Miliukov, the tsarist minister Protopopov) with normal, humane, living people. The author of "The Red Wheel" shares Tolstoy's idea about the extremely large role of ordinary people in history. But Tolstoy's soldiers and officers made history without realizing it. Solzhenitsyn constantly puts his heroes before a dramatic choice - the course of events depends on their decisions.
Solzhenitsyn, unlike Tolstoy, considers detachment and willingness to submit to the course of events not a manifestation of insight and inner freedom, but a historical betrayal. For in history, according to the author of The Red Wheel, it is not fate that acts, but people, and nothing is ultimately predetermined. That is why, while sympathizing with Nicholas II, the author still considers him inescapably guilty - the last Russian sovereign did not fulfill his destiny, did not keep Russia from falling into the abyss. Solzhenitsyn said that he would return to his homeland only when his books were returned there, when The Gulag Archipelago was published there. The New World magazine managed to obtain permission from the authorities to publish chapters of this book in 1989. In May 1994, Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia. He writes a book of memoirs “A grain fell between two millstones” (“New World”, 1998, No. 9, 11, 1999, No. 2, 2001, No. 4), appears in newspapers and on television with assessments of the modern policies of the Russian authorities. The writer accuses them of the fact that the reforms being carried out in the country are ill-conceived, immoral and cause enormous damage to society, which caused an ambiguous attitude towards Solzhenitsyn’s journalism.
In 1991, Solzhenitsyn wrote the book “How can we organize Russia. Possible considerations.” And in 1998, Solzhenitsyn published the book “Russia in Collapse,” in which he sharply criticizes economic reforms. He reflects on the need to revive the zemstvo and Russian national consciousness. In the “New World”, the writer regularly appeared in the late 1990s with literary critical articles devoted to the work of Russian prose writers and poets. In the 1990s, Solzhenitsyn wrote several short stories and novellas: “Two Stories” (“Ego”, “On the Edges”) (“New World”, 1995, 3, 5), called “two-part” stories “Young People”, “Nastenka” , "Apricot Jam" (all - "New World", 1995, No. 10), Zhelyabug settlements ("New World", 1999, No. 3) and the story "Adlig Schwenkitten" ("New World", 1999, No. 3). The structural principle of “two-part stories” is the correlation of two halves of the text, which describe the fates of different characters, often involved in the same events, but unaware of it. Solzhenitsyn addresses the topic of guilt, betrayal and human responsibility for the actions he has committed. In 2001-2002, a two-volume monumental work, “Two Hundred Years Together,” was published, which the author dedicated to the history of the Jewish people in Russia. The first part of the monograph covers the period from 1795 to 1916, the second - from 1916 to 1995. Publications by Solzhenitsyn A.I. Collected works (20 volumes). Vermont, Paris, 1978-1991; Small collected works (8 volumes). M., 1990-1991; Collected works (in 9 volumes). M., 1999 - (publication continues); "A calf butted an oak tree: Essays on literary life." M., 1996; "Red Wheel: Narration in measured periods at four nodes" (in 10 vols.). M., 1993-1997.
A.I. Solzhenitsyn died on August 3, 2008, at the age of 90, at his dacha in Troitse-Lykovo, from acute heart failure. On August 6, his ashes were interred in the necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery behind the altar of the Church of St. John the Climacus, next to the grave of the historian V. O. Klyuchevsky.
Aphorisms, quotes, sayings
Education does not improve intelligence.
An intellectual is one whose thought is not imitative.
If you don't know how to use a minute, you will waste an hour, a day, and your whole life.
There is no nation in the world more despicable, more abandoned, more alien and unnecessary than the Russian.
Anyone who has once proclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle.
Work is like a stick, it has two ends: if you do it for people, it gives you quality; if you do it for your boss, it gives you show off.
How do you know at what point on earth you will be happy and at which point you will be unhappy? Who can say that they know this about themselves?
Removing responsibility from Yeltsin is a great shame. I believe that Yeltsin and about a hundred people from his entourage should stand trial.
There is a high pleasure in fidelity. Maybe the highest. And even if they don’t know about your loyalty. And even if they don’t appreciate it.
An intellectual is one whose interests in the spiritual side of life are persistent and constant, not forced by external circumstances and even in spite of them.
The people have an undoubted right to power, but what the people want is not power (the thirst for it is characteristic of only two percent), but wants, first of all, a stable order.
There are black people who maliciously do black things, and you just need to distinguish them from the rest and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil crosses the heart of every person. And who will destroy a piece of his heart?
The hardest life is not for those who drown in the sea, dig in the ground or look for water in deserts. The hardest life is for the one who hits his head on the ceiling every day when leaving the house - it’s too low.
It is not the level of well-being that makes people happy, but the relationship of hearts and our point of view on our lives. Both are always in our power, which means a person is always happy if he wants it, and no one can stop him.
All methods of election campaign require certain qualities from a person, but for state leadership - completely different ones, nothing in common with the first. It is a rare case that a person has both, the latter would hinder him in the election competition.
Former Russian merchants had a MERCHANT'S word (transactions were concluded without written contracts), Christian ideas, historically known large-scale charity - will we expect this from sharks raised in the murky Soviet underwater?
The advantage of night arrests is that neither neighboring houses nor city streets see how many people were taken away during the night. Having frightened the closest neighbors, they are not an event for distant ones. It was as if they didn’t exist. Along the same asphalt ribbon along which the craters scurried at night, during the day a young tribe walks with banners and flowers and sings unclouded songs.
The work of A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” has a special place in literature and public consciousness. The story, written in 1959 (and conceived in the camp in 1950), was originally titled “Shch-854 (One Day of One Prisoner).” Solzhenitsyn wrote about the idea of the story: “It was just such a camp day, hard work, I was carrying a stretcher with a partner and thought: how should I describe the entire camp world - in one day... it’s enough to collect in one day as if from fragments, it’s enough to describe only one the day of one average, unremarkable person from morning to evening. And everything will be.” The genre of the story was determined by the writer himself, thereby emphasizing the contrast between the small form and deep content of the work. The story was called “One Day...” by A.T. Tvardovsky, realizing the significance of Solzhenitsyn’s creation.
The image of Ivan Denisovich was formed on the basis of the character of a real person, soldier Shukhov, who fought with the author in the Soviet-German war (and was never imprisoned), the general experience of prisoners and the author’s personal experience in the Special Camp as a mason. The remaining persons are all from camp life, with their authentic biographies.
Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is one of many who fell into the Stalinist meat grinder and became faceless “numbers.” In 1941, he, a simple man, a peasant who fought honestly, found himself surrounded and then captured. Having escaped from captivity, Ivan Denisovich ends up in Soviet counterintelligence. The only chance to stay alive is to sign a confession that he is a spy. The absurdity of what is happening is emphasized by the fact that even the investigator cannot figure out what task the “spy” was given. That’s what they wrote, just a “task.” “Counterintelligence beat Shukhov a lot. And Shukhov’s calculation was simple: if you don’t sign, it’s a wooden pea coat; if you sign, you’ll at least live a little longer. Signed." And Shukhov ends up in a Soviet camp. “...And the column went out into the steppe, directly against the wind and against the reddening sunrise. Bare white snow lay to the edge, to the right and to the left, and there was not a single tree in the entire steppe. A new year began, the fifty-first, and in it Shukhov had the right to two letters...” So it begins - after the exposition, the scene of the prisoners rising in a cold barracks, the hasty absorption of empty gruel, the renewal of the camp number "Shch-854" on a padded jacket - a working day imprisoned peasant, former soldier Shukhov. There is a column of people in pea coats, with rags wrapped around their bodies, this poor protection from the icy wind - washed foot wraps with slits, masks of bondage on their faces. How can you find a human face among the closed numbers, most often zeros? It seems that the person in it has disappeared forever, that everything personal is drowning in the depersonalizing element.
The column is not just walking among the bare white snow, against the reddening sunrise. She walks in the midst of hunger. The descriptions of the feeding of the column in the dining room are not accidental: “The table leader does not bow to anyone, and all the prisoners are afraid of him. He holds thousands of lives in one hand...”; “The brigades are pressed... and they’re marching towards the fortress”; “...the crowd is swaying, suffocating themselves - to get the gruel.”
The camp is an abyss into which the unfortunate fatherland of Solzhenitsyn’s heroes has fallen. What is happening here is a gloomy, bestial act of self-destruction, the “simplicity” of devastation. The accusatory power of Solzhenitsyn’s work lies in its depiction of the ordinariness of what is happening, the habit of inhumane conditions.
Ivan Denisovich is from the breed of “natural”, “natural” people. He resembles Tolstoy's Platon Karataev. Such people value, above all, immediate life, existence as a process. It seems that everything in Shukhov is focused on one thing - just to survive. But how to survive and remain human? Ivan Denisovich succeeds in this. He did not succumb to the process of dehumanization, resisted, and retained his moral foundation. The “almost happy” day did not bring any special troubles, this is already happiness. Happiness is the absence of unhappiness in conditions that you cannot change. They didn’t put me in a punishment cell, I didn’t get caught during a search, I bought some tobacco, I didn’t get sick—what else? If such a day is happy, then what are the unlucky ones?
Shukhov lives in harmony with himself, he is far from introspection, from painful thoughts, from questions: for what? Why? This integrity of consciousness largely explains its resilience and adaptability to inhuman conditions. Ivan Denisovich’s “naturalness” is associated with the hero’s high morality. They trust Shukhov because they know that he is honest, decent, and lives according to his conscience. Shukhov's adaptability has nothing to do with opportunism, humiliation, or loss of human dignity. Shukhov remembers the words of his first foreman, the old camp wolf Kuzemin: “This is who dies in the camp: who licks the bowls, who hopes for the medical unit, and who goes to knock on the godfather.” Shukhov works conscientiously in the camp, as if he were free, on his collective farm. For him, this work contains the dignity and joy of a master who masters his craft. While working, he feels a surge of energy and strength. He has a practical peasant thrift: he hides his trowel with touching care. Work is life for Shukhov. The Soviet regime did not corrupt him, could not force him to slack off and shirk. The way of peasant life, its age-old laws turned out to be stronger. Common sense and a sober outlook on life help him survive.
The author writes with sympathy about those who “take the hit.” This is Senka Klevshin, Latvian Kildigis, captain Buinovsky, assistant foreman Pavlo and foreman Tyurin. They do not lose their temper and do not waste words, just like Ivan Denisovich. Brigadier Tyurin is a “father” to everyone. The life of the brigade depends on how the “interest” is closed. Tyurin knows how to live himself and thinks for others. The “impractical” Buinovsky tries to fight for his rights and receives “ten days of strict detention.” Shukhov does not approve of Buinovsky’s action: “Groan and rot. But if you resist, you will break.” Shukhov with his common sense and Buinovsky with his “inability to live” are opposed by those who “do not take the blow”, “who evade it.” First of all, this is film director Cesar Markovich. He has a fur hat sent from outside: “Caesar greased someone up, and they allowed him to wear a clean city hat.” Everyone is working in the cold, but Caesar is sitting warm in the office. Shukhov does not condemn Caesar: everyone wants to survive. One of the hallmarks of Caesar's life is "educated conversation." The cinema that Caesar was involved in was a game, i.e. a fictitious, unreal life, from the point of view of a prisoner. The reality remains hidden to Caesar. Shukhov even feels sorry for him: “He probably thinks a lot about himself, but he doesn’t understand life at all.”
Solzhenitsyn singles out another hero, not named - “a tall, silent old man.” He spent countless years in prisons and camps, and not a single amnesty touched him. But I didn’t lose myself. “His face was exhausted, but not to the weakness of a disabled wick, but to the point of a hewn, dark stone. And from his hands, large, cracked and black, it was clear that he had not had much time in all his years of being a moron.” “Assholes” - camp “aristocrats” - lackeys: barracks orderlies, foreman Dair, “observer” Shkuropatenko, hairdresser, accountant, one of the KVCHs - “the first bastards who sat in the zone, these hard workers considered these people lower than crap.”
In the person of the “kindly”, patient Ivan Denisovich, Solzhenitsyn recreated the image of the Russian people, capable of enduring unprecedented suffering, deprivation, bullying and at the same time maintaining kindness towards people, humanity, condescension towards human weaknesses and intransigence towards moral vices. In the finale of “One Day...” Shukhov, not without mocking the truth-seeker Baptist Aleshka, appreciates his call: “Of all earthly and mortal things, the Lord commanded us to pray only for our daily bread: “Give us this day our daily bread.” “To rations, then? - Shukhov asked.”
One Day of Ivan Denisovich grows to the limits of an entire human life, to the scale of the people's destiny, to the symbol of an entire era in the history of Russia.
Solzhenitsyn wrote the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in 1959. The work was first published in 1962 in the magazine “New World”. The story brought Solzhenitsyn worldwide fame and, according to researchers, influenced not only literature, but also the history of the USSR. The original author's title of the work is the story “Shch-854” (the serial number of the main character Shukhov in the correctional camp).
Main characters
Shukhov Ivan Denisovich- a prisoner of a forced labor camp, a bricklayer, his wife and two daughters are waiting for him “in the wild.”
Caesar- a prisoner, “either he is Greek, or a Jew, or a gypsy,” before the camps “he made films for cinema.”
Other heroes
Tyurin Andrey Prokofievich- Brigadier of the 104th Prison Brigade. He was “dismissed from the ranks” of the army and ended up in a camp for being the son of a “kulak”. Shukhov knew him from the camp in Ust-Izhma.
Kildigs Ian– a prisoner who was given 25 years; Latvian, good carpenter.
Fetyukov- “jackal”, prisoner.
Alyoshka- prisoner, Baptist.
Gopchik- a prisoner, cunning, but harmless boy.
“At five o’clock in the morning, as always, the rise struck - with a hammer on the rail at the headquarters barracks.” Shukhov never woke up, but today he was “chilling” and “breaking.” Because the man did not get up for a long time, he was taken to the commandant’s office. Shukhov was threatened with a punishment cell, but he was punished only by washing the floors.
For breakfast in the camp there was balanda (liquid stew) of fish and black cabbage and magara porridge. The prisoners slowly ate the fish, spat the bones onto the table, and then swept them onto the floor.
After breakfast, Shukhov went into the medical unit. A young paramedic, who was actually a former student of the literary institute, but under the patronage of a doctor ended up in the medical unit, gave the man a thermometer. Showed 37.2. The paramedic suggested that Shukhov “stay at his own risk” to wait for the doctor, but still advised him to go to work.
Shukhov went into the barracks for rations: bread and sugar. The man divided the bread into two parts. I hid one under my padded jacket, and the second in the mattress. Baptist Alyoshka read the Gospel right there. The guy “so deftly stuffs this little book into a crack in the wall - they haven’t found it on a single search yet.”
The brigade went outside. Fetyukov tried to get Caesar to “sip” a cigarette, but Caesar was more willing to share with Shukhov. During the “shmona”, prisoners were forced to unbutton their clothes: they checked whether anyone had hidden a knife, food, or letters. People were frozen: “the cold has gotten under your shirt, now you can’t get rid of it.” The column of prisoners moved. “Due to the fact that he had breakfast without rations and ate everything cold, Shukhov felt unfed today.”
“A new year began, the fifty-first, and in it Shukhov had the right to two letters.” “Shukhov left the house on the twenty-third of June forty-one. On Sunday, people from Polomnia came from mass and said: war.” Shukhov's family was waiting for him at home. His wife hoped that upon returning home her husband would start a profitable business and build a new house.
Shukhov and Kildigs were the first foremen in the brigade. They were sent to insulate the turbine room and lay the walls with cinder blocks at the thermal power plant.
One of the prisoners, Gopchik, reminded Ivan Denisovich of his late son. Gopchik was imprisoned “for carrying milk to the Bendera people in the forest.”
Ivan Denisovich has almost served his sentence. In February 1942, “in the North-West, their entire army was surrounded, and nothing was thrown from the planes for them to eat, and there were no planes. They went so far as to cut off the hooves of dead horses.” Shukhov was captured, but soon escaped. However, “their own people,” having learned about the captivity, decided that Shukhov and other soldiers were “fascist agents.” It was believed that he was imprisoned “for treason”: he surrendered to German captivity, and then returned “because he was carrying out a task for German intelligence. What kind of task - neither Shukhov himself nor the investigator could come up with.”
Lunch break. The workers were not given extra food, the “sixes” got a lot, and the cook took away the good food. For lunch there was oatmeal porridge. It was believed that this was the “best porridge” and Shukhov even managed to deceive the cook and take two servings for himself. On the way to the construction site, Ivan Denisovich picked up a piece of a steel hacksaw.
The 104th brigade was “like a big family.” Work began to boil again: they were laying cinder blocks on the second floor of the thermal power plant. They worked until sunset. The foreman, jokingly, noted Shukhov’s good work: “Well, how can we let you go free? Without you, the prison will cry!”
The prisoners returned to the camp. The men were harassed again, checking to see if they had taken anything from the construction site. Suddenly Shukhov felt in his pocket a piece of a hacksaw, which he had already forgotten about. It could be used to make a shoe knife and exchange it for food. Shukhov hid the hacksaw in his mitten and miraculously passed the test.
Shukhov took Caesar's place in line to receive the package. Ivan Denisovich himself did not receive the parcels: he asked his wife not to take them away from the children. In gratitude, Caesar gave Shukhov his dinner. In the dining room they served gruel again. Sipping the hot liquid, the man felt good: “here it is, the short moment for which the prisoner lives!”
Shukhov earned money “from private work” - he sewed slippers for someone, sewed a quilted jacket for someone. With the money he earned, he could buy tobacco and other necessary things. When Ivan Denisovich returned to his barracks, Caesar was already “humming over the parcel” and also gave Shukhov his ration of bread.
Caesar asked Shukhov for a knife and “got into debt to Shukhov again.” The check has begun. Ivan Denisovich, realizing that Caesar’s parcel could be stolen during the check, told him to pretend to be sick and go out last, while Shukhov would try to be the very first to run in after the check and look after the food. In gratitude, Caesar gave him “two biscuits, two lumps of sugar and one round slice of sausage.”
We talked with Alyosha about God. The guy said that you need to pray and be glad that you are in prison: “here you have time to think about your soul.” “Shukhov silently looked at the ceiling. He himself didn’t know whether he wanted it or not.”
“Shukhov fell asleep, completely satisfied.” “They didn’t put him in a punishment cell, they didn’t send the brigade to Sotsgorodok, he made porridge at lunch, the foreman closed the interest well, Shukhov laid the wall cheerfully, he didn’t get caught with a hacksaw on a search, he worked in the evening at Caesar’s and bought tobacco. And I didn’t get sick, I got over it.”
“The day passed, unclouded, almost happy.
There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days in his period from bell to bell.
Due to leap years, three extra days were added...”
Conclusion
In the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn depicted the life of people who ended up in Gulag forced labor camps. The central theme of the work, according to Tvardovsky, is the victory of the human spirit over camp violence. Despite the fact that the camp was actually created to destroy the personality of the prisoners, Shukhov, like many others, manages to constantly wage an internal struggle, to remain human even in such difficult circumstances.
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Retelling rating
Average rating: 4.3. Total ratings received: 2512.
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn is a writer and publicist who entered Russian literature as an ardent opponent of the communist regime. In his work, he regularly touches on the theme of suffering, inequality and vulnerability of people to Stalinist ideology and the current state system.
We present to your attention an updated version of the review of Solzhenitsyn’s book – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
The work that brought A.I. Solzhenitsyn's popularity became the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." True, the author himself later made an amendment, saying that in terms of genre specifics, this is a story, albeit on an epic scale, reproducing the gloomy picture of Russia at that time.
Solzhenitsyn A.I. in his story, he introduces the reader to the life of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, a peasant and military man who ended up in one of Stalin’s many camps. The whole tragedy of the situation is that the hero went to the front the very next day after the attack of Nazi Germany, was captured and miraculously escaped, but when he reached his own people, he was recognized as a spy. This is what the first part of the memoirs is dedicated to, which also includes a description of all the hardships of the war, when people had to eat corneas from the hooves of dead horses, and the command of the Red Army, without remorse, abandoned ordinary soldiers to die on the battlefield.
The second part shows the life of Ivan Denisovich and hundreds of other people staying in the camp. Moreover, all the events of the story take only one day. However, the narrative contains a large number of references, flashbacks and references to the life of the people, as if by chance. For example, correspondence with my wife, from which we learn that in the village the situation is no better than in the camp: there is no food and money, the residents are starving, and the peasants survive by dyeing fake carpets and selling them to the city.
As we read, we also learn why Shukhov was considered a saboteur and a traitor. Like most of those in the camp, he was convicted without guilt. The investigator forced him to confess to treason, who, by the way, couldn’t even figure out what task the hero was performing, allegedly helping the Germans. In this case, Shukhov had no choice. If he had refused to admit what he never did, he would have received a “wooden pea coat,” and since he went along with the investigation, then “at least you’ll live a little longer.”
Numerous images also play an important part in the plot. These are not only prisoners, but also guards, who differ only in how they treat the camp inmates. For example, Volkov carries with him a huge and thick whip - one blow of it tears a large area of skin until it bleeds. Another bright, albeit minor character is Caesar. This is a kind of authority in the camp, who previously worked as a director, but was repressed without ever making his first film. Now he is not averse to talking with Shukhov on topics of contemporary art and presenting him with a small piece of work.
Solzhenitsyn very accurately reproduces in his story the life of prisoners, their drab life and hard work. On the one hand, the reader does not encounter blatant and bloody scenes, but the realism with which the author approaches the description makes him horrified. People are starving, and the whole point of their life comes down to getting themselves an extra slice of bread, since they won’t be able to survive in this place on a soup of water and frozen cabbage. Prisoners are forced to work in the cold, and in order to “pass the time” before sleeping and eating, they have to work in a race.
Everyone is forced to adapt to reality, find a way to deceive the guards, steal something or secretly sell it. For example, many prisoners make small knives from the tools, then exchange them for food or tobacco.
Shukhov and everyone else in these terrible conditions look like wild animals. They can be punished, shot, beaten. All that remains is to be more cunning and smarter than the armed guards, try not to lose heart and be true to your ideals.
The irony is that the day that constitutes the time of the story is quite successful for the main character. He was not put in a punishment cell, he was not forced to work with a team of construction workers in the cold, he managed to get a portion of porridge for lunch, during the evening search they did not find a hacksaw on him, and he also worked part-time at Caesar’s and bought tobacco. True, the tragedy is that during the entire period of imprisonment, three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days accumulated. What's next? The term is coming to an end, but Shukhov is sure that the term will either be extended or, worse, sent into exile.
Characteristics of the main character of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”
The main character of the work is a collective image of a simple Russian person. He is about 40 years old. He comes from an ordinary village, which he remembers with love, noting that it used to be better: they ate potatoes “in whole frying pans, porridge in cast iron pots...”. He spent 8 years in prison. Before entering the camp, Shukhov fought at the front. He was wounded, but after recovery he returned to the war.
Character appearance
There is no description of his appearance in the text of the story. The emphasis is on clothing: mittens, pea coat, felt boots, wadded trousers, etc. Thus, the image of the main character is depersonalized and becomes the personification of not only an ordinary prisoner, but also a modern resident of Russia in the mid-20th century.
He is distinguished by a feeling of pity and compassion for people. He worries about the Baptists who received 25 years in the camps. He feels sorry for the degraded Fetikov, noting that “he won’t live out his term. He doesn’t know how to position himself.” Ivan Denisovich even sympathizes with the security guards, because they have to be on duty on towers in the cold or in strong winds.
Ivan Denisovich understands his plight, but does not stop thinking about others. For example, he refuses parcels from home, forbidding his wife to send food or things. The man realizes that his wife has a very hard time - she raises children alone and looks after the household during the difficult war and post-war years.
A long life in a convict camp did not break him. The hero sets certain boundaries for himself that cannot be violated under any circumstances. It's corny, but he makes sure not to eat fish eyes in his stew or always take off his hat when eating. Yes, he had to steal, but not from his comrades, but only from those who work in the kitchen and mock his cellmates.
Ivan Denisovich is distinguished by honesty. The author points out that Shukhov never took or gave a bribe. Everyone in the camp knows that he never shirks from work, always tries to earn extra money and even sews slippers for other prisoners. In prison, the hero becomes a good mason, mastering this profession: “with Shukhov you won’t be able to dig into any distortions or seams.” In addition, everyone knows that Ivan Denisovich is a jack of all trades and can easily take on any task (patches padded jackets, pours spoons from aluminum wire, etc.)
A positive image of Shukhov is created throughout the entire story. His habits as a peasant, an ordinary worker, help him overcome the hardships of imprisonment. The hero does not allow himself to humiliate himself in front of the guards, lick the plates or inform on others. Like every Russian person, Ivan Denisovich knows the value of bread, carefully storing it in a clean rag. He accepts any work, loves it, and is not lazy.
What then is such an honest, noble and hardworking man doing in a prison camp? How did he and several thousand other people end up here? These are the questions that arise in the reader as he gets to know the main character.
The answer to them is quite simple. It's all about an unjust totalitarian regime, the consequence of which is that many worthy citizens find themselves prisoners of concentration camps, forced to adapt to the system, live away from their families and be doomed to long torment and hardship.
Analysis of the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"
To understand the writer’s intention, it is necessary to pay special attention to the space and time of the work. Indeed, the story depicts the events of one day, even describing in great detail all the everyday moments of the regime: getting up, breakfast, lunch, dinner, leaving for work, the road, the work itself, constant searches by security guards and many others. etc. This also includes a description of all prisoners and guards, their behavior, life in the camp, etc. For people, real space turns out to be hostile. Every prisoner does not like open places, tries to avoid meeting the guards and quickly hide in the barracks. Prisoners are limited by more than just barbed wire. They don’t even have the opportunity to look at the sky - the spotlights are constantly blinding them.
However, there is also another space - internal. This is a kind of memory space. Therefore, the most important are the constant references and memories, from which we learn about the situation at the front, suffering and countless deaths, the disastrous situation of the peasants, as well as the fact that those who survived or escaped from captivity, who defended their homeland and their citizens, often in the eyes of the government they become spies and traitors. All these local topics form the picture of what is happening in the country as a whole.
It turns out that the artistic time and space of the work is not closed, not limited to just one day or the territory of the camp. As it becomes known at the end of the story, there are already 3653 such days in the hero’s life and how many will be ahead is completely unknown. This means that the title “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” can easily be perceived as an allusion to modern society. A day in the camp is impersonal, hopeless, and for the prisoner it becomes the personification of injustice, lack of rights and a departure from everything individual. But is all this typical only for this place of detention?
Apparently, according to A.I. Solzhenitsyn, Russia at that time was very similar to a prison, and the task of the work becomes, if not to show deep tragedy, then at least categorically to deny the position of the one described.
The merit of the author is that he not only describes what is happening with amazing accuracy and with a lot of detail, but also refrains from openly displaying emotions and feelings. Thus, he achieves his main goal - he allows the reader to evaluate this world order and understand the meaninglessness of the totalitarian regime.
The main idea of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”
In his work A.I. Solzhenitsyn recreates the basic picture of life in that Russia, when people were doomed to incredible torment and hardship. A whole gallery of images opens before us that personify the fate of millions of Soviet citizens who were forced to pay for their faithful service, diligent and diligent work, faith in the state and adherence to ideology with imprisonment in terrible concentration camps scattered throughout the country.
In his story “Matrenin's Dvor,” Solzhenitsyn depicted a situation typical for Russia, when a woman has to take on the cares and responsibilities of a man.
Be sure to read the novel “In the First Circle” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, banned in the Soviet Union, which explains the reasons for the author’s disappointment in the communist system.
The short story clearly reveals the list of injustices of the state system. For example, Ermolaev and Klevshin went through all the hardships of war, captivity, worked underground, and received 10 years in prison as a reward. Gopchik, a young man who recently turned 16, becomes proof that repression is indifferent even to children. No less revealing are the images of Aleshka, Buinovsky, Pavel, Caesar Markovich and others.
Solzhenitsyn's work is imbued with hidden but evil irony, exposing the other side of life in the Soviet country. The writer touched upon an important and pressing issue, which had been taboo all this time. At the same time, the story is imbued with faith in the Russian people, his spirit and will. Having condemned the inhumane system, Alexander Isaevich created a truly realistic character of his hero, who is able to withstand all the torment with dignity and not lose his humanity.
5 (100%) 1 vote