“Two Captains” is an adventure novel by the Soviet writer Veniamin Kaverin (1902-1989), created in 1938-1944. The novel has gone through more than a hundred reprints! For him, Kaverin was awarded the Stalin Prize of the second degree (1946). The motto of the novel is the words “Struggle and seek, find and not give up” - this is the final line from Lord Tennyson’s textbook poem “Ulysses” (in the original: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield). This line is also engraved on the cross in memory of the lost expedition of R. Scott to the South Pole, on Observer Hill._ The book tells about the amazing fate of a mute orphan from the provincial town of Ensk, who honorably goes through the trials of war and homelessness in order to win the heart of his beloved girls. After the unjust arrest of his father and the death of his mother, Sanya Grigoriev is sent to an orphanage. Having escaped to Moscow, he ends up first in a distribution center for street children, and then in a commune school. He is irresistibly attracted by the apartment of the school director Nikolai Antonovich, where the latter’s cousin, Katya Tatarinova, lives. Many years later, having studied the relics of the polar expedition found by the Nenets, Sanya understands that it was Nikolai Antonovich who was responsible for the death of Katya’s father, Captain Tatarinov, who in 1912 led the expedition that discovered Severnaya Zemlya. After the start of World War II, Sanya served in the Air Force. During one of the missions, he discovers the captain's body along with his reports. The finds allow him to shed light on the circumstances of the death of the expedition and justify himself in the eyes of Katya, who becomes his wife. Working on a book. _ Veniamin Kaverin recalled that the creation of the novel “Two Captains” began with his meeting with the young geneticist Mikhail Lobashev, which took place in a sanatorium near Leningrad in the mid-thirties. “He was a man in whom ardor was combined with straightforwardness, and perseverance with an amazing definiteness of purpose,” the writer recalled. “He knew how to achieve success in any business.” Lobashev told Kaverin about his childhood, the strange muteness in early years, orphanhood, homelessness, a communal school in Tashkent and how he later managed to enter the university and become a scientist. Another prototype of the main character was the military fighter pilot Samuil Klebanov, who died heroically in 1942. He initiated the writer into the secrets of flying skill. The image of Captain Ivan Lvovich Tatarinov recalls several historical analogies. In 1912, three Russian polar expeditions set sail: on the ship “St. Foka" under the command of Georgy Sedov, on the schooner "St. Anna" under the leadership of Georgy Brusilov and on the Hercules boat with the participation of Vladimir Rusanov. Expedition on the schooner "St. Maria" in the novel actually repeats the travel dates and route of "St. Anna". The appearance, character and views of Captain Tatarinov make him similar to Georgy Sedov. The searches of Captain Tatarinov's expedition are reminiscent of the searches of Rusanov's expedition. The fate of the character in the novel navigator “St. Mary" by Ivan Klimov echoes the true fate of the navigator of the "St. Anna" Valerian Albanov. Despite the fact that the book was published during the heyday of the cult of personality and is generally designed in the heroic style of socialist realism, the name of Stalin is mentioned in the novel only once (in Chapter 8 of Part 10). The novel was filmed twice: Two Captains (film, 1955) Two Captains (film, 1976) In 2001, the musical “Nord-Ost” was staged based on the novel.

From time immemorial, people from the Russian hinterland have glorified the Russian land, mastering the heights of world science and culture. Let us at least remember Mikhailo Vasilyevich Lomonosov. So are our contemporaries Viktor Astafiev and Vasily Belov. Valentin Rasputin, Alexander Yashin, Vasily Shukshin, representatives of the so-called “village prose”, are rightfully considered masters of Russian literature. At the same time, they forever remained faithful to their rural birthright, their “small homeland.”

I have always been interested in reading their works, especially the stories and stories of Vasily Makarovich Shukshin. In his stories about fellow countrymen one can see the writer’s great love for the Russian village, concern for today’s man and his future fate.

Sometimes they say that the ideals of Russian classics are too far from modernity and are inaccessible to us. These ideals cannot be inaccessible to a schoolchild, but they are difficult for him. Classics - and this is what we try to convey to our students - is not entertainment. The artistic exploration of life in Russian classical literature never turned into an aesthetic pursuit; it always pursued a living spiritual and practical goal. V.F. Odoevsky formulated, for example, the purpose of his writing: “I would like to express in letters the psychological law according to which not a single word uttered by a person, not a single action is forgotten, does not disappear in the world, but certainly produces some kind of action; so that responsibility is connected with every word, with every seemingly insignificant act, with every movement of a person’s soul.”

When studying works of Russian classics, I try to penetrate into the “secrets” of the student’s soul. I will give several examples of such work. Russian verbal and artistic creativity and the national sense of the world are so deeply rooted in the religious element that even movements that have outwardly broken with religion still find themselves internally connected with it.

F.I. Tyutchev in the poem "Silentium" ("Silence!" - Lat.) speaks about the special strings of the human soul that are silent in Everyday life, but clearly declare themselves in moments of liberation from everything external, worldly, vain. F.M. Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov recalls the seed sown by God into the soul of man from other worlds. This seed or source gives a person hope and faith in immortality. I.S. Turgenev felt more keenly than many Russian writers the short duration and fragility of human life on earth, the inexorability and irreversibility of the rapid flight of historical time. Sensitive to everything topical and momentary, able to capture life in its beautiful moments, I.S. Turgenev simultaneously possessed a generic feature of any Russian classic writer - a rare sense of freedom from everything temporary, finite, personal and egoistic, from everything subjectively biased, clouding visual acuity, breadth of vision, completeness artistic perception. In the troubled years for Russia, I.S. Turgenev creates a prose poem "Russian Language". The bitter consciousness of the deepest national crisis that Russia was then experiencing did not deprive I.S. Turgenev of hope and faith. Our language gave him this faith and hope.

So, the depiction of the Russian national character distinguishes Russian literature as a whole. The search for a hero who is morally harmonious, who clearly understands the boundaries of good and evil, who exists according to the laws of conscience and honor, unites many Russian writers. The twentieth century (especially the second half) felt the loss of the moral ideal even more acutely than the nineteenth: the connection of times fell apart, the string broke, which A.P. so sensitively grasped. Chekhov (the play “The Cherry Orchard”), and the task of literature is to realize that we are not “Ivans who do not remember kinship.” I would especially like to dwell on the depiction of the folk world in the works of V.M. Shukshina. Among the writers of the late twentieth century, it was V.M. Shukshin turned to the people's soil, believing that people who retained their "roots", albeit subconsciously, were drawn to the spiritual principle inherent in popular consciousness, contain hope, testify that the world has not yet perished.

Speaking about the depiction of the folk world by V.M. Shukshin, we come to the conclusion that the writer deeply comprehended the nature of the Russian national character and showed in his works what kind of person the Russian village yearns for. About the soul of a Russian person V.G. Rasputin writes in the story "Izba". The writer turns readers to the Christian norms of simple and ascetic life and at the same time, to the norms of brave, courageous deeds, creation, asceticism. We can say that the story returns readers to the spiritual space of the ancient, maternal culture. The tradition of hagiographic literature is noticeable in the story. Severe, ascetic Agafya's life, her ascetic work, love for native land, to every hummock and every blade of grass, erecting “mansions” in a new place - these are the moments of content that make the story about the life of a Siberian peasant woman related to life. There is also a miracle in the story: despite the “addiction,” Agafya, having built a hut, lives in it “twenty years without one year,” that is, she will be awarded longevity. And the hut built by her hands, after Agafya’s death, will stand on the shore, will preserve the foundations of centuries-old peasant life for many years, and will not allow them to perish even today.

Story plot, character main character, the circumstances of her life, the story of her forced move - everything refutes the popular ideas about the laziness and commitment to drunkenness of the Russian person. It should also be noted main feature fate of Agafya: “Here (in Krivolutskaya) Agafya’s Vologzhin family settled from the very beginning and lived for two and a half centuries, taking root in half the village.” This is how the story explains the strength of character, perseverance, and asceticism of Agafya, who is building her “house” in a new place, a hut, after which the story is named. In the story of how Agafya set up her hut in a new place, the story of V.G. Rasputin comes close to the life of Sergius of Radonezh. It is especially close in the glorification of carpentry, which was mastered by Agafya’s voluntary assistant, Savely Vedernikov, who earned an apt description from his fellow villagers: he has “golden hands.” Everything that Savely’s “golden hands” do shines with beauty, pleases the eye, and glows. “Damp plank, and how board to board lay on two shiny slopes, playing with whiteness and newness, how it shone already at dusk, when, having struck the roof with an ax for the last time, Savely went down, as if the light was streaming over the hut and it stood up in full growth, immediately moving into the living order."

Not only life, but also fairy tales, legends, and parables resonate in the style of the story. As in the fairy tale, after Agafya’s death the hut continues their common life. The blood connection between the hut and Agafya, who “endured” it, is not broken, reminding people to this day of the strength and perseverance of the peasant breed.

At the beginning of the century, S. Yesenin called himself “the poet of the golden log hut.” In the story by V.G. Rasputin, written at the end of the 20th century, the hut is made of logs darkened by time. There is only a glow under the night sky from the brand new plank roof. Izba - a word-symbol - was fixed at the end of the 20th century in the meaning of Russia, homeland. The parable layer of V.G.’s story is connected with the symbolism of village reality, with the symbolism of the word. Rasputin.

So, moral problems traditionally remain the focus of Russian literature; our task is to convey to students the life-affirming foundations of the works being studied. The portrayal of the Russian national character distinguishes Russian literature; the search for a hero who is morally harmonious, clearly aware of the boundaries of good and evil, and who exists according to the laws of conscience and honor, unites many Russian writers.

RUSSIAN PROSE OF THE MID 50'S AND THE FIRST HALF OF THE 80'S

1. Periodization.
2. The theme of bureaucracy and the problem of dissent in V. Dudintsev’s novel “Not by Bread Alone.”
3. Tragic conflict between ideal and reality in P. Nilin’s story “Cruelty”.
4. The stories of B. Mozhaev “Alive” and V. Belov “Business as usual”: the depth and integrity of the moral world of man from the earth.
5. The work of V. Rasputin: formulation of acute problems of our time in the stories “Money for Maria” and “Deadline”.
6. The artistic world of V. Shukshin’s stories.
7. The problem of the ecology of nature and the human soul in the narration in V. Astafiev’s stories “The Tsar Fish”.
8. Ruthlessness in depicting the horrors of everyday life in V. Astafiev’s story “The Sad Detective”.

Literature:
1. History of Russian literature of the twentieth century (20–90s). M.: MSU, 1998.
2. History Soviet literature: A New Look. M., 1990.
3. Emelyanov L. Vasily Shukshin. Essay on creativity. L., 1983.
4. Lanshchikov A. Viktor Astafiev (Life and Creativity). M., 1992.
5. Musatov V.V. History of Russian literature of the twentieth century. (Soviet period). M., 2001.
6. Pankeev I. Valentin Rasputin. M., 1990.

The death of Stalin and the liberalization that followed it had a direct impact on literary life society.

The years from 1953 to 1964 are usually called the “thaw” period - after the title of the story of the same name by I. Ehrenburg (1954). This period was a long-awaited breath of freedom for writers, liberation from dogma, from the dictates of permitted half-truths. The “Thaw” had its stages, both forward and backward movements, restoration of the old, episodes of partial return to the “delayed” classics (so in 1956, a 9-volume collected work by I. Bunin was published, collections of seditious works by Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Zabolotsky began to be published , Yesenin, and in 1966 M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” was published). At the same time, incidents like the one that occurred after the publication of B. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago” and the awarding of the Nobel Prize were still possible in the life of society. V. Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate” - even in the conditions of the “thaw” - was nevertheless confiscated in 1961, arrested until 1980.

The first segment of the “thaw” (1953–1954) is associated primarily with liberation from the requirements of normative aesthetics. In 1953, in No. 12 of the magazine “ New world“An article by V. Pomerantsev “On Sincerity in Literature” appeared, in which the author pointed out a very frequent discrepancy between what the writer personally saw and what he was ordered to portray, which was officially considered the truth. Thus, the truth in the war was not considered to be retreat, not the disaster of 1941, but only the notorious victorious blows. And even writers who knew about the feat and tragedy of the defenders of the Brest Fortress in 1941 (for example, K. Simonov) did not write about it until 1956 and crossed it out of their memory and biography. In the same way, the writers did not talk about everything they knew about the Leningrad Siege, the tragedy of the prisoners, etc. V. Pomerantsev called on writers to trust their biography, their hard-won experience, to be sincere, and not to select or adjust the material to a given scheme.

The second stage of the “thaw” (1955–1960) was no longer a sphere of theory, but a series of works of art that asserted the right of writers to see the world as it is. This is the novel by V. Dudintsev “Not by Bread Alone” (1956), and the story by P. Nilin “Cruelty” (1956), and essays and stories by V. Tendryakov “Bad Weather” (1954), “Tight Knot” (1956), etc. .

The third and last segment of the “thaw” (1961–1963) is rightfully associated with the novel in defense of captured Soviet soldiers “Missing in Action” (1962) by S. Zlobin, the early stories and novels of V. Aksenov, the poetry of E. Yevtushenko and, certainly with the first reliable description of the camp in the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (1962) by A. Solzhenitsyn.

Period from 1964 to 1985 They are usually called roughly and simplistically “years of stagnation.” But this is clearly unfair to our science (our country was the first in space and in many areas high technology), nor in relation to the literary process. The scope of freedom for artists in these years was so great that for the first time since the 1920s, new ideas were born in literature. literary trends“village” prose, “military” prose, “urban” or “intellectual” prose, the author’s song flourished; 2/ specific works about the Russian religious and moral idea in art appeared: “Letters from the Russian Museum” (1966), “Black Boards” (1969) by Vl. Soloukhin; 3/historical novels by V. Pikul (1928–1989) were created, and profound historical and philosophical works by D. Balashov were written; 4/ the historical-revolutionary novelism of A. Solzhenitsyn (“The Red Wheel”) arose; 5/ there was a rise in science fiction, the flourishing of the social dystopia of I. Efremov and the Strugatsky brothers.

In the 60–80s, two trends dominated the literary process: on the one hand, patriotic, nationally oriented (in V. Belov, V. Rasputin, V. Astafiev, N. Rubtsov, etc.) and, on the other hand, typically “Western”, largely individualistic, oriented towards the latest postmodern philosophy and poetics (E. Evtushenko, A. Voznesensky, I. Brodsky, V. Voinovich, etc.). Some writers, for example, V. Belov, saw in the peasant hut its communal and family soul. Others, for example, V. Voinovich, no less actively than V. Belov, did not accept Stalinism, at the same time in the novel “The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of the Soldier Ivan Chonkin” (1969) and in the story “Ivankiada” (1976) looked at both the “Russian idea” and rural Rus' extremely sarcastically.

Prose 50-60 years.

• It must be said that the Thaw prose was more politicized.
• Appear new concepts of modern history and its individual periods in general.
• The first guy in the village and the authority is still Uncle Lenin.
• Writers of the 2nd half of the 20th century gradually and carefully comprehended the new reality and looked for new ideas for its implementation. Namely, they are busy searching for new forms - new genres and trends in prose.

Thematic areas of prose of this period:

· Military prose - 50-60 years The pole of aesthetic perception of this topic has shifted from the ideal to the real.

- “Russian Forest” - Leonov

- “For a just cause” - Grossman

Bestseller of 1956 by Vladimir Dudintsev “We ​​are not united by bread”

· Village prose

Solzhenitsyn lays the foundations of village prose in the story Matryonin's Dvor. 1959. Village prose is based on the positions of pochvennichestvo. Writers in this genre were mainly from the villages.

Character traits– faith in God and life according to the Gospel, the idea of ​​conciliarity (the unity of people in God). Solzhenitsyn, by the way, put forward the concept of neo-soilism.

At this time, a theory arose that proclaimed social realism as an open artistic system - that is, the theory of social realism “without shores.” The theory of social realism lived its own life, and art went its own way. The consequence of this era was the phenomenon of secretarial literature (these are texts by leading officials of the writers' union, published in millions of copies).

At this time, prose writers came to literature - Yu. Trifonov, Bykhov, Astafiev. Poets - Akudzhava, Tarkovsky, Vysotsky and others.

Playwrights - Vampilov. The late 60s and early 70s saw the rise of drama. The 70s also saw the emergence of such a trend as “ production drama" (these were debate plays)

The spiritual crisis, which deepened and deepened every year, determined the general quality of artistic consciousness and mood in the 70s. The key concept of this period was drama, as the realization that you can’t live like this anymore, drama as a situation of choice and as a painful state of decision-making.

Intellectual drama was also born during this period (Gorin, Radzinsky)

In the 60-70s marks the birth of Russian postmodernism (Bitov, Erofeev “Moscow-Petushki”)

At this time, interaction between different artistic paradigms begins.

Prose of the 70s, early 80s.

IN public opinion, rural prose as a phenomenon declared itself already during the Thaw years. But! The leadership of the Writers' Union stubbornly ignored these statements, without noticing her. The angle from which the village was viewed had now changed.

In literary criticism, there are different points of view on the time boundaries of the existence of village prose.

Prose of this period represents a rich thematic palette:

1. urban realistic stories about school (Vl. Tendryakov “the night after graduation”, “reckoning”)
2. Military theme (Bondarev “hot snow”, Kondratiev)
3. Universal human values ​​(Vitov. Novel “The Catechumens”)
4. Political detectives (Yulian Semenov “17 Moments of Spring”)

The prose of this period is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. The influx of new prose writers into literature - artists of words with pronounced creative individualities - determined the stylistic and ideological and artistic diversity of prose.

The main problems of literature of these years are related to life modern society, the life of the village in the past and present, the life and activities of the people, the Great Patriotic War. According to their creative personalities, writers tend to gravitate towards realistic, romantic or lyrical tendencies.

One of the leading trends in prose of this period was military prose.

Prose about the war occupied a special place in the development of post-war literature. It has become not just a topic, but an entire continent, where almost all the ideological and aesthetic problems of modern life find their solution on specific life materials.

For military prose a new period of development began in the mid-60s. At the end of the 50s, the books “The Fate of Man” by M. Sholokhov, “Ivan” by V. Bogomolov, the stories by Y. Bondarev “Battalions Ask for Fire”, G. Baklanov’s “An Inch of Earth”, the novel by K. Simonov “The Living and the Dead” appeared. (A similar rise is observed in cinema - “The Ballad of a Soldier” and “The Cranes Are Flying” were released). A fundamentally important role in the formation of the new wave was played by M. Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of a Man” and V. Nekrasov’s story “In the Trenches of Stalingrad.” With these works, our literature moved on to the narrative of fate common man.

The new beginnings of military prose manifested themselves most dramatically in stories of that direction that can be called prose of psychological drama. The title of G. Baklanov’s story “An Inch of Earth” seemed to reflect a polemic with previous panoramic novels. The name indicated that what was happening on every inch of land reflected the full strength of the moral achievement of the people. At this time, the stories “Battalions Ask for Fire” by Yu. Bondarev, “Killed near Moscow” by K. Vorobyov, “Crane Cry”, “The Third Rocket” by V. Bykov were published. These stories had a similar central character - usually a young soldier or lieutenant, the same age as the writers themselves. All stories were distinguished by maximum concentration of action: one battle, one unit, one bridgehead, one moral situation. Such a narrow view made it possible to highlight in more contrast the dramatic experiences of a person, the psychological truth of his behavior in the conditions of a reliably shown front-line life. The dramatic episodes that formed the basis of the plot were also similar. In the stories “An Inch of Earth” and “Battalions Ask for Fire” there was a fierce and unequal battle on a tiny bridgehead.

In K. Vorobyov’s story “Killed near Moscow,” the battle of a company of Kremlin cadets was shown, from which only one soldier emerged alive. A battle in which idealized ideas about war are defeated by the harsh truth of surging events. The internal development of the plot reveals not how fruitlessly and doomfully the cadets thrown into battle die, but how selflessly the remaining ones continue to fight. By placing their heroes in difficult, very difficult situations, writers revealed at this turning point such changes in the moral character of the hero, such depths of character that under ordinary conditions cannot be measured. The main criterion for a person’s value among prose writers of this direction was: a coward or a hero. But despite the irreconcilability of the division of characters into heroes and cowards, the writers were able to show in their stories both the psychological depth of heroism and the socio-psychological origins of cowardice.

Along with the prose of psychological drama, epic prose developed steadily, sometimes in open polemics with it. Works aimed at a broad coverage of reality were divided into three groups according to the type of narrative.

The first type can be called informative and journalistic: in them, a romantic story, captivating many characters at the front and in the rear, is combined with documentary accuracy of the depiction of the activities of Headquarters and senior headquarters. An extensive panorama of events was recreated in the five-volume “Blockade” by A. Chakovsky. The action moves from Berlin to the small town of Belokamensk. From Hitler's bunker to Zhdanov's office, from the front line to Stalin's dacha. Although in the actual novelistic chapters the author’s primary attention is paid to the Korolev and Valitsky families, this is still not a family novel, but is consistently journalistic in its composition: the author’s voice not only comments on the movement of the plot, but also directs it. According to the event-journalistic logic, a variety of social strata come into action - the military, diplomats, party workers, workers, students. The dominant style of the novel was the artistic interpretation and reproduction of historical events, based on documents, memoirs, and scientific publications that became available. Due to the acutely problematic, journalistic nature of the novel, the fictional characters turned out to be more social symbols, social roles, than artistically unique, original types. They are somewhat lost in the whirlwind of events on a large scale, for the sake of which the novel was conceived. The same applies to his novel “Victory” and to the three-volume “War” by A. Stadnyuk, which repeated the same principles that were tested by Chakovsky, but not on the material of the Leningrad defense, but on the Smolensk battle.

The second branch consisted of panoramic family novels. (“Eternal Call” by A. Ivanov, “Fate” by P. Proskurin). In these novels the journalistic element occupies less of a place. At the center of the work is not a historical document or images of statesmen, but the life and fate of an individual family, which unfolds over many, and sometimes decades, against the backdrop of major historical upheavals and events.

And the third type is the novels by K. Simonov “The Living Dead”, “Soldiers Are Not Born”, “The Last Summer”, A. Grossman “Life and Fate”. In these works there is no desire to cover the widest possible field of historical events and the actions of all social strata, but they have a living correlation of private destinies with the fundamental problems of national life.

This is how important ideological and stylistic processes manifested themselves in notable works about the war, among which one can highlight the increased interest in the fate of the common man, the slowness of the narrative, the attraction to developed humanistic issues, to general issues of human existence. With some degree of convention, one can draw the following dotted line in the movement of military prose: in the first post-war years - feat and hero, then a more voluminous, gravitating towards completeness image of a person in war, then a keen interest in the humanistic issues inherent in the formula of man and war, and, finally , a man against war, in a broad comparison of war and peaceful existence.

Another direction of prose about the war was documentary prose. It is noteworthy that there is an increased interest in such documentary evidence about the fate of a person and the fate of a people, which individually would be of a private nature, but in their totality create a living picture.

O. Adamovich did especially a lot in this direction, first compiling a book of records of stories of residents of a village that accidentally survived, exterminated by the Nazis, “I am from the village of fire.” Then, together with D. Ganin, they published the “Siege Book”, based on oral and written testimonies of Leningrad residents about the blockade winter of 1941-1942, as well as the works of S. Alekseevich “War does not have a woman’s face” (memoirs of women front-line soldiers) and “The Last Witness "(children's stories about the war).

The first part of the “Siege Book” contains recordings of conversations with siege survivors - residents of Leningrad who survived the siege, provided with the author's commentary. In the second there are three commented diaries - of researcher Knyazev, schoolboy Yura Ryabikin and mother of two children Lydia Okhapkina. Both oral testimonies, diaries, and other documents used by the authors convey the atmosphere of heroism, pain, perseverance, suffering, mutual assistance - that true atmosphere of life in the siege, which appeared to the eyes of an ordinary participant.

This form of narration made it possible for representatives of documentary prose to pose some general questions of life. What we have before us is not documentary-journalistic, but documentary-philosophical prose. It is dominated not by open journalistic pathos, but by the thoughts of the authors who wrote so much about the war and thought so much about the nature of courage, about the power of man over his destiny.

Romantic-heroic prose about the war continued to develop. This type of narration includes the works “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet”, “Not on the Lists” by B. Vasilyev, “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess” by V. Astafiev, “Forever Nineteen” by G. Baklanov. The romantic style clearly reveals all the most important qualities of military prose: a military hero is most often a tragic hero, military circumstances are most often tragic circumstances, be it a conflict between humanity and inhumanity, the thirst for life with the harsh necessity of sacrifice, love and death, etc.

During these years, “village prose” took one of the first places in its importance.

The 50-60s are a special period in the development of Russian literature. Overcoming the consequences of the cult of personality, getting closer to reality, eliminating the elements of non-conflict, embellishing life - all this is characteristic of Russian literature of this period.

At this time, the special role of literature as the leading form of development of social consciousness is revealed. This attracted writers to moral issues. An example of this is “village prose”.

The term “village prose”, included in scientific circulation and in criticism, remains controversial. And so we need to decide. First of all, by “village prose” we mean a special creative community, that is, these are, first of all, works united by a common theme, the setting of moral, philosophical and social problems. They are characterized by the image of an inconspicuous hero-worker, endowed with life wisdom and great moral content. Writers of this direction strive for deep psychologism in depicting characters, for the use of local sayings, dialects, and regional words. On this basis, their interest in the historical and cultural traditions of the Russian people, in the topic of continuity of generations, grows. True, when using this term in articles and studies, the authors always emphasize that it carries an element of convention, that they use it in a narrow sense.

However, writers on rural topics are not satisfied with this, because a number of works go significantly beyond the scope of such a definition, developing the problems of spiritual understanding of human life in general, and not just of villagers.

Fiction about the village, about the peasant man and his problems over the course of 70 years of formation and development was marked by several stages: 1. In the 20s, there were works in literature that argued with each other about the paths of the peasantry, about the land. In the works of I. Volnov, L. Seifullina, V. Ivanov, B. Pilnyak, A. Neverov, L. Leonov, the reality of the village way of life was recreated from different ideological and social positions. 2. In the 30-50s, strict control over artistic creativity. The works of F. Panferov “Whetstones”, “Steel Ribs” by A. Makarov, “Girls” by N. Kochin, Sholokhov’s “Virgin Soil Upturned” reflected negative trends in the literary process of the 30-50s. 3. After the exposure of Stalin’s personality cult and its consequences, literary life in the country intensified. This period is characterized by artistic diversity. Artists are aware of their right to freedom of creative thought, to historical truth.

New features, first of all, appeared in the village sketch, in which acute social problems were posed. (“District everyday life” by V. Ovechkin, “At the middle level” by A. Kalinin, “The Fall of Ivan Chuprov” by V. Tendryakov, “Village Diary” by E. Dorosh).

In such works as “From the Notes of an Agronomist”, “Mitrich” by G. Troepolsky, “Bad Weather”, “Not for the Court”, “Potholes” by V. Tendryakov, “Levers”, “Vologda Wedding” by A. Yashin, writers created a true picture of everyday life way of life of a modern village. This picture made us think about the diverse consequences of social processes of the 30-50s, about the relationship between the new and the old, about the fate of traditional peasant culture.

In the 60s, “village prose” reached a new level. The story "Matrenin's Dvor" by A. Solzhenitsyn occupies an important place in the process of artistic comprehension of national life. The story represents a new stage in the development of “village prose”.

Writers are beginning to turn to topics that were previously taboo: 1. the tragic consequences of collectivization (“On the Irtysh” by S. Zalygin, “Death” by V. Tendryakov, “Men and Women” by B. Mozhaev, “Eves” by V. Belov, “Brawlers” "M. Alekseeva and others). 2. A depiction of the near and distant past of the village, its current concerns in the light of universal human problems, the destructive influence of civilization (“The Last Bow”, “The King Fish” by V. Astafiev, “Farewell to Matera”, “The Last Term” by V. Rasputin, “ Bitter herbs" by P. Proskurin). 3. In the “village prose” of this period, there is a desire to introduce readers to folk traditions, to express a natural understanding of the world (“Commission” by S. Zalygin, “Lad” by V. Belov).

Thus, the image of a man from the people, his philosophy, the spiritual world of the village, orientation towards folk word- all this unites such different writers as F. Abramov, V. Belov, M. Alekseev, B. Mozhaev, V. Shukshin, V. Rasputin, V. Likhonosov, E. Nosov, V. Krupin and others.

Russian literature has always been significant in that, like no other literature in the world, it dealt with issues of morality, questions about the meaning of life and death, and posed global problems. In “village prose”, issues of morality are associated with the preservation of everything valuable in rural traditions: centuries-old national life, the way of life of the village, folk morality and folk moral principles. The theme of continuity of generations, the relationship of the past, present and future, the problem of spiritual origins folk life solved differently by different writers.

Thus, in the works of Ovechkin, Troepolsky, Dorosh, the sociological factor is a priority, which is due to the genre nature of the essay. Yashin, Abramov, Belov connect the concepts of “home”, “memory”, “life”. They associate the fundamental foundations of the strength of people's life with the combination of spiritual and moral principles and the creative practice of the people. The theme of the life of generations, the theme of nature, the unity of tribal, social and natural principles among the people is characteristic of the work of V. Soloukhin. Y. Kuranova, V. Astafieva.

Innovative character associated with the desire to penetrate deeper into the moral and spiritual world contemporary, explore historical experience society is inherent in the work of many writers of this period.

One of the innovative and interesting topics in the literature of the 60s was the theme of the camps and Stalinist repressions.

One of the first works written on this topic was “Kolyma Tales” by V. Shalamov. V. Shalamov is a writer of difficult creative destiny. He himself went through the camp dungeons. He began his creative career as a poet, and in the late 50s and 60s he turned to prose. His stories convey with a sufficient degree of frankness the life of the camp, with which the writer was familiar first-hand. In his stories, he was able to give vivid sketches of those years, to show images of not only prisoners, but also their guards, the commanders of the camps where he had to sit. These stories recreate terrible camp situations - hunger, degeneration, humiliation of people by brutal criminals. “Kolyma Tales” explores collisions in which a prisoner “swims” to the point of prostration, to the threshold of non-existence.

But the main thing in his stories is not only the conveyance of an atmosphere of horror and fear, but also the depiction of people who at that time managed to retain the best human qualities in themselves, the willingness to help, the feeling that you are not only a cog in a huge machine of suppression, and above all, a person in whose soul hope lives.

A representative of the memoir movement of “camp prose” was A. Zhigulin. Zhigulin’s story “Black Stones” is a complex and ambiguous work. This is a documentary and artistic narrative about the activities of the KPM (Communist Youth Party), which included thirty boys, including romantic impulse united for a conscious struggle against the deification of Stalin. It is constructed as the author's memoirs about his youth. Therefore, unlike the works of other authors, there is a lot of so-called “criminal romance” in it. But at the same time, Zhigulin managed to accurately convey the feeling of that era. With documentary accuracy, the writer writes about how the organization was born and how the investigation was carried out. The writer very clearly described the conduct of the interrogations: “The investigation was generally conducted in a vile manner... The notes in the interrogation reports were also vilely kept. It was supposed to be written down word for word - how the accused answered. But the investigators invariably gave our answers a completely different color. For example, if I said: “Communist Youth Party,” the investigator wrote down: “Anti-Soviet organization KPM.” If I said “meeting,” the investigator wrote “gathering.” Zhigulin seems to be warning that the main task of the regime was to “penetrate thought” that had not even been born, to penetrate and strangle it to its cradle. Hence the advance cruelty of the self-adjusting system. For playing with the organization, a semi-childish game, but deadly for both sides (which both sides knew about) - ten years of a prison-camp nightmare. This is how a totalitarian system works.

Another striking work on this topic was the story “Faithful Ruslan” by G. Vladimov. This work was written in the footsteps of and on behalf of a dog, specially trained, trained to lead prisoners under escort, “make a selection” from the same crowd and overtake hundreds of miles of crazy people who risked escaping. A dog is like a dog. A kind, intelligent, loving person more than a person himself loves his relatives and himself, a creature destined by the dictates of fate, the conditions of birth and upbringing, and the camp civilization that befell him to bear the responsibilities of a guard, and, if necessary, an executioner.

In the story, Ruslan has one production concern for which he lives: this is so that order, elementary order, is maintained, and the prisoners maintain the established order. But at the same time, the author emphasizes that he is too kind by nature (brave, but not aggressive), smart, reasonable, proud, in the best sense of the word, he is ready to do anything for the sake of his owner, even to die.

But the main content of Vladimirov’s story is precisely to show: if something happens, and this case presented itself and coincides with our era, all the best capabilities and abilities of not only a dog, but a person. The holiest intentions are shifted, without knowing it, from good to evil, from truth to deception, from devotion to a person to the ability to wrap a person up, take him by the hand, by the leg, take him by the throat, risking, if necessary, his own head, and transform a stupid bunch called “people”, “people” into the harmonious stage of the prisoners - into formation.

The undoubted classic of “camp prose” is A. Solzhenitsyn. His works on this topic appeared at the end of the Thaw, the first of which was the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” Initially, the story was even called in the camp language: “Shch-854. (One day of a prisoner).” In the small “time-space” of the story, many human destinies are combined. These are, first of all, the captain, Ivan Denisovich, and the film director Tsezar Markovich. Time (one day) seems to flow into the space of the camp; in it the writer focused all the problems of his time, the entire essence of the camp system. He also dedicated his novels “In the First Circle”, “Cancer Ward” and a large documentary and artistic study “The Gulag Archipelago” to the topic of the Gulag, in which he proposed his concept and periodization of the terror that unfolded in the country after the revolution. This book is based not only on the author’s personal impressions, but also on numerous documents and letters-memoirs of the prisoners themselves.

In the late 60s and early 70s, a movement of ideas and forms took place in the literary process, a breakdown of the usual forms of storytelling. At the same time, a special type of prose emerged, which put forward concepts about personality and history, about absolute and pragmatic morality, about human memory in the ocean of mysteries of existence, things. About intelligence and lumpenism. At different times, such prose was called differently, either “urban” or “social and everyday”, but in Lately the term “intellectual prose” became firmly established behind it.

Indicative of this type of prose were the stories by Yu. Trifonov “Exchange”, “Preliminary Results”, “The Long Farewell”, “The Old Man”, V. Makanin’s “The Forerunner”, “Laz”, “Plots of Homogenization”, the story by Yu. Dombrovsky “The Guardian” Antiquities", which had a hidden continuation until 1978 in the form of his novel-testament "The Faculty of Unnecessary Things". The story about the philosophizing drunkard Ven began its journey in samizdat. Erofeev’s “Moscow - Petushki”: her hero had a fundamental gap in his biography - “he had never seen the Kremlin,” and in general “I agreed to live forever if they showed me a corner on earth where there is not always room for heroic deeds.” Considerable success accompanied the appearance of V. Semin’s story “Seven in One House”, extremely lyrical, intimate stories and stories by V. Likhonosov “Bryanskie”, “I Love You Brightly”, V. Krupin’s story “Water of Life”, B. Yampolsky’s novels “Moscow street”, F. Gorenshtein “Psalm”, “Place”, “Last summer on the Volga”. But especially interesting is the novel by A. Bitov, an artist obsessed with culture as the main material for the creation of personality, memory, and a system of introspection, “Pushkin’s House.”

The works of these writers are different in their intonation and style: these are family stories by Trifonov, and ironic and grotesque novels by Ven. Erofeev, and the philosophical and cultural novel by A. Bitov. But in all these works, the authors interpret the human world through culture, spiritual, religious and material.

5. At the end of the seventies, a direction arose in Russian literature, which received the conventional name “artistic prose” or “prose of forty-year-olds” (“Senior Seventies”). It is necessary to recognize the conventionality of this term, which only defines the age boundaries of writers or some stylistic features. The origins of artistic prose in the 20s of the last century, in the works of Y. Olesha, M. Bulgakov, V. Nabokov.

The direction itself was not homogeneous; within it, critics distinguished analytical prose (T. Tolstaya, A. Ivanchenko, I. Polyanskaya, V. Iskhakov), romantic prose (V. Vyazmin, N. Isaev, A. Matveev), absurdist prose (V. Pietsukh, E. Popov, Viktor Erofeev, A. Vernikov, Z. Gareev). With all their differences, they all have one thing in common: the authors of this prose, often falling out of the “near” historical time, certainly try to break through to the great time of humanity, civilization, and, most importantly, world culture. With one clarification, big time also becomes a big game.

One of the brightest representatives of this trend is T. Tolstaya. She is the author of many short stories and novellas. The main theme of her work is the theme of childhood (stories “We sat on the golden porch...”, “Date with a bird”, “Love or not”). In these stories, the perception of the heroes is absolutely adequate to the celebration of life. In T. Tolstoy, a child’s gaze is endless, open, inconclusive, like life itself. But it is important to understand: Tolstoy’s children are always children of fairy tales, children of poetry. They live in an imaginary, illusory world.

The same motives are present in the prose of A. Ivanchenko (“Self-portrait with a friend”, “Apples in the snow”). The same contrast between the festivity of the playful, artistic word and the wingless, sterile reality is obvious in him. And Ivanchenko enjoys reliving childhood as a time for something beautiful and fabulous. Their heroes are trying to preserve their “I” in an illusion fairy tale.

Prominent representatives of the romantic direction of artistic prose are V. Vyazmin and N. Isaev. N. Isaev’s novel “A Strange Thing!” aroused great critical interest. An incomprehensible thing! Or Alexander on the Islands." The author accompanied his work with the genre subtitle “Happy Modern Greek Parody.” His entire text is fantastic, funny, familiarly relaxed dialogues with Pushkin or on Pushkin’s themes. It combines parody and periphrase, improvisation and stylization, Isaev's jokes and Pushkin's poems, there is even a devil - Pushkin's playful interlocutor. He, in essence, composes an ironic Pushkin encyclopedia. He builds his own, lyrical, free, and therefore happily ideal world of culture, the world of poetry.

V. Vyazmin follows the Hoffmann tradition in his story “His House and Himself.” The multi-styled narrative also fits into the playful tone of the story. Here, next to the artistically stylized monologues of the author, there is a layer of detective-fairy-tale narrative, there is also an old romantic short story, pages in a fairy-tale-folklore style, ancient Chinese parables, but the main place is occupied by the reflective monologues of the main character Ivan Petrovich Marinin. Both writers create in their works modern fairy tale or a cultural utopia, which is impossible in real life, but is a way out for the heroes of their works.

The heroes Pietsukha, Popova and Vic build their world differently. Erofeeva. Duality is also a criterion for them to evaluate modern reality. But they believe that life is more fantastic than fiction, and therefore their works are based on showing the absurdity and chaos of our world. In this regard, we should highlight the novels and short stories “The Flood”, “New Moscow Philosophy”, “The Scourge of God”, “The Central Ermolaev War”, “Me and the Duelists”, “Hijacking”, “The Hidden” by V. Pietsukh, “The Soul of a Patriot” , Or Various messages to Fefichkin”, “Bus station”, “Shining Path”, “How they ate a rooster”, “Strange coincidences”, “Electronic button accordion”, “No, not about that”, “The Goldfinch”, “Green Massif”, “Like a fleeting vision”, “Drummer and his drummer wife”, “Aunt Musya and Uncle Leva” by E. Popova, “Parrot”, “Letter to Mother” Vik. Erofeeva.

The works of the authors of this direction express the situation of decomposition and collapse of social foundations, a sense of the relativity of values ​​and the unlimited openness of consciousness, it becomes a sign of an impending catastrophe and global upheaval, which is expressed in the constant coexistence of two worlds in the minds of the heroes: the real and the unreal, which exist independently of each other. friend.

6. The process of deepening historicism occurs in historical prose itself. Historical novel, which was on the rise in the 70s (which made it possible for critics to talk about the revival of historical prose), takes on particular relevance in the context of the modern literary movement. First of all, attention is drawn to the variety of themes and forms of modern historical prose. A series of novels about the Battle of Kulikovo (“Atonement” by V. Lebedev, “Kulikovo Field” by V. Vozovikov, “Church Me” by B. Dedyukhin), novels about Razin, Ermak, Volny Novgorod bring something new to the interpretation of Russian history in comparison with the historical prose of previous decades .

Modern searches in the area artistic form(lyricism and at the same time the strengthening of the role of the document, the increase in the philosophical principle, and hence the attraction to conventional symbolic devices, parable imagery, free handling of the category of time) also affected prose dedicated to past eras. If in the 20-30s - the time of the formation of historical novels - a historical character was presented as the embodiment of a certain socio-economic pattern, then the prose of the 70-80s, without losing this important achievement, goes further. It shows the relationship between personality and history in a more multidimensional and indirect way.

“Atonement” by V. Lebedev is one of the significant novels about the Battle of Kulikovo. The image of Dmitry Donskoy, a statesman, diplomat and commander, skillfully uniting the forces of the emerging Russian nation, is the focus of the artist’s attention. Showing the burden of responsibility of a historical figure for the fate of the people and the state, the writer does not avoid the complex contradictions of the era.

In the novels “Martha the Posadnitsa”, “The Great Table”, “The Burden of Power” and “Simeon the Proud” D. Balashov shows how the idea of ​​​​unifying Rus', forged in endless civil strife and the fight against the Horde yoke, was formed and won. Two latest novel the writer devotes to the topic of creating a centralized Russian state led by Moscow.

The novels of V. Pikul, dedicated to various stages of Russian life in the 18th-20th centuries, became widely known. Among them, such works as “Pen and Sword”, “Word and Deed”, “Favorite” especially stand out. The author draws on the richest historical and archival material, introduces a huge amount characters, shedding new light on many events and a number of figures in Russian history.

The artistic and documentary novel-essay “Memory” by V. Chivilikhin is interesting and unusual. Additional genre clarification was required, apparently, because bold scientific hypotheses - the fruits of enormous research work - are organically woven into the fictionalized fabric of the work. The writer told about fierce battles with foreign enslavers and about the origins of the spiritual greatness of the Russian people, who threw off the Mongol-Tatar yoke in a long and difficult struggle. Here, the distant past of Russia, the Middle Ages, the Decembrist epic are connected by a single thread with our already close history and the present day. The author is attracted by the variety of properties and signs of the Russian national character, its interaction with history. Our modernity is also a link in the memory of countless generations. It is memory that acts as the measure of human conscience, that moral coordinate, without which efforts that are not cemented by a high humanistic goal crumble to dust.

Fyodor Aleksandrovich Abramov (1920-1983) did not know his student period. Before starting his creative career, he was already a famous literary scholar.

His first novel, Brothers and Sisters, immediately brought him fame. This novel became the first part of the tetralogy “Pryasliny”. The stories “Fatherlessness”, “Pelageya”, “Alka”, as well as the collection of stories “Wooden Horses” were a notable phenomenon in the literature of the 60s. Fyodor Abramov in his works depicts the life and everyday life of the village, from the war years to the present day, and pays close artistic attention to the origins of the national character, and gives the fate of ordinary people in relation to the historical destinies of the people. Village life in different historical periods- the main theme of F. Abramov’s work. His tetralogy “Pryasliny” (“Brothers and Sisters”, “Two Winters and Three Summers”, “Crossroads”, “Home”) depicts the life of the northern village of Pekashino, the beginning of the action dates back to the spring of 1942, the end - to the beginning of 70 -s.

The novel tells the story of several generations of peasant families. Moral problems of human relationships, problems of leadership are posed, the role of the individual and the team is revealed. The image of Anfisa Petrovna, nominated to chair the collective farm during the harsh years of the war, is significant. Anfisa Petrovna is a woman of strong character and great hard work. During the difficult times of war, she managed to organize work on the collective farm and find the key to the hearts of her fellow villagers. She combines exactingness and humanity.

Showing the life of the village without embellishment, its hardships and needs, Abramov created typical characters of representatives of the people, such as Mikhail Pryaslin, his sister Lisa, Egorsha, Stavrov, Lukashin and others.

Mikhail Pryaslin, after his father went to the front and after his death, despite his youth, becomes the master of the house. He feels responsible for the lives of his brothers and sister, his mother, and for his work on the collective farm.

The character of his sister Lisa is full of charm. Her small hands are not afraid of any work.

Egorsha is the opposite of Mikhail in everything. A cheerful, witty and resourceful opportunist, he did not want and did not know how to work. He directed all the powers of his mind towards living by the principle: “No matter where you work, as long as you don’t work.”

In the first books of the tetralogy, Mikhail Pryaslin directs all his efforts to rid his large family of want and therefore stands aloof from public life. But at the end of the work, Mikhail becomes an active participant and grows as a person. Abramov showed that, despite all the difficulties and troubles, the residents of the village of Pekashino in difficult years wars lived with faith in victory, hope for a better future and worked tirelessly to make dreams come true. Portraying three types of village leaders - Lukashin, Podrezov, Zarudny, Abramov gives sympathy to Lukashin, who follows the democratic principles of leadership, combining integrity with humanity.

The writer showed us how scientific and technological progress invades the life of the village, changes its appearance and characters. The writer at the same time expresses regret that age-old traditions that generalize the people's experience and reflect the moral wealth of the people's soul are leaving the village.

In the novel “Home,” Abramov poses the problem of his father’s home, the Motherland, and morality. The writer reveals Lisa’s highly moral world, her warmth, selflessness, kindness, and loyalty to her father’s house makes Mikhail Pryaslin condemn himself for his callousness and heartlessness towards his sister.

Viktor Petrovich Astafiev (1924-20000) attracted the attention of readers and critics with his stories “The Pass” and “Starodub”.

The story “Starodub” is dedicated to Leonid Leonov. Following the outstanding prose writer V. Astafiev poses the problem - man and nature. Feofan and his adopted son Kultysh are perceived by others as wild, wayward people who are incomprehensible to many. The writer reveals wonderful human qualities in them. They carry a loving and touching attitude towards nature, they are true children and guardians of the taiga, sacredly observing its laws. They take under their protection the fauna and rich forests. Considering the taiga to be the guardian of natural resources, Feofan and Kultysh treat the gifts of nature with a pure heart and demand this from others, firmly believing that they are cruelly punishing both predators and people who exterminate the animal world, regardless of its laws.

The stories “Theft” and “The Last Bow” are autobiographical in nature. The story “The Last Bow” shows a continuation of the tradition of Gorky’s autobiographical works, in which the hero’s fate is depicted in close unity with the people’s destinies. But at the same time, Astafiev’s story is a unique and original work. The childhood of little Vitya was difficult and joyless, he lost his mother early and was left with a drunkard father, who soon after the death of his wife (she drowned in the Yenisei) married again. Grandma Katerina Petrovna helped Vitya survive and taught him the harsh but fair laws of life.

In the image of the grandmother, one can see to some extent the features of Alyosha’s grandmother, Akulina Ivanovna from Gorky’s story “Childhood”. But Katerina Petrovna is a unique, unique character. A great worker, a stern, strong-willed peasant woman from a northern village, she is at the same time a person capable of great strict love for people. She is always active, courageous, fair, ready to help in days of grief and trouble, intolerant of lies, falsehood, and cruelty.

The story “War is thundering somewhere” is included in the autobiographical cycle “The Last Bow”. The war was a national tragedy. And although she did not directly come to the distant Siberian village, she also determined the life, behavior of people, their actions, dreams, desires. The war weighed heavily on the lives of the people. Enormous work fell to the lot of women and teenagers. The funeral brought tragedy not only to the house of the deceased, but to the entire village.

V. Astafiev showed the courage and resilience of the people, their inflexibility under all the hardships of war, faith in victory, and heroic work. The war did not embitter people who were capable of “genuine, uncontrived love for their neighbor.” The story creates memorable characters of the saddler Daria Mitrofanovna, aunts Augusta and Vasenya, uncle Levontia, children - Kesha, Lidka, Katya and others.

The story “Starfall” is a lyrical story about love. It is the most ordinary, this love, and at the same time the most extraordinary, such as no one has ever had and never will have. The hero, who is in the hospital after being wounded, meets nurse Lida. The author traces step by step the origin and development of love, which enriched the souls of the heroes and made them look at the world with different eyes. The heroes part and lose each other, “but the one who loved and was loved is not afraid of longing for her and thoughts.”

The story “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess” has two temporal aspects: the present time and the events of the war - fierce battles in Ukraine in February 1944.

The roar and clang of war, the mortal danger that lies in every battle, cannot, however, drown out the humanity in a person. And Boris Kostyaev, having gone through the most severe trials of the war, did not lose the ability for an all-consuming human feeling. His meeting with Lyusya was the beginning of a great love, a love that is stronger than death itself. This meeting opened up a whole world for Boris, unknown and complex.

The action of the story “The Sad Detective” takes place in the regional city of Veisk. The main character of the novel is police officer Leonid Soshnin, a man who places great demands on himself. He studies in absentia at a pedagogical institute, reads a lot, and has independently mastered German language. Soshnin is distinguished by a humane attitude towards people and intolerance towards criminals of all types. The story contains a lot of writerly reflections on the disturbing facts of our life that worry Astafiev.

Originality and an extraordinary ability to reflect the greatness of the soul of the people are characteristic of the prose of Vasily Ivanovich Belov (born in 1932), who entered literature in the 60s. In the center of Belov’s stories and essays is his native forest and lake Vologda side. Writer with great artistic power and expressively depicts the life and customs of the Vologda village. But Belov cannot in any way be called a regional writer. In his heroes he was able to reveal the typical traits of people of our time. The characters created by Belov surprisingly intertwine national folk traditions and modern features. The writer acts as a singer of nature, which helps his heroes survive adversity and awakens in them genuine human qualities.

Belov’s landmark work was the story “A Habitual Business.” Talking about the ordinary people of the village - Ivan Afrikanovich, his wife Katerina, grandmother Evstolya and others, the writer emphasizes the richness of their inner world, the wisdom of their worldly philosophy, the ability for a great sense of unity, patient overcoming difficulties, and inexhaustible hard work. Ivan Afrikanovich is both a hero and not a hero. A participant in the Great Patriotic War, wounded more than once and never letting his comrades down, in conditions of peaceful life he is not distinguished by energy, perseverance, or the ability to alleviate the difficult fate of his wife Katerina, or to arrange the life of his large family. He simply lives on earth, rejoices in all living things, realizing that it is better to be born than not to be born. And in this consciousness, he inherits the traditions of his people, who always relate to life and death philosophically, understanding the purpose of man in this world.

In the Russian village, Belov reveals the connection and continuity of generations, a humane principle in relation to all living things, coming from the depths of centuries. It is important for the writer to reveal the greatness of the moral qualities of the people, their wise attitude towards the world around them, towards nature, towards man.

If in wide famous works Belov’s “Business as Usual”, “Eves”, “Lad” were given an image of the village, the fate of its inhabitants, then the action of the writer’s novel “Everything Ahead” takes place in Moscow. The heroes of the novel Medvedev and Ivanov are characterized by persistent spiritual purity and high morality. They are opposed by careerist Mikhail Brish, a vile and immoral man who not only invaded someone else’s family, but also did everything to make the children forget their father. Undoubtedly, Belov failed to reflect the life of the capital with such artistic power and authenticity as the life of the village. But the novel poses acute moral problems, such as the destruction of the family, which are, unfortunately, characteristic of the life of modern society.

Vasily Makarovich Shukshin (1929-1974) left a deep mark on literature. Shukshin was attracted by the complex spiritual world of villagers who went through the events of the revolution, civil war, collectivization, survived the Great Patriotic War. With extraordinary strength and artistic expression the writer creates the most diverse types of human characters. His heroes have complex, sometimes dramatic destinies, always forcing readers to think about how the fate of one or another of them might turn out.

Shukshin made the reader understand that a simple person, an ordinary worker, is not as simple as it seems at first glance. The writer views the rapprochement with the city as a complex phenomenon. On the one hand, this broadens the horizons of village residents, introducing them to the modern level of culture, and on the other hand, the city has undermined the moral and ethical foundations of the village. Once in the city, the villager felt free from the usual norms that were characteristic of the village. With this, Shukshin explains the callousness and alienation of the people of the city, who came from the village and forgot about the moral traditions that for centuries determined the lives of their fathers and grandfathers.

Shukshin is a humanist writer in the highest sense of the word. He was able to see “cranks” in life - people who have a philosophical mindset and are not satisfied with philistine life. Such, for example, is the hero of the story “Microscope,” carpenter Andrei Erin, who bought a microscope and declared war on all microbes. Dmitry Kvasov, a state farm driver who planned to create a perpetual motion machine, Nikolai Nikolaevich Knyazev, a TV repairman who filled eight general notebooks with treatises “On the State” and “On the Meaning of Life.” If “freaks” are people who are mainly looking for and in their searches affirming the ideas of humanism, then the opposite “anti-freaks” - people with a “shifted conscience” - are ready to do evil, are cruel and unfair. This is Makar Zherebtsov from the story of the same name.

In his depiction of the village, Shukshin continues the traditions of Russian classical literature. At the same time, it reflects the complex relationship between city and village residents in our time.

The village and its inhabitants went through difficult historical events. This is not a single peasantry. And people of various professions: machine operators, drivers, agronomists, technicians, and engineers, right up to the new priest who calls for faith in industrialization and technology (“I believe!”).

A distinctive feature of the artist Shukshin is his keen sense of modernity. His characters talk about flying into space, to the Moon, Venus. They oppose old outdated ideas about bourgeois satiety and well-being. Such is the schoolboy Yurka (“Space, nervous system and shmat sala”), Andrey Erin (“Microscope.”) The heroes of Shukshin’s stories persistently search for the meaning of life and try to determine their place in it (“Conversations under a Clear Moon,” “In Autumn”).

Much attention in Shukshin’s stories is paid to the problem of personal relationships, in particular within the family (“Village Residents”, “Alone”, “The Wife Accompanied Her Husband to Paris”). Here there is disagreement between fathers and children, and disagreement in family relationships, and different views of the heroes on life, work, on their duty and responsibilities.

When creating the characters of his contemporaries, Shukshin clearly understood that their origins were the history of the country and people. In an effort to reveal these origins, the writer turned to creating novels such as “The Lyubavins” about the life of a remote Altai village in the 20s and “I came to give you freedom” about Stepan Razin.

The work of Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin (born in 1937) is characterized by the development of moral, ethical and moral problems. His works “Money for Maria”, “Deadline”, “Live and Remember”, “Farewell to Matera”, “Fire”, stories were highly praised by critics and received recognition from readers.

The writer draws female characters with great skill. The image of old Anna from the story “The Deadline” is memorable. Anna's life was harsh, she worked tirelessly on the collective farm and raised children. She overcame the adversities of wartime, but did not lose heart. And when she feels the approach of death, she treats it wisely and calmly, according to the people. Anna's children. Those who came from different places to say goodbye to their mother no longer carry within themselves those highly moral qualities that are characteristic of Anna. They have lost their love for the land, lost family ties, and the death of their mother worries them little.

Important modern problems are also reflected in the story “Farewell to Matera.” Matera is a village located on a small island in the middle of the Angara. In connection with the construction of the future hydroelectric power station, it will be flooded, and its residents will move to a new village. The author, with great strength and insight, managed to convey the difficult experiences of the older generation of the village. For old Daria, who lived her life here, the flooding of the village is a great grief. She understands that a hydroelectric power station is needed, but it is difficult for her to part with the hut, with her family’s graves. She is preparing to leave her hut solemnly, strictly. Knowing that the hut will be burned, but remembering that her best years were spent here, she washes, whitewashes, and cleans everything in the hut. It is difficult for her son Pavel to part with his native place. Daria’s grandson Andrei treats everything completely calmly, without any worries. He is carried away by the romance of new construction projects, and he does not feel sorry for Mater at all. Daria was very offended that, leaving his native nest forever, the grandson did not show respect for his father’s house, did not say goodbye to the land, and did not walk through his native village for the last time.

Rasputin makes the reader feel the callousness and soullessness of Andrei, his disrespect for the traditions of his family. In this, the writer is close to Shukshin, Abramov, Belov, who write with alarm about the indifference of young people to their father’s home, about their forgetting of folk traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation for centuries.

In his short story "Fire" Rasputin makes the reader think about the situation in which the country finds itself. The troubles of a small village of temporary logging workers focus on disturbing phenomena of life that are characteristic of the entire society.

The writer excitedly and artistically spoke about the loss of the feeling of being the owner of his country, the mood of hired workers, indifferent to what will happen after them to the village where they live, and to the country as a whole, about drunkenness, the decline of moral principles. Rasputin's story was a great success and was highly appreciated by readers.

Vasil Bykov is the only writer who has remained devoted exclusively to the military theme. In his works, he focuses on the problem of the price of victory, the moral activity of the individual, and the value of human life. The moral culmination of the story “Kruglyansky Bridge” was that the eldest in the group of partisan demolitions, Britvin, guided by the soulless principle that “war is a risk with people, whoever risks more wins,” sent a young man on a deadly mission - to blow up a bridge boy, the son of a local policeman, Another partisan Stepka angrily tries to shoot Britvin for this. Thus, the author passionately advocated that even in war, a person should live according to his conscience, not compromise the principles of high humanity, and not risk other people’s lives, sparing his own.

The problem of the humanistic value of the individual arises in the most different works. Bykov is especially interested in situations in which a person, left alone, must be guided not by a direct order, but by his conscience. Teacher Moroz from the story “Obelisk” brought up good, bright, honest things in children. And when the war came, a group of children from his small rural school, out of a heartfelt impulse, albeit recklessly, made an attempt on the life of a local policeman, deservedly nicknamed Cain. The children were arrested. The Germans started a rumor that they would release the boys if the teacher who had taken refuge with the partisans showed up. It was clear to the partisans that a provocation was intended, that the Nazis still would not let the teenagers go, and from a practical point of view, it was pointless for Moroz to appear at the police station. But the writer says that in addition to the pragmatic situation, there is also a moral one, when a person must confirm with his life what he taught and convinced of. He could not teach, could not continue to convince, if even one person thought that he was cowardly and abandoned the children at a fatal moment. Strengthening faith in ideals among desperate parents, preserving the strength of spirit in children - this is what Moroz was concerned with until the last step, encouraging the children, going with them to execution. The guys never found out that Moroz came to the police for their sake: he did not want to humiliate them with pity, did not want them to be tormented by the thought that because of their hasty, inept attempt, their beloved teacher had suffered. In this tragic story, the writer complicates the task by introducing a second act. The motives for Moroz's action were condemned by some as reckless suicide, and that is why after the war, when an obelisk was built at the site of the execution of schoolchildren, his name was not there. But precisely because the good seed that he planted with his feat sprouted in the souls of people. There were also those who still managed to achieve justice. The teacher's name was written on the obelisk next to the names of the heroic children. But even after this, the author makes us witnesses to a dispute in which one person says: “I don’t see any special feat behind this Frost... Well, really, what did he do? Did he kill even one German?” In response, one of those in whom a grateful memory is alive replies: “He did more than if he had killed a hundred. He put his life on the chopping block, voluntarily. You understand what this argument is. And in whose favor...” This argument specifically relates to the moral sphere: to prove to everyone that your beliefs are stronger than the threat of death. To step over the natural sense of self-preservation, the natural thirst to survive, to survive - this is where the heroism of an individual begins.

In his works, Bykov likes to bring together characters with contrasting personalities. This is what happens in the story “Sotnikov”. The noose around Sotnikov and Rybak, partisan scouts who must get food for the partisan detachment, is tightening ever tighter. After the shootout, the partisans managed to break away from the pursuit, but due to Sotnikov’s injury they were forced to take refuge in the village in Demchikha’s hut. There, deprived of the opportunity to shoot back, they are seized by the police. And so they undergo terrible trials in captivity. This is where their paths diverge. Sotnikov chose a heroic death in this situation, and Rybak agreed to join the police, hoping to later defect to the partisans. But forced by the Nazis, he pushes the block out from under the feet of his former comrade in arms, who has a noose around his neck. And there is no way back for him.

The writer slowly recreates in Sotnikov the character of an integral person, consistent in his heroic life and death. But the story has its own twist in the depiction of the heroic. To do this, Bykov correlates each step of Sotnikov with each step of Rybak. For him, it is important not to describe another heroic act, but to explore those moral qualities, which give a person strength in the face of death.

The first works of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn (born in 1918), published in the early 60s, the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” and the story “Matrenin’s Dvor” appeared at the end of Khrushchev's thaw. In the writer’s legacy, they, like other short stories of those years: “The Incident at Kochetovka Station”, “Zakhar Kalita”, “Krokhotki”, remain the most indisputable classics. On the one hand, the classics of “camp” prose, and on the other, the classics of “village” prose.

The most significant novels are the writer's "In the First Circle", "Cancer Ward", "The Gulag Archipelago" and "The Red Wheel".

In a certain sense, “In the First Circle” is a novel about the stay of the intellectual hero Nerzhin in a closed research institute, in a “sharashka”. In the novel, Nerzhin, in a series of conversations with other prisoners, with the critic Lev Rubin, and the engineer-philosopher Sologdin, long and painfully finds out: who in a forced society is least likely to live by a lie. These know-it-all intellectuals, even if they are suffering, or the janitor Spiridon, yesterday’s peasant. As a result, he comes, after a whole series of disputes, extremely sharp, deep, to the idea that, perhaps, Spiridon, who did not understand the many vicissitudes of history and his fate, the reasons for the grief of his family, nevertheless lived more naively and purer, more moral, more unfeigned than these know-it-alls, ready to serve evil for a scientific degree, laureate badge, etc. Those whom Solzhenitsyn would later call “educated” are intellectuals corrupted by handouts.

The author himself figuratively defined the “GULAG Archipelago” as “our petrified tear,” as a requiem for the Russian Golgotha. With all the care in collecting documents about the technology of means, courts, executions ("In the Engine Room", "GULAG Trains", etc.), transportation of prisoners, the life of the camp in Solovki ("the government there is not Soviet, but ... Solovetsky) etc. Solzhenitsyn's book appears much larger than those works that exposed terror, the excesses of repression as a distortion of the general line of the party. A whole stream of lyrical digressions and conclusions against falsifiers of history makes its way into the annals of the Gulag. But only by the time of the completion of the "Gulag" Solzhenitsyn comes to his favorite idea - the idea of ​​victory over evil through sacrifice, through non-participation, albeit painful in lies.At the end of his book-requiem, a verdict on totalitarianism, Solzhenitsyn utters words of gratitude to the prison, which so cruelly united him with the people, making him involved in the people's fate.

"Red Wheel" is a profound tragic romance, a chronicle with a completely unique image of the author-narrator, with an extremely active self-propelled historical background, with the continuous movement of fictional and real characters. By subordinating the historical process to strictly marked deadlines ("The Red Wheel" is a series of novels-knots like "August the Fourteenth", "October the Sixteenth", etc.), Solzhenitsyn inevitably relegates fictional characters to the background. All this creates the grandeur of the panorama: the abundance of characters, the severity of situations both at the Tsar’s headquarters, and in the Tambov village, and in Petrograd, and in Zurich, gives a special load to the narrator’s voice, to the entire stylistic structure.

As critics note, many of Yuri Trifonov’s stories are based on everyday material. But it is everyday life that becomes the measure of the actions of his heroes.

In the story "Exchange" main character Viktor Dmitriev, at the insistence of his efficient wife Rita (and her Lukyanov relatives), decided to move in with his already terminally ill mother, that is, to make a double exchange, to ascend to a more prestigious level in terms of housing. The hero's tossing around Moscow, the dull pressure of the Lukyanovs, his trip to the dacha in the Red Partisan cooperative, where his father and brothers, people with a revolutionary past, once lived in the 30s. And the exchange, contrary to the wishes of the mother herself, was completed. But it turns out that the “exchange” was completed much earlier. The sick Ksenia Fedorovna, the keeper of some kind of moral height, a special aristocracy, tells her son about his decline in “olukyanivaniye”: “You’ve already exchanged, Vitya. it happened a long time ago, and it always happens, every day, so don’t be surprised, Vitya. And don’t be angry. It’s just so unnoticed.”

In another story, “Preliminary Results,” the hero is a translator, exhausting his brain and talent, translating for the sake of money the absurd poem of a certain Mansur “The Golden Bell” (the nickname of an oriental girl given to her for her ringing voice), changes something sublime to the average, standard, made to measure. He is able to evaluate his work almost to the point of self-mockery: “I can practically translate from all languages ​​of the world, except German and English, which I know a little - but here I don’t have the spirit or, perhaps, the conscience.” But an even stranger exchange, from which the hero runs away, but with which he ultimately comes to terms, takes place in his family, with his son Kirill, his wife Rita, who chases icons as part of furniture, who has internalized the cynically simplified morality of Hartwig’s tutor, and Larisa’s friend. Icons, books by Berdyaev, reproductions of Picasso, photographs of Hemingway - all this becomes an object of vanity and exchange.

In the story “The Long Farewell,” both the actress Lyalya Telepneva and her husband Grisha Rebrov, who writes deliberately average plays, live in a state of exchange and dispersal of strength. Exchange and chronic failure accompany them even when there are no roles, no success, and even when Lyalya suddenly found success in a high-profile performance based on Smolyanov’s play.

Trifonov feels very sorry for his compliant, bartering, delicate, soft heroes, but he also saw the powerlessness of their aristocracy.