In the evening, winding up the tape measure, the caretaker said that Dugaev would receive a single measurement the next day. The foreman, who was standing nearby and asking the caretaker to lend "ten cubes until the day after tomorrow," suddenly fell silent and began to look at the evening star flickering behind the ridge of the hill. Baranov, Dugaev's partner, who helped the caretaker measure the work done, took a shovel and began to clean up the long-cleaned face.

The brigade gathered for roll call, handed over the instrument and returned to the barrack in the prisoners' uneven formation. The difficult day was over. With his head, Dugaev, without sitting down, drank a portion of liquid cold cereal soup across the side of the bowl. The bread was given out in the morning for the whole day and was eaten long ago. I wanted to smoke. He looked around, wondering who he could get a cigarette butt from. On the windowsill, Baranov was collecting tobacco grains from an inverted pouch into a piece of paper. Gathering them carefully, Baranov rolled up a thin cigarette and handed it to Dugaev.

“You’ll leave it for me,” he suggested. Dugaev was surprised - he and Baranov were not friendly. However, with hunger, cold and insomnia, no friendship is struck, and Dugaev, despite his youth, understood the falsity of the saying about friendship, tested by misfortune and misfortune. In order for friendship to be friendship, it is necessary that a strong foundation for it be laid when conditions and everyday life have not yet reached the last border, beyond which there is nothing human in a person, but there is only distrust, malice and lies. Dugaev well remembered the northern proverb, the three commandments of prisoners: don't believe, don't be afraid and don't ask ...

Dugaev eagerly sucked in the sweet tobacco smoke, and his head began to spin.

“I’m getting weak,” he said.

Baranov said nothing.

Dugaev returned to the barrack, lay down and closed his eyes. Lately he slept badly, hunger did not allow him to sleep well. Dreams were especially painful - loaves of bread, steaming fatty soups ... Forgotten did not come soon, but still half an hour before getting up Dugaev had already opened his eyes.

The team came to work. All went to their faces.

“Wait,” the foreman said to Dugaev. - The caretaker will put you.

Dugaev sat down on the ground. He had already managed to get tired enough to treat with complete indifference to any change in his fate.

The first wheelbarrows on the gangplank rattled, the shovels scraped against the stone.

“Come here,” the inspector said to Dugaev. - Here's a place for you. - He measured the volume of the face and put a mark - a piece of quartz. “This way,” he said. - The trap man can hold your board up to the main ladder. Carry wherever everyone is. Here's a shovel, pick, crowbar, wheelbarrow - carry it.

Dugaev obediently began work.

Better yet, he thought. None of the comrades will grumble that he is doing poorly. Former farmers are not required to understand and know that Dugaev is a newcomer, that immediately after school he began to study at the university, and exchanged the university bench for this slaughter. Every man for himself. They do not have to, they should not understand that he has been exhausted and hungry for a long time, that he does not know how to steal: the ability to steal is the main northern virtue in all its forms, starting from the bread of a friend and ending with the release of thousands of awards to the authorities for nonexistent, unprecedented achievements. No one cares that Dugaev cannot stand a sixteen-hour working day.

Dugaev drove, kailil, poured, drove again and again kailil and poured.

After the lunch break, the inspector came, looked at what Dugaev had done and silently left ... Dugaev again kailed and poured. The quartz mark was still very far away.

In the evening the caretaker came again and unwound the tape measure. He measured what Dugaev did.

“Twenty-five percent,” he said and looked at Dugaev. - Twenty-five percent. Do you hear?

- I hear, - said Dugaev. He was surprised by this figure. The work was so hard, so little stone was picked up by the shovel, it was so hard to pick. The figure - twenty-five percent of the norm - seemed very large to Dugaev. My calves were whining, my arms, shoulders and head ached unbearably from the rest on the wheelbarrow. The feeling of hunger left him long ago.

Dugaev ate because he saw others eating, something told him: he must eat. But he didn't want to eat.

- Well, well, - said the caretaker, leaving. - I wish you good health.

In the evening, Dugaev was summoned to the investigator. He answered four questions: name, surname, article, deadline. Four questions that are asked to a prisoner thirty times a day. Then Dugaev went to bed. The next day he again worked with the brigade, with Baranov, and on the night of the day after tomorrow, the soldiers took him beyond the conbaza, and took him along a forest path to the place where, almost blocking off a small gorge, there was a high fence with barbed wire stretched over the top, and from where the distant chirping of tractors could be heard at night. And, realizing what the matter was, Dugaev regretted that he had worked in vain, had in vain suffered this last day.

• 29.

Consider the collection of Shalamov, on which he worked from 1954 to 1962. Let's describe its brief content. "Kolyma Tales" is a collection, the plot of stories of which is a description of the camp and prison life of the Gulag prisoners, their tragic fates, similar to one another, in which chance rules. The author's focus is constantly on hunger and satiety, painful dying and recovery, exhaustion, moral humiliation and degradation. You will learn more about the problems raised by Shalamov by reading the summary. "Kolyma Tales" is a collection that is a comprehension of what the author experienced and saw for 17 years, which he spent in prison (1929-1931) and Kolyma (from 1937 to 1951). Photo of the author is presented below.

Eulogy

The author recalls his comrades from the camps. We will not list their names, since we are compiling a summary. "Kolyma Stories" is a collection in which artistry and documentary are intertwined. However, all murderers are given a real name in the stories.

Continuing the story, the author describes how the prisoners died, what torments they endured, talks about their hopes and behavior in Auschwitz without furnaces, as Shalamov called the Kolyma camps. Only a few managed to survive, but only a few managed to survive and not break morally.

"Life of engineer Kipreev"

Let us dwell on the following curious story, which we could not help but describe, making up a summary. "Kolyma Stories" is a collection in which the author, who has not sold or betrayed anyone, says that he has worked out a formula for himself to protect his own existence. It consists in the fact that a person can withstand, if he is ready at any moment for death, he can commit suicide. But later he realizes that he only built a comfortable shelter for himself, since it is not known what you will become in the decisive moment, whether you will have enough not only mental strength, but also physical strength.

Kipreev, an engineer-physicist arrested in 1938, was not only able to withstand interrogation and beating, but even attacked the investigator, as a result of which he was put in a punishment cell. But all the same, they are trying to get him to give false evidence, threatening to arrest his wife. Kipreev nevertheless continues to prove to everyone that he is not a slave, like all prisoners, but a man. Thanks to the talent (he repaired the broken one and found a way to restore the burnt out light bulbs) this hero manages to avoid the most difficult work, but not always. Only by a miracle does he survive, but the moral shock does not let him go.

"For presentation"

Shalamov, who wrote "Kolyma Tales", the summary of which interests us, testifies that the camp corruption affected everyone to one degree or another. It took various forms. Let us describe in a few words one more work from the collection "Kolyma Stories" - "To the Presentation". The summary of his plot is as follows.

Two thieves are playing cards. One loses and asks to play debt. Infuriated at some point, he orders the unexpectedly prisoner of the intelligentsia, who happened to be among the spectators, to give the sweater. He refuses. One of the thieves "finishes" him, but the blatar goes to the sweater anyway.

"At night"

We pass to the description of one more work from the collection "Kolyma stories" - "At night". Its summary, in our opinion, will also be of interest to the reader.

Two prisoners sneak to the grave. The body of their comrade was buried here in the morning. They take off the dead man's linen so that they can exchange it for tobacco or bread tomorrow, or sell it. Disgust for the clothes of the deceased is replaced by the thought that, perhaps, tomorrow they will be able to smoke or eat a little more.

There are a lot of works in the collection "Kolyma Stories". "The Carpenters", the summary of which we have omitted, follows the story "Night". We suggest you get acquainted with it yourself. The work is small in volume. The format of one article, unfortunately, does not allow describing all the stories. Also a very small work from the collection "Kolyma Stories" - "Berries". A summary of the main and most interesting, in our opinion, stories is presented in this article.

"Single measurement"

Defined by the author as slave labor camp is another form of corruption. The prisoner, exhausted by him, cannot work out the norm, labor turns into torture and leads to slow death. Dugaev, a convict, is getting weaker and weaker because of the 16-hour workday. He pours, kailite, carries. In the evening, the caretaker measures what he has done. The figure of 25%, named by the caretaker, seems very large to Dugaev. His hands and head are unbearable, his calves ache. The prisoner does not even feel hungry anymore. Later he was summoned to the investigator. He asks: "Name, surname, term, article." The soldiers take the prisoner away every other day to a remote place surrounded by a fence with barbed wire. At night, the noise of tractors can be heard from here. Dugaev guesses why he was brought here, and realizes that life is over. He only regrets that he was tormented in vain for an extra day.

"Rain"

You can talk for a very long time about such a collection as "Kolyma Stories". The summary of the chapters of the works is for informational purposes only. We bring to your attention the following story - "Rain".

"Sherry Brandy"

The prisoner poet, who was considered the first poet of the 20th century in our country, is dying. It lies on the bunk, in the back of their bottom row. The poet dies for a long time. Sometimes soap comes to him, for example, that someone stole the bread from him, which the poet put under his head. He is ready to search, fight, swear ... However, he has no strength for that. When a daily ration is put in his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to gnaw and tear with loose scurvy teeth. When a poet dies, he is not written off for another 2 days. When distributing, neighbors manage to receive bread for him as if he were alive. They arrange it so that he raises his hand like a puppet.

"Shock therapy"

Merzlyakov, one of the heroes of the collection "Kolmyskie Stories", the summary of which we are considering, is a large-build convict, in general works he understands that he is giving up. He falls, cannot get up and refuses to take the log. First, they beat him up, then the guards. He is taken to camp with lower back pain and a broken rib. After his recovery, Merzlyakov does not stop complaining and pretends that he cannot straighten up. He does this in order to delay the discharge. He is sent to the surgical department of the central hospital, and then to the nervous one for research. Merzlyakov has a chance to be written off due to illness. He tries his best not to be exposed. But Pyotr Ivanovich, a doctor who was himself a prisoner in the past, exposes him. Everything human in him supplants the professional. He spends most of his time on exposing those who pretend. Pyotr Ivanovich anticipates the effect that the case of Merzlyakov will produce. The doctor first gives him anesthesia, during which it is possible to straighten Merzlyakov's body. A week later, the patient is prescribed shock therapy, after which he asks for discharge himself.

"Typhoid quarantine"

Andreev goes into quarantine after contracting typhus. The position of the patient compared to working in the mines gives him a chance to survive, which he almost did not hope for. Then Andreev decides to stay here as long as possible, and then, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the golden slaughter, where death, beatings, hunger. Andreev does not respond to the roll call before sending the recovered to work. He manages to hide in this way for a long time. Gradually, the transit line is emptying, the turn finally comes to Andreev. But it seems to him now that he won the battle for life, and if now there will be dispatches, it will only be for local, close business trips. But when a truck with a group of prisoners, who were given unexpectedly winter uniforms, crosses the line separating long and short business trips, Andreev realizes that fate has laughed at him.

In the photo below - on the house in Vologda, where Shalamov lived.

"Aortic aneurysm"

In Shalamov's stories, illness and the hospital are an indispensable attribute of the plot. Ekaterina Glovatskaya, a prisoner, goes to the hospital. This beauty immediately liked Zaitsev, the doctor on duty. He knows that she is in a relationship with convict Podshivalov, his acquaintance, who runs a local amateur art group, the doctor nevertheless decides to try his luck. As usual, he begins with a medical examination of the patient, listening to the heart. However, male interest is replaced by medical concern. In Glovatskaya, he discovers This is a disease in which every careless movement can provoke death. The bosses, who made it a rule to separate lovers, once already sent the girl to the penalty female mine. The head of the hospital, after the doctor's report about her illness, is sure that this is the intrigues of Podshivalov, who wants to detain his mistress. The girl is discharged, but during loading she dies, which Zaitsev warned about.

"The last battle of Major Pugachev"

The author testifies that after the Great Patriotic War, prisoners who fought and went through captivity began to arrive in the camps. These people are of a different temper: risk-taking, brave. They only believe in weapons. Camp slavery did not corrupt them, they were not yet exhausted to the point of losing their will and strength. Their "fault" was that these prisoners were in captivity or surrounded. It was clear to one of them, Major Pugachev, that they had been brought here to die. Then he gathers strong and decisive, to match himself, prisoners who are ready to die or become free. The escape is prepared all winter long. Pugachev realized that after having survived the winter, only those who manage to avoid common work can escape. One by one, the participants in the conspiracy are promoted to the service. One of them becomes a cook, the other becomes a culture dealer, and the third repairs weapons for the guards.

One spring day, at 5 am, they knocked on the watch. The attendant lets in the prisoner-cook, who, as usual, has come for the keys to the pantry. The cook strangles him, and another prisoner changes into his uniform. The same thing happens with the other attendants who returned a little later. Then everything happens according to Pugachev's plan. The conspirators burst into the security room and take possession of the weapon, shooting the officer on duty. They stock up on provisions and don military uniforms, keeping the suddenly awakened soldiers at gunpoint. Going outside the camp, they stop a truck on the highway, the driver is dropped off and drives until the gasoline runs out. Then they go into the taiga. Pugachev, waking up at night after many months of captivity, recalls how in 1944 he escaped from a German camp, crossed the front line, survived interrogation in a special department, after which he was accused of espionage and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He also recalls how emissaries of General Vlasov came to the German camp, who recruited Russians, convincing that the captured soldiers were traitors to the Motherland for the Soviet regime. Then Pugachev did not believe them, but soon he became convinced of this. He looks lovingly at his comrades who are sleeping next to him. A little later, a hopeless battle ensues with the soldiers who surrounded the fugitives. Almost all of the prisoners die, except for one who is healed after being seriously wounded in order to be shot. Only Pugachev manages to escape. He hid in a bear den, but knows that he too will be found. He does not regret what he did. His last shot was at himself.

So, we have considered the main stories from the collection, the author of which is Varlam Shalamov ("Kolyma stories"). The summary introduces the reader to the main events. You can read more about them on the pages of the work. The collection was first published in 1966 by Varlam Shalamov. "Kolyma stories", a brief summary of which you now know, appeared on the pages of the New York edition "Novy Zhurnal".

In New York in 1966, only 4 stories were published. In the next, 1967, 26 stories by this author, mainly from the collection of interest to us, were translated into German in the city of Cologne. During his lifetime, Shalamov never published the collection "Kolyma Stories" in the USSR. The summary of all chapters, unfortunately, is not included in the format of one article, since there are a lot of stories in the collection. Therefore, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the rest yourself.

"Condensed milk"

In addition to those described above, we will tell you about one more work from the collection "Kolyma stories" - Its summary is as follows.

Shestakov, an acquaintance of the narrator, did not work at the mine in the face, since he was a geological engineer, and he was taken to the office. He met with the narrator and said that he wanted to take the workers and go to the Black Keys, to the sea. And although the latter understood that it was not feasible (the way to the sea is very long), he nevertheless agreed. The narrator reasoned that Shestakov probably wants to surrender all those who will participate in this. But the promised condensed milk (to overcome the path, it was necessary to refresh himself) bribed him. Going to Shestakov's, he ate two cans of this delicacy. And then he suddenly announced that he had changed his mind. A week later, other workers fled. Two of them were killed, three were tried a month later. And Shestakov was transferred to another mine.

We recommend reading other works in the original. Shalamov wrote "Kolyma stories" very talentedly. The summary ("Berries", "Rain" and "Children's Pictures" we also recommend reading in the original) conveys only the plot. The author's style and artistic merit can only be appreciated by getting acquainted with the work itself.

Not included in the collection "Kolyma stories" "Sentence". We did not begin to describe the summary of this story for this reason. However, this work is one of the most mysterious in the work of Shalamov. Fans of his talent will be interested in getting to know him.

Literature lesson in grade 11

"Linguistic analysis of V. Shalamov's stories" Berries "," Single measurement ""

Lesson objectives:

1. Educational:

* improving the skill of linguistic and stylistic analysis of the text;

* formation of the ability to analyze the text of an artistic style;

* activation of the cognitive and research activities of students.

2. Developing:

* further development of the communicative, linguistic and linguistic competencies of students;

* development of the creative abilities of the personality of students and the activation of their mental activity through the use of elements of the technology of critical thinking;

* improving the ability to argue and prove your point of view on a problematic issue;

* development of social competence of students.

3.Educational:

* contribute to the moral development of the personality of students, the definition of their true life values.

Technology: technology of critical thinking; problem learning technology, value orientations workshop.

Tasks:

* to reveal the main idea of \u200b\u200bV. Shalamov's stories "Berries"

* story linguistic and stylistic analysis of stories "Single measurement"

* analyze language (expressive) means.

Lesson type: lesson in the complex application of knowledge, skills and abilities of students.

Methods: problem-search, problematic

Lesson type: workshop

Forms of work: frontal, individual.

On the desk:

All that was dear - trampled to dust; civilization and culture fly off a person in the shortest possible time, calculated in weeks.

The stoves of Auschwitz and the disgrace of Kolyma proved that art and literature are zero ...

V. Shalamov

On the sideboard: (concepts are recorded during the lesson)

Totalitarianism

Suppression

Destruction of personality

Grain of sand

State machine

Camp

Model of society

At the end of the lesson with these words, make up sentences - conclusions.

On the left wing:

Story

Composition

Means of artistic expression

During the classes:

1. Teacher's words

At home you got acquainted with the stories of V. Shalamov. Have you read the works of this author before?

Today we will discover the world of Shalamov's prose, a world cruel and merciless and truthful to the limit. To understand the motives for writing such works, you need to get acquainted with a short biography of the author.

2. Presentationprepared by a student - biography of V. Shalamov

3. Conversation

What is shocking in the biography of the writer?

He was in the camps in Kolyma for 20 years, was a political prisoner. Consequently, everything he wrote about was experienced and felt by the author himself. "Kolyma stories" - personal experience.

What do we know about those times, camps?

4. Informing the student about the punishment system in the camps.

So what stories have you read.

- "Single measurement", "Berries".

What theme do these stories share?

The main theme is the existence of a person in the camp.

Where does the action take place?

In the north. Kolyma, the most severe camps.

Who is at the center of the story?

Convicts (thieves, political prisoners), overseers.

What is the intonation of the story?

The intonation is impassive, everyday, without emotion. This intonation gives the stories a note of doom.

As a rule, in any prose fiction there are all types of speech: narration, description, reasoning. What is in V. Shalamov's stories? Prove.

There is a narration and description.

Why is there no reasoning in V. Shalamov's stories?

The zek cannot reason. He is a cog, "nobody", "camp dust".

In which episodes does the description appear?

These episodes are related to the description of food. This is a powerful emotion in the face of constant hunger. There is a clear parallel: food \u003d life, man \u003d animal.

Is there a narrative?

Yes, this is the basis of stories. The life of a convict consists of a series of actions aimed at preserving and maintaining his own life: exhausting, pointless work, struggle with constant hunger and cold, actions to get food.

What is the problematic of stories?

1. The problem of opposition between man and the totalitarian state machine. 2.The problem of changing (deforming) a person's values \u200b\u200bin the camp.

3. The problem of the cost of human life.

5. Analysis of the story "Single measurement"

The genre is declared by V Shalamov in the title of the collection - "Kolyma stories"

What is a story? Let's turn to the dictionary.

The story is a small epic genre, a prose work of a small volume, which, as a rule, depicts one or more events in the life of the hero.

What is the classic storytelling composition?

The beginning, the development of the action, the climax, the denouement.

Do V. Shalamov's stories correspond to the classical form?

No. There is no introduction, the climax is shifted towards the end of the piece.

This is a deliberate departure from literary canons. Shalamov was convinced that literature was dead (the one that “teaches” - the literature of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy).

The narrative about the last day of the hero of the story is ordinary, without emotions. Dugaev's death is a statistic.

Why is there no introduction and conclusion in the story?

V. Shalamov needs to show the essence without burdening it with the hero's prehistory. In the conditions of the camp, it does not matter at all who the person was before. Shalamov writes about a man who stands at the line dividing life and death.

People around are indifferent to the fate of a comrade. (Read 1 paragraph of the story, analyze the behavior of the partner and the foreman)

What does Dugaev feel in the camp?

The main feeling is hunger. It is he who determines the hero's train of thought (read an excerpt). The second is indifference (read the passage).

In the camp, a person becomes dull, turns into an animal. Dugaev does not know how to steal (and this is the “main northern virtue” in the camp), so he quickly weakens. He tries to fulfill the quota (“None of the comrades will grumble that he will not fulfill the quota”). When Dugaev finds out that he has fulfilled only 25%, he is surprised because “the work was so hard”. He was so tired that even "the feeling of hunger left him long ago."

Find the climax of the story and its denouement.

The climax and denouement are combined in the last paragraph (read out). When Dugaev realized why he was being led to a high fence with barbed wire, he “regretted that he had worked in vain, that he had suffered in vain for this last day”.

6. Analysis of the story "Berries"

What do the stories “Single Size” and “Berries” have in common?

In the story "Berries" Shalamov draws everyday life in the camp, as in "Single measurement". The hero, on whose behalf the narration is being conducted, like Dugaev, clings to life, although he understands that his life and the life of his comrades are worthless.

1. In the camp, everyone is for himself.

2. Hunger is a painful acute sensation that pushes a person to risk and rash actions.

3. All moral qualities of a person gave way to physiological needs - to eat, sleep, be warm.

Why did Rybakov, the narrator's friend, put the berries in a jar?

If Rybakov picks up a full can, the chef of the guard unit will give him bread. Rybakov's enterprise immediately became an important thing. ”Getting food is the most important thing in the camp.

Why didn't Rybakov ask for help in picking berries?

He would have to share bread, and the “camp ethics” does not imply such human actions. Consequently, Shalamov's idea is once again confirmed that in the camp everyone is for himself.

What episode intonationally and meaningfully stands out from the general narrative?

An episode describing berries. This is real poetry. The narrator draws berries with the intonation of a gourmet and connoisseur. Nothing in the life of a prisoner evokes such strong emotions. Only food.

Analyze the episode about Rybakov's death.

Rybakov was shot dead by the guard Seroshapka for violating the boundaries of the designated zone. Seroshapka did it casually, without regret. The guard knew that Rybakov would not run away, but he killed the convict with the first shot. The author draws the reader's attention to the fact that Rybakov was killed by the first shot, which should be a warning. The second was fired formally - two shots were to be fired. Neither the escort Seroshapka nor the convicts thought about the observance of the rule of law, because the camp is a territory of lawlessness, and "the price of camp dust is zero."

The death of a comrade is an ordinary event. There is no sense of loss, trouble. Man is nothing. A jar of berries is valuable as it can be exchanged for bread.

Read again the words of V. Shalamov about civilization and culture. After reading the stories, did it become clear why the author adheres to this point of view? Use the key words you noted on the chalkboard throughout the lesson to answer.

V. Shalamov thinks so, because the camp proved that the physical and spiritual forces of a person in a collision with the machine of a totalitarian state are limited. The forces of evil break and destroy the personality, because the possibilities of man are finite, and evil can be unlimited. The artist was not afraid to show the terrible in man. Having shown the "dehumanization" of the world, Shalamov turned out to be a prophet: cruelty is growing everywhere, while he never aestheticized inhumanity. He strove for the reader to see and appreciate what it is in real life. Everything is permissible - the terrible reality of human history, which must be resisted - the author of "Kolyma Tales" leads the reader to this conviction

Homework: a review on the story of V. Shalamov "Condensed milk"

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov

"Kolyma stories"

The plot of V. Shalamov's stories is a painful description of the prison and camp life of the prisoners of the Soviet Gulag, their tragic fate similar to one another, in which the case, merciless or merciful, an assistant or a murderer, arbitrariness of chiefs and thieves reigns supreme. Hunger and its convulsive satiety, exhaustion, painful dying, slow and almost equally painful recovery, moral humiliation and moral degradation - this is what is constantly in the focus of the writer.

Eulogy

The author recalls by the names of his comrades in the camps. Recalling the mournful martyrology, he tells who and how he died, who suffered and how, who hoped for what, who and how behaved in this Auschwitz without stoves, as Shalamov called the Kolyma camps. Few managed to survive, few managed to survive and remain morally unbroken.

Life of engineer Kipreev

Having not betrayed or sold anyone, the author says that he has developed for himself a formula for active protection of his existence: a person can only consider himself human and withstand, if at any moment he is ready to commit suicide, ready to die. However, later he realizes that he only built a comfortable shelter for himself, because it is not known what you will be in the decisive moment, whether you have enough physical strength, and not just mental strength. Arrested in 1938, engineer-physicist Kipreev not only withstood the beating during interrogation, but even rushed at the investigator, after which he was put in a punishment cell. However, they still get a signature from him under false testimony, frightened by the arrest of his wife. Nevertheless, Kipreev continued to prove to himself and to others that he was a man and not a slave, as all prisoners are. Thanks to his talent (he invented a way to restore burnt out light bulbs, repaired an X-ray machine), he manages to avoid the most difficult jobs, but not always. He miraculously survives, but the moral shock remains in him forever.

On presentation

Camp corruption, Shalamov testifies, to a greater or lesser extent affected everyone and took place in various forms. Two thieves are playing cards. One of them is played in fluff and asks to play for "presentation", that is, in debt. At some point, infuriated by the game, he unexpectedly orders an ordinary prisoner from among the intelligentsia, who happened to be among the spectators of their game, to hand over a woolen sweater. He refuses, and then one of the thieves "finishes" him, but the sweater still goes to the blatar.

At night

Two prisoners sneak to the grave, where the body of their deceased comrade was buried in the morning, and take off the underwear from the dead man to sell or exchange for bread or tobacco the next day. The initial disgust for the removed clothes is replaced by the pleasant thought that tomorrow they may be able to eat a little more and even smoke.

Single measurement

Camp labor, unambiguously defined by Shalamov as slave labor, for the writer is a form of the same corruption. The gross prisoner is not able to give a percentage rate, so labor becomes torture and slow mortification. Zek Dugaev is gradually weakening, unable to withstand a sixteen-hour working day. He carries, kailite, pours, again carries and again kailite, and in the evening the caretaker appears and measures what Dugaev has done with a tape measure. The named figure - 25 percent - seems to Dugaev very large, his calves ache, his arms, shoulders, head ache unbearably, he even lost the feeling of hunger. A little later, he is summoned to the investigator, who asks the usual questions: name, surname, article, term. A day later, the soldiers take Dugaev to a remote place surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire, from where the chirping of tractors can be heard at night. Dugaev guesses why he was brought here and that his life is over. And he only regrets that the last day was tormented in vain.

Rain

Sherry Brandy

A poet-prisoner dies, who was called the first Russian poet of the twentieth century. It lies in the dark depths of the lower row of solid two-story bunks. It takes a long time to die. Sometimes a thought comes up - for example, that bread was stolen from him, which he put under his head, and it is so scary that he is ready to swear, fight, search ... But he no longer has the strength to do this, and the thought of bread too weakens. When a daily ration is put into his hand, he presses the bread to his mouth with all his might, sucks it, tries to tear and gnaw with scurvy loose teeth. When he dies, they do not write him off for two more days, and inventive neighbors manage to receive bread for the dead as a living person when distributing them: they make him, like a puppet doll, raise his hand.

Shock therapy

Prisoner Merzlyakov, a man of large build, finding himself in general work, feels that he is gradually giving up. One day he falls, cannot get up right away and refuses to drag the log. First they beat him, then the guards, they bring him to the camp - he has a broken rib and pains in his lower back. And although the pains quickly disappeared, and the rib healed, Merzlyakov continues to complain and pretends that he cannot straighten up, trying at all costs to delay the discharge to work. He is sent to the central hospital, to the surgical department, and from there to the nervous one for research. He has a chance to be activated, that is, written off due to illness. Remembering the mine, pinching the cold, a bowl of empty soup, which he drank without even using a spoon, he concentrates all his will so as not to be caught in deception and sent to the penalty mine. However, the doctor Pyotr Ivanovich, himself a prisoner in the past, did not miss. The professional displaces the human in him. Most of his time he spends precisely on exposing simulators. This flatters his pride: he is an excellent specialist and is proud that he retained his qualifications, despite a year of common work. He immediately realizes that Merzlyakov is a simulator, and anticipates the theatrical effect of a new exposure. First, the doctor gives him a rausch-anesthesia, during which Merzlyakov's body can be straightened, and a week later the procedure of the so-called shock therapy, the effect of which is similar to an attack of violent madness or an epileptic seizure. After it, the prisoner himself asks for discharge.

Typhoid quarantine

Prisoner Andreev, falling ill with typhus, goes into quarantine. Compared to general work in the mines, the position of the patient gives a chance to survive, which the hero almost did not hope for. And then he decides, by hook or by crook, to stay here as long as possible, in the transit, and there, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the golden slaughter, where hunger, beatings and death. At the roll call before the next dispatch of those who are considered recovered to work, Andreev does not respond, and thus he manages to hide for a long time. The transit line is gradually emptying, the turn finally reaches Andreev as well. But now it seems to him that he won his battle for life, that now the taiga is satiated and if there are dispatches, then only for near, local business trips. However, when a truck with a selected group of prisoners, who were unexpectedly given winter uniforms, passes the line separating near and far missions, he realizes with an inner shudder that fate has cruelly laughed at him.

Aortic aneurysm

Illness (and the exhausted state of the "goner" prisoners is quite tantamount to a serious illness, although officially it was not considered such) and the hospital - in Shalamov's stories an indispensable attribute of the plot. Inmate Ekaterina Glovatskaya is admitted to the hospital. Beauty, she immediately liked the doctor on duty Zaitsev, and although he knows that she is in close relations with his acquaintance, prisoner Podshivalov, the head of the amateur art circle ("serf theater", as the head of the hospital jokes), nothing prevents him in turn try your luck. He begins, as usual, with a medical examination of Glovatskaya, with listening to the heart, but his male interest is quickly replaced by a purely medical concern. He finds Glovacka's aortic aneurysm, a disease in which any careless movement can cause death. The authorities, who took it as an unwritten rule to separate lovers, had already once sent Glovatskaya to a female mine in the penalty area. And now, after the doctor's report about the prisoner's dangerous illness, the head of the hospital is sure that this is nothing more than the intrigues of the same Podshivalov, who is trying to detain his mistress. Glovatskaya is discharged, but already when she is loaded into the car, what Dr. Zaitsev warned about happens - she dies.

Major Pugachev's last battle

Among the heroes of Shalamov's prose, there are those who not only strive to survive at any cost, but are also able to intervene in the course of circumstances, stand up for themselves, even risking their lives. According to the author, after the war of 1941−1945. in the northeastern camps began to arrive prisoners who fought and passed German captivity. These are people of a different temper, “with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and scouts ... ". But most importantly, they possessed the instinct of freedom, which was awakened in them by the war. They shed their blood, sacrificed their lives, saw death face to face. They were not corrupted by camp slavery and were not yet exhausted to the point of losing their strength and will. Their "fault" consisted in the fact that they were surrounded or in captivity. And it is clear to Major Pugachev, one of such people who have not yet been broken: "they were brought to death - to replace these living dead", whom they met in Soviet camps. Then the former major gathers prisoners who are just as resolute and strong, as they match, who are ready either to die or become free. In their group - pilots, scout, paramedic, tanker. They realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they had nothing to lose. An escape is being prepared all winter. Pugachev realized that only those who pass common work can survive the winter and after that run. And the participants in the conspiracy, one after the other, are promoted to the subservient: someone becomes a cook, someone a kultorg, who repairs weapons in the security detachment. But now spring is coming, and with it the planned day.

At five o'clock in the morning they knocked on the watch. The duty officer lets in the camp prisoner cook, who has come, as usual, for the keys to the pantry. A minute later, the attendant is strangled, and one of the prisoners changes into his uniform. The same thing happens with the other duty officer who returned a little later. Then everything goes according to Pugachev's plan. The conspirators burst into the premises of the security detachment and, having shot the person on duty, seize the weapon. Keeping at gunpoint the suddenly awakened soldiers, they change into military uniforms and stock up on provisions. After leaving the camp, they stop a truck on the highway, disembark the driver and continue their journey by car until the gasoline runs out. After that, they leave for the taiga. At night - the first night at large after long months of captivity - Pugachev, waking up, recalls his escape from a German camp in 1944, crossing the front line, interrogation in a special department, charges of espionage and a sentence of twenty-five years in prison. He also remembers the visits to the German camp of emissaries of General Vlasov, who recruited Russian soldiers, convincing them that for the Soviet regime all of them who were captured are traitors to the Motherland. Pugachev did not believe them until he could be convinced himself. He lovingly looks at the sleeping comrades who believed in him and stretched out their hands to freedom, he knows that they are "better than everyone, more worthy than everyone." A little later, a battle ensues, the last hopeless battle between the fugitives and the soldiers who surrounded them. Almost all of the fugitives die, except for one, seriously wounded, who is healed in order to then be shot. Only Major Pugachev manages to leave, but he knows, hiding in a bear den, that he will be found anyway. He does not regret what he did. His last shot was at himself.

Shock therapy

One of the prisoners named Merzlyakov, being at general jobs, felt that he was getting worse and worse. When he fell one day while pulling a log, he refused to rise. For this he was beaten first by his own, then by the warders. And he ended up in the camp with a fractured rib and pain in the lower back. The rib healed and the pains disappeared, but Merzlyakov did not show this, trying to stay longer in the infirmary. Realizing that the doctors cannot cure the prisoner, he is taken to a local hospital for examination by specialists. For him there is a chance to be activated for health reasons, because with such diseases he will not be sent back to intrigues, where it was damp, cold, and they fed incomprehensible soups, where there was only water, which could easily be drunk without the help of a spoon. Now he concentrated completely on his behavior, so as not to be carried away by lies and not earn himself a penalty mine.

But Merzlyakov was not lucky with the doctor. He was treated by Peter Ivanovich, a doctor who specialized in exposing simulators. And although he himself had one year in prison, he was guided by truly medical principles. Realizing that Merzlyakov is a simulator, he directs the patient first to raush-anesthesia, which allows, as it were, to straighten the patient, and then to shock therapy, after which the patient himself asked to be discharged.

Typhoid quarantine

After falling ill with typhus, prisoner Andreev is placed under quarantine. In the mines themselves, in comparison with general work, health plays a large role. Andreev wakes up the long-dying hope of not returning to the place where dampness, hunger and death reigned. He hopes to stay longer in transit, and there, perhaps, he will be lucky that he will not be returned to the mines. Andreev did not respond to the formation of the prisoners before they were sent, since he was considered not yet recovered. He was in transit until it was empty and the line came up to him. Andreev thought that he had conquered death, that the way to the mines in the taiga was already closed for him, that now he would be sent only on local business trips. But when a truck with prisoners who were given winter clothes suddenly crosses the dividing line between near and far business trips, Andreev realizes that the essence of him is simply mocked, and that everything is starting anew.

Aortic aneurysm

The inmate Glovatskaya Ekaterina is taken to the hospital where the emaciated, goner prisoners were. She was good with herself, which immediately attracted Zaitsev, the doctor on duty at the hospital. He is aware that Katya and his prisoner friend Podshivalov, who was the head of the amateur art group, had a relationship. But this did not stop him, and Zaitsev decides to try his own luck.

He began, as befits a doctor, with a medical examination of a prisoner patient. But that masculine and interest in a beautiful woman quickly changes to a medical concern when he finds out that Katya suffers from an aortic aneurysm - a disease that, with the slightest wrong movement, can lead to death. The authorities thought that this was Podshivalov's tricks, so that his beloved would stay around for a longer time, and gave the command to Zaitsev to discharge the patient.

The next day, when the prisoners were being loaded into the car, what the doctor had warned about happened - Catherine was dying.

Essays

There is light everywhere ... A person in a totalitarian society Vilensky Semyon Samuilovich

VARLAM SHALAMOV Single measurement

VARLAM SHALAMOV

Single measurement

Shalamov, of course, is a great writer. Even against the background of all the giants of not only Russian, but also world literature ... "Kolyma Tales" is a huge mosaic ... each pebble of its mosaic is itself a work of art. There is the ultimate completeness in each pebble ... Shalamov must be re-read. Confirm like a kind of prayer.

Victor Nekrasov. Stalingrad and Kolyma.

In the evening, winding up the tape measure, the caretaker said that Dugaev would receive a single measurement the next day. The foreman, who was standing nearby and asking the caretaker to lend "ten cubes until the day after tomorrow," suddenly fell silent and began to look at the evening star flickering behind the ridge of the hill. Baranov, Dugaev's "partner", who helped the caretaker measure the work done, took a shovel and began to clean up the long-cleaned face.

Dugaev was twenty-three years old, and everything he saw and heard here surprised him more than frightened him.

The brigade gathered for roll call, handed over the instrument and returned to the barracks in the prisoners' uneven formation. The difficult day was over. In the dining room, without sitting down, Dugaev drank a portion of cold liquid cereal soup across the side of the bowl. The bread was given out in the morning for the whole day and had been eaten long ago. I wanted to smoke. He looked around, wondering who he could get a cigarette butt from. On the windowsill, Baranov was collecting tobacco grains from an inverted pouch into a piece of paper. Gathering them carefully, Baranov rolled up a thin cigarette and handed it to Dugaev.

“You’ll leave it for me,” he suggested.

Dugaev was surprised - he and Baranov were not friendly. However, with hunger, cold and insomnia, no friendship is struck, and Dugaev, despite his youth, understood the falsity of the saying about friendship, tested by misfortune and misfortune. In order for friendship to be friendship, it is necessary that a strong foundation for it be laid when the conditions of life have not yet reached the last border, beyond which there is nothing human in a person, but there is only distrust, anger and lies. Dugaev remembered well the northern proverb, the three commandments of prisoners: do not believe, do not be afraid, do not ask ...

Dugaev eagerly sucked in the sweet tobacco smoke, and his head began to spin.

“I’m getting weak,” he said. Baranov said nothing.

Dugaev returned to the barrack, lay down and closed his eyes. Recently, he slept poorly, hunger did not allow him to sleep well. Dreams were especially painful - loaves of bread, steaming fatty soups ... Forgotten did not come soon, but still half an hour before getting up, Dugaev had already opened his eyes.

The team came to work. All went to their faces.

“Wait,” the foreman said to Dugaev. - The caretaker will put you.

Dugaev sat down on the ground. He had already managed to get tired enough to treat with complete indifference to any change in his fate.

The first wheelbarrows on the gangplank rattled, the shovels scraped against the stone.

“Come here,” the inspector said to Dugaev. - Here's a place for you. - He measured the volume of the face and put a mark - a piece of quartz.

“This way,” he said. - The trap man can hold your board up to the main ladder. Carry wherever everyone is. Here's a shovel, pick, crowbar, wheelbarrow - carry it.

Dugaev obediently began work.

Better yet, he thought. None of the comrades will grumble that he is doing poorly. Former farmers are not required to understand and know that Dugaev is a novice, that immediately after school he began to study at the university, and exchanged the university bench for this slaughter. Every man for himself. They do not have to, they should not understand that he has been exhausted and hungry for a long time, that he does not know how to steal: the ability to steal is the main northern virtue in all its forms - from the bread of a comrade and ending with the release of thousandth bonuses to the authorities for nonexistent, not former achievements ...

No one cares about the fact that Dugaev cannot withstand a sixteen-hour working day.

Dugaev drove, kailil, poured, drove again and again kailil and poured.

After the lunch break, the inspector came, looked at what Dugaev had done and silently left ... Dugaev again kailed and poured. The quartz mark was still very far away.

In the evening the caretaker appeared again and unwound the tape measure. He measured what Dugaev did.

“Twenty-five percent,” he said, and looked at Dugaev. - Twenty-five percent. Do you hear?

- I hear, - said Dugaev.

He was surprised by this figure. The work was so hard, so little stone was picked up with a shovel, it was so hard to pick. The figure - twenty-five percent of the norm - seemed very large to Dugaev. Calves were whining, my arms, shoulders and head ached unbearably from the rest on the wheelbarrow. The feeling of hunger left him long ago. Dugaev ate because he saw others eating, something told him: he must eat. But he didn't want to eat.

- Well, well, - said the caretaker, leaving. - I wish you good health.

In the evening, Dugaev was summoned to the investigator. He answered four questions: name, surname, article, deadline. Four questions that are asked to the prisoner thirty times a day. Then Dugaev went to bed. The next day, he again worked with the brigade, with Baranov, and on the night of the day after tomorrow, the soldiers led him behind the conbaza and took him along a forest path to the forest, to the place where, almost blocking off a small gorge, there was a high fence with barbed wire stretched over it, and from where at night came the distant chirping of tractors. And, realizing what was the matter, Dugaev regretted that he had worked in vain, in vain had suffered this last day.

Not later than 1955