The schedule of the day of Ivan Denisovich in the camp. Camp life in A. I. Solzhenitsyn's story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I. Introductory speech of the teacher

We need to pray for the spiritual: so that the Lord removes the evil scum from our hearts ...

A. Solzhenitsyn. One day Ivan Denisovich

A. Solzhenitsyn deliberately made the main character of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” an ordinary peasant who suffered a fate characteristic of many Russian people of the 20th century. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov was an economic and thrifty owner in a small village. When the war came, Shukhov went to the front and fought honestly. He was wounded, but did not recover, hastening to return to his place at the front. Ivan Denisovich also fell to the German captivity, from which he escaped, but ended up in the Soviet camp as a result.

The harsh conditions of the terrible world, fenced with barbed wire, could not break Shukhov's inner dignity, although many of his neighbors in the barracks had long since lost their human appearance. Having turned from a defender of the Motherland into a convict Shch-854, Ivan Denisovich continues to live according to those moral laws that have developed into a strong and optimistic peasant character.

There are few joys in the minute-by-minute schedule of the camp prisoners. Every day the same thing: getting up on a signal, a meager ration that leaves even the most skinny half-starved, exhausting work, constant checks, “spies”, complete lack of rights for convicts, lawlessness of escorts and guards ... And yet Ivan Denisovich finds in himself the strength not to be humiliated because of extra rations, because of cigarettes, which he is always ready to earn by honest work. Shukhov does not want to turn into an informer for the sake of improving his own fate - he himself despises such people. A developed sense of self-dignity does not allow him to lick a plate or beg - the harsh laws of the camp are ruthless to weaklings.

Belief in himself and unwillingness to live at the expense of others make Shukhov refuse even the parcels that his wife could send him. He understood “what those programs are worth, and he knew that you couldn’t pull them from your family for ten years.”

Conscience and honesty before himself do not allow Shukhov to feign illness, as many prisoners do, trying to avoid work. Even after feeling seriously unwell and coming to the medical unit, Shukhov feels guilty, as if he is deceiving someone.

Ivan Denisovich appreciates and loves life, but understands that he is not able to change the order in the camp, the injustice in the world.

Centuries-old peasant wisdom teaches Shukhov: “Groan and rot. And if you resist, you will break, ”but, resigning himself, this person will never live on his knees and kowtow before those in power.

A reverent and respectful attitude to bread is given out in the image of the main character of a true peasant. During the eight years of camp life, Shukhov never unlearned to take off his hat before eating, even in the most severe frost. And in order to carry with him the remnants of bread rations left “in reserve”, carefully wrapped in a clean cloth, Ivan Denisovich specially sewed a secret inner pocket onto the padded jacket. material from the site

Love for work fills Shukhov's seemingly monotonous life with a special meaning, brings joy, allows him to survive. Disrespecting stupid and coerced work, Ivan Denisovich at the same time is ready to take on any business, showing himself to be a clever and skillful bricklayer, shoemaker, stove-maker. He is able to carve a knife from a fragment of a hacksaw canvas, sew slippers or covers for mittens. Earning extra money by honest labor not only gives Shukhov pleasure, but also makes it possible to earn cigarettes or an additive to rations.

Even while working at the stage when it was necessary to quickly lay down the wall, Ivan Denisovich became so excited that he forgot about the bitter cold and that he was working under duress. Thrifty and economic, he cannot allow the cement to be wasted or the work to be abandoned in the middle. It is in labor that the hero acquires inner freedom and remains unconquered by the terrible conditions of the camp and the gloomy monotony of miserable life. Shukhov is even able to feel happy because the day that is ending went well and did not bring any unexpected troubles. It is these people, according to the writer, who ultimately decide the fate of the country, carry the charge of people's morality and spirituality.

Didn't find what you were looking for? Use the search

On this page, material on the topics:

essay on the topic: "one day of Ivan Denisovich"
the image of Ivan Denisovich in Solzhenitsyn's story One Day in Ivan Denisovich
Solzhenitsyn made an ordinary man a hero whose fate befell
What moral issues does the protagonist of the story one day by Ivan Denisovich solve?
one day ivan denisovich inner world hero

Sections: Literature

Goals:

Recall the reasons for the first round of repression in the 30s of the 20th century.
Reveal the theme of repression in Soviet literature post-war period on the example of the story of A.I. Solzhenitsyn, "... a reliable chronicler of camp life", "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".
To acquaint students with a new round of repression after the Great Patriotic War on the example of local material. (“OZERLAG” on the territory of the Taishetsky and Chunsky districts of the Irkutsk region).
Formation of interest in the history of the native land.
Formation of the ability to work with additional sources, to choose from the extensive material only the necessary facts and events.

DURING THE CLASSES

Epigraph to the lesson:

The death stars were above us
And innocent Russia writhed
Under the bloody boots
And under the tires of black "marus".

A.A. Akhmatova. Poem "Requiem".

I. introduction teachers

The Great Patriotic War ended. The people were returning home - the winner, who believed that after such a war, life in the USSR would change radically. What really happened, we will learn today in the lesson.

II. Actualization of students' knowledge

Remember the reasons for the first round of repression, which began to spin in the 30s of the 20th century. (Students answer)
There are many versions as to why Stalin needed to resort to mass repression during the years of the Great Terror. One of them is connected with the murder in Leningrad, in Smolny, of one of the leaders of the party, S.M. Kirov. The mystery of the death of the first secretary of the Leningrad regional committee and the city party committee, a member of the Politburo of the CPSU (b) has not been solved to this day. But it was also beneficial to Stalin. Thus, he eliminated the most dangerous competitor and freed his hands for internal party purge. Denunciations were often fabricated, millions of people were arrested on them, hundreds of thousands were shot, and the rest ended up in the Gulag (Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps).

III. Exploring a new topic

– What archipelago in terms of geography? (This is a group of islands.)
– What "The Gulag Archipelago" from point of view Russian history? (This is a chain of camps in which "enemies of the people" were kept. This concept was introduced by the Russian writer A.I. Solzhenitsyn, who himself went through all the circles of the camp "hell." The phrase "The Gulag Archipelago" entered a certain sign system of the 20th century, becoming, along with Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Hiroshima, Chernobyl, a tragic symbol of the century.)

1. A short biographical note prepared by a student about the writer A.I. Solzhenitsyn

The father of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, a graduate of Moscow University, an officer in the tsarist army, died tragically in 1918 shortly before the birth of his son. The difficult fate of A.I. Solzhenitsyn is similar to the fate of hundreds of thousands of Soviet people who happened to look into the eyes of death not only on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, but also in Stalin's dungeons and camps.

Shortly before the war, AI Solzhenitsyn graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Rostov University. Then front roads, heavy battles, awards for courage, liberation East Prussia, the breath of a close victory and suddenly ... arrest, interrogations, a special hard labor camp and going through torments in the camps of the sinister "Gulag archipelago" cordoned off with barbed wire. Eight years were expunged from the life of a man who, even before the war, was thinking about literary work. After rehabilitation, Solzhenitsyn worked as a teacher in Vladimir and then in Ryazan. Literary activity brought him fame - in 1970 A.I. Solzhenitsyn became a Nobel Prize winner - and at the same time all life's troubles. The novel The Gulag Archipelago was published abroad. After that, the real persecution of the writer began. Soon he was arrested, accused of treason, deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled. In 1990, the Soviet government returned citizenship to A.I. Solzhenitsyn, and he
was able to come to Russia, where he lived until the end of his days (he died in August 2008, having lived for almost 90 years).

2. The history of the creation of the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”

Student presentation:

Solzhenitsyn's literary debut took place when he was well over forty: in 1962, the novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", which he had suffered in the camps, was published in Novy Mir. The difficult ascent began. This work provoked the fire of "loyal" criticism. Some openly accused its author of slandering Soviet reality and glorifying the anti-hero. And only thanks to the authoritative opinion of A.T. Tvardovsky, the editor-in-chief of the magazine “ New world”, the story was published, took its proper place in the literary context of that time.

3. The story of Ivan Shukhov, who escaped from Nazi captivity in order to end up in a special hard labor camp

Student presentation:

1) What events are depicted in the story of A.I. Solzhenitsyn? (A.I. Solzhenitsyn really showed one day from the camp life of the "prisoner" Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, and the day was relatively successful. The writer shows the life of the "prisoner" not from the outside, but from the inside, dwelling in detail on the little things of life of people behind barbed wire. In the story the exact time of action is indicated - January 1951.)

2) Who is Ivan Denisovich? (Before the war, the main character lived in the small village of Temgenevo, worked on a collective farm, supported his family - his wife and two children. During the Great Patriotic War he honestly fought, was wounded, returned from the medical battalion to the unit, then fought again, was captured, but fled from him, wandered through the forests, swamps, got to his own and ... It was then that they accused him of treason, they said that he was carrying out the task of German intelligence. "What a task - neither Shukhov himself could think up, nor the investigator. So they just left - exercise".)

3) Why did Shukhov agree to sign these conclusions of the investigator? (“In fact, Shukhov knew that if you didn’t sign, they would be shot, and although one can imagine what he experienced at that moment, how he grieved inside, was surprised, protested, but after years camp, he could only remember this with a faint smile: every time he was indignant and surprised, no human strength would be enough ... To die for nothing is stupid, senseless, unnatural. Shukhov chose life - albeit a camp, meager, painful, but life, and then his task was not just to survive somehow, to survive at any cost, but to endure this test so that he would not be ashamed of himself, in order to maintain respect for himself. . In Ivan Denisovich, common sense won, and not a betrayal of moral principles. Eight years of penal servitude in Ust-Izhim and Osoblag did not pass for Shukhov in vain: he realized that it was pointless to “swing rights” in the camp. As for the traits of industriousness, human dignity, and conscience that were genetically embedded in his character and characteristic of the Russian peasantry, he did not compromise them under any circumstances.)

4). Who from the environment of Ivan Denisovich filled you? (Ivan Denisovich is not alone with his misfortune. He has comrades in the brigade, just like him, unjustly convicted, thrown behind barbed wire. This is the captain of the second rank Buinovsky, and Sanka Klyovshin, who escaped from Buchenwald, who was preparing an uprising there against the Germans, and many others.)

Teacher's conclusion:

The attempts of these people to achieve the restoration of justice, their letters and petitions to higher authorities, personally to Stalin remained unanswered. People began to guess that these were not tragic mistakes, but a well-thought-out system of repression. The question inevitably arose: who is to blame for this? Some had a daring guess about the "dad with a mustache", others drove these seditious thoughts away from themselves and did not find an answer. Was it not the main trouble for Ivan Denisovich and his comrades that there was no answer to the question about the causes of their misfortune. Thus, in the tragedy of one person, as in a mirror, the tragedy of an entire nation, nailed to the cross by the Stalinist totalitarian system, was reflected. Solzhenitsyn's story appealed to the consciousness of the living not to consign to oblivion those who were tortured in the camps and to stigmatize those who were accomplices of the perpetrators of repression.

4. Creation of a special closed camp (OZERLAG) on the territory of the Taishetsky and Chunsky districts of the Irkutsk region after the Great Patriotic War.

After the Great Patriotic War, a new round of Stalinist repressions began. Our area was the place where a special closed camp was organized (OZERLAG).(Initially, they were called special camps, regime, closed. They were created according to the secret instructions of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and began to operate in the spring of 1948. As a result of the camp strikes of 1953-54, the authorities had to significantly soften their regime, which in fact amounted to their liquidation. ..)
It contained Japanese prisoners of war, Soviet "enemies of the people."

Ozerlag was established at the end of 1949. The prisoners were building a railway from Taishet to Ust-Kut. The builders in prison uniforms were given a difficult task: to lay a railway track more than 700 kilometers long and by 1951 to complete the laying of the railway track to Ust-Kut. The total length of the western section of the BAM from Taishet to Ust-Kut is 708 km. This section of the BAM was built in a single-track, technically lightweight version. However, an additional amount of equipment and labor was sent to the construction. According to archival data, up to 40 thousand prisoners were kept in the Ozerlag. Unlike other correctional institutions, only convicts under the 58th, “political” article served time here. As a result, the camp was called: special.

Daily routine at the camp:

* at 6.00 - rise;
* at 7.00 - breakfast;
* at 8.00 - the beginning of work;
* the end of the working day at 18.00;
* evening verification - at 22.30;
* lights out - at 23.00.

The prisoners lived in barracks with bars on the windows. At night the doors were locked. In winter, such a barrack was heated with an iron stove. All prisoners were... numbered. According to eyewitnesses, “on the jacket - on the chest and back, as well as on the hem of the dress or on the trousers, just above the knee, there are numbers” that were drawn “with black paint on a piece of white material. The food of the prisoners depended on the results of the work. If he did not fulfill the norm, he received 800 grams of bread per day, fulfilled the plan - a kilogram was issued, and exceeded it - he received “two hundred kilos”. In addition, the so-called bonus reward was supposed to be for shock work. One part of this money went into a common piggy bank - the camp fund. The money from the fund went to the improvement of the camp territory and the maintenance of convicts. Another part of the money earned went to the personal accounts of the prisoners. At each camp there were stalls where they sold bread, sweets, cigarettes. Prisoners could buy all this by withdrawing money from personal accounts. Those serving time had the right to make claims against the administration of the correctional institution. The procedure for filing such complaints was quite democratic. Each campsite had three mailboxes. In the first box they threw letters addressed to relatives and friends, in the second - complaints intended for reading in the camp administration, and in the third box - letters to various higher authorities.

The fates of many famous people who were tried under the notorious Article 58 and exiled to Siberia are connected with OZERLAG. The administration of the camps encouraged the development of amateur art activities, in which former artists, musicians, singers, and dancers participated.

In the early 1950s, the so-called central cultural brigade was created in the Ozerny camp, which went to camps with concerts. By the will of fate, the singer Lidia Ruslanova spent about a year in Ozerlag. She was also a member of the cultural brigade. In the memoirs of eyewitnesses, the details of this tragic period in the life of the singer have been preserved. “... She went on stage, the audience froze. The huge dining room was packed so that the apple had nowhere to fall. In the front rows sat the camp authorities... She was wearing a black dress, with a black-and-white cape on her shoulders. When the first song ended, the shocked hall was silent, not a single clap was heard. Then she sang the second song, she sang with such force, with such passion and desperation that the audience could not stand it. The head of the Ozerlag was the first to raise his hands and clapped. And immediately thundered, the hall groaned with delight. Apparently, the camp-prison epic did not allow the famous Russian singer L.A. Ruslanova to become a People's Artist of the USSR, and to remain just deserved.

Among the other prisoners of the Lake camp were people with no less famous surnames: generals Kryukov and Todorsky, daughters of Ataman Semyonov, Pasternak's wife and daughter, Bukharin's wife. Real specialists in their field worked in the camp hospital - in the past, distinguished scientists, including professors convicted under a "political" article.

The lake camp went down in the history of the penitentiary institutions of the Angara region as the largest camp with a fairly developed infrastructure. The special contingent was involved not only in construction railway but also in agriculture. The camp divisions included 6 agricultural departments. Their products went to the table of the prisoners.

The camp existed until the early 1960s, when forced labor camps throughout the country were renamed ITK - corrective labor colonies.

I draw your attention to the fact that in the school library there is a work by the writer Anatoly Zhigulin "Black Stones", in which he tells about his stay in OERLAG. The young man was serving a term under a political article (58) in a colony, which was located at the Chuna station, and worked in the Chun DOK. The book is interesting, I advise you to read it.

IV. Summarizing what was learned in the lesson

- So, all former Soviet prisoners of war who were sent from Nazi concentration camps to Soviet ones, as well as major state and economic leaders, doctors, and other specialists, fell under a new round of repressions.
– What new things did you learn about our Chun region?
– Can our region be called a place of suffering for the Soviet people, a kind of “road to Golgotha”?

The writing

We need to pray for the spiritual: so that the Lord removes the evil scum from our hearts ...

A. Solzhenitsyn. One day Ivan Denisovich

A. Solzhenitsyn deliberately made the main character of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” an ordinary peasant who suffered a fate characteristic of many Russian people of the 20th century. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov was an economic and thrifty owner in a small village. When the war came, Shukhov went to the front and fought honestly. He was wounded, but did not recover, hastening to return to his place at the front. The German captivity also fell to the lot of Ivan Denisovich, from which he escaped, but ended up in the Soviet camp as a result.

There are few joys in the minute-by-minute schedule of the camp prisoners. Every day the same thing: getting up on a signal, a meager ration that leaves even the most skinny half-starved, exhausting work, constant checks, “spies”, the complete lack of rights of convicts, the lawlessness of escorts and warders ... And yet Ivan Denisovich finds in himself strength not to be humiliated because of excess soldering, because of a cigarette, which he is always ready to earn by honest work. Shukhov does not want to turn into an informer for the sake of improving his own fate - he himself despises such people. Developed self-esteem does not allow him to lick a plate or beg - the harsh laws of the camp are ruthless to weaklings.

Kindness and mercy are one of the main qualities of Ivan Denisovich. He is sympathetic to prisoners who do not know how or do not want to adapt to camp laws, as a result of which they endure unnecessary torment or miss out on benefits. Ivan Denisovich respects some of these people, but most of all he regrets, trying to help and alleviate their plight if possible. Conscientiousness and honesty in front of him do not allow Shukhov to feign illness, as many prisoners do, trying to avoid work. Even after feeling seriously unwell and coming to the medical unit, Shukhov feels guilty, as if he is deceiving someone.

Ivan Denisovich appreciates and loves life, but understands that he is not able to change the order in the camp, the injustice in the world.

Centuries-old peasant wisdom teaches Shukhov: “Groan and rot. And if you resist, you will break, ”but, resigning himself, this person will never live on his knees and kowtow to those in power.

Love for work fills Shukhov's seemingly monotonous life with a special meaning, brings joy, allows him to survive. Disrespecting stupid and forced work, Ivan Denisovich is at the same time ready to take on any business, showing himself to be a clever and skillful bricklayer, shoemaker, stove-maker. He is able to carve a knife from a fragment of a hacksaw blade, sew slippers or covers for mittens. Earning extra money by honest labor not only gives Shukhov pleasure, but also makes it possible to earn cigarettes or an additive to rations.

Even while working at the stage when it was necessary to quickly lay down the wall, Ivan Denisovich became so excited that he forgot about the bitter cold and that he was working under duress. Thrifty and economic, he cannot allow the cement to be wasted or the work to be abandoned in the middle. It is in labor that the hero acquires inner freedom and remains unconquered by the terrible conditions of the camp and the gloomy monotony of a miserable life. Shukhov is even able to feel happy that the day ended successfully and did not bring any unexpected troubles. It is these people, according to the writer, who ultimately decide the fate of the country, carry the charge of people's morality and spirituality.

Other writings on this work

“... In the camp, only those who are already corrupted in the wild or were prepared for this are corrupted” (According to the story of A. I. Solzhenitsyn “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”) A. I. Solzhenitsyn: "One day of Ivan Denisovich" The author and his hero in one of the works of AI Solzhenitsyn. ("One day of Ivan Denisovich"). The Art of Character Creation. (According to the novel by A.I. Solzhenitsyn "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich") Historical Theme in Russian Literature (Based on A. I. Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) The camp world in the image of A. I. Solzhenitsyn (based on the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”) Moral problems in A. I. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" The image of Shukhov in A. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" The problem of moral choice in one of the works of A. Solzhenitsyn The problems of one of the works of A. I. Solzhenitsyn (based on the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich") The problems of Solzhenitsyn's works Russian national character in A. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". The symbol of an entire era (based on Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich") The system of images in A. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" Solzhenitsyn - humanist writer Plot and compositional features of A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” The Theme of the Horror of the Totalitarian Regime in A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s Story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” Artistic features of Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". Man in a totalitarian state (based on the works of Russian writers of the 20th century) Characteristics of the image of Gopchik Characteristics of the image of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov Review of the story by A.I. Solzhenitsyn "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" The problem of national character in one of the works of modern Russian literature Genre features of the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by A. I. Solzhenitsyn The image of the main character Shukov in the novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" "One day of Ivan Denisovich". The character of the hero as a way of expressing the author's position Analysis of the work Characteristics of the image of Fetyukov One day and the whole life of a Russian person The history of the creation and appearance in print of the work of A. I. Solzhenitsyn “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” The harsh truth of life in the works of Solzhenitsyn Ivan Denisovich - characteristics of a literary hero Reflection of the tragic conflicts of history in the fate of the heroes of the story by A. I. Solzhenitsyn "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" The creative history of the creation of the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" Moral issues in the story The problem of moral choice in one of the works Review of A. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" The hero of Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" Plot and compositional features of the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" Characteristics of the image of Alyoshka the Baptist The history of the creation of the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by A. I. Solzhenitsyn Artistic features of the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" Man in a totalitarian state One day and the whole life of a Russian person in the story of A. I. Solzhenitsyn "One day of Ivan Denisovich" The harsh truth of A. I. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" Characteristics of the image of Andrei Prokofievich Tyurin Characteristics of the image of Kavtorang Buinovsky

"One day of Ivan Denisovich" (1963)"

Before the publication of Solzhenitsyn's story
only a narrow circle of persons related
to the KGB, knew about concentration camps, in which by false
trumped up charges languished in appalling conditions
millions of people working for free on the construction sites of communism. After
publication of the story, the whole country became aware of the exorbitant
suffering of people subjected to violence, exploitation and arbitrariness.
At first glance, you can see in the hero of the story Ivan
Denisovich, a typical character in Soviet literature, who
works on one of the socialist construction sites: the usual bunks,
barracks, brigadier, but the commandant's office unexpectedly turns up nearby,
punishment cell, orderly, citizen chief, opera.
And then the reader begins to guess that people are not working on
shock construction site, but in a concentration camp. Here everyone is devoid of human
ranks, they are convicts, they are distinguished by numbers: Shch-854, Yu-81, ordinary
appeal - "bastards".
The story shows only one day lived by Ivan Denisovich
Shukhov in the camp, but the day is exactly the unit of time that
is the measure of life, and in this sense they become synonymous.
The mandatory daily routine of prisoners includes an endless search:
morning, afternoon, evening, which becomes a kind of ritual,
rite. Prisoners are always hungry, so the prisoner's thought is forever
revolves around how to intercept the extra crumb, because of the easy
clothes - how not to die in the cold, due to the lack of any
indulgence - where to get a pinch of tobacco.
By order of the head of the camp, Sundays are canceled, all stay
in the camp is busy with work, but what?! forced labor,
unbearable. The law of the taiga rules in the camp - fierce and terrible,
turning lawless.
The social and age composition of the prisoners is very different:
officer, director, chief and ordinary collective farmer, communists, believers,
teenagers.
The atmosphere consistently described by the writer produces
very painful impression. How can a person live in such conditions?
What is happening to him? How do you manage to survive without breaking? That is
the main thing for Ivan Denisovich Shukhov - a simple collective farmer?
What allowed him to survive and keep his human face?
The author reveals in his hero strong folk roots, a great reserve
humanity. Ivan Denisovich has an amazing property
nature - to discover in horrific inhuman conditions that
the best thing in life, which is always able to support,
serve as a support.
To what is Ivan Denisovich always turned in thought? To the hidden
soldering bread under the mattress, to a glass of samosad, to felt boots and footcloths,
that need to be dried, to the knife, which every time you need
shift, - only they will not deceive, they will not let you down, she taught this
his worldly wisdom of the common man.
But there was in Ivan Denisovich the main thing that forced the author to describe
him in a somewhat upbeat style - a fierce passion to work.
Everything is given to Shukhov to endure and to keep a living soul, not to become embittered,
“do not become a jackal, do not accumulate evil scum on your heart, help others,
support with a kind word. A day has passed, almost happy ... ".

The first work about the Stalinist camps, published in the USSR. The description of an ordinary day of an ordinary prisoner is not yet a complete account of the horrors of the Gulag, but it still has a deafening effect and strikes at the inhuman system that gave birth to the camps.

comments: Lev Oborin

What is this book about?

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, aka Shch-854, has been in the camp for nine years. The story (in terms of volume - rather a story) describes his usual day from wake-up to lights-out: this day is full of hardships and small joys (as far as one can talk about joys in the camp), clashes with the camp authorities and conversations with comrades in misfortune, selfless work and little tricks that make up the struggle for survival. “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” was, in fact, the first work about the camps that appeared in the Soviet press - for millions of readers it became a revelation, a long-awaited word of truth and brief encyclopedia the life of the Gulag.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. 1953

Laski Collection/Getty Images

When was it written?

Solzhenitsyn conceived a story about one day of a prisoner while still in the camp, in 1950-1951. Direct work on the text began on May 18, 1959 and lasted 45 days. By the same time - the end of the 1950s - was the work on the second edition of the novel "In the First Circle", the collection of materials for the future "Red Wheel", the idea of the Gulag Archipelago, the writing of "Matryonin Dvor" and several "Tiny"; in parallel, Solzhenitsyn teaches physics and astronomy at a Ryazan school and is being treated for the consequences of an oncological disease. In early 1961, Solzhenitsyn edited One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, softening some of the details so that the text would become at least theoretically "passable" for the Soviet press.

The house in Ryazan where Solzhenitsyn lived from 1957 to 1965

In the summer of 1963, "One day ..." appears in a secret CIA report on the cultural policy of the USSR: the secret services know that Khrushchev personally authorized the publication

How is it written?

Solzhenitsyn sets himself a strict time frame: the story begins with a wake-up call and ends with going to bed. This allows the author to show the essence of the camp routine through many details, to reconstruct typical events. “He did not build, in essence, any external plot, did not try to start the action more abruptly and unleash it more effectively, did not stir up interest in his narrative with the tricks of literary intrigue,” noted critic Vladimir Lakshin 1 Lakshin V. Ya. Ivan Denisovich, his friends and enemies // Criticism of the 50-60s of the XX century / comp., preamble, note. E. Yu. Skarlygina. M .: LLC "Agency" KRPA Olimp ", 2004. P. 118. ⁠ : the reader's attention is held by the courage and honesty of the descriptions.

"One day ..." adjoins the tradition of the tale, that is, the image of oral, non-bookish speech. Thus, the effect of direct perception through the "eyes of the hero" is achieved. At the same time, Solzhenitsyn mixes up different linguistic layers in the story, reflecting the social reality of the camp: the jargon and abuse of prisoners side by side with the bureaucracy of abbreviations, the popular vernacular of Ivan Denisovich - with various registers of the intelligent speech of Tsezar Markovich and katorranka Captain of the second rank. ⁠ Buinovsky.

How did I not know about Ivan Shukhov? How could he not feel that on this quiet frosty morning, he, along with thousands of others, was being led out under escort with dogs outside the camp gates into a snowy field - to the object?

Vladimir Lakshin

What influenced her?

Solzhenitsyn's own camp experience and testimonies of other camp inmates. Two large, different traditions of Russian literature: essay (influenced the idea and structure of the text) and skaz, from Leskov to Remizov (influenced the style, language of the characters and the narrator).

In January 1963, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" was published in "Roman-gazeta" with a circulation of 700,000 copies.

The first edition of the story in the "New World". 1962

“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” was published thanks to a unique set of circumstances: there was a text by an author who survived in the camp and miraculously recovered from a serious illness; there was an influential editor ready to fight for this text; there was a request from the authorities for support of anti-Stalinist revelations; there were Khrushchev's personal ambitions, for whom it was important to emphasize his role in de-Stalinization.

At the beginning of November 1961, after much doubt whether it was time or not, Solzhenitsyn handed over the manuscript to Raisa Orlova Raisa Davydovna Orlova (1918-1989) - writer, philologist, human rights activist. From 1955 to 1961 she worked in the journal Foreign Literature. Together with her husband Lev Kopelev, she defended Boris Pasternak, Joseph Brodsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In 1980, Orlova and Kopelev emigrated to Germany. In exile, their joint book of memoirs “We lived in Moscow”, the novels “Doors open slowly”, “Hemingway in Russia” were published. Orlova's book of memoirs "Memories of the Past Time" was published posthumously. ⁠ , the wife of his friend and former ally Lev Kopelev Lev Zinovievich Kopelev (1912-1997) - writer, literary critic, human rights activist. During the war, he was a propaganda officer and translator from German, in 1945, a month before the end of the war, he was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison "for propaganda of bourgeois humanism" - Kopelev criticized looting and violence against the civilian population in East Prussia. In "Marfinskaya Sharashka" he met Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Since the mid-1960s, Kopelev has been involved in the human rights movement: he speaks and signs letters in defense of dissidents, and distributes books through samizdat. In 1980 he was deprived of citizenship and emigrated to Germany with his wife, writer Raisa Orlova. Among the books of Kopelev - "Keep forever", "And he created an idol for himself", in collaboration with his wife, memoirs "We lived in Moscow" were written. ⁠ , later introduced in the novel "In the First Circle" under the name of Rubin. Orlova brought the manuscript to the "New World" editor and critics Anne Berzer Anna Samoilovna Berzer (real name - Asya; 1917-1994) - critic, editor. Berzer worked as an editor at the Literaturnaya Gazeta, the Soviet Writer publishing house, the Znamya and Moscow magazines. From 1958 to 1971 she was the editor of Novy Mir: she worked with texts by Solzhenitsyn, Grossman, Dombrovsky, Trifonov. Berzer was known as a brilliant editor and witty critique. In 1990, Berzer's book Farewell, dedicated to Grossman, was published. ⁠ , and she showed the story to the editor-in-chief of the magazine, the poet Alexander Tvardovsky, bypassing his deputies. Shocked, Tvardovsky launched a whole campaign to get the story into print. A chance for this was given by the recent Khrushchev revelations on XX and XXII Congresses of the CPSU On February 14, 1956, at the XX Congress of the CPSU, Nikita Khrushchev delivered a closed report condemning Stalin's personality cult. At the XXII Congress, in 1961, the anti-Stalinist rhetoric became even tougher: words were publicly heard about the arrests, torture, crimes of Stalin against the people, it was proposed to remove his body from the Mausoleum. After this congress settlements, named after the leader, were renamed, and the monuments to Stalin were liquidated. ⁠ , personal acquaintance of Tvardovsky with Khrushchev, general atmosphere thaw. Tvardovsky secured positive reviews from several major writers - including Paustovsky, Chukovsky and Ehrenburg, who was in favor.

This band used to be so happy: everyone was given ten a comb. And from the forty-ninth, such a streak went - twenty-five for everyone, regardless
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The leadership of the CPSU proposed to make several changes. Solzhenitsyn agreed to some, in particular, to mention Stalin in order to emphasize his personal responsibility for terror and the Gulag. However, throw out the words of Brigadier Tyurin, “You are still there, Creator, in heaven. You endure it for a long time and hit it painfully.” Solzhenitsyn refused: “... I would give in if it were at my own expense or at the literary expense. But here they offered to give in at the expense of God and at the expense of the peasant, and I promised never to do this. make" 2 Solzhenitsyn A.I. A calf butted with an oak tree: Essays on literary life. M.: Consent, 1996. C. 44. ⁠ .

There was a danger that the story, which was already out of copies, would “leak” abroad and be published there - this would close the possibility of publication in the USSR. “That it didn’t happen in almost a year after sailing to the West is a miracle no less than the printing itself in the USSR,” Solzhenitsyn noted. In the end, in 1962, Tvardovsky was able to convey the story to Khrushchev - the secretary general was excited by the story, and he authorized its publication, and for this he had to argue with the top of the Central Committee. The story appeared in the November 1962 issue of Novy Mir with a circulation of 96,900 copies; later, another 25,000 were printed - but this was not enough for everyone, "One Day ..." was distributed in lists and photocopies. In 1963 "One Day..." was reissued "Roman newspaper" One of the most widely circulated Soviet literary publications, published since 1927. The idea was to publish works of art for the people, in Lenin's words, "in the form of a proletarian newspaper." Roman-gazeta published the works of the main Soviet writers - from Gorky and Sholokhov to Belov and Rasputin, as well as texts by foreign authors: Voynich, Remarque, Hasek. ⁠ already with a circulation of 700,000 copies; this was followed by a separate book edition (100,000 copies). When Solzhenitsyn fell into disgrace, all these publications began to be withdrawn from libraries, and until perestroika, One Day ..., like Solzhenitsyn's other works, was distributed only in samizdat and tamizdat.

Alexander Tvardovsky. 1950 Editor-in-Chief of Novy Mir, where One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was first published

Anna Berser. 1971 The editor of Novy Mir, who gave Solzhenitsyn's manuscript to Alexander Tvardovsky

Vladimir Lakshin. 1990s. Deputy editor-in-chief of Novy Mir, author of the article Ivan Denisovich, his friends and foes (1964)

How was it received?

The highest goodwill towards Solzhenitsyn's story became the key to favorable responses. In the first months, 47 reviews appeared in the Soviet press with high-profile headlines: “Being a citizen is obliged ...”, “In the name of a person”, “Humanity”, “Harsh truth”, “In the name of truth, in the name of life” (the author of the latter is an odious critic Vladimir Ermilov, who participated in the persecution of many writers, including Platonov). The motive of many reviews is that repressions are a thing of the past: for example, a front-line writer Grigory Baklanov Grigory Yakovlevich Baklanov (real name - Fridman; 1923-2009) - writer and screenwriter. He went to the front at the age of 18, fought in the artillery, and ended the war with the rank of lieutenant. Since the early 1950s, he has been publishing stories and novels about the war; his story A Span of the Earth (1959) was sharply criticized for its "trench truth", the novel July 1941 (1964), which described the destruction of the Red Army high command by Stalin, was not reprinted for 14 years after the first publication. During the years of perestroika, Baklanov headed the Znamya magazine, under his leadership Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog and Zamyatin's We were published for the first time in the USSR. ⁠ calls his review "May this never happen again." In the first, “ceremonial” review in Izvestia (“On the Past in the Name of the Future”), Konstantin Simonov asked rhetorical questions: “Whose evil will, whose boundless arbitrariness could tear these Soviet people — farmers, builders, workers, soldiers — from their families, from work, finally, from the war against fascism, put them outside the law, outside society? Simonov concluded: “It seems that A. Solzhenitsyn showed himself in his story as a true assistant to the party in the holy and necessary work of combating the cult of personality and its consequences" 3 The word makes its way: Collection of articles and documents about AI Solzhenitsyn. 1962-1974 / entry. L. Chukovskoy, comp. V. Glotser and E. Chukovskaya. Moscow: Russian way, 1998. C. 19, 21. ⁠ . Other reviewers inscribed the story in a great realistic tradition, compared Ivan Denisovich with other representatives of the "people" in Russian literature, for example, with Platon Karataev from War and Peace.

Perhaps the most important Soviet review was the article by the Novomir critic Vladimir Lakshin "Ivan Denisovich, his friends and foes" (1964). Analyzing “One Day ...”, Lakshin writes: “The time of action is precisely indicated in the story - January 1951. And I don’t know about others, but when I read the story, I kept thinking about what I was doing, how I was living at that time.<…>But how did I not know about Ivan Shukhov? How could he not feel that on this quiet frosty morning he, along with thousands of others, was being led out under escort with dogs outside the camp gates into a snowy field - to object?" 4 Lakshin V. Ya. Ivan Denisovich, his friends and enemies // Criticism of the 50-60s of the XX century / comp., preamble, note. E. Yu. Skarlygina. M .: LLC "Agency" KRPA Olimp ", 2004. P. 123. ⁠ Anticipating the end of the thaw, Lakshin tried to protect the story from possible harassment, making reservations about his "party spirit", and objected to critics who reproached Solzhenitsyn for the fact that Ivan Denisovich "cannot ... claim the role of the folk type of our era" (that is, does not fit into normative socialist realist model) that his “whole philosophy is reduced to one thing: survive!”. Lakshin demonstrates - right in the text - examples of Shukhov's steadfastness, which preserves his personality.

Prisoner of Vorkutlag. Republic of Komi, 1945.
Laski Diffusion/Getty Images

Valentin Kataev called "One Day ..." fake: "the protest is not shown." Korney Chukovsky objected: “But this is the whole truth story: the executioners created such conditions that people lost the slightest concept of justice ...<…>... And Kataev says: how dare he not protest at least under the covers. And how much did Kataev himself protest during the Stalinist regime? He composed slave hymns, as all" 5 Chukovsky K. I. Diary: 1901-1969: In 2 volumes. M .: OLMA-Press Star World, 2003. T. 2. C. 392. ⁠ . An oral review by Anna Akhmatova is known: “This story is about to be read and memorized - every citizen out of all two hundred million citizens of the Soviet Union" 6 Chukovskaya L. K. Notes about Anna Akhmatova: in 3 volumes. M .: Consent, 1997. T. 2. C. 512. ⁠ .

After the release of "One Day ..." to the editors of the "New World" and the author himself began to receive mountains of letters with thanks and personal stories. Former prisoners asked Solzhenitsyn: “You should write a large and equally truthful book on this topic, where you can display not one day, but whole years”; “If you started this big business, continue it and farther" 7 "Dear Ivan Denisovich! .." Letters from readers: 1962-1964. M.: Russian way, 2012. C. 142, 177. ⁠ . Materials sent by Solzhenitsyn's correspondents formed the basis of The Gulag Archipelago. Varlam Shalamov, the author of the great Kolyma Tales and in the future - Solzhenitsyn's ill-wisher, enthusiastically accepted "One Day ...": "The story is like poetry - everything is perfect in it, everything is expedient."

The convict's thought - and that one is not free, besides, it keeps coming back, stirring everything up again: won't they feel the soldering in the mattress? Will they be released in the medical unit in the evening? will the captain be imprisoned or not?
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Of course, negative reviews also came: from the Stalinists, who justified terror, from people who were afraid that the publication would damage the international prestige of the USSR, from those who were shocked by the rude language of the heroes. Sometimes these motivations overlap. One reader, a former free foreman in places of detention, was indignant: who gave Solzhenitsyn the right to “blamelessly slander both the order that exists in the camp and the people who are called upon to protect prisoners ...<…>The hero of the story and the author do not like these orders, but they are necessary and necessary. Soviet state!" Another reader asked: “So tell me, why, like banners, unfold your dirty trousers in front of the world?<…>I can’t accept this work, because it humiliates my dignity as a Soviet human" 8 "Dear Ivan Denisovich! .." Letters from readers: 1962-1964. M.: Russian way, 2012. C. 50-55, 75. ⁠ . In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn also cites indignant letters from former employees of the punitive organs, up to such self-justifications: “We, the performers, are also people, we also went for heroism: we didn’t always shoot the falling ones and, thus, risked our service" 9 Solzhenitsyn A. I. The Gulag Archipelago: In 3 volumes. M .: Center "New World", 1990. T. 3. C. 345. ⁠ .

In emigration, the release of One Day ... was perceived as an important event: the story was not only strikingly different in tone from Soviet prose available in the West, but also confirmed the information known to emigrants about Soviet camps.

In the West, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was met with attention - among left-wing intellectuals, according to Solzhenitsyn, he raised the first doubts about the progressiveness of the Soviet experiment: shocked." But this also made some reviewers doubt the literary quality of the text: “This is a political sensation, not a literary one.<…>If we change the scene to South Africa or Malaysia ... we get an honest, but crudely written essay on completely incomprehensible people" 10 Magner T. F. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich // The Slavic and East European Journal. 1963 Vol. 7. No. 4. Pp. 418-419. ⁠ . For other reviewers, the politics did not overshadow the story's ethical and aesthetic significance. American Slavist Franklin Reeve Franklin Reeve (1928-2013) - writer, poet, translator. In 1961, Reeve became one of the first American professors to come to the USSR on an exchange; in 1962 he was the translator of the poet Robert Frost during his meeting with Khrushchev. In 1970, Reeve translated Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Nobel speech. From 1967 to 2002 he taught literature at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Reeve is the author of more than 30 books: poems, novels, plays, critical articles, translations from Russian. ⁠ expressed his fear that "One Day" would be read solely as "another performance at the international political Olympiad", a sensational exposure of totalitarian communism, while the meaning of the story is much wider. The critic compares Solzhenitsyn with Dostoevsky, and “One Day” with “Odyssey”, seeing in the story “the deepest affirmation of human value and human dignity”: “In this book, the “ordinary” person in inhuman conditions is studied to the very depths" 11 Reeve F.D. The House of the Living // Kenyon Review. 1963 Vol. 25. No. 2. Pp. 356-357. ⁠ .

Dishes of prisoners in a forced labor camp

Prisoners of Vorkutlag. Republic of Komi, 1945

Laski Diffusion/Getty Images

For a short time, Solzhenitsyn became a recognized master of Soviet literature. He was accepted into the Writers' Union, he published several more works (the most notable is the long story "Matryonin Dvor"), the possibility of awarding him the Lenin Prize for "One Day ..." was seriously discussed. Solzhenitsyn was invited to several "meetings of the leaders of the party and government with cultural and artistic figures" (and left caustic memories of this). But since the mid-1960s, with the curtailment of the thaw that began under Khrushchev, censorship stopped letting Solzhenitsyn’s new things pass: the newly rewritten “In the First Circle” and “Cancer Ward” did not appear in the Soviet press until perestroika itself, but were published in the West. “The accidental breakthrough with Ivan Denisovich did not in the least reconcile the System with me and did not promise an easy movement further,” he later explained. Solzhenitsyn 12 Solzhenitsyn A.I. A calf butted with an oak tree: Essays on literary life. M.: Consent, 1996. C. 50. ⁠ . In parallel, he worked on his main book - The Gulag Archipelago, a unique and scrupulous - as far as circumstances allowed the author - study of the Soviet punitive system. In 1970, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize - primarily for "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", and in 1974 he was deprived of Soviet citizenship and sent abroad - the writer will live in exile for 20 years, remaining an active publicist and increasingly speaking in annoying many the role of teacher or prophet.

After perestroika, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was reprinted dozens of times, including as part of the 30-volume collected works of Solzhenitsyn (M.: Vremya, 2007), the most authoritative to date. In 1963, the work was filmed in English television, in 1970 - a full-fledged film adaptation (co-produced by Norway and Great Britain; Solzhenitsyn reacted positively to the film). "One Day" has been staged in the theater more than once. The first Russian film adaptation should appear in the coming years: in April 2018, the film based on Ivan Denisovich began to be shot by Gleb Panfilov. Since 1997, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" has been included in the mandatory school curriculum on literature.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. 1962

RIA News

"One day" - the first Russian work about the Great Terror and the camps?

No. The first prose work about the Great Terror is Lidia Chukovskaya's story "Sofya Petrovna", written back in 1940 (Chukovskaya's husband, the outstanding physicist Matvey Bronstein, was arrested in 1937 and shot in 1938). In 1952, a novel by second-wave emigrant Nikolai Narokov, Imaginary Values, was published in New York, describing the height of Stalin's terror. Stalin's camps are mentioned in the epilogue of Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. Varlam Shalamov, whose Kolyma Tales is often contrasted with Solzhenitsyn's prose, began writing them in 1954. The main part of Akhmatova's "Requiem" was written in 1938-1940 (at that time her son Lev Gumilyov was in the camp). In the Gulag itself, works of art were also created, especially poems that were easier to remember.

It is usually said that One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was the first published work about the Gulag. A caveat is needed here. On the eve of the publication of One Day, the editors of Izvestia, who already knew about Tvardovsky's struggle for Solzhenitsyn, published the story George Shelest Georgy Ivanovich Shelest (real name - Malykh; 1903-1965) - writer. In the early 1930s, Shelest wrote stories about civil war and partisans, worked in Trans-Baikal and Far Eastern newspapers. In 1935 he moved to the Murmansk region, where he worked as the editorial secretary of the Kandalaksha Communist. In 1937, the writer was accused of organizing an armed uprising and sent to the Lake Camp; 17 years later he was rehabilitated. After his release, Shelest left for Tajikistan, where he worked on the construction of a hydroelectric power station, where he began to write prose on a camp theme. ⁠ “Nugget” is about communists who were repressed in 1937 and were washing gold in Kolyma (“At the editorial meeting of Izvestia, Adzhubey was angry that it was not his newspaper that “discovered” an important topic" 13 Solzhenitsyn A.I. A calf butted with an oak tree: Essays on literary life. M.: Consent, 1996. C. 45. ⁠ ). Tvardovsky, in a letter to Solzhenitsyn, complained: “... For the first time, such words as “opera”, “sexot”, “morning prayer”, etc. were introduced into use on the printed page. how" 14 "Dear Ivan Denisovich! .." Letters from readers: 1962-1964. M.: Russian way, 2012. C. 20. ⁠ . Solzhenitsyn was upset by the appearance of Shelest’s story at first, “but then I thought: what’s stopping him?<…>"First discovery" of the topic - I think that they did not succeed. And the words? But they weren’t invented by us, we can’t take a patent for them costs" 15 "Dear Ivan Denisovich! .." Letters from readers: 1962-1964. M.: Russian way, 2012. C. 25. ⁠ . The émigré magazine Posev in 1963 spoke contemptuously about Nugget, believing that this was an attempt “on the one hand, to establish the myth that in the camps the good Chekists and party members suffered and died from the evil Uncle Stalin; on the other hand, through showing the moods of these kind Chekists and party members, to create a myth that in the camps, enduring injustice and torment, Soviet people, by their faith in the regime, by their “love” for him, remained Soviet people" 16 The brigade commander of the Cheka-OGPU "remembers" the camps ... // Sowing. 1962. No. 51-52. S. 14. ⁠ . At the end of Shelest's story, the prisoners who found the gold nugget decide not to exchange it for food and shag, but to hand it over to the authorities and receive gratitude "for helping the Soviet people in difficult days" - Solzhenitsyn, of course, has nothing similar, although many prisoners of the Gulag did remain orthodox communists (Solzhenitsyn himself wrote about this in The Gulag Archipelago and the novel In the First Circle). Shelest's story went almost unnoticed: there were already rumors about the imminent publication of "One Day ...", and it was Solzhenitsyn's text that became a sensation. In a country where everyone knew about the camps, no one expected that the truth about them would be expressed publicly, in thousands of copies - even after the XX and XXII Congresses of the CPSU, which condemned the repressions and Stalin's personality cult.

Correctional labor camp in Karelia. 1940s

Is life in the camp true in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich?

The main judges here were the former prisoners themselves, who rated "One Day ..." highly and wrote letters of thanks to Solzhenitsyn. Of course, there were some complaints and clarifications: in such a painful topic, Solzhenitsyn's comrades in misfortune were important every little thing. Some prisoners wrote that "the regime of the camp where Ivan Denisovich was sitting was from the lungs." Solzhenitsyn confirmed this: the special class in which he served last years Shukhov was not like that camp in Ust-Izhma, where Ivan Denisovich reached, where he developed scurvy and lost his teeth.

Some reproached Solzhenitsyn for exaggerating the zek’s zeal for work: “No one would, at the risk of leaving himself and the brigade without food, continue putting wall" 17 Abelyuk E. S., Polivanov K. M. History of Russian literature of the XX century: A book for enlightened teachers and students: In 2 books. M .: New Literary Review, 2009. C. 245. ⁠ , - however, Varlam Shalamov pointed out: “The enthusiasm for the work of Shukhov and other brigadiers is subtly and truly shown when they lay the wall.<…>This enthusiasm for work is somewhat akin to that feeling of excitement when two hungry columns overtake each other.<…>It is possible that this kind of passion for work is what saves people.” “How can Ivan Denisovich survive for ten years, day and night only cursing his work? After all, it is he who must hang himself on the very first bracket! - wrote later Solzhenitsyn 18 Solzhenitsyn A. I. The Gulag Archipelago: In 3 volumes. M .: Center "New World", 1990. T. 2. S. 170. ⁠ . He believed that such complaints come from "former jerks Assholes in the camp were called prisoners who got a privileged, "non-dusty" position: a cook, a clerk, a storekeeper, a duty officer. ⁠ and their intelligent friends who have never been incarcerated."

But none of the survivors of the Gulag reproached Solzhenitsyn for lying, for distorting reality. Evgenia Ginzburg, the author of The Steep Route, offering her manuscript to Tvardovsky, wrote about One Day...: “Finally, people learned from the original source at least one day of the life that we led (in different versions) for 18 years” . There were a lot of similar letters from camp inmates, although "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" does not mention even a tenth of the hardships and atrocities that were possible in the camps - Solzhenitsyn does this work in the "Gulag Archipelago".

Barrack for prisoners of Ponyshlag. Perm region, 1943

Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images

Why did Solzhenitsyn choose such a title for the story?

The fact is that it was not Solzhenitsyn who chose him. The name under which Solzhenitsyn sent his manuscript to Novy Mir was Shch-854, the personal number of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov in the camp. This name focused all attention on the hero, but was unpronounceable. The story also had an alternative title or subtitle - "One day of one convict." Based on this option, the editor-in-chief of Novy Mir, Tvardovsky, proposed One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Here the focus is on time, duration, the title is almost equal to the content. Solzhenitsyn easily accepted this successful option. It is interesting that Tvardovsky proposed a new name for Matryonin Dvor, which was originally called "A village is not worth without a righteous man." Here censorship considerations played a role in the first place.

Why one day and not a week, month or year?

Solzhenitsyn deliberately resorts to a limitation: in the course of one day, a lot of dramatic, but generally routine events take place in the camp. “There were three thousand six hundred and fifty three such days in his term from bell to bell”: it means that these events, familiar to Shukhov, are repeated from day to day, and one day is not much different from the next. One day turns out to be enough to show the whole camp - at least that relatively "prosperous" camp under a relatively "prosperous" regime in which Ivan Denisovich had to sit. Solzhenitsyn continues to list numerous details of camp life even after the climax of the story - laying cinder blocks at the construction of a thermal power plant: this emphasizes that the day does not end, there are still many painful minutes ahead, that life is not literature. Anna Akhmatova remarked: “In Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, the details irritate me. The leg was numb, one shark died, put the hook in, did not put the hook in, etc. And all to no avail. And here every detail is needed and road" 19 Saraskina L. I. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. M.: Molodaya gvardiya, 2009. C. 504. ⁠ .

“The action takes place for a limited time in a closed space” is a characteristic essay technique (one can recall texts from "physiological" collections Collections of works in the genre of everyday, moralistic essay. One of the first “physiological” collections in Russia is “Ours, written off from life by Russians”, compiled by Alexander Bashutsky. The most famous is the almanac "Physiology of Petersburg" by Nekrasov and Belinsky, which became the manifesto of the natural school. ⁠ , individual works by Pomyalovsky, Nikolai Uspensky, Zlatovratsky). “One Day” is a productive and understandable model, which, after Solzhenitsyn, is used by “review”, “encyclopedic” texts that no longer adhere to a realistic agenda. Within one day (and - almost all the time - in one closed space) an action is performed; obviously with an eye on Solzhenitsyn, Vladimir Sorokin writes his "Day of the Oprichnik". (By the way, this is not the only similarity: the hypertrophied “folk” language of “Oprichnik’s Day” with its vernacular, neologisms, and inversions refers to the language of Solzhenitsyn’s story.) In Sorokin’s Blue Fat, lovers Stalin and Khrushchev discuss the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, written by a former prisoner of the "Crimean forced love camps" (LOVELAG); the leaders of the people are dissatisfied with the insufficient sadism of the author - here Sorokin parodies the long-standing dispute between Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov. Despite the clearly travesty nature, the fictional story retains the same “one-day” structure.

Map of labor camps in the USSR. 1945

Why does Ivan Denisovich have the number Shch-854?

The assignment of numbers, of course, is a sign of dehumanization - prisoners officially do not have names, patronymics and surnames, they are addressed like this: “Yu forty-eight! Hands back!”, “Bae five hundred and two! Pull up!” An attentive reader of Russian literature will remember Zamyatin's "We" here, where the characters bear names like D-503, O-90 - but in Solzhenitsyn we are faced not with dystopia, but with realistic detail. The number Shch-854 has no connection with Shukhov's real name: the hero of One Day, captain Buynovsky, had the number Shch-311, Solzhenitsyn himself had the number Shch-262. Prisoners wore such numbers on their clothes (in the well-known staged photograph of Solzhenitsyn, the number is sewn on a padded jacket, trousers and cap) and were obliged to monitor their condition - this brings the numbers closer to the yellow stars that Jews were ordered to wear in Nazi Germany (other persecuted had their own marks Nazi groups - gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses ...). In German concentration camps, prisoners also wore numbers on their clothes, and in Auschwitz they were tattooed on their arm.

Numeric codes generally play important role in the camp dehumanization 20 Pomorska K. The Overcoded World of Solzhenitsyn // Poetics Today. 1980 Vol. 1. No. 3, Special Issue: Narratology I: Poetics of Fiction. P. 165. ⁠ . Describing the daily divorce, Solzhenitsyn speaks of the division of campers into brigades. People are counted by head like cattle:

- First! Second! Third!
And the fives separated and walked in separate chains, so look at least from behind, at least from the front: five heads, five backs, ten legs.
And the second watchman - the controller, stands silently at the other railings, only checks whether the account is correct.

Paradoxically, these seemingly worthless heads are important for reporting: “A person is more valuable than gold. One head behind the wire will be missing - you will add your own head there. Thus, among the repressive forces of the camp, one of the most significant is the bureaucracy. This is evidenced even by the smallest, absurd details: for example, Shukhov’s fellow prisoner Caesar was not shaved off his mustache in the camp, because in the photograph in the investigation file he is wearing a mustache.

Punishment in Vorkutlag. Komi Republic, 1930–40s

RIA News"

Numbered padded jacket worn by inmates of forced labor camps

Lanmas/Alamy/TASS

What camp was Ivan Denisovich in?

The text of "One Day" makes it clear that this camp is "hard labor", relatively new (no one has yet served a full term in it). We are talking about a special camp - the name of the camp, created for political prisoners, was received in 1948, although hard labor was returned to the penitentiary system back in 1943. The action of "One Day" takes place, as we remember, in 1951. From the previous camp odyssey of Ivan Denisovich, it follows that for most of his term he was in Ust-Izhma (Komi ASSR) along with criminals. His new fellow campers believe that this is still no worse fate Purpose special camps was to isolate the "enemies of the people" from ordinary prisoners. The regime in them was similar to that of a prison: bars on the windows, barracks locked at night, a ban on leaving the barracks after hours, and numbers on clothes. Such prisoners were used for especially hard work, for example, in mines. However, despite the more difficult conditions, for many prisoners the political zone was a better fate than the household camp, where the “political” was terrorized by the “thieves”. ⁠ : “You, Vanya, spent eight years - in what camps? .. You were in household camps, you lived there with the women. You didn't wear numbers.

Indications of a specific place in the text of the story are only indirect: for example, already on the first pages, the “old camp wolf” Kuzemin says to the newcomers: “Here, guys, the law is the taiga.” However, this saying was common in many Soviet camps. The temperature in winter in the camp where Ivan Denisovich sits can drop below forty degrees - but such climatic conditions also exist in many places: in Siberia, the Urals, Chukotka, Kolyma, and the Far North. The name “Sotsgorodok” could give a clue (since morning Ivan Denisovich has been dreaming that his brigade would not be sent there): there were several settlements with this name (they were all built by convicts) in the USSR, including in places with a harsh climate, but it was a typical name and "depersonalizes" the place of action. Rather, it must be assumed that the conditions of the special camp in which Solzhenitsyn himself was imprisoned are reflected in the camp of Ivan Denisovich: Ekibastuz hard labor camp, later - part Steplaga A camp for political prisoners, which was located in the Karaganda region of Kazakhstan. Steplag prisoners worked in the mines: they mined coal, copper and manganese ores. In 1954, an uprising took place in the camp: five thousand prisoners demanded the arrival of the Moscow commission. The rebellion was brutally suppressed by the troops. Steplag was liquidated two years later. ⁠ In Kazakhstan.

Hall of Fame of the Forced Labor Camp

Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

Why was Ivan Denisovich imprisoned?

Solzhenitsyn writes openly about this: Ivan Denisovich fought (he went to the front in 1941: “I was dismissed from a woman, citizen chief, in the forty-first year”) and fell into German captivity, then broke through from there to his own - but the stay Soviet soldier in German captivity, it was often equated with treason. According to NKVD 21 Krivosheev G. F. Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century: Statistical study / Ed. G. F. Krivosheeva. M.: OLMA-Press, 2001. C. 453-464. ⁠ , out of 1,836,562 prisoners of war who returned to the USSR, 233,400 people ended up in the Gulag on charges of treason. Such people were convicted under article 58, paragraph 1a, of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR ("Treason to the Motherland").

And it was like this: in February of the forty-second year in the North-Western, their entire army was surrounded, and they weren’t thrown anything to eat from the planes, and there weren’t even those planes. They got to the point that they cut the hooves from the horses that had died, soaked that cornea in water and ate. And there was nothing to shoot. And so, little by little, the Germans caught and took them through the forests. And in a group of such one, Shukhov spent a couple of days in captivity, in the same place, in the forests, and the five of them ran away. And they crept through the forests, through the swamps - miraculously they got to their own. Only two submachine gunners laid down their own on the spot, the third died of wounds, and two of them reached. If they were smarter, they would say that they wandered through the forests, and nothing would come of them. And they opened: they say, from German captivity. From captivity?? Your mother is! Fascist agents! And behind bars. There would have been five of them, maybe they would have compared the testimony, they would have believed it, but two could not: they agreed, they say, bastards, about escaping.

The counterintelligence agents beat Shukhov to force him to sign a statement on himself (“if you don’t sign it, you’ll have a wooden pea coat, if you sign it, you’ll live a little longer”). By the time the story takes place, Ivan Denisovich has been in the camp for the ninth year: he should be released in the middle of 1952. The penultimate phrase of the story - "There were three thousand six hundred and fifty three such days in his term from bell to bell" (let's pay attention to the long, "in words", writing out numerals) - does not allow us to say unequivocally that Ivan Denisovich will be released: after all, many camp inmates who served their term, instead of being released, they received a new one; Shukhov is also afraid of this.

Solzhenitsyn himself was convicted under paragraphs 10 and 11 of Article 58, for anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation in wartime conditions: in personal conversations and correspondence, he allowed himself to criticize Stalin. On the eve of his arrest, when the fighting was already going on in Germany, Solzhenitsyn withdrew his battery from the German encirclement and was presented with the Order of the Red Banner, but on February 9, 1945 he was arrested in East Prussia.

Gate of the Vorkutlag coal mine. Republic of Komi, 1945

Laski Diffusion/Getty Images

Prisoners at work. Ozerlag, 1950

What position does Ivan Denisovich occupy in the camp?

The social structure of the Gulag can be described in different ways. Let's say, before the establishment of special services, the contingent of the camps was clearly divided into thieves and political, "58th article" (in Ust-Izhma, Ivan Denisovich belongs, of course, to the latter). On the other hand, prisoners are divided into those who participate in " general works”, and “morons” - those who managed to take a more advantageous place, a relatively easy position: for example, get a job in the office or a bread cutter, work in the specialty needed in the camp (tailor, shoemaker, doctor, cook). Solzhenitsyn writes in The Gulag Archipelago: among the long-timers from the Fifty-Eighth - I think - 9/10. Ivan Denisovich does not belong to the "morons" and treats them contemptuously (for example, he calls them in a generalized way "fools"). “Choosing the hero of the camp story, I took a hard worker, I could not take anyone else, because only he can see the true ratios of the camp (as soon as an infantry soldier can weigh the entire weight of the war, but for some reason it is not he who writes memoirs). This choice of hero and some harsh statements in the story puzzled and offended other former fools, ”Solzhenitsyn explained.

Among the hard workers, as well as among the "morons", there is a hierarchy. For example, "one of the last brigadiers" Fetyukov, in the wild - "a big boss in some office", does not enjoy anyone's respect; Ivan Denisovich calls him "Fetyukov the Jackal" to himself. Another brigadier, Senka Klevshin, who had been in Buchenwald to a special extent, had, perhaps, a harder time than Shukhov, but he was on an equal footing with him. Brigadier Tyurin occupies a separate position - he is the most idealized character in the story: always fair, able to shield his own and save them from murderous conditions. Shukhov is aware of his subordination to the brigadier (here it is important that, according to the camp unwritten laws, the brigadier does not belong to the “morons”), but for a short time he can feel equal with him: “Go, brigadier! Go, you are needed there! - (Shukhov calls him Andrei Prokofievich, but now he has caught up with the brigadier in his work. It’s not that he thinks like this: “Here I’ve caught up,” but he simply senses that it is.)”.

Ivan Denisich! It is not necessary to pray for a parcel to be sent or for an extra portion of gruel. What is high among people is an abomination before God!
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

An even more subtle matter is the relationship of the “common man” Shukhov with convicts from the intelligentsia. Both Soviet and uncensored criticism sometimes reproached Solzhenitsyn with insufficient respect for the intellectuals (the author of the contemptuous term "educated" actually gave a reason for this). “I am also concerned about the attitude of the common people, all these camp hard workers, towards those intellectuals who are still worried and still continue, even in the camp, arguing about Eisenstein, about Meyerhold, about cinema and literature and about the new play by Y. Zavadsky. .. Sometimes one feels the author's ironic, and sometimes contemptuous attitude towards such people,” wrote critic I. Chicherov. Vladimir Lakshin catches him on the fact that not a word is said about Meyerhold in “One Day ...”: for a critic this name is “only a sign of especially refined spiritual interests, a kind of evidence of intelligence" 22 Lakshin V. Ya. Ivan Denisovich, his friends and enemies // Criticism of the 50-60s of the XX century / comp., preamble, note. E. Yu. Skarlygina. M .: LLC “Agency “KRPA Olimp”, 2004. S. 116-170. ⁠ . In relation to Shukhov to Caesar Markovich, whom Ivan Denisovich is ready to serve and from whom he expects reciprocal services, there is indeed irony - but, according to Lakshin, it is connected not with Caesar's intelligence, but with his isolation, all with the same ability to settle down, with preserved and in the camp with snobbery: “Caesar turned around, extended his hand for porridge, at Shukhov and did not look, as if the porridge itself had arrived through the air, - and for his own: “But listen, art is not what, but how.” It is no coincidence that Solzhenitsyn puts a "formalistic" judgment about art and a dismissive gesture side by side: in the system of values of "One Day ..." they are quite interconnected.

Vorkutlag. Komi Republic, 1930–40s

Ivan Denisovich - an autobiographical hero?

Some readers tried to guess in which of the heroes Solzhenitsyn brought himself out: “No, this is not Ivan Denisovich himself! And not Buynovsky... Or maybe Tyurin?<…>Is it really a paramedic-writer who, without leaving good memories, is still not so bad?" 23 "Dear Ivan Denisovich! .." Letters from readers: 1962-1964. M.: Russian way, 2012. C. 47. ⁠ Own experience- the most important source for Solzhenitsyn: he entrusts his feelings and ordeals after his arrest to Innokenty Volodin, the hero of the novel "In the First Circle"; the second of the main characters of the novel, the prisoner of the sharashka Gleb Nerzhin, is emphatically autobiographical. The Gulag Archipelago has several chapters describing personal experience Solzhenitsyn in the camp, including attempts by the camp administration to persuade him to secret cooperation. Both the novel Cancer Ward and the story Matryonin Dvor are both autobiographical, not to mention Solzhenitsyn's memoirs. In this regard, the figure of Shukhov is quite far from the author: Shukhov is a “simple”, unlearned person (unlike Solzhenitsyn, a teacher of astronomy, he, for example, does not understand where the new moon comes from in the sky after the new moon), a peasant, an ordinary, and not kombat. However, one of the effects of the camp is precisely that it erases social differences: the ability to survive, save oneself, and earn the respect of comrades in misfortune becomes important (for example, Fetyukov and Der, who were bosses at liberty, are one of the most disrespectful people in the camp). In accordance with the essay tradition, which Solzhenitsyn voluntarily or involuntarily followed, he chose not an ordinary, but a typical (“typical”) hero: a representative of the most extensive Russian class, a participant in the most massive and bloody war. “Shukhov is a generalized character of the Russian common man: resilient, “malicious”, hardy, jack of all trades, crafty - and kind. Brother of Vasily Terkin, ”wrote Korney Chukovsky in a review of the story.

A soldier by the name of Shukhov really fought together with Solzhenitsyn, but he did not sit in the camp. The camp experience itself, including construction work BUR High security barrack. ⁠ and the thermal power plant, Solzhenitsyn took from his own biography - but admitted that he would not have fully endured everything that his hero went through: sharashka".

Exiled Alexander Solzhenitsyn in a camp padded jacket. 1953

Is it possible to call "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" a Christian work?

It is known that many camp inmates retained their religiosity in the most cruel conditions of Solovki and Kolyma. Unlike Shalamov, for whom the camp is an absolutely negative experience, convincing that God No 24 Bykov D. L. Soviet literature. Advanced course. M.: PROZAIK, 2015. C. 399-400, 403. ⁠ The camp helped Solzhenitsyn strengthen his faith. During his life, including after the publication of "Ivan Denisovich", he composed several prayers: in the first of them he thanked God for being able to "send to Humanity a reflection of Your rays." Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann Alexander Dmitrievich Schmemann (1921-1983) - clergyman, theologian. From 1945 to 1951, Schmemann taught the history of the Church at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. In 1951 he moved to New York, where he worked at St. Vladimir's Seminary, and in 1962 became its director. In 1970, Schmemann was elevated to the rank of protopresbyter, the highest priestly rank for married clergy. Father Schmemann was a well-known preacher, wrote works on liturgical theology, and hosted a program on religion on Radio Liberty for almost thirty years. ⁠ , quoting this prayer, calls Solzhenitsyn a great Christian writer 25 Schmemann A., Protopresv. The Great Christian Writer (A. Solzhenitsyn) // Shmeman A., Protopresv. Fundamentals of Russian Culture: Conversations on Radio Liberty. 1970-1971. M.: Publishing House of the Orthodox St. Tikhonovsky humanitarian university, 2017. S. 353-369. ⁠ .

Researcher Svetlana Kobets notes that “Christian topoi are scattered throughout the text of One Day. There are hints of them in images, language formulas, conditional designations" 26 Kobets S. The Subtext of Christian Asceticism in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich // The Slavic and East European Journal. 1998 Vol. 42. No. 4. P. 661. ⁠ . These allusions bring a “Christian dimension” to the text, which, according to Kobets, is ultimately verified by the ethics of the characters, and the habits of the camper, allowing him to survive, go back to Christian asceticism. Hard-working, humane, the heroes of the story, who retained the moral core, with such a look, are likened to martyrs and righteous people (recall the description of the legendary old prisoner Yu-81), and those who are comfortable, for example, Caesar, “do not get a chance for spiritual awakening" 27 Kobets S. The Subtext of Christian Asceticism in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich // The Slavic and East European Journal. 1998 Vol. 42. No. 4. P. 668. ⁠ .

One of Shukhov’s fellow campers is the Baptist Alyoshka, a reliable and devout believer who believes that the camp is a test that serves to save the human soul and God’s glory. His conversations with Ivan Denisovich go back to The Brothers Karamazov. He tries to instruct Shukhov: he notices that his soul “is asking God to pray”, explains that “it is not necessary to pray for a parcel to be sent or for an extra portion of gruel.<…>We must pray for the spiritual: so that the Lord removes the evil scum from our hearts ... ”The story of this character sheds light on Soviet repressions against religious organizations. Alyoshka was arrested in the Caucasus, where his community was located: both he and his comrades received twenty-five-year sentences. Baptists and Evangelical Christians In 1944, Evangelical Christians and Baptists living on the territory of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus united into one confession. The doctrine of Evangelical Christians - Baptists is based on the Old and New Testaments, there is no division into clergy and laity in the confession, and baptism is carried out only at a conscious age. ⁠ actively persecuted in the USSR since the early 1930s, during the years of the Great Terror, the most important figures of Russian Baptism died - Nikolai Odintsov, Mikhail Timoshenko, Pavel Ivanov-Klyshnikov and others. Others, whom the authorities considered less dangerous, were given the standard camp terms of the time - 8-10 years. The bitter irony is that these terms still seem to the campers of 1951 feasible, “happy”: “This period used to be so happy: everyone was given ten a comb. And from the forty-ninth, such a streak went - all twenty-five, regardless. Alyosha is sure that Orthodox Church departed from the gospel. They are not imprisoned or they are given five years, because their faith is not firm.” However, the faith of Shukhov himself is far from all church institutions: “I willingly believe in God. But I don't believe in heaven and hell. Why do you think we are fools, promise us heaven and hell? He notes to himself that "Baptists like to agitate, like political instructors."

Drawings and comments by Euphrosyne Kersnovskaya from the book "How Much Does a Man Cost". In 1941, Kersnovskaya, a resident of Bessarabia captured by the USSR, was transferred to Siberia, where she spent 16 years

On whose behalf is the story being told in One Day?

The impersonal narrator of "Ivan Denisovich" is close to Shukhov himself, but not equal to him. On the one hand, Solzhenitsyn reflects the thoughts of his hero and actively uses improperly direct speech. More than once or twice what is happening in the story is accompanied by comments, as if coming from Ivan Denisovich himself. Behind the cries of captain Buinovsky: “You have no right to undress people in the cold! You ninth article According to the ninth article of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1926, "measures of social protection cannot be aimed at causing physical suffering or humiliation of human dignity and do not set themselves the task of retribution and punishment." ⁠ you don’t know the criminal code!..” follows the following comment: “They do. They know. It's you, brother, you don't know yet." In her work on the language of One Day, linguist Tatyana Vinokur gives other examples: “The foreman of everything is shaking. It shakes, it won’t calm down in any way”, “our column reached the street, and the mechanical plant behind the residential area disappeared.” Solzhenitsyn resorts to this technique when he needs to convey the feelings of his hero, often physical, physiological: “Nothing, it’s not very cold outside” or about a piece of sausage that Shukhov gets in the evening: “By her teeth! Teeth! Spirit of meat! And meat juice, real. There, in the stomach went. This is what Western Slavists say, using the terms "indirect internal monologue", "depicted speech"; British philologist Max Hayward traces this technique to the tradition of the Russian skaz 28 Rus V. J. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: A Point of View Analysis // Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes. Summer Fall 1971 Vol. 13. No. 2/3. P. 165, 167. ⁠ . For the narrator, the tale form and folk language are also organic. On the other hand, the narrator knows something that Ivan Denisovich cannot know: for example, that paramedic Vdovushkin is not writing a medical report, but a poem.

According to Vinokur, Solzhenitsyn, constantly shifting his point of view, achieves "the fusion of the hero and the author," and by switching to first-person pronouns ("our column reached the street"), he rises to that "highest step" of such a merger, "which gives him the opportunity to especially insistently emphasize their empathy, again and again to remind them of their direct involvement in the depicted events" 29 Vinokur T. G. On the language and style of A. I. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" // Issues of speech culture. 1965. Issue. 6. S. 16-17. ⁠ . Thus, although biographically Solzhenitsyn is not at all equal to Shukhov, he can say (as Flaubert said about Emma Bovary): "Ivan Denisovich is me."

How is the language arranged in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich?

In One Day of Ivan Denisovich, several language registers are mixed. Usually, the first thing that comes to mind is the "folk" speech of Ivan Denisovich himself and the narrator's own narration, which is close to it. In “One Day ...” readers for the first time encounter such characteristic features of Solzhenitsyn’s style as inversion (“And that Socialist town is a bare field, in snowy ridges”), the use of proverbs, sayings, phraseological units (“test is not a loss”, “warm chilly unless when will he understand?", "In the wrong hands, the radish is always thicker"), colloquial compression In linguistics, compression is understood as a reduction, compression of linguistic material without significant damage to the content. ⁠ in the conversations of the characters (“guarantee” - a guarantee ration, “Vecherka” - the newspaper “Vechernyaya Moscow") 30 Dozorova D. V. Compressive word-formation means in the prose of A. I. Solzhenitsyn (on the material of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”) // The legacy of A. I. Solzhenitsyn in the modern cultural space of Russia and abroad (to the 95th anniversary of the birth of the writer ): Sat. mat. International scientific-practical. conf. Ryazan: Concept, 2014. S. 268-275. ⁠ . The abundance of improperly direct speech justifies the sketchy style of the story: we get the impression that Ivan Denisovich does not explain everything to us on purpose, like a guide, but is simply used to explaining everything to himself in order to maintain clarity of mind. At the same time, Solzhenitsyn more than once resorts to the author's neologisms, stylized as colloquial speech - linguist Tatyana Vinokur names such examples as "half-smoker", "take a nap", "breathe", "take a breath": "This is an updated composition of the word, many times increasing its emotional significance, expressive energy, freshness of its recognition. However, although “folk” and expressive lexemes in the story are remembered the most, the main array is still “general literary vocabulary" 31 Vinokur T. G. On the language and style of A. I. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" // Issues of speech culture. 1965. Issue. 6. S. 16-32. ⁠ .

In the camp speech of the peasant Shukhov and his comrades, thieves jargon is deeply eaten (“godfather” is a detective, “knock” is to inform, “kondey” is a punishment cell, “six” is one who serves others, “ass” is a soldier on the tower, “ moron" - a prisoner who settled in a camp for a profitable position), the bureaucratic language of the punitive system (BUR - a high-security barrack, PPC - a planning and production unit, nachkar - head of the guard). At the end of the story, Solzhenitsyn placed a small dictionary with an explanation of the most common terms and jargon. Sometimes these registers of speech merge: for example, the slang “zek” is formed from the Soviet abbreviation “z / k” (“prisoner”). Some former camp inmates wrote to Solzhenitsyn that in their camps they always pronounced "zeká", but after "One day ..." and "The Gulag Archipelago" Solzhenitsyn's version (perhaps occasionalism Occasionalism is a new word coined by a specific author. Unlike neologism, occasionalism is used only in the work of the author and does not go into wide use. ⁠ ) has become established in the language.

This story must be read and memorized - every citizen of all two hundred million citizens Soviet Union
Anna Akhmatova

A separate layer of speech in "One Day ..." - curses that shocked some readers, but met with understanding from the camps, who knew that Solzhenitsyn did not exaggerate here at all. When publishing, Solzhenitsyn agreed to resort to banknotes and euphemisms A word or expression that replaces a harsh, uncomfortable statement. ⁠ : replaced the letter “x” with “f” (this is how the famous “fuyaslitse” and “fuyomnik” appeared, but Solzhenitsyn managed to defend the “laughs”), somewhere he put outlines (“Stop, ... eat!”, “I won’t I'm with this m ... com to wear it! ”). Swearing every time serves to express expression - a threat or "removal of the soul." The speech of the protagonist is mostly free from swearing: the only euphemism is not clear whether it is the author’s or Shukhov’s own: “Shukhov quickly hid from the Tatar around the corner of the barracks: if you get caught a second time, he will rake again.” It's funny that in the 1980s, "One Day ..." was withdrawn from American schools because of the curses. “I received indignant letters from my parents: how can you print such an abomination!” - recalled Solzhenitsyn 32 Solzhenitsyn A.I. A calf butted with an oak tree: Essays on literary life. M.: Consent, 1996. C. 54. ⁠ . At the same time, writers of uncensored literature, such as Vladimir Sorokin, whose Day of the Oprichnik was clearly influenced by Solzhenitsyn's story, just reproached him - and other Russian classics - for being too modest: “In Solzhenitsyn's Ivan Denisovich, we observe the life of prisoners, and - no one swear words! Only - "butter-fuyaslitse." The men in Tolstoy's "War and Peace" do not utter a single swear word. It's a shame!"

Camp drawings by Hulo Sooster. Sooster served time in Karlag from 1949 to 1956

"One day of Ivan Denisovich" - a story or a story?

Solzhenitsyn emphasized that his work was a story, but the editors of Novy Mir, obviously embarrassed by the volume of the text, suggested that the author publish it as a story. Solzhenitsyn, who did not think that publication was possible at all, agreed, which he later regretted: “I should not have given in. We are blurring the boundaries between genres and there is a devaluation of forms. "Ivan Denisovich" is, of course, a story, although it is a long, loaded one. He proved this by developing his own theory of prose genres: “Smaller than a story, I would single out a short story - easy to build, clear in plot and thought. A story is what most often we are rushing to call a novel: where there are several storylines and even the extension in time is almost obligatory. And the novel (a vile word! Is it not possible otherwise?) differs from the story not so much in volume, and not so much in length in time (it even stuck to brevity and dynamism), but in the capture of many destinies, the horizon of looking back and the vertical thoughts" 32 Solzhenitsyn A.I. A calf butted with an oak tree: Essays on literary life. M.: Consent, 1996. C. 28. ⁠ . Stubbornly calling "One Day ..." a story, Solzhenitsyn clearly has in mind the sketchy style of his own writing; in his understanding, the content of the text matters for the genre name: one day, covering the characteristic details of the environment, is not material for a novel or short story. Be that as it may, it is hardly possible to defeat the rightly noted trend of “washing away” the boundaries between genres: despite the fact that the architecture of “Ivan Denisovich” is indeed more characteristic of the story, because of its volume, one wants to call it something more.

Potter in Vorkutlag. Republic of Komi, 1945

Laski Diffusion/Getty Images

What brings One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich closer to Soviet prose?

Of course, according to the time and place of writing and publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, there is Soviet prose. This question, however, is about something else: about the essence of the “Soviet”.

Emigrant and foreign critics, as a rule, read "One Day ..." as anti-Soviet and anti-socialist realist work 34 Hayward M. Solzhenitsyn's Place in Contemporary Soviet Literature // Slavic Review. 1964 Vol. 23. No. 3. Pp. 432-436. ⁠ . One of the most famous expatriate critics Roman Gul Roman Borisovich Gul (1896-1986) - critic, publicist. During the Civil War, he participated in the Ice Campaign of General Kornilov, fought in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky. From 1920, Gul lived in Berlin: he published a literary supplement to the newspaper Nakanune, wrote novels about the Civil War, collaborated with Soviet newspapers and publishing houses. In 1933, having been released from a Nazi prison, he emigrated to France, where he wrote a book about his stay in a German concentration camp. In 1950, Gul moved to New York and began work at the New Journal, which he later headed. Since 1978, he published in it a memoir trilogy “I took Russia away. Apologia for emigration. ⁠ in 1963, he published an article “Solzhenitsyn and socialist realism” in Novy Zhurnal: “... The work of the Ryazan teacher Alexander Solzhenitsyn, as it were, crosses out all social realism, that is, all Soviet literature. This story has nothing to do with her." Gul assumed that Solzhenitsyn's work, "bypassing Soviet literature ... came directly from pre-revolutionary literature. From - Silver Age. And this is her signaling meaning" 35 Gul R. B. A. Solzhenitsyn and socialist realism: “One day. Ivan Denisovich” // Gul R. B. Odvukon: Soviet and emigrant literature. N.-Y.: Most, 1973. S. 83. ⁠ . The tale, “folk” language of the story, Gul even brings together “not with Gorky, Bunin, Kuprin, Andreev, Zaitsev”, but with Remizov and an eclectic set of “writers of the Remizov school”: Pilnyak, Zamyatin, Shishkov Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Shishkov (1873-1945) - writer, engineer. Since 1900, Shishkov has been conducting expeditionary studies of Siberian rivers. In 1915, Shishkov moved to Petrograd and, with the assistance of Gorky, published a collection of short stories, The Siberian Tale. In 1923, "Vataga", a book about the Civil War, was published, in 1933 - "Gloomy River", a novel about life in Siberia at the turn of the century. For the last seven years of his life, Shishkov worked on the historical epic Emelyan Pugachev. ⁠ , Prishvin, Klychkov Sergey Antonovich Klychkov (1889-1937) - poet, writer, translator. In 1911, Klychkov's first poetry collection "Songs" was published, in 1914 - the collection "Secret Garden". In the 1920s, Klychkov became close to the "new peasant" poets: Nikolai Klyuev, Sergei Yesenin, with the latter he shared a room. Klychkov is the author of the novels Sugar German, Chertukhinsky Balakir, Prince of Peace, and translated Georgian poetry and the Kyrgyz epic. In the 1930s, Klychkov was branded as a "kulak poet", in 1937 he was shot on false charges. ⁠ . “The verbal fabric of Solzhenitsyn’s story is related to Remizov’s love for words with an ancient root and for the popular pronunciation of many words”; like Remizov, “in Solzhenitsyn’s dictionary there is a very expressive fusion of archaism with ultra-Soviet colloquial speech, a mixture of fabulous with Soviet" 36 Gul R. B. A. Solzhenitsyn and socialist realism: “One day. Ivan Denisovich” // Gul R. B. Odvukon: Soviet and emigrant literature. N.-Y.: Most, 1973. S. 87-89. ⁠ .

Solzhenitsyn himself wrote all his life about socialist realism with contempt, calling it "an oath of abstinence from truth" 37 Nicholson M. A. Solzhenitsyn as a "socialist realist" / author. per. from English. B. A. Erkhova // Solzhenitsyn: Thinker, historian, artist. Western criticism: 1974-2008: Sat. Art. / comp. and ed. intro. Art. E. E. Erickson, Jr.; comments O. B. Vasilevskaya. M.: Russian way, 2010. S. 476-477. ⁠ . But he resolutely did not accept modernism, avant-gardism, considering it a harbinger of "the most destructive physical revolution of the 20th century"; philologist Richard Tempest believes that "Solzhenitsyn learned to use modernist means in order to achieve anti-modernist goals" 38 Tempest R. Alexander Solzhenitsyn - (anti)modernist / transl. from English. A. Skidana // New literary review. 2010. S. 246-263. ⁠ .

Shukhov is a generalized character of the Russian common man: resilient, "malicious", hardy, jack of all trades, crafty - and kind
Korney Chukovsky

In turn, Soviet reviewers, when Solzhenitsyn was officially in favor, insisted on the completely Soviet and even "party" character of the story, seeing in it almost the embodiment of the social order to expose Stalinism. Gul could be ironic about this, the Soviet reader could assume that the “correct” reviews and prefaces were written as a distraction, but if “One Day ...” was stylistically completely alien to Soviet literature, it would hardly have been published.

For example, because of the climax of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" - the construction of a thermal power plant - many copies were broken. Some former prisoners saw falsehood here, while Varlam Shalamov considered Ivan Denisovich's labor zeal to be quite plausible (“Shukhov's passion for work is subtly and truly shown ...<…>It is possible that this kind of passion for work saves people. And the critic Vladimir Lakshin, comparing “One Day ...” with “unbearably boring” production novels, saw in this scene a purely literary and even didactic device - Solzhenitsyn managed not only to describe the work of a bricklayer in a breathtaking way, but also to show the bitter irony of a historical paradox: “ When the picture of labor that is cruelly coercive is overshadowed, as it were, by the picture of free labor, labor from an inner impulse, this makes one understand deeper and sharper what people like our Ivan Denisovich are worth, and what a criminal absurdity it is to keep them away from their home, under the protection of machine guns. , behind the prickly wire" 39 Lakshin V. Ya. Ivan Denisovich, his friends and enemies // Criticism of the 50-60s of the XX century / comp., preamble, note. E. Yu. Skarlygina. M .: LLC "Agency" KRPA Olimp ", 2004. P. 143. ⁠ .

Lakshin subtly captures both the relationship of the famous scene with the schematic climaxes of socialist realist novels, and the way in which Solzhenitsyn deviates from the canon. The fact is that both socialist realist norms and Solzhenitsyn's realism are based on a certain invariant that originates in the Russian realistic tradition of the 19th century. It turns out that Solzhenitsyn is doing the same thing as semiofficial Soviet writers, only much better, more original (not to mention the context of the scene). The American researcher Andrew Wachtel believes that “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” “should be read as a social realist work (at least based on the understanding of social realism in 1962)”: “I in no way belittle Solzhenitsyn’s achievements by this ...<...>he ... took advantage of the most obliterated clichés of socialist realism and used them in a text that almost completely obscured its literary and cultural Denisovich" 41 Solzhenitsyn A. I. Journalism: In 3 volumes. Yaroslavl: Upper Volga, 1997. T. 3. C. 92-93. ⁠ . But even in the text of The Archipelago, Ivan Denisovich appears as a person who knows camp life well: the author enters into a dialogue with his hero. So, in the second volume, Solzhenitsyn invites him to tell him how to survive in a hard labor camp, “if they don’t take him as a paramedic, as well as an orderly, they won’t even give him a fake release for one day? If he has a lack of literacy and an excess of conscience, to get a job as a moron in the zone? Here is how, for example, Ivan Denisovich talks about the “mostyrka” - that is, deliberately bringing himself to disease 42 Solzhenitsyn A. I. The Gulag Archipelago: In 3 vols. M .: Center "New World", 1990. T. 2. C. 145. ⁠ :

“Another thing is a bridge, to be crippled so that you both live and remain disabled. As they say, a minute of patience is a year of turning. Break a leg, and then to grow together incorrectly. Drink salty water - swell. Or smoking tea is against the heart. And drinking tobacco infusion is good against the lungs. Only with the measure you need to do, so as not to overdo it and not jump into the grave through disability.

In the same recognizable colloquial, "skazki" language, full of camp idioms, Ivan Denisovich talks about other ways to escape from murderous work - to get into the OP (in Solzhenitsyn - "rest", officially - "health center") or to achieve activation - a petition for release for health. In addition, Ivan Denisovich was entrusted to tell about other details of camp life: “How tea in the camp goes instead of money ... How they chifir - fifty grams per glass - and visions in my head," and so on. Finally, it is his story in the Archipelago that precedes the chapter on women in the camp: “And the best thing is not to have a partner, but a partner. Camp wife, convict. As they say - get married» 43 Solzhenitsyn A. I. The Gulag Archipelago: In 3 volumes. M .: Center "New World", 1990. T. 2. C. 148. ⁠ .

In the "Archipelago" Shukhov is not equal to Ivan Denisovich from the story: he does not think about the "mostyrka" and chifir, does not remember women. Shukhov of "The Archipelago" is an even more collective image of an experienced prisoner, who retained the speech manner of an earlier character.

Letter of review; their correspondence continued for several years. “The story is like poetry—everything is perfect in it, everything is expedient. Every line, every scene, every characterization is so concise, clever, subtle and deep that I think that Novy Mir has never printed anything so solid, so strong from the very beginning of its existence,” Shalamov wrote to Solzhenitsyn. —<…>Everything about the story is true." Unlike many readers who did not know the camp, he praised Solzhenitsyn for using abusive language (“camp life, camp language, camp thoughts are inconceivable without swearing, without swearing with the very last word”).

Like other former prisoners, Shalamov noted that Ivan Denisovich’s camp was “easy”, not quite real” (in contrast to Ust-Izhma, a real camp, which “breaks into the story like white steam through the cracks of a cold barrack”): “ In the hard labor camp where Shukhov is imprisoned, he has a spoon, a spoon for a real camp is an extra tool. Both soup and porridge are of such a consistency that you can drink over the side, a cat walks near the medical unit - unbelievable for a real camp - a cat would have been eaten long ago. “There are no blatars in your camp! he wrote to Solzhenitsyn. — Your camp without lice! The security service is not responsible for the plan, does not knock it out with rifle butts.<…>Leave the bread at home! They eat with spoons! Where is this wonderful camp? If only I could sit there for a year.” All this does not mean that Shalamov accused Solzhenitsyn of fiction or embellishment of reality: Solzhenitsyn himself admitted in a response letter that his camp experience, compared to Shalamov's, "was shorter and easier", in addition, Solzhenitsyn from the very beginning was going to show "the camp is very prosperous and in a very happy day."

In the camp, this is who dies: who licks bowls, who hopes for the medical unit, and who goes to the godfather to knock
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Shalamov saw the only falsity of the story in the figure of captain Buinovsky. He believed that the typical figure of the debater, who shouts to the convoy "You have no right" and the like, was only in 1938: "Everyone who shouted like that was shot." It seems implausible to Shalamov that the captain did not know about the camp reality: “Since 1937, for fourteen years, executions, repressions, arrests have been going on before his eyes, his comrades are taken, and they disappear forever. And the katorang does not even bother to think about it. He drives along the roads and sees guard towers everywhere. And don't bother thinking about it. Finally, he passed the investigation, because he ended up in the camp after the investigation, and not before. And yet he didn't think of anything. He could not see this under two conditions: either the captain had spent fourteen years on a long voyage, somewhere on a submarine, fourteen years without rising to the surface. Or for fourteen years he thoughtlessly surrendered to the soldiers, and when they took him himself, it became unwell.

This remark rather reflects the worldview of Shalamov, who went through the most terrible camp conditions: people who retained some kind of well-being or doubts after their experience aroused suspicion in him. Dmitry Bykov compares Shalamov with the prisoner of Auschwitz, the Polish writer Tadeusz Borovsky: “The same disbelief in man and the same refusal of any consolations - but Borovsky went further: he put every survivor under suspicion. Once he survived, it means that he betrayed someone or something forfeited" 44 Bykov D. L. Soviet literature. Advanced course. M.: PROZAiK, 2015. C. 405-406. ⁠ .

In his first letter, Shalamov instructs Solzhenitsyn: "Remember, the most important thing: the camp is a negative school from the first to the last day for anyone." Not only Shalamov's correspondence with Solzhenitsyn, but - first of all - "Kolyma Tales" can convince anyone who thinks that "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" shows inhuman conditions: it can be much, much worse.

bibliography

Abelyuk E. S., Polivanov K. M. History of Russian literature of the XX century: A book for enlightened teachers and students: In 2 books. Moscow: New Literary Review, 2009.
Bykov D. L. Soviet literature. Advanced course. M.: PROZAiK, 2015.
Vinokur T. G. On the language and style of A. I. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" // Issues of speech culture. 1965. Issue. 6. P. 16–32.
Gul R. B. A. Solzhenitsyn and Socialist Realism: “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” // Gul R. B. Odvukon: Soviet and Emigrant Literature. New York: Most, 1973, pp. 80–95.

Dozorova D. V. Compressive word-formation means in the prose of A. I. Solzhenitsyn (on the material of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”) // The legacy of A. I. Solzhenitsyn in the modern cultural space of Russia and abroad (to the 95th anniversary of the birth of the writer ): Sat. mat. International scientific-practical. conf. Ryazan: Concept, 2014, pp. 268–275.
"Dear Ivan Denisovich! .." Letters from readers: 1962-1964. Moscow: Russian way, 2012.
Lakshin V. Ya. Ivan Denisovich, his friends and enemies // Criticism of the 50-60s of the XX century / comp., preamble, note. E. Yu. Skarlygina. M.: LLC “Agency “Krpa Olimp”, 2004. S. 116–170.
Lakshin V. Ya. "New World" in the time of Khrushchev. Diary and incidental (1953–1964). Moscow: Book Chamber, 1991.
Medvedev Zh. A. Ten years after "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". L.: MacMillan, 1973.
Nicholson M. A. Solzhenitsyn as a "socialist realist" / author. per. from English. B. A. Erkhova // Solzhenitsyn: Thinker, historian, artist. Western criticism: 1974–2008: Sat. Art. / comp. and ed. intro. Art. E. E. Erickson, Jr.; comments O. B. Vasilevskaya. M.: Russian way, 2010. S. 476–498.
The brigade commander of the Cheka-OGPU "remembers" the camps ... // Sowing. 1962. #51–52. pp. 14–15.
Rassadin S.I. What was, what was not ... // Literary newspaper. 1990. No. 18. P. 4.
Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century: Statistical study / ed. G. F. Krivosheeva. M.: OLMA-Press, 2001.
Saraskina L. I. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. M.: Young guard, 2009.
Solzhenitsyn A. I. The Gulag Archipelago: In 3 volumes. M .: Center "New World", 1990.
Solzhenitsyn A.I. A calf butted with an oak tree: Essays on literary life. M.: Consent, 1996.
Solzhenitsyn A. I. Journalism: In 3 volumes. Yaroslavl: Upper Volga, 1997.
The word makes its way: Collection of articles and documents about AI Solzhenitsyn. 1962–1974 / introductory L. Chukovskoy, comp. V. Glotser and E. Chukovskaya. Moscow: Russian way, 1998.
Tempest R. Alexander Solzhenitsyn - (anti)modernist / transl. from English. A. Skidana // New literary review. 2010, pp. 246–263.
Chukovskaya L.K. Notes about Anna Akhmatova: In 3 volumes. M .: Consent, 1997.
Chukovsky K. I. Diary: 1901–1969: In 2 volumes. M .: OLMA-Press Star World, 2003.
Schmemann A., Protopresv. The Great Christian Writer (A. Solzhenitsyn) // Shmeman A., Protopresv. Fundamentals of Russian Culture: Conversations on Radio Liberty. 1970–1971 M.: Publishing House of the Orthodox St. Tikhon Humanitarian University, 2017. S. 353–369.
Hayward M. Solzhenitsyn's Place in Contemporary Soviet Literature // Slavic Review. 1964 Vol. 23. No. 3. Pp. 432–436.
Kobets S. The Subtext of Christian Asceticism in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich // The Slavic and East European Journal. 1998 Vol. 42. No. 4. Pp. 661–676.
Magner T. F. // The Slavic and East European Journal. 1963 Vol. 7. No. 4. Pp. 418–419.
Pomorska K. The Overcoded World of Solzhenitsyn // Poetics Today. 1980 Vol. 1. No. 3, Special Issue: Narratology I: Poetics of Fiction. pp. 163–170.
Reeve F.D. The House of the Living // Kenyon Review. 1963 Vol. 25. No. 2. Pp. 356–360.
Rus V. J. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: A Point of View Analysis // Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes. Summer Fall 1971 Vol. 13. No. 2/3. pp. 165–178.
Wachtel A. One Day - Fifty Years Later // Slavic Review. 2013. Vol. 72. No. 1. Pp. 102–117.

All bibliography