Depiction of the life of a Russian village in the stories of V.M Shukshin; methodological development on the topic. And I love the village! Economics and Accounting
RUDN Journal of Studies in Literature and Journalism
2017 Vol. 22 No. 1 76-83
http://journals.rudn.ru/literary-criticism
Bulletin of RUDN University. Series: Literary Studies. Journalism
UDC 821.161.1 821.21
DOI 10.22363/2312-9220-2017-22-1-76-83
DICHOTOMY “TOWN AND COUNTRY” IN V.M.’S STORIES SHUKSHIN AND PHANISHVARNATHA RENU
This article provides a comparative analysis of the dichotomy “city and countryside” in the stories of the famous Russian writer V.M. Shukshin and the Indian writer Phanishwarnath Renu. Taking into account the typological convergences between Russia and India in the second half of the 20th century, the author examines similar and original features in the depiction of the problem of city and village in the stories of Shukshin and Renu.
Key words: dichotomy, city, village, typological convergence
Any comprehensive, chronological and analytical study of the fiction of one country is unthinkable without studying the development of world literature in the same period. A comparative study of similar processes occurring in different national literatures “allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the complex unity of the world historical process and to understand some of the patterns of social and artistic development.” In this regard, the Soviet comparativist I.G. Neupokoeva notes that such a comparative study “provides the opportunity for a broader formulation of a number of important issues in the history and theory of literature, the consideration of which on the basis of individual national or regional literatures cannot lead to fruitful results.” A comparative study of the stories of two famous village writers V.M. Shukshin and Phanishwarnath Renu makes it possible to trace the dichotomy of “city and village” in Russian and Hindi literatures.
The main purpose of this scientific article is a comparative study of the dichotomy “city and countryside” in the stories of Vasily Shukshin and Phanishwarnath Renu and consideration of this topic in its interdependence with the socio-cultural context. It is interesting to note that between Shukshin’s Russia and Renu’s India in the 40-60s of the twentieth century there was much in common. The socio-political situation of Russia and India bore similar features. Russia after the Second World War in 1945 and India after gaining its independence from British colonialism in 1947 faced problems related to the social reconstruction of society.
S.K. Thakur
Center for Russian Studies University. Jawaharlal Nehru Delhi, India, 110067
In the 1950s and 1960s, both countries paid great attention to the city, industrial development and scientific and technological progress. As a result, the village became backward and the city advanced much technologically. Villages, village people and peasants were deprived of public attention. Industrialization caused mass exodus or migration from the countryside to the city. The villages began to empty, and young village people flocked to the city. With the growth of urbanization in the second half of the twentieth century, such world problems as the migration of peasants to cities, social conflicts between urban and rural residents appeared, which were reflected in the stories of V.M. Shukshin and Phanishwarnath Renu. That is why the work of these two writers reflects largely similar themes and problems, despite the fact that there was no direct contact between these two writers.
The dichotomy “city and countryside” in the stories of V.M. Shukshina
Let's consider the writer's stories in which the social conflict between city and countryside is manifested. We choose two stories as an example, namely “The wife saw off her husband to Paris” and “I choose a village to live.”
The split between the cultures of urban and rural residents is very successfully conveyed by Shukshin in the story “The Wife Accompanied Her Husband to Paris.” The hero of the story, Kolka, is “a charming guy, gray-eyed, slightly high-cheeked, with a flaxen forelock. Although he is not tall, he is a very reliable, strong Siberian.” However, this “strong Siberian” commits suicide. Unsuccessful family life forced him to take this extreme step.
The conflict is not new. Don't there be unhappy marriages? But when we try to find out the cause of this family discord, we learn that in this case it is not entirely ordinary. The tragedy lies in the difference between urban and rural cultures. Kolka lives in Moscow. He lives in the city because his wife does not want to move to the village. He is unhappy because he is constantly overcome by longing for the village, for peasant work. Kolka dreams of returning to his past life, to rural life. At a city exhibition, for example, “Kolka loved to look at agricultural machines, stood for a long time in front of tractors, seeders, mowers... Thoughts from the machines jumped to his native village, and his soul began to ache.” He dreams: “I would like such a small tractor, a small combine harvester and ten hectares of land...”.
If it weren’t for his little daughter, he would have left Moscow long ago and moved to the village. And his mother would not allow him to return to the village alone. She would say: “It’s a great sin to leave your own child...”. She would cry and ask him to come back. But he cannot live in the city.
His dream of finishing his tenth year at night school did not come true. His wife, a dressmaker, loves money very much, and Kolka is forced to work as a loader in a retail chain. He started drinking with the movers and traders. He understands that “the way he lives is not life, it is something very ridiculous, shameful, vile.... His hands are unaccustomed to work, his soul is drying up - it is fruitlessly spent on petty, vindictive, caustic feelings... What's next? Then it’s bad. And in order not to peer into this disgusting “further”, he began to think about his village, about his mother.
teri, about the river... I thought at work, I thought at home, I thought during the day, I thought at night. And I couldn’t think of anything, I just poisoned my soul, and I wanted to drink...”
To spite his wife, he organizes concerts in the yard on Saturdays: he brings out a three-row with crimson fur, sings, dances, etc. He does everything on purpose to anger his wife; Valyusha, his wife, hates her husband for these concerts.
The solution to the Kolka conflict reminds us of a story that M. Gorky told in his article about S. Yesenin, written in 1927. In this article, M. Gorky compares the fate of Yesenin with the fate of one Polish boy, a peasant, who “by some chance , ended up in Krakow and got confused in it. He circled around the streets of the city for a long time and still could not get out into the open space of the field that was familiar to him. And when he finally felt that the city did not want to let him out, he knelt down, prayed and jumped from the bridge into the Vistula, hoping that the river would take him to the desired open space.”
The death of Kolka is the result of a conflict between urban and rural cultures. In this story, this conflict between two cultures is very acute, has a touch of drama and ends tragically.
The chronotope of Shukshin's stories reflects one of the most important problems Soviet history and literature: the problem of the contradiction between city and countryside. Shukshin's prose depicts a time of significant demographic change after World War II, when many rural residents began to migrate from the countryside to the growing cities. In the chronotope, as M.M. notes. Bakhtin, “space intensifies, is drawn into the movement of time, plot, history.” For Shukshin and his heroes, the distance from city to village is a space that deepens class differences, differences in culture, language, worldview and standard of living between city and village.
“I Choose a Village to Live in” is another story where the village is contrasted with the city. In this story, Shukshin openly expresses disapproval of the urban way of life. Main character In the story, Nikolai Grigorievich soon realized that in the city you can live comfortably, without straining yourself, you can find a warm place and live quietly, peacefully. Introducing his hero, who came to the city from the village in the early 1930s, Shukshin writes: “At first he was homesick for the city, then he took a closer look and realized: if you have a little ingenuity, cunning, and if you don’t get too screwed up, then you don’t have to dig these pits , you can live easier."
He worked as a storekeeper all his life, and even during the harsh years of the war he did not feel the need, he carried everything little by little, so as not to feel lacking in anything. As the author writes, he stole from warehouses “as much as was required so as not to lack anything.” Nikolai Grigorievich’s conscience did not bother him. You can’t accuse him of theft, but he didn’t become a person needed by society either. He lived his whole life for himself, away from everything. He didn’t become a person in the city, but you can’t call him a villager either; he turned out to be superfluous everywhere.
However, in his declining years, this hero developed one oddity, “which he probably would not have been able to explain to himself, even if he wanted to. But he didn’t want to explain and didn’t really think about it, but obeyed this whim,” and
This oddity manifests itself in the fact that for the last five or six years, every Saturday after work, he goes to the station, enters into conversations with the waiting village people and meticulously asks them about the village.
He assures that he wants to live peacefully in his old age, away from the noise of the city. Every village resident tries to praise his village, tries to prove that his village is more beautiful, better than others, that the people there are more honest and better. They happily tell Nikolai different stories, where amazing human selflessness is revealed.
Comparing the urban lifestyle with the rural one, all villagers unanimously express disapproval of the fact that in the city there is a lot of rudeness, anger, and insults. Nikolai Grigorievich agrees with everyone and shouts: “That’s why I want to leave!.. That’s why I want to - I have no more patience... Such a life turns my soul!” .
As Shukshin writes, it was clear to the hero that life in the city “... this is not life, such a life would be wasted, and a two-room section, it is better to buy a hut in the village and live out your days in peace, live them out with dignity, like a human being.” His behavior at the station seems strange. Nikolai Grigorievich himself could not explain to himself why he needs this, because he is not going to leave his comfortable city apartment, city convenience and go to the village. He didn’t have anything like that in his head, but now he couldn’t avoid going to the station - it had become a necessity.
Although neither the author nor the hero explain the reason for this whim, it is obvious that the hero yearns for the past, for the village, for the human values that he lost during his stay in the city. His village interlocutors at the station understand him and agree that “no matter how much you hang around the cities, and if you are a villager, sooner or later you will be drawn to the village again.” Of course, Nikolai can no longer give up city life, since he has already become accustomed to it, and therefore he will never return to the village. But at the same time, he feels that the village is pulling him and he cannot tear himself away from it. In this regard, critic N. Leiderman notes that “Shukshin’s hero is at a crossroads. He already knows how he doesn’t want to live, but he doesn’t yet know how to live.” Not only the writer’s hero, but Shukshin himself was also at a crossroads. “So it turned out that by the age of forty, I was neither completely urban nor rural anymore. A terribly uncomfortable position. It’s not even between the chairs, but rather like this: one leg on the shore, the other in the boat. And it’s impossible not to swim, and it’s kind of scary to swim...”
The dichotomy of "city and countryside" in the stories of Phanishwarnath Renu
The problem of the collision of city and countryside occupies a special place in the stories of the Indian writer Renu. Here we will analyze the writer’s stories that most clearly reflect the conflict between the city and the countryside. For analysis, we choose such stories as “Vyghatan ke kshan” (“Moment of Decay”) and Uchchatan (“Under the Root”).
Due to rapid urbanization and industrial development, Indian villages are currently struggling to survive. The village turns into a city or town
is it close to the village? Renu uses this motif in the stories "Vyghatan ke kshan" ("The Moment of Decay") and "Uchchatan" ("Under the Root"), in which he masterfully portrays this problem. As the title of the story “The Moment of Decay” suggests, the author in this story shows the decay of the village that occurs due to urbanization and industrialization.
The story “The Moment of Decay” tells the story of a rural girl, Vija, who finds it very difficult to break ties with her homeland and move to the city of Patna. The story depicts a family living in a palace. Rameshwar Chaudhary is a member of the legislative assembly in Patna and is the sole owner of the palace. He lives with his family in the city and has no time to visit the village. The elder brother died long ago. My daughter-in-law also recently died. His daughter is already 17 years old, and he dreams of marrying her to a worthy man.
Rameshwar, succumbing to the general desire, calls Vija to the city, where he marries her to a city dweller. Now Vidzhya feels like a bird in a “golden cage,” but asks to be allowed to go to the village at least once to see her friend Churmu-nia. The characters of Vija, her husband and her friend Churmuniya illustrate the complex relationship between the city and the countryside in the story.
At the beginning of the story, Vija comes to the village seven or eight years after leaving. She is very disappointed. The village is devastated and falling apart, young people are trying to leave for the city. No one except her little friend Churmuniya experiences such heartache. Vijay thinks that although she has not been here and came to the village after many years, she still loves her village very much, is proud of her village origin and does not want to go to the city. She is scared to even think about the upcoming move. She has only one desire - to spend her life in her homeland, in the village, in her parents' house.
Little Churmuniya understands Vija and advises her not to marry a city man. Hearing her request, Vijay laughs and wants to know the reason. Churmuniya replies that the city dweller does not understand the villager and will never allow her to go to the village: “In the case when a village man leaves his homeland and goes to the city, will he allow his wife to go to the village?” .
Meanwhile, the uncle married Vija to a city man. However family relationships things didn't work out. The reason for family discord lies in the difference between urban and rural cultures. Separation from the village and from my friend became the reason for my longing for my previous village life. She fell ill and asked only for one thing - to go to the village to see her friend before she died. But Viji's husband does not allow her to go to the village. Being a city man, he does not understand his wife. He suspects that his wife has an affair. The story ends tragically - Vijay goes crazy.
One of the writer’s most popular stories, “Uchchatan” (“Under the Root”), also depicts the problem of the city and the countryside. In this story, Renu beautifully and realistically portrays the poverty of the Indian peasant, especially his helpless and hopeless position before the landowner. The hero of the story Ram Vilas drives a rickshaw in the city. He came to the city to pay off the landowner. It is difficult to get a job in the village; if it does appear, the wages are meager, and besides, they are oppressed by greedy moneylenders.
He returned to the village two years later, having earned some money. He paid off the entire debt to the landowner. In the village, a fellow villager who became rich began to be treated differently. All the village peasants were curious how he managed to earn such a large amount of money in just two years, which a peasant hardly earns in ten years. Everyone listens to his urban fantasies and stories. Many young people, having heard his stories, decided to follow in his footsteps. One of them asks Ramvilas: “Brother Ramvilas, this time I will also go with you... Me too! Me too!! Me too!!! In the village we plow the land for a whole year for only one hundred and eight rupees, but in the city you can earn two hundred in just a month?” .
However, as the time approaches for leaving for the city, he feels that he cannot live without his beloved wife and mother. He realizes that he cannot leave the village. Even though it is difficult to make money in the village, he realizes that he is happier among his family and village friends. In addition, in the city it is very difficult to get money; you have to waste strength, energy, and sacrifice your health for it. In the finale, the hero abandons the idea of moving to the city, he chooses a village to live. He ponders: “What is there in the city? So much blood must be shed to make money. It’s better in our village.” Indian writer Renu views the city not only as a symbol of capitalism and industrialization, but also as a center of empty and artificial life.
It is interesting to note that if in some of Shukshin’s stories rural youth strive to go to the city, then the hero Renu appears in a completely different way. He does not want to leave his homeland, village and go to the city for a luxurious life. He has no land, and it is also difficult for him to earn money, but still he firmly decided not to leave for the city. Peace of mind is more valuable than material well-being. The heroes of Renu's stories want to live a rich spiritual life in the village, and in the city
they suffocate and feel empty.
The stories of Shukshin and Renu are chronicles of life in Soviet and Indian villages in the second half of the twentieth century. It is no coincidence that Shukshin called his first collection of stories “Village People.” This name is justified by the deep interest that Shukshin shows in the spiritual world of the village resident. Many stories by Shukshin and Renu reflect their deep love for the village and longing for it. This melancholy undoubtedly expresses the personal experiences of Shukshin and Renu. That is why the stories of both writers are characterized by great artistic and vital force and truthfulness. The problem of the collision between city and countryside constantly worried both writers; they returned to it again and again in their stories.
© Thakur S.K., 2017
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bakhtin M.M. Forms of time and chronotope in the novel // Questions of literature and aesthetics.
M.: Fiction, 1975.
Gorky M. Collected Works. Volume XVIII. M.: Fiction, 1963.
Emelyanov L.I. Vasily Shukshin: Essay on creativity. Leningrad: Fiction, 1983.
Leiderman N.L. The movement of time and the laws of the genre. Sverdlovsk: Central Ural Book Publishing House, 1982.
Neupokoeva I.G. The problem of literary connections and interaction // Questions of literature. 1959. No. 9. P. 113-128.
Shefalika. Renu ka katha samsar "The artistic world of Renu." New Delhi: Radhakrishna, 1996. (In Hindi)
Shukshin V.M. Questions to yourself / comp. L. N. Fedoseeva-Shukshina. M.: Young Guard, 1981.
Shukshin V.M. Stories. Stories / comp. V. Egorova. Riga: Liesma, 1983.
Chernyshev V.A. Phaniswarnath Renu: Writer of the everyday life of an Indian village. M.: Nauka, 1990.
Yayavar B. Renu Rachnavali-1 Collected Works of Renu. Vol. I. New Delhi: Rajkamal, 1995. (In Hindi)
Givens J. Prodigal son: Vasilii Shukshin in Soviet Russian Culture. USA: Northwestern University Press, 2000.
Article history:
For quotation:
Thakur S.K. (2017). “The dichotomy of city and village” in the stories of V.M. Shukshina and Phanishvar-
Natha Renu // Bulletin of the Russian Peoples' Friendship University. Series: Literary Studies. Journalism. 2017. T. 22. No. 1. P. 76-83.
Thakur Subhash Kumar, graduate student at the Center for Russian Studies, University. Java
Harlala Nehru (Delhi, India)
Contact information: e-mail: [email protected]
THE DICHOTOMY OF "CITY AND VILLAGE" IN STORIES OF V.M SHUKSHIN AND PHANISHWARNATH RENU
Center of Russian Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi, India, 110067
The article presents a comparative analysis of the dichotomy of "City and Village" in stories of the famous Russian writer V M. Shukshin and Indian writer Phanishwarnath Renu. Considering typological similarities between India and Russia in the second half of the XX century, the present paper examines similar and distinctive features in depiction of the problem of city and village in two stories each of Shukshin and Renu.
Key words: dichotomy, city, village, typological similarities
Bakhtin M.M. Formy vremeni i khronotopa v romane. Questions literatury i estetiki. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1975.
Gorky M. Sobranie sochinenii, Volume XVIII. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1963.
Yemel"yanov L.I. Vasily Shukshin: Ocherk tvorchestva Leningrad: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1983.
Leyderman N.L. Dvizheniye vremeni i zakony zhanra. Sverdlovsk: Ural Book Publ., 1982.
Neupokoyeva I.G. Problema literaturnykh svyazey i vzaimodeystviya. Question literature. 1959. No. 9. Pp. 113-128.
Shefalika. Renu ka katkha sansar. New Delhi. Radkhakrishna Publ., 1996. (In Hindi)
Shukshin V.M. Questions samomu sebe. Ed. L. N. Fedoseyeva-Shukshina. Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 1981.
Shukshin V.M. Rasskazy. Povesti. Ed. V Yegorova. Riyega: Liyesma, 1983.
Chernyshev V.A. Phanishwarnath Renu: Bytopisatel" indiyskoy derevni. Moscow: Nauka, 1990.
Yayavar B. Renu Rachnavali-1 . New Delhi: Rajkamal Publ., 1995. (In Hindi)
Givens J. Prodigal son: Vasilii Shukshin in Soviet Russian Culture. USA: Northwestern University Press, 2000.
Article history:
Thakur S.K. (2017). The dichotomy of "City and Village" in stories of V.M. Shukshin and
Phanishwarnath Renu. RUDN Journal of Studies in Literature and Journalism, 2017, 22 (1), 76-
Thakur Subhash Kumar, Phd student of The Center of Russian studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru
University, India.
Contacts: e-mail: [email protected]
The artistic world of V.M. Shukshin is quite rich, but if you think about it, you can draw a parallel between the themes and ideas of his stories. Shukshin is a true and zealous patriot, and therefore his stories are united by an undisguised and comprehensive love for the homeland, the homeland in all its manifestations, be it the country as a whole (when the characters strive to be useful to it) or the so-called small homeland - a village, village (Shukshin himself comes from a small village, and this is probably why his heroes, finding themselves far from their home, wish with all their hearts to return there as soon as possible).
It is impossible not to notice that the stories mostly describe village residents. There are, apparently, two explanations for this: firstly, as has already been said, their life is familiar and loved by the writer since childhood; secondly, he probably wanted to correct the existing image of a narrow-minded, incapable of thinking about serious issues, and even a somewhat dull villager. In Shukshin’s stories, the Russian person is always searching, unable to “vegetate,” asking difficult questions to life and obtaining the answers to them himself. Everyone is an individual, not just a face from the crowd. His problem is that he cannot open up completely, something always interferes with him, but in the end he finds an outlet for his energy in something else.
For example, the hero of the story “Mille pardon, madam!”, internally tormented by the fact that, in his opinion, he did not bring any benefit to his homeland, and also lost two fingers in a completely stupid way, becomes a grandiose inventor.
Shukshin also touches on a very serious problem of his time: the gap between city and village, the extinction of the latter due to the fact that young people strive to find themselves in the turbulent city life. The village meets this fact in different ways: some (mostly old parents) are upset by the departure of their relatives and the distance separating them, some (neighbors, friends) out of envy, and perhaps also being upset, in every possible way." denigrates" the city, and with it its inhabitants. This is Gleb, the hero of the story “Cut.” He has an obsessive desire to somehow take revenge on the townspeople for their success. And he “cuts off”, ridicules those who come, and does it masterfully, thereby trying to rise in his own eyes and in the eyes of those around him. To some extent, he is also a patriot: he does not want the village to be inferior to the city in any way.
Many of Shukshin’s heroes are somewhat “eccentric”, which, nevertheless, does not indicate their shortcomings or inferiority, but, on the contrary, inspires some kind of charm in their image. It is these “eccentrics” who are the writer’s most harmonious, independent people. Vasyatka Knyazev refuses to live a boring life and therefore wants to brighten up his life and everything around him. He is full of strength and desire to do good to people, to please them, even if they don’t understand it.
And yet, all of Shukshin’s heroes lack something, and that something is happiness. The search for happiness is one of the main themes of this writer’s works.
Shukshin's stories are so natural and harmonious that it seems that he simply wrote without thinking about form, composition, or artistic means. However, it is not. Stories have a certain feature through which the writer also partly expresses his opinion. According to Shukshin himself, the story should “unnerve the soul,” console, calm, and teach the reader something. And for this, the writer did not put his works into a strict form. In fact, his stories lack any composition.
The author himself distinguished three types of stories: story-fate, story-character, story-confession. Indeed, one can most often find in him a specific situation (and then he is limited to only a cursory mention of the hero, his life) or a narrative about a separate type of psychology (and here a certain situation is necessarily described, because it is the main way of revealing character of the hero). The events in the stories are real, and this is the main thing: the fuller and brighter the characters are if they are shown in an ordinary setting. Very often Shukshin begins the story with a direct reference to a fact; This feature, by the way, is inherent in all storytellers who do not expect to impress the audience, but simply present a specific event.
In relation to Shukshin's stories, one cannot talk about a plot or a climax. They begin mostly right from the climax, an interesting, turning point in a person’s life, and end with an “ellipsis.” The story ends suddenly, and, in general, it is not clear what will happen after, and this even makes it a little creepy.
Thus, the range of main themes of Shukshin’s stories lies in the following concepts: home, work, homeland, family (it’s not for nothing that the writer has so many stories about everyday life, family themes), truth (most heroes are organically uncharacteristic of lying, while others, if they lie, are either dreamers, or circumstances require it). It is worth noting that Shukshin does not have ideal heroes as such. He is demanding of his heroes, whose prototypes he constantly found around him in real life; This is probably why it is impossible to confidently call every action of any hero correct. But Shukshin did not achieve this. He depicted life in all its manifestations, without embellishment, the one that is usually not noticed. And the main idea that he wanted to convey to us was, most likely, the following: life flows forward, it cannot be stopped, and therefore everything that needs to happen will definitely happen.
Composition
There is so much in our country that can be sung in hymns, songs, poems and stories! And many dedicated their lives to the glorification of our country, many died for its imperishable, bewitching beauty. This is how it was during the Great Patriotic War. Many books have been written about beauty and duty to this beauty - our Motherland...
But the war passed, and over time the bleeding wounds on the body of our land began to heal. People began to think about other things and tried to live in the future. Thus, stories and poems about love without war, about the life of people in a peaceful land, are gradually returning.
That is why at this time the topic of the village became so relevant and close. Since the time of Lomonosov, the Russian village has sent to the city many savvy, intelligent and active children, who take their life and art very seriously. Many writers have devoted their best lines to this topic. But I especially like the stories of Vasily Shukshin, who in his works illuminated not so much the external side of life in the village, its way of life, but rather the inner life, the inner world, the background, so to speak.
The writer turned, first of all, to the character of the Russian person, trying to understand why he is like this and why he lives like this. All the heroes of his works are villagers.
Shukshin's stories are filled with genuine humor and, at the same time, sadness, which shines through in every remark of the author. Therefore, sometimes a writer funny tells us a sad story. But, despite this, his work is filled with a healthy, cocky and exciting optimism that cannot but infect the reader. That’s why Shukshin’s work is popular to this day, and I think it will never fade.
In the work of this writer, the life of the artist himself and the creations of his imagination are so intricately intertwined that it is impossible to discern who is appealing to humanity - the writer Shukshin or his hero Vanka Teplyashin. And the point here is not only in the actual coincidences of the stories “Vanka Teplyashin” and “Klyauza”. When material is taken from living life, such coincidences are not uncommon.
The fact is that behind the episode from the hero’s life and the almost identical incident from the biography of Shukshin himself, there is one person for whom the truth of life is the main criterion of art.
The originality of Shukshin's creativity, his amazing art world are based, first of all, on the unique personality of the artist himself, who grew up on folk soil and managed to express the whole direction of the life of the people.
Vasily Shukshin began with stories about fellow countrymen, as they say, ingenuous and artless. But, turning to someone close and familiar, he found the unknown there. And his desire to talk about people who are close to him resulted in a story about the whole people. This interesting study was included in the collection “Rural Residents”. It became the beginning of not only a creative path, but also a big theme - love for the countryside.
For a writer, a village is not so much a geographical concept as a social and moral one. And therefore the writer argued that there are no “village” problems, but there are universal ones.
I wanted to take a closer look at Shukshin’s story “Cut.” Its main character is Gleb Kapustin. At first glance, it is simple and clear. In his free time, the hero amused himself by “besieging” and “cutting down” villagers who escaped to the city and achieved something there.
Kapustin is a blond man of about forty, “well-read and malicious.” The village men deliberately take him around to visit guests in order to get pleasure from the fact that he is “upsetting” the next, supposedly smart, guest. Kapustin himself explained his peculiarity: “Don’t ride above the waterline... otherwise they take on too much…”
He also “cut off” another distinguished guest, a certain candidate of sciences Zhuravlev. This is how their conversation begins. As a warm-up, Gleb asks the candidate a question about the primacy of spirit and matter. Zhuravlev raises his glove:
“As always,” he said with a smile, “Matter is primary...
And the spirit comes later. And what?
Is this included in the minimum? “Gleb smiled too.”
What follows are questions, each more outlandish than the next. Gleb understands that Zhuravlev will not back down, because he cannot lose face. But the candidate will not understand why Gleb seems to have “broken off the chain.” As a result, Kapustin failed to drive the guest into a dead end, but he looked like a winner.
So, “victory” is on Gleb’s side, the men are happy. But what is his victory? And the fact is that the battle of wits was on equal terms, although the candidate simply considered Kapustin a fool who should not be messed with.
And the moral of this story can be expressed in the words of Kapustin himself: “You can write “people” hundreds of times in all articles, but this will not increase knowledge. So when you go out to this very people, be a little more collected. More prepared, perhaps. Otherwise you can easily find yourself in the fool.”
This is what it is, the Shukshin village. Savvy and cocky, but at the same time serious and thoughtful. And this feature of the villagers was able to emphasize and exalt the Russian writer Vasily Shukshin.
In such situations, Shukshin’s characters may even commit suicide (“Suraz”, “The wife saw off her husband to Paris”). No, they cannot stand insults, humiliation, resentment. They offended Sashka Ermolaev (“Resentment”), the “unbending” aunt-seller was rude. So what? Happens. But Shukshin’s hero will not endure, but will prove, explain, break through the wall of indifference.
However, Shukshin does not idealize his strange, unlucky heroes. Idealization generally contradicts the art of a writer. But in each of them he finds something that is close to him.
The relationship between city and village in Shukshin's stories has always been complex and contradictory. To the city's "boast" of civilization, the village man often responds with rudeness and defends himself with harshness. But, according to Shukshin, real people are united not by place of residence, not by environment, but by the inviolability of the concepts of honor, courage, nobility...
Vasily Shukshin is not only a writer, but also an outstanding director, who has produced many excellent films. The main theme of his work is the village and its life, the character traits of its inhabitants. He knew about all this first-hand, since he himself was...
V. M. Shukshin was the successor of the best traditions of classical Russian literature. He always believed that the main thing in the life of the Russian intelligentsia was the desire to help people. And he wanted to help people find the truth, preserve true spiritual values. Heroes...
“Everything surrounding the artist should be the object of his study; to eradicate human vices it is necessary to fully understand their nature; people must know the whole truth, no matter how bitter it may be.” Vasily Shukshin People from the Russian hinterland...
About thirty years ago, the man who glorified life with all its sounds, colors, and smells passed away. This is Vasily Makarovich Shukshin. Shukshin made 5 films, published 7 books, played two dozen roles - in general, enough to go down in Russian history...
Vasily Shukshin began with stories about fellow countrymen. Unsophisticated and unartificial. Is this a commendable definition for the work of a beginning writer? There are different opinions here. Some people are touched by ingenuity, others see in it that very simplicity that is worse than theft. In general, simply writing about ordinary people is in the traditions of Russian literature. M. Sholokhov said very precisely about the essence of Shukshin’s creativity, about his originality: “He did not miss the moment when the people wanted the secret. And he spoke about the simple, non-heroic, close to everyone, just as simply, in a quiet voice, very confidentially.”
Vasily Shukshin discovered new possibilities in depicting personality and managed to see the general in particular. Turning to the familiar, the ordinary, he found the unknown there. He expanded the scope of what is depicted in art. And as often happens, critics at first shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment: is this realism? Some parables, anecdotes...
The debut of the writer Shukshin in no way foreshadowed the loud fame that fate awarded him. However, the collection “Village People” (1963) was generally greeted favorably by critics. Writer M. Alekseev called his review of Shukshin’s book “Very Talented”, critic V. Safronov - “Talent of the Soul”, critic E. Kuzmin “Strong Foundation”, etc. And this is not accidental. In the first book, in the best things, Shukshin already showed the characteristic features of creative individuality, his passion for the most serious thoughts about man, about the meaning of life. The best stories were distinguished by psychological accuracy and accuracy of observations. The collection opened with two autobiographical stories: “Distant winter evenings" and "The chief accountant's nephew." Following them was the short story “Village People”, once again proving that for art there are no small topics or uninteresting people.
Grandma Malanya received a letter from her son, in which he insisted on her coming to Moscow to visit. She read it, “pursed her dry lips, and thought about it.” Both grandmother and grandson Shurka want to see Moscow. Shurka is ready to fly right now, and the grandmother is slowly learning from experienced people what and how. An experienced man, Yegor Lizunov, told the simple-minded old woman the following passions:
“- Flying on an airplane requires nerves and nerves! When he gets up, they immediately give you some candy...
Candy?
But what? Like, forget it, don’t pay attention... But in fact, this is the most dangerous moment. Or, let’s say, they tell you: “Tie your belts on.” - "For what?" - “That’s how it’s supposed to be.” - “Heh... it’s supposed to be. Tell me straight: we can make it up, that’s all. Otherwise it’s supposed to.”
Grandma Malanya categorically refuses to fly by plane and generally intends to postpone the trip until next fall. And Shurka, obeying his grandmother, writes a letter to his uncle in Moscow under her dictation, but he writes something completely different from what the grandmother dictates. That seems to be all.
Even if we take into account that in the retelling everything that makes an ordinary everyday incident literature disappears, then even then the story can still give the impression of an unpretentious tale, if not for the warm feeling of the author, if not for his love for these simple people, if not a feeling of authenticity of what is being described, which cannot be achieved by any literary tricks...
In the story “Village Residents,” many features of the writer’s poetics are clearly visible: the author’s self-detachment, primary attention to dialogue, warm humor, and laconic exposition. Here it is necessary to say about some features of the poetics of Shukshin the narrator in order to remember and “keep” them in mind later.
All elements of artistic structure are subordinated to the “research of the human soul” (Shukshin). What is a story according to Shukshin?
At the very beginning of his creative career, he expressed the following programmatic thought: “After all, what, in my opinion, is a story? A man was walking down the street, saw an acquaintance and told, for example, how an old woman had just fallen onto the pavement around the corner, and some big drayman burst into laughter. And then he immediately felt ashamed of his stupid laughter, walked up and picked up the old woman. And he looked around the street to see if anyone had seen him laugh. That's all. “I’m walking down the street now,” the man begins to tell, “I see an old woman walking. Slipped - break! And some big guy will start laughing..." So, probably, he will tell... For some reason, when one writer-storyteller sits down to write about the “old woman”, he - like hell! - will tell you who she was before she was seventeen... Or he will tell on two pages what a good morning it was that day when the old woman fell. And if he said: “The morning was good, warm. It was autumn,” the reader would probably remember such a morning in his life - a warm, autumn one. After all, it’s probably impossible to write if you don’t keep in mind that the reader will “finish” a lot of things himself...
Mastery is mastery, and it's a gainful business. And if the writer-storyteller did not immediately make (try to make) this the main thing in his work, and if the main thing remained his life, what he saw and remembered, good or bad, and skill would then be added to this, the result would be a unique writer , unlike anyone else. Sometimes, when reading a story, I understand that the story was written in order to write a story...
Human affairs should be the focus of the story.”
Vasily Shukshin carried this understanding of the story throughout his life. I can’t help but cite another fundamentally important reflection of Shukshin, recorded in the last year of his life: “...If we concretize and look further for the origins of the creative path that I am following, then they, of course, lie in the art of oral storytelling.
I remember my mother's oral stories. I remember how the men loved to tell all sorts of tall tales when there was some kind of stop in work, when they sat down for a smoke or a snack in the field. And even now this art of oral storytelling is still alive among the people.
There seems to be some deep need for it. And if there is a need, then there will always be a master.
This is where the simple and accessible form of the story arose. They told the story in such a way that the listeners understood everything. But a simple and accessible form does not mean dull and gray. Here - which is why I say the art of oral storytelling - has always had its own unexpected technique, its own special focus. A folk storyteller is both a playwright and an actor, or rather, a whole theater rolled into one. He creates situations and plays dialogues for everyone characters, and comments on the action. Moreover, even if the narrator undertook to present a specific life incident, then this real fact was told very vividly, juicily, receiving the most incredible coloring - right up to hyperbolic sharpening and deft lies.
But all this richness of speech, invention, and unexpected storytelling techniques were not an end in themselves. folk master story, he never “dabbled” in unexpected techniques and sharp words, just to show off his ability. And no matter how much he decorated his story with verbal and acting decorations, he did not go too far here. The main thing remained the meaning of the story, the desire to say a lot through simple things, to touch the listeners more deeply.”
Whatever Shukshin worked on - a story, a script, a film - he was economical in his means of expression, avoided excesses and decorations, shunned beauty, mannerisms of presentation, all these “stray breezes”, “honey smells from the fields”, “shading drops, sun in a haze, fog in streaks”... He said: “I don’t like an elegantly self-valuable image in literature either, beauty is alarming.”
For Vasily Shukshin, “the opportunity for an urgent conversation” is the main thing. Hence one of characteristic features Shukshin’s narrative style is the ability to briefly, without going into excessive descriptiveness, introduce the reader to the events. He immediately plunges him into the heart of the matter. Often there is simply no exposure.
“Pimokat Valikov filed a lawsuit against his new neighbors, the Grebenshchikovs. It was like this...” (“Court”).
“There was a fight in the tea shop. It was like this...” (“Dancing Shiva”).
"Vanya Zyablitsky, small man, nervous, impetuous, had a big row at home with his wife and mother-in-law.
Vanya arrives from a flight and discovers that the money that was saved for his leather coat, his wife Sonya has spent all of it on a fur coat made of faux astrakhan fur” (“My son-in-law stole a car of firewood!”).
“Sashka Ermolaev was offended” (“Resentment”), etc.
Many of Shukshin’s works are “free self-revelation of the individual,” dialogized reflections that reveal the internal moral quests of the heroes.
A. Tvardovsky noted Shukshin’s special skill in direct speech: “The ear is amazingly sensitive.” Shukshin himself believed: “Direct speech allows me to greatly reduce the descriptive part: what kind of person? What does he think? What does he want? In the end, this is how we form a concept about a person - by listening to him. Here he won’t lie - he won’t be able to, even if he wants to.”
The focus on the character’s speech acts as a universal artistic means: the reader should receive “the joy of communicating with a living person” (“Questions of Literature,” 1967, No. 6).
In essence, in almost all works there is an absolute predominance of dialogue over the author's speech. Here is the beginning of one of Shukshin’s earliest stories, “Alone” (1963):
“Saddlemaker Antip Kalachikov respected people’s spiritual sensitivity and kindness. In minutes Have a good mood When relative peace was established in the house, Antip affectionately said to his wife:
You, Marfa, although you are a big woman, are stupid.
Why is that?
And because... What do you need? So that I just sew and sew day and night? And I also have a soul. She, too, wants to jump and have fun, in her soul.
I don't care about your soul.
Why "eh"? Why "eh"?
So... I remembered your father-fist, may he rest in heaven.
Martha, the formidable big Martha, with her arms akimbo, looked sternly down at Antipas. Dry, little Antip steadfastly held her gaze.
Don't touch my dad... Do you understand?
“Yeah, I understand,” Antip answered meekly.
You're really strict, Marfonka. You can’t do this, dear: you’ll hurt your heart and die.”
And, for example, the story “Exam” and the short story “Withers, Disappears” begin directly with dialogue.
“- It’s coming! - Slavka shouted.
Why are you yelling? - the mother said angrily. - Can’t you keep it quiet?.. Get away from there, don’t stick around.
Slavka moved away from the window.
Play, or what? - he asked.
Play. Some... newer one.
Well, which one did you teach recently?..
I haven't defeated her yet. Let's "Wither, disappear"?
Help me remove it” (“Withers, disappears”).
But dialogue not only quantitatively predominates in Shukshin’s works, but also moves the plot, helping to penetrate into the character. The character's temperament and quirks are revealed in everyday speech.
Shukshin recreates live conversational speech with its inherent imagery, expression, and naturalness. The writer’s goal is not only to convey individual speech, but also to strive to reproduce in a relaxed form the originality of thinking and worldview of a person from the people.
Shukshin subtly senses the process of changing the everyday speech of the village, which is caused by social and cultural transformations in the country. For example, in the story “Village People” (1963), Grandma Malanya says this: “Lord, Lord! - the grandmother sighed. - Let's write to Pavel. And we will cancel the telegram.” And her grandson Shurka quite freely uses such words and expressions as “blackmail”, “broke the sound barrier”, “brought up such a fact”...
Personality changes. The language is changing. Shukshin managed to capture and convey the dynamics of modern language, which was partly reflected in the conciseness of the phrase. It is short, simple, energetic, and relaxed, which is why Shukshin’s stories are so easy to play and tell:
“My wife called him “Weirdo.” Sometimes affectionately.
The weirdo had one peculiarity: something always happened to him. He didn’t want this, he suffered, but every now and then he got involved in some kind of story - minor, however, but annoying.
Here are the episodes of one of his trips" ("Freak").
The nature of the realities of the life depicted requires the artist to use words familiar to the consciousness of the hero and the writer himself. Shukshin’s comparisons are specific, material, conditioned by “familiar life”: “he rushed through life as if through a corral”; “Uncle Grisha was lying in it (in life. - V.G.), like a well-fed stallion in ripe oats." When selecting speech means to express a characteristic, the writer uses an apt, clear comparison, phraseology, and an exact verb. In general, Shukshin tries to talk about the subject “in the language of the subject itself.”
In Shukshin's prose the influence of oral folk art: “he constantly carried this pain-snake within himself, and it bit him and bit him, but he got used to it” (“Autumn”); “...I didn’t feel the desired strength in my soul before a long journey” (“In Profile and Full Face”). Or such phrases: “longing gnaws”, “beckons home”, “heels and toes”, “our children have scattered all over the world”...
The writer had a keen sense of not only the word, but also the role folk poetry, folk song in creating the general artistic atmosphere of the work. It is not for nothing that there are many songs in his stories that emotionally set up the reader: often the words from the songs are included in the headlines and become a kind of musical leitmotif: “Withers, disappears”, “On Sunday the old mother”, “The wife saw off her husband to Paris”, “Kalina Krasnaya” "
It should be noted the polysemy of Shukshin’s titles, which are organically woven into the narrative system (“Suraz”, “Kalina Krasnaya”).
“Suraz is born out of wedlock; misfortune, blow and grief (sib.)" (Collection "Countrymen", M., 1970). The word is capacious, strong. It also means the original family drama, a skewed fate. It contains fatherlessness, early independence, the hero’s four and a half years of education, everyday universities, and much more.
It is no coincidence that the name “Kalina Krasnaya” appeared. Popular belief says that viburnum is a symbol of belated, bitter, often tragic love, something that did not happen, that did not come true.
Vasily Shukshin was often reproached for the abuse of dialectisms and colloquial words. But the essence, as you know, is not in the number of colloquial words used, but in the sense of artistic proportion.
Possessing aesthetic tact, Shukshin uses dialect and colloquial words and expressions primarily as a means of social and individual speech characteristics characters. Dialectisms create a kind of linguistic authenticity, a unique flavor, that is, the characters speak, using Leskov’s expression, “in a language natural to their situation.” For example, in the story “The Hunt to Live” in the speech of old man Nikitich one can find quite a lot of colloquial words and dialectisms, but they do not oversaturate the text, do not hurt the ear, and do not weaken the artistry.
Shukshin wrote: “In general, all “systems” are good, as long as the folk language is not forgotten. You can't jump over your head; You can’t say better than what the people said (whether you called someone, compared them, caressed them, sent them to hell)” (“Questions of Literature”, 1967, No. 6).
Shukshin's stories recreate life, become its facts, confirming for the millionth time that life goes on, that people are busy with their own affairs. But everyday verisimilitude was not the only thing that concerned the writer, although, of course, without it there could be no generalizations. It is now clear that in Shukshin’s work we are not dealing with everyday life writing, but with a qualitatively new realism. And here, as always, when we encounter high, genuine art, different layers of understanding the work are distinguished.
But let’s return to the collection “Village People”. Here is an ingenuous, “quiet” story “Bright Souls”. The driver Mikhailo Bespalov with his ineradicable love for his business brings a kind smile. Before he could arrive home after a long absence, he “turned off the engine, opened the hood and climbed under it.” Mikhaila’s wife came out of the hut, looked at her husband and remarked offendedly:
“You should at least come in and say hello.
Hello, Nyusya! “Mikhailo said affably and moved his legs as a sign that he understood everything, but was very busy right now.” (This detail is magnificent!) And so on throughout the entire story: while getting ready to go to the bathhouse, the hero looks for the carburetor, returning from the bathhouse, he runs up to the car for a minute to drain the water from the radiator. No wonder the wife asks: “Are you kissing her by chance? After all, he didn’t look after me as a groom as he looked after her, damn her, damned!”
And then a leisurely conversation about village news, about the need to put some old blanket in the back, otherwise “there’s a lot of grain spilling out,” and Anna’s attempt to explain: “You’re really bad, Misha, before work. Can not be so".
But Anna, tired from the day, fell asleep, Mikhailo lay there a little longer and tiptoed out of the hut. The next scene is impossible to read without smiling: “When, half an hour later, Anna grabbed her husband and looked out the window, she saw him at the car. On the wing his white underpants sparkled dazzlingly under the moon. Mikhailo was blowing out the carburetor.” And even then, when his wife had recovered a little from the insult, he turned to her and began to tell: “What it turns out to be: a small piece of cotton wool got into the jet. And he, you know, is a jet..."
The word "light" is used many times in the story. This is exactly the feeling it leaves.
But it cannot be said that all the stories in the collection “Village People” were distinguished by artistic authenticity and persuasiveness. “Lelya Selezneva from the Faculty of Journalism”, “Lenka”, “Exam”, “Pravda”, “The Sun, the Old Man and the Girl” smacked of a certain literary, edifying, and schematic quality. And this, as paradoxical as it may sound, is natural. After all, the artist’s path is not a smooth asphalt road, it is thorny, difficult, and does not consist only of victories.
Vasily Shukshin was extremely strict about his work in art, was rarely satisfied with what he had done, and looked directly at his shortcomings and failures. Him in highest degree There was a sacred feeling of dissatisfaction that did not leave him all his life.
“A Writer’s Notebook”... Are you a writer? And already a “writer’s notebook”! That's what destroys! You have not yet established yourself as a writer, and you already have a notebook! Look at you, what efforts to get into the profession, but you haven’t mastered the profession yet! This makes me angry... It makes me angry a lot...
I respect this profession too much, it is too sacred for me to even talk about how I get up early in the morning, how I sit down... Yes, give me the result first... For 15 years of work, several short books, 8-9 sheets each - this not the work of a professional writer. 15 years is almost a lifetime of writing. You just have to think about it! I seriously say that not enough has been done, too little!”
Of course, the self-esteem expressed in the last phrases is completely unfair. But it is also obvious that this tormented Shukshin. It was not for nothing that at the end of his life he dreamed of giving up work in cinema in order to subordinate himself entirely to literature, to work ten times more than now, to work deeper, to take the path of broader social generalizations.
L. Tolstoy, for example, throughout his life repeatedly tried to break with writing. He was often dissatisfied with what he had done: “...how I came to the village and re-read it (the story “Family Happiness.” - V.G.), it turned out to be such a shameful disgusting thing that I cannot recover from the shame, and it seems that I will never write again” (vol. 60, p. 295).
What caused Shukshin's dissatisfaction? It seems that it can be explained to some extent by the following words of Tolstoy: “The main thing is that everything that I have done and that I feel able to do is so far from what I would like and should do” (i.e. 60, p. 316).
Well, talent always suffers, looking for manifestations of itself. Who among the greats has not experienced severe disappointment in themselves and in their work? There were no such things, there could not be. The writer is a man of troubled conscience. “To say about yourself: I am a poet is the same as saying: I am a good person,” believed A. Tvardovsky.
And now everyone who takes up a pen has no right to believe that there were no titans and ascetics before him. The best, the talented, the conscientious do not forget about this, but conscience is not a decree for those who have become proficient and arrogantly complacent. There, greatness is measured by other standards...
Anyone who is partially familiar with critical articles and discussions about Shukshin’s work (especially during his lifetime) cannot help but be surprised by the critical discord, in which one can hear either the teachings of a critic condescendingly patting him on the shoulder, or a complete misunderstanding of the world of the writer’s images, his ideological and aesthetic views. In some articles one can find enthusiastic admiration, in others - absolute rejection. This alone, as the old truth states, speaks of the artist’s talent and the fact that the life material that inspired him has not yet been mastered by art. And it took time for some critics to move from the dismissive “ah, Shukshin...” to interest, sympathy and empathy.
There have always been fewer writers who recreate life as it is than those who use another work of art as an educational source. Not all writers are given the opportunity to see something new, to stop a moment, to capture something that has not yet been embodied. The mass of conscientious, moderately talented fiction writers, joining the great talents representing the trend, picks up their thoughts and develops the breadth of the “staken field.” At the same time, ossification and solidification of poetics occurs. Something is happening that is absolutely contraindicated in art. Being a form of reflection of an ever-changing life, it itself is in eternal movement and renewal.
Shukshin himself rarely interpreted his works, and they need explanation. New material, new artistic media, the language is new, the images are multifaceted and contradictory. All this despite the external simplicity and unpretentiousness of the plot.
Already the first collection and the first film showed that Shukshin has a complex relationship with criticism, which will “accompany” him throughout his entire creative path.
Immediately after the appearance of the film “There Lives a Guy Like This” (it was based on the short stories “Cool Driver” and “Grinka Malyugin”), Shukshin began to be reproached that Pashka Kolokolnikov lacked the culture to become a real hero, that is, essentially, they advised making him “a glossy mannequin, smooth and dead, from which you want to pull your hand away.” Some reviewers did not seem to notice the main thing in this hero (as in many other strange, eccentric people), what was hidden behind the apparent ease of attitude to life - his kindness and selflessness.
A dispute arose about the nature of artistic talent, the subject depicted, the position of the writer and around the story “Stepka’s Love”. This story is about a sincere, swift and comprehensive feeling of love. The driver Styopka fell madly in love with the “virgin land” Ellochka. And he saw her only twice - once he gave her a ride from the city to the village, the other time - on stage during a performance in a village club. And he got worried... “One evening Stepan polished his chrome boots to a shine and headed... to Ellochka. He reached the gate... stood, turned and walked away. He sat down on the damp ground, clasped his knees with his hands, dropped his head on them, and sat like that until dawn. Thought. He has lost weight these days; There was a serious, black melancholy in his eyes. I ate almost nothing, smoked cigarettes one after another and thought and thought...”
And so he convinces his father to go match Ellochka. The strength of Stepka’s feelings, his sincerity, spontaneity conquer her, creating an atmosphere of authenticity of what is happening.
G. Mitin criticized this story on the pages of Literary Russia. But the critic, oddly enough, approached the story not as a phenomenon of art, but as a kind of “information about a life incident.” He translated the language of art into the language of everyday logic. Here is one example of his reasoning: “If you believe... Vasily Shukshin, then we still have guys who can’t attract a girl’s heart in any other way except... matchmaking, carried out with the help of their father. Again... we also have girls who don’t need anything other than a “proposal”.
V. Kozhinov objected to G. Mitin, believing that “ artistic sense the story has nothing in common” with the critic’s conclusions. And indeed, it is necessary that there is a complete lack of desire to understand Stepan, only then can such conclusions be drawn so easily. This is how Shukshin draws Stepan during matchmaking: “Ellochka looked at Stepan. He clenched his fists until they swollen, placed them on his knees and examined them carefully. Sweat formed small beads on his forehead. He didn't wipe it off." And the heroine: “Ellochka suddenly raised her head sharply and looked at Stepan with greenish-clear eyes. And shame, and affection, and reproach, and approval, and something else inexpressibly beautiful, timid, desperate was in her gaze. Stepan's heart trembled with joy. No one could explain what was suddenly born between them and why it was born. The two of them understood this. And even then they didn’t understand. We felt it."
We can only guess about this, if we are capable of a living feeling... When reading G. Mitin’s article, sometimes the impression was created that he was talking about a completely different work. The critic writes: “Stepan came to Ellochka, ready to give up his soul (in the sense of getting married), and Ellochka kicked him out without even seeing her off (and what happens when they kick you out - they’re seeing you off? - V.G.) intelligent and beloved Vaska.” Everything here is somehow upside down and distorted. Where, for example, did the critic get the idea that Vaska is intelligent and loved? Unknown!
Or this: “...but if in V. Shukshin’s “Stepka’s Love” the question was: why love when you need marriage!” It is difficult to object to this: they say, the question was not raised like that, this is a story about deep, humane, all-conquering love, the power of which the heroine felt. And the story is called not “Stepka’s Marriage”, but “Stepka’s Love”. Therefore, in assessing this work, we agree with V. Kozhinov, who convincingly proves that in “Shukshin’s story ... there is that artistic meaning that gives grounds to call “Stepka’s Love” a story in the true sense.”
In general, it should be said that Shukshin worked in such a way that a “field” of independent reader thoughts and conclusions arose around each seemingly unassuming story. There was always the impression that the author told a small part of the truth known to him. This manner inevitably attracted the most varied, unexpected critical interpretations, but here also lies the secret of Shukshin’s popularity among readers of different levels of culture.
What will the reader see in the story “The Sorrows of Young Vaganov”? First of all, this will depend on the personal fate of the reader, on his “angle of view,” on what he is looking for in literature, what facts, thoughts, and feelings he responds to more readily. And one will see a certain imbalance in the legal status of women and men, a disproportion that adversely affects the character of the most efficient contemporaries, who have discarded modesty, decency and similar “ballast”. Such a reader will find confirmation of his point of view in a number of Shukshin’s stories. (“Fingerless”, “Raskas”, “My son-in-law stole a car of firewood!”, “The wife saw off her husband to Paris”, etc.). Another will think about the moral responsibility of people called upon to administer justice. The third will remember Vitka Borzenkov (“A Mother’s Heart”) or Venya Zyablitsky (“My son-in-law stole a car of firewood!”) and will think about the consequences of a miscarriage of justice, which is also not excluded. The fourth will see first of all the love story of Vaganov himself and will try to independently build its continuation. The fifth will be attracted by the character of Maya Yakutina, the crafty meaning of her letter. The sixth will be unpleasantly struck by Pavel Popov’s gloomy thoughts about female nature. The seventh would completely agree with him. The eighth will find an eternal conflict: law - conscience. But this game can be continued for a long time and new reasons for new conclusions can be found. How can one not cite the words of V. Shukshin, concluding the discussion of the film “Kalina Krasnaya” on the pages of “Questions of Literature”: “I was, of course, alarmed by the assessment of the film by K. Vanshenkin and V. Baranov, but it did not kill me. I stopped, thought - and did not find that I should despair here... I can think that the features of our... life experience are such that they allow us to walk very, very parallel, without touching anywhere, without guessing about anything the secret of another. There is nothing offensive here, you can live quite peacefully, and now I choose my words very carefully so that it does not seem that I am offended or want to offend for the “unfair” interpretation of my work.”
One can reproach the writer with these crafty and somewhat old-fashioned words, reminiscent of village courtesy (in the best sense of the word), but in the discreet dignity with which they are spoken, there is respect for opponents and Pushkin’s “to each his own.”
It has long become a commonplace to set teeth on edge that talent cannot be reduced to any one formula or system of formulas. And perhaps it is no coincidence that with the evolution of Shukshin’s work, critical dissonances only increase.
Some critics say that the writer “walks along the main road of life and literature” (A. Andreev - In the collection: Rural Residents). Others believe that “Shukshin’s stories say nothing about the main conflicts and main characters of life” (Yu. Nikishov. “Literary Russia”, 1971, May 28, p. 11). Some believe that “if Shukshin’s heroes clash, it will be to death” (L. Anninsky). Others (for example, A. Marchenko) write: “The same fashion that is now widespread (right down to Arkhangelsk spinning wheels and Vologda lace creations) explains, in my opinion, the success of Vasily Shukshin, a premature and exaggerated success, as well as the ease with which Shukshin, “transforming” reality, creates his own “life-like myths.”
For the critic Yu. Idashkin, Shukshin’s stories caused “serious concern” (“Komsomolskaya Pravda”, 1967, December 16; in particular, “The Incident in the Restaurant” was meant). And the critic G. Brovman wrote about the same story: “An excellent story, from my point of view, can safely be counted among the successes of a talented master short story writer.”
Things sometimes took quite unexpected and serious turns. Thus, critic L. Kryachko (“October”, 1965, No. 3) accused Shukshin of having “kindness that does not believe in creative forces society, socially illiterate, socially blind.” This is how she wrote about the story “Styopka”: “...People should be kind (always, to everyone, indiscriminately) - the thesis defended by V. Shukshin. Sorry Styopka. What if he stabs someone? And this is to forgive? These are the unexpected results that an author’s appeal to universal kindness and sympathy for “spontaneous” characters can lead to!”
Somehow I don’t want to build a logical refutation, to prove the absurdity of such an approach to work of art. Everything that has been said is too inconsistent and does not “fit” with the position of Vasily Shukshin (by the way, even about the knife the critic says in vain: Styopka “has never carried any nasty stuff with him”).
All these examples (far from complete) are not given at all in order to reproach anyone now, in hindsight: they say, they missed their talent. No. Strange as it may sound, such discord is a natural phenomenon (excluding, of course, demagogic passages like those quoted above) when new material, new hero, new means of expression. There is tons of evidence for this!
But it would be untrue to Shukshin to remain silent about this. After all, critical debates about him do not stop to this day (see, in particular, the discussion in “Questions of Literature” (1975-1976) “Features of Literature of Recent Years,” where almost every speech did not go without mentioning the name Shukshin). But this is a different level of conversation, a serious attempt to understand and explain the real significance of the artist’s art. Today, criticism faces a much more difficult task. Perhaps it was quite accurately formulated by the literary critic L. Yakimenko: “To determine the nature of the national recognition of V. Shukshin, which brought together, united the most diverse categories of readers, means to some extent to know the ideals, aspirations, aesthetic tastes and needs of a significant part of our society "
Collection "Village People" - the beginning. Not only a creative path, but also a big theme - love for the countryside.
Without changing the research folk character, to his rural residents, whom he looks at with undisguised sympathy, Shukshin further develops themes, deepens the characters inherent in the first collection, in many ways sharpening the complex problems of our time.
For Shukshin, the village became a sense of its beginning, its origins, its Motherland forever, what A. Tvardovsky called “the basis of the foundations of poetic comprehension of the world.” All creative path artist, his achievements are directly related to love for the Motherland, for native land, to the people of his village. “Is this my homeland, where I was born and raised? I say this with a feeling of deep rightness, because I carry mine in my soul all my life, I love it, I live by it, it gives me strength when difficult and bitter things happen...”
It must be said that this feeling of the Motherland is characteristic of many writers close to Shukshin in spirit.
A. Yashin, an artist who honestly and deeply thought about the problems of the village, said: “I am the son of a peasant, my life to this day entirely depends on how the life of my native village is developing. It's hard for my fellow countrymen - and it's hard for me. Things are going well for them - and it’s easy for me to live and write.”
For Vasily Shukshin, a village is not so much a geographical concept (although geographical too), but a social, national and moral one, where the entire complex complex of human relations converges. It has become the necessary “material” in which the fundamental problems of our time are reflected: “Either the memory of youth is tenacious, or the train of thought is such, but every time reflections on life lead to the village. It would seem that there, in comparison with the city, the processes taking place in our society proceed more calmly, not so violently. But for me, it is in the village that the sharpest clashes and conflicts occur.”
And as happens according to an immutable human law, the desire to say your word about people who are close to you results in reflections on the entire life of the people.
And here again the conversation about criticism and the artistic position of Shukshin himself urgently requires its place. Some critics classified the writer as one of the so-called “village people” and at the same time, perhaps, felt that Shukshin was breaking out of the usual ideas about “village” prose. Vasily Shukshin himself wrote: “...a villager.” The word is quite ugly, as is the concept itself. It is assumed that the above-mentioned “countryman” understands thoroughly only the issues of rural life, which is what he writes about exclusively.
I want to say right away that in no case did I want to be considered one of these “narrow specialists.”
Probably, from the story “Ignaha has arrived” (collection “Village Residents”) there is a legend about the contrast between village and city in the writer’s work. Then there was the collection “There, Away” (1968), the film “Your Son and Brother” (1966), “Stoves and Benches” (1973), which only strengthened this opinion in criticism. The judgment turned out to be not a fleeting one, but a persistent and long-lasting conviction of many. Let me remind you of the most common points of view: “the invisible dispute between city and village is a constant Shukshinsky motif” (I. Loginov); in Shukshin’s work, city and village collided in an “irreconcilable, blind struggle” (V. Orlov); “The most important thesis of Shukshin’s “I believe” is the moral superiority of the village over the city” (A. Marchenko). But is it so with Shukshin? And although it is obvious that such a view existing among critics is already archaic, nevertheless there is a need to understand in more detail.
In addition, some foreign critics main problem Shukshin’s creativity is considered to be the opposition of a “good” village to a “bad” city, a clash between the people of the village and the people of the city. Let's try to rely on facts: they sometimes speak more than many fictionalized critical arguments, lyrical pictures; they contain more much-needed thought, direct and honest truth.
Well, if there is something in the position of Shukshin the artist, it is not an apologetics for the village, not opposing it to the city, but “pain and anxiety” for its fate, a completely understandable concern for a citizen and a person who grew up in the village and is closely connected with it.
In his journalism, the writer constantly returns to this conversation, he tried to explain himself. V. Shukshin reasoned: “City or village. Isn’t there a contrast between the village and the city here? No. No matter how much I look for “dumb anger” towards the city, I can’t find it. What causes anger is what causes it in any most hereditary city dweller. Nobody likes boorish salespeople, indifferent pharmacists, beautiful yawning creatures in bookstores, queues, crowded trams, hooliganism near cinemas, etc.”
Denial of the city was never Shukshin’s position. “An enemy of the city?.. I really heard such reproaches and was surprised every time,” he said. His “no” is to philistinism, semi-intellectualism, stupidity, indifference...
The writer spoke about the tradesman: “Producer of a cultural surrogate. The creature is extremely pompous and smug. This creature grows apart from Labor, Humanity and Thought.” For Shukshin, what is important is that the tradesman “grows up... away from Labor, Humanity and Thought,” and, in fact, it does not matter - in the village or in the city.
For example, the same story “Ignakha has arrived” (collection “Village Residents”), in which the emphasis is shifted to the internal, moral attitude towards the hero as a person who has betrayed himself. Outwardly, its plot is simple. Ignatiy Baikalov, a circus wrestler, comes to visit his native village. But his father is not at ease: “The son came something different. How is it different? Son like son, he brought gifts. And yet something is not right.”
It suddenly becomes clear how much he has lost and how little he has managed to gain in the city: complacency, looseness, loudness, talk “about body culture” and a fashionable wife. A kind of superiority and condescension towards others slips through him. Old man Baikalov is tormented, internally condemning the picturesqueness and beauty of his son’s pose, which are alien to him. He sees his hope in Vaska, his youngest son, a natural, good-natured, whole person.
And many noted in this balance of power the opposition of the village to the city. Undoubtedly, this scheme is convenient: Ignakha is bad because he lives in the city and has left the land, and Vaska is good because he stayed in the village. In fact, the writer never assessed his heroes only by their social “registration”: what is important for him is not so much where the hero lives, but what he is. “It’s a pity that critics in the image of Ignakha...,” V. Shukshin later wrote, “saw a contrast between city and countryside. They did not pay attention to the fact that Ignakha is a country guy, that when he got to the city, he mastered only the external signs of urban philistine “culture.”
The author’s attitude towards Ignat is not because he left for the city, but because “having accepted only the bourgeois set of attributes of a “city” person, he remained deprived as before.” I remained internally empty, “learned a few simple everyday tricks..., adapted my mind and hands to move several levers in the huge machine of Life - and that’s it. And happy. And he also pats on the shoulder the one who has not yet learned these techniques (or does not want to learn), and says condescendingly: “Well, Vanya?”
I am convinced that for Shukshin the internal criterion - spiritual efficiency and spiritual wealth of the individual - is decisive. He had no doubt: “...And in the village there are all kinds. There are some that God forbid!” But both in the village and in the city there are “spiritual, beautiful people" and "there is something that makes them very close - Humanity."
At the same time, and this is natural, V. Shukshin is concerned about the fate of young people who have been torn away from their home, from the land. “If an economist, an expert on social phenomena, with numbers in his hands, proves that the outflow of population from the village is an inevitable process, then he will never prove that it is painless, devoid of drama.” Shukshin explores the complications of this inevitable process when people break their usual ties. The artist is concerned that when a person leaves, he does not lose everything good that was, and finds his place, because “a person is good only in his place.”
But his heroes leave the village, move away from it (the writer understands that this is, apparently, the inexorable law of life), and it suddenly turns out to be so necessary, it returns with memories that disturb the soul, giving no peace. Nikolai Ivanovich, a responsible employee, the director of the plant, woke up at night, he dreamed of his native village, something sad happened, he was drawn home... Minka also became sad (“And the horses ran wild in the field”), “his heart ached ": he dreamed of his native Altai steppe and a herd of horses rushing along it... He constantly thinks about “his village, about his mother, about the river” Kolka Paratov (“The wife saw off her husband to Paris”): “Mentally he walked all over his village, looked into every nook and cranny, sat on the bank of a fast, clear river...”
The outflow of rural residents to the city is irreversible. This was shown by F. Abramov in “Alka” and I. Druta in “The Last Month of Autumn”, and V. Rasputin in “The Deadline”. But V. Shukshin most consistently and constantly exposed various, including dramatic, sides of this process. (For example, the story “There, Far Away”, the story “The Wife Accompanied Her Husband to Paris”).
The writer achieves deep authenticity in the analysis of various options for the socio-psychological adaptation of a village person to the city. "IN last years in Soviet literature, writes sociologist V. Perevedentsev, many works appeared in which heroes stand between village and city, move from village to city, turn from rural people to urban ones (F. Abramov, V. Shukshin, N. Evdokimov, V. Lipatov, E. Nosov and other writers). This person in between is shown superbly, in some cases simply perfect. And criticism stops before him in bewilderment.”
Deep penetration into the psychology of the hero, who is, as it were, between two worlds, apparently became possible due to certain biographical circumstances of Shukshin. For a long time, by his own admission, he got used to the city: “So it turned out that by the time I was forty, I was neither completely urban nor rural anymore. A terribly uncomfortable position. It’s not even between two chairs, but rather like this: one foot on the shore, the other in the boat. And it’s impossible not to swim, and it’s kind of scary to swim. You can’t stay in this state for long, I know you’ll fall. It’s not the fall that I’m afraid of (what kind of fall, where from?) - it’s really, really uncomfortable. But this position of mine also has its “advantages”... From comparisons, from all sorts of “from here to here” and “from here to there” thoughts involuntarily come not only about the “village” and about the “city” - about Russia.”
Shukshin sociologically accurately and psychologically subtly diagnoses the so-called “marginal” personality, i.e. one “who is on the border between two or more social worlds, but is not accepted by any of them as its full participant” (V. Perevedentsev) .
Many heroes of this kind have typological significance: they help to understand widespread and important modern society processes.
Interesting in this sense is the story “Snake Venom”, which at one time also “allowed” to see in Shukshin’s creative poetry “a secret and serious hostility towards the urban, as an alien and hostile force” (A. Marchenko).
Maxim Volokitin, the hero of the story, is one of those people who find it difficult to get used to city life (“marginal” personality). And here’s another: “Maxim Volokitin received a letter at the hostel. From mother. “Son, I’m sick. The whole back is broken and the leg is coming to the back of the head - sciatica, such a bastard. They recommended snake venom to me here, but we don’t have it. Go to the pharmacies, son, and ask around, maybe you have something. I scream - it hurts. Go ahead, son, don’t be lazy...”
Maxim bowed his head in his hands and thought. My heart ached and I felt sorry for my mother. He thought that it was in vain that he wrote to his mother so rarely; he generally felt guilty towards her. I thought about my mother less and less Lately, she stopped dreaming about it at night. And from where the mother was, a black disaster loomed.
- “I waited.”
Before us are deeply human thoughts and eternal feelings of a son towards his mother, before whom he feels guilty. Even before the search for snake venom, the hero is psychologically unsettled by this feeling of guilt. And then long and unsuccessful attempts to find poison, and the indifference of pharmacists, “with what ease, disgustingly simply they all answer this word “no,” brought Maxim to that despair when he, nervous, tired, lost, and even with that With the pain that I carried within myself, I was able to say: “...I hate you all, you bastards!”
The manager smiled.
This is more serious. We'll have to find it. - He sat down to the phone and, dialing the number, looked at Maxim with curiosity. Maxim managed to wipe his eyes and looked out the window. He felt ashamed, he regretted that he had said the last phrase.”
So what happened? On the one hand - Maxim (and with him the writer, as some critics believe), on the other - the city? No. The situation is different: Volokitin and the city are not antipodes, but human despair and inhuman indifference to it.
“I hate you all, you bastards!” - this “explosion,” no matter how “rude and absurd,” was caused not by “hostility towards the city,” but by a natural protest against the indifferent, cold, bureaucratic attitude towards people.
V. Shukshin will address this topic more than once, increasingly deepening the social analysis of the phenomenon, increasingly revealing his social and aesthetic position.
Shukshin's favorite heroes are indeed, first of all, the people of the village, but not because he considers them “the best part of humanity.” “It’s just that, due to my own biographical circumstances, I know these people better than others. And having studied them well, I can more clearly imagine the properties of the characters of my heroes, the infinitely close and dear spiritual qualities of the people with whom I am still connected by many indissoluble ties.” But this does not prevent him from seeing “the weaknesses of the village inhabitants and the strengths of the city people.” The writer is clear that such moral vices as indifference, lack of spirituality, satiety, demagogy, rudeness exist “not only in the city, but also in the countryside.” This is clearly proven by the stories “Wolves” and “Strong Man”, “Zero-zero whole”, “Shameless”, “Conversations under a Clear Moon” and many others.
Thus, in the story “Wolves”, the “antagonists” are two villagers: Naum Krechetov, a practical man, who in an acute moment turned out to be capable of meanness, and his son-in-law Ivan Degtyarev, who believes that the main thing is to “be a person” and not “skin.” "
In his work, Shukshin raises the most important moral problems: not the village against the city, but spirituality against lack of spirituality, conscientiousness against rudeness, internal dissatisfaction with oneself against complacency: “My author's position is to, together with your heroes, find and reveal eternal, enduring spiritual values, such as kindness, spiritual generosity, conscience.”
Shukshin approaches the analysis of reality dialectically. He understands that “the nature of the peasant’s work will change over time,” that transformations in the countryside are a historical necessity.
But Shukshin the artist reflected: “Whether in the city or in the countryside, we are overcome by a darkness of unsolved problems - problems of mechanization, problems of land reclamation, problems of integration, etc., etc. Important problems? Who can argue about this... And, of course, these problems must be solved. Need fertilizers. We need cars. Need channels for irrigation. And good pigsties. But here’s what terribly torments me: do we always have time, when solving these problems, to think about the most important thing - about man, about the human soul? Are we thinking and caring enough about it?”
This was apparently underestimated by those critics who, in connection with “Stoves-Benches,” accused the author of being out of touch with life and not even knowing the transformations that had taken place in his native village. After all, the main thing in “Stoves-Benches” is love for your small homeland. The film again reflects on man - the most important subject of art. ABOUT moral values, real and imaginary, about true and apparent intelligence, about human dignity...
Speaking about “Stove-Benches”, Shukshin once again repeats an important thought for him: “In this case... I was concerned about the state of soul in which our Russian people, the peasants, now reside and live” (“Literary Russia”, 1975 , September 26, p. 15).
Tractor driver Ivan travels across Russia, meets different people, and finds himself in absurd situations. Comedy. A sort of stove-benches, fables... But the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t happen like that with Shukshin. Therefore, through an unassuming conversation, you suddenly hear:
“Well, how is it... on the collective farm?
But how is it? - Ivan began to reason. - On the one hand, of course, it’s good - they supported us financially, on the other hand... So they tell us: let’s level the city with the village. Let's! So, what’s most important to you in the city is money? Well, then, let's do the same for the village - money will be the main thing. Oh, hell!.. You can’t do that. ...For example, I am a tractor driver, she is a milkmaid. In a good month we make somewhere around two, two-plus hundred... But one small question: the more I get, the less I worry about what will grow after me. ...I plowed, and my song is done. That's it?... I plowed and received, he sowed and received, but, for example, there is no bread. And we got some money. I’m talking for example.”
No, not an anecdote, but again acutely modern questions that help to understand the processes taking place now in reality and in the minds of people (equality between villages and cities, wages on collective farms, young people leaving for the city, the position of a rural teacher...).
In due time Sun. Surganov in one of his articles noted the unexpected, incomprehensible “inattention to rural modernity” of the prose of that time. Shukshin stands out against this background. Already his first collection (“Rural Residents”, 1963) was addressed to the people of the modern village. But the subject of the writer’s analysis was not so much the socio-economic problems of the village, but the man himself, his current psychological state. Shukshin examines economic problems indirectly, going deeper, highlighting moral ones. But these moral and psychological problems are caused by social transformations and grow on their soil. Even “industrial” conflicts, rare for his prose, are eventually “translated” into a moral aspect (“Crankshafts”, “Pravda”). Shukshin defines the task of his first film this way: “... I want to tell you what good, reliable souls they have.”
And at a time when some critics stubbornly ranked Shukshin among the “villagers,” alternately declaring him a singer of rural patriarchy, a hater of the city, an apologist for spontaneous natures, they saw in his stories a contrast mental health reflection, the writer thought “not only about the “village” and the “city” - about Russia”, about the Russian national character.
Shukshin still draws the “material” of creativity in the village, because “he can more clearly present the properties of the characters of his heroes, the infinitely close and dear spiritual qualities of the people,” and because there, in his today’s existence, he sees “the most acute clashes and conflicts.” , universal human problems, dialectical connection between man and history.
In the village you can see nature and people better.
Of course, I can’t speak for everyone!
More visible over the field with star fireworks,
On what did great Rus' rise?(N. Rubtsov)
And a purely modern artist turns to history in order to better understand modernity - he creates the novel “The Lyubavins” and the novel about Stepan Razin “I Came to Give You Freedom.”
But if the problem discussed above in general has already somehow become established in criticism and the opinion of the reading public, then one of its aspects, in my opinion, still remains in the shadows. Let's look at it in more detail.
In Shukshin’s artistic position, in his thoughts about the village, problems of spiritual values, cultural progress, “the quantity and quality of beauty per capita” occupy a huge place. “The writer thinks a lot about why the village does not always receive real culture and art, protests against those who create so-called “versions of works for the village”: “The trouble is that this surrogate of urban culture has a huge impact on the village.”
An analysis of Shukshin’s work sometimes even leads one to wonder: wasn’t the desire to write partly a kind of reaction to numerous stories from “folk life”, to “pseudoculture” about the village? No wonder he himself repeatedly repeated: “They lie about Siberia like crazy, and then they say: literature...”
I would like to start this conversation, oddly enough, with a short story, “Cut.” With all kinds of contradictions in the assessment different heroes Shukshin's critics are unanimous in their understanding of Gleb Kapustin. Or is he so simple and clear, this Gleb Kapustin? At first glance - yes.
In his free time, Gleb had fun and entertained the men by “cutting off” and “putting down” villagers who had achieved different degrees life success, when they arrived in the village, neighbors, as usual, crowded into the house. He also “cut off” another “notable” guest, a certain candidate of sciences Zhuravlev. For this, critics gave him a hard time.
“Gleb has collected piles of knowledge everywhere, and not knowledge, in essence, our ambitious man is indifferent to it, but popular clichéd expressions gleaned from newspapers, brochures, and various research materials. He comparatively rarely makes mistakes in terms, displays good logical ability and thickly mixes all scraps of knowledge with demogogy, so that Ignorance, in the opinion of inexperienced witnesses, is literally pinning Truth itself against the wall” (V. Kantorovich).
This is perhaps the kindest and most objective assessment. Others are angrier: “... behind the arrogant semi-involvement in culture, the aggressive “common man” Gleb, of course, does not have Buckle, but reading the magazine “Science and Life” and the thrifty tenacity of memory of the reader of the newspaper column “Do you Know?”, and even from the same newspapers took a phrase about the unprecedentedly increased cultural level of the people, which he internalized as an official statement of his, Gleb Kapustin’s, superiority over everyone” (I. Solovyova, V. Shitova).
Many others expressed a similar point of view. But this, I think, is only one side of the coin. The matter is further complicated by the fact that in an acute conflict situation, “a man and an intellectual” Shukshin maintains conscious “neutrality.” However, let's try to figure it out.
Gleb Kapustin is a blond man of forty years old, “ well-read and sarcastic" The highlighted words are an objective author's description. The men deliberately take him to various visiting celebrities so that he can cut them off. Why do men need this? But they get some kind of pleasure from the fact that their villager, one of their own, can cut off any visitor, scientist! This is what Gleb “works” on.
What kind of people are these scientists? At first, the author says something in between about them, “optional”: they drove up in a taxi, and they brought Agafya an electric samovar, a colorful robe and wooden spoons. Of course, God knows what imagination the candidate has. But let’s not find fault with a person because of a colorful robe, which the mother will still use not for its intended purpose, but rather wear on a holiday - rest assured, Shukshin knows this. The candidate greeted the guests cordially. They remembered their childhood: “Oh, childhood, childhood! - said the candidate. - Well, sit down at the table, friends. (It should be noted that Shukshin, trying in every possible way to get rid of pressure on the reader, in new editions of stories sometimes removes entire paragraphs, words, phrases that can turn the story into a clear teaching that prevents the reader from thinking about the answer himself, about the complexity of human characters. So, in in particular, in the story “Cut off”, included in the collection “Characters”, it was: “Eh, childhood, childhood! - the candidate exclaimed sadly.” Shukshin, sniper-precise in his choice of words, immediately betrayed the candidate with this very “sadness”. What a charm this word is! From a provincial pseudo-youth newspaper dictionary: funny, thoughtful, sad, outback... And it doesn’t smell like sadness here, but outright self-satisfaction. And the word “friends” here probably doesn’t mean anything except hypocrisy. Well what kind of friends are they?..)
But then we sat down at the table and it began.
“-What area do you identify yourself in? (It may have been said pretentiously, but essentially the question asked is true. - V.G.)
Where do I work, or what? - the candidate did not understand. (It’s strange that I didn’t understand. - V.G.)
At the philology department.
Philosophy?
Not really... Well, you can say so.” (You could say so. Who in the village understands the difference between philosophy and philology? A small touch, but it clarifies a lot... In addition, the author casually throws in: “Gleb needed there to be a philosophy.” Who? Whose bait did you fall for? - V.G.).
As a warm-up, Gleb asks the candidate a question about the primacy of spirit and matter. Zhuravlev raised his glove.
“As always,” he said with a smile. (Emphasis added. - V.G.) - Matter is primary...
And the spirit comes later. And what?
Is this included in the minimum? “Gleb smiled too.”
What follows are questions, each more outlandish than the next. Scientific terms are confused with enticing theories of the magazine “Technology of Youth”. But the important thing here is that Gleb Kapustin understands Zhuravlev perfectly, but Gleb is an absolute mystery for the candidate. Kapustin understands that there is no way a candidate can lose face in front of his fellow countrymen. And he will persist or chuckle meaningfully when it comes to questions that he doesn’t seem to have to know. The candidate gets it hard... and in Gleb’s reasoning, it must be admitted, there is a lot that is true: for example, about the fact that “candidacy is not a suit that you buy once and for all.” What about Zhuravlev?
“This is called “rolling a barrel,” said the candidate. - Have you lost your chain?
A typical slandering demagogue,” the candidate said, turning to his wife. (We emphasize: to the wife, not to the men. - V.G.)
Didn't hit. In my entire life I have never written a single anonymous letter or slander against anyone. “Gleb looked at the men: the men knew that it was true.”
They are innocently surprised by Gleb’s “victory”. We won't be surprised. True, the fight was on equal terms: the candidate considered Gleb a fool, but Kapustin definitely managed to grab the main thing in Zhuravlev - arrogance - and “cut him off” in front of the men.
Critics I. Solovyov and V. Shitov likened Gleb to Chekhov's Epikhidov. L. Mikhailova, developing a particular parallel, would like to go further. But Kapustin himself sincerely explained his peculiarity: “... don’t ride up above the waterline!.. Otherwise they take on too much...” And also: “... You can write “people” hundreds of times in all articles, but This will not increase your knowledge. So when you go out to this very people, be a little more collected. More prepared, perhaps. Otherwise you can easily find yourself in the fool.”
Gleb is not simple, just as Shukshin’s heroes are generally ambiguous, but he is cruel, and “no one has ever loved cruelty anywhere,” the author notes, although some of Gleb’s thoughts are not unfounded.
Throughout Shukshin’s work runs a sharply negative attitude towards a pseudo-intellectual, a semi-cultured, arrogant person. According to the critic V. Gusev, this is “the usual motive of our writers”, “villagers”, and this “has given rise to many misunderstandings”: “An artist, if he is honest, rejects not an intellectual as such... but a counterfeit of an intellectual, a false intellectual, like It is known that every peasant and, accordingly, a peasant writer has a special instinct for falsehood, insincerity, secret emptiness... “Urban” critics and writers are offended, taking these “attacks” personally. Is it worth it?
Is it really worth it? After all, how many and what “teachers”, lecturers, hack artists, commissioners - this is truly where the “arrogant semi-involvement in culture” - the village must have seen enough for in the smart and malicious Gleb Kapustin to arise hostile wariness and the desire to cut off everyone, so to speak, "intellectual".
“And take even your learned people - agronomists, teachers: there is no more arrogant person than your own, a villager, but who studied in the city and came here again. After all, she’s walking, she doesn’t see anyone! No matter how small she may be, she still strives to look higher than people,” this is not said by Kapustin, but by the quietest Kostya Valikov, who is very sympathetic to both the reader and the writer (the story “Alyosha Beskonvoiny”). Leisurely thinking about life, Kostya came to gloomy thoughts about “learned” people. Shepherd Valikov probably doesn’t even know such words about “puffy half-involvement,” but he feels that puffiness with all his soul.
This idea is close to Vasily Shukshin. He knew the value of genuine intelligence and spoke on this matter weightily and accurately: “Let's start with the fact that this phenomenon - an intelligent person - is rare. This is a restless conscience, mind, a complete lack of voice, when it is necessary - for consonance - to “sing along” with the mighty bass of this powerful world, bitter discord with oneself because of the damned question: “What is truth?”, pride... And - compassion for the fate of the people. Inevitable, painful. If all this is in one person, he is an intellectual. But that's not all. An intellectual knows that intelligence is not an end in itself.” How many intellectuals who meet this standard live in the Shukshin village (and even in the city)? The question is partly rhetorical, but still...
Vasily Shukshin was deeply worried that the city and the village were receiving very unequal cultural bread. And TV doesn't change anything here.
“We even watch TV. And, you can imagine, we are not wildly delighted with either KVN or “Zucchini 13 Chairs”. Ask why? Because there is the same arrogance. Nothing, they say, they will eat everything. And they eat, of course, nothing can be done. Just don’t pretend that everyone there is a genius...” (“Cut off”).
The figures of the “cultural front” in the village often look almost like caricatures.
The story “Internal Content” is about an extraordinary event in the life of the village. The city fashion house organizes a fashion show in the village. The head of the club, having decided that such an event cannot be left to chance, makes a speech before the start of the fashion demonstration. She is so magnificent that she needs to be quoted in full.
“Degtyarev gave a speech.
In our age,” he said, “in the age of amazingly admirable achievements, we, comrades, must dress up! But it’s no secret that sometimes we still let this matter take its course! And today the employees of the city House of Models will demonstrate to us a number of achievements in the field of light industry.”
Something familiar is heard in this speech. And no more characteristics are needed. The character is clear. Here are just a few newspaper cliches, flavored with eloquent ignorance, and that very “puffy half-involvement”...
It is impossible here not to recall the episode of the fashion show in a rural club in the film “There Lives Such a Guy.”
“- This is Masha the bird-keeper! - explained the friendly woman. - Masha is not only a poultry worker, she studies by correspondence at an agricultural technical school.
Masha the bird smiled into the audience.
On the right side of the apron there is a pocket where Masha puts a book. - Masha took a book out of her pocket and showed how convenient it is.
Masha can read it when she feeds her little furry friends. Little furry friends love Masha very much and, as soon as they see her in this simple beautiful dress, they run in a crowd to meet her. It doesn’t bother them at all that Masha is reading a book while they peck at their grains.
Here is a strict evening dress with simple lines. It is complemented by a scarf with a white lining. As you can see, it’s beautiful, simple and nothing superfluous. Every girl would be pleased to go to the theater, to a banquet, to a dance in such a dress...”, etc., etc.
What a parade of vulgarity this fashion show is turning out to be for Shukshin! After all, behind it one can clearly see the lack of real ideas about village life.
The critic I. Dedkov, in an interesting article “The Finishing Touches” (“Friendship of Peoples”, 1975, No. 4) even reproaches Shukshin for “stomping in oiled boots on the sparkling parquet floor,” although he stipulates that without such deliberate behavior in literature, the Shukshin phenomenon would not have taken place. What's the matter here?
Oily boots and shiny parquet seem to be unrelated things, as if it were a sign of bad taste. And how deeply rooted is the habit of the external attributes of culture! And what do these attributes have to do with genuine culture? Does this need to be explained? Of course no. But still, no, no, yes, it will break through: with higher education, and walks in boots...
Pushkin admired the “salty”, “peasant” word of Shakespeare, Tolstoy did not disdain in conversation with smart person to insert a word that is inconvenient to pronounce in the salon, Chekhov loved “everything simple, real, sincere.” Great artists gravitated towards the “simple” - the living, protecting themselves from the deadening emptiness of external decency and beauty. For they saw in the “simple” the all-powerful naive truth, which from the drawing room seems uncouth and rude. The possibility of descending into the salon always threatened the artist, who had lost the taste for authentic, unvarnished life, for its truth. But what is the connection between external culture and genuine culture? Almost none.
The longing for external polish - whether it is expressed in complaints about the writer’s clothes or his style - is equally strange and incomprehensible. It is unlikely that the charm of Shukshin’s books and heroes would have been added if the writer began to expel from his style all the features of a venerable peasant origin.
The point again is that in Shukshin’s personality we encounter the rarest unity of worldview and life practice. The son of a peasant, he absorbed both the organic modesty of the Russian people and the riches of world culture. And if, with all this, he remained faithful to the padded jacket and boots (and this is exactly what he was seen on the set of films), then, in our opinion, this is not a whim, not a desire to emphasize - “we are primordial, age-old.” The fact is that “boots were not so much his only footwear, but rather a sign, a statement of moral and geographical affiliation, a declaration of contempt for other people’s orders and conventions” (B. Akhmadulina).
We are talking about what Prishvin very accurately called the “creative behavior” of the writer... Here is the writer’s interesting reasoning: “Of course, it’s not in the bag. But if judged by such a court, many people need to “stand up and take off their hats.” That’s why the village way of life is dear to me, because it’s rare, very rare that anyone foolishly puts on the guise of an intelligent person. This is a very nasty deception. For all that, the intellectual, his word, and opinion are respected there. Sincerely respected. But, as a rule, this is a “stray” person - not one of his own. And here, too, deception happens every now and then. This is probably why there is a certain wariness among the people towards the “hat”. Somehow it became a thing among us that we still have to have the right to put on this most ill-fated hat. Perhaps this reflects the great conscientiousness of our people, their genuine sense of beauty, which did not allow us to forget the ancient simple beauty of the temple, the soulful song, the icon, Yesenin, the dear Vanka the Fool from the fairy tale...”
Knowing the value of genuine culture and intelligence, Shukshin was a passionate agitator for the real culture of the village: “...Everyone understands: you need to bring culture to the village, but who should do it? Visiting lecturers who diligently adapt to the “level” of rural listeners? Writers who write specifically for rural readers? Nobody needs this “cultural trade”.”
This is the constant, consistent position of Vasily Shukshin, no matter what aspects of his work we touch upon.
Somehow A.P. Chekhov said: “I know one populist writer - when he writes, he diligently rummages through Dahl and Ostrovsky and picks up suitable “folk” words from there.”
Shukshin did not need to come up with flowery sayings “for the people.” He knew his real needs and concerns, just as he knew the language his heroes spoke, speaking, using Leskov’s expression, “a language natural to their situation.”
Moreover, Shukshin, as they said, angrily ridiculed works written “especially” for rural readers, for rural amateur performances. The blacksmith and drama club artist Fyodor Gray (the story “The Artist Fyodor Gray” in the collection “Village Residents”), who played “ordinary” people, “was terribly ashamed” to say something “ now": "It was hard to pronounce on stage words like: “agricultural science”, “immediately”, “essentially speaking”... etc. But it was even more difficult, it was simply unbearably difficult and sickening to say all sorts of “faqs”, “where to ", "yevon", "eyiny"... And the director demanded that they speak like that when talking about “ordinary” people.”
And in the story “A Roof Over Your Head” such a wretched “work” appears, created specifically for rural amateur performances.
On Saturday evening, participants in amateur performances gathered to discuss a new play.
“The speaker is Vanya Tatus, a short, strong man, ambitious, touchy and mischievous. This year he graduated from a cultural and educational school and is pushing himself immoderately.”
Here is another figure from the “cultural front” in the village. How different is he from Degtyarev from “Internal Contents”? Is it just the amount of aplomb and “harmfulness” - isn’t it, a very necessary trait for a cultural worker! But let’s see how one “figure” retells the creations of another “figure”.
“A play from collective farm life, it attacks... - Vanya looked at the annotation, - it attacks private property interests. The author himself came from the midst of the people and knows well the modern collective farm village, its way of life and customs. His word is strong, like... an arc.”
After all, the comparison was chosen specifically for the perception of the rural listener, with care and understanding of the level of his development.
“...A good guy, Ivan Petrov, returns to the collective farm from the army. At first he... is actively involved in the working life of the collective farm peasantry... but then he marries and... falls under the influence of his father-in-law and mother-in-law, and then his wife: he becomes a money-grubber. He begins to build himself a house, surrounds it with a high fence... The play is called “A Roof Over Your Head.” Roof - put in quotes, because a big house is no longer a roof. They reprimand Ivan to moderate his behavior. Ivan excuses himself with material incentives, hiding behind this purely kulak views...
Then it is dismantled at a collective farm meeting. One after another, collective farm activists, Ivan’s former comrades, elderly collective farmers rise to the podium - their judgment is harsh, but fair. ...And only here, at the meeting,” Vanya continued, “Ivan realizes what a swamp his father-in-law and mother-in-law have dragged him into. He breaks down and runs to the unfinished house... He has already put the roof on the house. He runs up to the house and with shaking hands takes out matches... - Vanya lowered his voice. - And - sets the house on fire!
This is the “content” of this play, intended for the village. The abstract to it is replete with such harmless definitions as “private property interests”, “kulak views”, “acquisitive”. All this frightening phraseology should literally destroy a guy who is just building a house for himself. The conflict, sucked from thin air, is painted with newspaper cliches: “inopportune hours”, “sharp strokes”, “faltering voice”, “embarrassed but happy”. The story is crowned by Shukshin’s cruelest mockery of the wretchedness of the thoughtful author. A telegram is brought to the club from the playwright Kopylov, in which he writes: “Remove the song “My Vasya”. Dot. The heroine sings: “Someone came down from the hill”....” Heart-sick playwright Kopylov replaced one song with another, finding that this other one would serve as a more accurate musical key to the complex psychological state of the heroine! Find? Of course. In the playwright's microcosm, events take place. There are finds and losses, insights and epiphanies, torment and inspiration. All this is to the best of one's intelligence and talent.
In the work of Vasily Shukshin, we will more than once encounter an image of a world of mediocrity, even if it is even such a fleeting touch as in the story “The Master” about a regional writer for whom Semka Lynx “decorated” a city apartment into a 16th-century hut. Again the details were enough to create an image.
The longing for “origins” and “roots,” having become fashionable in the “society,” spread to the collection of icons, ancient books, utensils, etc. (Interest in the past itself, of course, cannot cause any condemnation, but, turning into fashion, captivating a mass of semi-cultured people, the most sensitive to fashion, often turns into funny and ugly sides). And now the provincial author, trying to outdo the metropolitan “intellectual” who hung an icon and bast shoes on the wall, completely “immerses” himself in the 16th century... Isn’t this an arrogant half-involvement?
But let’s return to the story “A Roof Over Your Head.” How do participants in amateur performances, the very people from which the author “came”, react to the content of the play?
Shukshin himself had deep trust and respect for the opinions of ordinary people. He spoke to his reader “in the same language, on equal terms.” The writer’s creative attitudes, democratic by their very nature, presupposed an understanding of his work by the very people about whom he wrote. Shukshin read his stories to his fellow countrymen not for poses, not for the sake of eloquence, but to hear from them, perhaps, a harsh, rude, but truthful word that a conscientious Russian person would not say to a visiting, “not his” writer, no matter how he bigwig from the “arts”. Naturally, it would be wrong to explain the success of Shukshin’s works among people of very different levels of education and culture only by this, but it is also impossible not to take into account what can be called trust in living life.
So, the amateur performance participants listened to the play.
“...And - sets the house on fire!
Where will he live?
The playwright certainly did not count on such a reaction. He caused (tried to cause) condemnation and hatred of Ivan, and the guys felt sorry for the guy who was foolishly setting fire to the house into which he had invested a lot of his work. But the fact is that a playwright of this kind would hardly have thought about the reaction of the collective farmers, or else he would have explained it by “darkness” and “ignorance.” After all, the Kopylovs have a strong conviction that “unorganized,” “spontaneous” life is not the theme of a work of art, that raw, unsightly life must be reorganized in the work, carefully balancing the pros and cons, and presented to the reader in this form only.
Let's re-read one of Shukshin's early stories - “Critics”. Grandfather and his grandson Petka were very fond of cinema. Moreover, the grandfather was intensely worried about what was happening on the screen, commented, but, as the writer notes, “he smelled falsehood.” “That’s crap,” he declares. -...When they love, they are ashamed. And this one is ringing all over the village...”
Petka and he watched a picture - a comedy, left the club and unanimously sorted it out into pieces: “And what a shame: the devils themselves are laughing, but you’re sitting here - there’s no sign of henna, not even a smile!”
They came home angry, and there on TV they showed some picture about village life. There were guests - Petka's father's sister and her husband. Both came from Moscow. Grandfather looked at the screen for a moment and said: “Crap. It doesn’t happen like that.”
A dispute arises. The guests, smiling condescendingly, listen to their grandfather. And he shouts: “You look and think that he really is a carpenter, but when I looked, I immediately saw: he is not a carpenter at all. He doesn’t even know how to hold an ax correctly.”
An aunt from the capital objects: “But I’m much more interested in the person himself. Do you understand? I know that this is not a real carpenter - this is an actor...”
But the grandfather stands his ground: “It’s not important to you, but it’s important to me... It’s a piece of cake for them to fool you, but they won’t fool me.”
The ending of the story, as is often the case with Shukshin, is tragicomic: the grandfather, angry, leaves home and returns drunk. Inflating himself, he continues the argument (in absentia), and then enters the room and throws his boot at the TV: “the screen is in smithereens.”
Relatives bind grandfather. Calls the local police officer. Already tied up, the grandfather shouts: “...Have you cut down at least one log house in your life? ...And you tell me that I don’t understand carpenters! And I built half of this village with my own hands!..”
So what's the argument about? Is Shukshin being ironic about his unlucky heroes? No. So, are the grandfather and grandson called critics seriously? Yes, although with a smile.
Several years ago, one of the magazines distributed a questionnaire among its readers. It contained questions about the most popular newspaper materials, causing skepticism and even distrust. It turned out that readers make the most complaints about newspaper materials that talk about the problems of their professions. Naturally, readers know more about their professions than a visiting journalist. And then an annoying feeling arises: everything seems to be so, everything is correct, but something basic, the main thing is missing. There is not enough “air”, “atmosphere”, background, there is not enough of what makes literary material reliable and convincing...
Grandfather, of course, is not right in everything, no one taught him the laws of art, but - Shukshin accurately notes - he “smelled falsehood.” Many would pay dearly for such flair. Vasily Makarovich Shukshin himself was endowed with this instinct to the highest degree. And for Shukshin the realist, the depiction of life artistically is a reliable depiction of it.
But here is a curious and close thought we find in A. Tvardovsky: “It seems that this is the first thing that popular taste expects and demands from art. For people from among the people, what is different is no longer art. Therefore, any distortion of nature is perceived by them primarily as non-art. I remember as a child I found in the bushes in the swamp a huge luxurious book bound in red morocco, with a gold edge.
But there was one drawing there, which even then made me feel awkward: in one of the pictures, a half-naked bald old man... was sawing something with an ordinary one-handed saw, and he was holding this saw by the upper corner of the machine. It was clear to me, a child, that he wouldn’t be able to move the saw just once. How could the artist draw? It simply depressed me, because it was so different from the way my father and other adults held the saw... Probably from that time on I realized that the most dangerous thing in art is lying.”
In the movie “If You Want to Be Happy” (directed by N. Gubenko) there is the following episode: television correspondents come to a worker’s apartment. In order to “bring your report as close to life as possible,” it is given the appearance of a casual conversation. The worker (his role was played by Shukshin), under pressure from correspondents, at first sluggishly says something obligatory, but suddenly explodes: “What are you doing... Life must be shown, life!” These words seem to come from the very heart of the artist. They are a kind of writer’s credo. Is it not from here, from a lack of understanding of Shukshin’s creative position, that numerous mistakes of critics come from? Not forgetting the saving formula about the “complexity of the artist’s world,” they sometimes seemed unwilling to notice that this complexity was not due to the desire to decorate their heroes more intricately, but an inevitable consequence of reflecting the complexity of life itself.
Where did the writer get the material for his works? Everywhere where people live. What material is this, what characters? That material and those characters that had rarely entered the sphere of art before. And it was necessary for a great talent to emerge from the depths of the people, so that with love and respect he would tell the simple, strict truth about his fellow countrymen. But this truth became a fact of art and aroused love and respect for the author himself.
The film "Kalina Krasnaya" was staged mature master. It showed the artist's talent and creative principles with particular brilliance. Many people probably remember the episode from “Red Kalina”: Yegor Prokudin comes to his mother... An old woman talks about herself. Without tears, without complaints, without the desire to arouse sympathy for himself, but simply, in Russian, he speaks about his life, about his missing, unlucky son. This was not a game. The director found similar fate, filmed a documentary episode and included it in the film. “What's new here?” - the reader will ask. What is new here is a huge artistic risk. After all, based on this key episode, the viewer will begin to check all other episodes and roles for truthfulness. And the film passed such a test! Now, without exaggeration, we can say that “Kalina Krasnaya” was a kind of discovery in Soviet cinema.
First of all, Shukshin was a writer. In his literary creations he sought the same artistic persuasiveness, “trueness.”
For Shukshin, caring for the true culture of the village was also caring for his “small homeland.” In our time, when both the city and the countryside are rapidly changing, when there are already significantly fewer villagers than city dwellers, Shukshin was concerned about the fate of the rural boy who came to the city. The city has many temptations. And Shukshin turns to a villager who still lives in the village, but looks enviously at the city. “Beautiful” films also attract him to the city, in which “ultra-modern” city boys and girls live a free, carefree, “graceful” life: “I could say for a long time that those boys and girls whom he looks at with secret envy from auditorium, - there are no such people in life. This is a bad movie. But I won't. He himself is not a fool, he understands that everything is not so nice, easy, beautiful for the young people in the city, but... But there is still something! There is, but completely, completely different. There is work, the same work, thoughts, a thirst to know a lot, comprehension of true beauty, joy, pain, pleasure from communicating with art.”
Well, a person will always be attracted by “other lands”, and inner restlessness will drive him around the world, but for the most important, the most expensive and the best, there is no need to “travel so far”.
Is it good or bad that a person has become very active? There is, one must think, both here and there. The writer is concerned primarily with losses in the moral world of man.
A village is an established way of life, where everyone knows everyone, where half the village is relatives, the rest are good acquaintances. Grandfathers and great-grandfathers lie in the village cemetery. And with mother’s milk the feeling of one’s land is absorbed. And the city? Here, residents of the same house often do not know each other. A city dweller changes his apartment with ease and pleasure; for a rural dweller, changing a familiar home often turns into a painful problem. A villager, having committed a bad act, is responsible to the whole “world”; here it is impossible to get lost in the crowd and remain unrecognized. Economist V. Perevedentsev notes that in a village a person “is under the vigilant material control of his family, neighbors, fellow villagers in general, since a person is always in everyone’s sight.” In a city, especially a big one, there is a feeling of alienation.
There is a different way of life in the city and in the countryside, but the city is more sensitive to the new, although the new is not necessarily progressive. A writer who grew up in a village says: “If the city is able to accept and digest (it is huge) “achievements” like wedding palaces, then the village cannot tolerate a “showy” wedding - it’s shameful, difficult. It’s a shame for the participants, it’s a shame to watch from the sidelines. Why? Don't know. After all, the old wedding ceremony is also a performance. But come on!.. There’s nothing there, funny, touching, amusing and, finally, exciting.”
And in the story “In Autumn” Shukshin will write with a grin a scene of such a wedding: “... but then a wedding arrived... This is the current one: in cars, with ribbons, with balloons. This fashion has now also started in the village. ...The wedding party unloaded on the shore, noisy, a little tipsy... very, very ostentatious, boastful.”
The difference between urban and rural culture is obvious. Whose culture is higher? True, Mind, culture and other human privileges do not have registration. But it so happened historically that for centuries there was a contrast between city and countryside, especially widespread among the bourgeoisie, that the resettlement of a villager and his integration into urban life was difficult, sometimes painful. And the worldview of a Russian person was predominantly that of a rural resident, which also affected the national culture. Are there many folk songs about the life of a city dweller? The richest folklore, rituals, round dances, artistic crafts - all this was born in the village. There is the beginning.
Modern Russia is an urban country. The process of urban growth is unstoppable.
What does he take with him from the village when he moves to the city? peasant son What does it lose, what does it gain? We have to admit that not everything is brilliant here. A rural migrant does not immediately become a real city dweller, often only in the second generation. And he is already ashamed of his village customs. Much depends on who will influence the first steps of city life. “...If he believes that the main thing in the city is comfortable housing, it is relatively easier to feed his family (he has plenty of strength and intelligence), there is somewhere to buy, there is something to buy - if only he understands the city in this way, he will furnish in this sense any city dweller. Then, if he clutches a ruble in his peasant fist, this ruble cannot be taken away for any “entertainment” of the city. From a young age he still goes to the cinema, goes to the theater three times, then - sha! He will buy a TV and watch it. And he will write to the village: “We live well. I recently bought a sideboard. Soon the mother-in-law will be broken, she will get a section. Our section and her section - we will exchange them for one section, and we will have three rooms. Come!"
In the story “Petya” Shukshin directly speaks about this: “This rural couple has long been no longer embarrassed here, in a large anthill, they have become comfortable. However, they did not take with them the best, no. It's a shame. Ashamed. And anger takes over.”
Yes, the village is loved by Shukshin and close to him. Both the pain and anxiety for the fate of the village, for its culture, and the protest against the “mechanized” culture are genuine and sincere. After all, we are talking about irreparable losses. We are proud of the Pushkin Nature Reserve; we restore temples and icons. A folk song, not modernized, but truly folk, as they sang it a hundred and two hundred years ago? We need genuine culture and considerable tact so as not to try to modernize folk song art. Because it does not need modernization. Therefore, the anxiety of the writer is quite understandable, seeing how the thing in which the people’s soul was expressed most clearly is being mutilated, adapting to modern rhythms: “A young, full of training and energy, a graduate of the regional cultural and educational school comes to the “outback” and begins to “unfold.” I gathered some enthusiasts and let’s go scratch. "Under Mordasov." With the choir. Under the button accordion. With a dance. And they found a “similar” voice and learned to dance - they were happy. It seems! And the area is happy. And then, lo and behold, they will end up in the region - for inspection. But there, from the “similar” ones, they choose the most “similar”. What a shame! The village has stood for two hundred years, the memory of Pugachev is kept here (the ancestors, scattering after the defeat of the uprising, settled and founded the village), they even know the epics here... Here, on every street there is its own Mordasova. There are such grandmothers here that when they start singing, their hearts clench. Old? Not modern? Well, it means that Pushkin did not understand this matter if, as a young man, he asked Arina Rodionovna, an old woman, to sing to him “how a tit lived quietly across the sea.” This means that everything that the people have acquired over the centuries has been saved - everything is on the side, you give it to Mordasov! (I think there is no need to state here that I have nothing against this glorious performer of cheerful verses).”
Does a person become more cultured by purchasing a tape recorder, a transistor, or a television, if he himself forgets how to sing, read poetry, and feel beauty? And the writer’s concern that real culture both in the countryside and in the city often gives in to the arrogant pressure of petty-bourgeois “culture”, a fake, that Russian people are forgetting their “wind songs” becomes close and understandable.
The wise, good traditions of the Russian people are their main wealth, the writer believes. And this is also where vision comes into play. modern world by the author, his artistic position.
The artist's reflections on folk culture, of course, have nothing to do with fashion. “...How our brother loves to describe the experiences of a city dweller who came to visit his native village. How the rocker arms, grips, and the smell of dried mushrooms touch us. How much cleaner, they say, is everything here, more relaxed... Well, what next? It’s time for us to turn more seriously to the real problems of village life, since we love it so much...”
The writer's polemically pointed thought is directed against speculation on the “village theme.” The writer’s love for the village is expressed not in hysterical confessions, but in civic involvement in “the real problems of village life,” social transformations in modern reality and current problems associated with these transformations.
L. Kuravlev, who played the role of Pashka Kolokolnikov in the film “There Lives Such a Guy,” recalls how the group was preparing for the trip to Altai. It was rainy, cloudy weather: “Shortly before leaving, he (Shukshin. - V.G.) said:
Will my land really fail me?.. Will it really not hear me?
He believed in his land, in his region. And I was not mistaken. We arrived, and the Altai sun shone unusually generously, helping its fellow countryman.
Believers say: “Won’t God really hear me?” Shukshin said: “Won’t the earth really hear me?” His god was the earth. And she took into her arms a talented and kind, troubled Russian man..."
Notes
There is no doubt that his attitude to many issues of story construction brings Shukshin closer to Chekhov. For example, from Chekhov: “When I write, I fully count on the reader, believing that he himself will add the subjective elements missing in the story.” Or: “...expressiveness in descriptions of nature is achieved only by simplicity, such simple phrases as “the sun went down,” “it became dark,” “it started to rain,” etc. (Russian writers about literary work. M., 1955. vol. 3, pp. 350 and 361).
I will quote the following thought from L. Tolstoy: “If I have something to say, then I will not describe the living room, the sunset and the like...” (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 76, p. 203).
A similar point of view is expressed by writers beloved by Shukshin (by his own admission) - V. Belov, V. Rasputin, E. Nosov, F. Abramov, V. Astafiev. They also believe that there are no purely village problems, but there are national, national ones.
It is curious, for example, that the critic G. Belaya in the collection “There, Away” saw the contrast between the village and the city (KLE, vol. 8, p. 809); and the critic V. Heydeko, who also believed that Shukshin “still sounded ... anathema to the modern city,” finds it precisely the collection “There, Away” that is free from this error (“Lit. Russia,” August 22, 1969, p. 9).
In one of his articles, Shukshin said: “...The line between city and village should never be erased” (“Soviet Literature”, November 15, 1966). “Let’s compare” is not a reservation made by the hero, which can be written off due to his “lack of education.” Behind him stands the author himself, who, while advocating progress in the village, understands that it is impossible to “plant in the village those achievements of the city that improve its life, but are completely alien to the village” (V. Shukshin. Monologue on the stairs, p. 117).
In this regard, we again find something in common in the positions of A. Yashin and V. Shukshin. Both of them are worried not about the fact that spindle whorls and spindles are disappearing from life, but that “a larger, genuine culture has not yet arrived in the quantity and quality that his native village craves.”
Let us remember the irony with which the episode in Professor Stepanov’s apartment (“Stoves and Benches”) was filmed. The professor's children collect samovars and icons. The attitude of the professor and the author of the film to this is unambiguous.
The story appeared in the magazine Art of Cinema (1964) at a time when the quality of television programs was discussed on its pages.
This is what Shukshin himself thought, this is what film experts and film directors think, which in turn, of course, in no way diminishes what he did in cinema. But above all, Shukshin was a writer. Here, for example, is the opinion of S. Gerasimov: “He was a writer, as we gradually understood, by his main calling” (“The Art of Cinema,” 1975, No. 1, p. 148).