Review written by Quiet Place especially for the site

There is a factor of a successful debut album that allows a performer to gain immense popularity and declare himself to the whole world. The so-called sophomore albums can also help to gain unprecedented height, which will also need to be held. Instead of this very music, such a key to the success of Slava Mashnov's career can be called rap battles, and recently only one such. And it is not completely clear what it was - either a battle, or a circus tent, but let's not talk about it. After such a dose of hype, it was only a matter of time before the release of a potentially commercially successful album.

The album "Sun of the Dead" could completely restart the character of Glory, as an adequate alternative to the main hip-hop performers of the entire CIS, because he has everything for this: original objects of inspiration, a good sense of rhythm, the ability to maliciously submit a social text, damn it, technique , and most importantly - he still has something to tell about. What happened after the release of this creation? That's right, nothing good. But on his part, Slava won, because his position is a priori advantageous.

For years, the rapper has been creating for himself a nihilistically correct image of a kind of punk protestor, who knows what language to communicate in a generation of foreheads born in 85-95 years. I would call his style “Perestroika 2.0” - it sounds both technologically advanced and antediluvian, and, it seems to me, the latter is at the head. After listening to a 30-minute album, you get the same bitterness that you feel when the phrase “sing rap” sounds, but if you start constructive criticism, there will be those who will accuse you of misunderstanding and declare the threshold of entry. And such a barrier around the artist not only insures him against a disgruntled audience, but also allows him to act to the maximum trashy: to act in a disgusting TV show without leaving the role of an underground star.

The new release can quite justifiably be called an art object with the thickest immunity to criticism, and it is simply pointless to extract its shortcomings. The problem of "Sun" is that the fact of the existence of this album cannot be used as a proof of the artist's exceptionalism, it cannot be called some kind of achievement or a magnum opus, but, I repeat, Slava is able to do something more, maintaining a balance between existentialism, irony and sound ... And instead of appearing to the new listeners as a strong MC, Purulent chose a different path, revealingly abandoning the popularity that had piled on him and remaining in his dirty plate.

"Sun of the Dead" turned out to be a rather gloomy, empty and raw canvas, in which you still have to find something to catch on to. And the only thing worth praising Slava is for the fact that he continues to bend the line of a sober poet, because here this role stands out much more than the role of a rapper. The style of the album is a monolithic ball, inspired by Yegor Letov's detachment and obvious attempts to do the same that Husky had recorded years earlier. The beats symbolize aloofness, and the processed vocal samples create the same gloomy atmosphere that London electronics engineer Burial achieved 10 years ago.

On the one hand, we have Slavik, a clown and a troll, whose behavior cannot be perceived as natural. On the other hand, there is an absolutely serious type who consciously looks into his own future: “Maybe wolves are guarding us at the turn? Maybe my shirt will be torn by the gate? ”. You will have to look at one, you will have to listen to the other - but together these images will not get along in any way, because their coexistence is in itself paradoxical.

The most prominent track from "The Sun" can be called "Footprints in the Snow" - in it the dead spirit is felt most of all and there are even some hints of a technical flow, but this is not enough to define the album in terms of its functionality. If we list the many situations and mental states and weed out those in which listening to this release would not be advisable, then there will be only one example: when the listener is just getting to know the album. Alas, it remains only to observe the vain attempts of the audience to highlight some kind of supernatural intellectuality in the lines of the author.

If you look at it, the “Sun of the Dead” is the forgotten old, reborn in a more modern form. Fame as a rapper and creator cannot be called an innovator: his character is constantly in a state of comparisons with someone or something - from the title of the second Babangida to the smeared “GrOb” stamp on the last album. The lyrics of "The Sun" as chilly poems about Russian prostration are good, but as a rap I would not recommend listening to it.

"Russian culture is death, booze and prison"

The genre definition chosen by the writer for his work is epic- presupposes the monumentality of the form, the problem of national significance, the depiction of "substantial" (Hegel) events and historical collisions.

"Sun of the Dead" by I.S. Shmeleva is dedicated to the events of the Civil War in Crimea and lacks, in contrast to the traditional epic, historical distance and monumentality of form. The narration is conducted in the first person, while the name of the narrator, as well as the details of his fate, remain unknown to the reader. The narration is devoid of epic dispassion: it is permeated with direct assessments of the narrator, includes, for example, emotionally passionate appeals to different addressees, both intra-textual and extra-textual, see, for example: Then I found you, a comrade of my work, an oak stump ... Have you heard, old man, how homely, childish we were talking about where to put you ... 1 - And you, proud London, guard your Westminster Abbey with the cross and fire! The foggy day will come- and you don't recognize yourself ...

The action of the work also takes place in the unnamed "little white town with an ancient tower from the Genoese". The space of the epic, it would seem, is extremely limited: ... this tiny town by the sea- After all, this is only a speck in the endless spaces of ours, a poppy seed, a grain of sand ... The text is constructed as a series of stories reflecting the specific impressions of the narrator, and does not have a clearly defined plot: There will be no end ... Life knows no end, beginnings ...

Only the titles of sufficiently autonomous chapters highlight individual parts of the plot, indicate the end, "break", the exhaustion of one or another plotline outlined in the narrative, see, for example, titles such as "Play with Death", "Almonds Ripe", "The End of the Peacock "," End of Bubik "," End of Tamarka "," Three! end ". The opinion of A. Amfiteatrov is indicative: “I don’t know: Is it literature "The Sun of the Dead"? For a more terrible book is not written in Russian. Shmelev ... only tells day after day, step by step, the "epic" of his Crimean, philistine existence in a hungry year under the Bolshevik yoke; - and ... scary! It's scary for a person! " 2 At first glance, Shmelev's work can be perceived as a series of private documentary or semi-documentary evidence about the life in Crimea of ​​people caught up in the elements of the revolution and the Civil War. Let us turn, however, to the keywords of the text.

The most common words in the text of the Sun of the Dead are Sun - 96 uses, die and its synonyms! (die, die) - 117, kill - 69 and its synonyms (both general language and contextual) - 97 death - 36, stone and its derivatives - 68; desert (emptiness, wasteland)- 53, blood- 49 uses. Already a list of the most frequent words in the text determines the peculiarities of the picture of the world depicted in the "epic": this is a world where death reigns. “What is the book of I.S. Shmeleva? - wrote I. Lukash. - O of death the Russian people and the Russian land. O of death Russian herbs and animals, Russian gardens and the Russian sky. O of death Russian sun. O of death the whole universe, when Russia died - about the dead sun of the dead ”3.

The repetition of the most frequent words in the product with the seme "death" (and they are supplemented in the text and the repetition of the word dead,taken out in the position of the title 4, and the use of other words also referring to the semantic field "death": coffin, grave, funeral, end etc.) defines integrity text, maximally generalizes what is depicted in it, correlates its various fragments and various plot lines, aesthetically transforms) everyday observations.

All the characters of Shmelev's "epic" are involved in Death. They either “die” (die, perish), or “go to kill,” cf. He threw his head back, took a long sigh[Kulesh] ... and died. He died quietly. This is how an obsolete leaf falls. “I don’t know how many are killed in the Chicago massacres. Here the matter was simpler: they killed and buried. And even quite simply: ravines were filled up. Or even completely: simple, simple: thrown into the sea.

And the verb die, and the verb kill are consistently used in the text in the forms of three tenses: present, past and future. Death rules in three time dimensions, and even children, usually symbolizing the future, are subject to its power: - We ... Koryak ... will kill / We will kill with a stone! ..- shouted daw and shook his fist(chapter "On the Empty Road").

Death is personified in the text (see, for example: Death stands at the door, and will stand stubbornly until it takes everyone away. A pale shadow stands and waits!), and the compatibility of verbs die and kill expands, as a result their semantics becomes more complicated: "kill", for example, time, thoughts, future, day. The scope of the epithet's compatibility is also expanding. dead: so, the sea is drawn to the dead, the corner of the garden is presented to the dead, see, for example: The Dead Sea is here ... Eaten, drunk, knocked out - that's it. Has run out.

The semantic dominant of the text also determines the nature of the individual author's new formations. mortal and day is death. Expressive-evaluative noun mortal serves as a designation for a child: I saw a mortal, a native of another world - from the world of the Dead ... He stood behind me, looked at me ...mortal! It was a boy of ten or eight years old, with a large head on a stick-neck, with sunken cheeks, with eyes of fear. On a gray face, his whitish lips were stuck to his gums, and his bluish teeth were exposed -grab. On the one hand, this word is based on a metaphorical motivation ("similar to death"), on the other, the neoplasm clearly has the semantics of "death cub". The man of the future world, appearing in the final chapter of the story with the symbolic title "The End of Ends", turns out to be a "mortal". The narrator's present is assessed by him as "day-death": In the silence of the bornday of death the call-glances are understandable and imperative for me. Composite neoplasm day-death is ambiguous and characterized by semantic capacity: this is the day of the reign of Death, and the day (life), which turns into its opposite - death, and the day of remembrance of the dead.

The world of death, depicted in Shmelev's "epic", simultaneously turns out to be a world of expanding "emptiness". The key words of the story, in addition to the units of the semantic field “death”, as already noted, include the same-root lexical units wasteland - emptiness - desert, forming a text word educational nest. Their connection and semantic closeness are emphasized by the author himself with the help of morphemic repetition, uniting, for example, adjacent paragraphs of one chapter, see the chapter "Down there":

Walking past Villa Rose. Everything - desert...

I go, I go. By the beach empty going wasteland ...[ 189 ]

The keywords of this semantic series designate specific realities of the depicted space and at the same time express conceptual and factual information in the text as a whole. The World of Death becomes the world of the desert and the "empty" souls.

The artistic space of the "Sun of the Dead" is dynamic: the emptiness in it increases gradually. In the first chapters of the narrative, the key words of this series appear mostly in direct meanings, then they acquire symbolic meaning. The spread of emptiness is emphasized in the author's characteristics: for example, the chapter "The End of the Peacock" ends with the phrase More and more emptiness in the chapter "Down there" already all - desert.

"Desert" ("emptiness") is associated in the text and with the image of time. The past is assessed by the narrator as a struggle with the "wasteland", with the "stone". See for example: I want to travel back in time when people got along with the sun, created gardens in the desert. The present is portrayed as the return of the desert and the rejection of historical progress: I hear the roars of animal lifeancient cave life that these mountains have known, which has returned again. In the triumphant "ancient" world, the returned world of "cave ancestors", the expanding desert adjoins the "dense" forests, where Baba Yaga knocks and rolls in her iron mortar, drives with a pole, sweeps up the trail with a broom ... with an iron broom. Noises, pokes through the woods, sweeps. Sweeps with an iron broom. The motive of a return to the "cave" pagan times determines the appearance of mythological images, however, these mythological images are projected onto the modern Shmelev era: mythological image Baba Yaga's "iron broom" transforms into a clichéd political metaphor place (enemies) with an iron broom: Is the black word "iron broom" buzzing in my head? Where does this damn word come from? Who uttered it? .. "Place the Crimea with an iron broom" ... I painfully want to understand where this is from?

The opposition, into which the key word "desert" enters: "desert" (emptiness) - "living life" - is thus supplemented by the opposition "iron (source of destruction, death) - life". These oppositions interact: "iron force", the enemy of the natural, natural principle, dooms the world to emptiness, threatens life, the sun.

The key word in the "epic" has a high degree of polysemy, multidimensionality of the meanings expressed by him stone, also associated with the expanding desert motif. Word stone, firstly, it regularly appears in the text in its direct meaning as a designation of the details of the Crimean landscape, see, for example: Feet beatabout stones, scratching along the steep; A limping red nag hobbles along a peacock wasteland, behind a beam ...stone, dried tumbleweed. Another step: againstone... Second, in the word stone, the semantics of which in the text is gradually expanding, the seme "dispassion" is actualized: The sun laughs, despite the suffering of people, the stone smiles; Wed: The mountains are looking at him ... I see their secret smile - the smile of a stone.

The text also takes into account the general linguistic figurative meaning of words stone, stone: in contexts describing torment, hunger and death, they express meanings such as "insensitivity" and "cruelty." Traditional metaphor heart of stone supplemented by an individual author's comparison: souls are empty and dry, like a weathered stone.

Keyword stone approaches the word in the text desert and serves as a means of deploying the motive to fight it. The victory of culture over chaos and "cave savagery" is also a victory over the "stone", in the world depicted by Bumblebee everything "runs wild, year after year leaves into the stone ". Thus, the stone appears in the text as a symbol of savagery, decline, and the death of moral principles. This conceptually significant word is contrasted with the lexical units "fire", "light".

Keyword stone in the text is consistently metaphorized. One of the metaphors is associated with the image of the narrator and emphasizes the uselessness and helplessness of a person in the terrible world of death and loss of the soul: I ... Who is this - me ?! A stone lying in the sun. With eyes, with ears - a stone.

Word stone, as we can see, it is characterized by semantic diffuseness, overlapping and interaction of different meanings. Used as a symbol, it achieves a high degree of generalization: Animals, people - all the same, with human faces, fighting, laughing, crying. Will be pulled out of the stone - again into the stone(chapter "The Righteous Ascetic"). In this case, the word-symbol stone is ambivalent: the stone in the text is not only a sign of savagery, loss of compassion, mercy and dignity, but also a sign of salvation. "Stone" can be "clear", "blessed": I look gratefully at the mountains, covered with a hot haze.They (emphasized by I.S.Shmelev. - N.N.) is already there now! A blessed stone! .. At least six have recaptured their lives!

So the keyword stone possesses conceptual significance and expresses in the text of the "Sun of the Dead" various opposing meanings to each other: the hardness and reliability of the stone can serve as the antithesis of destruction, decay, savagery, cruelty and death. However, it is the latter meanings that dominate the semantic composition of the "epic". In one of her last chapters, a combined image appears stone-darkness: the combination of just such components actualizes in the first of them the semes "darkness", "destruction", "wildness", while in the next paragraph of the text the keyword-symbol appears again desert:Stone hammered Fire. Millions of years worn down! Billions of laborgobbled up in one day / What powers is this miracle? Forcesstone-darkness. I see it, I know. There is no blue Kastela: black night-desert ...

A key word, as we can see, is a lexical unit, different meanings of which are simultaneously realized in the text, while its derivational and associative links are necessarily actualized in it.

A special place in the semantic structure of the text is occupied by the keyword Sun, placed in the title position and included in the oxymoric combination with the word dead. First of all, it appears in its direct meaning, however, for the organization of the text, "increments of meaning", its semantic transformations are more important. The sun in Shmelev's "epic" is personified: in metaphors that include this keyword, anthropomorphic characteristics are regularly used (the sun deceives, laughs, remembers and etc.). The sun, on the one hand, is a source of light, heat and, accordingly, life, on the other hand, it, like a stone, dispassionately gazes at the torment of people (note the parallel laughter sun - smile stone).

The movement of the sun determines the countdown in the "epic", see the image sun clock. The passage of time is perceived by the characters of the "Sun of the Dead" through the change of day and night, through sunsets and sunrises. The return of the "ancient" Chaos is associated with the establishment of cyclical time in the world, the embodiment of which is the "sun".

The sun is depicted in the "epic" and as a divine eye looking at the world, it is a symbol of divine light, ideas about the highest values ​​lost in the "cave" life are associated with it: I can’t turn to stone yet! From childhood I was used to looking forSun of Truth (emphasized by I.S.Shmelev. - N.N.). Where are you,Unknown? Which Face is Thy?(chapter "Wolf's Lair"). In a disintegrating world, where the mountains and the sea are only a "screen of hell", the sun remains the only focus of memory about everything that happened on earth: The sun peers, remembers: Baba Yaga rushes in her mortar, drives with a pestle, sweeps her trail with a broom ... The sun is all fairy talesremembers ... It takes in itself. The time will "come - it will be read(chapter "About Babu Yaga"). As we see, the plan of the future is associated with the image of the sun.

Keyword Sun, serving as a symbol of light, in Shmelev's "epic", however, it acquires opposite meanings: the sun can lose its traditional attribute - gold - SCH be characterized by metaphors tin, tin. The source of heat in the world of death turns out to be cold and empty, compare: Well, show your eyes ... Sun! And in them the sun ... only completely different - cold and empty. This is the sun of death. Like a tin film- your eyes, and the sun in them is a pewter, empty sun(chapter "What was killed - go to go ",); And now the sun will look out for a moment and splash out with a pale tin ... verily- sun of the dead! The most distant cry(chapter "Bread with Blood"). The image of the "extinguishing" sun, the sun "leaving", "going to sunset", in the last chapters of the story is associated with the theme of death, which took possession of the wild world.

So, the image of the sun in Shmelev's "epic", like the image of a stone, is ambivalent. The opposition of the meanings expressed by them delimits two key phrases used in the text: sun of death and sun of the dead(title of the work). "The sun of death" - the sun "cold", "empty", "pewter", the sun "laughing" at the suffering of people and foreshadowing new deaths at the beginning of the day, finally, this is the sun that "extinguishes", leaving the land that has returned to Chaos; "The sun of the dead" is a divine eye, a source of light and life, which preserves pa-. crumple about the departed. It is no coincidence that in the last chapter of the work, the narrator refers to the Creed: Spring ... With golden springs, warm rains, in thunderstorms, will it not open up the earth's bowels, will it not raise the Dead?Tea of ​​the Resurrection of the Dead! I believe in miracles! Great resurrection- yes it will be!(chapter "The End of Ends"). As the philosopher I. Ilyin noted, “the title“ The Sun of the Dead ”- seemingly everyday, Crimean, historical - conceals a religious depth: for it points to the Lord, who lives in heaven, who sends people both life and death, - and to people, who lost it and died all over the world ”1.

So, the keywords, as we can see, express in the text not only content, but also content-conceptual and content-subtext information 2. They reflect the individual author's vision of the described realities and phenomena and highlight the "substantial" categories. In the text of The Sun of the Dead, the key words form a series of “supporting” signs of an axiological (evaluative) character, connected by the conditionality relationship, transforming the everyday plan of the narrative and serving as the key to the metaphorical plan of the work: the world depicted by Shmelev is the world of death and cruel violence, which as a result approaches “ of ancient cave life, disintegrating and turning into "emptiness" and "stone", while the signs of dying, emptiness and "stoniness" extend to the souls of people who have fallen away from God. The inevitability of God's judgment is associated in the text with the key - the symbol of the Sun.

Literary keywords are often characterized by cultural significance: these units are associated with traditional symbols, refer to mythological, biblical images, evoke historical and cultural associations in the reader, create a wide intertextual "space" in the work. This feature of the keywords is clearly manifested in the "Sun of the Dead", where they are symbolically associated with mythologemes or actualize the correlation with biblical images. So, the use of the keyword in the text Sun relies on its symbolic meanings in Holy Scripture, in which the sun's light, making everything clear and open, serves as a symbol of retribution and righteous punishment, while the true sun, “the true light, of which the sun we see serves only as a faint reflection, is the Eternal Word, the Lord, Christ. .. He is Sun of Truth(Mal. IV, 2), the true light (John, I, 9) "3. The "coming" of the sun symbolizes the wrath of God and the punishment for sins, suffering and calamities. The righteous who have been reborn by the word of God will once shine, like a sun. All marked meanings associated with the symbolic use of the word Sun in the Holy Scriptures are significant for the text of the "Sun of the Dead" and are actualized in it.

The connection with biblical images is also important for characterizing the image of the author: the sun in Holy Scripture is a stable attribute of the bearer of the Word of God. The narrator, passionately denouncing the power of the "iron", violence and mortification of the soul, thereby draws closer to the biblical prophet (see appeals-predictions, appeals-invectives that permeate the text).

Using the same keyword stone reflects the interaction of biblical and Slavic mythological symbolism. In Holy Scripture, a stone (a wordless stone) is an allegory of the hardening of the heart, and "heaps" of stones are a symbol of punishment for sins. In Slavic mythology, a stone, one of the primary elements of the world, is a symbol of "dead" nature, and the emergence of large stones, stone blocks is also often explained by the "petrification" of people punished for their sins. The motive of "petrification", as already noted, varies in the text of Shmelev's "epic": the souls of people turn to stone, stone displaces living space.

Key words can also refer to the texts of literary works. So, it is possible that the image of the sun in Shmelev correlates with the motives and images of Dostoevsky's prose, who had a tremendous influence on the writer. The image of the sun, associated in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky with the motive of involvement in the universe, simultaneously interacts with the motive of death. In the story "Meek", for example, the sun, which "lives the universe", dispassionately illuminates the tragedy of the hero and is perceived by him as a "dead man" - "the image of the sun expands the framework of the narrative to universal proportions" 1: They say the sun lives the universe. The sun will rise and - look at it, isn't it dead? .. 2 "Reflexes" of this context are noticeable in Shmelev's "epic". Key words, thus, include "Sun of the Dead" in dialogue with other works, actualize allusions and reminiscences.

Key words in the text "Sun of the Dead" are highlighted by repetitions of different types: lexical, synonymous, morphemic, syntactic. In a number of chapters, the intensity of repetitions is so high that they give rise to particular leitmotifs of individual compositional parts of the work (see, for example, the chapters "The Desert", "What They Go to Kill"). Key words in Shmelev's "epic" are in some cases highlighted by the author and graphically. They consistently occupy strong positions in the text (title of a work, titles of individual chapters, their beginning or end). Different ways of highlighting keywords in the text in their interaction concentrate the reader's attention on his cross-cutting images and signs, which are important for understanding the "epic".

article

Chumakevich E.V.

GENRE-STYLE SEARCH IN THE EPOPE OF I. SHMELEV "THE SUN OF THE DEAD" (advisory materials for the study of the writer's work at the university)

The work of the famous Russian writer I.S.Shmelev fell on the tragic era of historical upheavals in Russia - the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This period was marked by the emergence and formation of a new literary movement - neorealism (synthetism), which combined the features of classical realism of the nineteenth century and elements of modernism, with the predominance of symbolist artistic practice of perception of the world. Researcher Davydova T.T. distinguishes three stages or "waves" in neo-realism (1900-1910s; 1920s; 1930s), referring the work of IS Shmelev to the writers of the "first wave" of religious infiltration.

Neorealist writers created a modernist picture of the world, put forward new concepts of the essence of man, developed and deepened the theme of the "little man" in Russian literature, and continued to search for new artistic methods. The searches of the neorealists in the field of genre and style are especially valuable. At the turn of the century, there was a rapid process of overflowing genres, mixing different types and forms in literary works. The features of the conflict, the plot (up to its absence in the traditional sense), composition (mosaicism, fragmentation, fragmentation, kaleidoscopicity), the type of narration, imagery, language have changed, numerous references to the treasures of folklore and their original interpretation have appeared. In the spirit of symbolism, the writers turned to the spiritual, the innermost in man, used the method of creating a oneirosphere (dream form) for a deeper penetration into the inner world of man. All this is reflected in the autobiographical documentary epic by IS Shmelev "The Sun of the Dead".

Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev (1873-1950) was a well-known Russian fiction writer even before the 1917 revolution. From 1912 to 1918, the Moscow publishing house of writers published his eight-volume collection of novellas and short stories. But the summit in artistic skill works "Sun of the Dead", "Praying Mantis", "Summer of the Lord", "Love Story" were created by the writer in exile (1922-1950). A talented representative of neorealism, I.S. Shmelev was born in Moscow, or rather, in Zamoskvorechye, in a merchant family. "Autobiography", written by him in May 1913 at the request of SA Vengerov, gives a vivid idea of ​​the formation of the worldview of the future writer.

IS Shmelev's creative activity began early: while studying in the eighth grade of the gymnasium, he wrote his first story "At the Mill". In the summer of 1885, being a second-year student of the law faculty of Moscow University, I.S. Shmelev made a trip to Valaam as a honeymoon trip. A visit to the Valaam Preobrazhensky Monastery was an obscure call of the soul, a desire to understand the complex issues of life and faith for oneself. The creative result of this trip was the autobiographical book of fictional sketches "On the Rocks of Valaam" (1897). This work was the beginning of Shmelev's writing biography. The fate of the book turned out to be sad: greatly reduced by the censorship committee, it was not sold out. Shmelev was very upset by the failure with the book, after that he did not write a single line for ten years.

In 1898, after graduating from the university, Shmelev served his military service and entered the legal profession. The bleak years of dull service came "when I had to remind some merchant of the forgotten five." The writer always regretted choosing the profession of a lawyer, but he needed funds to feed his family. At the same time, Shmelev felt that a way out of the unbearable situation that had arisen was approaching. Once, walking, Shmelev saw in the sky a wedge of cranes flying to the south. He saw the same picture ten years ago on Valaam. The writer felt a surge of creative strength, as then, in his youth. “I knew that I was already beginning to live,” he recalled.

The oppressive, hopeless melancholy of previous years was the torment of the lack of demand for talent, torn to freedom from ten years of imprisonment. Shmelev well remembered the censorship story of the publication of the essays "On the Rocks of Valaam", therefore he perceived the social movement of the nine hundredths primarily as an opportunity to work without censorship, as freedom of speech, a triumph of human dignity, an opportunity to breathe deeply. This was the first stage when the reality of freedom was considered only theoretically. There was joyous rapture from the opportunity to finally express everything that had accumulated over the years. The opening prospects could not leave Shmelev indifferent, he greeted with delight the light of dawning freedom. The majority of people from the democratically minded intelligentsia experienced the feeling of joyful liberation, renewal of life and changes.

Shmelev has always been far from politics. The events of 1905 attracted the writer with their novelty, the expectation of a better life for the people. He knew well the life of artisan people, saw poverty and lack of rights, and with all his heart he wished for changes for the better. As a sincere and honest man, Shmelev took the promises of numerous speakers to give freedom to the people at face value. He had a rare quality: an inner disposition for good, the ability to see in the world around him, first of all, the good, and most often he was silent about the bad as shameful and unworthy. This feature of Shmelev's perception of the world was reflected in his life and in subsequent work.

Critics M. Dunaev and O. Mikhailov directly associated the resumption of Shmelev's writing activity with the 1905 revolution. But the revolution for Shmelev and for us is in many ways different things. Shmelev began his literary career as a writer who deeply and sincerely sympathized with the people, but he saw the reasons for the tragic situation of the masses not in social injustice, but in the amoralism of individual "villains-world-eating". The early Shmelev often heard sentimental motives, the preaching of universal reconciliation. The main theme of his works is the image of a person's consciousness awakening under the influence of revolutionary events. The story "Vakhmister" and many others reflected the author's attitude to revolutionary events and revolutionaries, although there is little or no direct representation of these people in the works themselves. The writer expresses his sympathy and sympathy for the cause of the revolution either by condemning the enemies of the people, or by showing sympathy for the revolutionaries on the part of passive witnesses of revolutionary events. The writer often portrays the enemies of the revolution as people shocked by what is happening, who have lost the sense of justice and the need for their cause. For Shmelev, revolution meant, first of all, the creation of a new life. The writer, like his heroes, could not fully understand the ultimate goals of the revolution: behind the loud slogans, a concrete future life was not looming. So, the merchant Gromov, at first captured and inspired by the revolutionary orator, after thinking, seeks to find peace and consolation in religion ("Ivan Kuzmich", 1907).

Reflecting in the works of that time the reaction of the people to what was happening, their caution, unwillingness to destroy their lives and rush headlong into the unknown, Shmelev could not ignore the very leaders of the revolution. According to the romantic ideas of the writer, these were lonely terrorists hiding somewhere underground, very similar in their aspirations to Robin Hood, people's defenders, laying their lives on the altar of freedom and justice. In relation to them, Shmelev also had a "paternal" feeling, since they were all young people. But with all the desire to give them the aura of martyrs for the people's cause, their world remains a mystery to the writer, and the stories look like some kind of romantic legends, they give a generalized picture of the struggle of good and truth with violence and arbitrariness. According to the stories of Shmelev, the reader cannot determine the essence of the activities of the revolutionaries. It is significant that at this time, for example, Gorky already portrays individual proletarian fighters. Noteworthy is the fact that in the works of Shmelev there is not a single negative characteristic of revolutionaries. The writer always paid attention to moral problems, he was primarily interested in those moral foundations that guide a person in assessing events, in choosing a life position. In his subsequent work, the author sometimes deliberately concealed social contradictions, trying to show and analyze what does not divide, but brings people together on common aesthetic, but not social, foundations. The writer pinned great hopes on the moral improvement of people. Shmelev, who knew well the psychology of the masses, intuitively sensed the weakness of the revolutionary theories of proletarian agitators. Years passed, and nothing remained of the democratic slogans of 1905. Violence and anarchy in the country were gaining momentum. The consequences of the 1917 revolution were terrible for the writer. Describing them, Shmelev, who now fully understood the "class essence of the current events," did not consider it necessary to obscure them, as was the case in the 1910s, when the writer was still hoping for the best.

In the first time after the 1917 revolution, inspired by the jubilation of the people, Shmelev made a number of trips around the country, spoke at rallies and meetings in front of workers, met with political prisoners returning from Siberia, who spoke with gratitude about the work of the writer and recognized him as "theirs." About this fact, which amazed the writer, he wrote to his son Sergei in the army. But, despite the enthusiasm that reigned after the victory of the revolution, the writer in his heart did not believe in the possibility of rapid transformations in Russia: “A profound social and political restructuring is immediately generally inconceivable even in the most cultured countries, even in ours, even more so. can perceive the idea of ​​reorganization even approximately ", - he stated in a letter to his son dated June 30, 1917. During this period, the writer is acutely concerned with the problem of the senselessness of wars. In 1918 he created the story "The Inexhaustible Chalice", and in 1919 - the story "It Was", where he defines war as a type of mass psychosis.

I.S.Shmelev did not seek to leave the country. After waiting for his son to return from the war, the writer in 1920 buys a house with a piece of land in Alushta. The writer's son, Sergei, a 25-year-old artillery officer, as a result of a German gas attack, a patient with tuberculosis, enters the commandant's office in Alushta. After the retreat of Wrangel's troops, he remained in Crimea, believing the pardon promised by the Bolsheviks, especially since he did not take part in hostilities on the side of the whites due to illness. However, he was arrested and, after spending a month in the basements of the Feodosia Cheka, was shot without trial or investigation.

Knowing about the arrest of their son, the unfortunate parents did their best to find and save him. December 1920 to March 1921 the painful search continued. Shmelev sent letters and telegrams to Serafimovich, Lunacharsky, Veresaev, Voloshin, Gorky, Rabenek, traveled to Simferopol and Moscow, but he could not find out about the fate of his son. The writer was advised not to stir up this matter - "such a mess was in the Crimea!" - and here is the fate of one person! Shmelev did not know that his son had been shot back in January 1921.

The dreams that Shmelev saw during the search for his son, he wrote down. In them, Sergei appeared to his father with a yellow puffy face, once - with a smear of blood on his neck, in underwear, and he always had to go somewhere, someone demanded him to him. For the writer, a man of a fine mental organization, dreams were "prophetic", the past and the future were revealed in them. Premonitions did not deceive Shmelev. Yu.A. Kutyrina, the writer's niece, publishes a whole collection entitled "Dreams of a Son", in which, with the indication of dates, a string of dreams foreshadowing death passes before the reader.

After the failure in Moscow, the hope of finding a son was replaced by despair. The health of Shmelev and his wife deteriorated. Thanks to the efforts of his fellow writers, he was allowed to travel to Germany for treatment. On November 20, 1922, the Shmelevs leave for Berlin. From a letter to his niece of 11/23/1922: "We are in Berlin! For no reason. I ran from my grief, In vain ... Olya and I are broken souls and knock around aimlessly ... And even the first time seen abroad does not touch ... A dead soul does not need freedom."

Abroad, the Shmelevs continue to search for their son. Not knowing anything specific about his fate, they send inquiries to various public organizations, thinking that by some miracle the son managed to escape. But this turned out to be in vain. On January 17, 1923, the Shmelevs leave for Paris at the invitation of the Bunins, who sought to revive, warm them up, and relieve them of loneliness. After the tragedy they experienced, the Shmelev family decides not to return to Russia, where not only their son was taken away from them, but they could not point out where his grave was.

The grief that befell the Shmelevs in Crimea was embodied in the epic "The Sun of the Dead". The events that took place on this land from November 1920 to February 1922 unfold before the reader. In the epic, the author-narrator acts as a witness to the devastation and desolation of the once rich and well-fed Crimea, and in general - of the entire Russian land. The grief of the loss of his son merged with the grief of the loss of a country experiencing the horrors of terror. "The Sun of the Dead" is an artistic chronicle of a crime against an entire nation and, at the same time, is a tragic part of the author's biography and soul.

Shmelev is painfully looking for an answer to the question, how could such madness happen to people? What are the reasons for the cruelty that swept over everything and everyone? The writer, as a chronicler, introduces into his accusatory epic day after day, showing what the situation of the people, the intelligentsia, and the population of the Crimea, very different in social status, has become under the Bolsheviks. He lists what this fertile land has lost in just a year.

The first-person narration brings us very close to the autobiographical hero, creates the effect of a confidential conversation between the author and each specific reader. A remarkable philosopher and literary critic, a friend of Shmelev, IA Ilyin wrote in a book about him: "A real artist does not" occupy "and does not" entertain ": he masters and concentrates." Thanks to the talent of Shmelev, the reader, like a shadow, follows the main character of the epic, enduring with him inescapable torment.

The writer managed to create an amazingly powerful effect of stopped time. Life as a creative process is over. Everything that happens in the book is regression, degradation, fleeting gangrene, destruction of everything physical and spiritual. Below, under the mountain, well-fed, drunken, well-dressed new Bolshevik owners are killing hundreds of people, and hunger and extreme impoverishment reigns among the "convicts-indefinite" living on the slopes of the mountains. Even the fear of death disappeared. Almost disembodied people quietly die of hunger, old people, children of all classes and nationalities, animals die, birds disappear.

The state of slow death drags on endlessly. This impression is achieved by the techniques of contrast, opposition, personification, repetition, the use of metaphors, oxymorons. Shmelev describes with admiration the beautiful landscapes of Crimea, vineyards and generous sun. But these pictures are deceiving. The vineyards are empty, the sun - from time immemorial life-giving, now looks into dead eyes, at the dead earth. The soul is taken out of everything, everything is trampled, polluted, defiled. The richest Crimea in the past has now been turned into a hungry desert. Many of the Russian intellectuals dying in the Crimea remember Paris, London, a free life as a fantastic dream. It’s hard to believe that somewhere there are shops in which bread lies until evening. From the pages of his work, Shmelev appeals to the Europeans with a request to pay attention to the situation in Russia, at least to sympathize with the innocent civilian population, for it is impossible to understand the madness that is happening.

The hero's only everyday thought is to "kill" the next day if it comes. An exhausted person hardly remembers what date is today - "a perpetual person does not need a calendar." From the town, the wind weakly carries bell ringing - the holiday "Transfiguration". The word "holiday" sounds wildly. In the hero's brain, like the striking of a distant bell calling to live, reminiscent of life, one word is hard to hear: “We must! We must start the day, we must dodge thoughts, we must wrap ourselves up in trifles, every day we must walk along the beams in search of fuel for the winter, we must open the shutters, we must use the weather while we can walk. "

The hero of "The Sun of the Dead" appears before the reader already broken, heartbroken. He no longer lives and has resigned himself to this, but there is no escape from his own thoughts: "I walk and walk around the garden, walking around. I am looking for an emphasis for myself? I still can't help thinking? I can’t turn into stone! Since childhood I’ve got used to looking The Sun of Truth. Where are You, Unknown? What is Your face? ... I want the Immeasurable - I can smell His breath. I don’t see Your face, Lord! I feel the immensity of suffering and longing ... I comprehend with horror the Evil clothed in flesh. It is gaining strength. I hear its roar. loud, animal language ... ". The hero's state is most fully conveyed by his dreams, waking dreams, hungry hallucinations, which begin literally from the first page: "All these months I have magnificent dreams. ... Palaces, gardens ... I walk and walk through the halls - looking for ... Whom I am looking for with great anguish - I do not know".

The autobiographical hero is painfully trying to understand the meaning of what is happening, to determine his place in this world, in this country, once painfully native, and now unrecognizably changed. For him there is nothing more terrible than destruction and death. The hero cannot even kill his own chicken in order to live a few more days, he perceives the animals as companions. For him, they are God's creatures suffering in vain. The man is to blame for their suffering. You cannot betray them. The hero buries a chicken that has died in his arms, although he is dazzled by hunger himself. "Now everything bears the stamp of leaving. And - it's not scary." As evidence of Shmelev's Christian worldview, a phrase addressed to a dying chicken sounds: "The Great One gave you life, and me ... and this eccentric ant. And He will take it back."

A characteristic feature of the writer's creative manner to perceive everything around him alive is also manifested in "The Sun of the Dead". For him, every blade of grass is alive, "the distance smiles", "the heavens are watching," "the sea sighs," "the mountains are watching," "the earth is writhing in agony and incredible suffering."

The "Sun of the Dead" is characterized by an extraordinary concentration of thought, a density of content (signs of neorealism). Even in the seemingly insignificant episodes, Shmelev demonstrates the depth of philosophical generalizations. In the description of the cow Tamarka, the fate of the mother-breadwinner of Russia is seen, once abundant and fertile, but now bleeding, sick, haggard.

In the first chapters of the book, the hero is mentally looking for a way out of this situation, thinking about what to do, how to survive. "Read the books? All the books have been read, they came out in vain. They talk about that life ... which has already been driven into the ground. And there is no new one ... And there will not be. The old life, cave, of the ancestors has returned." The hero's neighbor, an old lady, caught up in grief with two other people's children, resists death with the last of her strength: she corrects the children's speech mistakes, is going to study French with the girl Lyalya. Observing these convulsions, the hero thinks: "No, she is right, old, dear lady: it is necessary both in French and geography, and every day to wash, clean the doorknobs and knock out the rug. Grab hold and not give in." But, the rapidly approaching emptiness crumples people like blades of grass. Evil is stronger.

Shmelev's philosophical reflections on the unity of the universe, on the dependence and close connection of man with all living things, receive real confirmation and development in the epic. A soulless, insane attitude to the world around them, the breaking of eternal ties, plunged the peoples into terrible torment. Hell has come on earth, its laws rule, the laws of absurdity and death. The new masters of life do not notice the land on which they walk and which feeds them, nor the mountains, nor the sun. They are embraced by a crazy idea of ​​destruction.

In the chapter "About Babu Yaga" the author compares the rampant terror with Baba Yaga flying in a mortar and sweeping the ground with an "iron broom". The order to "sweep the Crimea with an iron broom" was given by Trotsky. Bela Kun - "swept". Baba Yaga, in contrast to the interpretation of this image in Russian folklore, appears as a monster destroying everything in its path. "Noise-thunders through the mountains, through the black forests-oaks, such a humming crash! Baba Yaga knocks down and rolls in her iron mortar, drives her with a pestle, sweeps her trail with a broomstick ... with an iron broomstick." The impression is enhanced by rhythmized speech.

In the epic "Sun of the Dead", nowhere is it directly said about the shooting of Shmelev's son, Sergei. But indirectly, the writer blurts out this several times, although only people who are familiar with the biography of the writer can understand him. Having shown the tragedy of hundreds of people living in Crimea, having called their real names, Shmelev hid his personal grief. On one of the mournful pages, the writer casually says: "Walnut, handsome ... He enters into force. For the first time conceived, he gave us three nuts last year - everyone equally ... Thank you for the affection, dear. There are now only two of us ...". Elsewhere, the author mentions the shooting by the Bolsheviks of a young man with tuberculosis, a participant in the First World War. Shmelev could not write about the death of his son, he could not utter the terrible thing. The very word "killed" would mean recognition and understanding of the fact. And for the unfortunate father it was impossible. Continuing his monologue, the hero pays tribute to the memory of all those who died: "And how many are there now who knew the sun, and who leave in the darkness! Not a whisper, not a caress of his own hand ...". And, finally, a direct appeal to the readers: "And you, mothers and fathers who defended their homeland ... may not see your eyes as the clear-eyed executioners dressed in your children's clothes, and your daughters raped by murderers who give themselves up to affection for stolen outfits! ..".

How did this happen to Russia? With a human soul? This thought is obsessive, it haunts. Oddly enough, but it is the absurdity of what is happening that strengthens the hero's hopes for changes for the better. He, a thinking man, cannot believe that the leaders of the revolutionary armies do not understand where the total destruction and mass executions of people will lead the country. The author's assessments of the Bolsheviks are cruel, but they can be understood, given the many months of humiliation of going around the authorities and the large number of commissars of all ranks with whom Shmelev had to communicate, begging to give at least the corpse of his son. Now the writer looks at the representatives of the “defenders of the people” as at animals, monsters: “They are, I know. Their backs are as wide as a slab, their necks are of a bull's thickness; their eyes are heavy as lead, covered in a blood-oil film, well-fed; hands-flippers can kill flat. But there is another thing: their backs are narrow, fishy backs, necks - a cartilaginous cord, sharp eyes, with a gimlet, fingers are bitten, with a lash of veins, they crush with ticks ... ".

To the credit of the writer, it should be noted that he does not blame all the Bolsheviks indiscriminately. He divides them into two "waves" according to the time of the invasion. The first ones sincerely believed that they were protecting the people, freeing them for a better life. In their impetuosity, they could have shot, but their souls had not yet petrified, they had a vivid compassion inherent in the Russian character, they were alive in faith in God and universal morality, they could be persuaded, persuaded. So, at the beginning of the revolution, Professor Ivan Mikhailovich escaped from execution, who recognized one of the soldiers as his compatriot by a reprimand and, in the end, convinced the Red Army soldiers of the senselessness of shooting civilians. As an example, you can cite the "speech" at a rally of one of such naive sailors, intoxicated with victory: "Now, comrades and workers, we have finished off all the bourgeoisie ... who fled and drowned into the sea! And now our sovetskaya power, which is called communism! So And everyone will even have cars, and everyone will live ... in the bathrooms! So don’t live, but mother’s mother! So ... we will all sit on the fifth floor and smell roses! "

These Red Army men for the most part died in battles, and did not have time to take advantage of the conquered, and they were replaced by other people, methodically killing and clearing their way to power. Shmelev insistently asserts that many worthless, vile, people who did not want to work, who later became the arbiters of fate, joined the Bolsheviks. In the epic, such is the former musician Shura-Sokol, as he calls himself, a certain uncle Andrei, who takes the last away from the hungry, Fyodor Lyagun, who lives by denunciations. The Revolution brought these abominable spiritual monsters to life.

In the tragic events taking place, fear is more terrible than hunger. New owners sleeping off during the day, go to judge and rob at night. Hearing screams from a nearby house, neighbors cover their ears with pillows and shake with fear until morning, waiting for their turn. Now everyone is "former" and guilty. "I know well how people are afraid of people - are they people? - how they poke their heads in cracks, how numbly they dig their own graves. ... And those who go to kill will not be frightened by the eyes of a child." From the pages of his work, the writer turns to the top of the Bolshevik government with a terrible prediction: "Blood is not shed for free! He will measure up!"

Shmelev continues his great investigation and testimony. How does the very people for whose sake and in whose name the revolution took place? The people are deceived and robbed, human life is worthless, there is no one to seek protection from. At the rallies, they promised to share the lordly goodness with everyone equally, but no one called to start working hard, to restore the conquered state, to preserve existing values. Divide, and then "smell the roses" - that's what the working people heard. Many of them immediately settled in the dachas of the bourgeois who fled abroad, but no one plowed or sowed, so they had to exchange all the products, every last thread, from their dachas and from themselves. In addition, those who were more powerful and with weapons could also arbitrarily evict those who had settled in on their own, and killed for resistance. The common man could not find a job to feed his children. Crimean fishermen were forced to go out to sea at gunpoint, and the fish were then taken away for the army. The writer shows a typical picture: "A barefoot, filthy woman hobbles about, with a tattered herbal bag - an empty bottle and three potatoes, - with a tense face without a thought, stupefied from adversity:" But they said - everything will be! .. ".

But this is only the beginning of the famine. The further development of events is terrible: they ate all the plants, all animals, including dogs and cats (a crow knocked down by a stone is happiness), packs of feral dogs keep away from people, feeding on random carrion. And the last stage of hunger: "They lie in wait for children - both with a stone and dragged ...".
The hero observes how, until recently, good, honest people, who have worked in the sweat of their brows, turn into animals. The only way to feed dying children is to steal from the same impoverished neighbors. A terrible kaleidoscope of events is spinning. Former postman Drozd is a righteous man, a stranger did not take the thread - and "beats in a noose." Old man Glazkov's neighbor Koryak kills for the allegedly stolen cow from him. The hero's neighbor looks, condemning Glazkov. The author, describing in detail a wild scene, predicts: "She is looking, unhappy, and does not feel what awaits her. The knot of her miserable life gets tangled there: the blood is looking for blood."

The most terrible pages of the epic are about the suffering of children. Children, not understanding anything about what is happening, say what they hear from adults. In the innocent lips of a child, the words that a neighbor ate a red-haired dog "with a bunch of ponytails" sound awful that cats are eaten as well.

Hunger rapidly destroys all ties, making people enemies. Moral foundations crumble to dust. Only the fulfillment of moral laws makes people people. If there is a deformation of morality, then moral norms become meaningless for a person. An alienated life sets in. In his thoughts, the hero turns to Christianity as a single principle cementing society. The revolution abolished faith in God. The churches became empty, the priests were methodically destroyed. The priest who remained in the town, a fighter for justice and a defender of the suffering, walks to Yalta on foot to rescue another victim from the basements of the Cheka. People feel that he doesn't have much time left to walk. Evil has blocked the light of reason. Shmelev, through the lips of his autobiographical hero, exclaims: "I have no temple now. I have no God: the blue sky is empty." The terrible loss of self-consciousness, of the personal "I" knocks the ground out from under my feet. The hero conducts an audit in the area of ​​eternal values, and it turns out that "... now there is no soul, and there is nothing sacred. The covers have been torn from human souls. The neck crosses have been torn off - soaked".
In "Sun of the Dead" much space is given to the intelligentsia. After the revolution, the Crimea was the last place of refuge for the majority of scientists, professors, artists, musicians. Their reaction to the events taking place is presented most fully, since the author himself was one of them. During this difficult time, scientists continued to work on their research, gave lectures, tried to write in a new way of life and be useful. It turned out that their knowledge was not needed by the new government.

Professor Ivan Mikhailovich, the brilliant mind of Russia, who has written many books and the world-famous study about Lomonosov, awarded a gold medal, is now forced to beg at the bazaar, since the Soviet government has assigned him a pension - a pound (380g.) Of bread ... a month. Long ago he sold the gold medal to a Tatar for a sack of flour. The Red Army soldier advises him to "die as soon as possible," and not eat the people's bread. In the end, Ivan Mikhailovich, completely exhausted, was beaten to death by a cook in a Soviet kitchen. He bothered them with his bowl, requests, trembling.

The hero conducts long conversations with Doctor Mikhail Vasilyevich, who is conducting an experiment on himself on the effect of fasting on the human body. Offers the hero a way to commit suicide if he becomes unbearable. He buried his beloved wife in a kitchen cabinet with glass doors - locked with a key. The doctor's monologue about the victims of terror is a terrible testimony to the insane experience staged by the "bloody sect" over Russia. The doctor predicts that soon this experience will spread to representatives of the new government. The process of decomposition cannot bypass them. The author partly blames the rampant murders and the intelligentsia. Its representatives, understanding everything, went to meetings, flattered the Bolsheviks, shook hands with them. They grinned behind the eyes, ridiculed the stupidity of the sailors and immediately denounced each other.

The Sun of the Dead shows summer, autumn, winter and early spring. The first shoots appear, nature comes to life, but "the evenings are quiet, sad, the blackbird sings sad. It's already night. The blackbird has stopped talking. The dawn will start again ... We will listen to him - for the last time."

These are the last words of the epic. Shmelev interrupts the narration on a nagging note of continuing torment, hopelessness, hopelessness. The work of the writer, whose lines are permeated with belief in the higher meaning, defines the main idea for the modern reader: a person without moral guidelines, left to himself, to his plans and ideas (the so-called "freedom") is terrible.

The practical part.
In preparation for the seminar, students can use the materials of this article to get acquainted with the facts of the biography of the writer, the main stages of creativity, the peculiarities of the formation of the individual creative manner of the author, his ideological attitudes, the changes that occurred during the historical shifts in the country during the years of the revolution and civil war ... The basis for the seminar is the texts of the novel "The Sun of the Dead", "Autobiography" by IS Shmelev, the materials of the article and the recommended literature read by the students.

The following plan is offered to the attention of students:

1. IS Shmelev during the Revolution and Civil War.
"attitude towards the revolutions of 1905 and 1907;
"the tragedy of the loss of a son.
2. Autobiography of the story.
3. Deepening of real facts to historical and philosophical comprehension.
"man and nature in the epic;
"images of children;
"changes in the psychology of people;
"images of revolutionaries;
"the intelligentsia in the novel;
"folklore motives;
"the meaning of the" sun of the dead "symbol.
4. Features of the composition: no plot, mosaic, polyphonism.
5. The humanism of the writer in the coverage of "eternal" issues for humanity.

Literature:
1. Shmelev I.S. The sun of the dead. // Volga, 1989 No. 11.
2. Adamovich, G. Shmelev // Adamovich G. Loneliness and freedom: literary critical articles. SPb., 1993.S. 37-45.
3. Ilyin, I. On darkness and enlightenment: a book of art criticism: Bunin. Remizov. Shmelev M., 1991.
4. Kutyrina Yu.A. Shmelev's tragedy // Word. 1991. No. 11.
5. Kutyrina, Yu. A. Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev Paris, 1960.
6. Sorokin, O. Moskoviana: Life and work of Ivan Shmelev M., 1994.
7. Chernikov, A. P. Prose I. S. Shmeleva: the concept of the world and man. Kaluga,
1995.
8. Chumakevich, E. V. Artistic world of IS Shmelev.-Brest .: UO BrSU im. A.S. Pushkin, 1999.-110s.
9. Davydova, T.T. Russian neorealism: ideology, poetics, creative evolution: textbook. allowance / T.T. Davydova. - M.: Flinta: Nauka, 2005 .-- 336 p.
10. Shmelev I.S. Autobiography // Rus. lit. 1973. No. 4.
11. Shmelev I.S. May the power of life keep you. // Word. 1991. No. 12.

29.09.2019

The sun of the dead. Analysis of the story "Sun of the Dead" Shmeleva I.S.

Baba Yaga

Playing with death

The disappearance of the peacock

Interchange

Spring is coming.

"Sun of the Dead": analysis

Heroes

Morning

Crimea, by the sea, early August. The morning began with a noise through a dream: “This is again Tamarka pushing against my fence, a beautiful simmental, white, with red spots, - the support of the family that lives above me, on the hill. Every day there are three bottles of milk - foamy, warm, smelling like a live cow! " The narrator is tormented by strange dreams, filled with luxury, splendor and painful searches for who or what is unknown.

Dreams are all the more strange because hunger reigns around. I don't want to wake up. “But all the same it is necessary to rise. What day is it today? The month is August. And the day ... The days are now useless, and the calendar is not needed. For the indefinite, everything is one! Yesterday there was a message in the town ... I tore off the green Calvil and remembered: Transfiguration! "

I had to get up and get dressed: “I'm putting on rags ... The junkman will laugh at him, he will smell in the bag. What the junk dealers understand! They will hook a living soul with a hook in order to exchange it for a pittance. "

Around - seaside views, vineyards. In the distance - the former summer cottage of the teacher, Yasnaya Gorka. “Is there a caring hostess somewhere now? Somewhere. Stinking vinegar trees sprouted by the blind veranda.

The dacha is free and ownerless - and it was captured by a peacock. "

Birds

The "Peacock Tramp" sleeps on the railing of the fence, where the dogs will not reach him. “Once upon a time. Now - no one's, like this dacha. There are nobody's dogs, there are people - nobody's. So the peacock is nobody's.

Sometimes he visits the narrator. Picks grapes, the narrator chases the bird, because grapes will become food, which is not enough. The sun burned out everything.

In addition to the exiled peacock, the hero also has a turkey with turkey poults. He keeps them because “they connect us to the past. We will share with them to the last grain. "

Both the peacock and the turkey went to the hollow where the Greeks planted wheat. But the Greeks took away the wheat, and the birds - both domestic and wild, pigeons - pecked the rest. "Not a grain was left - and the basin calmed down."

Desert

The cow Tamarka tried to penetrate the narrator's pitiful garden and ran into a shout: "Backward !! .." "Here it is, our vegetable garden ... pitiful! And how much frantic labor I have thrown into this loose slate! He chose thousands of stones, carried earth from the beams with sacks, beat his feet on stones, scratching himself along the steep slopes ...

And what is all this for ?! It kills thoughts. "

And in the distance - the illusion of calmness and beauty. Sea, mountains, town. That's just ... “This is not a blissful silence: it is the dead silence of the churchyard. Under each roof there is one and one thought - bread!

And not the shepherd's house near the church, but the prison cellar ... Not the church watchman sits at the door: a stupid guy with a red star on his hat sits, puffs out-a hundred-gives birth to cellars: - Hey!., Go away! ..

And the sun is playing on the bayonet. "

Blood flooded everything around. Summer residents left or were killed. Ships do not enter harbors and goods cannot be purchased. “To whom to sell, buy, roll, spin lazily the golden Lambat tobacco? Who should swim? .. Everything - dried up. It went into the land - or there, over the sea. "

And the only thing that can be seen on the seaside road - “a barefoot, filthy woman with a tattered herbal bag hobbies, - an empty bottle and three potatoes, - with a tense face without a thought, stupefied from adversity:

And they said - everything will be! .. "

In a grape beam

Grape Beam - “From now on this is my temple, study and basement of supplies. I come here to think. " In a grape beam - apples, grapes, pears. “Walnut, handsome man ... He enters into force. Having conceived for the first time, he gave us three nuts last year - equally to all ... Thank you for the kindness, dear. There are only two of us now ... and you are more generous today, brought seventeen. I will sit under your shadow and start thinking ... "

And around the voices of the rare people left by the sea can be heard. A child asking for "bread-a-ba-aaaa ... very-sa-aaa in a button-uuu ... sa-a-my-sa-aaaa ..." into a noose ”, brings up other people's children and talks about Paris. “Paris ... - and here they take away the salt, turn it against the walls, catch cats in traps, rot and shoot them in basements, surrounded houses with barbed wire and created“ human slaughterhouses ”! What kind of light is it in? Paris ... - and here animals walk in iron, here people devour their children, and animals comprehend horror! .. "- the narrator reflects. The armless man, a locksmith from Sukha Balka, not so long ago ate a dog.

And the sun shines brightly, as if mocking.

Daily bread

The narrator meets with eight-year-old Lyalya, a girl who lives with an old lady. The girl said that cars in Yalta catch green people - those who "are buried in the forests in the mountains"; a cow was stolen from Mints; The fisherwoman sold the cow; a goose was stolen from Verba.

“There are also children's voices, there is a weasel. Now people speak with a breakdown, look unsteadily in the eyes. Others begin to growl, ”the narrator sighs. The narrator releases the birds, fearing that they might be taken away. A hawk flies: “The hawks will be forgiven: this is THEIR daily bread.

We eat the leaf and tremble in front of the hawks! Winged vultures are frightened by Lyalya's voice, and those who go to kill will not be frightened by the eyes of a child. "

That they go to kill

A horseman appeared. “Musician Shura. As he calls himself - "Shura-Sokol". What a dashing surname! And I know that this is a petty vulture ”, - the narrator characterizes the person and thinks about who created the vulture.

The narrator tells about one of his meetings with such a person: “Once, also on a hot afternoon, I was carrying a bag of earth. And so, when I trudged along the stone, and my head was a stone - happiness! - a vulture rose, as if out of the ground, on a ridge and showed its small, like a snake's, teeth - white, in a black head. Shouted cheerfully, shaking his elbows:

God loves work!

Sometimes the vultures talk about God!

That's why I hide: I can hear the smell of blood from the vulture. "

And he explains what he doesn't like about the "vulture": everyone is in rags, hungry, and he is in new clean clothes, with a rounded pink face. This is one of those who walks to kill. When thousands of people were hiding in the basements, “those who kill” took over power. The narrator recalls how during the appearance of “those who kill”, “a peaceful man, a lame architect, came to him. He was afraid himself. And therefore he served by the fact that they go to kill. " He described and selected the books because he was ordered.

The chicken Torpedo died - she left quietly, in the arms of the narrator, and he even rejoiced at this: after all, she was leaving in good hands, and how many people die without hearing a word of consolation ...

Nanny's fairy tales

In the evening, the narrator met with a neighbor's nanny, who was returning from the city. He knew that she would complain, but he could not help listening, because "she is from the people, and her word is from the people." The nanny told about the murder of the commissar at the pass, about the children who gnawed at the hooves of a dead horse. And more recently, the nanny believed in the bright future promised at the rally by the sailor: “Now, comrades and workers, we have killed all the bourgeoisie ... who fled - we drowned in the sea! And now our Soviet power, which is called communism! So live up to it! And everyone will even have cars, and everyone will live ... in the bathrooms! So don’t live, but mother is edren. So ... we will all sit on the fifth floor and smell the roses! .. ".

She met in the city with Ivan Mikhailovich, a former neighbor who was completely impoverished. The nanny left, and the narrator plunged into memories. He tells a fairy tale to Zhadnyukha chicken. Ivan Mikhailich wrote about Lomonosov, for which he received a gold medal at the Academy of Sciences. This gold medal had to be sold for a pood of flour. He began to teach people, for each lesson he received half a pound of bread and a log. “And soon they stopped giving the logs: there was no one to learn, and there was hunger. And so on asked Ivan Mi-khailych - they sent him a paper, a pension! Three spools of bread a day! " This amount of bread is enough for a chicken ...

About Baba Yaga

The professors' dachas were emptied, professorial janitors and gardeners stole everything of value. One professor, a quiet old man, was shot. "They got it down: don't go for tomatoes in your greatcoat!"

Cars are being rolled to Yalta. A fairy tale is happening in the world, only a terrible fairy tale. “I know: from a thousand miles away, an order-word flew over the radio, and fell on the blue sea:“ Put the Crimea with an iron broom! in the sea!"

Baba Yaga rolls and knocks through the mountains, through the forests, along the valleys - sweeping with an iron broom. The car rushes for Yalta.

Business, of course. Who will be skating idle now? "

Visit

"Scarecrow-doctor" Mikhailo Vasilich came "on a visit." They seized everything from the doctor, including shoes and rations from the medical union: “Colleagues say that now“ life is a struggle, ”but I am not engaged in practice! And “let not the unemployed eat”! ”.

The doctor sadly expresses the thought that reigns under the southern sun: "It is better now in the ground than on the ground."

The doctor sighs: the clock cannot be kept now, everything was taken away from him.

"Memento mori"

The doctor asks the narrator to publish his story about the “onion” watch: “So publish it:“ Memento mori ”, or“ The onion ”of the former doctor, the inhuman slave of Michael."

He and his wife were traveling around Europe just at the time when the revolution was being romanticized. The doctor bought a watch in some dirty shop, selling it, he was told: "Revolutionary, Irishman, but do not show that you know."

And the revolutionaries took this watch away from him. In this story, the doctor sees a parallel.

Almost saying goodbye, he says that he would like to publish a book with his reflections and conclusions, which would be entitled "Almond Gardens."

"Almond Gardens"

As soon as he arrived in Crimea, the doctor chose a vacant lot and planted it with almond trees. “... There were almond orchards, blooming every spring, giving joy. And now I have - "almond orchards", in quotation marks, - the results and experience of life! .. "

“No, now you can't lure me to school. “Our Father” was forgotten. And they will not study, ”says the doctor. And all of his almonds were cut off, trees are being cut down. The doctor compares the revolutionary events with the experiments of Sechenov, people with frogs: “Two millionaire“ frogs ”were shredded: they cut out their breasts, and put“ stars ”on their shoulders, and crushed the backs of their heads from revolvers over the retirades, and smeared the walls in the basements with brains ... ". The doctor says that everyone is almost dead, and all this is hunger, dark spots in front of the eyes from weakness - the threshold of death.

The doctor sums up his reasoning: “... since a fairy tale has already begun, life has already ended, and now nothing is scary. We are the last atoms of prosaic, sober thought. Everything is in the past, and we are already superfluous. And this, ”he pointed to the mountains,“ it only seems so ”, and then goes to the neighbors. The narrator looks into the distance and understands: “Now nothing is scary. Now everything is a fairy tale. Baba Yaga in the mountains ... "

Wolf's lair

The narrator was walking around the garden in the evening and heard: something was happening in the "professor's corner." “Below, voices are roaring — someone still lives there! The dens still remain.

Oh, people are kind-and-and ...

There are no people, no kind. "

They killed a cow, and Koryak strangled the cow-cutter. While the narrator peered and listened, the hawk stabbed his chicken to Greedy. “The turkey stands under the cedar, its pupil gleams - towards the sky. Chickens huddle up to her - now there are only four of them, the last. Tremble at their churchyard. You are my pitiful ... and you, as well as all around, - hunger and fear, and death. What a huge churchyard! And how much sun! Heat from the light of the mountains, the sea in a blue fluid shine ... "

And the narrator walks through the garden, reproaching himself for the fact that he can still think and seek the Sun of Truth.

Uncle Andrey from the policeman's dacha, passing by, advises to exchange a peacock for something - for bread or tobacco. The narrator ponders this question (for tobacco it really could be), but realizes that he will not do it.

Wonderful necklace

The narrator is looking forward to the night: "... when will this jubilant cemetery cover the night ?!" The night has come. A neighbor came up and sat down with the narrator, said: “My head has become cloudy, I can't understand anything. The kids are melting, I have completely stopped sleeping. I walk and walk like a pendulum. " A little girl, Anyuta, "from the Maser's dacha," came and asked for "crumbs for porridge," because "our little one is dying, he has shouted." The narrator gave some cereal - everything that he himself had ...

A neighbor, an old lady, said that she had exchanged a gold chain for bread, now she only had rock crystal beads: “I understand: there are pieces of her soul on these crystal balls,” the narrator says. “But now there is no soul, and nothing is sacred. The covers have been stripped from human souls. The pectoral crosses have been torn off - soaked. The dear eyes-faces are torn to shreds, the last smiles-blessings found at the heart ... the last words-caress are trampled into the night mud by the boots, the last call from the pit flutters along the roads ... - carries it with the winds ”. The lady was offered to exchange a necklace made by an Italian master for three pounds of bread, she wonders: such a luxury, a jewel, “so many ... facets” - and for only three pounds! The narrator thinks: “And how many facets there are in the human soul! What necklaces are crushed to dust ... and the craftsmen are beaten ... "

And at night they begin to rob. People from Division may appear ...

In a deep beam

Dawn. “It's time to go to Glubokaya gully, in the chill, - to chop.” It is gloomy in the deep gully, the slopes are overgrown with bushes, in which all sorts of figures seem to be imagined: a candelabrum, a cross, a question mark ... "Things live in Glubokaya gully, they live - they scream." Three years ago, "rabid sailors' hordes were encamped here, rushing to take power," and now one of the few survivors is chopping wood in the gully.

The narrator mentally addresses the Europeans, “enthusiastic connoisseurs of“ daring ”", inviting them not to sing about the “world re-cutting of life”, but to observe: “you will see living souls numb with blood, thrown like rubbish”.

Playing with death

The narrator dozed off under the tree-Cross, he was awakened. It was “a ragged man, dark-haired, with a swollen yellow face, not shaved for a long time, not washed, in wide-brimmed straw with holes, in Tatar beds, showing fingers-claws. The white chintz shirt is pulled up with a strap, and through its holes you can see the yellow spots of the body. He looks like a ragamuffin from the pier. " This is a young writer Boris Shishkin. It’s hard for the narrator, it seems that something will happen to Shishkin. The young writer has one dream: to go anywhere, even underground, and surrender to writing. Boris Shishkin “is talented, his soul is tender and sensitive, and in his very short life there was such a terrible and great thing that it would be enough for a hundred lives.

He was a soldier in the great war, in the infantry, and on the most dangerous - the German front. " He was in captivity, he was almost shot as a spy, starved and forced to work in the mines. Already under Soviet rule, Shishkin returned to Russia, he was captured by the Cossacks, miraculously released. They offered to become a communist, “but he filed a complaint about the disease and finally got his freedom. Now he could walk through the gardens - work for half a pound of bread and write stories. " Now he is going to live in the rocks and write the story "The Joy of Life". “His swollen yellow face — the face of the neighborhood — clearly says that they are starving. And yet he is happy, ”the narrator notes.

Shmelev says that the prisoners of the Soviet regime escaped, and now all coastal residents are threatened with searches and round-ups. But the narrator rejoices: "At least six have recaptured their lives!"

Voice from under the mountain

The narrator sits on the threshold of his hut, the former postman Drozd approaches him. This is “a righteous man in a cursed life. There are not many of them in the town. They exist all over corrupted Russia. " Earlier, Drozd dreamed of giving his children an "outside" education, was proud of his postman's mission, "treated with reverence European politics and European life." Now he talks about life differently. “All qi-vi ... lization comes in a crisis! And even ... in-ti-li-gentia! - he hisses in the brushwood, looking fearfully around. - But as Mr. Nekrasov said: “Sow reasonable, kind, eternal! Say thank you endless! Russian people!!" And they steal from the old woman! All positions have surrendered - both culture and morality ”.

The blackbird leaves, and the narrator sums up the results of his visit: “The righteous ... In this dying crevice, by the sleeping sea, there are still the righteous. I know them. There are not many of them. There are very few of them. They have not bowed to temptation, have not touched someone else's thread - and are beating in a noose. The life-giving spirit is in them, and they do not succumb to the all-crushing stone. Is the spirit dying? No - alive. Dying, dying ... I can see so clearly! "

On an empty road

September "departs", vineyards and forests dry up, the Kush-Kai mountain seems to be watching everything that happens by the sea. “It's so quiet all around ... But I know that in all these stones, in the vineyards, in the hollows, they clung to, squeezed in the cracks and hid insects-people, they live - they don't breathe,” the narrator says. The narrator recalls how he recently wandered along the shore, along the road, hoping to exchange a shirt for something edible, and met three children. Children, two girls and a boy, laid food on the road - cakes, lamb bones, sheep's cheese. When the narrator appeared, they tried to hide it all, but he calmed them down and heard the story. The father of the children was arrested on charges of killing someone else's cow. The children went to the mountains to look for food, stumbled upon the Tatar koshars. The older girl liked the Tatar guys, they fed the children and gave them food with them.

After parting with the children, the narrator met Fyodor Lyagun on the road. Lyagun realized in time what the appearance of the communists would bring with him, and went over to them, gaining some power. "The communists have their own law ... even to the mother is obliged to convey the party!" - said Fyodor Lyagun. And he reported - if it was not possible to come to an agreement with the "bourgeoisie". The narrator says: “He slips his finger across the pockmarked palm and is drawn into my eyes. I am stuffy from rotten fumes ...

I don't walk on the roads anymore, I don't talk to anyone. Life is burnt out. Now he smokes. I look into the eyes of animals. But there are not many of them either. "

The almonds are ripe

The narrator sits on an almond tree - the almonds are ripe. And looks at the city from above. The tinsmith Kulesh died, who at first worked for money, then for bread, winged roofs, riveted stoves and cut a weather vane. “Not to be avoided - everyone to walk ... with the kamissars! Oooh ... a terrible dream ... Borshchik would at least have had enough of it ... and there! .. "- said Kulesh before his death.

I tried to go to the hospital, hoping that at least they would feed them - they promised to do everything for the people - but in the hospital they themselves were starving. And Kulesh died. “For the fifth day, Kulesh lies in a human greenhouse. Everything awaits dispatch: cannot reach the pit. Not one lies, but with Gvozdikov, a tailor, a friend; alive, the third, they are waiting. Both insisted - they made noise at the rallies, demanded a property for themselves. They took everything under the people's right: they took away the wine cellars - even if you bathe, they took away gardens and tobacco, and summer cottages. " The old watchman says that he has nothing to bury, and there is nothing to take from the dead. They will have to wait for someone richer ... The narrator says that none of the victims, deceived by the revolution, will remain on the pages of history. And he sums it up: “Sleep in peace, stupid, calm Kulesh! You are not the only one deceived by loud words of lies and flattery. Millions of these have been deceived, and millions more will be deceived ... "

"Once upon a time there was a gray goat with my grandmother"

“I want to get away from the wilderness that swirls me. I want to travel back in time when people got along with the sun, created gardens in the desert ... ”- says the narrator. There used to be a vacant lot on the Quiet Pier, a retired police chief arrived and created a "wonderful 'pink kingdom'". Now the "pink kingdom" is dying.

The teacher Pribytko has two children, and she cannot give up on a difficult time. They have a goat Lovely and a goat - the envy of the neighbors.

The teacher tells about her goat, about the fact that cows are slaughtered in the district, dogs and cats are caught. And the narrator thinks: “I am listening, sitting on an almond, watching the eaglets frolic over Castelyo. Suddenly the thought comes over: what are we doing? Why am I in rags, climbed a tree? a gymnasium teacher - barefoot, with a sack, a tattered woman in pince-nez, crawling through the gardens for a scavenger ... Who laughs at our life? Why does she have such intimidated eyes? "

Peacock's end

End of october. Hunger is getting closer. The peacock Pavka has disappeared: “I recall with reproach that quiet evening when a hungry Pavka trustingly came to an empty cup, banged his nose ... He knocked for a long time. With hunger, they will be ruffled ... Now everyone knows that. And they subside. " The narrator then tried to strangle the peacock, but could not.

A neighbor's boy assumes that the doctor ate the peacock, and brings the narrator some feathers. “I take the remains of my - not mine - peacock and with a quiet feeling, like a delicate flower, I put it on the veranda - to the drying Calvil. The last of the departed. There is more and more emptiness. The last is warmed up. Ah, what nonsense! .. "

Circle of hell

The narrator says: “... there is hell! Here he is and his deceptive circle ... - the sea, the mountains ... - the screen is wonderful. Days go by - aimless, permanent change. People are getting confused in days, rushing about, looking ... looking for a way out for themselves. " And he wonders: maybe he should go? But it will not go away, although the tobacco has run out and we have to smoke chicory; there are no books, and why are they ...

The narrator reflects on life and death. Those who came to power kill everyone. A young man was killed for being a lieutenant; the old woman - she was holding a portrait of her husband-general on the table. And whoever is not killed, they die themselves.

On a quiet dock

The quiet pier is soothing, there is still a glimmer of life: the old woman is milking the goat, still trying to keep the farm.

Marina Semyonovna and Uncle Andrey communicate. Marina Semyonovna says that her interlocutor "got fucked up": he used to work, but now he steals and drinks wine. And there was nothing else left for him: a revolutionary sailor took the cow from him. “A man is dying before our eyes ...” Marina Semyonovna says with her heart. - I say to him: improve the economy!<...>He says there is no order, you will not understand! That's where the collapse of everything!<...>And everyone shouted - ours! " The narrator notes about her: “She cannot believe that life wants peace, death: it wants to be covered with a stone; that floats before our eyes like snow in the sun. "

Chatyrdag breathes

"Goodbye, Rybachikhino family!" the narrator exclaims. Rybachikha's daughters set off for the pass, she herself cries over her only son, who has died. The narrator recalls a conversation with Nikolai, an old fisherman, Rybachikha's husband. He visited the representatives of his government and wondered: how so? The people were promised prosperity, but they themselves live wonderfully, and people are dying of hunger.

The fisherman Pashka, the “dashing guy”, swears: “When you come from the sea, they take everything away, they leave ten percent for the whole artel! Cleverly thought up - the commune is called. "

Righteous ascetic

The shoemaker Prokofy's wife, Tanya, lives in a clay shack. Prokofy himself "went out to the embankment, went to the military post and sang:" God save the Tsar! " He was severely beaten on the shore, put in a basement and taken away to the mountains. He died soon. "

Tanya is going to the mountains, “to change wine”: “For fifty versts, across the pass, where the snow has already fallen, she will carry her labor wine ...<...>Passers-by are stopped there. There - green, red, who else? .. There, hanging over an iron bridge, on branches - seven. Who they are is unknown. Who hanged them - no one knows.<...>There are wolf squabbles and a dump. The unceasing battle of the people of the Iron Age is in the stones. "

Under the wind

The narrator went to the doctor's almond orchards to say goodbye. He says goodbye to everything, going through the last circle of hell. The doctor conducts his experiment: he lives on almonds and opium. He notes that the eyes became worse. The doctor concludes: “We don't take into account something! Not everyone dies! This means that life will go on ... it goes on, goes on with what is, that kill! but only! that's what life is about - in killing! " Hope is a function, payback is a strengthening of function. The doctor notes that people are afraid to speak, and "soon they will be afraid to think."

There below

Ivan Mikhailovich, who wrote about Lomonosov, is finishing his last work. She dreams of going to her homeland, to the Vologda province. And he regrets one thing: if he dies, his works will be lost. "It would be better if the sailors drowned me then ..."

The narrator meets an old Tatar, hopes to exchange flour from him, but he doesn't have it either.

End of the bubble

Marina Semyonovna's goat disappeared - they took him out of the shed. “This is not theft, but infanticide! ..” - she says.

The soul is alive!

November. The rains began. The cow Tamarka rejoices: the branches are wet, and they can be gnawed.

At night, there was a knock on the narrator's door, a Tatar came in, brought a debt for his shirt: “Apples, a drying pear ... flour? and a bottle of bekmes! .. "And the narrator exclaims:" No, not that. Not tobacco, not flour, not pears ... - Heaven! The sky came from the darkness! Heaven, oh Lord! .. The old Tatar sent ... the Tatar ... "

The earth moans

There is a fire in the almond orchards. The doctor burned out. “The sailor says ... it was burning inside,” says neighbor Yashka. And the narrator notes: "The doctor burned out like a twig in a stove."

Doctor's end

Before the doctor had time to burn down, his old house was robbed: “According to Michal Vasilich, the commemoration is ruled, the old house is being pulled apart another day. They drag who - what. "

End of Tamarka

The winter rains have begun. People are starving. Fishermen were left without a catch: storms at sea. They ask for bread in the city, but they are not given: “Everything will be in due time! Glorious fishermen! You honorably kept the discipline of the proletariat ... keep kr-repko! .. I call on the meeting ... shock task!., Help our heroes of Donbass! .. "

They took away the cow Tamarka. They took Andrey Krivoy and Odaryuk for this. “The hill is noisy: they found a cow trebuchet and bacon under the floor of Grigory Odaryuk. Have taken. Odaryuk's boy died, he was tormented - he gorged himself with a trebuchet. A sailor found a cow's skin: it was buried in the ground. "

Bread with blood

Odaryuk's little daughter, Anyuta, came to the narrator. “She shakes and cries into her arms, little one. What can I do ?! I can only squeeze my hands, squeeze my heart so as not to scream. "

At the pass, Koryak's nanny's son and son-in-law were killed, who exchanged wine for grain. “It came badly: Alyosha sent wheat with blood. There is something you need to wash and wash. You just can't wash everything ... "

Thousands of years ago ...

“Thousands of years ago ... - many thousands of years - here was the same desert, and the night, and the snow, and the sea, the black void, rumbled just as dully. And the man lived in the desert, did not know fire.

He choked the animals with his hands, knocked them down with a stone, jammed them with a club, hid in caves ... ”- says the narrator. And again this time has returned: people walk with stones. He was told: “They are buried on mountain roads, behind stones ... they lie in wait for children ... and - with a stone! And they drag ... "

Three ends

Andrey Krivoy and Odaryuk died. And Uncle Andrey confessed to stealing a goat and a cow. He was also released. And he died. “So all three departed, one by one, - they melted away. Waiting for their death, hungry, said:

Someone else's cows were piled up ... so they died. "

The end of the ends

“But what month is December now? The beginning or the end? All ends are confused, all beginnings, ”says the narrator. He sat on a hillock and looked at the cemetery. “When the sun goes down, the cemetery chapel glows magnificently with gold. The sun laughs at the Dead. I watched and solved the riddle - about life-or-death. "

Boris Shishkin's father came to the narrator and said that both of his sons had been shot "for robbery."

Almond blossoms. Spring came...

The tragedy of perception of revolutionary events

Shmelev enthusiastically embraced the first revolution, his main works of that time - "Vakhmister" (1906), "Decay" (1906), "Ivan Kuzmich" (1907), "Citizen Ukleikin" - passed under the sign of the first Russian revolution. He considered the revolutionary upsurge a cleansing force capable of raising the downtrodden and humiliated, awakening humanity. But Shmelev did not know the fighters against autocracy, therefore the revolution in his works was conveyed through the eyes of other heroes, passive and unconscious people.

In 1922 Shmelev emigrated, thereby showing his attitude to the second revolution.

His epic "The Sun of the Dead" is a fierce protest against the injustice of the new government. It shows a brutal contrast between promises of a brighter future and grim reality. This contrast is noted even in the juxtaposition of seaside beauties and beggars, hungry, doomed to painful death of people.

"Sun of the Dead" (Ivan Shmelev) critics called the most tragic work in the history of world literature. What is so terrible and amazing about him? The answer to this and many other questions can be found in this article.

History of creation and genre features

The work "The Sun of the Dead" marked the second - emigration - stage of Ivan Shmelev's work. The genre chosen by the writers for their creation is epic. Let us remind that outstanding national-historical events are described in this kind of works. What is Shmelev talking about?

The writer chooses a truly memorable event, but there is nothing to be proud of. It depicts the Crimean famine of 1921-1922. "Sun of the Dead" is a requiem for those who died in those terrible years - and not only from a lack of food, but also from the actions of revolutionaries. It is also important that the son of Shmelev himself, who remained in Russia, was shot in 1921, and the book was published in 1923.

"Sun of the Dead": a summary

The action takes place in August on the Crimean Sea coast. All night long, the hero was tormented by strange dreams, and he woke up from a squabble of neighbors. I don’t want to get up, but he remembers that the Transfiguration holiday begins.

In an abandoned house on the way, he sees a peacock that has been living there for a long time. Once he belonged to a hero, but now the bird is no one, like himself. Sometimes the peacock returns to him and picks grapes. And the narrator chases him - there is not enough food, the sun has burned everything out.

From the farm, the hero still has a turkey with turkey poults. He keeps them as a memory of the past.

Food could be bought, but because of the Red Guards, ships no longer enter the port. And they also do not allow people to approach the provisions in the warehouses. The dead silence of the churchyard reigns around.

Everyone around is suffering from hunger. And those who recently walked with slogans and supported the Reds in anticipation of a good life no longer hope for anything. And above all this, a cheerful hot sun shines ...

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Baba Yaga

The Crimean dachas were emptied, all the professors were shot, and the janitors stole the property. And on the radio the order was given to "Place the Crimea with an iron broom." And Baba Yaga got down to business, sweeping.

The doctor comes to visit the narrator. They took everything from him, not even a watch was left. He sighs and says that now it is better underground than on earth. When the revolution broke out, the doctor and his wife were in Europe, romanticized about the future. And he now compares the revolution with the experiments of Sechenov. Only instead of frogs they cut out people's hearts, put "stars" on their shoulders, and crushed the back of their heads from revolvers.

The hero looks after him and thinks that now nothing is scary. After all, now Baba Yaga is in the mountains.

The neighbors' cow was slaughtered in the evening, and the owner strangled the killer. The hero came to the noise, and at this time someone killed his chicken.

A neighbor's girl comes and asks for cereals - their mother dies. The narrator gives away everything he had. A neighbor appears and tells how she exchanged a gold chain for food.

Playing with death

The actions of the epic "The Sun of the Dead" (Ivan Shmelev) continue to develop. The narrator sets out early in the morning to cut a tree. Here he falls asleep and is awakened by Boris Shishkin, a young writer. He is not washed, torn off, with a swollen face, with uncut nails.

His past was not easy: he fought in the First World War, he was taken prisoner, almost shot as a spy. But in the end they were simply sent to work in the mines. Under Soviet rule, Shishkin was able to return to his homeland, but immediately fell into the hands of the Cossacks, who barely let him go.

The news comes that six prisoners of the Soviet regime escaped not far. Now everyone is threatened with raids and searches.

End of September. The narrator looks at the sea and mountains - it is quiet around. He recalls how he recently met three children on the road - a girl and two boys. Their father was arrested on charges of killing a cow. Then the children went in search of food. In the mountains, the older girl liked the Tatar guys, and they fed the children and even gave food to take.

However, the narrator no longer walks on the road and does not want to communicate with people. Better to look animals in the eyes, but there are not many of them left.

The disappearance of the peacock

“The Sun of the Dead” tells about the fate of those who rejoiced and welcomed the new government. The summary, albeit not to the extent of the original, conveys the wicked irony of their lives. Previously, they went to rallies, shouted, demanded, but now they have died of hunger and for the 5th day their bodies have been lying and cannot even wait for the burial pit.

At the end of October, the peacock disappears, and hunger is getting worse. The narrator recalls how a starving bird came for food a few days ago. Then he tried to strangle her, but could not - his hand did not rise. And now the peacock is gone. A neighbor's boy brought some feathers of a bird and said that it must have been eaten by the doctor. The narrator takes the feathers tenderly, like a fragile flower, and places them on the veranda.

HE thinks that everything around is the circles of hell, which are gradually shrinking. Even a family of fishermen is dying of hunger. The son died, the daughter gathered for the pass, Nikolai, the head of the family, also died. There was only one mistress left.

Interchange

The epic "The Sun of the Dead" is coming to an end (summary). November came. The old Tatar returns the debt at night - he brought flour, pears, tobacco. The news arrives that the doctor burned down in his almond orchards, and that his house had already begun to be robbed.

Winter has come, the rains have come. The hunger continues. The sea completely stops feeding the fishermen. They come to ask for bread to the representatives of the new government, but in response they are only urged to hold on and come to the rallies.

At the pass, they killed two people who exchanged wine for wheat. The grain was brought to the city, washed and eaten. The narrator ponders that you can't wash everything.

The hero tries to remember what month it is ... it seems, December. He goes to the seashore and looks at the cemetery. The setting sun illuminates the chapel. Like the sun smiles at the dead. In the evening, the father of the writer Shishkin visits him and says that his son was shot "for robbery."

Spring is coming.

"Sun of the Dead": analysis

This work is called Shmelev's most powerful thing. Against the background of the dispassionate and beautiful Crimean nature, a real tragedy unfolds - hunger takes away all living things: people, animals, birds. The writer raises in the work the question of the value of life in times of great social change.

It is impossible to stand aside and not think about what is more important while reading "The Sun of the Dead". The theme of the work in a global sense is the struggle between life and death, between humanity and the animal principle. The author writes about how poverty destroys human souls, and this frightens him more than hunger. Shmelev also raises such philosophical questions as the search for truth, the meaning of life, human values, etc.

Heroes

More than once the author describes the transformation of a man into a beast, into a murderer and a traitor on the pages of the epic "The Sun of the Dead". The main characters are also not immune from this. For example, a doctor - a friend of the narrator - gradually loses all his moral principles. And if at the beginning of the work he talks about writing a book, then in the middle of the story he kills and eats a peacock, and at the end he begins to use opium and dies in a fire. There are also those who became an informer for bread. But such, according to the author, are even worse. They are rotten from the inside, and their eyes are empty and lifeless.

There is no one in the work who would not suffer from hunger. But everyone carries it in their own way. And in this test, it becomes clear what a person is really worth.

Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev

Sun of the dead

Behind the clay wall, in a disturbing dream, I hear the heavy footfall and crackle of thorny dry wood ...

It is again Tamarka pushing against my fence, a beautiful simmental, white, with red spots, - the support of the family that lives above me, on the hill. Every day there are three bottles of milk - foamy, warm, smelling like a live cow! When the milk boils, golden sparkles of fat begin to play on it and a warbler appears ...

You don't have to think about such trifles - why do they go into your head!

So, a new morning ...

Yes, I saw a dream ... a strange kind of dream, which does not happen in life.

All these months I have been dreaming magnificent dreams. Why? My reality is so wretched ... Palaces, gardens ... Thousands of rooms - not rooms, but a luxurious hall from Scheherazade's tales - with chandeliers in blue lights - alien lights, with silver tables, on which heaps of flowers - aliens. I walk and walk through the halls - looking for ...

Whom I am looking for with great anguish - I do not know. In anguish, in alarm, I look out of the huge windows: behind them are gardens, with lawns, with green valleys, as in old paintings. The sun seems to be shining, but this is not our sun ... - some underwater light, of a pale tin. And everywhere - trees, alien trees, bloom: tall, tall lilacs, pale bells on them, faded roses ... I see strange people. They walk with lifeless faces, they walk through the halls in pale clothes - from the icons they seem to look into the windows with me. Something tells me - I can feel it with a nagging pain - that they went through a terrible thing, did something to them, and they are outside of life. Already - aliens ... And unbearable sorrow walks with me in these eerily luxurious halls ...

I'm glad to wake up.

Of course, she is Tamarka. When the milk boils ... Don't think about milk. Daily bread? We have flour for a few days ... It is well hidden in the cracks - now it is dangerous to keep it open: they will come at night ... Tomatoes in the garden are true, they are still green, but they will soon turn red ... a dozen of corn, a pumpkin is being tied ... Enough, no need to think! ..

How you don't want to get up! The whole body aches, but you have to go to balls, chop these "kutyuks", these oak rhizomes. Again all the same! ..

What is it, Tamarka at the fence! .. Sniffing, whipping branches ... gnawing at almonds! And now he will come to the gate and start sticking out the wicket. I think he put a stake ... Last week she kicked it out on a stake, took it off its hinges when everyone was asleep, and devoured half of the garden. Of course, hunger ... Willow has no hay on the hill, the grass has burned long ago - only gnawed hornbeam and stones. Until late at night, you need to wander Tamarka, look for deep beams, through impassable thickets. And she wanders, wanders ...

But all the same it is necessary to rise. What day is it today? The month is August. And the day ... The days are now useless, and the calendar is not needed. For the indefinite, everything is one! Yesterday there was a message in the town ... I tore off the green "Calvil" - and I remembered: Transfiguration! I stood with an apple in the beam ... brought it and laid it quietly on the veranda. Transformation ... Lies "Calvil" on the veranda. From it now you can count days, weeks ...

We must start the day, dodge thoughts. You have to be so wrapped up in the trifles of the day that you thoughtlessly say to yourself: another day has been killed!

As an indefinite convict, I wearily put on rags - my dear past, tattered in the thickets. Every day you have to walk on beams, scratch with an ax on steep slopes: prepare fuel for the winter. Why - I don't know. To kill time. Once he dreamed of becoming a Robinson - he did. Worse than Robinson. He had a future, hope: what if - a point on the horizon! We will not have any point, there will be no povek. And you still have to go for fuel. On a long winter night, we will sit by the stove, looking into the fire. There are visions in the fire ... The past flares up and goes out ... The mountain of brushwood has grown over these weeks, it dries up. We need more, more. It will be nice to cut in winter! So they will bounce! For whole days of work. We must take advantage of the weather. Now it's good, it's warm - you can go barefoot or on pieces of wood, but when it blows out from Chatyrdag, let the rains charge ... Then it's bad to walk on the beams.

I put on rags ... The dealership will laugh at him, he will smell in the bag. What the junk dealers understand! They will hook a living soul with a hook in order to exchange it for a pittance. Glue will be welded from human bones - for the future, from blood they will make "cubes" for broth ... Expansion is now for the junk dealers, the renovators of life! They carry it with iron hooks.

My rags ... The last years of my life, the last days - they are the last caress of a glance ... They will not go to junk dealers. They melt under the sun, decay in the rains and winds, on thorny bushes along the beams, along the bird's nests ...

The shutters must be opened. Well, what morning? ..

But what kind of morning can it be in the Crimea, by the sea, in early August ?! Sunny, of course. So dazzlingly sunny, luxurious that it hurts to look at the sea: it stabs and hits in the eyes.

As soon as you open the door, the night freshness of mountain forests, mountain valleys, filled with a special, Crimean, bitterness, infused in the forest crevices, burst from the meadows, from Yaila, will rush into the sunken eyes, into the crumpled, fading face with the sun. These are the last waves of the night wind: it will soon pull from the sea.

Sweet morning, hello!

In a sloping ravine - a trough, where the vineyard is still shady, fresh and gray; but the clay slope opposite is already pinkish-red, like fresh copper, and the tops of the pear pullets, at the bottom of the vineyard, are filled with a scarlet gloss. And the pullets are good! We cleaned up, got a little gold, and put on heavy pear beads - "Marie Louise".

I search my eyes anxiously ... Whole! We hung out safely one more night. This is not greed: this is our bread that is ripening, our daily bread.

Hello and you, mountains!

Toward the sea is the little Castel mountain, a fortress over vineyards that thundered far away with glory. There is a golden "sauternes" - the light blood of the mountain, and a thick "burgundy", smelling of morocco and prunes, and the Crimean sun! - dark blood. Castel guards its vineyards from the cold, warms with heat at night. In a pink hat, she is now, dark below, all - forest.

To the right, further - a fortress wall-plumb, naked Kush-Kaya, a mountain poster. In the morning - pink, by night - blue. It absorbs everything, sees everything. An unknown hand draws on it ... How many miles to him, but - close. Stretch out your hand and touch: just cross the valley below and the hills, everything - in the gardens, vineyards, forests, gullies. An invisible road flares up along them with dust: the car rolls to Yalta.

To the right is still the furry cap of the forest Babugan. In the mornings he gilded; usually densely black. The bristles of pine forests are visible on it, when the sun melts and trembles behind them. From there comes rain. The sun goes there.

For some reason it seems to me that the night is slipping from the dense black Babugan ...

No need to think about the night, about deceiving dreams, where everything is alien. They will return at night. Morning disrupts dreams: here it is, the naked truth - underfoot. Meet him with prayer! It opens the distance ...

There is no need to look at the distance: the distance is deceptive, just like dreams. They beckon and - do not give. They have a lot of blue, green, gold. No need for fairy tales. Here it is, really - under your feet.

I know that there will be no grapes in the vineyards near Castel, that white houses are empty, and human lives are scattered across the wooded hills ... I know that the earth is saturated with blood, and the wine will turn out tart and will not give joyful oblivion. The terrible was inscribed in itself by the gray wall of Kush-Kai, visible not far. The time will come - it will be read ...

I no longer look at the distance.

Looking through my beam. There are my young almonds, the wasteland behind them.

A stony patch of land that had recently been going to live is now killed. Black horns of the vineyard: the cows beat him. Winter showers dig roads on it, make wrinkles. A tumbleweed sticks out, already withered: it gallops - only the North will blow out. An old Tatar pear, hollow and crooked, blooms and dries for years, throws a honey yellow "buzdurkhan" around for years, everything is waiting for a change. Change does not come. And she, stubborn, waits and waits, pours, blooms and dries. Hawks are hiding on it. Crows love to swing in a storm.

And here is an eyesore, a cripple. Once - Yasnaya Gorka, a summer residence of a Yekaterinoslav teacher. It is worth it - bends. Long ago, thieves robbed her, broke the windows, and she went blind. The plaster is crumbling, showing the ribs. And the rags that had once been hung to dry are still blown away in the wind - dangling on nails, by the kitchen. Is there a caring hostess somewhere now? Somewhere. Stinking vinegar trees sprouted by the blind veranda.

The dacha is free and ownerless - and it was captured by a peacock.

Peacock ... A tramp-peacock, no longer needed by anyone. He sleeps on the railing of the balcony: so dogs can't get it.

Mine once. Now - no one's, like this dacha. There are nobody's dogs, there are people - nobody's. So the peacock is nobody's.

There are books, the reading of which saddens, leads to sad thoughts. One of them in the early twenties of the last century was created by the Russian writer Ivan Shmelev. This article is a summary of it. "Sun of the Dead" is a work of a man of rare talent and incredibly tragic fate.

History of creation

Critics have called "The Sun of the Dead" one of the most tragic literary works in the history of mankind. In what conditions was the book created?

A year after Ivan Shmelev left his homeland, he began writing the epic "The Sun of the Dead". Then he did not know that he would never return to Russia. And he still hoped that his son was alive. Sergei Shmelev was shot without trial in 1921. He became one of the victims of the "Red Terror in Crimea". One of those to whom the writer dedicated "The Sun of the Dead" unconsciously. Because Ivan Shmelev learned about the fate of his son many years after writing this terrible book.

What are the first chapters of the book about? It is not easy to convey the summary. "Sun of the Dead" begins with a description of the morning nature of the Crimea. Before the eyes of the author - a picturesque mountain landscape. But the Crimean landscape only evokes melancholy.

The vineyards here are half ruined. The houses located nearby were empty. The Crimean land is saturated with blood. The author sees the dacha of his friend. The once luxurious house now stands as if it were an orphaned, with broken windows, showered with whitewash.

"What go to kill": a summary

"Sun of the Dead" is a book about hunger and suffering. It depicts the anguish experienced by both adults and children. But the most terrible pages of Shmelev's book are those where the author describes the transformation of a person into a murderer.

The portrait of one of the heroes of "The Sun of the Dead" is amazing and terrible. The name of this character is Shura, he loves to play the piano in the evenings, he calls himself a "falcon". But he has nothing to do with this proud and strong bird. No wonder the author compares him to a vulture. Shura sent many to the north or, even worse, to the other world. But every day he eats milk porridge, plays music, rides a horse. While people around are dying of hunger.

Shura is one of those sent to kill. Strange as it may seem, they were sent to carry out mass destruction for the sake of a lofty goal: to achieve universal happiness. In their opinion, it should have begun with a bloody massacre. And those who came to kill have done their duty. Hundreds of people were sent to the basements of the Crimea every day. During the day they were taken out to be shot. But, as it turned out, happiness, which required more than a hundred thousand victims, was an illusion. The working people, dreaming of taking the lordly positions, were dying of hunger.

About Babu Yaga

This is the title of one of the chapters of the novel. How to deliver its summary? "Sun of the Dead" is a work representing the writer's reasoning and observations. Scary stories are told in impartial language. And that's why they become even more terrible. You can summarize the individual stories told by Shmelev. But the author's mental emptiness is hardly conveyed by a brief summary. Shmelev wrote "The Sun of the Dead" when he no longer believed either in his own future or in the future of Russia.

Not far from the dilapidated house where the hero of the novel lives, there are dachas - deserted, cold, neglected. In one of them lived a retired treasurer - a kind, absent-minded old man. He lived in a house with a little granddaughter. He loved to sit by the shore, catch gobies. And in the morning the old man went to the market for fresh tomatoes and feta cheese. Once he was stopped, taken to the basement and shot. The treasurer's fault was that he wore an old military overcoat. For this he was killed. The little granddaughter sat in an empty dacha and cried.

As already mentioned, one of the chapters is called "About Babu Yaga". The above story about the treasurer is its summary. Shmelev dedicated the "Sun of the Dead" to the fate of people who suffered from the invisible "iron broom". In those days, there were many strange and frightening metaphors in everyday life. “Place the Crimea with an iron broom” is a phrase that the author recalls. And he sees a huge witch destroying thousands of human lives with the help of her fabulous attribute.

What does Ivan Shmelev talk about in the following chapters? "The sun of the dead", a summary of which is set out in the article, is like a cry from the soul of one doomed to perish. But the author hardly speaks about himself. "Sun of the Dead" is a book about Russia. Short tragic stories are details of a big and terrible picture.

"Creators of new life ... Where are they from?" the writer asks. And does not find an answer. These people came and plundered what had been built for centuries. They defiled the tombs of the saints, tore apart the very memory of Russia. But before you destroy, you must learn to create. The destroyers of Russian and Orthodox traditions did not know this, and therefore were doomed, like their victims, to certain death. Hence the name given to the book by Ivan Shmelev - "The Sun of the Dead".

The summary, description, plot of the work can be conveyed in this way: one of the last Russian intellectuals, being on the verge of death, observes the emergence of a new state. He does not understand the methods of the new government. He will never fit into this system. But the hero of the book suffers not only from his personal pain, but also because he does not understand what the destruction, blood and suffering of children are for. As history has shown, the "Great Terror" had many negative consequences for the entire Soviet society.

Boris Shishkin

In "Sun of the Dead" Shmelev tells about the fate of his brother, the young writer Boris Shishkin. Even in the years of terror, this man dreams of writing. Paper and ink cannot be found. He wants to devote his books to something light, pure. The author knows that Shishkin is unusually talented. And also that in the life of this young man there was so much grief as would be enough for a hundred lives.

Shishkin served in the infantry. During the First World War he was on the German front. He was taken prisoner, where he was tortured, starved, but miraculously survived. He returned home to another country. Since Boris chose an occupation to his liking: he picked up orphans from the street. But the Bolsheviks soon arrested him. Escaping death again, Shishkin ended up in the Crimea. On the peninsula, sick and dying of hunger, he still dreamed that someday he would write kind, bright stories for children.

The end of the ends

This is the title of the final chapter of the book. "When will these deaths end?" - the author asks questions. A neighbor's professor died. His house was immediately plundered. On the way, the hero met a woman with a dying child. Complained about fate. He could not hear her story to the end and fled from the mother of the dying baby to his vineyard.

"Sun of the Dead" (Ivan Shmelev) critics called the most tragic work in the history of world literature. What is so terrible and amazing about him? The answer to this and many other questions can be found in this article.

History of creation and genre features

The work "The Sun of the Dead" marked the second - emigration - stage of Ivan Shmelev's work. The genre chosen by the writers for their creation is epic. Let us remind that outstanding national-historical events are described in this kind of works. What is Shmelev talking about?

The writer chooses a truly memorable event, but there is nothing to be proud of. It depicts the Crimean famine of 1921-1922. "Sun of the Dead" is a requiem for those who died in those terrible years - and not only from a lack of food, but also from the actions of revolutionaries. It is also important that the son of Shmelev himself, who remained in Russia, was shot in 1921, and the book was published in 1923.

"Sun of the Dead": a summary

The action takes place in August on the Crimean Sea coast. All night long, the hero was tormented by strange dreams, and he woke up from a squabble of neighbors. I don’t want to get up, but he remembers that the Transfiguration holiday begins.

In an abandoned house on the way, he sees a peacock that has been living there for a long time. Once he belonged to a hero, but now the bird is no one, like himself. Sometimes the peacock returns to him and picks grapes. And the narrator chases him - there is not enough food, the sun has burned everything out.

From the farm, the hero still has a turkey with turkey poults. He keeps them as a memory of the past.

Food could be bought, but because of the Red Guards, ships no longer enter the port. And they also do not allow people to approach the provisions in the warehouses. The dead silence of the churchyard reigns around.

Everyone around is suffering from hunger. And those who recently walked with slogans and supported the Reds in anticipation of a good life no longer hope for anything. And above all this, a cheerful hot sun shines ...

Baba Yaga

The Crimean dachas were emptied, all the professors were shot, and the janitors stole the property. And on the radio the order was given to "Place the Crimea with an iron broom." And Baba Yaga got down to business, sweeping.

The doctor comes to visit the narrator. They took everything from him, not even a watch was left. He sighs and says that now it is better underground than on earth. When the revolution broke out, the doctor and his wife were in Europe, romanticized about the future. And he now compares the revolution with the experiments of Sechenov. Only instead of frogs they cut out people's hearts, put "stars" on their shoulders, and crushed the back of their heads from revolvers.

The hero looks after him and thinks that now nothing is scary. After all, now Baba Yaga is in the mountains.

The neighbors' cow was slaughtered in the evening, and the owner strangled the killer. The hero came to the noise, and at this time someone killed his chicken.

A neighbor's girl comes and asks for cereals - their mother dies. The narrator gives away everything he had. A neighbor appears and tells how she exchanged a gold chain for food.

Playing with death

The actions of the epic "The Sun of the Dead" (Ivan Shmelev) continue to develop. The narrator sets out early in the morning to cut a tree. Here he falls asleep and is awakened by Boris Shishkin, a young writer. He is not washed, torn off, with a swollen face, with uncut nails.

His past was not easy: he fought in the First World War, he was taken prisoner, almost shot as a spy. But in the end they were simply sent to work in the mines. Under Soviet rule, Shishkin was able to return to his homeland, but immediately fell into the hands of the Cossacks, who barely let him go.

The news comes that six prisoners of the Soviet regime escaped not far. Now everyone is threatened with raids and searches.

End of September. The narrator looks at the sea and mountains - it is quiet around. He recalls how he recently met three children on the road - a girl and two boys. Their father was arrested on charges of killing a cow. Then the children went in search of food. In the mountains, the older girl liked the Tatar guys, and they fed the children and even gave food to take.

However, the narrator no longer walks on the road and does not want to communicate with people. Better to look animals in the eyes, but there are not many of them left.

The disappearance of the peacock

“The Sun of the Dead” tells about the fate of those who rejoiced and welcomed the new government. The summary, albeit not to the extent of the original, conveys the wicked irony of their lives. Previously, they went to rallies, shouted, demanded, but now they have died of hunger and for the 5th day their bodies have been lying and cannot even wait for the burial pit.

At the end of October, the peacock disappears, and hunger is getting worse. The narrator recalls how a starving bird came for food a few days ago. Then he tried to strangle her, but could not - his hand did not rise. And now the peacock is gone. A neighbor's boy brought some feathers of a bird and said that it must have been eaten by the doctor. The narrator takes the feathers tenderly, like a fragile flower, and places them on the veranda.

HE thinks that everything around is the circles of hell, which are gradually shrinking. Even a family of fishermen is dying of hunger. The son died, the daughter gathered for the pass, Nikolai, the head of the family, also died. There was only one mistress left.

Interchange

The epic "The Sun of the Dead" is coming to an end (summary). November came. The old Tatar returns the debt at night - he brought flour, pears, tobacco. The news arrives that the doctor burned down in his almond orchards, and that his house had already begun to be robbed.

Winter has come, the rains have come. The hunger continues. The sea completely stops feeding the fishermen. They come to ask for bread to the representatives of the new government, but in response they are only urged to hold on and come to the rallies.

At the pass, they killed two people who exchanged wine for wheat. The grain was brought to the city, washed and eaten. The narrator ponders that you can't wash everything.

The hero tries to remember what month it is ... it seems, December. He goes to the seashore and looks at the cemetery. The setting sun illuminates the chapel. Like the sun smiles at the dead. In the evening, the father of the writer Shishkin visits him and says that his son was shot "for robbery."

Spring is coming.

"Sun of the Dead": analysis

This work is called Shmelev's most powerful thing. Against the background of the dispassionate and beautiful Crimean nature, a real tragedy unfolds - hunger takes away all living things: people, animals, birds. The writer raises in the work the question of the value of life in times of great social change.

It is impossible to stand aside and not think about what is more important while reading "The Sun of the Dead". The theme of the work in a global sense is the struggle between life and death, between humanity and the animal principle. The author writes about how poverty destroys human souls, and this frightens him more than hunger. Shmelev also raises such philosophical questions as the search for truth, the meaning of life, human values, etc.

Heroes

More than once the author describes the transformation of a man into a beast, into a murderer and a traitor on the pages of the epic "The Sun of the Dead". The main characters are also not immune from this. For example, a doctor - a friend of the narrator - gradually loses all his moral principles. And if at the beginning of the work he talks about writing a book, then in the middle of the story he kills and eats a peacock, and at the end he begins to use opium and dies in a fire. There are also those who became an informer for bread. But such, according to the author, are even worse. They are rotten from the inside, and their eyes are empty and lifeless.

There is no one in the work who would not suffer from hunger. But everyone carries it in their own way. And in this test, it becomes clear what a person is really worth.