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The idea of ​​the story "One Day in Ivan Denisovich" came to Alexander Solzhenitsyn during his imprisonment in a special regime camp in the winter of 1950-1951. He was able to realize it only in 1959. Since then, the book has been reprinted several times, after which it was withdrawn from the sale and libraries. The story appeared in the free access in the homeland only in 1990. The prototypes for the characters of the work were real people whom the author knew during his stay in the camps or at the front.

Shukhov's life in a special regime camp

The story begins with a signal of the rise in a special regime correctional camp. This signal was given by hitting the rail with a hammer. The main character, Ivan Shukhov, never slept through the lift. Between him and the beginning of work, the convicts had about an hour and a half of free time, in which they could try to earn extra money. Such a side job could be helping in the kitchen, sewing or cleaning the lockers. Shukhov was always happy to work part-time, but that day he did not feel good. He lay and wondered whether he should go to the medical unit. In addition, the man was disturbed by rumors that their team would be sent to the construction of Sotsgorodok, instead of building workshops. And this work promised to be hard labor - in the cold without the possibility of heating, far from the barracks. Brigadier Shukhov went to settle this issue with the contractors, and, according to Shukhov's assumptions, bribed them in the form of bacon.
Suddenly, the jacket and pea jacket with which he was covered was rudely tore off the man. These were the hands of an overseer named Tartar. He immediately threatened Shukhov with three days of "kondeya with a withdrawal." In local jargon, this meant three days in a punishment cell with the conclusion to work. Shukhov began to playfully ask for forgiveness from the warder, but he remained adamant and ordered the man to follow him. Shukhov obediently hurried after the Tatar. It was a terrible frost outside. The prisoner looked hopefully at the large thermometer hanging in the yard. According to the rules, at temperatures below forty-one degrees, they were not taken to work.

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Meanwhile, the men came to the wardens' room. There, the Tatar generously proclaimed that he forgave Shukhov, but he must clean the floor in this room. The man assumed such an outcome, but he began to playfully thank the warden for mitigating the punishment and promised never to miss the rise again. Then he rushed to the well for water, thinking how to wash the floor and not get his boots wet, because he did not have replacement shoes. Once in eight years of imprisonment, he was given excellent leather boots. Shukhov loved them very much and took care of them, but the boots had to be handed over when they were replaced by felt boots. During his entire period of imprisonment, he did not regret anything as much as those boots.
Quickly washing the floor, the man rushed into the dining room. It was a very gloomy building filled with steam. Men in brigades sat at long tables eating gruel and porridge. The others crowded in the aisle, waiting for their turn.

Shukhov in the medical unit

Each brigade of prisoners had a hierarchy. Shukhov was not the last person in his own, therefore, when he came from the dining room, the guy below his rank sat and cleaned his breakfast. Balanda and porridge have already cooled down and have become practically inedible. But Shukhov ate it all thoughtfully and slowly, he reflected that in the camp the convicts only have personal time, that ten minutes for breakfast and five minutes for lunch.
After breakfast, the man went to the medical unit, almost reaching it, he remembered that he had to go to buy a samosad from a Lithuanian who received the package. But after hesitating a little, he still chose the medical unit. Shukhov entered the building, which never ceased to amaze him with its whiteness and cleanliness. All the offices were still locked. Paramedic Nikolai Vdovushkin sat at the post, and diligently wrote words on sheets of paper.

Our hero noted that Kolya wrote something "leftist", that is, not related to work, but immediately concluded that this did not concern him.

He complained to the paramedic that he was not feeling well, he gave him a thermometer, but warned him that the outfits had already been distributed, and he had to complain about his health in the evening. Shukhov understood that he would not be able to stay in the medical unit. Vdovushkin continued to write. Few people knew that Nikolai became a paramedic only when he was in the zone. Prior to that, he was a student at a literary institute, and the local doctor Stepan Grigorovich hired him, in the hope that he would write here what he could not in the wild. Shukhov never ceased to be amazed at the cleanliness and silence that reigned in the medical unit. He spent five whole minutes inactive. The thermometer read thirty-seven and two. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov silently put on his hat and hurried to the barrack to join his 104th brigade before work.

The harsh everyday life of prisoners

Brigadier Tyurin was sincerely glad that Shukhov did not end up in the punishment cell. He gave him a ration, which consisted of bread and a pile of sugar poured on top of it. The inmate hastily licked off the sugar and sewed half of the bread out into the mattress. He hid the second part of the ration in the pocket of his quilted jacket. At a signal from the foreman, the men went to work. Shukhov noted with satisfaction that they were going to work in the same place, which meant that Tyurin had managed to come to an agreement. On the way, the prisoners were waiting for "shmon". It was a procedure to find out if they were carrying something forbidden outside the camp. Today the process was led by Lieutenant Volkova, whom even the head of the camp himself was afraid of. Despite the frost, he forced the men to strip down to their shirts. Everyone who had extra clothes was confiscated. Shukhov's one-brigade leader Buinovsky, a former hero of the Soviet Union, was outraged by such behavior of his superiors. He accused the lieutenant of not being a Soviet man, for which he immediately received ten days of strict regime, but only upon his return from work.
After the chase, the convicts were lined up in rows of five, carefully counted and sent under escort to the cold steppe to work.

The frost was such that everyone wrapped their faces with rags and walked in silence, looking down at the ground. Ivan Denisovich, in order to distract himself from the hungry rumbling in his stomach, began to think about how soon he would write a letter home.

He was supposed to receive two letters a year, and he didn't need more. He had not seen his family since the summer of 1941, and now it was 1951 in the yard. The man thought that now he has more in common with neighbors on the bunk than with relatives.

Wife's letters

In her rare letters, his wife wrote to Shukhov about the hard collective farm life, which only women pull. The men who returned from the war work on the side. Ivan Denisovich could not understand how you can not want to work on your land.

My wife said that many in their area are engaged in a fashionable profitable trade - carpet dyeing. The unhappy woman hoped that her husband would also take care of this business when he returned home, and this would help the family to get out of poverty.

In the working area

Meanwhile, the 104th brigade reached the working area, they were built again, counted and allowed into the territory. Everything was dug and dug up there, boards and chips were scattered everywhere, traces of the foundation were visible, there were prefabricated houses. Brigadier Tyurin went to receive an outfit for the brigade for the day. The men, taking this opportunity, ran into a large wooden building on the territory, a heating room. The place at the stove was occupied by the thirty-eighth brigade, which worked there. Shukhov and his comrades just leaned against the wall. Ivan Denisovich could not resist the temptation and ate almost all the bread that he had in store for lunch. About twenty minutes later the brigadier appeared, and he looked displeased. The team was sent to complete the construction of the CHP plant, which had been abandoned since the fall. Tyurin distributed the work. Shukhov and the Latvian Kildigs got the wall masonry outfit, since they were the best craftsmen in the brigade. Ivan Denisovich was an excellent bricklayer, the Latvian was a carpenter. But first it was necessary to insulate the building where the men were to work and build a stove. Shukhov and Kildigs went to the other end of the yard to fetch a roll of tar paper. With this material, they were going to seal the holes in the windows. Tol had to be carried into the building of the thermal power station, secretly from the foreman and informers, who watched over the theft of building materials. The men put the roll upright and, pressing it tightly with their bodies, carried it into the building. The work was in full swing, each prisoner worked with the thought - the more the brigade did, each of its members would receive a large ration there. Tyurin was a strict but fair foreman, under his command everyone received a well-deserved piece of bread.

Closer to noon, the stove was built, the windows were filled with tar paper, and some of the workers even sat down to rest and warm their chilled hands by the hearth. The men began to urge Shukhov that he was already almost free with one foot. He was given a term of ten years. He had already served eight of them. Many of Ivan Denisovich's comrades had to sit for another twenty-five years.

Memories of the past

Shukhov began to remember how it all happened to him. He was imprisoned for treason. In February 1942, their entire army in the Northwest was surrounded. Ammunition and food supplies ran out. So the Germans began to catch all of them in the forests. And Ivan Denisovich was caught. He stayed in captivity for a couple of days - five of them escaped with his comrades. When they reached their own, the submachine gunner killed three of them with a rifle. Shukhov and a friend survived, so they were immediately recorded as German spies. Then in counterintelligence they beat me for a long time, forced to sign all the papers. If he had not signed, they would have been killed at all. Ivan Denisovich has already managed to visit several camps. The previous ones were not of a strict regime, but it was even harder to live there. In felling, for example, they were forced to modify the daily norm at night. So everything is not so bad here, reasoned Shukhov. To which one of his comrades Fetyukov objected that people were being slaughtered in this camp. So here it is clearly no better than in the domestic camps. Indeed, two informers and one poor laborer have been stabbed to death in the camp lately, obviously confusing the sleeping place. Strange things began to happen.

Prisoners' lunch

Suddenly, the prisoners heard a whistle - energy trains, so it's time to have lunch. Deputy Brigadier Pavlo called Shukhov and the youngest in the brigade, Gopchik, to take places in the dining room.

The production dining room was a roughly hammered wooden building without a floor, divided into two parts. In one the cook cooked porridge, in the other the convicts dined. Fifty grams of cereal were allocated per prisoner per day. But there were a lot of privileged categories that got a double portion: foremen, office workers, sixes, a medical instructor who oversaw the preparation of food. As a result, the convicts were given very small portions, barely covering the bottom of the bowls. Shukhov was lucky that day. Counting the number of servings per brigade, the cook hesitated. Ivan Denisovich, who helped Pavel count the bowls, gave the wrong number. The cook got confused and miscalculated. As a result, the brigade got two extra portions. But only the foreman had to decide who would get them. Shukhov in his heart hoped that to him. In the absence of Tyurin, who was in the office, Pavlo was in command. He gave one portion to Shukhov, and the second to Buinovsky, who had already passed it over the past month.

After eating, Ivan Denisovich went to the office - he carried porridge to another member of the brigade who worked there. It was a filmmaker named Caesar, he was a Muscovite, a wealthy intellectual and never wore clothes. Shukhov found him smoking a pipe and talking about art with some old man. Caesar took the porridge and continued the conversation. And Shukhov returned to the CHP.

Memories of Tyurin

The foreman was already there. He knocked out good rations for his guys this week and was in a cheerful mood. The usually silent Tyurin began to remember his past life. He recalled how he was expelled from the ranks of the Red Army in 1930 because his father was a kulak. How he got home on the checkpoints, but he did not find his father, how he managed to escape from his home with his little brother at night. He gave that boy to the thieves in a gang and after that he never saw again.

The convicts listened to him attentively with respect, but it was time to get down to work. They began to work even before the call, because before lunchtime they were busy arranging their workplace, but they had not done anything for the norm. Tyurin decided that Shukhov would lay one wall with a cinder block, and as an apprentice he assigned the friendly deaf Senka Klevshin to him. They said that Klevshin escaped from captivity three times, and even Buchenwald passed. The brigadier himself undertook to lay the second wall together with Kildigs. In the cold, the solution quickly solidified, so it was necessary to lay the cinder block quickly. The spirit of competition so captured the men that the rest of the brigade barely had time to bring them the solution.

The one hundred and fourth brigade worked so hard that it barely had time to count at the gate, which is held at the end of the working day. All were again lined up in fives and counted with the gates closed. The second time had to be counted when they were open. There should have been four hundred and sixty-three convicts in total. But after three recalculations, it turned out to be only four hundred and sixty-two. The convoy ordered everyone to line up in brigades. It turned out that there was not enough Moldovan from the thirty-second. It was rumored that, unlike many other prisoners, he was a real spy. The foreman and the assistant rushed to the object to look for the missing, all the others stood in the bitter frost, overwhelmed by anger at the Moldovan. It became clear that the evening was gone - nothing could be done on the territory before lights out. And there was still a long way to go to the barracks. But then three figures appeared in the distance. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief - they found it.

It turns out that the missing person was hiding from the foreman and fell asleep on the scaffolding. The convicts began to vilify the Moldovan for what it was worth, but they quickly calmed down, everyone already wanted to leave the industrial zone.

Hacksaw hidden in the sleeve

Already just before the shmona on the watch, Ivan Denisovich agreed with the director Caesar that he would take his turn in the parcel post. Caesar was from the rich - he received parcels twice a month. Shukhov hoped that for his service the young man would give him something to eat or smoke. Before the search, Shukhov, out of habit, examined all the pockets, although he was not going to bring anything prohibited today. Suddenly, in a pocket on his knee, he found a piece of a hacksaw, which he had picked up in the snow at a construction site. In the heat of his work, he completely forgot about the find. And now it was a pity to give up the hacksaw. She could bring him earnings or ten days in a punishment cell, if found. At his own peril and risk, he hid the hacksaw in a mitten. And here Ivan Denisovich was lucky. The guard who was inspecting him was distracted. Before that, he had only managed to squeeze one mitten, and did not finish the second. Happy Shukhov rushed to catch up with his own.

Dinner in the zone

Having passed through all the numerous gates, the convicts finally felt themselves "free people" - everyone rushed to go about their business. Shukhov ran to the queue for the parcels. He himself did not receive any parcels - he forbade his wife to tear her away from the children. But all the same, his heart ached when a parcel came to one of the neighbors in the barracks. About ten minutes later Caesar appeared and allowed Shukhov to eat his supper, while he took his place in the line.

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Inspired, Ivan Denisovich rushed into the dining room.
There, after the ritual of searching for free trays and space at the tables, the 104th finally sat down to dinner. The hot gruel pleasantly warmed the chilled bodies from the inside. Shukhov reflected on what a good day it was - two portions for lunch, two in the evening. He did not eat bread - he decided to hide it, and he took Caesar's ration with him. And after dinner, burned through, he rushed to the seventh barrack, he himself lived in the ninth, to buy a samosad from a Latvian. Having carefully fished out two rubles from under the lining of his quilted jacket, Ivan Denisovich paid for the tobacco. After that, he hurriedly ran "home". Caesar was already in the barracks. The dizzying smells of sausage and smoked fish wafted around his bunk. Shukhov did not stare at the presents, but politely offered the director his ration of bread. But Caesar did not take the ration. Shukhov never dreamed of more. He climbed up to his bunk in order to have time to hide the hacksaw before evening formation. Caesar invited Buinovsky to tea, he felt sorry for the goner. They were sitting cheerfully eating sandwiches when they came for the former hero. They did not forgive him for his morning antics - Captain Buinovsky went to the punishment cell for ten days. And then the check appeared. And Caesar did not have time to hand over his products to the storage room before the start of the check. Now he had two left to go out - either during the recount they would take them away, or they would snatch them out of bed if they left them. Shukhov felt sorry for the intellectual, so he whispered to him that Caesar should come out the last for the recount, and he would rush in the first rows, so they would keep watch over the presents in turn.

Reward for labor

Everything turned out as well as possible. The capital's delicacies remained intact. And Ivan Denisovich received for his labors several cigarettes, a couple of cookies and one round of sausage. He shared the cookies with the Baptist Alyosha, who was his neighbor in the bunks, and ate the sausage himself. It felt good in Shukhov's mouth from the meat. Smiling, Ivan Denisovich thanked God for another day he lived. Today everything went well for him - his illness did not knock him down, he did not get into the punishment cell, he got hold of rations, he managed to buy samosad. It was a good day. And all in all, Ivan Denisovich had three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days ...

At five o'clock in the morning, as always, an ascent struck - with a hammer on the rail at the headquarters barrack. The intermittent ringing faintly passed through the glass, frozen into two fingers, and soon subsided: it was cold, and the warden was reluctant to wave his hand for a long time.

The ringing died down, and outside the window everything was the same as in the middle of the night, when Shukhov got up to the parasha, there was darkness and darkness, and three yellow lanterns hit the window: two - in the zone, one - inside the camp.

And they didn't go to unlock the barracks, and it was impossible to hear that the orderlies took the parachute barrel on sticks - to carry it out.

Shukhov never woke up, always got up on it - before the divorce it was an hour and a half of his own time, not official, and who knows the camp life, can always earn extra money: sew someone from the old lining a cover for mittens; for a rich brigadier to serve dry felt boots directly on the bed, so that he does not stomp around the heap with bare feet, does not choose; or run through the lockers, where someone needs to serve, sweep or bring something; or go to the dining room to collect the bowls from the tables and take them to the dishwasher in slides - they will also feed, but there are many hunters, there is no end to it, and most importantly, if there is anything left in the bowl, you can’t resist, you’ll start licking the bowls. And Shukhov firmly remembered the words of his first brigadier Kuzyomin - he was an old camp wolf, he had been sitting by nine hundred and forty-three for twelve years already, and once on a bare clearing by the fire he said to his reinforcements brought from the front:

- Here, guys, the law is the taiga. But people live here too. In the camp, that's who dies: who licks the bowls, who hopes for the medical unit, and who to godfather walks to knock.

As for the godfather - this, of course, he turned down. Those are saving themselves. Only their care is on someone else's blood.

Shukhov always got up on the way up, but today he didn’t get up. Even in the evening he felt uneasy, either shivering or breaking. And I didn't get warm at night. Through a dream, it seemed that he seemed to be completely ill, then he left a little. I didn’t want the morning.

But the morning came as usual.

And where do you get acne - there is ice on the window, and on the walls along the junction with the ceiling all over the barracks - a healthy barrack! - the spider web is white. Frost.

Shukhov did not get up. He lay on top lining, with his head covered with a blanket and a pea jacket, and in a quilted jacket, in one rolled up sleeve, thrusting both feet together. He did not see, but from the sounds he understood everything that was going on in the barracks and in their brigade corner. Here, stepping heavily along the corridor, the orderlies carried one of the eight-bucket parasha. It is considered a disabled person, easy work, but come on, take it out, do not spill it! Here in the 75th brigade a bunch of felt boots from the dryer were slammed on the floor. And here - in ours (and today it was our turn to dry boots). The foreman and the foreman are silently putting on their shoes, and their lining creaks. The brigadier will now go to the bread slicer, and the brigadier will go to the headquarters barracks, to the workmen.

Yes, not just to the contractors, as he goes every day, - Shukhov remembered: today the fate is being decided - they want to fry their 104th brigade from the construction of workshops to the new Sotsgorodok facility. And that Sotsgorodok is a bare field, with snowy hillsides, and before doing anything there, you have to dig holes, put up poles and pull barbed wire from yourself so as not to run away. And then build.

There, surely, there will be nowhere to warm up for a month - not a kennel. And you can't make a fire - how to heat it? Work hard on your conscience - one salvation.

The foreman is anxious, he is going to settle it. Some other brigade, slow, to push there instead. Of course, you can't come to an agreement empty-handed. To carry half a kilo of bacon to the senior contractor. And even a kilogram.

The test is not a loss, is it possible to try in the medical unit touch, free from work for a day? Well, right, the whole body separates.

And yet - which of the guards is on duty today?

On duty - I remembered - One and a half Ivan, thin and long sergeant black-eyed. The first time you look - it's just scary, but you recognize him - of all the duty attendants, he is more agreeable: he does not put him in a punishment cell, nor does he drag him to the head of the regime. So you can lie down, even while in the dining room of the ninth barrack.

The lining shook and swayed. Two people got up at once: above - Shukhov's neighbor, the Baptist Alyoshka, and below - Buinovsky, a former captain of the second rank, cavtorang.

The old men of the orderlies, carrying out both buckets, got in trouble, who should go for boiling water. They swore affectionately, like women. An electric welder from the 20th brigade barked:

- Hey, wicks!- and launched a felt boot into them. - I'll make peace!

The felt boot knocked dully on the post. They fell silent.

In the next brigade, the brigade leader was a little burcoted:

- Vasil Fedoritch! They twitched in the food table, you bastards: there were nine hundred and four, but there were only three. Who shouldn't be?

He said this quietly, but of course the whole team heard and hid: they will cut off a piece of someone in the evening.

And Shukhov lay and lay on the compressed sawdust of his mattress. At least one side would have taken it - or it would have chilled in a chill, or the aches would have passed. And neither one nor the other.

While the Baptist was whispering prayers, Buinovsky returned from the breeze and announced to anyone, but as if gloatingly:

- Well, hold on, Red Navy men! Thirty degrees of faithful!

And Shukhov decided to go to the medical unit.

And then someone with authority pulled off his quilted jacket and blanket. Shukhov threw off his pea jacket and raised himself. Below him, his head level with the top bunk of the lining, stood a thin Tatar.

It means that he was on duty out of line and crept quietly.

- Still eight hundred and fifty-four! - read the Tatar from a white patch on the back of a black pea jacket. - Three days kondeya with a conclusion!

And as soon as his special stifled voice rang out, as in the whole half-dark barrack, where not every light was on, where two hundred people slept on fifty bungalows, everyone who had not yet got up immediately turned and began to dress hastily.

- Why, citizen chief? - giving his voice more pity than he felt, asked Shukhov.

With the conclusion to work - this is still half a punishment cell, and they will give hot, and there is no time to think. A full punishment cell is when without withdrawal.

- Didn't you get up on the ascent? Let's go to the commandant's office, - explained Tatarin lazily, because both he and Shukhov, and everyone, understood what the condo was for.

There was nothing on the Tartar's hairless, crumpled face. He turned around, looking for a second person, but everyone already, some in the semi-darkness, some under a light bulb, on the first floor of the clapboards and on the second, pushed their legs into black cotton trousers with numbers on their left knees or, already dressed, wrapped themselves up and hurried to the exit - wait out the Tatar in the yard.

If Shukhov had been given a punishment cell for something else, where he would have deserved, it would not have been so insulting. It was a shame that he always got up from the first. But it was impossible to take time off from the Tatar, he knew. And, continuing to ask for time off just for the sake of order, Shukhov, as he was in wadded trousers that had not been taken off for the night (above the left knee, they also had a worn, soiled flap sewn on, and on it a black, already faded paint number Shch-854), put on a quilted jacket (there were two such numbers on her - one on the chest and one on the back), chose his felt boots from a pile on the floor, put on a hat (with the same flap and number on the front) and went out after Tatar.

The entire 104th brigade saw Shukhov being taken away, but no one said a word: to nothing, and what do you say? The brigadier could have stood up a little, but he was not there. And Shukhov didn’t say a word to anyone either, he didn’t tease Tatarin. They'll save breakfast, they'll guess.

So we went out together.

The frost was with a haze, breath taking. Two large searchlights shot across the area from the far corner towers. The lanterns of the zone and the inner lanterns were shining. There were so many of them that they completely brightened the stars.

Squeaking with felt boots in the snow, the convicts quickly ran about their business - some to the lavatory, some to the locker, some to the parcel warehouse, and then the cereals were taken to the individual kitchen. All of them have their heads sunk into their shoulders, their pea coats are wrapped around them, and all of them are not so cold from the frost as from the thought that they will spend a whole day in this frost.

And the Tatar, in his old greatcoat with his blue collar buttons, walked smoothly, and the frost seemed not to take him at all.

Still from the film "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (1970)

The peasant and front-line soldier Ivan Denisovich Shukhov turned out to be a "state criminal", a "spy" and ended up in one of the Stalinist camps, like millions of Soviet people, convicted without fault during the "personality cult" and mass repressions. He left home on June 23, 1941, on the second day after the start of the war with Hitler's Germany, “... in February 1942, their entire army was surrounded on the North-Western [front], and they did not throw anything from their planes, and there were no planes either. We got to the point where they planted the hooves from the horses that had died, soaked that cornea in water and ate, ”that is, the command of the Red Army abandoned its soldiers to perish in the encirclement. Together with a group of fighters, Shukhov ended up in German captivity, fled from the Germans and miraculously reached his own. The careless story of how he was in captivity led him to a Soviet concentration camp, since the state security organs indiscriminately considered all those who escaped from captivity as spies and saboteurs.

The second part of Shukhov's memories and reflections during the long camp work and a short rest in the barrack relates to his life in the village. From the fact that his relatives do not send him food (he himself refused to send parcels in a letter to his wife), we understand that people are starving in the village no less than in the camp. The wife writes to Shukhov that the collective farmers make their living by painting fake carpets and selling them to the townspeople.

Flashbacks and random information about life outside the barbed wire aside, the entire story takes exactly one day. In this short period of time, a panorama of camp life unfolds before us, a kind of "encyclopedia" of life in the camp.

First, there is a whole gallery of social types and at the same time vivid human characters: Caesar is a metropolitan intellectual, a former filmmaker, who, however, in the camp also leads a "lordly" life in comparison with Shukhov: he receives food parcels, enjoys certain privileges during work ; Kavtorang - repressed naval officer; an old convict who was still in tsarist prisons and hard labor (the old revolutionary guard, who did not find a common language with the policy of Bolshevism in the 30s); Estonians and Latvians are the so-called "bourgeois nationalists"; Baptist Alyosha - the spokesman for the thoughts and way of life of a very heterogeneous religious Russia; Gopchik is a sixteen-year-old teenager whose fate shows that the repression did not distinguish between children and adults. And Shukhov himself is a typical representative of the Russian peasantry with his special business acumen and organic mindset. Against the background of these people who suffered from repression, a figure of a different kind emerges - the head of the Volkov regime, who regulates the life of prisoners and, as it were, symbolizes the ruthless communist regime.

Secondly, a detailed picture of the camp life and work. Life in the camp remains life with its visible and invisible passions and subtlest experiences. They are mainly related to the problem of getting food. They feed little and poorly creepy gruel with frozen cabbage and small fish. A kind of the art of living in the camp is to get yourself an extra ration of bread and an extra bowl of gruel, and if you're lucky - some tobacco. For this one has to go to the greatest tricks, currying favor with "authorities" like Caesar and others. At the same time, it is important to preserve your human dignity, not to become a "degraded" beggar, like, for example, Fetyukov (however, there are few of them in the camp). This is important not even out of lofty considerations, but out of necessity: a “degraded” person loses the will to live and will surely die. Thus, the question of preserving the human image in oneself becomes a question of survival. The second vital issue is the attitude towards bonded labor. Prisoners, especially in winter, work hunting, almost competing with each other and the brigade with the brigade, in order not to freeze and in a peculiar way "shorten" the time from sleeping to sleeping, from feeding to feeding. It is on this incentive that the terrible system of collective labor is built. But it nevertheless does not completely destroy the natural joy of physical labor in people: the scene of the construction of a house by the team where Shukhov works is one of the most inspired in the story. The ability to work "correctly" (not overstraining, but also not shirking), as well as the ability to get yourself extra rations, is also a high art. As well as the ability to hide from the eyes of the guards a piece of saw that has turned up, from which the camp craftsmen make miniature knives to exchange for food, tobacco, warm clothes ... In relation to the guards who constantly carry out "shmons", Shukhov and the rest of the Prisoners are in the position of wild animals : they must be more cunning and dexterous than armed people who have the right to punish them and even shoot them for retreating from the camp regime. To deceive the guards and the camp authorities is also a high art.

The day the hero narrates about was, in his own opinion, successful - “they didn’t put in a punishment cell, the brigade wasn’t kicked out on Sotsgorodok (work in the winter in a bare field - ed.), At lunchtime he cooked porridge (got an extra portion - Ed.), the foreman closed the interest well (the system of evaluating camp labor - Ed.), the wall was laid by Shukhov cheerfully, he did not get caught with a hacksaw, he worked in the evening at Caesar's and bought tobacco. And he didn't get sick, he got over it. A day passed, unclouded by anything, almost happy. There were three thousand six hundred fifty-three such days in his period from bell to bell. Because of leap years - three extra days were added ... "

At the end of the story, a short dictionary of thieves' expressions and specific camp terms and abbreviations that are found in the text is given.

Retold

November 18 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" - the most famous, and, in the opinion of many, the best literary work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

The fate of the story reflected Russian history. During the years of the Khrushchev thaw, it was published and raised on the shield in the USSR, under Brezhnev it was banned and withdrawn from libraries, and in the 1990s it was included in the compulsory school curriculum for literature.

On November 6, on the eve of his anniversary, Vladimir Putin received the writer's widow, Natalya Solzhenitsyna, who shared her concerns about reducing the number of hours devoted to studying literature in the school curriculum.

Solzhenitsyna's phrases that "without knowledge of history and literature, a person walks like a lame" and "unconsciousness is a disease of a weak person, and a weak society, and a weak state" were included in the TV plot. The President promised to "talk to the Ministry of Education."

Solzhenitsyn is considered a literary classic, but was, rather, a great historian.

The main work that brought him worldwide fame, The Gulag Archipelago, is not a novel, but a fundamental scientific research, and even carried out at the risk of his life. Most of his literary works today, to put it mildly, are not read.

But the first try of the pen, "One Day", was extremely successful. This story amazes with colorful characters and rich language and is disassembled into quotes.

The author and his hero

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a mathematics teacher by education, a captain-artilleryman in the war, in February 1945 was arrested in East Prussia by the SMERSH organs. The censorship revised his letter to a friend who fought on another front, containing some kind of critical remark about the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

The future writer, according to him, dreamed of literature since his school years, after interrogation at the Lubyanka received eight years of imprisonment, which he served first in the Moscow scientific-design "sharashka", then in one of the camps in the Ekibastuz region of Kazakhstan. His term ended in one month with the death of Stalin.

While living in a settlement in Kazakhstan, Solzhenitsyn experienced a severe psychological trauma: he was diagnosed with cancer. It is not known for sure whether there was a medical error or a rare case of healing from a fatal illness.

There is a belief that the one who was buried alive then lives for a long time. Solzhenitsyn died at the age of 89, and not from oncology, but from heart failure.

Image caption On the eve of the anniversary, Vladimir Putin met with the writer's widow

The idea of ​​"One Day by Ivan Denisovich" was born in the camp in the winter of 1950-1951 and was embodied in Ryazan, where the author settled in June 1957 after returning from exile and worked as a school teacher. Solzhenitsyn began writing on May 18 and finished on June 30, 1959.

“On some long winter camp day I was dragging a stretcher with my partner and thought: how to describe our whole camp life? In fact, it is enough to describe just one day in detail, in the smallest details, moreover, the day of the simplest hard worker. some horrors, it is not necessary that it was some special day, but an ordinary one, this is the very day from which the years are made up. touched and only after nine years sat down and wrote, "he later recalled.

“I didn’t write it for long at all,” Solzhenitsyn admitted. you fight off unnecessary material, just so that the excess does not climb, but to accommodate the most necessary. "

In an interview in 1976, Solzhenitsyn returned to this idea: "It is enough to collect everything in one day, as if in fragments, it is enough to describe only one day of one average, unremarkable person from morning to evening. And everything will be."

Solzhenitsyn made the main character of the Russian peasant, soldier and prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.

The day from getting up to lights out turned out well for him, and "Shukhov fell asleep, quite satisfied." The tragedy was in the last stingy phrase: "There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three such days in his period from bell to bell. Because of leap years, there were three extra days ..."

Tvardovsky and Khrushchev

Image caption Alexander Tvardovsky was a poet and a citizen

The story owed its meeting with the readers to two people: the editor-in-chief of Novy Mir, Alexander Tvardovsky, and Nikita Khrushchev.

A Soviet classic, order bearer and laureate, Tvardovsky was the son of a dispossessed peasant from Smolensk and did not forget anything, which he proved by his posthumously published poem "By the Right of Memory".

Even at the front, Solzhenitsyn felt a kindred spirit in the author of "Terkin". In his autobiographical book "Butting a Calf with an Oak", he noted "the peasant delicacy, which allowed him to stop before any lie at the last millimeter, never crossed this millimeter, nowhere! - that's why a miracle happened!"

“But the poetic significance of Tvardovsky today is not something that is forgotten, but many people no longer think that his importance as the editor of the best literary and public journal of the last century is so significant. Of course, the significance of Novy Mir is wider than Solzhenitsyn's publication alone. who opened for us military prose, "country bumpkins", published the best examples of Western literature as possible. It was a journal of new criticism, which, unlike the criticism of the 30s, did not separate "sheep" from "goats", but talk about life and literature. " - writes modern literary historian Pavel Basinsky.

"Two magazines in the history of Russia bear the author's name -" Sovremennik "by Nekrasov and" New World "by Tvardovsky. Both had both brilliant and bitterly sad destinies. Both were beloved, the most precious children of two great and very related Russian poets, and both they became their personal tragedies, the most difficult defeats in life, undoubtedly bringing their death closer, "he points out.

On November 10, 1961, Solzhenitsyn, through Raisa Orlova, the wife of his fellow inmate on the "sharashka" Lev Kopelev, handed over the manuscript of "One Day" to the editor of the prose department of the "New World" Anna Berzer. He did not indicate his name, on the advice of Kopelev, Berzer wrote on the first page: "A. Ryazansky".

On December 8, Berzer showed the manuscript to Tvardovsky, who had come out of vacation, with the words: "The camp through the eyes of a peasant is a very popular thing."

Tvardovsky read the story on the night of December 8-9. According to him, he was lying in bed, but was so shocked that he got up, put on a suit and continued reading while sitting.

"The strongest impression of the last days is the manuscript of A. Ryazansky (Solzhenitsyn)," he wrote in his diary.

This story is obliged to read every citizen of all two hundred million citizens of the Soviet Union Anna Akhmatova

On December 11, Tvardovsky telegraphed Solzhenitsyn asking him to come to Moscow as soon as possible.

The very next day, the first meeting of the author with the editors of Novy Mir took place. Solzhenitsyn considered his work a story and initially titled "Shch-854. One day of one prisoner." "Novomirtsy" proposed to slightly change the name and "for weight" to consider the story a story.

Tvardovsky showed the manuscript to Chukovsky, Marshak, Fedin, Paustovsky, Ehrenburg.

Korney Chukovsky called his review "Literary Miracle": "Shukhov is a generalized character of the Russian common man: resilient," malevolent ", hardy, jack of all trades, crafty - and kind. Vasily Terkin's brother. The story is written in HIS language, full of humor, colorful and well-aimed. "

Tvardovsky understood the censorship impassability of "Ivan Denisovich", but on the eve of the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, at which Khrushchev was preparing to pass the decision to remove Stalin from the Mausoleum, he felt that the moment had come.

On August 6, he handed over to Khrushchev's assistant Vladimir Lebedev a manuscript and a cover letter, which contained the words: "The author's name has not been known to anyone until now, but tomorrow it may become one of the remarkable names of our literature. If you find an opportunity to pay attention to this manuscript, I I will be happy, as if it were my own work. "

According to some reports, Tvardovsky also handed a copy to Khrushchev's son-in-law Alexei Adzhubei.

On September 15, Lebedev told Tvardovsky that Khrushchev had read the story, approved and ordered 23 copies of the manuscript to be submitted to the Central Committee for all members of the leadership.

Soon some regular party-literary meeting took place, one of the participants of which said that he did not understand how a thing like "Ivan Denisovich" could be liked by someone.

"I know at least one person who read and liked it," Tvardovsky replied.

If it were not for Tvardovsky as the editor-in-chief of the magazine, this story would not have been published. And if it had not been for Khrushchev at that moment, it would not have been published either. The publication of my story in the Soviet Union, in the 62nd year, like a phenomenon against physical laws Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The issue of publication was discussed, neither more nor less, at the Presidium of the Central Committee. On October 12, five days before the opening of the XXII Congress, the decision was made.

On November 18, an issue of Novy Mir with a story was printed and began to spread throughout the country. The circulation was 96,900 copies, but, at the direction of Khrushchev, it was increased by 25,000. A few months later, the story was republished by the "Roman Gazette" (700 thousand copies) and a separate book.

In an interview with the BBC on the 20th anniversary of the release of One Day in Ivan Denisovich, Solzhenitsyn recalled:

“It is absolutely clear: if it had not been for Tvardovsky as the editor-in-chief of the magazine, no, this story would not have been published. But I will add. And if it had not been for Khrushchev at that moment, it would not have been published either. this moment did not attack Stalin one more time - it would not have been published either. The publication of my story in the Soviet Union, in 1962, is like a phenomenon against physical laws. "

Solzhenitsyn considered it a great victory that his story was first published in the USSR, and not in the West.

"The reaction of Western socialists shows that if it had been published in the West, these same socialists would have said: everything is a lie, nothing of this happened. It was only because everyone was deprived of their tongues that it was published with the permission of the Central Committee in Moscow, this was shocking," - he told the BBC.

The editors and censors made a number of comments, with some of which the author agreed.

“The funniest thing for me, a hater of Stalin, was that at least once I had to name Stalin as the culprit of the disaster. Stalin alone. I made this concession: I mentioned the "mustache dad" once, "he recalled.

Unofficially, Solzhenitsyn was told that the story would have become much better if he had made his Shukhov not an innocently injured collective farmer, but an innocently injured secretary of the regional committee.

"Ivan Denisovich" was also criticized from opposite positions. Varlam Shalamov believed that Solzhenitsyn, to please the censors, embellished reality, and was especially indignant at the improbable, in his opinion, episode in which Shukhov feels joy from his forced labor.

Solzhenitsyn immediately became a celebrity.

You can live "better and more fun" when conventional "prisoners" work for you. But when the whole country saw this "prisoner" in the face of Ivan Denisovich, she sobered up and realized: you can't live like that! Pavel Basinsky, literary historian

"From all over Russia, letters to me exploded, and in letters people wrote that they had experienced what they had. Or they insisted to meet with me and tell me, and I began to meet. Everyone asked me, the author of the first camp story, to write more, still to describe this whole camp world. They did not know my plan and did not know how much I had already written, but they carried and brought me the missing material. So I collected indescribable material, which in the Soviet Union and cannot be collected - only thanks to "Ivan Denisovich ". So he became a pedestal for the" Gulag Archipelago "- he recalled.

Some wrote on envelopes: "Moscow, Novy Mir magazine, to Ivan Denisovich," and the mail arrived.

On the eve of the 50th anniversary of its publication, the story was republished in the form of a two-volume book: she herself entered the first book, and the second - letters that had been hidden for half a century in the archives of Novy Mir.

"The publication in Sovremennik" Notes of a Hunter "by Turgenev objectively brought the abolition of serfdom closer. conditional "prisoners" work for you. But when the whole country saw this "prisoner" in the person of Ivan Denisovich, she sobered up and realized: you can't live like that! " - wrote Pavel Basinsky.

The editors nominated "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" for the Lenin Prize. It was inconvenient for the "literary generals" to criticize the content of the book, which was approved by Khrushchev himself, and they found fault with the fact that previously only novels were awarded the highest award, and not "works of small forms."

Gore with oak

After Khrushchev was removed, other winds blew.

On February 5, 1966, the party boss of Uzbekistan, Sharaf Rashidov, sent a note to the Politburo, in which he separately mentioned Solzhenitsyn, calling him a "slanderer" and "an enemy of our wonderful reality."

"After all, in fact, comrades, no one has yet come out from the party positions regarding Ivan Denisovich's book," Brezhnev was indignant, confusing the hero and the author.

"When Khrushchev stood at the leadership, we inflicted tremendous harm on us in ideological work. We corrupted the intelligentsia. And how much we argued about Ivan Denisovich, how much we talked about! But he supported all this camp literature!" - said Mikhail Suslov.

Solzhenitsyn was given to understand that he could fit into the system if he forgot about the "theme of repression" and began to write about the life of the village or something else. But he continued to secretly collect materials for the "Gulag Archipelago", having met with about three hundred former prisoners and exiles over the course of several years.

Even dissidents at that time demanded respect for human rights, but did not aim at Soviet power as such. The actions were held under the slogan: "Respect your constitution!"

Solzhenitsyn was the first, indirectly in One Day, and directly in Archipelago, that it was not only about Stalin, that the communist regime was criminal from the moment of its inception and remains such that, by and large, it happened over the “Leninist Guard” historical justice.

Solzhenitsyn had his own destiny, he did not want to, and objectively could not sacrifice the "Archipelago" even for the sake of Tvardovsky Pavel Basinsky

According to a number of researchers, Solzhenitsyn single-handedly won a historic victory over the almighty Soviet state. There were many supporters of the official revision of the decisions of the 20th Congress and the rehabilitation of Stalin in the party leadership, but the publication of The Archipelago in Paris in December 1973 became such a bomb that they preferred to leave the issue in limbo.

In the USSR, the campaign against Solzhenitsyn took on an unprecedented character. Since the days of Trotsky, the propaganda machine has not fought on such a scale against one person. Every day the newspapers published letters from "Soviet writers" and "ordinary workers" with the leitmotif: "I have not read this book, but I am deeply indignant at it!"

Operating with quotations taken out of context, Solzhenitsyn was accused of sympathizing with Nazism and was labeled as a "literary Vlasovite".

For many citizens, this had an effect that was the opposite of what was desired: it means that the Soviet regime was not the same, if a person, being in Moscow, openly declares that he does not like it, and is still alive!

An anecdote was born: in the encyclopedia of the future in the article "Brezhnev" it will be written: "a politician of the era of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov."

The question of what to do with an uncontrollable writer has been discussed for a long time at the highest level. Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin demanded that he be given a prison term. Interior Minister Nikolai Shchelokov in a note to Brezhnev called on "not to execute enemies, but to strangle them in his arms." In the end, the point of view of the chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, prevailed.

On February 12, 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested, and the next day he was stripped of his citizenship and "expelled from the USSR" (he was put on a plane flying to Germany).

In the entire history of the Soviet Union, this exotic punishment was applied only twice: to Solzhenitsyn and Trotsky.

Contrary to popular belief, Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize in Literature not for "The Gulag Archipelago", but earlier, in 1970, with the wording: "For the moral strength with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature."

Soon after, all editions of One Day in Ivan Denisovich were removed from the libraries. The surviving copies cost 200 rubles on the black market - one and a half months' salary for the average Soviet worker.

On the day of Solzhenitsyn's exile, by a special order of the Glavlit, all his works were officially banned. The ban was lifted on December 31, 1988.

Suslov spoke in the spirit that if he was removed from work immediately, "he will now leave as a hero."

Tvardovsky began to create unbearable conditions and harass him with nit-picking. Army libraries stopped subscribing to Novy Mir - it was a signal that everyone understood.

The head of the department of culture of the Central Committee Vasily Shauro told the chairman of the board of the Writers' Union Georgy Markov: "All conversations with him and your actions should push Tvardovsky to leave the magazine."

Tvardovsky many times turned to Brezhnev, Minister of Culture Pyotr Demichev and other bosses, asking to clarify his position, but received evasive answers.

In February 1970, an exhausted Tvardovsky resigned from his editorial duties. Shortly thereafter, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. “The New World team was dispersed after his departure.

Solzhenitsyn was later reproached with the fact that he, having refused a compromise, "set up" Tvardovsky and "Novy Mir", which had done so much for him.

According to Pavel Basinsky, "Solzhenitsyn had his own destiny, he did not want to, and objectively could not sacrifice the Archipelago even for Tvardovsky's sake."

In turn, Solzhenitsyn, in the book "Butting a Calf with an Oak", published in the West in 1975, paid tribute to Tvardovsky, but criticized the rest of the "Novy Mir people" for the fact that they, as he believed, "did not show courageous resistance, did not make personal sacrifices. ".

According to him, "the death of Novy Mir was devoid of beauty, since it did not contain even the smallest attempt at a public struggle."

"The lack of generosity of his memory stunned me," wrote Vladimir Lakshin, Tvardovsky's former deputy, in an article forwarded abroad.

Eternal dissident

While in the USSR, Solzhenitsyn, in an interview with the American television channel CBS, called modern history "the history of America's disinterested generosity and the ingratitude of the whole world."

However, having settled in the state of Vermont, he did not sing the praises of American civilization and democracy, but began to criticize them for their materialism, lack of spirituality and weakness in the struggle against communism.

“After the end of Vietnam, one of your leading newspapers gave a full page headline:“ Blessed Silence. ”I would not wish such a blessed silence on the enemy! Give Taiwan, give ten more African countries, give only us the opportunity to live in peace. Give us the opportunity to drive in our wide cars on our beautiful roads. Give us the opportunity to play tennis and golf in peace. Let us calmly mix cocktails as we used to. Let us see a smile with open teeth and a glass on every page of the magazine, "he said in one public speech.

As a result, many people in the West did not completely cool with Solzhenitsyn, but began to regard him as an eccentric with an old-fashioned beard and overly radical views.

After August 1991, most of the political emigrants of the Soviet period welcomed the changes in Russia, began to willingly come to Moscow, but preferred to live in the comfortable, stable West.

Image caption Solzhenitsyn on the Duma rostrum (November 1994)

Solzhenitsyn, one of the few, returned to his homeland.

He arranged his arrival, in the words of ironic journalists, as the appearance of Christ to the people: he flew to Vladivostok and went across the country by train, meeting with citizens in every city.

Without ether and order

The hope of becoming a national prophet like Leo Tolstoy did not come true. The Russians were concerned about current problems, not global issues of being. A society that drank information freedom and pluralism of opinions was not inclined to accept anyone as an indisputable authority. Solzhenitsyn was listened to respectfully, but they were in no hurry to follow his instructions.

The author's program on Russian television was soon closed: according to Solzhenitsyn, guided by political considerations; according to the TV people, because it started to repeat itself and lost its rating.

The writer began to criticize the Russian order in the same way that he criticized the Soviet and American, and refused to accept the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, which he was awarded by Boris Yeltsin.

During his lifetime, Solzhenitsyn was reprimanded for messianism, ponderous seriousness, exaggerated claims, arrogant moralizing, ambiguous attitudes towards democracy and individualism, passion for archaic ideas of the monarchy and community. But, in the end, every person, and of Solzhenitsyn's scale and even more so, has the right to his own non-trivial opinion.

All this became a thing of the past with him. There are books left.

"And it doesn't matter at all whether the GULAG Archipelago will be included in the compulsory school curriculum or not," political observer Andrei Kolesnikov wrote on the eve of the anniversary.

Lecture: A.I. Solzhenitsyn. The story "One Day in Ivan Denisovich"

While working on the epic "In the First Circle," Solzhenitsyn matured the idea of ​​a work about prisoners who survived the Stalinist camps.

The story about one day lived by the main character, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov in the camp, was written in 1959 in a record short time - 40 days. The title states a very small period of time - only one day, but the genius of Solzhenitsyn allows the reader to live this day together with his heroes every minute, carefully studying the world on the other side of the barbed wire. After the story was published in Novy Mir in 1962, the writer was admitted to the Writers' Union of the USSR.

Many millions of prisoners passed through the Gulag, a huge part of them were accused of the most fantastic sins against the Soviet government. Yesterday's teachers, doctors, ordinary collective farmers, people's artists, Heroes of the Soviet Union, family members of high government officials became prisoners - no one had a security certificate from the terrible NKVD moloch. Solzhenitsyn, who personally spent more than one day in prison, knew well what he was writing about (it was not for nothing that One Day ... caused an avalanche of readers' responses, which marked the beginning of work on the Gulag Archipelago). The characters serving their sentences with Ivan Shukhov are copied from real persons, and the main character himself is a collective image, incorporating the features of several of Solzhenitsyn's acquaintances.

The reader sees the world behind the barbed wire from different angles:

• From the position of Ivan Denisovich;
• In the author's comments;
• As a reflection of the collective view of the prisoners.

The work is deeply innovative - personal experience helped the author to create a deeply realistic, at times naturalistically accurate description of one day of a person who is forced to defend his honor and dignity every minute, trying by any means to remain a person, not to be humiliated, not to break.

Ivan Denisovich ("prisoner Ш - 854" in the camp record) is completely different from the type of Russian peasant widely represented in Russian literature in several ways:

1. There are no lyrical feelings and longing for an abandoned house, memories of the wet nurse - the earth.

2. Shukhov recalls the well-fed pre-war life in the village only because of the constant hunger in the camp.

3. There are absolutely no comparisons of a home with a certain paradise, not pathos about the forced separation from the family nest - with this method Solzhenitsyn tries to show the reader the catastrophic consequences of human deformation after the moral and especially spiritual upheavals of the turbulent XX century.

4. Despite the difficult living conditions, Ivan Denisovich takes a camp life, adapts to lack of freedom, internally remaining free. He is characterized by kindness, humor, ingenuity, peasant natural tenacity of mind.

One of the forms of preserving the human in oneself, resistance to the camp system of depersonalizing people is the communication of prisoners among themselves only by name, without mentioning numbers.

The story contains a lot of seemingly insignificant details, but very important for understanding what is happening. For example, the author reports on the scale of the repressions carried out with Shukhov's number - one of the last letters of the alphabet and the number 262 speaks of a huge number of prisoners in this camp alone.