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Heroes of Shukshin - page No. 1/1

LESSONS ON THE CREATIVITY OF V. M. SHUKSHINA.
“VILLAGE PROSE”: ORIGINS, PROBLEMS, HEROES.

HEROES OF SHUKSHINA.
Objective of the lessons: give an idea of “village” prose; introduce the work of V. M. Shukshin (review).

Lesson equipment: portraits of writers; possible fragments of the film “Kalina Krasnaya”, a computer presentation of the student.

Methodical techniques: lecture; analytical conversation.
Progress of the lesson.

Teacher's word.

The works that were landmarks during the “thaw” period became the impetus for the development of new directions in literature: “village prose,” “urban” or “intellectual” prose. These names are conventional, but they took root in criticism and among readers and formed a stable range of topics that was developed by writers in the 60-80s.

The focus of the “village writers” was the post-war village, impoverished and powerless (collective farmers until the early 60s did not even have their own passports and could not leave their “place of registration” without special permission). The writers themselves were mostly from the villages. The essence of this direction was the revival of traditional morality. It was in the vein of “village prose” that such great artists as Vasily Belov, Valentin Rasputin, Vasily Shukshin, Viktor Astafiev, Fyodor Abramov, Boris Mozhaev emerged. The culture of classical Russian prose is close to them, they restore the traditions of tale Russian speech, develop what was done by “Peasant Literature” of the 20s. The poetics of “village prose” was focused on searching for the deep foundations of people’s life, which were supposed to replace the discredited state ideology.

After the peasantry finally received passports and were able to independently choose their place of residence, a massive outflow of the population, especially young people, from rural areas to cities began. Half-empty or even completely deserted villages remained, where blatant mismanagement and almost universal drunkenness reigned among the remaining inhabitants. What is the reason for such troubles? The “village writers” saw the answer to this question in the consequences of the war years, when the strength of the village was strained, in the “Lysenkoism” that disfigured the natural ways of farming. The main reason for de-peasantization stemmed from the “Great Turning Point” (“the turning point of the backbone of the Russian people”, as defined by A.I. Solzhenitsyn) - forced collectivization. “Village Prose” gave a picture of the life of the Russian peasantry in the 20th century, reflecting the main events that influenced their fate: the October Revolution and the Civil War, War Communism and the NEP, collectivization and famine, collective farm construction and industrialization, war and post-war deprivation, all kinds of experiments on agriculture and its current degradation. She continued the tradition of revealing the “Russian character” and created a number of types of “ordinary people”. These are Shukshin’s “eccentrics”, and Rasputin’s wise old women, and “Arkharovites” dangerous in their ignorance and vandalism, and Belov’s long-suffering Ivan Afrikanovich.

The bitter conclusion of the “village prose” was summed up by Viktor Astafiev: “We sang the last lament - there were about fifteen mourners for the former village. We sang her praises at the same time. As they say, we cried well, at a decent level, worthy of our history, our village, our peasantry. But it's over. Now there are pathetic imitations of books that were created twenty or thirty years ago. Those naive people who write about an already extinct village imitate. Literature must now break through the asphalt.”

One of the most talented writers who wrote about the people and problems of the village is Vasily Makarovich Shukshin.

Presentation by a pre-prepared student. Biography of V. M. Shukshin (computer presentation including family photographs, excerpts from films).

Vasily Shukshin was born in the small Altai village of Srostki. He did not remember his father, because shortly before the birth of his son he was repressed. For many years, Shukshin knew nothing about his fate and only shortly before his own death he saw his name on one of the lists of those executed. At that time his father was only twenty-two years old.

The mother was left with two small children and soon remarried. The stepfather turned out to be a kind and loving person. However, he did not live with his wife and raise their children for long: a few years later the war began, his stepfather went to the front, and died in 1942.

Before graduating from school, Vasily Shukshin began working on a collective farm, and then went to work in Central Asia. For some time he studied at the Biysk Automotive College, but was drafted into the army and first served in Leningrad, where he completed a young fighter course in a training detachment, and then was sent to the Black Sea Fleet. The future writer spent two years in Sevastopol. He devoted all his free time to reading, because it was then that he decided to become a writer and actor. In deep secret, even from close friends, he began to write.

His naval service ended unexpectedly: Shukshin fell ill and was demobilized for health reasons. So, after a six-year absence, he again found himself in his home. Since doctors forbade him to engage in heavy physical work, Shukshin became a teacher in a rural school, and a little later its director.

Just at this time, his first articles and short stories appeared in the regional newspaper “Battle Cry”. But as Shukshin grew older, he understood more and more clearly that it was necessary to receive a more systematic and in-depth education, and in 1954 he went to Moscow to enter VGIK. There he was lucky again: he was accepted into the workshop of the famous director M. Romm. Shukshin graduated from the directing department of VGIK in 1960. Already from his third year, Shukshin began acting in films. In total, the actor starred in more than 20 films, moving from typical images of “people of the people” to vivid screen portraits of his contemporaries, people of principle and purpose. This is how Shukshin shows the virgin miner Stepan in the 1962 film “Alenka”, the director of the Chernykh plant in the film “By the Lake”, which was awarded the USSR State Prize. Other images performed by Shukshin became no less memorable - the peasant Ivan Rastorguev in the film “Stoves and Benches” and the soldier Lopatin in the film “They Fought for the Motherland.” And a year before that, Shukshin played perhaps his most poignant role - Yegor Prokudin in the film “Kalina Krasnaya”, which received the main prize at the International Film Festival in Moscow. The last image became a kind of result of the artist’s entire creative activity, since in it Shukshin managed to reveal the themes that constantly worried him, and above all the theme of moral duty, guilt and retribution. In 1958, Shukshin’s first story, “Rural Residents,” was published in the Smena magazine, which gave the title to the collection that appeared a few years later. His heroes were people whom he knew well - residents of small villages, drivers, students. With barely noticeable irony, Shukshin talks about their difficult life. But even every minor incident becomes a reason for the author’s deep thoughts. The writer’s favorite heroes were the so-called “eccentrics” - people who retained the childlike spontaneity of their worldview. In 1964, Shukshin’s first big film, “There Lives a Guy,” was released, in which he was also a screenwriter, director and leading actor. She brought Shukshin international fame and was awarded the Golden Lion of St. Mark at the Venice Film Festival. The film attracted the attention of critics and viewers with its freshness, humor, and charming image of the young hero - the Altai driver Pashka Kolokolnikov. Continuing to work simultaneously in cinema and literature, Shukshin combines several professions: actor, director, writer. And they all turn out to be of equal importance to him; we can say that Shukshin’s writing and cinematic activities complement each other. He writes practically on the same topic, talking mainly about a simple rural resident, talented, unpretentious, a little impractical, who does not care about tomorrow, lives only with today's problems and does not fit into the world of technology and urbanization. At the same time, Shukshin managed to accurately reflect the social and social problems of his time, when intense changes were taking place in people's consciousness. Along with such famous writers as V. Belov and V. Rasputin, Shukshin entered the galaxy of so-called village writers who were concerned about how to preserve the traditional way of life as a system of moral values. The problems that emerged in his short stories and novellas are also reflected in Shukshin’s films. In 1966, the film “Your Son and Brother” was released, which was awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR; in 1970, another of his films on the same topic, “Strange People”, appeared, and two years later Shukshin made his famous film “Stoves and Benches” ", in which the intelligentsia, perhaps for the first time in recent years, discovered the moral world of the common man. In addition, in these films, Shukshin continued his social and psychological analysis of the processes that were going on in society at that time. Shukshin's film dramaturgy is closely connected with his prose; the characters of the stories often turned into scripts, always preserving folk colloquial speech, reliability and authenticity of situations, and the capacity of psychological characteristics. Shukshin's style as a director is characterized by laconic simplicity, clarity of expressive means combined with a poetic depiction of nature, and a special rhythm of editing. Outside of the realized script for the film about Stepan Razin, which was later reworked into the novel “I Came to Give You Freedom,” Shukshin tried to give a broader view of the problems that worried his people and turned to studying the character of the people’s leader, the causes and consequences of the “Russian rebellion.” Here Shukshin also retained a strong social orientation, and many read the hint of a possible rebellion against state power. Another, last film by Shukshin, based on his own film story, released three years earlier, “Kalina Krasnaya”, in which the writer told the tragic story of the former criminal Yegor Prokudin, caused no less resonance. In this film, Shukshin himself played the main role, and his beloved was Lydia Fedoseeva, his wife. Literary talent, acting talent and the desire to live in truth brought Vasily Shukshin in common with his friend Vladimir Vysotsky. Unfortunately, early death also brought them together. Shukshin’s last story and last film was “Kalina Krasnaya” (1974). He died on October 2, 1974 during the filming of S. Bondarchuk’s film “They Fought for the Motherland.” He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.

In 1976, Shukshin was awarded the Lenin Prize for his work in cinema.

Conversation based on the stories of V. Shukshin.

What stories by V. Shukshin have you read?
What traditions did Shukshin continue in his work?

In the development of the short story genre, V. M. Shukshin was a successor to the traditions of A. P. Chekhov. The artistic purpose of depicting a chain of comic episodes occurring with the hero was to reveal his character. The main means of expression became, just as in Chekhov’s works, capacious emotionally charged detail and dramatization of the narrative using someone else’s speech in dialogues. The plot is built on reproducing the climactic, “most burning”, long-awaited moments when the hero is given the opportunity to fully demonstrate his “peculiarity”. The innovation of V. M. Shukshin is associated with an appeal to a special type - “eccentrics”, who cause rejection from others with their desire to live in accordance with their own ideas about goodness, beauty, and justice.

The person in V. Shukshin’s stories is often not satisfied with his life, he feels the onset of general standardization, boring philistine averageness and tries to express his own individuality, usually with somewhat standard actions. Such Shukshin heroes are called “freaks.”

What “weirdos” do you remember?
How does the author relate to his “weirdo” heroes?

The hero of Shukshin's early stories, which tell about “incidents from life,” is a simple man, like Pashka Kholmansky (“Cool Driver”), strange, kind, and often unlucky. The author admires an original man from the people, who knows how to work bravely and feel sincerely and innocently. Critic A. Makarov, reviewing the collection “There, Away” (1968), wrote about Shukshin: “He wants to awaken the reader’s interest in these people and their lives, to show how, in essence, kind and good a simple person living in an embrace with nature and physical labor, what an attractive life this is, incomparable with the city life, in which a person deteriorates and becomes stale.”

Over time, the image of the hero becomes more complex, and the author’s attitude towards the heroes changes somewhat - from admiration to empathy, doubt, philosophical reflection. Alyosha Beskonvoyny wins for himself on the collective farm the right to a non-working Saturday in order to devote it to the bathhouse. Only on this “bath” day can he belong to himself, can alone indulge in memories, reflections, and dreams. It reveals the ability to notice the beauty of existence in the small, in the ordinary details of everyday life. The very process of comprehending existence constitutes Alyosha’s main joy: “That’s why Alyosha loved Saturday: on Saturday he reflected, remembered, thought so much, like on no other day.”

The actions of Shukshin's heroes often turn out to be eccentricities. Sometimes it can be kind and harmless, like decorating a baby stroller with cranes, flowers, ant-grass (“Weirdo”), and it doesn’t cause problems for anyone except the hero himself. Sometimes eccentricities are not at all harmless. In the collection “Characters”, for the first time, the writer’s warning was sounded against the strange, destructive possibilities that lurk in a strong nature that does not have a high goal.

“Stubborn” invents a perpetual motion machine in his spare time, another hero buys a microscope with saved money and dreams of inventing a remedy against microbes, some heroes philosophize, trying to outdo, “cut down” the “city dwellers.” The desire to “cut off”, to be rude, to humiliate a person in order to rise above him (“Cut off”) is a consequence of unsatisfied pride and ignorance, which has dire consequences. Often, villagers no longer see the meaning of their existence in working on the land, like their ancestors, and either leave for the cities, or engage in the invention of “perpetual motion machines,” writing “stories” (“Raskas”), or, returning after “serving time”, They don’t know how to live in freedom now.

These are not “Cranks”, far from reality, living in an ideal world, but rather “Cranks”, living in reality, but striving for the ideal and not knowing where to look for it, what to do with the power accumulated in the soul.

What do Shukshin’s heroes think and reflect on?

Shukshin’s heroes are occupied with the “main” questions: “Why, one might ask, was life given to me?” (“Alone”), “Why was this overwhelming beauty given?” (“Countrymen”), “What kind of secret is there in her, should we feel sorry for her, for example, or can we die in peace - there’s nothing special left here?” (“Alyosha Beskonvoyny”). Often heroes are in a state of internal discord: “So what?” thought Maxim angrily. – It was also a hundred years ago. What's new? And it will always be like this... Why?” (“I believe”) The soul is filled with anxiety, it hurts because it vividly feels everything around it, trying to find the answer. Matvey Ryazantsev (Dumas) calls this condition an “illness,” but a “desired” illness—“without it, something is missing.”

What, according to Shukshin, is the “wisdom of life”?

Shukshin looks for sources of wisdom in the historical and everyday experience of the people, in the destinies of old people. For the old saddler Antipas (“Alone”), neither hunger nor need can suppress the eternal need for beauty. The chairman of the collective farm, Matvey Ryazantsev, lived a decent working life, but he still regrets some unfelt joys and sorrows (“Duma”). The letter of the old woman Kandaurova (“Letter”) is the result of a long peasant life, a wise teaching: “Well, work, work, but the man is not made of stone. Yes, if you pet him, he will do three times more. Any animal loves affection, and humans even more so.” One dream, one desire is repeated three times in the letter: “You live and be happy, and make others happy,” “She is my dear daughter, my soul hurts, I also want her to be happy in this world,” “At least I am happy for you.” " Old woman Kandaurova teaches the ability to feel the beauty of life, the ability to rejoice and please others, teaches spiritual sensitivity and affection. These are the highest values that she came to through difficult experience.

Teacher's word.

The image of the old woman Kandaurova is one of many images of Shukshin mothers, embodying love, wisdom, dedication, merging into the image of the “earthly mother of God” (“At the Cemetery”). Let us recall the story “A Mother’s Heart,” in which a mother defends her unlucky son, her only joy, before the whole world; the story “Vanka Teplyashin”, where the hero, having ended up in the hospital, felt lonely, sad, and rejoiced like a child when he saw his mother: “What was his surprise, joy, when he suddenly saw his mother in this world below... Ah, you are dear, dear!” This is the voice of the author himself, who always writes about the Mother with great love, tenderness, gratitude and at the same time with a feeling of some guilt. Let us remember the scene of Yegor Prokudin’s meeting with his mother (if possible, watch footage from the film “Kalina Krasnaya”). The wisdom of the old woman Kandaurova is consistent with the space and peace in the world around her: “It was evening. Somewhere they were playing the accordion..."; “The accordion kept playing, playing well. And a softly unfamiliar female voice sang along with her”; “Lord,” thought the old woman, “it’s good, it’s good on earth, it’s good.” But the state of peace in Shukshin’s stories is unstable and short-lived, it is replaced by new anxieties, new reflections, new searches for harmony, and agreement with the eternal laws of life.

Analysis of the stories "Weirdo" and "Pardon me, madam!"

The story “Weirdo! (1967).

How do we see the main character of the story?

The hero of the story, the title of which became his nickname (“My wife called him “Weirdo.” Sometimes affectionately”), stands out from his environment. First of all, “something constantly happened to him,” he “every now got into some kind of story.” These were not socially significant actions or adventurous adventures. "Chudi" suffered from minor incidents caused by his own oversights.

Give examples of such incidents and oversights.

While going to the Urals to visit his brother’s family, he dropped the money (“...fifty rubles, I have to work for half a month”) and, deciding that “there is no owner of the piece of paper,” he “lightly and cheerfully” joked for “those in line”: “You live well, citizens ! Here, for example, they don’t throw such pieces of paper around.” After that, he could not “overpower himself” to pick up the “damned piece of paper.”

Wanting to “do something nice” for his daughter-in-law who disliked him, Chudik painted his little nephew’s stroller so that it became “unrecognizable.” She, not understanding “folk art,” “made a noise” so much that he had to go home. In addition to this, other misunderstandings happen to the hero (a story about the “rude, tactless” behavior of a “drunk fool” from a village across the river, whom an “intelligent comrade” did not believe; the search for an artificial jaw of a “bald reader” of a newspaper on an airplane, which is why he even his bald head turned purple; an attempt to send a telegram to his wife, which the “stern, dry” telegraph operator had to completely correct), revealing the inconsistency of his ideas with the usual logic.

How do others react to his “antics”?

His desire to make life “more fun” is met with misunderstanding from those around him. Sometimes he “guesses” that the outcome will be the same as in the story with his daughter-in-law. Often “lost”, as in the case of a neighbor on a plane or with an “intelligent comrade” on a train, - Chudik repeats the words of “a woman with painted lips” who was “assented” by a man in a hat from a regional town, but for some reason he has them come out unconvincing. His dissatisfaction always turns towards himself (“He didn’t want this, he suffered...”, “A weirdo, killed by his insignificance...”, “Why am I like this?”), and not at life, which he is unable to change .

All these traits have no motivation; they are inherent in the hero from the very beginning, determining the originality of his personality. On the contrary, the profession reflects the internal desire to escape from reality (“He worked as a projectionist in the village”), and dreams are arbitrary and unrealizable (“Mountains of clouds below... fall into them, into the clouds, like into cotton wool”). The hero’s nickname reveals not only his “eccentricity,” but also his desire for a miracle. In this regard, the characterization of reality as dull, evil everyday life is sharpened (“the daughter-in-law... asked evil...”, “I don’t understand; why did they become evil?”).

In relation to the outside world, a series of antitheses are built in which on the side of the hero (as opposed to “unfortunate incidents”, which are “bitter”, “painful”, “scary”) there are signs of the pure, simple-minded, creative nature of the “villager”. Chudik is “struck to the quick” by doubts that “in the village people are better, more pain-free,” “the air alone is worth it!.. it’s so fresh and fragrant, it smells of different herbs, different flowers...”, that it’s “warm... land" and freedom. From which his “trembling”, “quiet” voice sounds “loud”.

Why do we learn the name of the main character only at the end of the story?

The depiction of the hero’s individuality is combined with the author’s desire for generalization: his nickname is not accidental (name and age are mentioned last as an insignificant characteristic: “His name was Vasily Yegorych Knyazev. He was thirty-nine years old”): it expresses the originality of popular ideas about personality . “Freak” is a variation of the “stupid” essence of national nature, created using comic elements.
The story "Pardon me, madam!" (1968).

What is the genre of this story?

The genre is a story within a story.

What is the main character of the story?

The main character's character is full of inconsistencies. Even his name Bronislav, invented “out of a hangover” by a local priest, contradicts the simple Russian surname Pupkov. A descendant of the Cossacks, who “cut down the Biy-Katunsk fortress”, he is both “strong” and “well-cut man”, “a marksman...rare”, but these qualities do not find application in life. During the war, he did not have to show them in battles, since he “was a nurse at the front.” In everyday reality, the hero’s extraordinary nature is reflected in the fact that he “made a lot of scandals,” fought “seriously,” “rushed around the village on his deafening motorbike,” and disappeared with the “city people” in the taiga - he was “an expert in these matters,” “a hunter.” ... smart and lucky." In the eyes of others, these contradictions are “strange,” stupid, funny (“Like roll call in the army, so is laughter,” “They laugh, they laugh in their faces...”). He himself also usually “laughs”, “plays tricks” in front of people, and in his soul “he doesn’t harbor any grudges against anyone”, he lives “easy.” The inner “tragedy”, unprecedented in this “blue-eyed, smiling” man, becomes obvious only from his own story, a kind of confession in which what he wants is presented as what actually happened.

What is Pupkov’s story about and how do listeners perceive it?

Bronislav Pupkov's story is an obvious fiction, which is obvious both to his fellow villagers (“He... was called to the village council several times, they were embarrassed, they threatened to take action...”) and to casual listeners (“Are you serious?... Well, some kind of nonsense...” ). And he himself, having once again told the story he had invented “under the hood”, after that “was very worried, suffered, got angry, felt “guilty.” But each time it became a “holiday,” an event that he “awaited with great impatience,” which made “his heart ache sweetly in the morning.” The incident that Bronka Pupkov narrates (the assassination attempt on Hitler, where he played the main role) is confirmed by reliable details (a meeting with the major general in the “infirmary” ward, where the hero “brought one heavy lieutenant”, a “subscription” on non-disclosure of information about “special training”), psychological specifics (hatred of Hitler’s “fox face”; responsibility for the “Distant Motherland”). Not without fantastic details (two orderlies, “one with the rank of sergeant major”; “life” on “special training” with alcohol and “port”; an appeal to Hitler “in pure German”), which is reminiscent of the lies of Khlestakov, the hero “The Inspector General” by N.V. Gogol.

For what purpose, in your opinion, does Bronka tell her tale again and again?

The fable he created is a “distortion” of reality. In reality, he, a descendant of the Siberian Cossacks, who became not a hero, but a victim of history, has a pitiful fate: drunkenness, fights, cursing of his “ugly, thick-lipped” wife, working in the village council, “strange” smiles from fellow villagers about his fantasies. And yet the “solemn”, “most burning” moment of the story about the “attempt” comes again, and for several minutes he is immersed

into the “desired” atmosphere of achievement, “deeds”, not “deeds”. Then his usual proverb, which became the title of the story, takes on a different meaning, containing irony in relation to everyday life, which turns out to be unable to change the inner content of the individual.

MUNICIPAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

GYMNASIUM
Reading conference in 9th grade.

“Village prose”: origins, problems, heroes.

Heroes of V.M. Shukshina.

Prepared and carried out:

teacher of Russian language and literature

Minenkova O. V.,

students of grades 9-10: Olga Kocharyan, Maria Kushneryuk, Alexander Melnichenko, Inga Brukhal.

Heroes of Shukshin “Freaks”. In the early 60s, a bright talent came to literature with his own theme, with his own hero - V. M. Shukshin. The main genre in which the writer worked was a short story, which was either a small psychologically accurate scene built on expressive dialogue, or several episodes from the life of the hero. Collected together, his stories combine into a smart and truthful, sometimes funny, but most often deeply dramatic novel about the Russian peasant, about Russia, about the Russian national character.

The writer’s favorite heroes are “eccentrics,” “strange people,” whose life values and view of the world do not coincide with the philistine ones. The hero of the story “The Freak” and his brother are not understood by their own wives and the people around them. Wanting to please his daughter-in-law, who dislikes him, Chudik paints a baby stroller, which angers the woman. An attempt to bring beauty into a house where anger and irritation live ends in another failure: the Freak is kicked out of the house. The ending of the story is interesting. The weirdo returns to his native village, having stayed with his brother for only two days. It's raining steamy rain. The weirdo got off the bus, took off his new shoes, and ran along the warm wet ground - a suitcase in one hand, boots in the other. He jumped up and sang loudly: “Poplar-aa, poplar-aa.” And what captivates us in the hero, Vasily Yegorych Knyazev, is kindness, a kind of childishness, the ability to enjoy life despite all adversity.

The plot of the story “Microscope” seems at first glance to be a funny joke. His hero, a simple carpenter Andrei Erin, buys a microscope, which he gets dearly. First, he tells his wife that he lost money and, having withstood an attack by a woman armed with a frying pan, works overtime for a month. Then he brings a microscope into the house, saying that this is a bonus for hard work. Using a microscope, he begins to study everything: water, soup, sweat - and finds microbes everywhere. His eldest son, a fifth-grader, is passionate about research with his father, and even his wife comes to respect him. Wanting to find some universal remedy to save the world from germs, this illiterate working man spends time not behind a bottle, but with his son behind a microscope. Both of them are absolutely happy. But then the wife finds out the truth about the origin of the microscope. She goes into town to sell a microscope at a thrift store and buy fur coats for the younger children.

The hero understands that this is necessary: “He will sell. Yes... I need fur coats. Well, okay - fur coats, okay. Nothing... It is necessary, of course...” But on the other hand, the regret that he experiences from the loss of the microscope cannot but arouse sympathy for him. The question arises: is there really no way out? And the plot of the story appears in a completely different light; it does not seem funny or funny.

The main characters of most of V. M. Shukshin’s stories are village people: tractor drivers, drivers, accountants, foremen, collective farm chairmen and ordinary collective farmers. The writer is fascinated by the dissimilarity of people, their unconventionality, their roughness and extreme sense of self-esteem. These people are inquisitive, often “eccentric”; they are spontaneous in their thoughts and feelings, sometimes simple-minded, but very charming.

One of the authors who preached kindness and responsiveness in their works was Vasily Makarovich Shukshin. He was a man with versatile talent: actor, director, writer. All his creations radiate warmth, sincerity, and love for people. Shukshin once said: “Every real writer, of course, is a psychologist, but he himself is sick.” It is this pain for people, for their sometimes empty and worthless lives, that Shukshin’s stories are imbued with.

I like Shukshin's stories. They are short, understandable, interesting, and contain many accurate and colorful statements. The stories “Crank” and “Cut” are included in the collection “Conversations under a Clear Moon.” The very name of the collection speaks of a kind of friendly conversation about life, love, nature. Shukshin's stories are written in simple colloquial language, which conveys the peculiarities of the characters' speech. In his works, Shukshin continues the traditions of Russian classical literature: Tolstoy, Gogol, Gorky. His heroes are from the people, ordinary people, but they have some kind of zest.

So Shukshin shows us a new type of hero. This is a “weirdo” (there is even a story with that title in the collection). These weirdos are similar to Gorky’s heroes, but they are closer to us because they lived not so long ago. Shukshin's weirdos are people who create a “holiday of the soul”, live simply, naturally, without doing harm to others. People around them perceive them as abnormal because they can pull some kind of trick. These are the heroes of the stories “Crank”, “Microscope”, “Cut”. But their desire to do “the best for people” constantly runs into a wall of misunderstanding, alienation, and even hostility. I think this happens because everyone has their own understanding of “what is best.” They think it will be better this way, but other people don’t. That’s why “weirdos” are called that. Such, for example, is the clash in the story “Crank” of the protagonist with his brother’s wife Zoya Ivanovna, who for some reason dislikes the Crank. But he is just a kind and cheerful person. Shukshin wants to show us that people are indifferent to each other, they are strangers to each other, callous and do not want to help. Those who try to unite people become “cranks”, almost crazy.

But “weirdos” can be not only kind. For example, the main character of the story “Cut” is Gleb Kapustin. He is unkind because he always wants to humiliate another person, especially a newcomer, to show that he is a fool, etc. The story begins with the fact that Konstantin Ivanovich, a city intellectual, comes to the village. He is an educated man, and men don’t like that. They call Gleb because he is considered the most learned among them. Gleb wants to “cut off” the city guest in advance, that is, to win their dispute. Here Shukshin shows, on the one hand, the arrogance of a city guest who believes that he has come to a remote village, and on the other, the anger of a village peasant who wants to prove that he is “also doing something mikite.” An initially usual conversation about the latest achievements of science turns into a showdown. Shukshin does not interfere in what is happening. It is as if he is one of the listeners of the argument - he simply conveys its content to us. But he looks at Gleb with a sad smile, because this anger destroys him.

In this story, Shukshin shows a very long-standing confrontation between the intelligentsia and the people. Even now, when there are televisions and computers, it has been preserved. Shukshin loves his hero, he, in general, loves all his heroes, because they are just as simple people as he is. But this does not stop him from pointing out their shortcomings, showing that they are doing something wrong: the men themselves begin to cut Gleb off, they are no longer happy that this argument has started. At the end of the story, everyone is left with some unpleasant impression of the argument between Gleb and Konstantin Ivanovich. After all, I feel sorry for Gleb Kapustin. The whole purpose of his life is to “cut off” passing people, that is, to justify his vegetation in this village, to prove to them that he does not live in vain. Although, it seems to me, he proves this to himself. After all, he is angry because his life is in vain, is wasted, because he has not done anything good or worthwhile. Such thoughts are typical for many heroes of Shukshin’s prose.

V.M. Shukshin wrote his works during the years of stagnation, and he very keenly felt the mood of the people of that time. He showed how they are trying to escape from a dull and familiar life, how they are struggling with the routine and uselessness of life. I like Shukshin’s heroes because they have natural strength, unusualness, and a thirst for a vibrant life. The stories of this wonderful writer have not yet lost their significance.

However, each character in Shukshin’s portrayal had his own “zest,” resisted homogenization, demonstrated a special way of existence, or was obsessed with one or another unusual idea. Here’s how critic Igor Dedkov would later write about this: “Human diversity, the living richness of existence, is expressed for V. Shukshin, first of all, in the variety of ways to live, ways to feel, ways to defend one’s dignity and one’s rights. The uniqueness of the answer, the uniqueness of a person’s reaction to the call and challenge of circumstances seem to the writer to be the primary value of life, of course, with the amendment that this uniqueness is not immoral.”

Shukshin created a whole gallery of memorable characters, united in the fact that they all demonstrate different facets of the Russian national character. This character manifests itself in Shukshin most often in a situation of dramatic conflict with life circumstances. Shukshinsky’s hero, living in the village and busy with the usual, village-style monotonous work, cannot and does not want to disappear into rural life “without a trace.” He passionately wants to get away from everyday life, at least for a while, his soul longs for a holiday, and his restless mind seeks the “highest” truth. It is easy to notice that despite the external dissimilarity of Shukshin’s “eccentrics” from the “high” intellectual heroes of the Russian classics, they, Shukshin’s “villagers”, also do not want to limit their lives to the “home circle”, they are also tormented by the dream of a bright life, full of meaning . And therefore they are drawn beyond the borders of their native outskirts, their imagination is occupied with problems that are by no means of a regional scale (the hero of the story “Microscope” acquires an expensive object in the hope of finding a way to fight microbes; the character of the story “Stubborn” builds his own “perpetuum mobile”).

The collision characteristic of Shukshin’s stories - the clash of “urban” and “rural” - does not so much reveal social contradictions as reveal conflicting relationships between dreams and reality in the life of a “little man”. The study of these relationships forms the content of many of the writer’s works.

The Russian man as depicted by Shukshin is a searching man who asks life unexpected, strange questions, who loves to be surprised and amaze. He does not like hierarchy - that conventional everyday “table of ranks”, according to which there are “famous” heroes and there are “humble” workers. Resisting this hierarchy, Shukshin’s hero can be touchingly naive, as in the story “Freak,” an incredible inventor, as in “Mille pardon, madam!”, or an aggressive debater, as in the story “Cut.” Qualities such as obedience and humility are rarely present in Shukshin's characters. Rather, on the contrary: they are characterized by stubbornness, self-will, dislike of a bland existence, and resistance to distilled sanity. They cannot live without sticking their neck out.

The story “Chudik” (1967). Vasily Knyazev, nicknamed Chudik, does many wonderful things, starting with a 50-ruble note, which he puts on the counter with “witty” words (“You live well, citizens!”), because “ there is no owner,” and ending with his nephew’s painted stroller. I drew and thought; how pleasantly surprised the daughter-in-law will be, but it all ends in a scandal.

The story “Microscope” (1969). Another “eccentric” - Andrey Erin. Having withheld his salary from his wife and endured beatings, he buys a microscope. Examining a drop of water through a microscope, discovering teeming microbes in it, he rejoices like a child and dreams of ridding humanity of diseases. But the “dream” collapses due to a collision with everyday life: the wife goes to the city and sells the microscope, because “the children need to buy fur coats.”

“Cut” is one of Shukshin’s most vivid and profound stories. The central character of the story, Gleb Kapustin, has a “fiery passion” to “cut off”, “upset” people from the village who have achieved success in life in the city. From the background of Gleb’s clash with the “candidate”, it turns out that a colonel who came to the village on leave was recently defeated, unable to remember the name of the Governor General of Moscow in 1812. This time, Kapustin’s victim is a philologist, deceived by the outward absurdity of Gleb’s questions, unable to understand the meaning of what is happening. At first, Kapustin’s questions seem funny to the guest, but soon all the comedy disappears: for the candidate this is a real exam, and later the clash develops into a verbal duel. The words “laughed”, “grinned”, “laughed” are often found in the story. However, the laughter in the story has little in common with humor: it either expresses the city dweller’s condescension towards the “oddities” of his fellow countrymen living in the village, or becomes a manifestation of aggressiveness, revealing vindictiveness, the thirst for social revenge that controls Gleb’s mind.

The high impulses of Shukshin's heroes, alas, are not given the opportunity to be realized in life, and this gives the reproduced situations a tragicomic tone. However, neither anecdotal incidents nor the eccentric behavior of the characters prevent the writer from discerning the main thing in them - the people's thirst for justice, concern for human dignity, and craving for a meaningful life. Shukshinsky’s hero often does not know where to put himself, how and what to use his own spiritual “breadth” for, he suffers from his own uselessness and stupidity, he is ashamed when he causes inconvenience to his loved ones. But this is precisely what makes the characters’ characters alive and eliminates the distance between the reader and the character: Shukshinsky’s hero is unmistakably discerned as a person “of our own,” “ours.”