Biography Shalamov Varlam Tihonovich
(1907-1982)
Varlam Shalamov was born in Vologda to the family of the priest Tikhon Nikolayevich Shalamov. He received his secondary education in the Vologda Gymnasium. At 17 he left his native city and went to Moscow. In the capital, the young man first settled himself as a tanner at a leather factory in Setuni, and in 1926 entered the Moscow State University at the Faculty of Soviet Law. Self-thinking young man, like all people with such a temperament, it was not easy. Quite rightly, fearing the Stalinist regime and what it could entail, Varlam Shalamov began distributing Lenin’s “Letter to the Congress”. For this young man was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison.
Completely serving his sentence, the novice writer returned to Moscow, where he continued his literary career: he worked in small trade union magazines. In 1936 in the journal “October” was published one of his first stories – “Three Deaths of Dr. Austino.”
The freedom of the writer, read between the lines of his works, did not bother the authorities, and in January 1937 he was again arrested. Now Shalamov was sentenced to five years in the camps. Having freed himself, he again began to write. But stay on freedom did not last long: after all, he drew the most careful attention of the relevant bodies. And after in 1943 the writer called Bunin a Russian classic, he was convicted for another ten years.
In total, Varlam Tikhonovich spent 17 years in the camps, and most of that time – on Kolyma, under the most severe conditions of the North. Prisoners, emaciated and suffering from diseases, worked in the gold mining mines even with forty-degree frost.
In 1951 Varlam Shalamov was released, but he was not allowed to leave Kolyma immediately: he had to work as a medical assistant for another three years. Finally, he settled in the Kalinin region, and after rehabilitation in 1956 moved to Moscow. Immediately upon his return from prison, the cycle “Kolyma Stories” was born, which the writer himself called “an artistic study of a terrible
Shalamov’s prose was based on the terrible experience of the camps: numerous deaths, hunger and cold torment, endless humiliation. Unlike Solzhenitsyn, who argued that such an experience can be positive, ennobling, Varlam Tikhonovich is convinced of the opposite: he claims that the camp turns a man into an animal, into a slaughtered, despicable creature. In the story “Dry rations,” the prisoner, who was transferred to an easier job due to illness, cuts off his fingers – just to get him back to the mine. The writer tries to show that the moral and physical powers of man are not unlimited. In his opinion, one of the main characteristics of the camp is corruption. Dehumanization, says Shalamov, begins precisely with physical torments – this thread passes through his stories through a red thread. The consequences of extreme human states make him an animal-like creature. The writer shows wonderfully how camp conditions affect different people: beings with a lower soul are lowered still more, and freedom lovers do not lose their presence of spirit. In the story “Shock Therapy” central is the image of a doctor, a fanatical, former prisoner, doing his best and knowing in medicine, to expose a prisoner who, in his opinion, is a simulator. At the same time, he is absolutely indifferent to the fate of the unfortunate, he is pleased to demonstrate his professional qualifications. A completely different character in the spirit is depicted in the story “The Last Fight of Major Pugachev.” He’s talking about a prisoner who gathers like him like freedom-loving people and dies while trying to escape. The writer shows wonderfully how camp conditions affect different people: beings with a lower soul are lowered still more, and freedom lovers do not lose their presence of spirit. In the story “Shock Therapy” central is the image of a doctor, a fanatical, former prisoner, doing his best and knowing medicine, to expose a prisoner who, in his opinion, is a simulator. At the same time, he is absolutely indifferent to the fate of the unfortunate, he is pleased to demonstrate his professional qualifications. A completely different character in the spirit is depicted in the story “The Last Fight of Major Pugachev.” He’s talking about a prisoner who gathers like him like freedom-loving people and dies while trying to escape. The writer shows wonderfully how camp conditions affect different people: beings with a lower soul are lowered still more, and freedom lovers do not lose their presence of spirit. In the story “Shock Therapy” central is the image of a doctor, a fanatical, former prisoner, doing his best and knowing medicine, to expose a prisoner who, in his opinion, is a simulator. At the same time, he is absolutely indifferent to the fate of the unfortunate, he is pleased to demonstrate his professional qualifications. A completely different character in the spirit is depicted in the story “The Last Fight of Major Pugachev.” He’s talking about a prisoner who gathers like him like freedom-loving people and dies while trying to escape. and freedom lovers do not lose their presence of spirit. In the story “Shock Therapy” central is the image of a doctor, a fanatical, former prisoner, doing his best and knowing medicine, to expose a prisoner who, in his opinion, is a simulator. At the same time, he is absolutely indifferent to the fate of the unfortunate, he is pleased to demonstrate his professional qualifications. A completely different character in the spirit is depicted in the story “The Last Fight of Major Pugachev.” He’s talking about a prisoner who gathers like him like freedom-loving people and dies while trying to escape. and freedom lovers do not lose their presence of spirit. In the story “Shock Therapy” central is the image of a doctor, a fanatical, former prisoner, doing his best and knowing in medicine, to expose a prisoner who, in his opinion, is a simulator. At the same time, he is absolutely indifferent to the fate of the unfortunate, he is pleased to demonstrate his professional qualifications. A completely different character in the spirit is depicted in the story “The Last Fight of Major Pugachev.” He’s talking about a prisoner who gathers like him like freedom-loving people and dies while trying to escape. in his opinion, is a simulator. At the same time, he is absolutely indifferent to the fate of the unfortunate, he is pleased to demonstrate his professional qualifications. A completely different character in the spirit is depicted in the story “The Last Fight of Major Pugachev.” He’s talking about a prisoner who gathers like him like freedom-loving people and dies while trying to escape. in his opinion, is a simulator. At the same time, he is absolutely indifferent to the fate of the unfortunate, he is pleased to demonstrate his professional qualifications. A completely different character in the spirit is depicted in the story “The Last Fight of Major Pugachev.” He’s talking about a prisoner who gathers like him like freedom-loving people and dies while trying to escape.
Another theme of Shalamov’s work is the idea of a similarity of the camp to the rest of the world. “Camp ideas only repeat the ideas of will transmitted by order of the authorities… The camp reflects not only the struggle of political cliques that succeed one another in power, but the culture of these people, their secret aspirations, tastes, habits, suppressed desires.”
Unfortunately, during his lifetime the writer was not destined to publish these works in his homeland. Even during the Khrushchev thaw, they were too bold to be published. But since 1966 Shalamov’s stories began to appear in emigrant publications.
The very same writer in May 1979 moved to the house of disabled people, from where, in January 1982, he was forcibly sent to a psychiatric internment – the last link. But he could not reach his destination: after catching cold, the writer dies on the way.
“Kolyma stories” in our country first saw the light only five years after the death of the author, in 1987.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)