“Kolyma Stories” Shalamov in brief summary
The plot of V. Shalamov’s stories is a painful description of the prison and camp life of prisoners of the Soviet GULAG, their tragic fates similar to each other, in which case a ruthless or merciful case, assistant or murderer, arbitrariness of superiors and thieves. Hunger and its convulsive saturation, exhaustion, excruciating dying, slow and almost equally painful recovery, moral humiliation and moral degradation – that is constantly in the center of the writer’s attention.
The Tombstone
The author remembers the names of his comrades in the camps. Calling in his memory a sorrowful martyrology, he tells who and how he died, who and how he was tormented, who and what he hoped for, who and how he behaved in this Auschwitz without furnaces, as the Kolam camp called Shalamov. Few managed to survive, few managed to survive and remain morally unbroken.
Life engineer Kipreev
Nobody betrayed or sold, the author says that he has worked out
At the presentation
The camp molestation, Shalamov testifies, to a greater or lesser extent concerned all and took place in a variety of forms. Two thieves play cards. One of
At night
Two prisoners sneak to the grave, where the body of their deceased comrade was buried in the morning, and they take the linen from the dead man to sell or change the next day for bread or tobacco. The initial disgust for the removed clothes is replaced by a pleasant thought that tomorrow they may be able to eat a little more and even smoke.
Single measurement
Camp labor, unambiguously defined by Shalamov as slavish, for a writer is a form of the same corruption. The inmate-prisoner is not able to give an interest rate, so labor becomes torture and slow killing. Zek Dugayev gradually weakens, unable to withstand a sixteen-hour working day. He carries, kylit, rushes, again carries and again kylit, and in the evening is the superintendent and measures roulette made by Dugaev. The figure is -25 percent – Dugaev seems to be very big, he has caviar, his hands, shoulders, head are unbearably painful, he even lost his sense of hunger. A little later he is summoned to the investigator, who asks the usual questions: name, surname, article, deadline. And the next day the soldiers take Dugayev to a dingy place, fenced by a high fence with barbed wire, from where the chirring of tractors comes at night. Dugayev guessed, why he was brought here and that his life is over. And he regrets only that the last day was in vain.
Rain
Rozovsky, who works in a pit, suddenly, despite the threatening gesture of a guard, calls to the storyteller working nearby to share the heartbreaking revelation: “Listen, listen, I’ve been thinking for a long time!” And realized that there was no meaning to life… No… “But before than Rozovsky, for whom life henceforth has lost value, has time to rush to the escorts, the narrator manages to run up to him and, saving from a reckless and disastrous act, tell the approaching guards that he fell ill. A little later, Rozovsky attempts to commit suicide by throwing himself under the trolley. He is tried and sent to another place.
Sherry Brandy
The imprisoned poet, who was called the first Russian poet of the twentieth century, died. It lies in the dark depths of the lower row of continuous two-storeyed bunks. He is dying for a long time. Sometimes some idea comes – for example, that he stole bread, which he put under his head, and it’s so scary that he is ready to swear, fight, search… But he does not have the strength for that, and the thought of bread is also weakening. When he is put in the hand daily ration, he struggles to press the bread to his mouth, sucking it, trying to tear and gnaw with zwingotic loose teeth. When he dies, he is not decapitated for another two days, and resourceful neighbors manage to get bread on the dead as a living matter when distributing: they make it so that the one, like a puppet doll, raises his hand.
Shock therapy
The prisoner Merzlyakov, a man of large build, finds himself in common work, feels that he is gradually giving up. One day he falls, he can not stand up right away and refuses to drag the log. He is beaten first by his own, then by guards, to the camp he is brought-his rib and the pain in his lower back are broken. And although the pains have quickly passed, and the rib has grown together, Merzlyakov continues to complain and pretends that he can not straighten up, trying at any cost to delay the extract for work. He is sent to the central hospital, to the surgical department, and from there to research into the nervous. He has a chance to be activated, that is, written off by illness at will. Remembering the mine, the chilling cold, a bowl of empty soup that he drank, even without using a spoon, he concentrates all his will to not be convicted of deception and sent to the penalty area. However, the doctor Pyotr Ivanovich, himself a prisoner in the past, did not fall for it. Professional supplants the human in it. He spends most of his time just to expose the simulators. This amuses his ego: he is an excellent specialist and is proud to have retained his qualification, despite a year of general work. He immediately understands that Merzlyakov is a simulator, and anticipates the theatrical effect of a new exposure. First, the doctor makes him a raush anesthesia, during which Merzlyakov’s body can be unbent, and a week later the procedure of so-called shock therapy, whose action is like a fit of violent madness or an epileptic fit. After it, the prisoner himself asks for an extract. He spends most of his time just to expose the simulators. This amuses his ego: he is an excellent specialist and is proud to have retained his qualification, despite a year of general work. He immediately understands that Merzlyakov is a simulator, and anticipates the theatrical effect of a new exposure. First, the doctor makes him a raush anesthesia, during which Merzlyakov’s body can be unbent, and a week later the procedure of so-called shock therapy, whose action is like a fit of violent madness or an epileptic fit. After it, the prisoner himself asks for an extract. He spends most of his time just to expose the simulators. This amuses his ego: he is an excellent specialist and is proud to have retained his qualification, despite a year of general work. He immediately understands that Merzlyakov is a simulator, and anticipates the theatrical effect of a new exposure. First, the doctor makes him a raush anesthesia, during which Merzlyakov’s body can be unbent, and a week later the procedure of so-called shock therapy, whose action is like a fit of violent madness or an epileptic fit. After it, the prisoner himself asks for an extract. during which the body Merzlyakova able to unbend, and a week later the procedure of the so-called shock therapy, the action of which is like a fit of violent madness or epileptic seizure. After it, the prisoner himself asks for an extract. during which the body Merzlyakova able to unbend, and a week later the procedure of the so-called shock therapy, the action of which is like a fit of violent madness or epileptic seizure. After it, the prisoner himself asks for an extract.
Typhoid Quarantine
The prisoner Andreev, getting sick with typhus, falls into quarantine. Compared with the general works on the mines, the patient’s position gives a chance to survive, which the hero almost did not already hope for. And then he decides by all the truths and crooks as long as possible to linger here, in transit, and there, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the gold faces, where hunger, beating and death. On the roll call before the next sending to the work of those who are considered to have recovered, Andreev does not respond, and so he manages to hide for quite some time. The transit is gradually empty, the queue finally reaches Andreev as well. But now it seems to him that he won his battle for life, that now the taiga is full and if there are dispatches, then only for near, local business trips. However, when a truck with a selected group of prisoners unexpectedly given out winter uniforms,
Aortic aneurysm
Disease and hospital – in Shalamov’s stories an indispensable attribute of the plot. The prisoner is Ekaterina Glovatskaya. Beauty, she immediately liked the doctor on duty Zaitsev, and although he knows that she is in close relations with his acquaintance, Podshivalov, the head of the amateur art circle, nothing prevents him in his turn to try his luck. He begins, as usual, with a medical examination of Glovatsky, with a listening heart, but his male interest is quickly replaced by a purely medical concern. He finds an aortic aneurysm in Glovatsky – a disease in which any careless movement can cause a fatal outcome. The authorities, who took the unwritten rule of separating lovers, had once already sent Glovatskaya to the penal women’s quarry. And now, after the report of the doctor about the dangerous illness of the prisoner, the head of the hospital is sure that this is nothing but the intrigues of the same Podshivalov, who is trying to arrest his mistress. Glovatsky is discharged, but already when loading into the car, what Zaitsev warned about is that she is dying.
Major Pugachev’s last fight
Among the heroes of Shalamov’s prose are those who not only strive to survive at any cost, but are also able to intervene in the course of circumstances, stand up for themselves, even risking their lives. According to the author’s testimony, after the war of 1941-1945, Prisoners who fought and passed German captivity began to arrive in the northeastern camps. They are people of a different hardening, “with courage, the ability to take risks, believing only in weapons.” Commanders and soldiers, pilots and scouts… “. But most importantly, they possessed the instinct of freedom that the war aroused in them. They shed their blood, sacrificed their lives, saw death face to face. They were not corrupted by camp slavery and were not yet depleted until they lost their strength and will. The “fault” of them was that they were surrounded or imprisoned. And to Major Pugachev, one of those still not broken people, it is clear: ” They were brought to their deaths – to replace these living dead people “they met in Soviet camps.” Then the former major gathers as determined and strong, to himself, prisoners who are ready either to die or to become free. In their group there are pilots, scouts, a paramedic, a tankman, they realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they have nothing to lose, they are preparing an escape for the whole winter. Pugachev realized that only those who pass the common work can escape through the winter and after that, participants in the conspiracy, one for others, go to the service: someone is becoming they are a cook, somebody is a cultivator, someone is repairing weapons in the detachment of guards. But here comes the spring, and with it the planned day. prisoners ready either to die or to become free. In their group – pilots, scout, paramedic, tankman. They realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they have nothing to lose. All winter they prepare to escape. Pugachev realized that to survive the winter and after that, only those who pass general works can escape. And the participants in the conspiracy, one by one, move into the service: someone becomes a cook, someone is a cultivator, who repairs weapons in the guard detachment. But here comes the spring, and with it the planned day. prisoners ready either to die or to become free. In their group – pilots, scout, paramedic, tankman. They realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they have nothing to lose. All winter they prepare to escape. Pugachev realized that to survive the winter and after that, only those who pass general works can escape. And the participants in the conspiracy, one by one, move into the service: someone becomes a cook, someone is a cultivator, who repairs weapons in the guard detachment. But here comes the spring, and with it the planned day. someone becomes a cook, someone is a cultivator, who repairs weapons in a detachment of guards. But here comes the spring, and with it the planned day. someone becomes a cook, someone is a cultivator, who repairs weapons in a detachment of guards. But here comes the spring, and with it the planned day.
At five o’clock in the morning they knocked on the watch. The attendant admits the camp cook, a prisoner, who came, as usual, behind the keys of the pantry. A minute later, the person on duty is strangled, and one of the prisoners is disguised in his uniform. The same happens with the other, who came back a little later on duty. Further everything follows the plan of Pugachev. The conspirators burst into the guard detachment and, having shot the duty officer, take possession of the weapon. Keeping under the sights of suddenly awakened soldiers, they change into military uniform and are stocked with provisions. Going out of the camp, they stop the truck on the highway, land the chauffeur and continue on their way to the car until the gasoline runs out. After that they go to the taiga. At night – the first night of freedom after long months of captivity – Pugachev, waking up, recalls his escape from the German camp in 1944, crossing the front line, interrogation in a special department, charges of espionage and a sentence of twenty-five years in prison. He also remembers the visits to the German camp of the emissaries of General Vlasov, who recruited Russian soldiers, convincing them that for the Soviet government all of them, captured, traitors to the Motherland. Pugachev did not believe them until he could make sure. He lovingly looks at his sleeping comrades who believe in him and stretch their hands to freedom, he knows that they are “better than all, worthy of all.” A little later, the battle is tied up, the last hopeless battle between the fugitives and the soldiers surrounding them. Almost all of the fugitives die, except for one, seriously wounded, who is cured to be subsequently shot. Only Major Pugachev manages to leave, but he knows, hiding in a bear den, that he will still be found. He does not regret what he did.
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