Summary “The rout”
The novel of A. A. Fadeev “The Defeat” was written in 1926. The work is based on the story-study of the writer “Snowstorm”, which was then deployed by the author to a major work. In the novel The Defeat, Fadeev, concentrating on depicting the military life of a small detachment of partisans, describes the events of the Civil War that took place in the Ussuri region. The work is a vivid example of the literary trend of socialist realism.
Main characters
Levinson, commander of the detachment, “small, plain-looking-all consisted of a hat, a red beard, and Ichigov above the knees,” the son of a second-hand merchant.
Metchik Paul – a young guy who went to the partisans, dreaming of exploits, but was too weak in spirit. He threw the detachment, fled to the city. I was in love with Varia.
Morozka – ordinar, husband Vary, was born in a mining family. Was killed by Cossacks.
Other characters
Varvara
Stashinsky is a doctor in a forest hospital.
Baklanov is Levinson’s assistant.
Dubov, Metelitsa, Kubrak – platoon in the squad of Levinson.
Siskin, Peak, Efimka – partisans in the order of Levinson.
Summary
1. The frost
Levinson sends Morozka to take the package to Shaldyba’s detachment. Not wanting to go, the orderly tries to persuade the commander to send someone else. However, when Levinson said that if Morozka does not want to obey, then let him give up the gun and “get out on all four sides,” the orderly agonizedly agrees.
“Morozka was a miner in the second generation,” the fourth son in the family. All his life he “did not look for new roads,” making everything thoughtlessly. Morozka fought at the front, was wounded six times and twice bruised, and before the revolution left. Soon he married the rollbacker Varya, and in the “eighteenth year” left “to protect the Soviets.”
On
2. Mechik
“Saved did not like Morozka at first sight.” The wounded man was called Pavel Metchik. He woke up already in the forest hospital, where Morozka brought him. Earlier, Metchik lived in the city and went to the partisans, dreaming of exploits. Soon his ideas and fantasies were dispelled by reality.
In the infirmary Metchik falls in love with the “merciful sister” – Varya, wife of Morozka, she also feels favor to Paul. However, the old partisan Pika speaks of the woman as “lecherous” – “can not refuse anyone – and that’s it.”
3. The sixth sense
Morozka believed that Metchik “came to them on the ready” and did not understand that Varya had found him in it.
The frost steals from the village chairman Ryabtsa melons, and Levinson orders to take the orderly from the ordinarian, appointing an evening for a meeting to parse this issue.
Levinson, interrogating his scouts, understands that something is coming up – “there was something wrong”. The commander ordered the drying of biscuits and a larger portion of oats for horses.
4. One
Metchik is worried because everyone treats him with a sneer, not with sympathy. Pavel told Stashinsky that he had previously served with the “maximalists.” Learning about this, the doctor began to treat Mechik more “dry” and “alienated.”
5. The peasants and the “coal tribe”
Levinson went to the meeting earlier to investigate the rumors that went among the peasants. In the muzhik voices, the commander “caught alarming notes.” At the meeting, Dubov proposed to expel Morozka, but the orderly swore that it would not happen again. Levinson ordered that the guerrillas help the peasants in their free time in the household.
6. Levinson
The alarming reports that reached Levinson did not allow him to do anything, but nobody knew about his hesitation. “Ever since Levinson was chosen as commander, no one could imagine him in another place: it seemed to everyone that the most distinctive feature of him was that he commands their detachment.”
Soon comes the news that the Japanese landing took the city. Levinson was given the order to “preserve combat units.” The commander decides on the retreat.
7. Enemies
On the orders of Levinson, Stashinsky begins to “gradually unload the infirmary.” In love with Metchik Varya, motherly advises him to go to the detachment to Levinson.
Morozka comes to the infirmary. Ivan, previously not jealous of Varya, begins to get angry, noticing the sympathy between Pavel and Varya – that “his wife’s lover could be a man like Metchik, now seemed very offensive to him.” The frost burns with the Sword.
8. The first move
Appearing to Levinson, Morozka asked “to put him in a platoon,” appointing Efimka as the orderly. The commander agreed. The frost was happy, “that was again among the guys.”
At night, Levinson, raising his alert, announced that they were leaving.
9. Mechik in the detachment
Stashinsky was informed of the retreat of the detachment. The same day, Metchik rose on his feet for the first time. Pavel and Varya are getting even closer together. He was the first to whom Varya said “coveted, beloved.” Paul, however, was very timid in her company, also feeling guilty before the Frost who had saved him. Together with Pika Metchik went to the detachment to Levinson. At parting, Varya presented Pavel with an embroidered pouch.
Levinson, after questioning Metchik about his previous service, directs the guy to Kubrak, giving to the “plain” mare Zyuchikha. Metchik was outraged that he was given a bad horse, he saw in it a mockery of him from Levinson. Offended, Paul decided not to take care of Zyuchikha, for which he “won general dislike, as” a lazy bastard asked. “In the detachment, Metchik communicates most with Chizh, who taught him” to withdraw from the daytime, from the kitchen. “
10. Beginning of the rout
Scouts Levinson reported that the Japanese occupied large areas. The commander decided to send Baklanov and Metchik to the reconnaissance. Contrary to the information of previous scouts in the village of Solomennaya, there were Japanese. Having shot three enemies, Baklanov and Metchik fled, having learned everything necessary.
11. Strada
During the passage through the taiga, partisans had to fight hunger and cold. “Levinson deeply believed that these people are driven not only by a sense of self-preservation, but also by another, no less important instinct, … according to which everything that they have to endure, even death, is justified by their ultimate goal.” On the way, the guerrillas greeted the Daubihinsky Spirton-bearer Stirksh, who said that Levinson was promised a reward for “capturing the living or dead”.
Partisans come to the hospital. Stashinsky and Levinson, realizing that the fatally wounded Frolov will only be a burden, decide to give him poison. Accidentally heard them talk Metchik tries to prevent what is happening, shouts at the doctor. Frolov realizes that he was given not just a medicine and before his death asks to take care of his son.
12. Roads
Once again seeing Varya, Morozka again began to think about his wife and about Mechik, trying to “assure himself that he does not care.” The partisans began to move forward. At one of the halts Varya, all the while bored in Mecica, herself approached him. However, Pavel was embarrassed and dragged the woman into the Chizh bushes – “and she really did not care.”
13. Cargo
Standing by the sentry, Metchik realizes that he wants to leave the detachment. He says this to the departing Levinson. Mechik explains to the commander that he considers himself to be an unfit and not necessary partisan and asks him to send him to the city. After thinking about their conversation, Levinson thought that “as long as millions of people live in our country and on our soil… in mud and poverty, <…> until then such lazy and weak-willed people, such a worthless wasteland… “.
14. Exploration of the Snowstorm
Levinson sends Metelitsa for reconnaissance to the village. Having got out of the taiga, the platoon acquainted with the boy-groom, who leaves the horse. Upon learning that the Cossacks had settled in the village, Metelitsa was trying to find out something under the windows of the house of the squadron commander, but he was being caught.
The news that Blizzard did not return excited Levinson, but they still decided to move forward. The commander was very sick, and every day it got worse.
15. Three Deaths
Metelitsa woke up in a big dark barn, thinking about how he “can show those people who will kill him, that he is not afraid and despises them.” After interrogation, the platoon was taken to the square. One of the peasants leads a shepherd, whose Snowstorm has left his horse. Cossacks want to interrogate the boy, but the platoon rushes in defense of the shepherd and dies of the Cossack bullet.
Partisans noticed the approaching squadron of Cossacks. Levinson’s squad dispatches the enemy, the time of the skirmish was killed by Morozka’s horse. By order of the commander, a peasant was shot, who led a cowherd boy to the square.
16. The quagmire
Not involved in the attack, Varya came to the village, when everyone was already wandering around the huts. Learning that Morozka is alive, she immediately went to look for him and found him drunk on the street – a man got drunk, grieving about the death of the horse. The woman helped him to stand and led him to the hayloft. Unexpectedly, Morozka kissed Varya for the second time in her life. They reconciled.
In the morning the enemy cavalry began to attack the village. Due to the lack of people, the Levinson detachment had to retreat into the forest. Fighters stop the quagmire. Levinson orders the marsh to be dislodged. Under the enemy’s bullets the guerrillas managed to cross the quagmire.
17. Nineteen
Not far from the place where the partisans were transported, the Cossacks arranged an ambush. Metchik sent to the intelligence service. Falling asleep on a horse, he sees the Cossacks before him, but without warning the detachment runs away in fright, and then the city returns. Behind Metochik went Morozka. Ivan manages to warn his detachment with shots, after which the Cossacks kill him.
Levinson orders to go for a breakthrough. They inform him that they killed Baklanov. Not concealing his weakness more, the commander burst into tears. Breaking through, “they left the forest – all nineteen” and were in the field.
“Levinson surveyed this silent, wet still glance this vast sky and the earth, promising bread and rest, these distant people to the current, which he would soon have to make as his own, close people, like those eighteen who silently rode along – and ceased to cry, you had to live and fulfill your duties. “
Conclusion
In the novel “Defeat” Fadeyev raised a number of important topics, leading from which is the theme of the revolution and the Civil War. In the work, the small world of a small partisan detachment becomes a reflection of a real scale picture of the historical events of that period. The central figures of the novel are the images of the red commander Levinson and the weak spirit of the partisan Metchik, through the opposition of which the author emphasizes that the leading force of the revolution was “ordinary people” with a huge will to win.
We advise not only to read a brief retelling of the “defeat”, but also to evaluate the full version of the work.
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