The problem of the Russian national character in the context of the tragic era


Every nation, like a single person, has its own character. Russian national character was formed in the process of peaceful labor of a tiller, development of new lands by an explorer, defense of his Fatherland by a soldier.
In the gallery of images of true Russian characters, we can include Yevgeny Onegin from the novel of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, Pechorin from “The Hero of Our Time” by M. Yu. Lermontov, Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov from the novel “War and??” by L. N. Tolstoy, Grigory Melekhov from the novel “Quiet Flows the Don” by A. Sholokhov… This list has no end, as there is no comprehensive, spiritually rich, its own end? subject?? and the image?? Russian literature, and to this day inspiring humanity to the feat of creation.
All these heroes, so different, have a single common property of character: a kind of core, integrity of their personality, unruly and unbreakable.
Is it possible to attribute

the main character of Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day of Ivan Denisovich” to the glorious cohort of the best images of Russian literature? Undoubtedly, yes.
At first, it seems to us that the main character of the story is a simple Russian man, unremarkable. In the camp, where he is, there are many such “prisoners”. These people have not committed anything reprehensible: Baptists have suffered for their faith, and a large number of those in the zone are former prisoners, serving time as traitors, although their fault is that they were still alive in the fire of the war and fell into the hands of the enemy. Many of them, after liberation from the Nazi concentration camps, fell into the “archipelago of the Gulag.”
Ivan Denisovich, at first glance, is just an ordinary prisoner, who even an investigator, who was leading the case of a former prisoner about treason, could not think of what kind of reconnaissance his detective worked… And for 8 years now Ivan Denisovich has been hanging around the camps, suffering all the suffering, but retains an inner dignity. Against
the backdrop of the marshy quagmire of camp life, we see that the integrity of the character of Ivan Denisovich does not crumble: he is not humiliated from? for rations or cigarettes, does not report to his comrades in order to facilitate his fate in the camp. Ivan Denisovich is a decent person: even when he is ill, he feels guilty, “conscientiously, as if to charge someone else’s”. “What… Nikolai Semyonitch… I’m kind of… sick…” – he says in the medical unit.
In addition, the bright, reliable character of the hero appears in the work. Ivan Denisovich owns different? are they professional? skill??: he and the carpenter, the stove-maker, and the mason… The passion of work as a truly Russian person captures Ivan Denisovich. For him, forced labor becomes a spiritual outlet to freedom, salvation from loneliness and suffering, work gives satisfaction and positive emotions, so necessary for any “prisoner”.
The harsh truth of life, from which all the nature of a free man shudders, is submitted through the perception of the protagonist. By? Every line of the narrative about camp life just sounds every weekday, and the contrast of the narrowness of the story and the tragic scenes leads the reader to a terrible shock of the monstrousness of the totalitarian system that has broken, but has not broken the Russian person. The soul can not be deprived of freedom, make it a captive.
Through suffering for purification and righteous paths go to the heroes of Russian writers of all time. After Austerlitz Andrei Bolkonsky understands and accepts a simple and vast world, like this calm blue sky. He finds his life’s truth at the gate of his home near his son Grigory Melekhov. The appeasement of the Turbins’ house for all its inhabitants became appealing.
He also finds his moral greatness, spiritual freedom “not according to lies” Ivan Denisovich.
No epoch-making tragedies can enslave people who are strong in spirit, who have stood up in harsh conditions. Just like Ivan Denisovich, they did not break down and did not let their Fatherland perish. They also give hope that the rudiments of totalitarianism will disappear forever from the history of Russia.


1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

The problem of the Russian national character in the context of the tragic era