Variations on the theme of the Gulag

Varlam Shalamov is one of those who opened the truth about the Gulag to the country and the world. But it so happened that the world had previously read the “One Day of Ivan Denisovich” and “Archipelago Gulag” written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and the Kolyma Stories forever remained in the Solzhenitsyn Shadow. Shalamov never waited for their publications in his homeland. Only today the works of Shalamov and Solzhenitsyn are standing nearby in bookstores.

Real glory came to Varlam Tikhonovich only posthumously. Although Solzhenitsyn offered Shalamov co -authorship in writing the "Archipelago", he categorically refused, justifying his refusal in his diary:

"Why do not I consider my personal cooperation with Solzhenitsyn? First of all, because I hope to say my personal word in Russian prose, and not appear in the shadow of such a business dealer like Solzhenitsyn. I consider my own works in prose immeasurably more important for the country than all the verses and novels of Solzhenitsyn."

Nowadays, Shalamov is a recognized classic who, with his works, contributing a lot to the awakening of public consciousness, which ultimately led to the fall of communism. But the shadow of Solzhenitsyn and the echo of disputes with him are still gravitated over the figure of the author of the Kolyma Stories.

And what would happen if Shalamov still agreed to write “Arkhip” along with Solzhenitsyn? Maybe then they would have sent both, and the Nobel Prize was divided into two? But neither Shalamov nor Solzhenitsyn were people who were ready to share fame with someone.

Solzhenitsyn has the main thing in the “Gulag Archipelago” - the numbers and facts, albeit presented in an unusual style manner, with elements of “black humor”. Shalamov has in Kolyma’s stories - outwardly an articular evidence of an eyewitness, in this capacity used in the Solzhenitsyn epic.

Indeed, Varlam Tikhonovich admitted : “Each of my story is a slap in the face of Stalinism and, like any slap in the face, has laws of a purely muscular nature ... In the story, the deposition does not always meet the author’s intention - the most successful stories are written, more accepted from the draft once ... The pier should be a short, ringing ... my story is absolute reliability. This is the reliability of the document.” And he stated: "I do not want to reflect anything, I have no right to speak for anyone (except for the dead of the Kolyma, maybe)." And he admitted: "All my stories are shouted ..."

On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Shalamov, which we celebrate on June 18, on Russian television, was held by a very good film by Nikolai Depal "Testament of Lenin", based on "Kolyma Stories" and the autobiographical prose of Shalamov. The "testament of Lenin" is obviously understood not only the famous "letter to the congress", for the distribution of which was first arrested in 1929, Shalamov, but also Kolyma camps.

Varlam Tikhonovich himself considered his main work in literature that was nevertheless published in the USSR, but “Kolyma stories” considered it not by literature, but by evidence. And he even said sometimes dismissively: "Yes, what stories - there are nothing special in them." But in literature, he remained precisely "Kolyma stories", and his poetry was forgotten.

Interestingly, the image of Shalamov himself in the film is changed in comparison with the prototype. The hero of the picture is shown by a fighter opposing the Gulag and the Soviet system, while in fact, Varlam Tikhonovich was not a fighter and a hero, but sought to show that the main thing for the convict in the camp was to survive at all costs. We can say that Shalamov in the film is depicted as Alexander Solzhenitsyn would like to see him.

In an interview with a literary critic and critic Vladimir Lakshin, Shalamov jokingly called the author of "one day of Ivan Denisovich" "varnisher of reality." Also, Ruf Tamarina, who passed the Gulag, indicates that “our license plates compared to those long -standing were rightly evaluated by Shalamov as“ resort ”. Shalamov’s experience was worse, and his eyes on literature were tougher.

Solzhenitsyn recalled how they and Shalamov arose a “dispute about the word“ ZEK ”I introduced: V.T. resolutely objected, because the word in the camps was not at all frequent, even rarely where, the prisoners of almost everywhere, the administrative“ Ze -ka ”(for a joke Varya -“ Zahari Komsomolets ”or“ Zakhar Kuzmin ”), in other ones) The camps were said by the Shalamov that I should not have introduced this word and it was not in any way, and I was sure that it would be soaked (it has a multiple number), that the language and history are waiting for it, it was impossible to use it (V.T.

And Alexander Isaevich also suggested that "this was the idea of ​​Shalamov: the most severe camp everyday life abrasion and crush people, people cease to be individuals, but only with sticks that the camp use ... He wrote about transcendental suffering, prohibitive abdication from personality - and everything is reduced to the struggle for survival." Solzhenitsyn believed that both the features of a person’s personality and his past manifested itself in the camp. No wonder in the "one day" each of the heroes is a specific social type and peculiar character, with its ideology. Solzhenitsyn insisted that camp reality should be transformed by the power of literature. Shalamov advocated the "naked truth" of the fact.

Apparently, this is why the “one day of Ivan Denisovich” in the Khrushchev “thaw” nevertheless printed, which laid the foundation for the loud Solzhenitsyn glory, but “Kolyma stories” did not. Solzhenitsyn still had some kind of positive beginning. He was Ivan Denisovich and, in the terrible conditions of the camp, was preserved as a strong and attractive peasant type. In the same way, other heroes of the story retained their dalager characters and beliefs that were only transformed in the conditions of the Gulag. And all of them retained hope for the post -Glater Renaissance. The story of Solzhenitsyn could still, albeit with large stretches, squeeze into the framework of the criticism of the “personality cult” declared by the XX Congress, but no hopeless Shalamov stories.

It is curious that Shalamov himself praised "One Day of Ivan Denisovich" precisely for what was not in the "Kolyma stories". In a letter to Solzhenitsyn in November 1962, he wrote: “The story is like poems! Everything is appropriate in it. Each line, every scene, each characteristic are so laconic, smart, accurate and deep that, I think, the“ new world ”from the very beginning of its existence has not printed anything so strong, and so much - because without a honest solution to these issues. The literature, neither public life, everything that goes with omissions, to deceive, brings, brings and brings only harm ... This is reliably in the story. Another huge dignity is the deeply and very subtly shown peasant psychology of Shukhov.

Varlam Tikhonovich highly appreciated the work of Alexander Isaevich, but in literature he preferred to go his own way.

Shalamov claimed: “Russian writers -humanists of the second half of the nineteenth century carry a great sin of human blood in their souls, spilled under their banner in the twentieth century. All the terrorists were Tolstoyes and vegetarians, all fanatics were students of Russian humanists. This sin cannot be silent ...” It was a stone in the garden of Solzhenitsyn, who followed the tradition of fat.

And Solzhenitsyn did not forgive Shalamov for a forced letter to the Literary Gazeta of February 15, 1972 with the renunciation of the publication of Kolyma Stories in “Sowing” and “New Journal” - and especially the final passage of the letter. This text is really terrible. Shalamov wrote :

"The vile way of publication, used by the editors of these fetid magazines - by the story, in the room, has the goal of creating an impression with the reader that I am their permanent employee ... These gentlemen, who are pushing with hatred of our great country, its people, its literature, go to any provocation, any blackmail, to spinning, to spit any name.

Both in the past years and now, “sowing” was, is and remains a publication, deeply hostile to our people.

No self -respecting Soviet writer drops his dignity, does not stain honor with the publication of his works in this fetid anti -Soviet leaflet ...

The problems of the Kolyma Stories have long been lifted by life, and to present me to the world as an underground anti -Soviet, the "internal emigrant", the gentlemen from "sowing" and "new magazine" and their owners will not succeed! "

In the justification of Varlam Tikhonovich, one can only notice that he did not receive a cent of foreign publications of his works, and the very fact of publication in the “sowing” closed the doors of Moscow editions and publishers in front of him. The letter again opened these doors - soon a collection of poems came out. And when in 1980, the French branch of the Pen Club awarded him the Freedom Prize, he, having learned that the award was foreign, immediately lost interest in it.

This exhausted renunciation was torn from a seriously ill writer. And ten years later, Shalamov became one of the first victims of Soviet punitive psychiatry. In January 1982, he was transferred from a boarding school for the disabled and elderly to a much more closed neuropsychiatric boarding school. This was largely caused by the noise that rose after the publication of the Kolyma Stories in the West. For Varlam Tikhonovich, the translation was a death blow. In addition, on the way, he caught a cold and two days later, on January 17, 1982, died of fleeting pneumonia.

Yes, the Kolyma camps were truly fighting, not a couple of Kazakhstan, where Solzhenitsyn visited. The chances of surviving on Kolyma were minimal. Shalamov showed us real ice hell. And he predicted that “any hell can return, alas!”, Since the main lesson of the 20th century is not realized in Russia - “a lesson in the exposure of the animal principle with the most humanistic concepts”.

Unfortunately, the Shalamov prophecy today sounds like more relevant than ever. No one can vouch that the Gulag will not return. And today Shalamov’s stories look like a anticipation of literature of the 21st century, where the fact becomes more important than the image.