Marietta Chudakova about the release of the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”

For each Weekend issue, as part of the Private Memory project, we select one of the events from 1953-2013 that fell during that week. The scale of these events from the point of view of history is different, but imprinted forever in the memory of contemporaries, they acquired a common dimension - a human one. We publish stories from people whose knowledge, opinions and impressions we consider absolutely valuable.

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November 18, 1962
An issue of Novy Mir has been published with Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”

1.

From the diary: “11/19/62. I read Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (N.m, No. 11). All opinions agree that a great writer came to literature. Apparently this is so. For a long time after Tolstoy there was no such thing a feeling of absolute truth. It’s been a long time since there was a simple Russian person in literature.”

A fragment from an old article, where I tried to reproduce as accurately as possible the memorable atmosphere of Solzhenitsyn’s appearance: “First - talk, conversations, the usual Moscow rumor: “In the Novy Mir” in the November issue there will be...” - “But who is he, who ?" - “I don’t know, I don’t know, I’m hearing it for the first time! Slazhenitsyn, Lazhenitsyn..." - "Who, after all, where from?" - "Just a mathematics teacher from Ryazan." <...> And then the page of the magazine opened - and tenaciously, with iron fingers, the unknown author grabbed the prisoner by the shoulder and I didn’t let it out of my hands <...> So we sat there, not moving, until we finished reading, isn’t it so - confirm, compatriots, first readers..."

Yes, on November 18, 1962, our own Soviet concentration camp unexpectedly appeared before us, until that time known only to those who went through it - and miraculously came out alive.

“Gopchik will be the right camp inmate. He’ll learn for another three years and grow up—nothing less than a bread-cutter predicts his destiny.”

Not a pilot, not a polar explorer, not a sea captain. Only now, after the publication of this story, two lives of the country stood side by side, known - and completely unknown.

The "sixties", the main opposition force at that time, still defended Lenin and October. But in Solzhenitsyn’s story there was no place for this - the fact that Lenin’s ideas were wonderful, Stalin came and ruined them - there was no place left. Solzhenitsyn opened the door to Bluebeard's secret room, filled with corpses.

2.

Of course, after the death of Stalin, Khrushchev’s report and the return of prisoners, there were many stories at feasts. But literature still spoke of something completely different! I have more than once tried to imagine what, say, an engineer and physicist, and then a wonderful writer Georgy Demidov, felt when he ended up in Inta (Komi Republic) in 1951 after more than twenty years of Kolyma hard labor and for the first time opened the novels of these years. “Clear Coast” by Panova, “Baker of the Golden Star” by Babaevsky... Stories about the countries of “black Africa” would be less exotic for prisoners than these novels about their country, which have nothing in common with the one in which they lived for decades.

In Solzhenitsyn’s story (he himself called it a story ), this life suddenly appeared in the forged forms of literature. And a significant part of the writings of that time fell away like autumn leaves.

Entry in the diary of Korney Chukovsky on November 24, 1962: “...I met Kataev. He is outraged by the story “One Day,” which was published in Novy Mir. To my amazement, he said: the story is false: it does not show protest.— What protest? - The protest of a peasant sitting in the camp. - But this is the whole truth of the story: the executioners created such conditions that people have lost the slightest concept of justice and, under the threat of death, do not dare to think that there is conscience, honor in the world. , humanity. The man agrees to consider himself a spy so that the investigators do not beat him. This is the whole essence of the wonderful story - and Kataev says: how dare he not protest at least under the covers. How much did Kataev himself protest during the Stalinist regime? hymns, like everyone else."

3.

It seemed to us then that after this event (sanctioned from the very top!) everything would go differently. But there was never any monolinearity in Soviet life. Just as six months after Khrushchev’s report in 1956, Hungarian events awaited us and the arrests of fellow students for leaflets, so now, it turns out, the end of Khrushchev’s thaw was already coming. This end has a date. On December 1, 1962, Khrushchev came to an exhibition in the Manege - and with his last words he blasted the “abstractist” artists.

4.

But people of culture did not give up. Another entry in my diary: “25.1.63. Today in the New World there are amazing stories by Solzhenitsyn [1] . In Lit. Russia" - an essay about him. God, what an intelligent, kind, courageous, reserved, thinking person! And how shocking is the fact, quite understandable to me, that none of the teachers still understand who their colleague is. "Our Alexander became famous Isaevich..."

Less than six months after the publication of “One Day...”, on March 19, 1963, we talked about the story in the house of Boris Balter. His view of the main character stunned us - it turned out that not “all opinions agree.” I wrote down verbatim: “About Solzhenitsyn.” I don’t like his hero. It is not he who embodies the tragedy of time, but the kavtorang. This one (Ivan Denisovich - M. Ch.) accepted the rules of the game here, just as he once accepted the collective farms. Put him on the tower and he will shoot from a machine gun. He follows the rules of the game imposed on him. Brigadier - the second type; he demands that others follow. Kavtorang - he sincerely believed, and did not play. He doesn't understand this game now. It is his character that has a tragic meaning. Solzhenitsyn describes people who remained on the edge, keeping their character intact. ("Matrenin's Dvor"). And we would like to see the people whom the era has passed through." A.P. Chudakov strongly disagreed: he keenly felt the tragedy of the peasantry and saw its embodiment in the story.

In 1963, in No. 2 of Novy Mir, our first joint long article with A.P. was published. We went to the editorial office as if it were our home. "24.2.63. I want to write down something about the situation in the editorial office of the New World - the only refuge of progress (in the 1st issue the printing of Ehrenburg resumed [2] , in the 2nd, which everyone keeps under censorship [3] - the same, and the stories of Voinovich. Before this - “Vologda Wedding” by Yashin [4], etc. The difference between the views of K.N. [head of the editorial board of criticism Kaleria Nikolaevna Ozerova], V. [V.Ya.] and all sorts of Kondratovichs [member of the editorial board A.I. Kondratovich]." Kaleria Nikolaevna, Asya Berzer, Inna Borisova were in high spirits: after all, they discovered such an author and managed to transfer his manuscript to Tvardovsky, bypassing the editorial board, which determined success!

Solzhenitsyn visited the editorial office. One of the fleeting meetings with him is recorded in my diary: “I saw Solzhenitsyn in the New World. Animated and tense, all directed towards the goal. The jaws, slightly compressed from the sides, are narrowed, which gives him - when talking - something beastly. <...> Very fast. <...> They talked about our Department (of manuscripts)." Since 1965, I was already an employee of this department of Leninka, and he was interested in the conditions of admission to the archives department...

In 1989, when A.P. and I taught for two or three weeks at the Russian School in Vermont, Solzhenitsyn gave us a separate edition of “One Day...” with the inscription: “To Marietta Omarovna and Alexander Pavlovich Chudakov. Cordially 11.7.89.” And a signature.

[1] These were “Matrenin Dvor” and “The Incident at Krechetovka Station”.

[2] The printing of his memoirs “People, Years, Life” in Novy Mir proceeded, as is known, with great tension. There, completely unknown to most readers, pages of our history were revealed.

[3] The layout of the magazine was censored for so long in those years that the next issue was often published several months late; but the subscribers, in love with the magazine, waited patiently.

[4] The stories of Vladimir Voinovich and Alexander Yashin were all breakthroughs, victories of the magazine over Soviet preliminary censorship.

Marietta Chudakova

The entire project “Private Memory”

“Two lives of the country stood side by side”