In November 1962, the magazine "Novy Mir" published a story by a then unknown author who worked as a teacher in a Ryazan school called "One Day in Ivan Denisovich". It described one day of a GULAG prisoner, a village peasant Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. This is how the voice of Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn sounded for the first time in Russian literature.
Even before the release of Novy Mir, literary Moscow was stirred up by rumors of a new phenomenon in Russian literature. On November 17, 1962, the magazine went to subscribers, and the next day it went on sale. The hundred thousandth circulation was sold out almost instantly, in libraries, readers signed up in line for Solzhenitsyn.
After "One Day of Ivan Denisovich" was translated into all major languages \u200b\u200bof the world, it was no less a shock for foreign readers.
The story of Solzhenitsyn's first publication resembled an action-packed detective story. Alexander Isaevich submitted the manuscript to the editorial office of Novy Mir in November 1961 through his Moscow friends. The story was without the name of the author and was called "Shch-854". The editor of the prose department Anna Berzer managed to pass the manuscript, bypassing the deputies, immediately into the hands of the editor-in-chief, Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky, saying: "The camp through the eyes of a peasant is a very popular thing."
In the editorial office, Alexander Trifonovich said: "To print! To print! There is no other goal. To overcome everything, to reach the very top, to Nikita ... Prove, convince, back to the wall. They say they killed Russian literature. Damn it! Here it is, in this folder with strings. And he? Who is he? No one has seen ... ".
Tvardovsky fought for ten months to get the story published. As a result, he managed to convince Khrushchev to give permission to publish. On October 12, 1962, under pressure from Nikita Sergeevich, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU made a historic decision - to publish Solzhenitsyn's story!
Later, Alexander Isaevich himself wrote about the release of his story in Novy Mir as follows:
"If it hadn't been for Tvardovsky as the editor-in-chief of the magazine, no, this story would not have been published. And if it had not been for Khrushchev at that moment, it would not have been published either. More - if Khrushchev had not attacked Stalin at that moment - would not have been printed either. The publication of my story in the Soviet Union, in 1962, is like a phenomenon against physical laws. As if, for example, objects began to rise upward from the ground, or cold stones would heat up, glow from fire. "
Many of the letters that came to the editorial office of Novy Mir were written by former prisoners of the GULAG.
This edition is true and final.
No lifetime editions cancel it.
At five o'clock in the morning, as always, the ascent struck - with a hammer on the rail at the headquarters barrack. The intermittent ringing weakly passed through the glass, frozen in two fingers, and soon subsided: it was cold, and the warden was reluctant to wave his hand for a long time.
The ringing died down, but outside the window everything was the same as in the middle of the night, when Shukhov got up to the parasha, there was darkness and darkness, and three yellow lanterns hit the window: two in the zone, one inside the camp.
And they did not go to unlock the barracks, and it was impossible to hear that the orderlies took the parachute barrel on sticks - to carry it out.
Shukhov never slept through the ascent, always got up on it - before the divorce it was an hour and a half of his own time, not official, and who knows the camp life, can always earn extra money: sew someone from the old lining a cover for mittens; for a rich brigadier to serve dry felt boots directly on the bed, so that he does not stomp around the heap with bare feet, does not choose; or run through the lockers, where you need to serve someone, sweep or bring something; or go to the dining room to collect the bowls from the tables and take them to the dishwasher with slides - they will also feed, but there are many hunters, there is no end to it, and most importantly, if there is anything left in the bowl, you cannot resist, start licking the bowls. And Shukhov firmly remembered the words of his first brigadier Kuzemin - he was an old camp wolf, had been in prison for twelve years by the time he was nineteen forty-three, and once said to his reinforcements brought from the front on a bare clearing by the fire:
- Here, guys, the law is the taiga. But people live here too. In the camp, this is who is dying: who licks the bowls, who hopes for the medical unit, and who goes to the godfather to knock.
As for the godfather, of course, he turned it down. Those are saving themselves. Only their care is on someone else's blood.
Shukhov always got up on his way up, but today he did not get up. Even in the evening he felt uneasy, either shivering or breaking. And I didn't get warm at night. Through a dream, it seemed that he seemed completely ill, then he left a little. Everyone did not want the morning.
But the morning came as usual.
And where do you get eels - there is a lot of ice on the window, and on the walls along the junction with the ceiling all over the barracks - a healthy barrack! - the spider web is white. Frost.
Shukhov did not get up. He lay on top of the lining, with his head covered with a blanket and a pea jacket, and in a quilted jacket, in one rolled up sleeve, thrusting both feet together. He did not see, but from the sounds he understood everything that was going on in the barracks and in their brigade corner. Here, stepping heavily along the corridor, the orderlies carried one of the eight-bucket parasha. It is considered disabled, light work, but come on, take it out, don't spill it! Here in the 75th brigade, a bunch of boots from the dryer slammed on the floor. And here - in ours (and today it was our turn to dry boots). The foreman and the foreman are silently putting on their shoes, and their lining creaks. The brigadier will now go to the bread slicer, and the brigadier will go to the headquarters barracks, to the workmen.
Yes, not just to the contractors, as he goes every day, - Shukhov remembered: today the fate is being decided - they want to fry their 104th brigade from the construction of workshops to the new object "Sotsbytgorodok". And that social town is a bare field, in snowy hills, and before doing anything there, you have to dig holes, put up poles and pull barbed wire from yourself so as not to run away. And then build.
There, sure enough, there will be nowhere to warm up for a month - not a kennel. And you can't make a fire - how to heat it? Work hard on your conscience - one salvation.
The foreman is concerned, he is going to settle it. Some other brigade, sluggish, to push there instead. Of course, you can't come to an agreement empty-handed. To carry a pound of fat to the senior contractor. And even a kilogram.
The test is not a loss, shouldn't you try to cut it in the medical unit, free yourself from work for a day? Well, right, the whole body separates.
And yet - which of the guards is on duty today?
On duty - he remembered: Ivan and a half, thin and long sergeant black-eyed. The first time you look - it's just scary, but they recognized him - of all the attendants, he is more agreeable: he doesn't put him in a punishment cell, or he doesn't drag him to the head of the regime. So you can lie down, even while in the dining room of the ninth barrack.
The lining shook and swayed. Two people got up at once: above - Shukhov's neighbor, the Baptist Alyoshka, and below - Buinovsky, a former captain of the second rank, Cavtorang.
The old men of the orderlies, carrying out both buckets, got in trouble, who should go for boiling water. They swore affectionately, like women. An electric welder from the 20th brigade barked:
- Hey, wicks! - and launched a felt boot into them. - I'll make peace!
The felt boot knocked dully on the post. They fell silent.
In the next brigade, the brigade leader was a little burcoted:
- Vasil Fedoritch! They twitched in the food table, you bastards: there were nine hundred and four, but there were only three. Who shouldn't be?
He said this quietly, but, of course, all that team heard and hid: they will cut off a piece from someone in the evening.
And Shukhov lay and lay on the compressed sawdust of his mattress. At least one side would take it - or it would have chilled in a chill, or the aches would have passed. And then neither one nor the other.
While the Baptist was whispering prayers, Buinovsky returned from the breeze and announced to anyone, but as if gloatingly:
- Well, hold on, Red Navy men! Thirty degrees of faithful!
And Shukhov decided to go to the medical unit.
And then someone with authority pulled off his quilted jacket and blanket. Shukhov threw his jacket off his face and raised himself. Under him, his head level with the top bunk of the lining, stood a thin Tatar.
So, he was not on duty in line and crept quietly.
- More - eight hundred and fifty four! - read the Tartar from a white patch on the back of a black pea jacket. - Three days kondeya with a withdrawal!
And as soon as his special muffled voice rang out, as in the whole half-dark barrack, where not every light was on, where two hundred people slept on fifty bungalows, everyone who had not yet got up began to fidget and hurry to dress.
“One Day of Ivan Denisovich” is a story about a prisoner who describes one day of his life in prison, of which there are three thousand five hundred and sixty-four. Summary - below 🙂
The main character of the work, which takes place over the course of one day, is the peasant Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. On the second day after the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he went to the front from his native village Temgenevo, where he left a wife with two daughters. Shukhov still had a son, but he died.
In February one thousand nine hundred and forty-two, on the North-Western Front, a group of soldiers, which included Ivan Denisovich, was surrounded by the enemy. It was impossible to help them; from hunger the soldiers even had to eat the hooves of dead horses soaked in water. Soon Shukhov fell into German captivity, but he, together with four colleagues, managed to escape from there and get to their own. However, the Soviet machine gunners killed two former prisoners immediately. One died of his wounds, and Ivan Denisovich was sent to the NKVD. As a result of a quick investigation, Shukhov was sent to a concentration camp - after all, every person who was captured by the Germans was considered an enemy spy.
Ivan Denisovich has been serving his sentence for the ninth year. For eight years he was in Ust-Izhma, and now he is in a Siberian camp. Over the years, Shukhov has grown a long beard, and his teeth have become half as many. He is dressed in a quilted jacket, on top of which is a pea jacket belted with a string. Ivan Denisovich has wadded trousers and felt boots on his feet, and under them - two pairs of footcloths. On the trousers, just above the knee, there is a patch on which the camp number is embroidered.
The most important task in the camp is to avoid starvation. The prisoners are fed a nasty gruel - a chowder of frozen cabbage and small pieces of fish. If you try, you can get an extra portion of such a gruel or another ration of bread.
Some prisoners even receive parcels. One of them was Caesar Markovich (either a Jew or a Greek) - a man of pleasant oriental appearance with a thick, black mustache. The prisoner's mustache was not shaved off, as without them he would not have matched the photograph attached to the case. Once he wanted to become a director, but he didn't manage to shoot anything - he was jailed. Caesar Markovich lives on memories and behaves like a cultured person. He talks about the "political idea" as an excuse for tyranny, and sometimes publicly scolds Stalin, calling him "the mustache dad." Shukhov sees that there is a freer atmosphere in penal servitude than in Ust-Izhma. You can talk about anything without fear that this will increase the term. Caesar Markovich, being a practical person, was able to adapt to a convict life: from the parcels sent to him he knows how to "put in the mouth whoever needs it." Thanks to this, he works as an assistant to the normalizer, which was pretty easy. Caesar Markovich is not greedy and shares food and tobacco from the parcels with many (especially with those who helped him in any way).
Ivan Denisovich nevertheless understands that Caesar Markovich does not yet understand anything about the camp order. Before the "shmon", he does not have time to take the package to the storage room. The cunning Shukhov managed to save the goods sent to Caesar, and he did not remain in debt to him.
Most often, Caesar Markovich shared supplies with his neighbor "on the bedside table" Kavtorang - the sea captain of the second rank Buinovsky. He walked around Europe and along the Northern Sea Route. Once Buinovsky, as a communications captain, even accompanied the English admiral. He was impressed by his high professionalism and after the war sent a souvenir gift. Because of this premise, the NKVD decided that Buinovsky was an English spy. Kavtorang is in the camp not so long ago and has not yet lost faith in justice. Despite the habit of commanding people, Kavtorang does not shy away from camp work, for which he is respected by all prisoners.
There is also one in the camp whom no one respects. This is the former office chief Fetyukov. He does not know how to do anything at all and is only able to carry a stretcher. Fetyukov does not receive any help from home: his wife left him, after which she immediately married another. The former boss is used to eating enough and therefore begs often. This man has long lost his self-esteem. He is constantly offended, and sometimes even beaten. Fetyukov is not in a position to fight back: "he will wipe himself out, cry and go." Shukhov believes that it is impossible for people like Fetyukov to survive in a camp where you need to be able to position yourself correctly. Preservation of self-esteem is necessary only because without it a person loses the will to live and is unlikely to be able to last until the end of the term.
Ivan Denisovich himself does not receive parcels from home, because in his native village they are already starving. He diligently stretches the ration for the whole day so as not to feel hunger. Shukhov does not shy away from the opportunity to “cut off” an extra piece from his superiors.
On the day described in the story, the prisoners work on the construction of a house. Shukhov does not shy away from work. His foreman, dispossessed Andrei Prokofievich Tyurin, at the end of the day writes out "interest" - an extra bread ration. Work helps the prisoners after getting up not to live in painful anticipation of lights out, but to fill the day with some meaning. The joy brought by physical labor especially supports Ivan Denisovich. He is considered the best craftsman in his team. Shukhov correctly distributes his forces, which helps him not to overstrain and work effectively throughout the day. Ivan Denisovich works with passion. He is glad that he managed to hide a piece of saw, from which you can make a small knife. With the help of such a homemade knife, it is easy to make money for bread and tobacco. However, the guards regularly search the prisoners. The knife can be taken away when "shmona"; this fact gives the case a kind of passion.
One of the prisoners is the sectarian Alyosha, who was imprisoned for his faith. Alyosha the Baptist copied half of the Gospel into a notebook and made a cache for her in the wall crack. Never once during a search of Alyosha's treasure was found. In the camp, he did not lose faith. Alyosha tells everyone that they need to pray for the Lord to remove the evil scale from our hearts. In hard labor, they do not forget about religion, or art, or politics: prisoners worry not only about their daily bread.
Before going to bed, Shukhov sums up the day: he was not put in a punishment cell, he was not sent to work on the construction of Sotsgorodok (in a frosty field), he hid a piece of the saw and did not get caught on the "shmona" tobacco ... It looks like an almost happy day at the camp.
And such days for Ivan Denisovich - three thousand five hundred and sixty-four.
At five o'clock in the morning, as always, the ascent struck - with a hammer on the rail at the headquarters barrack. The intermittent ringing faintly passed through the glass, frozen into two fingers, and soon subsided: it was cold, and the warden was reluctant to wave his hand for a long time.
The ringing died down, and outside the window everything was the same as in the middle of the night, when Shukhov got up to the parasha, there was darkness and darkness, and three yellow lanterns hit the window: two - in the zone, one - inside the camp.
And they did not go to unlock the barracks, and it was impossible to hear that the orderlies took the parachute barrel on sticks - to carry it out.
Shukhov never slept through the ascent, always got up on it - before the divorce it was an hour and a half of his own time, not official, and who knows the camp life, can always earn extra money: sew someone from the old lining a cover for mittens; for a rich brigadier to serve dry felt boots directly on the bed, so that he does not stomp around the heap with bare feet, does not choose; or run through the lockers, where someone needs to be served, sweep or bring something; or go to the dining room to collect the bowls from the tables and take them to the dishwasher with slides - they will also feed, but there are many hunters, there is no end to it, and most importantly, if there is anything left in the bowl, you cannot resist, you start licking the bowls. And Shukhov firmly remembered the words of his first brigadier Kuzyomin - he was an old camp wolf, he had been sitting in 1943 for twelve years already, and he once said to his reinforcements brought from the front on a bare clearing by the fire:
- Here, guys, the law is the taiga. But people live here too. In the camp, that's who dies: who licks the bowls, who hopes for the medical unit, and who godfather walks to knock.
As for the godfather, of course, he turned it down. Those are saving themselves. Only their care is on someone else's blood.
Shukhov always got up on the way up, but today he didn’t get up. Even in the evening he felt uneasy, either shivering or breaking. And I didn't get warm at night. Through a dream, it seemed that he seemed completely ill, then he left a little. All did not want the morning.
But the morning came as usual.
And where do you get eels - there is ice on the window, and on the walls along the junction with the ceiling all over the barracks - a healthy barrack! - the spider web is white. Frost.
Shukhov did not get up. He lay on top lining, with his head covered with a blanket and a pea jacket, and in a quilted jacket, in one rolled up sleeve, thrusting both feet together. He did not see, but from the sounds he understood everything that was going on in the barracks and in their brigade corner. Here, stepping heavily along the corridor, the orderlies carried one of the eight-bucket parasha. It is considered a disabled person, easy work, but come on, take it out without spilling it! Here in the 75th brigade, a bunch of boots from the dryer slammed on the floor. And here - in ours (and today it was our turn to dry boots). The foreman and the foreman are silently putting on their shoes, and their lining creaks. The brigadier will now go to the bread slicer, and the brigadier will go to the headquarters barrack, to the workmen.
Yes, not just to the contractors, as he goes every day, - Shukhov remembered: today the fate is being decided - they want to fry their 104th brigade from the construction of workshops to the new Sotsgorodok facility. And that Sotsgorodok is a bare field, in snowy hillsides, and before doing anything there, you have to dig holes, put up poles and pull barbed wire from yourself so as not to run away. And then build.
There, sure enough, there will be nowhere to warm up for a month - not a kennel. And you can't make a fire - how to heat it? Work hard on your conscience - one salvation.
The foreman is anxious, he is going to settle it. Some other brigade, sluggish, to push there instead. Of course, you can't come to an agreement empty-handed. To carry a pound of fat to the senior contractor. And even a kilogram.
The test is not a loss, is it possible to try in the medical unit touch, free from work for a day? Well, right, the whole body separates.
And yet - which of the guards is on duty today?
On duty - I remembered - One and a half Ivan, thin and long sergeant black-eyed. The first time you look - it's just scary, but they recognized him - of all the attendants, he is more agreeable: he doesn't put him in a punishment cell, or he doesn't drag him to the head of the regime. So you can lie down, even while in the dining room of the ninth barrack.
The lining shook and swayed. Two people got up at once: above - Shukhov's neighbor, the Baptist Alyoshka, and below - Buinovsky, a former captain of the second rank, cavtorang.
The old men of the orderlies, carrying out both buckets, got in trouble, who should go for boiling water. They swore affectionately, like women. An electric welder from the 20th brigade barked:
- Hey, wicks!- and launched a felt boot into them. - I'll make peace!
The felt boot knocked dully on the post. They fell silent.
In the next brigade, the brigade leader was a little burcoted:
- Vasil Fedoritch! They twitched in the food table, you bastards: there were nine hundred and four, but there were only three. Who shouldn't be?
He said this quietly, but of course all that team heard and hid: they will cut off a piece from someone in the evening.
And Shukhov lay and lay on the compressed sawdust of his mattress. At least one side would take it - or it would have chilled in a chill, or the aches would have passed. And neither one nor the other.
While the Baptist was whispering prayers, Buinovsky returned from the breeze and announced to anyone, but as if gloatingly:
- Well, hold on, Red Navy men! Thirty degrees of faithful!
And Shukhov decided to go to the medical unit.
And then someone with authority pulled off his quilted jacket and blanket. Shukhov threw his jacket off his face and raised himself. Under him, his head level with the top bunk of the lining, stood a thin Tatar.
So, he was not on duty in line and crept quietly.
- Still eight hundred fifty-four! - read the Tatar from a white patch on the back of a black pea jacket. - Three days kondeya with a conclusion!
And as soon as his special stifled voice rang out, as in the whole half-dark barrack, where not every light was on, where two hundred people slept on fifty buggy lining, everyone who had not yet got up began to fidget and hurry to dress.
- Why, citizen chief? - giving his voice more pity than he felt, asked Shukhov.
With the conclusion to work - this is still half a punishment cell, and they will give hot, and there is no time to think. Full punishment cell is when without withdrawal.
- Didn't get up on the ascent? Let's go to the commandant's office, ”Tatarin explained lazily, because both he and Shukhov, and everyone, understood what the condo was for.
There was nothing on the Tartar's hairless, crumpled face. He turned around, looking for a second person, but everyone already, some in the semi-darkness, some under a light bulb, on the first floor of the clapboards and on the second, pushed their legs into black cotton trousers with numbers on their left knees or, already dressed, wrapped themselves up and hurried to the exit - wait out the Tatar in the yard.
If Shukhov were given a punishment cell for something else, where he would deserve, it would not be so insulting. It was a shame that he always got up first. But it was impossible to take time off from the Tatar, he knew. And, continuing to ask for time off just for the sake of order, Shukhov, as he was in wadded trousers, which had not been taken off for the night (above the left knee, they also had a worn, soiled flap sewn on, and on it a black, already faded paint number Sh-854), put on a quilted jacket (there were two such numbers on her - one on the chest and one on the back), chose his felt boots from a pile on the floor, put on his hat (with the same flap and number in front) and went out after Tatarin.
The entire 104th brigade saw Shukhov being taken away, but no one said a word: to nothing, and what do you say? The brigadier could have stood up a little, but he was not there. And Shukhov didn’t say a word to anyone either, he didn’t tease Tatarin. They'll save breakfast, they'll guess.
So we went out together.
The frost was with a haze, breath taking. Two large searchlights shot across the area from the far corner towers. The zone lights and the interior lights were shining. There were so many of them that they completely brightened the stars.
Squeaking with felt boots in the snow, the convicts quickly ran about their business - some to the lavatory, some to the locker, others to the parcel warehouse, and then they would take the cereals to the individual kitchen. All of them have their heads sunk into their shoulders, their pea coats are wrapped around them, and all of them are not so cold from the frost as from thinking that they will spend a whole day in this frost.
And the Tartar, in his old greatcoat with blue collar buttons, walked smoothly, and the frost seemed not to take him at all.
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The idea of \u200b\u200bthe story "One Day in Ivan Denisovich" came to Alexander Solzhenitsyn during his imprisonment in a special regime camp in the winter of 1950-1951. He was able to realize it only in 1959. Since then, the book has been reprinted several times, after which it was withdrawn from the sale and libraries. The story appeared in the free access in the homeland only in 1990. The prototypes for the characters of the work were real-life people whom the author knew during his stay in the camps or at the front.
Shukhov's life in a special regime camp
The story begins with a signal of the rise in a special regime correctional camp. This signal was given by hitting the rail with a hammer. The main character, Ivan Shukhov, never slept through the lift. Between him and the beginning of work, the convicts had about an hour and a half of free time, in which they could try to earn extra money. Such a side job could be helping in the kitchen, sewing or cleaning the lockers. Shukhov was always happy to work part-time, but that day he did not feel good. He lay and wondered whether he should go to the medical unit. In addition, the man was disturbed by rumors that their team would be sent to the construction of Sotsgorodok, instead of building workshops. And this work promised to be a hard labor - in the cold without the possibility of heating, far from the barracks. Brigadier Shukhov went to settle this issue with the contractors, and, according to Shukhov's assumptions, bribed them in the form of bacon.
Suddenly, the jacket and pea jacket with which he was covered was rudely tore off the man. These were the hands of an overseer named Tartar. He immediately threatened Shukhov with three days of "kondeya with a withdrawal." In local jargon, this meant three days in a punishment cell with the conclusion to work. Shukhov began to playfully ask for forgiveness from the warder, but he remained adamant and ordered the man to follow him. Shukhov obediently hurried after Tatarin. It was a terrible frost outside. The prisoner looked hopefully at the large thermometer hanging in the yard. According to the rules, at temperatures below forty-one degrees, they were not taken to work.
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Meanwhile, the men came to the wardens' room. There, the Tartar generously proclaimed that he forgave Shukhov, but he must clean the floor in this room. The man assumed such an outcome, but he began to playfully thank the warden for the mitigation of punishment and promised never to miss the rise again. Then he rushed to the well for water, thinking how to wash the floor and not get his boots wet, because he did not have replaceable shoes. Once in eight years in prison, he was given excellent leather boots. Shukhov loved them very much and took care of them, but they had to hand over their boots when they were given felt boots. During his entire period of imprisonment, he did not regret anything as much as those boots.
Quickly washing the floor, the man rushed into the dining room. It was a very gloomy building filled with steam. Men in brigades sat at long tables eating gruel and porridge. The others crowded in the aisle, waiting for their turn.
Shukhov in the medical unit
Each brigade of prisoners had a hierarchy. Shukhov was not the last person in his own, so when he came from the dining room, a guy below his rank sat and cleaned his breakfast. Balanda and porridge have already cooled down and have become practically inedible. But Shukhov ate it all thoughtfully and slowly, he reflected that in the camp the convicts only have personal time, that ten minutes for breakfast and five minutes for lunch.
After breakfast, the man went to the medical unit, almost reaching it, he remembered that he had to go to buy a samosad from a Lithuanian who received the package. But hesitated a little, he still chose the medical unit. Shukhov entered the building, which never tired of striking him with its whiteness and cleanliness. All the offices were still locked. Paramedic Nikolai Vdovushkin sat at the post, and diligently wrote out words on sheets of paper.
Our hero noted that Kolya writes something "leftist", that is, not related to work, but immediately concluded that this did not concern him.
He complained to the paramedic that he was not feeling well, he gave him a thermometer, but warned him that the outfits had already been distributed, and he had to complain about his health in the evening. Shukhov understood that he would not be able to stay in the medical unit. Vdovushkin continued to write. Few people knew that Nikolai became a medical assistant only when he was in the zone. Before that, he was a student at the literary institute, and the local doctor Stepan Grigorovich hired him, in the hope that he would write here what he could not in the wild. Shukhov did not cease to be amazed at the purity and silence that reigned in the medical unit. He spent five whole minutes inactive. The thermometer read thirty-seven and two. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov silently pulled on his hat and hurried to the barrack to join his one hundred and fourth brigade before work.
The harsh everyday life of prisoners
Brigadier Tyurin was sincerely glad that Shukhov did not end up in the punishment cell. He gave him a ration, which consisted of bread and sugar piled on top of it. The inmate hastily licked off the sugar and sewed half of the bread out into the mattress. He hid the second part of the ration in the pocket of his quilted jacket. At a signal from the foreman, the men moved to work. Shukhov noted with satisfaction that they were going to work in the same place, which meant that Tyurin had managed to come to an agreement. On the way, the prisoners were waiting for "shmon". It was a procedure to find out if they were carrying something forbidden outside the camp. Today the process was led by Lieutenant Volkova, whom even the head of the camp himself feared. Despite the frost, he forced the men to strip down to their shirts. Everyone who had extra clothes was confiscated. Shukhov's one-brigade leader Buinovsky, a former hero of the Soviet Union, was outraged by such behavior of his superiors. He accused the lieutenant of not being a Soviet man, for which he immediately received ten days of strict regime, but only upon returning from work.
After the chase, the convicts were lined up in lines of five, carefully counted and sent under escort to the cold steppe to work.
The frost was such that everyone wrapped their faces with rags and walked in silence, looking down at the ground. Ivan Denisovich, in order to distract himself from the hungry rumbling in his stomach, began to think about how soon he would write a letter home.
He was supposed to receive two letters a year, and he didn't need more. He had not seen his family since the summer of 1941, and now it was 1951 in the yard. The man thought that now he has more in common with neighbors on the bunk than with relatives.
Wife's letters
In her rare letters, his wife wrote to Shukhov about the hard collective farm life that only women pull. The men who returned from the war work on the side. Ivan Denisovich could not understand how you can not want to work on your land.
My wife said that many in their area are engaged in a fashionable profitable craft - carpet dyeing. The unhappy woman hoped that her husband would also take care of this business when he returned home, and this would help the family get out of poverty.
In the working area
Meanwhile, the one hundred and fourth brigade reached the working area, they were built again, counted and allowed into the territory. Everything there was dug and dug up, boards, chips were scattered everywhere, traces of the foundation were visible, there were prefabricated houses. Brigadier Tyurin went to receive an outfit for the brigade for the day. The men, taking this opportunity, ran into a large wooden building on the territory, a heating room. The place at the stove was occupied by the thirty-eighth brigade that worked there. Shukhov and his comrades just leaned against the wall. Ivan Denisovich could not resist the temptation and ate almost all the bread that he had in store for lunch. About twenty minutes later the brigadier appeared, and he looked displeased. The team was sent to complete the building of the CHP, which had been abandoned since the fall. Tyurin distributed the work. Shukhov and the Latvian Kildigs got the wall masonry outfit, since they were the best craftsmen in the brigade. Ivan Denisovich was an excellent bricklayer, the Latvian was a carpenter. But first it was necessary to insulate the building where the men would work and build a furnace. Shukhov and Kildigs went to the other end of the yard to bring a roll of tar paper. With this material, they were going to seal the holes in the windows. The roofing paper had to be carried into the building of the thermal power station, secretly from the foreman and informers, who were watching over the theft of building materials. The men put the roll upright and, pressing it tightly with their bodies, carried it into the building. The work was in full swing, each prisoner worked with the thought that the more the brigade did, each of its members would receive a large ration. Tyurin was a strict, but fair foreman, under his command everyone received a well-deserved piece of bread.
Closer to noon, the stove was built, the windows were filled with tar paper, and some of the workers even sat down to rest and warm their chilled hands by the hearth. The men began to urge Shukhov that he was already almost free with one foot. He was given a term of ten years. He had already served eight of them. Many of Ivan Denisovich's comrades had to sit for another twenty-five years.
Memories of the past
Shukhov began to remember how it all happened to him. He was imprisoned for treason. In February 1942, their entire army was surrounded in the Northwest. Ammunition and food ran out. So the Germans began to catch them all in the forests. And Ivan Denisovich was caught. He stayed in captivity for a couple of days - five of them escaped with his comrades. When they reached their own, the submachine gunner killed three of them with a rifle. Shukhov and a friend survived, so they were immediately recorded as German spies. Then in counterintelligence they beat me for a long time, forced to sign all the papers. If he had not signed, they would have been killed at all. Ivan Denisovich has already managed to visit several camps. The previous ones were not strict, but it was even harder to live there. In felling, for example, they were forced to refine the daily norm at night. So, everything is not so bad here, reasoned Shukhov. To which one of his comrades Fetyukov objected that people are being slaughtered in this camp. So it is clearly no better here than in the domestic camps. Indeed, two informers and one poor laborer have been stabbed to death in the camp lately, obviously confusing the sleeping place. Strange things began to happen.
Prisoners' lunch
Suddenly, the prisoners heard a whistle - energy trains, so it's time to have lunch. Deputy Brigadier Pavlo called Shukhov and the youngest in the brigade, Gopchik, to take places in the dining room.
The production dining room was a roughly hammered wooden building without a floor, divided into two parts. In one the cook cooked porridge, in the other the convicts dined. Fifty grams of cereal were allocated per prisoner per day. But there were a lot of privileged categories, who got a double portion: foremen, office workers, sixes, a medical officer who oversaw the preparation of food. As a result, the convicts were given very small portions, barely covering the bottom of the bowls. Shukhov was lucky that day. Counting the number of servings per team, the cook hesitated. Ivan Denisovich, who helped Pavel count the bowls, gave the wrong number. The cook got confused and miscalculated. As a result, the brigade got two extra portions. But only the foreman had to decide who would get them. Shukhov in his heart hoped that to him. In the absence of Tyurin, who was in the office, Pavlo was in command. He gave one portion to Shukhov, and the second to Buinovsky, who had very much passed over the last month.
After eating, Ivan Denisovich went to the office - he took the porridge to another member of the brigade who worked there. It was a film director named Caesar, he was a Muscovite, a wealthy intellectual and never wore clothes. Shukhov found him smoking a pipe and talking about art with some old man. Caesar took the porridge and continued the conversation. And Shukhov returned to the CHP.
Memories of Tyurin
The foreman was already there. He knocked out good rations for his guys this week and was in a cheerful mood. The usually silent Tyurin began to recall his past life. He recalled how he was expelled in 1930 from the ranks of the Red Army because his father was a kulak. How he got home on the checkpoints, but he did not find his father, how he managed to escape from his home with his little brother at night. He gave that boy to the thieves in a gang and after that he never saw again.
The convicts listened to him attentively with respect, but it was time to get down to work. They began to work even before the call, because before lunchtime they were busy arranging their workplace, but they had not done anything for the norm. Tyurin decreed that Shukhov would lay one wall with a cinder block, and he assigned the friendly deaf Senka Klevshin as his apprentice. They said that that Klevshin escaped from captivity three times, and even Buchenwald passed. The brigadier himself undertook to lay the second wall together with Kildigs. In the cold, the solution quickly solidified, so it was necessary to lay the cinder block quickly. The spirit of competition so captured the men that the rest of the brigade barely had time to bring them the solution.
The one hundred and fourth brigade worked so hard that it barely had time to count at the gate, which is held at the end of the working day. They were again lined up in fives and counted with the gates closed. The second time had to be counted when they were open. There should have been four hundred and sixty-three convicts in total. But after three calculations, it turned out only four hundred and sixty-two. The convoy ordered everyone to line up in brigades. It turned out that there was not enough Moldovan from the thirty-second. It was rumored that, unlike many other prisoners, he was a real spy. The foreman and the assistant rushed to the object to look for the missing, all the rest stood in the bitter frost, overwhelmed by anger at the Moldovan. It became clear that the evening was gone - nothing could be done on the territory before lights out. And there was still a long way to go to the barracks. But then three figures appeared in the distance. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief - they found it.
It turns out that the missing person was hiding from the foreman and fell asleep on the scaffolding. The convicts began to revile the Moldovan for what it was worth, but they quickly calmed down, everyone already wanted to leave the industrial zone.
Hacksaw hidden in the sleeve
Already just before the shmona on the watch, Ivan Denisovich agreed with the director Caesar that he would take his turn in the parcel post. Caesar was from the rich - he received parcels twice a month. Shukhov hoped that for his service the young man would give him something to eat or smoke. Before the search, Shukhov, out of habit, examined all the pockets, although he was not going to bring anything prohibited today. Suddenly, in a pocket on his knee, he found a piece of a hacksaw, which he had picked up in the snow at a construction site. In the heat of his work, he completely forgot about the find. And now it was a pity to give up the hacksaw. She could bring him earnings or ten days in a punishment cell, if found. At his own peril and risk, he hid the hacksaw in a mitten. And here Ivan Denisovich was lucky. The guard who inspected him was distracted. Before that he had only managed to squeeze one mitten, and did not finish the second. Happy Shukhov rushed to catch up with his own.
Dinner in the zone
Having passed through all the numerous gates, the convicts finally felt themselves "free people" - everyone rushed to go about their business. Shukhov ran to the queue for packages. He himself did not receive parcels - he forbade his wife to tear them off from the children. But all the same, his heart ached when a parcel came to one of the neighbors in the barracks. About ten minutes later Caesar appeared and allowed Shukhov to eat his supper, while he took his place in the line.
kinopoisk.ru Inspired, Ivan Denisovich rushed into the dining room.
There, after the ritual of searching for free trays and space at the tables, the 104th finally sat down to dinner. The hot gruel pleasantly warmed the chilled bodies from the inside. Shukhov reflected on what a good day it was - two portions for lunch, two in the evening. He didn’t eat bread - he decided to hide it, he also took Caesar’s ration with him. And after dinner, burned through, he rushed to the seventh barrack, he himself lived in the ninth, to buy a samosad from a Latvian. Having carefully fished out two rubles from under the lining of his quilted jacket, Ivan Denisovich paid for the tobacco. After that, he hurriedly ran "home". Caesar was already in the barracks. Dizzying smells of sausage and smoked fish wafted around his bunk. Shukhov did not stare at the gifts, but politely offered the director his ration of bread. But Caesar did not take the ration. Shukhov never dreamed of more. He climbed up to his bunk in order to have time to hide the hacksaw before evening formation. Caesar invited Buinovsky to tea, he felt sorry for the goner. They were sitting happily eating sandwiches when they came for the former hero. They did not forgive him for his morning antics - Captain Buinovsky went to the punishment cell for ten days. And then the check appeared. And Caesar did not have time to hand over his products to the storage room before the start of the check. Now he had two left to go out - either during the recount they would take them away, or they would snatch them out of bed if they left them. Shukhov felt sorry for the intellectual, so he whispered to him that Caesar should come out the last for the recount, and he would rush in the first rows, so they would keep watch over the presents in turn.
Reward for labor
Everything turned out very well. Delicacies from the capital remained untouched. And Ivan Denisovich received for his labors several cigarettes, a couple of cookies and one round of sausage. He shared the cookies with the Baptist Alyosha, who was his neighbor in the bunks, and ate the sausage himself. It felt good in Shukhov's mouth from the meat. Smiling, Ivan Denisovich thanked God for another day he lived. Today everything went well for him - his illness did not knock him down, he did not get into the punishment cell, he got hold of rations, he managed to buy samosad. It was a good day. And all in all, Ivan Denisovich had three thousand six hundred fifty-three such days ...
