There are books, the reading of which upsets, leads to sad thoughts. One of them was created in the early twenties of the last century by the Russian writer Ivan Shmelev. This article is a summary of it. "Sun of the Dead" is a work of a man of rare talent and an incredibly tragic fate.
History of creation
Critics have called "The Sun of the Dead" one of the most tragic literary works in the history of mankind. In what conditions was the book created?
A year after he left his homeland, he began writing the epic "The Sun of the Dead". Then he did not know that he would never return to Russia. And he still hoped that his son was alive. Sergei Shmelev was shot without trial in 1921. He became one of the victims of the "Red Terror in Crimea". One of those to whom the writer dedicated "The Sun of the Dead" unconsciously. Because Ivan Shmelev learned about the fate of his son many years after writing this terrible book.
Morning
What are the first chapters of the book about? It is not easy to convey the summary. "Sun of the Dead" begins with a description of the morning nature of the Crimea. Before the eyes of the author - a picturesque mountain landscape. But the Crimean landscape only evokes melancholy.
The vineyards here are half ruined. The houses located nearby were empty. The Crimean land is saturated with blood. The author sees the dacha of his friend. The once luxurious house now stands as if it were an orphaned, with broken windows, strewn with whitewash.
"What go to kill": a summary
"Sun of the Dead" is a book about hunger and suffering. It depicts the torment experienced by both adults and children. But the most terrible pages of Shmelev's book are those where the author describes the transformation of a person into a murderer.
The portrait of one of the heroes of "The Sun of the Dead" is amazing and terrible. The name of this character is Shura, he loves to play the piano in the evenings, he calls himself a "falcon". But he has nothing to do with this proud and strong bird. No wonder the author compares him to a vulture. Shura sent many to the north or, even worse, to the other world. But every day he eats milk porridge, plays music, rides a horse. While people around are dying of hunger.
Shura is one of those sent to kill. Strange as it may seem, they were sent to carry out mass destruction for the sake of a lofty goal: to achieve universal happiness. In their opinion, it was necessary to start with a bloody massacre. And those who came to kill have done their duty. Hundreds of people were sent to the basements of the Crimea every day. During the day they were taken out to be shot. But, as it turned out, happiness, which required more than a hundred thousand victims, was an illusion. Working people, dreaming of taking the lordly positions, were dying of hunger.
About Babu Yaga
This is the title of one of the chapters of the novel. How to deliver its summary? "The Sun of the Dead" is a work representing the writer's reasoning and observations. Scary stories are told in impartial language. And that's why they become even more terrible. You can summarize some of the stories told by Shmelev. But the author's mental emptiness is hardly conveyed by a brief summary. Shmelev wrote "The Sun of the Dead" when he no longer believed in either his own future or the future of Russia.
Not far from the dilapidated house where the hero of the novel lives, there are dachas - deserted, cold, neglected. In one of them lived a retired treasurer - a kind, absent-minded old man. He lived in a house with a little granddaughter. He loved to sit by the shore, catch gobies. And in the mornings, the old man went to the market for fresh tomatoes and feta cheese. Once he was stopped, taken to the basement and shot. The treasurer's fault was that he wore an old military overcoat. For this he was killed. The little granddaughter sat in an empty dacha and cried.
As already mentioned, one of the chapters is called "About Babu Yaga". The above story about the treasurer is its summary. Shmelev dedicated the "Sun of the Dead" to the fate of people who suffered from the invisible "iron broom". In those days, there were many strange and frightening metaphors in everyday life. “Place Crimea with an iron broom” is a phrase that the author recalls. And he sees a huge witch destroying thousands of human lives with the help of her fabulous attribute.
What does Ivan Shmelev talk about in the following chapters? "The Sun of the Dead", a summary of which is set out in the article, is like a cry from the soul of a doomed man. But the author hardly speaks about himself. "Sun of the Dead" is a book about Russia. Short tragic stories are details of a big and terrible picture.
"Creators of new life ... Where are they from?" the writer asks. And does not find an answer. These people came and plundered what had been built for centuries. They defiled the tombs of the saints, tore the very memory of Russia. But before you destroy, you must learn to create. The destroyers of Russian and Orthodox traditions did not know this, and therefore were doomed, like their victims, to certain death. Hence the name given to the book by Ivan Shmelev - "The Sun of the Dead".
The plot of the work can be conveyed in this way: one of the last Russian intellectuals, being on the verge of death, observes the emergence of a new state. He does not understand the methods of the new government. He will never fit into this system. But the hero of the book suffers not only from his personal pain, but also from the fact that he does not understand what the destruction, blood and suffering of children are for. As history has shown, the “Great Terror” had many negative consequences for the entire Soviet society.
Boris Shishkin
In "Sun of the Dead" Shmelev tells about the fate of his brother, the young writer Boris Shishkin. Even in the years of terror, this man dreams of writing. Paper and ink cannot be found. He wants to devote his books to something light, pure. The author knows that Shishkin is unusually talented. And also that there was so much grief in the life of this young man, which would be enough for a hundred lives.
Shishkin served in the infantry. During the First World War he was on the German front. He was taken prisoner, where he was tortured, starved to death, but miraculously survived. He returned home to another country. Since Boris chose an occupation to his liking: he picked up orphans from the street. But the Bolsheviks soon arrested him. Escaping death again, Shishkin ended up in the Crimea. On the peninsula, sick and dying of hunger, he still dreamed that someday he would write kind, bright stories for children.
End of ends
This is the title of the final chapter of the book. "When will these deaths end?" - the author asks questions. A neighbor's professor died. His house was immediately plundered. On the way, the hero met a woman with a dying child. Complained about fate. He could not finish listening to her story and fled from the mother of the dying baby to his vineyard.
The hero of the book is not afraid of death. Rather, he is waiting for her, believing that she alone can get rid of the torment. Proof of this is the phrase said by the author in the last chapter: "When will he cover with a stone?" Nevertheless, the writer understands that, despite the fact that the deadline has come, the cup has not yet been consumed.
What do modern readers think of the book written by Ivan Shmelev in 1923?
"Sun of the Dead": reviews
This work does not apply to literature popular with modern readers. There are few reviews about her. The book is filled with pessimism, the reason for which can be understood, knowing the circumstances of the writer's life. In addition, he knew firsthand about the terrible pages in Russian history. Those who have read The Sun of the Dead agree that this book is difficult to read, but necessary.
Is it worth reading?
It is almost impossible to retell the plot of the work. One can only answer the question of what topic Ivan Shmelev devoted to "The Sun of the Dead". The summary ("Briefly" or other Internet sites containing retelling of works of fiction) does not give a complete picture of the features of the work that became the pinnacle of the writer's work. In order to answer the question of whether it is worth reading this difficult book, one can recall the words of Thomas Mann. A German writer said the following about her: "Read it if you have the courage."
The Sun of the Dead describes the months Shmelev lived in the Crimea under the “Red Terror” after the defeat of the White Army, and reflects all his hatred of the Soviet regime and the Red Army.
The narrator, an elderly intellectual who remained in the Crimea after the evacuation of General Wrangel's Volunteer Army, reveals to us the fate of the inhabitants of the peninsula, torn apart by hunger and fear. In this book, which is essentially a diary, the author describes how hunger gradually destroys everything human that is in a person - first feelings, then will. And little by little everything dies under the rays of the “laughing sun”.
This novel is a merciless testimony not only of the slow death of people and animals, but also, mainly, of moral loneliness, human misfortune, the destruction of all living and spiritual things in a humiliated people turned into slaves. Shmelev reveals in his book all the countless wounds of the Russian people, who have become both a victim and an executioner.
Thirty-five chapters of the epic "The Sun of the Dead" - as Shmelev calls his work - are saturated with unquenchable love and heart-rending pain for the torn to pieces of Russia. This stunning book, an autobiographical and historical document, a painful farewell to the entire bygone world, a doomed and destroyed civilization, reflects the horror of the loneliness of this era abandoned by God, worthy of Dante's Greek tragedy and horrors. The power of suffering, reminiscent of many of Dostoevsky's literary critics, empathy and sympathy for any suffering, wherever it reigns, finds its supremely complete expression in The Sun of the Dead. The inhumanity of the Red Guard is the main motive of these pages: and, as Marcel Proust said about completely different historical events, this indifference to suffering is a monstrous and indispensable form of cruelty. The straightforwardness and realism with which the ugliness and perversions of the Soviet regime are described should make even the most callous reader tremble with horror.
Occasionally, a lyric poet appears in Shmelev, but his lyricism is, if I may say so, the groans of an agonizing homeland written and described in his blood. Shmelev's "Sun of the Dead" is not only, albeit above all, an irreplaceable historical document, as Thomas Mann defined it, but also an epic work of the great writer, translated into twelve languages. It is also necessary to understand that this book has become for the newly minted Soviet criticism something like a symbol of all Russian émigré literature, as evidenced by, among other things, the acrimonious article of critic Nikolai Smirnov “The Sun of the Dead. Notes on Emigrant Literature ”. For the majority of Russian exiles, this novel became the cry of all tormented humanity and a dying civilization.
It is not surprising that this tragic epic, a real prayer and requiem for Russia, was appreciated not only by Thomas Mann, but also by such diverse writers as Gerhart Hauptmann, Selma Lagerlef and Rudyard Kipling; and it is equally not surprising that in 1931 Thomas Mann nominated Shmelev as a candidate for the Nobel Prize.
When you read the works of Shmelev, written in exile, first of all amazes the desire of the author, faithful to the memory of the lost homeland, to regain and revive Russia - the best in it that hides behind its so different faces.
The "Sun of the Dead" expresses the idea that underlies I. Bunin's 1925 philosophical essay "Night". The hero of the "epic" argues: "When these deaths will end! There will be no end, all ends are confused - end-beginning, life knows no end, began ... ”The Lord rewards the hero for his faith - and the old Tatar sends him a gift: apples, flour, tobacco. The hero perceives this premise as a message from heaven. It is important for Shmelev to convey to the reader the theme of righteousness: not only one storyteller is faithful to God, the girl Lyalya believes in the resurrection of the dead, and the righteous are still living by the sleeping Crimean sea and their "life-giving spirit" is still living with them.
The symbol of the sun of the dead was given by Shmelev in accordance with the Orthodox faith. He defines as the dead life of those who are well fed, prosperous, accept life according to the newspapers and are deaf to human grief, who have not loved their neighbor.
The author's focus on the themes of the struggle for the soul, the spiritual overcoming of evil, retribution by faith, the conflict of apocalyptic phenomena and the resurrection distinguishes the "epic" from those close to it in genre, in autobiographical material, in diary form, in the reinforced subjective lyrical beginning of "Cursed Days" And Bunin and "Twisted Russia" A. Remizov. However, critics of the Russian emigration singled out completely different motives in The Sun of the Dead and in the work of I. Shmelev as a whole, for the writer, in fact, they are no longer the main, secondary ones: the opinion about the influence on his prose of the emigre period of the artistic world of F.M.Dostoevsky with his themes of pain and suffering. Thus, G. Struve reduced the metaphysical meaning of the doctor's image to a straightforward association with the heroes of Dostoevsky's works: “The half-crazy doctor Mikhail Vasilyevich in The Sun of the Dead, suffering from some speech incontinence, telling“ amusing ”stories, jumping from subject to subject and ending with burns himself in his summer cottage and his burnt remains are recognized by some special bandage, which he liked to talk about, as if he had left Dostoevsky's pages, although there is no doubt for a minute about the veracity and vitality of his image. In the novels written by Shmelev, G.P. Struve discerned "Dostoyevshchina".
G. Adamovich in the book "Loneliness and Freedom", published in New York in 1955, also interpreted the emigre creativity of I. Shmelev within the Dostoevsky tradition and reproached the writer for "Dostoevsky", that is, in depicting only the atmosphere created by Dostoevsky , namely - pity, resentment, suffering, powerlessness and other things, while Dostoevsky's philosophy, Ivan Karamazov's doubts or Stavrogin's melancholy escaped him.
A different view of the work of I. Shmelev was expressed by the philosopher I. Ilyin. In a number of articles and the book On Darkness and Enlightenment, published in Munich in 1959, he defined the main theme of the writer - overcoming suffering and sorrow, without which there is no history of Russia, through "spiritual burning", prayer, "the ascent of the soul to the true , all overpowering reality. "
The idea that the people can defeat Bolshevism only with God formed the basis of I. Shmelev's journalism. In 1924, he wrote an article "The Soul of the Motherland", in which he reproached the Russian pre-revolutionary intelligentsia for atheism: it "clawed on Nietzsche's rapids and plunged into the Marxist quagmire," it rejected the true God and made man a god; it suppressed the conscience of the people, instilling in them the ideas of freedom, equality and brotherhood; instead of God, she showed the people "anger, envy and - the collective." But the writer expressed the belief that there are still Russian people who "carry God in their souls, they keep the soul of Russia in themselves." The first of them are “our ardent youth”, “the wild blood of Russia, from the Quiet Don and the Kuban, - the Cossack force”, they are “alive”. I. Shmelev was loyal to the monarchy, close to the ideas of the White Cause, one of the inspirers of which was I. Ilyin. In “little” people, former people, he first of all tried to show those who are capable of daring in the name of God and the liberation of Russia: “And only then all the blood and all the torments will pay off; only with such daring! "
In the 1920s I. Shmelev published a collection of stories “About an old woman. New stories about Russia "(1927)," The Light of Reason. New stories about Russia ”(1928),“ Entry to Paris. Stories about Russia Abroad ”(1929); in 1931 the collection “Native. About our Russia. Memories".
The theme of stories written in a fairy-tale style, united by I. Shmelev in the collection "About one old woman" is the tragedy of a "former" person who survived the revolution, lost his family, work, torn away from normal life, unnecessary for Soviet Russia, unprotected, but trying not only to survive , overcome evil, but also regain the ruined way of life. The heroine of the story “About one old woman” becomes a “bagwife”, “speculator”, a prodigy for her starving grandchildren, she curses her son-expropriator for “robbing and mocking”.
In the "Letter of a Young Cossack" in the form of a wailing tale, a homeless Cossack, who lost his homeland, found himself in exile, is brought out; he heard rumors about executions, executions and godlessness on the Quiet Don. In the story, the tragedy of the “former” coexists with his belief that it will not take long for him to hang around with other people's shoals, which will help him and his parents on the Don Nikolai the Pleasant, the Most Holy Theotokos and the Savior. In the vocabulary and syntax of the writing, the folklore and Old Russian book tradition of the people affected, it is saturated with images that are classical for the national consciousness: the horse has "silk fur" and "white legs", the wind whispered to the hero, and "a black bird steals, a white swan sharpens its claws" , "White hands cry with blood", Quiet Don - "father", the sun is "red", the month is "clear", etc. The story is written in the rhythm of crying: "Why are you silent, don't say how you lie in the ground? Al and Quiet Don does not flow, and the wind does not carry, the flying bird does not cry? This cannot be, my heart does not feel it "- and so on. The speech of the" former "person contains that spiritual culture that gives him strength to overcome evil.
The same indiscretion of personality, the acquisition of strength to resist the new order, the desire to preserve their usual way of life despite the course of history is also expressed in the fates of the Crimean people - the romantic intellectual Ivan Stepanovich deceived by the revolution and the calculating Ivan (“Two Ivans”), and the Russian sailor Ivan Bebeshin, who realized that under the Soviets "Russian power cannot be seen" and "sons of bitches" - the revolutionaries deceived him ("Eagle"), and the "former" man Feognost Aleksandrovich Melshaev, under the old regime - a professor, and under the Soviet regime - a phantom, emanation, from which stinks of soup made of wobble eyes and sour mutton, which has turned into a "European" ("On the stumps").
In the 1930s, I. Shmelev logically moved from the theme of confronting evil and overcoming suffering with the power of spirit to his ideal - to the themes of Holy Russia, to Orthodox canons, and this choice opposed his prose to Russian literature with a characteristic critical tendency.
text to presentation.doc
slide 1
Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev was born in 1873 in Moscow. My father belonged to the merchant class, was the owner of a carpentry artel. Ivan Shmelev himself recalled his childhood years: “The early years gave me a lot of impressions. I got them“ in the yard. ”There were many words in our yard - all kinds of them. This was the first book I read - a book of a living, lively and colorful word. Here on summer evenings, after work, I listened to stories about the village, fairy tales and waited for jokes ... Here for the first time I felt the melancholy of the Russian soul in the song sung by the red-haired painter ... I saw a lot in our yard, both cheerful and sad. and important knowledge of life. Here I felt love and respect for this people, who could do anything. Our yard was for me the first school of life - the most important and wise. There were thousands of impulses for thought. And all that warm beats in my soul, what makes me feel sorry and indignant, think and feel, I received from hundreds of ordinary people with calloused hands and kind eyes for me, a child, "
Shmelev began to write while still in high school, and the first publication came at the beginning of his stay at the law faculty of Moscow University. However, no matter how happy the young man was to see his name on the pages of the magazine, "... a series of events - the university, marriage, the birth of a son, in his words, somehow overshadowed the undertaking. And he did not attach particular importance to what he wrote"... ... For ten years Shmelev left thoughts of literature. In 1905 he began to publish again, in 1907 he retired from the civil service, devoting himself entirely to literary work.
Shmelev met the February revolution of 1917 with enthusiasm. But then the attitude to events changes. From a letter to his son dated July 30, 1917: “A profound restructuring is generally inconceivable at once even in the most cultured countries of the world, even in ours. Our uncultured, dark people cannot accept the idea of \u200b\u200breorganization even approximately. ”However, the writer's departure abroad was caused not only by ideological disagreements with the new government. While leaving, he admitted the thought of returning even to Soviet Russia. Everything was turned upside down by the news of his son's death.
slide 2
This photo captures a brief moment of family happiness. Joy and success are ahead, but ...
Shmelev and his wife felt the drama of events in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century with the outbreak of the First World War, escorting their only beloved son Sergei to the front in 1915. Shmelev was very upset by this, but, naturally, never doubted that his family, like all others, should fulfill their duty to Russia. Perhaps even then he had terrible forebodings about the fate of his son. Deterioration in the state of mind of Shmelev was observed by his friends, in particular Serafimovich, who noted in one of his letters in 1916: "Shmelev was extremely depressed by the departure of his son for military service, was unwell." , - in this Shmelev saw for himself the highest happiness and the meaning of activity.
Lesson.doc
The dispute of emptiness, soullessness with meaning and spirit (the position of the author in the novel by IS Shmelev "The Sun of the Dead")
Literature lesson in grade 11
Teacher Kamaletdinova Irina Anatolyevna, teacher of Russian language and literature,
MBOU "Gymnasium No. 36", Kazan RT
The purpose of the lesson:
1. To acquaint with the emigrant period of the life of I. Shmelev
2. Review the novel with the study of individual chapters
3. Analyze the chapter "The soul is alive"
4. To cultivate sympathy and tolerance in readers.
1. Introduction by the teacher
In one of Kuprin's letters in 1933, we read the following lines: "Shmelev is now the last and only Russian writer from whom one can still learn the wealth, power and freedom of the Russian language. Shmelev is the most pro-Russian of all Russians.a great master of words and images. "And these words characterize the essence of the work of the outstanding Russian writer as accurately as possible. The best works of Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev are distinguished by what Russian classics have always been strong with: humanism, passionate conviction in the victory of good and justice, the beauty of moral feeling, deep long-suffering love for Russia and its people.
Today we get to know the life and work of Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev
Presentation text
2. Heuristic conversation
Text analysis
In "The Sun of the Dead" there is not a word about the deceased son, but it is the deep human pain that Shmelev could not calm down even with a long-suffering word that gives the whole story a huge scale. Pain and faith, emptiness and meaning, soullessness and spirituality. We will try to determine the position of the author in the novel using the example of the chapter "The soul is alive"
In the novel, Shmelev portrayed the life of the inhabitants of a small town in the Crimea during the establishment of Soviet power there.
The author has something to say. His pain requires a way out. But in Shmelev's book, the autobiographical narrator often gives the floor to other heroes. Whose voices do we hear? Voices merge into a rumble. For what purpose does the author use the polyphony technique?
The author provides an opportunity to speak out to representatives of the most diverse classes of Russia (nobility, creative and scientific intelligentsia, the lower strata of society), different nationalities (Russians, Tatars, Greeks, Ukrainians). Not one author, but all of Russia testifies against Bolshevism.
What are Bolshevism and Bolsheviks accused of? How is Crimea changing?
An antithesis runs through the entire book: life before and after the establishment of Soviet power in Crimea. Wealth, tranquility, beauty, lyricism of pre-revolutionary life are opposed to the emptiness, meaninglessness and cruelty of the other.
I was seized by fear ... as if I was actually present at the "spontaneous disintegration", the destructive forces of which are already everywhere ... "- Shmelev wrote to Y. Eichenwald. What traces of decay are found in the world by Shmelev and his hero.
Shmelev finds traces of decay in the life of nature, animals and people. The trees run wild, the flowers dry up. The milky-pink blossoming of the gardens is being replaced by the desert. Horses die, birds are doomed to die. Worms swarm in the wounds on the body of the Tamarka cow.
"It's scary for a man!" - expressed his opinion about the book A. V. Amfitheatrov. Why, when you read a book, it becomes scary for a person?
People die, the human soul dies, having lost faith, hope, nobility, honesty. Shmelev notes the process of dehumanization of man, his degradation to the cave, primitive level.
Life is moving towards a fatal line. What's behind her? Emptiness, meaninglessness, or is it still meaning, soul? Is resurrection possible?
The author is in a constant painful split. In the life around him, he notes the attributes of death. The kingdom of the Dead is coming. However, there is something that until the last tries to resist an ominous force: mountains that promise to keep everything in their memory, a turkey devotedly raising not turkeys, but chickens, and people who have not lost the ability to love, forgive, and believe.
Chapter Analysis
What role does the episode from the chapter "Soul Alive!" Play in the painful search for the hero?
Compare the hero's condition at the beginning and at the end of the chapter. Why has it changed so much? What techniques does the author use to show the state of the hero?
Why, in order to restore his hero's faith in the human soul, in God, does the author choose a Tatar, a person of a different nationality, of a different faith?
How do you understand the words of the Tatar: "You have your Allah ... we have my Allah ... All Allah!"? Why do the Tatar and the narrator hardly talk, they sit in silence?
How do you understand the expression of the writer: "... two are one ..."?
At the beginning of the chapter, the hero appears before us in a state of despair. He lost the faith of God and man. He is surrounded by darkness both literally and figuratively. Hearing a knock on the wicket, the hero awaits the arrival of the Red Army and prepares for the last battle. At the end of the chapter, the hero is surrounded by a "bright night".
In the fourth act of M. Gorky's play At the Bottom, the characters have the following conversation:
Tatar “... your Koran must be a law ... Soul - there must be a Koran ... yes!
Tick \u200b\u200b... And the prince is right when he says ... one must live - according to the law ... according to the gospel. "
What lines from the read chapter of the novel by I.S. Shmelev echo these words? How do you explain such a roll call?
The arrival of the old Tatar made him believe in the existence of God, in the fact that "the soul is alive!" It is interesting that Shmelev assigns the mission of returning the hero to life to the Tatar. The author makes it clear that there are no boundaries for humanity. Neither nationality, nor education, nor social background can prevent one person from understanding another. And then words are not needed, because people become one organism.
3. Summing up
The finale of the novel does not allow us to say with certainty how the dispute of emptiness, callousness with meaning and spirit ended. However, Shmelev gave his hero to see the sun in the night, the sun of humanity, and not the sun of the dead, which means that the human soul is still alive.
Presentation (student message)
"What do we repent of?" - says one of the founders of the memorial cross. Do we need to read such works? What did this book give you?
4. Assignment at home
write a thesis or plan for an answer on the topic “The role of the chapter“ The soul is alive ”in understanding the author's position in the novel by I.S. Shmeleva "Sun of the Dead"
Conduct research on one of the problems "The role of landscape in the novel by IS Shmelev" The Sun of the Dead "," Polyphony as one of the main methods of disclosing the author's concept in the novel by IS Shmelev "The Sun of the Dead"
List of used literature:
I. Shmelev's novel "The Sun of the Dead".
Was one of those books that become milestones: before and after reading. After "Sun of the Dead" I began to look at the world somehow a little differently. I will not say exactly how, it is impossible. The book was like a missing stone in the foundation. Some are crying over her, I did not cry, I just caught my breath and seemed to grab, delight the soul somewhere. There was horror in this, but also a deep awareness of the Truth, like a silent cry: here it is, here, now! There was no room for tears, it was above them.
(the author of the article below is not known,)
... a nightmarish document of the era shrouded in poetic brilliance ... read if you have the courage ...
Thomas Mann
The epic "Sun of the Dead" is undoubtedly one of the most tragic books in the history of mankind. (By the way, it is no coincidence that Shmelev called "The Sun of the Dead" an epic: everything that happens is comprehended by him not just on an all-Russian scale, but on a global scale. The drama turns into a tragedy). The history of people becoming savage in the fratricidal Civil War was written not just by a witness to the events, but by an outstanding Russian writer, perhaps one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. "The Sun of the Dead" is a lament for Russia, a tragic epic about the civil war.
Shmelev portrays the triumph of evil, hunger, banditry, the gradual loss of human appearance by people. The style of the narrative reflects the transcendent despair, the confused consciousness of the narrator, who is unable to understand how such a riot of unpunished evil could have taken place, why the "Stone Age" with its bestial laws has come again ... The refrain passes through the book an image of empty heavens and a dead sun: " I have no God. The blue sky is empty ... ". Against the background of the dispassionate beauty of the Crimean nature, all living things suffer and die - birds, animals, people. Cruel in its truth, this story is written with poetic, Dante power and filled with a deep humanistic meaning. She raises the question of questions: about the value of the individual at the time of great social catastrophes.
The critic and writer AV Amfitheatrov is right: “Everything is clear, everything is clear in The Sun of the Dead.” There is one thing I don’t understand: how did Shmelev have the strength to write this book? .. It’s difficult to read his epic without giving himself every now and then a break from a continuous nightmare - what was it like to write? "...
Having escaped from red Russia abroad, Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev wrote to his beloved niece and executor Yu.A. Kutyrina in January 1922 "We are in Berlin! It is unknown for what. I ran away from my mountain. In vain ... Olya and I are broken souls and knock around aimlessly ... And even the first time seen abroad does not touch ... Freedom does not affect a dead soul need ...
So, I might get to Paris. Then I will see Ghent, Ostend, Bruges, then Italy for one or two months. And - Moscow! Death is in Moscow. Maybe in the Crimea. I'm going to die there. There, yes. We have a small summer cottage there. There we parted with our priceless, our joy, our life ... - Seryozha. - So I loved him, so I loved him and so terribly lost. Oh, if only a miracle! Miracle, I want a miracle! It's a nightmare that I'm in Berlin. What for? Night, rain outside the window, the lights cry ... Why are we here and alone, all alone?!. Understand that! Aimless, unnecessary. And this is not a dream, not an art, it’s like life. Oh, it's hard! .. "
He did not yet know that he would never return to his homeland, he still hid the hope that his only son Sergei, who was shot during the Bolshevik terror of late 1920 - early 1921. in the Crimea, he is still alive, he has not yet recovered from his experience in small, frozen and hungry Alushta. And the idea of \u200b\u200bthe requiem called "the epic" - "The Sun of the Dead" has not yet been born.
The epic was created in March-September 1923 in Paris and at the Bunins, in Grasse. A mourning shadow of a personal tragedy was supposed to lie on the kaleidoscope of terrible impressions. But in "The Sun of the Dead" there is not a word about the deceased son, although it is the deep human pain that Shmelev could not calm down even with a long-suffering word that gives the whole story a huge scale. Many famous writers, including Thomas Mann, Gerhard Hauptmann, Selma Lagerlef, considered the "Sun of the Dead" to be the most powerful of all, created by Shmelev. Emigre criticism - Nikolai Kuhlman, Pyotr Pilsky, Julius Eichenwald, Vladimir Ladyzhensky, Alexander Amfitheatrov - greeted Shmelev's epic with enthusiastic responses. But, perhaps, the wonderful prose writer Ivan Lukash wrote about the "Sun of the Dead" most soulfully:
"This wonderful book was published and poured out like a revelation throughout Europe, is feverishly translated into" big "languages \u200b\u200b...
I read it after midnight, breathless.
What is the book of I.S.Shmelev about?
On the death of a Russian man and the Russian land.
About the death of Russian herbs and animals, Russian gardens and the Russian sky.
On the death of the Russian sun.
About the death of the entire universe - when Russia died - about the dead sun of the dead ... "
According to critic N. M. Solntseva, "Sun of the Dead" is evidence of Shmelev's deepest spiritual crisis. The Crimean trials gave rise to confusion and despair, a sense of God-forsakenness. In 1921 he confessed to Veresaev that everything that had been written before was “a fancy little musician,” that he had lost God. So in "The Sun of the Dead" he repeated: "I have no God: the blue sky is empty." ... Shmelev is like Job, fully tested by God with heavy hardships. Those who read the epic, of course, saw the biblical overtones in it. ... L. Lvov justly wrote that this work is "... the tragic world of truly biblical horrors." And Yu. Eichenwald called Shmelev's book "the apocalypse of Russian history." ... But Job should be remembered not only in connection with the suffering of the protagonist of the epic, but also in connection with the fact that he, as a biblical hero, experienced horror, but still did not retreat from God. And if in Crimea Shmelev decided that there is no God, then when he wrote his epic, he thought differently. He wrote this work and was affirmed in the thought of the power of man and the help of God. ... The narrator still believes in the Kingdom of God: "There is no need to be afraid of death ... Behind it is true harmony!" ... Shmelev repeated Job's words: "You can do anything!" The terrible, Cimmerian, meaning of the "Sun of the Dead" is supplanted by the Biblical. The idea of \u200b\u200bsalvation sounded in the epic. "
It is important that, in spite of the horror of what he had experienced, Shmelev did not become embittered against the Russian man, although he cursed the "new" life. But even there, under a strange sky, he wanted to rest in Russia, in his beloved Moscow.
The work of Shmelev, his memory is illuminated by the sun - the eternally living sun of Russian suffering and Russian asceticism.
Lolo (L. G. Munshtein) wrote the following lines about Shmelev and his epic:
We crowned you with laurels
In the old days - in my native land,
Now you've become a crown of sorrow
A fighter for his homeland.
Living, fiery word
As the "Sun of the Dead" burns hearts.
Let it not run dry to the end
Shmelev's holy hatred!
