Farewell to his mother Tsar Fish. “The theme of protection of nature in modern prose (V. Astafiev, V. Rasputin). Other works on this work

Keywords

AUTHOR'S CONCEPTION / PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS / ARTISTIC CONFLICT / HUMAN COMMUNITY AND NATURE / AUTHOR'S CONCEPT / MORAL ISSUES / MINDLESS PROGRESS / AN IMPENDING DISASTER/ PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS / ARTISTIC CONFLICT / HUMAN COMMUNITY AND NATURE / MORAL PROBLEMS / THOUGHTLESS PROGRESS / APPROACHING CATASTROPHE

Annotation scientific article on linguistics and literary criticism, author of the scientific work - Timofeeva Natalya Vasilievna

Under consideration philosophical issues Viktor Astafiev's story "The Tsar Fish". The story also contains the title of one of the chapters, the philosophical meaning of which is that man must and will be held accountable for his thoughtless attitude not only towards nature, but also towards his own kind. Basic artistic conflict in the story there is a clash of human collectivity, solidarity and aggressiveness of personal will, using people for their own purposes. In the hierarchy of values of human society, for V. Astafiev, one of the highest is openness, a state in which a person lets go of the tension that constrained him, the soul softens, opens up to meet another person and the world around him. It is in this state that threads of trust and affection are most often stretched between people, and the feeling of involvement in everything that happens in the world intensifies. human community and nature. Astafiev emphasizes the bleak results of attempts to revive the harmony of relations between man and nature. However, he still has hope that there are still people on earth who have earned “the highest rank on earth to be called a man”, that the grains of love, “dropped by a kind hand into the native tears and then watered land, will certainly sprout.” Bibliography 3.

Text of scientific work on the topic “Philosophical concept of the world and man in the story “The Tsar Fish” by Viktor Astafiev”

BBK 83.3(2 Ros=Rus)6-022

N. V. Timofeeva

PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT OF THE WORLD AND MAN IN THE STORY OF VIKTOR ASTAFYEV “THE KING FISH”

Viktor Astafiev’s story “The Fish Tsar” was published in the magazine “Our Contemporary” in 1976, although individual chapters appeared in print as early as 1973.

The main philosophical issues are contained in the chapter “The Fish King,” the title of which is also the title of the story. Philosophical meaning This story is that a person must and will be held accountable for a thoughtless attitude not only towards nature, but also towards his own kind.

In historical and literary terms, the story “The Fish King” is in many ways a phenomenon of “village prose,” but this does not exhaust its significance. It constitutes that part of “village prose” in which the problems of the village recede into the background. In the 60-80s. XX century works of this kind made up a whole layer of Russian literature: “The Commission” by S. Zalygin, “Farewell to Matera” and “Fire” by V. Rasputin, “The White Steamship” and “The Scaffold” by Ch. Aitmatov, “Once Upon a Time There Was Semuzhka” by F. Abramov and others. These works examine the relationship between man and nature in all its severity and ugliness, revealed by the end of the 20th century.

Delight before the greatness of nature, correlation with the fleeting earthly human life with an endless and immortal nature we find in Russian classics, in the poems of G. Derzhavin, A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, in the prose of I. Turgenev, S. Aksakov, L. Tolstoy and other Russian writers and poets. But since the beginning of the 20th century, the danger of the death of nature, the disappearance of its beauty and greatness under the onslaught of the “steel cavalry” of technological progress, the insufficient development of which is presented as absolute proof of Russia’s economic and social backwardness, has become obvious. The rejection of blind admiration for progress was evident in the works of A. Kuprin, A. Tolstoy, S. Yesenin, M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov, M. Prishvin, K. Paustovsky... Russian literature of the 20th century. was wary of the idea of a machine paradise, and therefore has a single anti-technocratic orientation.

In the story “The Drop” (one of the chapters of the story “The King Fish”), the narrator from places crippled by “progress” finds himself in the world of virgin nature. There, at the sight of a drop ready to fall and bring down the harmony of the universe - a symbol of the fragility, beauty and greatness of nature, the hero-narrator reflects: “It only seems to us that we have transformed everything, including the taiga. No, we only wounded her, damaged her, trampled her, scratched her, burned her with fire. But they couldn’t convey their fear and confusion to her, they couldn’t instill hostility in her, no matter how hard they tried.” .

“Village Prose,” having entered into a dialogue about nature, technological progress and man, turned its elegiac gaze to the past of the Russian village, where, according to the “village people,” the relationship between the peasant and the land was harmonious. Environmental problems were perceived in the 60-80s. XX century as a consequence of the collapse of the village.

The work “The Fish King” has a complex genre nature. Thus, N. Yanovsky, following the author, calls the work a “narration in stories”, T. Vakhitova - both a “story” and a “narration in stories”: the chapters that make up the works are called “stories”.

The title of the story originates from reinterpreted folk poetry. True, in Russian folklore there is no identical character with such a “name,” but in the image of the king fish one can feel an ancient folklore layer associated with Russian fairy tales and legends about the mighty fish. No less legitimate is the reference to the fertile linguistic tradition, where the concepts of “king”, “royal” are associated with the concept of supremacy, the highest degree of manifestation of any properties or qualities. In Astafiev’s King Fish, in addition to the real natural, folklore, literary content, there is also an objective material, “substantial” one. But this “materiality” of the king fish, recorded by V. Dahl, is also ambiguous. On the one hand, this is the first fish, the royal “present”, on the other hand, this is the royal “bite”, which the unworthy were tempted and lay claim to. The temptation of wealth and things is one of the common vices of the time of the publication of Astafiev’s book. With the help of the image of the king fish, the writer transfers the topical topic of the fight against consumerism, which was topical for that time, into the category of, if not eternal, then traditional for Russian literature. It is not for nothing that the mention of the king fish is associated in the narrative with ancient, ancient times.

The commandment put into the mouth of the Chushan “grandfather” is a stylization of a folklore text: “And if you, timid ones, have something for your soul, a grave sin, what a disgrace, barnacle - do not get involved with the king fish. If you come across any codes, send them away immediately.” Here, stylization is one of the techniques of parody. The folklore motif of the indestructible power of an omnipotent being is parodied, and not a specific folklore character. Astafiev's satire contains a significant tragic element.

The myth of man, the king of nature, popular in the ideology of the New Age, also becomes the subject of satire here. Astafiev probably specifically recalls the popular mythology of the 20th century: “The king of the river and the king of all nature are in one trap.” The “king of all nature,” embodied in the person of the businesslike, neat, non-drinking, almost positive “mechanic” Zinovy Ignatievich Utrobin, turns out to be no less vulnerable than the fish he caught, because he is a poacher both in the literal and figurative sense. The plot scheme of the “production” story about the hard “labor” of hunters and fishermen is here brought to the point of absurdity and thereby parodied: with their “work” Astafievsky hunters, fishermen and poachers bring closer not a happy future, but “the last hour of nature” and their last hour.

Ignatyich’s dangerous “work” is not caused by the desire to escape hunger, to gain a piece of bread - he already has it, being a good worker. And here another aspect of the theme of nature is obvious, another object of Astafiev’s satire: greed, avarice (“the insatiable womb” - a colloquial image punningly correlates with the hero’s surname) force the Chushan fisherman to sin against people and nature. The reduced image of the king fish also personifies greed: “Why didn’t he notice before what a disgusting looking fish it was! Her woman's meat is disgusting and tender, completely covered in layers of candle-colored, yellow fat, barely held together by cartilage, stuffed into a bag of skin - everything, everything is disgusting, sickening, obscene. Because of her, because of this kind of bastard, man has been forgotten in man! He was overcome by greed! For as long as he can remember, everyone is in a boat, everyone is on the river, everyone is in pursuit of it, this cursed fish.” Fear forces a person to see something repulsive in what previously attracted royal beauty and quick enrichment. The King Fish becomes an obsessive mania; it is close to the seductive Shaman that young hunters dreamed of (chapter “Boye”), and the unattainable white mountains. “Tsar Fish” - the thirst for enrichment, greed forces one to risk his life and shed human blood and the blood of “our little brothers.”

The king fish, this huge and beautiful sturgeon, is on a par with the faithful dog Boye, with the Turukhansk lily, with the taiga and the hunters, peasants, fishermen who inhabit it, with the autobiographical hero. Therefore, her salvation (like Ignatyich’s salvation) in the story symbolizes the triumph of life, the salvation of nature, and therefore life itself from destruction by man. The King Fish turns into a universal, “all-encompassing” image, uniting all chapters, combining contradictory feelings, thoughts, events, characters into a single lyric, journalistic and fairy tale-lyrical narrative about how and why “man was forgotten in man.” The writer sees the origins of the troubles in the fact that in pursuit of the king fish, poachers forgot about their peasant origins and human destiny: “On... the river, the parents’ mowing was overwhelmed by the fool. I haven’t looked at the library since school - I haven’t had time. He was the chairman of the school parent committee - he was removed, he was re-elected - he does not come to school.”

Obviously, the story got its name not only from the most vivid story, but from the most voluminous, significant symbolic image, related to the folklore prototype, and literary images A. Kuprin (“Listrigons”), E. Hemingway (“The Old Man and the Sea”). This image polemicizes with the images of these works: Astafiev’s “king of nature” does not triumph, proving his superiority over the mighty fish, but begs for salvation from it.

In “Tsar Fish” there is practically no village as such. There is the village of Chush (out of many possible names, the author chose a comically punning option), references to Boganida have been preserved, Plakhino, Sushkovo and other “camps”, fishing “huts” are mentioned. In this you can see the northern “specificity” - numerous settlements traditional for Central Russia and even the south of Siberia are very rare there. But you can also see something else. The narrative, with the exception of the chapter “Missing a Heart,” covers post-war events. This is a time of demographic revolution, accelerated by liberalization public life(removal of restrictions on leaving the village), and, as a consequence of this, empty villages and villages.

Numerous completed and unfinished construction projects, mentioned with pain and bitterness in “The King Fish,” also made their “contribution” to this process.

In depicting the “departure” of the village, Astafiev’s work turned out to be consonant with the work of V. Shukshin, V. Rasputin (“The Last Term”, “Farewell to Matera”, “Fire”), V. Abramov (“Wooden Horses”, “Alka”, “Brothers” and sisters") and other writers. “Whenever I fly away from Krasnoyarsk and the plane, its nose into space, trembles, gets nervous, works itself into a rage, roars like a wild stallion and rushes off Pokrovskaya Mountain, I see my native places.

Fate was pleased to give me another gift - flying along the rocky corridor of the Yenisei, the plane sometimes passes over my village, and for some reason it always seems to me: I’m seeing it for the last time and saying goodbye to it forever.”

The main artistic conflict in “The Fish King” unfolds as a collision of the good principles of human collectivity and solidarity, the manifestations of which the writer constantly notices and highlights in his characters, and human individualism. In the hierarchy of values of human society, openness for V. Astafiev is one of the highest. In “The Fish King” there is a motif that runs through the entire work of straightening and at the same time softening a person, be it a hero or a narrator. A person suddenly lets go of the tension that for some reason was holding him back, the soul softens, opens up to meet another person and the world around him. It is in this state that threads of trust and affection are most often stretched between people, and the sense of belonging to the human community and nature intensifies. People like the beacon keeper Pavel Yegorovich, according to the writer's observation, are characterized by inner freedom and spiritual gentleness, in contrast to those people whose main pathos was self-affirmation. Pavel Egorovich seems to be initially straightened out, because he does not seek to take from life, but, on the contrary, he is ready to give everything he has, “right down to the heart.” That is why, according to the writer, “the life of such people is spiritually easy, enviably free.”

According to the author’s concept, this is true freedom, and not at all the kind that seems to be characteristic of Goga Hertsev. True openness presupposes the activity of the soul, sincerity, kindness, which is precisely what is not observed in Hertsev. Instead of kindness, it contains the aggressiveness of personal will, using people for its own purposes. His freedom is self-affirmation in independence from people, in elevation above them.

Let us note that it is precisely Pavel Yegorovich’s initial openness, its invulnerability and indestructibility that is an essential aspect of the author’s concept of man. It’s as if nature itself happily took care to invest in Pavel Yegorovich that sincerity that nothing can defeat. The hero does not become, but remains as nature made him. Man here is taken by V. Astafiev mainly as a natural, generic being, in his seemingly pre-personal essence. So the community of people on Boganida is also, in a certain sense, prepersonal.

The basis of the community of people on Boganida is work, joint labor. Is it strong enough, will the harmony of interhuman connections be maintained on it? The answer to this question is given by the writer in the chapter of the story, which tells the story of three fishermen who remained for the winter surrounded by vast tundra and taiga, among endless snow and desolation. It is in this episode that Boganid’s “world” looks like in a mirror.

Those fishermen were also united by their work. But as soon as they were forced to interrupt it, the stability of their relationship immediately suffered greatly. Unity collapses because it is not supported, not provided by the highest principle in the person himself, which makes him a person - spirituality. The ability to rise above the randomness of conditions and circumstances, with unfading inner, spiritual vision to see in another person a close, dear being.

Akim is the main character of “The King of Fish”. Like the autobiographical hero, he acts in most of the chapter-stories, and in the second part he is the main character, expressing the author’s ideas about a human type, albeit not perfect, but close to the author.

Naturally, Akim is far from the “ideal”, and Astafiev does not set out to create an ideal image either in “The King Fish” or in other works. Even grandmother Katerina Petrovna receives the ironic nickname “general” from her fellow villagers and the autobiographical hero of “The Last Bow” for her imperiousness and “morality.” In general, Astafiev’s hero is more inclined to associate the concept of “ideal” with the alien aesthetics of the “socialist” canon than with ideas about the “truth of life.”

In Akim, the author notes a weakened willpower, external unattractiveness, and mediocrity. Astafiev deliberately “reduces” the features of a “high” hero in him: “colorless” thin hair, naivety, wastefulness... But for all that, Akim is the only character who can withstand a duel with a cannibal bear. He alone openly opposes the satirical “anti-hero” of Astafiev’s prose - the narcissistic champion of personal freedom Goga Gertsev.

Discrepancy between social status, the appearance of the character, the perception of him by others and his spirituality have long been the basis of the intrigue of works of Russian literature from N. M. Karamzin to F. M. Dostoevsky. In the 20th century, a similar motif was developed by M. Bulgakov in his “sunset novel” “The Master and Margarita”. Both Yeshua and the Master are initially perceived by others as naive and short-sighted eccentrics, and both are suspected of madness. The truth of their way of life and way of thinking becomes obvious only with the passage of the novel’s “time.” By transforming this motif, Astafiev showed the defenselessness of good in front of aggressive, assertive, and acquired features of attractiveness (Goga Hertsev) evil.

The complex, contradictory problem of the relationship between man and nature can only be very conditionally correlated with the figure of Akim. That is why the role of the autobiographical hero-narrator in the narrative is so great. He not only talks about events, but also participates in them, expresses feelings about what is happening, reflects... This gives the story, which includes essays (“At the Golden Hag,” “A Black Feather is Flying”) and lyrical and philosophical chapters ( “A Drop”, “There is no answer for me”), a special kind of lyricism and journalisticism.

In Russian folklore, images from the natural world: grass, broom, birch - are associated with mythology, rituals and the tradition of song existence. The Astafievskaya taiga, the king fish, and the drop acquire sacred properties through folklore. Among the consonant Astafievsky images are the image of the taiga and the old oak tree in the story “Starodub”, the image of the taiga in the story “The Tsar Fish”.

Symbolic images, perceived as sacred, sacred, are created in the “King Fish” and through the association of what is depicted with historical events, their signs and emblems. Let us recall the clash between Akim and Goga Gertsev over the Kiryaga-wooden medal. The cynic Hertsev makes a spinner out of a medal (sacred in public consciousness emblem of war, a sign of a patriotic idea) received by a disabled person for military valor. “Even in the village of Chush, overpopulated with all sorts of Ocheski, only one person could rob a disabled war veteran and exchange his last medal.”

This is expressive and bright, but not at all new for Russian literature of the 20th century. artistic technique.

The consciousness of a person who finds himself on the verge of death is capable of building his own “mythology”. Astafyevsky Ignatyich remembers a woman he once insulted, and the fish king seems to him to be taking revenge for this. Ignatich’s repentance before the king fish, personifying nature, before a woman insulted in his youth, before parents and children “for all human sin” was, as it were, predicted by Dostoevsky’s heroes: “Take yourself and make yourself responsible for all human sin.”

The motif “the river is a savior-destroyer” runs through all of the writer’s work. Yenisei “took” his mother from the autobiographical hero of “The Last Bow” and “The Tsar Fish”, and therefore he is a “destroyer”. But he brings people “food” and beauty, and therefore he is the “breadwinner”. He can execute and have mercy, and this is his sacred, almost divine function in the story, connecting him with the image of the king fish, which, according to its symbolic content, can be correlated with the image of the distressed, but therefore no less majestic Siberian taiga.

But there is also an implicit tragic consonance between this image and the fate of Akim. The King Fish goes into the dark depths of the Yenisei, pierced with deadly hooks. Homeless Akim is also doomed to neglect, ridicule and contempt for his goodness.

Akim also has the right to declare himself: “And I am free.” But Akim's freedom is the freedom to choose between good and evil. His position is close to the author's worldview.

The ideas of “The Fish King” were developed by the author in later works. In published in the 80-90s. chapters of “The Last Bow” (“Pestrukha”, “Forgotten Little Head”), in the “ventures” of this period, the environmental theme is one of the main ones. In the story “The Shadow of the Fish” (2000), the beauty akin to the king fish now coexists with threatening ugliness. Such a neighborhood revealed itself already in Astafiev’s prose of the 60-70s. (“Starodub”, “Blue Twilight”, “Tsar Fish”). Later, in the 90s, Astafiev emphasizes the dismal results of attempts to revive

harmony between man and nature. And yet the author remains hopeful that there are still people on earth who have earned “the highest rank on earth - to be called a man”, that the seeds of love, “dropped by a kind hand into the native tears and then watered land, will certainly sprout.” How to do so that, while transforming the earth, preserve and increase earthly wealth? Renewing, saving and enriching the beauty of nature? How to avoid and prevent the sad consequences of an unreasonable encroachment on the natural laws of nature? These deeply moral problems are raised by Astafiev in the story “The Tsar Fish”. Awareness of them, according to Astafiev, is necessary for everyone so as not to trample or damage nature through callousness and spiritual deafness. V. Astafiev’s work is not closed, it directly addresses life with questions, and the solution to these questions depends only on people.

Towards the end of his life, Astafiev admitted that he was no longer able to write anything like “The Tsar Fish”, and not because he lacked talent, but lacked spiritual strength: “Let other guardians of the word come and reflect their “deeds” and ours, will comprehend the meaning of the tragedy of humanity, including telling about the destruction of Siberia, its conquest, not by Ermak, but by thundering, thoughtless progress, pushing and pushing ahead of itself a formidable, all-destroying weapon, for the sake of the production of which it was burned, melted, and taken to the dumps already most earthly inheritance inherited to us for life from our ancestors and bequeathed to us by God. These earthly riches are given to us not for blind advancement towards a disastrous edge, but for the triumph of reason. We are already living in debt, robbing our children, and they have a difficult fate ahead, much more difficult than ours.”

REFERENCES

1. Astafiev V.P. Tsar-fish // Collection. cit.: in 4 volumes - T. 4. - M.: Young Guard, 1981. - 558 p.

2. Dal V.I. Dictionary living Great Russian language: in 4 volumes - T. 4. - M.: Russian language, 1991. - 685 p.

3. Astafiev V.P. Comments // Collection. cit.: in 15 volumes - T. 6. - Krasnoyarsk: PIK "Offset", 1997. - 432 p.

The article was received by the editor on June 25, 2010

PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD AND A MAN IN VICTOR ASTAFIEV’S STORY “TSAR FISH”

The main philosophical problems of Victor Astafiev’s story “Tsar Fish” are considered in the paper. One of the chapters has the same title. The philosophical meaning of this story lies in the fact that a man must be responsible for his thoughtless attitude not only to the nature, but to the people like him. The principal artistic conflict of the story is the collision of human collectivity, solidarity and aggression of personal will, using people for his sake. Openness is the highest value in the hierarchy of human values for V. Astafiev. It is the state, when internal tension may suddenly disappear; human soul is softened, and becomes open for another person and the surrounding world. It is under this condition when the threads of trust and amity arise among people, and the feeling of belonging to the human community and the nature becomes more intensified. V. Astafiev points out the results of unsuccessful attempts to revive the harmony in relations between a man and nature. Nevertheless, the author hopes that there are the people on the Earth who deserve "the highest dignity in our universe - the dignity to be called a man", that the seeds of love "sown with a kind hand into native land irrigated with tears and "sweat will sprout."

Key words: philosophical problems, artistic conflict, human community and nature, author’s conception, moral problems, thoughtless progress, approaching catastrophe.

Lump, Giant, Chomolungma, Vesuvius and just my fellow countryman - Viktor Petrovich Astafiev! Forgive me, Viktor Petrovich, for not reading you earlier due to my stupidity and limitations. But everything has its time and the moment came when I picked up the book of the Krasnoyarsk book publishing house in 1978 “The Tsar Fish” - a narrative in stories. The book is about 400 pages, not the best paper, but how I connected with it! At a fairly normal reading pace, "The King Fish" can be read in 2, maximum 3 days. I stretched out this pleasure for something like 10 days, and not because I was too busy, but because I was intoxicated with every story, every line! At times it was not easy, since fishing and hunting are not my thing, but the book is all the more valuable when the writer converts you to his faith.

The first story, “Boye,” certainly sets the tone and is a kind of springboard to subsequent reading. Boye is the name of a dog. This is it rare name, as well as the name of the person Akim, who will not be an outside observer in others no less meaningful stories"King Fish". I think those who read, especially at a young age, this story “Boye” certainly did not leave anyone indifferent, and perhaps it moved someone to the bones! Indeed, the story is not only very expressive in an artistic sense, but also powerful in its essence. In a word - one tense nerve. But then, in order to somehow calm the reader’s nervous system a little, the story “The Drop” will follow and it will be a real work of art, akin to the best stories of Konstantin Paustovsky and Mikhail Prishvin.

The drop had not yet been born, Astafiev had not yet had time to see it, but he had already come close to this moment. This is evidenced by the following thoughts from the book:
"...All of us, Russian people, remain children until old age, always waiting for gifts, fairy tales, something extraordinary, warming, even burning through the soul, covered with the scale of rudeness, but in the heart unprotected, which is often in a worn-out, tormented old body manages to survive in the chick's down." But these are still only the sensations and everyday-philosophical observations of the writer when he sits by the fire in the forest or in a city apartment. However, the thirst for life, the thirst to preserve in memory the beauty bestowed by Mother Nature, coupled with talent, are already quietly approaching to convey to people knowledge about the earth, about the forest, about the flower and, finally, about... a drop...

“...I felt the peak of silence, the infantile pulsating crown of the emerging day - that brief moment came when only God’s spirit alone hovered over the world, as they said in the old days. At the pointed end of an oblong willow leaf, an oblong drop swelled, ripened and, filled with heavy force , froze, afraid to bring down the world with my fall. And I froze..."

And having already gained some height, although the story is already nearing its end, Viktor Petrovich again does not allow his consciousness, brain, soul to fall asleep, lulled by the unhurried narrative.

"...The stars always evoke in me a feeling of sucking, melancholy calm, with their lamp-like light, uncertainty, inaccessibility. If they say to me: “the other world,” I don’t imagine the afterlife, I don’t imagine darkness, but these small, distantly blinking stars.. "

This is the second story, which, like the wave of Anisei, as they used to say in the old days and as Viktor Astafiev wrote, picks you up with a stormy and swift current so that you do not close the book, but can fully enjoy the beautiful Russian language, the skill of the writer and the understanding of the fundamentals of life and being. And there is no doubt that Viktor Petrovich knew what he wrote about.

"Tsar Fish" consists of 2 parts. I’ve already said more or less about the first, as for the second, I was more affected by the story “The Dream of the White Mountains.” In him, with an invisible glance, you can see Astafiev’s romance. A story about two people, Akim and El. Touching and harsh at the same time. And it's just great!

Is the story "Ear on Boganida" bad? A story about a girl Kasyanka, her mother and brothers. Kasyanka, who in her early years was almost the head of the family. Correct and wise beyond her age, reliable and faithful, sensitive to both everyday life and male psychology. At the same time, the little girl Kasyanka sometimes gave out such pearls, from which the degree of mood in the form of a smile and good laugh, rose sharply. And I’m talking about one song that she often sang, not knowing from childhood what it was about: “Far-oo-o-o from the Kalmym region, I send you, marukha, I say hello to you.” Isn't she a miracle?

What can I say in the end? Monolithic and monumental work. Domestic heritage of Russian literature and culture.

P.S. At the end of the book there are a number of philosophical thoughts, many of which are well known and have become hackneyed truths. But here is one such thought that clearly does not suffer from the term by which they understand that has set the teeth on edge: “A time to hug and a time to avoid hugs.”

"Tsar Fish"(1972-1975) is defined by the author himself as “narration in stories.” Written in the first person, the author himself talks about his trips to his native land, to the banks of the Yenisei. Pictures of Siberian nature. It tells about the fate of the author-narrator's family: his father, a frivolous and dissolute man, about his brother Kolya. The brother's fate was tragic: having gone hunting for Arctic foxes in winter, he and his two friends find themselves in a hut covered with snow. Kolya fell ill after a severe cold, lost his heart, and died early.

Pictures of people's lives in the Siberian village of Chush. Poaching, barbaric destruction of nature. The hero of the story "The Lady" is a dissolute and idle man, so nicknamed by the local residents. The story “At the Golden Hag” tells the story of one of the residents of the village of Chush, Utrobina, whom everyone calls Commander. He is a dashing poacher, one of the episodes of his life is described in detail: The commander on a motor boat leaves with the catch from the fisheries authorities pursuing him. This happens on a significant day for the hero: on this day his beloved daughter Taika is supposed to receive her school certificate. Her father has a special relationship with her. For him, Taika contains all his life, all his hopes for the future. Having successfully evaded the fisheries inspection, the Commander lands ashore and learns that his daughter was run over by a drunk driver. The Commander's grief. He calls the drunk driver a “land poacher.”

The hero of the story "The Tsar Fish" is Ignatyich, the Commander's older brother. This is a respectable man, he hardly drinks, and he commands universal respect. Like other residents of the village, Zinovy Ignatievich poaches on the river. During one of these fish trips, he hooks a sturgeon of unprecedented size - the “king fish”. The fish capsizes the boat, and the fisherman almost goes down with it. Their duel takes place, Ignatyich begins to think that this is a werewolf, the hero remembers his former life, condemns himself for greed, cruelty to nature, remembers how he once, as a young guy, offended a girl, Glakha Kuklina. Hero's repentance. He releases the fish into the wild.

The hero of the second part of "The King of Fish" is Akim. He was born in the village of Boganida on the banks of the Yenisei. His mother gave birth to him very early, later Akim, his sister Kasyanka, and other brothers and sisters grow up in a fishing artel, on the artel's ear. All crew members treat children warmly and cordially; the story “Ukha on Boganida” shows a vivid picture of a common feast, where no one is offended, where the custom of feeding all the children indiscriminately with brigade soup has been preserved since the war.

After the death of their mother, the children were sent to an orphanage, and Akim, already grown up, works in different places - on the Yenisei as a beacon keeper, in a geological detachment. In the village, fate confronted him with Goga Gertsev. Goga Gertsev is not a local person, an urban person, who grew up in a cultured family. He graduated from the university and is a geologist. Gertsev considers himself a superman and treats people with contempt, including Akim. Goga wanders alone through the taiga in the hope of finding a valuable deposit and becoming famous. On one of his travels, Gertsev meets a young girl, Muscovite Elya, and the two of them go into the taiga. Elya became seriously ill, and her companion died while fishing, falling and choking in the water. Sick and helpless Elya is found in his hunting hut by Akim, who has gone to the fur trade. He very carefully and selflessly looks after the sick woman, saves her, abandoning his hunting business. Elya, now recovered, manages to be sent home to Moscow by plane. Akim says goodbye to her at the airport, giving her his last money so that she can take a taxi and not catch a cold or get sick again. The author used this story as the basis for the plot of the story “The Dream of the White Mountains” in the second part of “The King of Fish”. Last story the book is called "No answer for me" - this lyrical reflection the author about the past, present and future of his native land, about man and nature, about memory.

The story "Farewell to Matera"(1976) begins with a description of spring in the Siberian village of Matera, located on an island in the middle of the Angara. For Matera, this is the last spring - the island is about to be flooded due to the construction of a hydroelectric power station on the Angara, and a new village is being built for the village residents. The few remaining on the island must leave. The old women talk about their upcoming departure with Daria, she is the eldest of them. During a tea party with Daria, a resident of Matera, Bogodul, reports that the village cemetery is being destroyed. Daria goes there and decisively drives away the newcomers. They explain that they are acting on instructions from the sanitary and epidemiological station, that the island needs to be prepared for flooding. The old women resolutely defend the cemetery and restore order there again. Daria argues that something is wrong in the world, that everyone is running somewhere, not knowing where. He remembers his parents, their wise, unhurried life. He says that they used to live according to their conscience, and recalls the former Matera. Daria’s son Pavel, who lives in a new village, comes to see her, and she asks him to transport the ashes of his parents. Paul says that there are already many worries. The village is preparing to move. The hut of Petrukha, Katerina’s son, has been declared a monument wooden architecture, a sign was nailed down and money was promised for the house. Petrukha is at first proud of this, but then threatens not to wait for the final settlement with him.

At night, when everyone is sleeping, an animal unlike any other comes into the world - the Master of the island. If there are brownies in the huts, then there must be an Owner on the island. He walks around the island, observes everything that is happening, and thinks that the island could still live for a long time.

Nastasya, Daria's friend, leaves the island. Her difficult farewell to her home. Daria accompanies her. Petrukha's hut caught fire. His mother and other old women believe that Petrukha himself set fire to his house and curse him for this.

The last time life exploded on Matera was during haymaking time. Its former residents came together, worked together, joyfully, and it was sad to go back without living to their heart's content in Matera.

Her grandson, Pavel’s son, came to stay with Daria. Their conversations, Daria learned that her grandson was going to the construction of a hydroelectric power station. It upsets her, their arguments. Andrei speaks in newspaper phrases, grandmother speaks about the soul, about how if you do not live according to your conscience, then you can lose yourself along the way.

Matera is being attacked last days. The remaining residents gather at Daria's and talk about their lives. Pavel tells Daria that it will not be possible to transport the graves. After this, Daria goes to the cemetery, says goodbye to the graves of her father and mother, and asks for their forgiveness. Daria's decision to clean the hut before her farewell. Her thoughts are that the truth is in memory, whoever has no memory has no life.

A tree in the middle of the island, which everyone calls "royal foliage." He is unusually powerful and many local legends are associated with him. It is believed that the island is attached to the river bottom with “royal foliage”, and as long as it stands, Matera will live. The arsonists are trying to cut it down and burn it, but nothing works. The tree continues to stand, but everything around it is already empty.

Daria cleans up her hut, whitewashes the walls, decorates the hut with fir branches, then leaves the house. The last inhabitants of Matera are taken by boat. A heavy fog fell, there was only water and fog all around, nothing but water and fog. The last inhabitants of the island in the Bogodul barracks are waiting for their fate to be decided. Fog blew through the open door, and a sad howl was heard - it was the Master’s farewell howl.

Among the foundations of human existence, nature rightfully holds one of the first places. From the Russian epic about the plowman to modern “village prose,” our literature connected the life and fate of man with the fate of Russian nature. We understand that in relations with nature, man has crossed a moral line, which is why writers are sounding the alarm, warning about the consequences of an impending environmental catastrophe.

The problem of “dialogue” between man and nature was constantly considered in Russian literature of the 19th century. For Russian writers, nature was not only a landscape that shapes aesthetic taste; Russian literature connected ideas about the naturalness of human existence and the origins of moral concepts with thoughts about nature. An immoral attitude towards nature leads to the destruction of man himself; the inner beauty of a person should include a feeling of love for his native nature.

This is precisely the idea that is asserted modern writers, for example, V. Astafiev in “The Fish Tsar”, V. Rasputin in the stories “Farewell to Matera” and “Fire”, Ch. Aitmatov in the novels “And the Day Lasts Longer than a Century”, “The Scaffold”, etc.

The old women in V. Rasputin’s stories live in close unity with nature. Caring for the “home” and “clan” constitutes the main part of their worldview. Standing in the depths of Siberia, on the Angara, is a small island and a village on it with the same name - Matera. (“Farewell to Matera”). “And the island lay quietly, calmly, especially the native, destined land... From edge to edge, from shore to shore, there was enough expanse, and wealth, and beauty, and wildness, and every creature in pairs - everything Having separated from the mainland, it kept it in abundance - isn’t that why it was called by the big name Matera?” Matera saw bearded Cossacks setting up the Irkutsk prison on the Angara, witnessed a fierce battle between Kolchak’s men and partisans, and created a “community” - a collective farm. Like the whole country. Matera sent her sons to defend their Motherland and, like numerous villages throughout vast Rus', became orphaned without waiting for many of them. Huge technical plans also affected Matera - the village was subject to flooding during the construction of a hydroelectric power station. For Daria, Matera is not only an island, a land, but also people. A man among people is like “royal foliage”, a mighty tree symbolizing “eternal nature”, an example of vitality. Man is only a link in the chain of human generations. The feeling of this participation in everything living and eternal resists the destructive power of immorality. It is no coincidence that the destruction of the island begins with the destruction of the cemetery. As if observing a ritual, Daria sees off her hut on its last journey. She not only whitewashed the walls, but also scrubbed the floors and washed the windows. Everything she does is incomprehensible to the arsonists: “Are you out of your mind, grandma? Are you planning to live or something? We’ll set the fire tomorrow, and she’ll whitewash.” A rural, illiterate person, Daria thinks about what should worry everyone in the world: why do we live? She is sure: “He who has no memory has no life.” Aspiration into the distance, like Daria’s grandson Andrei, a desire to be at the “leading edge” of the construction site of the century

turn around spiritual callousness, loss of the feeling of “small homeland”. According to the critic Yu. Seleznev, the essence of the problem of the story is the need to choose: what is your homeland for you - land or territory? “The land is being liberated. The territory is being seized. The owner is on the land; on the territory is the conqueror, the conqueror. About the land, which “belongs to everyone - who came before us and who will come after us,” you cannot say: “After us, even a flood ... “A person who sees a “territory” in the earth is not too interested in what happened before him, what will remain after him...: Who are we on this earth - masters or temporary aliens: we came, stayed and left on our own - neither the past matters to us necessary, we don’t have a future? We took everything we could, and then there’s even a flood, “small”, “maternal” or “worldwide”...

For some, nature is their home; for others, it is their habitat. In V. Astafiev’s book “The King Fish,” nature is also the educator of the soul. It fills a person’s soul with a sense of beauty, helps him to recognize his existence as a drop of the universal flow of being, and to verify the significance of each specific life. The beneficial effects of nature give rise to a person’s “confidence in the infinity of the universe and the durability of life.” Astafiev’s heroes do not betray the feeling of unity of all living things in the most tragic situations. Let us remember the hunter Kultysh from “Starodub”, who, dying, holds in his hand, like a candle, a bright yellow flower with a coal burning in the middle - as a symbol of love, devotion, selflessness. Death is not terrible in this unceasing flow of universal existence; it only marks a change in the forms of life and is natural in itself. Much more terrible than manifestations of unnaturalness is that people kill and destroy what has been created. Thus, for Astafiev, the problem “man - nature” develops into a more global one - “creation - destruction”. The terrible disease of our time is poaching. Its origins lie in lack of spirituality, in an insatiable thirst for profit, in general “brutality.”

So why “has man been forgotten in man”? - reflects V. Astafiev. Poaching is becoming not only a profitable trade, but also a style of behavior: “All grabbers are similar in guts and faces!” While the river poacher, Commander, was getting fish, another, land-based poacher , ran over his daughter while drunk. The worst thing, says Astafiev in “The Staff of Memory,” is that nature is beginning to adapt to poaching (plant and animal species are disappearing), it is defending itself with epidemics and the emergence of various deadly viruses, and the destroyer cannot escape. by nature, she will catch up and punish him. In the central chapter of the story “The King of Fish”, the poacher Ignatyich caught a huge sturgeon, but he could not cope with him. The fish dragged him into the water, and for a long time there were the king of the river and the king of all nature - man in one. trapped. At the moment of retribution, when the fear of death and remorse torment the poacher, suddenly there is a merging of the ever-changing roles of tormentor and martyr - not sublimely beautiful, but terrible, ugly nature appears before Ignatich. An ominous set of comparisons and metaphors depicting the king fish: “The forehead, as if cast from concrete, along which, like a nail, are scratched stripes, buckshot eyes, rolling silently under the armor of the forehead...” It was not by chance that the author chose not the beast, but a fish is a seemingly inanimate creature. A real revolution occurs in Ignatyich’s soul when he begins to understand that the fish is alive, that it, like himself, has the right to life. V. Astafiev calls on his readers to restore the harmony between man and nature, because the fight with nature is tantamount to the fight with life itself.

Recreation of images of animals, birds, fish: Horned Mother Deer, Akbar and Tatchaynar by Ch. Aitmatov; The owner of the island from V. Rasputin; Bim by G. Troepolsky, Teddy and Arcturus by Kazakov

This is not a complete list of animalistic images in modern literature. Raising your hand against “our little brothers” is the same as breaking the ancient biblical law “thou shalt not kill.”

“Man himself can only see his real face in the mirror of nature,” wrote M.M. Prishvin. The Chernobyl disaster became a terrible environmental tragedy for us. The works of Y. Shcherbakov “Chernobyl” and the play “Sarcophagus” by V. Gubarev are devoted to this topic. The consequences of this national tragedy will affect the lives and health of more than one generation. Those who have read the play "Sarcophagus" cannot but agree with the author's assessment of the irresponsibility and lack of professionalism that caused the disaster at the nuclear power plant. Chernobyl is the last warning to humanity. The symbol of the tragedy was the phrase “Star of Wormwood”, going back to the lines from the “Revelation” of St. John the Theologian: “The third Angel sounded, and a large star fell from the sky, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the sources of water. The name of this star “wormwood,” and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter.” This star can rise above our home if a person does not realize himself as a part of the vast world of nature, if he does not immediately accept the words of the poet You. Fedorova:

To save yourself and the world,
We need, without wasting years,
Forget all cults
And enter
Infallible
Cult of nature.

Thirty years ago, in 1976, the magazine “Our Contemporary” published a narrative in the stories “The Tsar Fish” by Viktor Astafiev. And in the same year - Valentin Rasputin’s story “Farewell to Matera”. These two are very different works quickly turned into a business card Soviet prose in its, relatively speaking, “village” version, and from Rasputin and Astafiev they made almost Siamese twins like Boyle - Mariotte or Lomonosov - Lavoisier. Which was, of course, a big mistake.

Thirty years ago, criticism was not long in coming. Literary Review promptly held a round table on “The Fish Tsar,” and soon published Elena Umanskaya’s detailed review of Rasputin’s story. It would be a sin to burden the reader with dull memories of Soviet criticism, but the topic demands it.

In a common boiler

Philologists, writers, as well as representatives of industries “on the topic” (ecology, tourism, biology) were invited to the “Tsar Fish”. Not without the voice of the people in the person of an electrician. The author's moderate response to Rasputin and the collective discussion of Astafiev, where balance was achieved by dosing statements for and against, did not differ much in their general spirit.

So, “good”: writers defend human values, root for native nature. “Bad”: the writers are somehow too sympathetic to the past and do not give anything positive. About Astafiev: “Worship of nature is not enough for us, we need much more. It seems to me that it would be important for the writer to see other heroes of our time, and not just hunters and fishermen. Wouldn’t it be important in a work on this topic, say, the figure of a young scientist who leaves, say, physics for ecology?” (Ecologist, also candidate of philosophical sciences.)

About Rasputin: “...Farewell to Matera,” in my opinion, indicates that the writer’s artistic system needs some new horizons and scales that correspond to the breadth and modernity of the problem.”

So they cooked Astafiev and Rasputin in a common cauldron of “villagers” together with F. Abramov, E. Nosov, V. Belov, V. Shukshin, B. Mozhaev and others.

But in 2000, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, presenting Rasputin with the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Prize, transferred them all en masse to another, common cauldron: “At the turn of the 70s and in the 70s in Soviet literature There was a not immediately noticed, silent coup without a rebellion, without a shadow of a dissident challenge. Without overthrowing or exploding anything declaratively, a large group of writers began to write as if no “socialist realism” had been announced and dictated - neutralizing it silently, they began to write in simplicity, without any pandering, incense to the Soviet regime, as if they had forgotten about him.

To a large extent, the material of these writers was village life, and they themselves came from the village, from this (and partly from the condescending complacency of the cultural circle, and not without envy at the suddenly successful purity of the new movement) this group began to be called the villagers. But it would be correct to call them moralists - for the essence of their literary revolution was the revival of traditional morality, and the crushed, dying village was only a natural, visual objectivity.”

Thank God, neither one nor the other term, due to its savagery, took root in the language. But it would be funny: “Do you love the moral writer Rasputin? “No, we love the immoral writer Trifonov,” and so on.

Find a hundred differences

“Tsar Fish” and “Farewell to Matera” have in common only the time of publication and the theme of a dying village, and nothing more. Astafiev and Rasputin are completely different writers, and the subtext “on the topic” was intended to obscure this difference. Rasputin's Matera is dying because state plans are being implemented. For Astafiev, it’s the other way around: “It all ended once and at once. The construction of the road, which was supposed to go through the entire Arctic, was stopped (my detente - ed.). And Boganida became desolate.”

However, the ideologists were wrong: it turns out that it was the failure to implement the state plan that ruined the village! And here is another seemingly superficial difference hidden behind similar images. Astafievskaya king-fish confronts man, but also finds himself in unity with him, on the same hook. And ultimately, he “explains” to a person that he is also a part of nature, and “forces” him to repent.

Rasputin’s “cleansing group” (as they would say now) is trying to destroy the king tree, but the mighty foliage does not yield to saws or fire. He remains unconquered by human enemies. The far-fetched nature of this image was noticed even by pragmatic Soviet criticism: “So what if the legendary foliage does not fall into the hands of the “burners,” when the whole village is a complete conflagration? Is it only the resilience of foliage that should somehow brighten up the gloomy picture, express the strength and immortality of the “maternal spirit”? But the picture is very real, and the foliage is just a symbol...”

Meanwhile, Astafiev was not reproached for the symbolism of the king of fish, but again they missed it. The King Fish is not just a symbol, but a symbol that has biblical and even more ancient roots. The “drawing” itself appeals to archaic consciousness: “There was something rare, primitive not only in the size of the fish, but also in the shape of its body, from the soft, lifeless, worm-like whiskers hanging under the evenly planed head below, to the webbed , winged tail - the fish looked like a prehistoric lizard...” But here, being still Soviet writer, Astafiev comes to his senses and (on behalf of the hero) finishes: “... the one drawn in the picture in his son’s textbook.”

“The King Fish” is not a story, not a novel, but “a narrative within stories.” Astafiev: “...if I were writing a novel, I would write differently. Perhaps, compositionally, the book would have been more harmonious, but I would have had to give up the most precious thing, what is usually called journalisticism, free digressions, which in this form of narration do not seem to look like digressions.”

Rasputin's "Farewell to Matera" was written in the purely artistic genre of a story. Meanwhile, the artistry of “Matera” wilts under the yoke of journalistic ideas, and Astafiev, who defends his right to publicism, creates artistic images.

Re-reading “Mather” today is painful: from under each image the “moral” lining strives to peek out, sewn on by the author in some places, worse, in places better. But everything lends itself to an impeccable layout: the image of such and such testifies to this, that image symbolizes this, and the images of those are called upon to condemn such and such, in contrast to the images of such and such, which force one to admire that. That.

In general, Rasputin has a terrible confusion with God. Main character is aware of the existence of God (she uses the adjective “Christlike” from time to time), but it is she who is the bearer of all that is holy, and not some incomprehensible forces, it is she who formulates the laws of life. Moreover: “Tomorrow and set it on fire, arsonist,” Daria stopped him from above in a stern, judgmental voice.” The release, of course, is mine.

Astafiev also has journalistic images: rabid poachers or disgruntled children of civilization, selfish and helpless. However, these “posters” appear sporadically, and the characters here, as a rule, are nameless - but the author himself initially assigned them a journalistic place. The “main” characters are far from declaring moral laws, and the author-narrator rarely falls into the sin of moralizing.

What about nature and animals? Astafiev’s works are all alive, with character, with their own colors, and the most lively of all is the “symbolic” king fish. Rasputin has an escheat “master of the island”, a mystical animal (“small, slightly larger than a cat, unlike any other animal”), “the embodiment of fate,” as critics decided. “He saw, turning his eyes again to Petrukhina’s hut, how Katerina would come here tomorrow and walk here until nightfall, looking for something, stirring something in the hot ashes and in her memory, how she would come the day after tomorrow, and after... and after... But he saw further...” This is it - neither fish nor fowl - but an all-seeing and all-knowing eye: “That’s why he was the Master, so that he could see everything, know everything and not interfere with anything.” Not only the Master has such abilities, but also the main character, let’s compare: “But I saw, Daria saw what was beyond the forest... Daria saw it as a memory and further...” the author soars.

Here, only an attempt was made to fish out works from thirty years ago from the “common pot,” so the task was conditional: something like “find a hundred differences in identical pictures.” But in the end it turns out: the pictures were different.

The same huts thirty years later

A big Soviet problem is to separate “literature about the countryside.” The question here is not only the wretchedness of the classification of literature by topic, but the fact that such a division ruined a lot, programmed the writers themselves for stiltedness, for narrow journalisticism.

Today, when hearing the words “village prose,” only one name comes up: Boris Ekimov, who from time to time adds texts “more to the question of national character" There is something else though. Irina Mamaeva made her debut in “Friendship of Peoples” (in June last year) with the story “Lenkin’s Wedding”. The story of a young writer is a challenge to “village” prose in the spirit of Boris Ekimov. Here are the approximate components of the current literary lament for the village: devastation, drunkenness, flight of youth, family breakdown, lack of everything essential, not to mention ideals.

Heroes are illustrative in Soviet style - they are victims Big Politics and a general decline in morals. And Mamaev does not relish the village apocalypse, although the whole set of problems is present. The village here is a self-sufficient world; None of the characters hint at historical ulcers by their appearance. The characters in the story are normal, full-fledged people.

Yes, they feel like they are not from the city, but there is no inferiority or cheap boasting in this: we, they say, are the breadwinners! The main character, Lenka, is a bit of a “stuffed animal”: she doesn’t find common language with his peers, he doesn’t even know how to shave his legs. But she is endowed with the gift of love and self-sacrifice, and she is happy, and not even “in life,” but precisely in the fullness of the feeling of this life. Neither place nor time can make a person happy or unhappy - only he himself.

The good story with Irina Mamaeva, alas, has a continuation. In the first issue of “Friendship of Peoples” for this year, there is another story of hers - “Gai Land”. Standard situation (old women and alcoholics, the economy is in ruins, poverty) - alive funny pictures. But something is a little off. And finally, sobbing journalism broke through: “Here he is – our Guy. Dear, painfully familiar, dear. Watered with tears. Then and human blood. Long northern rains. The way he is, the way we see him. Here is our home, here is our life, here is everything we have and everything we need. Our share, our burden is our gift and blessing.”

Great and mighty is the Soviet darkness. Sad.

Farewell to his mother Tsar Fish. “The theme of protection of nature in modern prose (V. Astafiev, V. Rasputin). Other works on this work

Annotation scientific article on linguistics and literary criticism, author of the scientific work - Timofeeva Natalya Vasilievna

Related topics scientific works on linguistics and literary criticism, the author of the scientific work is Natalya Vasilievna Timofeeva

Text of scientific work on the topic “Philosophical concept of the world and man in the story “The Tsar Fish” by Viktor Astafiev”

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Annotation scientific article on linguistics and literary criticism, author of the scientific work - Timofeeva Natalya Vasilievna

Related topics scientific works on linguistics and literary criticism, the author of the scientific work is Natalya Vasilievna Timofeeva

Text of scientific work on the topic “Philosophical concept of the world and man in the story “The Tsar Fish” by Viktor Astafiev”

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