What is totalitarianism?
This concept is used to denote a political regime in which state power is concentrated among a narrow group of people and, based on the curtailment of democracy, eliminates the constitutional guarantees of individual rights and freedoms, through the violence of police-command methods of influence on the population, the spiritual enslavement of people, and completely absorbs all forms and spheres of self-expression of a social person.
The minimum set of signs of totalitarianism, allowing one or another society to be classified as totalitarian, includes such parameters as: the sole power of the leader (pharaoh, king, “father of nations”...), an openly terrorist political system, one-party system, rigid structure and at the same time consolidated society based on mass mythology, introducing the ideas of emergency and basic national “accord”. Totalitarianism exists where there is a cult of rigid centralized power.
By the beginning of the 30s, Stalin moved on to monstrous pogroms of dissidents. In order to accustom the people to the idea of a huge number of enemies in the country, Stalin first decided to deal with the old cadres of the engineering and scientific intelligentsia, blaming them for all the failures. Having set the goal of instilling in the people the idea of the “real culprits” of conflicts in the economy, technology, social life, Stalin was preparing for the defeat of the intelligentsia, for the destruction of everyone who was displeasing to him.
To create the appearance of credibility of the accusation, these processes were framed with legal declarations and delegations of the “working masses” were allowed to attend them to fuel “popular indignation.” The press, radio, as well as hastily published "scientific and political literature" - brochures and collections of articles - actively incited public indignation against the defendants.
Being an unsurpassed leader, Stalin managed to force the people, artistic and creative intelligentsia to believe in the “criminal” activities of his victims, to come to terms with the monstrous legal conveyor belt of political persecution and terror, which was zealously carried out by the punitive-inquisitorial and propaganda apparatus subordinate to him. Stalin demanded selflessness in the name of a bright tomorrow, discipline, vigilance, love for the motherland, and people were involuntarily drawn to him.
Many famous figures of science, culture, political workers, philosophers fell under the “machine of repression”... The list is endless. Solzhenitsyn was among those repressed. In his works he expressed the entire era of totalitarianism.
Novel "The Gulag Archipelago"
This is a book that revealed the meaning and essence of the Soviet totalitarian system. The novel not only represented detailed history destruction of the peoples of Russia, not only testified to misanthropy as the ever-present essence and goal of the communist regime, but also affirmed the Christian ideals of freedom and mercy, bestowed with the experience of resisting evil, preserving the soul in the kingdom of “barbed wire.” "The Gulag Archipelago" made us realize the religious problematics of Solzhenitsyn's entire work, revealed its core - the search for evidence about man, his freedom, sin, the possibility of rebirth, and finally showed that Solzhenitsyn's work is the fight for human personality, Russia, freedom, life on Earth, which is threatened by a doomed system of lies and violence that denies God and man.
How can we explain the title of this three-volume work? Solzhenitsyn simplistically explained it this way: “The camps are scattered throughout Soviet Union small islands and larger ones. All this together cannot be imagined otherwise, compared with something else, like an archipelago. They are torn from each other as if by another environment-will, that is, not the camp world. And, at the same time, these islands, in their multitude, form a kind of archipelago." The word following "Archipelago" has a double spelling in the book: "GULAG" - to abbreviate the main administration of the camps of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; "GULAG" - as a designation of the camp country, Archipelago.
At the very beginning of the first volume of The Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn names his 227 co-authors (without names, of course): “I do not express personal gratitude to them here: this is our common friendly monument to all those tortured and killed.” Here is the Dedication of “Archipelago”: “I DEDICATE myself to everyone who didn’t have enough life to tell about it. And may they forgive me that I didn’t see everything, didn’t remember everything, didn’t guess about everything.”
The author calls his work "experience artistic research". With strict documentation, this is quite work of art, in which, along with the famous and unknown, but equally real prisoners of the regime, another fantastic character the Archipelago itself. All these “islands”, interconnected by “sewage pipes”, but through which people, digested the monstrous machine of totalitarianism into liquid - blood, sweat, urine; archipelago living own life, experiencing now hunger, now evil joy and fun, now love, now hatred; an archipelago spreading like a cancerous tumor.
The Gulag archipelago is some other world, and the boundaries between “that” and “this” world are ephemeral, blurred - that’s one thing space. “Down the long crooked street of our life, we happily rushed or wandered unhappily past some fences, fences, fences of rotten wooden, adobe, brick, concrete, cast-iron fences. Have we ever wondered what is behind them? We didn’t try to look behind them either with our eyes or with our minds - and that’s where the Gulag country begins, very close by, two meters from us. And we also did not notice in these fences the myriad of tightly fitted, well-camouflaged doors and gates. Everything, all these gates were prepared for us! And then the fatal one quickly swung open, and four white male hands, unaccustomed to work, but grasping, grabbed us by the leg, by the arm, by the collar, by the hat, by the ear - they dragged us like a sack. And the gate behind us, the gate into ours past life, slammed forever."
“Millions of Russian intellectuals were thrown here not for an excursion: to be injured, to die and without hope of return. For the first time in history, so many people, developed, mature, rich in culture, found themselves without an idea and forever in the skin of a slave, slave, lumberjack and miner. Thus, for the first time in world history, the experiences of the upper and lower strata of society merged!”
"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"
“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is not only a portrait of our history, it is also a book about the resistance of the human spirit to camp violence. Moreover, the plot of internal resistance, the confrontation between man and the Gulag is stated on the very first page of the work.
The "secret" of the origin of the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and genre form its writer explained it this way: “In 1950, on some long camp winter day, I was carrying a stretcher with a partner and thinking: how to describe our entire camp life? In fact, it is enough to describe just one day in detail, in the smallest detail, and the day of the simplest worker, and our whole life will be reflected here; And there is no need to intensify any horrors, it is not necessary for this to be some special day, but an ordinary one, this is the very day from which life is made up.”
The convict camp was taken from Solzhenitsyn not as an exception, but as a way of life. In one day and in one camp, depicted in the story, the writer concentrated the other side of life, which before him was a secret behind seven seals. Having condemned the inhumane system, the writer at the same time created realistic character truly folk hero who managed to carry through all the trials and preserve best qualities Russian people.
Plan:
1. A concentration camp is a totalitarian state in miniature.
2. “People live here too” is the basic principle of Ivan Denisovich’s life.
3. Only through labor can freedom of spirit and personal freedom be achieved.
4. Preservation of dignity and humanity in any conditions, at any time - all this is the main thing for a person.
5. The human soul is something that cannot be deprived of freedom, cannot be captured or destroyed - this is the meaning of the story.
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn's story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” was conceived in the camp in 1950-51, and written in 1959. The image of Ivan Denisovich was formed from the soldier Shukhov, who fought with the author in the Soviet-German war. All yours personal experience life in the camp, the author outlined all his impressions in his story. Main character works - a simple Russian person, unremarkable. There were very, very many people like Shukhov in the camp. Before us appear people whom fate brought to a concentration camp, innocent people who did nothing reprehensible. Among them: Gonchik, who carried milk into the forest, Baptists suffering for their faith, Estonians, prisoners. They all live and work in the camp, trying to support own existence. There is everything on the camp territory: a bathhouse, a medical unit, and a dining room. All this resembles a small town. But the matter cannot be done without guards, of whom there are a huge number, they are everywhere, they make sure that all the rules are followed, otherwise a punishment cell awaits the disobedient.
And for eight years now, Ivan Denisovich has been wandering around the camps, enduring, suffering, tormenting, but at the same time maintaining his inner dignity. Shukhov does not change peasant habits and “doesn’t let himself down”, doesn’t humiliate himself because of a cigarette, because of rations, and certainly doesn’t lick the bowls, doesn’t denounce his comrades to improve his own fate.
Conscientiousness, reluctance to live at someone else’s expense, or to cause inconvenience to someone, forces him to forbid his wife from collecting parcels for him in the camp, to justify the greedy Caesar and “not to stretch your belly on other people’s goods.” He also never feigns illness, and when he is seriously ill, he behaves guiltily in the medical unit: “What... Nikolai Semenych... I seem to be... sick...” Solzhenitsyn writes that he speaks at the same time “conscientiously, as if he was coveting something that belongs to someone else.” . And while he sat in this clean medical unit and did nothing for five whole minutes, he was very surprised by this: “it was wonderful for Shukhov to sit in such a clean room, in such silence...”
Work, according to Shukhov, is salvation from illness, from loneliness, from suffering. It is at work that Russian people forget themselves; work gives satisfaction and positive emotions, which prisoners have so little of.
That's why it's so bright folk character The character emerges in the work scenes. Ivan Denisovich is a mason, a carpenter, a stove maker, and a poplar carver. “Whoever knows two things will pick up ten more,” says Solzhenitsyn. Even in captivity, he is overwhelmed by the excitement of the work, conveyed by the author in such a way that Ivan Denisovich’s feelings turn out to be inseparable from the author’s own. We understand that A.I. Solzhenitsyn is a good mason. He transfers all his skills to his character. And human dignity, equality, freedom of spirit, according to Solzhenitsyn, is established in work; it is in the process of work that prisoners joke, even laugh. Everything can be taken away from a person, but the satisfaction of a job well done cannot be taken away.
The phrase where Shukhov says that “he himself doesn’t know whether he wanted it or not” has a very significant meaning for the writer. Prison, according to Solzhenitsyn, is a huge evil, violence, but suffering contributes to moral purification. With all their behavior in the camp, the heroes of A.I. Solzhenitsyn confirm the main idea of this work. Namely, that the soul cannot be taken captive, it cannot be deprived of its freedom. The formal release of Ivan Denisovich will not change his worldview, his value system, his view of many things, his essence.
The concentration camp, the totalitarian system could not enslave strong in spirit there were a lot of people in our long-suffering country, who stood their ground and did not let the country perish.
Vital and creative path Alexandra Solzhenitsyn
The name of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, which was banned for a long time, has now rightfully taken its place in the history of Russian literature of the Soviet period.
Solzhenitsyn's work attracts the reader with truthfulness, pain for what is happening, and insight. A writer, a historian, he always warns us: don’t get lost in history.
"The Gulag Archipelago" was published in 1989. After this event, there were no works left in either Russian or world literature that would pose a great danger to the Soviet regime. Solzhenitsyn's book revealed the essence of the totalitarian Stalinist state. The veil of lies and self-deception that still obscured the eyes of many of our fellow citizens has subsided.
"The Gulag Archipelago" is both documentary evidence and a work of art. Here is captured a monstrous, fantastic martyrology of the victims of the “building of communism” in Russia during the years of Soviet power.
Alexander Isaevich was born in December 1918 in Kislovodsk. The father came from peasants, the mother was the daughter of a shepherd, who later became a wealthy farmer. After high school Solzhenitsyn graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the University in Rostov-on-Don, and at the same time entered the Moscow Institute of Philosophy and Literature as a correspondence student. Without completing the last two courses, he goes to war. From 1942 to 1945 he commanded a battery at the front and was awarded orders and medals. In February 1945, with the rank of captain, he was arrested due to criticism of Stalin detected in correspondence and sentenced to eight years, of which he spent almost a year on investigation and in transfer, three in a prison research institute, and the four most difficult years in prison. general works in the political Special Security.
Then A.I. Solzhenitsyn lived in Kazakhstan in exile “forever”, but from February 1957 rehabilitation followed. Worked school teacher in Ryazan. After the appearance of the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" in 1962, he was accepted into the Writers' Union. But I am forced to submit my next works to Samizdat or print them abroad. In 1969, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Writers' Union, and in 1970 he was awarded Nobel Prize according to literature.
In 1974, in connection with the release of the first volume of the Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Isaevich was forcibly expelled to the West. He was put on a plane and flown to Germany. Until 1976, Solzhenitsyn lived in Zurich, then moved to American state Vermont, whose nature resembles central Russia.
On the eve of his 60th birthday, Solzhenitsyn began publishing collected works; by 1988, 18 volumes had already been published. The writer himself claims that the form that most attracts him in literature is “polyphonic with precise signs of time and place of action.” The novel in the full sense is “In the First Circle”, “The Gulag Archipelago”, according to the subtitle, is “an experience in artistic research”, the epic “The Red Wheel” is “a narrative in a measured time frame”. “Cancer Ward” is, by the author’s will, a story,” and “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is even a “story.”
For 13 years, the writer worked on the novel “In the First Circle.” The plot is that diplomat Volodin calls the American embassy to say that in three days the secret of the atomic bomb will be stolen in New York. The conversation overheard and recorded on film is delivered to the "sharashka" - a research institution of the MGB system, in which prisoners create a voice recognition technique. The meaning of the novel is explained by the prisoner: “Sharashka is the highest, the best, the first circle of hell.” Volodin gives another explanation, drawing a circle on the ground: “Do you see the circle? This is the fatherland. This is the first circle. But the second, it is wider. This is humanity. And the first circle is not included in the second. There are fences of prejudice. that there is no humanity, but only fatherland, fatherland, and different for everyone..."
“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” was conceived by the author during general work in the Ekibastuz special camp. “I was carrying a stretcher with my partner and thought how I should describe the entire camp world in one day.” In the story "Cancer Ward" Solzhenitsyn put forward his version of the "incitement of cancer": Stalinism, Red Terror, repression.
“They will tell us: what can literature do against the merciless onslaught of open violence? But let’s not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is certainly intertwined with lies,” wrote A. I. Solzhenitsyn. “But we need to take a simple step: do not participate in lies. Let this come into the world and even reign in the world, but not through me.”
Writers and artists have access to more: defeating lies! Solzhenitsyn was the kind of writer who defeated lies.
Rental block
RESPONSE PLAN
1. Exposing the totalitarian system.
2. Heroes of “Cancer Ward”.
3. The question of the morality of the existing system.
4. Choice of life position.
1. The main theme of A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s work is the exposure of the totalitarian system, proof of the impossibility of human existence in it. His work attracts the reader with its truthfulness, pain for a person: “...Violence (over a person) does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is certainly intertwined with lies,” Solzhenitsyn wrote. - And you need to take a simple step: do not participate in lies. Let this come into the world and even reign in the world, but through me.” More is available to writers and artists - to defeat lies.
In his works “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, “Matryonin’s Yard”, “In the First Circle”, “The Gulag Archipelago”, “Cancer Ward” Solzhenitsyn reveals the whole essence of a totalitarian state.
2. In “Cancer Ward”, using the example of one hospital ward, Solzhenitsyn depicts the life of an entire state. The author manages to convey the socio-psychological situation of the era, its originality on such seemingly small material as an image of the life of several cancer patients who, by the will of fate, found themselves in the same hospital building. All heroes are not easy different people With different characters; each of them is a bearer of certain types of consciousness generated by the era of totalitarianism. It is also important that all the heroes are extremely sincere in expressing their feelings and defending their beliefs, as they are in the face of death. Oleg Kostoglotov, a former prisoner, independently came to reject the postulates of the official ideology. Shulubin, Russian intellectual, participant October Revolution, surrendered, outwardly accepting public morality, and doomed himself to a quarter of a century of mental torment. Rusanov appears as the “world leader” of the nomenklatura regime. But, always strictly following the party line, he often uses the power given to him for personal purposes, confusing them with public interests.
The beliefs of these heroes are already fully formed and are repeatedly tested during discussions. The remaining heroes are mainly representatives of the passive majority who have accepted official morality, but they are either indifferent to it or do not defend it so zealously.
The entire work represents a kind of dialogue in consciousness, reflecting almost the entire spectrum of life ideas characteristic of the era. The external well-being of a system does not mean that it is devoid of internal contradictions. It is in this dialogue that the author sees a potential opportunity to cure the cancer that has affected the entire society. Born in the same era, the heroes of the story do different things life choice. True, not all of them realize that the choice has already been made. Efrem Podduev, who lived his life the way he wanted, suddenly understands, turning to Tolstoy’s books, the entire emptiness of his existence. But this hero’s insight is too late. In essence, the problem of choice confronts every person every second, but out of many decision options, only one is correct, out of all the paths in life, only one is to one’s heart.
Demka, a teenager at a crossroads in life, realizes the need for choice. At school he absorbed the official ideology, but in the ward he felt its ambiguity, having heard the very contradictory, sometimes mutually exclusive statements of his neighbors. The clash of positions of different heroes occurs in endless disputes affecting both everyday and existential problems. Kostoglotov is a fighter, he is tireless, he literally attacks his opponents, expressing everything that has become painful over the years of forced silence. Oleg easily fends off any objections, since his arguments are hard-won by himself, and the thoughts of his opponents are most often inspired by the dominant ideology. Oleg does not accept even a timid attempt at compromise on the part of Rusanov. And Pavel Nikolaevich and his like-minded people are unable to object to Kostoglotov, because they are not ready to defend their convictions themselves. The state has always done this for them.
Rusanov lacks arguments: he is used to being aware of his own rightness, relying on the support of the system and personal power, but here everyone is equal in the face of the inevitable and near death and in front of each other. Kostoglotov’s advantage in these disputes is also determined by the fact that he speaks from the position of a living person, while Rusanov defends the point of view of a soulless system. Shulubin only occasionally expresses his thoughts, defending the ideas of “moral socialism.” It is precisely the question of the morality of the existing system that all the disputes in the House ultimately revolve around.
From Shulubin’s conversation with Vadim Zatsyrko, a talented young scientist, we learn that, according to Vadim, science is only responsible for the creation material goods, and the moral aspect of the scientist should not worry.
Demka’s conversation with Asya reveals the essence of the education system: from childhood, students are taught to think and act “like everyone else.” The state, with the help of schools, teaches insincerity and instills in schoolchildren distorted ideas about morality and ethics. In the mouth of Avietta, Rusanov’s daughter, an aspiring poetess, the author puts official ideas about the tasks of literature: literature must embody the image of a “happy tomorrow”, in which all the hopes of today are realized. Talent and writing skill, naturally, cannot be compared with ideological demands. The main thing for a writer is the absence of “ideological dislocations,” so literature becomes a craft serving the primitive tastes of the masses. The ideology of the system does not imply the creation moral values, for which Shulubin, who betrayed his convictions, but did not lose faith in them, yearns. He understands that a system with a shifted scale life values not viable.
Rusanov’s stubborn self-confidence, Shulubin’s deep doubts, Kostoglotov’s intransigence - different levels personality development under totalitarianism. All these life positions dictated by the conditions of the system, which thus not only forms an iron support for itself from people, but also creates conditions for potential self-destruction. All three heroes are victims of the system, since it deprived Rusanov of the ability to think independently, forced Shulubin to abandon his beliefs, and took away freedom from Kostoglotov. Any system that oppresses an individual disfigures the souls of all its subjects, even those who serve it faithfully.
3. Thus, the fate of a person, according to Solzhenitsyn, depends on the choice that the person himself makes. Totalitarianism exists not only thanks to tyrants, but also thanks to the passive and indifferent majority, the “crowd”. Only choice true values can lead to victory over this monstrous totalitarian system. And everyone has the opportunity to make such a choice.
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This material includes sections:
Theme and idea, severity of the conflict and artistic features of the play
The main themes and ideas of I. A. Bunin’s prose.
Analysis of the story by I.A. Bunin "Clean Monday"
1. Coverage of Soviet ideology today.
2. Writer and publicist - the difference is in the description of the historical course of events. Solzhenitsyn as a chronicler of the Soviet era.
3. Man in a totalitarian society.
4. What to eat human life under an authoritarian structure of political power?
5. Human freedom as a condition of his life.
On bookshelves stores today have a lot of literature dedicated to Soviet era, but rather its exposure. But the authors are not always historically accurate, based on memoirs and depicting the historical course of events. Today it is fashionable to denigrate that regime. But nevertheless, you should not be like the Bolsheviks and divide the whole world only into black and white. Yes, there was a lot of bad things and the memory of generations is called upon to prevent a repetition of those events. But we should not forget that this is our history, and lessons should be learned from it. It is difficult to figure out today where the truth is, the facts presented in strict accordance with reality, and where they are slightly or to a fair extent exaggerated by fiction and many conjectures.
If you read Solzhenitsyn, you can be sure that when describing the fates of his heroes, he never distorted the truth. He did not protest himself and did not divide everything only into black and white, rushing to extremes, but simply wrote about what happened, while leaving to the readers the right to choose how to relate to the described people and events occurring depending on or outside the will of the heroes . Solzhenitsyn did not set out to only describe the life of the camps or the laws by which prisoners lived - he wrote about the life of people on this and that side of the barbed wire. He did this in the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” comparing Shukhov’s “today’s” life and his memories of home. Such transitions give us, the readers, the opportunity to remember that Shukhov, and any prisoner in the camp, is first and foremost a person. Only everyone has their own habits, strong or weak character traits, their own ways of adapting to life. In Soviet times, these people, more likely “subhumans” for the authorities, did not have names. These were only Yu-81, Iz-202... And people were considered only free labor, which built the large industrial centers of Siberia. The GULAG archipelago is not Solovki or Magadan, it is the whole country. Yes. These are the facts of history, and you cannot escape them. But the entire state was one large camp in which the father renounced his son, and the son renounced his father. People were imprisoned here if they returned to their homeland, and it did not matter by what route they ended up outside of it. A striking example of this is an Estonian who was taken to Sweden by his parents as a child and later returned to his native coast. Here, such strong, intelligent, courageous, dexterous people with natural acumen as Brigadier Tyurin disappeared in these same camps. He was the son of a kulak, he volunteered for the Red Army. Isn’t this a paradox that turned out to be unnecessary for the Soviet machine? But besides, the brigadier was an excellent student in combat and political training. In this state, belief in God was a crime (Alyoshka is a Baptist, who received a 25-year sentence for his religious beliefs).
These people, whose cases were essentially fabricated, fell into the realm of arbitrariness, violence and impunity. Only impunity was allowed to the overseers or those to whom generous parcels were brought. And then the prisoner who managed to butter himself up became the master of the situation. He could even sit with the guards and play cards with them (Gypsy Caesar). But here, again, everyone is free to decide for themselves: to be like Shukhov, who will remain hungry, but will not bend to anyone’s interests, or like Fetyukov, who was ready to grovel before anyone so that he, as if by chance, would drop his cigarette butt.
The totalitarian mechanism equated everyone to the same standard, and a step to the left or right was considered a betrayal. It was necessary to blindly follow the models of behavior that were imposed by the authorities. Any deviation from these established rules threatened to result, if not in physical violence, then in humiliation of human dignity and a prison term in a camp. The level of vital fortitude was also different. And he depended only on moral principles: a strong person will survive and adapt, but a weak person will die, and this is inevitable.
What did human life mean to an authoritarian system? Provided that the state machine resettled entire nations, influenced the geographical relationships in the world, practically adjusted the entire scientific potential to itself (although the development of science and the political system can hardly be so connected) and exterminated the thinking intelligentsia. There are officially about twelve million examples of such twisted and broken destinies, and among them - simple and nameless - are such prominent scientists as N. I. Vavilov, the poet N. S. Gumilyov. Solzhenitsyn writes not about the luminaries of science, not about the geniuses of military leadership, not about great poets, but about ordinary people, from whose destinies the history of the country is formed. Solzhenitsyn did not allow himself to speculate; he painted a portrait of the entire country of that time, placing it within the framework of only one camp, where human life was only a statistical unit, and not the fate of a person with his roots and family traditions...
Solzhenitsyn describes the life of the camp from the inside, refuting at the same time the Soviet dogma that a person is guilty even of what is said if what is said does not coincide with the official ideology. This life appears before us with everyday detail, experiencing the hero’s feelings (fear, homesickness or a hungry rumbling stomach). The reader thinks about whether Shukhov will be released, and what his second day would be like, and what will be the fate of the other characters in the story? But the fate of Shukhov is the fate of millions of similar convicts. How many of these Shukhovs are there on Russian soil?
In a totalitarian state there is no freedom for a person. And freedom is the beginning of any creativity, the beginning real life and being in general. Totalitarian forces kill a person's desire to live, because it is impossible to live according to someone else's instructions. Only life itself can dictate its terms, and relations in society should be regulated not by a handful of people holding high positions in the party apparatus, but by society itself in accordance with the spirit of the time and culture.
