The problem of youth in modern literature
The poison of the criminal world is incredibly terrible. Poisoning with this poison is the corruption of everything human in a person. Everyone who comes into contact with this world breathes this foul breath.
Varlam Shalamov.
We know what it means to be decent in the army. Many guys broke down morally after service, especially the intelligent ones.
From a letter to a newspaper.
“I’m sixteen, I embrace the world lovingly...” wrote the young Volgograd poet, who tragically died at the age of 18. I, too, will soon be 18. Sometimes I feel the immensity of vitality, causeless cheerfulness and love for the whole world. Why worry when everything is going well in life? Why is it that sometimes a cruel melancholy overwhelms me, nothing makes me happy, life seems meaningless? I noticed that most often this happens when, in reality or in art, I encounter phenomena of injustice, cruelty, and inhumanity that are new to me.
How do most of my peers spend their time? They drive motorcycles until they are stupefied, preventing residents from resting, wandering around the streets, looking for a place to drink, or having fun with fights and outrages at discos. It’s interesting that many of my comrades don’t even think about helping their parents. Sometimes I don’t even have anything to talk about with those with whom I belong to the same generation. But what amazes me most is the cruelty of boys and girls. To everyone: To parents who are not pitied at all; to teachers who are driven to illness; to the weak, who can be bullied endlessly; to animals.
I have thought a lot about where cruelty comes from and why it so often triumphs. Of course, there are many reasons: the wars and revolution of this century, Stalin’s camps, through which almost half the country passed through, widespread drunkenness and fatherlessness, even the fact that the school gives C grades for nothing, allowing you to do nothing. And in last years, when the facts of abuse by the authorities became clear, many of us completely lost faith.
But in this essay I would like to talk about two phenomena and times in our society that give rise to cruelty. A lot of people go through the colony, and almost all through the army. There are two works of modern literature about the zone and the army.
Leonid Gabyshev's novel "Odlyan, or the Air of Freedom" is a story about a teenager, later a young man, Kolya, nicknamed first Flounder, then Eye, later Cunning Eye. In short, this is a story about a world dominated by complete humiliation and violence. “It became unbearable for the eye. The vice squeezed the hand so much that it bent in half: the little finger touched the index finger. It seemed that the hand would break, but the flexible bones held out.
Eye, come on, smile. And know: I will slowly squeeze until the bones crack or until you confess.
Okay, Eye, that's enough for now. In the evening we will go with you to the firehouse. I’ll put your hand, your right hand, into the firebox and we’ll wait until you confess.”
The worst thing is that, at the request of the zone manager (in this case Kamani), Kolya himself puts his hand in a vice or exposes his head to a blow. Otherwise it will be even worse. You read the novel and understand: a person ends up in a colony, and society stops protecting him. The camp authorities pretend not to notice anything. No, worse, he deliberately uses some of the prisoners (the so-called horns and thieves), who are given benefits and concessions, so that they keep everyone else in order." And the convicts in charge know how to restore order... There are many scenes confirming what has been said in the novel Here is one: Kolya’s first days in the zone. Major, nicknamed Ryabchik, checks his duty. He asks the guy:
Have you registered?
Kolya was silent. The guys smiled.
“We did it, Comrade Major,” answered the gypsy.
Did you get the pins?
“I got it,” Kolya answered now.
What nickname did you give?
“Flounder,” answered Misha.
What the major smiled at with the prisoners, registration and kirkkas, was a brutal beating and humiliation, but the people assigned to monitor the correction of prisoners take this for granted.
A significant part of the novel consists of similar episodes. Well, perhaps, thanks to the writer, not only the Cunning Eye, but also the reader understands what freedom is.
Sergei Kaledin's story "Stroibat" shows several days in the life of military builders who perform the "honorable duty of Soviet citizens." This is a prefabricated part, a kind of dump, where the “filth” from many construction battalions was collected. Therefore, the morals here are not so different from the zone, and the interests are the same. “In short, we were going to hell, but ended up in heaven. Here is the gate, and on the right, two hundred meters away, is a store. And in the store there is Moldovan powder, seventeen degrees, two twenty liters. Since ten in the morning. Raspberry!”
The law is here: the powerful are always to blame for the powerless! The strong are grandfathers, the weak are salabons. It would seem that the difference is small: he came to the service a year earlier. But it's like skin color or tongue. Grandfathers may not work, get drunk, or bully first-year children. They must endure everything. Moreover, being separate bosses, the grandfathers give orders like slave owners. “At first, Zhenka decided to give Egorka and Maksimka to Kostya, but then he changed his mind - these two are just plowmen for him. Egorka, in addition to his main work, takes care of Zhenka and Misha Popov: make up the bed, bring rations from the canteen, do small laundry, and Maksimka - Kolya, Edik and Stary." The elders also quickly put things in order here: “Zhenka treated Yegorka right away, he barely struggled. A couple of times he bled him lightly, and for some reason the Chuchmeks are afraid of their own blood. And... I tinkered with Maksimka a little longer...”
The story more than once describes how soldiers drink or inject drugs. The central scene is a grandiose fight between companies. After all the terrible bullying, the characterization of Kostya Karamychev is perceived. For the last eight months he had been working as a loader at a bakery and stealing what he could. He “didn’t dry out” from drunkenness. When, “completely out of luck,” he was caught, company commander Doschinin “offered Kostya a choice: either he starts a case, or Kostya urgently cleans... all four detachment toilets.” He chose the latter, taking, of course, young assistants. During demobilization, this commander gave Kostya the following characterization: “During his service... private Karamychev K.M. proved himself to be an proactive warrior who fulfilled all statutory requirements... morally stable... The characterization was given for presentation to Moscow University ". Well, the intellectual is ready. Lawlessness, as the prisoners say. Now they are preparing military reform. I'm afraid, however, that my peers will not have time to use it. Perhaps soon I too will have to go to serve. Do you really have to live for two years with guys who lack human feelings? No, I'm not afraid of physical deprivation. As the saying goes: “I would be glad to serve, but being served is sickening.”
Both works have been read. They are not very artistic, there are errors against the style and laws of literature. But there are no errors in them against the truth. You trust the writers. And you also believe that if we really want to, there will be less cruelty.
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Contemporary literature about youth and for youth.
Modern literature arouses a certain interest among teenagers. How to do homework extracurricular reading on this topic interesting and necessary for modern boys and girls? Together with the city library and film center, we conduct extracurricular reading lessons on works of modern literature, the main characters of which are teenagers aged 15-18, which is of great interest to lyceum students and students of our college.
The library offers a list of works on this topic:
- Abramov S. Wall. Tale. M., 1990.
- Anisov M. The vicissitudes of fate. Novel. M, 1996.
- Astafiev V. Lyudochka. Story. “New World”, 1989, No. 9
- Basova L. Zoyka and Bag. Tale. M, 1988.
- Bocharova T. Friend. Tale. “We” 2004, No. 1
- Voronov N. Escape to India. Novel. “ School romance– newspaper”, 2001, No. 10.
- Gabyshev L. Odlyan, or the air of freedom. Tale.
- “New World”, 1989, No. 6
- Zheleznikov V. Scarecrow – 2 or Game of Moths.
- Tale. M., 2001.
- Zolotukha V. The Last Communist. “New World”, 2000, No. 1, 2
- Likhanov A. Nobody. Novel. “Our Contemporary”, 2000, No. 7, 8.
- Likhanov A. Broken doll. Novel. “Our Contemporary”, 2002, “1, 2.
- Krapivin V. Grandmother's grandson and his brothers.
- “School novel - newspaper”, 2001 No. 4
- 13. Melikhov A. Plague. Novel. “New World”, 2003, No. 9, 10.
- 14. Pristavkin A. Kukushata, or a plaintive song to calm the heart. Tale. “Youth”, 1989, No. 11.
- Simonova L. Circle. Tale. M, 1990.
- Shefner V. Happy loser. The Man with Five “Nots” or Confession
- simple-minded. Stories. “School novel - newspaper”, 1998, No. 8
- Shcherbakova G. Boy and girl. Novel. “New World”, 2001, No. 5
- Korotkov Yu. Wild love. Tale. M, 1998
- Korotkov Y. Popsa. Tale. “We”, 2000, No. 7
- Polyanskaya I. Between Broadway and Fifth Avenue.
- Stories. M., 1998
- Solomko N. The white horse is not my grief. Stories.
- M., 1998
- Trapeznikov A. Should I be afraid!.. Stories. M., 1998
- Tuchkov V. Death comes on the Internet. “New World”, 1998, No. 5
Shcherbakova G. Mitina's love. Tale. “New World”, 1997, No. 3 Shcherbakova G. Love - history. Tale. “New World”, 1995. No. 11.
Award “National Bestseller 2003”
Garros and Evdokimov’s novel “[Head]breaking” (2002)
A stand is set up in the literature room, where the children independently prepare annotations for the books they read. For example:
Tatiana Bocharova. The story “Girlfriend”
Magazine “We” 2004 No. 1 pp. 9 – 55 “Who came up with the idea that life begins with the first breath and the first cry of a baby? Nonsense. Life begins when you turn fifteen. When you are behind a carefree, cloudless childhood, in which you unconditionally believe in fairy tales and the victory of good over evil, in which you are convinced that there are no ugly, unhappy people, and everyone is beautiful in their own way. When there are reliable defenders from all troubles and misfortunes - the closest and dearest beings, parents. And suddenly it all ends - a warm, glorious world, where it smells of sweets and milk, where a fearless toy wolf is always chasing a brave, elusive hare, where you are the center of the universe, the most important and most beloved. And life begins: everything around is alien, cold, indifferent, terribly frightening, repulsive.” This story is about friendship and first love, betrayal and loyalty,
mother's love and jealousy.
Sergey ABRAMOV
"FANTASTIC
NARRATIVE MOSCOW
CHILDREN'S "LITERATURE" 1990 The action in the story takes place in Moscow 80 -V end 20 X. The main characters of the story are residents of a large house. “The house was huge, brick, multi-story, a bastion house, a fortress house. People of various ranks lived in it - some lived richer, some poorer; There were different worries, different troubles...”
Symbolically Name stories: “ Walls indifference, mistrust Friend To friend, walls lies, falsehood, hypocrisy. Walls misunderstanding.
“At the described time—May, a weekday, ten in the morning—a young man of about twenty years old entered the yard...” And amazing events began in the house...” In each from us sleeping wizard, tightly sleeping, we about him even Not suspect. But If his to wake…”
After all, the wall, according to the author, is a symbol. A symbol of our disunity, our reluctance to understand each other, our damned habit of living only by our own ideas and inability to accept others. Who needs it for relatives to make speeches to each other? Came home at the wrong time - lecture. I took the wrong book - lecture. He went to the wrong place and with the wrong thing - an accusatory speech. Not life, but debate between the parties. It’s as if we don’t live in separate apartments, but in separate courtrooms, we attack - we accuse, we retreat - we defend, we execute, we pardon, we make speeches of indictment and acquittal, we look for evidence, we catch contradictions. And that’s all you need: a hint, a glance, a casual word, act , finally…
Read this story! She will become yours OTHER!
Library methodologists offer teenagers questions for debate:
- Any time is revealed not in the hero of this time, but in those who resist time in one way or another.
- Any teaching in a book turns me off.
- There are people who don’t read—they don’t spend time reading, they just don’t know how to do it. I'm embarrassed to look at them. Not pleasant, not disgusting, but shameful. You can’t look at, for example, a cripple, a freak, a quasimodo. A non-reader is like a beggar to whom you cannot give money.
- That's why it's a shame.
- There is an opinion: “Tell me who your friend is, and I will tell you who you are.” Can we rephrase this and say, “Tell me what you are reading and I will tell you who you are?” Your opinion.
- “I don’t read books because everything in them is not true. And if you want to know what modern youth live with, it’s better to watch some reality show, everything there is real. And reading books is a useless activity.” Your opinion.
- Literature is one of the foundations of human civilization.
- From a letter to the editor of one of the newspapers: “Every day I hear: books are a source of knowledge, read books, love reading. They just keep saying it. I don’t know who it is, but I think that all this advice and reasoning about the role of the book smacks of mothballs. After all, everything around has changed. New ones have appeared mass media, which are much better able than a book to provide food for thought, knowledge, and convey the experience of others. Television takes us to any point on the globe, allows us to see and hear what is happening there, and brings a lot of experiences.
- The book pales in comparison, and even reading requires five times more time than watching a TV show. Visuals, sound, and color... all this has a stronger effect and is better remembered.”
- Do you share the point of view of the author of this letter? Give reasons for your position.
- “When reading a book, you must not forget, first of all, that the main essence of the matter, the very essence of the usefulness of the book, is not in it, but in you, dear reader.” How do you understand these words of N.A. Rubakin? Give reasons for your point of view.
Are there such concepts as “fashionable reading” and “reading for the soul” among young people? What “fashionable” authors do you know, and what would you read for your soul?
“When we read, our own thoughts and associations are born in us. The book seems to “grow” within us. With each reading, it is as if she is born again. Behind every book there is an author, but it is we, the readers, who breathe life into it. Therefore, reading cannot be compared with watching a video or cider. Reading requires more activity, co-creation, and self-realization than watching a film, because in this case the “machine” reads for us.” Is this point of view close to you?
The city Cinema Center “Sputnik” offers teenagers viewing feature films - adaptations of works of modern literature. With particular interest they watch films based on the works of Yu. Korotkov “Carmen”, “The Ninth Company”, “Pops”, B. Akunin “Turkish Gambit”, “State Councilor”.
Such work arouses keen interest among teenagers and a desire to read works of Russian literature.
Last name, first name, patronymic (in full) Smirnova Irina Yurievna
Name of place of work/study MBOU "Novoportovsk boarding school named after L.V. Laptsui"
Name municipality Name of the locality village of New Port
Today, in the age of computers, super-smart gadgets, robots, nanotechnologies, one of the main problems is the problem of spiritual, moral, aesthetic and patriotic education youth.
Our society aims young people at success, self-sufficiency, and the ability to earn money. These are the requirements market economy. Facilities mass media promote norms modern life instilling in young people that such vices as pride, anger, gluttony, envy, despondency, love of money, and fornication are not sins at all. As a result, in the process of personality formation, we get a consumer person who is absolutely indifferent to other people’s pain, other people’s problems, a person who has suddenly forgotten that no amount of wealth can replace honesty, kindness, and decency. A modern young man, mentally developed and possessing certain scientific knowledge, finds himself at the lowest level spiritually and emotionally.
The main goal of the school library is to form a thinking and feeling, loving and active person, ready for creativity in any area of life. The moral education of the younger generation is the primary task of society, since morality is the highest measure of humanity. The school and the library should join forces in the formation of moral values.
As a librarian, I am interested in how emotionally young readers perceive artistic text, how deeply they understand him, whether they empathize with literary heroes. The ability of a reader, and especially a young reader, to experience joy, anger, and sadness is important in a person’s spiritual life. Emotional imagination allows the reader to understand the world of feelings literary heroes, live their lives with them, imagine yourself as any character from a book, break away from reality and experience incredible adventures. Hence the conclusion - reading develops imagination. “The reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. A person who never reads experiences only one” (D. Martin).
Our library often hosts loud readings with stops to answer questions that arise during the reading. work of art, questions for discussing the actions of literary heroes. And even those guys who don’t like to read become interested in the fate of the characters in the book, with a thirst to know what will happen next, how the plot will end.
Of particular interest are books that tell about the destinies of teenagers like our dear readers (Zheleznyakov V.K. “Scarecrow”, Kaverin V. “Two Captains”), books about the Great Patriotic War(Kuznetsov A. “Babi Yar”, Kassil L. “Street of the Youngest Son”, Baklanov G. “Forever Nineteen”, Cherkashin G. “Doll”, etc.) about friendship and love (Shcherbakova G. “You Never Even Dreamed of” , Grossman D. “Who would you like to run with”, Sabitova Dina “Three of your names”, Sharon Draper “Hello, let’s talk”), historical subjects.
To attract students to read spiritual and moral literature, book and illustrative exhibitions are held dedicated to the life of Sergius of Radonezh, Alexander Nevsky, and the great enlighteners Cyril and Methodius. On Orthodox book days, review conversations are held in the library, round tables, loud readings of evangelical themes by Russian writers I. S. Shmelyov (“Summer of the Lord”, “Pilgrim”), L. Andreev (“Gostinets”), A. P. Chekhov (“On Strastnaya”), N. S. Leskova ( “Figure”), L. N. Tolstoy (“Candle”), F. M. Dostoevsky (“The Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree”),
Our library, just like any other, has a collection of Orthodox literature, which is used in exhibition work when we're talking about about the ethnocultural traditions of the Russian people. And, as you know, the culture of the Russian people is inextricably linked with Orthodoxy. Well known and celebrated by everyone Orthodox holidays: Day of Naum the Grammar December 14, January 25 - St. Tatiana's Day, celebrated as Students' Day, May 24 - Remembrance Day of Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius, also known as Day Slavic writing and culture. Always held for these holidays whole line events at school. These are exhibitions of fiction and Orthodox literature, review conversations, loud readings, quizzes, flash mobs, etc.
The teenage period, according to many teachers and parents, is difficult and critical. A good book can help a teenager understand the system of moral values and ideals, organize his behavior and activities, teach self-control and responsibility for the results of his actions. There are many modern authors, both Russian and foreign, writing for teenagers.
Here are some of them: Eduard Verkin “Cloud Regiment”; Olga Gromova “Sugar Baby”; Vladislav Krapivin “On the Night of the Big Tide”; Tamara Kryukova “The Witch”; Mark Levy "Shadow Thief"; Boris Almazov “Look - I’m growing”; Nikolai and Svetlana Ponomarev “Are you afraid of the dark?” and “Photos on the ruins”; Mikhail Samarsky “Rainbow for a Friend”, Evgeny Yelchin “Stalin’s Nose”; Boris Balter's story "Goodbye, boys!" These are books by modern authors about humanity, moral problems, understanding the meaning of life, the experiences of heroes, their struggle for justice and honesty, their nobility, readiness to help their friends and their selflessness.
A children's book should give children hope that everything can be okay, that there are good choices. The book helps to understand where there is goodness, mercy, compassion, what repentance is and what pride, idleness, anger, envy, and pride are. Find and recommend good book For a teenager, the task of a librarian and literature teacher. Reading parents can also become reading leaders for teenagers, because they can introduce them to reading by personal example.
Over the past two to three years, there has been an increased demand for classical literature that is not included in school curriculum. This is Dostoevsky F.M. "The Brothers Karamazov"; Tolstoy L.N., “Anna Karenina”, “Resurrection”; Fadeev “Young Guard”, Shmelev “Summer of the Lord”.
And, of course, the works of Pushkin A.S., Lermontov M.Yu., Gogol N.V., Tolstoy L.N., Dostoevsky F.M., Chekhov A.P., Sholokhov M. - allow the young reader not not only to recognize the past, but also to experience together with the heroes of their books, to form views, feelings, character, awaken a love for beauty, and cultivate readiness to fight for the triumph of goodness and truth.
Modern teenagers prefer to watch a film based on literary works, and not read the work itself, since a lot of time is spent on reading. But those who read the book did not regret the time spent. Here's what guys who read books about the war say:
“Any book about war teaches us to value life, to protect what is most precious, to believe, to hope. We learn about such qualities as kindness, self-sacrifice, and the ability to be friends. Every self-respecting person is obliged to read at least one book about the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945!”
The guys believe that reading books about war is necessary for every person in order to know the history of their country, to know at what price the world in which we all live was paid, in order to remember the heroes of the war and their exploits.
Reading books about war teaches you to be humane even in the most difficult and terrible situations, teaches you to stick to your principles to the end, teaches you to love, believe, hope, teaches people to unite for one great goal - Victory.
Nowadays, it is necessary to read books about the war, especially about the Great Patriotic War, in order to cultivate the spirit of patriotism, pride in one’s country, and most importantly, so that the current generation does not forget thanks to whom it lives on this earth under a peaceful sky. This is not necessarily fiction, but also documentary, reading which allows you to develop your own point of view on current events.
Young people who read and know the traditions, history and culture of their country have high potential for the future of Russia.
Remember, young citizen,
Book - growth vitamin!
The great Russian writer A. M. Gorky wrote: “I owe everything good in life to books.”
Today, more than ever, it is important to introduce children and adolescents to the world of spiritual values of history and culture. Russian classical literature, aimed at harmony and the search for the meaning of life, at resolving eternal questions, makes it possible to use the richest material for the formation of personal culture. For example, the books “Alive” by B. Mozhaev, “Business as Usual” by V. Belov, “Farewell to Matera” by V. Rasputin help to understand in a new way the essence of human relationships and actions. They affirm the ideals of reason, beauty, harmony, and talk about man’s responsibility for every step he takes on earth.
Modern youth need to read, and read the best of the classics, in order to understand themselves, who you are, what you want to achieve. Moral issues personalities can be traced in the works of such writers as Chingiz Aitmatov, B. Vasiliev, V. Astafiev, V. Rasputin, Yu. Bondarev and many others.
But the most important thing the book gives is wise advice.
Teenager observing thoughts, feelings, experiences and actions literary characters, learns not to make their mistakes in his life, tries to take an example only from positive heroes.
Books teach the younger generation to think, imagine, experience and empathize. Sometimes they just help them have a good time, and sometimes they become irreplaceable friends and advisers. Books teach you how to act correctly in a given situation; they seem to ask their readers to be better and help them navigate life.
Books about outstanding people both in our country and in other countries of the world play an important role in the development of a teenager’s personality. The history of mankind over the millennia of its existence has accumulated a lot of life experience, and it would be nice to study this experience for our children. The series of books “The Lives of Remarkable People” will reveal the details of the biographies of outstanding personalities.
Reading books about outstanding people helps readers walk the paths of life with dignity, form their character, and achieve their goals. These books are an excellent motivator for those who have encountered obstacles on the way to their dreams. Books educate moral qualities They teach a person to think and reason, and help develop their inner world.
- The book teaches you to think.
- The book teaches you to speak.
- The book teaches you to understand people.
I consider Vladimir Vysotsky’s poems “The Ballad of Struggle” to be the best poems dedicated to children’s and teenage reading. Summary ballads in a poem by V. V. Radin:
Books teach children
To all the wisdom of life -
How to be a Human
And be needed by the Fatherland,
And how truth differs from lies
Everyone must be different.
How to fight the enemy
And how to defeat evil.
I would like to end my thoughts with the words of A. M. Gorky: “Love a book, it will make your life easier, it will amicably help you sort out the colorful and stormy confusion of thoughts, feelings, and events. It will teach you to respect people and yourself, it inspires your mind and heart with a feeling of love for the world, for people.”
Literature:
- Spiritual and moral education of children and adolescents in a modern library environment / author. comp. E. M. Zueva. - M.: Russian School Library Association, 2008. - 336 p.
- Kagan M.S. Philosophical theory values. - St. Petersburg, 1997.
- Komensky Ya. A. On the skillful use of books - the primary tool for the development of natural talents / School Library - 2000. - No. 5 - p.58-62
The poison of the criminal world is incredibly terrible. Poisoning with this poison is the corruption of everything human in a person. Everyone who comes into contact with this world breathes this foul breath.
Varlam Shalamov.
We know what it means to be decent in the army. Many guys broke down morally after service, especially the intelligent ones.
From a letter to a newspaper.
“I’m sixteen, I embrace the world lovingly...” wrote the young Volgograd poet, who tragically died at the age of 18. I, too, will soon be 18. Sometimes I feel the immensity of vitality, causeless cheerfulness and love for the whole world. Why worry when everything is going well in life? Why is it that sometimes a cruel melancholy overwhelms me, nothing makes me happy, life seems meaningless? I noticed that most often this happens when, in reality or in art, I encounter phenomena of injustice, cruelty, and inhumanity that are new to me.
How do most of my peers spend their time? They drive motorcycles until they are stupefied, preventing residents from resting, wandering around the streets, looking for a place to drink, or having fun with fights and outrages at discos. It’s interesting that many of my comrades don’t even think about helping their parents. Sometimes I don’t even have anything to talk about with those with whom I belong to the same generation. But what amazes me most is the cruelty of boys and girls. To everyone: To parents who are not pitied at all; to teachers who are driven to illness; to the weak, who can be bullied endlessly; to animals.
I have thought a lot about where cruelty comes from and why it so often triumphs. Of course, there are many reasons: the wars and revolution of this century, Stalin’s camps, through which almost half the country passed through, widespread drunkenness and fatherlessness, even the fact that the school gives C grades for nothing, allowing you to do nothing. And in recent years, when facts of abuse by the authorities became clear, many of us completely lost faith.
But in this essay I would like to talk about two phenomena and times in our society that give rise to cruelty. A lot of people go through the colony, and almost all through the army. There are two works of modern literature about the zone and the army.
Leonid Gabyshev's novel "Odlyan, or the Air of Freedom" is a story about a teenager, later a young man, Kolya, nicknamed first Flounder, then Eye, later Cunning Eye. In short, this is a story about a world dominated by complete humiliation and violence. “It became unbearable for the eye. The vice squeezed the hand so much that it bent in half: the little finger touched the index finger. It seemed that the hand would break, but the flexible bones held out.
Eye, come on, smile. And know: I will slowly squeeze until the bones crack or until you confess.
Okay, Eye, that's enough for now. In the evening we will go with you to the firehouse. I’ll put your hand, your right hand, into the firebox and we’ll wait until you confess.”
The worst thing is that, at the request of the zone manager (in this case Kamani), Kolya himself puts his hand in a vice or exposes his head to a blow. Otherwise it will be even worse. You read the novel and understand: a person ends up in a colony, and society stops protecting him. The camp authorities pretend not to notice anything. No, worse, he deliberately uses some of the prisoners (the so-called horns and thieves), who are given benefits and concessions, so that they keep everyone else in order." And the convicts in charge know how to restore order... There are many scenes confirming what has been said in the novel Here is one: Kolya’s first days in the zone. Major, nicknamed Ryabchik, checks his duty. He asks the guy:
Have you registered?
Kolya was silent. The guys smiled.
“We did it, Comrade Major,” answered the gypsy.
Did you get the pins?
“I got it,” Kolya answered now.
What nickname did you give?
“Flounder,” answered Misha.
What the major smiled at with the prisoners, registration and kirkkas, was a brutal beating and humiliation, but the people assigned to monitor the correction of prisoners take this for granted.
A significant part of the novel consists of similar episodes. Well, perhaps, thanks to the writer, not only the Cunning Eye, but also the reader understands what freedom is.
Sergei Kaledin's story "Stroibat" shows several days in the life of military builders who perform the "honorable duty of Soviet citizens." This is a prefabricated part, a kind of dump, where the “filth” from many construction battalions was collected. Therefore, the morals here are not so different from the zone, and the interests are the same. “In short, we were going to hell, but ended up in heaven. Here is the gate, and on the right, two hundred meters away, is a store. And in the store there is Moldovan powder, seventeen degrees, two twenty liters. Since ten in the morning. Raspberry!”
The law is here: the powerful are always to blame for the powerless! The strong are grandfathers, the weak are salabons. It would seem that the difference is small: he came to the service a year earlier. But it's like skin color or tongue. Grandfathers may not work, get drunk, or bully first-year children. They must endure everything. Moreover, being separate bosses, the grandfathers give orders like slave owners. “At first, Zhenka decided to give Egorka and Maksimka to Kostya, but then he changed his mind - these two are just plowmen for him. Egorka, in addition to his main work, takes care of Zhenka and Misha Popov: make up the bed, bring rations from the canteen, do small laundry, and Maksimka - Kolya, Edik and Stary." The elders also quickly put things in order here: “Zhenka treated Yegorka right away, he barely struggled. A couple of times he bled him lightly, and for some reason the Chuchmeks are afraid of their own blood. And... I tinkered with Maksimka a little longer...”
The story more than once describes how soldiers drink or inject drugs. The central scene is a grandiose fight between companies. After all the terrible bullying, the characterization of Kostya Karamychev is perceived. For the last eight months he had been working as a loader at a bakery and stealing what he could. He “didn’t dry out” from drunkenness. When, “completely out of luck,” he was caught, company commander Doschinin “offered Kostya a choice: either he starts a case, or Kostya urgently cleans... all four detachment toilets.” He chose the latter, taking, of course, young assistants. During demobilization, this commander gave Kostya the following characterization: “During his service... private Karamychev K.M. proved himself to be an proactive warrior who fulfilled all statutory requirements... morally stable... The characterization was given for presentation to Moscow University ". Well, the intellectual is ready. Lawlessness, as the prisoners say. Now they are preparing military reform. I'm afraid, however, that my peers will not have time to use it. Perhaps soon I too will have to go to serve. Do you really have to live with guys who have no human feelings for two years? No, I'm not afraid of physical deprivation. As the saying goes: “I would be glad to serve, but being served is sickening.”
Both works have been read. They are not very artistic, there are errors against the style and laws of literature. But there are no errors in them against the truth. You trust the writers. And you also believe that if we really want to, there will be less cruelty.
Youth in the world of literature:
historical retrospective
Vl. A. Lukov
Reading problem. Modern research emphasizes that attention to books among young people has dropped noticeably. At the same time, interest in classical literature is lost, and mass fiction takes an increasing place. But how to interpret this fact? As something tragic or completely acceptable in relation to the processes occurring in culture? First of all, it is necessary to establish whether this fact itself occurs. Against the backdrop of the recent Soviet period, this seems certain. However, if we expand the scope of comparison, the picture changes. 6,000 years ago, when literature first emerged (and this is obviously the youngest of the traditional forms of art, if you do not include in this series types associated with the development of technology, for example, cinema), reading was accessible to a few. And even after thousands of years, the circle of readers was extremely small. Thus, in pre-revolutionary Russia, only a narrow layer of society was literate. But even in developed England, the law on universal primary education appeared only in 1870, i.e. only in late XIX century, fiction becomes more or less accessible to the masses. This leads to a range of social and cultural consequences. Of these, let us draw attention to the fact that, having become accessible to different people in society, literature itself changed its character, mass fiction came to the fore (now the most published author in the world is not Leo Tolstoy, but Agatha Christie).
In ancient times, for example, in Egypt, priests read and wrote for priests, and the people lived on folklore. Mass fiction is the modern analogue of folklore. Different artistic laws apply in literature and folklore, and therefore modern detective stories or romance novels cannot be assessed by standards classical literature. The same applies to modern reading youth: the very fact of reading should be subject to a multifaceted interpretation, and the range of reading should be characterized not by aesthetic significance, but also by the functionality of what is being read. If a young man needs to kill time on the road, in line, etc., then Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is unlikely to be suitable for this.
Young hero in literature. But there is also a second side to the problem of “Youth and Books”: not only do young people read (or not read) books, but the book itself has been “read” by young people for many centuries. The Young Hero is one of the key character types in the system artistic images world literature, promising object sociological research. It is also found in mythology and folklore - protoliterary (pre-literary) and paraliterary (developing in parallel with literature) spheres artistic activity, but, as a rule, does not contain information about the real situation young man in society, but about past eras. The assignment of heroes to the younger generation reflected information about a more historically close era: the youngest (third) son in fairy tales different nations, including Russian; the birth of children, the mortal danger to which they are exposed, and their miraculous salvation as a reflection of the initiation rite (for example, the fate of Oedipus in Greek myth, Cuchulainn in the Ulad cycle of the Irish epic), etc. In the monuments ancient literature the mythological setting is preserved: a young man at an early age goes through obstacles corresponding to initiation, which gives him the right to the functional role of a hero (for example, Hercules in the works of Homer, Stesichorus, Pindar, Euripides, Apollodorus, Diodorus Siculus); acts as a rival of the father (the motive of the duel between father and son who did not recognize each other); representatives younger generation are fighting for power and recognition (Pandavas and Kauravas in the Mahabharata; heroes are off-stage characters in the tragedies “Seven against Thebes” by Aeschylus, “Antigone” by Sophocles, the stories of Cain and Abel in Old Testament); find themselves in a love-hate relationship with close relatives (“Oedipus the King” by Sophocles and others).
Very rarely is the story of first love told (Daphnis and Chloe by Long). Sometimes the theme of training and education arises (“Clouds” by Aristophanes), but, as a rule, young heroes in this case perform an auxiliary function, the main focus is on revealing philosophical problems(as in Plato’s dialogues), the wisdom contained in the teachings (the nominal presence of the addressee in the ancient Egyptian “Teachings of Ptahhotep”, students in Confucius’ “Lunyu”). The allegory of the sophist Prodicus (5th century BC) “Hercules at the Crossroads”, who depicted Hercules as a young man who consciously rejected the path of pleasure in the name of exploits, or the novel of Apuleius (2nd century) “Metamorphoses”, where the young Greek Lucius, on whose behalf the story is told, in the phantasmagoric guise of a donkey, goes through the path of comprehending the truth and understanding life. In these works one can see the first attempts to describe the process of socialization, which was almost untouched by ancient authors. In the Gospels of the New Testament, the biography of Jesus Christ contains huge gaps from the flight of the family with the baby Jesus to Egypt to his baptism and from baptism to the age of 33, i.e. to the end life path, crucifixion and resurrection. According to this model, in the Middle Ages works of the hagiographic genre were written - the lives of saints. The process of personality formation in this case is not significant; changes are interpreted as the result of divine revelation, a miracle.
At the turn of antiquity and the Middle Ages, “Confessions” of Augustine the Blessed appears, where autobiographical material can be interpreted as one of the first examples of depicting the process of socialization of a young man in literature. However, neither in the Middle Ages, nor in the Pre-Renaissance and Renaissance eras did the young man appear as a type of character of particular significance. It is not youth that is valued, but wise old age. Dante in his “New Life” (1292-93) does not distinguish between his love for Beatrice at the age of 9, 18 and 27 years old, in “ Divine Comedy"(1307-21) refers his movement from errors to liberation from them to the “middle of life,” i.e., to the age of 35. Boccaccio in “The Decameron” (1348-53), giving the narration to narrators - young people (7 girls and 3 boys), rather embodies in them and the young heroes of the short stories the youth of the coming era, rather than setting the task of analyzing the problems of the younger generation. These problems in relation to the formation of a harmoniously developed personality were one of the first to be examined in detail by F. Rabelais in the novel “Gargantua and Pantagruel”. The socialization of Gargantua is characterized by a combination of satirical-humorous grotesque and humanistic utopia, in the traditions of folk laughter culture and the Renaissance ideal.
The completion of the previous stage and the beginning of a new stage in the understanding of youth as an object of comprehension should be associated with the work of W. Shakespeare. A breakthrough in this regard occurs in the tragedy Romeo and Juliet. It is traditionally believed that the death of young heroes is determined by the enmity of the Montague and Capulet families or the opposition of the younger generation to the older one. In this case, Shakespeare would not have said anything new: the description of the conflict between generations of fathers and sons goes back to myths (for example, Zeus versus Uranus). But it should be taken into account that the heroes of Shakespeare’s tragedy, with all the dramatic vicissitudes of their fate, were separated from happiness by only a few seconds: when Romeo was poisoned, Juliet was already waking up from a sleep that simulated death. Consequently, the tragedy lay in the youth of the heroes, their specific youthful reaction to events, ardor, inability and inability to act judiciously, like an adult. Shakespeare reveals with amazing depth the psychology of youth, the impulsiveness of decisions, the categoricalness of views. It shows that young people in their behavior, way of thinking and life are fundamentally different from people of the older generation. The issue of youth groups and conflicts between them will be touched upon. The ending of the tragedy - the reconciliation of parents over the bodies of their children - emphasizes that the young can be wiser than the old and that the younger generation can have a real influence on the course of history.
In the educational novel of the 18th century, the problem of survival comes to the fore (Robinson Crusoe by D. Defoe, Gulliver's Travels by D. Swift, novels by G. Fielding, S. Richardson, J.-J. Rousseau, D. Diderot, philosophical stories Voltaire), which a young man or girl must first solve. It is in the course of its resolution that they grow up, comprehend the laws of a reasonable world order, adapt to life and adapt life to their idea of Reason and enlightened Reasonable Feeling. The pinnacle of this line of literature was “Confession” by J.-J. Rousseau (1765-1770), where the autobiography of a philosopher turns into a generalized story of a young commoner endowed with outstanding talents and trying to find application for them in society. The process of socialization of a young genius is described by Rousseau with unprecedented depth.
Another peak - of the opposite kind - was the novel by I. V. Gte “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (1774), which describes the path of a young man, with unrequited love and unrecognized talents, to suicide. Goethe makes an important discovery in the novel, which had significant consequences for further development literature, primarily for romanticism and realism. His hero Werther appears simultaneously both as a certain sociotype (a young man who, due to his low origins, cannot take a place worthy of his talents), and as a psychotype (a person with manic-depressive disorders, characteristic of Goethe himself, and therefore unusually accurately reproduced). The second turns out to be more important than the first, so Werther’s reaction to external events is inadequate, troubles turn into disasters in his mind. The hero cannot adapt to his living environment and becomes intolerable. If the madness of Shakespeare's heroes is temporary and generated by their discovery true face world, Don Quixote's madness is more of a literary device, then Werther's illness is something completely different: literature became interested in a sick hero, a neurasthenic, a psychopath, a paranoid. It is no coincidence that after the publication of the novel, a wave of suicides swept across Europe, which claimed no less lives than the real war. “Illness of the mind” became fashionable, and they paid tribute to romance. Realists turned to the study of not only sociotypes, but also psychotypes. The morbidity of the heroes’ psyche has essentially become mandatory in the literature of decadence. The sick hero and the sick writer are characteristic of the twentieth century right up to the present day. Obviously, this is one of the consequences of the departure from the aesthetics of normativity, this is reflected in the development of the principles of self-expression and psychologism, the development of receptive aesthetics, focused on reader perception: after all, sociotypes become outdated when they change historical era, while psychotypes are always interesting to readers.
In the 19th century, the image of a young man first became central in Western and Russian literature. Romantics create a whole gallery of young, romantically inclined characters who discover the world or find themselves in conflict with this world. The issues of creating the image of a young man in romantic type"Byronic hero"
Romantics surround their young heroes with a veil of mystery. Realists shed this veil and revealed the social nature of the formation of typical character traits of a young man. The romantic fragmentary composition, which singled out only the peak events in the fate of a young man, is being replaced by a story of a young man built according to cause-and-effect dependencies in the context of his social connections (“Eugene Onegin” by A. S. Pushkin, a socio-psychological description of the fate of Julien Sorel in “ Red and Black” by Stendhal, the stories of Rastignac, Lucien de Rubempre, Raphael de Valentin, Eugenie Grandet in “Human Comedy” by O. Balzac, etc.). This line was continued by writers of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries and subsequent times right up to the present day.
The problem of generation in literature. A new phenomenon in the literature of the twentieth century is a socio-psychological description of an entire generation. These were the “lost generation” of young people who went through the fire of the First World War and did not find a place for themselves in peaceful life (the heroes of E. Hemingway, E. M. Remarque, R. Aldington), the “jazz generation” by F. S. Fitzderald , beatniks and hippies by D. Kerouac (symptoms occur earlier, in “The Catcher in the Rye” by D. Salinger).
The idea of “cult” writers, their books and heroes appeared, as if prescribing a lifestyle and style of behavior for young readers (heroes in the novels of F. Sagan, B. Viana, A. Burgess, James Bond from the novels of J. Fleming).
The most important achievements of the 20th century include the disclosure of the ways of forming a youth group in the “Pedagogical Poem” and “Flags on the Towers” by A. S. Makarenko and the dangers of a spontaneously formed children’s community in the dystopian novel “Lord of the Flies” by W. Golding. Stereotypes of ideas about the younger generation are widely represented in mass fiction, which became widely developed in the 20th century. In some cases, we can talk about unusual social effects of reading popular literature, for example, the “Harry Potter effect” (the young hero of JK Rowling’s novels, who has captured the imagination of hundreds of millions of children around the world since 1997).
The theme of youth and the sociology of literature. Currently, literary scholars have collected a huge amount of material and carried out a systematic description of the world literary fund, but its use in sociology (in particular, the sociology of youth) is just beginning.
The first direction is the consideration of literary texts as carried out artistic means sociological research. Here it is necessary to take into account that literature has different goals than sociology, and its sociological materials at different stages of the development of the literary process are presented to varying degrees of completeness and thoroughness. Until the 19th century, when sociology emerged as a scientific discipline, they were of an unconscious and fragmentary nature. During the period of formation of sociological thinking, a number of literary artists (Balzac, Stendhal, Pushkin, Dickens) were ahead of the first sociologists in both the breadth and depth of their study of social processes; literature contributed to the formation of a new science. On modern stage sociology often provides writers with models for artistic creativity, both spheres are mutually enriched.
The second direction is the study of literary texts as an object of sociological study. If we take into account that the object of sociological research is understood as the bearer of one or another social problem, i.e. a person, a community of people, society as a whole, then texts and characters become a special, virtual object of research, and this problem requires special scientific development. However, it is necessary and relevant, since literary texts- one of the few and most informative surviving parts of an unpreserved object - people of past generations. A key role in the creation of a new methodology and methodology for the sociological study of literature as a virtual object should be played by the intensively developing thesaurus approach.
The third direction is the sociological study of the readership, in which the use of the thesaurus approach is also relevant.
Taken together, the three named directions merge into the sociology of literature (as a section of the sociology of culture), which is designed to enrich the sociology of youth.
Analysis of mass fiction as part of mass culture is presented in the works of: Kuznetsova T. F. Formation of mass literature and its sociocultural specificity // Mass culture / K. Z. Akopyan, A. V. Zakharov, S. Ya. Kagarlitskaya and others M. : Alpha-M; INFRA-M, 2004; Zharinov E.V. Historical and literary roots of mass fiction: Monograph. M.: GITR, 2004; Kuznetsova T. F., Lukov Vl. A., Lukov M.V. Mass culture and mass fiction in the light of the thesaurus approach // Thesaurus analysis of world culture: Sat. scientific works Vol. 5 / under general ed. Vl. A. Lukova. M.: Publishing house Mosk. humanist Univ., 2006. P. 38-62; Kostina A.V. Mass culture as a phenomenon of post-industrial society. M., 2008; and etc.
Lukov Vladimir Andreevich