The genre definition chosen by the writer for his work is epic- presupposes monumental form, problems of national significance, depiction of “substantial” (Hegel) events and historical collisions.

“Sun of the Dead” by I.S. Shmelev is dedicated to the events of the Civil War in Crimea and, unlike the traditional epic, is devoid of historical distance and monumental form. The narration is told in the first person, while the name of the narrator, as well as the details of his fate, remain unknown to the reader. The narrative is devoid of epic dispassion: it is permeated with direct assessments of the narrator, including, for example, emotional and passionate appeals to various addressees, both intra-textual and extra-textual, see, for example: Then I found you, my workmate, an oak stump... Did you hear, old man, how homely and childishly we were discussing where to put you... 1 - And you, proud London, protect your Westminster Abbey with cross and fire! A foggy day will come- and you won't recognize yourself...

The action of the work takes place in the also remaining unnamed “little white town with an ancient tower dating back to the Genoese.” The space of the epic seems to be extremely limited: ...this tiny town by the sea- This is just a speck in our endless spaces, a poppy, a grain of sand... The text is constructed as a series of stories reflecting the specific impressions of the narrator, and does not have a clearly defined plot: There will be no end... Life knows no endings, it has begun...

Only the titles of fairly autonomous chapters highlight individual plot links, indicate the end, the “break”, the exhaustion of one or another plot line outlined in the narrative, see, for example, titles such as “The Game with Death”, “The Almonds Are Ripened”, “The End of the Peacock” ", "The End of Bubik", "The End of Tamarka", "Three! the end." The opinion of A. Amfitheatrov is indicative: “I don’t know: Is Sun of the Dead literature? For a more terrible book has not been written in Russian. Shmelev...only tells, day after day, step by step, the “epic” of his Crimean, philistine existence in a hungry year under Bolshevik yoke; - and... scary! It’s scary for the person!” 2 At first glance, Shmelev’s work can be perceived as a series of private documentary or semi-documentary evidence about the life of people in Crimea caught up in the elements of the revolution and the Civil War. Let us turn, however, to the key words of the text.

The most common words in the text of “The Sun of the Dead” are Sun - 96 uses, die and its synonyms! (die, perish) - 117, kill - 69 and its synonyms (both general linguistic and contextual) - 97 death - 36, stone and its derivatives - 68; desert (emptiness, wasteland)- 53, blood- 49 uses. Already the list of the most frequent words in the text determines the features of the picture of the world depicted in the “epic”: this is a world where death reigns. “What is the book by I.S. Shmeleva? - wrote I. Lukash. - ABOUT of death Russian people and Russian land. ABOUT of death Russian herbs and animals, Russian gardens and Russian sky. ABOUT of death Russian sun. ABOUT of death the whole universe, when Russia died, - about the dead sun of the dead" 3.

Repetition of the most frequent words in the work with the seme “death” (and they are supplemented in the text by repetition of the word dead,issued in title position 4, and the use of other words also related to the semantic field “death”: coffin, grave, funeral, end etc.) determines integrity text, maximally generalizes what is depicted in it, correlates its different fragments and various storylines, aesthetically transforms) everyday observations.

All the characters in Shmelev’s “epic” are involved in Death. They either “die” (die, perish), or “go to kill”, cf.: He threw his head back and took a long breath.[Kulesh]... and died. He died quietly. This is how a dead leaf falls. - I don’t know how many people are killed in the Chicago slaughterhouses. Here the matter was simpler: they killed and buried. Or it was quite simple: they filled up the ravines. Or even completely: simply, simply: thrown into the sea.

And verb die, and verb kill are consistently used in the text in the forms of three tenses: present, past and future. Death rules in three time dimensions, and even children, usually symbolizing the future, are subject to its power: - We...Koryak...will kill/We will kill with a stone!..- the little jackdaw shouted and shook his fist(chapter “On the Empty Road”).

Death is personified in the text (see, for example: Death is standing at the door, and will stand stubbornly until it takes everyone away. A pale shadow stands and waits!), and the combinability of verbs die And kill expands, as a result their semantics becomes more complex: “kill”, for example, time, thoughts, future, day. The scope of compatibility of the epithet is also expanding dead: Thus, the sea is depicted as dead, a corner of the garden is depicted as dead, see, for example: The Dead Sea is here... Eaten, drunk, knocked out - everything. It's dried up.

The semantic dominant of the text also determines the nature of the author’s individual new formations. mortal And day is death. Expressive-evaluative noun mortal serves as a designation for a child: I saw a mortal child, a native of another world - from the world of the Dead... He stood behind me, looking at me...mortal! It was a boy of about ten or eight years old, with a large head on a stick neck, with sunken cheeks, and eyes of fear. On his gray face, his whitish lips were dried to the gums, and his bluish teeth stuck out -grab On the one hand, this word is based on a metaphorical motivation (“resembling death”), on the other hand, the new formation clearly has the semantics “child of death.” The man of the future world, appearing in the final chapter of the story with the symbolic title “The End of Ends,” turns out to be a “mortal child.” The present of the narrator is assessed by him as a “day of death”: In the silence of the one being borndeath-day The calls and glances are clear and commanding to me. Composite neoplasm day-death is multi-valued and characterized by semantic capacity: this is both the day of the reign of Death, and the day (life) turning into its opposite - death, and the day of remembrance of the dead.

The world of death depicted in Shmelev’s “epic” simultaneously turns out to be a world of expanding “emptiness.” The key words of the narrative, in addition to the units of the semantic field “death”, as already noted, include cognate lexical units wasteland - emptiness - desert, forming text word educational nest. Their connection and semantic proximity are emphasized by the author himself with the help of morphemic repetition, combining, for example, adjacent paragraphs of the same chapter, see the chapter “Down There”:

I walk past Villa Rose. All - desert...

I'm coming, I'm coming. Beach empty I'm coming wasteland...[ 189 ]

The key words of this semantic series denote specific realities of the depicted space and at the same time express conceptual and factual information in the text as a whole. The World of Death becomes a world of desert and “empty” souls.

The artistic space of “Sun of the Dead” is dynamic: the emptiness intensifies in it gradually. In the first chapters of the story, the key words of this series appear primarily in direct meanings, then they acquire a symbolic meaning. The spread of emptiness is emphasized in the author’s characteristics: for example, the chapter “The End of the Peacock” ends with the phrase There's more and more emptiness in the chapter “Down There” already All - desert.

“Desert” (“emptiness”) is associated in the text with the image of time. The past is assessed by the narrator as a struggle with a “wasteland”, with a “stone”. See for example: I want to travel back to the past, when people got along with the sun and created gardens in the desert. The present is depicted as the return of the desert and the rejection of historical progress: I hear the roars of animal life,ancient cave the life that these mountains knew, which has returned again. In the triumphant "ancient" world, the returned world of the "cave ancestors", the expanding desert is adjacent to the "dense" forests, where Baba Yaga rolls and rolls in her iron mortar, drives with her pole, covers the trail with a broom... with an iron broom. It makes noise and pokes around the forests, sweeping. Sweeps with an iron broom. The motive of returning to “cave” pagan times determines the appearance of mythological images, but these mythological images are projected onto the modern Shmelev era: mythological image Baba Yaga's "iron broom" transforms into a clichéd political metaphor sweep (enemies) with an iron broom: Is the black word “iron broom” buzzing in my head? Where does this damn word come from? Who said it?.. “Place Crimea with an iron broom”... I painfully want to understand where this comes from?

The opposition that the keyword “desert” enters into is: “desert” (emptiness) - “ living life" - is thus supplemented by the opposition "iron (the source of destruction, death) - life." These oppositions interact: “iron force,” the enemy of the natural, natural principle, dooms the world to emptiness, threatens life, the sun.

The keyword “epic” has a high degree of ambiguity and multidimensionality of the meanings it expresses. stone, also related to the motif of the expanding desert. Word stone, firstly, it regularly appears in the text in its literal sense as a designation of details of the Crimean landscape, see, for example: Legs beatenoh stones, clawing up the steep slopes; A lame red nag hobbles through the peacock wasteland, behind a beam... He sniffs the hotstone, dried tumbleweed. Another step: againstone... Secondly, in the word stone, the semantics of which in the text gradually expands, the seme “dispassion” is updated: The sun laughs, despite the suffering of people, the stone smiles; compare: The mountains are looking at him... I see their secret smile - the smile of a stone.

The text also takes into account the general linguistic figurative meaning of words stone, stone: in contexts describing torture, hunger and death, they express meanings such as “insensitivity” and “cruelty”. Traditional metaphor heart of stone is complemented by an individual author’s comparison: souls are empty and dry, like a weathered stone.

Keyword stone comes close to the word in the text desert and serves as a means of developing the motive to fight it. The victory of culture over chaos and “cave savagery” is also a victory over “stone,” but in the world depicted by Shmelev everything “goes wild, goes wild year after year.” into stone." The stone, thus, appears in the text as a symbol of savagery, decline, and the death of moral principles. This conceptually significant word is contrasted with the lexical units “fire”, “light”.

Keyword stone consistently metaphorized in the text. One of the metaphors is connected with the image of the narrator and emphasizes the uselessness and helplessness of a person in the terrible world of death and loss of soul: I... Who am I?! A stone lying under the sun. With eyes and ears - a stone.

Word stone, as we see, it is characterized by semantic diffuseness, the overlap and interaction of different meanings. When used as a symbol, it reaches a high degree of generalization: Animals, people - all the same, with human faces, they fight, laugh, cry. Pull yourself out of the stone - back into the stone(chapter “Righteous Ascetic”). At the same time, the word-symbol stone is ambivalent in nature: the stone in the text is not only a sign of savagery, loss of compassion, mercy and dignity, but also a sign of salvation. “Stone” can be “clear”, “gracious”: I look gratefully at the mountains covered in hot haze.They (highlighted by I.S. Shmelev. - N.N.) is already there now! Blessed stone!.. At least six lost their lives!

So the keyword is stone has conceptual significance and expresses various opposing meanings in the text of “The Sun of the Dead”: the hardness and reliability of a stone can serve as the antithesis of destruction, decline, savagery, cruelty and death. However, it is the latter meanings that dominate the semantic composition of the “epic”. In one of its last chapters a combined image appears stone-darkness: the combination of just such components actualizes in the first of them the semes “darkness”, “destruction”, “savagery”, while the keyword-symbol appears again in the adjacent paragraph of the text desert:The stone hit Fire. Millions of years have been worn out! Billions of labordevoured in one day / By what forces is this miracle? By forcesstone-darkness. I see this, I know. There is no Blue Kasteli: a black night-desert...

A keyword, as we see, is a lexical unit, the different meanings of which are simultaneously realized in the text, while its derivational and associative connections are necessarily updated in it.

The keyword occupies a special place in the semantic structure of the text Sun, placed in the title position and included in an oxymoronic combination with the word dead. It primarily appears in its direct meaning, but for the organization of the text, “increases of meaning” and its semantic transformations are more important. The sun in Shmelev’s “epic” is personified: in metaphors that include this keyword, anthropomorphic characteristics are regularly used (the sun deceives, laughs, remembers and etc.). The sun, on the one hand, is a source of light, heat and, accordingly, life, on the other hand, it, like a stone, dispassionately looks at the torment of people (note the parallel laughter sun - smile stone).

The movement of the sun determines the countdown of time in the “epic”, see image sun-clock. The passage of time is perceived by the characters in “Sun of the Dead” through the change of day and night, through sunsets and sunrises. The return of the “ancient” Chaos is associated with the establishment of cyclical time in the world, the embodiment of which is the “sun”.

The sun is depicted in the “epic” and as a divine eye looking at the world, it is a symbol of divine light; ideas about the highest values ​​lost in the “cave” life are associated with it: I can't turn into stone yet! Since childhood I have been accustomed to looking forSun of Truth (highlighted by I.S. Shmelev. - N.N.). Where are you,Unknown? What is Your Face?(chapter “Wolf’s Lair”). In a disintegrating world, where mountains and the sea are only a “screen of hell,” the sun remains the only focus of memory of everything that happened on earth: The sun looks closely, remembers: Baba Yaga rushes in her mortar, urges her with a pestle, covers her trail with a broom... The sun tells all the fairy talesremembers... Absorbs. The time will come - read(chapter “About Baba Yaga”). As we see, the image of the sun is associated with the plan of the future.

Keyword Sun, serving as a symbol of light, in Shmelev’s “epic”, however, it also acquires opposite meanings: the sun may lose its traditional attribute - gold - SCH characterized by metaphors tin, tin. The source of heat in the world of death turns out to be cold and empty, cf.: Well, show your eyes... The sun! And in them the sun... only completely different - cold and empty. This is the sun of death. Like tin film- your eyes, and the sun in them is tin, empty sun(chapter “What killed - they’re going to go”); And then the sun will look out for a moment and splash out with pale tin... truly- sun of the dead! The most distant are crying(chapter “Bread with Blood”). The image of the “fading” sun, the sun “leaving”, “going to sunset”, in the last chapters of the story is associated with the theme of death that has taken possession of the savage world.

So, the image of the sun in Shmelev’s “epic,” like the image of the stone, is ambivalent. The contrast between the meanings they express distinguishes two key phrases used in the text: sun of death And sun of the dead(title of the work). “The Sun of Death” is a “cold”, “empty”, “tin” sun, a sun that “laughs” at the suffering of people and foreshadows new deaths with the beginning of the day, finally, it is a sun that “goes out”, leaving the land that has returned to Chaos; “Sun of the Dead” is the divine eye, the source of light and life, preserving pa-. remember the departed. It is no coincidence that in the last chapter of the work the narrator refers to the Creed: Spring... With golden springs, warm rains, in thunderstorms, won't it open the bowels of the earth, won't it resurrect the Dead?Tea of ​​the Resurrection of the Dead! I believe in miracles! Great Resurrection- yes it will be!(chapter “The End of Ends”). As the philosopher I. Ilyin noted, “the title “Sun of the Dead” - seemingly everyday, Crimean, historical - is fraught with religious depth: for it points to the Lord, living in heaven, sending people both life and death, - and to people who have lost it and become dead all over the world" 1 .

So, keywords, as we see, express in the text not only substantive, but also substantive-conceptual and substantive-subtextual information 2 . They reflect the individual author’s vision of the described realities and phenomena and highlight “substantial” categories. In the text of “The Sun of the Dead”, key words form a series of “supporting” signs of an axiological (evaluative) nature connected by relationships of conditioning, transforming the everyday plan of the narrative and serving as the key to the metaphorical plan of the work: the world depicted by Shmelev is a world of death and brutal violence, which as a result approaches “ ancient cave life, disintegrating and turning into “emptiness” and “stone”, while the signs of dying, emptiness and “stoniness” also extend to the souls of people who have fallen away from God. The inevitability of God's judgment is associated in the text with a key image - the symbol of the Sun.

Key words in a literary text are often characterized by cultural significance: These units are associated with traditional symbols, refer to mythological and biblical images, evoke historical and cultural associations in the reader, and create a wide intertextual “space” in the work. This feature of key words is clearly manifested in “The Sun of the Dead”, where in their symbolic use they are associated with mythologemes or actualize the correlation with biblical images. So, the use of a keyword in the text Sun relies on it symbolic meanings in the Holy Scriptures, in which the light of the sun, which makes everything clear and open, serves as a symbol of retribution and righteous punishment, the true sun, “the true light, of which the sun we see serves only as a faint reflection, is the Eternal Word, the Lord, Christ... He is Sun of Truth(Mal. IV, 2), true light (John, I, 9)” 3. The “setting” of the sun symbolizes the wrath of God and punishment for sins, suffering and disasters. The righteous, reborn by the word of God, will one day shine, like a sun. All noted meanings associated with the symbolic use of the word Sun in the Holy Scriptures, are significant for the text of “The Sun of the Dead” and are actualized in it.

The connection with biblical images is also important for characterizing the image of the author: the sun in the Holy Scriptures is a stable attribute of the bearer of the Word of God. The narrator, passionately denouncing the power of “iron”, violence and the mortification of the soul, thereby draws closer to the biblical prophet (see appeals-predictions, appeals-invective, permeating the text).

Using the same keyword stone reflects the interaction of biblical and Slavic mythological symbolism. In the Holy Scriptures, a stone (a dumb stone) is an allegory of hardening of the heart, and “piles” of stones are a symbol of punishment for sins. In Slavic mythology, stone, one of the primary elements of the world, is a symbol of “dead” nature, and the appearance of large stones and blocks of stone is also often explained by the “petrification” of people punished for sins. The motif of “petrification,” as already noted, varies in the text of Shmelev’s “epic”: the souls of people turn into stone, the stone displaces living space.

Keywords can also refer to the texts of literary works. So, it is possible that Shmelev’s image of the sun correlates with the motives and images of Dostoevsky’s prose, which had a huge influence on the writer. The image of the sun, associated in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky with the motive of involvement in the universe, simultaneously interacts with the motive of death. In the story “The Meek,” for example, the sun, which “gives life to the universe,” dispassionately illuminates the tragedy of the hero and is perceived by him as a “dead man” - “the image of the sun expands the framework of the narrative to a universal scale” 1: They say the sun gives life to the universe. The sun will rise and - look at it, isn’t it dead?.. 2 The “reflexes” of this context are noticeable in Shmelev’s “epic”. Key words, thus, include “Sun of the Dead” in dialogue with other works, actualizing allusions and reminiscences.

Key words in the text of “Suns of the Dead” are highlighted by repetitions of different types: lexical, synonymous, morphemic, syntactic. In a number of chapters, the intensity of the repetitions is so high that on their basis, private leitmotifs of individual compositional parts of the work arise (see, for example, the chapters “Desert”, “What They Go to Kill”). In a number of cases, key words in Shmelev’s “epic” are highlighted by the author and graphically. They consistently occupy strong positions in the text (the title of the work, the names of individual chapters, their beginning or end). Different ways of highlighting key words in the text in their interaction focus the reader’s attention on its cross-cutting images and signs that are important for understanding the “epic”.

It was one of those books that become milestones: before and after reading. After Sun of the Dead, I began to look at the world a little differently. I won’t say how exactly, it’s impossible. The book was something like a missing stone in the foundation. Some people cry over it, I didn’t cry, it just took my breath away and seemed to snatch and delight my soul somewhere. There was horror in this, but also a deep awareness of the Truth, like a silent cry: here it is, here, now! There was no room left for tears; it was beyond them.

(the author of the article below is unknown)
...a nightmarish document of the era, shrouded in poetic brilliance, ... read if you have the courage...
Thomas Mann
The epic "Sun of the Dead" is certainly one of the most tragic books in the entire history of mankind. (By the way, it was no coincidence that Shmelev called “The Sun of the Dead” an epic: everything that happens is interpreted by him not just on an all-Russian, but on a global scale. The drama turns into a tragedy). The history of the savagery of people in the fratricidal Civil War was written not just by a witness of the events, but by an outstanding Russian writer, perhaps one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. “Sun of the Dead” is a lament for Russia, a tragic epic about civil war.
Shmelev depicts the triumph of evil, hunger, banditry, and the gradual loss of humanity by people. The style of the narration reflects the extreme despair, the confused consciousness of the narrator, who is unable to understand how such a rampant of unpunished evil could happen, why “ stone Age"with its animal laws... The image of empty heavens and a dead sun runs through the book as a refrain: "I have no God. The blue sky is empty..." Against the backdrop of Crimean nature, impassive in its beauty, all living things suffer and die - birds, animals, people. Cruel in its truth, this story is written with poetic, Dantean power and filled with deep humanistic meaning. It raises the question of questions: about the value of the individual at a time of great social catastrophes.
The critic and writer A. V. Amfitheatrov is right: “Everything is clear, everything is understandable in “The Sun of the Dead.” I don’t understand one thing: how did Shmelev have the strength to write this book?.. It’s difficult to read his epic without giving yourself a break every now and then from a complete nightmare - what was it like to write?"...
Having escaped from Red Russia abroad, Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev wrote to his beloved niece and executor Yu.A. Kutyrina in January 1922. “We are in Berlin! No one knows why. I fled from my grief. In vain... Olya and I are heartbroken and wander around aimlessly... And even for the first time visible abroad does not touch... Dead soul no need for freedom...
So, maybe I'll end up in Paris. Then I will see Ghent, Ostend, Bruges, then Italy for one or two months. And - Moscow! Death is in Moscow. Maybe in Crimea. I'll go there to die. There, yes. We have a small dacha there. There we parted with our priceless, our joy, our life... - Seryozha. “I loved him so much, I loved him so much, and I lost him so terribly.” Oh, if only for a miracle! Miracle, I want a miracle! It's a nightmare that I'm in Berlin. For what? It’s night, it’s raining outside, the lights are crying... Why are we here and alone, completely alone?! Understand that! Aimless, unnecessary. And this is not a dream, not an art, it’s like life. Oh, it’s hard!..”
He still did not know that he would never return to his homeland; he still harbored the hope that his only son Sergei, who was shot during the Bolshevik terror of the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921. in Crimea, alive, still not recovered from what he experienced in small, frozen and hungry Alushta. And the idea of ​​the requiem called "epic" - "Sun of the Dead" - has not yet been born.
The epic was created in March-September 1923 in Paris and with the Bunins, in Grasse. The kaleidoscope of terrible impressions should have been covered by the mournful shadow of a personal tragedy. But in “The Sun of the Dead” there is not a word about the deceased son, although it is the deep human pain that Shmelev could not appease even with a hard-won word that gives the whole story enormous scale. Many famous writers, including Thomas Mann, Gerhard Hauptmann, Selma Lagerlöf, considered “The Sun of the Dead” the most powerful of all created by Shmelev. Emigrant critics - Nikolai Kulman, Pyotr Pilsky, Yuliy Aikhenvald, Vladimir Ladyzhensky, Alexander Amfiteatrov - greeted Shmelev's epic with enthusiastic responses. But, perhaps, the wonderful prose writer Ivan Lukash wrote most insightfully about “The Sun of the Dead”:
“This wonderful book was published and poured out like a revelation throughout Europe, feverishly being translated into “major” languages...
I read it after midnight, out of breath.
What is the book by I. S. Shmelev about?
About the death of the Russian man and the Russian land.
About the death of Russian grasses and animals, Russian gardens and the Russian sky.
About the death of the Russian sun.
About the death of the entire universe - when Russia died - about the dead sun of the dead..."
According to critic N.M. Solntseva, “Sun of the Dead” is evidence of Shmelev’s deepest spiritual crisis. The Crimean trials gave rise to confusion and despair, a feeling of being abandoned by God. In 1921, he admitted to Veresaev that everything he had previously written was “a farcical piece of music,” that he had lost God. So in “Sun of the Dead” he repeated: “I have no God: the blue sky is empty.” ... Shmelev is like Job, fully tested by God with severe hardships. Those who read the epic, of course, saw in it biblical overtones. ... L. Lvov rightly wrote that this work is “... a tragic world of truly biblical horrors.” And Yu. Aikhenvald called Shmelev’s book “the apocalypse of Russian history.” ... But Job should be remembered not only in connection with the suffering of the main character of the epic, but also in connection with the fact that he, like a biblical hero, experienced horror, but still did not retreat from God. And if in Crimea Shmelev decided that there was no God, then when he wrote his epic, he thought differently. He wrote this work and became convinced of the power of man and the help of God. ... The narrator still believes in the Kingdom of God: “There is no need to be afraid of death... Behind it lies true harmony!” ... Shmelev repeated the words of Job: “You can do anything!” The terrible, Cimmerian meaning of the “Sun of the Dead” has been replaced by the biblical one. The idea of ​​salvation sounded in the epic.”
It is important that, despite the horror of what he experienced, Shmelev did not become embittered against the Russian people, although he cursed the “new” life. But even there, under a foreign sky, he wanted to rest in Russia, in his beloved Moscow.
Shmelev’s work and his memory are illuminated by the sun - the ever-living sun of Russian suffering and Russian asceticism.
Lolo (L. G. Munshtein) wrote the following lines about Shmelev and his epic:
We crowned you with laurels
In the old days - in my native land,
Now you have become the crown of sorrow,
A fighter for his homeland.
Living, fiery word
How the “Sun of the Dead” burns hearts.
Let it not dry out until the end
Holy hatred of Shmelev!

THEM. Epiphany

“The Sun of the Dead” is rightfully considered the most tragic book in the history of world literature. This was pointed out by G. Hauptmann, A. Amphiteatrov, G. Adamovich, P; Nilsky, B, Shletser. A. V. Kartashev interpreted Shmelev’s understanding of the revolutionary events in the following way: “Suppressed by the nightmare of the Soviet era, the dying of old Russia in the stupor of hunger, the poet-artist experienced in his soul an eschatological nightmare that had fallen out of nowhere and wrote his “Sun of the Dead.” But this is only a repulsion from hell. What about a return, if not to heaven, then at least to a sinful, but still sweet, human earth?” The question is not at all rhetorical, since Kartashev, who knew the writer well, felt that he would preserve the “hereditary gospel criterion of good and evil” “as an involuntary epic assessment of phenomena.”

The definition of Shmelev's book as tragic, painful, terrible requires clarification; There was no work in the history of world literature whose subject matter was more tragic: the story of the death of a country, a people, a person, the entire created world, and even the life-giving spirit. The category of death in the work acquires a philosophical and religious meaning. Its faces are diverse: natural and violent death, death from hunger and beatings, self-immolation. Hungry birds and animals are dying. In nature - death, decomposition. The earth turns into desert. Opposed to man, the cruel sun itself dies. The achievements of civilization have been overthrown; they have been replaced by stony, primitive relationships. The sky is empty. But according to the Christian world order, suffering and death are the path to the Resurrection.

A crack in the world passed through the writer’s heart, but personal suffering melted into anxiety about the universal. Therefore: “Shmelev reveals himself for the first time as a true thinker, too insightful into the meaning of life in creation. And the death that is happening.” And “The Sun of the Dead,” according to I. Ilyin’s definition, is “a profound historical monument of our era.”

The artistic imagery of the “Sun of the Dead” is largely determined by the contrast that is created by the luxurious Crimean nature and the relationships between people (hence the image of the “laughing sun”). This opposition is set already from the first chapter. A dazzlingly sunny morning is depicted, saturated with the bitterness of the yayla meadows, multicolored. The narrator is in awe of God's world: “Dear morning, hello!”

Among the people, ragpickers rule - “renewers of life”, preparing glue from human bones, and “bouillon cubes” from blood.

The first day of an indefinite convict lasts in the description of everyday details. At the same time, in the morning you need to “dodge thoughts”; during the day - “to get wrapped up in trifles”; “frantic work” in the garden also kills thoughts; evening brings relief: “another day killed!” In the heat of the day, visions arise - deceptive, alluring transitions from the present to a desired dream, and in which signs of the past are discerned: “the grape, “velvet” season is approaching, they will carry cheerful grapes in baskets<...>. All will be". In reality, this turns out to be a clever game, the smile of the sun. Daytime reality gives way to “deceptive dreams”, in them time plays with different colors: bright, visible details of the past have a prosperous life; lush and fabulous; faded, “unearthly” from the kingdom of the dead, where sunlight is underwater. People in this world are martyrs, “as if from icons”: “they went through terrible things, did something to them.”

The providence of God is opposed by Rock, which is associated in the “Sun of the Dead” with ancient Greek tragedy. Its scenes are constantly played out below, in the town by the sea. The inhabitants of the dachas rising like an amphitheater up the mountain are spectators. The narrator and the doctor are the “choir”: they can both act and prophesy at the same time. Everything that happens under the sun has one ending: death, and it is in the will of the gods. The horse Lyavra dies of hunger, the peacock sees it off with a deserted cry, walks around, shaking its rainbow tail, and the hungry dog ​​Belka attaches itself to the still warm prey - the tragedy of Rock. “The apotheosis of culture” turns into a struggle of titans: “wolves are gnawing at each other”, “<...>in the theater there is more wheezing and squealing, more blows,” “A man being beaten to death? And this howling voice is a human voice? and that growl?!” The vulture hawk kills the hen Zhadnyukha, Lyalya desperately cheats - again tragic theater. Everything that happens is caused by “immutable and cruel necessity” (Aristotle).

Life becomes a huge graveyard, flooded with sun. In one of the Crimean letters to K. Trenev, Shmelev mentions the “loop of Doom”. “This Rock laughs in my face - both wildly and widely. I hear the squealing laughter of this Rock. Oh, what a squeal of laughter!<...>Can't be written into a thousand books, Centuries lived in one month. Oh, I could now write about Doom, about suffering.”

The narrator, observing and participating in events, describes what is happening with vivid spontaneity. But at the same time, he is endowed with the features of an omniscient narrator and a prophetic gift. He has already read this book of death to the end and knows what is “hidden by time.” The description of the handsome walnut ends with the phrase: “I will sit under your shadow and begin to think<...>" Here the future tense comes closer to the present, but at the same time opens up the perspective of thought-thought. The next question comes from a distant future, from a foreign land: “Are you alive, young handsome man?<...>Are you not in the world? Killed like all living things<...>».

Conversations with the nanny are accompanied by the refrain: “She doesn’t feel what will happen to her soon, how will she cook porridge from wheat<...>with blood! Or does he smell it? I remember now<...>" “She looks, unhappy, and does not feel what awaits her. The knot of her miserable life gets tangled there: blood seeks blood.” The knowledge of what will happen, determined by the time perspective, is presented as a revelation, reinforced by the question: can she smell it? Such a significant image of a nanny in Shmelev’s work, creating life, faithfully serving her child, protecting her from wrong steps, is distorted in this kingdom of death. The nanny believes that Alyosha is trading wheat for Christmas, rejoices at this, cannot warn or save, is unable to resist death.

Meetings with Boris Shishkin are also difficult because “the inexorable stands behind his back, stands - plays, laughs<...>. Something must happen to him."

The times are paradoxically connected in the following prophecy: “And I don’t feel that death is looking into his joyful eyes, wants to play again. Played it four times, jokingly! He’ll probably play the fifth one with mockery.” The real “I don’t feel it” means “I don’t want to know and I can’t accept.” The future tragedy is already guessed in the present, but is predetermined by the past. This is an evil game of fate, a mockery of Rock.

With the onset of winter cold (“winter was enough”), the darkness thickens, life turns into a primeval desert, having forgotten about the great ascent of humanity “to heaven.” Time stops completely: it is impossible to determine the month. Gradually, darkness and night reign on the earth: “Long nights bring sick days. Are there any days now? The sun sometimes appears from behind the clouds, and the days still come. But lead envelops the earth, closes the distance, and thickens around a person. The sun is no longer reflected in the eyes of departing people and birds; this image is filled with a different meaning. The author gives it a natural, cosmic interpretation: “<...>The sun will come out for a moment and splash out with pale tin. The stripe runs, runs<... >and goes out. Truly the sun of the dead! They themselves are crying."

The leitmotif images of the unfolding tangle of time and the desert stone determine the tragic outcome of what is happening: “thousands of years were thrown,” the great ascent of man to the heights of the spirit was brought down “by the forces of the stone-darkness,” “the stone was hammered.” The awareness of this is so painful that the narrator wants to bring the end closer. Day by day, blacker things pour out of the ball. “There is no fear, no horror, just a stony gaze.” “When will he cover it with a stone?!” When will the ball unwind?” Primitive relationships prevail among the young; only holy souls can resist this. The righteous ascetic Tanya saves her children. Postman Drozd, “an ascetic of the damned life,” interprets Revelation “from<...>blood! If there is such blood, there will definitely be miracles!” And although the Gospel was put into bags, the cassava is wrapped in the Sermon on the Mount, Dr. Mikhail Vasilich forgot the Lord’s Prayer, the sky seems empty, the life-giving spirit of the righteous helps not to fall completely into unbelief. "<...>They do not succumb to the all-crushing stone. Is the spirit dying? No, he's alive. Dying, dying<...>. I see so clearly.”

The motive of getting rid of suffering and painful doubts - turning into an insensitive stone - could well have been inspired by Tatar folklore for the writer. After all, when creating the Crimean fairy tale “The Voice of the Dawn,” Shmelev studied the legends and traditions of the peoples of Crimea and turned to the Koran. The legend “Stones Mother and Daughter” tells about the origin of bizarre stones in the valley of the Kachi River. Proud, independent Zuleika did not want to fall into the hands of evil man, but wished to turn into stone. “And the word of the girl, of a pure soul, had such power that she began to grow into the ground and become a stone.” The villains also turned to stone, and the grieving mother became a stone - a symbol of sadness. The semantics of the stone in Crimean legends is often unambiguous: a “cursed stone” associated with atrocities and ingratitude. For Shmelev, the stone is not only “dead physically and spiritually,” but also “alien.”

In Russian fairy tales, life and death are connected with the earth, but a prophetic stone lies at a crossroads, determines fate, or a horse stumbles over it, stumbles - it is warned. The heroes of Shmelev's epic struggle with stone, cultivating the ground, strengthening the loose slate of the slopes, smashing their feet against stones, collecting fuel. The earth cannot even accept all the dead; not everyone finds graves. S. Bulgakov wrote about the dogma of icon veneration, veneration of holy relics, veneration of graves: “spiritual veneration and love for the departed is not enough; physical approach to them remains necessary.” Dostoevsky's lame leg, when asked about the Mother of God, answered that this is Mother - the Cheese Earth, thereby expressing not an orthodox faith, but a spontaneous, sensual, deep understanding of phenomena.

For Shmelev motherland stayed in the north. Crimea, through incredible human efforts, tore itself out of stone, blossomed into almond orchards, a kingdom of roses, and now, through the unreasonable actions of people, it is again turning into stone. An indifferent stony gaze surrounds a person. Both evil and good, and the suffering of people become stone. Only “white-hot Kush-Kaya, mountain poster” includes all the stories. “The time will come, it will be read.” "<...>behold, this stone will be our witness<...»>(Joshua 24:26).

Often, trying to comprehend the elusive meaning of what is happening, the narrator resorts to using elements of the absurd, which enhances the tragic irony of the book. So, about the shot old man, captured while he was going to the market, it is said: “They took the lead: don’t go shopping for tomatoes in your overcoat!” The cause of another tragedy is determined in a similar way: “They came and killed my son. Don't be a lieutenant! The terrible and tragic turns into the darkly comic and testifies to universal chaos. The dead Kulish has been “waiting for dispatch” for a long time: “the bloated hisses<...>in the greenhouse: “I-a-a-we-y-y,” to which the drunken watchman objects to him: “Did you give me something to drink and feed?” Completely in the spirit of F. M. Dostoevsky’s “Bobka,” the doctor’s fantasy about the Archangel’s trial, at which his wife will appear in an apricot square, locked with a key. “There will be a benefit performance!” But this vaudeville will also feature tragic figures of the murdered and tortured.

Christmas in art world There could not be a “Sun of the Dead” (“Who can be born now?!” The ancient pagan element of death - winter - has prevailed; biblical time no longer opens this hellish circle. How to break out of it, where to find hope for deliverance? Shmelev talks about this thought constantly: “Create with soul and body, with your whole being.<..>until death - then life will come. But how and under what conditions is this possible? I think that this is possible under the only condition: if the individual regains all the rights that were taken from her. Otherwise - death. But I don’t believe in death.”

The apotheosis of death is the last chapter of the work - “The End of Ends”. But even in it, light breaks through the darkness, like signs of spring that appear despite the deadening power of winter. “All the ends are tangled, all the beginnings are tangled,” observing time is pointless. “All the deadlines have passed, and the cup has not yet been drunk!..” The sun no longer plays in the eyes of the dead, it itself is skinny, sick, dead. Someone else's land (and not land at all, but a “dirty stone”) became a cemetery. The contrast between earth and stone (“earth is better, earth is at peace”) is even more strengthened here. The composition of the chapter connects the endings of the characters' stories - monstrous, absurd deaths. Ivan Mikhailych was killed by cooks in the Soviet kitchen: “they were tired of the old man with his bowl, whining, trembling: he smelled of death.” The meek Shishkin brothers were shot “for robbery.” “A native of another world,” from the world of the dead, appeared a boy “about ten or eight years old with a large head on a stick-neck, with sunken cheeks, with eyes of fear.” Time turned back for him, he melted, turned into a “nutcracker” with protruding teeth, ready to grab some food. "The Lord sent<...>, I hit a jackdaw yesterday,” rejoiced the mother, losing her exhausted children. For her he is still Handsome, for the narrator he is a Deadly One, a child from the kingdom of the dead, a measure of the humanity of society.

In the chapter “The Ends of Ends,” calendar winter unexpectedly gives way to spring: “What month is December now?”, “All the ends are tangled, all the beginnings are tangled,” and, finally, “Or is spring coming?” With her arrival, the world gains hope. “With golden springs, warm rains, in thunderstorms, will she not open the bowels of the earth, will she not resurrect the Dead?” Doubts are resolved in the affirmative. The human heart, having accepted and shared suffering with the world, believed in a miracle - the Great Resurrection of the Dead. “The Resurrection of Christ is the central and fundamental fact underlying Christianity. Without the reality of the Resurrection of Christ, the development and action of Christianity in history is incomprehensible and inexplicable.” This faith is difficult for a person, even the Apostles went through a period of severe doubts about their faith in the Resurrection, but when they acquired it, all doubts, hesitations, and fears dissipated.

The coming spring and the premonition of coming joy at the end of the work allow us to conclude that the element of death has been defeated by the gospel of the Resurrection of man. I. Ilyin wrote that the name “Sun of the Dead”, seemingly everyday, Crimean, historical, “contains religious depth: for it points to the Lord, living in heaven, sending people both life and death - and to people who have lost it and become dead all over the world.” Shmelev managed to show this precarious line between Faith and unbelief, life and death, and to maintain himself in spiritual life.

Keywords: Ivan Shmelev, Sun of the Dead, criticism of the works of Ivan Shmelev, criticism of the works of Ivan Shmelev, analysis of the works of Ivan Shmelev, download criticism, download analysis, download for free, Russian literature of the 20th century

Review written by Quiet Place specifically for the site

There is a success factor debut album, allowing the performer to gain enormous popularity and announce himself to the whole world. So-called sophomore albums can also help to gain unprecedented heights, which will also need to be maintained. Instead of this very music, rap battles can be called such a key to the success of Slava Mashnova’s career, and recently there is only one of these. And it’s not entirely clear what it was - either a battle, or a circus tent, but let’s not talk about that. After such a dose of hype, it was only a matter of time before the release of a potentially commercially successful album.

The album “Sun of the Dead” could well completely relaunch the character of Slava, as an adequate alternative to the main hip-hop artists of the entire CIS, because he has everything for this: original objects of inspiration, a good sense of rhythm, the ability to present an angry social text, damn it, technique , and most importantly, he still has something to talk about. What happened after the release of this creation? That's right, nothing good. But for his part, Slava remained a winner, because his position was a priori advantageous.

For years, the rapper created for himself a nihilistic-correct image of a kind of punk protester who knows what language the generation born in 85-95 should communicate in. I would call his style “Perestroika 2.0” - it sounds both technological and antediluvian, and, it seems to me, the latter is at the forefront. After listening to a 30-minute album, the same bitterness appears that you experience when the phrase “sing rap” is heard, but as soon as you engage in constructive criticism, there will be those who will accuse you of misunderstanding and declare the threshold of entry. And such a barrier around the artist not only protects him from a dissatisfied audience, but also allows him to act as trashy as possible: to star in a disgusting TV show without leaving the role of an underground star.

The new release can quite justifiably be called an art object with the thickest immunity to criticism, and it is simply pointless to extract its shortcomings. The problem with “The Sun” is that the fact of the existence of this album cannot be used as proof of the artist’s exclusivity, it cannot be called some kind of achievement or magnum opus, but, again, Slava is able to do something more, maintaining a balance between existentialism, irony and sound . And instead of appearing before new listeners as a strong MC, Gnoyny chose a different path, pointedly abandoning the popularity that had fallen on him and remaining in his own dirty plate.

“Sun of the Dead” turned out to be a rather gloomy, empty and damp canvas, in which you still have to find something to cling to. And the only thing worth praising Slava for is that he continues to follow the line of a sober poet, because here this role stands out much more than the role of a rapper. The album's style is a monolithic ball, inspired by Yegor Letov's detachment and obvious attempts to do the same thing that Husky recorded years earlier. The beats symbolize alienation and, thanks to processed vocal samples, the same atmosphere of despondency that London electronic artist Burial achieved 10 years ago is created.

On the one hand, we have Slavik - a clown and a troll, whose behavior cannot be perceived as natural. On the other hand, there is an absolutely serious type who consciously looks into his own future: “Maybe wolves will guard us at the turn? Maybe the enemies will tear my shirt?” You will have to look at one, you will have to listen to the other - but these images will not get along together, because their coexistence is in itself paradoxical.

The most outstanding track from “The Sun” can be called “Footprints in the Snow” - the dead spirit is most felt in it and there are even some hints of a technical flow, but this is not enough to define the album in terms of its functionality. If we list many situations and states of mind and weed out those in which listening to this release would not be advisable, then only one example remains: when the listener is just getting acquainted with the album. Alas, all that remains is to observe the futile attempts of the listeners to highlight some kind of supernatural intelligence in the author’s lines.

If you look at it, the “Sun of the Dead” is a forgotten old thing, reborn in a more modern form. Slava, as a rapper and creator, cannot be called an innovator: his character is constantly in a state of comparison with someone or something - from the title of the second Babangida to the smeared “Grob” stamp on the last album. The lyrics of “The Sun” as chilly poems about Russian prostration are good, but I wouldn’t recommend listening to it as rap.

“Russian culture is death, booze and prison”

There are books that make you sad when reading them. One of them was created by the Russian writer Ivan Shmelev in the early twenties of the last century. This article contains a summary of it. “Sun of the Dead” is the work of a man of rare talent and an incredibly tragic fate.

History of creation

Critics called "Sun of the Dead" one of the most tragic literary works throughout the history of mankind. Under what conditions was the book created?

A year after leaving his homeland, he began writing the epic Sun of the Dead. Then he did not know that he would never return to Russia. And he still hoped that his son was alive. Sergei Shmelev was shot without trial in 1921. He became one of the victims of the “Red Terror in Crimea.” One of those to whom the writer dedicated “The Sun of the Dead” unconsciously. Because Ivan Shmelev learned about the fate of his son many years after writing this terrible book.

Morning

What are the first chapters of the book about? It's not easy to convey a summary. “Sun of the Dead” begins with a description of the morning nature of Crimea. Before the author's eyes is a picturesque mountain landscape. But the Crimean landscape only evokes melancholy.

The local vineyards are half destroyed. The houses located nearby were empty. Crimean land soaked in blood. The author sees his friend's dacha. The once luxurious house now stands as if orphaned, with broken windows and crumbling whitewash.

“They go out to kill”: summary

“Sun of the Dead” is a book about hunger and suffering. It depicts the torment experienced by both adults and children. But the most terrible pages of Shmelev’s book are those where the author describes the transformation of a person into a killer.

The portrait of one of the heroes of “Sun of the Dead” is amazing and terrible. This character's name is Shura, he loves to play the piano in the evenings, and calls himself a “falcon.” But he has nothing in common with this proud and strong bird. It’s not for nothing that the author compares him to a vulture. Shura sent many to the north or - even worse - to the next world. But every day he eats milk porridge, plays music, and rides a horse. While people around are dying of hunger.

Shura is one of those who were sent to kill. They were sent to carry out mass destruction, oddly enough, for the sake of a high goal: to achieve universal happiness. In their opinion, it was necessary to start with a bloody massacre. And those who came to kill fulfilled their duty. Hundreds of people were sent to the basements of Crimea every day. During the day they were taken out to be shot. But, as it turned out, happiness, which required more than a hundred thousand victims, was an illusion. Working people, dreaming of taking lordly places, were dying of hunger.

About Baba Yaga

This is the title of one of the chapters of the novel. How to give a summary of it? “Sun of the Dead” is a work that represents the writer’s reasoning and observations. Horror stories presented in impartial language. And that makes them even more terrible. You can briefly summarize individual stories told by Shmelev. But the author’s spiritual devastation is unlikely to be conveyed by the summary. Shmelev wrote “Sun of the Dead” when he no longer believed in either his future or the future of Russia.

Not far from the dilapidated house where the hero of the novel lives, there are dachas - deserted, cold, neglected. In one of them lived a retired treasurer - a kind, absent-minded old man. He lived in a house with his little granddaughter. He loved to sit by the shore and catch gobies. And in the mornings the old man went to the market to buy fresh tomatoes and cheese. One day he was stopped, taken to the basement and shot. The treasurer's fault was that he wore an old military overcoat. For this he was killed. The little granddaughter sat in an empty dacha and cried.

As already mentioned, one of the chapters is called “About Baba Yaga.” The above story about the treasurer is its summary. Shmelev dedicated “Sun of the Dead” to the fates of people who suffered from the invisible “iron broom”. In those days, there were many strange and frightening metaphors in use. “Place Crimea with an iron broom” is a phrase that the author recalls. And he imagines a huge witch destroying thousands of human lives with the help of her fairy-tale attribute.

What does Ivan Shmelev talk about in subsequent chapters? “The Sun of the Dead,” a summary of which is presented in the article, is like a cry from the soul of someone doomed to death. But the author hardly talks about himself. “Sun of the Dead” is a book about Russia. Short tragic stories- details of a big and terrible picture.

“Creators of new life... Where are they from?” - asks the writer. And he doesn’t find an answer. These people came and plundered what had been built over centuries. They desecrated the tombs of saints, tore apart the very memory of Rus'. But before you destroy, you must learn to create. Destroyers of Russian and Orthodox traditions they did not know this, and therefore they were doomed, like their victims, to certain death. Hence the name given to the book by Ivan Shmelev - “Sun of the Dead.”

The plot of the work can be conveyed in this way: one of the last Russian intellectuals, on the verge of death, observes the birth of a new state. He does not understand the methods of the new government. He will never fit into this system. But the hero of the book suffers not only from his personal pain, but also because he does not understand why destruction, blood and suffering of children are needed. As history has shown, " Great Terror“had many negative consequences for the entire Soviet society.

Boris Shishkin

In “The Sun of the Dead” Shmelev talks about the fate of his brother, young writer Boris Shishkin. Even during the years of terror, this man dreams of writing. There is no paper or ink to be found. He wants to dedicate his books to something bright and pure. The author knows that Shishkin is extremely talented. And also, what in this life young man there was so much grief that would be enough for a hundred lives.

Shishkin served in the infantry. During the First World War he found himself on the German front. He was captured, where he was tortured and starved, but miraculously survived. He returned home to another country. Because Boris chose something he liked: he picked up orphans from the street. But the Bolsheviks soon arrested him. Having escaped death again, Shishkin ended up in Crimea. On the peninsula, he, sick and dying of hunger, still dreamed that someday he would write kind, bright stories for children.

The end of all

So called final chapter books. “When will these deaths end?” - the author asks questions. The neighbor's professor died. His house was immediately looted. On the way, the hero met a woman with a dying child. She complained about fate. He could not listen to her story and ran away from the mother of the dying baby into his grape ravine.

The hero of the book is not afraid of death. Rather, he is waiting for her, believing that only she alone can save him from torment. Proof of this is the phrase said by the author in the last chapter: “When will he cover it with a stone?” Nevertheless, the writer understands that, despite the fact that the deadline has come, the cup has not yet been drained.

What do modern readers think about the book that Ivan Shmelev wrote in 1923?

“Sun of the Dead”: reviews

This work does not belong to literature popular among modern readers. There are few reviews about it. The book is filled with pessimism, the reason for which can be understood knowing the circumstances of the writer’s life. In addition, about the scary pages in national history he knew firsthand. Those who have read Sun of the Dead agree that this book is difficult to read, but necessary.

Is it worth reading?

It is almost impossible to retell the plot of the work. We can only answer the question of what topic Ivan Shmelev devoted to “Sun of the Dead”. Summary(“Brifley” or other Internet sites containing retellings works of art) does not give a complete idea of ​​the features of the work, which became the pinnacle of the writer’s creativity. In order to answer the question of whether this heavy book is worth reading, we can recall the words of Thomas Mann. A German writer said the following about it: “Read it if you have the courage.”