Fedor Alexandrovich Abramov 1920-1983
Brothers and sisters. Novel (1958) - SUMMARY

Pekashin peasant Stepan Andreyanovich Stavrov cut down a house on a mountainside, in the cool dusk of a huge larch. Yes, not a house - a two-story mansion with a small side hut to boot.

There was a war. Old people, children and women remained in Pekashin. Buildings crumbled and crumbled before our eyes. But Stavrov's house is strong, solid, for all time. A strong old man was knocked down by a funeral for his son. He stayed with the old woman and grandson Yegor-shey.

The trouble did not bypass the family of Anna Pryaslina: her husband Ivan, the only breadwinner, died. And Anna's guys are smaller and smaller - Mishka, Lizka, the twins Petka and Grishka, Fedyushka and Tatyanka. In the village, the woman was called Anna the Doll. She was small and thin, with a good face, but no worker. Two days have passed since we received the funeral and Mishka, the eldest, sat down in the father's empty seat at the table. Mother wiped a tear from her face and silently nodded her head.

She herself could not pull the guys out. Even so, in order to fulfill the norm, she remained on arable land until night. One day, when we were working with the wives, we saw a stranger. Arm in a sling. It turned out he was from the front. He sat, talked with the women about collective farm life, and at parting they asked him what his name was, what name he was from, and what village he was from. “Lukashin,” he replied, “Ivan Dmitrievich. Sent from the district committee to you for the sowing campaign.

The sowing campaign was oh so difficult. There are few people, but the district committee ordered to increase the area under crops: the front needs bread. Unexpectedly for everyone, Mishka Pryaslin turned out to be an indispensable worker. Something he didn't do when he was fourteen years old. On the collective farm, he worked for an adult man, and even for a family. His sister, twelve-year-old Lizka, also had a lot of work to do. Heat the stove, handle the cow, feed the children, clean the hut, wash the linen ...

For sowing - mowing, then harvesting ... The chairman of the collective farm, Anfisa Minina, returned to her empty hut late in the evening and, without undressing, fell on the bed. And as soon as it was light, she was already on her feet - she was milking a cow, and she herself thought with fear that the collective farm pantry was running out of bread. And yet, happy. Because I remembered how I spoke with Ivan Dmitrievich on the board.

Autumn is not far off. The guys will soon go to school, and Mishka Pryaslin will go to logging. We have to pull the family. Dunyashka Inyakhina decided to study at a technical school. She gave Misha a lace handkerchief as a farewell gift.

Reports from the front are getting more and more alarming. The Germans have already reached the Volga. And in the district committee, finally, they responded to Lukashin's persistent request - they let him go to fight. He wanted to finally explain himself to Anfisa, but it didn’t work out. The next morning, she herself purposely left for the hay station, and Varvara Inyakhina rushed to her. She swore to everyone in the world that she had nothing with Lukashin. Anfisa rushed to the translation, at the very water she jumped off her horse onto the wet sand. On the other side, the figure of Lukashin flashed and melted.

The tetralogy of the writer Fyodor Abramov "Brothers and Sisters", or, as the author himself gave the name to the work, "a novel in four books" consists of the novels "Brothers and Sisters" and "Two Winters and Three Summers", as well as "Roads and Crossroads" and "House". Linked by common characters and the setting (the northern village of Pekashino), these books tell about the thirty-year fate of the Russian northern peasantry, starting from the war year of 1942. During this period of time, one generation has grown old, another has matured, and a third has risen. Yes, and the writer himself acquired wisdom along with his heroes, posed more and more complex problematic issues, delved into and peered into the fate of the state, Russia and a single person. For more than twenty-five years, the tetralogy was created (1950-1978). For more than twenty-five years, the author has not parted with his favorite characters, looking with them for answers to painful questions: what is this Russia? What kind of people are we? Why did we manage to survive and defeat the enemy literally in inhuman conditions, and why in peacetime were we unable to feed people, to create truly humane, humane relations based on brotherhood, mutual assistance, and justice?

Fedor Abramov repeatedly spoke about the idea of ​​the first novel "Brothers and Sisters" at meetings with readers, in interviews, in prefaces. Having miraculously survived after a serious wound near Leningrad, after a besieged hospital, in the summer of 1942, while on leave for injury, he ended up in his native Pinezhye. For the rest of his life, Abramov remembered that summer, that feat, that "battle for bread, for life," which was waged by half-starved women, old people, teenagers. "The shells did not burst, the bullets did not whistle. But there were funerals, there was a terrible need and work. Hard men's work in the field and in the meadow." “I just couldn’t help but write Brothers and Sisters ... Pictures of living, real reality stood before my eyes, they pressed on memory, demanded a word about themselves. The great feat of a Russian woman who opened a second front in 1941, perhaps no less heavier than the front of the Russian peasant - how could I forget about it? "Only the truth - direct and impartial" - Abramov's writer's credo. Later he will specify: "... The feat of a person, the feat of the people is measured by the scale of the deed, the measure of the sacrifices and suffering that he brings to the altar of victory."

Immediately after the release of the novel, the writer was faced with the discontent of fellow countrymen, who recognized their signs in some heroes. Then F. A. Abramov, perhaps for the first time, felt how difficult it is to tell the truth about the people to the people themselves, corrupted both by varnishing literature and propaganda eulogies addressed to them. F. A. Abramov wrote: “The countrymen greeted me well, but some barely hide their annoyance: it seems to them that some of them are derived in my heroes, and they are not displayed in a completely flattering light. And it’s useless to dissuade. By the way, you know what varnishing theory, the theory of ideal art? On the opinion of the people. The people cannot stand prose in art. Even now they will prefer various fables to a sober story about his life. One thing is his real life, and another thing is a book, a picture. Therefore, the bitter truth in art is not for the people, it should be addressed to the intelligentsia. Here's the thing: in order to do something for the people, you must sometimes go against the people. And so it is in everything, even in the economy." This difficult problem will occupy F. A. Abramov all subsequent years. The writer himself was sure: "The people, like life itself, are contradictory. And in the people there is great and small, sublime and base, good and evil." "The people are the victims of evil. But they are also the support of evil, and therefore the creator or, at least, the nourishing soil of evil," FA Abramov reflects.

F. A. Abramov was able to adequately tell about the tragedy of the people, about the troubles and sufferings, about the price of self-sacrifice of ordinary workers. He managed to "look into the soul of a simple person", he introduced into literature the whole Pekshin world, represented by various characters. If there were no subsequent books of the tetralogy, the Pryaslin family, Anfisa, Varvara, Marfa Repishnaya, Stepan Andreyanovich would still be remembered.

The tragedy of the war, the unity of the people in the face of a common disaster revealed in people unprecedented spiritual forces - brotherhood, mutual assistance, compassion, the ability for great self-denial and self-sacrifice. This idea permeates the entire narrative, determines the pathos of the novel. And yet the author thought that it should be clarified, deepened, made more complex, ambiguous. This required the introduction of ambiguous disputes, doubts, reflections of the heroes about life, about military conscience, about asceticism. He wanted to think for himself and make the reader think about "existential" questions that do not lie on the surface, but are rooted in understanding the very essence of life and its laws. Over the years, he increasingly associated social problems with moral, philosophical, universal ones.

Nature, people, war, life... The writer wanted to introduce such reflections into the novel. Anfisa’s internal monologue is about this: “Grass grows, flowers are no worse than in peaceful years, a foal gallops and rejoices around its mother. And why do people - the most intelligent of all creatures - not rejoice in earthly joy, kill each other? .. Yes what is this happening? What are we, people?" Stepan Andreyanovich reflects on the meaning of life after the death of his son and the death of his wife: “So life has been lived. Why? Why work? Well, they will defeat the German. They will return home. "The only person was near him, and he missed him. So why do we live? Is it just to work?" And then the author marked the transition to the next chapter: "But life took its toll. Makarovna left, and people worked." But the main question that Abramov wanted to highlight was the question of conscience, of asceticism, of the renunciation of the personal in the name of the common. "Does a person have the right to privacy if everyone around is suffering?" The most difficult question. At first, the author leaned towards the idea of ​​sacrifice. In further notes on the characters and situations associated with Anfisa, Varvara, Lukashin, he complicated the problem. An entry dated December 11, 1966: “Is it possible to live a full-blooded life when trouble is all around? That is the question that both Lukashin and Anfisa have to decide.

When Anfisa finds out that Nastya was burned, became a cripple, she puts on chains. Stop. No love! She became stern, ascetic, as they say, in step with her time. And I thought it should. This is her duty. But people didn't like it. It turns out that people liked the former Anfisa more - cheerful, cheerful, greedy for life. And it was then that the women spoke with delight about her: "Well, wifey! She does not lose heart. We are also drawn." And when Anfisa becomes an ascetic, it becomes bad for people too. And people don't go to her. But she wanted them well, for them she put on a sackcloth.

Ascetically moral and pagan life-affirming views of the world acquired a wide variety of configurations in the novel and in other works of F. A. Abramov. Extreme abstinence and selfishly blind optimism were equally unacceptable to the writer. However, he understood how difficult it is to find the truth - the truth in the unpredictable real world. Therefore, again and again he combined antagonistic natures, positions, views, searches in difficult everyday circumstances.

What, according to the author, will help mankind to find solutions to these complex problems that life puts before them? Only life itself, dear to the heart and mind of Abramov's nature, these "key springs" in which the hero of the novel bathes and from which he is filled with strength, "and not only physical, but also spiritual."

The writing

Once, in his notebook, Fyodor Abramov wrote: “A poet, a writer, differs from all others in one thing - the power of love. Love is the source of poetry, the source of goodness and hatred. Love gives strength to fight for the truth, endure all the hardships associated with the title of a writer. It is love for the fatherland, its nature, its history, people that literally permeated and filled all the work of F. Abramov, all his ascetic activity as a writer and citizen.

“I just couldn’t help but write Brothers and Sisters,” the author admitted, explaining the secret of the birth of his first novel. - I knew the village of the war years and literature about it, in which there was a lot of pink water ... I wanted to argue with the authors of those works, to express my point of view. But the main thing, of course, was something else. Before my eyes were pictures of living, real reality, they pressed on the memory, demanded a word about themselves. The great feat of the Russian woman, who opened the second front in 1941, perhaps no less difficult than the front of the Russian peasant - how could I forget about it! Fyodor Abramov's novel "Brothers and Sisters" is the best book about the village of the war years. Returning from the war to his native land after being seriously wounded, the writer saw with his own eyes how the village lived and worked. It was in that hard times that he established himself in the idea that without a selfless rear, the Great Victory would not have taken place. The novel "Brothers and Sisters" is a hymn to the indestructible spirit of the Russian peasantry, which, for the sake of the State, goes to any hardships - and emerges from all the trials that have fallen to its lot as a moral winner.

The author focuses on the chronicle of the life of one northern collective farm, the Arkhangelsk village of Pekashino. But if you look more broadly, this is a book about the life of the people, about the labor feat of the Russian peasantry, accomplished by them in the war and post-war years ... The novel "Brothers and Sisters" is a harsh and truthful story about the feat of women who lost their husbands, sons during the war years and kept on their women's shoulders the rear of the front. Undernourished, losing their beauty at the age of thirty from exhausting work, they not only did all the male work - they plowed, mowed, felled the forest - they saved Russia, covered their family, clan, nation. In "Brothers and Sisters" the war has left its marks on all everyday life, breaking the usual way of work, putting forward old people, women and teenagers as "headline figures". And the story is told on behalf of those who go to the frontiers of life. These are Anfisa Petrovna Minina, Stepan Andreyanovich Stavrov, Lukashin, who arrived from besieged Leningrad wounded, Nastya Gavrilina, Varvara Inyakhina, the orphaned Pryaslin family. Fourteen-year-old Mikhail Pryaslin became the father-brother of Petka, Grishka, Fedka, Tanya, Liza, the support of his mother, the owner of the house and the breadwinner of the family from the very day when, with the consent of his mother, he “began to cut and distribute bread like a father” to silent children. The war penetrated into life, constantly reminding of itself in the summer of 1942 with reports from the Information Bureau, which come to life in the book in their harsh reality. But the pathos of the novel is in the depiction of the activity of the people, their resistance to the disasters of war, in the poeticization of native nature, the feeling of admiration for the heroes, which the author does not hide. People faced severe trials of wartime. Saving the collective farm field, Nastya Gavrilina will die. Anna Pryaslina, beside herself in despair, will try to carry away grain from the collective farm current in an apron, and Anfisa Petrovna will save her from the harsh punishment of those years; will also keep Mishka, who condemned his mother with childish impatience, from rash actions. But Michael's heart will not soften, will not depart, until the time is stricken with grief and hardened in trials. Ordinary people of the northern village of Pekashino pass before us as participants in the people's patriotic movement, resisting cruel conditions. The first book acquires in the content of the novel the meaning of a prologue to subsequent events. The historical conflict, as shown in the second book - "Two Winters and Three Summers" - was resolved tragically for each family and the whole village. Anfisa Petrovna remarks: “Earlier, six months ago, everything was simple. War. The whole village is united in one fist. And now the fist is spreading. Every finger screams: I want to live! In its own way, on the individual.

The novel shows the life of the village at the height of the Great Patriotic War. The story ends in 1943, when it was too early to talk about victory. Abramov's book tells the modern reader the truth about that difficult time. Struggling with the hardships of wartime, everyone dreams that after the war a new, special, wonderful life will begin. Without this dream, the people would not be able to survive and win. A common misfortune, a common struggle and a common revenge made people brothers and sisters. At first glance, the simple title of the novel carries several semantic layers. “Brothers and sisters” called the citizens of the country I. V. Stalin in an address to them about the German attack. Stalin was perceived at that time as a demigod, his words sounded especially confidential, sunk into people's souls. There is another meaning in this name - literal: brothers and sisters are the Pryaslin family, four brothers (Mikhail, Peter, Grigory and Fedor) and two sisters (Liza and Tanya). And besides, all people in Pekashin are close and distant relatives to each other, which means that the title of the novel has one more meaning: “Brothers and Sisters” is the story of the village of Pekashin. The course of everyday life, the chronicle of the life of the village is shown in detail. Days roll by as usual. The life of a peasant is built in accordance with the calendar of agricultural work. But during the war years, when men are at the front, these works become truly heroic, it was not for nothing that they were called the “second front” in those years.

The news from the front is disturbing - in the summer of 1942, the Nazis launched a most dangerous offensive and by the beginning of September came close to the Volga. In the board of the collective farm in Pekashino there is a geographical map showing how "black wedges cut deeper and deeper into the body of the country." And Abramov shows the hard daily work of people in the village as a feat, and first of all - the feat of women, on whose shoulders all the men's work on the "labor front" fell. “How many people in Pekashin were taken to the war? - Says the secretary of the district committee Novozhilov at the end of the novel. - Man sixty. Are the fields sown? Haymaking at the end? Yes, you know what? Well, as if the women gave birth to sixty men again ... ". And in such conditions, without men, in a half-empty collective farm, work is in full swing.

The hero of F. Abramov cannot, without inner compassion and pain, see how the state farm is falling apart due to the negligence of the leadership and, above all, director Taborsky, the antipode of Mikhail. Arable lands are dying, overgrown with shrubs, once with such difficulty reclaimed from the forest by the Pekshinites. Such is Michael's character. He cannot calmly look at the formal attitude of people to work. Here he sees how the tractor driver Viktor Netesov is destroying the scarce northern soil and the entire future harvest by deep plowing. He boils, interferes ... and turns out to be fools. He is accused of disorganizing state farm production. The hero of Abramov does not just suffer, he, as best he can, fights with Taborsky. And when Mikhail found out that he was removed from the post of director of the state farm, he feels real joy, he even puts on a festive shirt. Indeed, Mikhail will suffer all his life for a public cause, worry, because he has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility for everything around him, because his conscience does not allow him to be different.

Behind every line of the novel one can feel the author's love for his native land, for the people of the Pinega village. The writer wants to show the inner beauty of people, their spirituality, hidden behind the external severity and discreetness. Pekashino appears to the reader for the first time, as if in slow motion, Abramov draws our attention to the fact that houses, like people, are not monotonous, but conceal a clear imprint of the personality of their inhabitants. The houses reflect the soft beauty of northern nature, its grandeur and breadth. By showing the majestic northern landscape, the author opens up other expanses - the expanses of the people's soul. Freedom and necessity, duty and conscience, patriotic feeling - all these concepts find their most real expression in the very being of F. Abramov's heroes. Publicism is characteristic of the very nature of F. Abramov's talent, his temperament of a researcher who is certainly looking for the meaning of the phenomena and facts of reality, defending his social and aesthetic ideals. “An important task of art is education. Its highest goal is truth and humanity... an increase in goodness on earth. And beauty."

Pekashin peasant Stepan Andreyanovich Stavrov cut down a house on a mountainside, in the cool dusk of a huge larch. Yes, not a house - a two-story mansion with a small side hut to boot.

There was a war. Old people, children and women remained in Pekashin. Buildings crumbled and crumbled before our eyes. But Stavrov's house is strong, solid, for all time. A strong old man was knocked down by a funeral for his son. He stayed with the old woman and grandson Yegorsha.

The trouble did not bypass the family of Anna Pryaslina: her husband Ivan, the only breadwinner, died. And Anna's guys are smaller and smaller - Mishka, Lizka, the twins Petka and Grishka, Fedyushka and Tatyanka. In the village, the woman was called Anna the Doll. She was small and thin, with a good face, but no worker. Two days have passed since we received the funeral and Mishka, the eldest, sat down in the father's empty seat at the table. Mother wiped a tear from her face and silently nodded her head.

She herself could not pull the guys out. Even so, in order to fulfill the norm, she remained on arable land until night. One day, when we were working with the wives, we saw a stranger. Arm in a sling. It turned out he was from the front. He sat, talked with the women about collective farm life, and at parting they asked him what to call him, to call him, and what village he was from. “Lukashin,” he answered, “Ivan Dmitrievich. Sent from the district committee to you for the sowing campaign.

The sowing campaign was oh so difficult. There are few people, but the district committee ordered to increase the area under crops: the front needs bread. Unexpectedly for everyone, Mishka Pryaslin turned out to be an indispensable worker. Something he didn't do when he was fourteen years old. On the collective farm, he worked for an adult man, and even for a family. His sister, twelve-year-old Lizka, also had a lot of work to do. Heat the stove, handle the cow, feed the children, clean the hut, wash the linen ...

For sowing - mowing, then harvesting ... The chairman of the collective farm, Anfisa Minina, returned to her empty hut late in the evening and, without undressing, fell on the bed. And as soon as it was light, she was already on her feet - she was milking a cow, and she herself thought with fear that the collective farm pantry was running out of bread. And yet, happy. Because I remembered how I spoke with Ivan Dmitrievich on the board.

Autumn is not far off. The guys will soon go to school, and Mishka Pryaslin will go to logging. We have to pull the family. Dunyashka Inyakhina decided to study at a technical school. She gave Misha a lace handkerchief as a farewell gift.

Reports from the front are getting more and more alarming. The Germans have already reached the Volga. And in the district committee, finally, they responded to Lukashin's persistent request - they let him go to fight. He wanted to finally explain himself to Anfisa, but it didn’t work out. The next morning, she herself purposely left for the hay station, and Varvara Inyakhina rushed to her. She swore to everyone in the world that she had nothing with Lukashin. Anfisa rushed to the translation, at the very water she jumped off her horse onto the wet sand. On the other side, the figure of Lukashin flashed and melted.

retold