I was born into a simple working-class family. At the age of seven, he lost his parents. The father was convicted "for wrecking." Mother drowned in the Yenisei River. For some time, Vitya was raised by his grandmother, Katerina Petrovna. She became his guardian angel. Grandmother noticed the boy's writing abilities, his boundless imagination and called him "liar". It was a bright and happy period in the childhood of V. Astafyev, which he described in his autobiographical story "The Last Bow".
In 1936, the father fell seriously ill, the stepmother did not take care of her stepson. The boy felt abandoned and began to wander. In 1937 he was sent to an orphanage.
In the boarding school, the teacher Ignatiy Dmitrievich Rozhdestvensky noticed literary abilities in Viktor and helped develop them. An essay about a favorite lake written by Astafiev was published in a school magazine. It formed the basis of the first story "Vasyutkino Lake".
I. Rozhdestvensky wrote about V. Astafyev's childhood and adolescence: "... he was a mischievous and reckless teenager, he loved to read books, sing, chat, invent, laugh and ski."
Parents
Father - Petr Pavlovich Astafiev
Mother - Lydia Ilyinichna Potylitsyna
Grandfather (by mother) - Ilya Evgrafovich
Grandmother (by mother) - Ekaterina Petrovna
Education
He received his initial six-year education in the city of Igarka, where he lived with his father and stepmother. Studied at a boarding school. In Krasnoyarsk he graduated from the school of factory training. He worked at the railway station as a train compiler.
V. Astafiev did not receive a literary education. But throughout his life he improved his professionalism by studying at the Moscow Higher Literary Courses. Victor Astafiev is considered a self-taught writer.
Family
Wife - Koryakina Maria Semyonovna
V. Astafiev met his future wife at the front in 1943. She was a nurse. Together they survived all the hardships of military life. They got married after the war, in 1945, and did not part for 57 years.
Children: daughters - Lydia and Irina, son - Andrey. The first daughter died in infancy. The second daughter died suddenly in 1987, leaving little grandchildren Vitya and Polya. Grandchildren were later raised by grandmother Maria and grandfather Vitya.
Activity
In 1942, V. Astafiev voluntarily went to the front. He was a simple ordinary soldier. In 1943 he was awarded the medal "For Courage". In battle under heavy artillery fire, he restored telephone communications four times.
AT post-war years ended up in Chusovoy Perm Territory. There he attended a literary circle at the newspaper Chusovskoy Rabochiy. Once, in a fit of inspiration, he wrote the short story “A Civil Man” in one night. That's how it started literary work in the newspaper.
In the late 50s, the first book of stories for children was published. Essays and stories began to be published in almanacs and magazines. In 1954, the writer's favorite story, The Shepherd and the Shepherdess, was published. This period was marked as the heyday lyrical prose in the work of V. Astafiev and the beginning of his wide fame and popularity.
In the 1960s, the Astafiev family moved to Perm, and later to Vologda. These years were especially fruitful for the writer. By 1965, the Zatesi cycle was formed - lyrical miniatures, reflections on life, which are united by one thought of the author - "to convince the reader to hear the pain of everyone." The novels are being written: "The Pass", "Starodub", "Theft", "The Last Bow".
In the 70s, the writer increasingly turns to childhood memories. Publishes the stories "A Feast after the Victory", "Crucian Death", "Without Shelter", "Burn, Burn Clearly", etc. Starts work on the story "Sighted Staff". During this period, V. Astafiev created bright works: the stories "Ode to the Russian Garden" and "Tsar-Fish".
The uniqueness of the story "Tsar-fish" shocked the critics of that time with the depth of the environmental problems posed in the work. In 1973, the magazine Our Contemporary began publishing individual stories and chapters from Tsar-Fish, but with severe restrictions on the text. Rigid censorship distorted the original intention of the author, which upset V. Astafiev. The writer put the story aside for many years. Only in 1977 "Tsar-fish" was published by the publishing house "Young Guard" in the full edition of the author.
In 1980, V. Astafiev decided to return to his native land in the city of Krasnoyarsk.
In the 80s and 90s, being in places dear to the heart, V. Astafiev created with great enthusiasm. Many new stories about childhood have been created: “Cook's Joy”, “Pestruha”, “Zaberega”, etc. Work continues on the story “The Sighted Staff”, published for the first time in 1988 and awarded the USSR State Prize in 1991.
Chapters of the story about childhood "The Last Bow" are being written, and in two books it is published by the Sovremennik publishing house. In 1989, the story, supplemented by new chapters, was published by the Young Guard publishing house in three books.
In 1985 - 1989 the plan of the novel "The Sad Detective" and such stories as "Bear's Blood", "Life to Live", "The Blind Fisherman", "Smile of the Wolf" and many others are carried out.
In 1991 - 19994 work in progress on the novel Cursed and Murdered. Showing the senseless brutality of the repressive wartime system, this novel evokes a violent emotional outburst in readers. The courage and realism of V. Astafiev surprises society, but at the same time recognizes his truthfulness. For the novel, the writer receives a well-deserved award - the State Prize of Russia in 1994.
In 1997 - 1998 there is an edition of the Collected Works of V. Astafiev in 15 volumes.
- V. Astafiev and his wife Maria Semyonovna looked at life in completely different ways. He adored country life, but she did not. He created prose from his soul, and she from a sense of self-affirmation. He liked to drink, and was not indifferent to other women, she did not understand this and was jealous. She wanted his devotion to the family, and he left her. He returned, and she forgave, because she loved faithfully.
- in 2004 on the highway "Krasnoyarsk-Abakan", near the village. Sliznevo, Krasnoyarsk Territory, on the observation deck near the Yenisei River, a sculpture of a mighty sturgeon was erected on top of a cliff. This monument is called "King-fish" in honor of the story of the same name by V. Astafiev.
- V. Astafiev invented a new literary form: "zatesi" - a kind of short stories.
- in 2009, a decision was made to posthumously award V. Astafiev the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Prize. The event took place in Moscow in the library-fund " Russian Abroad". The award amounted to 25 thousand dollars. Literary critic Pavel Basinsky said that the diploma and money would be given to the writer's widow at the Astafyev Readings on the occasion of V. Astafyev's 85th birthday. The wording of the award is interesting: "To Viktor Petrovich Astafiev, a world-class writer, a fearless soldier of literature, who sought light and goodness in the mutilated destinies of nature and man."
An unfortunate fact from the writer's life
In 2001, V. Astafiev fell seriously ill and spent a lot of time in hospitals in Krasnoyarsk. A lot of money was required for treatment abroad. The writer's friends and comrades turned to the Krasnoyarsk Regional Council of Deputies for help. In response, they received a refusal to allocate funds and unfair accusations against the writer of betrayal and distortion Russian history in his works. All this worsened the state of health of V. Astafiev. The writer died on November 29, 2001.
Famous sayings about Viktor Astafiev
“He writes only what he himself lives, what is his day and life, his love and hatred, his own heart.”(V. Kurbatov)
“You cannot find such a bright, clear understanding of national, moral norms as that of Astafiev, which never become obsolete, enter our soul, shape it, teach us to appreciate absolute values.”(V.M. Yaroshevskaya)
"Astafiev is a writer of the purest tones of truth, no matter how disturbing and even terrible it may be." (A.Kondratovich)
The reason for the fame of Viktor Astafiev
In the works of V. Astafiev, the global nature of the problems of society and humanity as a whole was clearly heard. The events of the war were reflected truthfully and realistically. The literary presentation of the writer took for the soul ordinary people and even critics.
Literature Awards
1975 - State Prize of the RSFSR named after. M. Gorky for the stories "The Pass", "Theft", "The Last Bow", "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess"
1978 - State Prize of the USSR for the story "Tsar-fish"
1991 - State Prize of the USSR for the novel "Sighted Staff"
1994 - Triumph Award
1995 - State Prize of the Russian Federation for the novel "Cursed and Killed"
1997 - Pushkin Prize of the Hamburg Alfred Toepfer Foundation for the totality of literary merits
2009 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn Prize /posthumously/
Viktor Petrovich Astafiev(05/01/1924 - 11/29/2001) - an outstanding Soviet and Russian writer. Hero of Socialist Labor, Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1978, 1991), the Triumph Prize, the State Prize of Russia (1995, 2003 (posthumously)), the Pushkin Prize of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation (Germany; 1997).
He was awarded the Order of the Red Star, medals "For Courage", "For the Liberation of Warsaw", "For the Victory over Germany".
Creativity Astafiev equally belongs to the two areas of modern literature, declared themselves in the 1960s-1970s. On the one hand, Astafiev's work marks the beginning of the so-called rural prose, which little by little revealed the true picture of collectivization and its long, consistent and ruinous results. On the other hand, the war seen through the eyes of a Russian village man. In the novel Cursed and Killed (1994), the life of the training regiment is very reminiscent of a prison one. The stories “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess” (1971) and “So I Want to Live” (1995) make clear the sharp assessment that Astafiev gave to the victory in one of the articles: “... we just flunked them (the Germans. - Approx. ed. .) with their corpses and drowned in our own blood.” Ambiguous attitude towards the Great Patriotic war manifested itself in many of his publicistic speeches.
http://chtoby-pomnili.com/page.php?id=1183- here it is very detailed and interestingly told about the life of Viktor Petrovich. I didn't find it better on the Internet.
Memorial Complex Astafiev in Ovsyanka was opened on May 1, 2004. This is a branch of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum of Local Lore.
The complex includes: a museum of the story "The Last Bow" (better known as the House of Grandmother E.P. Potylitsyna), the church of St. Innocent of Irkutsk, the library-museum of V.P. Astafiev and the house-museum of V.P. Astafiev.
Library-Museum of V.P. Astafiev.
Built in 1975 according to the project of architect A.S. Demirkhanov on the money of Viktor Petrovich.
The personal fund of the writer is stored here: manuscripts, books with autographs, photos, videos and other documents. The book fund of the library has more than 33 thousand volumes, its pride is unique collection Divnogorsk artist and bibliophile V.I. Nabokov, including rare books on art and autographs of writers of the 20th century. Since 1999 the library conducts scientific work on the study and preservation of the history of the village of Ovsyanka.
House Museum of V.P. Astafiev.
The writer's house, where he lived from 1980 to 2001, stands on narrow street Shchetinkin. Upper room, office, small garden. For a person spoiled by city life, such conditions will seem uncomfortable, but this small house once again confirms that a truly great person is modest. Viktor Petrovich lived in this house every summer (the rest of the time Viktor Petrovich and Maria Semyonovna lived in their apartment in Akadmgorodok). Here were written: "The Sad Detective" (1987), "Sighted Staff" (1988), "Cursed and Killed" (1993-1994), "So I Want to Live" (1995), numerous stories, "Merry Soldier", "Oberton ". In total, he created 373 works. This little house has seen many guests. Presidents Gorbachev, Yeltsin, writers Solzhenitsyn and Rasputin, director Mikhalkov, and many other famous people drank tea here.
In the courtyard, surrounded by cedars and apple trees planted by Viktor Petrovich, a bronze sculptural composition(authors - sculptor V. Zelenov and artist V. Girich): the writer sits with his wife and friend Maria Semyonovna on a bronze bench in front of the house. Maria Semyonovna looks at her husband enthusiastically - being in the shadow of a brilliant husband, she wrote her books. The master himself is smiling, open, wide, accessible and simple, thoughtful from the outside - the way his friends knew him.
Near the sculpture there is a wide cedar, which the writer planted and looked after with all his heart. Viktor Petrovich passed away in the last days of November, and the next spring the cedar planted by his hands fell ill. No matter how hard the caretakers of the house tried, they could not save the yearning tree until a small bronze monument to Viktor Petrovich and Maria Semyonovna appeared next to it. And the cedar came to life, turned green again, began to bear fruit.
In Astafiev's house, the writer's study and upper room were carefully recreated. The original furnishings and personal belongings of the writer are preserved here.
Guest house (only one small room, but very bright and cozy):
By the 90th anniversary of Astafyev’s birth, in the spring of 2014, another reconstruction was completed in the memorial complex: two additional buildings were opened, which housed an exhibition and auditorium with a platform for performances, a play area and a recreation area with gazebos (this is where the festival that I visited was held)
Grandmother E.P.Potylitsyna's house
The writer was not yet seven years old when his grandmother took up his upbringing - the “general”, as they called her in the village, Ekaterina Petrovna Potylitsyna. Astafiev's brightest book, The Last Bow, is dedicated to childhood memories. Grandmother taught Vitya to work: they cultivated a huge breadwinner garden, which Viktor Petrovich immortalized in “Ode to the Russian Garden”. As Viktor Petrovich described this garden, they take care of it: two or three ridges for onions, the closest ridge for children to treat - carrots, a tomato patch in the sunniest place, and a cucumber patch for some reason closer to the gate.
When the idea was born to make the grandmother's house a museum, it turned out that it could not be restored. It was decided to demolish it and rebuild a typical estate of the 1920s-1930s. The estate was restored to the smallest detail according to the recollections of eyewitnesses and the writings of the writer. Baba Katya's house stood for 200 years, the wood was rotten to the core. The builders put up an exact copy of the old house according to ancient technologies: as expected, the first four crowns were cut down from Siberian larch, the rest from pine.
Although there are practically no authentic items belonging to the Potylitsyn family, the furnishings of the house were restored based on the story “The Last Bow” by Viktor Astafyev. There are exactly 28 steps on the stairs leading to the basement - somehow Vitya got tired of picking potatoes here and counted the steps out of melancholy.
Grandma's house: (in the photographs - on the street and in the barn - tables are laid for the participants of the festival)
And going up to the bedroom, I already shuddered: the atmosphere in the room seemed so familiar and close. Exactly the same typewriter "Singer" was my grandmother. And the valances, pillowcases, patchwork quilts, embroideries and self-woven paths seem to have returned from my childhood (all this was in the house of my grandparents)
There is a winter hut in the yard, flocks for cattle, sheds and a large shed. To the left of the gate is a cellar:
Numerous tools and household items of peasants of the last century are collected under a canopy. Most of these things are still used in the villages:
For the first time (!) I saw a village sleigh
and the cart has not seen so many times in my life
The museum complex is headed by Viktor Petrovich's cousin, Galina Nikolaevna Krasnobrovkina (née Potylitsyna). I had the opportunity to meet and talk with this amazing woman, the true keeper of Astafiev's legacy.
It is generally accepted that the work of Viktor Astafiev is autobiographical. There is certainly a reason for this. Any work, in essence, is unthinkable outside the circumstances and events of the life of its author, even if it is devoted to a historical theme. But it would be more than strange to consider the image of Bagrov's grandson or Vitya Potylitsyn as an exact copy of one character - the writer himself who created them. And the stories where these characters act differ from one another, and the characters themselves, embodying not the same author's goals, are different and if they are similar in anything, then only in their lyricism.
The heroes of Astafiev are overwhelmingly his contemporaries. Their spiritual growth, their experiences and upheavals, of course, corresponded to the life experience of their creator, but they never limited themselves to this experience, did not exhaust it, since these heroes entered the literature at different stages of our history and in different periods writer's life
The manners of Russian literature are to write the characters and circumstances of life, and not to grind shocking, “postmodernist” plots out of nothing, out of many times reflected light, in literary salons.
The appeal to the work of V.P. Astafiev is due to the originality of the personality of the writer himself, as well as the increased interest in recent times in his works, which teach us wisdom, mutual understanding and forgiveness.
Chapter 1
In the narratives of Russian writers about childhood, the book by V.P. Astafiev "The Last Bow" occupies a worthy place. Organically absorbing the achievements of Russian prose from Aksakov to Shmelev, it is at the same time a special, unique poetic world. In The Last Bow, Tolstoy's dialectic of the soul, and the "purity of moral feeling", and Gorky's "cruel" realism, and Bunin's subtle lyricism, and Shmelev's spirituality of objects and details of everyday life are perceptible. But the plot-compositional structure of the book, the breadth and depth of coverage of vital material testify to the original artistic phenomenon.
In returning to childhood, in touching the child's soul, sympathetic, trusting and open to the world, who perceives it as something unusual, fabulous, sees Astafyev the best and, perhaps, the only opportunity to become human.
The most charming, most significant, convincing and endearing image that runs through the entire story "The Last Bow" is, of course, the image of grandmother Ekaterina Petrovna. It is extremely multifaceted in the outline of V. Astafiev, voluminous and plastic.
Ekaterina Petrovna, as her grandson once discovered, "is a very respected person in the village." Noisy, squabbling, in her own way a unique village social activist, Ekaterina Petrovna, tough when necessary, stern and decisive, but invariably full of kindness and inexhaustible optimism
In the story "The Horse with a Pink Mane", having dishonored his grandmother by deceit (the case with strawberries), Vitka is waiting for a fair punishment. And indeed, Ekaterina Petrovna, justifying the nickname "general", desperately scolds Vitka. The shamed and offended grandson feels remorse.
But what a striking surprise was for him a wonderful fabulous picture: "A white horse with a pink mane rode on pink hooves on a scraped kitchen table, as if on a vast land, with arable land, meadows, and roads."
The gingerbread with a dream promised by my grandmother for strawberries, about which Vitka, for obvious reasons, has already said goodbye. If we translate the behavior of the grandmother (the gingerbread still gives) into the language of "unofficial pedagogy", as A. Lanshchikov does, then the grandmother punishes her grandson with kindness. Indeed, Vitka is learning a lesson in "high ethics." And it’s not just about understanding that you can’t deceive and betray loved ones, but about realizing the need to forgive. And grandmother forgives Vitya both out of her natural kindness and pity, and out of the ability of a sensitive and subtle understanding of the orphan soul of a child. Because something: “How many years passed! How many events have passed. My grandfather is no longer alive, my grandmother is not, and my life is declining, but I still can’t forget my grandmother’s gingerbread - that marvelous horse with a pink mane ”
In order to better know the awareness of students of our school on the issue of associations associated with the word "grandmother", we conducted a survey. As a result, a generalized portrait was created. So, grandmother - kindness, care, old age, accuracy, wisdom, knowledge of medicinal herbs, wrinkles, in a scarf, pies, affectionate, fair, with glasses, prayer, gray hair, good wrinkled, overworked hands, fairy tales, lullaby, mittens, felt boots, woolen socks.
Let's correlate the associations with the specific image of the heroine (external portrait, internal qualities, author's attitude).
Grandmother Astafieva Ekaterina Petrovna combines many of these qualities, appears in the stories “Grandmother’s Holiday”, “The Photograph Where I’m Not In”, “The Horse with a Pink Mane” as the keeper of folk wisdom. Let's remember how she treated the boy, how she soared him in the bath (association "care"). Grandmother knew many remedies for various diseases (association "wisdom"). “At home, my grandmother gave me a spoonful of nasty vodka infused with a wrestler to warm up the inside, and soaked lingonberries”
Note that the grandmother, returning from the city, nevertheless gave the boy the treasured horse with a pink mane (the association "wisdom"). Let's remember how she accommodated guests (association "care"), grandmother with great diligence "knitted rolls, cut nuts" (association "pies").
Everything is dear to Viktor Petrovich in his grandmother, which is why he “builds up” her image so diligently, so carefully, bit by bit.
V. Astafiev can suddenly concentrate all the simple and majestic beauty in one small episode " big heart» Ekaterina Petrovna - in an episode that organically echoes the chapter - an introduction, where it is openly said about the purpose of art and the sanctity of a great feeling for the motherland. Here - in the chapter "Grandma's Holiday" - about the same, but passed through the grandmother's soul:
“The song about the river is drawn out, majestic. Grandmother brings her out more and more confidently, makes it more convenient for picking up. And in the song, she makes sure that the children feel good, that everything fits them, and that the song would wake up an indelible memory of their home, of the nest from which they flew out, but which is not and will not be better.
The writer's skill in revealing the hidden springs of the actions and deeds of the numerous heroes of the story is revealed in all the internal completed episodes of it, but perhaps most fully, where we are talking about the songs that were performed at the holiday.
The songs perceived by the boy are so physically tangible that they cannot but be transmitted to us, and his poetic mode itself speaks both of the boy’s emotionality and the true place of song art in the peasant environment:
“For some reason, my back immediately began to warp, and a cold ran through my whole body with a scattering of thorns from the enthusiasm that arose around me. The closer the grandmother brought the singing to the general voice, the more intense her voice became and the paler her face, the thicker the needles pierced into me, it seemed that the blood thickened and stopped in the veins.
We also noticed one feature: the author very nicely describes grandmother's flower pots. Ekaterina Petrovna loves beauty, flowers bring her joy: “The flowers sprinkled the windows, the bulb folded dark gramophones, dropped dry petals on the window, waited in the wings to please people.”
Here is the opinion of V. Kurbatov in relation to the image of Ekaterina Petrovna: “The main character of“ Bow ”is Vitka’s grandmother Ekaterina
Petrovna, for this very reason, will become our common Russian grandmother, who will gather in herself, in a rare living fullness, everything that still remains in her native land of a strong, hereditary, primordially native, that we recognize ourselves with some kind of extra-verbal instinct as our own, as if we all luminous and given in advance and forever. He will not embellish anything in it, leaving both a thunderstorm of character, and grouchiness, and an indispensable desire to be the first to point everything out and dispose of everything in the village (one word - General). And she fights, she suffers for her grandchildren,
10 breaks into anger and tears, and begins to talk about life, and now, it turns out, there are no hardships for my grandmother in it ”
Behind the ethical sketches, so ingenuously charming, a deep philosophy emerges. The world of things (wonderful gingerbread or new trousers made of "leotards"), as well as poetic pictures of nature, are not valuable in themselves for the author. They act as some kind of mediators of warm human communication, spiritual contact of people, introducing the child to true values being. And, being spiritualized in this process, the thing already acquires a certain moral meaning, being stored in memory for a long time.
Chapter 2
The homeland is dear to the heart not for its local beauties, not for the clear sky, not for the pleasant climate, but for the captivating memories that surround, so to speak, the morning and the cradle of mankind.
N. Karamzin
It is known that sometimes works of art provide more material, factors for reflection, for understanding. historical period than other scientific studies. The Last Bow is one of those books. This is a kind of encyclopedia of the Siberian village of the thirties of this century. Almost the entire range of problems that the Siberian peasant had to face in those years is covered.
There is a bright face in our soul, which always attracts, always infinitely dear. For the writer, this light was the grandmother. He considers her his main teacher. The image of Ekaterina Petrovna runs through the entire book, is its core. Everything in this woman is touching: a rare diligence, meek disposition, boundless kindness, high justice, tears of tenderness and hope for a reward in the next world, for earthly torment. And most importantly - indestructible active love for the orphan - the grandson. Almost everything in the book is native Ovsyanka, her people, the land of the writer's fathers and grandfathers. Much of what he saw and heard from fellow countrymen he visibly, recognizably transferred to The Last Bow.
Perhaps it would not be worth dwelling in such detail on the meaning of folk sayings, if they were not so organically connected with the general image of the grandmother in the stories of V.P. Astafyev.
Ethical completeness, the fullness of the stories "rests" on the beauty of the grandmother's character - this is indisputable, but also on the charm of the narrator himself, who is present everywhere, participates in events or experiences them acutely. Conquers the memory of the narrator and vigilance to details.
Ten years after the appearance of the story "Grandma's Holiday", the author returned to it in print - no, he did not rewrite it, but edited it, thereby achieving great expressiveness. Nothing essentially changed, but something was removed or added, and the picture became different in lighting, in tempo, in fusion with everything else that was previously found.
The heroes of the story more often than before spoke with sayings, proverbs, sayings, aphorisms, or adorned their speech with bizarre verbal figures.
The demanding artist returned to the ten-year-old text not in vain: an edit that was inconspicuous at first glance enriched the story, made it more perfect in form and deeper.
Grandmother's speech is expressive in all stories. For example, sayings “he looks at the forest - the forest will wither”, “the navel is a knot, the legs are round, the spirit of bread - there will be a plowman, a plowman!”, “Husband and wife are one Satan” (“Grandmother's holiday”). Distorted common, dialect words, peculiar folk phrases, signs, sayings: “rematism” (rheumatism), “pretty” (better), “tutoka” (here, here), “andels”
(angels), “do not be studi” (do not catch a cold), “be quiet” (be quiet), “robyonok” (child), “baushka” (grandmother); “the ek hooked it with a hook”, “moss sucks dampness”, “coal does not freeze the glass” (“A photograph in which I am not present”); “eroplan” (airplane), “want” (if you want), “headquarters” (to), “cultural” (cultural), “now” (now) (“Horse with a pink mane”).
Having traveled to the Astafiev Spring Festival - 2008, 2009, 2010, we interviewed the employees of the library - museum of V.P. Astafiev in Ovsyanka, the inhabitants of the village itself about the role of folk sayings as artistic and expressive means that make up the image of a grandmother in the stories "Grandma's Holiday" , "A photograph in which I am not", "A horse with a pink mane." All of them are unanimous in their opinion that the image of the grandmother is the leading image in the stories "Grandmother's holiday", "The photograph in which I am not", "The horse with a pink mane". After visiting the house-museum of Ekaterina Petrovna's grandmother and talking with cousin writer Krasnobrovkina G. N., we seemed to feel the presence of the hostess of the house with her orders, covenants, so we wanted to see our grandmothers with their jokes, teachings, which we sometimes take offense at for no reason. It’s a pity that my grandmother is no longer there, but when reading the stories of V.P. Astafiev, I imagine her eyes, giggles in the corners of her mouth when reading fairy tales to me before going to bed.
Conclusion
Having studied the material on the work of V.P. Astafiev, it should be noted that:
In the writer's works "Grandma's Holiday", "The Photograph Where I'm Not", "The Horse with a Pink Mane", the image of the grandmother is one of the leading images;
The peculiar language of the grandmother, filled with sayings, proverbs, sayings, aphorisms or whimsical verbal figures that have adorned speech, reveals to us, readers, the beauty and peculiar language of Siberia.
Viktor Petrovich Astafiev represented his grandmother in his works as one of the main characters in his stories. It seems that the memory itself, which spoiled him so, so tenacious and capacious, woke up precisely after the death of his mother, when he was already called in Ovsyanka “Vitka Katerinin”.
The image of the grandmother, which passed through the prose of V.P. Astafiev, does not leave anyone indifferent, and in the minds of the readers, a cute image of the grandmother of their childhood arises. Thus, the writer's stories have a practical orientation, awakening in the heart of every reader a feeling of deep respect and admiration for the most important woman - the grandmother, who is able to forgive any sins, reproach for disobedience and immediately caress and warm with an affectionate word.
The text of the work is placed without images and formulas.
Full version work is available in the "Files of work" tab in PDF format
Each of us in life has a person who cares about us the most, worries, tries to please, feed with various goodies, and also gives wise advice. This person is a grandmother. And, probably, no one will deny that there are grandmothers in every family, and that they occupy a very important place in it. It is grandmothers, thanks to their wisdom, love, tenderness and understanding, that are often the secret of family well-being.
The role of the grandmother is very great, since it is the grandmother who is able to educate
spiritually developed person to convey to him his life experience and his wisdom. Personally, I believe that a grandmother is the spiritual foundation of a modern family.
But how often teenagers underestimate grandmothers, they think that their views are outdated and do not correspond to the modern rhythm of life. In the 21st century, a grandmother is no longer an example for young people. Modern young people have completely different authorities, other heroes, often negative ones.
Relevance of the chosen topic
The problem of relationships and spiritual values in youth environment, the decline in the role of the family (and in particular the role of the grandmother) in the upbringing of children is a common problem for all Russian society. And so my research is quite relevant today.
I put the following in front of me goal :
determine what is the role of the grandmother in the development and formation of personality, following this on an example works of art and conversations with classmates.
In order to achieve this goal, you need to solve the following tasks:
Conduct a survey to identify the role of a grandmother in a person's life.
Study the biography of writers and poets and find out what is the role of grandmother in their life.
Study and analyze works of art
literature dedicated to the grandmother.
Explain that the role of a grandmother in a person's life is very great.
Object of study :
the process of influence of grandmothers on the formation of the child's personality.
Subject of study:
biography famous writers, works about grandmothers, interviews with classmates.
Research hypothesis :
to prove that the role of the grandmother in shaping the personality of the younger generation is very great.
Research stages
Selection of scientific and fiction literature, its study and analysis.
The study of Internet sites on the topic.
Conducting a survey, processing the results.
Project writing.
1.3.Methods and methods of work
To achieve this goal, we used the following methods:
method of collecting information (study of popular science and fiction, observation);
method of statistical analysis and diagnostics of the obtained data (calculations, diagrams);
descriptive method;
comparative method;
questioning.
The results of the study can be used in literature lessons when studying the relevant topic, in class hours.
2. Main body
2.1. The concept of "grandmother"
I began my research by deciding to find out where the word “grandmother” came from? I looked into several explanatory dictionaries ("New dictionary. Explanatory and derivational "T.N. Efremova, "Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language" S.I. Ozhegova, "The Big Explanatory Dictionary of the Modern Russian Language" by D.N. Ushakova) and this is what I found out:
In all dictionaries, this word means "old woman" or "mother of a father or mother in relation to their child."
It is interesting what can be said about the origin of this word in Russian. The etymological dictionary is silent about this. Some are of the opinion that when Small child begins to speak, it is easiest for him to pronounce: “ma-ma”, “ba-ba”, “de-da”. Such an explanation cannot shed light on the etymology of the word. The question remains open. It turns out that in different countries the word "grandmother" is not only pronounced differently, but also occupies a different social position in relation to grandchildren.
For example, american grandmothers do not live under the same roof with their grandchildren, they have their own lives. They come to visit, give gifts. In France no one considers grandmothers grandmothers, they are very active, they like to dress smartly, arrange meetings and evenings with friends. AT Spain grandmothers do not sit with children at all. Never! woman everything free time gives to himself. Therefore, private nannies are mainly engaged with little Spaniards. And only in Russia it is hard to imagine a Russian family without a grandmother. The Russian grandmother takes an active part in the life of her children and grandchildren. She takes part in all family activities, from breakfast to checking homework.
Yes, the word "grandmother" is in all languages, but only in Russian it is filled with special meaning. The most attentive Russian grandmothers: they teach us, bake delicious pies, they are the most beloved and kind educators for kids. And it doesn’t matter if this grandmother is modern or not. After all, grandmothers are a feeling happy childhood!
2.2. The image of a grandmother in fairy tales
The image of a grandmother, her role in the upbringing of children has long been given great attention, because it is not for nothing that the people made them the heroines of many literary works. From early childhood, we hear, and then we ourselves read, Russian folk tales: "Kolobok", "Snow Maiden", "Turnip", "Masha and the Bear", "Grandmother, granddaughter and chicken", "Grandma and the Bear" and many others, in which one of the characters is a grandmother. But not only in our country, fairy tales about grandmothers were folded. They were also mentioned by foreign writers-storytellers: “Little Red Riding Hood” by C. Perrault, “Madame Snowstorm” by the Brothers Grimm, “ The Snow Queen”and“ Grandmother ”G.H. Andersen. In each fairy tale, the grandmother is different: sometimes she is old, wearing glasses and slippers, reading fairy tales to her grandchildren in the evenings; then it is ugly, at first glance, strict, elderly woman; sometimes doing something around the house, but all these grandmothers have one thing in common - boundless love for their grandchildren, wisdom, constant concern for someone.
Rereading these fairy tales several times, we fall more and more in love with their characters - grandmothers. And every time we feel some incomprehensible warmth emanating from them.
2.3 The image of a grandmother in works of art
When studying the image of a grandmother, I did not stop only at the study of fairy tales. Having got acquainted at literature lessons with V. Astafyev’s story “The Horse with a Pink Mane”, in which one of the main characters was also a grandmother, I assumed that many writers turned to this image. Intrigued, I read two more stories by V. Astafyev: “Grandmother’s holiday” and “A photograph in which I am not”.
These stories are autobiographical. Astafiev's image of a grandmother is the personification of childhood. You can admire her, you can learn a lot from her. Her strictness, irascibility, constant grumbling sometimes frighten her grandson (and not only her grandson), even make her hide and not catch her eye: “grandmother found us with Sanka on the hillside in the dark, she whipped both of us with a rod”, “having found me in the dark, first of all gave a crack.” However, despite this, in all her actions there is an immense concern for relatives and friends (especially for her grandson): the grandmother treated the boy, rubbed his legs thoroughly with ammonia for a long time, dry, then wrapped them in an old downy shawl, as if she had covered them with warm dough, yes she put on a short fur coat on top and wiped the tears from her grandson's face with a fizzy palm from alcohol; in the morning, the grandmother took the boy to the bathhouse - he himself could no longer walk, rubbed his legs with a steamed birch broom for a long time, warmed them over the steam from red-hot stones, hovered through the rag of all of him, dipping the broom in bread kvass, and in conclusion, again rubbed with ammonia.
Astafyev’s grandmother is associated with wisdom: having returned from the city, she nevertheless gave her grandson the treasured horse with a pink mane, so that the child would remember this story with deceit properly, and of course, after that the boy is unlikely to deceive not only his grandmother, but also someone else.
In all his stories, she has so much knowledge that she unobtrusively passes on to her grandchildren: “at home, my grandmother gave me a spoonful of nasty vodka infused with a wrestler to warm up the inside, and soaked lingonberries, after all this she gave me milk boiled with poppy heads”; “In the room between the frames, the grandmother put cotton wool with a roller and threw three or four rowan rosettes with leaves on top of the white - and that’s all. In the middle and in the kuti, the grandmother put moss between the frames interspersed with lingonberries. On the moss there are several birch coals, between the coals a heap of mountain ash - and already without leaves. Grandmother explained this quirk like this: - Moss sucks dampness. The ember does not freeze the glass, and the mountain ash from intoxication. There is a stove here, with kuti chid.
The image of a grandmother is the image of a wonderful housewife: her room is always clean, and the linen is washed, and the meal is cooked, “grandmother with great diligence“ knitted rolls, cut nuts ””, and for the arrival of her relatives for the holiday she began to prepare for half a year : she collected eggs, fattened a bull or heifer for meat, churned butter. She herself went to the other side of the river to the city - to sell berries and buy food with the proceeds. I didn’t “spend” money anywhere, I didn’t lend a lot so that they could pay it back.
And if guests were going to the house, then the grandmother was the best songstress, “... and in the song she makes sure that the children are well ... and the song would wake up an indelible memory of their home, of the nest from which they flew out, but better which is not and will not be
The image of the grandmother is complemented by peculiar folk sayings. Her speech is expressive in all stories. For example, sayings “he looks at the forest - the forest will wither”, “the navel is a knot, the legs are round”, “husband and wife are one Satan”. Distorted common, dialect words, folk phrases enrich the image of a grandmother: “rhematism” (rheumatism), “pretty” (better), “tutoka” (here, here), “andels” (angels), “don’t get cold” (don’t catch a cold) , “robenok” (child), “baushka” (grandmother), ek hooked him with a hook”, “eroplane” (airplane), “want” (if you want), “headquarters” (to), “now” (now).
This grandmother, the main character of the stories of V. Astafiev, became our common Russian grandmother, who gathered in herself, in a rare living fullness, everything that still remains in her native land of a strong, hereditary, primordially native, that we ourselves with some kind of extra-verbal instinct we recognize as our own, as if it shone to all of us and was given in advance and forever.
2.4. The role of grandmothers in the education of famous writers
Grandmother is an important person in everyone's life. This becomes especially relevant when the grandmother has to replace some important person in the life of the child. Let us recall Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, the grandmother of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov.
Elizaveta Stolypina was born into a rich and well-known noble family in Russia. She was the eldest daughter of Alexei Emelyanovich Stolypin, a wealthy and economic man. Elizabeth, who inherited all the best features from her parents, grew up as a reasonable and businesslike woman, with an uncompromising and firm character. female role- mothers and wives. Having lost her daughter early, her little grandson remained in her arms - Misha, the future poet Mikhail Lermontov. Elizaveta Alekseevna gave everything to raising her grandson: she took Misha, who was in poor health, to resorts, hired the best teachers for him, did not refuse him anything and saved up for his later life, and in his adult life more than once, using her influential position, she saved him from arrest and hard labor. And having learned in 1841 about the death of Mikhail, he finally weakens in health, ceases to see the meaning and purpose of his future life, and in 1845 he dies.
Fig.2 E.A. Arseniev
Fig.1 M.Yu. Lermontov
Victor Petrovich Astafiev, who was left without a mother (drowned) and father (arrested), also remains in the care of his grandmother Ekaterina Petrovna Potylitsyna. As the author later said, the years spent with his grandmother were the best in his life. And he owes many of his moral qualities to his grandmother, who brought up in him love, respect, patience,
Fig..3 V.P. Astafiev
kindness, honesty, responsiveness, which taught him to keep traditions, honor elders, experience the joy of working for the benefit of himself and people. It is to the grandmother that the grateful grandson-writer dedicates a cycle of his stories. "Grandmother! Grandmother! Guilty before you, I am trying to resurrect you in memory, to tell people about you.
Fig.4. E.P.Potylitsyna
Another famous writer Maxim Gorky (Alyosha Peshkov) in his biographical story tells about his grandmother. If Gorky owes his genius to one of his ancestors, it is only to his grandmother Akulina Ivanovna Kashirina. Living for a long time in body and soul in the closest
Fig.5 M. Gorky
touch with grandmother Akulina, Gorky sucked into himself the juices of her people's genius, which formed the basis of his brilliant work.
Fig.6 A.I. Kashirina
In the life of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin there were two grandmothers who were involved in his upbringing. Maternal grandmother - Maria Alekseevna Gannibal. She surrounded her beloved grandson with maternal attention and was his first mentor in Russian (French was the spoken language at home). Pushkin listened to her stories about Peter the Great's black man, her grandfather, Rzhevsky, to
Fig.7 A.S. Pushkin
to which Tsar Peter traveled, about recent antiquity ... ". For A.S. Pushkin, she was the closest person. From her future great poet I heard family legends, which later found reflection in his work: the unfinished novel "Arap of Peter the Great", "Plans for a story about an archer", in the poem "Yezersky", in "My Genealogy".
Fig.8 M.A. Hannibal
grandmother - Yakovleva Arina Rodionovna - nanny A.S. Pushkin. It was from her that Pushkin first heard about the hut on chicken legs, and the tale of dead princess and seven heroes, and it was to her that he dedicated his poems.
"Literary" grandmothers had a great influence on the upbringing of their grandchildren, and, I think, played a role in their development as decent, kind people. And we, the readers, together with the main characters, admire the grandmothers, learn from them wisdom, patience, love.
Fig. 9 A. R. Yakovleva
Conducting a survey
sociological research
Exploring this topic, I decided to find out the opinion of classmates about the role of grandmothers in education. I asked them the following questions:
How often do you see your grandmother?
What do you like to do with your grandmother in your free time?
What did your grandmother teach you?
What should be a grandmother?
What is your grandmother: kind or strict?
What stories about grandmothers have you read?
In the lives of which famous writers and poets did their grandmothers play a huge role? Name writers and grandmothers.
Survey results
It turned out very interesting information for me. Analysis of the results of the survey conducted in our class showed that
that almost 50% of children see their grandmothers on weekends, 20% see her only on holidays, because their grandmothers live far away from them. And 30% see their grandmother every day.
In addition, the following questions were answered:
2. What do you like to do with your grandmother in your free time? It turns out that you can do whatever you want with your grandmother! Drink tea, chat, walk, play, visit, read, go shopping. And you can also embroider, knit, and study the planets! And much more 3. What did your grandmother teach you? There were many different and interesting answers to this question. Grandmother taught someone to read, someone to do homework, someone to sing, sew. And someone digs potatoes in the garden and picks berries with his grandmother. And it's great! 4. What should be a grandmother? Only the warmest words were said to this, such as: wise, beautiful, kind and affectionate, cheerful, mysterious, modern and unpredictable.
5. What is your grandmother: kind or strict?
To this question, almost everyone answered that they had the most kind grandmother in the world!
What stories about grandmothers have you read?
80% of students answered this question - V. Astafiev "A horse with a pink mane"
50% remembered K. Paustovsky's fairy tale "Warm Bread" and the same number of students named Andersen's fairy tale "The Snow Queen"
40% named Ch. Perrault's fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood"
And almost all students named Russian - folk tales, such as "Turnip", "Snow Maiden" and others.
In the lives of which famous writers and poets did their grandmothers play a huge role? Name writers and grandmothers.
It turned out that all the students in our class remember the nanny A.S. Pushkin, who tells him bedtime stories and takes care of his upbringing, but only 60% remember that her name was Arina Rodionovna.
70% remembered grandmother M.Yu. Lermontov, but only 40% could say her name
50% named V.P. Astafiev, who wrote biographical stories about his grandmother; only 10% could remember her name.
During sociological research I found out that for every student in our class, the grandmother is one of the most beloved family members, she plays a huge role in the life of her grandchildren: she takes care of them, educates them, teaches them a lot. Our grandmothers are the most beautiful, wise, generous, affectionate, and we are very interested in them. Sixth-graders know famous writers and poets, grandmothers played a big role in their development. They read and know works about grandmothers, realistically evaluate their actions and, together with the characters, draw important conclusions for themselves.
Conclusion
In the course of my research, I found out that the word "grandmother" is in all languages, but only in Russian it is filled with a special meaning. Only Russian grandmothers are the most attentive, kind and wise.
I learned that the formation of many famous writers and poets as creative personalities was greatly influenced by their grandmothers; that it is to them that they dedicate some of their stories, fairy tales, poems, by reading which we also have the opportunity to receive some moral lessons.
I firmly established myself in the assumption that the role of the grandmother in shaping the personality of the younger generation is very great. Grandmothers take care of us while our parents are at work, take care of us during illnesses, sit with us when our parents go to visit in the evenings, thereby to some extent facilitating their work for parents, helping them relieve stress and overload. Grandmothers expand the social horizons of the child, who, thanks to them, goes beyond the tight family framework and gains direct experience of communicating with older people. Many teenagers think that a grandmother is an elderly person who does not understand anything, but in fact, a grandmother always understands all the tastes of her baby , whom she knows from the cradle. Grandmother always knows how to help and what is the right advice to give to her grandson, because in her long and perhaps mysterious life for some, she has seen a lot.
And therefore, we, children, and adults as well, must take care of our grandmothers, because this is a piece of our soul ... our present and past. After all, grandmothers are a feeling of a happy childhood! Grandma's love gives self-confidence for life!
Used literature and Internet sources
Astafiev V.P. "Grandma's Holiday"
Astafiev V.P. "Horse with pink mane"
Astafiev V.P. "A Photo Without Me"
Efremova T.N. “New explanatory dictionary. Explanatory and derivational "
Ozhegov S.I. "Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language"
Savkina I. "We will never have these grandmothers"? Literary today // Questions of Literature, 2011. - No. 2
Ushakov D.N. "Big Explanatory Dictionary of the Modern Russian Language"
Tsyavlovsky M.A. Chronicle of the life and work of A.S. Pushkin. 1799-1826. L. 1991.
http://shkolazhizni.ru/family/articles/44089/
https://yandex.ru/images/search?text
Appendix 1.
Photo 1. Grave of Kashirina A.I.
Many of us remember the works of Viktor Petrovich Astafiev school curriculum. These are stories about the war, and stories about the hard life in the village of a Russian peasant, and reflections on the events taking place before and after the war in the country. Viktor Petrovich Astafiev was truly a national writer! His biography is a vivid example of the suffering and miserable existence of an ordinary person in the era of Stalinism. In his works, the Russian people appear not in the form of an omnipotent national hero who can handle any hardships and losses, as it was customary to portray at that time. The author showed how heavy the burden of war and the totalitarian regime that dominated the country at that time was for a simple Russian peasant.
Viktor Astafiev: biography
The author was born on May 1, 1924 in the village of Ovsyanka, Soviet District. The childhood of the writer also passed here. The boy's father, Pyotr Pavlovich Astafyev, and his mother, Lidia Ilyinichna Potylitsyna, were peasants and had a strong economy. But during collectivization, the family was dispossessed. The two eldest daughters of Pyotr Pavlovich and Lidia Ilyinichna died in infancy. Victor was left without parents early.
His father was imprisoned for "wrecking". And the mother drowned in the Yenisei when the boy was 7 years old. It was an accident. The boat, on which Lidia Ilyinichna, among others, crossed the river to meet her husband in prison, capsized. Falling into the water, the woman caught her scythe on the bona and drowned. After the death of his parents, the boy was brought up in the family of his grandparents. The craving for writing in the child arose early. Later, becoming a writer, Astafiev recalled how his grandmother Katerina called him a "liar" for his indefatigable imagination. The life of the old people seemed like a fairy tale to the boy. She became the only bright memory of his childhood. After the incident at the school, Viktor was sent to a boarding school in the village of Igarka. He had a hard time there. The boy was often homeless. Boarding school teacher Ignaty Rozhdestvensky noticed in the pupil a craving for reading. He tried to develop it. The boy's essay about his favorite lake will later be called his immortal work "Vasyutkino Lake" when he becomes after the end of the sixth grade high school Victor enters the FZO railway school. He finished it in 1942.
Adulthood
After that, the young man worked for some time at a station near the city of Krasnoyarsk. The war made its own adjustments to his life. In the autumn of the same year, 1942, he volunteered for the front. Here he was both an artillery reconnaissance officer, and a driver, and a signalman. Victor Astafiev participated in the battles for Poland, Ukraine, fought in the battle. During the fighting, he was seriously wounded and shell-shocked. His military exploits were marked with medals "For Courage", "For the Liberation of Poland", "For the Victory over Germany" and after demobilization in 1945, Viktor Petrovich Astafyev settled in the city of Chusovoy in the Urals. His biography here does new round. A different, peaceful life begins. Here he also brings his wife, who later became famous as a writer - M. S. Koryakina. They were completely different people. There were always women around Victor. He was very interesting person. He is known to have two illegitimate daughters. His wife Maria was jealous of him. She dreamed that her husband was faithful to the family. Here, in Chusovoy, Victor takes on any job to feed the children. In marriage, he had three of them. Maria and Victor lost the eldest girl. She was only a few months old when she died in the hospital from severe dyspepsia. It happened in 1947. And in 1948, the Astafyevs had a second daughter, who was named Ira. After 2 years, the son Andrei appeared in the family.
The children of Viktor Petrovich Astafiev grew up in difficult conditions. Due to the state of health, undermined in the war, the future writer was not able to return to his specialty, received in the FZO. In Chusovoy, he managed to work as a locksmith, and a loader, and a foundry worker at a local factory, and a carcass washer at a sausage factory, and a carpenter in a wagon depot.
The beginning of the creative path
The writing business still attracts the future master of the word. Here, in Chusovoy, he attends a literary circle. This is how Viktor Petrovich Astafiev himself recalls this. His biography is little known, so any little things related to his life or work are important for his readers. “I developed a passion for writing early. I remember very well how at the time when I was attending a literary circle, one of the students read his just written story. The work struck me with its far-fetchedness, unnaturalness. I took and wrote the story. This was my first creation. In it, I talked about my front-line friend, ”the author said about his debut. The title of this first work is "Civil Man". In 1951, it was published in the newspaper Chusovoy Rabochiy. The story was a success. For the next four years, the writer is a literary collaborator of this publication. In 1953, his first collection of short stories entitled "Until Next Spring" was published in the city of Perm. And in 1958, Astafiev wrote the novel Snow Melt, in which he highlighted the problems of rural collective farm life. Soon the second collection of short stories called "Lights" was released by Viktor Astafiev. "Stories for children" - this is how he described his creation.
The story "Starodub". A turning point in the writer's work
Viktor Astafiev is considered self-taught. He did not receive education as such, but he always tried to improve his professionalism. To this end, the writer studied at the Higher Literary Courses in Moscow in 1959-1961. Viktor Petrovich Astafiev periodically publishes his works in Ural magazines, whose biography is presented here.
In them, he raises the acute problems of the formation of the human personality, growing up in the difficult conditions of the 30s and 40s. These are such stories as "Theft", "The Last Bow", "Somewhere War Thunders" and others. It is worth noting that many of them are autobiographical in nature. Here are scenes of orphanage life, presented in all its cruelty, and the dispossession of peasants, and much more. The turning point in Astafiev's work was his story "Starodub", written in 1959. The action in it takes place in an old Siberian settlement. The ideas and traditions of the Old Believers did not arouse sympathy in Victor. Taiga laws, "natural faith", according to the author, do not at all save a person from loneliness and solving pressing problems. The culmination of the work is the death of the protagonist. In the hands of the deceased, instead of a candle, there is an old oak flower.
Astafiev about in the story "The Soldier and the Mother"
When the author's series of works about "Russian national character"? According to most literary critics, from Astafiev's story "The Soldier and the Mother". At main character creation has no name. She personifies all Russian women, through whose hearts the "heavy iron wheel of war" passed. Here the writer creates such human types that amaze with their reality, authenticity, “truth of character”.
It is also surprising how the master boldly exposes the painful problems of social development in his creations. The main source from which Viktor Petrovich Astafyev draws inspiration is a biography. A short version of it is unlikely to awaken a reciprocal feeling in the heart of the reader. Therefore, the difficult life of the writer is considered here in such detail.
The theme of war in the writer's works
In 1954, the "favorite brainchild" of the author came out. It's about about the story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess". In just 3 days, the master wrote a draft of 120 pages. Later, he only polished the text. They did not want to print the story, they constantly cut out whole fragments from it, which censorship did not allow. Only 15 years later, the author was able to release it in its original version. In the center of the story is the story of a young platoon commander, Boris Kostyaev, who survives all the horrors of war, but still dies of wounds and exhaustion on the train carrying him to the rear. The love of a woman does not save the protagonist. In the story, the author paints before the reader a terrible picture of war and the death that it brings. It is not so difficult to guess why the work was not wanted to be published. The people who fought and won this war were usually depicted as powerful, strong, inflexible. According to the stories of the master, he is not only bent, but also destroyed. Moreover, people suffer death and deprivation not only through the fault of the fascist invaders who came to their land, but also by the will of the totalitarian system that dominates the country. The work of Victor Astafiev was replenished with other bright works, such as "Sashka Lebedev", "Anxious Dream", "Wife's Hands", "India", "Blue Twilight", "Russian Diamond", "Is It a Clear Day" and others.
The story "Ode to the Russian garden" - a hymn to peasant industriousness
In 1972, Astafiev Viktor Petrovich released his next work. The biography, a brief version of which is presented here, is very interesting. The writer grew up in the countryside. He saw her inside out. He is not alien to the suffering and hardships of people engaged in overwork, which is familiar to him from childhood. The story "Ode to the Russian Garden" is a work that is a kind of hymn to peasant labor. The writer E. Nosov said this about him: “This is not told, but sung ...” For a simple village boy, a garden is not just a place where you can “fill your belly”, but a whole world full of mysteries and secrets. This is for him both the school of life and the academy fine arts. When reading the “Ode”, the feeling of sadness over the lost harmony of agricultural labor does not leave, which makes it possible for a person to feel a life-giving connection with mother nature.
The story "The Last Bow" about life in the village
The writer Viktor Astafiev develops the peasant theme in his other works. One of them is a cycle of stories called "The Last Bow".
The story is told in the first person. In the center of this creation of the author - the fate of village children, whose childhood fell on the years of the 30s, when collectivization began in the country, and youth - on the "fiery" 40s. It is worth noting that this cycle of stories was created for two decades (from 1958 to 1978). The first stories are distinguished by a somewhat lyrical presentation, subtle humor. And in the final stories, one can clearly see the author's readiness to harshly denounce the system that destroys the national foundations of life. They sound bitterness and open mockery.
The story "Tsar-fish" - a journey to their native places
In his works, the writer develops the theme of conservation national traditions. His story entitled "The King-fish", published in 1976, is close in spirit to the cycle of stories about village life. In 2004, a monument was erected in Krasnoyarsk in honor of the writer's 80th birthday. Now it is one of the symbols of the city.
By the time the book is published, Viktor Astafiev becomes an already recognizable and popular author. His photo is on the front pages of literary magazines. What can be said about the book? Interesting way of presenting the material in this work. The author draws pictures virgin nature untouched by civilization, folk life in the Siberian hinterland. People whose moral standards have been lost, in whose ranks drunkenness, poaching, theft, and courage flourish, are a pitiful sight.
The novel about the war "Cursed and Killed" - criticism of Stalinism
In 1980, Viktor Astafiev moved to his homeland - to Krasnoyarsk. His biography here is not changing for the better. A few years after the move, the writer's daughter Irina suddenly dies. Viktor Petrovich and Maria Semyonovna take her children, their grandchildren Polina and Vitya, to their place. On the other hand, it is here, at home, that the master has a creative upsurge. He writes such works as "Zaberega", "Pestruha", "Premonition of ice drift", "Death", the last chapters of "The Last Bow" and others. Here he created his main book about the war - the novel "Cursed and Killed". This creation of the writer is distinguished by sharpness, categoricalness, passion. For writing the novel, Astafiev was awarded the State Prize of Russia.
2001 was a fatal year for the author of immortal stories. He spends a lot of time in the hospital. Two strokes left no hope for recovery. His friends petitioned the Krasnoyarsk Regional Council of Deputies to allocate funds for the writer's treatment abroad. Consideration of this issue turned into a trial of the author. No money was allocated. Doctors, spreading their hands, sent the patient home to die. On November 29, 2001, Viktor Astafyev died. Films based on his works are still very interesting to the audience today.