Have you noticed that some authors write their works so figuratively, but at the same time uncomplicatedly, that even after many years, memories of their creations pop up in your head like entire films. You imagine the hero of the story so vividly while reading that later, when you come across the film adaptation, you literally cry out: “Exactly, that’s exactly what he looks like!” This is exactly what happens while watching the film “Kalina Krasnaya” (Shukshin). A brief summary of this story may take a few minutes, but the experiences remain with us forever.
Vasily Shukshin - great tragedian
Literary critics unanimously claim that such a merging of different talents and qualities into a single whole will surprise and delight more than one generation of readers. Even despite the fact that Vasily Makarovich’s work dates back to the Soviet era. “Kalina Krasnaya” (we’ll look at a summary of the chapters a little later) is the clearest example of how the author dissolves, does not notice himself in the face of the problems that he raises for readers. Shukshin literally belonged to art.
Sometimes critics argue that Vasily Makarovich “demonstrated” himself, flaunted himself in order to gain even greater recognition. But his friends and relatives, as well as many literary critics, say the opposite: any indication of himself, any demonstration of his “I” was completely alien to him. That's why it became unforgettable.
Film story
Let's take, for example, almost his most famous work - “Kalina Krasnaya”. Shukshin (the summary will not convey the emotional intensity, but at least it will remind you of the storyline) wrote this film story in 1973. The dynamism of the plot, many dialogues and third-person narration are the main literary characteristics of the work.
Critics immediately noticed that such an image of the main character - Yegor Prokudin - had never been seen in art before. It is he who makes the film “Kalina Krasnaya” stand out from the crowd. A brief description of his nature is as follows: he is either gentle and sentimental, hugging almost every birch tree he meets, or he is rude and “gets into trouble”; One minute Yegor is cheerful and kind, and the next he is already a bandit and a lover of drinking. It seemed to some literary scholars that such inconsistency indicates a lack of character, and therefore does not convey the whole truth of life in “Kalina Krasnaya.”
Consistent inconsistency
The apparent inconsistency of Prokudin’s actions is in fact not simple, not spontaneous. Shukshin managed to convey a logic alien to the ordinary person. We cannot understand, and, most likely, we should not understand and accept the actions of this person. But this does not mean that such life has no right to exist in principle.
So, “Kalina Krasnaya”, Shukshin. Let's start the summary with the fact that Yegor, a repeat offender, receives a farewell message from the head of the zone where Prokudin was serving his sentence. In the morning he must go free, and we become aware of some of this man’s dreams: to have a cow and get married. Yegor had never seen his chosen one in his life. They met by correspondence.
Once free, Prokudin goes to his friends (as you understand, also “unclean”). The company gathered there is waiting for news of how the next robbery went. Everyone is trying to ask Gore (that’s what Yegor’s friends call him) about prison, but he doesn’t want to talk about it at all. It's spring outside, and Prokudin is enjoying life.
A phone call interrupts the gathering: the police have caught up with the accomplices, and everyone has to run away. Realizing that he is in no danger, Prokudin also runs. Such is the power of habit...
The road to normal life
How do the events unfold in the story “Kalina Krasnaya”? Shukshin (the summary does not convey all the nuances of Prokudin’s attitude to life) sends his hero to meet his future wife - Lyuba. She meets him there and takes him to meet his parents.
In order not to frighten older people, Lyuba says that her chosen one is a former accountant. But, left alone with his parents and answering questions, Yegor says: “He killed seven, but didn’t have time for the eighth...”. He is sure that a person has the right to rehabilitation, and, having received punishment, one cannot return. And you can’t judge him either. He criticizes the “backward” old people and their worldview, trying on the role of a public figure.
Prejudice
Public morality is quite clearly spelled out in the story “Kalina Krasnaya”. The content (Shukshin repeatedly shows the influence of society on the individual) of the conversations between Lyuba, her mother and daughter-in-law about a new acquaintance comes down to dissatisfaction for only one reason: Yegor has just been released from prison. Women convey the opinions of their fellow villagers.
And Yegor himself spends time in the bathhouse with Lyuba’s brother, Peter. This taciturn person is absolutely indifferent to what is happening. He is too lazy to get to know Yegor and have intimate conversations with him. The scenes with Yegor's resentment towards Peter, with the subsequent understanding that he was not driven by his usual reticence, were very vividly described by Vasily Shukshin. “Kalina Krasnaya” (we are trying to remember the summary) continues with Peter’s cry from the bathhouse, everyone grabs something “heavy” and runs to the rescue. But in fact, Yegor accidentally splashed boiling water on Peter. The incident is turned into a joke, and the rest of the evening passes in a “warm, friendly atmosphere.”
Details
Lyuba's friend Varya offers to break up with Yegor and take back her ex-husband, Kolka. It's just a little thing that he's a drunk. Varya laughs about her happy life with her alcoholic husband. Her story that beating a drunkard with a rolling pin is the norm somewhat offends Lyuba. Lyuba does not want to be “like everyone else,” and this greatly irritates her fellow villagers.
Meanwhile, Prokudin is thinking about his comrades whom he managed to see after leaving prison. He even sends money to one of them (Guboshlep). Why is Shukshin showing all this? “Kalina Krasnaya,” a brief summary of which is of our interest today, conveys the mood of society towards repeat offenders, towards those who go against accepted norms. Shukshin could not help but raise this topic in his work.
reveler
Egor is having fun in a restaurant with unknown men. He showers money and “debauches” in every possible way (as Shukshin himself called it): he sings, dances, drinks and makes pretentious speeches. But closer to night, he remembers Lyuba, calls her and says that business has detained him in the city. The mother does not believe such a “legend,” but Lyuba’s father helps her out and helps her explain herself to her mother. It is his father’s support that Shukshin persistently emphasizes.
“Kalina Krasnaya” - the summary again does not contain all the events and dialogues - continues with Prokudin taking a taxi and returning to Lyuba. But he goes to her brother, and they continue drinking in the bathhouse (in a dark, cramped world, as Shukshin called this place).
New job
Accompanying Lyuba to the farm where she works in the morning, Yegor recalls his childhood - his mother, the cow Manka and boyish carefreeness. Lyuba casually mentions her drunkard ex-husband. So, while chatting casually, they reach a farm, where Yegor meets the director and immediately gets a job as a driver. Having completed the first task, Prokudin refuses to work and says that it’s easier for him on a tractor.
In the evening, Gore takes Lyuba to a neighboring village in a borrowed dump truck. He asks her to introduce herself as a social worker and talk to old lady Kudelikha. During this visit, he himself looks very serious and does not take off his dark glasses. On the way home, it turns out that they visited Yegor's mother.
Even a brief summary of the story “Kalina Krasnaya” by Shukshin cannot be conveyed without describing the moment when, having first sat behind the wheel of a tractor, Prokudin makes the first furrow. He is overwhelmed with joy and pride, he cannot breathe in the smell of plowed earth.
Not without bitches
When Lyuba’s ex shows up at Lyuba’s house and tries to get his license, Yegor pushes the whole company out of the gate with his fists. The summary of the story “Kalina Krasnaya” by Shukshin cannot convey the fullness of the cinematic scene of this fight. After all, it ended when Kolka, coming towards him with a stake, stopped under Yegor’s heavy gaze.
Another trouble happened in Prokudin’s life. A former friend of Shura came to see him from the city. He brought money from Guboshlep, which was supposed to help Yegor return to his old life. But Prokudin refuses such an offer, throwing money in the visitor’s face. Yegor manages to calm down the agitated Lyuba, but it is clear that he himself is quite on edge.
Tragic death
While working in the field, Yegor notices a Volga with his former friends at the edge of the forest. He goes to them, and in the meantime we learn that Guboshlep decided to get even with Gor for the fact that he moved away from the life of a thief.
By the time the worried Lyuba figured out what was happening and drove up with her brother to the forest edge, the city visitors were already leaving for home. Lyuba found the seriously wounded Yegor, and she and Peter tried to help Prokudin. But at some point, he felt his death approaching and asked to be put on the ground to listen... With the last of his strength, Yegor Prokudin asks to give his money to his mother.
“And he, a Russian peasant, lay in his native steppe, close to home...”
Shukshin Vasily
Red viburnum
Vasily Shukshin
Red viburnum
This story began in a forced labor camp, north of the city of N., in a beautiful and strict place.
It was evening after a working day.
People gathered in the club...
A broad-shouldered man with a weather-beaten face came onto the stage and announced:
And now the choir of former repeat offenders will sing us the thoughtful song “Evening Bells”!
The choir members began to appear on stage from behind the scenes, one by one. They became so that they formed two groups - large and small. The choristers were all far from “singing” in appearance.
The choir began to sing. That is, they led them into a small group, and in a large group they bent their heads and at the right moment struck with a feeling:
Bom-m, bom-m...
In the "bom-bom" group we see our hero - Yegor Prokudin, forty years old, with a short haircut. He tried in earnest, and when the bell rang, he wrinkled his forehead and shook his round peasant head - so that it would seem that the sound of the bell was floating and swaying in the evening air.
Thus ended Yegor Prokudin’s last term. Ahead is the will.
In the morning, the following conversation took place in the office of one of the bosses:
Well, tell me, how do you think you should live, Prokudin? - asked the boss. He apparently asked this many, many times - it was painful that his words came out ready-made.
Honestly! - Yegor hastened to answer, also, presumably, ready, because the answer came out amazingly easily.
Yes, I understand that... But how? How do you imagine this?
I’m thinking of taking up farming, citizen boss.
Comrade.
A? - Yegor did not understand.
Now everyone is comrades for you,” the boss reminded.
Ahh! - Prokudin recalled with pleasure. And he even laughed at his own forgetfulness. - Yes, yes... There will be many comrades!
What drew you to agriculture? - the boss sincerely asked.
Well, I’m a peasant! Where I come from. In general, I love nature. I'll buy a cow...
A cow? - the boss was surprised.
A cow. With an udder like this. - Yegor showed with his hands.
You shouldn't choose a cow by its udder. If she is still young, what kind of udder does she have? And you choose the old one, she really has such an udder... What's the point? The cow must be... slender.
So what is it then - on the legs? - Yegor asked a question.
Choose something. On the legs, or what?
Why on the legs? By breed. There are breeds - such and such a breed... For example, Kholmogory... - The boss didn’t know more.
“I adore cows,” Yegor said again forcefully. - I’ll bring her to the stall... I’ll put her...
The chief and Yegor were silent, looking at each other.
“A cow is good,” the chief agreed. - Just... well, are you going to deal with one cow? Do you have any profession?
I have many professions.
For example?
Yegor thought as if he was choosing, out of his many professions, the least... how should I put it - the least suitable for thieves' purposes.
Locksmith...
The phone rang. The boss picked up the phone.
Yes. Yes. What was the lesson? What is the topic? "Eugene Onegin"? So, who did they start asking questions about? Tatiana? What do they not understand about Tatyana? What, I say, are they there... - The boss listened for a while to the thin shrill voice on the phone, looked reproachfully at Yegor and nodded his head slightly: they say, everything is clear. - Let... Listen here: let them not engage in demagogy there! What does it mean - there will be children, there will be no children?! This is what a poem was written about! Otherwise I’ll come and explain to them! You tell them... Okay, Nikolaev will come to you in a minute. - The boss hung up and picked up another one. While dialing the number, he said dissatisfiedly: “Associate professors for me... Nikolaev?” There, the literature teacher’s lesson was disrupted: they started asking questions. A? "Eugene Onegin". Not about Onegin, but about Tatiana: will she have children from the old man or not? Go figure it out. Let's. Hey, associate professors, you understand! - said the boss, hanging up. - Questions began to be asked.
Yegor laughed when he imagined this literature lesson.
They want to know...
Do you have a wife? - asked the boss sternly.
Egor took a photograph from his breast pocket and handed it to the boss. He took it and looked.
Is it your wife? - he asked, not hiding his surprise.
In the photo there was a rather beautiful young woman, kind and clear.
The future,” said Yegor. He didn’t like that the boss was surprised. -- Is waiting for me. But I have never seen her alive.
Like this?
Part-time student. - Yegor reached out and took the photograph. - Excuse me. - And I myself looked at the sweet, simple Russian face. - Baikalova Lyubov Fedorovna. What gullibility on the face, eh! This is amazing, isn't it? She looks like a cashier.
And what does she write?
He writes that he understands all my troubles... But, he says, I don’t understand how you thought of ending up in prison? Nice letters. Peace from them... My husband was a drunkard - he kicked him out. But I still didn’t get angry with people.
Do you understand what you're getting into? - the boss asked quietly and seriously.
“I understand,” Yegor also said quietly and hid the photograph.
First, dress appropriately. Where are you going... Vanka will show up from Presnya. - The boss looked at Yegor with displeasure. -What is this...why is he dressed like that?
Yegor was wearing boots, a shirt-shirt, a sweatshirt and some kind of uniform cap - either a rural driver or a plumber, with a slight hint of participation in amateur performances.
Yegor glanced at himself and grinned.
It was necessary for the role. And then I didn’t have time to change clothes.
Artists...” was all the boss said and laughed. He was not an evil man, and he never ceased to be amazed by people whose ingenuity knows no bounds.
And here it is - will!
This means that the door slammed behind Yegor, and he found himself on the street of a small village. He took a deep breath of spring air, closed his eyes and shook his head. He walked a little and leaned against the fence. An old woman with a purse walked past and stopped.
You feel bad?
“I feel good, mother,” said Yegor. - It’s good that I sat down in the spring. You should always plant in the spring.
Where to sit? - the old lady did not understand.
To jail.
The old woman only now realized who she was talking to. She pulled away apprehensively and trotted on. I also looked at the fence that I was walking past. She looked back at Yegor again.
And Egor raised his hand towards the Volga. "Volga" stopped. Egor began to negotiate with the driver. At first the driver did not agree to drive, Yegor took a wad of money from his pocket, showed him... and went to sit next to the driver.
At this time, an old woman approached them, who showed sympathy for Yegor - she was not too lazy to cross the street.
The film has features characteristic of the direction of the 70s. This is a bright, free reflection on life, colored by an obvious and vibrant originality. This is a simple picture, designed for a wide audience, but it is complex in that it has many layers. The main question here is “what?”, not “how?”. It is clear that the director feels free in the choice of material, means, and editing.
Some critics saw a socio-psychological conflict between the criminal and his environment, others - “crime and punishment”, others - the moral meaning of guilt before his abandoned mother (He is a lonely outcast who becomes a criminal to fill his soul). Some wrote that this film is a song, others accused it of an anti-song composition. And all these assessments directly characterize the picture.
The structure of the film is trome (literal and figurative meaning of the image). There is a plot, and there are many more layers (exactly what critics see).
“Kalina Krasnaya” is a tragedy of guilt and retribution. From Shukshin’s point of view, the integrity of the narrative is given not by the plot, but by the humanity embodied in it. There are some striking images in this film. For example, the image of a “birch forest” is a bright, clean world, including human purity. Or the image of the “white church” - runs through the film several times, which appears several times. We can say that the picture is very metaphorical, everything in it is fused with nature. The landscape in it is a poetic leitmotif.
disfigured like Prokudin’s life itself
after meeting his mother
after his death. The direct metaphor is his life as a desecrated church.
Catharsis occurs in Yegor’s awareness of his guilt, the desire for purification and Lyuba’s love for Yegor.
The image of Yegor Prokudin is very contradictory. He is looking for a holiday and wants it right now, at the same time he strives for harmony. In this regard, the picture consists of contrasting episodes - gradually increasing contrast.
The inevitability of the outcome (Prokudin's death) is shown in detail. The episode when Prokudin greets the birch trees and encounters a crow, then a montage with a flooded church.
USSR, MOSFILM, 1973, color, 108 min.
Tragic melodrama.
This painting by Vasily Shukshin is an extremely rare genre exception in Soviet art, where all tragedies had to be “optimistic”. This is a story about the human soul, about “how it is not arranged in life, how it toils and searches for its place.”
In "Kalina Krasnaya" Kolokolnikov's buffoonery turns into a holy fool's provocation by the former criminal, the dissolute peasant son Yegor Prokudin, of the environment of his wanderings - be it the "thieves' raspberry", the dull space of a regional town, or even the house of the peasant family of the Baikalovs, which is genetically close to him. This is the genre range of Shukshin’s hero’s wanderings: from light buffoonery, carnival comedy through holy fool provocations, which are also visible in the simple-minded performances of the hero of his eccentric work. For in “Kalina Krasnaya” the cross-cutting, although most often hidden, motive of Soviet cinema is guessed - “one of our own among strangers, a stranger among our own,” which was resolved primarily on a social plane, when almost the entire nation belonged, if not to those who had passed through the camps or to relatives those who were imprisoned, so necessarily to a variety of “displaced persons”, recruits, migrants and “limiters”. Almost everyone moved by force or at the call of their hearts from place to place across a large, vast country, finding themselves in the position of tumbleweeds, trying to adapt, to take root in a foreign environment. Before “Red Kalina,” Shukshin’s work in literature and cinema was often understood from the point of view of an obsessive opposition between city and village, urban facelessness, lack of spirituality, isolation from roots - and rural naturalness, human individuality, deep connection with the native land.
And only in “Kalina Krasnaya” is this conflict understood on a tragic national, “all-Union level” - the point is not at all that a failed peasant became a repeat offender, leaving his home, betraying his mother, existing without a family, alone, alone, falcon. It was as if the entire country, which then made up a sixth of the Earth, found itself in the situation of an “eternal restless wanderer”, not knowing where to settle down, with whom to become related, how to find peace for its restless soul, which hardly wants only a spree, a “race in the widest”, but to a greater extent he suffers from falling back to the lost foundations of existence.
“Kalina Krasnaya,” directed by the director at the age of 44, is Shukshin’s most confessional and artistically autobiographical film, which in no way fits into the framework of suffocating stagnation.
It is no coincidence that the film begins with a scene of a prison amateur performance - a choir of prisoners thoughtfully and intently sings a song about how the evening bells “bring up a lot of thoughts.” The easiest way to think is that former criminal Yegor Prokudin, having left prison, wants to atone for his previous sins and start a new life in his “native land”, having attached his soul to a good woman Lyuba Baikalova, whom he met through correspondence, but his former friends stubbornly do not let him go and out of spite they start a gangster stabbing. But this is not a “crime drama” or even a melodrama flavored with unexpectedly comic scenes.
Cast: Vasily Shukshin, Lydia Fedoseeva-Shukshina, Alexey Vanin, Ivan Ryzhov, Maria Skvortsova, Maria Vinogradova, Ofimiya Bystrova, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Lev Durov, Nikolai Pogodin, Georgy Burkov, Tatyana Gavrilova, Arthur Makarov, Oleg Korchikov. Director: Vasily Shukshin. Script writer: Vasily Shukshin. Cameraman: Anatoly Zabolotsky. Production designer: Ippolit Novoderezhkin. Composer: Pavel Chekalov. Sound director: Viktor Belyarov.
62. Analysis of the film “Once Upon a Song Thrush”“THE LIVED A SINGING THRUSH”, USSR, GEORGIA-FILM, 1971, b/w, 83 min.
Movie novella.
The title of the film comes from the words of the folk song “Once upon a time there was a song thrush.” And it contains sadness, tenderness, slight irony, addressed by the author - Otar Ioseliani - to the hero and, for some reason, it seems, to himself and, of course, to the leading role of the timpanist of the opera theater orchestra, documentary director Gele Kandelaki. His face of a true Tbilisi resident either dissolves in the luxurious street crowd of this city, or comes to the fore. His impulsive, at first glance, devoid of meaning and goal-setting actions, either drown in the stream of life, or, as if fighting against it, break out to the surface.
Here he is at the last moment, under the destroying gaze of the director, in time to his drums in the theater orchestra in order to fit his drums into the overall music of the finale. Here he lies alone in the grass by the waterfall, as if in heaven, listening to the melody born within him, to his music. The director generously and slyly gave his hero a few bars from Bach's St. Matthew Passion. “Whom I love, I give.”...
Music, noises, sounds, orchestrated by the director into a complete symphony, this is a film within a film that needs to be watched and listened to. There is a prediction in it - in the squeal of car brakes. There is a warning in the inexorable knocking of the clock, these messengers of eternity in our everyday life. And in the pictorial series, festive and worry-free - meetings, feasts, fleeting street contacts, a short stay in the father's house - the turmoil, as will become clear in the finale, is the last morning, afternoon, evening in the hero's life. Black and white chronicle or hagiography?!
Did the hero give himself away to others or waste himself? Did you pour drop by drop the wine of your talent, your very life, or quench someone’s thirst for communication of human participation? Is he kind, generous, loving or irresponsible, scatterbrained, lazy? . So then, after the film was released in 1971, critics and viewers argued about the hero, about the meaning of the film. And they did not find answers from the author, not because he knew, but hid them. But because he is talented, free, and lived in a different value system. Not in the one where there is “up” and “down”, “better” and “worse”, but in the one where instead of a hierarchy there is juxtaposition, just choose, where the choice process itself is personal and endless, equal to the path of life.
Otar Ioseliani also suggested to us, people of the deaf 70s, suppressed, standardized, hierarchized - choose... if you can.
The film was released in limited release (320 copies).
Cast: Gela Kandelaki, Gogi Chkheidze, Dzhansug Kakhidze, Irina Dzhandieri, Marina Kartsivadze, I. Mdivani, Nugzar Erkomaishvili, Deya Ivanidze, Tamara Gedevanishvili, Maka Makharadze, Revaz Baramidze, Giorgi Margvelashvili, T. Mtatsmindeli, Vakhtang Eramashvili, O. Tsomaia , Kakhi Kavsadze.
Director: Otar Ioseliani.
Cinematographer: Abesalom Maisuradze.
Production designer: Dmitry Eristavi.
Composer: Teimuraz Bakuradze.
Sound engineers: Tengiz Nanobashvili, Mikhail Nizharadze, Otar Gegechkori.
Installation: no.
Best foreign film of 1972 at the Italian box office.
Narration is in third person. Lots of dialogue. The plot is dynamic, eventful, and largely melodramatic.
Yegor Prokudin's last evening in the zone has ended. In the morning, the boss gives him a farewell. We learn that Yegor dreams of his farm, a cow. His future wife is Lyubov Fedorovna Baikalova. He has never seen her; they know each other only through correspondence. The boss advises you to dress better.
After leaving prison, Prokudin enjoys the spring, feels a surge of strength, and rejoices in the feeling of life. In the regional center, Yegor comes to his comrades “at the hut.” There are a lot of young people there. Among others - Lipslap, Bulldog, Lucien. They are waiting for a call from their accomplices: they are committing another robbery. Egor (he is called Gore there) does not want to talk about the zone, he wants to take a break from the cruelty. They dance with Lucienne. It is felt that no one shares Yegor’s mood, not even Lucien (who understands better than others the abomination of their occupation and Yegor’s inner purity). Lipslap is nervous, Lucien is a little jealous of Yegor. The bell rings: the police have caught up with the accomplices, everyone needs to run away. Yegor also runs, although it is risky for him. He tries to find his acquaintances in the city, but they don’t want to answer him.
“And so the district bus brought Yegor to the village of Yasnoye” - to Lyuba. She meets him at the bus stop. In the teahouse, he says that he was an accountant and ended up in prison by accident. Lyuba knows that he is a repeat offender, but hopes that Yegor will find his way into a normal life. She introduces him to her parents. Lyuba uses Yegor’s “legend” about the accountant so as not to scare her parents. But when Yegor is left alone with them, Lyuba’s father (his wife calls him Mikitka) begins to “interrogate” Yegor. He answers sarcastically: he killed seven, but the eighth didn’t work out. Yegor believes that anyone can end up in prison (ironically reminds the old man about the years of the civil war and collectivization), and there is no point in torturing a person if he has decided to start a new life. Yegor tries on the mask of a public figure, a communist, and “convicts” the “backward” old people.
Egor meets Pyotr, Lyuba's brother. Petro and Yegor go to the bathhouse. Petro is indifferent to both the hero’s past and to himself: he doesn’t want to get to know each other or communicate. Yegor doesn’t like feeling like a poor relative, smiling at everyone and at the same time feeling distrust of himself. Petro does not react to Yegor's insults, and after a while Yegor realizes that Petro has no prejudices: he is simply taciturn.
Zoya, Peter's wife, and Lyuba's mother discuss Yegor with her. Lyuba expresses disapproval. Women express the general opinion of the entire village. Unexpectedly, Lyuba is protected by her father. Here Peter's scream is heard. Yegor accidentally scalded him with boiling water. Zoya is horrified, Lyuba’s father grabbed an ax - but everything turned out to be a joke. Neighbors on the street are actively discussing what happened.
The evening in the Baikalovs' house passes peacefully and calmly. The old people remember some old relatives, Lyuba shows photographs, Egor and Petro peacefully joke about the incident in the bathhouse. At night, Yegor can’t sleep, he wants to talk to Lyuba, she sends him out with her mother’s approval, but she also can’t sleep.
Egor leaves for the regional center. He honestly tells Lyuba: “Maybe I’ll come back. Maybe not." On the way, he imagines that his friends are returning for him. He thinks about Lipslap. In the regional center he goes to the telegraph office and sends him money. At this time, her work friend Varya advises Lyuba to leave Yegor and take back her ex-husband, Kolka. Obviously, the villagers do not like Lyuba’s action, not because Yegor may turn out to be unreliable, but because Lyuba does not behave like everyone else. Varya begins to cheerfully tell how wonderful her life is with her alcoholic husband, whom she beats with a rolling pin.
Egor heads to a restaurant where he is having a “picnic”. He feeds and waters strangers. The most drunken men gather. Egor spends a lot of money. He calls Lyuba and says that he needs to stay the night - he hasn’t settled the issues with the military registration and enlistment office. At this time, the mother incredulously asks Lyuba where Egor is. Again the father protects his daughter and helps her believe in Yegor’s next “legend”.
Yegor continues to “debauch” (Shukshin’s word): he drinks, sings, dances, and pronounces speeches filled with life-affirming pathos. In the end, Yegor gives away the remaining money, takes cognac and chocolate, gets into a taxi and goes to Yasnoye. He comes to Peter and offers him a drink in the bathhouse. In this “close black world” they drink cognac and greet the dawn with the song “I’m sitting behind bars in a damp dungeon.”
In the morning he accompanies Lyuba to the farm. They chat along the way. Among other things, Lyuba mentions her ex-husband Kolka, who constantly drinks. Egor remembers his childhood, his mother and the cow Manka. Lyuba introduces Yegor to the director of the farm, Dmitry Vladimirovich. She gets Yegor a job as a driver at the farm: the director urgently needed a driver. Yegor didn’t like the director: “smooth, happy.” The director doesn’t like Yegor either: “pointlessly obstinate.”
The director gives the task - to pick up foreman Savelyev in the village of Sosnovka. Egor completes the task, but upon returning, refuses further work. It's easier on a tractor.
Egor asks Peter for a dump truck and takes Lyuba with him. On the way, he explains to her that he wants to visit an old woman, Kudelikha. Allegedly, a friend asked him to find out about her health. Lyuba needs to introduce herself as a district security worker and ask about her. The old woman talks about herself, that the children are all confused. Lyuba calms her down. Egor sits silently, wearing dark glasses. When they drove away, he tells Lyuba that this is his mother.
At home, Lyuba’s ex-husband comes to see her with three friends. Yegor drags him out of the house. They retreat to the trees and a fight begins. Kolka has drunk too much, so there is a bit left. Another one rushes at Yegor, but Yegor stops him with one blow. Kolka runs back, grabs the stake, goes towards Yegor - Yegor stops him with a look.
In the morning Egor made the first furrow in his life (on a tractor). He breathes in the smell of plowed earth and feels joy from it.
Shura, one of his former accomplices, comes to Yegor. They talk about something, Shura hands over money from Guboshlep (so that Yegor has something to return to them with), but Yegor throws this money in Shura’s face. He's leaving. Lyuba is worried, Yegor tries to calm her down, but it is clear that he himself is not in a good mood.
The next day they work in the field. It's already being sown. Egor notices that a black Volga is parked near the forest. He sees Lipslap, Bully and Lucien there. He goes to them. Lucien, meanwhile, demands that Guboslap not touch Yegor. But Guboshlep emotionally expresses his position: he doesn’t like the fact that Yegor is now almost a saint, and only they are sinners. We learn that danger is looming over Guboshlep and therefore he wants to have time to deal with Yegor.
Lyuba sees Yegor going into the forest with someone. She runs home - it turns out that her father even explained to them how to get there. Here Lyuba stops Petro’s dump truck, they drive towards the forest. The criminals see this, call Guboshlep - he runs out of the forest, hides something under his clothes and they leave.
Egor is seriously wounded. Lyuba and Petro put him in a dump truck and quickly drive him away. But then Yegor feels that he is dying and asks to be put on the ground. He asks Lyuba to take his money and give it to his mother.
“And he lay, a Russian peasant, in his native steppe, close to home... He lay with his cheek pressed to the ground, as if he was listening to something that only he could hear. This is how he pressed himself against the pillars as a child.”
Petro catches up with Volga. People come running. The fate of the criminals is predetermined.
Brief summary of Shukshin’s story “Kalina Krasnaya”
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This story began in a forced labor camp, north of the city of N., in a beautiful and strict place.
It was evening after a working day.
People gathered in the club...
A broad-shouldered man with a weather-beaten face came onto the stage and announced:
– And now the choir of former repeat offenders will sing us the thoughtful song “Evening Bells”!
One by one, the choir members began to appear on stage from behind the scenes. They became so that they formed two groups, large and small. The choristers were all far from “singing” in appearance.
The choir began to sing. That is, they led them into a small group, and in a large group they bent their heads and struck at the right moment with a feeling:
- Bom-m, bom-m...
In the “bom-bom” group we see our hero – Yegor Prokudin, forty years old, with a short haircut. He tried seriously and when they “ringed”, he wrinkled his forehead and shook his round peasant head - so that it seemed that the sound of the bell was floating and swaying in the evening air.
Thus ended Yegor Prokudin’s last term. Ahead is the will.
In the morning, in the office of one of the bosses, the following conversation took place:
- Well, tell me, how do you think you should live, Prokudin? - asked the boss. He apparently asked this many, many times - it was painful that his words came out ready-made.
- Honestly! – Yegor hastened to answer, also, presumably, ready, because the answer came out amazingly easily.
- Yes, I understand that... But how? How do you imagine this?
“I’m thinking of going into farming, citizen chief.”
- Comrade.
- A? – Yegor didn’t understand.
“Now everyone is comrades for you,” the boss reminded.
- Ahh! – Prokudin recalled with pleasure. And he even laughed at his own forgetfulness. - Yes, yes... There will be many comrades!
– What drew you to agriculture? – the boss sincerely asked.
- Well, I’m a peasant! Where I come from. In general, I love nature. I'll buy a cow...
- A cow? – the boss was surprised.
- A cow. With an udder like this. – Yegor showed with his hands.
“You shouldn’t choose a cow by its udder.” If she is still young, what kind of udder does she have? Otherwise, you choose the old one, she really has such an udder... What's the point? The cow should be... slender.
- So what is this then - on the legs? – Yegor asked a question.
- Choose something. On the legs, or what?
- Why on the legs? By breed. There are breeds - such and such a breed... For example, Kholmogory... - The boss didn’t know more.
“I love cows,” Yegor said forcefully again. - I’ll bring her to the stall... I’ll put her...
The chief and Yegor were silent, looking at each other.
“A cow is good,” the boss agreed. - Just... well, are you going to deal with one cow? Do you have any profession?
– I have many professions.
- For example?
Yegor thought as if he was choosing from among his many professions the least... how should I put it - the least suitable for thieves' purposes.
- Locksmith...
The phone rang. The boss picked up the phone.
- Yes. Yes. What was the lesson? What is the topic? "Eugene Onegin"? So, who did they start asking questions about? Tatiana? What do they not understand about Tatyana? What, I say, are they there... - The boss listened for a while to the thin shrill voice on the phone, looked reproachfully at Yegor and nodded his head slightly: they say, everything is clear. – Let... Listen here: let them not engage in demagogy there! What does it mean - there will be children, there will be no children?!.. This is what the poem was written about! Otherwise I’ll come and explain to them! You tell them... Okay, Nikolaev will come to you in a minute. – The boss hung up and picked up another one. While dialing the number, he said dissatisfiedly: “Associate professors for me... Nikolaev?” There, the literature teacher’s lesson was disrupted: they started asking questions. A? "Eugene Onegin". Not about Onegin, but about Tatiana: will she have children from the old man or not? Go figure it out. Let's. Wow, associate professors, you understand! - said the boss, hanging up. “They started asking questions.”
Yegor laughed when he imagined this literature lesson.
- They want to know...
- Do you have a wife? – the boss asked sternly.
Egor took a photograph from his breast pocket and handed it to the boss. He took it and looked.
- Is it your wife? – he asked, not hiding his surprise. The photograph was of a rather beautiful young woman, kind and clear.
“The future,” said Yegor. He didn't like that the boss was surprised. - Is waiting for me. But I have never seen her alive.
- Like this?
- Absentee student. – Yegor reached out and took the photograph. - Allow me. – And I myself looked at the sweet, simple Russian face. – Baikalova Lyubov Fedorovna. What gullibility on the face, eh! This is amazing, isn't it? She looks like a cashier.
- And what does she write?
“He writes that he understands all my troubles... But, he says, I don’t understand how you thought of ending up in prison?” Nice letters. Peace from them... The husband was a drunkard - he kicked him out. But I still didn’t get angry with people.
– Do you understand what you’re getting into? – the boss asked quietly and seriously.
“I understand,” Yegor also said quietly and hid the photograph.
- First of all, dress properly. Where are you going... Vanka will show up from Presnya. – The boss looked at Yegor with displeasure. -What is this...why is he dressed like that?
Yegor was wearing boots, a shirt-shirt, a sweatshirt and some kind of uniform cap - either a rural driver or a plumber, with a slight hint of participation in amateur performances.
Yegor glanced at himself and grinned.
- It was necessary for the role. And then I didn’t have time to change clothes.
“Artists...” was all the boss said and laughed.
He was not an evil man, and he never ceased to be amazed by people whose ingenuity knows no bounds.
And here it is – will!
This means that the door slammed behind Yegor, and he found himself on the street of a small village. He took a deep breath of spring air, closed his eyes and shook his head. He walked a little and leaned against the fence. An old woman with a purse walked past and stopped.
- You feel bad?
“I feel good, mother,” said Yegor. - It’s good that I sat down in the spring. You should always plant in the spring.
-Where should I sit? – the old lady did not understand.
- To jail.
The old woman only now realized who she was talking to. She cautiously pulled away and trotted on. I also looked at the fence that I was walking past. She looked back at Yegor again.
And Yegor raised his hand towards the Volga. "Volga" stopped. Egor began to negotiate with the driver. At first the driver did not agree to drive, Yegor took a wad of money from his pocket, showed it... and went to sit next to the driver.
At this time, an old woman approached them and showed concern for Yegor - she was not too lazy to cross the street.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, leaning towards Yegor. – Why in the spring?
- Should I sit down? So in the spring you sit down and in the spring you come out. Freedom and spring! What more does a person need? - Yegor smiled at the old woman and recited: - May my blue! June is blue!
“Look!..” The old lady was amazed. She straightened up and looked at Yegor, as they look at a horse in the city - in the same place, along the street, where the cars are. The old woman had a ruddy, wrinkled face and clear eyes. She, without knowing it, gave Yegor a most pleasant, dear moment.
"Volga" went.
The old woman looked after her for a while.
- Tell me... The poet has been found. Fet.
And Yegor gave himself entirely to the movement.
The village ended, we jumped out into the open.
– Do you have any music? – asked Yegor.
The driver, a young guy, pulled out a transistor tape recorder from behind his back with one hand.
- Turn it on. Last key...
Egor turned on some nice music. He leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. He had been waiting for such an hour for a long time. I'm tired of waiting.
- Glad? – asked the driver.
- Glad? – Yegor woke up. - Glad... - He definitely tasted this word. “You see, kid, if I lived three lives, I would spend one in prison, give the other to you, and live the third as I want.” But since I only have one, now I’m, of course, happy. Do you know how to rejoice? - Egor, from the fullness of feeling, could sometimes run higher - where beautiful and empty words live. - You can, no?