Astafyev, "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess": analysis of the work, summary

A special writer is the author of this book, his works are also unusual. No, he probably does not write poetry in prose. However, through his lines, in the words of Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky, the soul "always oozes." Victor Petrovich Astafyev learned the Patriotic War not by hearsay. He passed it ordinary, coming to the front as a volunteer. Why was not he promoted to the front even to the sergeant? This can be understood without even reading the biography of the writer, it is enough to read his story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess". The analysis of this work reveals a deep understanding by the author of the terrible, inhuman essence of war. To command, that is, to send subordinates to death, and to be a high-level humanist, are incompatible things.

This article is about his story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess". The summary of Astakhov's work convinces us of the complete harmony of the unique author's form and the author's reinterpreted military history.

Private soldier, past war

All this was experienced by him in full. Viktor Petrovich fought as a chauffeur, signalman, artilleryman ... He was awarded the Order of the "Red Banner", medals "For Courage". The rank is rank and file. He saw everything that he presented to his readers in the story. Therefore, the style of his exposition is epic, Tolstoy's thoroughness, attention to all details are felt in him. All to see, to experience everything, to present to the readers the truthful face of the war ... Astafiev the artist in the novel The Shepherd and the Shepherdess is deciding this most important task. An analysis of its first part presents us with the writer's desire to create the impossible - to write the pastoral of the war. This deadly, fiery, scorching element.

Astafiev's pastoral war

Why did the author choose the genre of a pastorale, by definition, idealizing a peaceful, simple village life? Astafiev Pastoral ... It represents a special, rethought description of the war, where a fiery tornado can not overcome the patheticism of human feelings, the beauty of human souls. Viktor Petrovich convinces the reader that love is stronger than war, with his work "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess"

The analysis of the first part of the story begins with a touching picture. A woman in a coat of the old-fashioned cut goes, without hiding tears, along the railway along the wild steppe with cracked, lifeless soil, where only hard grass-wire and wormwood-Chernobyl grows. On the way she considers striped kilometer posts ..

Having reached the right, she turns to the mound and approaches the goal of her journey - the pyramid of the monument, the star from which "unlocked and fell away." It becomes clear to us that someone who is very dear to her is at home here. This woman is Lusia, and she found the grave of Lieutenant Boris Kostyaev. She utters piercing words, pressing her face to the grave: "Why are you lying alone in the middle of Russia?". In terms of artistic power, this plot is similar to Sholokhov's dazzling "black sun", which Gregory saw after the death of his beloved.

Analogies of the Astafiev work with Sholokhov's "The Quiet Don"

Is not it true that the epigraph given by Mikhail Alexandrovich to his creation coincides with the beginning of Astafiev's novel The Shepherd and the Shepherdess? There, poetically speaking of the long-suffering Russian land, of young widows ...

Further, as if using the time machine, Astakhov relegates time ago and immerses the reader in an atmosphere of brutal combat. Lieutenant Kostyaev's platoon held the defense, standing in the way of the frantic Germans who were going to break through. They were supported by fire by the battery of the Eresians (Katyusha). Ahead of the enemy, direct gunfire was hit by regimental cannons. Behind - front artillery (howitzers). However, the German infantry nevertheless broke through to the trenches of the platoon.

True hand-to-hand combat is described by Astafiev. "The shepherd and the cowherd boy" give the reader the opportunity to touch this hell almost tangibly - with death cries, mats, blowing blows by a sapper shovel, shots at point-blank range. Next to Lieutenant Boris Kostyaev, who was not used to war, the sergeant-major Nikolai Vasilyevich Mokhnakov fought. He fought, starting with a retreat from the border and was terrible for the enemy: then hiding in a snowdrift, then jumping out of it, with a shovel and pistol shots. The foreman was everywhere in the thick of battle: he gave commands, defended the bewildered lieutenant. His internal state was somewhat similar to the state of Sholokhov's Grigory Melekhov, who was heroic, crazy, without hesitation, killing his enemies. However, the inner essence of the Astafyev sergeant-major, his soul is burned out by war. Let us recall that Sholokhov wrote about such a state: his hero could not stand the clear gaze of an innocent child - he would turn his eyes away.

Connection with the pastoral genre. The tragedy scene

An important plot function of the first part will show us the analysis of the story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess". Starting with a high tragedy note, the author increases emotional intensity up to the ugly transformed by the war classical pastoral scene - embraced shepherd and cowherd boy.

However, these characters, so popular in European art of the XVI-XVII centuries, young, looking at each other with enamored eyes, presented in the idyllic bosom of nature, were transformed by the author in connection with the terrible realities of war.

In Astaf'ev, a shepherd and a shepherdess are an old man and an old woman, grazing herds killed by a stunted enemy shell. Two dead bodies of people holding tightly to their arms, covering each other with the body from the shelling. They lie behind a bath, near the "potato pit".

Catharsis fighters

This scene, seen by fighters, barely out of a terrible battle, does not leave them indifferent. Note that it is the central tragedy scene of the whole story, its leitmotif, which is intentionally introduced in the beginning of the work by Astafyev "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess", suddenly interrupting the dynamics of the narrative.

What happens in this scene? Suddenly, the fighters who had just killed and killed, at the sight of these two corpses, come catharsis, spiritual insight. They already (perhaps, all but the foreman Mokhnakov) do not identify themselves with the war, but oppose it. The shock experienced by them, so deeply depicts Astafyev, that the general numb silence at their funeral by the fighters of the platoon of Boris Kostyaev is broken only by a prayer that spontaneously, from the heart, says the lanky ordinary Lantsov. His companions understand that other words are inappropriate here.

Next, beginning with the second chapter, the story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess" (a short summary of the work will show this to the reader) acquires tangibility. This is the theme of the front-line love of Lucy and Boris. However, according to the author's plan, it is not plot-wise independent. This love is seen by Astafiev through the prism of the pastoralism already shown by him, in the above-described tragedy scene. In it, as a tuning fork, there is a high humanistic pathos of the opposition of the human soul, of human love to the hell of war.

The halt at Lucy's house

The soldiers stop at the house where Lusia resides. The story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess" tells us that the miracle is left here at home. The summary of this work reports that the reader is introduced into the atmosphere of rest and accommodation of fighters after inhuman slaughter. There is a time left behind when, barely jumping out of the trench, they were all equal before death, when, by inflaming themselves with a mat, they became part of the terrible machine of death: killing and killing, they finally felt themselves in a non-combat situation. The fighters came to their senses, taking away the stress that was hampering their soul, filling it with moonshine, driven out of beets. The foreman always managed to get it. The truth tells us about the rest after the battle "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess". The analysis of the work in this episode highlights two aspects: a detailed picture of the types of heroes and the outset of the relationship between Boris and Lucy.

In this scene, the writer Astafyev, like a film director, presents his book's plans for the heroes of the book, with the skill of an experienced artist in several strokes depicts the personality of each. These soldiers are very different, reduced to one platoon by war.

More details about the war and the soldiers

Moskvich, Lieutenant Kostyaev, who began to fight when the Germans were driven from the Kuban and the Caucasus, quickly lost his youthful zeal. The "Shepherd and the Shepherdess" tells us about the enduring soldier's wisdom. The analysis of the chapter "Fight" brings to us blood and then the received experience of the author himself: in order to fight and remain alive, one needs to understand the war, not to be heroic, to choose a relatively safe place in time, and digging up the corns in his hands. And jumping out of the trench, should frenziedly shoot at the enemy, there is no other way out. Lieutenant Boris, who understood this, fully identifies himself with the soldiers, feels their support.

Among the fighters there are three or four, not able to drink, quickly hoping. However, we must drink. In order not to disturb the psyche from contemplation of the faces of death. They drank more than the others only the foreman, the "firefighter" (that is, the potential snitch) Pafnutiev and the Kumy-Altai Karyshev and Malyshev from the village of Klyuchi. There is no doubt that Astafyev himself saw similar types on the front. "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess" analyzes how this military collective is organized.

Cain and Abel

After all, there are not only people "from the plow". An educated man, a former corrector Korney Arkadevich Lantsov, who is sensitive to the antagonism of war and the human soul, also serves in the platoon. When his reasoning after a drunk moonshine dangerously touches the cult of personality, the foreman expels him on the street - "make out".

After all, in the platoon there is a middle-aged man named Pafnutiev, brave with his ability to write denunciations. However, the foreman Mokhnakov, knowing this, in time psychologically influences the informer, so that he does not show his dangerous "talent". Truthful - this image was intentionally introduced into the canvas of the story by Astafyev. "Shepherd and Shepherdess" analyzes the era and characters - the sexes are present in the work, as in life.

Kumy-Altai

The Altaians are fighting in a peasant way thoroughly. They are both calm and brave, the strongest support of the platoon commander. Karyshev, in peasant terms, exhaustively expounds the reason for which he is fighting. It does not even smell of ideology. He is a peasant, he fights for his native land, which the farmer, the chief man on earth, is trying to take away the enemy. Thus, the "Shepherd and the Shepherdess" tells us that this war has become popular. Analysis of the work leads us to Tolstoy's "cudgel of people's war", which is recorded and descended on the aggressors' heads. And to this man from the people belongs a deep, philosophical thought, about the fact that two things are sacred on earth: motherhood that gives birth to life, and the tiller that feeds it. And it is uttered to them in the hell of war!

The lieutenant pulls the sergeant-major

Drunk the most Siberians, Mohnakova, under the influence of vodka, "courage awakens," when his companions fall asleep, he pestered the hostess of the house, wanting sex. This attempt is suppressed by Lieutenant Boris, who called the foreman "on the street" and dispassionately promised to kill him in case of a second attempt. The sergeant-major, realizing that his own soul was hardened to the bone, intuitively feels Boris's rightness. However, he understands that his soul split by war does not feel high feelings. He goes to sleep in the barn.

Lusia sees all this. She is the central female image in the novel The Shepherd and the Shepherdess. An analysis of this work will reveal its special role in the Astafiev pastoral. She is Astafievka Gioconda. Her complex image is depicted by the author subtly and touchingly. Russian woman, who was destined for fate in the Ukrainian village. Huge black eyes, thin oblong intelligent face, tight braid, restless hands. Her facial expressions, her manner of speaking, cautious attention, insight testify to the richness of her soul. This image really adorns the Astafiev pastoral "Shepherd and the Shepherdess". The content of the story is transformed from the plane of war into an aspect of human relations, human values, because love, unlike war, is eternal.

Love

In the third part, the writer tells us about beautiful love, about high feelings. "Well, why did we meet just in the war?" - he asks whether the beloved, or the Most High, Lusia. A lot had to be experienced by her during the occupation. Later she will tell Boris in love with her and about the fascist perverts, and about the policemen who shamelessly hosted in these parts. From her lips, we learn that she received a musical education. Books on jurisprudence, contrasting with a rural hut, testify to the second - legal - education. Unexpected stroke - Lusya, being in emotional excitement, in a man's way lights up tobacco. Smoking women then were not uncommon, it also shows us the artistic authenticity and integrity of the story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess". Analysis of the text, however, shows that even arose bright love can not immediately free Lucy's soul of the pain caused by the war. However, a young woman feels the need to love, perceives herself wiser than her beloved, "older than him for a hundred years," feels the mother's tenderness and pity for "his knight" who fights for his country. Between the young people a mutual deep and tender feeling flares up, which they can no longer resist.

Back to the front

"In the gun, the military!" - interrupts this idyllic sergeant-major, passing the order of the company commander, Major Filkin. Rota, rested and received a new technique, was put forward on the front line. Lusia went out on the winter road to see her off. The presentation of this moment by the author again acquires the features of epic. A woman in love with her heart feels that the irreparable will happen. She, freezing in the cold, continues to stand in prostration after the departure of the military column, whispering: "Come back alive!" And when you return home, you do not even close the front door and can not warm up for a long time, feeling some mysterious, piercing cold.

Completion of the tragedy

Our account of the contents of the story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess" comes to an end. The analysis of the chapters that we have made passes to its final stage - the chapter "Assumption". She tragically pastastal Astafyev is logically finished. The iron millstones of war ruthlessly and indistinctly grind people who oppose it with their human nature. Striking in its depth of thought, Sergeant Mokhnakov expressed his opinion that at the front people are living by brotherhood. For some reason, death suddenly gained power over the heroes of Astafiev's book ... How did it all start? Perhaps with treachery. A new captain appeared in the regiment. Pafnutiev liked him, followed by the habits of Judas. And he reported, cursed, and the foreman "for looting," and for the lieutenant "for the connection with a suspicious woman," and most of all - for free-thinking intellectual Korney Arkadyevich Lantsov. The latter was soon taken away allegedly for work in a front-line newspaper. However, Pafnutiev himself suffered the following. He, forgetting the greed for vigilance, pozarilsya on trophies. He was torn off by the explosion of the mine both legs. In his dying remorse he told all the sergeant-major. However, trouble never goes alone. When the soldiers from the platoon of Lieutenant Boris Kostyaev carelessly returned to the location after the delivery of the wounded to the medical battalion, the enemy sniper mortally wounded the Altaians Karyshev. Soon Sergeant Mokhnakov fell ill, as Astafiev writes, "the disease that is not treated in the trenches." He spared his comrades, he began to live separately, he was alone, he stopped communicating. And in battle the sergeant-major began to seek death. He planned everything. Deciding to die heroically, Mohnakov got an anti-tank mine. Like a loaf, he wore it in his pack. With it, he rushed to the advancing enemy tank. Soon was wounded in the shoulder and the main character of the story, Lieutenant Boris Kostyaev. By that time he was experiencing a serious mental crisis. Events flashed in his mind, like a kaleidoscope. He never "got used to the war". Getting to know Lucy seemed to him unreal. The death of his comrades was depressing.

Having got into the medical battalion with a minor wound, the lieutenant faced the indifference of the senior nurse and the attending physician. Treated it formally. And it was not about the fact that he had to be treated at the same time and his thin and suffering soul, wounded by the war. In fact, the wound was not so harmless, and mental suffering - more significant than one might have guessed. The discerning doctor, who realized that the health of the wounded in this hospital was deteriorating, ordered him to be transported to another hospital. However, Boris did not reach. He died on the road. And in a hurry his body was left in one of the wagons standing in a dead end. The head of the station, along with the watchman, buried the hero in a hastily excavated pit. The drunkard-watchman exchanged the laundry of the deceased for a liter of vodka. Having drunk and feeling himself, he cut out a pyramid-monument from the handle of a stretcher and knocked it into the ground in the deceased's minds.

Conclusion

The story ends with the scene with which it began. Seated by Lucia, whose fathomless eyes seemed to fade from age, she lived alone after the death of her lover. Finding his grave, she makes the plan - promises to come to him soon.

The pastoral was closed, the "Shepherd and the Shepherdess" analysis was completed and published. Love, even tragic, wins the war.

The setting sun illuminates the steppe and the woman returning to the station, dressed in an old-fashioned coat ...