Soviet literature

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov

Biography

SHALAMOV, VARLAM TIKHONOVICH (1907−1982), Russian Soviet writer. Born on June 18 (July 1), 1907 in Vologda in the family of a priest. Memories of parents, impressions of childhood and youth were later embodied in the autobiographical prose Fourth Vologda (1971).

In 1914 he entered the gymnasium, in 1923 he graduated from the Vologda school of the 2nd level. In 1924, he left Vologda and got a job as a tanner at a tannery in Kuntsevo, Moscow region. In 1926 he entered Moscow State University at the Faculty of Soviet Law.

At this time, Shalamov wrote poetry, participated in literary circles, attended O. Brik’s literary seminar, various poetry evenings and debates. Tried to actively participate in public life countries. Established contact with the Trotskyist organization at Moscow State University, participated in the opposition demonstration for the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution under the slogans “Down with Stalin!” On February 19, 1929 he was arrested. In his autobiographical prose, Vishersky’s anti-novel (1970−1971, unfinished) wrote: “I consider this day and hour the beginning of my public life - the first true test in harsh conditions.”

Shalamov was sentenced to three years, which he spent in the northern Urals in the Vishera camp. In 1931 he was released and reinstated. Until 1932 he worked on the construction of a chemical plant in Berezniki, then returned to Moscow. Until 1937 he worked as a journalist in the magazines “For Shock Work,” “For Mastery of Technology,” and “For Industrial Personnel.” In 1936, his first publication took place - the story The Three Deaths of Doctor Austino was published in the magazine "October".

On January 12, 1937, Shalamov was arrested “for counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities” and sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment in camps with physical labor. He was already in a pre-trial detention center when his story Pava and the Tree was published in the magazine Literary Contemporary. Shalamov’s next publication (poems in the magazine “Znamya”) took place in 1957.

Shalamov worked in the faces of a gold mine in Magadan, then, being sentenced to a new term, he ended up doing earthworks, in 1940-1942 he worked in a coal face, in 1942-1943 at a penal mine in Dzhelgal. In 1943, he received a new 10-year sentence “for anti-Soviet agitation,” worked in a mine and as a lumberjack, tried to escape, and then ended up in a penalty zone.

Shalamov’s life was saved by the doctor A. M. Pantyukhov, who sent him to paramedic courses at a hospital for prisoners. After completing the courses, Shalamov worked in the surgical department of this hospital and as a paramedic in a lumberjack village. In 1949, Shalamov began writing poetry, which formed the collection Kolyma Notebooks (1937−1956). The collection consists of 6 sections entitled Shalamov's Blue Notebook, The Postman's Bag, Personally and Confidentially, Golden Mountains, Fireweed, High Latitudes.

In his poetry, Shalamov considered himself the “plenipotentiary” of the prisoners, whose anthem was the poem Toast to the Ayan-Uryakh River. Subsequently, researchers of Shalamov’s work noted his desire to show in poetry the spiritual strength of a person who is capable, even in camp conditions, of thinking about love and fidelity, about good and evil, about history and art. An important poetic image of Shalamov is dwarf dwarf - a Kolyma plant that survives in harsh conditions. The cross-cutting theme of his poems is the relationship between man and nature (Praxology to Dogs, Ballad of a Calf, etc.). Shalamov's poetry is permeated with biblical motifs. One of Shalamov’s main works was the poem Avvakum in Pustozersk, in which, according to the author’s commentary, “the historical image is combined with both the landscape and the features of the author’s biography.”

In 1951, Shalamov was released from the camp, but for another two years he was forbidden to leave Kolyma; he worked as a paramedic at a camp and left only in 1953. His family fell apart, his adult daughter did not know her father. His health was undermined, he was deprived of the right to live in Moscow. Shalamov managed to get a job as a supply agent at peat mining in the village. Turkmen Kalinin region. In 1954 he began work on the stories that made up the collection Kolyma Stories (1954−1973). This main work of Shalamov’s life includes six collections of stories and essays - Kolyma Stories, Left Bank, Shovel Artist, Sketches underworld, Resurrection of Larch, Glove, or KR-2. All stories have a documentary basis, they contain an author - either under his own name, or called Andreev, Golubev, Krist. However, these works are not limited to camp memoirs. Shalamov considered it unacceptable to deviate from the facts in describing the living environment in which the action takes place, but he created the inner world of the heroes not through documentary, but through artistic means. The writer's style is emphatically antipathetic: terrible life material demanded that the prose writer embody it exactly, without declamation. Shalamov's prose is tragic in nature, despite the presence of a few satirical images in it. The author has spoken more than once about the confessional nature of the Kolyma stories. He called his narrative style “new prose,” emphasizing that “it is important for him to revive the feeling, extraordinary new details, descriptions in a new way are needed to make you believe in the story, in everything else not as information, but as an open heart wound.” . The camp world appears in the Kolyma stories as an irrational world.

Shalamov denied the need for suffering. He became convinced that in the abyss of suffering, it is not purification that occurs, but the corruption of human souls. In a letter to A.I. Solzhenitsyn, he wrote: “The camp is a negative school from first to last day for anyone."

In 1956, Shalamov was rehabilitated and moved to Moscow. In 1957 he became a freelance correspondent for the Moscow magazine, and his poems were published at the same time. In 1961, a book of his poems was published. In 1979, in serious condition, he was placed in a boarding house for the disabled and elderly. He lost his sight and hearing and had difficulty moving.

Books of Shalamov’s poems were published in the USSR in 1972 and 1977. Kolyma stories were published in London (1978, in Russian), in Paris (1980−1982, in French), in New York (1981−1982, on English language). After their publication, Shalamov gained worldwide fame. In 1980, the French branch of the Pen Club awarded him the Freedom Prize.

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov (1907-1982) - Soviet writer, native of Vologda. In the autobiographical work “The Fourth Vologda” (1971), the writer reflected memories of childhood, youth and family.

First he studied at the gymnasium, then at the Vologda school. Since 1924, he worked at a tannery in the city of Kuntsevo (Moscow region) as a tanner. Since 1926, he studied at Moscow State University at the Faculty of Soviet Law. Here he began to write poetry, take part in literary circles, and actively take part in the public life of the country. In 1929 he was arrested and sentenced to 3 years, which the writer served in the Vishera camp. After his release and restoration of his rights, he worked at the construction site of a chemical plant, then returned to Moscow, where he worked as a journalist in various magazines. The magazine “October” published his first story, “The Three Deaths of Doctor Austino,” on its pages. 1937 – second arrest and 5 years of camp work in Magadan. Then they added a 10-year sentence “for anti-Soviet agitation.”

Thanks to the intervention of doctor A.M. Pantyukhov (sent him to courses) Shalamov became a surgeon. His poems 1937-1956 were compiled into the collection “Kolyma Notebooks”.

In 1951, the writer was released, but was forbidden to leave Kolyma for another 2 years. Shalamov’s family broke up, his health was undermined.

In 1956 (after rehabilitation) Shalamov moved to Moscow and worked as a freelance correspondent for the Moscow magazine. In 1961 his book “Flint” was published.

IN last years Having lost his sight and hearing, he lived in a boarding house for the disabled. The publication of “Kolyma Tales” made Shalamov famous throughout the world. Awarded the Freedom Award in 1980.

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov(June 5, 1907 - January 17, 1982) - Russian prose writer and poet of the Soviet era. Creator of one of the literary cycles about Soviet camps.

Biography
Family, childhood, youth
Varlam Shalamov born June 5 (June 18), 1907 in Vologda in the family of priest Tikhon Nikolaevich Shalamov, a preacher in the Aleutian Islands. Varlam Shalamov's mother, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, was a housewife. In 1914 he entered the gymnasium, but completed his secondary education after the revolution. In 1924, after graduating from the Vologda second-level school, he came to Moscow and worked for two years as a tanner at a tannery in Kuntsevo. From 1926 to 1928 he studied at the Faculty of Soviet Law of Moscow State University, then was expelled “for concealing his social origin” (he indicated that his father was disabled, without indicating that he was a priest).
In his autobiographical story about his childhood and youth, “The Fourth Vologda,” Shalamov told how his beliefs developed, how his thirst for justice and his determination to fight for it strengthened. The Narodnaya Volya became his youthful ideal - the sacrifice of their feat, the heroism of resistance to the full might of the autocratic state. Already in childhood, the boy’s artistic talent is evident - he passionately reads and “plays” for himself all the books - from Dumas to Kant.
Repression
February 19, 1929 Shalamov was arrested for participation in an underground Trotskyist group and for distributing an addition to Lenin's Testament. Out of court, as a “socially dangerous element,” he was sentenced to three years in the camps. He served his sentence in the Vishera camp (Northern Urals). In 1932, Shalamov returned to Moscow, worked in departmental magazines, published articles, essays, and feuilletons.
In January 1937 Shalamova arrested again for “counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities.” He was sentenced to five years in the camps and spent this term in Kolyma (SVITL). Shalamov went on “business trips” in the taiga, worked at the mines “Partizan”, “Black Lake”, Arkagala, Dzhelgala, and several times ended up in a hospital bed due to the difficult conditions of Kolyma. As Shalamov later wrote:
From the first minute in prison it was clear to me that there were no mistakes in the arrests, that there was a systematic extermination of an entire “social” group - everyone who remembered from Russian history of recent years something that was not what should be remembered from it.
On June 22, 1943, he was again sentenced to ten years for anti-Soviet agitation, which consisted - according to the writer himself - in calling I. A. Bunin a Russian classic: “...I was condemned to war for declaring that Bunin was a Russian classic”.
In 1951 Shalamov was released from the camp, but at first could not return to Moscow. Since 1946, having completed an eight-month paramedic course, he began working at the Central Hospital for Prisoners on the left bank of the Kolyma in the village of Debin and on a forest “business trip” for lumberjacks until 1953. The appointment to the position of paramedic is due to the doctor A. M. Pantyukhov, who personally recommended Shalamov for paramedic courses. Then he lived in the Kalinin region, worked in Reshetnikov. The results of the repression were family breakdown and poor health. In 1956, after rehabilitation, he returned to Moscow.

Creation
In 1932 Shalamov returned to Moscow after his first term and began publishing in Moscow publications as a journalist. Published several stories. One of the first major publications was the story “The Three Deaths of Doctor Austino” in the magazine “October” (1936).
In 1949, on the Duskanya key, for the first time in Kolyma, while a prisoner, he began to record his poems.
After liberation in 1951 Shalamov returned to literary activity. However, he could not leave Kolyma. It was only in November 1953 that permission to leave was received. Shalamov came to Moscow for two days, met with B. L. Pasternak, his wife and daughter. However, he could not live in large cities, and he left for the Kalinin region (the village of Turkmen, now the Klinsky district of the Moscow region), where he worked as a peat mining foreman and a supply agent. All this time he was writing one of his main works - “Kolyma Stories”. The writer created “Kolyma Stories” from 1954 to 1973. They were published as a separate publication in London in 1978. In the USSR they were mainly published in 1988-1990. The writer himself divided his stories into six cycles: “Kolyma Tales”, “Left Bank”, “Shovel Artist”, “Sketches of the Underworld”, “Resurrection of Larch” and “The Glove, or KR-2”. They are fully collected in the two-volume “Kolyma Stories” in 1992 in the series “The Way of the Cross of Russia” by the publishing house “Soviet Russia”.
In 1962, he wrote to A.I. Solzhenitsyn:
Remember, the most important thing: camp is a negative school from the first to the last day for anyone. The person - neither the boss nor the prisoner - needs to see him. But if you saw him, you must tell the truth, no matter how terrible it may be. For my part, I decided long ago that I would devote the rest of my life to this truth.
He met with Pasternak, who spoke highly of Shalamov's poems. Later, after the government forced Pasternak to refuse to accept Nobel Prize, their paths diverged.
He completed the collection of poems “Kolyma Notebooks” (1937-1956).
Since 1956, Shalamov lived in Moscow, first on Gogolevsky Boulevard, from the late 1950s - in one of the writers' wooden cottage houses on Khoroshevskoye Shosse (house 10), since 1972 - on Vasilyevskaya Street (house 2, building 6). He was published in the magazines “Yunost”, “Znamya”, “Moscow”, communicated with N. Ya. Mandelstam, O. V. Ivinskaya, A. I. Solzhenitsyn (relations with whom later turned into polemics); was a frequent guest in the house of the philologist V.N. Klyueva. Both in prose and in Shalamov’s poems (collection “Flint”, 1961, “Rustle of Leaves”, 1964, “Road and Fate”, 1967, etc.), expressing the difficult experience of Stalin’s camps, the theme of Moscow also sounds (poetry collection “ Moscow clouds", 1972). He was also involved in poetic translations. In the 1960s he met A. A. Galich.
In 1973 he was admitted to the Writers' Union. From 1973 until 1979, when Shalamov moved to live in the Home for the Disabled and Elderly, he kept workbooks, the analysis and publication of which continued until his death in 2011. I. P. Sirotinskaya, to whom Shalamov transferred the rights to all his manuscripts and essays.
Letter to Literaturnaya Gazeta
On February 23, 1972, Literaturnaya Gazeta published a letter from Shalamov, which, in particular, said that “the problematic of the Kolyma stories has long been removed by life.” The main content of the letter is a protest against the publication of his stories by the emigrant publications “Posev” and “New Journal”. This letter was received ambiguously by the public. Many believed that it was written under pressure from the KGB, and Shalamov lost friends among former camp inmates. A member of the dissident movement, Pyotr Yakir, expressed “pity in connection with the circumstances” that forced Shalamov to sign this letter in the 24th issue of the Chronicle of Current Events. Modern researchers note, however, that the appearance of this letter is due to the painful process of Shalamov’s divergence from literary circles and a feeling of powerlessness from the inability to make his main work accessible to a wide circle readers in the homeland.
It is possible that we need to look for subtext in Shalamov’s letter. ...it uses the typically Bolshevik accusatory epithet “smelly” in relation to emigrant publications, which in itself is shocking, because “olfactory” characteristics, both metaphorical and literal, are rare in Shalamov’s prose (he had chronic rhinitis). To Shalamov’s readers, the word must have been offensive to the eyes as if it were alien - a lexical unit sticking out from the text, a “bone” thrown to the guards of the readers (editors, censors) in order to divert attention from the true purpose of the letter - to sneak the first and last mention of the “Kolyma” into the official Soviet press stories" - along with their exact name. In this way, the true target audience of the letter is informed that such a collection exists: readers are encouraged to think about where to get it. Understanding perfectly what is hidden behind the toponym “Kolyma,” those who read the letter will ask the question: ““Kolyma stories?” Where is it?”

Last years
The last three years of the life of a seriously ill patient Shalamov spent in the House for the Disabled and Elderly of the Literary Fund (in Tushino). What the home for the disabled was like can be judged from the memoirs of E. Zakharova, who was next to Shalamov in the last six months of his life:
This kind of establishment is the most terrible and most undoubted evidence of the deformation of human consciousness that occurred in our country in the 20th century. A person is deprived not only of the right to a dignified life, but also to a dignified death.
- E. Zakharova. From a speech at the Shalamov Readings in 2002.
However, even there Varlam Tikhonovich, whose ability to move correctly and clearly articulate his speech was impaired, continued to compose poetry. In the fall of 1980, A. A. Morozov somehow incredibly managed to disassemble and write down these last poems by Shalamov. They were published during Shalamov’s lifetime in the Parisian magazine “Vestnik RHD” No. 133, 1981.
In 1981, the French branch of the Pen Club awarded Shalamov the Freedom Prize.
On January 15, 1982, after a superficial examination by a medical commission, Shalamov was transferred to a boarding school for psychochronic patients. During transportation, Shalamov caught a cold, contracted pneumonia and died on January 17, 1982.
According to Sirotinskaya:
A certain role in this transfer was played by the noise that a group of his well-wishers raised around him in the second half of 1981. Among them, of course, there were really kind people, and there were also those who worked out of self-interest, out of a passion for sensation. After all, it was because of them that Varlam Tikhonovich had two posthumous “wives” who, with a crowd of witnesses, besieged the official authorities. His poor, defenseless old age became the subject of the show.
On June 16, 2011, E. Zakharova, who was next to Varlam Tikhonovich on the day of his death, in her speech at a conference dedicated to the fate and work of Varlam Shalamov, said:
I came across some texts that mention that before the death of Varlam Tikhonovich, some unscrupulous people came to him for some selfish interest. How should one understand this, in what selfish interests?! This is a home for the disabled! You are inside a Bosch painting - without exaggeration, I am a witness of this. This is dirt, stench, decaying half-dead people around, what the hell is medicine there? An immobilized, blind, almost deaf, twitching person is such a shell, and inside it lives a writer, a poet. From time to time several people come, feed, water, wash, hold hands, Alexander Anatolyevich also talked and wrote down poems. What kind of selfish interests can there be here?! What is this even about? ... I insist - this must be interpreted correctly. It is impossible for this to remain unmentioned and unknown.
Despite the fact that Shalamov was an unbeliever all his life, E. Zakharova insisted on his funeral service. The funeral service for Varlam Shalamov was conducted by Archpriest Alexander Kulikov, who was later rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in Klenniki (Maroseyka). The funeral for Varlam Tikhonovich was organized by the philosopher S. S. Khoruzhy.
Shalamov is buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow. About 150 people attended the funeral. A. Morozov and F. Suchkov read Shalamov’s poems.

Family
Varlam Shalamov was married twice. The first time was with Galina Ignatievna Gudz (1909-1956), who in 1935 gave birth to his daughter Elena (Shalamova Elena Varlamovna, married to Yanushevskaya, died in 1990). With his second marriage (1956-1965) he was married to Olga Sergeevna Neklyudova (1909-1989), also a writer, whose son from her first marriage (Sergei Yuryevich Neklyudov) is a famous Russian folklorist, Doctor of Philology.

Memory
Asteroid 3408 Shalamov, discovered on August 17, 1977 by N. S. Chernykh, was named in honor of V. T. Shalamov.
At Shalamov’s grave, a monument was erected by his friend Fedot Suchkov, who also went through Stalin’s camps. In June 2000, the monument to Varlam Shalamov was destroyed. Unknown people tore off and carried away the bronze head, leaving a lonely granite pedestal. This crime did not cause widespread resonance and was not solved. Thanks to the help of metallurgists from Severstal JSC (the writer’s fellow countrymen), the monument was restored in 2001.
Since 1991, there has been an exhibition in Vologda in the Shalamov House - in the building where Shalamov was born and raised and where the Vologda Regional Art Gallery. In the Shalamov House, memorial evenings are held every year on the writer’s birthday and death, and there have already been 5 (1991, 1994, 1997, 2002 and 2007) International Shalamov readings (conferences).
In 1992, the Literary and Local Lore Museum was opened in the village of Tomtor (Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)), where Shalamov spent the last two years (1952-1953) in Kolyma.
Part of the exhibition of the Museum of Political Repression in the village of Yagodnoye, Magadan Region, created in 1994 by local historian Ivan Panikarov, is dedicated to Shalamov.
In 2005, a room-museum of V. Shalamov was created in the village of Debin, where the Central Hospital of Prisoners of Dalstroy (Sevvostlag) operated and where Shalamov worked in 1946-1951.
On July 21, 2007, a memorial to Varlam Shalamov was opened in Krasnovishersk, a city that grew up on the site of Vishlag, where he served his first term.
On October 30, 2013, in Moscow, in house No. 8 on Chisty Lane, where the writer lived for three years before his arrest in 1937, a memorial plaque to Varlam Shalamov was unveiled
On July 20, 2012, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the building of the hospital in the village of Debin (former central hospital USVITL) in Kolyma (Yagodninsky district of the Magadan region).

In the tragic chorus of voices chanting the horrors of Stalin's camps, Varlam Shalamov performs one of the first roles. The autobiographical “Kolyma Tales” tell of the inhuman trials that befell an entire generation. Having survived the circles of hell of totalitarian repression, the writer refracted them through the prism artistic word and stood among the classics of Russian literature of the 20th century.

Childhood and youth

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov was born in Vologda on June 5, 1907. He came from a hereditary family of priests. His father, like his grandfather and uncle, was a shepherd of the Russian Orthodox Church. Tikhon Nikolaevich was engaged in missionary work, preached to the Aleut tribes on distant islands (now the territory of Alaska) and knew English perfectly. The writer's mother raised children, and in the last years of her life she worked at a school. Varlam was the fifth child in the family.

The boy learned to read at the age of 3 and greedily devoured everything he came across in the family library. Literary passions became more complex with age: he moved from adventures to philosophical works. Future writer had a subtle artistic taste, critical thinking and a desire for justice. Under the influence of books, ideals close to those of the People's Will were formed early in him.

Already in childhood, Varlam wrote his first poems. At the age of 7, the boy is sent to a gymnasium, but his education is interrupted by the revolution, so he finishes school only in 1924. Children's and teenage years the writer summarizes in “The Fourth Vologda” - a story about the early years of life.

After graduating from school, the guy goes to Moscow and joins the ranks of the capital's proletariat: he goes to a factory and spends 2 years honing his tanner's skills in a leather production. And from 1926 to 1928 he receives higher education at Moscow State University, studying Soviet law. But he is expelled from the university, having learned from denunciations of fellow students about his “socially objectionable” origin. This is how the repressive machine for the first time invades the biography of the writer.

During his student years, Shalamov attended a literary circle organized by the magazine “New LEF”, where he met and communicated with progressive young writers.

Arrests and imprisonments

In 1927, Shalamov took part in a protest dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. As part of a group of underground Trotskyists, he speaks with the slogans “Down with Stalin!” and calls for a return to the true covenants. In 1929, for participation in the activities of the Trotskyist group, Varlam Shalamov was first taken into custody and “without trial” was sent to correctional camps for 3 years as a “socially harmful element.”

From this time on, his long-term ordeal as a prisoner began, which lasted until 1951. The writer served his first term in Vishlag, where he arrived in April 1929 from Butyrka prison. In the north of the Urals, prisoners are participating in the largest construction project of the first five-year plan - they are building a chemical plant of all-Union significance in Berezniki.

Released in 1932, Shalamov returned to Moscow and made a living as a writer, collaborating with industrial newspapers and magazines. However, in 1936, the man was again reminded of his “dirty Trotskyist past” and accused of counter-revolutionary activities. This time he was sentenced to 5 years and in 1937 he was sent to harsh Magadan for the hardest work - gold mining.

The sentence ended in 1942, but the prisoners were refused to be released until the end of the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. In addition, Shalamov was constantly being given new sentences under various articles: here was the camp “lawyers’ case” and “anti-Soviet statements.” As a result, the writer's term increased to 10 years.

Over the years, he managed to change five mines in the Kolyma camps, wandered around the villages and mines as a miner, lumberjack and digger. He had to stay in the medical barracks as a “walker” who was no longer capable of any physical labor. In 1945, exhausted from unbearable conditions, he tries to escape with a group of prisoners, but only aggravates the situation and, as punishment, is sent to a penal mine.

Once again in the hospital, Shalamov remains there as an assistant, and then receives a referral to a paramedic course. After graduating in 1946, Varlam Tikhonovich worked in camp hospitals in the Far East until the end of his prison term. Having received his release, but having lost his rights, the writer worked in Yakutia for another year and a half and saved money for a ticket to Moscow, where he would return only in 1953.

Creation

After serving his first prison term, Shalamov worked as a journalist in Moscow trade union publications. His first was published in 1936 fictional story on the pages of “October”. The 20-year exile influenced the writer’s work, although even in the camps he did not give up trying to write down his poems, which would form the basis of the “Kolyma Notebooks” series.

“Kolyma Tales” is rightfully considered Shalamov’s programmatic work. This collection is dedicated to the powerless years of Stalin’s camps using the example of the life of prisoners of Sevvostlag and consists of 6 cycles (“Left Bank”, “Shovel Artist”, “Essays on the Underworld”, etc.).

In it the artist describes life experience people broken by the system. Deprived of freedom, support and hope, exhausted by hunger, cold and overwork, a person loses his face and very humanity - the writer is deeply convinced of this. The prisoner's capacity for friendship, compassion and mutual respect atrophies when the issue of survival comes to the fore.

Shalamov was against the publication of “Kolyma Stories” as a separate publication, and in full meeting they were published in Russia only posthumously. A film was made based on the work in 2005.

In the 1960s and 70s, Varlam Tikhonovich published collections of poetry, wrote memoirs about his childhood (the story “The Fourth Vologda”) and the experience of his first camp imprisonment (the anti-novel “Vishera”).

The last cycle of poems was published in 1977.

Personal life

The fate of an eternal prisoner did not prevent the writer from building his personal life. Gudz Shalamov met his first wife Galina Ignatievna in the Vishera camp. There, he said, he “took” her away from another prisoner whom the girl came to visit. In 1934, the couple got married, and a year later their daughter Elena was born.

During the second arrest of the writer, his wife was also subjected to repression: Galina was exiled to a remote village in Turkmenistan, where she lived until 1946. The family gets together only in 1953, when Shalamov returns from the Far Eastern settlements to Moscow, but already in 1954 the couple divorces.

Varlam Tikhonovich's second wife was Olga Sergeevna Neklyudova, a member of the Union of Soviet Writers. Shalamov became her fourth and last husband. The marriage lasted 10 years, the couple had no children.

After the divorce in 1966 and until his death, the writer remained single.

Death

In the last years of his life, the writer’s health condition was extremely difficult. Decades of exhausting work at the limit of human resources were not in vain. Back in the late 1950s, he suffered severe attacks of Meniere's disease, and in the 70s he gradually lost his hearing and vision.

The man is unable to coordinate his own movements and has difficulty moving, and in 1979, friends and colleagues transport him to the Invalides Home. Experiencing difficulties with speech and coordination, Shalamov does not give up trying to write poetry.

In 1981, the writer suffered a stroke, after which a decision was made to send him to a boarding house for people suffering from chronic mental illness. There he dies on January 17, 1982, the cause of death is lobar pneumonia.

The son of a priest, Shalamov always considered himself an unbeliever, but he was buried according to the Orthodox rite and buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow. Photos from the writer's funeral have been preserved.

Several museums and exhibitions located in different parts of the country are dedicated to Shalamov’s name: in Vologda, in the author’s small homeland, in Kolyma, where he worked as a paramedic, in Yakutia, where the writer served his last days of exile.

Bibliography

• 1936 - “The Three Deaths of Doctor Austino”
• 1949-1954 - “Kolyma notebooks”
• 1954-1973 - “Kolyma Stories”
• 1961 - “Flint”
• 1964 - “The Rustle of Leaves”
• 1967 - “Road and Destiny”
• 1971 - “Fourth Vologda”
• 1972 - “Moscow Clouds”
• 1973 - “Vishera”
• 1973 - “Fedor Raskolnikov”
• 1977 - “Boiling Point”

The fate of a person is predetermined, as many believe, by his character. Shalamov's biography is difficult and extremely tragic - a consequence of his moral views and beliefs, the formation of which took place already in adolescence.

Childhood and youth

Varlam Shalamov was born in Vologda in 1907. His father was a priest, a man expressing progressive views. Perhaps the environment that surrounded the future writer and the parental worldview gave the first impetus to the development of this extraordinary personality. Vologda was home to exiled prisoners, with whom Varlam’s father always sought to maintain relationships and provided every possible support.

Shalamov’s biography is partially reflected in his story “The Fourth Vologda”. Already in early years The author of this work began to develop a thirst for justice and the desire to fight for it at any cost. Shalamov’s ideal in those years was the image of a Narodnaya Volya member. The sacrifice of his feat inspired young man and, perhaps, predetermined the whole future fate. Artistic talent manifested itself in him with early years. At first, his gift was expressed in an irresistible craving for reading. He read voraciously. The future creator of the literary cycle about Soviet camps was interested in various prose: from adventure novels to the philosophical ideas of Immanuel Kant.

In Moscow

Shalamov’s biography includes the fateful events that occurred during his first period in the capital. He left for Moscow at the age of seventeen. At first he worked as a tanner at a factory. Two years later he entered the university at the Faculty of Law. Literary activity and jurisprudence are, at first glance, incompatible directions. But Shalamov was a man of action. The feeling that years were passing in vain tormented him already in early youth. As a student, he took part in literary debates, rallies, demonstrations and

First arrest

Shalamov's biography is all about prison sentences. The first arrest took place in 1929. Shalamov was sentenced to three years in prison. Essays, articles and many feuilletons were created by the writer during that difficult period that came after returning from the Northern Urals. What perhaps gave him strength to survive the long years in the camps was the conviction that all these events were a test.

Regarding the first arrest, a writer in autobiographical prose once said that it was this event that marked the beginning of real social life. Later, having bitter experience behind him, Shalamov changed his views. He no longer believed that suffering purifies a person. Rather, it leads to the corruption of the soul. He called the camp a school that has an exclusively negative influence on anyone from the first to the last day.

But the years that Varlam Shalamov spent on Vishera, he could not help but reflect in his work. Four years later he was arrested again. Five years in the Kolyma camps became Shalamov’s sentence in the terrible year of 1937.

In Kolyma

One arrest followed another. In 1943, Shalamov Varlam Tikhonovich was taken into custody simply for calling the emigrant writer Ivan Bunin a Russian classic. This time, Shalamov survived thanks to the prison doctor, who, at his own peril and risk, sent him to paramedic courses. Shalamov began recording his poems for the first time on the Duskanya key. After his release, he could not leave Kolyma for another two years.

And only after Stalin’s death Varlam Tikhonovich was able to return to Moscow. Here he met with Boris Pasternak. Shalamov’s personal life did not work out. He had been separated from his family for too long. His daughter grew up without him.

From Moscow he managed to move to the Kalinin region and get a job as a foreman in peat mining. Varlamov Shalamov devoted all his free time from hard work to writing. “Kolyma Tales,” which the factory foreman and supply agent created in those years, made him a classic of Russian and anti-Soviet literature. The stories were included in world culture, became a monument to countless victims

Creation

In London, Paris and New York, Shalamov's stories were published earlier than in the Soviet Union. The plot of the works from the series “Kolyma Tales” is a painful depiction of prison life. Tragic fates characters are similar to each other. They became prisoners of the Soviet Gulag by merciless chance. The prisoners are exhausted and starved. Their further fate depends, as a rule, on the arbitrariness of their bosses and thieves.

Rehabilitation

In 1956, Shalamov Varlam Tikhonovich was rehabilitated. But his works still did not appear in print. Soviet critics believed that in the work of this writer there is no “enthusiasm for work”, but there is only “abstract humanism”. Varlamov Shalamov took such a review very hard. "Kolyma Tales" - a work created at the cost of the life and blood of the author - turned out to be unnecessary to society. Only creativity and friendly communication kept his spirit and hope alive.

Soviet readers saw Shalamov's poetry and prose only after his death. Until the end of his days, despite his weak health, undermined by the camps, he did not stop writing.

Publication

For the first time, works from the Kolyma collection appeared in the writer’s homeland in 1987. And this time his incorruptible and stern word was needed by the readers. It was no longer possible to move forward safely and leave them in oblivion in Kolyma. This writer proved that the voices of even dead witnesses can be heard loudly. Shalamov’s books: “Kolyma Tales”, “Left Bank”, “Essays on the Underworld” and others are evidence that nothing has been forgotten.

Recognition and criticism

The works of this writer represent one whole. Here is the unity of the soul, and the fate of people, and the thoughts of the author. The epic of Kolyma is the branches of a huge tree, small streams of a single stream. Story line one story smoothly flows into another. And there is no fiction in these works. They contain only the truth.

Unfortunately, domestic critics were able to evaluate Shalamov’s work only after his death. Recognition in literary circles came in 1987. And in 1982, after a long illness, Shalamov died. But even in the post-war period he remained an inconvenient writer. His work did not fit into Soviet ideology, but was also alien to the new time. The thing is that in Shalamov’s works there was no open criticism of the authorities from which he suffered. Perhaps “Kolyma Tales” is too unique in its ideological content for its author to be placed on a par with other figures of Russian or Soviet literature.

The biography of Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov, a Russian Soviet writer, begins on June 18 (July 1), 1907. He comes from Vologda, from the family of a priest. Remembering his parents, his childhood and youth, he subsequently wrote the autobiographical prose Fourth Vologda (1971). Varlam began his studies in 1914 at the gymnasium. Then he studied at the Vologda 2nd level school, which he graduated in 1923. Having left Vologda in 1924, he became an employee of a tannery in the town of Kuntsevo, in the Moscow region. He worked as a tanner. Since 1926 - student at Moscow State University, Faculty of Soviet Law.

During this period, Shalamov wrote poems, took part in the work of various literary circles, attended O. Brik’s literary seminar, participated in debates and various literary evenings, and led an active social life. He was associated with the Trotskyist organization at Moscow State University, took part in an opposition demonstration under the slogan “Down with Stalin!”, dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution, which led to his arrest on February 19, 1929. Subsequently, in his autobiographical prose entitled “Vishera Anti-Novel,” he will write that he considers this very moment the beginning of his public life and the first real test.

Shalamov was sentenced to three years. He served his time in the Vishera camp in the northern Urals. He received his release and restoration of his rights in 1931. Until 1932, he helped build a chemical plant in Berezniki, after which he returned to the capital. Until 1937, he worked as a journalist in such magazines as “For Industrial Personnel”, “For Mastery of Technology”, “For Shock Work”. In 1936, the magazine "October" published his story entitled "The Three Deaths of Doctor Austino."

On January 12, 1937, Shalamov was again arrested for counter-revolutionary activities and received a 5-year sentence. He served his imprisonment in camps where they used physical labor. When he was already in pretrial detention, the magazine Literary Contemporary published his story “Paheva and the Tree.” The next time he was published was in 1957 - the magazine “Znamya” published his poems.

Shalamov was sent to work in the faces of the Magadan gold mine. Then he received another term and was transferred to earthworks. From 1940 to 1942, his place of work was a coal face, and from 1942 to 1943, a penal mine in Dzhelgal. “For anti-Soviet agitation” in 1943 he was again sentenced to 10 years. He worked as a miner and lumberjack, and after an unsuccessful escape attempt he ended up in a penalty area.

Doctor A.M. Pantyukhov actually saved Shalamov’s life by sending him to study at the paramedic courses opened at the hospital for prisoners. After graduating, Shalamov became an employee of the surgical department of the same hospital, and later a paramedic in a lumberjack settlement. Since 1949, he has been writing poetry, which will later be included in the collection “Kolyma Notebooks” (1937-1956). The collection will include 6 sections.

In his poems, this Russian writer and poet saw himself as a “plenipotentiary representative” of prisoners. His poetic work “Toast to the Ayan-Uryakh River” became a kind of anthem for them. In his work, Varlam Tikhonovich sought to show how strong in spirit a person can be, who, even in the conditions of a camp, is able to love and remain faithful, is able to think about art and history, about good and evil. An important poetic image used by Shalamov is dwarf dwarf, a Kolyma plant that survives in the harsh climate. The cross-cutting theme of his poems is the relationship between man and nature. In addition, biblical motifs can be seen in Shalamov’s poetry. The author called the poem “Habakkuk in Pustozersk” one of his main works, since it combined a historical image, landscape and features of the author’s biography.

Shalamov was released in 1951, but for another two years he did not have the right to leave Kolyma. All this time he worked as a paramedic at the camp first-aid post and was able to leave only in 1953. Without a family, with poor health and no right to live in Moscow - this is how Shalamov left Kolyma. He was able to find work in the village. Turkmen of the Kalinin region at peat mining as a supply agent.

Since 1954, he worked on stories, which were then included in the collection “Kolyma Stories” (1954-1973) - the main work of the author’s life. It consists of six collections of essays and stories - “Kolyma Tales”, “Left Bank”, “Shovel Artist”, “Essays on the Underworld”, “Resurrection of Larch”, “The Glove, or KR-2”. All stories have a documentary basis, and in each the author is present personally, or under the names Golubev, Andreev, Christ. However, these works cannot be called camp memoirs. According to Shalamov, when describing the living environment in which the action takes place, it is unacceptable to deviate from the facts. However, to create inner world he used heroes not from documentaries, but artistic media. The writer chose a distinctly antipathetic style. There is tragedy in Shalamov’s prose, despite the fact that there are a few satirical images.

According to the author, the Kolyma stories also contain a confessional character. He gave his narrative style the name “new prose.” In the Kolyma stories, the camp world appears irrational.

Varlam Tikhonovich denied the need for suffering. He was convinced from his own experience that the abyss of suffering does not cleanse, but corrupts human souls. Corresponding with A.I. Solzhenitsyn, he wrote that the camp is a negative school for anyone, from the first to the last day.

In 1956, Shalamov waited for rehabilitation and was able to move to Moscow. The following year he already worked as a freelance correspondent for the Moscow magazine. In 1957, his poems were published, and in 1961 a book of his poems entitled “Flint” was published.

Since 1979, due to his serious condition (loss of vision and hearing, difficulty in independent movement), he was forced to live in a boarding house for the disabled and elderly.

Books of poems by the author Shalamov were published in the USSR in 1972 and 1977. The collection “Kolyma Stories” was published abroad in Russian in London in 1978, in French in Paris in 1980-1982, in English in New York in 1981-1982. These publications brought Shalamov worldwide fame. In 1980 he received the Freedom Prize, which was awarded to him by the French branch of the Pen Club.

Please note that the biography of Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov presents the most important moments from his life. This biography may omit some minor life events.