What is Zamyatin’s work about? History of creation and analysis of the novel “We” by E.I. Zamyatin

The novel was written in 1921, but reached its reader almost seven decades later. It was published in Russia in the magazine “Znamya” only in 1988 (No. 4-5). The novel was involved in a number of acute conflicts of its era.

During 1921-1924. Zamyatin is fighting for the right of his brainchild to exist: at least six public readings of the novel are known. It is still not possible to achieve publication at home.

The novel was first published in English, translated by Zilburg, in New York in 1924. In 1927, fragments of the novel appeared in Russian in the Prague magazine “The Will of Russia.” It was this publication that became the official reason for the persecution of Zamyatin in Russia.

In 1952, the book, banned in its homeland, was published in Russian in New York by the publishing house named after A.P. Chekhov. The appearance of “We” preceded the foreign publication of “Doctor Zhivago” by B. Pasternak (1945-1955) and the subsequent wave of “tamizdat”, i.e. illegal publication abroad of works by Russian authors.

Many years creative heritage Zamyatin was in spiritual oblivion. It entered our spiritual life in the late 1980s, when access to previously prohibited literature was opened, when the works of A. Solzhenitsyn, A. Platonov,

V. Shalamov, writers from Russia abroad came to the readers.

However, at first, Zamyatin’s novel was perceived almost as tutorial, by which one can study the essence of the totalitarian system created in the USSR, and in Yevgeny Zamyatin they saw not so much a writer as a fighter against this system. Because of this, the work created by the writer lost its spiritual and moral meaning, its true historical and philosophical content. Let's try to overcome this one-sided interpretation.

GENRE OF THE WORK. It is customary to call “We” a dystopia.

Using genre scheme utopia, Zamyatin transfers the action of the novel a thousand years into the future into a conventional fantasy space. He creates the image of a United State, sheltered from the “wild” space by the Green Wall.

Zamyatin's work is a dystopia, i.e. a parody of utopia. Its goal is to expose utopia to ridicule and exposure.

The United State, which built a “glass paradise” on earth, is, first of all, a parody of Plato’s utopian state.

Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher (428 or 427-348 or 347 BC), was one of the first to propose a diagram of an ideal type of social structure.

The structure of the Unified State parodicly repeats the structure of Plato's utopian society with its strict hierarchical model, in which there are rulers (for Plato these are priest-philosophers endowed with supreme power and highest knowledge, for Zamyatin - the Benefactor); intermediaries between the highest power and the lowest hierarchical structures (for Plato - warrior-guards, for Zamyatin - employees of the “Bureau of Guardians” and poets); and, finally, producers of goods (for Plato - artisans and farmers, for Zamyatin - numbers), who are “lower” in the hierarchy of a utopian society.

The bearer of supreme power in Zamyatin is endowed with the name of the Benefactor. Oxymoronic definitions accompanying the concept of “good” (“beneficent snares of happiness”, “beneficent web”, “beneficent yoke”), in combination with the repressive functions of the highest person, give the concept of “benefactor” a sarcastic character.

Zamyatin takes the idea of ​​the “benefits” of art to the point of absurdity. Mocking the ideas of extreme utilitarianism, he comes up with mocking titles of books that “accompany” the life of numbers: these are “Mathematical Nones”, which help to learn the four rules of arithmetic, the reference book “Stanzas on sexual hygiene”, a sonnet glorifying the multiplication table, the immortal tragedy “The Late One” to work”, etc.

Zamyatin populates the united state with happy citizens - numbers - a new race of geometric bodies and automats. This time Zamyatin uses the weapon of parody against the utopias of the proletarians, who saw the main obstacle to mathematically infallible happiness in man. They glorified the mythological Proletarian, the worker who will overcome the imperfections of nature and turn into a social automaton.

Residents of the United State do not have names, only a state number. They have “faces not clouded by madness,” they walk in thousands “in measured rows, four at a time, enthusiastically beating time” in identical “bluish uniforms, with gold plaques on the chest,” on each of which there is an individual “state number of each and every one.” The greatest happiness for them is to turn in reality “into the steel six-wheeled hero” from the poem about the Tablet, i.e. in the car. The rhythm of their life is also likened to the rhythm of machines. “With six-wheel precision, at the same hour and at the same minute” millions of numbers wake up, at the same hour, “one million” they begin and finish work, at the same second they bring spoons to their mouths , go for a walk, go to bed. This is how the image of “We” arises - a community of “I” who have supposedly lost themselves. But depersonalization turns out to be a fiction. Already at the level of naming characters, the idea of ​​​​the indestructibility of the personal principle arises. The Russian reader perceives the letters of the Latin alphabet not so much as a designation of speech sounds, but as geometric figures, which in themselves become a sign of individuality: “thin, sharp, stubbornly flexible, like a whip I-330”, “all of circles” O-90 , “Double-curved” S, etc.

The diabolical paradox is that the consciousness of one’s inclusion in a group of like-minded people can lead to a state of uplift, inspiration, a sense of one’s extraordinary capabilities, one’s creative potential, one’s equality with the Creator (“The Ancient God and we are at the same table”; “defeated the ancient God”) . Zamyatin was one of the first to feel and convey this feature of mass consciousness, making it clear what power it has over a person, how it elevates and enslaves him.

An indispensable attribute of the United State and its “unconditional” value is the Green Wall, which turns the space into a global City, where there are no parks, gardens, trees, dogs, where there is pollen, flowers, grass cover, and birds flying into the gap, formed in the wall, both clouds and fog are perceived as something “alien”, causing discord in a person’s relationship with the artificial environment in which he lives.

Having emerged as a reality of the image of the United State, its indispensable attribute, The Green Wall turns out to be included in the action: the narrator approaches it, goes beyond its limits; as events unfold, the conspirators destroy the Wall; its restoration narrows the space of the artificial world. But the image of the Wall is not only part of the novel’s substantive depiction and is an essential detail in the development of the action, but is also filled with ambivalent symbolic meaning. On the one hand, the Wall is an absolute value of the “new world”, since it has the significance of the border between the organized and unorganized world and serves as a guarantor of the security of the inhabitants of the United State, their protection from the infinity of space, in front of which a person feels helpless. On the other hand, the Wall symbolizes the break of the United State with the world of Nature, with the “native chaos”, the separation of man from the foremother of the earth.

In this context, the image of “oil food” takes on a special meaning. In Zamyatin’s world, the gospel “miracle” happened: “stones” turned into “bread”. Turn to the Gospel (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 4). Read about the temptation of Christ by the devil in the desert.

Oil food is not only a sign of preference for the material over the spiritual, which, according to the Gospel, Christ refuses, it is a sign of a violation of the natural connection of man with the earth and its fruits, a break with blood tradition, the personification of the status of man, which R. Galtseva and I. Rodnyanskaya call “fundamental fatherlessness” of the dystopian world, where “the traditional veneration of the earth as a common mother is deliberately forgotten and the cult of synthetic products, not generated either by its bowels or its fertile cover, is established.”

The image of the United State receives additional volume thanks to the introduction of the mythologeme “paradise”, which receives a parodic coloring: for Zamyatin it is “glass paradise”. Glass not only acts as an element of object detail (glass houses, glass sidewalks, floors, glass spaceship, glass dome over the City). As the text unfolds, repeats and varies many times, it acquires a symbolic meaning.

The transparency characteristic of glass emphasizes the absence in the world of the United State of secrecy, the right to isolation, to privacy and expresses the idea of ​​​​the forced “conciliarity” of existence in the metropolis: “...among our transparent walls, as if woven from sparkling air, we always live in plain sight, forever bathed in light. We have nothing to hide from each other.”

But glass not only opens the eye to the life of another, but also serves as an invisible border, a barrier - forced “publicity” does not mean kinship, even simple acquaintance.

The image of the United State and the complex of ideas associated with it (regulation, order, etc.) has its own color identifier in the novel. Special semantic content takes on a blue color in the novel. It is associated with the measured, “correct” existence of citizens of the United State. Blue color is repeated in the description of the city-state, the clothes of the citizens inhabiting it (“uni-fa”), and the sky without a single cloud. The hero admires O-90’s blue eyes, the color of which, in his opinion, indicates the clarity and “correctness” of her thoughts.

The glass motif in combination with the blue motif (blue sky, bluish-gray unifs, blue majolica of the sky, blue eyes, gray-blue ranks) evokes the idea of ​​frozenness, immobility and serves to realize the metaphor “ice city” (“The city below is like made of blue blocks of ice... and the ice still stands... after all, there is no icebreaker that could crack the most transparent and strongest crystal of our life.” The “ice city” motif symbolizes the idea of ​​abandoning the inherent European culture the Faustian idea of ​​endless development, about the One State as a world that has fallen out of world history, an absurd world where the Machine has become God.

Blue is contrasted with yellow, red, green - those colors into the elements of which the hero plunges, going beyond the Green Wall, which protects the city-state from wild nature. While falling asleep, D-503 sees “colored” dreams. Introducing the image of natural, living life into the novel, Zamyatin uses a variety of colors.

Zamyatin attaches particular importance to “warm”, or - in the semantics of the novel - “hot”, fiery colors - red and yellow, which for him denote revolution, movement, passion, life. On I-330, seducing the hero, there is a yellow dress, in the Ancient House there is a “large, mahogany bed,” “yellow bronze - candelabra, a statue of Buddha.”

Zamyatin ironically plays on the substitution of Christian values ​​taking place in the United State. The guardians who monitor the obedience of the numbers are compared to guardian angels and are likened to the ancient angels who protect a person from childhood. The faces of angels, in the representation of numbers, should be “tenderly menacing.” And the faces of the people who came with denunciations glow like lamps: they go to the “Bureau of Guardians” with denunciations, as if going to confession.

THE IMAGE OF AN INTEGRAL AND ITS Plot-FORMING ROLE. On the first page of the novel an image appears that will become central to it and acquire a special symbolic meaning. This is the image of Integral.

The integral is an important detail belonging to the science-fiction plan of Zamyatin’s work. This is a cosmic projectile created by the writer’s imagination, capable of breaking out of the near-Earth atmosphere, reaching other worlds, bringing there the Good News of the existence of the United State and, with the help of the absolute knowledge that this man-made paradise possesses, re-creating, “integrating” the Universe, which is still in a state "wild freedom"

It is around the Integral that the main events begin, the adventurous, love, and psychological plots of the novel are built. The novel begins with a message about the approaching final stage of construction of the Integral. The desire expressed in the address of the United State to its subjects - numbers - to provide the cosmic messenger with treatises, poems, odes “about the beauty and greatness of the United State” - prompts the main character to create “Records” - a poem in honor of the United State. Contrary to the original plan of D-503 to glorify the new world, at the center of “Records” there turns out to be a conspiracy of rebels, in whose plans Integral plays a special role. That is why it is so important for them to attract the builder of Integral to their side. This forces one of the masterminds of the conspiracy, I-330, to use her charms and experience as a connoisseur of the Ancient World to win the heart of D-503, who is not experienced in the “science of tender passion,” and with his help, master the Integral at the time of its test. Contact with MEFI and love for I-330 causes a revolution in the consciousness of the author of “Records”.

The history of Integral with its mission to “integrate” in the name of people’s happiness the “infinite equation of the Universe”, coupled with various conventional realities (construction of a spaceship, preparation for space travel, in particular ideological, mention of the planets of the solar system that need to be conquered, bringing their inhabitants “mathematically- unmistakable happiness”, the test of the Integral) creates an independent plot line of the novel.

But the image of Integral not only produces plot dynamics, not only contributes to the emergence of a complex psychological plan in the work, but also introduces into the novel a discussion about the possibility of creating a “new world” and a “new man” - a discussion that began in Russia back in the 60s . XIX century, became especially acute at the turn of the century and, having received additional impetus in the conditions of the revolutionary situation, did not subside throughout the 20s. XX century and continues, one might say, to this day.

The construction of the Integral - “Common Cause” - should bring happiness to the inhabitants of “distant unknown planets” - those who belong to a moment in history that has already passed for the United State, i.e. to the past - “distant ancestors” - in fact, to those who died without living to achieve the happiness now accessible to everyone, to those whom the Integral must “resurrect” for a new one, happy life together with their descendants - numbers of the United State, for whom the consciousness of their involvement in Common Cause gives a feeling of omnipotence.

In Zamyatin’s novel, as in the works of many of his contemporaries, the presence of ideas is palpable famous philosopher Nikolai Fedorov (1828-1903), who put forward the project of the Common Cause. He set the task for humanity - to master the elemental forces outside and within themselves, to go into space to explore and transform it, to gain immortality and to engage in the “scientific resurrection” of their ancestors. “Philosophy of a Common Cause” was the title of N. Fedorov’s work.

The image of the Integral with its mission to “integrate the infinite equation of the Universe” is a symbol of the denial of the world created by God, the desire for a “new heaven” and a “new earth”, personifies faith in the Reason and Will of man, in the possibility of a radical reorganization of the Universe, in the plasticity of the world, ready submit to the dream of a proper order of life. The Russian philosopher N. Berdyaev called such a cosmic utopia “the philosophy of social titanism.” Her ideas were in the air. The bearers of this idea were primarily the Bolsheviks. But Zamyatin did not write a political pamphlet. He was interested in the “organizers of human welfare” who existed everywhere and always. He was interested in the very phenomenon of “social titanism”, its readiness to solve the problem of human happiness in a rational way. To test these intentions, Zamyatin creates a conditional space and stages an artistic experiment in this space.

FIGURE OF THE HERO-NARRATOR. Although the figure of a guide to the “new world” is characteristic of the utopia/dystopia genre, in Zamyatin’s novel the appearance of this figure significantly complicates the genre of the novel, taking it beyond the boundaries of dystopia.

It should be noted that one of important points defining the appearance of the 20th century novel is the lack of “purity” of the genre. In the work of almost every writer of modern times, be it A. Bely or Pilnyak, Bulgakov or Platonov, Nabokov or Bunin, we are dealing with the combination of different genre principles. So in Zamyatin’s work there are genre signs not only of utopia, or rather, dystopia, but also structural and content signs of other genre forms: a novel about a novel, an adventure novel, a love novel, a psychological novel, a philosophical novel.

Zamyatin's work begins from the moment when the Builder of a fantastic spacecraft declares his intention to write a poem about the United State. Or rather, one of its important plot lines begins - the story of the creation of the novel and at the same time the story of the transformation of the builder of Integral into a poet, i.e. a “novel about a novel” arises.

A novel about a novel is a novel about creation work of art, where the hero-narrator acts as the creator of the work, describes and comments on the course of the creative process, discusses generated text as it unfolds.

You have already encountered this kind of genre structure in the literature of the 19th century.

D-503 not only reproduces the life of the United State in his “Records”, but also creates a commentary on his work, expresses judgments about the genre, discusses unforeseen aspects of the image and unexpectedly emerging plot lines that arise during the development of the narrative.

The writer of the poem D-503 enters into a dialogue with the reader of past times (i.e., with the inhabitants of the old worlds), to whom the Integral rushes.

The image of the text takes on an independent life in Zamyatin’s novel. Being important element substantive detail of the work (the manuscript lies on the table, it opens, a tear 0-90 falls on it, I throws his stockings on it, the hero is forced to hide what is written from prying eyes, etc.), the image of the text acquires a plot-forming role: it influences the fate of the characters, including the fate of the creator himself. The manuscript is read, they report it, it becomes the reason for the failure of the conspirators (the adventurous line of the novel), the basis of I-330’s assumptions about the betrayal of D-503 (the love line), and the metaphorical embodiment of the internal transformation of D-503 (the image of the fallen manuscript).

“Stockings are thrown on my table, on the open (193rd) page of my notes. In my haste, I touched the manuscript, the pages scattered and there was no way to put them in order, and most importantly, even if I did put them together, there would still be no real order, all the same, there would be some thresholds, holes, Xs left.”

The fall of the manuscript symbolically expresses the disorder, the irrationality of the universe. When falling, the manuscript crumbles into separate, unconnected fragments, thus losing its artistic integrity, but at the same time, the “fallen” manuscript begins to adequately reproduce the structure of the world that has broken up into chaotic fragments.

The author, the creator of the manuscript, changes his appearance twice in the novel: first he is spiritually resurrected, then he dies. After the appearance of an “incurable soul” in D-503, tragic story his “death”. The multidimensionality of his consciousness that had arisen is reduced to one-dimensionality with the help of Great Operation, used in the United State as a radical method of “ideological” influence on residents. Anticipating this, D-503 says goodbye to the readers: “I’m leaving - into the unknown. These are my last lines. Farewell - you, the unknown, you, the beloved, with whom I have lived so many pages, to whom I, sick in soul, have shown all of myself, to the last ground screw, to the last burst spring... I’m leaving”; “I can’t write anymore - I don’t want to anymore!”

After the operation, the relationship between the builder of the Integral and his manuscript changes. The writer does not recognize his own work: “Did I, D-503, write these two hundred and twenty pages? Have I ever felt - or imagined that I felt - this? The handwriting is mine. And then - the same handwriting, but, fortunately, only handwriting. No nonsense, no ridiculous metaphors, no feelings: just facts.” Now that some kind of splinter has been pulled out of D-503’s head, he again returns to a “clear” view of the world, to the original type of text (“And I hope we will win. More: I am sure we will win. Because the mind must win").

The ring composition of the novel about the novel - the narrator's return to the starting point - seems to call into question the motive that was heard on many pages of the novel - the motive of the impossibility of defeating the spiritual principle.

Let us return, however, to the plot of the “novel about a novel” - the plan that guides D-503, and its implementation.

When starting to create a novel, D-503 considers “reality” as “material” that is easily amenable to design.

As the text unfolds, a conflict arises between the concept of D-503 and the possibilities for its implementation. Thus, at first D-503 claims to create an odic poem; the very possibility of introducing an adventurous plot (a conspiracy, a clash between rebels and the United State) seems absurd to him (“nothing happens with us, nothing can happen”). Further, D-503 complains that instead of a poem, he “is coming out with some kind of fantastic adventure novel.” He has to prove to readers that only “thick adventure syrup” will allow them to swallow “all the bitter things” that he is going to offer them. The adventurous plot serves as the beginning of a love plot, which, as it seemed at first, also had no place in the story of a perfect world. Under the pressure of the natural course of events, the conceived poem turns into a novel (love, psychological and adventurous), into lyric poem. The history of this transformation, the history of the victory of the natural course of things over rational design, is one of the most important aspects of a novel about a novel, and most importantly, of the novel as a whole. The plot of the novel about the novel proves that the claims of the United State to change nature are untenable, that the world is not plastic and does not obey ideas, it can be destroyed, but cannot be changed, it develops according to its own laws both at the level of life and at the level of creativity.

“A novel about a novel” organically includes an adventurous plan, the introduction of which allows us to solve both formal and substantive problems.

The story of MEFI's rebellion against the dominant system allows Zamyatin to create a dynamic novel, an eventful novel, which has its own mysteries, its own solutions, and the intricacies of intrigue.

The introduction of an adventurous plot is important not only for enhancing the dynamism of the narrative, but also for the problems of the novel as a whole. Remember that the author of “Records” proceeds from the fact that nothing happens in his “paradise of glass.” This is a kind of complete kingdom-state, a space in which nothing simply can happen, where the final “crystallization” of life took place.

So, the emergence of an adventure in a “crystallized” world is already a refutation of its stability.

Ho main function The adventurous plot is that it serves as an expression of the conflict between the priests of the United State, defenders of the artificial world, order, and the conspirators, champions of the natural principle, the symbol of which is Nature. On the one hand, this is “mathematically infallible happiness.” A system of images derived from the concept of “mathematics” “grows” through the entire text. This happiness has its own geometric expression - “straight”, “square harmony”, “equality”, “general formula”. The very concept of “happiness” is expressed as a mathematical fraction, where “bliss and envy are the numerator and denominator.” Beauty finds expression in “mathematical composition”, in the beauty of “square, cube, straight line”, in the beauty of “machine ballet”.

The music of the United State in the language of mathematics is “the summing chords of the formulas of Taylor and Maclaurin; solid, square-weight moves of Pythagorean pants; sad melodies of fading-oscillatory movement; bright bars alternating with Fraunhofer-like lines of pauses - spectral analysis of the planets...”.

The machine world contrasts Kant’s ethics with a system of “scientific ethics... based on subtraction, addition, division, multiplication,” with the help of which the “mathematical-moral problem” of “reducing the sum of human lives” is simply solved.

Concepts such as freedom, crime, hunger are also reduced to mathematical formulas. Freedom and crime are correlated like speed and movement: “a person’s freedom = 0, and he does not commit crimes,” i.e. doesn't move. This is how peace and entropy reign.

What do MEFI members oppose to peace and entropy? Energy, human desire for endless movement, for endless struggle, when there is no “last revolution”, when all “revolutions are endless”.

In the name of what are MEFI members fighting? I-330, the exponent of their ideas in the novel, explains that in order for the people of the United State to learn again “to tremble with fear, with joy, with furious anger, with cold” (“let them pray to the fire”), i.e. returned to the state from which they left. As an example, she cites people living behind the Green Wall, who “kept hot red blood under their fur.”

Both the priests of the United State and MEFI consider themselves as benefactors of humanity, its Saviors.

The “official role” of the Savior in the novel “We” is played by the Benefactor. Its prototype is an image from the Poem “The Grand Inquisitor”, composed by Ivan Karamazov, the hero of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov".

The action takes place in Spain during the Inquisition, when bonfires burn where heretics are burned. At this moment He comes to earth. The Grand Inquisitor is trying to convince Him of his right to create heaven on earth - to provide people with “bread” and material goods in exchange for people’s obedience. It is impossible to do otherwise, since a person is weak and, remaining free, he himself looks for someone to whom he can submit. Without answering the Grand Inquisitor, He leaves.

The issue of the “Grand Inquisitor” appears twice in Zamyatin’s novel. The first time - in the ironic presentation of R-13, outlining biblical legend about Adam and Eve, about the eternal incompatibility of happiness and freedom, about man’s longing for shackles.

For the second time, the theme of the Grand Inquisitor arises in D-503’s conversation with the Benefactor, when the latter declares the mission he has undertaken to “correct the feat” of Jesus - about the cruelty necessary for people who dream only of “so that someone will tell them once and for all , what happiness is - and then chained them to this happiness.”

But not only the Benefactor, but also Zamyatin’s “demons”, opponents of the United State, also claim to be the saviors of humanity, choosing a different patron than the one whom the Benefactor remembers.

I-330 calls himself and his accomplices anti-Christians, because they refuse peace, happy balance, preferring “painfully endless movement”, because they oppose the idea of ​​“We” to the idea of ​​“I” (“We” are from God, and “I” is from the devil”).

The appearance of MEFI indicates that the Zamyatin Universe needs Satan. In an article about Wells, Zamyatin sympathetically quotes a scene from Wells’ novel The Unquenchable Fire. After one disrespectful remark from Satan, Archangel Michael wants to strike Satan with a sword. But God stops the zealous archangel:

What are we going to do without Satan?

Yes, says Satan, without me, space and time would freeze into some kind of crystalline perfection. I am the one who stirs the waters. I'm the one who worries you. I am the spirit of life. Without me, man would still be the same worthless gardener and would be wasting his time caring for garden of paradise, which still cannot grow otherwise than correctly... Just imagine: perfect flowers! perfect fruit! perfect beasts! My God! How tired a person would be of all this! How boring it would be! But instead, didn't I push him to the very edge? amazing Adventures? I gave him the story...

Zamyatin himself formulated a similar understanding of the role that rebellion plays in people’s lives as follows:

“Mephistopheles is the world’s greatest skeptic and at the same time the greatest romantic and idealist. With all his devilish poisons - pathos, sarcasm, irony, tenderness - he destroys every achievement, everyone today, not at all because he is amused by the fireworks of destruction, but because he secretly believes in the power of man to become divinely perfect.”

Judging by this statement, Zamyatin moves away from the Christian solution to the problem of good and evil. For Zamyatin, good and evil turn out to be the poles of the moral dialectic of history. And if good is static, then evil is dynamic, and the fight against evil can be waged by the forces of evil, provoking evil to even greater evil, bringing evil to the point of absurdity and leading it to self-destruction.

Let's try, however, to proceed not from the writer's programmatic statements, but from the text of the novel. In the space of the One State there is neither God nor Satan, but there are two false pretenders to the role of Saviors of humanity - the Benefactor and MEFI.

It would seem that MEFI and their inspiration I-330 embody the spirit of eternal restlessness, the boundlessness of the revolutionary impulse, that “morbus rossica” - the Russian disease that Zamyatin wrote about with such inspiration. But at the same time, the freedom that heretics prefer to the well-being of numbers leads the world to disaster. “And if everywhere, throughout the entire universe, bodies are equally warm - or equally cool... They must be pushed together - so that there is fire, explosion, Gehenna. And we will push.” In other words, fighters against the One State believe in the inevitability of a diabolical dilemma - happiness or freedom, stagnation or hellish explosion. And since the “glass paradise” does not suit them, they are ready to plunge the world into disaster.

Zamyatin is usually viewed as a supporter of the revolutionary type of development of society. American Slavist A. Fisher, who took part in the meeting “ round table” in Literaturnaya Gazeta in 1988, argued that the significance of Zamyatin’s novel is that it helps to understand what the revolutionary maximalism of the Russian intelligentsia is.

In the article “On Literature, Revolution, Entropy and Other Things” (1923), Zamyatin repeated the words of his heroine about the revolution, which “does not know last date" This gave him grounds to identify their positions.

However, the image of a “revolution that does not know the last number” is a metaphor of protest against the death of life, but not a synonym for a coup d’etat. Such a revolution appears in Zamyatin as a return to the cave, as a violation of the stability necessary for building life, as a senseless waste of human strength (“Mamai”, “Cave”). In the element of rebellion, an abyss opens up for Zamyatin’s heroes. And the revolution in “We” is just as cruel towards dissidents and just as presupposes an absolute break with the past, like the system of the United State. And the chaos caused by I-330 and her comrades is no less destructive for the individual than the unshakable order of the United State.

The freedom that heretics prefer to the “glass paradise” leads the world to disaster. “Liberators” not only do not exclude it, but are also ready to use it for their own purposes - “so that fire, explosion, Gehenna...”. If the United State gave birth to numbers, changing the nature of man, created in the image and likeness of God, then MEFI provoked further steps of the United State - the transformation of numbers into “machine-equal” ones, prompting the Benefactor to undergo a lobotomy, which finally destroys the personality.

The heroine not only calls the hero out of his sleepy existence, but also betrays him, since she acts in the name of her Idea and is indifferent to the individual. I-330 manipulates D-503’s feelings, just as the “glass paradise” manipulates his consciousness and his creative gift.

The development of the love plot and its originality is facilitated by the introduction of three heroines representing different types love relationships.

The main character is I-330.

The love plot acquires a special semantic volume due to the fact that it is based on the deployment of the mythology of paradise, the story of Adam and Eve, the devil's temptation, the fall and expulsion from paradise.

I-330 is not only a seductive, charming woman. She is a member of the MEFI party. She uses her data for the victory of her party. The surprise and unpredictability of I-330’s behavior that strikes the hero is actually designed for the absolute emotional innocence of D-503 and is thought out to the last gesture.

Zamyatin seeks to make it clear that the MEFI party, which opposes the totalitarian regime, against the mechanization of man, itself seeks to subjugate, conquer people for the sake of destroying the Green Wall and returning to the “cave.”

Another heroine whose presence in the novel contributes to the creation of a different love story is O-90.

The appearance of O-90 emphasizes childishness. And this is not only the infantilism of the heroine, but also a special state of mind - a bright serenity that opposes the obsession of the priests and opponents of the United State. If the childishness of the inhabitants of the “glass paradise” is achieved through violence and means the fading of a person’s spiritual strength, then the childishness of O-90 is the personification of spontaneity. The love plot, in which O-90 becomes a participant, is associated with the motive of conception - birth and motherhood. If the I-330 is a symbol of absolute rebellion, then the O-90 is a symbol of resilience. life principles, symbol of creativity of new life.

Another one is introduced into the novel story line of a loving nature. This line is connected with Yu.

Thus, the heroines appear in the novel either as the embodiment of the irrational element, or as individuals capable of awakening the irrational element in a man, and the love plot serves to humanize the protagonist and a means of moral assessment of two opposing systems.

The love plot, coupled with the adventure plot, serves as the motive for the emergence of a psychological plot that transfers the external conflict into the internal space, into the spiritual world of D-503.

Builder of the Integral, creator of the “Records”, at first - flesh of the flesh of the United State. He is a poet of his structure, which is unthinkable without a Benefactor, without a repressive and propaganda apparatus, without numbers with their inherent complex of gratitude to the Benefactor, the consciousness of duty to the United State and a sense of superiority over everyone who is outside the “Unified Church”.

Narration when moving to psychological plot acquires an action-packed character, but at the same time it is constructed primarily as a monologue, in which the hero, the further, the more he turns the description into a confession. Confession tends to be of a lyrical type: the image of experience is recreated with the help of metaphors, often expanded, denoting complex metaphysical concepts, psychological states. An extensive system of interconnected leitmotifs accompanies the awakening of his “shaggy” double in D-503.

The conventionality of the created model of reality only emphasizes the volume psychological characteristics. Zamyatin's desire to express a judgment about complexity human nature, the secrets of which are more difficult to penetrate than the secrets of the Universe; that no “social mechanism,” no matter how powerful it may be, can level the human “I” to the state of a “molecule, atom, phagocyte.” And if reading the novel “We” is truly exciting reading, then it owes this primarily to the amazingly psychologically subtle depiction of how in the number D-503 - a particle of a “single, powerful, million-celled organism” - the consciousness of one’s personality arises.

The pages that tell of the hero's painful attempt to break through ideological mirages to normal ideas about the individual and his rights, about love and humanity, are among the most powerful in the novel.

In the hero’s mind, everything is woven into one ball. His desire to realize himself as a unique personality in feeling for I is opposed by an equally strong desire to return to the ranks, to again feel part of a huge familiar whole, to “merge into a precise mechanical rhythm... to sail on a mirror-like serene sea.” Each exit beyond the Wall generates - directly and figuratively- feeling of insecurity, fear of the “abyss”. Each deviation from equality in insignificance evokes in the soul of D-503 a feeling of lost stability, even the expectation of punishment, the motive of a sick conscience (a stain on the unif on the Day of Unanimity; a paraphrase of the biblical story about stones falling from the sky on the heads of the enemies of Joshua). The duality of the state experienced by D-503, who has discovered the “inner man” in himself, is most expressively conveyed through the plot of the double.

The meeting with I reveals to the Builder a world unknown to him, incalculable, not fitting into formulas, a world of mystery, “opacity.”

The theme of the irrational is introduced into the novel by motive v-1 and a circle of details characterizing the unknown, unknowable and attractive in the heroine’s appearance (shaded eyes, “X” eyebrows, fire burning in the depths of the eyes), as well as the invasion of the sterile atmosphere of the United State by the realities of nature ( flower dust, the wind beating on the glass walls of houses, the cries of birds), details of everyday life and art of the “wild ancestors”.

D-503 reveals the irrational not only outside, but also within itself. His shaggy, monkey-like hands become a sign of his blood relationship with the world that is forced out beyond the Wall, the world of chaos and passion, prompting him to crazy, inexplicable actions that cause D himself a feeling of horror.

The motive of horror of the irrational is associated with the motive of the deification of the Wall, the motive of searching for a number capable of defining the indefinable. This is how Zamyatin conveys the state of a person who has emerged from natural world, has lost his original unity with it, has lost God, has opposed himself to this world, but cannot bear the burden of personal responsibility and is ready to cede the right of personal choice to someone who can guarantee him stability.

Two images - v-1 and the Wall - act as signs of the tragic controversy of human consciousness. An irrational principle, of which the Builder feels fear and which attracts him to itself. And the “Wall” of the Mind is what protects him from the unorganized world, meets his need for order and stability.

Zamyatin projects the struggle between the internally antinomic aspirations of the human spirit onto the gospel plot.

There are 40 entries in the novel. 40 is a sacred number: the temptation of Christ lasted for forty days in the desert; Lent lasts forty days on the eve of Easter; The soul of the deceased does not leave the earth for forty days - this is how long it takes to transition from the earthly to the astral state. Forty days in the fate of Christ is the story of his overcoming the forces of gravity. Forty days in the history of D-503 is the story of his acquisition and loss of a living soul, his “I”, the story of his final assimilation to a machine. The travesty of the biblical story emphasizes Zamyatin’s tragic perception of the possibility of spiritual resurrection of the individual.

ARTISTIC ORIGINALITY OF THE NOVEL “WE”. The originality of what Eug. created. Zamyatin’s work is determined by the writer’s belonging to the artistic reality of the 20th century. Literature XIX V. passed under the sign of romanticism and realism. XX century was marked by radical shifts in the field of art, the formation and development of modernist trends and trends. Among them, a special place belongs to symbolism and the avant-garde.

Zamyatin managed to synthesize in his novel model the experience of two branches of modernist aesthetics of this period - symbolist and avant-garde - with its inherent penchant for travesty and the use of the grotesque.

Zamyatin's famous essays of the 20s. “On Synthetism”, “On Literature, Revolution, Entropy and Other Things” can be considered as a whole as a manifesto, as a new aesthetic program.

“If you were looking for some word to define the point to which literature is now moving,” Zamyatin wrote in the article “New Russian Prose” (1923), “I would choose the word synthetism... where there will be both a microscope of realism and telescopic, leading to infinity, glasses of symbolism.”

1. Zamyatin associated the new possibilities of art with the consistent rejection of verisimilitude, the creation of a fantastic reality, in the conditions of which it is possible to stage artistic experiments. “In our days,” wrote Zamyatin, “the only fantasy is yesterday’s life on strong whales. Today - the Apocalypse can be published as a daily newspaper...”

2. Following the symbolists, Zamyatin brings prose closer to poetry. The small volume of the work (less than 10 printed pages), dividing the text into small chapters increases the concentration of the narrative. A “crowdedness” is created, similar to the “crowdedness” of a verse. Each entry, and sometimes even a paragraph, turns into a small lyrical work.

In a lyrical context, a word acquires, as in a lyrical work, semantic multidimensionality and goes beyond the boundaries of its direct meaning. You have already seen how in the word “glass,” which appeared in the text as a definition of a building material, its additional meanings are activated: transparent, stripping, colorless, icy, fragile, opaque, artificial. In combination with the word “paradise” it takes on the meaning of a man-made, artificial world.

The influence of poetry affects not only the level of words, but also the level of composition. In addition to the plot, the organizing principle in the novel is the system of leitmotifs. The role can be any element of the text - a word, phrase, detail, scene, etc. Having appeared once, the motif is then repeated many times, each time appearing in a new version, new outlines and in ever new combinations with other motifs.

3. Zamyatin acts as the heir of the symbolists: he gives the status of reality as valuable in itself spiritual world of his character, introduces a narrative on his behalf and thereby makes his consciousness a mirror in which the artificial world of happiness appears.

4. Like the avant-garde figures, Zamyatin resorted to a conscious deformation of reality, which, in his opinion, helped to come to the deep essence of phenomena hidden from a superficial glance.

The focus of the image becomes Zamyatin’s perception of D-503, which is obviously distorted by the “official” ideology, due to which a grotesque deformation arises at the narrative level.

5. Zamyatin’s psychologism is based on the use of both traditional artistic techniques, and those that acquire special significance in “non-classical” prose. Confessionalism, emotional unevenness diary entries allows you to convey the confrontation between the states and moods of the hero. Contrary to the narrator’s adherence to the four rules of arithmetic, the aesthetics of cubes and parallelepipeds, a “verbal blizzard” (V. Erofeev) rages in “Records” with its characteristic “flow” and development of motives that convey the flow of whirlwind consciousness. Zamyatin's unique syntax: breaks in syntactic constructions, frequency of unfinished sentences, the peculiar use of short and double em dashes, the constant introduction of colons - reproduces the stream of consciousness, blurs the rational structure of the narrative, and introduces a third dimension into the seemingly two-dimensional novel structure.

HE. Filenko

Russians are maximalists, and that’s exactly what
what seems like a utopia
in Russia it is most realistic.
Nikolay Berdyaev

The story started by a loser
who was mean and invented the future,
to take advantage of the present -
pushed everyone away, but he stayed behind,
in a settled settlement.
Andrey Platonov

George Orwell, who not without reason considered himself the successor to the author of We, accurately outlined the main feature of Zamyatin’s originality at the conclusion of his short but accurate review of this novel. “Arrested by the tsarist government in 1906,” Orwell wrote, “in 1922, under the Bolsheviks, he found himself in the same prison corridor of the same prison, so he had no reason to admire the political regimes of his time, but his book is not just the result bitterness. This is an exploration of the essence of the Machine - a genie that man thoughtlessly let out of the bottle and cannot put back."

It is unlikely that by “Machine” Orwell meant only the uncontrolled growth of technology. “Machine”, i.e. soulless and unrestrained, human civilization itself became in the 20th century. Orwell, summing up the dystopia of the first half of the 20th century. already after the end of the Second World War (the review of “We” was written in 1946, and the novel “1984” - in 1948), he knew everything about the inhumanity of the “Machine”, he knew about both Auschwitz and the Gulag.

And Zamyatin was the founder of dystopia of the 20th century. IN modern literary criticism there is no doubt that the appearance of his novel “We” “marked the final formation of a new genre - dystopian novel."

Both Zamyatin, who wrote “We” in 1920, and Platonov, who wrote “Chevengur” in 1929, had not yet witnessed either loud statements that “we will not expect favors from nature,” or even songs about that , as “we conquer space and time.” But the work of the “Machine”, which creates a “brave new world” (Aldous Huxley’s novel “Brave New World” was written in 1932), openly begins with the conquest of space and time. “The first thing that strikes you when you read We,” Orwell wrote in 1946, is<... >that Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World apparently owes its appearance in part to this book.<...>The atmosphere of both books is similar, and roughly speaking, the same type of society is depicted<...>" Huxley undoubtedly read Zamyatin's novel, the first edition of which was published precisely in English translation(in 1924).

Dystopian space

Zamyatin’s novel was not published in Russian during the author’s lifetime, “but the wide circulation of the manuscript made it possible for critical responses to it to appear in the Soviet press.” - of course, "mainly negative character, later, in 1929, degraded to extremely simplified assessments and verdicts on the novel as evil and libelous" . Thus, without having accurate information that Platonov read “We” in handwritten samizdat, it is possible a large share it is probable to assume that he at least observed its defeat in Soviet criticism - and just in 1929, when he was finishing work on “Chevengur”.

One cannot but agree with the opinion of a modern German literary critic that “when comparing A. Platonov’s novel “Chevengur” with such works as “We” by Zamyatin and “1984” by Orwell, the genre structure of Platonov’s novel seems much more complex. “Chevengur” is much more difficult to classify as a dystopia, because it does not contain an unambiguous satirical image of the utopian world, characteristic of Orwell and Zamyatin.” But it is precisely the absence of a “unambiguous satirical image” in Platonov that makes his novel especially interesting for comparison with the dystopia of Zamyatin and his English followers. Indeed, in “Chevengur” we can observe a natural transformation of Russian utopia into dystopia, traceable according to all the main parameters of dystopian consciousness and genre.

The nature of the movement in dystopia

Any dystopia is divided into two worlds: the world where the “ideal” life is created, and the rest of the world. These worlds are separated from each other by an artificial barrier that cannot be overcome. For Zamyatin, this is a glass city behind the Green Wall, opposed wildlife. Huxley has all perfect world and the reservation of savages left in an uncorrected state. Orwell has the whole world and a group of dissenters scattered throughout it (i.e., there is no special space where they live). In “Chevengur” these two worlds are Chevengur itself and the rest of Russia, where people live, in whose heads the utopian thoughts embodied in Chevengur are born. Chevengur is separated from the rest of the world by the steppe and weeds: “The weeds surrounded the whole of Chevengur with close protection from the hidden spaces in which Chepurny felt the hidden inhumanity.”

Each of the two worlds has its own flow of time, so that a person crossing the boundaries of the “ideal world”, going out into the “outside world”, gets lost in it (for example, Dvanov, living in Chevengur, did not notice that War Communism ended and NEP began) .

In some novels there is also a third space: a space into which dissenters are banished. In Brave New World they are exiled to remote islands, and in 1984 they are placed in a huge prison called the Ministry of Love. In “Chevengur” and “We”, those who disagree are destroyed.

Dystopia is characterized by a clash between the official movement (from the periphery to the center) and the unofficial movement (in the opposite direction). On the border with the ideal world is another world, into which entry is allowed only with passes (Huxley), generally prohibited (Zamyatin), and impossible (Orwell). The state of the world can be called dystopian dynamic balance: the elements can break through the boundaries of the ideal world at any moment, as happens in Zamyatin. Having broken through, the element also moves from the periphery to the center. The main character moves in the opposite direction. He leaves the center he hates to the outskirts of the city (Orwell), to the border - the Green Wall (Zamyatin), to the reservation of savages (Huxley). At the same time, the laws of life on the periphery (“Mefi”, savages, proles) are not analyzed and are not subject to changes, and are almost not even observed. Dvanov also moves to the periphery from the center, but according to the instructions of the center, but at some point Chevengur becomes the center of the universe, and all of Russia becomes the periphery.

The characters' movements are chaotic due to an obvious contradiction. Since their personal, innermost desire is the periphery, a forbidden border, beyond which is another world, and necessity is the center, the consciousness of the heroes cannot cope with such a contradiction and the direction of movement is lost. These are the feelings of the hero-narrator of “We” Zamyatin: “I don’t know where to go now, I don’t know why I came here...”; “I lost my steering wheel... and I don’t know where I’m rushing....”

Dystopian time

The “ideal world” of dystopia lives only in the present. In the “ideal world” of Huxley’s dystopia, this is achieved with the help of a drug - the so-called “soma”: “If a person takes soma, time stops running... Sweetly a person will forget both what was and what will be.” Remembering the past in Huxley’s “brave new world” is not only prohibited, but it is not recommended, it is considered indecent and simply indecent. History is being destroyed: “...A campaign against the Past has been launched, museums have been closed, historical monuments have been blown up... books published before the one hundred and fiftieth year of the Ford era have been confiscated.” The story itself of “their Lord Ford” is called “complete nonsense.”

For Platonov, time also stops in Chevengur: “The Chevengur summer was passing, time was hopelessly running away from life, but Chepurny, along with the proletariat and others, stopped in the middle of the summer, in the middle of time...”. In order to put an end to the past, the Chevengurians kill the “bourgeois”. After killing and burying the “bourgeois”, they even scatter the excess earth so that there is no grave left. Platonov's heroes consider the past to be “forever destroyed and a useless fact.”

In Orwell’s “ideal world” there are no spatiotemporal guidelines: “Cut off from the outside world and from the past, the citizen of Oceania, like a man in interstellar space, does not know where is up and where is down.” The goal of the authorities is “... to stop development and freeze history.” The entire population of three countries on earth is working to destroy and alter all documents testifying to the past in order to fit them into the present: “Every day and almost every minute the past was adjusted to the present.” The introduction of “newspeak” pursues the same goal. The really changing world is considered unchanged, and Big Brother is eternal. Party slogan: “Who controls the past controls the future; “who controls the present controls the past” - became a continuation of the story that, according to Platonov, was started by a “vile loser” who invented the future in order to take advantage of the present.

In Zamyatin one can find prototypes of all these confrontations with the past, described in subsequent dystopias. In Us, humanity's past is collected in an ancient house where history can be learned (not reprehensible, as in Huxley). History itself is divided into “prehistoric times” and unchanging modernity: cities surrounded by the Green Wall. The Bicentennial War passed between them.

Similar in all the above-mentioned novels is the attitude towards books as repositories of the past. Zamyatin’s historical monuments are being destroyed and “ancient” books are not being read. Huxley has similar books locked in the Master's safe. Orwell translates them into “newspeak,” thereby not just changing, but deliberately destroying their meaning.”

Love and family are “a relic of the past”

Concepts such as love, family and parents fall into the category of the past and therefore destroyed. Love is abolished in all dystopias. The heroes of “Chevengur” refuse love as an element that interferes with the comradely union of people: “... In a past life there was always love for a woman and reproduction from her, but it was someone else’s and natural affair, and not human and communist... "; “...it is the bourgeoisie that lives for nature: and multiplies, but the working man lives for his comrades: and makes a revolution.” Even the proletariat will be born “not from love, but from fact.”

The ideology of Orwell’s world is closest to the ideology of Soviet society (no wonder, because Soviet society with its ideas had already existed for 30 years) and is, as it were, a continuation of the ideas of the Chevengurs, brought to life: a family is needed only to create children (conception is “our party duty”) ; “sexual intercourse should have been viewed as a nasty little procedure, like an enema”; aversion to sex was cultivated among young people (Youth Anti-Sex Union), even in clothing there are no gender differences. Love as a spiritual relationship between a man and a woman does not exist at all in the terrible world of Orwell, where there are no signs of sincerity. Therefore, the party does not fight love, not seeing its enemy in it: “The main enemy was not so much love as eroticism - both in and outside of marriage.”

Why is love-eros not in demand in the communist society described by Orwell and Plato? Orwell himself gives the answer: “When you sleep with a person, you waste energy; and then you feel good and don’t care at all. This is in their throats. They want the energy in you to bubble constantly. All this marching, shouting, waving flags - just rotten sex. If you are happy in yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother, three-year plans, two-minute hatred and other vile nonsense. There is a direct and close connection between temperance and political orthodoxy. How else to heat up hatred, fear and cretinous gullibility to the required degree, if not by tightly sealing some powerful instinct so that it turns into fuel? Sexual desire was dangerous for the party, and the party put it at its service.”

Fathers and Sons

The same idea - the destruction of love as the basis of family and family as a bond between children and parents - pursues the same goal: a gap between the past and the future. But this goal is achieved differently in all four dystopias. The method of Orwell's inner party, as already mentioned, is a natural continuation of the ideas of the Chevengurs, and the methods of the heroes of Zamyatin and Huxley are the same: not to sublimate sex, but to separate it as a physiological component of love from its spiritual component. The result turns out to be the same: the inhabitants of the “brave new world” do not have the concept of “love”: “...They have no wives, no children, no loves - and, therefore, no worries...”. Sex (“sharing”) is normal and healthy. There is a word for love, but it means sex. If there is a need for emotional experiences, a substitute for violent passion is used (something like hormones in tablets). In Zamyatin’s glass world, love, as in Huxley’s “brave new world,” is replaced by sex. There is no family as such, only sexual partners.

The attitude of society towards the concepts of “parents” and “children” is an indicator of the attitude towards the past and future. Children are, on the one hand, the future, which in an “ideal world” should not differ from the present; on the other hand, they are a connection with the past that must be broken. “In the worlds outlined by dystopians, the parental principle is excluded. ...The general plan is to start from scratch, breaking with blood tradition, breaking off organic continuity; after all, parents are the closest link to the past, so to speak, its “birthmarks.”

The gap between fathers and children occurs through the destruction of the family. In Huxley's novel, as in Zamyatin's novel, children are born artificially and raised outside the family. In Zamyatin’s glass world, mothers who give birth to children without permission are killed, in the “brave new world” they are ridiculed. The words "mother" and "father" in the world created by Huxley are crude curse words.

In Orwell's novel, children are born and grow up in families, but are raised directly by society (educational organizations):

“Sexual desire was dangerous for the party, and the party put it at its service. The same trick was done with parental instinct. The family cannot be abolished; on the contrary, love for children, preserved almost in its original form, is encouraged. Children are systematically turned against their parents, taught to spy on them and report on their deviations. Essentially, the family has become an appendage of the thought police. Each person is assigned an informant - his close one - around the clock.”

In the near future, the party was going to finally separate children from their parents:

“We have severed the ties between parent and child, between man and woman, between one person and another. Nobody trusts their wife, child, or friend anymore. And soon there will be no wives or friends. We will take newborns from their mother, just as we take eggs from a laying hen.”

Chevengur society does not provide for the presence of children and their upbringing. The partnership of Chevengurs is called a family, and for the existence of this family it does not matter what the gender and age of its members are: “... What should we do in the future communism with fathers and mothers?” Chevengur is inhabited by “others,” about whom Prokofy says that they are “fatherless.” Even women who came to Chevengur to start families should become not wives, but sisters and daughters of “others.”

But it is impossible to destroy in a person the longing for kinship, the thirst for spiritual closeness with mother, father, son, daughter or spouse. This melancholy makes Chevengurs look for wives, the heroes of Zamyatin and Orwell yearn for their mothers: “If only I had a mother - like the ancients: mine - that's it - mother. And so that for her I - not the builder of Integral, and not the number D-503, and not the molecule of the United State, but a simple human piece - a piece of her herself...” dreams the hero of Zamyatin’s novel. Huxley’s characters talk about the physical closeness of mother and baby: “What a wonderful, close closeness of creatures.<...>And what power of feeling it must generate! I often think: maybe we are losing something by not having a mother. And perhaps you are losing something by losing motherhood.”

This longing for kinship is part of the force that opens closed spaces and destroys the eternal present of dystopias; that force thanks to which the past and future burst into the “ideal” world. This power is the soul. Only its discovery can destroy the harmonious concept of the utopian world and the utopian consciousness itself, which does not presuppose the presence of a soul. It is the discovery and manifestation of the soul that creates the plot dynamics that distinguish dystopia from utopia.

Soul in dystopia

The soul is a special world with its own space and time (chronotope). Having acquired his own soul, a dystopian character becomes able to undermine the foundations and destroy the chronotope of the “ideal world” - the closedness of space and the static nature of time. In any case, undermine it ideologically.

The soul can either be born in a member of the “ideal society” (as in Zamyatin and Orwell), or come to the “ideal world” from the outside, like a savage from a reservation (as in Huxley), but in any case, the appearance of the soul is the invasion of a complex inner world into external, “ideally” simple. In an "ideal society" inner world human is something superfluous, unnecessary and harmful, incompatible with this society.

In Zamyatin's novel, soul is “an ancient, long-forgotten word.” The soul is when “the plane became volume, body, world.” Thus, Zamyatin contrasts the “flatness” of the mind with the “volume” of the soul.

There is a similar image in Platonov’s novel “Chevengur”: the heart (soul) is a dam that turns the lake of feelings into a long speed of thought behind the dam (and again contrasting the depth of the lake with the speed of thoughts). And in Huxley’s novel the soul is called a “fiction”, which the savage “persistently considers existing really and apart from the material environment...”.

L-ra: Russian language and literature in educational institutions. – 2004.- No. 2. – P. 38-51.

Year of publication of the book: 1927

Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “We” became in many ways defining for the writer. Firstly, this is Zamyatin’s only completed novel, and secondly, it played a decisive role in the writer’s life. Written back in 1920, it was subjected to severe criticism among Soviet functionaries. As a result, the book was published in English, French and some other languages ​​much earlier than in Russian. And the writer himself, unable to endure the persecution, was forced to leave his homeland.

Roman Zamyatin “We” summary

If we summarize Zamyatin’s novel “We” briefly, then it is worth starting with the fact that the novel is written in the form of a diary. It is led by the brilliant engineer of the Integral spacecraft. The name of the main character in Zamyatin’s novel “We” is D – 503. The fact is that by the 32nd century, the totalitarian society of the United State completely abandoned names. Now everyone wears only faceless numbers, everyone wears the same clothes, and the “Table of Hours” regulates what each member of society should do at every minute. Only the vowel and consonant at the beginning of the name distinguishes men from women. There are no races or religions; everyone is provided with only apartments with the minimum necessary set of furniture. The “Bureau of Guardians” carefully monitors compliance with the rules, and in the event of a crime, the “Benefactor” personally executes the criminal by turning him into just a puddle chemically clean water. By the way, it is also customary to elect the “Benefactor” only unanimously on a non-alternative basis. One of the basic principles of the One State says “We” are from God, “I” are from the devil.”

Even sex life citizens in Zamyatin's novel “We” are subordinated harsh laws. A timesheet of sexual days has been compiled for each resident, and everyone can sign up for everyone. You will be given a pink ticket for your date. The action of the novel begins with D - 503 walking around the Music Factory with O - 90. He has known her for a long time. She has another sexual partner and a poet - R - 13. He is also a friend of the hero of Zamyatin’s novel “We”. He considers these two his family. Their walk is interrupted by I - 330, who speaks to D - 503. Sharp and stubborn, she seems to read the thoughts of the main character.

Further, in Zamyatin’s novel “We,” a brief summary can be read of how, a few days later, I – 303 invites the main character to the Ancient House. This is an old apartment with a piano, a statue and lots of colors. D – 503 is captivated by this spectacle, but does not give in to the persuasion of I – 303, who offers to break the rules and stay with her. He plans to convey this request to the Guardian Bureau, but in the morning he goes to the medical center and gets a day off. Then D - 503, along with other numbers, is present at the execution of the poet, who is accused of writing impartial poems addressed to the Benefactor. The verdict is read out by a friend of the hero of Zamyatin’s novel “We” - R - 13. And then the Machine turns the criminal into water.

Soon after this, the main character of the novel “We” Zamyatin receives a notification that I-303 is registered on him. According to the law, he appears to her. She teases him by smoking illegal cigarettes and drinking alcohol. And then in a kiss he forces him to try alcohol. D-503 is simply obliged to report her to the guardians, but he understands that he cannot. He has changed. Now he, like the hero of ancient books, is jealous and loves like an idiot. He admits this in his diary. Mental turmoil leads him to the Medical Center, where Guardian S - 4711 helps him get there. By the way, this character in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “We” is a friend of I - 303. As it turns out, D - 503 is terminally ill - he, like many other citizens of the United State , a soul appeared.

Further in the novel “We” by Zamyatin you can read about how, in search of I – 303, the main character comes to the Ancient House. He opens the closet door and suddenly the floor disappears from under his feet, and he finds himself in a dungeon. It leads beyond the wall. There he is met by a doctor he knows, who is very surprised by his appearance. He tells them to wait until I – 303 comes, and then they walk together through the clumsy and irrational world.

By this time, the character of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “We” under the number O - 90 understands that D - 503 has lost interest in her. So she takes down all her notes on him, but before that she decides to come say goodbye. In an impulse later in the day, she asks the main character for a child. D – 503 tries to reason with her, stating that she is ten centimeters below the Maternal norm. But she is ready to do anything to feel the child inside her. D – 503 fulfills her request. Soon after this, I – 303 finally comes to him. The main character accuses her of tormenting him. To which she replies that she was not sure that he would follow her to the end. And if he is not afraid, he will find out the details after the Day of Unanimity.

Further in Zamyatin’s novel “We” you will learn how the Day of Unanimity comes, when a new Benefactor is elected. To the slow cast-iron question: “Who is “For,” six million hands shoot up. And when the question of who is against is raised, thousands of hands rise up, among which is hand I – 303. The figures of the Guardians begin to rush about like a whirlwind. The friend of the hero of Zamyatin’s novel “We” - R - 13 carries the bloody I - 303 in his arms. He takes it and runs, and only the thought that he is ready to carry it like that is forever seething in his head.

The next day there is a note in the newspapers that the Benefactor has been unanimously elected for the 48th time, and on the streets there are leaflets with the inscription “Mefi”. The main character of Zamyatin's novel “We”, together with his girlfriend, goes beyond the wall again. Here he meets overgrown and cheerful people who offer him to destroy the Wall during the upcoming tests of the Integral. D – 503 understands that he and these people are like separated molecules of H2 and O and that since I – 303 is with these people, then he is with them.

And the next day a decree on the Great Operation was issued. Its goal is the destruction of fantasy. The operated ones come out of the gaping doors like tractors. They surround the crowd, and everyone rushes into scattering. The hero of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s science fiction novel “We” is hiding in the entrance together with his friend O – 90. She wants to save their child. D – 503 gives her a note to I – 303 and promises that she will help.

And finally, the Integral test. Among the staff, members of Mefi and I are 303. She reports that she helped the woman he sent. But then a voice sounds on the radio that the Guardians know everything and that they believe that they will not dare to disrupt it. D – 503 understands that it was the attendant in his house, Yu, who read his diaries and told everything to the Guardians. She probably did this just to protect him. But I – 303 blames him for everything. The main character of Zamyatin's novel “We” gives the command to go down and turn off the engines. And then the Second Builder bursts into the wheelhouse and gives the command upward.

Further in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “We” you can read about how the main character is called by the Benefactor. He is the same person as all the other residents of the city. He convinces D-503 that he was needed only as a builder of Integral. And the next day the Mefis blow up the wall. Birds fly through the streets of the city, and the rebels move west. D – 503 runs to the Guardian Bureau and tells the character of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “We” S – 4711 everything he knows about “Mefi”, but then he realizes that he is one of them. He goes into the restroom and right from there he and his neighbors are taken to the Great Operation.

Now the head of the main character of Zamyatin’s novel “We” is empty. He comes to the Benefactor and tells everything he knows about the rebels. Then he watches with him as they bring in I – 303. She looks at him and is silent. Then she is taken into the Gas Room from which the air is pumped out. She looks at him until her eyes close. They take her out with the help of electrodes, restore consciousness and repeat the procedure again. All this reminds me of something, but the main character doesn’t remember what. Soon other conspirators will be brought here, and then they will find themselves in the Machine. The diary of the main character of Zamyatin's novel “We” ends with the words that reason must win. After all, they have already built a new wall.

Roman Zamyatin “We” on the Top books website

Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “We” has become so popular to read thanks to its inclusion in school curriculum. This factor allowed the work to take a high place among the year. In addition, the novel took a high place among our site. And given the high interest in Zamyatin’s work, he will continue to be represented among.

Distant future. D-503, a talented engineer, builder of the Integral spacecraft, keeps notes for posterity, tells them about “the highest peaks in human history" - the life of the United State and its head, the Benefactor. The title of the manuscript is “We”. D-503 admires the fact that the citizens of the United State, numbers, lead a life calculated according to the Taylor system, strictly regulated by the Table of Hours: at the same time they get up, start and finish work, go for a walk, go to the auditorium, and go to bed. For the numbers, a suitable report card of sexual days is determined and a pink card book is issued. D-503 is sure: ““We” are from God, and “I” are from the devil.”

One spring day, with his cute, rounded girlfriend, registered 0–90 on him, D-503, along with other identically dressed numbers, walks to the march of the Music Factory trumpets. A stranger with very white and sharp teeth, with some kind of annoying X in her eyes or eyebrows, speaks to him. I-330, thin, sharp, stubbornly flexible, like a whip, reads the thoughts of D-503.

A few days later, I-330 invites D-503 to the Ancient House (they fly there by air). In the apartment-museum there is a piano, a chaos of colors and shapes, a statue of Pushkin. D-503 caught in a wild vortex ancient life. But when I-330 asks him to break his routine and stay with her, D-503 intends to go to the Guardian Bureau and report her. However, the next day he goes to the Medical Bureau: it seems to him that the irrational No. 1 has grown into him and that he is clearly sick. He is released from work.

D-503, along with other numbers, is present in Cuba Square during the execution of a poet who wrote blasphemous poems about the Benefactor. The poeticized verdict is read with trembling gray lips by friend D-503, State Poet R-13. The criminal is executed by the Benefactor himself, heavy, stony, like fate. The sharp blade of the beam of his Machine sparkles, and instead of a number there is a puddle of chemically pure water.

Soon the Integral builder receives notice that I-330 has signed up for him. D-503 appears to her at the appointed hour. I-330 teases him: smokes ancient “cigarettes”, drinks liquor, and forces D-503 to take a sip while kissing. The use of these poisons is prohibited in the United State, and D-503 should report this, but cannot. Now he is different. In the tenth entry, he admits that he is perishing and can no longer fulfill his duties to the United State, and in the eleventh - that there are now two “I” in him - he is both the old one, innocent, like Adam, and the new one - wild, loving and jealous, just like in the idiotic ancient books. If only I knew which of these “I”s is real!

D-503 cannot live without I-330, but it is nowhere to be found. In the Medical Bureau, where the double-curved Guardian S-4711, friend I, helps him get there, it turns out that the builder of the Integral is terminally ill: he, like some other numbers, has developed a soul.

D-503 comes to the Ancient House, to “their” apartment, opens the closet door, and suddenly... the floor disappears from under his feet, he descends into some kind of dungeon, reaches the door, behind which there is a rumble. His friend, the doctor, appears from there. “I thought she, I-330...” - “Stay there!” - the doctor disappears. Finally! Finally she's there. D and I leave - two are one... She goes, like him, with eyes closed, throwing his head up, biting his lips... The builder of "Integral" is now in a new world: there is something clumsy, shaggy, irrational all around.

0–90 understands: D-503 loves another, so she removes her record on him. Having come to say goodbye to him, she asks: “I want - I owe you a child - and I will leave, I will leave!” - "What? Do you want a Benefactor's Car? You are ten centimeters below the Mother’s Norm!” - "Let be! But I will feel it within myself. And even for a few days...” How to refuse her?.. And D-503 fulfills her request - as if throwing herself down from a battery tower.

I-330 finally appears at its beloved. “Why did you torment me, why didn’t you come?” - “Or maybe I needed to test you, I needed to know that you would do everything I want, that you are already completely mine?” - “Yes, absolutely!” Sweet, sharp teeth; a smile, it is in the cup of a chair - like a bee: it contains a sting and honey. And then - bees - lips, the sweet pain of flowering, the pain of love... “I can’t do this, I. You always leave something unsaid,” - “Aren’t you afraid to follow me everywhere?” - “No, I’m not afraid!” - “Then after the Day of Unanimity you will know everything, unless...”

The great Day of Unanimity is coming, something like ancient Easter, as D-503 writes; annual election of the Benefactor, the triumph of the will of the united “We”. A cast-iron, slow voice: “Whoever is in favor, please raise your hands.” The rustle of millions of hands, with effort he raises his and D-503. “Who is “against”?” Thousands of hands shot up, and among them was the hand of I-330. And then - a whirlwind of clothes fluttered by the run, confused figures of the Guardians, R-13, carrying away I-330 in its arms. Like a battering ram, D-503 steams through the crowd, snatches I, covered in blood, from R-13, hugs him tightly and carries him away. If only I could carry her like this, carry her, carry her...

And the next day in the United State Newspaper: “For the 48th time, the same Benefactor was unanimously elected.” And in the city there are leaflets with the inscription “Mefi” posted everywhere.

D-503 from I-330 along the corridors under the Ancient House exit the city beyond the Green Wall, into the lower world. The unbearably colorful noise, whistle, light. D-503 is dizzy. D-503 sees wild people, overgrown with fur, cheerful, cheerful. I-330 introduces them to the builder of the Integral and says that he will help capture the ship, and then they will be able to destroy the Wall between the city and the wild world. And on the stone there are huge letters “Mephi”. D-503 is clear: wild people are the half that the townspeople lost, some are H2, and others are O, and in order to get H2O, the halves need to unite.

I makes an appointment with D in the Ancient House and reveals to him the Mephi plan: to capture the Integral during a test flight and, having made it a weapon against the United State, end everything at once, quickly, without pain. “What an absurdity, I! After all, our revolution was the last!” - “There is no last one, revolutions are endless, otherwise there is entropy, blissful peace, balance. But it is necessary to break it for the sake of endless movement.” D-503 cannot betray the conspirators, because among them... But suddenly he thinks: what if she is with him only because...

The next morning a decree on the Great Operation appears in the State Newspaper. The goal is the destruction of fantasy. All numbers must undergo operations in order to become perfect, machine-equal. Maybe I should have surgery D and be cured of my soul, of I? But he can't live without her. Doesn't want to be saved...

On the corner, in the auditorium, the door is wide open, and from there is a slow column of operated patients. Now these are not people, but some kind of humanoid tractors. They plow uncontrollably through the crowd and suddenly envelop it in a ring. Someone's shrill cry:

“They’re driving us in, run!” And everyone runs away. D-503 runs into some entrance to take a break, and immediately 0-90 is there too. She also does not want the operation and asks to save her and their unborn child. D-503 gives her a note to I-330: she will help.

And now the long-awaited flight of the Integral. Among the numbers on the ship are members of Mefi. "Up - 45!" - commands D-503. A dull explosion - a push, then an instant curtain of clouds - a ship through it. And the sun, blue sky. In the radiotelephone room, D-503 finds I-330 - in an auditory winged helmet, sparkling, flying, like the ancient Valkyries. “Yesterday evening she came to me with your note,” she says to D. “And I sent it - it’s already there, behind the Wall. She will live...” Lunch hour. Everyone goes to the dining room. And suddenly someone declares: “On behalf of the Guardians... We know everything. To you - to whom I speak, they hear... The test will be completed, you will not dare to disrupt it. And then...” I have wild, blue sparks. In D’s ear: “Oh, so it’s you? Have you “fulfilled your duty”? And he suddenly realizes with horror: this is the duty officer, Yu, who has been in his room more than once, and she has read his notes. The builder of the Integral is in the command room. He firmly orders: “Down! Stop engines. The end of everything." Clouds - and then a distant green spot rushes like a whirlwind towards the ship. The distorted face of the Second Builder. He pushes the D-503 as hard as he can, and it, already falling, vaguely hears: “The stern ones are in full swing!” A sharp jump upward.

D-503 is summoned by the Benefactor and tells him that the ancient dream of paradise is now coming true - a place where the blessed have an operated fantasy, and that D-503 was needed by the conspirators only as the builder of the Integral. “We don’t know their names yet, but I’m sure we’ll find out from you.”

The next day it turns out that the Wall has been blown up and flocks of birds are flying in the city. There are rebels on the streets. Swallowing the storm with their open mouths, they move west. Through the glass of the walls you can see: female and male numbers are copulating, without even lowering the curtains, without any coupons...

D-503 runs to the Guardian Bureau and tells S-4711 everything he knows about Mephi. He, like ancient Abraham, sacrifices Isaac - himself. And suddenly it becomes clear to the builder of Integral: S is one of those...

Headlong D-503 - from the Guardian Bureau and - into one of the public restrooms. There, his neighbor, occupying the seat on the left, shares with him his discovery: “There is no infinity! Everything is finite, everything is simple, everything is computable; and then we will win philosophically...” - “And where does your finite universe end? What's next?" The neighbor does not have time to answer. D-503 and everyone who was there are captured and subjected to the Great Operation in Auditorium 112. D-503’s head is now empty, easy...

The next day he appears to the Benefactor and tells everything he knows about the enemies of happiness. And here he is at the same table with the Benefactor in the famous Gas Room. They bring that woman. She must give her testimony, but she just remains silent and smiles. Then she is introduced under the bell. When the air is pumped out from under the bell, she throws her head back, her eyes are half-closed, her lips are clenched - this reminds D-503 of something. She looks at him, tightly gripping the arms of the chair, staring until her eyes close completely. Then they pull her out, quickly revive her with the help of electrodes, and put her under the bell again. This is repeated three times - and still she does not say a word. Tomorrow she and the others brought with her will ascend the steps of the Benefactor's Machine.

D-503 ends his notes this way: “A temporary wall of high-voltage waves has been constructed in the city. I'm sure we will win. Because reason must win."

Zamyatin's novel We, written in 1920, describes a society in the distant future in which the individual is subject to strict totalitarian control. The book was first published in English in New York in 1924, after which a persecution campaign began in the writer’s homeland. Zamyatin's dystopia was published in Russian only in 1988.

Main characters

D-503- engineer, builder of the Integral spacecraft, main character-narrator.

O-90– female number, partner D for “personal” hours.

I-330– female number, seductress D-503, conspirator.

Other characters

YU– female number, elderly controller.

R-13- male act, poet, comedian.

Doctor- male number, standing on the side of the conspirators.

Guardian S- the guardian of the United State, who went over to the side of the conspirators.

Benefactor- the permanent supreme ruler of the United State.

Entry 1

It's the 32nd century. Humanity submitted to the absolute power of the United State, headed by its ruler – the Benefactor. Construction of the Integral spacecraft will soon be completed. His main task is “to subjugate unknown creatures living on other planets, perhaps still in a wild state of freedom.”

D-503, “one of the mathematicians of the United State,” is working on the construction of the ship.

Entry 2

D-503 admires the clear spring sky, with not a cloud in it. In the afternoon, the “all rounded” O-90 comes behind D.

While walking among other numbered people, D-503 meets a stranger - thin and sharp I-330. Somehow she manages to read the engineer’s thoughts, and she invites him to room 112. This woman acts on D “unpleasantly, like an indecomposable irrational term accidentally inserted into an equation.”

Entry 3

D-503 explains such key concepts as Personal Clock, Tablet of Hours, Green Wall, Maternal Norm, Benefactor.

Since the distant Bicentennial War, no one has been outside the glass Green Wall, which fenced off the city from the dense forest.

The work of the United State is regulated by the Table of Hours, thanks to which all residents act like a perfectly coordinated mechanism: they wake up at the same time, start work and complete it, and go to bed. There are two private hours in the day when city residents can, at their discretion, draw the curtains, take a walk, or spend time at their desk.

Entry 4

The next day, D gets assigned to auditorium 112, where the phonolector remembers the musicians of the past who wrote music in a fit of inspiration. D’s new acquaintance, the thin I-330, sits at the piano in ancient clothes and plays a piece of ancient music.

D is looking forward to the evening private hour, when O is supposed to come to him with a pink ticket entitling him to have the curtains closed.

Entry 5

D-503 sets out the laws by which the United State lives. After the victory in the Bicentennial War, only 0.2% of the population remained alive.

“The ancestors finally conquered the Hunger at great cost,” when “the modern, oil-based food” was invented. Also, the residents of the United State managed to get rid of such a feeling as Love, and now everyone can pre-select the desired number, write a statement, and meet with him on strictly regulated sexual days. It is very convenient and practical.

Entry 6

D admits with bitterness that even the United State “has a few more steps to reach the ideal.” There are also numbers that break the rules, and then a celebration of Justice takes place on the main square.

However, D himself is not so clean before the law. One day, in his private hour, he went with I to the Ancient House, which was radically different from the usual blocks with transparent walls in which the rooms live. His companion left for a while, and then came out “in a short, old-fashioned bright yellow dress, a black hat, and black stockings.”

D-503 was late for the lecture, but I asked him to stay. It was an unthinkable violation of all the rules.

Entry 7

D has a dream and wakes up in horror because he knows that "dreams are a serious mental illness." On the way to the Integral, he notices Guardian S and tries to tell him about his meeting with I in the Ancient House and her violation of the rules, but at the last moment he changes his mind.

O thinks that D is sick and needs to see a doctor. They spend the evening solving “problems from an old problem book: it’s very calming and clears your thoughts.”

Entry 8

D remembers how school years he was afraid of irrational numbers. He is about to go to the Guardian Bureau, but on the way he meets O and R-13. Sweet O's companion is not to the liking of the pragmatic D, since "R-13 has a bad habit of making jokes."

O has an appointment with R-13 for an afternoon private hour, but since half an hour is enough for them, the writer invites D to his home. In essence, their unequal love triangle represents a family in which D is comfortable and cozy.

Entry 9

D is located on the main square along with thousands of other rooms that came to the celebration of Justice. "Heavy, stone-like, like fate, the Benefactor" runs a Machine that kills criminals with thousands of volts electric current. After the execution, all that remains of them is “only a puddle of chemically pure water, which just a minute ago was beating wildly and red in the heart.”

Entry 10

D receives a notification according to which I-330 is assigned to him for this evening. A whirlwind of thoughts rushes through the engineer’s head, and he understands that “there will be a difficult, ridiculous, absolutely illogical conversation.”

I makes it clear that D is in her hands because he did not report the violation to the Guardians. After this date, D can’t sleep.

Entry 11

For the first time in his life, D feels unsure of himself, he does not understand who he really is. R-13 comes to see him, and during the conversation he casually mentions that he is also closely acquainted with I.

This news unbalances D, who realizes with horror that “all this madness - love, jealousy - is not only in idiotic ancient books.”

Entry 12

D is sure that he is seriously ill and dreams of recovery. He has no doubt that he will soon recover, since that night there were no “dreams or other painful phenomena.”

He is reading a book with poems by R, which he brought him the day before. One of the Guardians reads poetry with D.

Entry 13

After a sound, dreamless sleep, D is confident that he is completely healthy. An unexpected call from I disrupts his usual daily routine. He is late for work, and his companion takes a certificate from a doctor he knows.

Now they are free. The couple heads to the Ancient House, where they make love without pink coupons or permits. It seems as if he is falling into his “old dream, so clear now.”

Entry 14

D goes down “to the duty officer to get the right to the curtains,” since O is supposed to come that evening with a pink coupon. However, the date is not planned from the very beginning, since D acutely understands “how empty everything is, given away.”

Unable to bear D's indifference, he cries bitterly and then runs away. D realizes that I has taken both R and O from him.

Entry 15

D arrives at the Integral construction site. From the Second Builder he learns that while he was sick, an “unnumbered man” was caught. He was taken to the Operating Room, where “the best and most experienced doctors work under the direct supervision of the Benefactor himself.”

The violator will be tortured using the Gas Bell. A person is placed under a glass bell and various gases are pumped under pressure until he gives away valuable information. But this is not inhuman torture, but exclusively concern “for the security of the United State, in other words, for the happiness of millions.”

Entry 16

D greatly misses I, whom he has not seen for many days. One day “she flashed by, for a second filled the yellow, empty world,” and just as quickly disappeared.

D turns to the doctor, and he makes a terrible diagnosis - the patient has a soul. However, walking, in particular to the Ancient House, will help cure this ailment. Thus, the doctor reminds D that he will meet with I there.

Entry 17

D heads to the Ancient House in the hope of meeting I there, but he fails to find her. During the search, the mathematician notices the approaching keeper, and in a panic hides in the closet. Once safe, he “slowly, gently floated down somewhere.”

In the dungeon, D meets a doctor he knows, who promises to bring I. While waiting for the meeting, D’s “lips, hands, knees are trembling.” He meets I in a yellow dress, and she makes an appointment with him for the day after tomorrow.

Entry 18

D goes to bed and immediately sinks “to the sleepy bottom, like an overturned, overloaded ship.” He dreams of I in a pink dress, behind the mirrored door of his closet. Waking up, D tries to determine what the soul is, but plunges even further into the abyss of chaos.

On Doctor D's advice, he goes for a walk. In the evening, he receives a letter from O-90 in which she confesses her love to D, and at the same time lets him go so that he can be happy with I.

Entry 19

The first test launch of “Integral” takes place, during which “a dozen unwary numbers” die. However, no one pays attention to this unfortunate incident, and the work continues.

The hero goes to a lecture on childcare, where he meets O. In the evening of the same day, O asks D for one favor - to leave her a child. Such a violation is punishable by execution, but O is ready to sacrifice herself just to feel the birth of a new life within herself. D agrees.

Entry 20

D analyzes what happened and comes to the conclusion that he is ready to die in the Benefactor’s Machine. If Operations O calls his name, he will be killed along with her.

Entry 21

I again does not come on her day, instead of her there is only “an indistinct note that does not explain anything.” Hoping to find her, D goes to the Ancient House. There he meets Guardian S, who asks him to be more careful.

In the evening, D meets an elderly controller, Yu, who complains to him that the children depicted her “in some kind of fish form.” She, of course, loves children, but did not fail to hand them over to the Guardians.

Entry 22

D witnesses a procession - three criminals are being escorted. One of them, noticing a familiar face in the crowd, stops, but the guard clicks “at him with the bluish spark of an electric whip.” A girl rushes towards the young man, and it seems to D that it is I.

Entry 23

I comes to D and talks about his love for him. But she wants to be sure that D is ready to do anything for her sake. The mathematician feels that the woman is not telling her something. She agrees to tell him everything, but only after Unanimity Day.

Entry 24

D reflects on the great Day of Unanimity, during which the same ruler is invariably chosen. At the same time, “the elections themselves have a rather symbolic meaning,” and are intended to emphasize that the people of the One State are “a single, powerful million-celled organism.”

The mathematician invites I to go to the main square together, but she refuses.

Entry 25

A solemn anthem sounds, and “the Benefactor in white robes, who wisely bound us hand and foot with the beneficent snares of happiness,” descends from the heavens onto the air.

“The rustle of millions of hands” sweeps through the rows - everyone votes “for” the Benefactor, and after “thousands of hands waved upward - “against”.” A terrible panic begins, I is wounded, and D carries her in his arms away from the maddened crowd.

Entry 26

Much to D's surprise, the familiar world still continues to exist. The United State Newspaper reports that, despite the machinations of enemies, for the 48th time the same Benefactor, who has repeatedly proven his unshakable wisdom, was unanimously elected.”

All streets in the United State are plastered with Mephi leaflets, and the Guardians destroy them urgently.

Entry 27

D meets I and she takes him beyond the Green Wall. Finding himself in the forbidden zone, the mathematician is most amazed by the sun - “they were some kind of living fragments, constantly jumping spots, which blinded his eyes and made his head spin.”

“A crowd of three to four hundred... people” is noisy in the clearing. I appeals to them to seize the Integral and go to other planets in order to forever destroy the laws and orders established by the Benefactor. Many people think this is crazy, but D supports his companion.

Unexpectedly, D notices the familiar face of the Guardian in the crowd, but I claims that no one knows about this place.

Entry 28

I comes to D and reports that the government is planning something - “they are preparing something in the auditorium buildings, some tables, doctors in white.” She also suggests that D is of mixed race and is the son of a woman from the city and a man who lived beyond the Green Wall.

I tells mathematics about the Mefi who are desperately fighting for freedom. Later, D receives a letter warning him of the arrival of the Guardians. He manages to hide the dangerous notes, and the Guardians leave with nothing.

Entry 29

Heading to the Ancient House to meet I, D notices the pregnant O. She is very happy, and thanks D for this happiness. However, the mathematician is worried - he knows perfectly well what fate awaits O-90 for illegal pregnancy.

D invites her to go beyond the Green Wall and experience the true joy of motherhood - to see how the child “will grow in her arms, become round, and fill out like a fetus.” Having learned that only I can do this, O resolutely refuses help.

Entry 30

I says that “among the hundreds taken at random by the Guardians yesterday, there were 12 Mephis,” and you need to act as quickly and decisively as possible. A delay of 2-3 days can be fatal.

The capture of the Integral is scheduled for the day after tomorrow - on the day of its first test flight. And then in the hands of I and her like-minded people there will be “a weapon that will help end everything at once, quickly, without pain.”

Entry 31

The next day, D reads in the State Newspaper that the United State intends to finally make people ideal, completely depriving them of their imagination. To do this, it is enough to carry out a small operation, destroying the “pathetic brain nodule” - the center of fantasy.

Because of this news, the launch of Integral is postponed. D is glad of this, because he does not need to betray his own brainchild. He has high hopes for the Operation, hoping in this way to regain his former calm.

However, I harshly confronts him with a choice - “Operation and one hundred percent happiness or...”. D chooses the second option - an unknown, frightening future, but together with I.

Entry 32

The first numbers to undergo the Operation, with the banner “We are the first!” We have already operated! Everyone is behind us! they are trying to drive the remaining numbers to the operating tables. D, along with many others, manages to escape.

The mathematician meets O, who agrees to take refuge behind the Green Wall - he does not want to undergo an operation after which he will not be able to love his child. D gives her a letter to I, and directs her to the Ancient House.

Entry 33

The next day, D learns from the newspaper that work will be suspended until all numbers undergo surgery. This is a mandatory condition for everyone, and “those who fail to appear are subject to the Benefactor’s Machine.”

Entry 34

"Integral" is ready for testing. It rises into the air and leaves the earth's atmosphere. The appointed hour is approaching when Mephi must take the reins of power into their own hands. However, one of them turns out to be the Guardian, and the plans for the coup are destroyed. I suspects D of treason.

Entry 35

To prove his innocence I, the mathematician decides to kill controller Yu - he is sure that it was her fault that the planned coup was thwarted. He searches for her all day around the city, but does not find her anywhere.

In the evening, Yu herself appears to D. He lowers the curtains and swings the rod, intending to kill her. Yu is sure that D acts this way in a fit of passion, and “it was so unexpected, so stupid” that he lowers the rod from his hand and begins to laugh. At that moment D understands “that laughter is the most terrible weapon: with laughter you can kill everything - even murder.”

Yu admits that she did not give I away. The bell rings - the Benefactor himself urgently calls D to his place.

Entry 36

The benefactor reveals the truth to D - the traitors are not interested in him in himself. He is of value to them only as the builder of Integral. Daring to raise his eyes to the Benefactor, D sees in front of him “a bald, Socratic-bald man, and on his bald head there are small drops of sweat.” Unable to contain his laughter, D runs away.

Entry 37

During breakfast, an unexpected incident occurs - birds appear in the sky, flying into the United State through the destroyed Green Wall.

In the resulting crowd, D tries to find I, but to no avail.

Entry 38

Waking up in the morning from a bright light, D sees I in front of her. She has very little time, and the mathematician tries to justify himself to her. He tells her about his meeting with the Benefactor. I, without answering anything, leaves D.

Entry 39

D decides to go to the “Bureau of Guardians” and confess everything to them. He finds an acquaintance, Guardian S, and begins to frantically and confusingly, “in awkward lumps, shreds,” talk about everything that happened. But the Guardian admits to him that he himself belongs to the conspirators, and he knows about everything.

D leaves the Bureau and meets his neighbor, a scientist who managed to prove the finitude of the Universe.

Entry 40

The mathematician and his scientist neighbor, “as not having a certificate of the Operation,” are sent to undergo a procedure to remove fantasy.

The next day D comes to the Benefactor and tells him everything. That evening, D is present during the torture “in the famous Gas Room.” A woman is brought there who vaguely resembles someone D. Despite the torment, she, unlike her comrades, does not utter a word. Tomorrow she will be executed along with others in the Benefactor's Machine.

But not everything is calm in the United State, and “in the western quarters there is still chaos, roaring, corpses, animals.” The rooms manage to isolate themselves from them with a temporary wall of high-voltage waves. D has no doubt about the victory of the United State.

Conclusion

The dystopia “We” represents a confrontation between reality and ideology. Wanting to get rid of all problems, residents of the United State kill everything human in themselves, thereby depriving themselves of the joy of life.

A brief retelling of “We” will be especially useful for reader's diary. After reading it, we recommend reading it full version novel.

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