Dark alleys of an ordinary story. Oh those dark alleys
Yulia Yuryevna Chernokozova is a teacher of literature at the Novocherkassk Pedagogical College.
Analysis of the story by I.A. Bunin "Dark Alleys" at a literature lesson in the senior class
“All around the scarlet rose hips bloomed, there were alleys of dark lindens ...”
In accordance with the program, acquaintance of students with the work of I.A. Bunin is carried out gradually. In elementary school, they get an idea about his poetic work, read and analyze epic works - “Clean Monday”, “ Sunstroke". In the eleventh grade, when studying a monographic topic on the writer's work, it is necessary to systematize the existing knowledge, help high school students in comprehending the peculiarities of the writer's worldview and skill. It is important to consider each small work chosen for study as part of an integral artistic world containing unique features of the author's individuality. Therefore, starting to work on the story " Dark alleys”, we have defined as a goal the creation of conditions not only for the full interpretation of the text by students, but also for their comprehension of the artistic concept of the entire cycle. Given that for eleventh graders, of course, the appeal to the theme of love is personally significant, in the process of analyzing Bunin's work, we tried to arouse in them a desire to deeply comprehend the author's concept of love, to determine their attitude to it. The story of I. Bunin is harmonious, with a small volume and a folded plot, it is unusually meaningful, truly “the best words in the best order”. This allows the lesson to successfully solve another problem - to develop the skills of students through consideration of the elements of the form (in this case- through the ratio of plot and plot) to come to empathy with the author.
As an epigraph to the dialogue with students, we choose the words of the writer himself: “We live by everything that we live, only to the extent that we comprehend the value of what we live. Usually this price is very small: it rises only in moments of delight - the delight of happiness or unhappiness, a vivid consciousness of gain or loss; more - in moments of poetic transformation of the past in memory.
In anticipation of working with the text, we recall with the students what works about love they know, we analyze the reader's impressions of the stories I. Bunin read (as homework, it was proposed to read not only "Dark Alleys", but also two or three other stories from this cycle) and note that by the beginning of the 20th century, it seems that everything that could be said about love had already been said. However, I. Bunin talks about this feeling in his own way. For the heroes of his works, love is a moment of happiness, which is tragic only because it is irrevocable. The price of this irretrievable moment is realized not at the moment of absorption by the feeling, but later. “Later” can come fifteen minutes after parting with a loved one (“Sunstroke”), and thirty years later (“Dark Alleys”). Bunin's feeling of love is devoid of vulgarity, even purely physical intimacy is exclusively spiritual. These are always “truly magical” minutes.
The story that interests us belongs to the late period of I.A. Bunin. At this time, according to the fair remark of the researcher of the writer L.A. Kolobaeva, in connection with the tendency to expand the epic beginning in the works of Bunin, such a genre structure of the story appears, which, as if exceeding its own nature, reaches out to the story and even to the novel, takes on its tasks - through the “instant” of life to look through the beginnings and ends , the history of the personality as a whole, its fate, the whole “chalice of life”. It is from this point of view that the story "Dark Alleys" is interesting. His analysis should show high school students how "a vulgar, ordinary story" is transformed into "a light breath of Bunin's story."
At the beginning analytical conversation in the text we find out what this small (only four pages) work of I. Bunin is about, which gave the name to the whole cycle. Usually there are answers: about love, about a meeting, about the life of two people. What is unusual about the love story of Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda? How does the hero himself respond to her? We conclude that in itself the history of the relationship between two people is no different. Nikolai Alekseevich himself evaluates it as “vulgar and ordinary”. However, it was interesting to read, the feeling of banality did not arise. Why?
Let's try to retell the work, highlighting the main events. It is possible that some student will try to build his retelling in chronological order: love and separation - a thirty-year separation - a meeting at the post station. If the story matches the plot, high school students can be invited to determine the temporal correlation of events and compare them with how the author tells about them. At the same time, we depict this schematically on the board and in notebooks.
What are the similarities and differences between the schemes?
Which version of the story grabs our attention the most? Why?
Together with the students, we note that in both schemes the episodes that make up the story are highlighted. However, the first scheme is a list of episodes in their chronological sequence, and the second is the same set of episodes, but they are arranged differently, according to the laws of the story's artistic time: present - past - future. The reader is more attracted to the second option, since we are interested in the moment of recognition, which motivates attention to the conversation-memory that follows it. former lovers. It makes us feel surprised, gives rise to a desire to learn about what happened in the past, encourages empathy.
We update the knowledge of eleventh-graders about the plot and the plot, we propose to correlate these concepts with the diagrams depicted on the board, we help to come to the conclusion that reflections on the features of plot construction in a work help to better understand the author’s intention, in this case, through one life situation to show a whole human life.
What events from the life of the characters did the author choose to tell us the story of the life of two people? Only meager facts: love that arose thirty years ago, a meeting at the station, the family life of Nikolai Alekseevich, about which he told Nadezhda in five sentences.
Were these only events in the life of forty-eight-year-old Nadezhda and sixty-year-old Nikolai Alekseevich? Of course not. But why did the writer choose them? Probably, they were the main ones in the fate of the heroes. Let's find confirmation of this in the text.
Nikolai Alekseevich:“I think that I have lost in you the most precious thing that I had in my life.” "Yes, sure, best minutes. And not the best, but magical!”
Hope:“Youth passes for everyone, but love is another matter.” “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten.” “No matter how much time passed, everything lived by one.” There were many events in the life of Nadezhda: "It's a long story, sir." But lived she only love for Nikolai Alekseevich.
Why I. Bunin did not tell us the story in more detail family life Nikolai Alekseevich, because this could turn out to be a fascinating novel? (I loved my wife without memory. - I left it. - I adored my son. - A scoundrel grew up.) Because in such a small work, only the most important thing had to be revealed, explaining everything in the fate of people. This main thing turned out to be an old love. And although the content of the story is “a vulgar, ordinary story,” the reading evokes a special lyrical mood: “All around the scarlet rose hips bloomed, there were alleys of dark lindens ...” The atmosphere of the story is as light and harmonious as the tetrameter iambic of these poetic lines. The memory of Nikolai Alekseevich poetically transformed the moments of departed love, showed the real value of this feeling.
For the hero, love is a wonderful moment, but for Nadezhda? We suggest finding words in the text confirming that Nadezhda has retained her feelings for many years. For her, love is her whole life.
In conclusion, we turn to the epigraph, to the words of I. Bunin, revealing “the main creative aspirations of the writer - his pathos, the principles of selection and artistic transformation of life material” . What is the epigraph about? How does it relate to the analyzed story? What moments in a person's life make it possible to comprehend the price of what he lives by? Discussion of questions helps to comprehend the story in a lyrical and philosophical way, when the main characters are three elements: love, time and memory. Love is a state when “the whole world was in the soul”, and the person is ideal. Time inexorably pulls away and makes you forget everything. Memory selects and poetically transforms moments of the past - love. The circle, having begun with love, closes with it. I. Bunin suggested in his story "Dark Alleys" just such a situation, when the memory of an aging hero allows him to realize the already forgotten love as the "best", the only "truly magical" minutes of life.
When the dark ones come hard days autumn, the rain annoyingly knocks on the windows, I usually read Bunin.
So yesterday I accidentally opened an unfamiliar folder on the desktop of my computer, and in it was Bunin's Diary for 1939-1945. According to his notes, you can trace all the key moments of the Second World War, find out how hard it was for him in those years. But something else surprises me, how much he wrote in that difficult time of hunger, already middle-aged, sick
. All the brightest stories were written at that time and they made up his most famous and beloved by readers collection "Dark Alleys".
And the name for the collection and, perhaps, the very idea of \u200b\u200bwriting such a collection was suggested to Ivan Alekseevich by Ogaryov's poem:
ORDINARY STORY
It's been a wonderful spring!
They were sitting on the beach
The river was quiet, clear
The sun was rising, the birds were singing;
Stretched for the river dol,
Quietly, luxuriantly green;
Near the wild rose scarlet blossomed,
There was an alley of dark lindens.
It's been a wonderful spring!
They were sitting on the beach
She was in her prime,
His mustache was barely black.
Oh, if anyone could see them
Then, at their morning meeting,
And I would look out for their faces
Or eavesdrop on their speeches -
How sweet his tongue would be,
The original love language!
He would surely b himself, at this moment,
Blossomed at the bottom of a sad soul! ..
I met them in the light later:
She was the wife of another
He was married, and about the past
There was not a word in sight;
There was peace on their faces.
Their life flowed lightly and evenly,
They meet each other
Could laugh in cold blood...
And there, along the river,
Where the scarlet rose hips then bloomed,
Some simple fishermen
Went to the dilapidated boat
And they sang songs - and it's dark
The rest is closed to people
What was said there
And how much has been forgotten.
At the end short story"Dark Alleys", which gave the name to the entire collection, Bunin cites two lines from this poem:
“The low sun shone yellow on the empty fields, the horses evenly spanked through the puddles. He looked at the flashing horseshoes, knitting his black eyebrows, and thought:
“Yes, blame yourself. Yes, of course, the best moments. And not the best, but truly magical! “All around the scarlet rose hips bloomed, there were alleys of dark lindens ...” But, my God, what would happen next? What if I hadn't left her? What nonsense! This same Nadezhda is not the keeper of the inn, but my wife, the mistress of my St. Petersburg house, the mother of my children? And closing his eyes, he shook his head.
October 20, 1938
Tsvetaeva dreamed of having a garden in her declining days, she wrote:
For this hell
For this nonsense
send me a garden
For old age."
But Bunin had it. . .
From his diaries:
6.9.1940
I write and look into the sunny "lantern" of my room, at its five windows, behind which light fog everything that lies around us with such beauty and spaciousness, and a huge whitish-sunny sky. And in the midst of all this is my lonely, eternally sad self.
(They brought a newspaper. [...] Churchill's speech devant la chambre des communes. In the last 2 months, England lost 558 aircraft. In August, 1,075 people died among the civilian population, 800 houses were destroyed. The German attacks in September will intensify [. ..])
21.4.1940
2 1/2 hours Walked in the garden - the second platform (from the lower road) was already overgrown with tall grass. Still blooming pale pink, light, delicate, v. femininity. flowers of some special kind of cherry, 2 clumsy apple trees bloom with white (also pinkish in buds) flowers. Irises are blooming, I found a rosehip branch blooming (light scarlet color with yellow pollen in the middle), some flowers, like poppies - the lightest, but bright orange color... I sat on a wicker, collapsing chair, looked at the mountains beyond Nice, light and vague like smoke ... Paradise! And for how many years I have seen him, I feel him!
Lonely, uncomfortable, but to move near Paris ... the insignificance of nature, the vile climate!
As always, almost exactly the same in the whole house. [...]
A bright day, a holiday, the sea seems to be emptyer - and they call, they call in the city ... I don’t know how to express what is behind all this.
A lot of moths curl around the color of lilac - white with a greenish tint, transparent. And again, bees, bumblebees, flies are born ...
23.5.42
Again I thought today: there is nothing more beautiful than flowers and birds in the world. More butterflies.
30.4.40
Night, a dark strip of forest in the distance and above it a star - humble, charming. It was somewhere, once upon a time, that struck me as a child for the rest of my life... My God, my God! I once had a childhood, the first days of my life on earth! I just can't believe it! Now just the thought that they were. And here come the last ones. [...]
7.5.40
Somehow, to me - as happens most often for no reason at all, it seemed to me: the evening after a thunderstorm and a downpour on the road to st. Babrykina. And heaven and earth - everything is already darkening gloomily. In the distance, above the dark strip of the forest, it still flares up. Someone is standing on the porch of an inn near the highway, cleaning the mud off their tops with a whip. There is a dog near him... From here "Styopa" came out.
30.7.40
Suddenly I remembered: Moscow, the Maly Theatre, stairs - and sometimes very warm, sometimes icy drafts.
20.IX. 40.
Started Rus. 22.IX. 40. Wrote "Mother's Chest" and "Along Pavement Street". 27.IX. 40. Finished "Rus". 29.IX. 40. Sketched "Wolves". 2. X. 40. Wrote "Antigone". Z.X.40. Wrote "Pasha" and "Smaragd". 5.X.40. Yesterday and today I wrote Business Cards". 7.X.40. Rewrote and corrected "Wolves". 10, 11, 12, 13. X. 40. Wrote and finished (at 3 hours 15 m.) "Zoyka and Valery". 14, 17, 18 , 20, 21, 22 October 40. Wrote and finished (at 5 o'clock) "Tanya" 25 and 26 October 40. Wrote "In Paris" (first pages - 24 October 40) 27 and 28 X. 40. Wrote "Galya Ganskaya" (finished at 4 hours 40 minutes. Day 28.10.
7.5.40
"A man and his body are two... When the body desires something, think about whether You really desire it. For You are God... Penetrate yourself to find God in yourself... Do not take your body for yourself ... Do not succumb to the incessant anxiety about trifles in which many spend most of his time. . ."
"One of those who have no rest.
From the thirst for happiness ... "
Seems like me, for my whole life (even to this day).
30.7.40
“I read about the experience that two Viennese students made a few years ago: they decided to hang themselves so that they could be taken out of the loop a moment before death and they could tell what they experienced. It turned out that they experienced a blinding light and a roar of thunder.
16. VI. 41. Monday, evening.
The contempt of the first Christians for life, their disgust from it, from its rigidity, rudeness, bestiality. Then the barbarians. And going into caves, into crypts, foundation of monasteries... Will it be the same in the 20th, in the 21st century?
28. VII. Sunday.
I am reading Krasnov's novel "God is with us". I did not expect that he was so capable, knew so much and was so busy. [...]
2 hours. Yes, I live in paradise. I still can’t get used to such days, to such a sight. Today is a particularly great day. He looked through the windows of his lantern. All the valleys and mountains around in a sunny blue haze. To the side of Nice over the mountains wonderful thunderclouds. To the right, in pine forest above them, the beauty of heat, dryness, through the tops of the sky. On the right, along our stone stairs, small pink flowers two oleanders with their small sharp leaves. And loneliness, loneliness, as always! And the agonizing expectation of resolving the fate of England. I'm afraid to open the newspaper in the morning.
Since ancient times, it has been prescribed for Jews: always (and especially in happy Days) to think about death.
Belligerants. It can be translated by an old Russian word: opponents.
Lighthouses were lit. Seen from here for the first time (with "Jeannette")
22.6.41
WITH new page I am writing the continuation of this day - a great event Germany this morning declared war on Russia - and the Finns and Romanians have already "invaded" its "limits".
After breakfast (naked soup of mashed peas and salad) I lay down to continue reading Flaubert's letters (letter from Rome to his mother dated April 8, 1851), when suddenly Zurov shouted: "I.A., German. declared war on Russia!" I thought he was joking, but Bahr shouted the same thing from below. I ran to the dining room to the radio - yes! We are terribly excited. [...]
Quiet, cloudy day. . .
***
The day before yesterday M. rewrote "Ballad". No one believes that I almost always make everything up - everything, everything. It's a shame! The "Ballad" is all invented, from word to word - and at once at one o'clock: somehow I woke up in Paris with the thought that I absolutely must [send] something to the "Envoy. N.", it must be there; drank coffee, sat down at the table - and suddenly, for no apparent reason, he began to write, not knowing what would happen next. And the story is wonderful.
From 8 to 9. V. 44.
The hour of the night. I got up from the table - it remains to add several. lines of Clean Monday. Turned off the light, opened the window to ventilate the room - not the slightest. air movement; the full moon, the night is not bright, the whole valley is in the thinnest fog, far on the horizon is the obscure pinkish gleam of the sea, silence, the soft freshness of young woody greenery, here and there the first nightingales chirping ... Lord, prolong my strength for my lonely, poor life in this beauty and at work!
14. 5. 44.
21/2 o'clock in the morning (which means that it is no longer May 14, but May 15).
During the evening he wrote "Steamboat Saratov". He opened the window, darkness, silence, in some places muddy. stars, raw freshness.
23. 5. 44.
In the evening I wrote "Camargue". Pts. cold night. . .
20.I. 44g.
Again excellent. day. Was at Kl[yagin's].
Take Novgorod.
The nights are starry, clear, cold. Whatever you remember (and snippets are replayed every minute), everything is painful, sad. Sometimes I sleep for 9 and more hours. And almost every. morning, as soon as you open your eyes, some kind of sadness - aimlessness, the end of everything (for me).
Reviewed my notes on former Russia. I keep thinking that if I could live, I would end up in Russia! What for? The old age of the survivors (and women with whom once), the cemetery of everything that once lived ...
25.I. 44g.
[...] Suddenly remembered Gagarinsk. the alley, my youth, a fictitious love for Lop[atin] - who now for some reason (5 kilometers from me) lies in a grave in some Valbona. Isn't that wild!
27.1. 44g.
Without 1/4 6. I'm sitting at the window to the west. On the horizon, the sky is green - the sun has just set - closer is the whole part of the sky (in front of me) in a solid cloud, under which (inaudible. - O. M.) is like a fleece and is colored orange-copper.
Now its color is getting redder, the forest valley towards Draguignan in purple steam.
Around - to Nice, to Cannes - everything is in moderation, rudely flowery, it's true, tomorrow there will be bad weather.
Today, after breakfast, great vivacity - steak with curry, real coffee and lemon?
Received 2 Swedish. parcels.
The story “Dark Alleys” opens, perhaps, the most famous Bunin cycle of stories, which got its name from this first, “title” work. It is known what importance the writer attached to the initial sound, the first “note” of the narrative, the timbre of which was to determine the entire sound palette of the work. A kind of "beginning", creating a special lyrical atmosphere of the story, were the lines from N. Ogarev's poem "An Ordinary Tale":
It was a wonderful spring
They were sitting on the beach
She was in her prime,
His mustache was barely black.
Around the wild rose scarlet bloomed,
There was an alley of dark lindens...
Ho, as always with Bunin, “sound” is inseparable from “image”. To him, as he wrote in the notes “The Origin of My Stories”, at the beginning of work on the story, “some kind of big road, a troika harnessed to a tarantass, and autumn bad weather” presented themselves. It is necessary to add to this a literary impulse, which also played a role: Bunin named “Resurrection” by L.N. Tolstoy, the heroes of this novel are the young Nekhlyudov and Katyusha Maslova. All this came together in the writer's imagination, and a story was born about lost happiness, about the irretrievability of time, about lost illusions and about the power of the past over a person.
The meeting of heroes united once in their youth by hot love feeling, takes place many years later in the most ordinary, perhaps even nondescript setting: in a mudslide, in an inn lying on a large roadway. Bunin does not skimp on “prosaic” details: “a tarantass thrown with mud”, “simple horses”, “tails tied up from slush”. On the other hand, the portrait of the arrived man is given a detailed one, obviously calculated to arouse sympathy: “a slender old military man”, with black eyebrows, a white mustache, and a shaved chin. His appearance speaks of nobility, and strict, but tired look contrasts with the liveliness of movements (the author notices how he “thrown” his leg out of the tarantass, “ran up” onto the porch). Bunin clearly wants to emphasize the connection in the hero of vivacity and maturity, youthfulness and sedateness, which is very important for general design a story driven by the desire to bring past and present together, to strike a spark of memories that will illuminate bright light the past will incinerate, turn into ashes what exists today.
The writer deliberately drags out the exposition: out of the three and a half pages given to the story, almost a page is occupied by the “introduction”. In addition to describing the rainy day, the hero’s appearance (and at the same time a detailed description of the coachman’s appearance), which is supplemented with new details as the hero gets rid of outerwear, it also contains detailed description rooms where the visitor found himself. Moreover, the refrain of this description is an indication of cleanliness and neatness: a clean tablecloth on the table, cleanly washed benches, a recently whitewashed stove, new image in the corner ... The author focuses on this, since it is known that the owners of Russian inns and hotels were not distinguished by accuracy and cockroaches and dim windows infested with flies were a constant feature of these places. Therefore, he wants to draw our attention to the almost uniqueness of how this institution is maintained by its owners, or rather, as we will soon find out, by its owner.
Ho the hero remains indifferent to environment, although later he will note cleanliness and tidiness. It can be seen from his behavior and gestures that he is annoyed, tired (Bunin uses the epithet tired for the second time, now in relation to the whole appearance of the officer who arrived), perhaps not very healthy (“pale thin hand”), hostile to everything that happens (“ hostilely” called the owners), absent-minded (“inattentively” answers the questions of the hostess who appeared). And only the unexpected address of this woman to him: “Nikolai Alekseevich,” makes him seem to wake up. After all, before that, he asked her questions purely mechanically, without thinking, although he managed to take a look at her figure, note rounded shoulders, light legs in worn Tatar shoes.
The author himself, as if in addition to the “unseeing” look of the hero, gives a much more sharply expressive, unexpected, juicy portrait of the woman who entered: not very young, but still beautiful, like a gypsy, plump, but not heavy woman. Bunin deliberately resorts to naturalistic, almost anti-aesthetic details: large breasts, a triangular belly, like a goose's. But the defiant anti-aestheticism of the image is “removed”: the breasts are hidden under a red blouse (the diminutive suffix is intended to convey a feeling of lightness), and the belly is hidden by a black skirt. In general, the combination of black and red in clothes, fluff above the lip (a sign of passion), zoomorphic comparison are aimed at emphasizing the carnal, earthly beginnings in the heroine.
However, it is she who will manifest - as we will see a little later - the beginning of the spiritual, as opposed to that mundane existence, which, without realizing it, the hero drags out, without thinking or peering into his past. Therefore, she is the first! - recognizes him. No wonder she “all the time looked inquisitively at him, squinting slightly,” and he peers at her only after she turns to him by name and patronymic. She - and not he - will name the exact number when it comes to the years that they did not see each other: not thirty-five, but thirty. She will tell you how old he is now. It means that everything was scrupulously calculated by her, which means that every year left a notch in her memory! And this is at a time when it was he who should never forget what connected them, because in the past he had - no less - a dishonorable act, however, quite common at that time - fun with a serf girl when visiting friends' estates, a sudden departure...
In a mean dialogue between Nadezhda (that is the name of the hostess of the inn) and Nikolai Alekseevich, the details of this story are restored. And most importantly - the different attitude of the characters to the past. If for Nikolai Alekseevich everything that happened is “a vulgar, ordinary story” (however, he is ready to bring everything in his life under this measure, as if removing the burden of responsibility for his actions from a person), then for Nadezhda her love became and a great trial, and a great event, the only one of significance in her life. “Just as I didn’t have anything more precious than you in the world at that time, so then it wasn’t,” she says.
For Nikolai Alekseevich, the love of a serf was only one of the episodes of his life (Nadezhda directly declares this to him: “It was as if nothing had happened for you”). She, on the other hand, several times “wanted to lay hands on herself”, never married, despite her extraordinary beauty, and never managed to forget her first love. Therefore, she refutes Nikolai Alekseevich’s statement that “everything passes over the years” (he, as if trying to convince himself of this, repeats the formula that “everything passes” several times: after all, he really wants to brush aside the past, to imagine everything is not enough significant event), with the words: “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten.” And she will pronounce them with unshakable confidence. However, Bunin almost never comments on her words, limiting herself to the monosyllabic “answered”, “came up”, “suspended”. Only once does he slip an indication of an “evil smile”, with which Nadezhda utters a phrase addressed to her seducer: “I was deigned to read all the poems about all sorts of“ dark alleys ””.
The writer is just as stingy with “historical details”. Only from the words of the heroine of the work: “The gentlemen gave me freedom soon after you,” and from the mention of the hero’s appearance, which had “a resemblance to Alexander II, which was so common among the military at the time of his reign,” we can get an idea that The story takes place in the 60s or 70s. XIX years V.
On the other hand, Bunin is unusually generous in commenting on the state of Nikolai Alekseevich, for whom a meeting with Nadezhda becomes a meeting with both his past and his conscience. The writer is here a "secret psychologist" in all its brilliance, making it clear through gestures, intonation of voice, the behavior of the hero, what is happening in his soul. If at first the only thing that interests the visitor at the inn is that “because of the stove damper, there was a sweet smell of cabbage soup” (Bunin even adds such a detail: the smell of “boiled cabbage, beef and bay leaf” was felt, from which we can conclude that the guest is clearly hungry), then when meeting with Nadezhda, when recognizing her, when talking with her, fatigue and absent-mindedness instantly fly off him, he begins to look fussy, worried, talking a lot and stupidly (“muttered”, “added a patter” , “said hastily”), which is in sharp contrast to the calm majesty of Nadezhda. Bunin three times indicates the reaction of Nikolai Alekseevich's embarrassment: “quickly straightened up, opened his eyes and blushed”, “stopped and, blushing through his gray hair, began to speak”, “blushed to tears”; emphasizes his dissatisfaction with himself by abrupt changes in position: “resolutely walked around the room”, “frowning, he walked again”, “stopping, painfully grinned”.
All this testifies to what a difficult, painful process takes place in him. But at first nothing pops up in his memory, except divine beauty young girl (“How good you were!... What a camp, what eyes!... How everyone looked at you”) and the romantic atmosphere of their rapprochement, and he is inclined to dismiss what he heard, hoping to turn the conversation, if not in jest, then in the direction of “whoever remembers the old, to that ...” However, after he heard that Nadezhda could never forgive him, because it is impossible to forgive the one who took away the most precious thing - the soul, who killed her, he seemed to see clearly. He is especially shocked, apparently, by the fact that, to explain her feeling, she resorts to the saying (obviously, especially beloved by Bunin, already once used by him in the story “The Village”) “they don’t carry the dead from the graveyard.” This means that she feels herself dead, that she never came to life after those happy spring days, and that for her, who knew great power love - not without reason to his question-exclamation: “After all, you couldn’t love me all the time!” - she replies firmly: “So she could. No matter how much time passed, everything lived by one, ”- there is no return to life ordinary people. Her love was not just stronger than death, A stronger than that life that came after what happened and which she, as a Christian, had to continue, no matter what.
And what kind of life this is, we learn from a few remarks exchanged between Nikolai Alekseevich, who is leaving the short shelter, and the coachman Klim, who says that the landlady of the inn has a “mind chamber”, that she is “getting richer”, because “she gives money at interest”, that she is “cool”, but “fair”, which means that she enjoys both respect and honor. Ho, we understand how small and insignificant for her, who fell in love once and for all, all this mercantile flickering, how inconsistent it is with what is happening in her soul. For Nadezhda, her love is from God. No wonder she says: “What God gives to whom ... Youth passes for everyone, but love is another matter.” That is why her unpreparedness for forgiveness, while Nikolai Alekseevich really wants and hopes that God will forgive him, and even more so Nadezhda will forgive him, because, by all standards, he committed not such a great sin, is not condemned by the author. Although such a maximalist position is contrary to Christian doctrine. Ho, according to Bunin, a crime against love, against memory - is much more serious than the sin of "vindictiveness". And just the memory of love, of the past, in his opinion, justifies a lot.
And the fact that a true understanding of what happened gradually awakens in the mind of the hero speaks in his favor. After all, at first the words he said: “I think that I also lost in you the most precious thing that I had in my life,” and the deed - kissed Nadezhda’s hand goodbye - cause him nothing but shame, and even more - the shame of this shame, they are perceived as false, ostentatious. But then he begins to understand that what escaped by chance, in a hurry, perhaps even for a red word, is the most genuine “diagnosis” of the past. His internal dialogue, reflecting hesitation and doubt: “Isn’t it true that she gave me the best moments of my life?” - ends with an unshakable: “Yes, of course, the best minutes. And not the best, but truly magical.” But right there - and here Bunin acts as a realist who does not believe in romantic transformations and repentance - another, sobering voice told him that all these thoughts were “nonsense”, that he could not do otherwise, that even then it was impossible to fix anything , not now.
So Bunin in the very first story of the cycle gives an idea of the unattainable height to which the most ordinary person in the event that his life is illuminated, albeit tragic, but with love. And the short moments of this love are able to “outweigh” all the material benefits of future well-being, all the pleasures of love interests that do not rise above the level of ordinary intrigues, in general, all subsequent life with its ups and downs.
Bunin draws the subtlest modulations of the states of the characters, relying on the sound “echo”, the consonance of phrases that are born, often in addition to meaning, in response to the spoken words. So, the words of the coachman Klim that if you don’t give Nadezhda the money on time, then “blame it on yourself”, they respond, like echolalia, when Nikolai Alekseevich says them aloud: “Yes, yes, blame yourself.” And then in his soul they will continue to sound like words “crucifying” him. “Yes, blame yourself,” he thinks, realizing what kind of fault lies with him. And the ingenious formula created by the author, put into the mouth of the heroine: “Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten,” was born in response to the phrase of Nikolai Alekseevich: “Everything passes. Everything is forgotten”, - earlier, as if confirmed in a quote from the book of Job - “as you will remember the water that has flowed”. And more than once during the story there will be words that refer us to the past, to memory: “Everything passes with age”; “youth is passing away for everyone”; “I called you Nikolenka, and you remember me how”; “remember how everyone looked at you”, “how can you forget this”, “well, what to remember”. These echoing phrases seem to weave a carpet on which Bunin's formula about the omnipotence of memory will be imprinted forever.
It is impossible not to catch the obvious similarity of this story with Turgenev's Asya. As we remember, even there the hero at the end tries to convince himself that "fate disposed well, not connecting him with Asya." He consoles himself with the thought that "probably he would not be happy with such a wife." It would seem that the situations are similar: both here and there the idea of misalliance, i.e. the possibility of marrying a woman of a lower class is initially rejected. Ho what is the result of this, it would seem, in terms of attitudes accepted in society right decision? The hero of "Asia" turned out to be condemned forever to remain a "familyless bobyl", dragging out "boring" years of utter loneliness. He's all in the past.
Nikolai Alekseevich from “Dark Alleys” had a different life: he reached a position in society, was surrounded by a family, he had a wife and children. True, as he confesses to Nadezhda, he was never happy: the wife whom he loved "without memory" cheated and left him, the son who was assigned big hopes, turned out to be “a scoundrel, a spendthrift, an insolent person without a heart, without honor, without a conscience ...”. Of course, it can be assumed that Nikolai Alekseevich somewhat exaggerates his feeling of bitterness, his feelings, in order to somehow make amends for Nadezhda, so that it would not be so painful for her to realize the difference in their states, different assessments of the past. Moreover, at the end of the story, when he tries to “learn a lesson” from an unexpected meeting, to sum up what he has lived, he, reflecting, comes to the conclusion that it would still be impossible to imagine Nadezhda as the mistress of his St. Petersburg house, the mother of his children. Therefore, we understand that his wife, apparently, returned to him, and besides the scoundrel son, there are other children. But why, then, is he so initially irritated, bilious, gloomy, why does he have a strict and at the same time tired look? Why is this look “questioning”? Perhaps this is a subconscious desire to still be aware of how he lives? And why does he shake his head in bewilderment, as if driving away doubts from himself ... Yes, all because the meeting with Nadezhda brightly illuminated him past life. And it became clear to him that there had never been anything in his life better than those “truly magical” moments when “the scarlet rose hips bloomed, an alley of dark lindens stood”, when he passionately loved passionate Nadezhda, and she recklessly gave herself to him with all recklessness youth.
And the hero of Turgenev's "Asia" cannot remember anything brighter than that"burning, gentle, deep feeling”, which was given to him by a childish and serious girl beyond her years ...
Both of them have only “flowers of memories” left from the past - a dried geranium flower thrown from Asya’s window, scarlet briar from the Ogarevsky poem, which accompanied love story Nikolai Alekseevich and Nadezhda. Only for the latter is a flower that inflicted non-healing wounds with its thorns.
So, following Turgenev, Bunin draws greatness female soul, able to love and remember, in contrast to the male, weighed down by doubts, entangled in petty predilections, subject to social conventions. So already the first story of the cycle consolidates the leading motifs of Bunin's late work - memory, the omnipotence of the past, the significance of a single moment compared to the dull succession of everyday life.
In a cold autumn bad weather, on one of the big Tula roads, flooded with rain and cut by many black ruts, to a long hut, in one connection of which there was a government postal station, and in the other a private room where you could relax or spend the night, dine or ask for a samovar , a tarantass with a half-raised top rolled up, thrown with mud, a trio of fairly simple horses with their tails tied up from the slush. On the goats of the carriage sat a strong peasant in a tightly belted coat, serious and dark-faced, with a sparse resin beard, resembling an old robber, and in the carriage was a slender old military man in a large cap and in a Nikolaev gray overcoat with a beaver standing collar, still black-browed, but with white mustaches, which were connected with the same sideburns; his chin was shaved and his whole appearance had that resemblance to Alexander II, which was so common among the military at the time of his reign; his eyes were also inquiring, stern and at the same time tired. When the horses stopped, he threw out his leg in a military boot with a flat top from the tarantass and, holding the hem of his greatcoat with his hands in suede gloves, ran up to the porch of the hut. “To the left, Your Excellency,” the coachman shouted rudely from the goat, and he, bending slightly on the threshold from his tall, went into the vestibule, then into the upper room to the left. It was warm, dry and tidy in the upper room: a new golden image in the left corner, under it a table covered with a clean, harsh tablecloth, cleanly washed benches behind the table; the kitchen stove, which occupied the far right corner, was again white with chalk; closer stood something like an ottoman, covered with piebald blankets, resting with its mouldboard against the side of the stove; from behind the stove damper there was a sweet smell of cabbage soup—boiled cabbage, beef, and bay leaves. The visitor threw down his overcoat on the bench and turned out to be even slimmer in one uniform and boots, then he took off his gloves and cap and with a weary look ran his pale, thin hand over his head - White hair his temples were combed slightly to the corners of his eyes, his handsome elongated face with dark eyes kept small traces of smallpox here and there. There was no one in the room, and he shouted hostilely, opening the door to the entrance hall:- Hey, who's there! Immediately after this, a dark-haired, also black-browed and also still beautiful woman, resembling an elderly gypsy, with dark down on her upper lip and along her cheeks, light in walking, but plump, with big breasts under a red blouse, with a triangular belly like a goose under a black woolen skirt. “Welcome, Your Excellency,” she said. - Would you like to eat, or will you order a samovar? The visitor glanced briefly at her rounded shoulders and light legs in worn red Tatar shoes and curtly, inattentively answered: - Samovar. Is the hostess here or do you work? “Mistress, Your Excellency. "You mean you're holding it?" - Yes sir. Herself. - What is it? A widow, or something, that you yourself are doing business? “Not a widow, Your Excellency, but you have to live with something. And I love to manage. - So-so. This is good. And how clean, nice you have. The woman kept looking at him inquisitively, squinting slightly. “And I love cleanliness,” she replied. - After all, she grew up under the masters, how not to be able to behave decently, Nikolai Alekseevich. He quickly straightened up, opened his eyes and blushed. — Hope! You? he said hastily. “I am Nikolai Alekseevich,” she replied. — My God, my God! he said, sitting down on the bench and looking straight at her. - Who would have thought! How many years have we not seen each other? Thirty-five years? — Thirty, Nikolai Alekseevich. I'm forty-eight now, and you're under sixty, I think? “Like this… My God, how strange!” "What's strange, sir?" - But everything, everything ... How can you not understand! His fatigue and absent-mindedness disappeared, he got up and resolutely walked along the room, looking at the floor. Then he stopped and, blushing through his gray hair, began to say: “I don’t know anything about you since then. How did you get here? Why didn't she stay with the masters? “The gentlemen gave me my freedom shortly after you. - And where did you live then? “A long story, sir. - Married, you say, was not?— No, it wasn't. - Why? With the beauty that you had? — I couldn't do it. Why couldn't she? What do you want to say? - What is there to explain. Remember how much I loved you. He blushed to tears and, frowning, walked again. “Everything passes, my friend,” he muttered. - Love, youth - everything, everything. The story is vulgar, ordinary. Everything passes over the years. How does it say in the book of Job? "How will you remember the water that has flowed." - What does God give to whom, Nikolai Alekseevich. Youth passes for everyone, but love is another matter. He lifted his head and paused, smiling painfully. "You couldn't have loved me all your life!" “So she could. No matter how much time passed, all lived one. I knew that you were gone for a long time, that it was as if nothing had happened to you, but ... It’s too late to reproach me now, but it’s true that you left me very heartlessly - how many times I wanted to lay hands on myself from resentment from one not to mention everything else. After all, there was a time, Nikolai Alekseevich, when I called you Nikolenka, and you remember me? And I was deigned to read all the poems about all sorts of "dark alleys," she added with an unkind smile. - Oh, how good you were! he said, shaking his head. How hot, how beautiful! What a camp, what eyes! Do you remember how everyone looked at you? — I remember, sir. You were also very good. And after all, I gave you my beauty, my fever. How can you forget that. - A! Everything passes. Everything is forgotten. Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten. "Go away," he said, turning away and going to the window. — Leave, please. And, taking out a handkerchief and pressing it to his eyes, he added quickly: If only God would forgive me. And you seem to have forgiven. She walked to the door and paused. - No, Nikolai Alekseevich, I didn’t forgive. Since our conversation touched upon our feelings, I will say frankly: I could never forgive you. Just as I had nothing more precious than you in the world at that time, so I didn’t have it later either. That's why I can't forgive you. Well, what to remember, the dead are not carried from the churchyard. “Yes, yes, there’s nothing to it, order the horses to be brought in,” he answered, moving away from the window with a stern face. “I’ll tell you one thing: I have never been happy in my life, don’t think, please. I'm sorry that maybe I offend your pride, but I'll tell you frankly - I loved my wife without a memory. And she changed, left me even more insultingly than I did you. He adored his son - while he was growing up, what kind of hopes he did not place on him! And a scoundrel, a wast, an insolent one, without a heart, without honor, without a conscience, came out ... However, all this is also the most ordinary, vulgar story. Be well, dear friend. I think that I have lost in you the most precious thing that I had in my life. She came up and kissed his hand, he kissed hers. - Order to serve... When we drove on, he thought gloomily: “Yes, how lovely she was! Magically beautiful!” I recalled with shame last words and that he kissed her hand, and was immediately ashamed of his shame. "Isn't it true that she gave me the best moments of my life?" By sunset, a pale sun peeped through. The coachman drove at a trot, constantly changing black ruts, choosing less dirty ones, and he was also thinking something. Finally he said with serious rudeness: “And she, Your Excellency, kept looking out the window as we drove away. Is it true, how long have you been wanting to know her?- A long time ago, Klim. - Baba - mind chamber. And everyone, they say, is getting richer. Gives money in growth. - This means nothing. - How does it not mean! Who doesn't want to live better! If you give with a conscience, there is little harm. And she is said to be right about it. But cool! If you don't give it back on time, blame yourself. - Yes, yes, blame yourself ... Drive, please, so as not to be late for the train ... The low sun shone yellow on the empty fields, the horses evenly splashed through the puddles. He looked at the flashing horseshoes, knitting his black eyebrows, and thought: “Yes, blame yourself. Yes, of course, the best moments. And not the best, but truly magical! “All around the scarlet rose hips bloomed, there were alleys of dark lindens ...” But, my God, what would happen next? What if I hadn't left her? What nonsense! This same Nadezhda is not the keeper of the inn, but my wife, the mistress of my St. Petersburg house, the mother of my children? And closing his eyes, he shook his head. October 20, 1938"The book has always been for me an adviser, a comforter, eloquent and calm, and I did not want to exhaust its benefits, keeping them for the most important occasions" George Sand
On the channel "Culture" in the program "The Glass Bead Game", the writer Igor Volgin at the end always addresses the viewers with admonition: "Read and reread the classics!"
To the extent possible, I do this. My pencil notes in books (only from my personal library!) help me to return to what I have read.
After a recent trip to the city of Efremov Tula region, where the Bunin family museum is located, finally returned to the work of her beloved writer once again. I read and analyze.
Here, for example, I finally received an answer to the question: why is the collection of stories, the anthem of love "Dark Alleys", named after the first story in it, exactly that way? It turns out that Ivan Alekseevich read Nikolai Ogaryov's poem "An Ordinary Tale", where there are lines:
It's been a wonderful spring!
They were sitting on the beach
The river was quiet, clear
The sun was rising, the birds were singing;
Stretched for the river dol,
Quietly, luxuriantly green;
Near the wild rose scarlet blossomed,
There was an alley of dark lindens...
The text of "Dark Alleys" says that in his youth, the hero of the story, Nikolai Alekseevich, read poems about "dark alleys" to his beloved Nadezhda. The story ends with lines from Ogaryov's poem, only slightly edited: "All around, the scarlet rose hips bloomed, there were alleys of dark lindens ..."
Before the release in 2014 on the television screen feature film Nikita Mikhalkov with title story of the same name Bunin "Sunstroke" (1925) I re-read the original source. I was very surprised that from such a short story it was possible to compose big movie. The program "Observer" of October 17, 2014 helped me figure this out, where in a conversation between Andrei Maksimov and Nikita Mikhalkov and Boris Lyubimov, the veil was lifted. It turns out that Vladimir Moiseenko (1963-2011) and Alexander Adabashyan wrote their own original script, based on the story itself and the diaries of I.A. Bunin 1918-1920 "Cursed Days".
Reading" cursed days", Printed by me from the Internet, I put everything off until later, preparing myself for the next experience. Now, after the film "Sunstroke" and the documentary Mikhalkov's "Light Breath of Ivan Bunin" found on the Internet, I said to myself: it's time.
The attitude of the writer to revolutions in general was already known to me from stories. But a look at the events of 1917-1919 in Russia is clearly expressed in diary entries.
Historically, the goal of any revolution is FREEDOM. As a rule, in this event, the LEADER or COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT is at the helm under conductor's baton outside "leaders". What drives the LEADER at the same time? I.A. Bunin quotes Napoleon's statement on this subject: "What made the revolution? Ambition. What put an end to it? Also ambition. And what a wonderful pretext to fool the crowd was freedom for us all!"
Freedom at any cost. Even with such appeals as in Odessa in 1919: "Forward, relatives, do not count corpses!".
Losses in this case are the costs of the revolutionary moment. After all, there is a bright future ahead: "Factories - for the workers, land for the peasants!", About which the newspaper Odessa Communist (1919) was burning:
communist worker
Knows what strength is:
He has a love for work.
A diary entry dated April 15, 1919 with an unflattering characterization of a man by the name of Shchepkin alerted me: “Ten months ago, some Shpan came to me, an extremely lousy and ragged little man, something like the worst salesman, and offered me to be my impresario, to go with him to Nikolaev, to Kharkov, to Kherson, where I will publicly read my works “every evening for a thousand Duma ones.” Today I met him in the street: he is now one of the associates of that crazy bastard Professor Shchepkin, the commissar for theatrical business, he is shaved, well-fed - everything shows that he is full - and is dressed in a wonderful English coat, thick and delicate, with a wide strap at the back.
I knew only about one Shchepkin, Mikhail Semyonovich (1788-1883), a Russian actor, the founder of the Russian acting school. The Higher Theater School bears his name.
Further, in a diary entry dated April 16, I read: "Prof. Yevgeny Shchepkin," Commissar of Public Education "(Odessa), handed over the management of the university to "seven representatives of the revolutionary student body", such, they say, scoundrels, which even now in the afternoon with fire to look for.
The name Evgeny gave me a hint to determine from the reference book that this is none other than Evgeny Nikolaevich Shchepkin (1860-1920), a Russian historian and teacher, the son of Nikolai Mikhailovich Shchepkin and the grandson of the same Russian actor, which was mentioned earlier.
Bunin's entry of April 25 about the "commissar of public education" (for some reason Ivan Alekseevich quotes the name of this position) is generally a caricature, it is not a trace to cite it here.
Probably, the then 49-year-old writer, already well-known in Russia, had reasons for such a categorical and neglect to the revolutionary figure Shchepkin in a short time stay of Soviet power in Odessa (April - August 1919), God be his judge. But still it is surprising what kind of person, a descendant of famous actor? Dry information reference literature gives little insight into it. And his early death on December 12, 1920 makes you think.
My acquaintance with Maximilian Voloshin began unexpectedly with his poem about Russia "The Burning Bush", written just on May 28, 1919 in Koktebel:
Who are you, Russia? Mirage? An obsession?
Was you? There is? or not?
Whirlpool... rapids... dizziness...
Abyss... madness... delirium...
Everything is unreasonable, extraordinary:
Waves of victories and devastation ...
Thought freezes before the secret thing
And the spirit is terrified...
We are infected with conscience: in every Stenka there is Saint Seraphim, Surrendered to the same hangovers and thirsts, We languish with the same will. We perish without dying, We bare the Spirit to the bottom. A marvelous miracle - burning without burning, the Burning Bush!
Before this acquaintance, I associated the phrase Burning Bush with the Icon Mother of God"Burning Bush", which she wrote about in a comment to Svetlana Tishkina's article "The Road to the Diocese" http://site/content/view/doroga-v-eparhiyu-/
And here, in a poem, it emphasizes the inviolability of our sacred Russian state.
She met the poet's beloved woman, not suspecting who she was. I read to my son a fairy tale in the verses of a certain Cherubina de Gabriac "Mule without a bridle." It turned out that this is the poetess Elizaveta Dmitrieva, and her pseudonym was invented by Voloshin. Reading about Anna Akhmatova, I learned about love triangle Voloshin-Dmitrieva-Gumilyov and about the duel between poets. I also read Marina Tsvetaeva's prose about her friend Max. She also discovered that the poet's house in Koktebel was a haven for the Russian cultural beau monde until the death of the owner in 1932. About this director Andrei Osipov filmed documentary"Koktebel pebbles" (2014). This is, in fact, a portrait of the "Silver Age".
IN Time of Troubles civil war Maximilian Voloshin, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, in his house in Koktebel saved one by one, and sometimes simultaneously, whites from reds and reds from whites.
An assessment of the personality and this person, who does not occupy any revolutionary posts, I.A. Bunin in "Cursed Days" is unambiguous as a traitor to the monarchical foundations of the Russian state.
On two passages diary entries out of five I will stop:
Yesterday the poet Voloshin sat with us for a long time. He ran into with an offer of his services ("to decorate the city by the first of May") terribly. I warned him: do not run to them, it is not only low, but also stupid, because they know perfectly well who you were yesterday. He spoke nonsense in response: "Art is out of time, out of politics, I will participate in decoration only as a poet and as an artist." In decorating what? The gallows, and even your own? Still, he ran. And the next day, in Izvestia: "Voloshin climbed up to us, every bastard is now in a hurry to cling to us ..." Now Voloshin wants to write a "letter to the editor" full of noble indignation. More stupid.
Here is Voloshin. The day before yesterday, he called to Russia the "Angel of Vengeance", who was supposed to "instill the delight of murder in the heart of a girl and bloody dreams in the soul of a child." And yesterday he was a White Guard, and now he is ready to sing the Bolsheviks ...
My opinion is that this God-fearing man LOVED PEOPLE, no matter what color of clothes they were dressed up in. His restless soul was looking for justification for the events taking place at that time in Russia. It is enough to read his poems, love for the motherland is everywhere.
It's over with Russia ... On the last
We chatted her, chatted,
Slipped, drank, spat,
Smudged on dirty squares,
Sold out on the streets: is it not necessary
To whom the land, republics, yes freedom,
Civil rights? And the homeland of the people
He himself dragged out on the pus, like carrion.
Oh Lord, open, scatter,
Send us fire, ulcers and scourges,
Germans from the west, Mongol from the east,
Give us into slavery again and forever
To redeem humbly and deeply
Judas sin until the Last Judgment!
"Peace", 1917
All Rus' is a fire. Unquenchable flame
From end to end, from age to age
It buzzes, roars... And the stone cracks.
And each torch is a person.
Are we not ourselves, like our ancestors,
Did they let you fall? A hurricane
Inflated it, and drown in caustic smoke
Forests and villages of fire...
"Kitezh", 1919
From the blood spilled in battles
From dust to dust
From the torments of the executed generations,
From souls baptized in blood
Of hateful love
Of crimes, frenzy -
Righteous Rus' will arise.
I pray for her all
And I believe in eternal plans:
She is forged with a sword blow,
She builds on bones
She shines in fierce battles,
Relics are built on burning relics,
In crazy prayers melts.
"Spell", 1920
For a long time I could not get an answer to the question, why did Maximilian Voloshin not leave Russia in 1920, when he sailed from Odessa to Bunin? Accepted Soviet power? Resigned? The opinion of my mother's friend, a school teacher of literature with great experience, is authoritative for me. She thinks no, didn't take this one broad soul Human Soviet power and did not reconcile. He simply outlined his field of activity with his slogan "Art is out of time, out of politics." The pain is about home country hid in the heart for the time being.
The poem "Vladimir Mother of God" of 1929 is another release of experiences:
And Our Lady of Vladimir
Rus' led through the abomination, blood and shame
On the thresholds of the Kyiv boats
Pointing out the correct fairway.
But the blind people in the hour of wrath
He himself gave the keys of his shrines,
And the Representative Virgo left
From their desecrated strongholds...
Faithful guardian and zealous guardian
Mother of Vladimir, - to you -
Two keys: golden to Her abode,
Rusty - to our woeful fate.
The bell according to Maximilian Voloshin rang at the age of 55. His heart is tired.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin lived for 83 years.
God works in mysterious ways!
In Kyiv, "the destruction of the monument to Alexander II has begun." A familiar occupation. After all, since March 17, eagles, coats of arms began to be torn off ...
How it resonates with modernity. "Leninapad" began in Ukraine. Alexander II - Russian sovereign-emperor. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is the founder of Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as a nation. Here it is - the attitude to history!
Now I will return to the beginning of the note with gratitude to my true friends, books. And I'll finish famous words A.S. Pushkin:
Oh how many wonderful discoveries we have
Prepare enlightenment spirit
And experience, the son of difficult mistakes,
And genius, friend of paradoxes,
And chance, god is the inventor.
