shalamov
May 17th, 2008Titus Vettrus
Russian 446
Shalamov’s Stories
Having watched Завещание Ленина, I immediately noticed in the stories the absence of the film’s usual weighty atmosphere, for which the music’s bleakly repeating motives are in large part responsible. Most of the stories require the reader to flip only a few pages to reach the end, and there is little evidence in the writing that Shalamov is concerned with making profound impressions. Rather, events are related in basically simple order, held together with a rhetorical question, a brief explanation or observation, an occasional bit of humor. One feels a certain dullness in the unhurried and even pace of the description, the dullness of the senses to which (Shalamov writes) the gulag brings all of its inhabitants, though the author’s pleasure in telling these tales is also evident in the care and restraint of his observation. Among the themes that recur throughout the stories are: hunger, nature, memory and forgetting, the facelessness and amorality to which the zeks are reduced, as well as the trinkets, articles of clothing or small loyalties that can provide their owner with a remnant of identity and humanity.
Hunger is the most persistant accompaniment to life in the labor camp. The opening of «Ночью» describes inmate Bagretsov watching his friend Glebov lick the crumbs from his bowl as dinner is ending:
«Ввалившиеся, блестящие глаза Багрецова неотрывно глядели Глебову в рот—не было не в ком такой могучей воли, которая помогла бы отвести глаза от пищи, исчпзающей во рту другого человека. Глебов проглотил слюну, и сейчас же Багрецов перевел глаза к горизонту…»
Such hunger turns food, even bread crumbs, into something like a fetish, and in overwhelming other desires reduces the zek to an empty stomach.
Hunger induced physical weakness dimishes one’s consciousness to a sort of identity-less existence that forms the other theme of «Ночью». When the cut on Bagretsov’s hand won’t stop bleeding, Glebov off-handedly diagnoses «плохо свёртываемость» and suddenly remembers that he had been a doctor. But had he really been a doctor? It is difficult to try to remember when the simple task at hand requires so much concentration.
«То сознание, которое у него еще осталось и которое. Возможно, уже не было человеческим сознанием, имело слишком малo граней и сейчас было направлено лишь на одно—чтобы скорее убрать камни.»
This facelessness extends to the unnamed man whose corpse is dug up with the intention of acquiring his clothes. It seems unlikely that he was completely unknown to the zeks, and from the description—молодой совсем, здоровый какой, кальсоны совсем новые—he may have been a guard. (It is mentioned in «В Бани» that only those with some position of authority were allowed new underwear.) In any case, the zeks have no qualms in exhuming the body and efficiently gather the garments under their coats. The thought of the cigarettes for which they will be able to exchange the stolen underwear on the following day induces a dream-like happiness that carries their sacrilegous act into oblivion.
In «В Бани» we learn that underwear is a perennial topic of conversation when the inmates visit the banya: a good pair of underwear is but one example of an item the zek may acquire through good fortune, only to have it taken away again. This lack of personal property is a condition the further de-humanizes the laborers.
«Челевеку свойственно быстро обратать мелкими вещами, будь он нищий или какой-нибудь лауреат—все равно.»
Guards have difficulty understanding why the inmates make so many excuses not to go to the banya to wash, even “когда шерстяной свитер ворочается сам по себе.” In spite of the fact that the disinfection chamber is largely unsuccessful in diminishing the lice infestations, the inmates are also reluctant to leave their quarters because their personal items are invariably removed during the cleaning that takes place in their absence. In addition, whatever they do manage to carry to the banya is usually stolen in the overcrowded changing rooms. Having washed, the ‘underwear lottery,’ in which the condition of the clothing returned is left purely to chance regardless of the quality of the laundry one earlier handed in for disinfection, is a final straw that reduces some men who receive ragged underwear to tears.
Why should a man break down at the sight of torn underwear, when he knows that in the following week a better pair of undershorts may fall to his lot? It is symptomatic of the state of physical weakness and over-exertion that one’s spiritual or psychological state should also be weakened to the point of failing to maintain coherent focus from one event to the next, making one slave to whatever conflict or desire arises in the moment. In such a condition, “Ничто неможет человека заставить отойти от тех неприятностей, которые и составляют жизнь.”
The difficulty of friendship under these harsh conditions is a major theme of “Сухим Пайком” and Shalamov cures the reader of sentimentality on this topic:
“Дружба не зарождается ни в нужде, ни в беде. Те “трудные” условия жизни, которые, как говорят нам сказки художественной литературы, являются обязательным условием возникновения дружбы, просто недостаточно трудны. Если беда и нужда сплотили, родили дружбу людей–значит, это нужда не крайняя и беда не большая. Горе недостаточно остро и глубоко, если можно разделить его с друзьями. В настоящей нужде познается только своя собственная душевная и телесная крепость, определяются пределы своих возможностей, физической выносливости и моральной силы.”
It seems that Shalamov is unwilling to use the word friendship, because the feelings of comradeship arose out of particular and dire circumstances. One does not want to remember these experiences and the people connected with them. In the camps the inmates worked alongside one another out of necessity, and there was little or no sense of freedom, which (outside of fairy-tales) is a necessary component of friendship.
The title “Сухим Пайком” refers to the grain of the ten-day ration packets the four inmates receive before setting off to their new mission of clearing a path through the forest. All are in cautiously high spirits at the luck of being assigned this coveted task, away from the guards and cold, wet mines. The grain rations bring the group together, because the actual number of grains is too small to divide into individual portions. It is necessary to pool the grain rations and make kasha together in one pot.
Isolated in the forest from the guards and other zeks, individual qualities of the workers become more apparent. All follow Ivan Ivanich’s remedy for lice and bury their clothing in the ground overnight. Those from the country are amazed by stories of the Moscow subway. Fedya tells hunting stories from his youth.
Yet, memory is also a burden. The vacation (as the foreman jokingly refers to it) in the forest comes to a quick end when the zeks fail to meet more than ten percent of their quota. Though this is not unexpected by anyone, Ivan is less able to resist the blowб even before it happens. Memory, which is also a source of hope for the future, is a burden to him.
” Вот помечтаем. Мы выживем, уедем на материк, быстро состаримся и будем больными стариками: то сердце будет колоть, то певматические боли не дадут покоя, то грудь заболит; все, что мы сейчас делаем, как мы живем в молодые годы - бессоные ночи, голод, тяжелая многочасовая работа, золотые забои в ледяной воде, холод зимой, побои конвоиров, все это не пройдет бесследно для нас, если даже мы и останемся живы. Мы будем болеть, не зная причины болезни, стонать и ходить по амбуляториям. Непосильная работа нанесла нам непоправимые раны, и вся наша жизнь в старости будет жизнью боли, бесконечной и разнообразной физической и душевной боли. Но среди этих страшных будущих дней будут и такие дни, когда нам будет дышаться легче, когда мы будем почтиздоровы и страдания наши не станут тревожить нас. Таких дней будет не много. Их будет столько, сколько дней каждый из нас сумел профилонить в лагере.”
Unable to control his memory, to forget about the future, Ivan kills himself before the group is ordered back to the camp. The reaction of one member of the group is desperate: in anguish he chops off some of his own fingers. Another member had learned to take things like this in stride, and the story ends with him writing home:
“Мама, - писал Федя, - мама, я живу хорошо. Мама, я одет по сезону…”
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Thus, Shalamov’s stories form a disparate whole. He makes no heros of the zeks, does not subordinate Chance to a minor role.
Source:
All quotations in Russian are taken from “Ночью” “В Бани” and “Сухим Пайком” in Том 1 of Shalamov’s collected works found on website http://www.booksite.ru/fulltext/sha/lam/ovv/arl/aam/index.htm Specific page numbers are not cited as there are none on the website; however, the stories are short and memorable enough that the quotations can easily be located in the original texts.