Аннотация: Lenya Bobrov is rereading "The Forty-First" by Boris Lavrenyov (a native of Kherson). A story.
Lenya Bobrov is rereading "The Forty-First" by Boris Lavrenyov (a native of Kherson). A story.
Lenya Bobrov reflects on the life strategy of many residents of Kherson.
People don't depart anywhere, they don't get any trouble. But without any writ of execution, they receive cash payments in Russian rubles.
Apparently, the Russian Ministry of Finance is kind (although, perhaps, not to everyone).
Kherson is a city of smart people. Lenya gets acquainted with the history and culture of Kherson.
Boris Andreyevich Lavrenyov, a major Soviet writer, was born in Kherson.
This writer created many different literary works, but his novel (story) "Forty-first" became the most famous work.
Boris Lavrenyov skillfully constructed the plot.
In warm regions, in Central Asia, on a beautiful, almost uninhabited island, fate brought two people together.
Boris Lavrenyov possessed a visionary gift - he not only wrote a novel called "The Forty-First" in the 1920s (1924), but also made as a one of the main characters - a supporter of Soviet power - a young girl sniper. Boris Lavrenyov, in a certain sense, bypassed many modern writers, who are endlessly chewing archival materials prepared by dependent people, or reproducing "lieutenant's prose" again and again.
The girl sniper shot (killed) forty enemies.
But now on the island she is in the company of a captured supporter of White Movement (white lieutenant) - a handsome young man.
Blue sea (Aral Sea), beautiful (almost) uninhabited island, young people... Romance...
There are no political officers, political workers, propagandists and other respected people on the island, and a romantic mood is gradually being created - like in the Dominican Republic ...
The girl is in love.
But a white sail is visible in the distance - a sailboat is approaching the island. By all indications, the participants of White Movement are sailing to the island.
Naturally, the main characters of the novel are sincere and straightforward people.
It not occurs to them, like Richard_Sorge, to portray themselves as correspondents of German newspapers heading to Japan, but by coincidence found themselves on an island in the Aral Sea.
If they had such a level of intellectual flexibility, then not Boris Lavrenyov would write about them, but Valentin Pikul. (The Germans and their leaders turned out to be so smart that they managed to unite - with the consent of all interested parties ...).
The white lieutenant rushes towards the sailboat.
A young girl who has fallen in love with him cannot allow a captured supporter of White Movement to escape from an (almost) deserted island.
If he would accidentally drowned, or somehow died for some other reason, that's one thing. But to run - well, how can she let that happen?!
She takes a rifle (it is a pity that the white lieutenant did not show forethought and did not first unload the weapon; ... a love ...) and takes aim.
A shot follows. Naturally, the sniperess shoots accurately.
This is followed by a tragic scene, which I do not undertake to retell - indeed, skillfully written.
('The youth loves, is jealous, suffers, rejoices ... , and eunuchs walk around in your works, defending themselves from any hint of love with documents of official meetings ...' - from B.A. Lavrenyov's speech at the First Congress of Soviet Writers (1934) - 'a brilliance of style, a virtuoso command of the word, like an epee...').
Boris Lavrenyov is one of the stable talents of Soviet literature (of the second row). He is not Maxim Gorky or Mikhail Sholokhov or the other figures that everyone is talking about.
But he firmly takes his place, and his talent is undeniable.
He is a laureate of the Stalin Prizes ... (After the war, he lived in Moscow, in the House on the Embankment (Serafimovich Street) and at the dacha in Peredelkino). He wrote plays that were staged by theaters. He received film adaptations of some of his works.
But in the memory of readers, his romantic story about two lovers remained - with the story of their sudden and romantic love on an (almost) uninhabited island, lost in the warm blue sea - the Aral Sea ....
In terms of talent and recognition and influence, Boris Lavrenev resembles Konstantin Paustovsky.
Many details in their biographies coincide (for example, both of them are from the nobility) - maybe, if to search, then in the family history of Boris Lavrenev we will find those characteristic features that would testify to his family ties with the Commonwealth and with Poland?
Alexander Solzhenitsyn did not take advantage of the support of Konstantin Paustovsky (in any case, Lenya has no information about such a support).
The support of Solzhenitsyn provided by Alexander Tvardovsky is better known (one of the books quotes Tvardovsky's words: "We gave birth to him, and he killed us").
But in the era of the first marriage (with Reshetovskaya), Alexander Solzhenitsyn (indirectly?) received support from Boris Lavrenev - after reading one of Solzhenitsyn's first literary works, Lavrenev expressed general benevolent words and wishes for hard work. ('In any case, the author should continue to work on literature, and not abandon it. Maturity in literature does not always come instantly. I have no doubts about Solzhenitsyn's ability for literary work, and I think that in a calm environment, after the war, surrendering entirely to the cause, which he obviously loves, the author will be able to achieve success, 'Boris Lavrenyov's oral review in the retelling of Lida Yezherets').
After Solzhenitsyn's arrest (at the end of the war), this literary connection apparently broke off.
Lenya does not notice in Boris Lavrenyov's novel "Forty-First" references to local residents.
But the media is now filled with references to Karakalpakstan (and the Aral Sea).
The Aral Sea is a separate historical saga. This Sea, seems, to have dried up at the end of the 20th century. But then, according to some people, it began to recover.
Not everything and not always was bad in Karakalpakstan.
Lenya finds information in the encyclopedia that until October 1917, the Karakalpaks ('black hats', the Turkic language) were dying out, and over the period from 1917 to 1932 (during the first fifteen years of Soviet power), the population of Karakalpakstan increased by forty percent (40.5).
At least now there is dissatisfaction. And there were demonstrations.
If indeed the Aral Sea has begun to recover, then it would be interesting to look at it.
Lenya, not really straining himself, writes a literary note about Boris Andreevich Lavrenyov, a native of the city of Kherson. In this city now - without leaving anywhere and without getting problems - some residents receive Russian rubles without writ of execution (thanks to the good Russian Ministry of Finance?) (as well as Russian passports). Lenya touches on the theme of the Aral Sea. Now the attention of the media is directed to Karakalpakstan.
Maybe a group of bloggers will be sent to Karakalpakstan, and Lenya will be able to look at those romantic places where bright and strong love broke out between two young people - on an (almost) uninhabited island located in a beautiful warm sea, the Aral Sea ...
Lenya posts a note about Boris Lavrenyov on the Internet...
July 3, 2022 14:14
P.S.
'On the maternal side, I come from the old Cossack Yesaulov family ... My grandmother was the only heiress of enormous wealth - three thousand acres of magnificent black soil with the village of Melov, sixty miles above Kherson along the Dnieper.' [From the Hetmanate?]
'The biography of the father is also not without interest. In fact, his origin and even his true name remained an unresolved mystery. In 1865, the corpses of a man and a woman were found in a sleigh on the Kherson-Nikolaev postal route. ...it was clear that the robbers had worked. There were no documents, but in the same sleigh under a sheepskin coat they found three half-frozen children aged three to six years. (B.A. Lavrenyov "A short story about myself" (1958)).
July 3, 2022 16:14
Translation from Russian into English: July 3, 2022 15:46.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Лёня Бобров перечитывает 'Сорок первый' Бориса Лавренёва (уроженца Херсона). Рассказ'.