Bondarev Yu. V.

CHAPTER FIRST

After the guests left, it was empty and quiet, the sconces on each side of the mirror were still burning in the front room, the chandeliers in the rooms had not yet been extinguished, the lilac dome of the floor lamp above the ottoman was softly shining in the most delicate penumbra, everywhere there was a smell of cigarette smoke and other people’s perfume; and it was a little sad because chairs everywhere were moved from their places, ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts, burnt matches on the carpet, untidy glasses with straws sticking out of half-drunk cocktails and mountains of plates in the kitchen - all this resembled the chaos of unfinished and offensive destruction in the apartment.

Vasilyev, exhausted by endless conversations about art, flattery and pleasant smiles, having escorted his wife’s last guests to the elevator, was relieved to tie up her kitchen apron and began to diligently remove the dishes in the dining room. However, Maria stopped him with pleading eyes (“Don’t do it now...”) and sat down on the sofa, hugging herself by the shoulders, and thoughtfully turned to the window, beyond which the February night was deep blue.

Thank God, finally,” she said. - My legs can’t hold me up anymore.

Do you know what time it is? - he asked worriedly. - Second hour... Wow! It's good that you didn't reveal the reason for the celebration. There would be no end to the toasts until the morning. How is it, Masha, Happy Angel Day? Or happy name day?

“I’m very tired,” she said, lighting a cigarette, and smiled at him casually. - Thank you, dear... and let’s not talk about it. These are all unimportant details and not worth it... Good night! I'll sit alone for a while. Go to sleep please...

He felt the insincerity of her words, and this familiar-classical “it’s not worth it,” and this salon-secular “thank you, dear,” seemed to unpleasantly block her, alienating her into a mannerism alien to her, noticeable in the days of quarrels, previously infrequent, which immediately created the dizzying instability of the swaying bridge.

Yes, Volodya, please go, go,” Maria repeated with tired insistence and, leaning the smoking cigarette against the edge of the ashtray, poured herself some red wine. - If you want to tell me something serious about my guests, then you don’t need to say it now - I don’t want to...

I don’t know many of your guests, Masha.

And maybe that's why you were very nice. He charmed all the women.

She took a sip; he saw how her throat moved and a wet reddish stripe remained on her lips, the related and delicate taste of which he knew so well.

Masha, what are you talking about? Women? Charmed? I didn't understand this.

I ask you - let's be silent...

No, he didn’t remember that before, after the guests had left, she would sit like this alone on the sofa, crossing her legs, drinking absentmindedly, taking a pensive puff of a cigarette, shaking her narrow toe shoes - four months ago he would have considered this some kind of fun game , offered to him (for the sake of mischievous entertainment) from some vulgar foreign film, a banal farce, translated by her for the purchasing committee at the screening in the main office, and he was ready, as sometimes happened before, to hear her laughing drawl voice: “So-o-o, monsieur , we saw off the guests. The celebrities are gone! What a relief! What are we going to do? Are you going to the workshop? Or will you stay with your wife?” Now he was not expecting such a phrase, but looked somewhat puzzled at how Maria slowly sipped her glass between puffs of a cigarette, but for some reason he lacked the determination to be surprised by this desire of hers, similar to a whim or a challenge, so he said with playful clumsiness:

Aren't you having a blast, Masha? Nothing happened?

God! - She lowered her eyes, as if overcoming the pain, and he saw her eyelashes, heavy with tears. - Don’t you understand simple things - I want to be alone. Please understand me, I’m the only one who wants to take a break from everything in the world...

Sorry, Masha,” he said guiltily and left the room.

The corridor and the hallway were still idly illuminated by bronze candle-shaped sconces, frivolous and sleepless in the silence of the night apartment, and near the telephone table the space of the mirror shone with silvery emptiness. Vasilyev glanced briefly at his frowning face, pale from fatigue (“The best thing is for me to go to the studio now...”), then turned off the light, that belated electric illumination near the mirror, which instantly became mysteriously dark, and for a long time in the hall he put on his warmest sheepskin coat, his beloved, in which he went on location in the winter, fiddled with the “zippers” of his fur boots for a long time, thinking about the late time when going to the workshop was pointless, but Maria was silent, did not stop him, did not go out into the hall to accompany him to the door, turn his cheek for the kiss that was instituted between them.

“I’m going, Masha,” he said, trying to speak casually and convincing himself that nothing serious had happened. - I'll walk through the air and breathe. Good night!

“Goodbye, Volodya, I’ll call you in the morning,” Maria responded from the living room in a warning, almost affectionate tone, and he went out onto the landing and closed the door with his key.

Waiting for an elevator under a yellow light bulb on the eighth floor of a sleeper apartment building, he heard a muffled laugh mixed with a whisper and glanced sideways towards the window, where a couple was standing near the radiator (as often happened), noticed something familiar in the girl’s figure, and then the surprised-sounding voice of his daughter clearly called out to him:

Pa-ah, where are you going? And why are you?

He was not very pleased to see next to his daughter at that hour the tall, not the first youth actor Svetozarov, a burning handsome man, an anecdotist, a drinker, a lover of practical jokes, twice married and twice divorced, with the manners of an operetta ladies' man, and Vasiliev felt a caustic, offensive chill from naive inexperience and excessive promiscuity of the daughter.

It’s probably time for you, Vika,” Vasiliev said and looked at Svetozarov with sincere curiosity. “And you, young man of irresistible appearance, it’s time to let go of the Soviet student who has to get up for a lecture at seven.”

Victoria, you must obey your elders,” Svetozarov spoke in a deep baritone voice, feigning prudent submission. - Vladimir Alekseevich, generously excuse me for the unexpected midnight... I’m ready to atone for sins in the monastery, if only there was an address for at least one active person. There is no place to repent.

Please take the elevator with me instead of the monastery. I'll explain what to do.

Pa-ah, stop it! - Victoria objected with a laugh. - Advice and teachings begin! Anatoly tells funny stories, and I laugh! Have you heard about rehearsals at the Moscow Art Theater? About Massalsky and Ershov? No? How did they jump on stage at the “break” signal during the play?

The writer illuminates the problem of choice that a person faces throughout his life on the pages of the novel. The story begins with the Second World War and ends with the thoughts of Soviet intellectuals in the 1970s.

The hero of the book goes in for sports, wrestling, hardening, and cultivates a freedom-loving person so as not to become humiliated by others. When the war began, Ilya Ramzin was young. I ended up in an artillery school, and from there to the front. The very first battles, the Soviet troops lost and retreated. Finding himself surrounded, Ilya tried to remove the guns, at least in parts. But the commander’s stupid and short-sighted orders destroyed the entire battery. Accusations of cowardice pushed Ramzinak to desperate actions. Surrounded by fascists, Ilya shoots at the commander, but does not have time to shoot himself. Then there was captivity. In the prisoner of war camp he was offered to join the ranks of the Vlasovites or the foreign legion, but he refused. He is tormented by his conscience for his past actions. Ramzin was not ready for the slander and slander that surrounded him during the war and in captivity. Shooting your commander is a feat in the eyes of the Nazis.

30 years have passed since those days. Ramzin meets his classmate Vasiliev, an artist, in Venice. All these years, Ilya was considered missing. His mother was looking for him, Ramzin did not write to anyone, he stayed away from the Russians. He married a German woman, was already widowed, and his son lived in Munich. Ilya really wants to see his mother.

When Ramzin arrived in the USSR, his mother greeted him coldly. The old woman considered him a traitor. Ilya could not stand such a meeting. Instead of finding peace of mind, Ramzin feels disappointed. He wants nothing more and decides to commit suicide.

In the company of intellectuals (Shcheglova, Lopatina), Vasiliev talks about the choice in our lives that is given to everyone, but not everyone takes the right step. Every mistake remains a pain in the soul. People are imperfect, but you cannot give in to pessimism either. Without real deeds, without love, going with the flow, a person loses the meaning of life. In any situation we are given the right to choose. Even in war.

Essay on literature on the topic: Summary Choice Bondarev

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2. Shore Famous writer Vadim Nikitin flies to Hamburg at the invitation of Frau Herbert and recognizes in her the girl he loved during the war... On the other side are 47-year-old famous writer Vadim Nikitin and his friend Platon Samsonov, also a writer, but less popular, Read More. .....
3. Battalions ask for fire Yu. Bondarev's story takes us back to the time of the Great Patriotic War at its turning point in 1943. An order was given to the battalions of Captain Maksimov and Major Bulbanyuk to create the appearance of an offensive Soviet troops south of the city of Dnieper. While in Read More......
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In Yuri Bondarev’s novel “The Shore” (1975), the central problem posed by the author is an ethical one. The question that worries Bondarev is especially relevant at a time of intense struggle for détente and peaceful coexistence of two social systems. Yu. Bondarev boldly “gets involved” in the acute ideological dispute going on today between “East” and “West”, but his position in this dispute is least dictated by the author’s desire to embody generally accepted truths in artistic images. “I was looking for the essence in constant dissatisfaction,” the hero of the novel, the writer Nikitin, says to himself, “asking myself questions about the duality of truths (and how they used to shine with simple and clear symbols!..), about the inconsistency of life itself, which has not become kinder and simpler..."

This dispute is in this case around the question of what defines humanity and what genuine humanism is, in contrast to abstract humanism, so characteristic of the liberal-bourgeois worldview of the West. Need I add that in an atmosphere of growing lack of spirituality, the increasing power of things and material values ​​over a person, the question of what a person’s spiritual values ​​should be, what constitutes true humanity, which Tendryakov, Bondarev and others thought about Soviet writers, acquires absolutely exceptional significance.

Reading the novel “The Shore”, you involuntarily compare Bondarev’s formulation of the question with that which so clearly forms the basis of all novels and stories by Gr. Green is a world-famous artist. The philosophical basis of everything written by Green is abstract humanism, the idea of ​​​​humanity, unchanged under all circumstances. This point of view, appearing in his works, is highly typical of the ethical position of even the best representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia of the West.

The title of Bondarev’s novel is dictated by a philosophical concept: in it, two shores and two time plans are either brought together or repelled - the time of today and the time of the Second World War, the “shore” - domestic - and the “shore” foreign. At the end of the novel, another motive begins to sound, however, not fully revealed, the shore of life and the shore of death. On the one hand, the author repeatedly emphasizes the “doubleness of truth” - its complexity and versatility, on the other hand, he asserts moral values which are carefully guarded the best people socialist world.

The action in the novel unfolds in two time plans and combines two plots, no matter how closely they are interconnected. The threads of these two plots are intertwined in the destinies of the main character - Vadim Nikitin - a famous Soviet writer and Emma Guber - a wealthy widow, owner of a West German publishing house, who invited him to Germany.

Meeting with Emma Guber at official receptions and debates in Germany and recognizing in her the German girl with whom he was connected twenty-six years ago by a young and sincere feeling, Nikitin goes back in his thoughts to the distant past and restores in his memory piece by piece those the last days of the war, which brought him face to face with Emma. Thus two eras meet, intertwined -

Last year the Second World War and modernity, two life plans of the main characters - Nikitin the lieutenant and Nikitin the writer, the young German girl Emma and the influential and wealthy resident of Hamburg, Mrs. Huber.

Nikitin’s memory stores different actions of different people, and for Bondarev these actions are not only material for deciding characters, but also points of ethical reference.

In the “fluxes” conveying these memories, the reader sees not only the experiences of the once young Lieutenant Nikitin and a very young girl, but also significant and giving rise to great philosophical generalizations episodes of the last weeks of the Patriotic War, taking place in occupied German territory and depicting individual representatives of the Soviet Army in extremely difficult conditions and circumstances.

Lieutenant Nikitin and his comrades, who are on vacation in the house that belonged to Emma's parents, suddenly find themselves face to face with an undisarmed, although already defeated, enemy. The war is almost over, but it is still boiling over on German territory in individual fascist attacks against the winning army. One of these attacks, which turned tragically for Nikitin’s best friend and a wonderful division officer, Lieutenant Knyazhko, is depicted by Bondarev through Nikitin’s memories. The description of this skirmish, and most importantly, the behavior in it and after it of various officers and soldiers of the detachment, gives rise to or constitutes, as it were, a starting point for Bondarev’s reasoning about the highest morality and true humanity, about what consists of true humanism.

The feat of Lieutenant Knyazhko, who dies from the bullet of a brutal fascist at the very moment when, wanting to prevent senseless bloodshed, he goes to meet the enemy holed up in a forest hut, the cowardly behavior of the cynic and opportunist Mezhenin, who actually provoked this shot, the events that - the combat incident ends with these - all this provides grounds for Bondarev’s moral judgment of different people and their actions, dictated by different circumstances. Without directly commenting on the events depicted, Bondarev nevertheless clearly makes it clear to the reader that Lieutenant Knyazhko and Sergeant Mezhenin are not just separate individuals, separate characters, but two poles of behavior and outlook on the world. And it’s not for nothing that different people are grouped around each of them. One - Knyazhko, who constitutes Nikitin's ideal, attracts the best soldiers and officers of the division to himself, the other - a rapist, a liar, a petty egocentric, already in war managing to do his dirty deeds as a speculator - if he does not meet with the sympathy of the majority, he represents a danger and a temptation for the faint-hearted.

Both plans are inextricably intertwined, and the plan “today” is determined by the “yesterday”. The writer Nikitin, leading a discussion on aesthetic and ethical issues with the German journalist and critic Dietzmann, the same Nikitin, who entered into an argument with the writer Samsonov, who accompanied him to Germany, a narrow and dogmatic man, is the same lieutenant Nikitin, who twenty-six years before, defending the truth, shot at Sergeant Mezhenin. The episodes of the last days of the war, described in the “influxes,” explain and prepare the perception of the episodes of the “main” part of the plot.

The dramatic meeting of Emma Guber and Nikitin, which stirred up not only the past feeling, but also the circumstances under which it was born and strengthened, turns out to be a bridge in the novel, connecting the past and the present, the last year of the war and the present. Bondarev's philosophical thought develops at the convergence of two shores - the domestic and foreign worlds, the world of today and the ancient world.

In the novel, the philosophical debate does not stop; questions of human existence and behavior are raised and resolved from different angles and situations. They are resolved when Nikitin speaks at a discussion broadcast on Hamburg television about his understanding of the duality of truth; they become sharper when his ally and compatriot Samsonov enters into an argument with him; they acquire a lyrical intonation when Nikitin says goodbye to Emma at the airfield. But the philosophical debate in the novel still takes on special urgency in the “surges”, since it is here, on the material of episodes that took place in the past, that the writer argues through the means of artistic reproduction his concept of what a person should be, what ethical qualities determine a positive personality, in what is evil and what is good, what is the essence of true humanism, which Nikitin of today defends and Nikitin of yesterday defended.

Although the novel “The Shore” contains many tragic motives and episodes and ends with the death of the main character, it contains neither the despair nor the hopelessness that are so characteristic of many philosophical works of various genres that have been published in recent decades in the capitalist West.

Saying goodbye to Vadim Nikitin at the airfield in Hamburg, Emma, ​​who has carried her great feeling for him through many years, feels that this is the last farewell, although she cannot yet know that the hours of her loved one are numbered. Vadim Nikitin, climbing the ladder, does not yet know that his vitality, spent on the war fronts and in subsequent years, has come to an end and he is waiting for a transition “to the other shore.” But life, according to Bondarev, goes on, and the people whose prototypes were Knyazhko and Nikitin must win in it.

F. Kuznetsov, in a review of Bondarev’s novel, noted that “The Shore” could not have been written immediately after the end of the war. The level of understanding of war and peace is broader than that which characterized literature not only twenty, but even ten years ago. Bondarev’s “The Shore” is a work of wide range and a work in its nature that is extremely typical of a novel of a philosophical tendency generated by our era.

Bondarev's novel caused a lively discussion in Soviet criticism. Many different opinions have been expressed regarding various issues. In some reviews and articles, the novel as a whole was assessed positively, in others some of its aspects aroused satisfaction and praise, while others were condemned. But the critic L. Fink was right, who said at a discussion of the book, organized by the journal “Questions of Literature,” that in the novel “The Shore” Bondarev created a synthesizing, philosophical novel.

The books of Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev have always been particularly serious. The writer was always interested in complex issues of a moral and philosophical nature. Today we will turn to one of the author’s most interesting works, which can safely be called a biography novel. In particular, let's consider it summary. Bondarev's "Choice", as you will see, is a serious philosophical work about human life and actions.

About the book

The novel was published in 1981. The main theme of the work, like all of the writer’s work, was war. Bondarev writes about what a person experiences during difficult war years, how his soul and moral guidelines change. However main problem works became in the life of every person. It was this difficult part of human life that the writer decided to highlight.

The main character of the story is Ilya Ramzin. This is a person striving for freedom, wanting to not depend on anyone, cultivating willpower in himself. He plays sports, goes to wrestling. His greatest fear is to be humiliated by the people around him.

War

In fact, this is where the summary begins. Bondarev’s “Choice” (this can be seen even more clearly through the chapters) is not a work at all about peaceful life. The author's main goal is to portray a person in a situation where life is at stake, and not ephemeral ideas about lofty ideals.

So, the Great Patriotic War begins. Ilya is still very young. Our hero ends up in an artillery school, from where he is sent to the front. The beginning of the war was unsuccessful for our country; the troops had to retreat on all fronts.

And so Ramzin, along with his battery, finds himself surrounded. He makes desperate attempts to save at least part of the guns that the artillerymen had. However, the soldiers are commanded by a stupid and short-sighted man who destroys not only weapons, but also his subordinates. The Nazis are taking the artillerymen into a tight ring. Ramzin decides to shoot the commander, which he succeeds in doing. But he does not have time to end his life.

The seriousness of the danger in which main character, you can understand just by reading the summary. Bondarev's "Choice" tells how a good and intelligent man, in essence, is captured through the fault of a negligent commander.

In a prisoner of war camp, Ramzin is unprepared for the fact that other prisoners can so easily inform on each other, lie and betray. In addition, the Nazis perceived his act (killing the commander) as a heroic act.

Thirty years later

We continue to retell the novel “Choice”. A chapter-by-chapter summary describes events taking place thirty years after the end of the war. Ilya lives in Venice, where he accidentally meets his former classmate, the artist Vasiliev. It turns out that everyone considered Ramzin missing. Ilya did not write to anyone all this time and tried to avoid places where he could meet Russians. He didn’t even tell his mother, who had been looking for him for a long time, anything about himself.

Over the years, Ilya got married and even became a widower, he has a son who now lives in Munich.

Denouement

The summary is coming to an end. Bondarev's "Choice" is a novel that describes the fate of a man who finds himself in a difficult situation. The writer himself does not give any assessment to the actions of his hero. However, it is difficult for the reader to condemn Ramzin.

Ilya decides to see his mother and returns to the USSR. However, the old woman did not accept him, calling him a traitor. Ramzin cannot come to his senses for a long time from these words, he is deprived of peace of mind, his conscience begins to torment him. The result of this is the decision to commit suicide.

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Very often in his work he turns to military theme Yu. Bondarev. “Choice” (a summary of the work will be the main topic of our article) is a novel that is no exception. In addition, this work raises serious moral and philosophical questions related to the role of choice in human life.

About the product

In 1980, Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev (“Choice”) published his book. You can read the summary in different ways, but do not forget that the novel contains a deep philosophical meaning. It is connected not only with the problem of choice itself, but also with a description of the changes that occur in the soul of a person who has been in battle. This raises the very serious question of whether war distorts people's hearts or simply reveals their true nature. Proposing to solve this puzzle on your own, Bondarev does not give a clear answer in his work.

“Choice”: summary

Ilya Ramzin - main character novel. He is purposeful, goes in for sports and wrestling, and pays great attention to his spiritual growth. The main thing for him is strength and freedom. In his understanding, the ideal person is a strong and courageous fighter who can control his own freedom. The worst thing for Ilya is to be humiliated. Contempt and neglect of others - there is nothing worse for him.

Time to go into battle

It is this self-confident character that Yuri Bondarev chooses for his story. The choice (the summary below will confirm this) for Ilya Ramzin will become the most severe test in his life. The author saw it as his goal to show the reader a person faced with harsh reality. Now it’s not vague ideals and ideas about the world that are at stake, but your own life.

The time of this harsh reality, as you might guess, is the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Our hero, still a very young man, unexpectedly ends up in an artillery school. And from there straight to the front. It was especially difficult in the first months - the start of the war was unsuccessful, there were retreats on all fronts.

And it is not surprising that Ramzin and his battery find themselves surrounded by the enemy. Ilya begins to make at least some attempts to save the artillery pieces that were at the disposal of his comrades. But the battery commander prevents him from doing this. This is a short-sighted and stupid man, whose actions lead not only to the loss of all weapons, but also to the death of almost all the soldiers under his command.

The Nazis, who surrounded the battery, begin their offensive. Realizing that it is useless to resist, Ilya shoots his commander. Ramzin was going to end his life, but he didn’t have time - he was taken prisoner.

But battle is not the worst thing, Bondarev shows the reader (“Choice”). The summary describes a much more terrible fate - through no fault of your own, ending up in the hands of the enemy. The realities of camp life for prisoners of war plunge Ramzin into horror. He could not even imagine that soldiers who had fought shoulder to shoulder just yesterday would inform on each other, calmly betray and lie. For them there are no longer concepts of duty and honor, the main thing is to survive. In addition, a serious blow for Ilya comes from the fact that the Nazis perceived his murder of the commander as a feat.

As the years pass

Thirty years pass. It is from this moment that Bondarev resumes his description of events. The choice (the summary confirms this) that Ilya made in the war becomes known to the reader only now. The hero never returned to his homeland.

Ramzin is now a resident of Venice. It is on the streets of this European town that he accidentally meets Vasiliev, his former classmate. It turns out that everyone considers Ilya missing in action during the war. After all, the main character has not written a single line to anyone in all these years, and also avoided places where he could meet former compatriots. Even his mother knew nothing about his fate. Vasiliev talks about how she waited for Ilya for many years, tried to find him and was very sad about the loss of her only son.

Ramzin talks about his life - he got married a long time ago, but his wife has already died. But there is a son left, who currently lives in Munich.

Ending

Bondarev completes his story. “The Choice” (we reviewed the summary of the novel) ends with Ilya deciding to go to the USSR to see his mother. But the old woman is not happy about her traitorous son. She shoos him away. Ramzin cannot come to his senses after this. His conscience, which had inadvertently awakened, begins to torment him. As a result, the hero decides to commit suicide.

Bondarev does not evaluate the actions of his hero, leaving the reader to do it himself.