- In the center of the story, of course, is the figure Daria Pinigina, an octogenarian old woman who is in her right mind. That is why fellow villagers in any difficult situations go to her for advice. She is a kind of unspoken leader, behind whom the old-timers are drawn and listen to her wise speeches.
Your roots
The old people, who have seen everything in their lifetime, have one desire - to be left alone, to be allowed to live out their last years on their land. And die on it. And they are also very worried about the frivolous attitude to the lives of children, the fact that they forget traditions, forget their roots. The next generation does not understand why their ancestors are so clinging to this island, beyond which there is a great life.
Of course, the old people also understand the benefits of technological progress, only they are against people becoming as soulless as these same machines. And now a person feels himself the king of nature, and this is wrong. He is just a grain of sand.
The old people are trying to instill in young people love for their land, but their promises are alien to young people. Everything shows that the author himself is on the side of the old people, whom he sincerely pities, rooting for their fate. Each of these characters, the author describes with great warmth. But the images of young people do not appear before us in the most favorable light for them. Compared to the older generation, they seem to be callous, sometimes soulless people who are in pursuit of entertainment and a beautiful life.
An attack on the sacred
Due to the launch of the hydroelectric power station, the authorities plan to flood the island. Local residents are planned to be relocated to a new village, but the old people do not want to leave their homes, and they are dragging on moving to the last. One day, Bogodul comes to the old woman Daria, where Sima and Nastasya are staying, and tells that the village cemetery is being destroyed.
They go to where the workers are operating, preparing the churchyard for flooding. They swung at the sacred, demolishing fences and crosses. The locals are beside themselves with anger and drive the workers out of the cemetery. And then they restore the crosses and fences. For them, the memory of relatives buried here is sacred.
First fire
Daria goes to the cemetery, but unexpectedly comes to the highest point of the area, from where the whole village is visible. And she is sad, unhappy thoughts overcome her. Once again, Daria's son Pavel comes to the island, who has already moved his entire family and wants to take his mother, but she is stubborn.
Meanwhile, the old woman Nastasya and grandfather Yegor still decide to leave for the city. Preparing to move and another elderly woman named Katerina. Taking advantage of this, her son Petruha sets fire to his own house. He wants to get money for it as soon as possible. And then suddenly disappears from the village. The unfortunate woman finds shelter in Daria's house.
Haymaking time. Time to leave
The time for haymaking comes, and the whole village again gathers together, For the last time for a common cause. Petrukha appears, who gives his mother only 15 rubles for the house. Meanwhile, Daria's grandson Andrey arrives. He also seems to feel sorry for the island, but not to that extent. He believes that the hydroelectric power station, of course, is needed, and he himself dreams of a large construction site.
After haymaking, local residents begin to take their belongings and livestock from the island.
Petruha sets fire to the houses of fellow villagers at their own request, and they pay him for it. Autumn is coming. Harvesting, haymaking finished. Time to leave Matera. Daria goes to the village cemetery, where she asks for forgiveness from her relatives lying in the ground for something that she is unable to prevent.
Egor's wife bitterly tells the villagers that her husband died of homesickness. He is no more.
Chairman Vorontsov learns that there are still people on the island. Worried that the authorities will scold him, he sails to the island to take out the remnants of the inhabitants, but gets into the fog and does not know where to go next.
Meanwhile, the old-timers hear the disturbing noise of a boat. This is where the story ends, the author does not tell what happened next, offering the reader to decide the fate of her heroes himself.
In this article, we will turn to the work of the outstanding writer of the 20th century - Valentin Grigorievich Rasputin. More precisely, we will analyze the author's programmatic story and its summary chapter by chapter. “Farewell to Matera”, as you will see, is a work with a deep moral and philosophical meaning.
About the book
The story was published in 1976. In the center of the plot is village life. But Rasputin described not just an idyllic picture and the delights of Russian nature, he touched on much more sensitive topics. The reader is presented with a picture of the death of the village. Together with the disappearance of the place where more than one generation of people lived, the memory of the ancestors, the connection with the roots, also disappears. Rasputin depicts the gradual degradation of man, the desire for the new to the detriment of the old. According to the author, the destruction of morality and nature for the sake of industrialization will inevitably lead humanity to death. It is this idea that is illustrated by the story "Farewell to Matera".
Summary by chapter: "Farewell to Matera"
Matera is the name of the village and the island on which it is located. But the settlement did not have long to live - soon it should be flooded. Spring. Many families left, others did not plant gardens and sow fields. Yes, and they launched houses: they don’t whitewash, they don’t clean up, they take away things from them.
Only the old people live their old lives, as if they are not going to leave anywhere. In the evenings they get together and talk for a long time. The village has been through a lot, there have been good times and bad times. However, invariably people were born and died, life did not stop for a minute. But now the dam for the power plant will be completed in the autumn, the water will rise and flood Matera.
Chapters 2-3
The story "Farewell to Matera" (a summary of the chapters in particular) tells about the evenings over tea that the village old women spent. Gathered at the oldest - Daria. Despite her age, she was tall and well-ordered, managed the household and coped with considerable work. Her son and daughter-in-law managed to leave and now occasionally visited Daria.
Sima also came here, having settled in Matera just ten years ago. They called her Moskovishnaya for talking about how she saw Moscow. Her fate was hard. In addition, she gave birth to a dumb girl. And by old age, her grandson Kolka remained in her care. Due to the fact that Sima does not have her own home, she must be sent to a nursing home and take her grandson. But the old woman is trying in every possible way to delay this moment.
Elderly Nastasya and Yegor, who signed the move to the city, are constantly rushed, asked to leave quickly.
They began to dismantle the cemetery: cut down bedside tables, remove monuments. This aroused righteous anger among the elders. Bogodul even called the workers "devils".
Chapters 4-5
Valentin Rasputin pays great attention to the representatives of the older generation. "Farewell to Matera" (a summary of the chapters allows you to verify this) is replete with such characters. One of them is Bogodul. No one remembered how the old man appeared in the village. At one time he was a money changer, periodically brought goods to Matera, and then he stayed here for good. Bogodul looked like a deep old man, but did not change over the years.
He is not going to leave the village - they have no right to drown the living. However, he is worried about how he will justify himself to the ancestors for the destruction of Matera. Bogodul believes that he is appointed to look after the village, and if it is flooded, the blame is on him.
Pavel, Daria's son, arrives. He talks about the village where the villagers are resettled. It turns out that this place is completely unsuitable for peasant life.
Chapters 6-7
We continue to describe the summary of the chapters ("Farewell to Matera"). Rasputin also introduces mythological images into his work. So, at night, the Master of the Forest appears - a small animal, unlike anyone else. He knows everything that happens in the village, everyone knows about it, but no one has ever seen him himself. The owner anticipates the imminent end of Matera and his existence, but dutifully accepts it. And he also knows for sure that Bogodul will die with him.
The Trinity passes, and Yegor and Nastasya leave. They have to abandon the utensils - everything that has been acquired over the years. Old people, as if lost, walk around the hut. At parting, Nastasya asks Daria to look after her and gives the keys to the house.
Chapters 8-9
Petruha burns his hut - the same fate awaits the rest of the mothers at home.
Pavel's visits become rare. Now he has been appointed foreman at the state farm - work has greatly increased. Pavel was perplexed about the construction of a new village - awkward, strange, not for human life. He did not understand why it was necessary to move to live in it. And more and more often they visited the memories of the well-groomed Matera, in which several generations of his ancestors lived.
Chapters 10-11
The destruction of not only the village, but also human lives is depicted in the story “Farewell to Matera”. A summary of the chapters (an analysis of the work can confirm this) depicts the broken life of Katerina, who remained after the burning of the house with her son Petrukha on the street. The heroine has nothing left of her former life. And the blame for the wrongly brought up son is on her shoulders.
The onset of haymaking seemed to revive Matera. The village came alive again. Life returned to its usual course, and people worked with incredible joy.
Chapters 12-13
It starts to rain. Pavel comes to Daria with Andrey, the youngest son. A member of the younger generation does not regret having to leave Matera. On the contrary, he is glad of the opportunity to see the world, to try himself in another business. Andrey is sure that a person should manage his own life. It turns out that he is going to participate in the flooding of the village.
The chairman from the Pasenny district arrives and demands that by mid-September (in just a month and a half) the village be cleared of all buildings. Therefore, it is recommended now to start setting fire to empty houses.
Chapters 14-15
The conflict between the older and younger generations is one of the main themes of the story Farewell to Matera. A summary of the chapters describes in detail Daria's relationship with her grandson. Andrei is convinced that a person controls his own destiny. He is sure that the future belongs to technology and progress, and the past can be forgotten. Daria, on the other hand, pities the modern man who destroys himself, cutting off the connection with his roots, with nature.
Pavel is called to work - one of his subordinates drunkenly put his hand into the machine, and the foreman is responsible for this. Andrey also leaves after his father.
Chapters 16-17
Then he talks about the arrival of a group of city dwellers with a summary of the chapters. “Farewell to Matera” is a work that indicates the profitlessness and immorality of people who have lost touch with the past. That is why the city people who came to burn the village buildings are portrayed as unbridled and soulless creatures. Their behavior scares all the inhabitants of Matera to death.
Villagers slowly begin to gather, and fires break out around the district. The first victim was the mill. Of the maternal, Petruha takes special care in destruction. Katerina is tormented and does not know how to react to her son's actions.
Chapters 18-19
The grain harvesting and harvesting is coming to an end. The townspeople drive back, finally arranging a terrible fight. The villagers did not know what to do with their own crops - they took away little by little, but it did not decrease. I had to sell. Livestock transportation has begun.
A summary of the chapters (“Farewell to Matera”) depicts a picture of a gradually fading life. The village is getting empty. And only the old people do not want to leave their homes, they worry about the graves that will have to be flooded - and only nonhumans are capable of this. Daria goes to the cemetery, thinking that now her great-grandchildren, having lost touch with their roots, will not even know why they were born.
Chapters 20-22
The story “Farewell to Matera” is coming to an end (a summary of the chapters). The author paints a picture of desolation - there are no buildings left in the village, except for the barracks of Bogodul, where the old women and Sima's granddaughters have now gathered. Nastasya also returned - her old man did not survive the move.
Pavel decides to return for the rest in two days. But the chief Vorontsov sends him on the night to Matera - tomorrow the commission, and there should not be a single person on the island.
Pavel, Petruha and Vorontsov get into the boat and set sail. They are covered with a cloud of thick fog, in which nothing can be seen. Mist also covers Matera.
Valentin Rasputin. Russian genius Chernov Victor
"Farewell to Matera"
"Farewell to Matera"
In the autumn of 1976, the magazine Our Contemporary (Nos. 10, 11) published a new story by Valentin Rasputin, Farewell to Matyora. About how the idea of the work arose, how it was written, the author himself spoke as follows: “Among the Russian names - the most common, kondovy, indigenous - the name “Materay” exists everywhere, throughout the expanses of Russia. We also have it in Siberia, and on the Angara there is also such a name. I took it with this meaning, the name must mean something, the surname must mean something, especially since this is the name of an old village, an old land ...
All this happened in front of my eyes. A truly tragic sight when you walk along the Angara in the evening, along the Ilim (this is the river that flows into the Angara), and you see how these strong villages are burning in the dark. It was a sight that will be remembered forever.
"Farewell to Matera" - this work was the main one for me, neither stories, nor other stories. For this story, maybe I was needed ...
I'm not calling back. I call for the preservation of those values and traditions, all that a person lived by. My village, for example, when it was moved, became a timber industry enterprise. There was nothing else to do there, only to cut down the forest. The wood was cut and cut well. The village was large, not from the poor. Occupation does affect a person. They made good money, and everything seemed to be fine, but the booze was terrible, there is not even such a thing now. It was the 70s - 80s. Just cut down the forest, make money on it - after all, this is not a divine thing. It struck me then and forced me to write.
Apparently, we do not need to live well in Russia in order to remain human beings. You don't need wealth, you don't need to be rich. There is such a word - wealth. There is some measure in which we remain in our moral integrity.
In these words of the writer one can hear bitterness and disappointment, pain for his people, for his native land. He, like his heroine Daria, does not defend the old hut, but the Motherland, like hers, Rasputin’s heart also hurts: “Like on fire, it, Christ’s, burns and burns, whines and whines.” As the critic Y. Seleznev accurately noted: “The name of the island and the village - Matyora - is not accidental in Rasputin. Matera, of course, is ideologically figuratively connected with such generic concepts as mother (mother - Earth, mother - Motherland), mainland - land surrounded on all sides by the ocean (the island of Matera is, as it were, a “small mainland”). For the author, as well as for Daria, Matera is the embodiment of the Motherland.
If in the "Deadline" or in "Live and Remember" it was still possible to talk about the "tragedy of a single peasant family", then in "Farewell to Matyora" the author did not leave such an opportunity for critics. The peasant continent, the whole peasant world, is perishing, and this is precisely what the critics have to discuss. However, they tried to smooth over the severity of the problem and accuse the author of "romanticizing and idealizing the patriarchal world", in which some critics saw only conservative and negative qualities. A. Salynsky assessed the problematics of the story as “trivial” (Questions of Literature. 1977. No. 2), V. Oskotsky noted Rasputin’s desire to “squeeze tragedy out of a collision, not tragic at any cost” (Questions of Literature. 1977. No. 3) , E. Starikova noticed that Rasputin "more harshly and less humane than before, divided the world of his story into" his own and others "" (Literature and modernity. M., 1978. Sat. 16. S. 230). The severity of the questions raised by the writer caused a discussion on the pages of the Literary Gazette “Village prose. Bolshaki and country roads "(1979, September-December).
A. I. Solzhenitsyn wrote about this: “This is, first of all, a change of scale: not a private human episode, but a major national disaster - not just one flooded island inhabited for centuries, but a grandiose symbol of the destruction of people's life. And even more huge: some unknown turn, concussion - parting for us all. Rasputin is one of those seers to whom layers of being are revealed that are not accessible to everyone and are not called by him in direct words.
From the first page of the story, we find the village already doomed to destruction - and through the story this mood grows, it sounds like a requiem - and the voices of the people, and the voices of nature itself and human memory, as it resists its death. The farewell to the island grows piercingly, a drawn-out dying that cuts the heart.
The whole fabric of the story is a wide stream of folk poetic perception. (During its course, for example, the different characters of the rains are amazingly described.) How many feelings - about the native land, its eternity. The fullness of nature - and the liveliest dialogue, sound, speech, exact words. And - the author's insistent motive:
Previously, conscience was very different. If someone strove without it, it is immediately noticeable. And now - cholera will sort it out, everything is mixed up in one heap - something, something else. We now do not live on our own. People have forgotten their place under God.
The arsonists came, "the raiders from the state farm," and they burn one after the other, which is empty. The giant king-tree Listven, a distinctive sign of the entire island, only it turned out to be unbreakable and unburned. They burn - "Christ's mill, how much bread has been ground for us." Here - some of the houses have already been burned, and the rest "should shrink into the ground from fear." The last flash of the former life is the friendly time of haymaking, the beloved village time. “We are all our own people, we drank water from the same Angara.” And now this hay - through the Angara, and stacked near multi-storey lifeless houses for homeless cows, doomed to the knife. Farewell to the village, stretched out in time, some have already moved and come to visit the island, others stay in place until the last. They say goodbye to the graves of relatives, arsonists wildly swoop into the cemetery, pulling crosses and burning them into a pile. The old woman Daria, preparing for the inevitable burning of her hut, whitens it fresh, washes the floors and throws grass on the floor, as if under the Trinity: "How much is walked here, how much is trampled." For her to give a hut - "like putting a dead man in a coffin." And the visiting grandson of Daria is alienated, careless about the meaning of life, has long been cut off from the village. Daria to him: "Whoever has a soul, that's God, guy." “And that you spent your soul - you don’t care.” - Now it is recognized: the hut, if you do not touch it, burns by itself for two hours - but for many more days it smokes drearily afterwards. And even after the burning of the hut - Daria is unable to leave the island, with two or three more old women she huddles in a worthless barracks. And so - the deadline for departure was missed. Daria's son is sent on a boat to take off the old people at night - and then such a dense fog looms, which they have never seen in their lives, and they can no longer find the familiar island on the Angara. This is how the story ends - a formidable symbol, as it were, of the unreality of our being: do we exist at all?
A whole generation is dying, generations of keepers of age-old folk foundations, traditions, without which a people cannot exist. The themes of parting with the generations of people who lived and worked on the earth, sounding already in the "Deadline", farewell to the mother-ancestor, to the world of the righteous, are transformed in the plot of the story "Farewell to Matera" into the myth of the death of the entire peasant world. On the “surface” of the plot of the story is the story of the flooding of the Siberian village of Matera located on the island by the waves of the “man-made sea”. In contrast to the island from “Live and Remember”, the island of Matera (mainland, firmament, land), gradually leaving before the eyes of readers to lead under water, is a symbol of the promised land, the last refuge of those who live in conscience, in harmony with God and with nature . The old women living out their last days, led by the righteous Daria, refuse to move to a new village (new world) and remain until their death hour to guard their shrines - a peasant cemetery with crosses and royal foliage, a pagan Tree of Life. Only one of the settlers - Pavel - visits Daria in a vague hope of touching the true meaning of life. In contrast to Nastya, he floats from the world of the “dead” (mechanical civilization) to the world of the living, but this is a dying world. At the end of the story, only the mythical Master of the Island remains on the island, whose desperate cry, sounding in the dead void, completes the story.
"Farewell to Matyora" sums up Rasputin's philosophical and ideological reflections on the tragic fate of the village under the wheels of the "scientific and technological revolution" carried out by barbaric, cruel, inhumane methods. The tragic worldview of the writer is intensifying, which acquires apocalyptic features, embodied in the pictures of fire and flood.
The story reflects the philosophy, poetics, mysticism of parting with the traditional way of life, "grandfather's shrines", the moral and spiritual precepts of the ancestors, which Rasputin personifies in the image of the majestic and strong-willed old woman Daria. Rasputin's Matera Island is not just a separate village, but a model of a peasant world filled with its inhabitants, cattle, animals living in a cozy and native landscape, in the center of which there is a powerful foliage, the borders of which are guarded by a mysterious and mystical Owner. Harmony and expediency, knowledge and work, respect for the living and reverence for the dead reign here. But parting with this life is not at all elegiac and blissful, it is interrupted by scandals, fights, quarrels between the indigenous people and the “burners”, “destroyers” who came to clear the territory for the future power plant before flooding. On their side is the grandson of Daria - Andrey. The younger generation, which, according to Rasputin, should be better than the outgoing one, is not fulfilling its historical role. Therefore, the writer believes that "civilization from some unspecified time took the wrong course, tempted by mechanical achievements and leaving human perfection on the tenth plane."
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Main characters
Pinigina Daria Vasilievna- a native of Matera, Pavel's mother, Andrey's grandmother. She was "the oldest of the old women", "tall and lean" with a "strict bloodless face".
Pinigin Pavel- the second son of Daria, a man of fifty, lives in a neighboring village with his wife Sophia. “On the collective farm he worked as a foreman, then as a foreman.”
Other characters
Pinigin Andrey Daria's grandson
Bogodul- a stray “blissful” old man, “passed himself off as a Pole, loved Russian obscenities”, lived in a barracks, “like a cockroach”.
Sima– an old woman who came to Matera less than 10 years ago.
Catherine- one of the residents of Matera, the mother of Petruha.
Petruha- "dissolute" son of Catherine.
Nastya and Egor- old people, residents of Matera.
Vorontsov- Chairman of the village council and the council in the new village.
Island Master, "royal foliage".
Chapter 1
"And spring has come again" - "the last for Matera, for the island and the village, bearing the same name." Matera was created three hundred years ago.
Downstream on the Angara, they began to build a dam for a power plant, because of which the water along the river had to rise and soon flood Matera - it was the last summer, then everyone had to move.
Chapter 2
At Darya's, old women often sat at the samovar - Nastya and Sima. “Despite the years, the old woman Daria was still on her feet”, she managed the household herself.
Nastasya, having lost her sons and daughter, lived with her husband Yegor. An apartment was already waiting for them in the city by distribution, but the old people were still slowing down with the move.
Sima came to Matera relatively recently, she had no one here except her grandson Kolya.
Chapter 3
The sanitary brigade "cleaned up the territory" at the cemetery - the men removed crosses, bedside tables and fences from the graves in order to burn them later. The old women drove the brigade away and put the crosses in their place until late at night.
Chapter 4
The day after the incident, Bogodul came to Daria. Talking with him, the woman shared that it would be better if she did not live to see everything that was happening. Walking then around the island, Daria recalled the past, thought that although she had lived "a long and hard life", but "she did not understand anything in it".
Chapter 5
In the evening, Pavel arrived - the second son of Daria, “the first was taken away by the war”, and the third “found death at the logging site”. Daria could not imagine how she would live in an apartment - without a garden, without a place for a cow and chickens, her own bath.
Chapter 6
“And when night fell and Matera fell asleep, a small animal jumped out from under the shore on the mill channel, a little more than a cat, unlike any other animal, the owner of the island.” "No one has ever seen him, never met him, but here he knew everyone and knew everything."
Chapter 7
It was time for Nastasya and Yegor to leave. The night before the departure, the woman did not sleep. In the morning the old people packed their things. Nastasya asked Daria to look after her cat. The old people gathered for a long time - it was very difficult for them to leave their home, Matera.
Chapter 8
At night, one of the villagers, Petruha, lit his hut. His mother, Katerina, moved her modest belongings to Daria in advance and began to live with the old woman.
“And while the hut was on fire, the Boss looked at the village. In the light of this generous conflagration, he clearly saw the faint lights over the still living huts,<…>noting in what order the fire will take them.
Chapter 9
Arriving in Matera, Pavel did not stay here for a long time. When Catherine moved in with Daria, he "became calmer", since now his mother will be helped.
Pavel “understood that it was necessary to move from Matera, but did not understand why it was necessary to move to this village, worked out, albeit richly<…>Yes, put so unhumanly and awkwardly. “Pavel was surprised, looking at Sonya, at his wife”: as she entered the new apartment, “as if she had always been there. Got used to it in a day." “Pavel understood well that his mother was not used to it. For her, this is someone else's paradise.
Chapter 10
After the fire, Petruha disappeared somewhere. In a fire, Catherine's samovar burned down, without which the woman "was completely orphaned." Katerina and Daria spent all their days talking, the two of them lived easier.
Chapter 11
Haymaking has begun. "Half the village is back in Matera." Soon Petruha arrived in a new suit - he received a lot of money for the burned estate, but gave his mother only 25 rubles.
Chapter 12
A grandson came to Daria - Andrei, the youngest son of Pavel. Andrei worked at a factory, but quit and now wanted to go "to a big construction site". It was difficult for Daria and Pavel to understand their grandson, who reasoned: “Now the time is such that you can’t sit in one place.”
Chapter 13
Petruha was going to the construction site together with Andrey. In mid-September, Vorontsov arrived and ordered "not to wait for the last day and gradually burn everything that is unnecessarily."
Chapter 14
Daria, talking with her grandson, spoke out that people now began to live too quickly: “I galloped in one direction, looked around, didn’t look back - in a friend-y-y”. “Only you, and you, Andryushka, will remember after me how exhausted you are.”
Chapter 15
Daria asked her son and grandson to move the graves of relatives. Andrey was frightened, it seemed creepy. Pavel promised to do this, but the next day he was summoned to the village for a long time. Andrew soon left.
Chapter 16
Gradually, people began to "evacuate small animals from the village", buildings were burned. “Everyone was in a hurry to move out, to get away from the dangerous island. And the village stood orphaned, bare, deaf. Soon Daria took Sima and Kolya to her place.
Chapter 17
A fellow villager said that Petruha “is engaged in burning abandoned houses” for money. “Katerina, reconciled to the loss of her hut, could not forgive Petrukha for burning strangers.”
Chapter 18
Pavel, taking away the cow Maika, wanted to immediately take away the mother, but Daria firmly refused. In the evening, the woman went to the cemetery - Pavel never moved the grave - to her father and mother, to her son. She thought that “who knows the truth about a person, why does he live? For the sake of life itself, for the sake of the children, so that the children leave the children, and the children of the children leave the children, or for the sake of something else? ".
Chapter 19
"Matera, and the island and the village, could not be imagined without larch on the cattle." "Royal foliage" "forever, mighty and imperiously stood on a hillock half a verst from the village, noticeable almost everywhere and known to everyone." "And as long as he stands, Matera will also stand." Old people treated the tree with reverence and fear.
“And then the day came when strangers approached him.” The men did not manage to cut down or burn the old tree, even a chainsaw did not take it. In the end, the workers left larch alone.
Chapter 20
Daria, despite the fact that her hut was to be burned very soon, whitewashed the house. In the morning I lit the stove and cleaned the house. “She cleaned up and felt herself becoming thinner, being beaten with all her might, and the less there was to do, the less she was left.”
Chapter 21
The next day, Nastya returned to Matera. The woman said that her husband Yegor had died.
Chapter 22
After the huts were burned down, the old women moved into the barracks. Upon learning of this, Vorontsov was indignant and forced Pavel and Petrukha to urgently go to pick up the women. The men set out in the middle of the night and wandered for a long time in the dense fog.
… At night, Bogodul opened the doors of the barracks. “The fog was blowing and a distant, dreary howl was heard - that was the farewell voice of the Master.” "From somewhere, as if from below, came the faint, barely discernible noise of the engine."
Conclusion
In the story “Farewell to Matera”, V. G. Rasputin, as a representative of the literary direction of “village prose”, pays special attention to descriptions of the nature of the island, conveys the mood of the characters through landscapes. The author introduces characters of folklore origin into the work - the Master of the Island and Bogodul, symbolizing the old, passing world, which the old people continue to hold on to.
In 1981, the story was filmed (directed by L. Shepitko, E. Klimov) under the title "Farewell".
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