Boris Lavrenev "Forty-First": a summary of the story, the main lessons for contemporaries

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Each citizen of Russia over time is determined by the national orientation of the state. Contemporaries consider with interest the events of the 1917 revolution and the Civil War. The writer Boris Lavrenev expressed his vision of these events in the story "Forty-First". After all, our divided society is still feeling the consequences of those events. This work is also called a "poem in prose", it contains a lot of revolutionary elements, violent passions, cruel fratricidal scenes. A summary of Lavrenev's "Forty-First" (by chapters) proves that the book is small in volume, but fascinating and has a certain amount of humor. Well, we invite you to get to know this work better.

A little bit about the biography of Boris Lavrenev

From the biography of the writer himself, the plot for an adventure film could turn out. Little Borya loved books, stories about exploits and wanderings. His parents were school teachers. The boy's favorite book was The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. The writer's birthplace is Kherson, but he received his education at Moscow University, where he graduated from the Faculty of Law.

The rapid fall of the tsarist empire, the revolutionary events in the country have caused many thoughts. At first he was in the ranks of the white movement, then he joined the ranks of the Red Army. After the civil war, Lavrenev began to serve as a political worker in Central Asia. He wrote several stories, but the story we are describing, which appeared in 1924, became the most famous work. Next, we invite you to get acquainted with the summary of Lavrenev's "Forty-First". Reading this work is quite easy.

Dynamic opening of the story

Summary of Boris Lavrenev's "Forty-First" shows that the book consists of 10 chapters. In the first of them, readers see the terrible massacre of the White Cossacks over the Red Army soldiers who were taken prisoner. Of the entire detachment of the Reds, only 24 people managed to escape. Among them was a girl-shooter Maryutka. She worked with a sniper rifle. She already had forty dead White Guards on her account. The girl was an orphan and comes from a fishing village. Since childhood, she worked hard and dreamed of a better life.life. This led her to volunteer for the Red Army.

Romanticism, realism and expressionism are intertwined in the following chapters. Maryutka took an oath that she would not lead a woman's life, give birth to children, until she defeated the capitalists. She even began to write poetry about the revolution and the birth of a new world. They were not entirely successful. However, she was more lucky in shooting: her accuracy was known. She considered each White Guard killed as retribution for the poverty and lawlessness of Tsarist Russia.

Portrait of Vadim Govorukha-Otrok

The second chapter, in accordance with the summary of Lavrenev's "Forty-first", introduces the reader to another main character - guard lieutenant Vadim Nikolayevich Govorukha-Otrok. This is an outstanding character representing the Romanov Empire. The prototype for the image was a friend of the writer, who served in the tsarist army.

Vadim Govorukha is captured by the Red Army, where Maryutka served. His behavior was dignified and courageous. He refuses to tell the red commander about his secret mission. Maryutka was entrusted with guarding the lieutenant. At a h alt, she reads her poems to him. He immediately notices all the shortcomings, because he himself was a man of European culture and traditions, he knew French and German.

Opposite ideas of the heroes about the future of Russia

A detachment with a prisoner crossed the Aral Sea. Suddenly there was a storm, and Maryutka with the lieutenant was thrown onto an uninhabited fishing island. The characters are very cold and cold. On land they found a fishermanbarn and settled in it. Vadim jokingly called himself Robinson, and Maryutka called Friday.

The lieutenant fell seriously ill, fell into unconsciousness from a cold. The girl looked after him, fed, watered. Soon, a love feeling broke out between the heroes. Maryutka saved Vadim's life, and he opened the world of culture to her, telling fairy tales in the evenings.

The idyll of the heroes did not last long: they imagined their own future and the fate of the country in different ways. The lieutenant dreamed of a quiet life in the country, and the girl - of the struggle for the victory of the revolution. They argued over this.

The tragic end of the story

Once a White Guard longboat appeared near the shore. Delighted, Vadim runs towards him. This is where the tragic end of the story takes place. Maryutka instinctively grabbed her rifle and fired at her favorite lieutenant. The shot was accurate, hit right in the head and gouged out the eye. This was her forty-first victim.

After that, an impressive scene of human grief begins. Desperate Maryutka rushes to her beloved and howls oppressively over him: "My dear! Blue-eyed! What have I done?" This ending is a sign of condemnation for all civil wars.

Today in Russia one can again observe class stratification: the oligarchs and the common people. Today, the country again faces a choice. Every citizen must make a choice to protect the national interests of the state without sacrifice.