"Blue Cup", Gaidar: a summary of the story

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

Today's young readers, perhaps, do not remember such a name - Arkady Gaidar. And the children of the Land of the Soviets once selflessly played "Timur and his team", cried over the "Military Secret" and rejoiced along with Chuk and Gek. Among the popular works of the author was the story "The Blue Cup".

The little piece first appeared in Pioneer magazine in 1936. A few months later saw the light and a separate edition of the story. Gaidar's work is very "cinematic". It easily breaks up into separate scenes and seems to be specially created for the film adaptation. Turning its pages.

"Blue Cup", Gaidar. Summary (Introduction)

The story begins with a precise description of the place and time of the events. A small family - dad (32 years old), mother Marusya (29 years old) and daughter Svetlana (6.5 years old) rent a dacha in the Moscow region at the end of summer. It is there that they are going to spend their long-awaited vacation. Dad and daughter dreamed of a village freemen withfishing, swimming in the river and hiking in the forest for mushrooms. But the cottage turned out to be in a dilapidated state, and my mother constantly found household chores that needed to be done.

"Blue Cup", Gaidar. Synopsis (string)

After 3 days, things are finally done, and you can go for a joint walk. But it was not there! Mom has unexpected guests - her old friend, a polar pilot. They are talking in the cherry orchard, and annoyed dad and Svetlanka are making a turntable with their own hands. Marusya, going to see off her friend at the station, demands that her daughter go to bed. But dad and Sveta finish the craft and go to the attic to screw on the turntable. The returned mother stops this "disgrace".

The next day, she discovers her broken blue cup in the closet and demands recognition from the household: “Who broke it?” However, neither dad nor Svetlanka did this! The conflict that had arisen the day before had finally matured. Dissatisfied Marusya goes to the city. And the offended father decides to escape with his daughter. “Is this a good life? he asks. “Let’s leave this house wherever our eyes look.”

"Blue Cup", Gaidar. Summary (hike)

Further narrative draws us in detail the journey on which the "conspirators" went. Every event is significant. The summary of The Blue Cup (Gaidar remains true to himself) still resembles a play, divided into scenes and acts.

The heroes go to the nearest mill and meet a running neighbor boy - Sanka Karyakin. After him flying clods of earth. Sanka claims that he is undeservedly offended by "pioneer Pashka Bukamashkin".

Further events unfold at the mill. The heroes meet a pugnacious pioneer and learn that Sanka is punished for his deed: while playing siskin, he not only cheated, but also offended a Jewish girl, Berta, who had recently moved with her father from Nazi-occupied Germany.

Then the heroes watch military exercises, get acquainted with a Red Army soldier and a bearded collective farm watchman and a formidable dog Polkan, watch how the stone is mined.

Far behind is a broken blue cup. Gaidar (a brief retelling is unlikely to be able to fully convey this) paints a world full of details. Travelers carefully observe the life of a small village, a herd of horses, a cemetery, a tree, a siskin. The heroes also get to know the family of the collective farm watchman - his daughter Valentina and his grandson, funny four-year-old Fyodor. The father and daughter almost drowned in the swamp, bathed in the river and received a tiny kitten as a gift. In a word, the day turned out to be extremely eventful.

"Blue Cup", Gaidar. Summary (denouement)

The story has no clear climax. Perhaps the turning point occurs at the moment when the father tells, at the request of Svetlana, the story of his meeting with his wife. The heroes understand that they love Marusya, and forgive her for the inadvertently inflicted insult. They go home and see that mom has already attached yesterday's paper to the roof of the house.turntable. And this act, brighter than any words, testifies that she understood her guilt. Peace in the family has been restored. Late in the evening, dad, mom and daughter sit in the garden under the cherries, retell each other the events of the day and understand that "…life, comrades… is very good!".