Rasputin’s work “Fire” is the author’s legendary creation. This story can be called a kind of continuation of the famous work “Farewell to Matera”.
The story is narrated from a third person, and there are also author's digressions that resemble journalism. The action takes place in a small village called Sosnovka.
The main character of the work is called Ivan Petrovich Egorov, whom Rasputin portrays as a conscientious and hardworking citizen who has his own moral principles. Ivan Petrovich believed that there is nothing more important than family, home, work and loved ones.
Also in the work there is an antipode of the main character. This is a group of people who were popularly called Arkharovtsy. According to Rasputin, these people did not have a drop of conscience, had the habits of bandits and terrified the village residents.
All events revolve around the fact that there was a fire, which forced many heroes to rethink what happened to them before, that is, to rethink their entire lives.
All the scenes in which Rasputin described how warehouses with products that were extremely important for the local population were burning down were a technique of the author. The writer used them for more dramatic evasion. However, there are moments in the story when the so-called Arkharovites simply took advantage of the tragedy. When all the people were putting out the fire, they did not help and did not participate in it in any way. All the group did was steal other people's property while no one was looking.
Rasputin also used symbols in his work “Fire”. One of them is fire, which personified the process of destruction, however, with hope for future restoration. Rasputin wanted to show with his work that all is not lost, much can still be changed, if only there was desire and motivation. The Russian people still have the opportunity to get better and strengthen their spirit, despite all the adversity and difficulties.
Option 2
The work is one of the key literary creations created by the writer, and is a conventionally philosophical continuation of the story “Farewell to Matera,” which tells about the inhabitants of a flooded Russian island.
The narration in the work is conducted on behalf of a third person and is filled with numerous author’s digressions, reminiscent of journalistic essays. The story takes place in a small rural outback called Sosnovka.
The main character of the story, the writer represents Ivan Petrovich Egorov, depicted as a respectable, hardworking, honest person who adheres to moral principles and considers the main meaning of human life to be the presence of four supports in the form of a home with family, work, loved ones, as well as his native land, on which the house is located. At the same time, the hero is a modest villager who does not have outstanding abilities and does not have a magical means of influencing the people around him.
The antipode to the main character of the work in the story is a group of organized recruitment, popularly called Arkharovtsy, whose members are distinguished by their lack of conscience, gangster habits, keeping the village population in fear.
The storyline of the story is built around a night incident in the form of a fire, forcing the heroes of the work to rethink their own lives and attitude to the surrounding reality, and also clearly demonstrating the tragedy of a person’s ruin of his native land.
Scenes describing a fire, in the fire of which warehouses with food and industrial goods for the population are destroyed, are a plot device that enhances the drama of the story and is presented as a metaphorical image, since since ancient times people have resisted the fiery force by uniting. However, in the story the writer depicts the exact opposite situation, in which the united members of Arkharov’s gang do not participate in extinguishing the fire and saving property, but, using the panic mood of those around them and people’s preoccupation with the emergency event, they steal good things, as well as alcoholic drinks.
The story focuses the reader's attention with the author's reflections on the spiritual and physical depletion of the Russian land, emphasizing the hope for their restoration in the future.
The image of fire in the story has a symbolic connotation, personifying not only the process of destruction, but also conveying a cleansing force. The semantic load of the work demonstrates the author's call, expressed through the use of metaphors, which consists in the need for social change in the country.
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Every connoisseur of Russian literature should know the summary of Rasputin's "Fire". This is one of the author's key works. It acutely poses the problems of our time. Due to this, the novel aroused great interest among readers.
The place of "Fire" in Rasputin's work
A brief summary of Rasputin's "Fire" gives a complete picture of his work in the 80s. By that time, he was already well known as the author of the stories “Money for Maria”, “The Deadline”, “Live and Remember”, and the cult “Farewell to Matera”.
He wrote the story "Fire" in 1985. At that time, Rasputin was already a recognized classic of the Russian so-called village prose. The problems that he raised on the pages of his works always found a lively response from readers.
Plot of the story
A summary of Rasputin's "Fire" begins with a description of the events occurring in the month of March. The narration is conducted from a third person. It is filled with a large number of lyrical digressions and arguments of a journalistic nature.
At the center of the story is the driver Ivan Petrovich. At the beginning of the work, he returns from work tired. He is met by his wife Alena. But a quiet family evening is not destined to happen on this day. They hear screams: fire.
It turns out that ORS warehouses are on fire. Ivan Petrovich, in turmoil, gets ready for the fire and takes an ax with him. It turns out that the fire is serious. Both parts of the warehouse are on fire. One is industrial, the second is food. The main character immediately notes to himself that the fight against the fire is led by two extremely unreliable people. This is Semyon Koltsov and Afonya.
Fighting fire
The authorities gather to decide how to fight the fire. The site manager, Vodnikov, is a skilled and expressive person. He swears a lot at his subordinates, but you can rely on him. Alena, who takes out some things, helps no less than the men in saving the warehouses from the fire.
At the same time, the negative characters in both the story and the summary of Rasputin’s “Fire” are the Arkharov brigade. These are hired workers who do not live in these places and are only interested in their earnings.
Detachment of Arkharovites
Valentin Rasputin in “Fire,” a summary of which is presented in this article, describes the essence of the Arkharov detachment. They are carriers of camp concepts. Therefore, when the main character tries to throw himself into the fire, he is dissuaded because they view work only as a duty and are not ready to risk their lives for the sake of a common cause.
Because of his inherent integrity, they do not like Ivan Petrovich. In Rasputin's "Fire", the content of which is worth knowing to every lover of his work, they personify the dark side of impending progress.
The story of Ivan Petrovich
At the same time, Ivan Petrovich himself is a simple and sincere person. He was born in the village of Yegorovka. During the Great Patriotic War he was a tank driver.
Already in peacetime, it became known that the village would soon be flooded. There is a direct connection here with another story by Rasputin - “Farewell to Matera”. Ivan Petrovich also knows about this. But unlike the others, he is in no hurry to leave. Only in extreme cases does he move to Sosnovka, where the events of the story unfold.
The main character selflessly runs into one of the food warehouses. At the same time, he notices how many supplies there are, although everyone has always been told that there is not enough food. Here the hero in the summary of the story “Fire” by Rasputin begins to reason when life has gone awry. He comes to the conclusion that everything changed when they started cutting down the forest. This is stupid work that destroys both the nature around and the person himself.
Because of her, more and more frivolous people are coming to Sosnovka, who are only after easy money. At the same time, crime in rural areas is increasing. They begin to treat all conscientious and honest people with suspicion.
The main thing for Ivan Petrovich remains absolute values, which he is ready to actively defend.
Antipode of the main character
In Rasputin's "Fire", in a very brief summary, it is necessary to mention the antipodean protagonist. This is Afonya Bronnikov. He believes that the main thing is to live honestly and not steal. Set a lesson for everyone around you by example.
Rasputin and his main character categorically disagree with this. They believe that everyone is already too late to set an example.
At the fire, everyone is transformed when the fire gets close to the vodka. Arkharovites and local residents save her, lining up in a chain and managing to get drunk along the way. Only Ivan Petrovich is trying to save the vegetable oil. A real psychological drama unfolds in the soul of the main character.
Nobody helps him. He and his wife watch in horror as the remains of a manufactured goods warehouse are robbed.
By the way, he and his wife have been together for more than 30 years. She's a librarian. "Fire" is a work by Rasputin, in which the author consciously idealizes their relationship. According to him, they have complete mutual understanding.
Life in Sosnovka
While rescuing provisions from a warehouse, Ivan Petrovich reflects on his future in Sosnovka. In his opinion, his entire life ahead is slowly losing all meaning. For him, the main thing in work is not wealth, as for Afonya, but some kind of creativity. But after moral foundations collapse around him, he gives up.
In Rasputin's "Fire", a summary of the chapters is described in this article, a conversation between the protagonist and Afonya is given. He asks why Ivan Petrovich is going to leave. He admits that he is tired. When Afonya begins to lament who Egorovka will now be left with. Ivan Petrovich amazes him with his confidence - Egorovka is in each of us.
The denouement of the story
Over time, the fire intensifies. Flour is mostly saved. But at the same time, almost all participants get very drunk. The storekeeper complains that the warehouses are heavily looted. And not so much was burned as much as it was dispersed. Ivan Petrovich loses consciousness in complete powerlessness.
A fight breaks out between drunk Arkharovites, which results in two corpses. The next morning the ashes are cordoned off. Everyone is waiting for the arrival of a commission from the center, which must assess the damage and establish the causes of the fire. Confused, Ivan Petrovich asks his neighbor Afonya what they will do next. What he reassures him about is that all that remains is to live.
At the end of the story, Ivan Petrovich goes to the spring forest, where he seeks rest and tranquility. He feels that nature is waking up around him. He expects that she will be the one to show him the way and help a lost person.
Analysis of Rasputin's story
Many researchers note that Rasputin in “Fire”, the analysis is in this article, continues the theme of studying the life of people who became forced migrants. For the first time he brings it up in the story "Farewell to Matera". This work, in some way, is its continuation.
The characters in this story move from a village to an urban settlement. They find themselves locked in it. It’s like living in a grave, admits the main character Ivan Petrovich.
The fire allows the author and the reader to clearly see who is worth what. Helps to explore the past and present of the characters in the work. During a fire, people discover that the fire contains goods they have never seen before. And they didn’t even suspect that they were in their warehouses. These are scarce food products and foreign knitwear. Taking advantage of the confusion, some begin not to save valuables from the fire, but engage in real looting.
Social catastrophe
For Rasputin, the fire is an obvious symbol of the social catastrophe that is approaching Sosnovka. The author is looking for an explanation for this phenomenon.
One of the reasons for the moral decay of society is that in Sosnovka no one is engaged in agriculture. People only harvest timber. That is, they take from nature without providing anything in return. There are many visitors in the village who arrived for a short time to work. Therefore, it does not develop, looks untidy and uncomfortable. The story represents the psychology of the degeneration of a peasant farmer into a dependent who only destroys the nature around him.
The reader is conveyed acute anxiety from the ruthless destruction of nature that occurs on the pages of the story. Due to the large volume of work that needs to be done, many workers are required. Therefore, they recruit everyone, often just anyone.
Social strata mix in Sosnovka. A coherent society is disintegrating before our eyes. In just two decades, the concept of morality in the village is changing. What was previously not allowed or accepted becomes acceptable.
A striking detail is that in Sosnovka the houses do not even have front gardens. Everyone realizes that this is only temporary housing. Only the main character, Ivan Petrovich, remains true to his life principles. He has his own ideas about good and evil. He not only works honestly, but also worries about the decline of morals and strives to change this situation. But he finds virtually no support among those around him.
He tries to prevent the Arkharovites from establishing power, but they take revenge on him by puncturing the tires of the car. They constantly do petty mischief. Either sand will be poured into the carburetor, or the brake hoses on the trailer will be damaged, or a beam that almost kills the main character.
In the end, Ivan Petrovich and his wife decide to leave. They want to head to the Far East. One of their sons lives there. But even here the main character cannot leave Sosnovka. Afonya begins to reproach him, asking who will remain if people like them leave. Ivan Petrovich does not dare to take this step.
It is worth noting that there are enough positive characters in the story. This is the wife of the main character Alena, and the old uncle Hampo, and the controversial head of the site Boris Timofeevich Vodnikov.
The key to understanding the essence of the work remains the symbolic description of nature. If at the very beginning of the story, when it’s March, she seems to be in a daze. Then towards the end of the work it calms down before the coming blossoming. Walking on the spring earth, Ivan Petrovich expects that it will lead him to the right path.
“Fire” is the last major work of the famous Russian writer (1937 - 2015). It can be considered a logical continuation of the previous story - “Farewell to Matera” (1978).
The scene of the action is Yegorovka, a bivouac-type village, where people from the flooded village of Sosnovka were forced to move, by which Matera is clearly meant.
Some of the characters in “Fire” seem to have “migrated” here from the pages of “Farewell to Matera.” For example, Klavka Strigunova and the “Egorov spirit” Uncle Misha Hampo, who is very reminiscent of Bogodul, the guardian and old-timer of Matera.
The main character of "Fire" is the driver Ivan Petrovich Egorov. The choice of a man for this role was unusual for Rasputin - by that time the expression “Rasputin’s old women” had already become a commonplace in Russian literary criticism. However, by that time the old women were no longer alive, and Rasputin had no one to write about. It is no coincidence that after the “Fire” he did not create anything outstanding or memorable; he plunged headlong into journalism and social activities.
The situation prevailing in Sosnovka is far from normal. But, as the story says, “the light did not turn over immediately and not in one fell swoop.” To understand how mature the current “trouble” is, Rasputin introduces a second, retrospective narrative plan.
After the arable land was flooded, people had to look for a new occupation. And they found it and began to cut down the forest. Moreover, the territories were cleared out like a comb, leaving no undergrowth.
Along with the change in occupations, morals began to change. People became embittered and became strangers to each other. Over the course of twenty years, drunkenness has developed like never before. An indicative fact: in just four years, almost as many people died from drunken fights and stabbings as in the local villages, which later merged into Sosnovka, during the entire war. There is no trace left of the former village and the peasant spirit. The locals partially survived, partially were taken over by the seekers of the long ruble, who earned money easily and spent money just as easily. In the story they are called “Arkharovites”, and are remembered not so much by their names, but rather as a kind of social phenomenon.
It has long been noted: good, due to the conviction that it is right, does not tend to unite, while evil, being in constant fear of exposure and punishment, inevitably groups and gathers around a strong personality. And if there is no such person, the unwritten law of mutual responsibility comes into play. The “Arkharovites” became a force when people began to live on their own, and when they realized it, it was too late, “they tried to break them up, but it didn’t work.” And so it turned out that although there were “hundreds of people in the village, a dozen seized power.” Local residents try to stay away from the new masters of life and not notice the outrages they are committing.
As a result, good and evil mixed up, and “the hut on the edge with windows on both sides moved to the center.” And now the “strong man” Boris Timofeevich, thanks to whom discipline on the site is still somehow maintained, takes a couple of bottles of vodka to his “wild brigade” from his paycheck to the cutting area so that they don’t scatter to the surrounding areas. “Our people” are ready to warm their hands even in a fire, like the old woman who collects bottles of intoxicating drink from burning warehouses, like Klavka Strigunova, who fills her pockets with boxes of jewelry, like the one-armed Savely, carrying bags of flour to his own bathhouse in the midst of general confusion and turmoil. . Two or three people who at least somehow try to defend and preserve the morals and customs of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers are subjected to severe persecution. For Ivan Petrovich, for example, they either pour sand into the fuel tank, or pierce the slopes, or, as if by chance, open up the front garden in front of the house, or even make a formal attempt on his life.
Ivan Petrovich’s friend, Afonya Bronnikov, believes that in the current situation a personal example is enough: to work conscientiously, not to cheat, not to steal - and that’s enough: let those who have eyes see. “Silence is also a method of action and persuasion.” Egorov is not sure of this. His life position is active; he is unable to console himself with personal decency alone. His soul seems to be at rest, there is no feeling of home, no confidence in the future, even despite the support and support of his wife Alena. He is tired of unbelief, of the inability to resist evil, and no income can sustain him. Egorov decides to leave Sosnovka. He has a few days left to work. Here, at the limit of his mental strength, Ivan Petrovich hears the cries of “fire”! “Ivan Petrovich’s soul was so frenzied and dreary that it seemed to him as if screams were coming from him: his soul was also on fire.”
The title of the story can be taken in two ways. Firstly, a very real and serious fire breaks out in food warehouses in Sosnovka: “there has never been such a serious fire since the village stood.” There could be many reasons for this: simple negligence or a desire to hide thefts, shortages, or cover up their tracks. But, secondly, it is symbolic that the warehouses, located in the shape of the letter L, are so close to the huts that the entire village is ready to be engulfed in fire: “it was occupied in such a place that, having caught fire, it would burn without a trace.”
It is not without reason that Rasputin put a line from a folk song as an epigraph to the story: “The village is burning, the native is burning...” A reader familiar with this song will definitely remember the continuation: “My whole homeland is burning.” Thus, the fire in Sosnovka highlights many problems of the country and the people as a whole. This was especially true in the year that perestroika began.
The rapidity of the advance of the disaster dictates to Rasputin a special form of narration: chopped phrases, short chapters, while in the memoirs of Ivan Petrovich, measuredness, leisurely, and thoroughness prevail.
It is also significant that in this story nature is almost completely excluded from the narrative. In a barren village you can rarely find a solitary rowan or birch tree. But in the finale, the landscape turns out to be necessary for the plot of Rasputin. An extremely generalized image of the earth appears - quiet and sad after a night of misfortune, lying in loose snow. The arrival of spring awakens her from sleep and sorrowful torpor. “No land is rootless,” the author is sure. The fire that occurs in this context is perceived both as punishment and as cleansing.
The ending of the story allows for different readings: either Ivan Petrovich leaves the village forever, or goes to the “holy abode of nature” to gain strength there to continue the struggle. It must be no coincidence that Egorov firmly answers Afonya Bronnikov’s question: “we will live.” He still doesn’t know what is more in him - fatigue or agreement, but his step becomes confident and even, “as if he had finally taken him onto the right road.”
And again in the finale the symbolic image of a silent land appears. However, the author is not sure of her silence. And the story is crowned with three rhetorical questions: “What are you, our silent land, how long are you silent? And are you silent? The ending can be considered open, open to the future.
Pavel Nikolaevich Malofeev
Composition
The story “Fire” was published in 1985. In this story, the author continues to examine the life of the people who moved after the flooding of the island from the story “Farewell to Matera.” People were resettled in an urban-type settlement (Sosnovka). The main character of the story, Ivan Petrovich Egorov, feels exhausted morally and physically: “like in a grave.”
The situation with the fire in the story allows the author to explore the present and the past. Warehouses and goods that people had not seen on the shelves are burning (sausages, Japanese rags, red fish, a Ural motorcycle, sugar, flour). Some people, taking advantage of the confusion, are stealing what they can. In the story, the fire is a symbol of disaster for the social atmosphere in Sosnovka. Rasputin tries to explain this by retrospective analysis. In Sosnovka they do not engage in agricultural work; they harvest timber without ensuring its reproduction. The forest won't last long. That's why they don't monitor the village. It is “uncomfortable and unkempt”; the dirt was mixed using machinery “to the point of black sour cream foam.” The story reveals the degeneration of the psychology of the farmer and grain grower into the psychology of a dependent who destroys nature.
“It would be better if we came up with a different plan - not just for cubic meters, but for souls! So that it can be taken into account how many souls have been lost, gone to hell, gone to the devil, and how many are left!” - Ivan Petrovich gets excited in the argument.
The reader feels acute anxiety from the picture of the ruthless conquest of nature. A large volume of work requires a large number of workers, often random ones. The writer describes a layer of “superfluous” people, indifferent to everything, who cause discord in life.
They were joined by the “Arkharovites” (organizational recruitment brigade), who brazenly put pressure on everyone. And the local residents were at a loss before this evil force. The author, through the reflections of Ivan Petrovich, explains the situation: “... people scattered all over themselves even earlier...”
Social strata in Sosnovka were mixed. There is a disintegration of the “common and harmonious existence.” Over the twenty years of living in the new village, morality has changed. What “was not supposed to be accepted, became supposed and accepted.
In Sosnovka, houses don’t even have front gardens, because these are temporary housing anyway. Ivan Petrovich remained faithful to the previous principles, the norms of good and evil. He works honestly and worries about the decline of morals. And it finds itself in the position of a foreign body. Ivan Petrovich's attempts to prevent the Ninth's gang from taking over power end in the gang's revenge. Either they will puncture the tires of his car, then they will pour sand into the carburetor, then they will cut the brake hoses to the trailer, or they will knock out the rack from under the beam, which almost kills Ivan Petrovich.
Ivan Petrovich has to get ready with his wife Alena to leave for the Far East to visit one of his sons. Afonya Bronnikov asks him reproachfully: “You leave, I’ll leave—who will stay?.. Eh! Are we really going to leave it like that?! Let's clean it down to the last thread and throw it away! And here you go - take it if you're not too lazy! Ivan Petrovich will never be able to leave.
There are many positive characters in the story: Ivan Petrovich’s wife Alena, old uncle Misha Hampo, Afonya Bronnikov, head of the timber industry section Boris Timofeevich Vodnikov. Descriptions of nature are symbolic. At the beginning of the story (March) she is lethargic and numb. At the end there is a moment of calm, before blossoming. Ivan Petrovich, walking on the spring earth, “as if he had finally been carried out on the right road.”
Other works on this work
“For whom the bell tolls” by V. Rasputin? (based on the works “Farewell to Matera”, “Fire”) Why does a person live? (Based on the story “Fire” by V. G. Rasputin) Moral issues of modern prose The story "Fire" The drama of folk life in the story “Farewell to Matera” and “Fire” Genre originality of the story "Fire" by Rasputin V.G.Two feelings are wonderfully close to us -
The heart finds food in them -
Love for the native ashes,
Love for fathers' coffins.
Based on them since centuries
By the will of God himself
Human independence
The key to his greatness.
A.S. Pushkin
In terms of genre, V. G. Rasputin’s story “Fire” (1985) can be defined as a parable, because the village of Sosnovka, where the work takes place, is depicted by the author as a reduced model of a huge country - the Soviet Union.
The plot of the story is very simple: on a March evening in a logging village on the banks of the Angara, the warehouses at the only village store caught fire. All residents came running to put out the fire, because, firstly, there was food in the warehouses and, secondly, the fire could spread to residential buildings. Thus, the story describes one event and several options for people’s behavior in the same circumstances, as it should be in a parable, where philosophical problems concerning the world and man are reflected in a simple plot. The narrative in the parable should be compressed to the limit, but the author violates this artistic principle: the main character Ivan Petrovich Egorov, while at a fire, notices important details in the behavior of people he knows and does not know, recalls his native village of Egorovka and recent events from his own life. In other words, the picture of the fire acquires numerous additional episodes, which deepens the content of the parable and turns the work into a social and philosophical story-parable.
Fire is one of those dangerous situations in which the characters and relationships of people appear very clearly. The fire in Sosnovka divided the residents of the village into three unequal groups. The first includes “reliable” and honest people who make the right decisions, skillfully fight fire, and selflessly save the public good. From this group, Rasputin describes in detail Ivan Petrovich, his neighbor and fellow countryman Afonya Bronnikov, the head of the logging site Boris Timofeevich Vodnikov (it was he who turned out to be the informal leader, whose orders are carried out by the people who came running to the fire), tractor driver Semyon Koltsov, the “self-made” (15) watchman uncle Misha Hampo. These people understand that first of all it is necessary to save not the wine department of the warehouse, not Japanese consumer goods, but products - flour, butter, sugar. They quickly and skillfully dismantle the roof of the flour warehouse to cut off the fire, and then with the last of their strength they drag the sacks into the yard. As a result of such friendly actions, only a few people save the main food supplies.
The second group includes the confused residents of Sosnovka, who rush around near the warehouses, pull whatever they can from the fire and dump it all on the dirty snow in the middle of the yard. There is little sense in such actions, because the goods saved from the fire still spoil - they are trampled into the dirt. In this group was Ivan Petrovich’s wife, Alena; here you can also include the guy whom Afonya Bronnikov sent for a crowbar. The guy returned quickly, without a scrap, but with amazing news: the men rolled out a Ural motorcycle - the dream of every taiga dweller - from the warehouse. Just recently, the director of the store, Kachaev, swore and swore that he did not have a motorcycle, but it turned out that he himself was harnessing a scarce car for some necessary person. An indignant guy will run away without getting involved in useful work.
The third group includes those who came to the fire to “warm their hands.” These are newcomers, whom Ivan Petrovich calls “Arkharovites,” and local residents, stealing amid general panic. The Arkharovites deftly knock down locks from a wine warehouse, cheerfully save boxes of vodka, and at the same time manage to get drunk. They are of little help in a fire; on the contrary, you need to keep an eye on them so that some drunken daredevil does not burn in the fire or steal something. Ivan Petrovich did not expect anything sensible from these dissolute, unattached fellows, but was deeply indignant when he saw a local old man, one-armed Savely, dragging a bag of flour saved from the fire into his bathhouse, and some old woman collecting bottles with vodka, which the Arkharovites stole in the general confusion and threw them over the warehouse fence into the alley for reserve.
So, the residents of Sosnovka failed to defeat the fire and save the warehouses: there were very few worthwhile, useful people, the majority were useless, and there were an offensively large number of thieves and drunkards. The fire demonstrated complete discord among Sosnovka residents even in the face of common misfortune. This exhausts the content of the parable, but Rasputin not only records the discord, he thinks about its reasons. Ivan Petrovich’s wife Alena, seeing the behavior of people at the fire, asks her husband a question: “Why are we, Ivan, like that?” (5). This question can be clarified: why are we so divided socially and morally, “why are there so many careless people and paraphernalia in the world? And how did it happen that we surrendered to their mercy, how did it happen?” (7).
Rasputin, talking about the history of Sosnovka, talks about the moral problems of modern society. The village consists of residents of six villages flooded by the Bratsk hydroelectric power station reservoir. The settlers received new houses and jobs, but the old friendly village life in Sosnovka did not work out. Because, Rasputin believes, a person needs a sense of roots, a sense of stability, which he was deprived of with the resettlement. Residents know that in five to ten years the entire forest around will be cut down and they will have to move to a new place. Hence the reluctance of people to equip and decorate their lives: Ivan Petrovich notes that in Sosnovka no one plants flowers in their front gardens, few people cultivate their gardens or keep livestock. Peasant thriftiness and thoroughness were replaced by an easy, predatory attitude towards life: food can be bought in a store, there is no need to save the forest around for children and grandchildren, there is no need to hold on to the whole world either. In other words, high state authorities and the people themselves are thoughtlessly squandering the wealth of the earth, and at the same time losing the main moral values. As a result, the entire village was unable to cope with the fire, and the Arkharovites began to set the rules for all life in Sosnovka. “How did it happen that they took possession of the entire village? There are hundreds of people in the village, and a dozen have seized power... - Ivan Petrovich thinks and answers himself: “People scattered in their own way even earlier” (13).
Why did this happen? Rasputin is convinced that it is not enough for a person to have a home and a job, that is, the necessary material conditions of existence; The moral foundations of life are no less important for a person. Ivan Petrovich calls all this together “the four supports of a person”: “a house with a family, work, people with whom you celebrate holidays and everyday life, and the land on which your house stands. All four are more important than the other. If someone limps, the whole world tilts” (16). The validity of these arguments is confirmed by Ivan Petrovich’s memories of life in his native village - the flooded Yegorovka. Memory should be added to the “four supports,” which logically follows from the memories of Ivan Petrovich. Unmemorable people turn into Arkharovites who go to the cemetery to relieve themselves.
The fire highlighted not only the moral problems of modern life, but also social ones. The blatant mismanagement of the village authorities was revealed: the only fire engine had long been dismantled for spare parts, the fire extinguishers in store warehouses had long since dried up, and they could not find a water truck at the right time. The head of the timber industry enterprise and the director of the store are in the city at the next meeting. Nobody listens to the chief engineer, who began to take charge of the fire, since he does not enjoy authority among people. It is not only the one-armed Savely who commits unpunished theft and extortion, but also the store management itself: when they opened the burning warehouses, they saw deposits of such goods that had never been on the shelves. Work in the timber industry enterprise has turned into window dressing: the Arkharovites laugh at the “hero of struggle and labor” (13) Ivan Petrovich, and at the meeting he himself demonstratively refuses the carpet - a reward for the winner of socialist competition (13).
The moral climate in the village has changed: the residents of Sosnovka have learned to look askance at anyone who “extorts rights in the old fashioned way and talks about conscience” (9). Ivan Petrovich experiences this himself: someone deliberately tore up his front garden, another time damaged his car, and in a logging site he barely had time to jump away from a heavy support falling on him. A hopeless, unrighteous and at the same time thoughtless life naturally leads to uncontrolled drunkenness. The Arkharovites found time to get drunk even in the confusion of the fire, and Ivan Petrovich is amazed by the calculations of the director of the Sosnovsk school: approximately an equal number of Sosnovka residents died during the four years of the Patriotic War and over the last four years of peaceful life (9). Only now people die not for the freedom of the Motherland, but from drunken shooting and stabbing, from drunken swimming in the river or from drunken work in a logging site, that is, due to their own carelessness and carelessness.
It should be noted that an important artistic feature of the story “Fire” is its journalistic nature, which consists in the fact that the author’s ideas and assessments are expressed not only through artistic images and scenes, but also openly, through direct statements. These statements are given in the story from the perspective of the main character, but it is quite obvious that the writer completely shares them. This refers to Ivan Petrovich’s reasoning about “easy people”, about drunkenness, about changing moral guidelines in modern society, about human happiness, about the modern “good person” (16) and others. Rasputin considered it necessary to openly express his attitude to the social and moral issues raised in the work, although these journalistic interruptions violate the artistic integrity of the story, complicate the plot and weaken the compositional unity of the entire work.
To summarize the above, it is necessary to repeat that “Fire” is a social and philosophical story-parable that represents the taiga village of Sosnovka as Soviet society in miniature at a certain historical moment - in the 80s of the 20th century. As it should be in a parable, there is no plot dynamics in the story, but there are thoughts of the main character, developing into the author’s journalistic digressions, about order (or rather, disorder) and people in Sosnovka. In the story, Rasputin depicts not a process, but a certain result of the social and moral development of society: the fire aggravated what had already existed in life a long time ago - discord between people and in the souls of people.
The writer offers his explanation of the social changes taking place before his eyes: rapidly, thanks to technological progress, the world is changing, so the person himself inevitably changes. Rasputin understands that it is impossible to stop technological progress, but at the same time he does not want to put up with the fact that Russian people are losing their best moral qualities: conciliarity, conscientiousness, understanding of nature, truth-seeking. These traits of the Russian character helped the people survive various disasters in the past: wars, famine, ruin. Now the time has come for the test of satiety and disunity. Will the Russians be able to overcome this scourge? Rasputin leaves the ending of the story open: the reader must decide for himself.