It is time for the Russian writer to once again become an echo of the people and express what has never happened with unprecedented power, in which there will be pain, love, insight, and a person renewed in suffering.

V. Rasputin. My Manifesto

V. G. Rasputin is perceived by his contemporaries as a writer who is able to solve the "eternal" questions of human existence in an artistically convincing and psychologically reliable manner using local material, and to pose problems of national, acute social and universal significance.

The author's creative work ranges from the first novel "Money for Maria" (1967) to short stories of recent years, such as " Women's Conversation "(1994), " To the same Land "(1995), "Vision" (1997), "Unexpectedly" (1997), " New Profession"(1998), "Izba" (1999), has a certain unity - the unity of idea, pathos and style. ""Farewell to the Mother", - S. Semenova notes, - is not so much a story about a certain specific flooding of a Siberian island, but a philosophical story that raises the question of the boundaries and moral limits of progress <...> The view of old woman Daria makes the most important changes in the perception and understanding of the world, not one-dimensional and momentary, but deep, connected with human involvement in the universal, cosmic life, and in the ancestral chain of generational succession" (Semenova S. G., Valentin Rasputin, Moscow, 1987, p. 130).

An indisputable fact is Rasputin's fresh analytical view of reality. The writer's work reflects significant trends in the development of Russian prose in the last decades of the XX century, which are also focused in the works of V. Belov, V. Shukshin, V. Astafyev, F. Abramov, E. Nosov: interest in the inner world, moral search of a person, to his spiritual and emotional state. The soul of the sixty-year-old Pashuta, the heroine of the story "In the same land", who worked most of her life on the "construction site of socialism" in Bratsk and does not have the money to bury her mother brought "for the winter" from the village in a Christian way, we realize "trevo-

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state of poor villages" (A. Platonov's phrase), the current situation in our country, we are imbued with pain for the civil pain of another person: "At the grave of the mother, when she stands in front of the grave <...> when the Judge looks closely at what is happening there inglorious and who started it, she will not hide < ... > Lord, what kind of world is this, if he decided to do without good people, if everything that gives birth and nourishes good, went to the dump?! " (V. Rasputin. In the same land, Moscow, 2001, p. 323).

Accuracy and accuracy of the phrase is a characteristic feature of Rasputin's style. The narrative string in his works does not "sag", it remains in constant tension, whether he writes about the changes taking place in man and the world, when people leave the natural world, crippled by them, go to the virtual world, crippling them, whether he talks about the spirituality of love, about the orphanhood of a child who has become a" toy " in the future. in the hands of "unkind people", warning: "I wouldn't break it" ("Unexpectedly").

Rasputin writes with pain in his heart about the destruction of the "eternal order", about the ruin of the village, personifying it in two or three phrases: "There was no collective farm, no state farm, no village council, no shop, no medical center, no school - everything was taken away to no one knows where under the new rules. They let the village go to its full, paradisiacal freedom, to an impotent land, stripped away the centuries-old chains, unharnessed it from all its yokes-go for a walk on all four sides! < ... > With the earth, with the will, unbound, abandoned -it lies under the Lena bank and waits, less and less sober from its unaccustomed freedom, for someone to come along. should I give myself to be brought bread?... " ("To the same land").

The narrative chord remains tense when Rasputin writes about the moral precepts that are passed down from older generations to younger ones, using the poetry of living antiquity, recreating the art of ancient Russian conversation with its magic of sounds and rhythms, and when he reflects on the unity of man with nature, clarifying the ancient, age-old meanings of words such as " father's limits", "sky", "stars", "coast", "ringing". The Russian language, under the writer's pen, conveys both the divinity of the world and the beauty of a person living in harmony with nature: "I began to hear ringing at night: as if a long string stretched across the sky is being touched, and it responds with a languid, clear, howling sound < ... > It no longer seems like vegetable philosophizing, as if we are all connected in a single chain of life and in a single meaning - and people, and trees, and birds <...> But you can't get enough of this world-just here is your eternal father's limits" ("Vision").

Valentin Rasputin sees the good of people in their unity, in opposition to evil. In his prose, problems related to the moral foundations of universal existence, "the ability of infinite life development" (A. Platonov) come to the fore. Pi-

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the reader is concerned about "the involuntary guilt of everyone for allowing evil" (Rasputin V. My Manifesto / / Our Contemporary. 1997. N 3. P. 6). Warning society against "life on the edge", from "the end of the world" (Rasputin's phrases), the writer raises questions about the inadmissibility of the" Argali " position in life. Asking herself the question: "How did what started here turn out to be what it is?!", the heroine from the story "To the same land", who at the age of eighteen ran away to a construction site on a Hangar, "where everything thundered, glowed, boiled and whirled", in her old age talks about good and evil. zle: "Pashuta now did not even know why it happens that a person is left alone. In my youth, I would have said that to do this, you need to be too unsociable or proud, not to have warmth in your soul for those with whom life brings together. Now everything is different, everything must be judged anew."..> How bears lie down in their dens in winter oppression and rarely show their faces, only when necessary. In some common fault, in a common indulgence of evil, hide their eyes - both those who consider themselves guilty and those who do not" ("To the same land").

In reflecting the popular vision of the world, the writer attaches great importance to language. According to Rasputin, "language is the blood of literature"; and " the greatest misfortune of literature is its lack of language, thinness, and erasure." In an interview with Literaturnaya Gazeta, the writer emphasized:: "And no matter how patriotic or moral the book pretends to be, without a deep Russian language, neither one nor the other can be. The writer's patriotism is primarily in the possession of the native word, in the ability to become a wizard when you take up the pen "(Lit. gazeta. 2002. N 14. P. 11).

The deep Russian language allows Rasputin to talk with his readers about universal morality, eternal values, morality, and create images of heroes who are carriers of ethical issues. Language in the writer's prose acts as one of the forms of life in which the world-comprehending consciousness manifests itself. Rasputin's characters have a philosophical mindset, reflect on the place of man in the system of the world order, on the meaning of man's arrival in the world. Before her death, the old woman Anna from the story" The Last Term "recalls the words that her son Mikhail, himself almost a boy, said to her after the birth of his first child Volodka:" Look, mother: I'm from you, he's from me, and someone else from him <...> That's how it all goes". The author's voice conveys the people's perception of life: "He only realized that this is how it all goes, went and will go forever and ever until the end of the world, when this simple, no-one-bypassing truth, without closing on him, threw a new ring around him in its endless chain <...> He is mortal, as everything in the world is mortal, except the earth and the sky." Man in Rasputin's prose appears as the personification of life, its guarantee, as the continuer of the human race and the bearer of eternal moral foundations. "Life philosophy" that conveys the people-

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Rasputin's characters comprehend the new worldview of connecting people, the ideal life order, throughout the entire space of his creative path: "And her own life suddenly seemed kind, obedient, and successful to her."..> Is it necessary to complain that she gave it all to the children, if that's what a person comes to the world for, so that the world never gets poor without people and does not grow old without children " ("The Last Term").

In Rasputin's prose, the phrase "common organism" becomes a succinct way-a concept that includes moral ideas about the interconnectedness of people. "A person cannot be needed only for himself, he is part of a common cause, a common organism" - this thought from the inner monologue of the heroine of the story "To the same land" expresses the moral principles of the writer himself, who warns his readers against forgetting "human foundations".

The idea of a person's belonging to the family, home, family, generation, nation, planet, and the general cycle of life runs through all the works of the writer. In parallel with realistic ways of portrayal, Rasputin uses myth, parable, folklore elements, rituals and traditions for artistic generalization, where the primary elements of being come to the fore: life, death, children, family, water, bread. The idea of the involvement of the family and the chain of generations in the story "Farewell to the Mother" finds a mythological and folklore embodiment in the symbolic image of "threads of life". The heroine of the story, a bright-hearted person Daria feels her immortality in the chain of generations. Looking at her son and grandson, Pavel and Andrey, sitting side by side, Daria reflects: "Here it is, one thread with nodules. From bundle to bundle there seemed to be so many heads - where was he? My bundle is about to be stretched and smoothed out, the smooth end will be emptied so that you can't see ... so that you can tie a new one at the other end. Kuda? Which way will this thread be pulled next? What will happen? Why do you want to know what will happen? " ("Farewell to your Mother").

The peculiarity of Rasputin's writing is manifested in psychologism, in the figurative disclosure of the categories of conscience, memory, transmitted retrospectively, through the memories of the characters, through dialogues, and the author's speech. Through the mouth of Daria in "Farewell to the Mother", the writer appeals to harmony between such eternal moral concepts as memory, work, conscience, kindness, beauty, soul, reason, with the help of which the world is renewed and a person is preserved as a person. The words denoting these concepts are the most frequent in both small and large prose of the writer.: "In Russia, from time immemorial, the beauty that is decorated with the soul is revered" ("New Profession"), "We do not listen well to our soul" ("Izba"), "Whose soul is in sin, that is responsible" ("Farewell to the Mother"), " Conscience does not speak in you by itself to myself, but at your call" ("Fire"), " Truth in memory. He who has no memory has no life" ("Farewell to the Mother"). In numerous internal monologues of Daria from " Farewell to Ma-

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tera " reveals the need for everyone to dig up the truth for themselves, to live by the work of conscience. Daria remembers well her father's testament: "You, Daria, don't take too much on yourself - you'll be wrong, but take the first thing on yourself: so that you may have a conscience and not suffer from conscience."

Rasputin created a whole gallery of images of the human creator. The author's speech and the characters ' speech serve as the most important means of portraying a working woman. Such, for example, is Agafya in the story "The Hut", who built the house and stove with her own hands during the" general end of the world "on the Hangar, when all the villages from both banks were "dumped in one pile before flooding": "She knew how to do any men's work"...> Every pothole, every bump on them (in the fields. - VS) Agafya knew better than moles and dents on her body-she plowed by hand, manually reaped rye and barley and hooked peas, manually, peeling and burning her hands, pulled sow thistle... > With surprise and shame Agafya looked at the peasant buying an ax handle in the store, or at the woman who had eaten up, across the thick, hiring a worker to dig potatoes on three hundred acres." Images of women-Daria, Agafya, Anna, Natalia, Gali-symbolize the reborn forces of nature. In a concentrated form, the image of a woman - the" soul of the world " - also appears in connection with the storyline of Alyona in Rasputin's novel "Fire". The archetypal mother Alyona is a link between the past, the cult of the mother in labor, the Mother of God, symbolizes renewal, the word of God: "In this small, efficient figure, as in the all-united trinity, everything that a woman can be came together <...> Alyona and under the bombing would not have forgotten to use the house. In the mouth of Alena Rasputin puts a question about the essence of man: "Why are we, Ivan, so-and-so?!".

For Rasputin, the word is an expression of the national spirit, the embodiment of life, the human soul. Such expressive means of language as metaphors, epithets, and comparisons are not only the intrinsic value of his work, but also serve both the aesthetic and ethical goals of the writer. Thus, the writer's anxiety for the destruction of the hearth-house is transmitted through the personification of natural forces, through the likening of objects and phenomena of dead nature, the inanimate world to the feelings and properties of man, the living world in general: "the village has stopped giving birth"; "axes are knocking less and less on new buildings"; "and life has begun to shrink in the village from year to year". With pain, as if about a living person, Rasputin writes about the village hut - "old"," blackened"," cracked"," settled"," orphaned", but still"somehow makar with the last of his strength kept dignity". The hut does not accept a person who does not want to "make a nest", "clean up after himself, as it should be".

The writer uses epithets that embody metaphors to convey his concept of salvation from "life on the edge": "Sighed

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Agafya's hut sighed so heavily and painfully as it said good - bye that all its crowns and emaciated flesh creaked." The ending of the story "Izba" is open, looking forward to the future with hope. The theme of the house does not take on a tragic color: everything depends on the person himself. Agafya's hut will survive even after the death of the hostess, it will manage the fire itself, when the drunken" without memory " guests, in the dead of night, lighting the stove, do not close the stove door, and the hut will catch fire: "The floor charred by the fire near the stove and the sooty walls are worn down, as if in a special beauty, in a sad color, < ... > the stove is not damaged at all, the windows, like those of any living creature, look from the inside < ... > And in the remnants of this life, in its final squalor, they clearly slumber and seem to respond, if you call out, such perseverance, such endurance, built in here initially, that there is no measure for them."

The connection of a person with his native land, the inseparability of human fate from the fate of his native home, land - one of the cross-cutting themes of Rasputin's work. The writer reflects himself and encourages the reader to reflect on the age-old and shaken moral pillars, on the connection and rupture of times, thereby preparing changes in public consciousness. Rasputin contrasts the bearers of moral values with modern "obsevks", "nerobey and prichdalov", "shabashnikov", embodied in the images of" arkharovtsy " - "easy people" who do not acquire a house or a vegetable garden, do not put roots in the ground, wherever they live. With pain, with bitter irony, the writer poses a painful question for society and every person about responsibility for what is happening around him: "There were, of course, drunks, where they were not found in holy Russia, but in order to get lost in a circle, to grow in it into an open, unafraid and unashamed force with the ataman and the council that rules the power - this is not, has never happened. These are our own achievements " ("Pozhar"). In Pozhar, the image of Uncle Misha Hampo - "the spirit of Yegorovsky", unselfish, sinless, guarding the common property, a "born watchman" with a charter - "do not touch a stranger", who was killed during the fire-acquires symbolic ambiguity. The image of Khampo evokes analogies with the images of holy fools in holy Russia, surrounded by a halo of inviolability.

In 2000, V. G. Rasputin was awarded the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Literary Prize "For the poignant expression of the poetry and tragedy of Russian life in connection with Russian nature and speech". The works of a writer who has a well-deserved reputation for morality organically combine form and content, form aesthetic tastes and ideals, encourage us to be creative, and remember: "It's one thing to have a mess around you, and quite another thing to have a mess inside you." ("Fire").

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