About the product
The story “The Republic of ShKID” by Belykh and Panteleev was written in 1926. The biographical book is partly dedicated to street children, their lives, joys and sorrows. The prototypes of the authors in the story were Grisha Chernykh (Yankel) and Leonid Panteleev (Lenka).
We recommend reading online a summary of “The Republic of SHKID” chapter by chapter. The retelling will be useful for the reading diary and preparation for the literature lesson.
The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.
Main characters
- Viktor Nikolaevich Sorokin (Vikniksor) is the head of the school, a decisive, principled, ideological person, an excellent teacher.
- Nikolai Gromonostsev (Gypsy) is a determined, emotional guy, the ringleader.
- Georgy Eonin (Japanese) is a smart, capable teenager who knows German well.
- Grisha Chernykh (Yankel) is a smart, well-read, very capable boy.
- Alexey Panteleev (Lenka) is Yankel’s best friend, a lively guy.
Other characters
- Mstislav Ofenbakh (Merchant) is a large, strong, good-natured guy.
- Mommy is a puny, short, one-eyed boy, a bully.
- Vorobyov (Vorobyshek) is a frail teenager with leadership qualities.
- Sashkets and Kostets are favorite teachers of Shkidov students.
- Slaenov is a speculator, a greedy, cunning and vile guy.
- Tonya Marconi is Yankel's girlfriend, whom he betrayed.
- Sergei Petrovich Aivazovsky (Crocodile) – educator and art teacher.
- Ella Andreevna Lumberg (Ellushka) is Vikniksor’s wife, a German language teacher.
Education Yunkom
The manager puts forward a proposal to legalize the circle. This is how Yunkom and a printed publication appear, bearing the same name, of which the above-mentioned guys become employees.
Initially, the rest of the students have a negative attitude towards this circle, and Pylnikov proposes to found a special reading room. When the manager leaves for the capital on business, riots begin that neither the newly created press organ nor the German teacher nicknamed Elanlum can neutralize. This is where the most exciting events of the story “The Republic of SHKID” begin, a brief summary of which tells about the most basic moments of the work.
Summary
Chapter 1. First days
The “Dostoevsky School of Social-Individual Education,” or “SHKID” for short, was an educational institution where street children found shelter. After the “revolution, famine and civil war” there were a lot of them.
However, the educational process was never able to begin, since difficult teenagers “fused together and began to make a fuss, completely unaware of the teachers.” They were led by a small and frail Vorobyov, nicknamed Sparrow.
The head of the school was Viktor Nikolaevich Sorokin, nicknamed Vikniksor. “His wife, the blond German Ella Andreevna Lumberg, or simply Ellushka, worked as an assistant.”
Chapter 2. Gypsies from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra
Soon a new student appeared at the school - the desperate Kolka Gromonostsev, nicknamed the Gypsy, who quickly took the reins of power from Sparrow, becoming the undisputed leader of the Shkids.
Chapter 3. Yankel came
Grishka Chernykh, an intelligent, capable and very well-read boy, was transferred to “SHKID”. The gypsy gave the new guy a nickname - Yankel - and quickly became friends with him.
Chapter 4. Japanese tobacco
After a week at school, Yankel demonstrated his abilities in all its glory, deftly stealing tobacco from the housekeeper together with Gypsy. They fairly divided the valuable loot among the pupils.
Chapter 5. The little man from near Smolny
One of the new pupils of the ShKID Republic turned out to be a “small, inconspicuous man” nicknamed Mommy. During the fight, one of his eyes was knocked out, and since then “he always wore a black bandage on his face.” But, despite his physical handicap, short stature and frailty, “Mommy turned out to be a very cocky and lively guy,” and he soon became a favorite among the Shkidovites.
Among the newcomers was Grisha Eonin - “smart, developed and at the same time a big bully,” who brilliantly learned German from a self-instruction manual. Among the guys, he received the nickname Japanese “for his decent resemblance to the sons of the Land of the Rising Sun.”
Chapter 6. Chaldeans
“Chaldean is an educator in Shkidian style,” and for a long time Vikniksor was unable to form a permanent staff of teachers. In order to work at SHKID, it was necessary to have “iron nerves, endurance and enormous willpower,” and not every teacher possessed these valuable qualities. However, two teachers managed to earn the sincere love and affection of the Shkidovites. These were Sashkets and Kostets, “or simply Alexander Nikolaevich Popov and Konstantin Aleksandrovich Medennikov.”
Chapter 7. Power to the people
Wanting to overcome unrest in the school using progressive methods, Vikniksor decided to introduce self-government. Thus, class prefects and kitchen and cloakroom attendants were elected. An isolation ward was introduced for the most violent ones.
Chapter 8. The Great Moneylender
Soon a new student came to school - a well-fed, well-fed Slaenov, who quickly became the main moneylender among the Shkidovites. After a while, general indignation began to grow, and Slaenov was quickly forced to leave ShKID. Thus ended “one of the difficult and dirty pages in the life book of the republic.”
Chapter 9. Strelna trembles
Wanting to restore order among the students, the head published the school “Chronicle”, which recorded “all the offenses, all the outrages” of the Shkidovites. In addition, categories from the first to the fifth were introduced, depending on behavior, as well as measures of punishment and rewards.
Chapter 10. Kaufmann von Ofenbach
A new pupil appeared at the school - the “hefty fellow” Mstislav Ofenbakh. Due to its impressive size, it was nicknamed the Merchant. Soon, Ofenbach gained a “reputation as a strong, hot-tempered, but good-natured guy.”
Chapter 11. Fire
One day Yankel woke up in the middle of the night and noticed “a small gray cloud around the light bulb” - a serious fire had broken out at the school.
Chapter 12. Lenka Panteleev
Soon after the fire, a new student appeared at the school - Lenka Panteleev. At first he was received with hostility by the guys, but over time he became a full-fledged Shkidovite.
Chapter 13. About the “Sixth Power”
A real newspaper fever began at school, which affected all the students, without exception. Thus, sixty publications were published for sixty people, but over time the circulation dropped to four school newspapers.
Chapter 14. Uliganstadt
The nickname “uligan”, derived from “hooligan”, was very honorable in “ShKID”. Soon the students formed an entire state called Uligania, the capital of which was Uligan-stadt. The Merchant was chosen as the dictator of Uligania. In addition, the constitution, coat of arms and anthem were approved in the newly created state. The Chaldeans were unanimously recognized as the fierce enemies of Uligania.
Chapter 15. Lottery Allegri
Out of boredom, the students decided to organize a lottery allegri, which “will fill Uligania’s leisure hours for a long time.” The lottery was successful, giving rise to the development of the “gambling industry” at the school.
Chapter 16. “Give me a political literacy”
Students began to increasingly turn to Vikniksor with a request to “organize a Komsomol.” The head explained that in their defective school, “almost like a prison regime,” it was forbidden to organize Komsomol cells. Then the Shkidovites asked him to include political literacy in the educational process, and Vikniksor agreed.
Chapter 17. Accounting
With the arrival of winter, a new school year began, and Vikniksor warned the children that they were moving on “to real classes” - ten lessons every day. He also warned that an accounting is planned for January 1st - “testing the knowledge acquired in the classroom.” The students began to excitedly prepare for the upcoming registration.
Chapter 18. Shkida falls in love
In the spring, “love came to the people of Shkid.” The love fever passed only Yankel, who, fearing the ridicule of his friends, acted rudely with his longtime friend, the black-eyed Tonya Marconi. Even when the guys grew up, Tonya could not forgive Grishka’s betrayal.
Chapter 19. Crocodile
Soon a new teacher and art teacher appeared at the school - Sergei Petrovich Aivazovsky, who claimed to be the nephew of the great artist. The guys gave him a nickname - Crocodile Krokodilovich, deciding among themselves that the new teacher was “junk”.
Chapter 20. Crime and Punishment
One day, Lenka Panteleev and Sashka Pylnikov, having nothing better to do, broke all the glass in the laundry room. Having learned about this, Vikniksor sent them home. To earn forgiveness, Lenka sold the gold tooth he had found earlier at a flea market, and Sashka sold his own shoes. They brought the proceeds to Vikniksor so that he could install new glass in the laundry room.
Chapter 21. "Yunkom"
Among the high school students there were those who wanted to “prepare to join the Komsomol upon leaving Shkida.” So Yankel, Yaponets and Panteleev, with the permission of Vikniksor, organized their own circle and printed organ called “Yunkom”. At first, the attitude towards the Yunkom students among other students was negative, but it changed with the advent of the Yunkom reading room.
Chapter 22. Sodom and Gomorrah
When Vikniksor went to Moscow on business, “Shkida started playing tricks.” The gypsy and Guzhban began stealing with all their might and using the proceeds to organize drinking parties.
Chapter 23. First issue
Having learned that during his absence “the school had turned into a den of thieves, into a gathering of a socially dangerous element,” Vikniksor transferred the main instigators to an agricultural technical school.
Chapter 24. Schism in the Tsek
Soon a split occurred among the Yunkom members. Best friends Yankel and Panteleev, who dreamed of fame as artists, abandoned their duties in the cell. The Japanese was extremely dissatisfied with this, and decided to accept new members into the organization. Yankel and Panteleev, in turn, began publishing their own newspaper. Over time, the future artists calmed down, losing interest in fighting the Japanese. So “Yunkom got a break and began to straighten out.”
Chapter 25. “Shkidino
Yankel and Panteleev were overcome by the “film mania”: they decided to organize their own cinematographic office, Shkidkino. “The Cinematography of Panteleev and Yankel” was very original and consisted of a series of drawings drawn on white paper, illuminated from behind by a powerful electric lamp. “The people of Shkid were not demanding” and accepted the new entertainment with a bang.
Chapter 26. Paper Panama
Having learned that a pound of paper was quite expensive, Yankel and Panteleev began collecting “old notebooks and newspapers.” They managed to earn two chervonets so that at any moment they could “go to Odessa or Baku to the film factory.”
Chapter 27. Performance
In honor of the Great October Revolution, they decided to “hold a celebration with pomp and stage a performance for this solemn day.” A sumptuous dinner was arranged for the invited guests. After the performance everyone had fun and danced.
Chapter 28. Chicks fledge
Immediately after the performance, Yankel and Panteleev came to Vikniksor with a request to let them go free swimming. They could no longer “put up with the narrow confines of the school regime” and felt the strength to live independently. So the best friends became the first SHKID graduates.
Chapter 29. The Last Mohicans
Gradually, “the Mohicans left, leaving traditions” and free places for new street children. The merchant, who had long dreamed of military glory, successfully entered a military university. The gypsy sent a letter in which he shared his joy at having found his calling - “rural work”. Yankel and Panteleev became “correspondents for some film magazine.”
Epilogue written in 1926
Three years later, Yankel and Panteleev accidentally met the Japanese, who became an assistant director. From him, friends learned about the fates of other students, who, one and all, became Komsomol members and activists. Friends came to the conclusion that “Shkida will change anyone.”
Republic of Shkid
Shkid or Shkida - this is how the “detective” students shortened the name of their educational institution - the Dostoevsky School of Social and Labor Education. Shkida arose in 1920 in Petrograd. Its founders were Viktor Nikolaevich Sorokin-Vikniksor and his wife Ella Andreevna Lumberg, a teacher of German, later known as Elanlum.
The pupils were street children who came to school from prisons or distribution points. Thus, one of the first Shkids, Kolka Gromonostsev, nicknamed the Gypsy, came from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, where the most inveterate juvenile thieves and criminals were kept. He immediately became the leader of a small team, which grinned at the head of school’s innovations: Vikniksor dreams of turning Shkida into a small republic with its own anthem and coat of arms - a sunflower stretching towards the light. Soon Grishka Chernykh, an intelligent and well-read boy, comes to school, having abandoned his studies for the sake of books and eventually ending up in a children's labor colony, and from there to Shkida, where Gypsy baptized him into Yankel. After a week of staying in Shkida, Grishka demonstrates his remarkable abilities, together with Gypsy, stealing tobacco from the housekeeper, but for the first time Vikniksor forgives the guilty. Gradually, new pupils arrive, among them the one-eyed Mommy and the Japanese - an expert in the German language, smart and well-developed. He soon gains undeniable authority by writing the Shkid anthem together with Yankel and Vikniksor.
Vikniksor distributes all students into four classes - departments, but a staff of teachers - Chaldeans in Shkidian - cannot be formed for a long time: some applicants cannot cope with rowdy students, others, having no teaching experience, are trying to somehow find a place in hungry Petrograd . Fighting for one such “teacher,” Yankel, Yaposhka, Gypsy and Sparrow raise the masses to fight the Chaldeans, and soon two teachers arrive whom Shkida will love - Alnikpop and Kostalmed.
Alarmed by the unrest, Vikniksor decides to introduce self-government: duty officers and prefects are elected by class, kitchen and wardrobe for a period of two weeks to a month. Yankel is elected head of the kitchen; An isolation ward is introduced for the incorrigible.
Soon after these innovations, Slaenov, the “great moneylender” of Shkida, comes: he begins to speculate in bread, feeding the elders, creates powerful security for himself, and soon the entire school, with the exception of Yankel, becomes dependent on him. Receiving almost his entire bread ration every day, Slaenov gets slaves who fulfill his every whim. Meanwhile, discontent is brewing - in Yankel’s kitchen, Mommy and Goga are discussing a fight plan. However, Slaenov forestalls them - the defeat of the opposition begins with Yankel, whom Slaenov manages to beat by a point for a two-thousandth supply of bread. Mommy and Yankel begin to manipulate the scales and slowly, weighing Slaenov, repay the debt, but Vikniksor replaces Yankel, who worked in the kitchen for a month and a half, with Savushka, who, under pressure from Slaenov, is forced to make notes in the bread distribution register. Having learned about this, Vikniksor puts Savushka in an isolation ward, but the rising wave of “popular anger” sweeps away Slaenov, and he flees Shkida. Slavery is abolished and debts are eliminated.
In the spring, the gubono that patronizes Shkida organizes a trip to the dacha. The fourth department, together with their teacher Count Kosetsky, steals potatoes from the kitchen, and this somewhat detracts in the eyes of the children from his dignity as an educator. Angry, Kosetsky begins to use repressive measures against the students, which leads to bullying of the teacher: they shower him with acorns, steal his underwear while swimming, dedicate a special issue of the wall newspaper “Buzovik” to the teacher and, in the end, drive the Chaldean into hysterics. Elanlum does not say anything to Vikniksor, but Buzovik falls into his hands, and, calling the editors Yankel and Yaposhka, the head invites them to start publishing the school newspaper Zerkalo. Yankel, Japanese, Gypsy and others get down to business with pleasure. Soon, interruptions in food delivery begin, and the starving Shkida repeatedly raids local gardens, digging up potatoes there. The angry Vikniksor promises to transfer those caught stealing to the Lavra, and soon this fate almost befalls the representatives of the press - Yankel and Yaposhka, but the guarantee of the entire school saves them from deserved punishment. Nevertheless, upon returning to the city, the head announces the creation of a school “Chronicle” to record all the sins of the students, starting with Yankel’s attempt to steal paints. Classes of behavior from the first to the fifth are being introduced, designed for thieves and hooligans.
In the fall, the fourth department organizes a banquet to celebrate the publication of the twenty-fifth issue of the Mirror. Before leaving the class, Yankel inspects the cast iron and does not attach any importance to the tiny coal that fell from the stove, and at night a terrible fire begins, destroying two classrooms and burning the “Mirror” file. Soon after the fire, Lenka Panteleev comes to Shkida, initially received with hostility, but then becomes a full member of the friendly Shkida family. Meanwhile, a newspaper fever begins in Shkida, engulfing Yankel and Gypsy, Jap and Mommy, Merchant and Sparrow and many others, including students of the junior departments. Three months later, the excitement subsides and out of sixty publications, only four remain. However, the Chaldeans do not have to be bored: a new state, Uligania, with its capital Uligan-stadt, is being created in Shkida; The main street of the capital bears the proud name of Kleptomanievsky Avenue, on it are the residences of the dictator - the Merchant and the People's Commissars: the People's Commissar for Military Affairs and the book publisher Yankel, the People's Commissar Pylnikov and the People's Commissar Yaposhka. Junior branches are declared colonies, an anthem, a coat of arms and a constitution are created, where the Chaldeans are declared enemies of the Empire. In the end, one of the colonies goes over to the side of the Chaldeans, arrests the dictator and carries out a coup, proclaiming Soviet power in Uligania. And soon the Shkids begin to pester Vikniksor with questions about why they don’t have a Komsomol.
On January 1, in Shkida there is an accounting - a knowledge test, to which the head of the provincial department, Lilina, comes.
And in the spring, Uligania is seized by a love fever, which is replaced by a passion for football. Languishing from idleness, Sasha Pylnikov and Panteleev break out the laundry windows with stones, and Vikniksor drives them out of Shkida, giving them, however, the opportunity to return if they replace the glass.
