Steppe and railway
One of Ai's best novels. For it the writer received the USSR State Prize. "Stormy Stop", a brief summary of which is often retold in various sources, is a novel with a philosophical orientation. The work begins with a description of the scene. This is an endless steppe with sparse vegetation - almost a desert. In the novel she is called Sary-Ozeki. The prototype of this area is the area surrounding the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. There is a railway not far from the huge airfield.
“Burnaya Stop Station”, a brief summary of which we will outline in the article, is easy to read. The same cannot be said about most semantically complex books. At the beginning of the novel, the author contrasts nature (the behavior of the fox) and the soulless civilization associated with the railway. Continuously rushing trains leave noise and debris in the steppe and frighten animals. However, it is civilization that gives material benefits to local residents. It is no coincidence that the fox, overcoming fear, returns to the railway track to find scraps.
Main characters
After describing the arena of future events, the writer introduces us to the heroes of the novel “Stormy Stop”. The summary of the following pages is related to the image of Edigei. He has been working as a trackman at the Buranny stop for many years. He is 61 years old. He began his work immediately after the war. Edigei lives in a village of eight houses, among which there are adobe huts. His wife Ukubala is as old as he is. Edigei is a man of strong character, because only strong people survive in Sarozek.
In the novel “Stormy Stop”, the summary of which you are reading, there are few characters. Edigey is a real hard worker. He always worked only conscientiously. When snowstorms and blizzards swept the railway tracks, he and his friend Kazangap cleared tens of meters of snow drifts with shovels. Young travelers laughed at such heroism and called the old men fools. At the beginning of the book, Kazangap dies.
Popular retellings today
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The story takes place in Great Britain at the end of the 19th century. An unknown man of noble birth, Graham, sinks into lethargy, but is in fact believed to be alive.
Contrast between nature and civilization
The writer Ai added an interesting touch to his novel, the summary of which is related to the unity of man and nature; he has a camel in the list of characters. Karanar is a model animal. The writer clearly admires him and describes him knowledgeably. Aitmatov was a livestock specialist by education.
His son Sabitzhan appears at Kazangap's funeral. He is the embodiment of the new century and technological progress - a time when people forgot about God, forgot how to pray and lost their soul. Sabitzhan wants only one thing - to bury his father quickly and leave for the city. He tries to amaze his fellow villagers with his knowledge, but people feel only hostility - this is what Chingiz Ai writes, the summary of which includes another thematic line, which follows the plot further.
Future and past
This is a fantastic motif associated with space. The first contact of earthlings with another civilization! No one expected such a move from the Soviet writer Aitmatov. Two cosmonauts (Soviet and American) on the Paritet orbital station went into the unknown along with the aliens. This is the fantastic storyline in the novel “Stormy Stop”. The summary (it is not necessary to break it down into chapters, because the narrative presents a single outline) will tell about the following events.
While Edigei is going to bury his dead friend, his whole life at the Buranny stop passes before his inner gaze. He remembered his first meeting with Kazangap, who persuaded a shell-shocked patient to go to Sarozek. And when the Kuttybaev family arrived at the stop, Edigei felt all the injustice of the Stalin-Beria regime. The head of the Abutalip family is arrested.
And the shortened day lasts longer than a century. Summary.
List of works abbreviated by this author Jamila Farewell, Gyulsary The White Steamship And the day lasts longer than a centuryTrains in these parts ran from east to west and from west to east...
And on the sides of the railway in these parts lay great desert spaces - Sary-Ozeki, the Middle Lands of the Yellow Steppes. Edigei worked here as a switchman at the Boranly-Buranny junction. At midnight, his wife, Ukubala, sneaked into his booth to report the death of Kazangap.
Thirty years ago, at the end of forty-four, Edigei was demobilized after a shell shock. The doctor said: in a year you will be healthy. But for now he was physically unable to work. And then he and his wife decided to join the railway: maybe there would be a place for a front-line soldier as a security guard or watchman. We met Kazangap by chance, got into conversation, and he invited the young people to Buranny. Of course, the place is difficult - desolation and lack of water, sand all around. But anything is better than toiling without shelter.
When Edigei saw the crossing, his heart sank: there were several houses on the deserted plane, and then on all sides - the steppe... He did not know then that he would spend the rest of his life in this place. Thirty of them have been near Kazangap. Kazangap helped them a lot at first, gave them a camel for milking, and gave her a baby camel, which they named Karanar. Their children grew up together. They became like family.
And they will have to bury Kazangap. Edigei was walking home after his shift, thinking about the upcoming funeral, and suddenly he felt that the ground under his feet was shaking. And he saw how far in the steppe, where the Sarozek cosmodrome was located, a rocket rose like a fiery tornado. It was an emergency flight due to an emergency on the joint Soviet-American space station Paritet. "Paritet" did not respond to signals from the joint control center - Obtsenupra - for over twelve hours. And then ships urgently took off from Sary-Ozek and from Nevada, sent to clarify the situation.
...Edigei insisted that the deceased be buried in the distant family cemetery of Ana-Beyit. The cemetery had its own history. The legend said that the Ruanzhuans, who captured Sary-Ozeki in past centuries, destroyed the memory of the captives with a terrible torture: putting a shiri - a piece of rawhide camel skin - on their heads. Drying under the sun, the shiri squeezed the slave’s head like a steel hoop, and the unfortunate man lost his mind and became a magasurt. Mankurt did not know who he was, where he was from, did not remember his father and mother - in a word, he did not recognize himself as a human being. He did not think about escaping, did the dirtiest, hardest work and, like a dog, recognized only his owner.
One woman named Naiman-Ana found her son turned into a mankurt. He tended his master's livestock. I didn’t recognize her, I didn’t remember my name, my father’s name... “Remember what your name is,” the mother begged. “Your name is Zholaman.”
While they were talking, the woman was noticed by the Ruanzhuans. She managed to hide, but they told the shepherd that this woman had come to steam his head (at these words the slave turned pale - for a mankurt there is no worse threat). They left the guy with a bow and arrows.
Naiman-Ana returned to her son with the idea of convincing him to run away. Looking around, I searched...
The arrow hit was fatal. But when the mother began to fall from the camel, her white scarf fell first, turned into a bird and flew away shouting: “Remember, whose are you? Your father is Donenby! The place where Naiman-Ana was buried began to be called the Ana-Beyit cemetery - the Mother's rest...
Early in the morning everything was ready. Kazangap's body, tightly swaddled in a thick felt felt, was placed in a trailed tractor cart. There were thirty kilometers one way, the same amount back, and burial... Edigei rode ahead on Karanar, showing the way, a tractor with a trailer rolled behind him, and an excavator brought up the rear of the procession.
Various thoughts visited Edigei along the way. I remembered those days when he and Kazangap were in power. They did all the work that was needed while on the road. Now the young people are laughing: the old fools ruined their lives, for what? So it was for a reason.
...During this time, Paritet was examined by arriving cosmonauts. They discovered that the parity astronauts servicing the station had disappeared. Then they found an entry left by the owners in the logbook. Its essence boiled down to the fact that those working at the station had contact with representatives of an extraterrestrial civilization - the inhabitants of the planet Lesnaya Grud. The Lesnogrudians invited earthlings to visit their planet, and they agreed without informing anyone, including the flight directors, because they were afraid that for political reasons they would be prohibited from visiting.
And now they reported that they were on Lesnogrudka, talked about what they saw (the earthlings were especially shocked that there were no wars in the history of the owners), and most importantly, they conveyed the request of the Lesnogrudians to visit Earth. For this purpose, aliens, representatives of a technically much more advanced civilization than the earthly one, proposed creating an interstellar station. The world did not yet know about all this. Even the governments of the parties, informed about the disappearance of the astronauts, had no information about further developments of events. We were waiting for the commission's decision.
...And meanwhile Edigei was recalling an old story that Kazangap wisely and honestly judged. In 1951, a family arrived on the move - a husband, wife and two boys. Abutalip Kuttybaev was the same age as Edigei. They did not end up in the Sarozek wilderness because of a good life: Abutalip, having escaped from a German camp, ended up in the forty-third among the Yugoslav partisans. He returned home without losing his rights, but then relations with Yugoslavia deteriorated, and, having learned about his partisan past, he was asked to submit his resignation letter of his own free will. They asked in one place, in another... Having moved from place to place many times, Abutalip’s family ended up at the Boranly-Buranny junction. It looks like no one was forcibly imprisoned, but it looks like they were stuck in saroseks for life. And this life was beyond their strength: the climate was difficult, the wilderness, the isolation. For some reason, Edigei felt sorry for Zarip most of all. But still, the Kuttybaev family was extremely friendly. Abutalip was a wonderful husband and father, and the children were passionately attached to their parents. They received help in their new place, and gradually they began to settle down. Abutalip now not only worked and took care of the house, not only fussed with the children, his and Edigei’s, but also began to read - after all, he was an educated man. He also began writing memories of Yugoslavia for children. This was known to everyone at the crossing.
By the end of the year, the auditor arrived, as usual. In between, he also asked about Abutalip. And some time after his departure, on January 5, 1953, a passenger train stopped at Buranny, which did not have a stop here, three people got out of it and arrested Abutalip. In late February it became known that the suspect Kuttybaev had died.
The sons waited for their father's return every day. And Edigei constantly thought about Zaripa with an inner readiness to help her in everything. It was painful to pretend that he didn’t feel anything special for her! One day he nevertheless told her: “Why are you being so tormented?.. After all, we are all with you (he wanted to say - me).”
Here, with the onset of cold weather, Karanar became enraged again - he began to rut. Edigei had to go to work in the morning, and therefore he released Atan. The next day, news began to arrive: in one place, Karanar killed two male camels and separated four queens from the herd; in another, he drove the owner who was riding off a she-camel. Then from the Ak-Moinak crossing they asked in a letter to take the atan, otherwise they would shoot him. And when Edigei returned home riding Karanar, he learned that Zaripa and the children had left for good. He brutally beat Karanar, had a fight with Kazangap, and then Kazangap advised him to bow at the feet of Ukubala and Zaripa, who saved him from harm and preserved him and his dignity.
This is the kind of person Kazangap was, whom they were now going to bury. We were driving and suddenly came across an unexpected obstacle - a barbed wire fence. The guard soldier told them that he had no right to let them in without a pass. The chief of the guard confirmed the same and added that in general the Ana-Beyit cemetery is subject to liquidation, and in its place there will be a new microdistrict. Persuasion did not lead to anything.
Kandagapa was buried not far from the cemetery, in the place where Naiman-Ana had her great cry.
...The commission that discussed the Lesnaya Breast proposal, meanwhile, decided: not to allow the return of former parity cosmonauts; refuse to establish contacts with the Forest Breast and isolate the near-Earth space from a possible alien invasion with a hoop of rockets.
Edigei ordered the funeral participants to go to the patrol, and he decided to return to the guardhouse and get the big bosses to listen to him. He wanted these people to understand: you cannot destroy the cemetery where your ancestors lie. When there was very little left to the barrier, a bright flash of a menacing flame shot up into the sky nearby. Then the first combat robotic missile took off, designed to destroy any objects that approached the globe. The second one rushed up behind it, and another, and another... The rockets went into deep space to create a hoop around the Earth.
The sky fell on his head, opening up in clouds of boiling flame and smoke... Edigei and the camel and dog accompanying him, distraught, ran away. The next day, Buranny Edigei went to the cosmodrome again.
All Russian works in abbreviated alphabetical order:
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Writers for whom there are works in abbreviation:
- Abramov F. A.
- Adamovich A.
- Aitmatov Ch. T.
- Aksakov S. T.
- Aksenov V. P.
- Aleshkovsky Yu.
- Andreev L. N.
- Arbuzov A. N.
- Artsybashev M. P.
- Astafiev V. P.
- Akhmatova A. A.
- Babel I. E.
- Baklanov G. Ya.
- Balter B.I.
- Baratynsky E. A.
- Belov V.I.
- Bely A.
- Belykh G. G.
- Belyaev A. R.
- Bestuzhev A. A.
- Bitov A.G.
- Blok A. A.
- Boborykin P. D.
- Bogomolov V. O.
- Bondarev Yu. V.
- Brodsky I. A.
- Bryusov V. Ya.
- Bulgakov M. A.
- Bunin I. A.
- Bykov V.
- Vaginov K.K.
- Vampilov A.V.
- Vasiliev B. L.
- Veltman A.F.
- Veresaev V.V.
- Vladimov G. N.
- Voznesensky A. A.
- Voinovich V. N.
- Volodin A. M.
- Vorobyov K. D.
- Gazdanov G.
- Gaidar A.P.
- Garin-Mikhailovsky N. G.
- Garshin V. M.
- Herzen A.I.
- Gogol N.V.
- Goncharov I. A.
- Gorenshtein F. N.
- Gorky M.
- Granin D. A.
- Grekova I.
- Griboyedov A. S.
- Grigorovich D. V.
- Green A.S.
- Grossman V.S.
- Davydov Yu. V.
- Dobychin L. I.
- Dovlatov S. D.
- Dombrovsky Yu. O.
- Dostoevsky F. M.
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Fight for the truth
Edigei does not know what Kuttybaev is accused of. His arrest is connected with memories of the war, which he writes down for his children. Abutalip was captured and after his escape he joined the Yugoslav partisans. Until the end of the war he was abroad. During interrogation from Edigei, they are trying to find out whether Kuttybaev mentioned English names - this is described in the work “Stormy Stop”. The novel, a summary of which every literature lover should know, deeply excites readers.
The suicide of Abutalip, the love of Edigei for his wife Zaripa - all this passed before the inner gaze of the old Kazakh while he was taking his friend to the cemetery.
The “Khrushchev thaw” began. Edigei went to Alma-Ata to tell the truth about Kuttybaev’s arrest. Abutalip will be rehabilitated. A new life begins in the country.
In the novel, the author retells two ancient oriental legends about the events that took place in the Sarozek steppe. The first legend tells of Genghis Khan, who executed lovers here because they dared to have a child against his orders. The second legend tells of an old poet who fell in love with a young girl. His relatives tied him to a tree to prevent him from being reunited with her. This is how the past, present and future are intertwined in Aitmatov’s novel.
Summary – Buranny stop – Aitmatov
Tea. In this novel, Ch. Aitmatov raises the problem of historical memory, a person’s respect for his own roots, family, clan, and traditions. At the center of the story is the dramatic fate of a simple Kazakh railway worker Edigei Zhangeldin, nicknamed Buranny. The plot is the funeral of his only, dear friend Kazangap. However, the time frame of the novel is not limited to the present. We also see the hero’s past, the war and the difficult post-war period. Edigei had to endure a lot: he fought, and at the end of forty-four he was demobilized after a shell shock. Returning home, he learned of the death of his only child. And soon he met Kazangap, and he called him and his wife to the Buranny stop. I spent my whole life there. They experienced a lot together, Edigei and Kazangap, their children grew up together, there were both bitter and joyful moments. Kazangap gave Edigei a baby camel - Karanara. At the Buranny stop, Edigei met the teacher Abutalip Kuttybaev, whose whole meaning of life was in children, both his own and others. The teacher, who was captured during the war and fought in Yugoslavia, was taken away by the authorities as an unreliable person.
And Edigei experiences with bitterness this willfulness and lawlessness of the authorities, who want to depersonalize a person, deprive him of memory, thoughts about the past, the ability to think and reason. Here, for the first time, Aitmatov sounds the motif of the mankurt, a man without a past or future. So, in the description of the life of this Buranny stop-station, the whole fate of the country appears before us - the Patriotic War, post-war repressions, hard work, the construction of a nuclear test site.
The heroes Aitmatova, Edigey, Kazangap, teacher Abutalip Kuttybaev are real workers who embody the moral principle in life. They are opposed by Sabitzhan, the son of the late Kazangap, a man concerned only with his own career and well-being. He is trying to bury his father anywhere, “he’s a sweet, all-knowing son, he didn’t come to bury his father, but just to get rid of it, bury it somehow and leave quickly.” Sabitzhan arrived empty-handed, without a family; his father’s funeral is not a grief for him, but an empty formality, which he wants to get over quickly. Edigei is bitter and ashamed for the son of his own friend. “What kind of people went, what kind of people! – Edigei was indignant in his soul. “Everything in the world is important to them, except death!” And this haunted him: “If death is nothing for them, then it turns out that life has no value. What is the meaning, why and how do they live there?
In the same way, Edigei becomes disgusted when he talks with a visitor “in chrome boots” who found counter-revolutionary agitation in the notes of teacher Kuttybaev.
The mankurt motif continues to develop in the novel and in the theme of scientific and technological progress. Thus, Sabitzhan dreams of a time when people can be controlled using radio: “A person will do everything according to a program from the center. It seems to him that he lives and acts on his own, according to his own free will, but in fact, according to instructions from above. And everything according to a strict schedule. You need to sing - the signal is - you will sing. If you want to dance, the signal is that you will dance.
We need you to work, and you will work, and how!” But, according to the writer, the deprivation of a person’s individuality, his depersonalization is the result of violence against a person. “Remember your name” - this is the author’s thought that runs through the entire work. And the culmination of the development of this theme in the novel is the ancient legend about the Mankurts.
Let's remember the plot of the legend. The Ruanzhuans, who captured Sary-Ozeki in past times, turned their captives into mankurts by putting a shiri - a piece of rawhide camel skin - on their heads. Drying in the sun, the camel skin squeezed the slave's head, and the man lost his mind and became a mankurt. “Mankurt did not know who he was, where he came from, his tribe, he did not know his name, did not remember his childhood, father and mother - in a word, Mankurt did not recognize himself as a human being. Deprived of an understanding of his own “I,” from an economic point of view, mankurt had a number of advantages. He was equivalent to a dumb creature and therefore absolutely submissive and safe. He never thought about running away. For any slave owner, the worst thing is a slave uprising. Every slave is potentially a rebel. Mankurt was the only exception of his kind - the impulses for rebellion and disobedience were completely alien to him. He did not know such passions. And therefore there was no need to guard him, keep guard, and especially suspect him of secret plans. Mankurt, like a dog, recognized only his masters.”
One Naiman-Ana woman decided to find the son of Zholaman, who disappeared during the battle with the Ruanzhuans. And she found him - he became a mankurt, tending his master’s cattle. She tried to restore his memory, told him his name, talked about herself and her father, sang lullabies, but the Ruanzhuans noticed her and gave her son a bow and arrows so that he could deal with his mother. Mankurt was told that this woman wanted to harm him by steaming his head. And Zholaman killed his mother with a bow shot.
By creating the image of a mankurt, the writer sets one of the most important themes in the novel. Mankurt is a person who does not remember his past, is not aware of his connection with people, and is not responsible for anything. A person who has lost his memory, deprived of spiritual connections with the world, according to the writer, cannot be called a person. The loss of spiritual ties with the past, with one’s land, with the traditions of ancestors - all this leads to the destruction of personality.
And the writer projects an ancient legend onto modernity. So, Kazangap cannot be buried in the ancient Ana-Beyit cemetery. They plan to demolish the churchyard because a new microdistrict will be built on this site. The funeral procession is simply not allowed into the old cemetery. Edigey cannot understand this, he is trying to save Ana-Beyit. He wants to go to the region and talk to the authorities. He asks Sabitzhan for help, but he refuses him, fearing for his own career. And the hero calls Sabitzhan a mankurt. During the funeral, Edigei reads a prayer and thinks bitterly about the youth, about how they will live without these prayers. The hero understands that there are moments in life when only prayer gives a person peace of mind, but the younger generation is deprived of all this...
The novel's narrative structure is varied. Aitmatov includes various legends (the legend of the mankurts, the legend of the singer Raimaly-aga), myths (the myth of Genghis Khan, the myth of the Donenbai bird). The real plan of the narrative alternates with the fantastic: everything that happens on earth is monitored by representatives of the planet Lesnaya Grud, cosmic forces do not remain indifferent to the good and evil deeds of people. Aitmatov tells us about a civilization that is superior to earthlings in its intelligence (there have never been wars on the planet). Residents of Lesnaya Gruda want to make friends with earthlings, they invited our cosmonauts to visit, but even here special instructions from the authorities followed. Ch. Ai writes about this with bitter irony, even a bit of sarcasm.
However, there are eternal values in life that cannot be taken away, isolated, or destroyed by a person. And the second title of the work (“And the day lasts longer than a century...”) reminds us of the biblical: “With God one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.” The writer here goes beyond the boundaries of time and space barriers: myths, ancient legends, science fiction help Aitmatov reveal the essence of the human soul, show what is good and evil.
Thus, unity with the parental home, with one’s clan, with the people is an integral part of a person’s spiritual world, according to Ch. Aitmatov. Only by valuing these values can one live with dignity in this world.
