About the product
Rasputin first published the story “Farewell to Matera” in 1976. The story takes place in the 1960s. In the story, the author reveals the themes of the relationship between fathers and children, the continuity of generations, the search for the meaning of life, issues of memory and oblivion. Rasputin contrasts people of the old and new eras: those who cling to the traditions of the past, have a close connection with their small homeland, and those who are ready to burn huts and crosses for the sake of a new life.
On the site you can read online a summary of “Farewell to Matera” chapter by chapter in preparation for a literature lesson or test.
The material was prepared jointly with the highest category teacher Lyubov Alexandrovna Koroshchup.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 30 years.
About the book
The story was published in 1976. The plot centers on village life. But Rasputin described not just an idyllic picture and the delights of Russian nature, he touched on much more pressing topics. The reader is presented with a picture of the death of the village. Along with the disappearance of a place where more than one generation of people lived, the memory of our ancestors and connection with our roots also disappears. Rasputin depicts the gradual degradation of man, the desire for the new at the expense of the old. According to the author, the destruction of morality and nature for the sake of industrialization will inevitably lead humanity to death. It is this idea that is illustrated by the story “Farewell to Matera.”
Other characters
- Pinigin Andrey is Daria’s grandson.
- Bogodul is a wandering “blessed” old man, “posing as a Pole, loving Russian obscenities,” living in a barracks “like a cockroach.”
- Sima is an old woman who came to Matera less than 10 years ago.
- Ekaterina is one of the residents of Matera, Petrukha’s mother.
- Petrukha is the “dissolute” son of Catherine.
- Nastya and Egor are old people, residents of Matera.
- Vorontsov is the chairman of the village council and the council in the new village.
- The owner of the island , “royal foliage.”
Summary
Chapter 1
“And spring has come again” - “the last for Matera, for the island and the village that bear the same name.” Matera was created three hundred years ago.
Down the Angara, they began to build a dam for a power plant, because of which the water along the river was supposed to rise and soon flood Matera - the last summer remained, then everyone had to move.
Chapter 2
Old women Nastya and Sima often sat at Daria’s samovar. “Despite the years, the old woman Daria was still on her own two feet,” managing the household herself.
Nastasya, having lost her sons and daughter, lived with her husband Yegor. An apartment was already waiting for them in the city, but the old people were still delaying the move.
Sima arrived in Matera relatively recently; she had no one here except her grandson Kolya.
Chapter 3
The sanitary brigade was “cleaning up the area” at the cemetery - men removed crosses, bedside tables and fences from the graves to then burn them. The old women drove the brigade away and put the crosses in place until late at night.
Chapter 4
The next day after the incident, Bogodul came to Daria. Talking to him, the woman shared that it would be better for her not to live to see everything that was happening. Walking then around the island, Daria recalled the past, thinking that although she had lived a “long and toilsome life,” she “didn’t understand anything about it.”
Chapter 5
In the evening, Pavel arrived, Daria’s second son, “the first was taken away by the war,” and the third “found death in a logging camp.” Daria couldn’t imagine how she would live in an apartment - without a garden, without a place for a cow and chickens, or her own bathhouse.
Chapter 6
“And when night came and Matera fell asleep, a small animal, slightly larger than a cat, unlike any other animal, jumped out from under the bank on the mill channel - the Master of the Island.” “No one had ever seen or met him, but here he knew everyone and knew everything.”
Chapter 7
It was time for Nastasya and Yegor to leave. The night before leaving, the woman did not sleep. In the morning the old people packed their things. Nastasya asked Daria to look after her cat. The old people took a long time to get ready - it was very difficult for them to leave their home, Matera.
Chapter 8
At night, one of the villagers, Petrukha, set fire to his hut. His mother, Katerina, moved her modest belongings to Daria in advance and began to live with the old woman.
“And while the hut was burning, the owner looked at the village. In the light of this generous conflagration, he clearly saw the faded lights above the still living huts, <...> noting in what order the fire would take them.”
Chapter 9
Arriving in Matera, Pavel did not stay here for long. When Ekaterina moved to Daria, he “became calmer,” since now his mother would have help.
Pavel “understood that it was necessary to move from Matera, but did not understand why it was necessary to move to this village, although it was richly designed <...> but set up so inhumanly and awkwardly.” “Paul was surprised, looking at Sonya, at his wife”: how she entered the new apartment – “as if she had always been here. I got used to it within a day.” “Pavel understood well that his mother would not be used to this. This is someone else's paradise for her."
Chapter 10
After the fire, Petrukha disappeared somewhere. Catherine’s samovar burned down in a fire, without which the woman “was completely orphaned.” Katerina and Daria spent all their days talking; life was easier for them together.
Chapter 11
Haymaking has begun. “Half the village has returned to Matera.” Soon Petrukha arrived in a new suit - he received a lot of money for the burned estate, but gave only 25 rubles to his mother.
Chapter 12
Grandson Andrei, Pavel’s youngest son, came to Daria. Andrey worked at a factory, but quit and now wanted to go “to a big construction site.” Daria and Pavel found it difficult to understand their grandson, who reasoned: “Now the time is such that it is impossible to sit in one place.”
Chapter 13
Petrukha got ready for the construction site with Andrey. In mid-September, Vorontsov arrived and ordered “not to wait for the last day and gradually burn everything that is found unless absolutely necessary.”
Chapter 14
Daria, talking with her grandson, said that people now began to live too quickly: “I galloped in one direction, looked around, didn’t look back - in the other direction.” “Only you and you, Andryushka, will remember after me how exhausted you are.”
Chapter 15
Daria asked her son and grandson to move the graves of their relatives. It scared Andrei, it seemed creepy. Pavel promised to do this, but the next day he was summoned to the village for a long time. Soon Andrei also left.
Chapter 16
Gradually, people began to “evacuate small animals from the village,” and buildings were burned. “Everyone was in a hurry to move out, to get away from the dangerous island. And the village stood deserted, bare, deaf.” Soon Daria took Sima and Kolya to her place.
Chapter 17
A fellow villager said that Petrukha “is engaged in burning abandoned houses” for money. “Katerina, having come to terms with the loss of her hut, could not forgive Petrukha for burning strangers’.”
Chapter 18
Pavel, taking the cow Mike, wanted to immediately take his mother, but Daria firmly refused. In the evening, the woman went to the cemetery - Pavel never moved the graves - to his father and mother, to his son. She thought that “who knows the truth about a person, why does he live? For the sake of life itself, for the sake of the children, so that the children leave the children, and the children’s children leave the children, or for the sake of something else?”
Chapter 19
“Matera, the island and the village, could not be imagined without larch on the cattle.” “The “royal foliage” forever, powerfully and imperiously stood on a hillock half a mile from the village, visible from almost everywhere and known to everyone.” “And as long as he stands, Matera will stand.” Old people treated the tree with respect and fear.
“And then the day came when strangers approached him.” The men were unable to cut down or burn the old tree; not even a chainsaw could take it. In the end, the workers left the larch alone.
Chapter 20
Daria, despite the fact that her hut was to be burned very soon, whitewashed the house. In the morning I lit the stove and cleaned the house. “She was tidying up and felt how she was thinning out, being exhausted with all her strength - and the less there was to do, the less she had left.”
Chapter 21
The next day Nastya returned to Matera. The woman said that her husband Yegor died.
Chapter 22
After the huts were burned, the old women moved to the barracks. Having learned about this, Vorontsov was outraged and forced Pavel and Petrukha to urgently go pick up the women. The men left in the middle of the night and wandered for a long time in thick fog.
...At night Bogodul opened the doors of the barracks. “Fog rushed through the open door, as if from a gaping void, and a distant, melancholy howl was heard - it was the Master’s farewell voice.” “From somewhere, as if from below, came the faint, barely discernible noise of an engine.”
Summary of chapters of “Farewell to Matera” Rasputin
Summary by chapter
“Farewell to Matera” Rasputin
Spring has come again, but the last for Matera, for the island and village that bear the same name.
Not all of them have planted vegetable gardens—three families left in the fall and dispersed to different cities as soon as it became clear that the rumors were true. And grain was not sown in all fields. And now Matera doesn’t seem to be the same: the buildings are still there, only one hut and a bathhouse have been dismantled for firewood, life seems to be going on, the roosters are still crowing, the cows are roaring, the dogs are ringing, but “the village has already withered, it’s clear that it has withered like a felled tree.” , rooted.” There is more chaos - the owner's hand is not visible. Many of the huts are not whitewashed or tidied up, some have already been taken to new housing, and some are left for needs, because there is still time to move here. And now only old men and old women remained in Matera at all times, preserving the living spirit in everything and protecting the village from excessive desolation. In the evenings they came together, talked quietly - and all about one thing, about what would happen, sighed often and heavily, glancing cautiously towards the right bank beyond the Angara, where a large new settlement was being built. The village has seen everything in its lifetime. In ancient times, bearded Cossacks climbed past it up the Angara to set up the Irkutsk prison; trading people stopped for the night; They were transporting prisoners across the water; when they saw the inhabited shore, they also rowed towards it. The village knew floods, fires, famine, robbery.
On a high, clean place, as it should be, there was a church in the village, but during the collective farm period it was converted into a warehouse. It had its own mill. In recent years, twice a week a plane landed on the old cattle, and whether in a city or in a region, people got used to flying by air. And just as there seemed to be no end to the running water, there was no century and no village; Some went to the churchyard, others were born, old buildings fell down, new ones were cut down. “And so the village lived, enduring all times and adversity, for more than three hundred years, during which half a mile of land was washed up on the upper cape, until one day a rumor broke out that the village would not live or exist any further. A dam for a power plant is being built down the Angara, the water will rise and flood everything around and, of course, Matera.”
And now the last summer remained; In autumn the water rises.
2
The three of the old women sat at the samovar and, often falling silent, carried on a conversation. We sat with Daria, the oldest of the old women; They didn’t know their exact ages, because the church records had been taken away somewhere—they couldn’t find any details. Therefore, they talked about their age, starting from some event stuck in their memory. The third old woman, Sima, could not participate in such memories - she was brought here less than ten years ago from another Angarsk village, and there from somewhere near Tula, and they said that she saw Moscow, which is not very common in the village believed. Apparently they don’t let everyone into Moscow. Sima was given the nickname “Moskovishna”. It seems that her fate was not a sweet one, if she had to suffer so much, leave her homeland where she grew up during the war, give birth to her only and dumb girl, and now in her old age be left with a young grandson in her arms. In Matera she settled in a small abandoned hut on the lower edge. I planted a little garden, put up a garden, and wove paths for the floor from rag shingles—and that’s how I supplemented my income.
The old woman Daria, tall and lean, a head taller than Sima, who was sitting next to her, despite her years, was still on her own two feet, using her hands, doing the feasible and yet rather considerable housework. My son and daughter-in-law had already left and visited once a week, or even less often.
It was the beginning of June. There is no heat on the island, in the middle of the water; in the evenings there was such grace all around, such peace and tranquility, the greenery shone so thickly and freshly before our eyes, the Angara rolled on the stones with such a clear, cheerful ringing, and everything seemed so strong, eternal, that one could not believe in anything - not even the crossing, neither in flooding nor in parting. “In the morning I’ll get up, I’ll remember from sleep... oh, my heart will stop, it won’t move,” said the old woman Nastasya. - So I go with a heart of stone to walk and clean up. I walk, I walk, I see, Daria is walking, Vera is walking, Domnida - and it seems like she’ll let go a little, I’ll get used to it...” She and her old man Yegor had to say goodbye to Matera soon, earlier than others. When it came to deciding who should move where, grandfather Yegor, out of anger or confusion, signed up for the city, the same one where the hydroelectric power station was being built. He wanted to replay the bet on the state farm later, but it turned out that it was too late and impossible. They had already hurried Egor to move out of the area twice; the apartment was ready for them, but the old people kept putting it off, not moving, as if before death they were trying to breathe in their native air. Nastasya planted a vegetable garden, started one thing or another, just to delay it, to deceive herself. The last time they were ordered to be ready for the trio.
And there were only two weeks left until Trinity.
Sima had no property of her own, no relatives, and there was only one road left for her - to the Nursing Home, but on this road, as it turned out, now there was an obstacle: Kolka, in whom she doted on. “Kolyana and I can at least crawl, but on one rope,” said Sima.
Daria, having lost the idea of the conversation, said with unexpected resentment:
“If you had brought it to me, I would have taken it and never left.” Let them drown it if they have to.
“And they’ll drown you,” Sima responded.
- Let go. One death - why be afraid?!
“Oh, I don’t want to be drowned,” Nastasya cautioned fearfully. - It's a sin, come on. It’s better to put them in the ground. The whole army was packed up before us, and we were sent there.
- Your army will float.
- It will float. “That’s true,” Nastasya agreed dryly and cautiously. A shaggy, barefoot old man came in and exclaimed:
- Kur-rava!
“Here he is, a holy soul on crutches,” Daria said without any surprise and stood up to get a glass. - I didn’t get discouraged. And we say: Bogodul is not coming. Sit down before the samovar gets completely cold.
- Kur-rava! - the old man shouted again, like a croak. - Samovar! The dead are working! Samovar!
-Who is being robbed? What are you talking about?
- The Christians are chopping down the bedside tables! - Bogodul shouted and hit the floor with a stick. Hastily tying their scarves, everyone rushed to the cemetery.
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