- Matryona's Place
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Cover of the 1975 Penguin edition of the English translation
Matryona's Place, ("Матрёнин двор"), sometimes translated as Matryona's Home (or House), is a novella written in 1959 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It is Solzhenitsyn's most read short story, and was first published in Novy Mir in 1963.[1] The story is narrated in the first person by a former prisoner of the gulag and a teacher of mathematics; as was Solzhenitsyn at time.
The narrator, who has a longing to return to live in the Russian provinces, takes a job at a school on a collective farm. Matryona offers him a place to live in her tiny, run-down home, but he is told not to expect any "fancy cooking".[2] They share a single room where they eat and sleep; the narrator sleeps on a camp-bed and Matryona near the stove. The narrator finds the farm workers' lives little different to that of the pre-revolutionary landlords and their serfs. Matryona works on the farm for little or no pay. She is forced to give a small annex of her home to a relative who wants to use the wood from it to build a house elsewhere in the village. A group of drunken farmers, with a tractor borrowed without permission, decide to move the wood at night. Matryona, typically, offers to help. During the chaos that follows she is killed by a train. Her character has been described as "the only true Christian (and) the only true Communist" and her death symbolic of Russia's martyrdom.[3]
Set in 1956, five years after One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,[4] the novella is considered to be one of the author's finest literary achievements.[1] It is accessible to non-native speakers who have learnt Russian to an intermediate level.[5]
References
- Notes
- ^ a b Klimoff, Alexis; Edward E., Jr Ericson (2008). The Soul and Barbed Wire: An Introduction to Solzhenitsyn. Lanham, MD: Intercollegiate Studies Institute. p. 95–96. ISBN 1-933859-57-1.
- ^ Matryona's House p. 14
- ^ Jackson R.L., "Matryona's Home: The Making of a Russian Icon", in Feuer K. "Solzhenitisyn A collection of critical essays" p. 69
- ^ Moody p. 39
- ^ Mihalchenko, Igor S. (1985). Russian intermediate reader. Lincolnwood, Ill., U.S.A: National Textbook Co. p. 146. ISBN 0-8442-4264-0.
- Bibliography
- Björkegren, Hans, and Kaarina Eneberg Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: A Biography, Henley-on-Thames: Aiden Ellis, 1973. ISBN 0-85628-005-4
- Feuer, Kathryn (ed.), Solzhenitsyn: A Collection of Critical Essays, 1976, Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0-13-822619-6
- Moody, Christopher. Solzhenitsyn. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1973. ISBN 0-05-002600-3
- Scammell, Michael Solzhenitsyn: A Biography. London: Paladin, 1986. ISBN 0-586-08538-6
- Solzhentsyn A. Matryona's House, translated by Michael Glenny, The Bodley Head, 1970, ISBN 0-370-01451-0
- Solzhentsyn A. We Never Make Mistakes, translated by Paul Blackstock, Sphere Book, 1972, ISBN 0-722-18028-4 Includes translations of An Incident at Krechetovka Station and Matryona's House
External link
Works by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Novels The First Circle (1968) · Cancer Ward (1968) · The Red Wheel : August 1914 (1971) · November 1916 (1985) · March 1917 (1989) · April 1917 (c1991)
Short fiction One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) · An Incident at Krechetovka Station (1963) · Matryona's Place (1963) · For the Good of the Cause (1963)
Plays The Love-Girl and the Innocent (1969) · Candle in the Wind (1960)
Non-fiction One Word of Truth (1970) · A lenten letter to Pimen, Patriarch of All Russia (1972) · The Gulag Archipelago (1973-78) · Letter to Soviet Leaders (1974) · The Oak and the Calf (1975) · Warning to the West (1975-76) · Lenin in Zürich (1976) · A World Split Apart (1978) · Mortal Danger (1986) · Rebuilding Russia (1990) · Invisible Allies (1992) · The Russian Question at the End of the Twentieth Century (1995) · Russia under Avalanche (1998) · Two Hundred Years Together (2003)
Poetry Prose Poems (1958–1960) · Prussian Nights (1974)
Categories:- 1956 in fiction
- 1959 books
- Works by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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