Tag Archives: Shalamov

Innocence and Optimism among Young Narrators in “Voices from Chernobyl” and “A Child’s Drawings”

The motifs of youthful innocence and child-like optimism are pervasive in Psychologist Pyotr S.’s testimony from the Chernobyl disaster during the Cold War. In describing his childhood years before Chernobyl, he states that he would dress up and “play dad” in an attempt to “see how life would appear” for those around him amidst the hostilities of war (Alexievich 26). With that said, Pytor states that he had still always felt protected, constantly believing that “the most horrible things had already happened” (26). This scene portrays one child’s optimism amidst an entire nation’s suffering. The juxtaposition of these images emphasizes innocence that had served to both symbolically and literally protect these children from the darkness of their war-environment.

This notion of being protected by one’s youth is not only a key element of Pytor’s testimony, but it is also clearly illustrated in the child’s drawings within Varlaam Shalamov’s piece “A Child’s Drawings.” In this short story, the boy artist had also lived in the Russian North during wartime, just like Pytor. However, this young artist functions merely as an apostrophe, represented only by the illustrated notebook he leaves behind. In this notebook, he draws bright green grounds and clear blue skies (Shalamov 137). Furthermore, he depicts numerous “yellow fences,” “black lines of barbed wire,” and soldiers traversing the Russian landscape (137). Just like Pytor’s childhood testimony, these illustrations are optimistic, expressing both bright, solid colors, and the images of defense and protection. Note, these drawings suggest that the boy’s memories focus more so on the notion of defense, rather than the specific destruction of war.

The final connective feature I would like to elaborate on is the sense of fear and greater understanding possessed by older characters within both of these pieces, despite the youthful optimism of younger ones. For instance, in Pytor’s testimony, he speaks about how his “past no longer protects ” him, as he is no longer protected by neither his childhood nor the optimism that had come along with it (Alexievich 26). The quotation that “there aren’t any answers” left in the past suggests that Pytor comes to realize that the world is more complex, now that he is an adult (26). Meanwhile, the convict in “A Child’s Drawing” functions as the older character, and has a similar realization about the complexity of life. He states that he is frightened by the brightness and lack of halftones in the artwork, and implies that there is a void of grey area and complexity in these illustrations. Overall, the wisdom of the narrator/artist in each of these pieces plays an important role in his perception of war scenes around him.

Continuation of winter and fate in ‘Kolyma Tales’

Last class, we discussed the role of winter in the plots of our various readings. In Lend-Lease from Kolyma Tales, I found that the role of winter played an especially important role in this story’s theme. Further, fate plays a key element in Lend-Lease, as it did in the stories from last class. In this story, Shalamov alludes to the importance of the physical properties of the camp more and more as the plot continues. Toward the middle, he begins to describe the stone and permafrost of the camp as keepers and revealers of secrets, a sort of documentation of the past war. He writes, “Stone keeps secrets and reveals them…The permafrost keeps and reveals secrets”, and of the corpses buried in the stone: “The corpses wait in stone, in the permafrost…The north resisted with all its strength this work of man, not accepting the corpses into its bowels. Defeated, humbled, retreating, stone promised to forget nothing, to wait and preserve its secret”. It appears from this quote that these feelings of defeat are regularly experienced in these camps – prisoners past and present, as well as the physical land – yet a glimpse of hope is present in the preservation of secrets Shalamov describes.

Shalamov’s describes the camp as horrifying, cold, and cruel places, as they were, but the theme of fate seems to lurk in his writing. While the cold led to miserable experiences of labor and frostbite, it also created this frozen earth, capable of preserving the bodies of these people lost to starvation, torture, and cold: “All of our loved ones who died in Kolyma, all those who were shot, beaten to death, sucked dry by starvation, can still be recognized even after tens of years…The corpses wait in stone, in the permafrost” (178). It seems as if being able to recognize the bodies of these people pays them the respect and admiration they deserve, making it sure that people will not forget them – because their physical bodies have not deteriorated, the camp’s history and the individual experiences of these people, too, will not be erased.