1935 Andrei Platonov writes the story “Yushka”. The essence of the plot of the classic text is that Yushka - main character works as a blacksmith's assistant. He is sick with consumption. He sheltered the orphan Dasha. One fine day, Yushka was pushed in the chest, and he died. Dasha wanted to cure Yushka of his illness, but she didn’t have time - he died.
The main idea of the immortal work “Yushka” is that Andrey Platonov focuses the reader’s attention on the internal content of the text, namely on the problem of kindness and selflessness. Platonov focuses the reader's attention on the fact that kindness is blind in the souls of people. And when time passes, it becomes too late. Remember the proverb: “We don’t keep what we have, we cry when we lose it.”
The reader gets acquainted with the hero of the text - an old man of advanced age. This old man “worked” as an assistant to a blacksmith. He was practically blind, exhausted, and also suffered from tuberculosis. His real name was Efim, but everyone in the area called him Yushka.
Platonov gives a portrait of the hero: describes him White hair, a sparse beard, white eyes like those of a blind man. The author also talks about Yushka’s short stature and his thinness. It also tells about Yushka’s life with the owner, that he was fed for the work he did, that he was paid a salary of 7 rubles 60 kopecks. The author also draws attention to the fact that Yushka did not need anything extra, and his clothes were inherited from his father.
It is said that the neighbors followed the example of Yushka, that is, in the morning, like him, they went to work, and in the evening they went to bed early. Platonov draws the reader’s attention to the fact that Yushka was offended, they threw pebbles and earth at him. This was done mainly by children and teenagers. And these same people were amazed at Yushka’s goodness and patience. This calmness of Yushka angered those around him and then they teased the old man even more. But he was unperturbed.
Efim's internal experiences are described. Namely, that he liked the attacks of his “tormentors.” He believed that since such signs of attention were shown towards him, it meant that they loved him, but they just didn’t know how to show their feelings correctly. The children's parents frightened their children that if they did not study, they would become the same as Efim. Adults also enjoyed beating Yushka. Yushka did not fight back anyone. When he was severely beaten, he lay on the ground for a long time until Dasha, the blacksmith’s daughter, came for him.
Yushka lay down after the beating, but did not dare to die, because there would be no assistant in the forge. When summer came, Yushka left for about a month to “get some air,” because he had been tormented by tuberculosis since childhood. He was forgetful and told everyone different things about his trips: now he was going to his sister, now to his niece, now to Moscow, now to the village, then wherever his eyes were looking.
People in the corners whispered that Dasha, the blacksmith’s daughter, was a hermit, like Yushka. During his departure, Yushka “flourished in spirit”; he could breathe easily. He knew how to enjoy the beauty of nature and life. He remembered his real age. He was only 40 years old. Unfortunately, the illness undermined his condition.
It's been a month. Yushka was returning from a trip. He was teased and insulted again. Yushka felt that he was getting worse every time... One day a certain man offered to help Yushka die faster. Yushka was outraged by this statement. This indignation of Yushka gave rise to the man’s anger, and he pushed Yushka in the chest with all his might. Yushka fell face down to the ground.
A man was walking and saw that Yushka was bleeding. He leaned towards him, wanted to help, and realized that Efim had died. Yushka was buried. All the villagers were happy at first, but then they realized that they had no one to take out their resentment, pain and anger on. After some time, a girl came to the village and began to inquire about Yushka. They explained to her that Yushka rests in peace. Then she said that Yushka once sheltered her and helped her study. She is escorted to Yushka’s grave.
Dasha is crying bitterly at Yushka’s grave, because she studied to be a doctor only in order to cure Yefim. Then she decides to stay in the village and selflessly treat the suffering. People are proud that Yushka was able to raise such a daughter. Everyone has already forgotten about the fact that Dasha is an orphan who is not Yushka’s own.
The story “Yushka” was written by Platonov in the first half of the 30s, and published only after the writer’s death, in 1966, in “Izbranny”.
“Yushka” is a story that reveals in a few pages the way of thinking of the population of an entire town and the mentality of a person as such.
The work has an unexpected ending associated with the arrival of an orphan trained to be a doctor in the city. This ending makes the story look like a novella. There are similarities in the work with a parable, if you perceive the ending as a morality showing true mercy.
The theme of the story is the nature of good and evil, mercy and cruelty, beauty human soul. The main idea can be expressed by several biblical truths at once: one must do good unselfishly; human hearts are deceitful and extremely wicked, so people do not know what they are doing; you must love your neighbor as yourself. The problems of the story are also related to morality. Platonov raises the problem of belated gratitude, contempt and cruelty towards those who are different from everyone else. One of the most important problems is the moral deadness of the heroes, contrasted with the moral liveliness of Yushka, although it is precisely his liveliness that the children doubt.
The story takes place “in ancient times.” Such a reference to the past makes the story almost a fairy tale, beginning with the words “once upon a time there lived in a certain kingdom.” That is, the hero of the story is immediately presented as a universal, timeless hero, who embodies the moral guidelines of humanity.
The blacksmith's assistant Yushka, whom all the inhabitants of the city laugh at as a meek and unrequited creature, leaves for a month every summer. According to him, either to his niece, or to another relative in the village or in Moscow. That year, when Yushka did not go anywhere, feeling very bad, he died, knocked down by another mocker.
In the fall, an orphan appeared in the city, whom Yushka fed and taught all her life. The girl came to cure her benefactor of tuberculosis. She remained in the city and devoted her whole life to selflessly helping the sick.
The story is named after the main character. Yushka is not a nickname, as many readers think, but a diminutive name, which in the Voronezh province was formed from the southern Russian version of the name Efim - Yukhim. But the word Yushka in the same southern Russian dialect it means liquid food like soup, liquid in general, and even blood. Thus, the name of the hero seems to be telling. It hints at the hero’s ability to adapt to the harsh, evil world, just as water adapts to the shape of a vessel. And also the name is a hint at the death of the hero, who died from bleeding, obviously provoked by a blow to the chest.
Yushka is a blacksmith's assistant. Nowadays, a person who does such work “that needed to be done” would be called a laborer. His age is defined as "old-looking". Only in the middle of the story does the reader learn that Yushka was 40 years old, and he looked weak and old due to illness.
The story turned out to be prophetic for Platonov himself, who died of tuberculosis, having become infected from his son, who went to prison at the age of 15 and was released 2.5 years later, already seriously ill.
The portrait of Yushka emphasizes his thinness and short stature. The eyes are especially highlighted, white, like a blind man’s, with tears constantly standing in them. This image is not accidental: Yushka sees the world not as it really is. He does not notice evil, considering it a manifestation of love, and seems to always cry for the needs of others.
Yushka looks like the blessed one that the Russian people imagined them to be. The only difference is that it was not customary to offend the blessed. But Yushka is humiliated and beaten, calling him not blessed, but blessed, unlike, animal, God's scarecrow, worthless fool. And they demand that Yushka be like them, live like everyone else.
Yushka considers all people equal “by necessity.” He is accidentally killed by a fellow villager precisely because he dared to compare himself with him.
We even compare the hero with Christ, who suffered for the people, enduring torment. When the Roman soldiers mocked Christ, he remained silent, without explaining anything to them. But the hero of Bulgakov’s novel, written a little later than Yushka, in 1937, is even more similar to Yushka. Yeshua, unlike the biblical Jesus, actively justifies the offenders, calling them kind people. So Yushka calls the children who offend him relatives, little ones.
Yushka believes that both children and adults need it. He would seem to wrongly conclude that children and adults need him because they love him. But over the years, it becomes clear that they really loved him, just unable to express either love or need for him. And that’s exactly what Yushka, who was offended, thought.
Like many blessed people, Yushka gets by with little. Yushka does not spend his tiny income (seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month) on tea and sugar, being content with the simple free food of the blacksmith - bread, cabbage soup and porridge. Yushka’s clothes are just as simple, which over all the years do not seem to wear out, remaining uniformly shabby and full of holes, but fulfilling its purpose.
The people offended Yushka, because in the hearts of people "fierce rage", "evil grief and resentment". Yushka's meekness is contrasted with people's aggression, provoked by their grief, of which everyone considers Yushka to be the culprit.
Dasha, the blacksmith’s daughter, is kind to Yushka. She tries to explain to Yushka that no one loves him, that his life is in vain. But Yushka knows why he lives: by the will of his parents and for a purpose that he does not tell anyone about, as well as about his love for all living things.
Yushka does not need people the way they need him, but when he went to deserted places, Yushka experienced unity with nature. He felt orphaned even by the death of a beetle or insect. Exactly Live nature healed the hero, giving him strength.
After his death, Yushka shares the fate of many holy fools and saints. The carpenter who found his corpse immediately asks for forgiveness: “People rejected you”. All the people came to say goodbye to him. But then they forgot Yushka, just as they forget ordinary people, and holy fools, and saints. Lonely Yushka turned out to be a benefactor, giving the people someone who began to take care of them - an orphan raised and educated with his money, who became a doctor. They call her the daughter of the good Yushka, without remembering him.
The story contains motifs traditional for Platonov. One of them is the motive of death. The children doubt that Yushka is alive because he does not respond with evil to their evil.
The landscape in the story reveals the source of the hero’s spiritual strength. Unlike people who draw energy from the pleasure of offending the weak, Yushka supported the weak and perceived himself as part of nature. A strange Platonic expression "beetle faces", found in other works, shows that Yushka perceived nature as equal to himself, humanizing it.
Platonov creates a convincing image of the happiness that happens to people despite their evil deeds. The writer's life was in many ways similar to the life of his hero: hard, thankless work into which he poured his soul, and premature death from illness.
Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on a large Moscow road; he worked as an assistant to the chief blacksmith, because he could not see well with his eyes and had little strength in his hands. He carried water, sand and coal to the forge, fanned the forge with fur, held the hot iron on the anvil with tongs while the chief blacksmith forged it, brought the horse into the machine to forge it, and did any other work that needed to be done. His name was Efim, but all the people called him Yushka. He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face, instead of a mustache and beard, sparse gray hairs grew separately; His eyes were white, like a blind man’s, and there was always moisture in them, like never-cooling tears.
Yushka lived in the apartment of the owner of the forge, in the kitchen. In the morning he went to the forge, and in the evening he went back to spend the night. The owner fed him for his work with bread, cabbage soup and porridge, and Yushka had his own tea, sugar and clothes; he must buy them for his salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. But Yushka didn’t drink tea or buy sugar, he drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years without changing: in the summer he wore trousers and a blouse, black and sooty from work, burned through by sparks, so that in several places his white body was visible, and he was barefoot; in winter, he put on a sheepskin coat over his blouse, which he inherited from his deceased father, and his feet were shod in felt boots, which he hemmed in the fall, and wore the same pair every winter all his life.
When Yushka walked down the street to the forge early in the morning, the old men and women got up and said that Yushka had already gone to work, it was time to get up, and they woke up the young people. And in the evening, when Yushka went to spend the night, people said that it was time to have dinner and go to bed - and Yushka had already gone to bed.
And small children and even those who became teenagers, seeing old Yushka walking quietly, stopped playing in the street, ran after Yushka and shouted:
There comes Yushka! There's Yushka!
The children picked up dry branches, pebbles, and rubbish from the ground in handfuls and threw them at Yushka.
Yushka! - the children shouted. - Are you really Yushka?
The old man did not answer the children and was not offended by them; he walked as quietly as before, and did not cover his face, which was hit by pebbles and earthen debris.
The children were surprised at Yushka that he was alive, and he himself was not angry with them. And they called out to the old man again:
Yushka, are you true or not?
Then the children again threw objects from the ground at him, ran up to him, touched him and pushed him, not understanding why he wouldn’t chase them like everyone else big people do. The children did not know another person like him, and they thought - is Yushka really alive? Having touched Yushka with their hands or hit him, they saw that he was hard and alive.
Then the children again pushed Yushka and threw clods of earth at him - he’d better be angry, since he really lives in the world. But Yushka walked and was silent. Then the children themselves began to get angry with Yushka. They were bored and it was not good to play if Yushka was always silent, did not scare them and did not chase them. And they pushed the old man even harder and shouted around him so that he would respond to them with evil and cheer them up. Then they would run away from him and, in fear, in joy, would again tease him from afar and call him to them, then running away to hide in the darkness of the evening, in the canopy of houses, in the thickets of gardens and vegetable gardens. But Yushka did not touch them and did not answer them.
When the children stopped Yushka altogether or hurt him too much, he told them:
What are you doing, my dears, what are you doing, dear ones!.. You must love me!.. Why do you all need me?.. Wait, don’t touch me, you hit me with dirt in my eyes, I can’t see.
The children did not hear or understand him. They still pushed Yushka and laughed at him. They were happy that they could do whatever they wanted with him, but he didn’t do anything to them.
Yushka was also happy. He knew why the children laughed at him and tormented him. He believed that children loved him, that they needed him, only they did not know how to love a person and did not know what to do for love, and therefore they tormented him.
At home, fathers and mothers reproached their children when they did not study well or did not obey their parents: “You will be just like Yushka!” You will grow up and walk barefoot in the summer, and in thin felt boots in the winter, and everything will torment you, and you will have tea with You won’t drink sugar, just water!”
Elderly adults, meeting Yushka on the street, also sometimes offended him. Adults had angry grief or resentment, or they were drunk, then their hearts were filled with fierce rage. Seeing Yushka going to the forge or to the yard for the night, an adult said to him:
Why are you walking around here so blessed and unlikeable? What do you think is so special?
Yushka stopped, listened and was silent in response.
You don't have any words, you're such an animal! You live simply and honestly, as I live, and don’t think anything secretly! Tell me, will you live the way you should? You will not? Aha!.. Well okay!
And after a conversation during which Yushka was silent, the adult became convinced that Yushka was to blame for everything, and immediately beat him. Because of Yushka’s meekness, the adult became embittered and beat him more than he wanted at first, and in this evil he forgot his grief for a while.
Yushka then lay in the dust on the road for a long time. When he woke up, he got up on his own, and sometimes the daughter of the owner of the forge came for him, she picked him up and took him away with her.
It would be better if you died, Yushka,” said the owner’s daughter. - Why do you live?
Yushka looked at her in surprise. He did not understand why he should die when he was born to live.
“It was my father and mother who gave birth to me, it was their will,” Yushka answered, “I can’t die, and I’m helping your father in the forge.”
If only someone else could take your place, what a helper!
People love me, Dasha!
Dasha laughed.
Now you have blood on your cheek, and last week your ear was torn, and you say - the people love you!..
“He loves me without a clue,” says Yushka. - People's hearts can be blind.
Their hearts are blind, but their eyes are sighted! - Dasha said. - Go quickly, or something! They love according to the heart, but they strike according to their calculations.
According to calculations, they are angry with me, it’s true,” Yushka agreed. “They don’t tell me to walk on the street and they mutilate my body.”
Eh, you, Yushka, Yushka! - Dasha sighed. - But you, my father said, are not old yet!
How old I am!.. I have suffered from breast problems since childhood, it was because of my illness that I made a mistake in appearance and became old...
Due to this illness, Yushka left his owner for a month every summer. He went on foot to a remote remote village, where he must have had relatives. Nobody knew who they were to him.
Even Yushka himself forgot, and one summer he said that his widowed sister lived in the village, and the next that his niece was there. Sometimes he said that he was going to the village, and other times that he was going to Moscow itself. And people thought that Yushka’s beloved daughter lived in a distant village, just as kind and unnecessary for people, as Father.
In June or August, Yushka put a knapsack with bread on his shoulders and left our city. On the way, he breathed the fragrance of grasses and forests, looked at the white clouds born in the sky, floating and dying in the bright airy warmth, listened to the voice of the rivers muttering on the stone rifts, and Yushka’s sore chest rested, he no longer felt his illness - consumption. Having gone far away, where it was completely deserted, Yushka no longer hid his love for living beings. He bent down to the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to breathe on them so that they would not be spoiled by his breath, he stroked the bark of the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles from the path that had fallen dead, and peered into their faces for a long time, feeling orphaned. But living birds sang in the sky, dragonflies, beetles and hard-working grasshoppers made cheerful sounds in the grass, and therefore Yushka’s soul was light, the sweet air of flowers smelling of moisture and sunlight entered his chest.
On the way, Yushka rested. He sat in the shade of a road tree and dozed in peace and warmth. Having rested and caught his breath in the field, he did not remember the illness and walked on cheerfully, like a healthy person. Yushka was forty years old, but illness had been tormenting him for a long time and had aged him before his time, so that he seemed decrepit.
And so every year Yushka left through fields, forests and rivers to a distant village or to Moscow, where someone was waiting for him or no one was waiting - no one in the city knew about this.
A month later, Yushka usually returned back to the city and again worked from morning until evening in the forge. He again began to live as before, and again children and adults, residents of the street, made fun of Yushka, reproached him for his unrequited stupidity and tormented him.
Yushka lived peacefully until the summer of next year, and in the middle of the summer he put his knapsack on his shoulders, put the money he had earned and saved in a year in a separate bag, a hundred rubles in total, hung that bag in his bosom on his chest and went to who knows where and who knows who.
But year after year, Yushka grew weaker and weaker, so the time of his life passed and passed, and chest illness tormented his body and exhausted him. One summer, when the time was approaching for Yushka to go to his distant village, he did not go anywhere. He wandered, as usual, in the evening, already dark, from the forge to the owner for the night. A cheerful passerby who knew Yushka laughed at him:
Why are you trampling our land, God’s scarecrow! If only I died, maybe it would be more fun without you, otherwise I’m afraid of getting bored...
And here Yushka became angry in response - probably for the first time in his life.
Why am I bothering you? Why am I bothering you!.. I was ordered to live by my parents, I was born according to the law, the whole world needs me, just like you, without me too, that means it’s impossible!..
The passer-by, without listening to Yushka, became angry with him:
What are you talking about? Why are you talking? How dare you equate me with yourself, you worthless fool!
“I don’t equal,” said Yushka, “but out of necessity we are all equal...
Don't tell me any wiser! - a passer-by shouted. - I’m wiser than you! Look, I'm talking, I'll teach you your wits!
Swinging his hand, the passer-by pushed Yushka in the chest with the force of anger, and he fell backward.
“Rest,” said the passerby and went home to drink tea.
After lying down, Yushka turned his face down and did not move or get up again.
Retelling plan
1. Who is Yushka. His portrait.
2. Children’s attitude towards Yushka.
3. The anger of adults at the sight of Yushka.
4. Conversation between Yushka and the daughter of the owner of the forge, Dasha.
5. Yushka’s annual vacation.
6. The death of this person.
7. A girl comes to the town and asks for Efim Dmitrievich.
8. She stays in the city and treats people with tuberculosis all her life.
Retelling and a brief description of works
Heroes of the story: Efim (nicknamed Yushka), a blacksmith, his daughter Dasha, an orphan girl (Yushka’s pupil). The author, in a lengthy exposition, describes Yushka’s appearance, usual activities and character. The climax is the moment when Yushka speaks out in his own defense for the first time and dies from a brutal blow to the chest. The denouement is the arrival of Yushka’s pupil, who talks about herself.
Yushka is the blacksmith's assistant, he does all the work at hand. He looks like an old man: small in stature, thin, has poor vision, he has weak arms, he is only forty years old, but the “chest disease” consumption (tuberculosis) has undermined his strength since childhood. His name is Efim, but all the people, young and old, call him Yushka. He lives in the blacksmith's house. The owner feeds him for his work with bread, cabbage soup and porridge. He must buy sugar, tea and clothes for himself. However, the hero of the story does not spend his meager salary (7 rubles 60 kopecks per month) on anything.
He works from dawn to dusk. His appearance on the streets of the town in the morning and evening serves as a sign to people that either it’s time for everyone to get up and get to work, or it’s time to go to bed.
The children are happy when they see Yushka, but their joy quickly gives way to anger. Why doesn't he behave like other people? The children would have fun if they either attacked the angry Yushka or ran away from him. Adults, like children, throw out “their evil grief and resentment” on this person who is unlike them. And the unrequited Yushka, beaten, suffering from people’s malice, says that people love him very much, they just don’t know how to express this love. He says that “people’s hearts can be blind,” preventing them from understanding who a person really loves, so that they can do only good to the one they love.
Yushka goes somewhere for a month every year. Platonov shows his hero away from people, on the way to another city. Where no one torments or torments him, he almost does not feel his terrible illness. “Yushka no longer hid his love for living beings. He bent down to the ground and kissed the flowers... he stroked the bark of the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles from the path.”
No one knows exactly where and to whom he carries his earned money in a bag in his bosom. Only after Yushka’s death do we learn that all his savings were intended for an orphan girl who was not even his relative. The people around him believed that this man’s life was devoid of any meaning, because he didn’t tell anyone anything. This man, so worthless and pathetic in the eyes of other people, modestly and quietly did his good deed. Only once did he rebel, saying in his defense: “I was ordered to live by my parents, I was born by law, the whole world needs me too... It means it’s impossible without me.”
After Yushka’s death, life for people in the town becomes worse. Now no one unrequitedly takes on their anger, and it is spent between people. The girl, Yushka’s pupil, “heals and comforts sick people, without tiring of quenching suffering and delaying death from the weakened.” So Yushka’s selfless love for people continued to do its good work even after his death.
A. Platonov said about the great power of love: “The love of one person can bring to life a talent in another person, or at least awaken him to action. I know this miracle..."
Andrey Platonov
