Before touching upon the famous work of Viktor Petrovich Astafiev, “The Last Bow”, I would like to dwell on the author himself. He lived between 1924 and 2001. He was a wonderful writer and prose writer of the Soviet era, who directed and devoted all his work to the theme of the Russian people and their national heritage.
What will tell the reader a brief summary? “The last bow” actually included a huge number of picturesque sketches showing the beauty of the village nature, leading to a subtle moral perception and serving as a support and purification of the human soul.
If we talk about the language in which Astafyev wrote this book, then he was distinguished by a special racy and originality. Immediately felt a huge human love for his long-suffering country and for ordinary people.
Summary. "Last bow"
All this is perfectly conveyed by the book. Astafiev presented “The Last Bow” as an autobiographical work. He spent twenty years working on it (from 1958 to 1978). The plot covers many landmark events.
The book “The Last Bow” serves as a kind of confession of the generation, because the writer’s childhood fell on the difficult and crucial 30s and 40s. But he had to grow up sharply in the war years.
Country life
In the book “The Last Bow”, the chapters of the story are separate stories, starting from the most hungry rural childhood, but, according to the writer himself, a happy and carefree time.
The main character is a half-orphan boy Vitya Potylitsyn, whose mother drowned in the Yenisei, and his father drank and walked. The boy was brought up for a long time in the village with the grandmother of Katerina Petrovna. And here it is immediately necessary to note that it was she who invested in her grandson the basic life concepts of honesty, decency, diligence, and the right attitude to bread and money. Then all this came in handy and helped him survive in the most difficult life circumstances.
Childhood
Vitya was no different from other village children, he tried to help his elders, and in the rest of his free time he had fun with his peers. His grandmother wanted everyone to be useful and looked after everyone, her character was strong and domineering, and at the same time affectionate and kind. She loved children, and they were always her joy.
But Vitkino's happiness did not last long, it was time to go to school, and he had to go to the city with his father and stepmother. Here he went through a school of survival. Time was post-revolutionary, dispossession was going on. Many families remained homeless, starving, and some were sent to settlements or, even worse, to hard labor.
School of survival
Then very sad colors fill up the summary. “The last bow” tells that Vitka, having moved to his father, realized that no one here needed. Of the relatives, no one understood him, conflicts began in school. When he lived with his grandmother, they also lacked a lot of things, but here he was always warm and comfortable, the boy felt protected next to his grandmother, and in the city he was terribly lonely, he became coarse and became cruel. But still then her grandmother's upbringing and her prayers prevailed and gave an incentive to live. The work describes all the hardships of Victor's life. After studying at the factory course he was sent to war.
House
When the war ended, Victor immediately went to his native village to see his grandmother. He made his way to the house through the gardens and burrs, his heart was beating violently with excitement. He literally tiptoed into her grandmother's room. Grandmother, as in previous times, was sitting near the window and winding threads into a ball. Victor thought that a whole black storm of war flew over the world, millions of people died in the struggle against the Nazis, new states were formed, in general, so many changes took place, and here, with my grandmother, so calmly, quietly and peacefully, the same chintz curtain hangs on window, cabinet, stove, cast iron. Grandmother was unusually delighted with her grandson, immediately hugged and baptized him. Her voice sounded calm and affectionate, as if he had not returned from the war, but from fishing, where they often lingered on with his grandfather. She immediately admitted that she prayed for him day and night, for the sake of this moment she lived. And now, having waited for the grandson from the war, she can safely die.
Astafiev: “Last bow”
At that time, her grandmother was 86 years old, and her last request was for her grandson to come to bury her. But this did not end the summary. “The last bow” continued with the fact that the grandson could not keep his word. When he received a telegram, and at that time he worked in the Urals, his bosses did not let him go, as he was only allowed to go to the funeral of his closest relatives - father or mother. Therefore, Viktor Petrovich could not get out, about which he then very much regretted his whole life and thought that if this had happened today, he would have definitely fled, and if necessary, would have crawled from the Urals to Siberia. In it, until the end of his days, this guilt lived, quiet and oppressive. But with all this, he knew that his grandmother forgave him, because she always loved her granddaughter very much.