Green branch of may

About the childhood and youth of the noblewoman Katya Bektysheva, who became a Soviet teacher. The story begins in 1916 and ends in 1923. ^[2]

The heroine of the book - tender and reverent Katya Bektysheva becomes a witness to a turning point in the life of our country and, together with her cousin Baba Koka, Ksenia Vasilyevna, gradually finds her place in the ranks of the new society. Katya goes to teach at a village school, joins in the great things that the chairman of the local Council Smorodin, other residents of the village of Ivankovo, does, teaches children and adults and learns a lot from them. We see how, day by day, she becomes richer in soul, firmer in her convictions, in the ability to stand up for herself, for an idea. Katya’s biography and character are a lot from the author. ^[3]

Katya Bektysheva is an “impressionable and enthusiastic schoolgirl” ^[4] from a noble family who lives in the summer with her mother in the estate. Father broke up with his family when Katya was still small, all that is known is that he is a retired colonel. Elder brother Vasya from the beginning of World War I at the front. Family affairs gradually decline, and when Katya’s mother is taken to the hospital, “Baba Koka”, Katya’s aunt Ksenia Vasilievna, a once-brilliant aristocrat who settled in the purchased cell at the Assumption Maiden’s Monastery, takes the girl to her.

After graduating from school, the heroine travels to teach in the village of Ivankovo, but also in a village lost in the wilderness, life goes on in line with difficult times: hunger in the Volga region, fighting with fists ... 16-year-old teacher Ekaterina Platonovna Bektysheva, teaching half-starved children who came in her school to learn to read and write, along with them on the program of educational program teaching to read and write adults, also in his own way is in the thick of the events of those years.

At the end of the school year, she is sent to prepare for the Sergiev Pedagogical College, where she meets new friends, and where love comes to her imperceptibly.

What will be the fate of the rural teacher Katya Bektysheva? What will her restless and curious students become? You think about this after reading the last pages of the story. And you believe - Katya and her like-minded people will be able to stand up for their ideas, for their future ... "in fact, all life is ahead", like that of a very young Soviet state at that time. We say goodbye to Katya Bektysheva with the feeling that we certainly met her at some of our crossroads in life. ^{[2] [5]}

The book contains fiction - the names of the heroes, some episodes, but also a lot of personal. Perhaps I can call my Green Branch of May to some extent autobiographical. It’s hardly possible to imagine a high school student in a monastery. It was really. That girl was me.

- Maria Prilezhaeva ^[6]

The story is autobiographical - it describes the period of life from 1916 to 1923.

The surname of the main character is Bektysheva: Bektyshevo is a village located less than 10 kilometers from the village of Petrishchevo , where in 1919 the author of the story began to work as a teacher.

As the magazine " Children's Literature " points out: "In the fate and character of Katya, we unmistakably guess Mary Pavlovna herself." ^[one]

Maria Prilezhaeva was born in Yaroslavl in 1903, her childhood was spent in the city of Aleksandrov, Vladimir Region, where she graduated from the course of a female gymnasium. At 16, she became a teacher in the village of Petrishchevo, Pereyaslavsky Uyezd, Yaroslavl Province. In 1922-1923 she studied at a pedagogical school in the city of Zagorsk, Moscow Region.

Later she studied at the pedagogical faculty of the 2nd Moscow University (1925-1929). She worked as a teacher in an orphanage in Khotkovo, as a teacher in schools near Moscow in Yakhroma and Zagorsk, then in Moscow. She came to literature in 1941 with the story “First Year”. ^[7]

The author said, not without reason: “ I know the teachers from the inside. I know the daily feat of his life and work, his failures and huge victories . ” ^[8]

The school gave Prilezhaeva the richest material for future books in which she truthfully portrayed the Soviet school: “Seven-graders” (1944), “Youth of Masha Strogova” (1948), “Comrades with You” (1949), “Pushkin Waltz” (1961), “ Third Varya "(1963)," Autumn "(1977). ^[7] Moreover, as the Literary Review magazine noted, at different times various critics rightly saw certain features of autobiographicality in Prylyazhayeva's works, but the novel “The Green Branch of May” is fully and fully justified in this genre. ^[9]

This is the last major work of the writer, published in the 72nd year of life. Of all her stories, Maria Prilezhaeva herself put “Pushkin Waltz” and “Third Varia” in the foreground, but she had a special tenderness for her “late child” - the story “The Green Branch of May”, which had been preparing for writing for many years. ^[one]

The story takes one of the most important places in the writer's work - “both in its artistic expressiveness, and in the significance of its content, and in the breadth of coverage of historical events.” ^[1] The same assessment of the significance of the story was given by the magazine “In the world of books”, where it is noted that although in each of her books, Maria Prilezhaeva strove to create such a human character that would captivate the young reader, she led, but among her books devoted to teachers this story "is particularly distinguished by its emotionality, poetic outlook on the world, on people." ^[3] The New World magazine called the story one of the author’s soulful stories, while at the same time noting that the story thematically echoes its other stories. ^[5]

Criticism praised the novel:

The story of Maria Prilezhaeva, “The Green Branch of May”, is read from the first to the last lines with unrelenting tension. The explanation for this is the drama of what is happening with the main character, Katya Bektysheva, drama based on the circumstances of the heroine’s personal fate and those that were determined by time.

- The Banner magazine, 1976 ^[2]

The story is saturated with action to the limit, emotionally colored by author's soulful lyricism, which helps the reader to penetrate deeper into the psychology of actors, to sharper feel their experiences. The language of the story is simple and elegant, completely devoid of false prettiness, pours so freely and easily that you do not notice the slightest writer's tension, the efforts spent on finding the right word. The landscape sketches are beautiful, organically entering the fabric of the narrative, making alive and visible everything that the characters of the story observe around themselves, in tune with their psychological state.

- magazine " Children's Literature ", 1990 ^[1]

The second part of the story, telling about the rural school of Katya Bektysheva, in my opinion, was written most successfully, psychologically correctly, with visible, memorable signs of the time. The village of Ivankovo ​​is small, it was lost somewhere in the very middle of Russia. But just as the sound of the alarm sounds is spread over dozens of miles around, so in Ivankovo ​​one can hear the thunder of events of this difficult time. Hunger in the Volga region, the struggle with the fists ... Few years, these gave the opportunity to remain an outside observer. In the thick of things was a young teacher. What she saw and experienced taught her a lot, sprouted in the soul with graceful seedlings and, above all, it is dear to us in the heroine of her rejection of human meanness. In general, the pages telling about the Ivankovo ​​school are warm and a little sad pages. They are sad, probably, by the feeling of the irreversibility of those years when the writer herself taught in the village of Petrishchevo, Yaroslavl province. How many true marks are here! This is the fields of old newspapers used instead of school notebooks, and the “brilliant” idea of ​​Baba Koki, who decided to teach the guys the French language.

- the journal " Literary Review ", 1975 ^[9]

The story took its rightful place among the works on the school theme:

They once argued about the "school story." We talked about M. Prilezhaeva, F. Vigdorova , B. Emelyanov , N. Nosov , A. Musatov ... They sometimes argued in vain, for the real books of these writers were much wider than this genre, even if they were dedicated to the "school theme" or some other . Recently, more recently, M. Prilezhaeva proved this with her Green Branch of May. And no one says that the “Green Branch ...” is a “school story”, although it is a school story in the true sense of the word.

- Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR, chief editor of the magazine "Friendship of Peoples ", S. A. Baruzdin , 1982 ^[10]

Especially in the reviews of the story, the images of her heroes were noted.

When creating the image of the main character, according to V. M. Ozerov , the author’s ability to “poetically portray the diversity of the intellectual and emotional life of Katya Bektysheva, a young teacher of the early 20s, a charming girl who passionately loves painting and poetry” was manifested. ^[eleven]

The greatest success of the story is, of course, the captivating, endearing with its spiritual purity and inspiration image of the leading heroine, Katya Bektysheva. ^[one]

But at the same time, it was emphasized that the image was realistic: “the teacher Katya Bektysheva, who is looking for her own way in life, is not sterilely flawless - she makes mistakes, including pedagogical mistakes -“ as they say, “punctures”, but with it was greeted by readers with joy because, while not being an ideal, it possesses the main human virtues - humanity and fidelity to duty, honesty in front of oneself and students, hard work and striving for justice. ^[12]

In the image of the closest relative of the main character - Aunt Katina’s mother of “Baba-Koki”, Ksenia Vasilievna, the author’s image of what the “ extra person ” is capable of is noted by critics:

The image of “Baba-Koki”, this aristocrat who retained not only her proud posture, but also everyday common sense, is one of the undisputed successes of the story. Well-read, intelligent, kind, honest, not lost in any circumstances, without changing the nobility of her strong-willed character - she, in fact, lived a rather aimless life before meeting her granddaughter Katya. The fact that her life was not lived as it should, she herself thinks.
“ Was your goal high?” She asks herself. - Favorite business, such as to give my whole soul? No. Lived for pleasure, and nothing more. And nothing higher. And all your hobbies were eternal. The past were both love and affection. What is this? After all, such people, she mentally says with complete mercilessness to herself, are called Ksenia Vasilievna “non-smokers”. Or here is another writer Turgenev about people like me who invented the word “extra people”. Sarcastically said . "

But we can say that at that time, when Ksenia Vasilyevna indulged in these self-critical thoughts, she was no longer an "extra man", but Katya became very, very necessary.

- The Banner magazine, 1976 ^[2]

The image of Baba Koki is undoubtedly the artistic luck of the writer, one of the most attractive characters in the story. Her past is sparingly, casually, in two or three phrases, but in all the noble appearance of this, maybe even a little harsh woman, in her words and deeds one can easily discern an outstanding personality. It is she who teaches Katya the first moral lessons.

- the journal " Literary Review ", 1975 ^[9]

The magazine “ Soviet Pedagogy ” noted the proximity of the story with the story of Andrei Platonov “ Sandy teacher ”: ^[13]

The autobiographical story “The Green Branch of May” is one of the few contemporary works, warmed by a sense of involvement of the young heroine in the new post-revolutionary life, village children, the fate of those to whom life is merciless. The “Idea of ​​Life” of the young heroine from the story “The Green Branch of May” is related to the “idea of ​​life” that directed the thoughts and actions of the “sand teacher”.

Yes, and Maria Prilezhaeva herself in an interview said that the young teacher from Platonov’s story reminded her of her youth: “I, like Maria Nikiforovna, did not feel offended, overjoyed by happiness.” ^[13]

• Green branch of May. The Story // Journal "Youth", 1975 No. 2, 3, 4.
• Green branch of May. Story. Fig. O. Bogaevskaya - M .: Children's literature 1976—256 p. (circulation of 75,000 copies)
• Green branch of May; Third Varya: The Story / Fig. O. Korovin - M .: Children's literature, 1978-400 p.
• Green branch of May; Youth of Masha Strogova: Novels / Art. V. Nagaev - M.: Young Guard, 1979-494 p.
• Green branch of May: story / Fig. O. Korovin - M .: Children's literature, 1986—271 p.

The story is included in the published 50-volume book series "Library of World Literature for Children" of the publishing house "Children's Literature" (Volume 29, Book 3, 1985)

Also, along with the novels “Youth” by Veniamin Kaverin and “The Wild Dog of the Dingo, or Tale of First Love” by Reuben Fraerman, the story was included in the second volume of the 4-volume book series “Adolescence” of the same publishing house (Volume 2, 1989).

The book has been translated into a number of foreign languages, including German and Slovak.

The first edition of a 1976 book with drawings by O. Bogaevskaya was marked in 1977 with a diploma from the All-Union Competition "The Art of the Book " in the category " for the design of a mass book for young people ." ^[fourteen]

• Pekshev V. - Everything is just beginning ... (review) // Literary Review, No. 7, 1975 - pp. 21-22
• Bavina V. - The main theme // Soviet Culture, September 24, 1976 - p. 4
• Seidov V. - Ripe fruits of a green branch // Literary newspaper, September 29, 1976 - p. 5.
• Zheglov I. - The sublime measure of frankness // Change, No. 3, 1978 - p. 27