The Final Term

In the novellas of the well-known Soviet writer Valentin Rasputin, the focus is on people from a Siberian village; unique characters shaped by age-old folk traditions and a deep love for their native land, their region, are shown.

“Last Night, the Old Woman Died.” This final line from the novella “The Final Deadline” makes your heart clench with pain, even though not so little time had passed—almost 80 years of life for the elderly Anna, who is already gone. How many things she managed to do! But there wasn’t time to sigh and look around — to “hold in her eyes the beauty of the earth and the sky.” And now, the last allotted time in her life, the last meeting with the children who scattered across the country. And the way Anna had to see the children became the bitterst ordeal for her — it confirmed that “the final deadline” had come, the breaking of inner ties between generations. The final hours left to a mother become a burden to the children. They have no time to wait…