Collected Stories. Volume 1

Bright language, vividness, humor, liveliness, maximum believability of characters, simplicity and extraordinary depth of the stories—this is what first comes to mind when trying, “in general,” to characterize the work of Vasily Shukshin.

It is known. But what is not obvious… Perhaps no one expressed the soul of the Russian “common man” as Shukshin did. And this isn’t only about the 60s–70s; it’s about continuity that everyone can easily recognize in themselves. Want to understand the Russian man? Read Shukshin. Without a doubt! So, Shukshin’s stories are not only about the recent “past”—they are also a mirror of the modern Russian soul.
In Russian literature there are three writers standing very close to one another… Gogol, Shukshin, and Chekhov. Or, rather, Gogol, Chekhov, Shukshin, of course. Gogol lived 43 years, Chekhov—44, Shukshin—45. […]
All three wrote humorous stories. That’s why they are easy to understand and love. When a person laughs, he becomes better—because he forgets how to “play at being” clever; he stops being the sort of person he is trying to be. His defenses weaken…

There was a genre in our cinema—lyric comedy. It’s when you sit down to laugh a bit—and then you cry. And you think about life. And you become so wise, so thoughtful—that’s terrifying! As if they’ve understood something very important about life. And each of these three writers was such a lyric comedy. They didn’t weigh you down. They didn’t claim. They simply went for a walk—an easy genre… And yet […]

Shukshin-the-writer is “underrated” among us—however funny that sounds… When people say someone “underrated” something, they mean that that person underestimated the significance of the phenomenon for themselves. And that means they “did not get enough,” “did not receive enough” of it—that phenomenon. They failed to perceive it fully. They removed only the top layer.

© Lev Pirogov