And the thin will become fat – Weekend
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Among the rare examples of real peasant prose there is a very special, amazing book – “The Story of My Life” by Ivan Yurov. Confession of a man who was eager for knowledge and wanted to build a just world, but, of course, could not. This is also a story about how his dream of a triumph of thin workers, in which there is no place for hated fat exploiters, collapsed.
“I wrote the story of my unlucky life for my son Leonid. Apart from this, I have nothing to leave you” – this is how the autobiography of Ivan Yurov from the Vologda province begins, a rare thing: peasants usually do not write memoirs. Our author was born in 1887, died in 1954, and finished writing the book in 1935. And in the early seventies of the twentieth century, that same son Leonid tried to introduce the Vologda writers’ organization to his father’s work. And, it seems, he was surprised, he didn’t quite understand why professional writers from the regional center were not interested in peasant notebooks. A bright and uncomplicated Soviet man.
“The Story of My Life” by Ivan Yurov was eventually published, but in Russia, in 2017, many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And now, falling into this viscous prose, unlike anything else, into a story full of details about endless pain, about the personal collapse of a talented self-taught person, it is not difficult to guess what confused the Vologda writers at one time.
Simple and poor peasant life. The father is a tyrant, from an early age – hard work, right up to injury at logging: Yurov injured his leg and remained lame. He learned to read early, read all the lives of saints and religious brochures that he could get his hands on, and became a devout believer. Then he accidentally came across a forbidden book about the injustice of the tsarist regime and the people’s struggle for their rights. And the teenager forgot God, became an unstoppable seeker of illegal literature, read seditious works aloud to the peasants… It is interesting, by the way, that, if you believe Yurov, the peasants were not particularly afraid of the police: they could not let the official sent from the city into the hut, or even beat him up. The wilderness has its own laws.
Yurov willingly argued with the priests – ignorant, drunk and fat. Bold. This is important for our history. He confused the minds of his fellow villagers, easily gaining the upper hand in disputes.
At the age of 17, he ran away to the city for a better life, but did not find a better life. I found poverty, hunger, casual and meager earnings. He returned to the village, but didn’t fit in there either. His entire subsequent life is a story of wanderings in search of a better life. The German front, captivity, return to their homeland, revolution and the hopes associated with it: now the poor will rule, and the rich will answer for everything. A commune organized in one’s native village. Failure: the neighbors, as it turned out, were not imbued with the ideals of communism, remaining hardened owners. Another commune, no longer organized by him, and another failure – there is only laziness, theft, irresponsibility, hunger and lice. Due to the indifference of the Communards, Yurov’s little daughter, whom he loved touchingly and tenderly, dies.
The story of an unstoppable flight to nowhere: he changes places, sometimes even ends up in positions of profit, but does not stay – he stigmatizes his superiors, quarrels with the powers that be. Personal life is also confusing, also a source of suffering. The speech is sometimes almost Platonic, sometimes almost Leskovian, but this is the speech of a disappointed wanderer.
He didn’t succeed. The country, it seems, does the same – the longed-for paradise on earth has not come for all workers. And those who managed to escape poverty turn into boring philistines. Because of this, Yurov quarreled with his son (not Leonid, another) – after college he got a good job, gave shelter to his father, but in his apartment there are curtains, frills, porcelain cups and a wife who talks only about outfits… Unbearable.
With other inductions he could have become a sectarian with a fiery gaze, but he became a watchman, wrote revealing letters to the newspaper, and received replies from the newspaper – we need to pay more attention to the bright moments.
But an attentive reader will probably notice one obsessive motive in Yurov’s narrative: hatred of fat people. Fat people have outraged him since childhood. They are the embodiment (a living and voluminous embodiment) of everything that our restless idealist does not like. The world of the fat is opposed to the world of the unfortunate and hungry, who by the sweat of their brow are trying to earn their bread.
Before the revolution, rich men had “obese wives from idleness.” And these rich people themselves are fat, self-confident, despising people like Ivan Yurov. The revolution must be a victory for the skinny. But it doesn’t: fat people still remain the masters of life.
Germany, revolution, Yurov – no longer a prisoner, rushes to Russia, ends up at a demonstration of local Bolsheviks. And – here there is a mixture of surprise and disgust – he sees that in the columns they are walking cheerfully and cheerfully, wearing bold red bows on their expensive suits: “The belly is like the udder of a pregnant cow.” Russia, which has won the revolution, Yurov talks with a responsible worker who should supposedly represent the power of the peasants and workers, protect him, Yurov, from adversity. But he doesn’t protect, he multiplies troubles, and he has a disgusting, greasy scruff. Moscow, the capital of the proletarian state, and Yurov, who happened to be there, does not know where to get money for a piece of bread or where to find lodging for the night, and the fat ones, who still own everything, take their well-groomed mistresses to the theater. Also, of course, in the taste of the century, not bad. And they buy a ticket for an unimaginable 10 rubles. Yurov has been eager for culture all his life; he wants to see the theater, but he can’t. Theater is for those who are overfed.
Heaven is a place where the wicked rule. But there is no such place. The ideal is crumbling. The stereotype formed in childhood does not stand up to reality.
I wonder, by the way, what he would say about our current world, where thin people are rich people who have time and money for proper nutrition and fitness. And the poor are fat, poor on the couch, watching TV, with chips and beer. Fat shaming won, but the poor still lost.
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