A Child's Drawings by Varlam Shalamov
"A Child's Drawings" by Varlam Shalamov is a poignant narrative set in a Kolyma labor camp, emphasizing the harsh realities faced by political prisoners. The story begins with the narrator, a nameless prisoner, participating in the daily rigors of camp life, which includes menial tasks like sawing wood. During a brief respite, he discovers a child's drawing tablet amidst a garbage pile, igniting memories of his own childhood creativity and simpler times. As he flips through the drawings, he is struck by the stark contrast between the vibrant childhood imagery and the oppressive environment of the camp, where the child's world is defined by barbed wire, guard towers, and a life governed by fear and survival.
The drawings reflect a reality devoid of freedom, with characters like Ivan-Tsarevich depicted in military garb, symbolizing the loss of innocence and the impact of the camp's brutal existence on future generations. This contrast serves as a reminder of the narrator's lost childhood and the pervasive influence of the camp's dehumanizing conditions. Through this discovery, Shalamov explores themes of memory, loss, and the stark dichotomy between innocence and the grim reality of life in a labor camp. The narrative ultimately prompts reflection on the enduring impact of such experiences on identity and perception of the world.
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A Child's Drawings by Varlam Shalamov
First published: "Detskie kartinki," 1978 (English translation, 1980)
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: The mid-1930's to the mid-1950's
Locale: A forced-labor camp in the Kolyma region of northeastern Siberia
Principal Characters:
The narrator , a political prisoner in one of Stalin's work campsTwo other political prisoners , members of his brigade
The Story
The story begins as the routine day begins. The narrator, a nameless political prisoner in a nameless Kolyma labor camp, is sent out with the other prisoners for the day's work. There is no checklist for the prisoners; they are simply lined up by fives so that the guards have an easy time of counting and multiplying. Today the narrator's brigade has an easy job—sawing wood with a circular saw, a task that usually falls to a more privileged prisoner group, the common criminals. The saw, like the prisoners, moves slowly, growling in the bitter cold of the far North. The third prisoner assigned to the woodpile works separately, splitting the brittle, frozen larch logs that fall apart easily, despite the fact that he can barely wield the hatchet.
The brigade has a few minutes of free time after stacking the wood because their guard has gone indoors to warm up and they have to wait for the remaining brigades to finish and gather for the collective march back to camp. They take advantage of the break to comb through a nearby garbage pile, a heap of trash they have been eyeing all day long. Picking through one layer after another, they collect the scraps and castoffs that may mean survival for another day—discarded socks, the odd crust of bread, leftover cutlets frozen hard.
The narrator keeps scratching because he alone of the three has not yet found anything useful. He turns up something he has not seen in years—a child's drawing tablet, filled with scenes from all four of Kolyma's cold seasons. As he begins flipping the pages, he recalls his own childhood and his own drawings of fantastic folk heroes and magical animals. The recollections are vivid—his white paint box, the kerosene lamp on the kitchen table, the drawings themselves. He remembers his Ivan-Tsarevich, Prince Ivan, loping through the forest astride his trusty gray wolf, smoke rising in a curlicue, birds like check marks. The more vivid his own recollection, the more acute the realization that his own childhood is gone and that he will find no trace of it in this child's drawings.
The world in this child's tablet is one of wooden fences and wooden walls, all identical, all yellow ocher: fences, barbed wire, sentry boxes, guard towers, armed guards. The purity and brightness of the young artist's colors remind the narrator of a local legend—that God created the taiga when he was still young, before he learned to create intricate designs or a variety of birds and beasts. When he grew up and learned these things, he buried his stark taiga world in snow and left for the south.
The narrator concentrates on a winter scene, a northern hunt. Here Ivan-Tsarevich wears a military-issue fur hat with earflaps, a thick sheepskin coat and a rifle at his back. A German shepherd strains at the leash. The narrator realizes that the only world this child knows or will ever recall is one where humans hunt one another and where life is circumscribed by yellow buildings, wire fences, guards with guns, and blue sky.
Another prisoner breaks the narrator's reverie. He tests the notebook paper, then tosses it back onto the pile, remarking that newspaper works better for rolling cigarettes.