Matryona's House by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"Matryona's House" is a poignant short story by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn that explores themes of loss, resilience, and the clash of values in Soviet society. The narrative follows Matryona Grigorieva, a childless widow living in the fictional village of Tal'novo, as she navigates her complicated relationships and the impact of historical events on her life. The story is set against the backdrop of the Soviet Union, contrasting the rustic village life with the modernity and materialism represented by the nearby collective farm.
Matryona's character embodies traditional Russian values of spirituality and acceptance, while her former lover, Ilya, symbolizes the greed and ambition of a changing society. Through a series of flashbacks, the tale reveals Matryona’s sacrifices, including her unfulfilled love and the death of her children, culminating in a tragic ending that underscores the consequences of Ilya's vindictiveness. The narrator, who shares a background of suffering and exile, reflects on Matryona's quiet dignity and essential goodness, ultimately recognizing her as a righteous figure within a flawed world. The story serves as a powerful commentary on the human condition and the moral dilemmas faced during tumultuous times.
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Matryona's House by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
First published: "Matrenin dvor," 1963 (English translation, 1963)
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: 1953
Locale: Tal'novo, a village "somewhere in central Russia"
Principal Characters:
Matryona Vasilievna Grigorieva , the protagonist, an elderly, ailing widow, the narrator's landladyThe narrator , called Ignatich by his landlady, a former prisoner, now a teacher of mathematicsIlya Mironich Grigoriev , Matryona's first love, the older brother of her eventual husband, EfimKira , the daughter of Ilya and his wife, given by them to the childless Matryona to rear
The Story
The story of Matryona Grigorieva's life and death is told—and remarked on—by a narrator whose full name is not given, but whom one may take to be a spokesperson for the author. That is, like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the narrator has served time in labor camps and has now taken up residence in a village where he will teach mathematics in high school. As the author taught in several places during his exile from 1953 to 1957, following his release from prison, the setting of "Matryona's House" is a composite of villages in Uzbekistan and in the Ryazan and Vladimir districts of the Soviet Union and is thus a generalized Soviet village, here given the fictional name Tal'novo. The village of Tal'novo is set in contrast to the nearby Soviet collective farm of Torfoprodukt ("Peatproduce"), with its processing factories.
As time passes from summer to winter, one learns from the narrator that his landlady, though a childless widow, has a foster daughter, Kira, who is now married. Anticipating her own death, she has bequeathed to Kira one of the several small structures that make up her dwelling place (the Russian word dvor means "homestead," rather than merely "house"). The actual cottage in which Matryona and her boarder live, though built within living memory of the villagers, seems almost ancient. The caulking has come loose from the logs, and in its walls live myriad mice and cockroaches. The cottage has begun to decay, just as Matryona has become old and sickly.
In a series of casually introduced flashbacks, one learns that Matryona had loved Ilya Grigoriev before he went away to war in 1914. When he failed to return at the expected time, she married his younger brother Efim (an act that, the reader will find, invokes the adage "Marry in haste, repent at leisure"). When Ilya returns at last from a German prisoner-of-war camp, he tells Matryona that if Efim were not his brother, he would murder the pair of them. He then scours the area for another woman named Matryona and marries her.
The other Matryona bears her husband six children, all of whom survive to maturity. Matryona-married-to-Efim also has six children, but none lives longer than six months. Then comes World War II, and Efim is called up for military duty. Unlike Ilya, Efim does not return. Matryona thus becomes a widow; she would have been childless but for Kira, the other Matryona's youngest daughter, given to her to rear.
As the reader grows more and more sympathetic to the decent, tolerant, and passively suffering Matryona, he becomes increasingly aware of the tension created by the vindictive and greedy Ilya. Ilya insists that the promised outbuilding be given to Kira (who is, after all, still his daughter), and finally Matryona agrees.
The process of numbering, dismantling, and moving the logs of the hut is a lengthy one, complicated by February snows, the necessity of transporting the lumber some thirty-five kilometers to Kira's village, and the ritual requirement of drinking great amounts of moonshine vodka before departing. Matryona accompanies the men to the railroad crossing—and there she is killed when one of the sledges hangs up on the tracks and is smashed by a train. Through his greed, Ilya's threat of murder is thus implicitly fulfilled.
Ilya may be seen as representing the newer, urban values of ambition and materialism, while Matryona embodies the older Russian spirituality, fatalistic acceptance, and naturalness. The narrator recognizes Matryona's essential goodness as a kind of revelation or epiphany at the end of the story: "None of us who lived close to her perceived that she was that one righteous person without whom, as the saying goes, no city can stand. Neither can the whole world."