''Matryona's Place'' (russian: link=no, Матрёнин двор), sometimes translated as ''Matryona's Home'' (or House), is a novella written in 1959 by

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...

. First published by

Aleksandr Tvardovsky Aleksandr Trifonovich Tvardovsky ( rus, links=no, Александр Трифонович Твардовский, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr ˈtrʲifənəvʲɪtɕ tvɐrˈdofskʲɪj; – 18 December 1971) was a Soviet poet and writer and chief editor of ' ...

in the Russian literary journal ''

Novy Mir ''Novy Mir'' (russian: links=no, Новый мир, , ''New World'') is a Russian-language monthly literary magazine. History ''Novy Mir'' has been published in Moscow since January 1925. It was supposed to be modelled on the popular pre-Soviet ...

'' in 1963, it is Solzhenitsyn's most read short story. The narrator, a former prisoner of the

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

and a teacher of mathematics, has a longing to return to live in the Russian provinces and takes a job at a school on a

collective farm Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member ...

. Matryona offers him a place to live in her tiny, run-down home, but he is told not to expect any "fancy cooking." They share a single room where they eat and sleep; the narrator sleeps on a camp-bed and Matryona near the stove. The narrator finds the farm workers' lives little different from those of the pre-revolutionary landlords and their

serf Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which developed ...

s. Matryona works on the farm for little or no pay. She is forced to give a small annex of her home to a relative who wants to use the wood from it to build a house elsewhere in the village. A group of drunken farmers, with a tractor borrowed without permission, decide to move the wood at night. Matryona, typically, offers to help. During the chaos that follows she is killed by a train. Her character has been described as "the only true Christian (and) the only true Communist" and her death symbolic of Russia's martyrdom.Jackson R.L., "Matryona's Home: The Making of a Russian Icon," in Set in 1956, six years after the events portrayed in ''

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich ''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'' (russian: links=no, italics=yes, Один день Ивана Денисовича, Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha, ) is a short novel by the Russian writer and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first p ...

,'' the novella is considered to be one of the author's finest literary achievements. It is accessible to non-native speakers who have learnt Russian to an intermediate level.

References

Sources

* . * . * . * . * . * . * . * , Includes translations of ''An Incident at Krechetovka Station'' and ''Matryona's House''.

External links

Audiobook, in Russian
{{Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Fiction set in 1956 1959 Russian novels Novels by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Soviet novellas