A summary of "Sisters" by Alexei Tolstoy Automatic translate

The novel was written in 1922. The original version of the text was created during his years of exile, incorporating the author’s acute personal experiences with the recent change of eras and the collapse of the imperial foundations. For the entire series of novels, the author received the first-degree Stalin Prize in 1943. The work has been adapted for the screen numerous times by Russian directors, with the most famous productions released in 1957, 1977, and 2017.

The book opens the extensive historical series "The Road to Calvary." The second volume of the series was the novel "The Eighteenth Year," and the third part, "Gloomy Morning," concludes the narrative.

Life in St. Petersburg on the eve of the war

Nineteen-year-old Daria Bulavina comes from Samara to St. Petersburg to study law. She moves in with her older sister, Ekaterina Dmitrievna Smokovnikova. Katya’s husband, lawyer Nikolai Ivanovich, is well known in society. The capital lives a hectic, satiated life. Decadence permeates everything. The Smokovnikovs’ apartment is a gathering place for the noisy intelligentsia. The guests engage in endless debates about the fate of their homeland.

At her sister’s salon, Dasha first encounters the fashionable poet Alexei Bessonov. His dark poems and cynical speeches fill his listeners with melancholy. Ekaterina Dmitrievna succumbs to a sudden impulse and cheats on her husband with Bessonov. After her fall, Katya suffers, feeling dirty. Dasha notices new notes in her sister’s behavior. She herself experiences a morbid attraction to the poet. She visits Bessonov at his apartment. In a burst of sincerity, Dasha confesses her feelings to him. The poet invites her to stay, but Dasha, frightened by his icy indifference, runs away.

Soon, Ekaterina Dmitrievna’s deception is revealed. Dasha demands that her sister tell her husband the truth. Nikolai Ivanovich is deeply affected by his wife’s infidelity. He accuses Katya of being emotionally empty. The couple decides to separate for a while. Ekaterina Dmitrievna goes to France, while Nikolai Ivanovich goes to Crimea to treat his nerves.

Futurists and a meeting on a steamship

Dasha attends a futurist group. The organization has the outrageous name "Central Station for Combating Everyday Life." There, she meets Ivan Ilyich Telegin. This young engineer from the Baltic Shipyard rents an apartment where young rebels live. Dasha immediately takes a genuine liking to Telegin. He treats his guest to simple tea and candy, and Dasha realizes that she’s dealing with a reliable, kind man.

Spring 1914 arrives. Dasha decides to visit her father and leaves for Samara. On a steamship sailing down the Volga, she runs into Telegin again. The young people spend the entire day together. Ivan Ilyich has long been secretly in love with Dasha, but he doesn’t dare openly confess his feelings. They speak in hints, understanding each other without further ado. Ivan Ilyich tells her he lost his job at the factory. A strike broke out the day before, bloodshed ensued, and Telegin resigned after a harsh conversation with his superiors.

Dasha feels stuffy and lonely in Samara. The city is choked by hot, dusty air. Her father, the district doctor Dmitry Stepanovich Bulavin, is busy with his patients. He advises his daughter to go to Yevpatoriya, find Nikolai Ivanovich, and try to reconcile her brother-in-law with her sister.

Crimean heat and the beginning of the disaster

Dasha arrives in Crimea. The atmosphere of the southern resort is permeated with idleness and frivolity. Vacationers refuse to dwell on the negative. Suddenly, Dasha meets Bessonov. The poet has completely sunk and lost his purpose in life. That night, he sneaks into her room through the window. Bessonov demands her love, trying to take her by force. Dasha pushes him away in disgust. In the morning, she feels devastated.

Suddenly, Ivan Ilyich Telegin appears near the dacha. He’s come specifically to say goodbye. Ivan Ilyich delivers terrible news: war with Germany has begun. Telegin has been mobilized and is leaving for the front in a few hours. Dasha can’t bear the tension and openly confesses her love to him: "Ivan Ilyich, my dear, how I’ve been waiting for you." The lovers say goodbye on the seashore.

Soon, war engulfs the entire country. The Russian armies suffer enormous losses. Telegin is sent into active service. The soldiers rot for months in the trenches under heavy enemy fire. During a night raid across the river, Ivan Ilyich captures an enemy machine gunner. Soon after, Telegin’s unit is ambushed in the forest. Having fired all his ammunition, Ivan Ilyich is seriously wounded in the shoulder and ends up in Austrian captivity.

The death of a poet and the birth of a bandit

Alexei Bessonov also goes to the front. He serves in a Red Cross medical unit. The poet is indifferent to his own fate; death seems the only escape from his melancholy. During a nighttime Zeppelin raid, the medical convoy is destroyed by bombs. Bessonov miraculously survives. He wanders along the road in the darkness. Wild dogs stalk him from the forest. Soon, a Russian deserter catches up with the poet. The soldier, driven mad by hunger and fear, attacks Bessonov and kills him.

Meanwhile, other destinies are shattered. Elizaveta Kievna Rastorgueva, a former member of the futurist circle, marries officer Arkady Zhadov. Zhadov despises people. The former lieutenant sincerely believes he has every right to kill and rob for personal gain. At the front, during an artillery barrage, Zhadov loses an arm. The crippled couple settles in Anapa. The officer becomes a complete alcoholic, abuses his wife, and decides to become a professional bandit. One night, he and an accomplice rob a jewelry store.

Moscow hospitals

Ekaterina Dmitrievna returns from Paris. She reconciles with Nikolai Ivanovich. The couple lives in Moscow, trying to mend their broken relationship. Dasha moves to the old capital, studies law, and works as a nurse in a hospital. The news that Telegin is listed as missing in action leaves her in shock. Working in the infirmary becomes Dasha’s only escape from grief. Ekaterina Dmitrievna joins her sister. By caring for crippled soldiers, Katya finds relief from her former emotional emptiness.

Captain Vadim Petrovich Roshchin appears at the Smokovnikovs’ house. A deep, hidden romance blossoms between him and Katya. Roshchin returns to the front lines, carrying the image of Catherine in his heart. Soon, Nikolai Ivanovich is sent to the front as a commissar for the Provisional Government. Hard times are approaching. Devastation is spreading to the rear. Long lines for bread stretch through the streets.

The collapse of the empire

The year 1917 arrives. Bread riots begin in Petrograd, escalating into a full-fledged revolution. The monarch’s power collapses. Crowds sack police stations. Power passes to the Soviets and the Provisional Government.

Nikolai Ivanovich attempts to deliver patriotic speeches to the soldiers. The commissar urges the army to fight to the bitter end. The frontline soldiers, embittered by three years of carnage, ridicule him. Nikolai Ivanovich shouts and insults the soldiers. A brawl breaks out. An enraged artilleryman knocks Smokovnikov to the ground. The soldiers beat the commissar to death.

Meanwhile, Ivan Ilyich Telegin is being held in an Austrian concentration camp. The conditions are intolerable. One of the Russian prisoners succumbs to the abuse and commits suicide. A spontaneous riot breaks out. Staff Captain Zhukov attacks the Austrian commandant. Telegin pulls his comrade away, trying to prevent the massacre. However, the Austrian court sentences Ivan Ilyich, Zhukov, and Lieutenant Colonel Melshin to death by firing squad.

At the last minute, the condemned men rush at their guards. Melshin starts the engine of the commandant’s car. The Russian officers escape right from under the firing squad’s noses. Telegin makes his way through the Carpathian Mountains. He crosses the front line on foot during a night battle, miraculously escapes bullets, and finally reaches Moscow.

Meeting in Petrograd

Ivan Ilyich finds Dasha in Moscow. She cries with joy. The lovers stroll through the city, unable to stop looking at each other. Ivan Ilyich receives an appointment at the Baltic Shipyard. Dasha and Ivan are married in a small Moscow church. Immediately after the wedding, Dasha moves to Petrograd to join her husband.

Katya falls gravely ill after learning of her husband’s brutal death. She feels utterly alone and decides to take morphine. She is saved from suicide by the sudden appearance of Vadim Roshchin. Katya moves to Petrograd to be closer to her sister. Roshchin brings the most dire news from the front. The army is fleeing, the soldiers are throwing down their arms. Vadim Petrovich is convinced that his homeland is perishing, and in a fit of despair, he tells Catherine, "Great Russia has ceased to exist."

The novel ends with a disturbing scene on the Petrograd embankment. Katya and Vadim Petrovich are strolling through the city at sunset. A man with a bucket of glue passes by, pasting up posters warning that the revolution is in danger. Katya feels Roshchin’s endless tenderness, but the air around her is permeated with anxiety and the premonition of an impending catastrophe.