A summary of Mikhail Zoshchenko’s "The Charms of Culture"

This collection of satirical short stories and novellas was created between 1921 and 1936. The work captures the transformation of everyday life, thinking, and morality during the Civil War, the New Economic Policy, and the construction of socialism. The author uses a unique narrative language that imitates the spoken language of a semi-literate urban bourgeois.

Many of the author’s cycles and stories have gained wide recognition, and individual everyday scenes formed the basis for famous Soviet film comedies, including Leonid Gaidai’s adaptation of "It Can’t Be!"

A series of stories about the Civil War and life during the NEP

In the story "War," soldiers of the third company, led by Fedyushka Lokhmatkin and Yersh, travel by train to the front. At Krivye Gorki station, they take a fox fur coat and a barrel of oil from a barrier detachment. Arriving at Ustyug station, the soldiers refuse to surrender their weapons to the sailors. Fedyushka’s eloquence resolves the conflict, and the company continues on its way. In the village, Fedyusha stays with the "American" Marusya. Ultimately, Fedyusha, Yorsh, and the company commander, Ilya Ilyich, desert into the forest. An attempt to rob a traveler in a yellow wagon ends with Yersh’s death and Fedyushka’s injury.

In the story "Confession," Granny Thekla lights a candle before an icon for two grivenniks and goes to confession. When the priest asks her about her religion, she explains that her son denies the existence of God. The priest dejectedly agrees that it could be nothing but chemicals, frightening the old woman.

The story "Trouble" tells the story of a peasant named Yegor Ivanovich Glotov from the village of Gnilye Prudki. For two winters, he lives on straw and saves on tobacco so he can buy a horse. Arriving in town, Glotov haggles at length at the market and buys a simple nag the color of dry clay. Overjoyed, he meets a fellow villager and takes his purchase to a tavern to "spray." Two days later, Yegor returns to the village on foot, having drunk the horse dry.

The story "A Rich Life" describes the artisan Ilya Ivanovich Spiridonov, who won five thousand rubles through a gold loan. His wealth brings him nothing but misfortune: he quarrels with his relatives over two rubles, is brought to trial for illegally hiring a girl named Bykova, constantly watches over the purchased cube of firewood in the yard, and suffers from the tears of his wife, Marya Ignatyevna.

In the story "Victim of the Revolution," former polater Yefim Grigorievich shows healed abrasions on his foot. Before the 1917 Revolution, a former countess accused him of stealing a diamond watch. Yefim later recalled that he himself had hidden the watch in a jug of powder. Running onto Ofitserskaya Street during the October Revolution, the polater attempts to shout to the arrested Count Oreshin about the location of the treasure, but is run over by a truck.

In the story "The Aristocrat," Grigory Ivanovich takes a woman from Room 7 to the emergency room. During intermission, the woman goes to the buffet and eats four cream puffs. Her suitor only has enough money for four. Grigory forces her to return the half-eaten puff back onto the plate, causing a scene. The fourth puff is eaten by a stranger, and the suitor is separated from the "aristocrat" forever.

Bourgeois life and social comedies

The story "A Dog’s Scent" depicts the arrival of a criminal sniffer dog at the home of merchant Yeremey Babkin, whose raccoon coat has been stolen. The dog successively exposes Granny Fekla with her moonshine still, the building manager who spent money on water, the citizen from number seven with a forged year in his work record book, the merchant Babkin himself, who appropriated his brother’s coat, and the dog-breeder agent who steals government food.

In "Marriage of Convenience," Grigory Ivanovich marries a woman based on her fifteenth-grade status and food stamps. Two months later, his wife is laid off due to downsizing as a married woman, after which he immediately files for divorce.

The plot of "The Unknown Friend" describes a wealthy man named Pyotr Petrovich from Malaya Okhta, who owned two samovars and fifteen irons. After receiving an anonymous letter about his wife Katerina Vasilyevna allegedly cheating, the husband stalks her in the Workers’ Garden. Meanwhile, thieves steal all the household utensils and samovars from their apartment, leaving a mocking note.

In the story "Love," Vasya Chesnokov walks Mashenka home in the freezing cold, vowing his readiness to sacrifice himself. They’re stopped by a robber on the Kryukov Canal. The bandit forces Vasya to take off his fur coat and boots, leaving Mashenka alone. Chesnokov is indignant that his companion remains warm while he takes off his shoes in the snow, then runs off, shouting "Help!"

The story "The Groom" tells the story of Yegorka Basov, who, after the death of his wife Katerina, proposes marriage to the lame soldier’s wife Anisya in Shtetl. After taking her trunk and feather bed, he notices she is lame in both legs, dumps her things on the road, and leaves.

In his work "Happiness," glassblower Ivan Fomich Testov recalls a single, joyful day. Twenty years ago, a drunken soldier smashed a plate-glass window in a tavern with a cobblestone. Testov offered to replace the window for seventy-five rubles, bought it for forty rubles at the store, and earned thirty rubles net, which he drank away over two months.

In the story "No Need to Have Relatives," tram conductor Seryoga Vlasov kicks his uncle Timofey Vasilyevich off the tram for refusing to pay a ten-kopeck piece of money for the ride, citing the state status of the vehicle.

In "Bathhouse," the protagonist describes washing in a public bathhouse. He ties numbers to his feet, spends a long time searching for an empty tub, washes standing in a spray of soapy suds, receives someone else’s torn pants, loses his coat number, and goes home without soap.

In "Nervous People," a fight breaks out in a communal kitchen between Marya Shchiptsova and Daria Kobylina over a hedgehog comb used to clean the stove. Her husband, Ivan Kobylin, joins the conflict. In the cramped kitchen, the disabled Gavrilov is smashed in the head with a saucepan. A police officer arrives and threatens to shoot, and the judge sentences the participants.

The story "Monkey Language" depicts a dialogue between citizens at a meeting, who misuse foreign vocabulary without understanding its meaning. They discuss how plenary the meeting is and how a quorum has been reached.

In "The Delights of Culture," Vasily Mitrofanovich goes to the theater with Loktev and Nyusha Koshelkova. Lacking a jacket, he’s wearing only a rough nightgown under his coat. The cloakroom attendants force him to take off his coat. Vasily freezes in the theater, fidgeting, and the theater administration issues him a fine.

In "The Repairman," Ivan Kuzmich Myakishev is offended that he’s seated off to the side in a group photo of the company, while the tenor is seated in the center. During the opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila," he turns off the lights throughout the building, demanding that his two young ladies be seated in prominent positions. The manager relents, arguing the value of the technical staff.

Stories about production, illnesses and common illusions

In the novel "The Patient," the peasant woman Anisya travels thirty kilometers to see the famous paramedic Ivan Kuzmich. She details her anguish over the arrival of her husband, Dmitry Naumovich, a deputy who reproached her for her lack of education. The paramedic sends her to a teacher to learn fractions.

In "Case History," the protagonist is admitted to the hospital with typhoid fever. At the entrance, he reads a sign that reads, "Corpses are being released, three to four at a time." At the wash station, he is placed in a bathtub where a sick old woman is floating. He is given underwear that doesn’t fit. The protagonist contracts typhoid fever, whooping cough, and upon returning home, learns that his wife has been notified to claim his body.

The plot of "Product Quality" describes the life of a German man from Berlin in the Gusevs’ room. When he leaves, the German leaves behind jars of powder. Gusev spends a month powdering his face with this pink aftershave, praising the German product. Later, an acquaintance reads the label on the jar and discovers it’s a foreign flea repellent.

In "Earthquake," shoemaker Ivan Yakovlevich Snopkov from Yalta drinks a bottle and a half of vodka and falls asleep in his yard under a cypress tree. At the same time, the Crimean earthquake of the 1920s occurs. Waking up in the middle of a destroyed booth, Snopkov, hungover, finishes the rest of the vodka, wanders down the street in his underwear, and believes he’s been transported to Turkey.

Autobiographical story "Retribution"

The final story in the collection, "Retribution," is told from the perspective of Anna Lavrentyevna Kasyanova, a factory worker. At seven years old, Anna is left an orphan. Maksim Ivanovich Deyev, a kulak, sends her to work at a sugar factory, where she works twelve hours a day. For her labor, the kulak receives eight rubles, giving the child a strict one ruble.

At sixteen, Anna left for Kyiv, worked as a servant for the young lady Olenka, learned to read and write, and then was hired as a cook for General Nina Viktorovna Dubasova. The general’s wife regularly hosted a group of officers: the puppet-like Lieutenant Yuri Bunakov, the powdered Captain Gleb Tsvetayev, and the brash Count Shidlovsky.

The February Revolution of 1917 changed Anna’s life. She joined a demonstration on the street freeing political prisoners from the Sennoy Bazaar prison. Among those freed was her orderly, Pasha Borovsky. Anna spoke at a university rally, left the general’s wife, and became an agitator for the trade union movement.

During the October Revolution, Anna traveled to Leningrad as a delegate, witnessing Lenin and Menshevik demonstrations. Returning to Kyiv, she joined the party and joined a partisan detachment with her student husband, Arkady Tomilin. After Arkady’s death near Chernigov, Anna fought on the front lines of the Civil War.

Having become commandant of trains carrying typhus patients, Kasyanova delivered them to Zhitomir, enduring clashes with station masters. After recovering from typhus, she was tasked by the provincial committee to infiltrate the Whites in Crimea to establish contact with the Simferopol underground.

While crossing the front line at the Yushun positions near Perekop, Kasyanova was arrested by officers. During interrogation in Dzhankoy by Colonel Piramidov, she pretended to be Lieutenant Bunakov’s lover. After a mock execution and beating, Ensign Vasily Komarov intervened on Kasyanova’s behalf.

In Simferopol, Anna learns of the destruction of the underground apartment, retrieves a belt containing government money hidden in the grass at the 76th verst, and sets off with Komarov to Yalta. There, she hands over the money to the remaining underground fighters and observes the evacuation of the White Guards by steamship. Among those fleeing abroad, she notices Nina Viktorovna and Bunakov.

Kasyanova refuses to leave for Constantinople. Komarov shoots her, but Anna takes the revolver. Komarov is knocked unconscious while boarding the schooner and sails away. Red Army units enter Yalta. Anna later marries Kasyanov’s namesake and devotes her life to Soviet construction.