"Sonechka" by Lyudmila Ulitskaya, summary

The book "Sonechka" was published in 1992 and introduced a wider audience to the author’s unique artistic world. The story focuses on the lives of ordinary people, the power of genuine affection, and the ability to maintain generosity of spirit and inner dignity amid poverty, camp life, and the everyday catastrophes of the Soviet era. "Sonechka" brought the author fame in France and Italy, winning the prestigious French Medici Prize for best foreign work in 1996 and the Italian Giuseppe Acerbi Prize in 1998.

This publication is part of the personal series "Lyudmila Ulitskaya. Selected Works." This series also includes such books as "The Kukotsky Case," "Medea and Her Children," "Daniel Stein, Translator," "The Green Tent," and "Jacob’s Ladder."

The story "Sonechka"

From an early age, Sonya lived by reading. The world of books replaced reality for her, freeing her from insecurities about her awkward figure and pear-shaped nose. After graduating from library technical school, she found work in a book depository, and at the beginning of World War II, she evacuated with her father to Sverdlovsk. There, in the library basement, Sonya met the forty-seven-year-old artist Robert Viktorovich, a former émigré who had returned from France and served time in a labor camp. Struck by her purity and patient demeanor, he proposed to Sonya.

The newlyweds settled into a tiny basement room in the factory’s administration building. Sonya immersed herself in caring for her husband. Soon, Robert Viktorovich was sent to seek exile in the Bashkir village of Davlekanovo. Sonya followed, nine months pregnant. Her daughter, Tanya, was born in the barracks’ maternity hospital. The family survived in the cold adobe house thanks to parcels from Sonya’s father and Robert’s resilience, gathering dry grass for the stove.

After the war, the family moved around several cities — Aleksandrov, Kalinin, Pushkino, Lianozovo — until in the early 1950s, through Sonya’s efforts, they acquired a quarter of a wooden house near the Dynamo metro station in Moscow. Robert Viktorovich returned to artistic experimentation, creating theater models and opening a studio. The mature Tanya grew up free, experienced the sensual side of life early on, and brought home a classmate from evening school, a Polish orphan named Yasya.

Sonya took Yasya in out of pity, caring for her as if she were her own daughter. Unexpectedly, passion flared between the aging Robert Viktorovich and young Yasya. The artist experienced his final creative peak, creating a series of white still lifes and portraits of Yasya in his studio. Sonya realized her husband’s infidelity when she arrived at the studio with the demolition notice for their house, but she accepted it with profound humility, considering her husband’s happiness the highest justice.

The family was relocated to a cramped apartment in Likhobory. Tanya went to Leningrad to live with the bard Alyosha, and Robert Viktorovich divided his life between his studio and his family, never leaving his wife. That spring, he died suddenly in the studio in Yasya’s arms from a cerebral hemorrhage. Sonya organized a posthumous exhibition of her husband’s fifty-two white paintings right during the funeral in the exhibition hall.

Yasya lived with Sonya for a few more years, then moved in with Polish relatives she’d found and married a wealthy Frenchman. Tanya gave birth to a son, emigrated to Israel, and found a good job at the UN. The elderly Sofia Iosifovna remained alone in Likhobory. Suffering from the onset of Parkinson’s disease, she continues to read Russian classics, finding peace in them.

The cycle of stories "Girls"

The series reveals the world of Moscow schoolgirls during the difficult post-war period.

The story "A Gift Not Made with Hands" is about the admission of third-grade students to the Young Pioneers at the Museum of Gifts to Stalin. The girls saw a foot-embroidered portrait of the leader by the handless Tamara Kolyvanova. Upon learning that Tamara was related to their classmate, the Pioneers collected money and went to Maryina Roshcha to interview her. Tamara openly explained that she had embroidered the gift solely to receive a separate room instead of a barracks. The disappointed schoolgirls returned home with a bitter feeling of having been cheated.

The story "Other People’s Children" depicts the family of Sergo, an engineer who returned from the front. His wife, Margarita, gave birth to twins, Gayane and Victoria, after his short leave in 1942, but the insanely jealous Sergo believed the daughters were the result of an affair. Margarita, overcome with grief, sank into a prolonged, silent stupor. Returning after victory, Sergo, seeing the girls’ resemblance, overcame his pride, accepting the children as his own, and a fragile peace reigned in the household.

The plot of the story "Foundling" revolves around Vika’s evil fantasy. She convinced her sister, Gayane, that she was a foundling born to a local cleaning lady, Bekerikha, nicknamed the Corpse Cutter. Believing her sister, the shocked Gayane ran away to the zoo at night, climbed into a haybox, and fell asleep. The girl was found and taken to the hospital. The terror she had experienced miraculously brought their mother, Margarita, out of her paralysis, and the slandered Bekerikha died quietly of a heart attack that same night.

The story "On March 2nd of that same year…" takes place in the days leading up to Stalin’s death. A young girl, Lilya Zhizhmorskaya, endures the oppressive atmosphere of anti-Semitic persecution surrounding the "Doctors’ Plot." At home, her great-grandfather Aaron, who tells biblical stories, is fading away. After a skirmish at the gate with the hooligan Bodrik, Lilya experiences the first signs of physical maturation and, in fear, believes she is dying. That same night, the old shoemaker Aaron dies, and the radio soon announces the leader’s death.

In "Chickenpox," the friends gather for a party at the home of the prosperous Alena Pshenichnikova. The girls try on imported silk dresses and act out a wedding and doll birth under the table. The game is interrupted by Tanya Kolyvanova’s sudden escape, and by evening, most of the participants have a fever: chickenpox breaks out in the class.

The story "Poor Happy Kolyvanova" concludes the cycle. After the school’s male and female classes are combined, a new German teacher, Evgenia Alekseyevna Lukina, arrives — a stately beauty dressed in foreign attire. The poor Tanya Kolyvanova falls in love with her, a pure, unrequited love. To buy the teacher an expensive basket of cyclamens for March 8th, Tanya agrees to the advances of her lame neighbor, Shurik the Spider. Leaving the basket at the door provokes a burst of rage in her general husband, who suspects infidelity. The teacher soon leaves abroad, and years later, the grown-up Tanya marries the amorous Swede Peterson and moves to Stockholm.

Dramaturgy

The play "Seven Saints from the Village of Bryukho" recounts the tragic events of the first years of Soviet rule. The village of Bryukho is home to the paralyzed clairvoyant Dusya and the holy fool Manya Gorelaya. A local native, the Bolshevik Arseny Rogov, comes to close the church and confiscate its valuables. The miraculous icon disappears. Arseny’s brother, Red Army soldier Timofey, flees from service and hides with Dusya. Arseny arrests the priest, Father Vasily, Timofey, Dusya, and her servants Antonina and Marya. At the execution, Manya Gorelaya stands next to Dusya; it is revealed that Manya is Dusya’s fiancé, Proclus, who once fled and wore chains and the saved icon. Arseny forces his brother to shoot the prisoners. Timofey sees the crowns of martyrs ascending to heaven and goes mad. In the modern epilogue, the aged descendants prepare for the solemn canonization of the saints at the site of the destroyed temple.

The comedy "Russian Jam" satirically reimagines classic Chekhovian motifs. Academician Lepyokhin’s dilapidated dacha is home to his daughter, Natalya Ivanovna, her brother, Andrei Ivanovich, three adult daughters, and a relative, Makanya. The sewer and water pipes are broken, and the roof is leaking. Natalya Ivanovna tirelessly translates her daughter-in-law, Evdokia Kalugina,’s pulp novels into English, while Makanya makes jam from store-bought berries for sale using an old book by Molokhovets. An attempt to establish a business ends in failure: a mouse falls into the basin, and the jam turns sour. The eldest son, Rostislav, announces that the land has been sold for the construction of a metro station and an entertainment center. The dacha is bulldozed, and the residents are moved to a new cottage.

The play "My Grandson Veniamin" revolves around Esfir Lvovna, a powerful seamstress who survived the death of her entire Bobruisk family during the war. She brings the orphaned Sonya Vinaver to Moscow, intending to marry her to her son, Lev, a scientist. However, Lev flees the wedding to Novosibirsk to be with another woman. Esfir learns that Sonya is the adopted daughter of Sima Vinaver and has no Jewish roots. Overcoming her prejudices, Esfir accepts Sonya as her own. Soon, Sonya realizes she is expecting a child with her classmate Viktor, but refuses to marry him due to his everyday anti-Semitism. Esfir Lvovna happily decides to raise the unborn boy with Sonya, naming him Veniamin in honor of her late husband.