How steel was tempered summary. Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovsky how the steel was tempered novel

Chapter 1
Pavka Korchagin is expelled from the gymnasium for putting shag in Father Vasily's dough. Pavka scolds himself: for what, they say, he poured this damned shag, Seryozhka knocked out - to play a trick on a harmful priest. But blame yourself or not, but they kicked me out of the gymnasium. After that, his mother arranges for him to work in the station buffet - in the dishwasher. Pavka starts working there. The work is difficult - you have to come early, and cleaving is not childish, and Pavka was only 12 years old at that time.
Pavka's brother Artem arrives.
Pavka's service ended rather quickly - from fatigue, he fell asleep at his workplace, forgetting to turn off the tap. Water flooded the office premises, Pavka was beaten and expelled. My brother came to the rescue - he employed Pavka at the power plant.

Chapter 2
The news came that "the king was thrown off." The city was talking about the imminent appearance of the Germans. The distribution of rifles begins. Pavka meets Artyom's friend Fedor Zhukhrai.
As expected, the Germans soon appeared in the city - an order was issued to hand over all weapons in hand. Weapons hand over, but not all. During a search of the Leshchinskys' house, Pavka manages to snatch a German revolver through an open window.

Chapter 3
Pavel meets Tonya Tumanova for the first time - this happens while Pavel is fishing. Clumsy fishing actions such as hooking a hook on a snag and unsuccessful cuttings bring a smile to the girl's face. Then Sukharko, a high school student, the son of an influential father and his friend, comes to the river bank. Insulting Pavka, Sukharko runs into a fight.
The Germans arrest Artyom and some of his friends. Zhukhrai did not spend the night at home, so they did not find him. However, Artyom, together with Politovkiy and Bruzzak, managed to spoil the German train, on which they were escorted and hid in the village.
Pavel became friends with Tonya, began to visit her often. After the forced absence of Artem, the money in the Korchagin family was not enough, so Pavka gets a second job.

Chapter 4
Ukraine is restless. Petlyurov's gangs flooded all around - robberies and robberies begin, Jewish families especially suffer. During one of these pogroms, Seryozha Bruzzak dies - he tries to save the old man, but gets hit by the saber of one of the bandits, receiving a severe wound.

Chapter 5
Zhukhrai hides in the house of the Korchagins, because, according to him, he was taken very seriously. Tonya tries to introduce Pavel to Viktor Leshchinsky and his whole company, but Pavel does not want to make friends with such people and because of this he quarrels with Tonya.
Leshchinsky surrenders Pavel and Zhukhrai to the Petliurists, Pavel is captured and imprisoned, the Korchagins' house is ransacked, Zhukhrai manages to get out of the city.

As the Steel Was Tempered
Summary of the novel
The autobiographical novel by Nikolai Ostrovsky is divided into two parts, each of which contains nine chapters: childhood, adolescence and youth; then mature years and illness.
For an unworthy act (he poured makhra into the dough for the priest), the cook's son Pavka Korchagin is expelled from school, and he ends up "into the people." “The boy looked into the very depths of life, at its bottom, into the well, and musty mold, swamp dampness smelled of him, greedy for everything new, unknown.” When in his little

The town was swept up in a whirlwind by the stunning news of “the Tsar was thrown off”, Pavel had no time to think about his studies, he works hard and, like a boy, without hesitation, hides his weapon in defiance of the ban from the bosses of the suddenly surging Germans. When the province is flooded with an avalanche of Petliura gangs, he becomes a witness to many Jewish pogroms, ending in brutal murders.
Anger and indignation often seize the young daredevil, and he cannot but help the sailor Zhukhrai, a friend of his brother Artem, who worked in the depot. The sailor more than once had a kindly conversation with Pavel: “You, Pavlusha, have everything to be a good fighter for the working cause, only now you are very young and have a very weak concept of the class struggle. I'll tell you, brother, about the real road, because I know: you will be good. I don’t like quiet and smeared ones. Now the whole earth is on fire. The slaves rose and old life must go to the bottom. But for this we need brave lads, not sissies, but people of a strong breed, who, before a fight, do not climb into the cracks, like a cockroach, but beat without mercy. Knowing how to fight, strong and muscular Pavka Korchagin saves Zhukhrai from under the escort, for which Petliurists seize him on a denunciation. Pavka was not familiar with the fear of an inhabitant defending his belongings (he had nothing), but ordinary human fear seized him with an icy hand, especially when he heard from his escort: “Why carry him, sir cornet? A bullet in the back and it's over." Pavka was scared. However, Pavka manages to escape, and he hides with a girl he knows, Tonya, with whom he is in love. Unfortunately, she is an intellectual from the “rich class”: the daughter of a forester.
Having passed the first baptism of fire in the battles of the civil war, Pavel returns to the city where the Komsomol organization was created, and becomes its active member. An attempt to drag Tonya into this organization fails. The girl is ready to obey him, but not completely. Too dressed up, she comes to the first Komsomol meeting, and it is hard for him to see her among the faded tunics and blouses. Tony's cheap individualism becomes unbearable for Pavel. The need for a break was clear to both of them ... Pavel's intransigence leads him to the Cheka, especially in the province it is headed by Zhukhrai. However, the KGB work is very destructive on Pavel's nerves, his concussion pains become more frequent, he often loses consciousness, and after a short respite in his hometown, Pavel goes to Kyiv, where he also ends up in the Special Department under the leadership of Comrade Segal.
The second part of the novel opens with a description of a trip to a gubernatorial conference with Rita Ustinovich, Korchagin is assigned to her as assistants and bodyguards. Borrowing a “leather jacket” from Rita, he squeezes into the carriage, and then drags a young woman through the window. “For him, Rita was untouchable. Ego was his friend and comrade in purpose, his political instructor, and yet she was a woman. He felt it for the first time at the bridge, and that's why he cares so much about her embrace. Pavel felt deep, even breathing, somewhere very close to her lips. From proximity was born an irresistible desire to find those lips. By straining his will, he suppressed this desire. Unable to control his feelings, Pavel Korchagin refuses to meet with Rita Ustinovich, who teaches him political literacy. Thoughts about the personal are pushed aside in the mind of a young man even further when he takes part in the construction of a narrow gauge railway. The season is difficult - winter, Komsomol members work in four shifts, not having time to rest. Work is delayed by bandit raids. There is nothing to feed the Komsomol members, there are no clothes and shoes either. Work to the full strain of strength ends with a serious illness. Pavel falls, stricken with typhus. His closest friends, Zhukhrai and Ustinovich, having no information about him, think that he is dead.
However, after his illness, Pavel is back in the ranks. As a worker, he returns to the workshops, where he not only works hard, but also puts things in order, forcing the Komsomol members to wash and clean the workshop, to the great bewilderment of his superiors. In the town and throughout Ukraine, the class struggle continues, the Chekists catch the enemies of the revolution, and suppress bandit raids. The young Komsomol member Korchagin does many good deeds, defending his comrades at meetings of the cell, and his party friends in the dark streets.
“The most precious thing for a person is life. It is given to him once, and he must live it in such a way that it would not be excruciatingly painful for the aimlessly lived years, so that he would not burn shame for a vile and petty past, and so that, dying, he could say: all life, all strength were given to the most beautiful in the world. - struggle for the liberation of mankind. And we must hurry to live. After all, an absurd illness or some tragic accident can interrupt it.
Having witnessed many deaths and killing himself, Pavka valued every passing day, accepting party orders and statutory orders as responsible directives of his being. As a propagandist, he also takes part in the defeat of the "workers' opposition", calling the behavior of his own brother "petty-bourgeois", and even more so in verbal attacks on the Trotskyists who dared to oppose the party. They do not want to listen to him, and after all, Comrade Lenin pointed out that we must bet on the youth.
When it became known in Shepetovka that Lenin had died, thousands of workers became Bolsheviks. The respect of the party members pushed Pavel far ahead, and one day he found himself at the Bolshoi Theater next to Rita Ustinovich, a member of the Central Committee, who was surprised to learn that Pavel was alive. Pavel says that he loved her like a Gadfly, a man of courage and infinite endurance. But Rita already has a friend and a three-year-old daughter, and Pavel is sick, and he is sent to the sanatorium of the Central Committee, carefully examined. However, a serious illness, which led to complete immobility, progresses. No new best sanatoriums and hospitals are able to save him. With the thought that “we must stay in line,” Korchagin begins to write. Next to him are good kind women: first Dora Rodkina, then Taya Kyutsam. “Has he lived his twenty-four years well, has he lived badly? Going through his memory year after year, Pavel checked his life like an impartial judge and with deep satisfaction decided that life was not lived so badly ... Most importantly, he did not sleep through the hot days, found his place in the iron struggle for power, and on the crimson banner there is a revolution and his few drops of blood.”

On December 22, 1936, exactly 80 years ago, the Soviet writer Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovsky passed away. The whole life of this amazing man was riddled with struggle. First, for the ideas of revolution and the construction of a new state, then with an incurable disease and its manifestations. The main book of his entire short life (Ostrovsky died at the age of 32) was the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered", which made him famous not only in the Soviet Union, but also beyond its borders. The novel, written in the genre of socialist realism, described the events of the Civil War, as well as the post-war years of the restoration of the national economy and new socialist construction. In the main character of the work, Pavel Korchagin, Nikolai Ostrovsky himself was reflected.

Nikolai Ostrovsky was born on September 16 (September 29, according to the new style), 1904, in the village of Viliya, Ostrog district, Volyn province. Russian Empire(today the territory of the Rivne region of Ukraine). Nicholas was youngest child in the family, he had two sisters Nadezhda and Ekaterina and brother Dmitry. His father, Alexei Ivanovich Ostrovsky, was a retired non-commissioned officer in the Russian army. He took part in the Russian-Turkish (Balkan) war of 1877-1878. For his bravery and heroism, he was awarded two St. George's crosses. After his resignation, Alexei Ostrovsky worked at a distillery, and he always enjoyed authority among his fellow villagers. The mother of the future writer Olga Osipovna Ostrovskaya was an ordinary housewife and came from a family of Czech immigrants. Unlike her husband, she was illiterate, but stood out for her figurative speech, bright character, subtle humor and wit. In her speech one could hear a large number of Czech, Russian and Ukrainian sayings.

In the village of Viliya, the Ostrovskys lived in relative prosperity, they had their own rather large house, land and garden. Among the closest relatives of the family were teachers, soldiers, priests, workers of two local factories. At the same time, Nikolai Ostrovsky from childhood stood out for his learning abilities. The boy was drawn to knowledge. In 1913 he graduated with honors from the parochial school (he was only 9 years old). He was taken to school ahead of schedule "because of his outstanding abilities." It is worth noting that childhood was one of the brightest and happiest memories in the rather difficult and tragic life of Nikolai Ostrovsky.

Happy life The family collapsed in 1914 when the father lost his job. The house and land had to be sold, the family moved to Shepetovka, a large railway station 85 kilometers from the village. Here Nikolai Ostrovsky enters a two-year school, which he graduated in 1915. Since the family was experiencing financial difficulties, Ostrovsky began to work for hire early. Already in 1916, at the age of 12, he first became a buffet worker at the local railway station, and then a warehouse worker, an assistant fireman at a local power station.

At that time, Nikolai Alekseevich assessed his education as insufficient, while he was always fond of reading. Among his favorite authors were Jules Verne, Walter Scott, Dumas senior. Reading book after book, sometimes he himself tried to come up with his own stories. While working at the power plant in Shepetovka, he made friends with the local Bolsheviks, unbeknownst to himself, having joined the revolutionary activities, pasted leaflets. He accepted the October Revolution of 1917 with joy, he was delighted with revolutionary calls and ideals. In many ways, this was facilitated by the romantic and adventurous literature he read in large volumes. In many of the works he read, brave heroes fought for freedom and justice against tyrants in power. After October revolution Ostrovsky himself became a participant in such a struggle, which captivated him with his head.

On July 20, 1919, Nikolai Ostrovsky joined the Komsomol and in August went to the front to fight the enemies of the revolution. He served in the division of Kotovsky, and then in the famous 1st Cavalry Army, commanded by Budyonny. In August 1920, he was seriously wounded in the head and stomach by shrapnel near Lvov. Nikolay was wounded in the head above the right superciliary arch, it was not penetrating, but caused severe concussion of the brain and weakened vision in the right eye. He spent more than two months in hospitals, after which he was demobilized from the Red Army. Returning home from the army, he worked for some time in the organs of the Cheka, but then moved to Kyiv.

He arrived in Kyiv in 1921, from that moment the stage of "shock construction" in his life begins. It finds its application on the labor front. In Kyiv, he studied at the local electrical technical school, at the same time working as an electrician. Together with the first Komsomol members of Ukraine, he was mobilized to restore the national economy. Participated in the construction of a narrow gauge railway, which was supposed to become the main one for providing firewood to Kyiv suffering from cold and typhus. Then he caught a cold and became seriously ill, but this time he managed to cope with the disease. In March 1922, during the flood of the Dnieper, Ostrovsky was knee-deep in icy water saving the forest that the city needed. He again caught a serious cold, he develops rheumatism, and due to a weakened immune system, he falls ill with typhus. Treatment at the Kyiv railway hospital was ineffective, and he moved home to Shepetovka. Through the efforts of relatives, rubbing and poultices, he managed to cope with the disease, although his health was seriously undermined.

From that moment on, his biographies of hospitals, clinics, sanatoriums, examinations by doctors occupied most of his life. Pain and swelling of the knee joints persisted and caused great inconvenience. Already in the second half of 1922, an 18-year-old boy was recognized by a medical commission as an invalid of the second group. In August of the same year, he was sent to Berdyansk, where he was supposed to undergo sanatorium treatment. After a month and a half of treatment, a short-term remission occurred. In 1923-1924 he was appointed military commissar of Vseobuch. Later he was sent to Komsomol work. At first he was the secretary of the district committee of the Komsomol in Berezdovo, then Izyaslavl. In 1924 he joined the party.

At the same time, his illness is progressing very quickly, doctors cannot help him. Over time, the disease leads to paralysis. From 1927 until the end of his life, the writer was bedridden and suffered from an incurable disease. According to the official version, Nikolai Ostrovsky's state of health was affected by the injury, as well as difficult working conditions, he had been ill with typhus and other infectious diseases. The final diagnosis that was made to him was "progressive ankylosing polyarthritis, gradual ossification of the joints."

All his free time, which he now had in abundance, Ostrovsky spent on reading books, doing self-education. He read a lot, mostly Russian classics - Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gogol, from contemporary writers, he very much singled out the work of Maxim Gorky. In addition, he was very attracted to the literature about the Civil War, which helped to understand the events, a witness and a direct participant of which he became. According to the memoirs of the writer's wife, a pile of 20 books was usually enough for him for a week. With his future wife Raisa Matsyuk, who was the daughter of friends of the Ostrovsky family, he met in the late 1920s in Novorossiysk.

In the autumn of 1927, he begins to write his autobiographical novel, which he calls The Tale of the Cats. The manuscript of this book, on which he worked for more than 6 months and the creation of which cost him superhuman efforts, he sent by mail to Odessa to his former comrades for review. Unfortunately, the manuscript was lost on the way back, and its fate remains unknown to this day. At the same time, Nikolai Alekseevich, who endured not such blows of fate, did not lose courage and did not despair, although fate did not prepare anything good for him.

To all his troubles, a gradual loss of vision is added, which could be caused by a complication from the transferred typhus. The disease of the eyes, which led to blindness, developed gradually, in early 1929 he completely lost his sight and even thought about suicide. However, in the end, the desire to live and fight wins. He has an idea for a new literary work, which he called "How the steel was tempered."

Absolutely immobilized, helpless and blind, remaining alone in a Moscow communal apartment for 12-16 hours a day, while his wife was at work, he writes his main work. In writing, he found an outlet for his irrepressible energy, which helped to overcome the hopelessness and despair of his existence. By that time, his hands still retained some mobility, so he wrote down the beginning of the book himself using the “transparency” (folder with slots) developed by him and his wife. This stencil allowed the lines not to run into one another, he numbered the written pages and simply threw them on the floor, where they were then picked up and deciphered by the writer's relatives. True, over time, his hands finally refused. Under these conditions, he could only dictate his book to relatives, friends, his flatmate and even his 9-year-old niece.

The novel was completed in mid-1932. But the manuscript sent to the magazine "Young Guard" received a devastating review, and the derived types of characters were called "unreal". However, Ostrovsky did not give up and achieved a second review of his work, enlisting the support of party bodies. As a result, the editor-in-chief of the Young Guard Mark Kolosov and the executive editor Anna Karavaeva, who was a famous writer of her time, took an active part in editing the novel. Ostrovsky himself acknowledged the great participation of Karavaeva in the work on the text of the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered", he also noted the work on the book of Alexander Serafimovich. As a result, the novel was not only published, but also retained its original title, although it was proposed to change it to "Pavel Korchagin" after the name of the protagonist of the work.

The novel begins to be published in April 1934, and immediately it becomes extremely popular. Libraries line up for books. Among the Soviet youth, the book becomes so in demand that the novel is published again and again, its collective discussions and readings are held. Only during the life of the writer, he was published 41 times. In general, the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered" became the most published work of Soviet literature in 1918-1986, the total circulation of 536 publications amounted to more than 36 million copies. The book was very popular in China as well.

In March 1935, the newspaper Pravda published Mikhail Koltsov's essay Courage. From this essay, millions of Soviet readers learned that the hero of the novel, Pavel Korchagin, is not a figment of the author's fantasy, that it is the author who is the hero of the novel. Ostrovsky began to admire. His work has been translated into English, Czech and Japanese languages. As a result, the book was published abroad in 47 countries in 56 languages. The book ceased to be just a literary work, becoming a textbook of courage for those people who, even in the most difficult moments of their lives, sought and could find the necessary support and support in it.

In 1935, recognition, fame and prosperity came to Ostrovsky. In the same year, he was given an apartment in Moscow, a car, the construction of a country house in Sochi began, in which the writer was able to relax only one summer of 1936. On October 1, 1935, he was awarded the highest state award of the country - the Order of Lenin, becoming the fifth among Soviet writers awarded this high award. For his contemporaries, he became one step with Chapaev, Chkalov, Mayakovsky. In 1936, he was enrolled in the Political Directorate of the Red Army with the rank of brigade commissar, which he rejoiced a lot about. He wrote to his friends: “Now I have returned to duty along this line, which is very important for a citizen of the Republic.”

In the summer of 1935, he made a public promise to write a new work, called "Born by the Storm", it was a novel in three parts, of which the writer managed to prepare only the first before his death. At the same time, critics considered the new novel weaker than the previous work, and Ostrovsky himself was not very pleased with it, noting its artificiality. He did not have time to finish it, on December 22, 1936, he died, barely finishing work on the first part of the book, he was only 32 years old. On the day of the funeral, the first edition of the novel "Born by the Storm" was released, which the workers of the printing house typed and printed in record time, having learned about Ostrovsky's death. The writer was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery. From 1937 to 1991, Prechistensky Lane was named after him, where he lived from 1930 to 1932. Today in the capital there is Pavel Korchagin Street - this is the only Moscow street that was named after the hero of a literary work. Streets in many cities of Russia and countries former USSR bear the name of Nikolai Ostrovsky, monuments to the writer have been erected in many cities.

Based on materials from open sources

The autobiographical novel by Nikolai Ostrovsky is divided into two parts, each of which contains nine chapters: childhood, adolescence and youth; then mature years and illness.

For an unworthy act (he poured makhra into the dough for the priest), the cook's son Pavka Korchagin is expelled from school, and he ends up "into the people." “The boy looked into the very depths of life, at its bottom, into the well, and musty mold, swamp dampness smelled of him, greedy for everything new, unknown.” When the stunning news “The Tsar was thrown off” burst into his small town like a whirlwind, Pavel had no time to think about his studies at all, he works hard and, like a boy, without hesitation, hides his weapon despite the ban from the bosses of the suddenly surging Germans. When the province is flooded with an avalanche of Petliura gangs, he becomes a witness to many Jewish pogroms, ending in brutal murders.

Anger and indignation often seize the young daredevil, and he cannot but help the sailor Zhukhrai, a friend of his brother Artem, who worked in the depot. The sailor spoke kindly with Pavel more than once: “You, Pavlusha, have everything to be a good fighter for the working cause, only now you are very young and have a very weak concept of the class struggle. I'll tell you, brother, about the real road, because I know: you will be good. I don’t like quiet and smeared ones. Now the whole earth is on fire. The slaves have risen and the old life must be put to the bottom. But for this we need brave lads, not sissies, but people of a strong breed, who, before a fight, do not climb into the cracks, like a cockroach, but beat without mercy. Knowing how to fight, strong and muscular Pavka Korchagin saves Zhukhrai from under the escort, for which Petliurists seize him on a denunciation. Pavka was not familiar with the fear of an inhabitant protecting his belongings (he had nothing), but ordinary human fear seized him with an icy hand, especially when he heard from his escort: “Why carry him, sir cornet? A bullet in the back and it's over." Pavka was scared. However, Pavka manages to escape, and he hides with a girl he knows, Tonya, with whom he is in love. Unfortunately, she is an intellectual from the "rich class": the daughter of a forester.

Having passed the first baptism of fire in the battles of the civil war, Pavel returns to the city where the Komsomol organization was created, and becomes its active member. An attempt to drag Tonya into this organization fails. The girl is ready to obey him, but not completely. Too dressed up, she comes to the first Komsomol meeting, and it is hard for him to see her among the faded tunics and blouses. Tony's cheap individualism becomes unbearable for Pavel. The need for a break was clear to both of them ... Pavel's intransigence leads him to the Cheka, especially in the province it is headed by Zhukhrai. However, the KGB work is very destructive on Pavel's nerves, his concussion pains become more frequent, he often loses consciousness, and after a short respite in his hometown, Pavel goes to Kyiv, where he also ends up in the Special Department under the leadership of Comrade Segal.

The second part of the novel opens with a description of a trip to a gubernatorial conference with Rita Ustinovich, Korchagin is assigned to her as assistants and bodyguards. Borrowing a "leather jacket" from Rita, he squeezes into the carriage, and then drags a young woman through the window. “For him, Rita was untouchable. It was his friend and comrade in purpose, his political instructor, and yet she was a woman. He felt it for the first time at the bridge, and that's why he cares so much about her embrace. Pavel felt deep, even breathing, somewhere very close to her lips. From proximity was born an irresistible desire to find those lips. By straining his will, he suppressed this desire. Unable to control his feelings, Pavel Korchagin refuses to meet with Rita Ustinovich, who teaches him political literacy. Thoughts about the personal are pushed aside in the mind of a young man even further when he takes part in the construction of a narrow gauge railway. The season is difficult - winter, Komsomol members work in four shifts, not having time to rest. Work is delayed by bandit raids. There is nothing to feed the Komsomol members, there are no clothes and shoes either. Work to the full strain of strength ends with a serious illness. Pavel falls, stricken with typhus. His closest friends, Zhukhrai and Ustinovich, having no information about him, think that he is dead.

However, after his illness, Pavel is back in the ranks. As a worker, he returns to the workshops, where he not only works hard, but also puts things in order, forcing the Komsomol members to wash and clean the workshop, to the great bewilderment of his superiors. In the town and throughout Ukraine, the class struggle continues, the Chekists catch the enemies of the revolution, and suppress bandit raids. The young Komsomol member Korchagin does many good deeds, defending his comrades at meetings of the cell, and his party friends in the dark streets.

“The most precious thing for a person is life. It is given to him once, and he must live it in such a way that it would not be excruciatingly painful for the aimlessly lived years, so that he would not burn shame for a vile and petty past, and so that, dying, he could say: all life, all strength were given to the most beautiful in the world. - the struggle for the liberation of mankind. And we must hurry to live. After all, an absurd illness or some tragic accident can interrupt it.

Having witnessed many deaths and killing himself, Pavka valued every passing day, accepting party orders and statutory orders as responsible directives of his being. As a propagandist, he also takes part in the defeat of the "workers' opposition", calling the behavior of his own brother "petty-bourgeois", and even more so in verbal attacks on the Trotskyists who dared to oppose the party. They do not want to listen to him, and after all, Comrade Lenin pointed out that we must bet on the youth.

When it became known in Shepetovka that Lenin had died, thousands of workers became Bolsheviks. The respect of the party members pushed Pavel far ahead, and one day he found himself at the Bolshoi Theater next to Rita Ustinovich, a member of the Central Committee, who was surprised to learn that Pavel was alive. Pavel says that he loved her like a Gadfly, a man of courage and infinite endurance. But Rita already has a friend and a three-year-old daughter, and Pavel is sick, and he is sent to the sanatorium of the Central Committee, carefully examined. However, a serious illness, which led to complete immobility, progresses. No new best sanatoriums and hospitals are able to save him. With the thought that "it is necessary to stay in the ranks," Korchagin begins to write. Next to him are good kind women: first Dora Rodkina, then Taya Kyutsam. “Is it good, did he live his twenty-four years badly? Going through his memory year after year, Pavel checked his life like an impartial judge and with deep satisfaction decided that life was not lived so badly ... Most importantly, he did not sleep through the hot days, found his place in the iron struggle for power, and on the crimson banner there is a revolution and his few drops of blood.”

Summary of Ostrovsky's novel "How the Steel Was Tempered"

A detailed summary of the story How Ostrovsky's steel was tempered

Pavka Korchagin was expelled from school, as a result of which he began to work. Soon the news of the assassination of the king arrives in the city. Looting, murders and many other nightmares of coups open before the hero.

After everything he saw, the boy strives to get into battle, where he meets the sailor Zhukhryom, who told him everything in more detail. Thanks to good physical training and skill in fighting, Pavka saves Zhukhrai from the convoy. But soon the Petliurists caught Pavka and want to kill him. However, Tonya saves Pavka from under the escort. Pavka used to love Tonya, but she was an intellectual, and they did not have the opportunity to be together.

Pavel is actively involved in civil war, and after returning to his native city, he takes an active part in the Komsomol organization. Although Tonya supported Pavka in many of his opinions, Pavka could not drag her into the organization. And in the end they had to break off the relationship. Pavka has no choice but to go to Kyiv, where he ends up in the Segal department.

The second part of the novel begins with the appearance of Pavka's new love, Rita Ustinovich. At first, Pavka helped her and was a friend, but he soon realizes that something more connects them. Through a telegram, Pavel refuses to meet with her personally and helps build a narrow gauge railway. Hard work at the construction site pays off, and one day Pavka falls to the ground dead, suffering from typhus. For a long time, nothing is known about Pavel, and everyone laughs at the thought of his death.

However, Korchagin soon recovers and begins to restore order and work in the shop. Pavka protects his comrades from the enemies of the revolution and performs acts of bravery such as capturing criminals and killing them.

All the torment, suffering, death that Pavel has seen in his life makes him appreciate the world and understand that we only live once. Despite the fact that Pavka is an exemplary party employee, Lenin does not attach any importance to him. But after his death, Pavka still managed to make significant progress in the party.

Soon he meets Rita at the Bolshoi Theater, tells how much he was in love with her and how much he could see. But Rita turns out to be a married woman, and even with a daughter. Pavka falls ill, goes to a sanatorium for treatment, but all in vain.

This novel teaches us that each of our lives is not in vain. That our forces can change the life of future generations. And that in every great event there is a particle of each of us.

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