In 1927, A. Platonov’s short story “Sandy Teacher” was written. The prototype of the main character was the bride of the writer M. Kashintsev himself, who, like Maria Naryshkina from the work, was engaged in the elimination of illiteracy in a remote village near Voronezh.
In the story, Platonov refers to the theme of the struggle of a human enthusiast with the natural element that he repeatedly raised in the 1920s. We offer for reading its summary.
“Sand teacher”: meeting the heroine
Maria Naryshkina turned twenty years old, and she just graduated from teacher training courses. It was a healthy, strong girl, whose childhood and youth passed in the Astrakhan province. She knew the Caspian sands well, but her parents protected her daughter from the details and echoes of the recent events in the country: revolution and civil war. Such is the beginning of the story (and its summary) by Platonov's “Sandy Teacher”.
Maria was fond of geography, experienced love, and now with sparkling eyes she listened intently and expected change. She was sent to a school in the village of Khoshutovo, located on the border with the dead desert in Central Asia.
A long way and getting to know your new place of residence
The second chapter opens with a description of a sandstorm. The heat, dunes like flaming bonfires, endless streams of moving sand - this is its brief content. The sandy teacher - so we will call Maria - saw a similar picture for the first time, so she experienced longing.
Only on the third day did the girl get to the village. Dozens of houses, rare shrubs at wells, a stone school and all the same drifts of sand brought from the Pamirs. Residents desperately tried to clear the yards of it, but it was "hard and almost unnecessary work." As a result, the poverty and despair of the peasants tired of the struggle. This picture concludes the second chapter and its summary.
The sandy teacher settled at school, which greatly pleased the watchman who was tired of loneliness.
First difficulties
Maria Nikiforovna somehow prepared the room for study and two months later met the students. They walked about five, then twenty people. And with the onset of cold weather there was no one to learn at all. Parents did not have the means to dress their children. There was almost no bread left, two students died of starvation. The girl gave up, because the peasants did not need a school in conditions when it came to survival.
Maria Nikiforovna thought for a long time about what to do. Finally, I realized: you need to learn how to deal with sand, and went to the district. She was sympathized with, given books and advised to seek help from an agronomist who lived over a hundred and fifty miles from Khoshutovo. So you can describe the meeting and its summary.
Sand teacher: two years later
Maria Nikiforovna not without difficulty persuaded the residents to go out in the spring and autumn for community service. Soon she found assistants in the person of two activists. A year later, the village was surrounded by green shelving. As a result, yields increased significantly, as the land was protected from sand and stored more moisture. There was also additional fuel. And also residents have mastered additional earnings: they weaved baskets and furniture from rods. Here are the results of the two-year activity of Maria Nikiforovna and her summary. Platonov's sand teacher was attracted by her enthusiasm and faith in the future. In the near future, she planned to set up a pine nursery near the school.
Life in the village began to improve - only in the first winter an additional two thousand rubles were received. Adults now, along with children, were constantly attending school, where they were introduced to new ways of fighting the desert.
This is the summary (the sand teacher over this time has plumped up and even more “overlooked” her face) of the fourth chapter.
First real sadness
The trouble happened in August of the third year. Residents have long been waiting for nomads who passed through these places every fifteen years. Usually this happened in the spring, when there was still some kind of greenery. And by the end of the summer, everything had dried up, even the birds and animals went to look for better places.
The flocks that arrived in three days destroyed everything that was created with great difficulty for three years. Perplexed and embittered, Maria Nikiforovna went to the leader of the nomads. The girl blamed those who came for robbery, to which she heard: "Our steppe ... He who is hungry and eats the grass of his homeland is not a criminal." The conversation turned out to be unpleasant, which proves its brief content. The sand teacher (Platonov notes that Maria Nikiforovna still considered the leader smart) immediately went to the district.
Life for the well-being of others
The manager surprised the girl, immediately declaring that now in Khoshutovo they would completely manage without her. And then he explained that the peasants of the village themselves would be able to fight with the sand, but they want to send it to Safuta, where the settled nomads live. Maria Nikiforova at first was indignant, but the manager immediately explained her plan. We give a brief summary of it. Sand teacher will have to teach nomads to deal with the elements. Then the fear will disappear that at some point they will break out of the sandy places and again go to destroy the landings of Russian immigrants.
Maria Nikiforovna thought about it. But what about youth? A family? But then she remembered the clever leader, thought about the hopelessness of the tribes sandwiched by the sand, and answered with satisfaction: "I agree." Zavokrono approached the girl: “You ... could be in charge of a whole nation, not a school ... I ... for some reason feel ashamed. But the desert is the future world ... ”
Such is the summary of the story “Sandy teacher” by A. Platonov.