God’s Summer – Feasts

"The Summer of the Lord" by Ivan Shmelov is the top of the Russian spiritual prose and amazing, without analogues of the book-memory. Written in the emigration, on the background of the trouble of the irreversibly lost past, this novel became a true art icon of the old Russia, which impressed the Orthodox order in all its purity, poetry and internal strength. The story is conducted by the face of the little boy Vanny, in which the author is easily recognized. Before the reader's eyes of the child develops the amazing world of the mosquito shopping house, where life is subjected to a rigorous but beautiful year round of church holidays and folk traditions. The book is divided into three parts ("Festa", "God" and "Scorby"), each of which is filled with a unique atmosphere. Together with the hero the reader lives the strict Great Post, meets the pleasant Easter, celebrates the apple Salvation and Christmas. The main guides of Vanny in this world become his wise, deeply believing father and the old gentleman Gorkin - a pure and noble soul. However, the book is not deprived of dramatism: the child's joy of being gradually faces the first severe life losses and sadnesses, preparing the soul of the boy for adulthood. Schmelev managed to create a real literary miracle: the book literally breats with odors, sounds with a bell bell and is filled with paintings. On its pages with incredible gastronomic and ethnographic accuracy are described the Russian pires, festivals and habits. This is not just memoirs, but a vibrant, light-filled hymn of faith, child purity and that holy Rus, which the author managed to preserve forever in his heart and give to the world. ** About what the book in three words:** Childhood, Faith, Tradition. Everyone who is looking for a bright, comforting prose is interested in the history of the Russian life and the Orthodox traditions, as well as lovers of the incredibly rich, living and poetic Russian language.