Open Access

Vladimir Tumanov

• Vsevolod M. Garshin's story "Four Days" ("Четыре дня") made the author famous when it was published in 1877. Intended as a strong anti·war statement and based on a true incident during the Russian-Turkish war (1877-78), "Four Days" is the interior monologue of a wounded soldier left for dead on an empty battlefield. His last name, Ivanov, which is traditionally considered to be the most common one in Russia, may suggest the idea of "everyman" in order to generalize the protagonists terrible experience on the battlefield into a broad anti-war message. The protagonist finds himself pinned down next to 0the body of a Turkish soldier whom he had killed just before being wounded. Forced to look at the corpse for a long time, Ivanov experiences terrible guilt, since he has never killed before. After four days of physical and mental agony, during which Ivanov reassesses his formerly idealistic attitude toward war and ends up condemning it as something far from glorious and noble, the protagonist is found by his regiment, and, unlike his real-life prototype, he survives (Henry. 47). Throughout the text we do not lave the confines of the protagonist's mind; as a result, the intense, relentless focus on his mental and physical anguish created by the interior monologue: immobilized by his wound, he becomes a prisoner of his own mind; as a result, the intense, relentless focus on his mental and physical anguish created by the interior monologue technique enhances the "horrors of war" effect intended by the author. At the same time the war-related situation and setting provide motivation for the wounded man's interior monologue: immobilized by his wound, he becomes a prisoner of his own mind and its therefore forced by circumtances to think through his entire predicament and its causes.