Young Wife

The film "Young Wife," based on the story by Irina Velembovskaya "Behind the Stone Wall," was named the best film of 1980 in a poll conducted by the magazine "Soviet Screen." Of course, it starred the stars of Soviet cinema - Anna Kamenkova, Vladlen Biryukov, Galina Makarova, Sergey Prokhanov. The director was Leonid Menaker, the author of many popular and beloved films.

But the film would hardly have been successful had it not been for the script's foundation, which was so talentfully written.
The main character, Manya, marries not out of love but out of hopelessness and despair.

Behind her husband - a widower, a solid and sturdy host - she will feel as if behind a stone wall. But this wall is something she wants to push away to see the sun, the sky, the freedom.
The post-war life - both rural and urban - is masterfully portrayed by Velembovskaya. And her characters are invariably alive, genuine, not cinematic and not literary.

This applies to all the stories and novellas included in this collection.