Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya. Short summary

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After the death of her husband, Sophia Petrovna’s life seems to be getting better: she is working, her son, an excellent student and member of the Komsomol, is sent to a large factory. But the year 1937 overturns everything in this family’s life.

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Sophia Lipatova, widowed, with her son as a schoolboy, gets a job as a typist at a publishing house. Soon she is appointed head of a typewriting bureau. The woman befriends her colleague Natasha Frolenko. Her son, a student and an honors student, leaves for Uralmash with his friend Alik.

Colin’s invention is written about in the newspapers. In 1937, the doctors are arrested. The publishing director is taken away. Alik arrives with the news of Nikolai’s arrest. The mother learns that her son is in prison in Leningrad. Kolya is sentenced to ten years in a camp. Natasha is dismissed as an enemy of the people for a mistake in the text. The girl is poisoned.

Lipatova is fired and goes to the prison every day, but no parcels are accepted. She is told that Kolya has been expelled. After an article about reinsurers, Sofya Petrovna is hired to work in the library. Some of the arrested come back. Her mother tells everyone that Kolya was released and believes it herself. They pass on a letter from her son. He was imprisoned on the basis of a false denunciation by a former classmate. Mother is afraid to seek the truth and burns the letter.