The theme of the Great Patriotic War in modern literature. Theme of the Great Patriotic War Theme of World War II in literature

Theme of the Great Patriotic War in literature: essay-reasoning. Works of the Great Patriotic War: “Vasily Terkin”, “The Fate of a Man”, “The Last Battle of Major Pugachev”. Writers of the 20th century: Varlam Shalamov, Mikhail Sholokhov, Alexander Tvardovsky.

410 words, 4 paragraphs

The World War broke into the USSR unexpectedly for ordinary people. If politicians could still know or guess, then the people were certainly in the dark until the first bombing. The Soviets were unable to prepare fully, and our army, limited in resources and weapons, was forced to retreat in the first years of the war. Although I was not a participant in those events, I consider it my duty to know everything about them so that I can then tell my children about everything. The world must never forget about that monstrous battle. Not only me, but also those writers and poets who told me and my peers about the war think so.

First of all, I mean Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin”. In this work, the author depicted a collective image of a Russian soldier. He is a cheerful and strong-willed guy who is always ready to go into battle. He helps out his comrades, helps civilians, every day he performs a silent feat in the name of saving the Motherland. But he does not pretend to be a hero; he has enough humor and modesty to keep it simple and do his job without unnecessary words. This is exactly how I see my great-grandfather, who died in that war.

I also really remember Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of a Man.” Andrei Sokolov is also a typical Russian soldier, whose fate included all the sorrows of the Russian people: he lost his family, was captured, and even after returning home, he almost ended up on trial. It would seem that a person would not be able to withstand such an aggressive hail of blows, but the author emphasizes that Andrei was not alone - everyone stood to their death for the sake of saving the Motherland. The hero's strength lies in his unity with the people who shared his heavy burden. For Sokolov, all the victims of the war have become family, so he takes in the orphan Vanechka. I imagine my great-grandmother, who did not live to see my birthday, as kind and persistent, but, as a nurse, she gave birth to hundreds of children who teach me today.

In addition, I remember Shalamov’s story “The Last Battle of Major Pugachev.” There, a soldier who was innocently punished escapes from prison, but, unable to achieve freedom, kills himself. I have always admired his sense of justice and his courage to defend it. He is a strong and worthy defender of the fatherland, and I am offended by his fate. But those who today forget that unparalleled feat of dedication of our ancestors are no better than the authorities who imprisoned Pugachev and doomed him to death. They're even worse. Therefore, today I would like to be like that major who was not afraid of death just to defend the truth. Today, the truth about that war needs to be protected as never before... And I will not forget it thanks to Russian literature of the 20th century.

Terminological minimum: periodization, essay, “general’s” prose, “lieutenant’s” prose, memoirs, epic novel, “trench” literature, writers’ diaries, memoirs, documentary prose genre, historicism, documentary.

Plan

1. General characteristics of the literary process during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945).

2. The theme of war as the main one in the development of the literary process of the late 1940s - early 1960s. (opposition between “general’s” and “lieutenant’s” prose).

3. “Trench Truth” about the war in Russian literature.

4. Memoirs and fiction in literature about the Great Patriotic War.

Literature

Texts to study

1. Astafiev, V.P. Cursed and killed.

2. Bondarev, Yu. V. Hot snow. Shore. The battalions are asking for fire.

3. Bykov, V.V. Sotnikov. Obelisk.

4. Vasiliev, B. L. Tomorrow there was a war. Didn't appear on the lists.

5. Vorobyov, K. D. This is us, Lord!

6. Grossman, V. S. Life and Fate.

7. Kataev, V. P. Son of the regiment.

8. Leonov, L. M. Invasion.

9. Nekrasov, V. P. In the trenches of Stalingrad.

10. Simonov, K. M. Living and dead. Russian character.

11. Tvardovsky, A. T. Vasily Terkin.

12. Fadeev, A. A. Young Guard.

13. Sholokhov, M. A. They fought for their homeland. The fate of man.

Main

1. Gorbachev, A. Yu. Military theme in prose of the 1940–90s. [Electronic resource] / A. Yu. Gorbachev. – Access mode: http://www. bsu.by>Cache /219533/.pdf (access date: 06/04/2014)

2. Lagunovsky, A. General characteristics of literature during the Great Patriotic War [Electronic resource] / A. Lagunovsky. – Access mode: http://www. Stihi.ru /2009/08/17/2891 (access date: 06/02/2014)

3. Russian literature of the 20th century / ed. S.I. Timina. – M.: Academy, 2011. – 368 p.

Additional

1. Bykov, V. “These young writers saw the sweat and blood of war on their tunic”: correspondence between Vasily Bykov and Alexander Tvardovsky / V. Bykov; entry Art. S. Shaprana // Questions of literature. – 2008. – No. 2. – P. 296–323.

2. Kozhin, A. N. About the language of military documentary prose / A. N. Kozhin // Philological Sciences. – 1995. – No. 3. – P. 95–101.

3. Chalmaev, V. A. Russian prose 1980–2000: At the crossroads of opinions and disputes / V. A. Chalmaev // Literature at school. – 2002. – No. 4. – P. 18–23.

4. Man and War: Russian fiction about the Great Patriotic War: bibliographic list / ed. S. P. Bavina. – M.: Ipno, 1999. – 298 p.

5. Yalyshkov, V. G. Military stories of V. Nekrasov and V. Kondratiev: experience of comparative analysis / V. G. Yalyshkov // Bulletin of Moscow University. - Ser. 9. Philology. – 1993. – No. 1. – P. 27–34.

1. The Great Patriotic War is an inexhaustible topic in Russian literature. The material, the author's tone, plots, and characters change, but the memory of the tragic days lives on in the books about her.

More than 1,000 writers went to the front during the war. Many of them directly participated in battles with the enemy, in the partisan movement. For military services, 18 writers received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. About 400 members of the Writers' Union did not return from the battlefields. Among them were young people who published one book each, and experienced writers known to a wide circle of readers: E. Petrov, A. Gaidar
and etc.

A significant part of professional writers worked in newspapers, magazines, and the mass press. War correspondent is the most common position among representatives of fiction.

Lyrics turned out to be the most “mobile” type of literature. Here is a list of publications that were published already in the first days of the war: on June 23, A. Surkov’s poem “We swear by victory” appeared on the first page of Pravda, and on the second page, N. Aseev’s “Victory will be ours”; On June 24, Izvestia publishes “The Holy War” by V. Lebedev-Kumach; On June 25, Pravda publishes “Song of the Brave” by A. Surkov; On June 26, the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper begins publishing a series of essays by I. Ehrenburg; On June 27, Pravda opens its journalistic cycle with the article “What We Defend.”
A. Tolstoy. This dynamics is indicative and reflects the demand for artistic material.

It is noteworthy that the theme of the lyrics changed dramatically from the very first days of the war. Responsibility for the fate of the Motherland, the bitterness of defeat, hatred of the enemy, perseverance, patriotism, loyalty to ideals, faith in victory - this was the leitmotif of all poems, ballads, poems, songs.

The lines from A. Tvardovsky’s poem “To the Partisans of the Smolensk Region” were indicative: “Rise up, my whole desecrated region, against the enemy!” “The Holy War” by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach conveyed a generalized image of time:

May the rage be noble

Boils like a wave

- There is a people's war going on,

Holy war![p.87]7

Odic poems, expressing the anger and hatred of the Soviet people, were an oath of allegiance to the Fatherland, a guarantee of victory, and reflected the internal state of millions of Soviet people.

The poets turned to the heroic past of their homeland, drew historical parallels that were so necessary to raise morale: “The Tale of Russia” by M. Isakovsky, “Rus” by D. Bedny, “The Thought of Russia”
D. Kedrina, “Field of Russian Glory” by S. Vasiliev.

An organic connection with Russian classical lyric poetry and folk art helped poets reveal the traits of their national character. Concepts such as “Motherland”, “Rus”, “Russia”, “Russian heart”, “Russian soul”, often included in the titles of works of art, acquired unprecedented historical depth and strength, poetic volume and imagery. Thus, revealing the character of the heroic defender of the city on the Neva, a Leningrad woman during the siege, O. Berggolts states:

You are Russian – with your breath, your blood, your thoughts.

They united in you not yesterday

Avvakum's manly patience

And Peter’s royal fury[p.104].

A number of poems convey the soldier’s feeling of love for his “small homeland”, for the house in which he was born, for the family that remained far away, for those “three birches” where he left part of his soul, his pain, hope, joy ( “Motherland” by K. Simonov).

The most touching lines of many writers of this time are dedicated to the woman-mother, a simple Russian woman who saw off her brothers, husband and sons to the front, who experienced the bitterness of an irreparable loss, who bore on her shoulders inhuman hardships, deprivations and hardships, but did not lose faith.

I remembered every porch,

Where did you have to go?

I remembered all the women's faces,

Like your own mother.

They shared bread with us -

Is it wheat, rye, -

They took us out to the steppe

A secret path.

Our pain hurt them, -

Your own troubles don’t count [p.72].

M. Isakovsky’s poems “To a Russian Woman” and lines from K. Simonov’s poem “Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region...” sound in the same key.

The truth of the times, faith in victory permeate the poems of A. Prokofiev (“Comrade, have you seen…”), A. Tvardovsky (“The Ballad of a Comrade”) and many other poets.

The work of a number of major poets is undergoing a serious evolution. Thus, A. Akhmatova’s lyrics reflect the high citizenship of the poetess; purely personal experiences received a patriotic sound. In the poem “Courage,” the poetess finds words and images that embody the invincible resilience of the fighting people:

And we will save you, Russian speech,

Great Russian word.

We will carry you free and clean.

We will give it to our grandchildren and save us from captivity

Forever! [p.91].

The fighting people needed both angry lines of hatred and heartfelt poems about love and fidelity in equal measure. Examples of this are K. Simonov’s poems “Kill him!”, “Wait for me, and I will return...”, A. Prokofiev’s “Comrade, have you seen...”, his poem “Russia”, filled with love for the Motherland.

Front-line songs occupy a special place in the history of the development of Russian poetry. Thoughts and feelings set to music create a special emotional background and reveal the mentality of our people in the best possible way (“Dugout” by A. Surkov, “Dark Night” by V. Agatov, “Ogonyok”
M. Isakovsky, “Evening on the roads” by A. Churkin, “Roads” by L. Oshanin, “Here the soldiers are coming” by M. Lvovsky, “Nightingales” by A. Fatyanov, etc.).

We find the embodiment of the social, moral, humanistic ideals of a struggling people in such a large epic genre as the poem. The years of the Great Patriotic War became no less fruitful for the poem than the era of the 1920s. “Kirov with us” (1941) by N. Tikhonova, “Zoya” (1942) by M. Aliger, “Son” (1943) by P. Antakolsky, “February Diary” (1942) by O. Berggolts, “Pulkovo Meridian” (1943)
V. Inber, “Vasily Terkin” (1941–1945) by A. Tvardovsky - these are the best examples of poetic creativity of that period. A distinctive feature of the poem as a genre at this time is pathos: attention to specific, easily recognizable details, a synthesis of personal thoughts about family, love and big history, about the fate of the country and the planet, etc.

The evolution of the poets P. Antakolsky and V. Inber is indicative. From oversaturation with associations and reminiscences of pre-war poetry
P. Antakolsky moves from thinking about the fate of a particular person to all of humanity as a whole. The poem “Son” captivates with its combination of lyricism with high pathos, soulful sincerity with a civic principle. Here the painfully personal turns into the general. High civic pathos and social and philosophical reflections determine the sound of V. Inber’s military poetry. “Pulkovo Meridian” is not only a poem about the humanistic position of the Russian people, it is a hymn to the feelings and feats of every person fighting for the Motherland and freedom.

The poem of the war years was distinguished by a variety of stylistic, plot and compositional solutions. It synthesizes the principles and techniques of narrative and sublimely romantic style. Thus, M. Aliger’s poem “Zoe” is marked by the amazing unity of the author with the spiritual world of the heroine. It inspiredly and accurately embodies moral maximalism and integrity, truth and simplicity. Moscow schoolgirl Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, without hesitation, voluntarily chooses a harsh fate. The poem “Zoya” is not so much a biography of the heroine as a lyrical confession on behalf of a generation whose youth coincided with a formidable and tragic time in the history of the people. At the same time, the three-part structure of the poem conveys the main stages in the formation of the heroine’s spiritual appearance. At the beginning of the poem, with light but precise strokes, the girl’s appearance is only outlined. Gradually, a large social theme enters into the wonderful world of her youth (“We lived in the world light and spacious…”), a sensitive heart absorbs the anxieties and pain of the “shocked planet.” The final part of the poem becomes the apotheosis of a short life. The inhuman torture that Zoya is subjected to in a fascist dungeon is spoken sparingly, but powerfully, with journalistic poignancy. The name and image of the Moscow schoolgirl, whose life was cut short so tragically early, have become a legend.

The poem “Vasily Terkin” by A. T. Tvardovsky, the largest, most significant poetic work of the era of the Great Patriotic War, became world famous. Tvardovsky achieved a synthesis of the particular and the general: the individual image of Vasily Terkin and the image of the Motherland are of different sizes in the artistic concept of the poem. This is a multifaceted poetic work, covering not only all aspects of front-line life, but also the main stages of the Great Patriotic War. The immortal image of Vasily Terkin embodied with particular force the features of the Russian national character of that era. Democracy and moral purity, greatness and simplicity of the hero are revealed through the means of folk poetry, the structure of his thoughts and feelings is akin to the world of images of Russian folklore.

The era of the Great Patriotic War gave birth to poetry of remarkable strength and sincerity, angry journalism, harsh prose, and passionate drama.

Over 300 plays were created during the war years, but few were lucky enough to survive their time. Among them: “Invasion” by L. Leonov, “Front” by A. Korneichuk, “Russian People” by K. Simonov, “Fleet Officer” by A. Kron, “Song of the Black Sea Men” by B. Lavrenev, “Stalingraders” by Yu. Chepurin, etc. .

Plays were not the most mobile genre of that time. The year 1942 became a turning point in drama.

L. Leonov's drama “Invasion” was created at the most difficult time. The small town where the events of the play unfold is a symbol of the national struggle against the invaders. The significance of the author's plan lies in the fact that he interprets local conflicts in a broad socio-philosophical manner, revealing the sources that feed the force of resistance. The play takes place in Dr. Talanov's apartment. Unexpectedly for everyone, Talanov’s son Fedor returns from prison. Almost simultaneously the Germans entered the city. And along with them appears the former owner of the house in which the Talanovs live, the merchant Fayunin, who soon became the mayor of the city. The tension of the action increases from scene to scene. The honest Russian intellectual, doctor Talanov, does not imagine his life apart from the struggle. Next to him are his wife Anna Pavlovna and daughter Olga. There is no question of the need to fight behind enemy lines for the chairman of the city council, Kolesnikov: he heads a partisan detachment. This is one – the central – layer of the play. However, Leonov, a master of deep and complex dramatic collisions, is not content with only this approach. Deepening the psychological line of the play, he introduces another person - the Talanovs' son. Fedor's fate turned out to be confusing and difficult. Spoiled in childhood, selfish, selfish, he returns to his father's house after three years in prison as punishment for an attempt on the life of his beloved woman. Fyodor is gloomy, cold, wary. The words of his father spoken at the beginning of the play about the nation's grief do not touch Fyodor: personal adversity obscures everything else. He is tormented by the lost trust of people, which is why Fyodor feels uncomfortable in the world. With their minds and hearts, the mother and nanny understood that under the buffoon mask Fyodor hid his pain, the melancholy of a lonely, unhappy person, but they could not accept him as before. Kolesnikov’s refusal to take Fedor into his squad hardens the heart of young Talanov even more. It took time for this man, who once lived only for himself, to become the people's avenger. Captured by the Nazis, Fyodor pretends to be the commander of a partisan detachment in order to die for him. Leonov paints a psychologically convincing picture of Fedor’s return to people. The play consistently reveals how war, national grief, and suffering ignite in people hatred and a thirst for revenge, a willingness to give their lives for the sake of victory. This is exactly how we see Fedor at the end of the drama.

For Leonov, there is a natural interest in human character in all the complexity and contradictions of his nature, consisting of social and national, moral and psychological. The stage history of Leonov’s works during the Great Patriotic War (except for “Invasion”, the drama “Lenushka”, 1943, was also widely known), which went around all the main theaters of the country, once again confirms the playwright’s skill.

If L. Leonov reveals the theme of heroic deeds and the indestructibility of the patriotic spirit by means of in-depth psychological analysis, then K. Simonov in the play “Russian People” (1942), posing the same problems, uses the techniques of lyricism and journalism of open folk drama. The action in the play takes place in the autumn of 1941 on the Southern Front. The author's attention is focused on both the events in Safonov's detachment, located not far from the city, and the situation in the city itself, where the occupiers are in charge. “Russian People” is a play about the courage and resilience of ordinary people who had very peaceful professions before the war: about the driver Safonov, his mother Marfa Petrovna, nineteen-year-old Valya Anoshchenko, who drove the chairman of the city council, and paramedic Globa. They would build houses, teach children, create beautiful things, love, but the cruel word “war” dispelled all hopes. People take rifles, put on greatcoats, and go into battle.

The play “Russian People” already in the summer of 1942, during the most difficult time of the war, was staged on the stage of a number of theaters. The success of the play was also explained by the fact that the playwright showed the enemy not as a primitive fanatic and sadist, but as a sophisticated conqueror of Europe and the world, confident in his impunity.

The theme of a number of interesting dramatic works was the life and heroic deeds of our fleet. Among them: psychological drama
A. Krona “Fleet Officer” (1944), lyrical comedy by Vs. Azarova,
Sun. Vishnevsky, A. Kron “The Wide Sea Spreads Out” (1942), B. Lavrenev’s oratorio “Song of the Black Sea People” (1943).

Historical drama achieved certain achievements during this period. Such historical plays were written as the tragedy of V. Solovyov “The Great Sovereign”, the dilogy of A. Tolstoy “Ivan the Terrible”, etc. Turning points, difficult times of the Russian people - this is the main component of such dramas.

However, journalism reached its greatest flourishing during the Great Patriotic War. The greatest masters of artistic expression - L. Leonov, A. Tolstoy, M. Sholokhov - also became outstanding publicists. The bright, temperamental words of I. Ehrenburg were popular at the front and in the rear. An important contribution to the journalism of those years was made by A. Fadeev, V. Vishnevsky, N. Tikhonov.

A. N. Tolstoy (1883–1945) owns more than 60 articles and essays created during the period 1941–1944. (“What We Defend”, “Motherland”, “Russian Warriors”, “Blitzkrieg”, “Why Hitler Must Be Defeated”, etc.). Turning to the history of his homeland, he convinced his contemporaries that Russia would cope with a new disaster, as it had happened more than once in the past. “Nothing, we can handle it!” - this is the leitmotif of A. Tolstoy’s journalism.

L. M. Leonov also constantly turned to national history, but with particular poignancy he spoke about the responsibility of every citizen, because only in this he saw the guarantee of the coming victory (“Glory to Russia”, “Your brother Volodya Kurylenko”, “Rage”, “Massacre” "," To an unknown American friend ", etc.).

The central theme of I. G. Ehrenburg’s military journalism is the defense of universal human culture. He saw fascism as a threat to world civilization and emphasized that representatives of all nationalities of the USSR were fighting for its preservation (articles “Kazakhs”, “Jews”, “Uzbeks”, “Caucasus”, etc.). Ehrenburg's style of journalism was distinguished by sharp colors, sudden transitions, and metaphor. At the same time, the writer skillfully combined documentary materials, verbal posters, pamphlets, and caricatures in his works. Ehrenburg's essays and journalistic articles were compiled in the collection “War”.

The second most mobile after a journalistic article was a military essay . Documentary art has become the key to the popularity of publications
V. Grossman, A. Fadeev, K. Simonov - writers whose words, created in hot pursuit, were awaited by readers at the front and in the rear. He owns descriptions of military operations and portrait travel sketches.

Leningrad became the main theme of V. Grossman's essays. In 1941, he joined the staff of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. Grossman kept notes throughout the war. His Stalingrad essays, harsh, devoid of pathos (“Through the Eyes of Chekhov”, etc.), formed the basis of the plan for a large work, which later became the dilogy “Life and Fate.”

Since most of the stories, the few in those years, were built on a documentary basis, the authors most often resorted to the psychological characteristics of the heroes, described specific episodes, and often retained the names of real people. Thus, during the days of the war, a certain hybrid form of essay-story appeared in Russian literature. This type of work includes “The Commander’s Honor” by K. Simonov, “The Science of Hate” by M. Sholokhov, and the cycles “Stories of Ivan Sudarev”
A. Tolstoy and “Sea Soul” by L. Sobolev.

The art of journalism has gone through several main stages in four years. If in the first months of the war it was characterized by a nakedly rationalistic manner, often abstract and schematic ways of depicting the enemy, then at the beginning of 1942 journalism was enriched with elements of psychological analysis. The fiery word of the publicist contains both a rallying note and an appeal to the spiritual world of a person. The next stage coincided with a turning point in the course of the war, with the need for an in-depth socio-political examination of the fascist front and rear, clarification of the root causes of the approaching defeat of Hitlerism and the inevitability of fair retribution. These circumstances prompted the use of such genres as pamphlets and reviews.

At the final stage of the war, a tendency towards documentary appeared. For example, in TASS Windows, along with the graphic design of posters, the method of photomontage was widely used. Writers and poets included diary entries, letters, photographs and other documentary evidence into their works.

Journalism during the war years is a qualitatively different stage in the development of this martial and effective art compared to previous periods. The deepest optimism, unshakable faith in victory - that’s what supported the publicists even in the most difficult times. Their appeal to history and the national origins of patriotism gave their speeches special power. An important feature of journalism of that time was the widespread use of leaflets, posters, and caricatures.

Already in the first two years of the war, over 200 stories were published. Of all the prose genres, only the essay and story could compete in popularity with the story. The story is a genre that is very characteristic of the Russian national tradition. It is well known that in the 1920–1930s. psychological-everyday, adventure and satirical-humorous varieties of the genre dominated. During the Great Patriotic War (as well as during the Civil War), the heroic, romantic story came first.

The desire to reveal the harsh and bitter truth of the first months of the war and achievements in the field of creating heroic characters are marked by “The Russian Tale” (1942) by Pyotr Pavlenko and V. Grossman’s story “The People are Immortal.” However, there are differences between these works in the way the theme is embodied.

A characteristic feature of military prose of 1942–1943. - the appearance of short stories, cycles of stories connected by the unity of characters, the image of the narrator or a lyrical cross-cutting theme. This is exactly how “Stories of Ivan Sudarev” by A. Tolstoy, “Sea Soul” by L. Sobolev, “March - April” by V. Kozhevnikov are constructed. The drama in these works is shaded by a lyrical and at the same time sublimely poetic, romantic feature, which helps to reveal the spiritual beauty of the hero. Penetration into the inner world of a person deepens. The socio-ethical origins of patriotism are revealed more convincingly and artistically.

By the end of the war, there was a noticeable pull of prose towards a broad epic understanding of reality, which is convincingly proven by two famous writers - M. Sholokhov (a novel that the author never managed to finish - “They Fought for the Motherland”) and A. Fadeev (“Young Guard” ). The novels are distinguished by their social scope and the opening of new paths in the interpretation of the theme of war. Thus, M.A. Sholokhov makes a bold attempt to depict the Great Patriotic War as a truly national epic. The very choice of the main characters, ordinary infantry - grain grower Zvyagintsev, miner Lopakhin, agronomist Streltsov - indicates that the writer seeks to show different layers of society, to trace how the war was perceived by different people and what paths led them to a huge, truly popular Victory.

The spiritual and moral world of Sholokhov’s heroes is rich and diverse. The artist paints broad pictures of the era: sad episodes of retreats, scenes of violent attacks, relationships between soldiers and civilians, short hours between battles. At the same time, the whole gamut of human experiences can be traced - love and hatred, severity and tenderness, smiles and tears, tragic and comic.

If the novel by M. A. Sholokhov was not completed, then the fate of other works was remarkable; they reflected the era, like in a mirror. For example, the autobiographical story by K. Vorobyov “This is us, Lord!” was written in 1943, when a group of partisans formed from former prisoners of war was forced to go underground. Exactly thirty days in the Lithuanian city of Siauliai, K. Vorobyov wrote about what he experienced in fascist captivity. In 1946, the manuscript was received by the editors of the New World magazine. At that moment, the author presented only the first part of the story, so the question of its publication was postponed until the ending appeared. However, the second part was never written. Even in the writer’s personal archive, the entire story was not preserved, but some of its fragments were included in some of Vorobyov’s other works. Only in 1985 the manuscript “This is us, Lord!” was discovered in the Central State Archive of Literature and Art of the USSR, where it was deposited along with the archive of the “New World”. In 1986, K. Vorobyov’s story finally saw the light of day. The main character of the work, Sergei Kostrov, is a young lieutenant who was captured by the Germans in the first year of the war. The whole story is dedicated to describing the life of Soviet prisoners of war in German camps. At the center of the work is the fate of the main character, which can be described as “the path to freedom.”

If K. Vorobyov’s work is a tracing of his life, then A. Fadeev relies on specific facts and documents. At the same time, Fadeev’s “Young Guard” is romantic and revealing, just like the fate of the author of the work himself.

In the first chapter there is a distant echo of anxiety, in the second the drama is shown - people leave their homes, mines are blown up, a feeling of national tragedy permeates the narrative. The underground is crystallizing, connections between the young fighters of Krasnodon and the underground are becoming stronger. The idea of ​​continuity of generations determines the basis of the plot structure of the book and is expressed in the depiction of underground workers (I. Protsenko, F. Lyutikov). Representatives of the older generation and Young Guard Komsomol members act as a single popular force opposing Hitler’s “new order.”

The first completed novel about the Patriotic War was “The Young Guard” by A. Fadeev, published in 1945 (the second book - in 1951). After the liberation of Donbass, Fadeev wrote an essay about the death of the Krasnodon youth “Immortality” (1943), and then conducted a study of the activities of an underground youth organization that independently operated in the town occupied by the Nazis. Severe and strict realism coexists with romance, the objectified narrative is interspersed with the excited lyricism of the author's digressions. When recreating individual images, the role of the poetics of contrast is also very significant (Lyutikov’s stern eyes and the sincerity of his nature; the emphatically boyish appearance of Oleg Koshevoy and the not at all childish wisdom of his decisions; the dashing carelessness of Lyubov Shevtsova and the daring courage of her actions, indestructible will). Even in the appearance of the heroes, Fadeev does not deviate from his favorite technique: Protsenko’s “clear blue eyes” and “demonic sparks” in them; “severe-tender expression” of Oleg Koshevoy’s eyes; white lily in Ulyana Gromova’s black hair; “blue children’s eyes with a hard steel tint” from Lyubov Shevtsova.

The history of the novel's existence in world literature is remarkable. The fate of the work is indicative of literary examples of the Soviet era.

Application of brainstorming technology

Conditions: completing a pre-lecture task, dividing into groups (4–5 people).

If in the 1945 edition A. A. Fadeev did not dare to write about the existence in Krasnodon of another - non-Komsomol - anti-fascist underground, then in the new version of the novel (1951) ideologically determined cunning is added to this default: the author claims that the creators and The leaders of the Young Guard organization were communists. Thus, Fadeev denies his favorite heroes an important initiative. In addition, this book served as the basis for criminal prosecution, often unfounded, of real people who became prototypes of negative heroes.

And yet, in our opinion, it should be noted that to this day this novel has not lost its relevance, including pedagogical.

2. The theme of the Great Patriotic War occupies a special place in Russian multinational literature. In the 1940s–1950s, it developed a tradition of depicting the war as a heroic period in the life of the country. With this angle, there was no room to show its tragic aspects. Throughout the 1950s. In the literature about the war, a tendency towards a panoramic depiction of past events in large artistic canvases is clearly revealed. The appearance of epic novels is one of the characteristic features of Russian literature of the 1950s–1960s.

The turning point occurred only with the beginning of the “thaw”, when the stories of front-line writers were published: “Battalions Ask for Fire” (1957) by Yu. Bondarev, “South of the Main Strike” (1957) by G. Baklanov, “Crane Cry” (1961), “ The Third Rocket" (1962) by V. Bykova, "Starfall" (1961) by V. Astafiev, "One of Us" (1962) by V. Roslyakov, "Scream" (1962), "Killed near Moscow" (1963) by K. Vorobyov etc. Such a surge of interest in the military topic predetermined the emergence of a whole movement called “lieutenant prose.”

“Lieutenant's Prose” is the work of writers who went through the war, survived and brought their combat experience to the reader's attention in one form or another. As a rule, this is fiction, most of which is autobiographical in nature. The aesthetic principles of “lieutenant prose” had a noticeable influence on the entire literary process of the second half of the 20th century. However, today there is no generally accepted definition of this literary movement. It is interpreted in different ways: as prose created by front-line soldiers who went through the war with the rank of lieutenants, or as prose in which the main characters are young lieutenants. “General’s prose” is characterized in a similar way, which means works created in the “general’s” (epic novel) format by the “generals” of literature (for example, K. Simonov).

Speaking about works created by front-line writers exploring the development of a young war participant, we will resort to the concept of “lieutenant prose” as the most widely used one. Its origins lay in V. Nekrasov’s novel “In the Trenches of Stalingrad.” The author, having himself gone through the war as an officer in a sapper battalion, was able to show in artistic form the “truth of the trenches,” in which the heroes were a simple soldier, a simple officer. And the victory was won by ordinary people - the people. This theme became central to the best war fiction of the 1950s and 1960s.

In this regard, the following authors and their works may be mentioned. The story by K. Vorobyov (1919–1975) “Killed near Moscow” (1963) is written very emotionally, but realistically. Plot: a company of Kremlin cadets under the command of the slender, fit captain Ryumin was sent to defend Moscow. A company of soldiers and the defense of Moscow! The company died, and Captain Ryumin shot himself - he shot himself in the heart, as if atonement for his sin for the death of inexperienced boys. They, the Kremlin cadets, are slender, one meter one hundred and eighty-three centimeters tall, they look perfect, and they are sure that the command values ​​them, because they are a special unit. But the cadets are abandoned by their command, and Captain Ryumin leads them into an obviously unequal battle. There was practically no fighting, there was an unexpected and stunning attack by the Germans, from which there was no escape anywhere - the NKVD troops controlled them from behind.

Yu. Bondarev, in the novel “Hot Snow” (1965–1969), tried to develop the traditions of “lieutenant prose” at a new level, entering into a hidden polemic with its characteristic “remarqueism”. Moreover, by that time, “lieutenant prose” was experiencing a certain crisis, which was expressed in a certain monotony of artistic techniques, plot moves and situations, and even in the repetition of the very system of images of the works. The action of Y. Bondarev's novel takes place within 24 hours, during which Lieutenant Drozdovsky's battery, which remained on the southern bank, repelled the attacks of one of the tank divisions of Manstein's group, eager to help Marshal Paulus's army, which was encircled at Stalingrad. However, this particular episode of the war turns out to be the turning point from which the victorious offensive of the Soviet troops began, and for this reason the events of the novel unfold as if on three levels: in the trenches of an artillery battery, at the army headquarters of General Bessonov and, finally, at the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, where Before being assigned to the active army, the general has to endure a very difficult psychological duel with Stalin himself. Battalion commander Drozdovsky and the commander of one of the artillery platoons, Lieutenant Kuznetsov, personally meet with General Bessonov three times.

By characterizing the war as a “test of humanity,” Yu. Bondarev only expressed what determined the face of the military story of the 1960–1970s: many prose-battle writers placed emphasis in their works on depicting the inner world of the heroes and refracting the experience of war in it , on the transfer of the very process of human moral choice. However, the writer’s partiality for his favorite characters was sometimes expressed in the romanticization of their images - a tradition set by A. Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard” (1945). In this case, the character of the characters did not change, but was only revealed extremely clearly in the exceptional circumstances in which the war placed them.

This tendency was most clearly expressed in the stories of B. Vasiliev “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” (1969) and “Not on the Lists” (1975). The peculiarity of the writer’s military prose is that he always chooses episodes that are insignificant from the point of view of global historical events, but speak a lot about the highest spirit of those who were not afraid to oppose the superior forces of the enemy and won. Critics saw many inaccuracies and even “impossibilities” in B. Vasiliev’s story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet,” which takes place in the forests and swamps of Karelia (for example, the White Sea-Baltic Canal, which the sabotage group was targeting, has not been operational since the fall of 1941 ). But the writer was not interested in historical accuracy here, but in the situation itself, when five fragile girls, led by foreman Fedot Baskov, entered into an unequal battle with sixteen thugs.

The image of Baskov, in essence, goes back to Lermontov’s Maxim Maksimych - a man, perhaps poorly educated, but whole, wise in life and endowed with a noble and kind heart. Vaskov does not understand the intricacies of world politics or fascist ideology, but in his heart he feels the bestial essence of this war and its causes and cannot justify the death of five girls by any higher interests.

The image of female anti-aircraft gunners embodied the typical destinies of women of the pre-war and war years: different social status and educational level, different characters, interests. However, for all their life-like accuracy, these images are noticeably romanticized: in the writer’s depiction, each of the girls is beautiful in her own way, each worthy of her own life story. And the fact that all the heroines die emphasizes the inhumanity of this war, which affects the lives of even the people furthest from it. The fascists are contrasted with romanticized images of girls using the technique of contrast. Their images are grotesque, deliberately reduced, and this expresses the writer’s main idea about the nature of a person who has taken the path of murder. This thought illuminates with particular clarity that episode of the story in which Sonya Gurvich’s dying cry is heard, which escaped because the blow of the knife was intended for a man, but landed in a woman’s chest. With the image of Liza Brichkina, a line of possible love is introduced into the story. From the very beginning, Vaskov and Lisa liked each other: she liked her figure and sharpness, he liked her masculine thoroughness. Lisa and Vaskov have a lot in common, but the heroes never managed to sing together, as the foreman promised: the war destroys nascent feelings at the root. The ending of the story reveals the meaning of its title. The work closes with a letter, judging by the language, written by a young man who became an accidental witness of Vaskov’s return to the place of the girls’ deaths along with Rita’s adopted son Albert. Thus, the hero’s return to the place of his feat is shown through the eyes of a generation whose right to life was defended by people like Vaskov. Such symbolization of images and philosophical understanding of situations of moral choice are very characteristic of a military story. Prose writers thereby continue the reflections of their predecessors on the “eternal” questions about the nature of good and evil, the degree of human responsibility for actions seemingly dictated by necessity. Hence the desire of some writers to create situations that, in their universality, semantic capacity and categorical moral and ethical conclusions, would approach a parable, only colored by the author’s emotion and enriched with completely realistic details.

It is not for nothing that the concept of a “philosophical tale of war” was even born, associated primarily with the work of the Belarusian prose writer-front-line soldier Vasil Bykov, with such stories as “Sotnikov” (1970), “Obelisk” (1972), “Sign of Trouble” (1984) . V. Bykov’s prose is often characterized by a too straightforward opposition between a person’s physical and moral health. However, the inferiority of the soul of some heroes is not revealed immediately, not in everyday life: a “moment of truth” is needed, a situation of categorical choice that immediately reveals the true essence of a person. The fisherman, the hero of V. Bykov’s story “Sotnikov,” is full of vitality, knows no fear, and Rybak’s comrade, sick, not very strong, with “thin hands,” Sotnikov gradually begins to seem to him only a burden. Indeed, largely due to the fault of the latter, the foray of the two partisans ended in failure. Sotnikov is a purely civilian man. Until 1939, he worked at a school; his physical strength was replaced by stubbornness. It was stubbornness that prompted Sotnikov three times to try to get out of the encirclement in which his destroyed battery found himself, before the hero fell to the partisans. Whereas Rybak, from the age of 12, was engaged in hard peasant labor and therefore endured physical stress and hardship more easily. It is also noteworthy that Rybak is more inclined to moral compromises. Thus, he is more tolerant of the elder Peter than Sotnikov, and does not dare to punish him for his service to the Germans. Sotnikov, on the other hand, is not inclined to compromise at all, which, however, according to V. Bykov, testifies not to the hero’s limitations, but to his excellent understanding of the laws of war. Indeed, unlike Rybak, Sotnikov already knew what captivity was and was able to pass this test with honor because he did not compromise with his conscience. The “moment of truth” for Sotnikov and Rybak was their arrest by the police, the scene of interrogation and execution. The fisherman, who has always found a way out of any situation, tries to outwit the enemy, not realizing that, having taken such a path, he will inevitably come to betrayal, because he has already put his own salvation above the laws of honor and camaraderie. He yields to the enemy step by step, refusing first to think about saving the woman who hid him and Sotnikov in the attic, then about saving Sotnikov himself, and then about his own soul. Finding himself in a hopeless situation, Rybak, in the face of imminent death, became cowardly, preferring animal life to human death.

The change in approach to conflicts in military prose can also be traced when analyzing the works of the same writer over different years. Already in his first stories, V. Bykov sought to free himself from stereotypes when depicting war. The writer always has extremely tense situations in his field of vision. The heroes are faced with the need to make their own decisions. So, for example, it happened with Lieutenant Ivanovsky in the story “To Live Until Dawn” (1972) - he risked himself and those who went on a mission with him and died. There was no warehouse with weapons for which this sortie was organized. In order to somehow justify the sacrifices already made, Ivanovsky hopes to blow up the headquarters, but it was not possible to find it either. In front of him, mortally wounded, a transport worker appears, at whom the lieutenant, having gathered his remaining strength, throws a grenade. V. Bykov made the reader think about the meaning of the concept of “feat”.

At one time, there were debates about whether teacher Moroz could be considered a hero in “Obelisk” (1972), if he did not do anything heroic, did not kill a single fascist, but only shared the fate of the dead students. The characters in other stories by V. Bykov did not correspond to standard ideas about heroism. Critics were embarrassed by the appearance of a traitor in almost every one of them (Rybak in Sotnikov, 1970; Anton Golubin in Go and Not Return, 1978, etc.), who until the fateful moment was an honest partisan, but gave in when he had to take risks for the sake of saving your own life. For V. Bykov, it did not matter from which observation point the observation was carried out, it was important how the war was seen and depicted. He showed the multi-motivation of actions performed in extreme situations. The reader was given the opportunity, without rushing to judgment, to understand those who were clearly wrong.

In the works of V. Bykov, the connection between the military past and the present is usually emphasized. In “The Wolf Pack” (1975), a former soldier remembers the war, having come to the city to look for the baby he once saved and make sure that such a high price was not paid for his life in vain (his father and mother died, and he, Levchuk, became disabled) . The story ends with a premonition of their meeting.

Another veteran, Associate Professor Ageev, is excavating a quarry (“Quarry”, 1986), where he was once shot, but miraculously survived. The memory of the past haunts him, forces him to rethink the past again and again, to be ashamed of thoughtless fears regarding those who, like priest Baranovskaya, were labeled an enemy.

In the 1950s–1970s. Several major works appear, the purpose of which is to epically cover the events of the war years, to comprehend the fate of individuals and their families in the context of the national fate. In 1959, the first novel “The Living and the Dead” of K. Simonov’s trilogy of the same name was published, the second novel “Soldiers Are Not Born” and the third “The Last Summer” were published, respectively, in 1964 and 1970–1971. In 1960, a draft of V. Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate”, the second part of the dilogy “For a Just Cause” (1952), was completed, but a year later the manuscript was arrested by the KGB, so the general reader at home was able to get acquainted with the novel only in 1988 G.

In the first book of K. Simonov’s trilogy “The Living and the Dead,” the action takes place at the beginning of the war in Belarus and near Moscow at the height of military events. War correspondent Sintsov, leaving encirclement with a group of comrades, decides to leave journalism and join General Serpilin’s regiment. The human history of these two heroes is the focus of the author's attention, without disappearing behind the large-scale events of the war. The writer touched on many topics and problems that were previously impossible in Soviet literature: he spoke about the country’s unpreparedness for war, about the repressions that weakened the army, about the mania of suspicion, and the inhumane attitude towards people. The writer’s success was the figure of General Lvov, who embodied the image of a Bolshevik fanatic. Personal courage and faith in a happy future are combined in him with the desire to mercilessly eradicate everything that, in his opinion, interferes with this future. Lvov loves abstract people, but is ready to sacrifice people, throwing them into meaningless attacks, seeing in a person only a means to achieve high goals. His suspicion extends so far that he is ready to argue with Stalin himself, who freed several talented military men from the camps. If General Lvov is an ideologist of totalitarianism, then its practitioner, Colonel Baranov, is a careerist and a coward. Having uttered loud words about duty, honor, courage, and written denunciations against his colleagues, he, finding himself surrounded, puts on a soldier’s tunic and “forgets” all the documents. Telling the harsh truth about the beginning of the war, K. Simonov simultaneously shows the people's resistance to the enemy, depicting the feat of the Soviet people who stood up to defend their homeland. These are episodic characters (artillerymen who did not abandon their cannon, dragging it in their hands from Brest to Moscow; an old collective farmer who scolded the retreating army, but at the risk of his life saved a wounded woman in his house; Captain Ivanov, who gathered frightened soldiers from broken units and leading them into battle), and the main characters are Serpilin and Sintsov.
It is no coincidence that General Serpilin, conceived by the author as an episodic character, gradually became one of the main characters of the trilogy: his fate embodied the most complex and at the same time the most typical features of a Russian person of the 20th century. A participant in the First World War, he became a talented commander in the Civil War, taught at the academy and was arrested by Baranov’s denunciation for telling his listeners about the strength of the German army, while all the propaganda insisted that in the event of war we would win with a small one blood, but we will fight on foreign territory. Liberated from a concentration camp at the beginning of the war, Serpilin, by his own admission, “forgot nothing and forgave nothing,” but realized that this was not the time to indulge in grievances - he had to save his homeland. Outwardly stern and taciturn, demanding of himself and his subordinates, he tries to take care of the soldiers and suppresses any attempts to achieve victory at any cost. In the third book of the novel, K. Simonov showed this man’s capacity for great love. Another central character of the novel, Sintsov, was originally conceived by the author solely as a war correspondent for one of the central newspapers. This made it possible to throw the hero into the most important sectors of the front, creating a large-scale chronicle novel. At the same time, there was a danger of depriving him of his individuality and making him only a mouthpiece for the author’s ideas. The writer quickly realized this danger and already in the second book of the trilogy he changed the genre of his work: the chronicle novel became a novel of destinies, which together recreate the scale of the people’s battle with the enemy. And Sintsov became one of the active characters, who suffered injuries, encirclement, and participation in the November 1941 parade (from where the troops went straight to the front). The fate of the war correspondent was replaced by a soldier's lot: the hero went from a private to a senior officer.

Having completed the trilogy, K. Simonov sought to complement it, to emphasize the ambiguity of his position. This is how “Different Days of War” (1970–1980) appeared, and after the writer’s death “Letters about War” (1990) was published.

Quite often, K. Simonov’s epic novel is compared with V. Grossman’s work “Life and Fate.” The war and the Battle of Stalingrad are just some of the components of V. Grossman’s grandiose epic “Life and Fate,” although the main action of the work takes place in 1943 and the fates of most of the heroes are in one way or another connected with the events taking place around the city on the Volga. The image of a German concentration camp in the novel is replaced by scenes in the dungeons of Lubyanka, and the ruins of Stalingrad by the laboratories of the institute evacuated to Kazan, where the physicist Strum struggles with the mysteries of the atomic nucleus. However, it is not “folk thought” or “family thought” that determines the face of the work - in this, V. Grossman’s epic is inferior to the masterpieces of L. Tolstoy and M. Sholokhov. The writer is focused on something else: the subject of his thoughts is the concept of freedom, as evidenced by the title of the novel. V. Grossman contrasts fate as the power of fate or objective circumstances weighing on a person with life as the free realization of personality even in conditions of its absolute lack of freedom. The writer is convinced that one can arbitrarily dispose of the lives of thousands of people, essentially remaining a slave like General Neudobnov or Commissar Getmanov. Or you can die unconquered in the gas chamber of a concentration camp: this is how military doctor Sofya Osipovna Levinton dies, until the last minute caring only about easing the torment of the boy David.

V. Grossman’s underlying thought that the source of freedom or lack of freedom of an individual is in the individual himself explains why the defenders of Grekov’s house, doomed to death, turn out to be much freer than Krymov, who came to judge them. Krymov’s consciousness is enslaved by ideology; he is, in a sense, a “man in a case,” albeit not as blinkered as some of the other heroes of the novel. Even I. S. Turgenev in the image of Bazarov, and then F. M. Dostoevsky convincingly showed how the struggle between “dead theory” and “living life” in the minds of such people often ends in the victory of theory: it is easier for them to admit the “wrongness” of life than infidelity the “only true” idea designed to explain this life. And therefore, when in a German concentration camp, Obersturmbannführer Liss convinces the old Bolshevik Mostovsky that they have much in common (“We are a form of a single entity - the party state”), Mostovsky can only respond to his enemy with silent contempt. He almost feels with horror how “dirty doubts” suddenly appear in his mind, not without reason called by V. Grossman “the dynamite of freedom.” The writer still sympathizes with such “hostages of the idea” as Mostovsky or Krymov, but his sharp rejection is caused by those whose ruthlessness towards people stems not from loyalty to established beliefs, but from the absence of them. Commissar Getmanov, once the secretary of the regional committee in Ukraine, is a mediocre warrior, but a talented exposer of “deviators” and “enemies of the people”, sensitive to any fluctuation in the party line. In order to receive a reward, he is able to send tankmen who have not slept for three days on the offensive, and when the commander of the tank corps Novikov, in order to avoid unnecessary casualties, delayed the start of the offensive for eight minutes, Getmanov, kissing Novikov for his victorious decision, immediately wrote a denunciation against him to Headquarters.

3. Among the works about the war that have appeared in recent years, two novels attract attention: “Cursed and Killed” by V. Astafiev (1992–1994) and “The General and His Army” by G. Vladimov (1995).

Works that restore the truth about the war cannot be light - the topic itself does not allow it, their goal is different - to awaken the memory of descendants. V. Astafiev’s monumental novel “Cursed and Killed” tackles the military theme in an incomparably harsher vein. In its first part, “The Devil’s Pit,” the writer tells the story of the formation of the 21st Infantry Regiment, in which, even before being sent to the front, those who were beaten to death by the company commander or shot for unauthorized absence die, those who are called upon to soon stand up in defense of the Motherland are maimed physically and spiritually. The second part, “Bridgehead,” dedicated to the crossing of the Dnieper by our troops, is also full of blood, pain, descriptions of arbitrariness, bullying, and theft, which flourish in the army in the field. Neither the occupiers nor the home-grown monsters can forgive the writer for his cynically callous attitude towards human life. This explains the angry pathos of the author’s digressions and descriptions that are beyond the pale in their merciless frankness in this work, whose artistic method is not without reason defined by critics as “cruel realism.”

The fact that G. Vladimov himself was still a boy during the war determined both the strengths and weaknesses of his acclaimed novel “The General and His Army” (1995). The experienced eye of a front-line soldier will see many inaccuracies and overexposures in the novel, including those unforgivable even for a work of fiction. However, this novel is interesting because it is an attempt to look at events from a Tolstoyan distance that once became turning points for the entire world history. It is not for nothing that the author does not hide the direct similarities between his novel and the epic “War and Peace” (for more information about the novel, see the chapter of the textbook “Modern Literary Situation”). The very fact of the appearance of such a work suggests that the military theme in literature has not exhausted itself and will never exhaust itself. The key to this is the living memory of the war among those who know about it only from the lips of its participants and from history textbooks. And considerable credit for this belongs to the writers who, having gone through the war, considered it their duty to tell the whole truth about it, no matter how bitter it was.

Warning to warrior-writers: “whoever lies about the past war brings the future war closer” (V.P. Astafiev). Understanding the truth of the trenches is a matter of honor for any person. War is terrible, and a stable gene must be developed in the body of the new generation to prevent this from happening again. It’s not for nothing that V. Astafiev chose the saying of the Siberian Old Believers as the epigraph of his main novel: “It was written that everyone who sows unrest, war and fratricide on earth will be cursed and killed by God.”

4.During the Great Patriotic War, keeping diaries at the front was prohibited. Having analyzed the creative activity of front-line writers, it can be noted that such writers as A. T. Tvardovsky, V. V. Vishnevsky, V. V. Ivanov gravitated towards diary prose; G. L. Zanadvorov kept a diary during the occupation. The specific features of the poetics of diary prose of writers - the synthesis of lyrical and epic principles, aesthetic organization - are confirmed in many memoir-diary samples. Despite the fact that writers keep diaries for themselves, the works require artistic mastery from the creators: diaries are characterized by a special style of presentation, characterized by the capacity of thought, aphoristic expression, and precision of words. Such features allow the researcher to call the writer’s diaries independent micro-works. The emotional impact in the diaries is achieved by the author through the selection of specific facts, the author's commentary, and subjective interpretation of events. The diary is based on the transmission and reconstruction of the real through the personal representations of the author, and the emotional background depends on his state of mind.

Along with the obligatory structural components of diary prose, specific artistic examples may contain specific mechanisms for expressing attitudes towards reality. The diary prose of writers during the Great Patriotic War is characterized by the presence of such inserted plots as prose poems, short stories, and landscape sketches. Memoirs and diaries of the Great Patriotic War are confessional and sincere. Using the potential of wartime memoir and diary prose, the authors of memoirs and diaries were able to express the mood of the era and create a vivid idea of ​​life during the war.

Memoirs of military leaders, generals, officers, and soldiers play a major role in the study of the Great Patriotic War. They were written by direct participants in the war, and, therefore, are quite objective and contain important information about the course of the war, its operations, military losses, etc.

Memoirs were left by I. Kh. Bagramyan, S. S. Biryuzov, P. A. Belov,
A. M. Vasilevsky, K. N. Galitsky, A. I. Eremenko, G. K. Zhukov,
I. S. Konev, N. G. Kuznetsov, A. I. Pokryshkin, K. K. Rokossovsky, etc. Collections of memoirs were also published dedicated to a specific topic (battle or branch of the military), such as, for example, “In battles for Transcarpathia", "Stalingrad Epic", "Liberation of Belarus" and so on. The leaders of the partisan movement also left memoirs: G. Ya. Bazima,
P. P. Vershigor, P. K. Ignatov and others.

Many books of memoirs of military leaders have special appendices, diagrams, maps, which not only explain what is written, but are also an important source in themselves, as they contain features of military operations, lists of commanding personnel and fighting techniques, as well as the number of troops and some other information .

Most often, events in such memoirs are arranged in chronological order.

Many military leaders based their diaries not only on personal memories, but also actively used elements of a research nature (referring to archives, facts, and other sources). For example, A. M. Vasilevsky in his memoir “The Work of a Whole Life” indicates that the book is based on factual material that is well known to him and confirmed by archival documents, much of which has not yet been published.

Such memoirs become more reliable and objective, which, of course, increases their value for the researcher, since in this case there is no need to check every fact presented.

Another feature of memoir literature written by military men (as, indeed, other memoirs of the Soviet period) is the strict censorship control over the facts described. The presentation of military events required a special approach, since the official and presented versions should not have any discrepancies. The memoirs of the war were supposed to indicate the leading role of the party in defeating the enemy, facts that were “shameful” for the front, miscalculations and mistakes of the command and, of course, top secret information. This must be taken into account when analyzing a particular work.

Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov left a rather significant memoir work, “Memories and Reflections,” which tells not only about the Great Patriotic War, but also about the years of his youth, the Civil War, and military clashes with Japan. This information is extremely important as a historical source, although it is often used by researchers only as illustrative material. The memoirs of four-time Hero of the Soviet Union G. K. Zhukov, “Memories and Reflections,” were first released in 1969, 24 years after the victory in the Great Patriotic War. Since then, the book has been very popular not only among ordinary readers, but also among historians, as a source of quite important information.

In Russia, the memoirs were republished 13 times. The 2002 edition (used when writing the work) was timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow and the 105th anniversary of the birth of G. K. Zhukov. The book was also published in thirty foreign countries, in 18 languages, with a circulation of more than seven million copies. Moreover, on the cover of the edition of the memoirs in Germany it is stated: “One of the greatest documents of our era.”

Marshall worked on “Memories and Reflections” for about ten years. During this period, he was in disgrace and was ill, which affected the speed of writing his memoirs. In addition, the book was subject to strict censorship.

For the second edition, G. K. Zhukov revised some chapters, corrected errors and wrote three new chapters, and also introduced new documents, descriptions and data, which increased the volume of the book. The two-volume book was published after his death.

When comparing the text of the first edition (published in 1979) and subsequent ones (published after his death), the distortion and absence of some places are striking. In 1990, a revised edition was published for the first time, based on the Marshal’s own manuscript. It differed significantly from others in the presence of sharp criticism of government bodies, the army and state policy in general. The 2002 edition consists of two volumes. The first volume includes 13 chapters, the second – 10.

Questions and tasks for self-control

1. Determine the periodization of the theme of the Great Patriotic War in the history of the development of Russian literature, supporting your opinion with an analysis of works of art by 3-4 authors.

2. Why do you think in the period 1941–1945. writers did not cover the horrors of war? What pathos prevails in the works of art of this period?

3. In a school course on literature about the Great Patriotic War, it is proposed to study “Son of the Regiment” (1944) by V. Kataev about the serene adventures of Vanya Solntsev. Do you agree with this choice? Identify the author of the school literature curriculum.

4. Determine the dynamics of the depiction of Russian character in different periods of the development of the topic in literature. Have the dominant behavior and the main character traits of the hero changed?

5. Propose a list of literary texts about the Great Patriotic War, which can become the basis of an elective course for 11th grade students of a secondary school.

Lecture 6

Literature of the 60s of the XX century.

ABSTRACT TOPICS ON WWII

Internal and foreign policy factors that contributed to the Nazis coming to power in Germany

National Socialist ideology in Germany, its essence (political, economic and ideological aspects. Why did it attract a significant part of the Germans? Why did big capital support the Nazis? What is the role of international capital in strengthening the economic and military power of Germany?)

Economic and military potential of Germany and the USSR by 1939: comparative analysis.

Economic and military potential of Germany and the USSR by June 1941: comparative analysis.

German military strategy: its essence and results (using the example of military operations in European countries in 1939-1941)

Military doctrine of the USSR in the pre-war years: its essence and practical implementation.

Comparative technical characteristics of armored vehicles of Germany and the USSR in 1991-1945.

Comparative technical characteristics of aviation in Germany and the USSR in 1941-1945.

The “blitzkrieg” strategy, its essence and practical implementation (using the example of the combat operations of German troops in the European theater of war and in the war against the USSR)

War of two ideologies. How did the ideas of Nazism attract a significant part of the German population and what are the origins of the patriotism of the Soviet people, including young people.

What were the reasons for the failures of the Red Army in the initial period of the war?

Assessment of the possible military potential of the Wehrmacht in heavy weapons (guns, mortars, armored vehicles, etc.), tanks, aircraft by the summer of 1941, based on their industrial potential, the capacities of Germany and the countries it conquered.

Participation in military operations on the Soviet front of Romanian, Italian and Finnish units, armed formations consisting of representatives of other nationalities (number of troops, quantity and quality of weapons, participation in military operations, etc.)

I.V. Stalin: portrait against the background of the era

Assessment of the military potential of the USSR at the beginning of the war in heavy weapons, tanks, aircraft.

Confrontation between Army Group Center and the Western Military District: balance of forces, firepower of troops, tactics of the parties.

The reasons for the defeat of the Red Army on the central sector of the front in the summer of 1941: objective and subjective factors.

"Lily Molotov", its construction, engineering components, technical and fire support

- “Stalin Line” - history of creation, engineering diagram, state at the beginning of the war

The war through the eyes of eyewitnesses, my interlocutors

War in the destinies of my family

War through the eyes of children

Current problems of war in foreign and domestic sources (comparative analysis)

The origins of the patriotism of Soviet soldiers, partisans, underground workers, and home front workers.

Evacuation of Belarusian enterprises and agricultural machinery to the east in 1941, the labor of evacuated Belarusians

Interethnic conflicts in the vastness of the former Soviet Union at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries. and during the Great Patriotic War. What are the origins of Hitler’s miscalculation in betting on the collapse of the USSR from within on ethnic grounds?

Manifestations of the genocidal policy of the invaders in my small homeland.

Belarusian Church during the Nazi occupation (according to Soviet and modern sources)

The Union of Belarusian Youth during the years of occupation: history of creation, structure, nature of activities

Policy of the occupiers in the field of culture, health, education

Youth policy of the occupiers

Punitive operations against partisans as part of the policy of genocide

Countrymen - Heroes of the Soviet Union

The streets of my village and city are named after them

My fellow countrymen are holders of military orders (Kutuzov, Suvorov, Nakhimov, etc.)

The most significant sabotage and other operations carried out by partisans and underground fighters in my small homeland during the years of occupation

Activities in the partisan and underground movement in Belarus of patriotic internationalists

The military glory of our grandfathers and grandmothers (based on materials from school and regional museums of military glory, family archives)

My fellow countrymen on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War

My fellow countrymen (countryman) are commanders

Defense of Minsk in 1941

Defense of Mogilev in 1941

Defense of Borisov in 1941

Defense of Gomel in 1941

Sennen counterattack in 1941

Counterattack near Bialystok in 1941

Possible dates for the start of the Great Patriotic War (according to Soviet and foreign sources)

The Battle of the Dnieper – the beginning of the liberation of Belarus

Gomel-Rechitsa offensive operation 1943

Kalinkovichi-Mozyr offensive operation 1943

Gorodok offensive operation 1943

Interaction between partisans and the Red Army during Operation Bagration

Participation of Belarusian partisans in Operation Bagration

Students and teachers of BNTU (BPI) – participants of the Great Patriotic War

Students and teachers of BNTU (BPI), partisans and underground fighters

Participation of Belarusians (my fellow countrymen) in the Battle of Moscow

Participation of Belarusians (my fellow countrymen) in the Battle of Stalingrad

Participation of Belarusians (my fellow countrymen) in the Battle of Kursk

Participation of Belarusians (my fellow countrymen) in the liberation of Europe

Participation of Belarusians (my fellow countrymen) in the battle for Bellin

Strategy and tactics of the offensive operation in Manchuria

Participation of Belarusians (my fellow countrymen) in the Manchurian offensive operation

Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, strategy and tactics, participation of Belarusians in it

Norwegian campaign 1940

Resistance movement in European countries in 1940-1941

Diplomatic confrontation in Europe in 1939-1941

War in the air "Battle of Britain" 1940

Wehrmacht military operations in North Africa in 1940-1943.

Balkan Campaign 1941 Capture of Crete

People's militia in Belarus destruction battalions in 1941

Belarusian ostarbeiters during the war

The problem of collaboration on the territory of Belarus

The situation and life of the population in the occupied territory

Features of partisan military tactics during the war

Material and combat support for partisans, assistance from the “Mainland”

Partisan zones in enemy-occupied territory of Belarus

- “Vitebsk Gate” as a phenomenon of the period of occupation of Belarus

Rail war of Belarusian partisans

The underground of my city (district center, district) during the war years

The Polish underground and the Home Army on the territory of Belarus

Summer campaign of 1942. Reasons for the failures of the Red Army

Lend-Lease problem. Allied supplies to the USSR and their significance

The struggle on the northern sea lanes of the USSR. Northern convoys

Belarusians in the European Resistance Movement

- “Bobruisk Cauldron” as an integral part of Operation Bagration

Liberation of Minsk during Operation Bagration

The price of victory: assessing the scale of losses

THE THEME OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR IN MODERN LITERATURE

This topic is a free topic. This means that the author of the essay is free to choose those works that will become the literary basis of his written work. The topic of the Great Patriotic War occupies a significant place in modern literature. The works of V. Bykov, B. Vasiliev, V. Grossman, Yu. Bondarev and many other writers about the past war are widely known, for it still contains an inexhaustible source of new material of enormous dramatic power and expressiveness. The terrible threat of fascism hanging over our country has forced us to look at many things with different eyes. The war gave the concepts “homeland” and “Russia” a new meaning and value. In peacetime, the Fatherland seemed something unshakable and eternal, like nature. But when the enemy invasion began to seriously threaten the very existence of our country, when the danger of its loss arose, the idea of ​​saving Russia was perceived with heightened sensitivity. The war presented many familiar concepts and norms in a new light, highlighting the high value of human life.

Turning to the military theme, writers make an attempt to understand the complex processes of life, people with difficult fates, and the tragic collisions generated by the war. The drama of wartime circumstances has served as the theme of many books by modern writers. In the stories of B. Vasiliev and V. Bykov, the authors are often interested in the “microcosm” of war. Writers do not focus primarily on global, large-scale actions. In their field of vision, as a rule, there appears either a small section of the front, or a group that has become separated from its regiment. Thus, in the center of the image is a person in an extreme situation, which often arises in a military situation.

V. Bykov's stories about the past war still excite and are read with unflagging interest, because the problems raised in them are always relevant and modern. This is honor, conscience, human dignity, loyalty to one's duty. And, revealing these problems using bright and rich material, the writer educates the younger generation, shaping its moral character. But the main problem of Bykov's creativity is, of course, the problem of heroism. However, the writer is interested not so much in its external manifestation, but in how a person comes to feat, to self-sacrifice, why, in the name of what he performs a heroic act. Perhaps one of the characteristic features of Bykov's war stories is that he does not spare his heroes, putting them in inhumanly difficult situations, depriving them of the opportunity to compromise. The situation is such that a person must immediately make a choice between a heroic death or the shameful life of a traitor. And the author does this not by chance, because in ordinary circumstances a person’s character cannot be fully revealed. This is what happens with the heroes of the story "Sotnikov". The entire story is traversed by two heroes - fighters of one partisan detachment, who go on a mission on a frosty, windy night. They need to get food for their tired, exhausted comrades at all costs. But they immediately find themselves in an unequal position, because Sotnikov went on a mission with a severe cold. When Rybak asked him in surprise why he didn’t refuse if he was sick, Sotnikov answered briefly: “That’s why he didn’t refuse, because others refused.” This expressive detail says a lot about the hero - about his highly developed sense of duty, consciousness, courage, and endurance. Sotnikov and Rybak are haunted by one misfortune after another: the farm where they hoped to get food was burned down; making their way back, they get into a shootout in which Sotnikov was wounded. The external action described by the author is accompanied by internal action. With deep psychologism, the writer conveys the feelings and experiences of Rybak. At first he experiences slight dissatisfaction with Sotnikov, his illness, which does not allow them to move fast enough. It is replaced either by pity and sympathy, or by involuntary irritation. But Rybak behaves quite decently: he helps Sotnikov carry the weapon, and does not leave him alone when he cannot walk due to injury. But more and more often, the thought arises in the mind of the Fisherman about how to escape, how to preserve his one and only life. He is not at all a traitor by nature, and certainly not an enemy in disguise, but a normal, strong, reliable guy. There is a feeling of brotherhood, camaraderie, and mutual assistance in him. No one could doubt him while he was in a normal combat situation, honestly enduring all the difficulties and trials with the detachment. But, left alone with the wounded Sotnikov, choking from coughing, among the snowdrifts, without food and in constant fear of being captured by the Nazis, Rybak cannot stand it. Internal breakdown occurs in the hero in captivity, when he is especially powerfully possessed by the ineradicable desire to live. No, he did not intend to commit betrayal at all, he tried to find a compromise in a situation where it was impossible. During interrogation, partially confessing to the investigator, Rybak thinks to outwit him. His conversation with Sotnikov after the interrogation is noteworthy:

“Listen,” Rybak whispered hotly after a pause. “We need to pretend to be humble. You know, they offered me to join the police,” Rybak somehow said without wanting to.

Sotnikov’s eyelids trembled, his eyes sparkled with hidden, anxious attention.

That's how! So what, will you run?

I won't run, don't be afraid. I'll bargain with them.

“Look, you’ll bargain,” Sotnikov hissed sarcastically.”

The fisherman decides to agree to the investigator’s offer to serve as a policeman in order to take advantage of this and run to his own people. But Sotnikov turned out to be right, who foresaw that the powerful Hitler machine would grind Rybak into powder, that the cunning would turn into betrayal. In the finale of the story, the former partisan, on the orders of the Nazis, executes his former squad comrade. After this, even the very thought of escaping seems implausible to him. And, amazingly, life, so dear and beautiful, suddenly seemed so unbearable to Rybak that he thought about suicide. But he was unable to do even this, because the police took his belt off. This is “the insidious fate of a man lost in war,” writes the author.

Sotnikov chooses a different path, for whom it is much more difficult to withstand the cold, persecution, and torture. Deciding to die, he tries to save innocent people with his confession. The choice was made by him long ago, even before these tragic events. A heroic death in the name of a great goal, in the name of the happiness of the future generation, is the only possible path for him. It was not for nothing that before the execution, Sotnikov noticed among the villagers herded to this place a boy in his father’s old Budenovka. He noticed and smiled with only his eyes, thinking in the last minutes that for the sake of people like this little guy he was going to die.

The problem of continuity of generations, the inextricable connection of times, loyalty to the traditions of fathers and grandfathers has always deeply worried the writer. It acquires even greater specificity and depth in the story “Obelisk”. Here the writer raises a serious problematic question: what can be considered a feat, are we not narrowing this concept, calculating it only by the number of downed planes, blown up tanks, destroyed enemies? Can the action of the village teacher Ales Ivanovich Moroz be considered a feat? After all, from the point of view of the district commander Ksendzov, he did not kill a single German, did not do anything useful for the partisan detachment, in which he spent only a short time. His actions and statements generally became unconventional, not fitting within the narrow framework of established norms.

Working as a teacher in Selets, Moroz taught children not according to established programs, in which it was customary to talk about the shortcomings and errors of the great geniuses of Russia - Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. “And Moroz did not stir up Tolstoy’s misconceptions - he simply read to the students and absorbed them completely into himself, absorbed them with his soul. A sensitive soul, she will perfectly understand where the good is and where it is so-so. The good will enter into it as if it were its own, and the rest will quickly be forgotten. It will be blown away like grain from chaff in the wind. Now I understand this perfectly well, but then... I was young, and also a boss,” Timofey Tkachuk, an old partisan who was the head of the district before the war, tells the author. And under the Germans, Ales Ivanovich continued to teach, causing suspicious glances from those around him. Moroz himself answered Tkachuk’s question directly and frankly: “If you mean my current teaching, then leave your doubts. I won’t teach bad things. But school is necessary. If we don’t teach, they will dupe. But I didn’t humanize for two years these guys, so that they can now be dehumanized. I will still fight for them. As long as I can, of course.” Ales Moroz’s words turned out to be prophetic. He truly did everything he could for his students. The teacher committed an act that, even after the war, received diametrically opposed assessments. Ales Ivanovich, having learned that the Nazis promise to release the guys arrested for trying to kill a local policeman if the teacher voluntarily surrenders, he himself goes to the Nazis. The partisans understand perfectly well that the fascists cannot be trusted, that Moroz will not be able to save the guys with his self-sacrifice. Ales Moroz also understood this, but nevertheless he left the detachment at night to share with his students their terrible fate. He could not do otherwise. He would have punished himself all his life for leaving the boys alone, for not supporting them at the most difficult moment of their short lives. A few days later, the brutally beaten Moroz was hanged next to his students. One of them, Pavlik Miklashevich, miraculously managed to escape. He survived and, like Moroz, became a teacher in Selts. But his health was forever undermined, and he died while still quite a young man. But Tkachuk sees excellent continuity in the affairs of Miklashevich and Moroz. And it was expressed in character, kindness and integrity, which will certainly appear in his students in a few years.

On the initiative of Pavel Miklashevich, a modest obelisk was erected near the school with the names of the children executed by the Nazis. How much did he have to act, prove, explain, so that the name of Moroz, a man who accomplished a great moral feat, would appear on the obelisk.

Bykov's heroes fight, sacrifice themselves for the sake of the future, for the sake of today's children. Partisan Levchuk, the hero of the story “The Wolf Pack,” endures truly inhuman trials to save a newborn child, whose mother, radio operator Klava, died a few hours after giving birth. Clutching a tiny warm lump to his chest, he makes his way through the swamp for two days. The situation is complicated by the fact that Levchuk is wounded. In addition, he is being pursued by the Nazis. What greatness of soul, what high humanism is revealed in this heroic feat of a Soviet soldier, who saved a human life at the cost of superhuman efforts. The writer ends the story interestingly. 30 years later, having accidentally learned Victor’s address (that’s what he called the rescued child), Levchuk travels 500 kilometers to meet him. The old partisan imagines this meeting differently, recalling the tragic events that happened many years ago, but is remembered to the smallest detail. “The three decades that have passed since then have dimmed nothing in his tenacious memory, probably because everything he experienced in those two days turned out to be, although the most difficult, but also the most significant in his life,” the author writes. The story ends at the moment when Levchuk, pressing the bell button, heard a good-natured male voice inviting him to enter. What will this meeting be like? What can they say to each other? What kind of person will this child saved 30 years ago turn out to be? The author invites the reader to figure all this out for himself.

The books of V. Bykov help us, who do not know war, to appreciate and understand the great feat of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War, which should not happen again.

Among the remarkable works about the war is V. Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate,” which was written in 1960, but published only in the 80s. Therefore, it can be regarded as a work of modern literature about war. It gives a new, unconventional interpretation of this topic. In numerous stories and novels about the Great Patriotic War, their authors saw the main conflict in the confrontation between the Soviet people, defending their homeland, and fascism, which threatened freedom and the very existence of Russia. In Grossman's novel, the concept of freedom takes on a new, broader meaning. A variety of people, “timid, gloomy, funny and cold, thoughtful, woman-loving, harmless egoists, vagabonds, misers, contemplators, good-natured people,” go to fight for a just cause. It consists in expelling the enemy from our native land, destroying fascism and returning home to peaceful concerns. It would seem, what doubts could there be? But the entire novel “Life and Fate” is permeated with them. Why did people gathered from all over the country unite and rush towards death in tanks? Not just to please Comrade Stalin or to win and return home. And then, the writer tells us, in order to defend our right “to be different, special, in our own, separate way to feel, think, live in the world,” because it is in man, in his modest peculiarity, that the only, true and eternal the meaning of the struggle for life. Grossman leads us to this understanding of freedom, summarizing his vast, painful experience and presenting it to everyone - the reader, the people, the state. "Life and Fate" is a novel about the Battle of Stalingrad, which turned the tide of the war. In a victorious army and a victorious people, a sense of self-esteem, new opportunities, and a half-forgotten sense of freedom grows. A huge, long-awaited victory that covers up all sorts of past troubles and sorrows, according to the writer, is only part of the right cause of life. And its triumph is still tragically far away.

In Grossman's novel, a person lives and fights, goes to his death under the vigilant supervision of the state. There is no people outside the state and no state outside the people, there is no life outside fate. For example, the commander of the tank corps Novikov is constantly under the care of Commissar Getmanov, who, even in peacetime, succeeded in the fight against the people, and therefore in his career. For Getmanov, the army is a living force that the commander can send to certain death in order to carry out tactical and strategic tasks. And Novikov has normal human vision, which is not distorted by professional selfish calculations and all kinds of fears. At the sight of the recruit boys, who looked like rural schoolchildren resting during a break between lessons, he was overcome by a feeling of piercing pity, overcome with “such acuteness that he was even confused by its strength.” Looking at the thin childish faces, he understands with amazing clarity that these are children who are just beginning to live. Maybe the commander of a tank corps thinks about these boys when he decides to arbitrarily extend the artillery barrage for as much as 8 minutes, contrary to the will of the front commander and the Supreme Commander himself. Getmanov, the commissar under Novikov, cannot understand what kind of intellectual stupidity forced Novikov to dare to such blatant arbitrariness, although he perfectly understands the reason: the corps commander wanted to win with “little blood.” However, this explanation seems completely unconvincing to the commissioner of the new formation. “The need to sacrifice people for the cause always seemed natural to him, undeniable, not only during the war.” Sincerely admiring Novikov’s courage, Getmanov nevertheless fulfills his duty, that is, he reports 8 minutes to the right place, because it is impossible to delay the beginning of the greatest historical battle with impunity, such an attempt on the highest approved schedule of History will not go in vain. Getmanov has no idea that Novikov’s 8 minutes are someone’s sons saved from death, not thrown by a generous hand like straw into the fire. This is the hidden force of life gathered with spirit, opposing the total power of fate. “There is a right greater than the right to send, without thinking, to death, the right to think, sending to death,” says the writer. “Novikov fulfilled his human duty. If you do not value people, then what will be left of what we value!” Looking at his tankers, identical in black overalls, Novikov imagined how different they were, these guys, what different thoughts wandered through their young heads. Of course, it would have been easier for Novikov to command the corps and make reasonable, thoughtful decisions if Commissar Getmanov had not controlled his every step. It would have been easier and more free for the heroic defender of Stalingrad, Captain Grekov, to fulfill his military duty without the tricky, provocative questions of political commissar Krymov. The story of Krymov, this “stepson of time,” is typical of totalitarian Russia. A convinced Leninist-Bolshevik, during the difficult everyday life of war, acutely feels his uselessness. He seems absurd on the front line, in a besieged house “six fraction one” with his reports on the international situation, with his memory of the 20s, of the Comintern. Krymov here encounters the “mocking hostility” of Grekov’s fighters; he is ready to “set their brains” and even threaten them, although all threats lose their meaning when death becomes the closest reality. Krymov is a tragic figure, so the author is in no hurry to condemn him. He convinces himself that he serves the revolution. Even the fact that in 1937 Stalin did not spare the old Leninist guard, he explains by the fact that the revolution has the right to “destroy its enemies.” His logic is simple: the Bolsheviks shot by Stalin are victims, sufferers, and the enemy is Grekov, who must be reported to a special department, passing off a stray bullet as a terrorist attack, and accusing the captain of an attempt on the life of a party representative, military commissar Krymov. Who is to blame? A hero, a courageous defender of Stalingrad? This delirium of Krymov’s distorted consciousness occurs because he encountered people who were strong, courageous, and self-confident. These people act like they are his equals. In Krymov’s view, this is a gross violation of the hierarchy, a weakening of the connection between ordinary fighters and the party, that is, an undermining of the very foundations. Krymov is offended that he, a man of the revolution, does not find a common language with those for whom it was carried out. The revolution was declared by the Bolsheviks as freedom, but it was precisely the acute, open feeling of freedom that the old communist perceived as sedition. Here, on the edge of danger, the soldiers do not need him with his prepared speeches. Their life is about to end anyway, and in this situation they have no use for the falseness of words they have heard many times. Even in the face of death, the desperate daredevil Grekov, for some unknown reason, must listen to Krymov’s sinister jokes and his threats. Grekov generally doubts that Krymov needs freedom. “What use is it to you? You just need to cope with the Germans,” he says. But both he and Krymov understand perfectly well that now it is necessary to fight, because without victory there will be no freedom. But even the military situation does not slow down the well-established totalitarian machine. There is still a clearly functioning special department, which, during the brutal battle with fascism, was busy sorting people into “ours”, “not ours enough” and “strangers”. True, the war makes its own ominous adjustments to this work. So, for example, Grekov was “lucky”, who could not be arrested and interrogated, because he heroically died with his entire detachment during the German attack on Traktorny.

The war brings to the fore the task of liberating Russia from fascism. It would seem that a common misfortune should unite people, erase personal differences, and annul the question of origin and repressed relatives. It is paradoxical that it was in the context of German captivity that Major Ershov, whose family was exiled as dispossessed, experiences a “bitter and good feeling.” It was caused by the fact that it is not his personal circumstances that play a role here, but the personal qualities of a leader, a leader, whom people follow and believe in him, without checking false papers. He fights on equal terms with the fascists for a free Russian life, his goal is not only victory over Hitler, but also victory over the Soviet death camps where his mother, father and sisters died. During the rapid German advance, he supported his comrades with cheerful, bold words. “And in him lived an inextinguishable, fervent, ineradicable contempt for violence,” writes the author. The kind warmth coming from him, the strength of his mind and the power of fearlessness made Ershov the leader of the Soviet prisoner-of-war commanders. Here, in fascist captivity, “neither high ranks, nor orders, nor a special unit, nor the first department, nor the personnel department, nor certification commissions, nor a call from the district committee, nor the opinion of the deputy for political affairs” meant anything. But in reality everything turned out to be wrong. It turns out that here they know and remember Ershov’s kulak origins, which is why he is not worthy of trust. This means that wherever a person is - at the front, in the rear, in a German prisoner of war camp - everywhere he is included in the system of totalitarian state relations. The hand of the state reaches out to him from any distance and falls heavily on his shoulder. The old communist Mikhail Sidorovich Mostovsky, who from a young age was accustomed to dividing people into “friends” and “enemies,” suddenly experiences an “unbearable, painful feeling of the complexity of life” in a fascist concentration camp. Together with him, the Menshevik Chernetsov, the holy fool Tolstoyan Ikonnikov, and the son of the dispossessed Major Ershov find themselves on equal terms. Party duty did not order him to communicate with these people, but for some reason they attracted him, aroused curiosity and interest. The major even evokes respect and admiration from Mostovsky. But when he is reminded that Ikonnikov and Ershov are not “their own” people, that they are violating moral and political unity, when it is announced that the major’s spontaneous authority contradicts the established authority of the underground “center” and that regarding Ershov there is an order from Moscow itself, Mostovsky immediately will falter and come to terms with the guidelines. It turns out that the ubiquitous “ours” arranged for Ershov to be sent to Buchenwald, and Ikonnikov was shot for refusing to go to work “to build an extermination camp.” The brigade commissar who informed Mostovsky of this news feels like “the highest judge over the destinies of people.” Once again, the immortal state defeated mortal man. This confrontation between the totalitarian power of the Soviet country and the heroes of the novel dooms the latter to tragic defeat in advance, causing an abyss of bitterness, disappointed hopes and expectations. Even such sympathetic heroes as the physicist Strum, the professional military man Novikov, the old Bolshevik Mostovsky, cannot withstand a collision with fate, that is, with the political and moral problems that the state has set before them. But wasn’t it the state that gathered and sent a formidable military army against the invaders, which won the victory at Stalingrad? This is true. Reading about what was happening at the forefront of the front, in the rear, in hospitals, in physics laboratories, in camp barracks and prison cells, we are amazed at the fact that in everything that happens both glory and shame are combined at the same time. The selfless heroism of the defenders of Stalingrad is adjacent to meanness, denunciation, and crimes sanctified by the authority of the proletarian state.

The heroes of the novel “Life and Fate”, both in the center of military events and in the evacuation silence, intensely reflect and argue about the future paths of Russia and its people. Many of them, such as Grekov, Ershov, Shtrum, are united by the idea of ​​respect for human life, for the dignity and rights of the individual. And these concepts are incompatible with the state’s claims to dispose of a person as its own property. Thus, Grossman saw and reflected in his novel the protest of the popular consciousness against violence, awakened by the war against fascism. The author writes: “The Stalingrad triumph determined the outcome of the war, but the silent dispute between the victorious people and the victorious state continued. The fate of man, his freedom, depended on this dispute.” This line of reasoning by the writer does not at all detract from the significance of the Stalingrad victory, does not deny the unity of the state and the people in the war, but it leads to the idea that Stalingrad and the entire Great Patriotic War were not only great historical events, but also an important stage on the people’s path to true freedom .

The theme of the Great Patriotic War is always accompanied by spiritual, emotional experiences, it takes your breath away, and it is difficult to hold back your tears. You take it especially close when you imagine that your grandparents went through this. You understand that a soldier is, first of all, a patriot. And this patriotism consists of simple-minded devotion to duty. It is associated with the thought of moral choice and with an irresistible love for the Motherland.

The “Immortal Regiment” took place throughout Russia, and this year also in England and the USA. And this is not just people, this is memory, gratitude to the soldiers, the heroes of the war for our present, for our lives. But they did not fight for recognition, they did it out of a sense of patriotism, considering it their duty. And the more time passes since the end of the Great Patriotic War, the more valuable the memory, the more painful, the stronger the emotional experiences.

War and memories of it with particular poignancy reveal hidden, intimate feelings in a person. It connects everything, unites people.

All this was reflected in V. Bykov’s work “Quarry”. In the story he refers to the spiritual formula of a soldier and patriotism. But patriotism is not a disciplinary act, not a matter of habit, not an idea imposed by someone, but a moral choice of everyone. In the story, V. Bykov raises two questions. First: “What is a person in non-human conditions?” Second: “To what extent is a person responsible for his actions?”

He writes about what worries him, avoids imitation of feelings, and does not invent anything. The plot is based on an incident. What is important is not the fact that a person fought, but who he was. Judges a person by his actions, by action or inaction.

War “turns out, highlights things that might never have been revealed in a normal situation.” Modernity becomes a moral reference point from which people who survived the war look at their past. The whole story is permeated with a nagging feeling of elusive memory.

The hero of the work is looking for something in his career, for him it becomes a starting point, a connection with the past. And he is looking for hope in him. V. Bykov tests a person in extreme circumstances.

Ageev recalls the war years, how he was wounded in the rear, strives to contact the partisans, and faces many problems. The episode with explosives becomes decisive for the hero. The question arises about the relationship between ends and means in conditions where every step can turn into disaster. And neither his abilities nor his drive can help him. His steadfastness during interrogation does not save the situation. He is sentenced to death in that very quarry, and only a miracle helps him survive.

These memories cover the hero when he breaks the quarry, looking for hope or, on the contrary, something that will destroy it forever. He hopes that his beloved managed to escape, and with her his little life. But Ageev could not complete his work or did not dare; he left an untouched corner of the quarry, along with which he retained hope, faith in the best, which is what a person should keep within himself.