The theme of the Great Patriotic War in prose of the 20th century (using the example of one work). Theme of the Great Patriotic War in prose of the 20th century The tragedy of war in Russian prose of the 20th century

The theme of the Great Patriotic War in prose of the 20th century (using the example of one work)

Writing the truth about war is very dangerous and it is very dangerous to seek the truth... When a person goes to the front to seek the truth, he may find death instead. But if twelve go, and only two return, the truth that they bring with them will really be the truth, and not distorted rumors that we pass off as history. Is it worth the risk to find this truth? Let the writers themselves judge that.

Ernest Hemingway

Born in Saratov in the family of a military doctor. His childhood and youth years passed in Saratov, and there he graduated from a real school. At the age of 16, A. Beck volunteered for the Red Army during the Civil War. After the war, he wrote essays and reviews for central newspapers. Beck's essays and reviews began to appear in Komsomolskaya Pravda and Izvestia. Since 1931, A. Beck collaborated in the editors of Gorky’s “History of Factories and Plants.” During the Great Patriotic War he was a war correspondent. The story "Volokolamsk Highway" about the events of the defense of Moscow, written in 1943-1944, became widely known. In 1960 he published the stories “A Few Days” and “The Reserve of General Panfilov.”

In 1971, the novel "New Assignment" was published abroad. The author finished the novel in mid-1964 and handed over the manuscript to the editors of Novy Mir. After lengthy ordeals through various editors and authorities, the novel was never published in the homeland during the author’s lifetime. According to the author himself, already in October 1964, he gave the novel to friends and some close acquaintances to read. The first publication of the novel in his homeland was in the magazine "Znamya", N 10-11, in 1986. The novel describes the life path of a major Soviet statesman who sincerely believes in the justice and productivity of the socialist system and is ready to serve it faithfully, despite any personal difficulties and troubles.


"Volokolamsk highway"

The plot of "Volokolamsk Highway" by Alexander Bek: after heavy fighting in October 1941 near Volokolamsk, a battalion of the Panfilov division was surrounded, breaks through the enemy ring and unites with the main forces of the division. Beck closes the narrative within the framework of one battalion. Beck is documentarily accurate (this is how he characterized his creative method: “Searching for heroes active in life, long-term communication with them, conversations with many people, patient collection of grains, details, relying not only on one’s own observation, but also on the vigilance of the interlocutor.. . "), and in "Volokolamsk Highway" he recreates the true history of one of the battalions of Panfilov's division, everything in him corresponds to what happened in reality: geography and chronicle of battles, characters.

The narrator is battalion commander Baurdzhan Momysh-Uly. Through his eyes we see what happened to his battalion, he shares his thoughts and doubts, explains his decisions and actions. The author recommends himself to readers only as an attentive listener and “a conscientious and diligent scribe,” which cannot be taken at face value. This is nothing more than an artistic device, because, talking with the hero, the writer inquired about what seemed important to him, Bek, and compiled from these stories both the image of Momysh-Ula himself and the image of General Panfilov, “who knew how to control and influence without shouting.” , but with the mind, in the past of an ordinary soldier who retained a soldier’s modesty until his death,” - this is what Beck wrote in his autobiography about the second hero of the book, very dear to him.

"Volokolamsk Highway" is an original artistic and documentary work associated with the literary tradition that it personifies in the literature of the 19th century. Gleb Uspensky. “Under the guise of a purely documentary story,” Beck admitted, “I wrote a work subject to the laws of the novel, did not constrain the imagination, created characters and scenes to the best of my ability...” Of course, both in the author’s declarations of documentary, and in his statement that that he did not constrain the imagination, there is a certain slyness, they seem to have a double bottom: the reader may think that this is a technique, a game. But Beck’s naked, demonstrative documentary is not a stylization, well known to literature (let’s remember, for example, “Robinson Crusoe”), not poetic clothes of an essay-documentary cut, but a way of comprehending, researching and recreating life and man. And the story “Volokolamsk Highway” is distinguished by impeccable authenticity (even in small details - if Beck writes that on October thirteenth “everything was in snow”, there is no need to turn to the archives of the weather service, there is no doubt that this was the case in reality), it is a unique, but an accurate chronicle of the bloody defensive battles near Moscow (this is how the author himself defined the genre of his book), revealing why the German army, having reached the walls of our capital, could not take it.

And most importantly, why “Volokolamsk Highway” should be considered fiction and not journalism. Behind professional army, military concerns - discipline, combat training, battle tactics, which Momysh-Uly is absorbed in, for the author there arise moral, universal problems, aggravated to the limit by the circumstances of war, constantly putting a person on the brink between life and death: fear and courage, selflessness and selfishness, loyalty and betrayal. In the artistic structure of Beck's story, a significant place is occupied by polemics with propaganda stereotypes, with battle cliches, open and hidden polemics. Explicit, because such is the character of the main character - he is harsh, not inclined to go around sharp corners, does not even forgive himself for weaknesses and mistakes, does not tolerate idle talk and pomp. Here is a typical episode:

“After thinking, he said: “Knowing no fear, Panfilov’s men rushed into the first battle... What do you think: a suitable start?”
“I don’t know,” I said hesitantly.
“That’s how corporals write literature,” he said harshly. “During these days that you are living here, I deliberately ordered you to be taken to places where sometimes two or three mines burst, where bullets whistle. I wanted you to feel fear. You don’t have to confirm it, I know without even admitting it that you had to suppress your fear.
So why do you and your fellow writers imagine that some supernatural people are fighting, and not people like you? "

The hidden, authorial polemic that permeates the entire story is deeper and more comprehensive. It is directed against those who demanded that literature “serve” today’s “demands” and “instructions”, and not serve the truth. Beck’s archive contains a draft of the author’s preface, in which this is stated unequivocally: “The other day they told me: “We are not interested in whether you wrote the truth or not. We are interested in whether it is useful or harmful... I didn’t argue. It probably happens.” that a lie is also useful. Otherwise, why would it exist? I know, this is how they argue, this is what many writers, my colleagues in the shop, do. Sometimes I want to be the same. But at my desk, talking about our cruel and beautiful century, I forget about this intention. At my desk I see nature in front of me and lovingly sketch it, as I know it."

It is clear that Beck did not print this preface; it exposed the position of the author, it contained a challenge that he could not easily get away with. But what he talks about has become the foundation of his work. And in his story he turned out to be true to the truth.


Work...


Alexander Fadeev (1901-1956)

During the Great Patriotic War, Fadeev worked as a publicist. As a correspondent for the newspaper Pravda and the Sovinformburo, he traveled to a number of fronts. On January 14, 1942, Fadeev published a correspondence in Pravda, “Monster Destroyers and People-Creators,” in which he spoke about what he saw in the region and the city of Kalinin after the expulsion of the fascist occupiers. In the fall of 1943, the writer traveled to the city of Krasnodon, liberated from enemies. Subsequently, the material collected there formed the basis of the novel “The Young Guard.”


"Young guard"

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Fadeev writes a number of essays and articles about the heroic struggle of the people, and creates the book “Leningrad in the Days of the Siege” (1944). Heroic, romantic notes, increasingly strengthened in Fadeev’s work, sound with particular force in the novel “The Young Guard” (1945; 2nd edition 1951; USSR State Prize, 1946; film of the same name, 1948) , which was based on the patriotic deeds of the Krasnodon underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard". The novel glorifies the struggle of the Soviet people against the Nazi invaders. The bright socialist ideal was embodied in the images of Oleg Koshevoy, Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova, Ivan Zemnukhov and other Young Guards. The writer paints his characters in a romantic light; The book combines pathos and lyricism, psychological sketches and author's digressions. In the 2nd edition, taking into account the criticism, the writer included scenes showing the connections of Komsomol members with senior underground communists, whose images he deepened and made more prominent.

Developing the best traditions of Russian literature, Fadeev created works that have become classic examples of the literature of socialist realism. Fadeev’s latest creative idea, the novel “Ferrous Metallurgy,” is dedicated to modern times, but remained unfinished. Fadeev's literary critical speeches are collected in the book "For Thirty Years" (1957), showing the evolution of the literary views of the writer, who made a great contribution to the development of socialist aesthetics. Fadeev's works have been staged and filmed, translated into the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR, and many foreign languages.

In a state of mental depression, he committed suicide. For many years Fadeev was in the leadership of writers' organizations: in 1926-1932. one of the leaders of RAPP; in 1939-1944 and 1954-1956 - Secretary, 1946-1954 - General Secretary and Chairman of the Board of the USSR Joint Venture. Vice-President of the World Peace Council (since 1950). Member of the CPSU Central Committee (1939-1956); At the 20th Congress of the CPSU (1956) he was elected a candidate member of the CPSU Central Committee. Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 2nd-4th convocations and the Supreme Council of the RSFSR of the 3rd convocation. Awarded 2 Orders of Lenin, as well as medals.


Work...


Vasily Grossman (1905-1964)

Before the war, the writer's first novel, "Stepan Kolchugin" (1937-1940), was published. During the Patriotic War, he was a correspondent for the newspaper "Red Star", traveling with the army to Berlin, and published a series of essays about the people's struggle against the fascist invaders. In 1942, the story “The People is Immortal” was published in “Red Star” - one of the most successful works about the events of the war. The play "If You Believe the Pythagoreans", written before the war and published in 1946, aroused sharp criticism. In 1952, he began publishing the novel “For a Just Cause,” which was also criticized because it did not correspond to the official point of view on the war. Grossman had to rework the book. Continuation - the novel "Life and Fate" was confiscated in 1961. Fortunately, the book was preserved and in 1975 it came to the West. In 1980, the novel was published. In parallel, Grossman has been writing another since 1955 - “Everything Flows”, also confiscated in 1961, but the version completed in 1963 was published through samizdat in 1970 in Frankfurt am Main. V. Grossman died on September 14, 1964 in Moscow.


"The people are immortal"

Vasily Grossman began writing the story “The People Are Immortal” in the spring of 1942, when the German army was driven away from Moscow and the situation at the front had stabilized. We could try to put it in some order, to comprehend the bitter experience of the first months of the war that seared our souls, to identify what was the true basis of our resistance and inspired hopes of victory over a strong and skillful enemy, to find an organic figurative structure for this.

The plot of the story reproduces a very common front-line situation of that time - our units, who were surrounded, in a fierce battle, suffering heavy losses, break through the enemy ring. But this local episode is considered by the author with an eye on Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”; it moves apart, expands, and the story acquires the features of a “mini-epic”. The action moves from the front headquarters to the ancient city, which was attacked by enemy aircraft, from the front line, from the battlefield - to a village captured by the Nazis, from the front road - to the location of German troops. The story is densely populated: our soldiers and commanders - both those who turned out to be strong in spirit, for whom the trials that befell became a school of “great tempering and wise heavy responsibility”, and official optimists who always shouted “hurray”, but were broken by defeats; German officers and soldiers, intoxicated by the strength of their army and the victories won; townspeople and Ukrainian collective farmers - both patriotically minded and ready to become servants of the invaders. All this is dictated by “people's thought,” which was the most important for Tolstoy in “War and Peace,” and in the story “The People are Immortal” it is highlighted.

“Let there be no word more majestic and holy than the word “people!” writes Grossman. It is no coincidence that the main characters of his story were not career military personnel, but civilians - a collective farmer from the Tula region Ignatiev and a Moscow intellectual, historian Bogarev. They are a significant detail - those drafted into the army on the same day symbolize the unity of the people in the face of the fascist invasion. The ending of the story is also symbolic: “From where the flame was burning out, two people walked. Everyone knew them. These were Commissar Bogarev and Red Army soldier Ignatiev. Blood ran down their clothes. They walked, supporting each other, stepping heavily and slowly."

The single combat is also symbolic - “as if the ancient times of duels were revived” - Ignatiev with a German tank driver, “huge, broad-shouldered”, “who marched through Belgium, France, trampled the soil of Belgrade and Athens”, “whose chest Hitler himself decorated with the “iron cross”. It reminds Terkin’s fight with a “well-fed, shaved, careful, freely fed” German described later by Tvardovsky: Like on an ancient battlefield, Instead of thousands, two fight, Chest to chest, like shield to shield, - As if the fight will decide everything." Semyon Ignatiev, - writes Grossman, “he immediately became famous in the company. Everyone knew this cheerful, tireless man. He was an amazing worker: every instrument in his hands seemed to be playing and having fun. And he had the amazing ability to work so easily and cordially that a person who looked at him for even a minute wanted to take up an ax, a saw, a shovel himself, in order to do the work as easily and well as Semyon Ignatiev did. He had a good voice, and he knew a lot of old songs... "Ignatiev has so much in common with Terkin. Even Ignatiev’s guitar has the same function as Terkin’s accordion. And the kinship of these heroes suggests that Grossman discovered the features of modern Russian folk character.






"Life and Fate"

The writer was able to reflect in this work the heroism of people in the war, the fight against the crimes of the Nazis, as well as the complete truth about the events that took place within the country at that time: exile in Stalin’s camps, arrests and everything related to this. In the destinies of the main characters of the work, Vasily Grossman captures the suffering, loss, and death that are inevitable during war. The tragic events of this era give rise to internal contradictions in a person and disrupt his harmony with the outside world. This can be seen in the fate of the heroes of the novel “Life and Fate” - Krymov, Shtrum, Novikov, Grekov, Evgenia Nikolaevna Shaposhnikova.

The people's suffering in the Patriotic War in Grossman's Life and Fate is more painful and profound than in previous Soviet literature. The author of the novel leads us to the idea that the heroism of the victory won in spite of Stalin's tyranny is more significant. Grossman shows not only the facts and events of Stalin's time: camps, arrests, repressions. The main thing in Grossman’s Stalinist theme is the influence of this era on the souls of people, on their morality. We see how brave people turn into cowards, kind people into cruel ones, and honest and persistent people into cowardly ones. We are no longer even surprised that the closest people are sometimes riddled with distrust (Evgenia Nikolaevna suspected Novikov of denouncing her, Krymov suspected Zhenya of denouncing her).

The conflict between man and the state is conveyed in the thoughts of the heroes about collectivization, about the fate of the “special settlers”; it is felt in the picture of the Kolyma camp, in the thoughts of the author and the heroes about the year thirty-seven. Vasily Grossman's truthful story about the previously hidden tragic pages of our history gives us the opportunity to see the events of the war more fully. We notice that the Kolyma camp and the course of the war, both in reality itself and in the novel, are interconnected. And it was Grossman who was the first to show this. The writer was convinced that “part of the truth is not the truth.”

The heroes of the novel have different attitudes to the problem of life and fate, freedom and necessity. Therefore, they have different attitudes towards responsibility for their actions. For example, Sturmbannführer Kaltluft, the executioner at the furnaces, who killed five hundred and ninety thousand people, tries to justify himself by an order from above, by the power of the Fuhrer, by fate (“fate pushed... on the path of the executioner”). But then the author says: “Fate leads a person, but a person goes because he wants, and he is free not to want.” Drawing a parallel between Stalin and Hitler, the fascist concentration camp and the camp in Kolyma, Vasily Grossman says that the signs of any dictatorship are the same. And its influence on a person’s personality is destructive. Having shown the weakness of man, the inability to resist the power of a totalitarian state, Vasily Grossman at the same time creates images of truly free people. The significance of the victory in the Great Patriotic War, won despite the dictatorship of Stalin, is more significant. This victory became possible precisely thanks to the inner freedom of a person who is capable of resisting whatever fate has in store for him.

The writer himself fully experienced the tragic complexity of the conflict between man and the state in the Stalin era. Therefore, he knows the price of freedom: “Only people who have not experienced the similar power of an authoritarian state, its pressure, are able to be surprised by those who submit to it. People who have experienced such power themselves are surprised by something else - the ability to flare up, even for a moment, with anger. a broken word, a timid, quick gesture of protest."


Work...


Yuri Bondarev (1924)

In the battles near Kotelnikovsky, he was shell-shocked, received frostbite and was slightly wounded in the back. After treatment in the hospital, he served as a gun commander in the 23rd Kiev-Zhitomir Division. Participated in the crossing of the Dnieper and the liberation of Kyiv. In the battles for Zhitomir he was wounded and again ended up in a field hospital. Since January 1944, Yu. Bondarev fought in the ranks of the 121st Red Banner Rylsko-Kyiv Rifle Division in Poland and on the border with Czechoslovakia.

Graduated from the Literary Institute named after. M. Gorky (1951). The first collection of stories is “On the Big River” (1953). In the stories “Battalions Ask for Fire” (1957), “The Last Salvos” (1959; film of the same name, 1961), in the novel “Hot Snow” (1969) Bondarev reveals the heroism of Soviet soldiers, officers, generals , psychology of participants in military events. The novel “Silence” (1962; film of the same name, 1964) and its sequel, the novel “Two” (1964), depict post-war life in which people who went through the war are looking for their place and calling. The collection of stories “Late in the Evening” (1962) and the story “Relatives” (1969) are dedicated to modern youth. Bondarev is one of the co-authors of the script for the film “Liberation” (1970). In the books of literary articles “Search for Truth” (1976), “A Look at Biography” (1977), “Keepers of Values” (1978), also in Bondarev’s works of recent years “Temptation”, “Bermuda Triangle” talent the prose writer opened up new facets. In 2004, the writer published a new novel called “Without Mercy.”

Awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Orders of the October Revolution, the Red Banner of Labor, the Patriotic War, 1st degree, the Badge of Honor, two medals "For Courage", medals "For the Defense of Stalingrad", "For Victory over Germany", the order "Big Star of Peoples' Friendship" " (Germany), "Order of Honor" (Transnistria), gold medal of A.A. Fadeev, many awards from foreign countries. Winner of the Lenin Prize (1972), two USSR State Prizes (1974, 1983 - for the novels "The Shore" and "Choice"), the State Prize of the RSFSR (1975 - for the screenplay of the film "Hot Snow").


"Hot Snow"

The events of the novel “Hot Snow” unfold near Stalingrad, south of the 6th Army of General Paulus, blocked by Soviet troops, in the cold December 1942, when one of our armies withstood in the Volga steppe the attack of the tank divisions of Field Marshal Manstein, who sought to break through a corridor to Paulus’s army and get her out of the encirclement. The outcome of the Battle of the Volga and maybe even the timing of the end of the war itself largely depended on the success or failure of this operation. The duration of the novel is limited to just a few days, during which Yuri Bondarev’s heroes selflessly defend a tiny patch of land from German tanks.

In "Hot Snow" time is compressed even more tightly than in the story "Battalions Ask for Fire." “Hot Snow” is the short march of General Bessonov’s army disembarking from the echelons and the battle that decided so much in the fate of the country; these are cold frosty dawns, two days and two endless December nights. Knowing no respite or lyrical digressions, as if the author had lost his breath from constant tension, the novel “Hot Snow” is distinguished by its directness, direct connection of the plot with the true events of the Great Patriotic War, with one of its decisive moments. The life and death of the novel's heroes, their very destinies are illuminated by the disturbing light of true history, as a result of which everything acquires special weight and significance.

In the novel, Drozdovsky's battery absorbs almost all the reader's attention; the action is concentrated primarily around a small number of characters. Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and their comrades are a part of the great army, they are the people, the people to the extent that the typified personality of the hero expresses the spiritual, moral traits of the people.

In “Hot Snow” the image of a people who have risen to war appears before us in a completeness of expression previously unknown in Yuri Bondarev, in the richness and diversity of characters, and at the same time in integrity. This image is not limited to the figures of young lieutenants - commanders of artillery platoons, nor the colorful figures of those who are traditionally considered to be people from the people - such as the slightly cowardly Chibisov, the calm and experienced gunner Evstigneev or the straightforward and rude driver Rubin; nor by senior officers, such as the division commander, Colonel Deev, or the army commander, General Bessonov. Only collectively understood and accepted emotionally as something unified, despite all the differences in ranks and titles, do they form the image of a fighting people. The strength and novelty of the novel lies in the fact that this unity was achieved as if by itself, captured without much effort by the author - with living, moving life. The image of the people, as the result of the entire book, perhaps most of all feeds the epic, novelistic beginning of the story.

Yuri Bondarev is characterized by a desire for tragedy, the nature of which is close to the events of the war itself. It would seem that nothing corresponds to this artist’s aspiration more than the most difficult time for the country at the beginning of the war, the summer of 1941. But the writer’s books are about a different time, when the defeat of the Nazis and the victory of the Russian army are almost certain.

The death of heroes on the eve of victory, the criminal inevitability of death contains a high tragedy and provokes a protest against the cruelty of the war and the forces that unleashed it. The heroes of “Hot Snow” die - battery medical instructor Zoya Elagina, shy Edova Sergunenkov, member of the Military Council Vesnin, Kasymov and many others die... And the war is to blame for all these deaths. Even if the callousness of Lieutenant Drozdovsky is to blame for the death of Sergunenkov, even if the blame for Zoya’s death falls partly on him, but no matter how great Drozdovsky’s guilt, they are, first of all, victims of war.

The novel expresses the understanding of death as a violation of the highest justice and harmony. Let us remember how Kuznetsov looks at the murdered Kasymov: “now a shell box lay under Kasymov’s head, and his youthful, mustacheless face, recently alive, dark, had become deathly white, thinned by the eerie beauty of death, looked in surprise with damp cherry half-open eyes at his chest , at the torn into shreds, dissected padded jacket, as if even after death he did not understand how it killed him and why he could not stand up to the gun sight. In this unseeing squint of Kasymov there was a quiet curiosity about his unlived life on this earth and at the same time the calm mystery of death, into which the red-hot pain of the fragments threw him as he tried to rise to the sight."

Kuznetsov feels even more acutely the irreversibility of the loss of his driver Sergunenkov. After all, the very mechanism of his death is revealed here. Kuznetsov turned out to be a powerless witness to how Drozdovsky sent Sergunenkov to certain death, and he, Kuznetsov, already knows that he will forever curse himself for what he saw, was present, but was unable to change anything.

In "Hot Snow", with all the tension of events, everything human in people, their characters are revealed not separately from the war, but interconnected with it, under its fire, when, it seems, they cannot even raise their heads. Usually the chronicle of battles can be retold separately from the individuality of its participants - the battle in “Hot Snow” cannot be retold otherwise than through the fate and characters of people.

The past of the characters in the novel is significant and significant. For some it is almost cloudless, for others it is so complex and dramatic that the former drama is not left behind, pushed aside by the war, but accompanies the person in the battle southwest of Stalingrad. The events of the past determined Ukhanov’s military fate: a gifted, full of energy officer who should have commanded a battery, but he is only a sergeant. Ukhanov’s cool, rebellious character also determines his movement within the novel. Chibisov's past troubles, which almost broke him (he spent several months in German captivity), resonated with fear in him and determine a lot in his behavior. One way or another, the novel glimpses the past of Zoya Elagina, Kasymov, Sergunenkov, and the unsociable Rubin, whose courage and loyalty to soldier’s duty we will be able to appreciate only by the end of the novel.

The past of General Bessonov is especially important in the novel. The thought of his son being captured by the Germans complicates his position both at Headquarters and at the front. And when a fascist leaflet informing that Bessonov’s son was captured falls into the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Osin from the counterintelligence department of the front, it seems that a threat has arisen to Bessonov’s service.

All this retrospective material fits into the novel so naturally that the reader does not feel it separate. The past does not require a separate space for itself, separate chapters - it merged with the present, revealing its depths and the living interconnectedness of one and the other. The past does not burden the story of the present, but gives it greater dramatic poignancy, psychologism and historicism.

Yuri Bondarev does the same with portraits of characters: the appearance and characters of his heroes are shown in development, and only towards the end of the novel or with the death of the hero does the author create a complete portrait of him. How unexpected in this light is the portrait of the always smart and collected Drozdovsky on the very last page - with a relaxed, sluggish gait and unusually bent shoulders.

Such an image requires from the author special vigilance and spontaneity in perceiving the characters, feeling them as real, living people, in whom there is always the possibility of mystery or sudden insight. Before us is the whole person, understandable, close, and yet we are not left with the feeling that we have only touched the edge of his spiritual world - and with his death you feel that you have not yet managed to fully understand his inner world. Commissioner Vesnin, looking at the truck thrown from the bridge onto the river ice, says: “What a monstrous destruction war is. Nothing has a price.” The monstrosity of war is most expressed - and the novel reveals this with brutal directness - in the murder of a person. But the novel also shows the high price of life given for the Motherland.

Probably the most mysterious thing in the world of human relationships in the novel is the love that arises between Kuznetsov and Zoya. The war, its cruelty and blood, its timing, overturning the usual ideas about time - it was precisely this that contributed to such a rapid development of this love. After all, this feeling developed in those short periods of march and battle when there is no time to think and analyze one’s feelings. And it all begins with Kuznetsov’s quiet, incomprehensible jealousy of the relationship between Zoya and Drozdovsky. And soon - so little time passes - Kuznetsov is already bitterly mourning the deceased Zoya, and it is from these lines that the title of the novel is taken, when Kuznetsov wiped his face wet from tears, “the snow on the sleeve of his quilted jacket was hot from his tears.”

Having initially been deceived by Lieutenant Drozdovsky, the best cadet at that time, Zoya throughout the novel reveals herself to us as a moral person, whole, ready for self-sacrifice, capable of embracing with her heart the pain and suffering of many... Zoya’s personality is recognized in a tense, as if electrified space, which is almost inevitable arises in a trench with the appearance of a woman. She seems to go through many tests, from annoying interest to rude rejection. But her kindness, her patience and compassion reach everyone; she is truly a sister to the soldiers. The image of Zoya somehow imperceptibly filled the atmosphere of the book, its main events, its harsh, cruel reality with the feminine principle, affection and tenderness.

One of the most important conflicts in the novel is the conflict between Kuznetsov and Drozdovsky. A lot of space is given to this conflict, it is exposed very sharply, and is easily traced from beginning to end. At first there is tension, going back to the background of the novel; inconsistency of characters, manners, temperaments, even style of speech: the soft, thoughtful Kuznetsov seems to find it difficult to endure Drozdovsky’s abrupt, commanding, indisputable speech. Long hours of battle, the senseless death of Sergunenkov, the mortal wound of Zoya, for which Drozdovsky was partly to blame - all this forms a gap between the two young officers, the moral incompatibility of their existences.

In the finale, this abyss is indicated even more sharply: the four surviving artillerymen consecrate the newly received orders in a soldier’s bowler hat, and the sip that each of them takes is, first of all, a funeral sip - it contains bitterness and grief of loss. Drozdovsky also received the order, because for Bessonov, who awarded him, he is a survivor, a wounded commander of a surviving battery, the general does not know about Drozdovsky’s grave guilt and most likely will never know. This is also the reality of war. But it’s not for nothing that the writer leaves Drozdovsky aside from those gathered at the soldier’s honest bowler hat.

It is extremely important that all of Kuznetsov’s connections with people, and above all with the people subordinate to him, are true, meaningful and have a remarkable ability to develop. They are extremely non-official - in contrast to the emphatically official relations that Drozdovsky so strictly and stubbornly establishes between himself and people. During the battle, Kuznetsov fights next to the soldiers, here he shows his composure, courage, and lively mind. But he also matures spiritually in this battle, becomes fairer, closer, kinder to those people with whom the war brought him together.

The relationship between Kuznetsov and Senior Sergeant Ukhanov, the gun commander, deserves a separate story. Like Kuznetsov, he had already been fired upon in difficult battles in 1941, and due to his military ingenuity and decisive character, he could probably be an excellent commander. But life decreed otherwise, and at first we find Ukhanov and Kuznetsov in conflict: this is a clash of a sweeping, harsh and autocratic nature with another – restrained, initially modest. At first glance, it may seem that Kuznetsov will have to fight both Drozdovsky’s callousness and Ukhanov’s anarchic nature. But in reality it turns out that without yielding to each other in any fundamental position, remaining themselves, Kuznetsov and Ukhanov become close people. Not just people fighting together, but people who got to know each other and are now forever close. And the absence of author’s comments, the preservation of the rough context of life makes their brotherhood real and significant.

The ethical and philosophical thought of the novel, as well as its emotional intensity, reaches its greatest heights in the finale, when an unexpected rapprochement between Bessonov and Kuznetsov occurs. This is rapprochement without immediate proximity: Bessonov awarded his officer along with others and moved on. For him, Kuznetsov is just one of those who stood to death at the turn of the Myshkova River. Their closeness turns out to be more sublime: it is the closeness of thought, spirit, and outlook on life. For example, shocked by the death of Vesnin, Bessonov blames himself for the fact that, due to his unsociability and suspicion, he prevented friendly relations from developing between them (“the way Vesnin wanted and the way they should be”). Or Kuznetsov, who could do nothing to help Chubarikov’s crew, which was dying before his eyes, tormented by the piercing thought that all this “seemed to have happened because he did not have time to get close to them, to understand each one, to love them...”.

Separated by the disproportion of responsibilities, Lieutenant Kuznetsov and the army commander, General Bessonov, are moving towards one goal - not only military, but also spiritual. Suspecting nothing about each other’s thoughts, they think about the same thing and seek the truth in the same direction. Both of them demandly ask themselves about the purpose of life and whether their actions and aspirations correspond to it. They are separated by age and related, like father and son, or even like brother and brother, love for the Motherland and belonging to the people and to humanity in the highest sense of these words.

(BASED ON THE EXAMPLE OF VYACHESLAV KONDRATIEV’S STORY “SASHKA”)

I'm going there - to the broken grove,

The starting line for attacks,

Where it was easier to be killed

How to somehow get tobacco.

Where are we, staggering from hunger,

They wandered like shadows among the dead,

We can even bury them

didn't try

Dig trenches for yourself - alive

I can't...

I don’t recognize it, but I know it’s here

The land is still full of traces

Those terrible and distant ones were,

She looks with her eyes

Whitening skulls in the ravine...

I didn’t know yet that it was a month

We will take these villages

Without preparation by artillery fire,

Run across this field.

There will be no platoons, no companies,

Only a handful of miraculously embroidered guys.

And the last offensive

I walked in silence... Only

twenty five!

Only twenty five, only twenty five

Half guys, half men.

And on the offensive again

For a hundred bullets, for a hundred mines

To a barrage of fire, to the agony of death

To the village that the battalion

didn't take it...

What measure to measure

Our despair and courage

We knew we wouldn't take it. Us

too few.

But there is an order - to take the village!

And off we went! Death is above us

There are fifteen fewer of us,

When we, swearing,

turned back.

And silence... Smoke from the battlefield

A light spring breeze carried,

And we lay down... alive...

not heroes...

But everyone did their best.

These poems by Vyacheslav Leonidovich Kondratiev were written in the blood of the heart, the never-ending pain for those who fell in the battles for the villages of Ovsyannikovo and Panovo, after visiting places associated with his youth at the front in 1961, when uncollected skulls and bones were still white on the Ovsyannikovsky field his dead comrades. “I realized,” said Vyacheslav Leonidovich, “that my duty to these villages, which we never took, and to all the “living and dead” who fought here, and to the Rzhev land, is to write about it to the best of my ability.” . Kondratiev fulfilled his duty. His stories “Sashka”, “Selizharovsky tract”, “Leave due to injury”, “Meetings on Sretenka”, his stories brought to us the truth about the “Rzhev meat grinder”. Writer Viktor Petrovich Astafiev called these works “a single Rzhev novel.” The author of the story himself was a participant in these battles near Rzhev, a twenty-year-old soldier, like Sashka, was drafted into the army back in 1939 in the Far East and went straight from the train to the front line, participated in the battles for the villages of Ovsyannikovo and Panovo, went to the army twenty times attack, was wounded, after the hospital he again went to the front, was seriously wounded and remained disabled for life. He wrote the story “Sashka” in 1979, almost 40 years after the events described, but with extraordinary memory not only for facts, but also for feelings. Thus, in the story there is a young soldier, a direct participant and eyewitness of the events, and a writer, wise with life experience, who in his worldview has risen above the topic of the day and comprehended the past from this point of view.

The story “Sashka” tells about two months (March, April 1942) of the front-line life of soldier Sashka, who, immediately upon the arrival of the train from the Far East, was thrown into battle, then again and again. As a result of the bloody battles, out of 150 people in Sashka’s company, thirteen remained, and in the neighboring one - two or three people. The entire field was covered with uncollected corpses. Not only did they not dig graves, but they also did not dig dugouts and dugouts for themselves: the sapper blades did not take the frozen ground, and they did not have the strength - “they were emaciated and had trouble eating bread.” Even the company commander, just like any soldier, had a “burnt, mud-stained padded jacket all in holes, wadded trousers in tatters, other trousers, diagonal ones, also frayed, could be seen through the holes in the knees, and one could see their beige warm underpants, and then the body turned blue; His earflaps, hit by a bullet, were also torn to pieces... and his hands were black and burned. ... They warmed them over the fire, and when you dozed off for a moment, they fell into the fire lifeless, which is why they got burns.”

The armament is also not modern, mostly rifles of the 1891 model, not everyone has machine guns, and there are not enough cartridges: “The Rzhev villages could have won,” Sashka reflects, “if only for “a little spark and a couple of thirty-fours.” And we haven’t learned how to fight yet. Young commanders, following orders, drive the soldiers “forward and forward!” under heavy German fire. And the Germans light up the sky with rockets all night, “they also don’t spare mines and shells... the Germans are stronger for now and fight cautiously, don’t scatter people, take care at night.”

And the Red Army soldiers have doubts that this is not a matter of “thaws”, which is blamed on the lack of ammunition and food (as if the Germans don’t have “thaws”) and equipment (why were they freezing all winter in greatcoats, and in the spring reinforcements arrived in sheepskins? short fur coats?), but in something else. Has the unexpected war come? Wasn’t it possible to prepare supplies in winter, before the “thaw”? “Order is not enough,” Sashka concludes. But despite all the hardships and doubts, Sashka “didn’t lose faith (didn’t lose faith) and did his soldier’s job as best he could, although he didn’t seem to have performed any special heroics,” Sashka thinks to himself, clearly performing hard front-line work. The concept of a soldier's duty is embodied in the word “must”. Sashka “only heard one thing: Sashka - there, Sashka - here! Sashka, run to headquarters with a report! Sashka, help carry the wounded man! Sashka, this night you will have to go on reconnaissance! Sashka, take the light machine gun!”

Only the company commander, before ordering anything, would pat Sashka on the shoulder and say: “It’s necessary, Sashok, you understand, it’s necessary.” And Sashka understood - necessary, and did everything that is ordered, properly. Didn't blindly follow orders, but understanding its necessity. After all, he was a career fighter, which means he was disciplined, skillful, knowledgeable about the service and accustomed to following orders. And it was this quality of the exemplary Red Army soldier Sashka that was subjected to a severe test.

The central episode of the story is Sashka’s taking the “tongue” and escorting him to the brigade headquarters. Through him the character of the hero is revealed. We comprehend its value and depth gradually, through the “dialectic of the soul” of the hero, we notice all the nuances of his changing attitude towards the German, the fascist, the sworn enemy, the culprit of the death of his fellow soldiers. But he could “slap” him in battle, and now he is a captive and unarmed “Fritz”. And Sashka is not the kind of person “to mock prisoners and unarmed people,” especially since our leaflets promised to save the lives of prisoners.

Gradually, Sashka, attentive and sensitive, begins to penetrate from the external person-enemy to his inner essence. It turns out that the German looks directly Russian, that is, the same person as him, the same age, twenty or twenty-two years old. Looks like the village friend Dimka. Former student (student) as a company commander.

And Sashka pitied the prisoner even earlier, when he took him like a tongue - he could not turn him over on his back under fire to stop the blood from his nose, although before that, in a single combat with a German, he hit him in the face so much that “his knuckles still hurt” . Gradually, Sashka gains respect for the prisoner when he, with dignity, as befits a polite person, offers cigarettes and a lighter; does not answer during interrogation, does not betray his own - just like Sashka, he is faithful to the oath; does not repeat “Hitler kaput” after Sashka - this would be untrue, because the advantage is still on the side of the Germans. Sashka thinks that if he had been captured, he would have behaved the same way. “The German is not a coward,” Sashka concludes and looks at the enemy with different eyes; sympathizing with him, she notices that he is “without an overcoat, in a short uniform.”

Then they started smoking. Somehow we became close, I wanted to talk, find out humanly, how are the Germans with food, how many cigarettes do they give, why are there no interruptions with mines?

Sashka saw in the enemy person. “For some reason, the hatred of the fascists was not transferred to this prisoner.” In battle, these gray, terrible non-humans were enemies who must be destroyed. “But when he took this Fritz, fought with him, feeling the warmth of his body, the strength of his muscles, he seemed to Sashka like an ordinary person, the same soldier as him, only dressed in a different uniform... That’s why he could talk to him in a different way.” humanly, take cigarettes, smoke together.”

And Sashka also felt a heavy burden of responsibility “from the almost unlimited power over another person».

The German feels the danger emanating from the guard, who can deal with him at any moment. And Sashka, seeing how the prisoner’s face changes, becoming deathly pale, and how “dead” his eyes become, suffers deeply.

And this German battalion commander, drunk with grief and vodka, having just buried his beloved girl who died from a German bullet, orders Sashka to shoot: “The German is a waste.”

And here comes the moment when Sashka must make a choice: follow the order of the battalion commander, acting against his conscience, or do everything possible to save the life of the prisoner and bring him to brigade headquarters. The search for an officer who could cancel the battalion commander's order turned out to be hopeless; all that remains is to carry out the order - this is the duty of every soldier. The conflict between duty and conscience is resolved in a painful internal struggle. “After all, he never deceived anyone. And here he deceived me in the most important way”: he promised life to the German and now he must break his word. He made the promise not only on his own behalf, but also, as it were, on behalf of his country - after all, this was also promised in the leaflet. “So there’s a lie there too?”

“Sashka hadn’t decided anything yet, but he knew that there was some kind of barrier or barrier in his soul, which he cannot cross" Killing another person is the same as killing yourself. And here the guard and the prisoner seemed to be equal in fate. “The German swallowed saliva frequently all the way, and his Adam’s apple was twitching, and Sashka also had a lump in his throat, making it difficult to breathe. Both are in the face of death. Either Sashka will go to court, or the battalion commander will slap him on the spot for not following orders.”

Will Sashka's truth stand the test of death?

And when the battalion commander appeared in front of them and “rested his unblinking gaze on him,” “Sashka did not wilt, did not lower his eyes, but, suddenly feeling how the feeling of his own rightness had hardened and strengthened in him, he met the battalion commander’s gaze directly, without fear, with desperate determination not to give in - well, what are you going to do? Shoot me? Well, shoot if you can, it doesn’t matter, I’m right, not you... Well, shoot... Well...

And the captain turned his eyes away.

Take the German to brigade headquarters. I cancel my order."

The duel between the battalion commander and the soldier ended in the victory of truth and justice and elevated in our eyes not only Sasha, but also the battalion commander. “Sashka took a deep breath, deeply... and thought: if he remains alive, then of all that he has experienced, this incident will be the most memorable, the most unforgettable for him *.”

This episode in the story also carries a charge of great moral force, because it speaks of the height of the human spirit, which allows it to rise above anger and hatred and show humanity and mercy.

Selflessly brave in battle and humane to the vanquished - this is Sashka, one of many. After all, the battalion commander managed to rise above his ambitions as a commander, above his hatred and understand the common truth, so selflessly defended by a simple soldier. In the story, both fighters and commanders are united by a common truth, the power of rightness, by front-line friendship, which is also sealed by blood and common danger, especially on the front line. The company commander saved Sashka’s life; Sashka takes care of his commander in a kindred way: he crawled to the neutral zone to take off the felt boots from the killed German. “I feel sorry for the company commander. His pimas were soaked through with water.” During the battle, Sashka gives the company commander a spare machine gun, leaving himself almost unarmed. Wounded, Sashka returns to the front line to give his machine gun to his friends, exchanging it for a rifle... For this, he walked a hundred meters under fire - back and forth.

On the way to the medical unit, he promised to send orderlies to the seriously wounded soldier, but he himself returned with them to help find the soldier. But he might not return. “But he gave his word. To the dying - a word!”

Honor, honest word, honest performance of duty is the core of Sashka’s character, an organic property of his nature. And also conscience, which forces you to take on all the most difficult and dangerous things. He took “tongue” on his own initiative, because “it’s impossible to miss”, and besides, “how many guys from intelligence were killed while they were going after “tongue”,” Sashka knew. In difficult times, he did not call for help - “as if someone would get killed.” He values ​​the lives of his comrades more than his own. And he suffers, remembering the dead, as if he were to blame for something. They are dead and he is alive for now. And he understands that he is unlikely to survive in this war, in the infantry, on the front line.

Sashka had to endure one more test - the test of love.

He passionately fell in love with Zina, a nurse, having met her on the way to the front line, he saved her, shielding her from bullets with his body, “well, they kissed several times,” they immediately parted and met in the medical battalion only two months later, when Zina had already lost hope of seeing him alive .

For Sashka, love for Zina became a spiritual force, with her name he went on the attack, “ready to do anything for this girl in an overcoat, as long as she feels good and at peace!” He lived in hope of a meeting.

Finding himself in the hospital after being wounded, he met Zina there, who fell in love with the lieutenant. Having guessed this, Sashka realized that her feelings for him were dictated by gratitude for her salvation. Not wanting to interfere with her happiness, he leaves the hospital. The ability to self-sacrifice for the sake of a loved one is a sign of a great heart.

Sashka embodied the best traits of a man and a soldier of the great army that defended our independence. Its strength lay in the moral spirit that united the soldier, the commander, and the entire people.

Vyacheslav Leonidovich Kondratiev (1920-1993) bequeathed his ashes to be scattered on the Ovsyannikovsky field. This will remained unfulfilled. But soil was brought to the writer’s grave from the very grove where his thinned company perished, a helmet and a sapper’s shovel of one of his dead comrades.

And the famous poem by Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky “I was killed near Rzhev,” written in 1946, became a monument to the dead nameless heroes of the battles near the city of Rzhev.

A feat is a heroic, selfless act. He is not born immediately, not suddenly. To accomplish a feat, you need to be ready for it, to have a generous soul. What is a “generous soul”? This is a soul filled with noble feelings: love for the Motherland, for one’s people, the willingness to sacrifice oneself in defense of the Fatherland. The generosity of the soul is manifested in a person in a difficult era for the entire country, when it is necessary to give all his strength for the sake of a common goal. During the Great Patriotic War, everyone had the same goal - to liberate their native land from the Nazi invaders.

Boris Vasiliev’s story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” tells about the feat of female anti-aircraft gunners and their commander, Sergeant Major Vaskov. The soldiers received the task: to detain a group of German saboteurs heading through the Karelian forests and swamps to the Kirov Railway and the White Sea-Baltic Canal.

In an unequal battle with the fascist occupiers, all the girls die. The commandant of the 171st patrol, Fedot Evgrafovich Vaskov, reproaches himself for not saving five girls just to save the Kirov Road and the White Sea Canal. Seriously wounded in the stomach by a grenade fragment, the dying Rita Osyanina reassures the foreman: “Don’t... The Motherland doesn’t start with the canals. Not from there at all. And we protected her. First her, and only then the channel.” Exploring the origins of the heroic, selfless actions of his heroes, Boris Vasiliev shows that their feat does not appear immediately. They are all different: each hero has his own character, his own destiny, his own reason for going to the front, his own feat. But they all accomplished the main task of their lives: they sacrificed themselves defending their Motherland.

Liza Brichkina, the daughter of a forester, goes on a patrol for help, since there were not two saboteurs, but sixteen. In her haste, Lisa strays from the path and drowns in the swamp. Sonya Gurvich, a university student who knows German, wants to bring Vaskov a pouch he had forgotten and, stumbling upon the saboteurs, receives a fatal blow to the chest with a dagger. Orphanage Galka Chetvertak goes with the sergeant on reconnaissance, but, not having time to overcome the feeling of fear, she runs in desperation to cross the path of the Nazis and falls under machine gun fire. Zhenya Komelkova sacrifices herself, saving her wounded friend Rita, leading the Germans with her. Shocked by the death of the girls, Vaskov takes prisoner all the surviving saboteurs. An ordinary person with a failed personal destiny, in difficult times, accomplishes a feat: it could not have been otherwise. There is some kind of inner strength in him, great courage, fearlessness, generosity of soul and kindness.

The story “Sotnikov” by front-line writer Vasil Bykov, written in 1970, tells the story of two partisans, one of whom accomplishes a feat, and the other becomes a traitor. Rybak and Sotnikov are sent on a mission: to get some food for the detachment. Stopping at Demchikha’s house, the partisans are captured. Sotnikov behaves with dignity, although he experiences inhuman torment. A fisherman, determined to survive at any cost, hopes to “outwit” the police. Step by step, losing moral ground, Rybak comes to betrayal, participates in the execution of his comrade, and then joins the police service. Sotnikov accomplishes an unprecedented feat of courage and perseverance. He immediately understands that death is inevitable, that compromise is impossible. Sotnikov lives in obedience to moral principles: the sick man goes on a mission because others refused. He takes an unequal battle with the police, wounded, and steadfastly overcomes the difficult path. In Demchikha’s attic, he prefers to be shot rather than endanger a woman and children. Sotnikov's physical capabilities were limited, but his fortitude, courage, firmness, and fearlessness in the face of death were limitless. He finds the strength to morally support the boy in Budenovka, who was in the crowd of residents herded to execution as spectators. Sotnikov smiles at the boy, realizing that he is also responsible for what will be left to the next generations.

We came to the conclusion that feats are not born immediately. It is committed by people with high moral principles, possessing perseverance, dedication, and prepared for a heroic act with their entire lives.

Updated: 2018-07-01

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Literature and history are inseparable from each other. Creative people in any era take pen and paper and write about what is happening in their soul against the backdrop of global changes. Poets and writers of the Silver Age spoke about revolution in their works, authors of the 90s spoke about perestroika. But, undoubtedly, the so-called “military prose” left the greatest mark on Russian literature of the 20th century. Novels, short stories and tales written by participants in the Great Patriotic War should occupy a separate shelf in the library of those people who remember and appreciate the feat of the Soviet people.

For many soldiers, the war became not a temporary test, not a tragic episode of life, but a place of encounter with death. When you are 22 years old, you hardly think that your days are numbered, that you will not have a bright future, love, children, grandchildren, discoveries and exploits. And when death is already near, you think about your duty to your homeland and your last choice, and not about unfulfilled dreams...

The main character of V. Bykov’s story “To Live Until Dawn” was exactly 22 years old. And he heroically died alone, wounded, in a semi-conscious state, but having made a small but personal contribution to the victory.

This work, on behalf of Lieutenant Ivanovsky, tells how a detachment of ten people sneaks into the German rear on a cold winter night in order to blow up a base with ammunition. The main character, despite his youth, leads the detachment and is ready to complete the task at any cost.

But the price turned out to be high: Ivanovsky dies heroically at the end of the story. It was not possible to blow up the ammunition base because it had already been relocated. Ivanovsky, who survived, managed to get to the road and kill only one ordinary German.

Ivanovsky himself does not directly blame anyone for this, he is simply doing his duty, but reading the story, from individual phrases of the author it becomes clear that the detachment was not properly prepared for the campaign. The brave and strong-willed men lacked training. Management lacked awareness. Haste, vanity, uncertainty, poor preparation for the campaign, careless selection of people for an important task - all these factors affected the result. Ivanovsky understood that “it was very important to keep everyone in one fist; in such a situation, disunity borders on disaster.” But no matter how he tried to urge and encourage the soldiers, they got tired and fell behind.

A significant place in the story is occupied by Ivanovsky’s reflections and memories. Being behind enemy lines, in a miraculously found wooden bathhouse, in close proximity to the Germans, the main character asked Pivovarov: “Do you want to live?” A seemingly simple question that can only be answered “Yes!” However, war changes too many things in a person’s consciousness. Pivovarov replied: “To live? It wouldn't be bad. But...” On the one hand, these guys have a desire to live an ordinary life with “simple, but so necessary joys for a person.” And on the other hand, everyday life in war, where death is so close that you begin to get used to it and stop being afraid. The fear of not doing anything to win is greater than the fear of death. Ivanovsky and his entire squad lived not to enjoy life, but to make victory a reality. “Of course, in order to survive, it was necessary to win, but it was possible to win only by surviving - the war plunged people into such a ferris wheel,” the main character reflected.

However, a man remains a man even in war. In the tenth chapter, adult men, Ivanenko and Pivovarov, remembered that they had parents. The warmth with which Pivovarov spoke about his mother once again convinces us that in war you begin to understand the importance of simple human feelings. Care, a prepared dinner, worries about childhood illnesses - all this is unconditional maternal love, which you realize only when life puts you in the face of death. Ivanenko, on the contrary, did not have a mother, but had a father. Not as caring as a woman, but loving his son like a man. And both heroes understood: if they were killed, then first of all they would feel sorry for their parents. To whom, unfortunately, we weren’t even able to say goodbye properly before the front...

In my opinion, the most intense in the story is the final episode, when Lieutenant Ivanenko, with superhuman efforts, gets to the road along which German generals must travel. Wounded, frozen, with his consciousness slipping away, alone in the cold winter night, he waits for the enemy, holding a grenade. Closer to dawn, he began to painfully understand that it was unlikely that anyone from the command would travel along this road. At the end of his strength, he sees a cart with two ordinary Germans. “But his painful death, like thousands of other equally painful deaths, must lead to some result in this war,” the author of the story reflects. At the cost of incredible efforts, Ivanenko explodes a grenade, dies himself and takes one of the Germans with him to another world. “At least some” result has been achieved. But the life of a 22-year-old man was cut short forever...

Now, 65 years after the Victory, the war seems to us more like an adventure, where a person can show courage, courage and bravery, and accomplish a feat that has no place in peaceful life. Statistics from history textbooks also do not convey the complete picture. The number of planes shot down and ammunition wasted will not show the horror of war in the life of an individual. And only the stories of war participants give us the opportunity to understand what it is. This is the only way we can find out at least a hundredth part of what people were thinking about while dying behind enemy lines.

V. Bykov’s story “To Live Until Dawn” was filmed in 1975. While we, the younger generation, read and watch such books and films, the memory of the great feat of our grandparents lives with us.