Theme of the Great Patriotic War in prose of the 20th century. The theme of the Great Patriotic War in the prose of the 20th century The system of images of modern pastoral Astafiev

Theme of the Great Patriotic War in literature. The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, which claimed the lives of many millions, became one of the most tragic facts in the history of the 20th century. An event such as war was defined by L.N. Tolstoy as “contrary to human reason and all human nature.” The hard times of war, a man at war, the memory of descendants about the heroic deeds of soldiers - the themes of many works of art created both during the war years and after the Victory are varied: K. Simonov “The Living and the Dead”, V. Nekrasov “In the Trenches of Stalingrad”,

V. Bykov “Alpine Ballad”, “Sotnikov”, B. Vasiliev “Not on the lists”, “And the dawns here are quiet...”, K. Vorobyov “Killed near Moscow”, V. Kondratyev “Sashka” and others.

The story of B. Vasiliev “And the dawns here are quiet...”. The suffering and misfortunes of war fall not only on the shoulders of fighting men - they do not bypass fragile women either. So, for example, S. Alexievich called her book “War Has an Unfeminine Face,” reflecting the main idea in the title: murder is disgusting to the feminine essence, the main purpose of a woman on earth is to give life.

The story is dedicated to the feat of female anti-aircraft gunners

B. Vasilyeva “And the dawns here are quiet...” (1969). At the center of the work are five women with different characters and different destinies. Even in war, they do not stop being girls, do not lose their unique charm: Sonya Gurvich loves Blok’s poetry, Rita Osyanina constantly thinks about her little son, the beauty of Zhenya Komelkova, who received outfits for her desire to defend her right to remain a woman in war, is admired by the other girls. Under the command of Sergeant Major Vaskov, five girls are sent to intercept two saboteurs, and there were two dozen of them. The soldiers Gurvich, Komelkova, Osyanina, Brichkina and Chetvertak were not destined to return from this campaign. The desire not to let the fascists pass, to stop the invaders at any cost, to avenge ruined love, destroyed families, gives the fragile girls remarkable fortitude. Violation of the rules of human coexistence puts the fascists themselves outside all laws, and therefore the feat of the anti-aircraft gunners acquires universal significance.

The image of a sergeant major who tried to save his “soldiers” but failed to protect them is tragic. The thought of what will be asked of them, the men, after the war, torments Vaskov’s conscience: “Why couldn’t you, men, protect our mothers from bullets? When they died, did they get married?”

The symbolism of the ending of the story (Vaskov fulfills his promise to Rita to take care of her little son) introduces the theme of memory into the work.

The story formed the basis of the famous feature film by S. Rostotsky, and in recent years a Chinese version was filmed. The theme of the Great Patriotic War will be reflected in literature, cinema, and painting for many years to come. Memory is what distinguishes a person from other living beings. As long as the memory is alive, the feat of those who fell during the war will warn descendants from terrible and cruel wars, from senseless bloodshed.

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• WWII in literature of the 20th century
• The Great Patriotic War in the literature of the 20th century
• essay on the topic of the Great Patriotic War in the works of writers of the 20th century
• essay The Great Patriotic War in the literature of the 20th century

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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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The Great Patriotic War is reflected in Russian literature of the 20th century deeply and comprehensively, in all its manifestations: the army and the rear, the partisan movement and the underground, the tragic beginning of the war, individual battles, heroism and betrayal, the greatness and drama of the Victory. The authors of military prose are, as a rule, front-line soldiers; in their works they rely on real events, on their own front-line experience. In the books about the war by front-line writers, the main line is soldier's friendship, front-line camaraderie, the hardship of life on the field, desertion and heroism. Dramatic human destinies unfold in war; life or death sometimes depends on a person’s actions. Front-line writers are a whole generation of courageous, conscientious, experienced, gifted individuals who endured war and post-war hardships. Front-line writers are those authors who in their works express the point of view that the outcome of the war is decided by a hero who recognizes himself as a part of the warring people, bearing his cross and a common burden. The most reliable works about the war were created by front-line writers: V. P. Astafiev, G. Ya. Baklanov, V. V. Bykov, B. L. Vasilyev, Yu. V. Bondarev, V. P. Nekrasov, E. I. Nosov, M.A. Sholokhov, etc. One of the first books about the war was the story by Viktor Platonovich Nekrasov (1911 - 1987) “In the Trenches of Stalingrad,” which was spoken of with great respect by another front-line writer, Vyacheslav Kondratyev. He called it his handbook, which contained the entire war with its inhumanity and cruelty, it was “our war that we went through.” This book was published immediately after the war in the magazine “Znamya” (1946, No. 8-9) under the title “Stalingrad” and only later was it given the title “In the Trenches of Stalingrad.” Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev (1924), former artillery officer, who fought in 1942 - 1944 at Stalingrad, on the Dnieper, in the Carpathians, author of the good books “Battalions Ask for Fire” (1957), “Silence” (1962), “Hot Snow” (1969). One of the reliable works written by Bondarev about the war is the novel “Hot Snow” about the Battle of Stalingrad, about the defenders of Stalingrad, for whom he personified the defense of the Motherland. Stalingrad as a symbol of soldier's courage and perseverance runs through all the works of the front-line writer. His war works are permeated with romantic scenes. The heroes of his stories and novels - boys, along with the heroism they perform, still have time to think about the beauty of nature. For example, Lieutenant Davlatyan cries bitterly like a boy, considering himself a failure not because he was wounded and in pain, but because he dreamed of getting to the front line, wanted to knock out a tank. His new novel “Non-Resistance” is about the difficult life after the war of former war participants, what the former boys became. They do not give in under the weight of post-war and especially modern life. “We have learned to hate falsehood, cowardice, lies, the escaping glance of a scoundrel talking to you with a pleasant smile, indifference, from which one step away from betrayal,” writes Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev many years later about his generation in the book “Moments.”

Among the writers faithful to the theme of war, one can note Konstantin Dmitrievich Vorobyov (1919 – 1975), author of harsh and tragic works , who was the first to tell about the bitter truth of being captured and going through earthly hell. The stories of Konstantin Dmitrievich Vorobyov “This is us, Lord”, “Killed near Moscow” were written from his own experience. While fighting in a company of Kremlin cadets near Moscow, he was captured and passed through camps in Lithuania. He escaped from captivity, organized a partisan group that joined the Lithuanian partisan detachment, and after the war he lived in Vilnius. Tale "This is us, Lord" written in 1943, it was published only ten years after his death, in 1986. This story about the torment of a young lieutenant in captivity is autobiographical and is now highly rated for its resilience as a phenomenon akin only to the Kolyma stories of Varlam Shalamov. Torture, executions, hard labor in captivity, escapes... The author documents a nightmarish reality, exposes evil. The story “Killed near Moscow,” written by him in 1961, remains one of the most reliable works about the initial period of the war in 1941 near Moscow, where a company of young cadets ends up, almost without weapons.

Among the most notable front-line writers of the second half of the 20th century we can name the writer Vyacheslav Leonidovich Kondratiev (1920 - 1993). His simple and beautiful story “Sashka,” published back in 1979 in the magazine “Friendship of Peoples” and dedicated to “All those who fought near Rzhev - living and dead,” shocked readers. The story “Sashka” promoted Vyacheslav Kondratiev to the ranks of the leading writers of the front-line generation; for each of them the war was different. Evgeniy Ivanovich Nosov(1925 - 2002), awarded the Sakharov Literary Prize together with Konstantin Vorobyov (posthumously) for creativity in general (devotion to the theme), is distinguished by its belonging to the village theme. But he also created unforgettable images of peasants who are preparing to be sent to war (story « Usvyatsky helmet-bearers" (1977)) as if towards the end of the world, say goodbye to the measured peasant life and prepare for an irreconcilable battle with the enemy. The first work about the war by E. I. Nosov was the story “Red Wine of Victory,” written by him in 1969, in which the hero celebrated Victory Day on a government bed in a hospital and received, along with all the suffering wounded, a glass of red wine in honor of this long-awaited holiday. Front-line writers, contrary to the tendencies that developed in Soviet times to gloss over the truth about the war, depicted the harsh and tragic war and post-war reality. Their works are a true testimony of the time when Russia fought and won. The Belarusian front-line writer Vasil Vladimirovich Bykov (1924 – 2003) believed that the military theme “is leaving our literature for the same reason... why valor, honor, self-sacrifice are gone... The heroic has been expelled from everyday life, why do we still need war, where is this the disadvantage is most obvious? “Incomplete truth” and outright lies about the war have been diminishing the meaning and significance of our war (or anti-war, as they sometimes say) literature for many years.” A new, but not indisputable, view of the work of the Belarusian writer Vasil Bykov is expressed by Rein Karasti (Zvezda. - 2004. - No. 7. - P. 216 - 224). He believes that Vasil Bykov is the author of a disastrous, defeatist world. In his works, disaster always happens. "The dead don't hurt"“In the Dead Hour”, “Swamp” - these are the last works of the writer, the titles of which speak for themselves. Vasil Bykov’s depiction of the war in the story “Swamp” (Friendship of Peoples. - 2001. - N7) causes protest among many Russian readers. It shows the ruthlessness of Soviet soldiers towards local residents. The plot is this, judge for yourself: paratroopers landed behind enemy lines, in occupied Belarus, in search of a partisan base, having lost their bearings, they took a boy as their guide... and kill him for reasons of safety and secrecy of the mission. Vasil Bykov’s no less terrible story “On the Swamp Stitch” (Zvezda. - 2001. - N8) is a “new truth” about the war, again about the ruthless and cruel partisans who dealt with a local teacher just because she asked them not to destroy the bridge, otherwise the Germans will destroy the entire village. The teacher in the village is the last savior and protector, but she was killed by the partisans as a traitor. The works of the Belarusian front-line writer Vasil Bykov cause not only controversy, but also reflection. This is the reading of the story “Sotnikov” by I.V. Khudyakov, a secondary school teacher in Yaroslavl. (Literature at school. – 2004.- No. 4). He examines works about war in the context of Russian classical literature and considers the main thing in the story “not a military feat, not defeating the enemy, but a spiritual, moral feat.” He perceives the story “Sotnikov” as “a continuation of the great and eternal tragedies of Russian classical literature, carrying the light of gospel truth.”

Georgy Vladimov- one of the writers who portrayed the Great Patriotic War in a new way in the novel “The General and His Army,” which received the Booker Russian Prize for this novel in 1995. He himself believes that he is writing the truth about the war, which until now has been distorted by all and sundry. He uses not only fictional techniques, that is, narrative ones, but also uses references; in addition to fictional characters, there are real personalities in the novel: Marshal Zhukov, Army General Vatutin, member of the military council of the First Ukrainian Front Khrushchev, commander of the 2nd Shock Army, General -Colonel Vlasov, famous German military leader Guderian. In fact, according to not only front-line soldiers, but also authors of literary criticism, it is believed that Vladimov created his own artistic myth about the war of 1941–1945 in the novel “The General and His Army.” Vladimov depicts an atmosphere of fear that is deliberately whipped up by state authorities. For example, in liberated places, public executions of policemen and traitors were held, as a reminder of the punitive hand of power. The highest elite of the Red Army is portrayed by Vladimov in an ambiguous manner; on the one hand, they control a huge military force, on the other, they slavishly bow to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The moral and psychological conflict is one of the main ones in the novel.

Among the writers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries who write about the Great Patriotic War, the writers are not front-line soldiers, whose childhood and youth occurred during these harsh years. Among them is Anatoly Azolsky, winner of the Russian Booker Prize for his non-military novel “The Cage.” Azolsky dedicated several works to the Great Patriotic War: “Saboteur”, “Blood”, “War at Sea”. The story “War at Sea” (Znamya. -1996. - N9. - P. 12 - 46) about submarine sailors serving in the North in 1942. In 2002, Anatoly Azolsky wrote a new novel about the Great Patriotic War, “Saboteur.” The hero of the novel, a young man from Georgia in love, volunteers for the front in 1941 and goes through the school of military life as a reconnaissance saboteur under the guidance of an experienced reconnaissance sergeant major. There are chapters that are called edifyingly - “Take care of honor from a young age.” The hero is tested not only by war, but also by his moral qualities. The author asserts in the novel the high purpose of man - a man in war should not be like an animal. Azolsky sharpens the depiction of the moral qualities of a person in war. The second line of the novel is the post-war story of a former saboteur who had to change his name and place of residence, travel around the USSR and try to become a writer.

It was not without reason that front-line writers complained that not the whole truth about the war had been written. Time passed, a historical distance appeared, which made it possible to see the past and what was experienced in its true light, the necessary words came, other books were written about the war, which will lead us to spiritual knowledge of the past.

Test questions and assignments:

1. Watch a film about the Great Patriotic War. Collect information about the author of the film's literary basis. Read the screenwriter's inspiration. Compare (in writing) the original and the film adaptation.

2. Why does the theme of the Great Patriotic War remain popular today? How did the war period affect the development of culture and literature of the USSR?

3. What classic works of an earlier period in the development of Russian literature on the theme of war do you know?

4. Prepare a presentation on the work of one of the writers of the twentieth century, who devoted most of his works to the theme of war.

Non-literary factors

influencing changes in the perception and evaluation of literature about the war.
For a long time, the war years were perceived as the only tragic years of modern history. Today, the revision of the history of the modern period has actually been completed, as a result of which it is all presented as a people's tragedy (p. 36).

Events related to the war itself are assessed differently. The conclusion of a non-aggression pact with Hitler, previously seen as a necessary measure for a temporary reprieve, is now defined as an absolute mistake. The actions of the Soviet Army in the Baltic states, Western Ukraine and Belarus are perceived as occupation (the fate of the partisans in the Baltic states, the ashes of N. Kuznetsov from Lvov).

Recently, there has been an active effort to clarify the question: at what cost did we get our victory? The lists of career officers who were repressed just before the war, as a result of which the army was beheaded, are more than impressive, as is the fact that the life of a junior lieutenant in the first months of the war “on the front line” was... 9 minutes. The activities of SMERSH and the incompetence of the headquarters, the ever-increasing number of our losses - all this forced V. Astafiev to say in a bitter moment: “Victory at such a price is defeat.”
In addition to non-literary ones, there are also

intraliterary factors,

which also influenced the change in attitude towards the Great Patriotic War.
Recently, numerous sensational revelations of “imaginary heroes of the Great Patriotic War” have appeared on the pages of newspapers: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Young Guards, Alexander Matrosov, who became heroes of literature, but, it turns out, were not impeccable heroes in life. A very wise piece of advice turned out to be forgotten: it’s either good or nothing about the dead. As a result, a whole layer of literature appears to the general reader as fake.

During the Great Patriotic War, works were created that were characterized by a heroic beginning and an almost obligatory final chord, characterized by high pathos and oath intonation ("Holy War" by V. Lebedev-Kumach, etc.). For this time, the emphasis on the beauty of feat and even the beauty of death in the name of the freedom of the Motherland was important.

In the 60-70s, the style discovered by the book “In the Trenches of Stalingrad” by V. Nekrasov prevailed. War is not only a feat, but also the hardest, everyday work, mortal work. The prose of Yu. Bondarev, V. Bykov, V. Kondratiev is even characterized by some deheroization of the feat. In the 80-90s, works were published that introduced the reader to an unconventional view of the events of the Great Patriotic War. This is V. Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate”: fascism, according to Grossman’s artistic concept, is absolutely adequate to socialism. This is K. Vorobyov’s story “It’s us, Lord!”, written in 1943, published in 1986, a story about the fate of those captured by Germans. This is Lev Razgon's "Uninvented" - a look at the war of a prisoner of Soviet camps. This is also V. Astafiev’s novel “Cursed and Killed” (New World magazine, 1992, No. 10-12), where the author talks about the murder of his own.

Conclusion: in order to give your own assessment of the events of 1941-1945, you need to read these works yourself and enter into a dialogue with the author.

V.P. Astafiev realized his story “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess” was “...more difficult and painful than all.”
In “The Staff of Memory” he notes: “It seems to me that in “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess” I overcame myself, a tradition created for myself... While overcoming my tradition in “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess,” I at the same time returned to some very dear traditions of Russian literature, in particular, to the Tolstoyan tradition.”

V.P. Astafiev wrote: “What would I like to see in prose about war? - The truth. All the cruel but necessary truth, without which it is impossible to understand the meaning of the feat of the Soviet soldier.”
In the military story, the author claims that “war is both the defense of the Fatherland, therefore, a sacred duty and necessity, and a phenomenon contrary to human nature” (Tolstoy traditions).

"...But how to write about all this? The events of that time cannot be desecrated by an inexperienced, timid touch. And if we start talking, then we must say everything to the end!" – Olga Kozhukhova states in her story “Don’t Throw Words to the Wind.”

Our task:

The history of the story

V. Astafiev worked from 1967 to 1971. “I carried this little story inside me for 14 years, wrote and rewrote for several years...”; published in 1971, has the subtitle "Modern Pastoral" . The story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess" was unexpected for literary criticism. Why? V. Astafiev first addressed the topic of war; The already established image of V. Astafiev as a storyteller, working in the genre of social and everyday narration, changed before our eyes, acquiring the features of a writer striving for a generalized perception of the world, for symbolic images. What was your first perception of the story?

Pastoral as a genre

The 1983 SES gives the following definition of pastoral: from the French pastorale... from the Latin pastoralis - pastoral: a genre variety of modern European literature of the 14th-17th centuries, associated with idyllic perception; opera, pantomime or ballet, the plot of which is associated with an idealized depiction of shepherd life; vocal or instrumental work drawing paintings of nature or scenes of rural life.

Ozhegov's dictionary (1990) gives a more laconic definition: pastoral - in European art of the 14th-18th centuries, a dramatic or musical work, idyllically depicting the life of shepherds and shepherdesses in the lap of nature.

Pastoral in art

In the early Renaissance, humanistic ideas were expressed in pastorals and glorified earthly love, the feeling of nature was conveyed- F. Sacchetti “Mountain Shepherdesses”, G. Boccaccio “Fiesolan Nymphs.”

During the crisis of Renaissance humanism (15-16 centuries), pastoralism was penetrated ideas about preserving the inner peace of the individual, aristocratic tendencies are intensifying. Singing serene life, sublime feelings, refined pleasures in the lap of nature(M. Cervantes “Galatea”, F. Cindy “Arcadia”).

At the end of the 16th century, the musical pastoral “Daphne” by the poet Rinuccini and composer J. Peri appeared in Italy, which laid the foundation for opera. In the 17th century, pastoral became one of the characteristic genres of aristocratic literature, exquisite feelings accessible only to a select few are glorified. Nature turns into an elegant setting for gallant disputes between “shepherds” - aristocrats.

Pastoral images are also found in the literature of the 18th century, interpreted mainly in the manner of sentimentalism.

In Russia, pastoral appears in the 18th century and is predominantly of a song nature).

Our task:

find out in what ways the writer remains faithful to the traditions of the pastoral genre, in what ways he deviates from them, and for what purpose he does this.

The work will proceed according to the following plan:

1. Chronotope (time and space) of pastoral.
2. Features of the plot and composition.
3. System of images.
4. The ideological originality of the story by V.P. Astafiev "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess".

1. Pastoral chronotope. Pastoral in art.

Time and space in the artistic world of Astafiev

It has signs of the real world: the author talks about the events of 1944, about the defeat of the German group near the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky point “Our troops were finishing off an almost strangled group of German troops, whose command, as at Stalingrad, refused to accept the ultimatum of unconditional surrender.” It was during this period of the war that the enemy became different: “The Germans are different: hungry, demoralized by the environment and the cold.”
Unlike the traditional pastoral, in V. Astafiev’s pastoral duration of action - night, winter night.“The roar of guns overturned and crushed the silence of the night. Cutting through clouds of snow and darkness, flashes of guns flashed, and under our feet the disturbed earth swayed, trembled, and moved, along with the snow, with people pressing their chests to it.”

By using alliteration and assonance, the author gives us the opportunity hear the sounds of battle: [o], [a], [e] characterize sounds of flying shells; help to hear the whistle of shells cutting through the air; [zh],[w],[h"] transmit trembling of the earth, awakened by the night battle.

Seems, the whole world is in motion. The abundance of nouns denoting specific items(animate: signalmen, SR men, infantry, rear - and inanimate: "Katyusha" - “the cars themselves seemed to crouch on their paws before jumping...”; the trunks of our little fur babies ), And an abundance of verbs conveying the dynamics of the battle: cars... rushed about, signalmen cursed, missiles flared up.

This description is surprisingly reminiscent of the description of the Battle of Poltava in the poem “Poltava” by A.S. Pushkin:

Throwing piles of bodies upon piles,
Cast iron balls everywhere
They jump between them, strike,
They dig up ashes and hiss in blood
Swede, Russian - stabs, chops, cuts,
Drumming, clicks, grinding,
The thunder of guns, stomping, neighing, groaning,
And death and hell on all sides.

The image of a night torn to shreds; road image, along which soldiers walk and crawl, defending their home, their native nature; image of the steppe, snow-covered or dusted with grass seeds; the image of someone else’s house, where you can “take a nap” for a couple of hours, if possible; finally, image of a whirlpool of battle - a funnel, which draws in everything living and inanimate, breaks the usual connections, pulls into the abyss - all this works to create a different model of the universe - CHAOS, a picture of universal destruction.
The color scheme enhances the feeling of contrast with the traditional pastoral: “Black anger, black hatred, black blood suffocated and flooded everything around: night, snow, earth, time and space.”

2. Features of the plot and composition.

Plot is the basic outline of events in the sequence of their development. The plot is based on an artistic conflict. Conflict is a clash of characters and circumstances, views and principles of life. The conflict can occur between the individual and society, between characters, in the mind of the hero; can be obvious or hidden. We characterized the chronotope of the pastoral as idyllic, that is, depicting an idealized, serene life in which there are no and cannot be conflicts. The feelings that the characters experience are joyful and bright. Absence of conflict is ideal.

In the process of development of the pastoral genre, the love conflict appears more and more clearly, the love plot is further developed in Antoine Watteau’s painting “A Difficult Proposal” from 1716.
In music pastoral plot used in the 19th century by composer P.I. Tchaikovsky in the opera “The Queen of Spades” builds the composition of the pastoral scene like this:

Overture
1 hour - "Expectation"
2h. - "Date"
The final

V. Astafiev's pastoral also has a clear composition.

The love plot, it would seem, is concluded in two parts: “Date” and “Farewell”, but, besides them, the author gives two more parts: “Fight” and “Assumption”. For what? To show that the love plot was surrounded by a fiery ring of war, highlighting the catastrophic nature of the meeting of lovers(“I’ll come to meet you in a white dress” - and then “None of this will happen”). Each part has an epigraph. Let's consider what its role is.

The role of epigraphs

Rapture is a state of delight, admiration. The content of Part I serves as a refutation of this phrase. Fight is anger, black hatred, moral and physical death - cannot be beautiful. We see people who have lost their human appearance: “Mokhnakov threw one, then another skinny German over himself, but then another one came out of the darkness, and with a squeal, like a dog, he bit into the foreman’s leg, and they rolled in a ball into the trench, where the wounded were swarming in the snow and clods of earth, in pain and howling and rushing at each other in blind rage." The episode on the battlefield, when Boris tries to blow up a German tank, makes his way over the still warm bodies of his comrades crushed by this tank, or the scene in the medical battalion, where the doctor “stands knee-deep in blood” removing body parts that have become unnecessary, amazes with its naturalism, and the question arises : “Why do people suffer so much? Why war? Death?” And you involuntarily remember the words of L.N. Tolstoy that “war is an unnatural state for humanity.” It is no coincidence that in Astafiev’s story there appears the image of a huge man who "moving with a huge shadow and a torch fluttering behind him, he moved, flew on fiery wings to the trench, crushing everything in his path with an iron crowbar. ... It seemed that this prophet of heaven with a growing spear had fallen to the ground to punish people for their barbarity, to bring them to reason ".

IIch. "Date" - “And you came, having heard the expectation...” (Ya. Smelyakov). The epigraph gives a romantic mood: young creatures living in anticipation of the miracle of love, the miracle of meeting. But the first sentence of part II does not live up to hope, it is deliberately mundane: "The soldiers drank moonshine". The entire chapter is devoted to a description of the rest of B. Kostyaev’s platoon in Lucy’s house. Everything in life turns out to be not as beautiful as in books, paintings or movies: soldiers steam their clothes to kill lice; relieve tension after a fight by drinking moonshine; They sleep side by side on straw thrown on the dirt floor. The interior of the hut before and after the soldiers spend the night, the dialogue of the soldiers at the table, the portrait of Lucy and Boris, the skirmish with Mokhnakov - this is the structure of Part II.

III part. "Farewell" -

Bitter tears clouded my vision,
A gloomy morning sneaks like a thief, following the night.
Cursed be the day
Time takes you and me into the gray dawn.

(From the lyrics of the Vagants).

They cannot leave us indifferent and

lines of lyrical digression dedicated to mothers:

"... Mothers, mothers: why did you submit to the wild human memory, reconcile yourself with violence and death? After all, you suffer more than anyone, most courageously, in your primitive loneliness, in your sacred and bestial longing for your children. You cannot be purified by suffering for thousands of years, buy them off and hope for a miracle. There is no God. There is no faith. Death rules over the world. Who will pay for your torment? How will you pay for it? When? And what should we hope for, mothers?" It's sad that these questions remain unanswered today...

IVh. "Assumption" –

And there is no end to life
And the end of torment.

Petrarch.

Conclusion:

Thus we see that the composition of the modern pastoral by V. Astafiev made it possible to combine different stylistic streams: generalized philosophical, realistic - everyday and lyrical. The war was presented either as a hyperbolic picture of universal barbarity and destruction, or as an incredibly hard soldier’s work, or as an image of hopeless human suffering in the author’s lyrical digressions. Unlike the traditional pastoral, the plot and composition of Astafiev’s story allow us to characterize the conflict.

The moral aspect of the conflict concerned the relations between soldiers, between people. The philosophical conflict was realized in the confrontation pastoral love motif and monstrous the scorching elements of war.

3. The system of pastoral images in art.

The characters are quite happy, they live in harmony with themselves, with each other, with the world. There are no unresolved issues, no sharp corners - even the frame of the picture is given in the form of a medallion. The composition of the painting is such that the disorder located in the lower right corner does not introduce disharmony into the overall mood of the painting. Pastoral images of a shepherd and a shepherdess are also used by P.I. Tchaikovsky in the opera "The Queen of Spades". In the third scene of the opera, he gives an extended scene “The Sincerity of the Shepherdess”, in which the main characters: Prilepa and Milovzor - perform a duet. This scene also includes a chorus of shepherdesses and shepherdesses and the Sarabande dance of the shepherdesses and shepherdesses. The chorus sums up the whole scene: “the end of the torment has come,” which marks the victory of love. Announcing the victory of love, Cupid and Hymen (characters from ancient Greek mythology) appear on the stage to crown Prilepa and Milovzor. Love gives joy.

Astafiev’s system of images of modern pastoral.

The Russian army, represented by Kostyaev’s platoon, Astafiev “laid out” on

certain types traditional for the rural world:

• sage-scribe (Lantsov);
• hard worker-patient (Karyshev, Malyshev);
• Shkalik, who looks like a holy fool;
• a “dark” man, almost a robber (Pafnutyev, Mokhnakov);
• righteous man, keeper of the moral law (Kostyaev).

The role of shepherd and shepherdess is played by the platoon commander Boris Kostyaev and the mistress of the house Lyusya.

They are young (she is 21, he is 20), the need to love and be loved awakens in them. Love illuminates everyday life at the front with a bright flash. He and she. What are they, these heroes?

As in the traditional pastoral, Astafiev gives

portrait of Boris:

“The lieutenant’s blond hair, naturally wavy, became curly. His eyes would have washed out too. The rubbed abrasion on his thin neck turned brighter red.” This boy with a sinless look looks more like yesterday's schoolboy, boyishly embarrassed, but for all that he is a trench commander who has gone through many battles, seriously wounded, finally realizing that “it’s not the soldiers who are behind him - he’s behind the soldiers!”

Portrait of Lucy

created with skillful strokes: a swollen lower lip, a straight nose with narrow flaps, oatmeal eyes covered with curled eyelashes. “When the hostess opened her eyes, dark, seemingly elongated pupils were revealed from under these doll-like eyelashes. The eyes became mysteriously changeable,”- this is how Boris perceives Lucy. A woman with iconic eyes - this is how she will remain in his memory. A certain picture image - and the destruction of this image that arose in Boris’s soul by its everyday life: nose stained with soot, apron. At the moment of farewell, Lyusya will remind Boris of a schoolgirl, touching and funny, with a ribbon in her magnificent braid.

Little time is allotted to the beloved: the first signs of attention, the first declaration of love, and memories of their past. Getting to know each other. Well-mannered, affectionate, attentive - like a mother; persistent, honest, straightforward - like his father Boris. Lucy hardly talks about her past (she studied at a music school), but she involuntarily shares with Boris the bitterness of what she experienced during the days of occupation: “The dog was set on a person... it bit the girl’s throat like it was a bird...” Boris did not recognize that Lucy, enthusiastic, changeable in mood...

Conclusion:

War and love, death and thirst for life. What will win? Unlike the traditional pastoral, Astafiev’s heroes live in a different world and they themselves are different: “There was something like this and that in this lieutenant... You could sense the dreaminess and romance in him. Romantics are impetuous people! They are the ones who die first. This young knight of a sad image, absolutely sure - they love only once in a life, and there is no better woman in the world with whom he was and never will be...” Without love, the soul burns out: "...To live on? Why? For what? Kill or be killed? No-no! Enough!"

4. The ideological originality of the story by V.P. Astafieva
"The Shepherd and the Shepherdess."

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 are surprised by something else - the ability to flare up even for a moment, at least for one person, 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. Let the callousness of Lieutenant Drozdovsky be to blame for the death of Sergunenkov, and let the blame for Zoya’s death fall 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.