Steal like an artist summary. Skills taught by the book “Steal Like an Artist”

By a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of June 26, 1946, Valentin Petrovich Kataev was awarded the Stalin Prize of the Second Degree for the story “Son of the Regiment.”

Valentin Petrovich Kataev wrote his story “Son of the Regiment” in 1944, during the Great Patriotic War Patriotic War our people with the fascist invaders. More than thirty years have passed since then. We remember our great victory with pride.

The war brought our country a lot of grief, troubles and misfortunes. She destroyed hundreds of cities and sows. She destroyed millions of people. She deprived thousands of children of their fathers and mothers. But Soviet people won this war. He won because he was completely devoted to his homeland. He won because he showed a lot of endurance, courage and bravery. He won because he could not help but win: it was a just war for happiness and peace on earth.

The story “Son of the Regiment” will take you, young reader, back to the difficult but heroic events of the war years, which you know about only from textbooks and the stories of your elders. She will help you see these events as if with your own eyes.

You will learn about the fate of a simple peasant boy, Vanya Solntsev, from whom the war took everything: family and friends, home and childhood itself. Together with him you will go through many trials and experience the joy of exploits in the name of victory over the enemy. You will meet wonderful people- the soldiers of our army, Sergeant Egorov and Captain Enakiev, gunner Kovalev and Corporal Bidenko, who not only helped Vanya become a brave intelligence officer, but also raised him in best qualities a real Soviet man. And, after reading the story, you, of course, will understand that feat is not just courage and heroism, but also great work, iron discipline, inflexibility of will and great love to the Motherland.

The story “Son of the Regiment” was written by a great Soviet artist, a wonderful master of words. You will read it with interest and excitement, because it is a truthful, fascinating and vivid book.

The works of Valentin Petrovich Kataev are known and loved by millions of readers. You probably also know his books “The Lonely Sail Whitens”, “I am the Son working people", "A Farm in the Steppe", "For the Power of the Soviets" ... And if you don’t know, you will definitely meet them - it will be a good and joyful meeting.

The books of V. Kataev will tell you about the glorious revolutionary deeds of our people, about the heroic youth of your fathers and mothers, and will teach you to love our beautiful homeland- The Land of the Soviets.

Sergey Baruzdin

Chapter 1

It was the middle of a dead autumn night. It was very damp and cold in the forest. A thick fog rose from the black forest swamps, littered with small brown leaves.

The moon was overhead. It shone very strongly, but its light barely penetrated the fog. The moonlight stood near the trees in long, slanting ledges, in which, magically changing, strands of swamp vapors floated.

The forest was mixed. That's in the lane moonlight an impenetrably black silhouette of a huge spruce tree appeared, looking like a multi-story tower; then suddenly a white colonnade of birches appeared in the distance; then in the clearing, against the background of the white, moonlit sky, which had fallen into pieces like curdled milk, bare aspen branches were subtly depicted, sadly surrounded by a rainbow glow.

And everywhere, where the forest was thinner, white canvases of moonlight lay on the ground.

In general, it was beautiful with that ancient, wondrous beauty that always says so much to the Russian heart and makes the imagination draw fabulous paintings: gray wolf, carrying Ivan Tsarevich in a small hat on one side and with a Firebird feather in a scarf in his bosom, huge mossy paws of a goblin, a hut on chicken legs - and you never know what else!

But least of all in this dark, dead hour, three soldiers returning from reconnaissance thought about the beauty of the Polesie thicket.

They spent more than a day behind German lines, carrying out a combat mission. And this task was to find and mark on the map the location of enemy structures.

The work was difficult and very dangerous. We crawled almost the entire time. Once I had to lie motionless for three hours in a row in a swamp - in cold, stinking mud, covered with raincoats, covered with yellow leaves on top.

We dined on crackers and cold tea from flasks.

But the hardest thing was that I never managed to smoke. And, as you know, it is easier for a soldier to do without food and without sleep than without taking a puff of good, strong tobacco. And, as luck would have it, all three soldiers were heavy smokers. So, although the combat mission was completed as well as possible and in the senior’s bag there was a map on which more than a dozen thoroughly explored German batteries were marked with great accuracy, the scouts felt irritated and angry.

The closer it was to its leading edge, the more I wanted to smoke. IN similar cases As you know, a strong word or funny joke. But the situation demanded complete silence. It was impossible not only to exchange a word, but even to blow your nose or cough: every sound was heard unusually loudly in the forest.

The moon also got in the way. We had to walk very slowly, in single file, about thirteen meters apart from each other, trying not to fall into the streaks of moonlight, and stop and listen every five steps.

The elder walked ahead, giving the command with a careful movement of his hand: raise his hand above his head - everyone immediately stopped and froze; stretches his arm to the side with an inclination towards the ground - everyone at the same second quickly and silently lay down; waves his hand forward - everyone moved forward; will show back - everyone slowly backed away.

Although no more than two kilometers remained to the front line, the scouts continued to walk as carefully and prudently as before. Perhaps now they walked even more carefully, stopping more often.

They had entered the most dangerous part of their journey.

The war took away Vanya's entire family, leaving him an orphan, and he had to go through many trials before he could get to the scouts' camp. After an unsuccessful attempt to send the child to Orphanage, Captain Enakiev decided to raise him as the son of the regiment. The boy reminded the captain of his deceased son, and he was ready to officially adopt the child.

During a serious battle, the captain cunningly sent Vanya with a task invented on the fly, while his entire unit and he himself died. Before his death, the man managed to scribble a note in which he asked to be buried on Soviet soil and to appoint the boy as an officer. The scouts all gathered together the son of the regiment, Vanya Solntsev, on the journey, gave him the shoulder straps of the deceased captain as a souvenir, and took him to school.

The author in his work showed real, living people who fell into the meat grinder of the Great Patriotic War, but managed to remain human. The soldiers, who see the death of their comrades every day, treated the defenseless child, who was left an orphan, with boundless kindness and took him in. Courage, love for the Motherland, the ability to sacrifice oneself for the sake of a common cause - all these qualities are inherent in both adult officers and a 13-year-old child.

Summary Son of Kataev's regiment more details

Scouts in the forest heard strange sounds and, going a little further, found an exhausted child crying in his sleep. Waking up from the light and noise, the child jumped up and, in defense, put a sharpened nail forward. The sergeant grabs his hand and says: “Ours,” after which the boy, smiling widely, as if not believing his eyes, faints. It was the boy Vanya, whose father died in the first months of the war, his mother was killed by the Nazis, and his grandmother and sister did not survive the famine. The boy first begged in the villages, then was sent to an isolation ward, where he was seriously ill and somehow survived. The child escaped and wandered in the forests for more than 2 years, trying to reach our units. Vanya was already 12-13 years old, although due to constant hunger and illness he looked like 9 years old. In order not to forget his diploma, the boy carried a tattered primer.

Captain Enakiev, looking at the foundling, immediately remembered his dead relatives: mother, wife and son were killed back in 1941. Meanwhile, Vanya was well fed. He was happy and for the first time felt calm, because he was among people who did not need to be afraid. Despite the soldiers’ requests to take the boy as a guide, since he was well versed in the surrounding area, the commander did not risk leaving the child.

Having learned about this, the boy was very upset and disappointed, because he felt good with the guys, and the soldiers fell in love with the “shepherd boy.” Bidenko was entrusted with the child, ordering him to accompany him to the children's reception center. A day later, Bidenko returned alone in a bad mood: it turned out that the boy, as promised, had run away from him.

They drove a truck, but at a turn Vanya suddenly jumped over the side and disappeared into the trees. Bidenko was able to find the tomboy only when a children's book fell on him: the boy fell asleep while sitting on a branch. They got into the second truck, and this time the soldier tied the boy’s hand with a rope, the other end of which he held tightly in his palm. It was necessary to get some sleep. Bidenko periodically checked the rope, but in the morning he realized that he had been tricked again.

Having met on the way a boy in a field artillery uniform, who had been the “son of the regiment” for the second year already, and having listened to his story, Vanya was convinced that all he had to do was talk to the most important commander and he would be allowed to stay with the scouts. After wandering around the area for two days, the boy accidentally came across Enakiev, but did not recognize him and began to tell his story and complain about the strict captain who did not accept Vanya as his “son.” Enakiev decided to return him to his camp.

Bidenko and Gobunkov were given the task of exploring enemy positions. Without warning the captain, the scouts took Vanya on the mission as a guide. A couple of hours later the boy disappeared. Seeing bridges and fords on the river, he decided to record their location in his primer, but was caught by the Germans. During the interrogation, the boy stubbornly remained silent, despite the fact that the entries in the primer and the Russian compass spoke against him.

Bidenko returned to the camp, Gorbunkov decided to save the boy. The captain, having learned about what had happened, was angry and threatened with a tribunal. But our troops had just begun to attack the fascist units, and as a result of the confusion and hasty retreat of the Germans, Vanya managed to return to the scouts. He was immediately accepted into the “sons of the regiment” and given full allowance.

Vanya strongly reminded Enakiev of his deceased son, and he decided to take up his upbringing, even drawing up a plan for this, and made the boy his contact. Later he admitted that he wanted to officially adopt Vanka.

A difficult battle lay ahead, and the captain was tormented by doubts about the correctness of the chosen plan. Everything really went wrong: our guys were surrounded by enemy forces. The captain was worried about the boy’s life, but he never agreed to leave the battlefield. Then Enakiev wrote some message on a piece of paper, folded it and put it in the shepherd’s pocket, ordering him to urgently convey the message to headquarters.

Having completed the captain’s task, Vanya hurried back. He did not yet suspect that the battle had long been over, and all the soldiers had been killed. Left without ammunition, they desperately fought with shovels, and then Captain Enakiev took the entire blow upon himself. The boy walked around the battle site and saw the dead captain. Tears rolled down the child’s cheeks, and he clung to Bidenko, who came up to him.

A note was found in Yenakiev's pocket. Anticipating his death, he managed to write down a request to bury himself in his native land and raise Vanya Solntsev to be a worthy officer. The soldiers in the entire camp prepared their son for the journey, putting into his bag all the necessary and simply memorable things, bread, salt, tea and the commander’s neatly wrapped shoulder straps. It was up to Bidenko to bring Solntsev to school again. The farewell was painful, and the boy wanted to cry again.

Picture or drawing Son of the regiment

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Kataev Valentin Petrovich - writer, playwright and poet was born on January 28, 1897 in Odessa in the family of a teacher. The first poem “Autumn” was published by a high school student in 1910 in the newspaper “Odessa Bulletin”. He was also published in “Southern Thought”, “Odessa List”, “Awakening”, “Lukomorye”, etc.

With a certificate for six classes of the Fifth Gymnasium of the city of Odessa in the winter of 1915, 18-year-old Valentin Kataev volunteered for the front. He delivered correspondence and essays about the “trench” life of soldiers, full of sympathy for the ordinary person in the war. During the war, he was wounded twice, came under a gas attack twice, and was seriously poisoned. The famous Kataevsky hoarseness in his voice is the result of this poisoning.

From 1922 he lived and worked in Moscow.

During the Great Patriotic War, Kataev was a war correspondent for the newspapers Pravda and Krasnaya Zvezda. He witnessed fierce battles near Rzhev, on Kursk Bulge, near Orel. War correspondent Kataev wrote feuilletons, essays, stories (“Third Tank”, “Flag”, “Viaduct”, “ Our Father», story "Wife", 1943, plays "Father's House", "Blue Handkerchief").

The idea for the story “Son of the Regiment” began to form in Kataev in 1943, when he worked as a front-line correspondent and was constantly moving from one military unit to another. One day the writer noticed a boy dressed in a soldier’s uniform: the tunic, riding breeches and boots were real, but tailored specifically for the child. From a conversation with the commander, Kataev learned that the scouts found the boy - hungry, angry and wild - in the dugout. The child was taken to a unit where he settled in and became one of his own.

Later, the writer came across similar stories more than once: “I realized that this is not an isolated case, but a typical situation: soldiers warm up abandoned, street children, orphans who are lost or whose parents have died.”

Valentin Petrovich’s brother, Evgeniy, also a war correspondent, died while returning from besieged Sevastopol. Kataev dedicated the story “Son of the Regiment,” written before the Victory, in 1944, to him and his son Pavlik. The story was first published in the magazines “October” (1945, No. 1, 2) and “Friendly Guys” (1945, No. 1–8). Separate edition published in 1945 (“Detgiz”).

“I was a correspondent at the front and saw a lot,” he later explained to readers. “But for some reason I remember most of all the boys - destitute, beggars, gloomily walking along the roads of war. That's why I wrote "Son of the Regiment."

There were many boys similar to the hero of the story, Vanya Solntsev. These guys were actually taken in by military units. The boys received military awards, some later studied at military schools. "This is a glorious path for many"– It was not for nothing that Kataev chose this line from N. A. Nekrasov’s poem as the epigraph to his work.

For this book, which tells the story of the fate of an orphan boy adopted by a military regiment, he received the Stalin Prize in 1946.

The most common misconception is associated with “Son of the Regiment”. Vanya Solntsev never existed. This is a collective image. Kataev - the first in Soviet literature– I decided to talk about the war through the perception of a child.

After the release of “Son of the Regiment,” the theme “War and Children” began to be developed quite actively: the pioneer heroes gained all-Union fame; Lev Kassil and Max Polyanovsky wrote the story “Street of the Youngest Son.”

The story “Son of the Regiment” tells about the fate of a simple peasant boy, Vanya Solntsev, from whom the war took everything: family and friends, home and childhood itself. Together with him you will go through many trials and experience the joy of exploits in the name of victory over the enemy. But feat is not just courage and heroism, but also great work, iron discipline, inflexibility of will and great love for the Motherland.

The image of Vanya Solntsev is charming because, having become a real soldier, the hero has not lost his childhood. In this sense, the dialogue between Vanya and the boy adopted by soldiers from another unit is indicative. Relationships change before our eyes: starting with a teenage argument about whose forest this is, they end with Vanya’s envy of the “war boy” medal and bitter resentment towards the scouts: “So I didn’t show up to them.”

Quote from Valentin Kataev’s story “Son of the Regiment”:

“... – What’s wrong with your boy? How is he feeling? Tell us.

Captain Enakiev did not say “report”, but “tell.” And in this Sergeant Yegorov, always very sensitive to all shades of subordination, sensed permission to speak in a family manner. His tired eyes, reddened after several sleepless nights, smiled openly and clearly, although his mouth and eyebrows continued to remain serious.

“It’s a well-known fact, comrade captain,” said Yegorov. - My father died at the front in the first days of the war. The village was occupied by the Germans. She wanted to give the cow to her mother. Mothers were killed. My grandmother and little sister died of hunger. I was left alone. Then the village was burned down. I went with my bag to collect the pieces. Somewhere on the road he was caught by field gendarmes. They forcibly sent him to some terrible children's detention center. There, of course, he contracted scab, caught scabies, suffered from typhus - he almost died, but managed to survive somehow. Then he ran away. For almost two years, I wandered around, hid in the forests, and still wanted to cross the front. The front was far away then. He became completely wild, overgrown with hair. He became angry. A real wolf cub. I constantly carried a sharpened nail with me in my bag. He invented such a weapon for himself. I definitely wanted to kill some Fritz with this nail. We also found an ABC book in his bag. Torn and battered. “Why do you need an ABC book?” we ask. “To unlearn how to read and write,” he says. Well what can you say!

- How old is he?

- He says twelve, thirteen. Although it looks like there’s no way to give it more than ten. Hungry, emaciated. All skin and bones.

“Yes,” said Captain Enakiev thoughtfully. - Twelve years old. Therefore, when all this began, he was not yet nine.

“I’ve been drinking since childhood,” Yegorov said, sighing...”

Director Georgy Kuznetsov filmed in 1981 Feature Film“Son of the Regiment” based on the story of the same name by Valentin Kataev.

In the fundStavropol Regional Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired named after V. Mayakovsky There are other books by Valentin Kataev:

Kataev, V.P. My Diamond Crown [Braille] / V.P. Kataev. – M.: Education, 1982. – 4 books. – From the ed.: M.: Sov. writer, 1979.

Kataev, V.P. A lonely sail turns white [Braille]: story / V.P. Kataev. – M.: Education, 1977. – 4 books. – From the ed.: M.: Det. literature, 1975.

Kataev, V. P. Seven-flowered flower [Braille] / V. P. Kataev. – M.: “Repro”, 2009. – 1 book. – From the ed.: M.: Det. literature, 1967.

Talking books on cassettes

Kataev, V. P. A lonely sail turns white [Sound recording]: story / V. P. Kataev; dict. I. Ilyin. – M.: “Logos” VOS, 2010. – 3 mfk., (10 hours 58 minutes): 2.38 cm/s, 4 extra. – From the ed.: M.: Onyx, 2000.

Kataev, V. P. Son of the Regiment [Sound recording]: story / V. P. Kataev. – Stavropol: Stavrop. edges b-ka for the blind and visually impaired. V. Mayakovsky, 2005. – 2 mfk., (5 hours 6 min.): 2.38 cm/s, 4 additional. – From the ed.: M.: Det. literature, 1974.

Kataev, V. P. Grass of oblivion [Sound recording] / V. P. Kataev; dict. V. Gerasimov. – M.: “Logos” VOS, 2010. – 3 mfk., (8 hours 44 min.): 2.38 cm/s, 4 additional. – From the ed.: M.: Det. literature, 1967.

Kataev, V. P. Seven-flowered flower [Sound recording]. – St. Petersburg. : “Vira-M”, 2002. – 1 mfk., (1 hour): 4.76 cm/s, 2 additional. – From the ed.: M.: Radio Russia, 1989.

Scout, MCat78
"Son of the Regiment": "Children's Literature"; Moscow; 1981
annotation
A story about a boy who was orphaned during the Great Patriotic War and became the son of a regiment.
Valentin Petrovich Kataev.
Son of the regiment.
Dedicated to Zhenya and Pavlik Kataev
This is the path of many glorious ones.
Nekrasov

Valentin Petrovich Kataev wrote his story “Son of the Regiment” in 1944, during the days of the Great Patriotic War of our people against the fascist invaders. More than thirty years have passed since then. We remember our great victory with pride.
The war brought our country a lot of grief, troubles and misfortunes. She destroyed hundreds of cities and sows. She destroyed millions of people. She deprived thousands of children of their fathers and mothers. But the Soviet people won this war. He won because he was completely devoted to his homeland. He won because he showed a lot of endurance, courage and bravery. He won because he could not help but win: it was a just war for happiness and peace on earth.
The story “Son of the Regiment” will take you, young reader, back to the difficult but heroic events of the war years, which you know about only from textbooks and the stories of your elders. She will help you see these events as if with your own eyes.
You will learn about the fate of a simple peasant boy, Vanya Solntsev, from whom the war took everything: family and friends, home and childhood itself. Together with him you will go through many trials and experience the joy of exploits in the name of victory over the enemy. You will meet wonderful people - soldiers of our army, Sergeant Egorov and Captain Enakiev, gunner Kovalev and Corporal Bidenko, who not only helped Vanya become a brave intelligence officer, but also brought up in him the best qualities of a real Soviet man. And, after reading the story, you, of course, will understand that a feat is not just courage and heroism, but also great work, iron discipline, inflexibility of will and great love for the Motherland.
The story “Son of the Regiment” was written by a great Soviet artist, a wonderful master of words. You will read it with interest and excitement, because it is a truthful, fascinating and vivid book.
The works of Valentin Petrovich Kataev are known and loved by millions of readers. You probably also know his books “The Lonely Sail Whitens”, “I am the Son of the Working People”, “A Farm in the Steppe”, “For the Power of the Soviets”... And if you don’t know, then you will definitely meet them - it will be a good and joyful meeting.
The books of V. Kataev will tell you about the glorious revolutionary deeds of our people, about the heroic youth of your fathers and mothers, and will teach you to love our beautiful Motherland - the Land of the Soviets - even more.
Sergey Baruzdin
1

It was the middle of a dead autumn night. It was very damp and cold in the forest. A thick fog rose from the black forest swamps, littered with small brown leaves.
The moon was overhead. It shone very strongly, but its light barely penetrated the fog. The moonlight stood near the trees in long, slanting ledges, in which, magically changing, strands of swamp vapors floated.
The forest was mixed. Now, in the strip of moonlight, an impenetrably black silhouette of a huge spruce tree appeared, looking like a multi-story tower; then suddenly a white colonnade of birches appeared in the distance; then in the clearing, against the background of the white, moonlit sky, which had fallen into pieces like curdled milk, bare aspen branches were subtly depicted, sadly surrounded by a rainbow glow.
And everywhere, where the forest was thinner, white canvases of moonlight lay on the ground.
In general, it was beautiful with that ancient, wondrous beauty that always says so much to the Russian heart and makes the imagination draw fabulous pictures: a gray wolf carrying Ivan Tsarevich in a small cap on one side and with a Firebird feather in a scarf in his bosom, huge mossy the paws of a devil, a hut on chicken legs - you never know what else!
But least of all in this dark, dead hour, three soldiers returning from reconnaissance thought about the beauty of the Polesie thicket.
They spent more than a day behind German lines, carrying out a combat mission. And this task was to find and mark on the map the location of enemy structures.
The work was difficult and very dangerous. We crawled almost the entire time. Once I had to lie motionless for three hours in a row in a swamp - in cold, stinking mud, covered with raincoats, covered with yellow leaves on top.
We dined on crackers and cold tea from flasks.
But the hardest thing was that I never managed to smoke. And, as you know, it is easier for a soldier to do without food and without sleep than without taking a puff of good, strong tobacco. And, as luck would have it, all three soldiers were heavy smokers. So, although the combat mission was completed as well as possible and in the senior’s bag there was a map on which more than a dozen thoroughly explored German batteries were marked with great accuracy, the scouts felt irritated and angry.
The closer it was to its leading edge, the more I wanted to smoke. In such cases, as you know, a strong word or a funny joke helps a lot. But the situation demanded complete silence. It was impossible not only to exchange a word, but even to blow your nose or cough: every sound was heard unusually loudly in the forest.
The moon also got in the way. We had to walk very slowly, in single file, about thirteen meters apart from each other, trying not to fall into the streaks of moonlight, and stop and listen every five steps.
The elder walked ahead, giving the command with a careful movement of his hand: raise his hand above his head - everyone immediately stopped and froze; stretches his arm to the side with an inclination towards the ground - everyone at the same second quickly and silently lay down; waves his hand forward - everyone moved forward; will show back - everyone slowly backed away.
Although no more than two kilometers remained to the front line, the scouts continued to walk as carefully and prudently as before. Perhaps now they walked even more carefully, stopping more often.
They had entered the most dangerous part of their journey.
Yesterday evening, when they went out on reconnaissance, there were still deep German rear areas here. But the situation has changed. In the afternoon, after the battle, the Germans retreated. And now here, in this forest, it was apparently empty. But it could only seem so. It is possible that the Germans left their machine gunners here. Every minute you could run into an ambush. Of course, the scouts - although there were only three of them - were not afraid of an ambush. They were careful, experienced and ready to take on a fight at any moment. Each had a machine gun, a lot of ammunition and four hand grenades. But the fact of the matter is that there was no way to accept the fight. The task was to go over to your side as quietly and unnoticed as possible and quickly deliver to the commander of the control platoon a precious map with spotted German batteries. The success of tomorrow's battle largely depended on this. Everything around was unusually quiet. It was a rare moment of calm. Apart from a few distant cannon shots and a short machine-gun burst somewhere to the side, one would think that there was no war in the world.
However, an experienced soldier would have immediately noticed thousands of signs that it was here, in this quiet, remote place, that war was lurking.
The red telephone cord, slipping imperceptibly under my foot, indicated that somewhere nearby was an enemy command post or outpost. Several broken aspens and dented bushes left no doubt that a tank or self-propelled gun had recently passed through here, and the faint, not yet weathered, special, alien smell of artificial gasoline and hot oil showed that this tank or self-propelled gun was German.
In some places, carefully lined spruce branches, stood like woodpiles of firewood, stacks of mines or artillery shells. But since it was not known whether they were abandoned or specially prepared for tomorrow’s battle, it was necessary to move past these stacks with special caution.
Occasionally the road was blocked by the trunk of a hundred-year-old pine tree broken by a shell. Sometimes the scouts came across a deep, winding passage of communication or a solid commander's dugout, six steps deep, with a door facing west. And this door, facing west, eloquently said that the dugout was German, not ours. But whether it was empty or whether there was someone in it was unknown.
Often the foot stepped on an abandoned gas mask, on a German helmet crushed by the explosion.
In one place in a clearing, illuminated by smoky moonlight, the scouts saw a huge crater from an aerial bomb among the trees scattered in all directions. In this crater lay several German corpses with yellow faces and blue eyes.
A flare took off once; it hung for a long time above the treetops, and its floating blue light, mixed with the smoky light of the moon, completely illuminated the forest. Each tree cast a long, sharp shadow, and it looked as if the forest around was on stilts. And until the rocket went out, three soldiers stood motionless among the bushes, looking like half-leafed bushes in their spotted, yellow-green raincoats, from under which machine guns protruded. So the scouts slowly moved towards their location.
Suddenly the elder stopped and raised his hand. At the same moment, the others also stopped, not taking their eyes off their commander. The elder stood for a long time, throwing his hood back from his head and turning his ear slightly in the direction from which he thought he heard a suspicious rustling sound. The eldest was a young man of about twenty-two. Despite his youth, he was already considered a seasoned soldier at the battery. He was a sergeant. His comrades loved him and at the same time were afraid of him.
The sound that attracted the attention of Sergeant Egorov - that was the surname of the senior - seemed very strange. Despite all his experience, Egorov could not understand its character and significance.
"What could it be?" - thought Yegorov, straining his ears and quickly turning over in his mind all the suspicious sounds that he had ever heard during night reconnaissance.
"Whisper! No. The cautious rustle of a shovel? No. File squealing? No".
A strange, quiet, intermittent sound unlike anything was heard somewhere very close, to the right, behind a juniper bush. It seemed like the sound was coming from somewhere underground.
After listening for another minute or two, Egorov, without turning around, gave a sign, and both scouts slowly and silently, like shadows, approached him closely. He pointed with his hand in the direction where the sound was coming from and motioned to listen. The scouts began to listen.
- Do you hear? - Yegorov asked with his lips alone.
“Hear,” one of the soldiers answered just as silently.
Egorov turned his thin body towards his comrades dark face, sadly illuminated by the moon. He raised his boyish eyebrows high.
- What?
- I don’t understand.
For some time the three of them stood and listened, putting their fingers on the triggers of their machine guns. The sounds continued and were just as incomprehensible. For one moment they suddenly changed their character. All three thought they heard singing coming out of the ground. They looked at each other. But immediately the sounds became the same.
Then Egorov gave the sign to lie down and lay down on his stomach on the leaves, already gray with frost. He took the dagger into his mouth and crawled, silently pulling himself up on his elbows, on his belly.
A minute later he disappeared behind a dark juniper bush, and after another minute, which seemed long, like an hour, the scouts heard a thin whistling. It meant that Egorov was calling them to him. They crawled and soon saw the sergeant, who was kneeling, looking into a small trench hidden among the junipers.
From the trench one could clearly hear muttering, sobbing, and sleepy moans. Without words, understanding each other, the scouts surrounded the trench and stretched out the ends of their raincoats with their hands so that they formed something like a tent that did not let in the light. Egorov lowered his hand with an electric flashlight into the trench.
The picture they saw was simple and at the same time terrible.
A boy was sleeping in the trench.
With his hands clenched on his chest, his bare feet, dark as potatoes, his legs tucked in, the boy lay in a green, stinking puddle and was heavily delirious in his sleep. His bare head, overgrown with long-uncut, dirty hair, was awkwardly thrown back. The thin throat trembled. Hoarse sighs flew out of a sunken mouth with fever-swept, inflamed lips. There was muttering, fragments of unintelligible words, and sobbing. Protruding eyelids closed eyes were of an unhealthy, anemic color. They seemed almost blue, like skim milk. Short but thick eyelashes stuck together in arrows. The face was covered with scratches and bruises. A clot of dried blood was visible on the bridge of the nose.
The boy was sleeping, and reflections of the nightmares that haunted the boy in his sleep ran convulsively across his exhausted face. Every minute his face changed expression. Then it froze in horror; then inhuman despair distorted him; then sharp, deep features of hopeless grief erupted around his sunken mouth, his eyebrows rose like a house and tears rolled from his eyelashes; then suddenly the teeth began to grind furiously, the face became angry, merciless, the fists clenched with such force that the nails dug into the palms, and dull, hoarse sounds flew out of the tense throat. And then suddenly the boy would fall into unconsciousness, smile with a pitiful, completely childish and childishly helpless smile and begin to very weakly, barely audibly sing some kind of unintelligible song.
The boy's sleep was so heavy, so deep, his soul, wandering through the torments of dreams, was so far from his body that for some time he did not feel anything: neither the gaze of the scouts looking at him from above, nor bright light an electric flashlight, point-blank illuminating his face.
But suddenly the boy seemed to be hit from the inside, thrown up. He woke up, jumped up, and sat down. His eyes flashed wildly. In an instant, he pulled out a large sharpened nail from somewhere. With a deft, precise movement, Egorov managed to grab the boy’s hot hand and cover his mouth with his palm.
- Quiet. “Ours,” Egorov said in a whisper.
Only now the boy noticed that the soldiers’ helmets were Russian, their machine guns were Russian, their raincoats were Russian, and the faces bending towards him were also Russian, family.
A joyful smile flashed palely on his exhausted face. He wanted to say something, but managed to utter only one word:
- Ours...
And he lost consciousness.
2
The battery commander, Captain Enakiev, was sitting on a small plank platform built on the top of a pine tree, between strong branches. The site was open on three sides. On the fourth side, on the western side, several thick sleepers were placed on it to protect against bullets. A stereo tube was screwed to the top sleeper. Several branches were tied to her horns, so that she herself looked like a horned branch.
In order to get to the site, it was necessary to climb two very long and narrow stairs. The first, rather flat, reached about half the tree. From here it was necessary to climb the second staircase, almost vertical.
In addition to Captain Enakiev, there were two telephone operators on the site - one infantry, the other artillery - with their leather telephone sets hung on a scaly pine trunk, and the head of the combat area, commander of the rifle battalion Akhunbaev, also a captain.
Since there are more on the site four people did not fit, then the remaining two artillerymen stood on the stairs.

In the fall, scouts walked through the forest and found Vanya Solntsev, who was sleeping in a trench. The boy was brought to an artillery battery, which was under the command of Captain Enakiev. Vanya’s parents died: her father died at the front, and her mother was shot by the Germans for refusing to give up a cow. His sister and grandmother died of starvation, and the boy was caught by gendarmes and taken to a children's detention center, from where he escaped two years later. Vanya Solntsev told the scouts that he was 12 years old, and he was walking towards ours through the front line. The boy reminded Captain Enakiev of his family who died in a plane crash, so he decided to send Vanya to the rear.

In the meantime, the foundling was fed and nicknamed a shepherd boy, and when he was informed about Enakiev’s decision, he was very upset. On the way to the children's detention center, Vanya escaped from Corporal Bidenko, first jumping out of the truck while moving, and when he was found on a tree and tied by the hand, he quietly tied the rope at night and disappeared again. Wanting to return to the battery, the boy came across the captain, and not knowing who he was talking to, complained about Enakiev’s unfair decision. So Vanya began to live with the scouts. One day Vanya was taken on a mission to scout out the area, but he wanted to make a mark, so he ran away and was caught by the Germans drawing a map. At this time, the offensive of the troops began, and the boy was hastily abandoned. Everyone loved Vanya, especially the captain, who saw him as a lost son, so he appointed him as a liaison in order to be able to raise him.

The division was preparing for battle, Yenakiev did not like the plans for the infantry, which were provided to them to help, since there was no Additional Information about enemy spare parts. Before the attack, the captain informed the old gunner Kovalev about his decision to adopt Vanya. It was not in vain that Enakiev was afraid; the Germans actually had a reserve, with the help of which they encircled an infantry division. The captain ordered his first platoon to go to the aid and later remembered that Vanya was there. Enakiev also took part in the battle.

When the Germans used tanks, the captain tried unsuccessfully to send the boy to the rear. Then Enakiev came up with an important task for Vanya - to take the envelope with the message to the division command post. During the boy's absence, the captain drew all the fire on himself, so he died along with all the soldiers of the first gun. Before his death, he wrote a note in which he said goodbye to his battery, asked to be buried in his homeland and take care of Van, making him a good soldier.

The captain's wish was fulfilled. After the funeral, Vanya Solntsev was taken to one city, where he studied at the Suvorov Military School.

1. About the product
2. Main characters
3. Other characters
4. Summary
5. Conclusion

About the product

Kataev’s story “Son of the Regiment” was written in 1944. In the book, for the first time in Soviet literature, the theme of war was revealed through the perception of a child - Vanya Solntsev, a twelve-year-old boy. For the story “Son of the Regiment” Kataev was awarded Stalin Prize II degree. The work is written within literary tradition socialist realism

Main characters

Vanya Solntsev- a 12-year-old boy, an orphan, who was found by scouts. He became the “son of the regiment”, and then was enrolled in the Suvorov Military School. The scouts gave him the nickname “shepherd boy.”

Captain Enakiev– a 32-year-old man, battery commander. He wanted to adopt Vanya, but was killed during the battle.

Corporal Bidenko- intelligence officer, before the war he was a Donbass miner, a “bony giant.” Together with Egorov and Gorbunov, they picked up Vanya in the forest.

Other characters

Corporal Gorbunov- scout, friend of Bidenko, “hero”, “Siberian”, before the war he was a Transbaikal lumberjack.

Sergeant Egorov– a 22-year-old man, a scout.

Chapter 1

Three scouts were returning on an autumn night through a damp, cold forest. Unexpectedly, they discovered a boy in a small trench, delirious in his sleep, muttering something. The child woke up and, jumping up sharply, snatched “from somewhere a large sharpened nail.” One of the scouts, Sergeant Yegorov, reassured him that they were “theirs.”

Chapter 2

Captain Enakiev, the commander of the artillery battery, “was brave,” but “at the same time he was cold, restrained, and calculating, as befits a good artilleryman.”

Chapter 3

The boy found by the scouts, Vanya Solntsev, was an orphan. His father died at the front, his mother was killed, his grandmother and sister died of hunger. The boy went to “pick up the pieces” and was caught by the gendarmes on the way. They put Vanya in a children's isolation ward, where he almost died from scabies and typhus, but soon escaped. Now he was trying to cross the front. He carried a sharpened nail and a tattered primer with him in his bag.

Vanya reminded Enakiev about his own family- mother, wife and seven-year-old son who died “in '41.”

Chapter 4

The scouts fed Vanya “an unusually tasty little baby.” The hungry boy ate greedily and with gusto. “For the first time in these three years, Vanya was among people who did not need to be feared.”

Bidenko and Gorbunov promised Vanya to enroll him “for all types of allowance” and train him in military affairs, but first they need to receive an order for enrollment from Captain Enakiev. However, contrary to the wishes of the intelligence officers, Egorov conveyed to Bidenko Enakiev’s order to send Vanya to the rear in an orphanage. The upset boy says that he will still run away along the road.

Chapter 5

Bidenko returned to the unit the next day late in the evening, gloomy and silent. At this time, the army, pursuing the enemy, advanced far to the west.

Chapter 6

Bidenko did not want to admit that Vanya ran away from him twice, but after questioning he still told him. The first time, the boy jumped out of the truck at a turn and hid in the forest. Bidenko would never have discovered Vanya if the primer had not fallen on the corporal - the boy fell asleep sitting on the top of the tree.

Chapter 7

To prevent Vanya from running away again, Bidenko tied a rope to his hand, the other end of which he wrapped around his fist. In the truck, the corporal periodically woke up and, pulling the rope, checked whether Vanya was still there. However, having slept a little more, the corporal discovered in the morning that the second end of the rope was tied to the boot of a female surgeon traveling with them. The boy ran away.

Chapter 8

Vanya, after wandering along military roads for a long time, came to headquarters. On the way, he met a “luxurious boy” in full marching uniform of the Guards Artillery - “the son of the regiment”, who served as a liaison under Major Voznesensky. It was this meeting that prompted Vanya to find the main commander and ask for help to return to the scouts.

Chapters 9 – 10

Vanya, not knowing Enakiev by sight, mistook him for an important commander. The boy began to complain to the captain that the strict Enakiev did not want to take him as a son of the regiment. The captain takes the boy with him to the scouts.

Chapter 11

The scouts were very happy about the boy's return.
“So Vanya’s fate turned out magically three times in such a short time.”

Chapter 12

Bidenko and Gorbunov took Vanya on reconnaissance without informing the commander that they were taking the boy with them as a guide - he knew this area well. Vanya had not yet been given a uniform, so in appearance he looked like a “real village shepherd.”

Chapter 13

The scouts sent Vanya ahead, but after a few hours only his horse returned. Gorbunov sent Bidenko to the unit to report what had happened.

The scouts did not know that while Vanya was finding out the way, he was simultaneously making sketches in the margins of the primer using a compass - trying to take a map of the area. The Germans caught him doing this, grabbed him and put him in a dark dugout.

Chapter 14

Vanya was interrogated by a German woman. Despite the fact that the drawings in the primer and the Russian compass were obvious evidence against the boy, he did not say anything.

Chapter 15

Vanya woke up in the dugout to the sounds of bombing. One of the bombs blew apart the doors of the dugout, and the boy saw that the Germans had retreated. Soon Russian troops appeared.

Chapters 16 – 17

After what happened, Vanya was given a haircut, taken to the bathhouse, given new uniforms and “put on full pay.”

Chapter 18

“Vanya had the lucky ability to please people at first sight.” “Captain Enakiev, like his soldiers, fell in love with the boy at first sight.” Having learned about the mission in which Vanya participated, Enakiev became very angry with the scouts who loved the boy too “fun”.

The captain called the boy to his place and appointed him as a messenger.

Chapters 19. – 20

From that day on, Vanya began to live mainly with Enakiev. The captain wanted to personally raise the boy. Enakiev “assigned Vanya to the first gun of the first platoon as a reserve number” so that he could learn “to gradually perform the duties of all gun crew numbers.” “In the first days, the boy really missed his scout friends. At first it seemed to him that he had lost family of origin. But he soon saw that his new family was no worse than the old one.”

Chapters 21. – 22

Talking with gunner Kovalev about Vanya, Enakiev shares his plans that he would like to adopt the boy.

Suddenly the Germans began to advance. The enemy surrounded the infantry units.

Chapter 23

“Captain Enakiev ordered by telephone the first platoon of his battery to immediately remove itself from its position and, without wasting a second, move forward.” “He ordered the second platoon to shoot all the time, covering the open flanks of Captain Akhunbaev’s strike company.”

Chapter 24

While in the first platoon, Vanya helped the soldiers as best he could. At the height of the battle, Enakiev noticed the boy and ordered him to return back to the battery. Vanya refused. Realizing that it was useless to argue with the boy, the captain wrote something on a piece of paper and asked Vanya to deliver the package to the headquarters commander.

Chapter 25

When Vanya returned back, the battle was already over. The boy did not know that having fired all the cartridges, the soldiers fought the Germans with shovels and bayonets, and then Enakiev “called the battery fire on himself.” Vanya walked across the battlefield, and finally saw the killed Enakiev on the cannon carriage.

Bidenko approached the boy. “It was as if something had turned and opened in Vanya’s soul.” He hugged Bidenko and cried.

Chapter 26

In Enakiev’s pocket they found a note in which the commander said goodbye to his battery, asked to be buried on his “native, Soviet soil,” and to take care of Vanya’s fate. Soon, Bidenko, at the direction of the artillery regiment commander, took Vanya to the Suvorov Military School. The scouts gave him food, soap and shoulder straps of Captain Enakiev, wrapped in the Suvorov Onslaught newspaper.

Chapter 27

On his first night at the school, Vanya dreamed of running up the marble stairs, “surrounded by cannons, drums and pipes.” It was difficult for him to climb, but a gray-haired old man with a diamond star on his chest led him up the steps, saying: “Go, shepherd boy... Walk boldly!” .

Conclusion

In the story “Son of the Regiment,” Kataev describes the story of a simple peasant boy, Vanya Solntsev, from whom the war took away native home and family. However, difficult trials only strengthened Vanya’s spirit, and among the soldiers he finds his second family. The author shows the boy's courage, courage and endurance even in the most difficult situations.

The story “Son of the Regiment” was filmed twice and also staged at the theater young viewer in Leningrad.

Summary of “Son of the Regiment” |