Valentine
Ramzaeva

Valentina Aleksandrovna RAMZAEVA (1968) - teacher of literature at secondary school No. 101 in Samara.

The novel by Georgy Vladimov "The General and His Army"

Extracurricular reading lesson in 11th grade

In all federal programs, the study of Russian literature in the 11th grade ends with a review of the works of the last decades. This review is prepared in previous grades through the organization of independent reading by students of the best works of modern literature, which are then discussed in extra-curricular reading lessons, optional classes, mastered through the organization of exhibitions, holding competitions for the best review, annotation, in the course of disputes.

But what kind of works of modern literature to select for introduction into the reading circle of high school students, each teacher decides in his own way, according to his views on the artistic significance of a particular text. The programs are limited to only the most general recommendations. Meanwhile, it is difficult for the teacher to orient himself in the modern literary process, in which the works of already well-known writers of the 70s-80s - Yu. Bondarev, V. Rasputin, V. Belov, V. Astafiev - coexist with the works of B. Ekimov, V. Makanin , L. Petrushevskaya, T. Tolstoy and only the texts of A. Utkin, A. Varlamov, A. Volos, D. Bakin, S. Vasilenko, which are only entering the reader's mind, are very different in their artistic level.

It seems to us that for a teacher, the main criteria for selecting texts for an overview study of the modern literary process should be aesthetic and social significance, as well as adherence to the traditions of Russian classical literature.

In the final review, it is permissible to introduce controversial works that have not yet entered the canon of Russian literature, but have a modern sound and are of general interest. We consider the novel by G.Vladimov "The General and His Army" to be such a work. This novel immediately aroused a wide response from criticism, contradictory reviews and keen interest of readers.

We meet extremely contradictory assessments of the work. On the one hand, the author is accused of slandering the Soviet people, the Soviet army, especially its commanding staff (V. Bogomolov. "Shame on the living, the dead, and Russia"), the artistic merit of the work is denied (Viach. Kuritsyn. "Military a patriotic novel in three versions "), the violation of historical accuracy in the novel is criticized (Yu. Shcheglov." Fear, which must be fought "). On the other hand, the artistic and social significance of the work is recognized (N. Ivanova. "Smoke of the Fatherland", L. Anninsky. "To save Russia at the cost of Russia ...", P. Basinsky. "The Writer and His Words"). V. Kardin ("Passions and Addictions") and M. Nekhoroshev ("The General is played by the retinue") actively defend the author from accusations of slander. The highest praise for the novel, up to the epithet “great”, was given by A. Nemzer in the article “To whom is memory, to whom glory, to whom is dark water”.

But in one thing the critics are unanimous: everyone notes the paratextual connection between the work of G. Vladimir and the novel of L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace". It can be traced not only through allusions and reminiscences, but also through direct quotation, as well as the use of some of L.N. Tolstoy. We propose to consider them in the lesson of extracurricular reading based on the novel by G.Vladimov "The General and His Army", namely: comparison and opposition of heroes and their actions, "tearing off all and all kinds of masks", the use of an internal monologue (psychologism of narration), shifting the action from the commander of the Russian army to the commander of the enemy army.

G.Vladimov himself took part in the dispute that flared up around the novel. In his articles - "New investigation, old verdict" 10, "When I massaged the competence. Answer to V. Bogomolov "11 - the author defended the right to convention as an artistic device for depicting historical events.

In this regard, reflecting further on the genre nature of the work, let us take into account the version of the critic O. Davydov (“Between Predslavl and Myryatin”). The author of the article argues that “a text should be called a historical novel in which<…>the author, with his psychological problems, prejudices and prejudices, with his personal fate and biography, is absent, absorbed in the historical material with which the writer, and after him the reader, is dealing ”12. Vladimov really views the war from an unusual perspective of the "general's truth", his work definitely cannot be called historical. The novel is rather philosophical. These are reflections on the fate of Russia, on the “white spots” of our history, on the mysteriousness of the Russian soul, on our paradoxical tolerance in the big and intolerance in the small.

G.Vladimov does not give ready-made answers, he only makes us think about our common past in order to avoid mistakes in the future. Is it possible with students in class to talk about such controversial issues as the historical role of General Vlasov and the Vlasovites, the price of the victory of the Soviet people over fascism; about the "pretty" German commander Guderian? It is possible and necessary. Students should be helped to understand the complex content of the novel and the problems raised by the author.

At present, the historical role of General Andrei Vlasov is of serious interest to historians. There were several works about him, two of which I would like to recommend to the teacher 13. These articles can help in an objective assessment of the novel image. What can we learn from them about General Vlasov? He was one of the defenders of Moscow and in 1941 dealt a decisive blow to the Germans with the forces of his 20th Army. He was considered a favorite of Stalin and was sent by him to the most important sector of the front near Leningrad in order to prevent the blockade of the city. Fighting with superior enemy forces, Vlasov's army was defeated and was surrounded; most of it died. The general himself hid in the woods for two weeks, but was discovered by the Germans and made a difficult decision for himself to surrender. After that, he, with the support of the Wehrmacht, is trying to unite under the banners of the so-called Russian Liberation Army (ROA) all the soldiers and officers who have gone over to the side of the enemy. The German command, interested in organizing a “civil war within the Patriotic War,” used the idea of ​​creating a ROA for their propaganda purposes. Vlasov never put on a fascist uniform, defending the exclusiveness of his mission - the role of the liberator of Russia from the "gray plague of Bolshevism." After the war, he was brought to Moscow and executed by order of Stalin.

We must say with certainty that a general who has sworn allegiance to the Motherland has no right to political bias. Vlasov, who directed his weapon against his people, who defended independence at an incredibly heavy cost, is considered a traitor and cannot be acquitted at the trial of history.

In the novel "The General and His Army" we meet with Vlasov once - on the eve of the decisive blow of the 20th Army near Moscow. His further fate remains outside the scope of the narrative. Contemporary critics are of the opinion that the main character of the novel, General Kobrisov, is “Vladimov's reconstruction of the fate of Vlasov, who did not go over to the side of the Nazis” 14. One cannot agree with this in any way.

Kobrisov is a patriot, he refuses to fight against his people, even against soldiers who have gone over to the side of the enemy. He does not want to “pay for Russia with Russia”, he is equally alien to both the belief in his chosenness and the blind adherence to high ideas that justify the mass death of people. The general understands the need to maintain command and follow orders as a condition for overall success. Consequently, it is impossible to talk about any closeness between him and Vlasov.

Fotiy Ivanovich Kobrisov is a “quiet commander”, not treated kindly by the authorities, they have a reputation for an indecisive person, but he is one of those who fight not by number, but by skill. Thoroughly thinks out tactical moves and weighs all the facts for a long time before serious operations - he protects his people. In difficult times, he is able to take on a lot of responsibility, as has already happened, for example, in the first days of the war, when the high command was in a state of confusion, general panic was felt, he managed to gather and withdraw his army from the encirclement in a combat state, kept people and tools.

Possessing talent and intuition, the general correctly chose the place for crossing the Dnieper and seized the Myryatinsky bridgehead, thereby opening the way to Predslavl (Kiev). However, at this moment of his general's luck, he was rudely and overbearingly removed from the course of the operation and sent to Moscow, to Headquarters. According to the Supreme High Command, General Tereshchenko, a Ukrainian by nationality, should have taken Predslavl, and not previously repressed Kobrisov, who also refused to enter the city of Myryatin: Russian prisoners of war, dressed in German uniform, held the defense there.

Accompanied by his retinue, the general travels to Moscow and, almost at the entrance to it, during a short stop on the radio, he hears an order about his promotion and conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union - for the capture of the city of Myryatin. Kobrisov becomes bitter and joyful at this news. “Three of his companions stood at attention, not knowing what to do with themselves; meanwhile, they were already paying attention to them - soldiers who had left their anti-aircraft guns were approaching, women were timidly approaching from the gardens, sticking their shovels into the ground, the drivers passing by slowed down - and everyone watched as the overweight, well-sized general danced around the spread tablecloth with drinks and snacks … ”15 The scene with the dancing general, according to many critics, is one of the strongest in the novel. Without arriving at Headquarters, he unfolds his Jeep and drives back to the front, but an artillery shell, accidental (or deliberate?), Hits his car. The companions die, and the “charmed”, miraculously surviving general will never again join his army.

An equally difficult question posed by the author: how to relate to the question of the price paid by the Soviet people for the victory over Nazi Germany? The novel deals with the so-called “four-layer tactics”. This is how Kobrisov refers to himself as a way of taking the milestone at any cost: “… Three layers lie down and fill the irregularities of the earth's crust, the fourth one crawls along them to victory. The usual consideration also entered that since so much effort had already been spent, it was impossible to retreat, and it could happen that the last abandoned battalion would snatch victory ”(p. 144). This is how the hero of Vladimov's novel, Major General Tereshchenko, is fighting on the Sibezh bridgehead. With the ability to fearlessly drive men younger than himself into battle and hold the army in his hands, without a miss and with one blow with his sharp fist breaking the noses and lips of his subordinates ... ”(p. 143).

Of course, “four-layer tactics” is unacceptable, it is worth thinking about it, but are there wars without casualties? Do we have the right to reproach those who won the Great Patriotic War for anything? Were all the commanders like General Tereshchenko? We can confidently answer these questions in the negative.

Finally, about the image of Guderian. Can this German general be considered a positive hero? No. He is shown at one of the turning points of the war - during the battle for Moscow. Being in the estate of L.N. Tolstoy - Yasnaya Polyana, the German commander decides on the first major retreat of his army. On the eve, Guderian rereads some lines of the novel "War and Peace" and tries to understand how the enemy, “having lost half of the troops, stood as menacingly at the end as at the beginning of the battle ”, explain to himself the mystery of the Russian soul and why Natasha Rostova throws her goods from the carts and gives them to the wounded.

Vladimov directly speaks about his attitude towards Guderian in the article “When I massaged the competence…”: “… But how can I sympathize with the German general, who expelled me with his tanks forever from my native Kharkov? I am only against lying about him ”16. Guderian is not at all a positive hero, although he was indeed a talented commander and the soldiers loved him. Vladimov showed this well. At the same time, the German general is proud and ambitious, he likes flattery in his address - “the Fuhrer's praises are spinning”.

Guderian was and will remain an invader, a stranger. This is emphasized by the author in the Oryol scene. Hundreds of corpses were found in the cells and basements of the city prison - the prisoners were shot the day before the city was surrendered to the Germans. Guderian ordered to lay them out in rows in the prison yard and open the gates for the whole city - he wanted to once again emphasize the brutality of the Bolshevik regime. But it was a complete surprise that the relatives and friends of the killed looked at the German “with fear and anger, as if he was involved in this” (pp. 100-101). "Why is your flock looking at me like that?" - Guderian addressed the question to the Russian priest who was there. The answer struck him: “... But this is our pain ... ours and no one else's. You touch other people's wounds with your fingers and ask: “Why does this hurt? How dare to get sick? " But you cannot heal, and the pain from your touches only intensifies, and the wounds that are being looked at do not heal longer. ”

Not only the problematic and thematic aspect of the analysis of the novel can cause difficulties for schoolchildren, but also the comprehension of the composition. At first glance, it seems complicated, even somewhat chaotic, but gradually, from page to page, we begin to understand the logic of the author's intention. It is no coincidence that the beginning of the novel is dedicated to the "king of the roads" - "jeep". It is this car, driving from the west (from the Dnieper and the city of Predslavl) to the east (to Poklonnaya Gora near Moscow) and back from east to west, “connects” many individual scenes, episodes, author's reflections into a single whole - a novel about General Kobrisov. The artistic space at the beginning of the piece is limited to the four seats of this general's car. We hardly see whom the general summoned to Headquarters meets on his way, what his driver Sirotin, adjutant Donskoy and orderly Shesterikov see from the car window. We do not hear their conversations among ourselves: everyone is busy with their own thoughts. These thoughts - about the most painful, about the most important - flow, crowded, intertwined; born of many memories, supplemented by documentary facts and author's digressions, they make up the artistic canvas of the novel. This is probably why the plot structure seems chaotic at first. Sometimes the associative connection between the thoughts of the characters and the composition itself seems elusive, but more often it is logical. For example, General Kobrisov drives through Olkhovka (Chapter 5, Part I). Offended that Marshal Vatutin did not stop him to say goodbye, the hero recalls here many of his other grievances: illegal arrest, humiliation during interrogations, an order to disarm the army he had withdrawn from the encirclement and saved.

The orderly Shesterikov dreams of a dacha in Aprelevka, where in the post-war period he would like to continue serving with his general, and his thoughts come to him about whether he is honestly serving today. After all, he did not tell Kobrisov that Major Svetlookov tried to recruit him. I was going - but did not say. This is where the portrayal of the recruitment scene itself becomes relevant. Despite the fact that a similar conversation between Svetlookov and Sirotin and Donskoy was given a long time ago - at the very beginning of the novel.

But the action of the novel does not disintegrate into separate memories. There is something that holds them together, uniting them into a single whole - the author's intention, it is he who ensures “the correctness of plot structures” and the fact that “everything is built firmly and gracefully” 17. The sequence in which the author allows us to look into the inner world of each of the general's retinue is also not accidental. It is not connected with the military bureaucratic hierarchy, nor is it based on the author's open assessment. The point here is the degree of “self-aloofness” of each of this retinue from his immediate superior. First, we read the thoughts of those who can be attributed to people completely alien to Kobrisov in spirit - his driver Sirotin and adjutant Donskoy. As if in order to quickly understand them and immediately remove them from the reader's interest.

If Sirotin is frankly burdened by the service of Kobrisov, he constantly thinks that he was not his first driver (all the previous ones were killed), that “he will not last a war with this general,” then the reader gets to know him briefly, only tangentially. During the recruitment, Sirotin betrays Kobrisov immediately and without remorse.

The adjutant Donskoy, who, according to his own opinion, “sat up” in the majors, is also far from any closeness to Kobrisov. Being an extremely ambitious man with careeristic aspirations, he looks down on his general, not allowing even the thought of a deep mind and rich inner world of the latter. A deliberately reduced description of Kobrisov's appearance ("burkala eyes", "charming boar grace with a certain degree of imposingness") is given precisely through the perception of the adjutant. It seems to us that he is more interesting to the author for his desire to resemble Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, the constant "self-comparison" with whom becomes an obsessive need for Donskoy. Otherwise, his image is quite typical. In it, it seems to us, there is more from Boris Drubetsky than from Bolkonsky, and the author does not imply a thorough outline of the character of the adjutant.

On the contrary, the orderly Shesterikov, whose surname comes from the Russian word "six", is close to General Kobrisov and is interesting to the author. Vladimov himself writes about this: “Look in the dictionary - this is a sack with a weight of 6 pounds, this is a train of horses in three pairs ... in past wars, they used to carry heavy weapons. If you look for symbolism, it is more likely in the character's six-core, in the ability to do different kinds of work, to endure hardships. There is no humiliation of soldier's dignity in this surname ”18. Many pages are devoted to the thoughts and memories of the soldier in the novel. This hero combines many of the best qualities of a Russian person: courage and sacrifice, the ability to live with dignity in the most difficult circumstances, diligence and dedication, worldly wisdom. Shesterikov had already saved Kobrisov from death once, he was leaving him in the hospital. Any general would have dreamed of having such an orderly.

Finally, the most interesting hero can be safely called General Kobrisov himself. Not only is most of the novel devoted to him, all the leading themes and problems of the work are considered directly through this image. Vladimov writes about him very convincingly, and this hero gradually becomes dear to the reader. All his grievances are made understandable and understandable: for mistrust and dismissal, recruiting by SMERSH bodies of his closest circle, disregard of talent and former merits, for outright humiliation in a prison cell just before the war, when he was arrested. But these grievances are not significant for understanding the inner world and explaining the actions of the general. Kobrisov's thoughts are about Russia, about the long-suffering homeland and dearly won victories, about the ambition and ambitions of his comrades-in-arms - the army commanders, about the split in society and the reasons for the transition of Russian soldiers to the side of the enemy. In moments of such reflections, the main character is like no other close to the author, inviting the modern reader to conversation, dialogue, polemics.

Following the traditions of Russian realism, and most of all relying on the novel by L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace", G.Vladimov seeks to say his word about the Great Patriotic War. He leads the reader to reflection, fills in the gaps in our domestic prose where it is not about the "lieutenant" and "trench", but about the "general" truth. Here the writer just uses a special artistic technique - a paratextual connection with the epic of L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace". This connection will help the teacher not only consider the novel "The General and His Army" in line with the traditions of Russian classics, but also better understand the position of the modern writer. Thus, we set ourselves the task: to try, together with the guys, to “rethink” the traditions of L. Tolstoy, looking at them through the prism of G. Vladimov’s novel. This goal will be central to the 11th grade extracurricular reading lesson.

During the classes

I. Introductory speech of the teacher

Georgy Nikolaevich Vladimov (Volosevich) was born on February 19, 1931, into a family of teachers. He himself did not belong to the generation of front-line soldiers, but the war remained in his memory forever: the family had to evacuate from Kharkov during the offensive of the fascist troops. Graduated from the Suvorov Military School. It is known that his mother was convicted under Article 58 and sent to labor camps during the years of repression. He himself graduated from the law faculty of Leningrad University in 1953, but literally a year later, in 1954, he began to publish as a literary critic; I also had to work as a loader in the Leningrad port.

In 1961, the magazine "Novy Mir" published the first story "Bolshaya Ruda" by Vladimov, which was subsequently well received by readers and critics. If the first published work only outlined a conflict between the author's desire for artistic truth and the norms and concepts established in Soviet literature, then the next - the novel Three Minutes of Silence (1969) - was not accepted by criticism because of the unvarnished truth of life that emerges here. Instead of a typical depiction of “heroes-workers”, the author conveyed the idea of ​​spiritual ill-being that prevails in modern society. Written at the same time and disseminated for censorship reasons in “samizdat”, the story “Faithful Ruslan (The History of a Guard Dog)” was published in his homeland only in 1989. By this time, Vladimov had already been forced to leave the country, having asked for political asylum in Germany - his relations with the Writers' Union and with the authorities were completely ruined. During a trip, at the invitation of employees of the University of Cologne, the writer was deprived of his Soviet citizenship and place of residence (his apartment was confiscated). After settling in the city of Niedernhausen, he worked for some time as editor-in-chief of the magazine Grani, but later left this post due to disagreement with the policy of the leadership. In Germany, Vladimov finished work on the novel The General and His Army, which had begun in Russia. This novel was published in the Znamya magazine (1994, no. 4–5) and received the prestigious now Booker Prize.

The teacher can find these and other materials on the biography of the writer in the articles of A.S. Karpov (Russian writers, XX century // Biobibliogr. Words: 2 hours Part 1. A – L / Ed. By N. N. Skatov. M .: Education, 1998. P. 300–302), V .Kardina (Passions and addictions // Banner. 1995. No. 9), interview with Y. Chuprinina, published in "Obshchaya Gazeta" (1995. No. 49).

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II. Student messages about the history of the novel

1st student. How did the idea of ​​the work come about?

In the early 1960s, Voyenizdat founded a series of military memoirs. For this, special correspondents were sent to the marshals and generals, who collected all the necessary information. From "Literaturnaya Gazeta" to the army commander P.V. G.Vladimov was sent to Sevostyanov. Based on the materials of the writer's interview, a short story "The General and His Army" arose, about which later A.T. Tvardovsky said: "And this is generally a topic for a novel."

But in general, Tvardovsky did not like the story of G.Vladimov. He drew attention to a number of inconsistencies: for example, the army commander could not dance on Poklonnaya Hill, drink with the adjutant, orderly and driver, could not be left with the adjutant after being removed; the general himself could not be removed by anyone other than Stalin, or awarded after the order to remove him. Tvardovsky, giving a general description of the work, noted: “This is not a story, but papier-mâché. It has one appearance and everything is not so, everything is not from knowledge, everything is fake ”. However, Vladimov continued his work. He nurtured his idea for a long time and embodied it finally in the form of a novel already in our time.

Material for the history of the creation of the work can be found in the book by A. Kondratovich "Novomirsky diary (1967-1970)" (Moscow: Soviet writer, 1991, p. 282) and in an interview with I. Chuprinina with G. Vladimov in Obshchaya Gazeta ( 1995.December 7-13, p. 11).

Questions to students

Is it possible to reproach A.T. Tvardovsky to relate to the story and to the novel?

Why has G.Vladimov not changed the idea?

2nd student. About the prototype of General Kobrisov.

The fact that the commander of the 38th Army Nikandr Evlampievich Chibisov became the prototype of General Kobrisov was pointed out by G.Vladimov himself in his article "When I massaged the competence ..." (p. 428).

NOT. Chibisov was born in the village of Romanovskaya on October 24, 1892, into a Cossack family, he was accustomed to military affairs from childhood. In 1914 he went to war with the "German", in 1915 he graduated from the Peterhof school of warrant officers, in 1917 he commanded a company with the rank of staff captain. He accepted the new government, it seems, without much hesitation, from 1918 in the Red Army, by the end of the civilian he commanded a regiment. In 1935 he graduated from the Military Academy, took part in the Finnish campaign. By the beginning of the Patriotic War - Lieutenant General. At the end of 1941, he commanded the reserve army of the Southern Front.

Under the command of Chibisov, the 38th Army took part in many battles, including the Kursk Bulge. In the summer offensive of 1943, she goes to the Dnieper, forcing it on September 26 and occupies the Lyutezhsky bridgehead. The town of Lyutezh, thirty kilometers from Kiev, was taken on October 7. On the eve of the battle for Kiev, there were changes in the leadership of the 38th Army. The commander was appointed General K.S. Moskalenko. After the Kiev operation, Chibisov commanded the 3rd and 1st shock armies. Since the beginning of 1944 - the head of the Military Academy. Frunze. He died in Minsk on September 20, 1959.

The material can be found in the article by M. Nekhoroshev "The general is played by the retinue" (Banner. 1995. No. 9. P. 219).

Questions to students

How do you understand the words "quiet commander"?

What are the moments of N.E. Chibisov were reflected in the fate of the hero of the novel by F.I. Kobrisov?

III. Assessment of the novel in contemporary criticism

(Students read excerpts from critical articles.)

1. Viach. Kuritsyn: “There is no plot, there is a completely sluggish field-staff story with a social-bureaucratic tie and a solemn psychological denouement. There is not a single (not a single) interesting plot line. There is no fascinating texture, details, details, no event meat ... ”(Literaturnaya gazeta. 1995. No. 41, p. 4).

2.L. Anninsky: “Kobrisov is the gravitational center of the belligerent power ... The correctness of plot structures gives - purely for the reader - almost pleasure, the textured layers are captured by the plot rhythm ... everything is built simply and elegantly" (Novy Mir. 1994. No. 10. P. 214, 221) ...

3. N. Ivanova: “The chronotope is vast, the space is wide-format. The novel is populous - a true warring Russia ”(Banner. 1994. No. 7. P. 183-193).

4. V. Bogomolov: “This is just a new - for Russia - mythology, or rather falsification, the purpose of which is to belittle our participation in the Second World War, to rehabilitate and, moreover, to glorify - in the person of the“ devoutly humane ”Guderian - the bloody Hitler's Wehrmacht and his accomplice General Vlasov, a new mythology with an absurdly derogatory image of Soviet servicemen, including the main character, morally omitted by the author, General Kobrisov ”(Book Review. 1995. No. 19).

5. A. Nemzer: “The correctness of the syllable, the thoughtfulness of motivational calls, symbolism, reliability, plot energy, the accuracy of the psychological drawing, torment, mercy, illogical hope in the novel. Great novel ”(Today. 1994. June 17).

Questions to students

What is the evidence of such a variety of opinions in criticism?

Why did the work provoke controversy, controversy?

What are the critical virtues of the novel?

Based on the students' answers, we do output... The theme of the Great Patriotic War remains one of the most important in the modern literary process and never ceases to excite readers and critics. The main advantage of the novel "The General and His Army" is said to be following its traditions of Russian realism, especially the traditions of L.N. Tolstoy. The opinions of critics about General Kobrisov are contradictory, this is due to the depth of the character of the hero, and to the ambiguous interpretation of his image by the writer himself.

IV. Conversation

Artistic techniques L.N. Tolstoy, used to reveal the image of General Kobrisov.

As you understand the words of the critic Vladimir Kardin: "The originality of the novel ... is in the demonstrative, but by no means schoolboy, following the traditions of the classics - first of all Russian, equally sensitive to the loud turns of history and to the overflow of the human soul, and the contradictory, sometimes painful relationship between the one and the other." 19 ? What are the favorite artistic techniques of L.N. Tolstoy G.Vladimov reveals the image of General Kobrisov? (Techniques are written on the board and in a notebook.)

1.Accept matching is shown through the perception of one phenomenon, event by different people. The character of the general is formed from the assessments of the people of his closest circle, in particular the adjutant Donskoy, the driver Sirotin, the orderly Shesterikov. Reading and analysis of episodes of recruitment by Major Svetlookov of people from the general's retinue (Chapter 1, Part 1, 2; Chapter 2, Part 5).

How does Kobrisov appear through the perception of Donskoy? Orphan? Shesterikov?

How is Donskoy's arrogance manifested? What is his attitude to Kobrisov?

Why is it burdensome to serve at Kobrisov Sirotin? Why does he so quickly agree with Svetlookov about the need for “guardianship”?

What feelings do readers experience in the scene of Shesterikov's recruitment? With what eyes does the orderly look at the general? What is the reason for the soldier's loyalty to the army commander? Are there any similarities between Shesterikov and Platon Karataev Tolstoy, noted, in particular, by the critic V. Kardin 20? If so, how is this manifested?

Let us remind the students of the main character traits of P. Karatayev: the spirit of simplicity and truth, humility, meekness, passivity, obedience, patriotism, optimism. In Karataev, there is no hatred even for enemies, there is no inner duality, reflection, egocentrism. Which of these qualities are characteristic of Shesterikov, which are not?

2.Reception of opposition. Reading and analyzing episodes for opposition: Kobrisov sends Nefedov to death (Ch. 3, Part 2), Drobnis sends Lieutenant Galishnikov to attack (Ch. 4, Part 1).

How are the best qualities of Kobrisov manifested in the scene of farewell to Nefyodov? Why can't he do what Drobnis does? How, in turn, do Nefyodov and Galishnikov behave towards their commanders? Why?

What does G.Vladimov say about young commanders - lieutenants who are raising soldiers to attack? Why does he think the war is won thanks to them?

3.Reception of "tearing off all and all kinds of masks."

a) "General's Truth". Several episodes and scenes can be viewed here, for example:

· The fate of the designer Koshkin - the creator of the T-34 tank (Chapter 2, Part 3).

· Interrogation of a captured paratrooper from Myryatin (Ch. 4, Part 1).

· Meeting in Spaso-Peskovtsy (Ch. 4, Part 2).

· Barrage from the NKVD detachments (Chapter 5, Part 2).

· Suicide of Kirnos (chapter 5, part 2).

· Four-layer Russian tactics (Ch. 2, Part 5).

For what purpose does G.Vladimov raise these painful issues?

Can it be argued that alongside the existing traditional “lieutenant” and “soldier's” truth in the modern literary process, the “general's” truth has appeared?

b) Debunking “false patriotism”. In our opinion, the episode with N. Khrushchev's shirts can be considered indicative for the analysis (Ch. 4, Part 2). Here the teacher should explain the meaning of the word “false patriotism” itself, since this is a rather complex concept. This is “external” patriotism, superficial, accompanied in fact by indifference to the real needs and aspirations of the people.

The goals of many people at the top are pseudo-patriotic in nature: the capture of cities for the holiday dates, the previously mentioned "four-layer tactics", the ambitious ambitions of the commanders - an example. Let us remind the children that Lev Tolstoy was once reproached for the lack of patriotism for the description of the war that he gave in the novel War and Peace: many of his contemporaries were offended by the belittling of the role of the court and the army headquarters, the exposure of the ambitious aspirations of the staff officers. Consequently, G.Vladimov here follows the traditions of the classics.

4.Repositioning an action from the commander of the Russian army to the commander of the enemy's army.

For example, you can take the episodes: "Vlasov at the temple of Andrei Stratilat" (Ch. 2, Part 2) and "Guderian in Yasnaya Polyana" (Ch. 2, Part 3).

Output. Unlike L. Tolstoy, who believes that the willful decisions of the commander of the army do not affect the course of the battle, Vladimov argues that waging war is an art. A commander needs intuition, the ability to predict his actions, talent, determination and awareness of his role. Moreover, these qualities can be characteristic not only of the defenders of the Fatherland, but also of the invaders.

5.Psychologism of the story. Using an internal monologue.

The novel "The General and His Army" is a chain of reflections of many heroes, and most of all - of General Kobrisov. How does he appear before us in his thoughts?

V. Generalizing characteristics of the hero. It is given by two or three students using a plan that was suggested to them in advance as homework.

1. The character of the hero, his disclosure through the biography.

2. How is the character manifested in behavior, actions, relationships with other heroes?

3. Evaluation of the hero by other characters, self-esteem.

6. Your own assessment.

Vi. Closing remarks from the teacher.

Like L. Tolstoy, G. Vladimov uses the same aspects of depicting life: historical(refers to the most important historical events for the country), philosophical(thinks about the laws of life) moral(shows the inner world of a person).

The authors have a lot in common in the image: fifty years of remoteness from military events, the use of fictional persons along with historical ones, the use of many facts, the breadth of historical thinking. They are also united by the ability to express openly the author's position, to show both mass scenes of war and personal heroism. General and in the social orientation of criticism, in opposition to the "top" and "bottom".

However, depicting the Patriotic War against Napoleon, L.N. Tolstoy argued that the exclusive role here belongs to the people, which influences the course of history. During the period of hostilities, the best people from all strata of society stood up to defend the Fatherland, but the historical process is controlled by the Supreme Will, to which all its participants are subordinate. For the great writer, war is "bedlam and chaos, where no one can foresee anything," and no commander leads anything.

Vladimov, on the other hand, claims that the talent and intuition of a commander contribute to success in war. The science of winning is an art, and the substitution of a legitimate military general by a random person is unacceptable and leads to irreversible consequences - senseless death of people. As we can see, the modern writer not only follows traditions, but also argues with the classic in some way.

First, he mentions realities belonging to Tolstoy the writer, for example, his estate in Yasnaya Polyana. Secondly, he uses direct quotes from the novel War and Peace, and also shows the reflections of his characters about the fate of Tolstoy's heroes and the course of the war.

Reminiscences and allusions play an important role. There are many examples from the text of The General and His Army, where these reminiscences and allusions are reminiscent of the work of Tolstoy. Kobrisov during the crossing is somewhat reminiscent of Pierre on the Borodino field, and when he takes out the guns from the encirclement - Tushin. There is much in common in the dashing heroism of Denisov and Galagan, in the subordination of their interests to the interests of her husband, Natasha Rostova and Maria, wife of Kobrisov.

But nevertheless, the main thing remains to follow not so much artistic methods as the internal tasks of the great writer: Vladimov seeks to show that for the best Russian people, personal destinies are inseparable from the fate of the Motherland; you cannot be free and happy if your people are in trouble. The author does not shy away from questions about the meaning of life, about good and evil. He values ​​the original features of Tolstoy's realism: the predominance of ideas over expressiveness, the desire for open journalism, humanistic pathos, the desire to convey to the reader the richness of a person's inner life.

© Georgy Vladimov, heirs, 2016

© Valery Kalninsh, layout and design, 2016

© "Time", 2016

Marina Vladimova
My father - Georgy Vladimov

I was asked to write about my father. Unfortunately, we were together very little - only some ten years. All the years I had the feeling that it was necessary to write down everything that my father told me, that it was too significant: human memory is an unreliable thing. Didn't write it down. Now I write from memory, pitiful pieces of what has been imprinted - but thank you for at least they stayed.

How and when did we meet him? It sounds, of course, incredible, but it is true - we only got to know each other in 1995, when my father was presented with the Russian Booker literary prize, when I was already thirty-three years old. And before that there were only letters. Letters to Germany from Moscow and back.

How did your father end up in Germany?

In 1983, at the invitation of Heinrich Böll, his father went to lecture in Cologne. By that time, for ten years in Russia he had not published anything. Previously, he became chairman of Amnesty International, wrote letters in defense of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuri Daniel, was friends with Andrei Sakharov, Elena Bonner, Vasily Aksenov, Vladimir Voinovich, Bella Akhmadullina, Fazil Iskander, Bulat Okudzhava, Viktor Nekrasov, was familiar with Alexander Solzhenitsy , Alexander Galich, Vladimir Maksimov, Sergei Dovlatov, Yuri Kazakov, Yuri Lyubimov, Vladimir Vysotsky and many others. Gradually, he began to live "across", and the Soviet government could not easily withstand such things, let alone forgive - it could not.

Little by little they survived him, hounded him: he was expelled from the Writers' Union, where he was admitted back in 1961; then they began to publish slanderous articles in the Literaturnaya Gazeta (the main mouthpiece of the joint venture in those years), which joyfully greeted some of the "writer" (as their father called them). And then they set up surveillance of his apartment and the guests who visited it. Father writes about this in detail in his story "Do not pay attention, maestro!"

How could he be forgiven for his deepest inner independence and self-sufficiency? Once after his return to Russia, he told me: “You know, I will not go to this gathering, I hate any parties, why waste time on this? A writer should write, not chat and hang out. I have always believed that there is no need to be a member of any parties and associations, all this is nonsense - therefore I have always been non-partisan and free. "

This is how my father responded to my reproach - I reproached him for not going to some regular literary evening where the literary elite of those years gathered and where he was invited in advance to present the Don Quixote statuette - "a symbol of honor and dignity in literature." ...

As for me, a spoiled child of Soviet reality, I believed that “useful people” could meet there who would help him get at least a small apartment from the state.

After all, Vladimir Voinovich received a wonderful four-room apartment in Bezbozhny Lane by order of Mikhail Gorbachev!

How could they forgive him, for example, his friendship with the disgraced Sakharov, when his acquaintances recoiled from him like a plague one? Father tried to help at least something in those days to Andrei Dmitrievich, sometimes even acting as his driver. I recall a funny (he is now funny!) Incident told by my father: during a trip (it seems to Zagorsk) the door of his beloved old father's "Zaporozhets" suddenly came off. And at full speed ... Everyone froze. And Sakharov calmly held the unfortunate door for the rest of the journey, continuing the conversation on some topic of interest to him.

Another, more dangerous story was connected with this "Cossack". Once, during a suburban trip, the car's engine stopped altogether, and when my father looked into its insides, he found that almost a kilogram of granulated sugar was poured into the fuel tank, which made the car refuse to go. My father was sure that this was not an accident, it was done by the interested employees of "Bugr", as the ubiquitous organization responsible for the state security of the USSR was called at that time, but, of course, he had no direct evidence. With great difficulty, he managed to clear the tank of this muck ...

In 1981, after interrogations at the Lubyanka, my father suffered the first heart attack, then new interrogations and a hint that interrogations would resume. Everything could have ended with a landing (the lexicon of the then dissidents). At this time, my father had already begun to write "The General and His Army." I had to save my business, my life. Thank you Böll!

But, leaving the country, my father did not think that he was leaving for a long time, for a maximum of a year. Two months after their arrival in Germany, father and Natasha Kuznetsova (his second wife) heard on TV Andropov's decree to deprive him of his citizenship. They sold the cooperative apartment of Natasha's mother before leaving for Germany, and the board of the cooperative sold the apartment of his father itself, without asking his permission.

Through my friends at the Text Publishing House, which published my father's story “Faithful Ruslan,” I found out his German address. I wrote to him. I wrote that I did not need anything from him - I am already a fully accomplished person, a doctor, I am in graduate school, I have an apartment, friends, but how strange it is - two relatives live on such a small planet Earth and know nothing about each other. The father replied, we started to correspond. In 1995 he came to Moscow to receive the Booker for the novel The General and His Army. He was nominated by the Znamya magazine, which published the chapters of the novel. My father was very grateful to the employees of "Znamya" for the fact that they were the first to contribute to the return of his work to his homeland. He wanted his last novel, Long Way to Tipperary, to be published with them, and the magazine announced this work several times. Alas! Only the first part of the novel was published, after the death of his father. Others stayed in designs; he told me something.

My father called me to the award ceremony. Before that, I visited him - in the apartment of Yuz Aleshkovsky, who invited his father to stay with him during his entire stay in Moscow.

Father no longer had his own apartment. He was left homeless. In 1991, by his decree, Gorbachev returned his citizenship, but not housing ... However, in 2000, the International Literary Fund of Writers gave his father a dacha in Peredelkino for rent. Father was very fond of this not quite his dacha, but the Lord little allowed him to enjoy peace and happiness in his homeland.

Before that, the dacha had stood for many years empty, slowly crumbling and crumbling, something was constantly leaking somewhere in it; my father laughed and said that he lived in “Peterhof with a lot of fountains”. It was a two-story brick house, more like a barrack, with four entrances. Next to the father's entrance were the entrances where Georgy Pozhenyan, the daughter of Viktor Shklovsky, and her husband, the poet Panchenko, lived. I don't remember the third neighbor.

The history of the dacha was romantic and sad at the same time. It turned out that this writer's house was built on the site of the dacha of the actress Valentina Serova. Her dacha was surrounded by a small garden; a small pond has survived, in which, according to legend, she loved to swim. Father said that he imagines Serova bathing in a pond before the performances and singing something quietly. Then he told me the story of the novel by Serova and Marshal Rokossovsky, during which Stalin was allegedly asked how to relate to the very fact of this connection (both were married). Stalin answered briefly and exhaustively: "To envy!"

After the divorce of Serova and Simonov, the dacha fell into desolation, the Literary Fund demolished the old house, building a dacha for writers.

In the days of my father, the garden had grown incredibly, through it there was a kitchen door with a terrace. There were tall dark trees, grass filled the whole space. The pond was covered with thick green mud, it was gloomy, terribly gluttonous mosquitoes were flying. Father kept trying to somehow cope with desolation: he removed rotten branches, broken trees, cut bushes, mowed grass here and there, the sun began to peep into the windows of his office.

Opposite his windows, he cleared a piece of land on which he tried to set up a vegetable garden - he planted dill, radishes and lettuce. In his last year in Russia, already weak and terminally ill, my father proudly showed me the emerging sprouts, anticipating the harvest. Alas! He left for Germany, never waiting for him ... But he gave him a little joy - in the last year, his father could not, and did not want to write. He liked to tinker with the ground and slowly dismantle some kind of wooden "halabuda" (father's word) behind the house, in the place of which he dreamed of building a garage with a pit.

Behind the gates, at the entrance, there is a two-story brick gatehouse, where, apparently, at one time there was a guard who was deciding who could be allowed in front of the bright eyes of Serova and Simonov. Around the whole dacha there was a fortress wall, and right in front of my father's entrance, a wonderful mysterious door opened in it, surrounded by tall trees and fragrant herbs. The nightingales sang, sometimes echoing the bell ringing - across the road was the Patriarch's dacha with an old Peredelkino church.

In the first year, having received an empty dacha, where there was nothing but walls and old, rotten kitchen furniture, my father enthusiastically set about equipping it. I bought a large writing desk with a comfortable armchair for my office (what else does a writer need!), A sofa, and a five-arm chandelier (it was a bit dark in the house). In the other two rooms he put two sofas for guests and a wardrobe, which he assembled himself. My father was very fond of doing everything with his own hands, getting from this, it seems, no less pleasure than from writing.

I gave him a "Voltaire" chair - it settled in the corridor on the first floor, my father liked to sit in it, talking on the phone.

In the kitchen, my father installed a wall, a refrigerator, hung a low wicker chandelier, put a table with long wooden benches, on which few people had time to sit - my father lived at the dacha for only four seasons ...

On the terrace, where the kitchen door opened, my father set up a small barbecue, and several times grilled a barbecue on it, sipping vodka with his neighbor-friend, the wonderful poet Grigory Pozhenyan. It was thanks to Pozhenyan that the father got the dacha - once he came to visit him in Peredelkino and was fascinated by the beauty, peace and quiet of this place. He turned to the International Literary Fund for help, he was not refused; Pozhenyan played an important role in this, putting in a word.

We celebrated the New Year 2000 together with Pozhenyan and his wife, in a large company. It was a wonderful New Year! Pozhenyan read his poems, talked a lot about himself - he was a storyteller no less talented than a poet. My memory has retained only a few fragments. For example, his story about the liberation of Odessa, where he fought (later writing the script for the wonderful film "Thirst"), and then - how he discovered a monument to the fallen liberators of the city and found his last name there (he was also considered dead by mistake). Or a story about how for "drunkenness and immoral behavior" during his student days he was expelled from the Literary Institute in disgrace, saying menacingly: "So that your feet are not within the walls of our institution!" After which he entered the institute in his arms, without formally violating the instructions!

Pozhenyan said that Yuri Olesha affectionately called him "my dear keg of poetry" in his letters. He was just that - small, plump, noisy, very cozy, hospitable, literally gushing with poetry and ideas.

The father was different - he was very laconic, he preferred to listen, look at his interlocutors, sometimes smiling slightly, constantly thinking about something; some inaudible, but very important inner work was going on in him all the time ...

Poor father - he dreamed of buying for a large room, a dining room (in it, the only one in the house, the walls were lined with clapboard), a white oval table with twelve white chairs. He dreamed of making a real fireplace in it so that one could admire the play of fire. Near the door, put the knight in full height, in armor, with a visor and a sword (he saw this in Pozhenyan's house). I did not have time to carry it out. Instruments were kept in an empty room, which my father happily acquired wherever he could. With what love he looked at the woodworking machine, jigsaw, electric drill in the evenings! ..

When I asked whom he would receive in the “white dining room”, he said with pride and at the same time with irony: “How whom? Ambassadors, heads of delegations, numerous admirers of my talent, journalists eager to interview about my next novel. "

Father should have seen what the literary town and the territory of the patriarchal dacha near his Green Dead End (the last address of my father in Russia) have become today ... Near the modest church (we listened to its bell ringing in the evenings from the balcony of the dacha) a wall with tiles no worse than the Kremlin ... The very same area around the church was ennobled with a playground, a toilet for pilgrims, a stall for the sale of church utensils. Nearby, a five-domed church was built in honor of Prince Igor of Chernigov and two monuments to the saints were erected. A beautiful temple, majestic and huge. But he is still cold, arrogant, he does not want to enter, like the old Peredelkino church, where his father was buried in 2003. Now the road to the patriarchal dacha is being licked in the most thorough way, the asphalt looks as if it is being washed with shampoo every day. During my father's life, local drunks often roamed around the church, the asphalt was all potholed, there was silence around, grasshoppers chirped in the thickets of wormwood and willow-herb.

We loved to go to fetch water (when the water supply system was not working) to the holy springs not far from our Green Dead End, next to the cardiological sanatorium for war veterans ... The air was clean, even if you eat it with a spoon, and Peredelkino was only twenty minutes away from Moscow by train.

Only one thing remained practically unchanged - the old "writers'" cemetery in Peredelkino, where it is still empty after four in the evening, even scary - there is no staff. Old slabs on the graves are crumbling, sprouting with moss and weeds, tall trees sway over the graves of famous writers: Pasternak, Tikhonov, Chukovsky, by the fence there are thickets of burdock, nettles and huge, human-sized burdocks ...

At the Peredelkino cemetery, my father found his peace, which he asked for in his will - he finally returned to his homeland. And his wife Natalya Kuznetsova and her mother stayed in Germany forever ... Not far from his father is the grave of Grigory Pozhenyan - they became neighbors in the cemetery, there is something symbolic in this.

Let's go back to our second acquaintance at the Booker. The first, of course, took place at the time of my birth. But my father and mother divorced when I was four years old, and then my mother married again, my stepfather adopted me, and I bore his last name.

Actually, it was at the Booker ceremony that we really got to know each other. Sitting at the festive table, we drank brotherhood (before that three years in letters were on you) and my father endeared me, telling how he met my mother: “I met both of my wives in the buffet of the Central House of Writers”.

Oh, this famous CDL buffet, on the walls of which were all sorts of signatures of writers, friendly and not so caricature drawings of all those who have ever visited it - from Mikhail Svetlov and Pogodin to Sergei Mikhalkov, Andrei Voznesensky, Bella Akhmadulina. His father's signature was also there before his departure for emigration and his “appointment” as a dissident.

My father said that my mother was a beauty, mentioned that he still remembers what dress she was wearing then ... He proudly emphasized that both of his wives were beautiful. It seems to me that for him it was to some extent self-affirmation - because of a large, almost full cheek birthmark, he considered himself ugly. True, when I saw him, the stain was gone, the German doctors coped with it superbly.

Then my father asked to accompany him to my mother's grave. Before leaving, he gave me "The General and His Army" - a book published by the "Book Chamber" (the first book edition), "Faithful Ruslan" (for some reason in a collection of stories about dogs) and a thin, nondescript book with "Big Ore" (with which he entered into great literature).

Soon she and Natasha left back to Germany. Then there were letters again. But already others. And in 1997 his Natasha died. It was a huge grief for him - in emigration they were everything to each other, there by that time they had almost no friends left. He summoned me to his place, and together we made a fabulous journey across Europe. I discovered my father for myself - after all, we did not know anything about each other for almost thirty years. He, too, recognized me again.

I flew to him in Germany at the end of October. A friend helped me with the visa and asked a German friend to send me an invitation. Poor father did not even have the right to invite me - he himself had refugee status (he was carrying a Nansen blue passport). Vladimov could have obtained German citizenship immediately if he knew the German language, and so, according to German law, he received citizenship only fifteen years later.

My father met me at the Frankfurt am Main airport. Seeing him, I was horrified: when he came with Natasha to the Booker presentation, he had a well-groomed, polished look - in a light, thin drape autumn coat, a decent dark suit with pinstripes, in dark glasses that covered half of his face - a typical foreigner ...

And now a hunched man came out to meet me in a dark green, obviously a woman's jacket, in sweatpants with blisters on his knees, with gray hair with yellow hair that had not been cut for a long time. The overall impression of a huge misfortune was complemented by a brown bag made of pieces of leather, also clearly a lady's ...

My father lived in Niedernhausen - a small town with a population of no more than ten thousand, an urban-type settlement by our standards, but it was still a real city with a bank, many shops, restaurants, gas stations.

Frankfurt is only forty minutes from there by car. And fourteen kilometers to Wiesbaden - the very one where Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky spent his life in the largest casino in Europe, and at the same time his fees.

My father had a funny story about the casino in Wiesbaden. He literally fell ill with computers in Germany (although he was already sixty at the time) and dreamed of a laptop. Then they were still very expensive. And so the father and wife went to the casino, Natasha put all the money that she had on thirty-two numbers. Each issue won a hundred marks, and she earned three thousand two hundred marks, with which she bought the coveted toy for her father. Telling me this story, my father added edifying: “This is what the first time means! Beginners are always lucky, it's good that we were smart enough to stop and leave in time. "

We drove all over Niedernhausen and climbed a small hill lined with seven or eight nine-story houses. My father's house was on the top of a mountain, behind the house were soft hills overgrown with dense forest, in front of the house the forest was surrounded by a fence, behind which I noticed some animals. Seeing us, a young deer immediately approached the grating, trustingly pushed her velvet lips into her palm. Several deer with beautiful branching antlers followed her.

- What a delight, tame deer, they live right next to your house! - I exclaimed naively.

“Don’t flatter yourself too much,” the father remarked gloomily, “this is a walking dinner, they are specially bred and kept here behind bars for a restaurant. The favorite dish of the Germans here is venison with lingonberry jam.

- What a bastard!

- Do you know who owns the houses?

- One doctor of medicine. He first built one house and began to rent, and then built eight more with the income from the rent.

- Wow!

- In our house, basically, there are all kinds of idiots like me, a few Armenians, Jews, Poles, but all of us are called Russians. There are few Germans. So we have a man named Kaltenbrunner in our house, can you imagine?

- And Bormann is not?

- No. But with Müller, I met a couple of times in the pool.

- We have a pool on the ground floor in our house. I pay two stamps a month and can use it at any time of the day. While you are here, walk every day.

Father rented a four-room apartment in this house at one time for a large family - he took his wife and mother-in-law to Germany, who idolized him and was very proud of him. True, the father said that sometimes he regrets that he took his mother-in-law abroad: she lived after the move for only three years, and in Russia, according to my father, she could still live and live ... he is later.

In my father's apartment, I noticed the amazing order in the study, which did not go well with his worn clothes: various tools hung on the wall in separate nests - both for car repairs and for many other purposes, I could only guess about the purpose of the majority. I opened my mouth and looked at this wealth - after all, I did not know anything about my father.

The office also had a huge desk, a stationary computer, and a full-wall rack (made by my father) filled with books. Many of them were signed by very famous writers and public figures (Böll, Dovlatov, Maksimov, Voinovich, Aksyonov, Kopelev, Sakharov, Bonner).

I was surprised by so many tools in his office aloud: why should a writer do what hired workers can do. Father smiled slyly and said: “Don’t think, I’m not some“ lousy intellectual ”who doesn’t know which way to drive a nail into the wall. I really love to tinker with tools, fix, repair, do a lot with my own hands. You know, once I invented an important detail for an internal combustion engine, I even have a patent for an invention! "

Forgive you feathered troops
And proud battles in which
It is considered valor to be ambition.
All, all forgive. I'm sorry my neighing horse
And the sound of the trumpet, and the rumble of the drum,
And whistling flutes, and a royal banner,
All the honors, all the glory, all the greatness
And stormy alarms of formidable wars.
Forgive you deadly weapons
Which rumble rushes along the ground ...

William Shakespeare,
"Othello, the Venetian Moor",
act III

Chapter one. MAYOR SVETLOOKOV

1

So he emerges from the mist of the rain and sweeps, splattering tires, on the torn asphalt - "jeep", "king of the roads", the chariot of our Victory. A tarpaulin thrown with mud flaps in the wind, brushes rush on the glass, smearing translucent sectors, the swirling slush flies behind him like a train and settles with a hiss.

So he rushes under the sky of warring Russia, thundering incessantly - whether with the thunder of an impending thunderstorm or with a distant cannonade - a ferocious little beast, blunt and flat-faced, howling from an evil effort to overcome space, to break through to its unknown goal.

Sometimes for him, whole miles of paths turn out to be impassable - because of the funnels that knocked out the asphalt to the full width and filled to the brim with dark slurry - then he rolls over the ditch obliquely and eats the road, growling, tearing off layers of clay along with grass, spinning in a broken rut, getting out relieved, again picks up speed and runs, runs over the horizon, and behind are wet, shot-through copses with black branches and heaps of fallen leaves, burnt carcasses of cars piled to rot behind the side of the road, and the chimneys of villages and farms that emitted their last smoke two years ago ...

He comes across bridges - from hastily sanded logs, next to the old ones that have dropped rusty trusses into the water - he runs along these logs as if on keys, jumping with a clang, and the flooring still sways and creaks when the "jeep" is gone, only blue exhaust melts over black water.

When he comes across barriers, they detain him for a long time, but, confidently bypassing the convoy of ambulances, clearing his way with demanding signals, he makes his way to the rails close and is the first to jump to the crossing, as soon as the tail of the train rumbles through.

He comes across "traffic jams" - from oncoming and transverse streams, crowds of roaring, desperately signaling cars, chilled traffic controllers, with courageous girlish faces and swearing on their lips, embroider these "traffic jams", anxiously looking at the sky and threatening each approaching car from afar with a wand, - for the "jeep," however, a passage is sought, and the crowded drivers look after him for a long time with bewilderment and indistinct anguish.

So he disappeared on the descent, behind the top of the hill, and calmed down - it seems that he fell there, collapsed, driven to exhaustion - no, he emerged on the rise, the engine sings a song of stubbornness, and the viscous Russian verst crawls reluctantly under the wheel ...

What was the Headquarters of the Supreme Command? - for the driver, already petrified in his seat and staring at the road stupidly and intently, blinking red eyelids, and from time to time, with the insistence of a person who has not slept for a long time, trying to light a cigarette butt stuck to his lip. True, in this very word - "Headquarters" - he heard and saw something high and stable, ascended over all Moscow roofs, like a peaked fairytale tower, and at its foot - a long-awaited parking lot, surrounded by a wall and lined with cars, a courtyard, like an inn, oh which he heard or read somewhere. Someone constantly arrives there, someone is seen off, and an endless conversation flows between the drivers - no less than those conversations that their masters-generals conduct in gloomy, quiet chambers, behind heavy velvet curtains, on the eighth floor. Above the eighth - having lived his previous life on the first and only one - the driver Sirotin did not take his imagination, but the authorities were not supposed to be lower, too, one had to watch at least half of Moscow from the windows.

And Sirotin would have been severely disappointed if he had learned that the Headquarters hid itself deep underground, at the Kirovskaya metro station, and its offices are fenced off with plywood boards, and buffets and changing rooms were housed in the carriages of the stationary train. It would be completely undignified, it would go deeper than Hitler's bunker, ours, the Soviet headquarters could not be located like that, because the German one was ridiculed for this "bunker". And that bunker would not have overtaken such a thrill with which the generals went into the entrance on bent wadded legs.

Here, at the foot, where he placed himself with his "jeep", Sirotin hoped to learn about his further fate, which could merge again with the fate of the general, or could flow in a separate channel. If you open your ears well, you could find out something from the chauffeurs - just as he had scouted about this path in advance, from a colleague from the headquarters author. Coming together for a long smoke break, waiting for the end of the meeting, they first talked about the abstract - Sirotin, I remember, suggested that if the engine from an eight local Dodge was installed on the Jeep, there would be a good car, the best and no need to wish a colleague against I did not mind, but noticed that the Dodge's engine was too big and, perhaps, the hood would not fit under the Jeep's, you would have to build up a special casing, and this is a hump - and both agreed that it was better to leave it as it is. Hence, their conversation leaned towards changes in general - how much benefit from them, - the colleague here declared himself a supporter of constancy and, in this connection, hinted to Sirotin that changes are expected in their army, literally the other day, it is not known only for better or for worse. What specific changes, the colleague did not reveal, only said that there was no final decision yet, but from the way he belittled his voice, one could understand that this decision would not even come from the front headquarters, but from somewhere higher, maybe, from such a high that both of them can't get there even by thought. “Although,” a colleague suddenly said, “you might even get there. Ambition did not allow Sirotin, the commander's chauffeur, to show surprise - what Moscow could have been in the midst of an offensive - he just nodded importantly, but secretly decided: his colleague didn't really know anything, he heard a distant ringing, or maybe this ringing itself and gave birth. But it turned out - not a ringing, it really turned out - Moscow! Just in case, Sirotin began to prepare at the same time - he mounted and installed unused tires, "native", that is, American ones, which he saved to Europe, welded a bracket for another gasoline canister, even pulled this tarp, which was usually not taken in any weather , - the general did not like him: "It's stuffy under him," he said, "like in a doghouse, and he doesn't let him spread out quickly," that is, jump over the sides during shelling or bombing. In a word, it didn’t come out so unexpectedly when the general commanded: "Harness, Sirotin, we will have lunch - and to Moscow."

Sirotin had never seen Moscow, and he was both glad that his old, pre-war plans were suddenly coming true, and worried about the general, who for some reason was suddenly recalled to Headquarters, not to mention himself: who else would have to be carried, and Isn't it better to ask for a lorry, just as much trouble, and the chances of staying alive, perhaps, are more, nevertheless, the booth is covered, not every splinter will break through. And there was also a feeling - a strange relief, one might even say, deliverance, which I did not want to admit to myself.

He was not the first for the general, two martyrs had already changed before him - if you count from Voronezh, and it was from there that the history of the army began before that, according to Sirotin, there was no army, no history, but sheer darkness and muddle. So, from Voronezh - the general himself was not scratched, but under him, as the army said, killed two "jeep", both times with drivers, and once with an adjutant. This is what the persistent legend went about: that he did not take himself, he seemed to be conspired, and this was just confirmed by the fact that they died next to him, literally two steps away. True, when the details were told, it turned out a little differently, these "wilis" were killed not quite under it. For the first time - with a direct hit from a long-range land mine - the general had not yet got into the car, held up for a minute at the command post of the division commander and went out to the ready-made porridge. And the second time - when they were blown up by an anti-tank mine, he no longer sat, got out to walk along the road, watch how they disguised themselves before the self-propelled gun attack, and ordered the driver to drive off somewhere from an open place and take it and turn into a grove. Meanwhile, the road was cleared of mines, and the sappers bypassed the grove, no traffic was planned along it ... But what difference does it make, Sirotin thought, whether the general anticipated his death or was late for her, that was his conspiracy, but only on those accompanying him it did not spread, it only confused them, and it was, if you think about it, the cause of their death. Experts have already calculated that for every person killed in this war there will be up to ten tons of wasted metal, while Sirotin knew even without their calculations how difficult it is to kill a man at the front. If only you could hold out for three months, learn not to obey any bullets or shrapnel, but listen to yourself, your unaccountable chill, which, the more unaccountable, the more faithfully you will whisper where it would be better to take your feet ahead of time, sometimes from the safest dugout, from under seven rolls, and lie in some groove, behind an insignificant bump - and the dugout will blow it over the log, and the bump will cover it! He knew that this salutary feeling seemed to die out without training, if you did not visit the front line for at least a week, but this general did not really adore the front line, but he did not disdain it, so Sirotin's predecessors could not miss her too much, - that means they died out of their own stupidity, they did not obey themselves!

With a face - well, it was funny. Would he, Sirotin, move into this grove, under the shade of birches? Yes, damn it, at least in front of each bush stick him: "Checked, no mines" - whoever checked, for that and no, he has already taken his legs, and for your share, be sure, at least one anti-tank mine left in in a hurry, but even if he would sweep the whole grove with his belly - it's a well-known thing, once a year, even an unloaded rifle fires! It was more difficult with the projectile - you ran into the mine yourself, and this one chose you, it was you. Someone unknown drew him a heavenly path, corrected the mistake with a breeze, took it two, three thousandths to the right or left, and in a matter of seconds - how will you feel that your only, dear, destined by fate, has already left the trunk and is in a hurry to whistling, buzzing to you, but you won't hear his whistle, others will hear - and foolishly bow to him. However, why wait, not take cover, when something detained the general at that command post? Yes, that same, unaccountable, and delayed, that's what you had to feel! In his reflections Sirotin invariably felt superiority over both predecessors - but, perhaps, just the eternal dubious superiority of the living over the dead? - and such a thought also visited him. The fact of the matter is that you are tempted to feel it, it confuses you even worse, driving away the saving chills, the science of survival demanded: always humble yourself, do not get tired of asking to be passed by - then, perhaps, it will carry you by. And most importantly ... most importantly - the same chill whispered to him: with this general he will not last a war. What reasons? Yes, if you can name them, then what kind of irresponsibility ... Somewhere it will happen and someday, but it will certainly happen - that's what always hung over him, which is why he was often sad and gloomy, only a sophisticated look would recognize his daring, behind a desperately gallant, dandy look - a hidden premonition. Somewhere the end of the string, he told himself, was twisting for a long time and too happily - and he dreamed of getting off with an injury, and after the hospital to get to another general, not so conspired.

That is, in fact, what his fears - about nothing else - told the driver Sirotin to Major Svetlookov of the army counterintelligence "Smersh", when he invited him for an interview, or - as he said - "about something to gossip." “Only this,” he said to Sirotin, “you won't talk to me in the department, they will break in with some crap, it’s better - in some other place. And so far - not a word to anyone, because ... you never know. Okay? " Their meeting took place on a fishing line not far from the headquarters, on the edge, where they met at the appointed hour, Major Svetlookov sat down on a fallen pine tree and, taking off his cap, exposed a steep, convex forehead to the autumn sun, with a red stripe from the band - which, as it were, took off his bossiness, disposed to a frank conversation, - Sirotin also invited to sit down on the grass.

Come on, - he said, - what is sharpening you, what is the sloppiness about the fellow? I see, it won't hide from me ...

It was not good that Sirotin talked about such things that the science of survival tells to keep to himself, but Major Svetlookov immediately understood and sympathized.

Nothing, nothing, - he said without a smile, vigorously shaking his linen strands, throwing them back further, - we are able to understand this, all this mysticism. All are subject to superstition, not you alone, our commander - too. And I’ll tell you a secret: he’s not so charmed. He does not like to remember this and does not wear stripes for wounds, but he had it out of stupidity in 1941, near Solnechnogorsk. Good shopping - eight bullets in the stomach. Didn't you know? And the orderly did not tell? Which, by the way, was present at this. I thought you had everything wide open ... Well, probably, Fotiy Ivanovich forbade him to tell. And we won't gossip about it either, right? ..

Listen, - he suddenly looked sideways at Sirotin with a cheerful and piercing look, - maybe you are todd me ... playing a fool? And the main thing about Fotiy Ivanitch is not talking, are you hiding?

What should I hide?

Have you seen any oddities with him lately? Consider, someone already notices. Are you nothing?

Sirotin shrugged his shoulder, which could mean both "did not notice" and "not my mind's business", but he caught the still vague danger concerning the general, and his first inner movement was to distance himself, at least for a moment, just to understand that could threaten him. Major Svetlookov looked at him intently, the gaze of his piercing blue eyes was not easy to endure. It seems that he guessed Sirotin's confusion and with this stern gaze returned him to the place that the man who was in the commander's retinue was supposed to hold - the place of a devoted servant who believes the master infinitely.

Doubts, suspicions, all sorts of merihlunds, you do not lay out to me, - said the major firmly. - Only facts. There they are - you are obliged to signal. The commander is a big man, deserved, valuable, the more we are obliged to strain all our small forces, to support him if he staggers in some way. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he needs special mental attention now. After all, he will not make a request, but we will not notice, we will miss the moment, then we will bite our elbows. After all, we are responsible for every person in the army, and for the commander - to be sure ...

Who were "we" in charge of each person in the army, whether he was with the major or the entire army "Smersh", in whose eyes the general "swayed in some way," Sirotin did not understand, and for some reason he did not dare to ask. He suddenly remembered that a friend from the staff of the headquarters had also dropped these words: "a little staggered," so he, therefore, not heard a distant ringing, but downright the hum of the earth. It seems that the general's reluctance, although not yet manifested in anything, was no longer news to some, and that is why Major Svetlookov summoned him to his place. Their conversation became more and more addictive somewhere, into something unpleasant, and it was dimly thought that he, Sirotin, had already made a small step towards betrayal, agreeing to come here to "gossip."

From the depths of the forest there was a damp evening coolness, and with it the ubiquitous sugary stench smoothly merged with it. Damn funerals, thought Sirotin, they are picking up their own, but the Germans - they are too lazy, they will have to report to the general, he will give them a light. I was reluctant to pick up fresh ones - now plug your noses ...

Tell me this, ”Major Svetlookov asked,“ how do you think he treats death?

Sirotin raised a surprised look at him.

Like all of us sinners ...

You don’t know, ”the major said sternly. - That's why I'm asking. Now the question of retaining command personnel is being raised extremely sharply. There is a special instruction from the Headquarters, and the Supreme Commander has repeatedly emphasized that the commanders do not put themselves at risk. Thank God, not for forty-first years, we learned how to force rivers, the personal presence of the commander at the crossing is useless. Why did he have to cross the ferry under fire? Maybe he deliberately does not take care of himself? From some despair, from the fear that the operation will not cope? Or maybe a tovo ... well, a little one? It is understandable to some extent - the operation is very complicated after all! ..

Perhaps Sirotin would not have thought that the operation was more complicated than others, and it seemed to develop normally, but there, above, from where Major Svetlookov condescended to him, there could be other considerations.

Maybe an isolated case? - mused the major meanwhile. - But no, there is some kind of consistency. The army commander puts his command post in front of the divisional commanders, and what remains for the division commander? Move closer to the German? And the regimental - right in the teeth of the enemy to climb? So let's prove our personal courage to each other? Or another example: go to the front line without security, without an armored personnel carrier, you don't even take a radio operator with you. And this is how they run into an ambush, and this is how they dive into the German. Then go find out, prove that there was no betrayal, but simply by mistake ... This must be foreseen. And warn. And you and me - first of all.

What depends on me? - asked Sirotin with relief. The subject of the interview was finally clear to him and agreed with his own concerns. - The driver does not choose the route ...

You'd better tell the commander! .. But to know in advance is in your competence, right? Fotiy Ivanitch says to you for ten minutes: "Harness, Sirotin, we will jump at one hundred and sixteenth." So?

Sirotin marveled at such awareness, but objected:

Not always. Another time he gets into the car and even then the way speaks.

It is truth too. But he does not go to one place, in a day you will visit three or four farms: where half an hour, and where all two. Can you ask him: where then, will there be enough fuel? Here you have the opportunity to call.

Who is this ... to call?

With me, "with whom." We will organize observation, we will contact the farm where you are currently on your way, so that they can send a meeting. I understand that the commander sometimes wants to drive up impulsively, to find everything as it is. So this does not interfere with one another. We have our own line and our own task. The divisional commander will not know when Fotiy Ivanitch comes, if only we knew.

And I thought, - said Sirotin, grinning, - you are doing spies.

We do everything. But now the main thing is that the commander does not fall out of the custody for a minute. Do you promise me this?

Sirotin vigorously wrinkled his forehead, buying time. As if there was nothing wrong if every time, wherever he and the general went, Major Svetlookov would know about it. But somehow it was jarring that he would have to report secretly from the general.

How can this be? - asked Sirotin. - From Fotiy Ivanitch secretly?

Whoo! the major boomed mockingly. - You have a kilo of contempt for this word. Precisely secretly, behind the scenes. Why bother the commander in this?

I don’t know, - said Sirotin, - how is it possible ...

Major Svetlookov sighed with a long sad sigh.

And I don’t know. And you need it. And you have to. So what should we do? Earlier, in the army, the institute of commissars was - how easy it is! What I have been trying to get from you for an hour, the commissar would have promised me without thinking. How else? The commissar and the counterintelligence officer are each other's first assistants. Now there is more confidence in the commander, and the work has become much more difficult. Don't bother with a member of the Military Council, he is also a "comrade general" now, this title is dearer to him than a commissar, he will become such "nonsense" to engage in! Well, we, humble people, are obliged to do it, moreover, on a sly. Yes, the Supreme Commander made it difficult for us. But - did not take it off!

Call, because it is, you know ... The signalman's line is busy. And when she is free, she also won't connect so easily. And you need to tell him where you are calling. So it will come to Photius Ivanitch. No, this is ...

What is "no"? - Major Svetlookov brought his face closer to him. He cheered at once from Sirotin's naivety. - Well, you eccentric! Do you really ask: “And connect me with Major Svetlookov from Smersh? No, we’ll fail the whole thing. But you can do it for the idle part. In the sense - for the woman’s. This line will always help out. You’ll help Kalmykova from Do you know the tribunal? The senior typist.

Sirotin remembered something loose, too busty and, in his twenty-six-year-old gaze, very elderly, with an adamant commanding face, with thinly pursed lips, shouting imperiously at two subordinate young ladies.

What, not an object for passion? The major smiled quickly with a pink face. - Actually, there are hunters for her. They even praise. What can you do, love is evil! Besides, we do not have a convent. So we will enter Europe - not this year, but next - there are such monasteries there, especially for women. More precisely, girlish. Because these nuns, "Carmelites" are called, they take an oath about virginity - to the grave. What a sacrifice! So innocence is guaranteed. Take any - you won't be mistaken.

These super-harsh "Carmelites", having somehow correlated with "caramels" in the orphan's imagination, looked much like tempting and sweet. As for that busty one, he still didn’t imagine how he would hit her or at least chat on the phone.

Zer gut, agreed the major. - We choose another variant. How do you - Zoechka? Not the one, not the tribunal, but the telephone operator at the headquarters. With curls.

Here are these ashy curls, hanging from under the cap in spirals on the convex faience forehead, and the amazed look - small, but such bright, shiny eyes - and a cleverly fitted tunic, unbuttoned by one button, never two, so as not to run into a remark , and chrome, tailored boots, and manicure on thin fingers - everything was much closer to what we wanted.

Zoechka? - doubted Sirotin. - So she's like with this ... from the operations department. Almost his wife?

This "slightly" has one secret obstacle - a legal spouse in Barnaul. Which is already bombing the political department with letters. And two tender offspring. Here you will have to take some measures ... So Zoechka does not disappear, I advise you to do it. Ride up to her, set up the crossings. And - call her wherever you can. What, the signalman will not connect you? The commander's chauffeur? The matter is understandable, one might say - urgent. You just - a little closer, you need to know your place in the army. In general, you tell her: "Tralee-wali, how did you sleep?" - and, by the way, something like this: "Unfortunately, time is running out, in an hour, wait, I will ring from Ivanov." They talk a lot on communication, one more chatter ... Well, this is not necessary, in the future we will establish a cipher, for each farm our own password. What is not clear to you yet?

Yes, somehow it ...

What is "somehow"? What?! cried the major angrily. And Sirotin did not find it strange that the major had the right to be angry with him for his lack of understanding, even to scold him angrily. - For myself, do you think I'm trying? To save the life of the commander! And your life, by the way. Or are you looking for death too ?!

And with all his hearts, with a whistle, he slapped himself on the boot with a twig that had come out of nowhere - a sound that seemed insignificant, but made Sirotin internally cringe and feel a chill in the lower abdomen, that dull, painful chill that appears when the projectile whistle leaving the barrel and his slap into a swampy mess - the sounds of the very first and most terrible, because the roar of bursting steel, and the fountain splash of the billowing bog, and the crackling of branches cut off by fragments, no longer threaten you, you have already passed you. This meticulous, clingy, all-pervading Major Svetlookov saw what was sitting in Sirotino and did not allow him to live, but he also saw more: that something dangerous, disastrous was really happening to the general - both for himself and for those around him. When, standing at full height on the ferry in his noticeable black leather jacket, he so picturesquely exposed himself under the bullets from the right bank, under the bullets of the diving Junkers, this was not bravado, not an example of personal courage, but the very thing that time from time to time it comprehended others and was called - a person seeks death.

Not at all in a desperate situation, not in a ring of coverage, not at the muzzles of a detachment, but often in a successful offensive, in an attack, a person did the pointless, incomprehensible: he rushed hand-to-hand one against five, or, standing up to his full height, threw grenades one after another under the moving a tank at him, or, running up to the machine-gun embrasure, chopped off a jumping barrel with a shovel - and almost always died. An experienced soldier, he dismissed all chances to dodge, wait, somehow contrive. Whether it was in insanity, in a blinding heat, or so many days of fear exuded his soul, but those who were nearby heard his scream, containing both torment, and an evil triumph, and, as it were, liberation ... And on the eve - as they recalled later , or maybe they were just inventing - this person used to be taciturn and gloomy, lived somehow out of place, looked around with an incomprehensible, hidden gaze, as if he had already foreseen tomorrow. The orphan of these people could not comprehend, but what led them to die so hastily was, in the end, their business, they did not invite anyone to follow them, did not drag, but the general both called and dragged. Why couldn't he sit in the shell of the armored vehicle that was next to him on the ferry? And did he not think that people who were obliged to be with him constantly exposed themselves to the same bullets? But then there was one who understood everything, saw with a nimble eye the general's games with death and would stop them by his intervention. For some reason Sirotin was not puzzled by how he would succeed, well, at least how he would lead a stray projectile in the sky; in some of their calculations.

The major listened to him without interrupting, nodded in understanding, sometimes sighed or clicked his tongue, then threw away his twig far away and moved the tablet to his knees. Unfolding it, he began to examine a piece of paper hidden under the yellow celluloid.

So, - he said, - for now we will round off. Now, sign for me here.

About what? - the scattered Sirotin stumbled.

About nondisclosure. Our conversation, as you know, is not for any ears.

So ... why? I'm not going to divulge.

Moreover, why not sign? Let's not break.

Sirotin, already taking a pencil, saw that he should sign at the very bottom of a piece of paper, covered with an ornate graceful handwriting tilted to the left.

Theses, - explained the major. - This I sketched out a sketch of how our conversation will go approximately. You see - it came together, in general.

The orphan was surprised by this, but partly reassured. In the end, he did not tell this major anything that he did not know in advance. And he signed with unsteady fingers.

And all business. - The major, grinning at Sirotin, neatly buttoned the clipboard, threw it behind his back and stood up. - And you, fool, were afraid. Smooth your skirt, let's go.

He paced in front, firmly stepping over the ballet dancer's poured, covered with soft chrome legs, the planchette and the pistol crawled and bounced on his steep buttocks, and Sirotin had the feeling that the girl returning from the forest after the already cooled seducer and who was trying to temper the wound of the soul that resisted as best she could.

And by the way, - the major suddenly turned around, and Sirotin almost ran into him, - since we are already inclined towards these topics ... Maybe you can explain the dream to me? Can you guess dreams? This means that I pressed a good woman in a suitable setting. I pour it into her ears - about the lilacs there, about Pushkin-Lermontov, and shuru under the skirt - politely, but inevitably, with good intentions. And that’s all, you know, chinnenko, it’s about to come down to it. How suddenly - can you imagine? - I feel: man! Honest mother, it was I who squeezed myself with the man, I almost wasted the ammunition. What do you say? I wake up in a cold sweat. And what is it for?

Georgy Vladimov

General and his army

Forgive you, feathered troops And proud battles, in which Ambition is considered for valor. All, all forgive. Forgive me, my neighing horse And the sound of the trumpet, and the rumble of the drum, And the whistle of the flute, and the regal banner, All the honors, all the glory, all the greatness And the stormy alarms of formidable wars. Forgive me, lethal weapons, Which rumble rushes along the earth ... William Shakespeare, "Othello, the Moor of Venice", Act III

Chapter one.

MAYOR SVETLOOKOV

So he emerges from the mist of the rain and sweeps, splattering tires, on the torn asphalt - "jeep", "king of the roads", the chariot of our Victory. A tarpaulin thrown with mud flaps in the wind, brushes rush on the glass, smearing translucent sectors, the swirling slush flies behind him like a train and settles with a hiss.

So he rushes under the sky of warring Russia, thundering incessantly with the thunder of an impending thunderstorm or with a distant cannonade - a ferocious little beast, blunt-nosed and flat-faced, howling from an evil strain to overcome space, to break through to its unknown goal.

Sometimes for him, whole miles of paths turn out to be impassable - because of funnels that knocked out the asphalt to the full width and filled to the brim with dark slurry, then he rolls over the ditch obliquely and eats the road, growling, tearing off layers of clay along with grass, spinning in a broken rut; having got out with relief, again picks up speed and runs, runs beyond the horizon, and behind are wet, shot-through copses with black branches and heaps of fallen leaves, burnt carcasses of cars piled to rot behind the side of the road, and chimneys of villages and farmsteads that emitted their last smoke for two years back.

He comes across bridges - from hastily sanded logs, next to the old ones, which have dropped rusty trusses into the water - he runs along these logs, as if on keys, jumping with a clang, and the flooring still sways and creaks when the "jeep" is gone, only blue exhaust melts over black water.

When he comes across barriers, they detain him for a long time, but, confidently bypassing the convoy of ambulances, clearing his way with demanding signals, he makes his way to the rails close and is the first to jump to the crossing, as soon as the tail of the train rumbles through.

He comes across "traffic jams" - from oncoming and cross streams, crowds of roaring, desperately signaling cars; chilled traffic controllers, with courageous girlish faces and swearing on their lips, embroider these "traffic jams", anxiously looking at the sky and threatening each approaching car from afar with a baton - for the "jeep", however, a passage is sought, and the crowded drivers look after him for a long time with bewilderment and indistinct anguish.

So he disappeared on the descent, behind the top of the hill, and calmed down - it seems, he fell there, collapsed, driven to exhaustion - no, he emerged on the rise, the engine sings a song of stubbornness, and a viscous Russian verst crawls reluctantly under the wheel ...

What was the Headquarters of the Supreme Command? - for the driver, already petrified in his seat and staring at the road stupidly and intently, blinking red eyelids, and from time to time, with the insistence of a person who has not slept for a long time, trying to light a cigarette butt stuck to his lip. True, in this very word - "Headquarters" - he heard and saw something high and stable, ascended over all the Moscow roofs, like a peaked fairytale tower, and at its foot - a long-awaited parking lot, surrounded by a wall and lined with cars, a courtyard, like an inn, oh which he heard or read somewhere. Someone constantly arrives there, someone is seen off, and an endless conversation flows between the drivers - no less than those conversations that their masters-generals conduct in gloomy, quiet chambers, behind heavy velvet curtains, on the eighth floor. Above the eighth - having lived his previous life on the first and only one - the driver Sirotin did not take his imagination, but the authorities were not supposed to be lower, too, one had to watch at least half of Moscow from the windows.

And Sirotin would be severely disappointed if he found out that the Headquarters hid itself deep underground, at the Kirovskaya metro station, and its offices are fenced off with plywood panels, and buffets and changing rooms are located in the carriages of the stationary train. It would be completely undignified, it would go deeper than Hitler's bunker; Our Soviet Headquarters could not be located like that, because the German one was ridiculed for this "bunker". And that bunker would not have overtaken such a thrill with which the generals went into the entrance on bent wadded legs.

Here, at the foot, where he placed himself with his "jeep", Sirotin hoped to learn about his future fate, which could merge again with the fate of the general, or could flow in a separate channel. If you open your ears well, you could find out something from the chauffeurs - just as he had scouted about this path in advance, from a colleague from the headquarters author. Coming together for a long smoke break, waiting for the end of the meeting, they first talked about the abstract - Sirotin, I remember, suggested that if the engine from an eight local Dodge was installed on the Jeep, there would be a good car, and there was no need to wish for the best; a colleague did not object to this, but noticed that the Dodge's engine was too big and, perhaps, the hood would not fit under the Jeep's, a special casing would have to be built up, and this was a hump - and both agreed that it was better to leave it as it was. Hence, their conversation leaned towards changes in general - how much benefit from them, - the colleague here declared himself a supporter of constancy and, in this connection, hinted to Sirotin that changes are expected in their army, literally the other day, it is not known only for better or for worse. What specific changes, the colleague did not reveal, only said that there was no final decision yet, but from the way he belittled his voice, one could understand that this decision would not even come from the front headquarters, but from somewhere higher; maybe from such a high that neither of them could get there even with a thought. “Although,” said a colleague suddenly, “you may be able to get there. You will see Moscow by chance - bow down. " Ambition did not allow Sirotin, the commander's chauffeur, to show surprise - what Moscow could have been in the midst of an offensive - he just nodded importantly, but secretly decided: his colleague didn't really know anything, he heard a distant ringing, or maybe this ringing itself and gave birth. But it turned out - not a ringing, it really turned out - Moscow! Just in case, Sirotin began to prepare at the same time - he mounted and put on unused tires, "native", that is, American ones, which he saved up to Europe, welded a bracket for another gas canister, even pulled this tarp, which was usually not taken in any weather , - the general did not like him: "It's stuffy under him," he said, "like in a doghouse, and he doesn't let you spread out quickly," that is, jump over the sides during shelling or bombing. In a word, it didn’t come out so unexpectedly when the general ordered: “Harness, Sirotin, we’ll have lunch - and to Moscow.”

Sirotin had never seen Moscow, and he was both glad that his old, pre-war plans were suddenly coming true, and worried about the general, who for some reason was suddenly recalled to Headquarters, not to mention himself: who else would have to be carried, and Wouldn't it be better to ask for a lorry, the same amount of trouble, but

During the reign of the Union of Writers of the USSR

When my story "Faithful Ruslan" appeared and began to spread in the West, you realized how much you had achieved with a long beat of "Three minutes of silence" - or was your hand just tired? - you considered it a mistake both the persecution itself and the status of "unwanted", which I have always been for you, and you urged me to "return to Soviet literature." I can see now what price I had to pay for this return. The simple-minded Mr. Hölmbakku, wishing to please you, writes that he is very pleased with the translation of Ruslan and the reviews of the Norwegian press - and what a thorn he is driving into your party hearts! Well, of course, politics is not in his line, he doesn't care where Russian prose appears - in "Frontiers" or in "Friendship of Peoples"; where he sees literature, there you are - politics and nothing else, who is color blind? I could ask him to rewrite the invitation letter so that no "Ruslan" was mentioned, would that suit you? - but for me it would mean: to give up my own book; I will not go to humiliation. And since you cannot part with your nature, and me with mine, this is my last letter to you. Did you realize where you urged me to "return"? What reserved corner of care and attention? Where you wait for seven years for a book to be published after the first magazine in the country has published it (children born that year just went to school, learned to read)? Where is any semi-literate editor and after approval has the right to demand any bills, even if they make up half of the text (not an anecdote - letters to me from M. Kolosov)? And where will an independent court in 90 cases out of a hundred (and if the work was criticized in the press, then in a hundred cases) will take the side of the state publishing house and confirm in its decision that it is necessary to keep within the “dimensions of the story”? Literary scholars who do not know this term, contact the judge Mogilnaya - she knows! What can you not endure for the sake of the great Russian reader - but if there was a need to endure, talk to him from under the press, in the hateful language of Aesop's slave. Of course, everyone will prefer to be published in their homeland, where their circulations are freely distributed, rather than being dragged in micro doses across the most reliable border in the world, and yet there is no problem of unpublished authors, there is a problem of those who do not dare to publish. Ten years ago, in a letter to the Fourth Congress, I spoke about the onset of the era of Samizdat - and now it ends, another, much more prolonged, era of Tamizdat. Yes, it always was, Tamizdat, a deck in the ocean that you hate, on which a tired pilot could land a car when domestic airfields were not accepted. But the exile advised you, and you did not listen: “Wipe the dials! - your watch is behind the times ”, it’s just right not to talk about the deck - about the whole islands, if not the mainland. And try not to reckon with the growing thirst of the reader, who, unlike you, is interested in the text, and not in the output data - he has less and less desire to disassemble the seventh or eighth copies, he wants to have a book. Russia has always been the country of the reader - and one that has been tested in seven waters, in countless fires. What they didn’t powder his brains with - and official praise, and lists of Stalinist laureates who had sunk into oblivion, and resolutions on ideological errors, and reports of your secretaries, and all sorts of anathemas, and journalism of "noble steelworkers" - and yet they did not completely powder it; survived, the best part of him crystallized, knowing the value of an honest, not a fake book. This reader, in addition to his main duty - just to read, - also accepted the rent imposed by time, to preserve books from physical death, and the more carefully, the more zealously they are taken away. For thirty years he has kept Yesenin, until he waited for a reprint, he still keeps the typewritten Gumilyov, he already stores - "Ivan Denisovich" in the "Roman Gazeta", accepted for preservation - "In the trenches of Stalingrad" with a library stamp: did you read, stole, begged? - but saved me from the guillotine knife. You asked me to "decide", to make a choice - but, I'm afraid, it is not between Tamizdat and Tutizdat, it is between the reader and you. Between him, who kept my "Novyirovsk" sets, intertwined - without hope that they would publish, and in the northern fleets - copied by hand into notebooks - and between you, who did not fulfill the elementary duties of the trade union for me. Your propaganda bureau did not recommend readers to meet with me, your legal commission did not stand up for my rights violated by the publishing house Sovetskaya Rossiya, acquaintance with the foreign commission is completely exhausted by the episode with the invitation from Hildendahl. Could it be otherwise? Could you deviate one iota from your main mission? Just as projects of a perpetual motion machine are deliberately rejected, so should all attempts to direct the literary process be rejected. Literature cannot be controlled. But you can help a writer in his most difficult task, or you can hurt. Our powerful alliance has invariably preferred the latter, being - and remaining a police apparatus that has risen high above the writers and from which raucous urges and threats are heard - and if only they. I will not read the Stalinist list - to whom the union, the most faithful conductor of the evil will of those in power, and with its still zealous initiative, initially formalized the affairs, doomed to torment and death, to fade away in decades of lack of freedom - is too long, more than 600 names - and you you will be justified: these are the mistakes of the previous leadership. But under what leadership - the previous, current, intermediate - did they "congratulate" Pasternak on the Prize, exiled - like a parasite Brodsky, threw Sinyavsky and Daniel into the camp barracks, burned out the damned Solzhenitsyn, tore the magazine out of Tvardovsky's hands? And now, the Helsinki ink has not yet dried out, new punishments - expelling my colleagues from the International PEN Club. Why do we need some kind of PEN when we whistled two Nobel laureates! - and how not to exclaim with the words of the third: "The best sons of the Quiet Don have you put into this pit!" Well, maybe that's enough? Shall we come to our senses? Are we going to be horrified? So after all, for this, at least, you have to be Fadeevs. But, grass, banishing all the restless, rebellious, "wrong", alien to the socialist realist stereotype, everything that constituted the strength and color of our literature, you and in your union destroyed every personal principle. Whether it is in a person, in union, and there is hope: a turn towards repentance, towards rebirth. But after the exchange of pieces, the situation on the board became extremely simpler - a pawn ending, gray starts and wins. This is the limit of irreversibility: when the fates of the writers, whose books are bought and read, are in control of the writers, whose books are not bought or read. Dull dullness, with a well-developed instrument of verbiage, flooding your boards, secretariats, commissions, devoid of a sense of history, it knows only a thirst for immediate satiety. And this thirst is unquenchable and indomitable. Remaining on this earth, at the same time, I do not want to be with you. No longer for myself alone, but also for all those excluded by you, “shaped” for destruction, for oblivion, even if they did not authorize me, but, I think, would not object, I exclude you from my life. To a handful of wonderful, talented people, whose stay in your union seems to me accidental and forced, I apologize today for my departure. But tomorrow they too will understand that the bell is ringing for each of us, and each deserves this ringing: each was a persecutor when a comrade was expelled - even if we did not strike, but supported you with our names, authority, our silent presence. Bear the burden of the grays, do what you are fit for and called - press, persecute, do not let go. But - without me. I am returning ticket number 1471.