War in works of Russian literature. The Great Patriotic War in the works of the 20th century. And having lived to the end

Have you heard the expression? “When the guns roar, the muses are silent.” During the Great Patriotic War, the muses not only did not remain silent - they shouted, sang, called, inspired, and stood up to their full height.

The years 1941-1945 are probably one of the most terrible in the history of the “Russian state”. Tears, blood, pain and fear - these are the main “symbols” of that time. And despite this - courage, joy, pride in yourself and your loved ones. People supported each other, fought for the right to life, for peace on earth - and art helped them in this.

Suffice it to recall the words spoken by two German soldiers many years after the end of the war: “Then, on August 9, 1942, we realized that we would lose the war. We felt your strength, capable of overcoming hunger, fear and even death...” And on August 9, at the Leningrad Philharmonic, the orchestra performed D. D. Shostakovich’s seventh symphony...

It wasn't only music that helped people survive. It was during the war years that amazingly good films were made, for example, “The Wedding” or “Hearts of Four.” It was during these years that beautiful, immortal songs were sung, like “The Blue Handkerchief.”

And yet literature played a huge role, perhaps the main one.

Writers and poets, writers, critics, artists knew firsthand what war was. They saw it with their own eyes. Just read: K. Simonov, B. Okudzhava, B. Slutsky, A. Tvardovsky, M. Jalil, V. Astafiev, V. Grossman... It is not surprising that their books, their work became a kind of chronicle of those tragic events - a chronicle of beautiful and terrible .

One of the most famous poems about the war is the short four lines of Yulia Drunina - the lines of a frightened, excited front-line girl:

I've only seen hand-to-hand combat once,
Once in reality. And a thousand - in a dream.
Who says that war is not scary?
He knows nothing about the war.

The theme of the Great Patriotic War will forever remain in her work.

Perhaps one of the most terrible poems will be the work “Barbarism”, written by the poet Musa Jalil. The level of brutality shown by the invaders seems to be unmatched by all wild animals in the world. Only man is capable of such unspeakable cruelty:

My land, tell me, what's wrong with you?
You have often seen human grief,
You have bloomed for us for millions of years,
But have you experienced it at least once?
Such a shame and such barbarity?

Many more tears were shed, many bitter words were said about betrayal, cowardice and baseness, and even more about nobility, selflessness and humanity, when, it would seem, nothing human could remain in the souls.

Let's remember Mikhail Sholokhov and his story “The Fate of a Man.” It was written after the war, in the mid-50s, but its realism amazes even the modern reader. This is a short and perhaps not unique story of a soldier who lost everything he had in terrible years. And despite this, the main character, Andrei Sokolov, did not become embittered. Fate dealt him blows one after another, but he managed - he endured his cross and continued to live.

Other writers and poets also dedicated their works to the years of the Great Patriotic War. Some helped soldiers survive in battle - for example, Konstantin Simonov and his immortal “Wait for me” or Alexander Tvardovsky with “Vasily Terkin”. These works went beyond the boundaries of poetry. They were rewritten, cut out from newspapers, reprinted, sent to family and friends... And all because the Word - the most powerful weapon in the world - instilled in people the hope that man is stronger than war. He knows how to cope with any difficulties.

Other works told the bitter truth about the war - for example, Vasil Bykov and his story “Sotnikov”.

Almost all literature of the 20th century is in one way or another connected with wartime themes. From books - huge novels, novellas and short stories, we, a generation that has not experienced years of horror and fear, can learn about the greatest events of our history. Find out - and pay tribute to the Heroes, thanks to whom the peaceful sky turns blue above our heads.

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

410 words, 4 paragraphs

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

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

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

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

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Essay

on the topic: “Reflection of the Great Patriotic War in Literature”

Literature about the Great Patriotic War went through several stages in its development. In 1941-1945. it was created by writers who went to war in order to support the patriotic spirit of the people with their works, to unite them in the fight against a common enemy, and to reveal the feat of a soldier. The motto of the time is “Kill him!” (enemy) permeated this literature - a response to the tragic events in the life of a country that had not yet raised questions about the causes of the war and could not connect 1937 and 1941 into one plot, could not know the terrible prices, which the people paid for victory in this war. The most successful, included in the treasury of Russian literature, was “The Book about a Fighter” - A. Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin”. “The Young Guard” by A. Fadeev about the feat and death of young Krasnodon residents touches the soul with the moral purity of the heroes, but causes bewilderment with its popular description of the life of young people before the war and the methods of creating images of fascists. The literature of the first stage was in spirit descriptive, non-analytical.

The second stage in the development of the military theme in literature occurred in 1945-1950. These are novels, stories, poems about victory and meetings, about fireworks and kisses - overly jubilant and triumphant (for example, S. Babaevsky’s novel “Cavalier of the Golden Star”). They didn't finish the creepy truth about war. In general, M. Sholokhov’s wonderful story “The Fate of a Man” (1957) hid the truth about where former prisoners of war ended up after returning home. Tvardovsky will say about this later:

And having lived to the end

That way of the cross, half alive -

From captivity to captivity - under the thunder of victory

Follow with a double stamp.

Real Truth was written about the war in the 60-80s, when those who themselves fought, sat in the trenches, commanded a battery, fought for “an inch of land,” and was captured. The literature of this period was called “the literature of lieutenants” (Yu. Bondarev, G. Baklanov, V. Bykov, K. Vorobyov, B. Vasiliev, V. Bogomolov). They were beaten hard. They beat them because they “narrowed” the scale of the war image to the size of an “inch of land,” a battery, a trench, a fishing line... They were not published for a long time for “de-heroizing” events. And they, knowing the value of everyday feat saw him in everyday life work soldier Lieutenant writers wrote not about victories on the fronts, but about defeats, encirclement, the retreat of the army, about stupid command and confusion at the top. The writers of this generation took as a model Tolstoy the principle of depicting war is “not in a correct, beautiful and brilliant system, with music... with fluttering banners and prancing generals, but... in blood, in suffering, in death.” The analytical spirit of “Sevastopol Stories” entered Russian literature about the war of the 20th century.

In 1965, the magazine “New World” published V. Bykov’s story “The Kruglyansky Bridge”, which made a hole in popular literature about the war. ...The operational group of the partisan detachment receives the task of setting fire to the Kruglyansky bridge, which connects two banks: on one - the Germans, on the other - the bloodless partisans. The bridge is guarded day and night by German sentries. Major Britvin noticed that every morning a cart with cans of milk for the Germans, driven by a boy, drove across the bridge. A brilliant idea struck the major: pour out the milk secretly from the boy, fill the can with explosives and, when the cart is in the middle of the bridge, set fire to the fuse... Explosion. No bridge, no horse, no boy... The task was completed, but at what cost? “War is an occasion to talk about a good and a bad person” - these words of Vasil Bykov express the essence of the new tasks being solved by literature about war - to give a ruthless, sober analysis of time and human material. “The war forced many to open their eyes in amazement... involuntarily and unexpectedly, very often we found ourselves witnessing the fact that the war was tearing off the magnificent covers... A lover of loud and correct phrases sometimes turned out to be a coward. An undisciplined fighter accomplished a feat” (V. Bykov). The writer is convinced that historians should deal with war in the narrow sense, and the writer’s interest should be focused exclusively on moral problems: “who is a citizen in military and peaceful life, and who is a selfish person?”, “the dead have no shame, but those who are alive before dead? and others.

“Lieutenant Literature” made the picture of the war all-encompassing: the front line, captivity, the partisan region, the victorious days of 1945, the rear - this is what K. Vorobyov, V. Bykov, E. Nosov, A. Tvardovsky resurrected in high and low manifestations.

The story of K. D. Vorobyov (1919-1975) “Killed near Moscow.” It was published in Russia only in the 80s. - they were afraid of the truth. The title of the story, like a hammer blow, is precise, brief, and immediately raises the question: by whom? Military leader and historian A. Gulyga wrote: “In this war we lacked everything: cars, fuel, shells, rifles... The only thing we did not spare was people.” The German General Gollwitzer was amazed: “You do not spare your soldiers, one would think that you are commanding a foreign legion, and not your compatriots.” Two statements pose an important problem murders their own. But what K. Vorobyov managed to show in the story is much deeper and more tragic, because all horror The betrayals of one's boys can only be depicted in a work of fiction.

The first and second chapters - expositional. The Germans are pushing the army towards Moscow, and Kremlin cadets are being sent to the front line, “boyishly loud and almost joyfully” reacting to flying Junkers, in love with Captain Ryumin - with his “arrogantly ironic” smile, tight and slender figure, with a twig stack in his hand, with his cap slightly shifted to his right temple. Alyosha Yastrebov, like everyone else, “carried within himself an irrepressible, hidden happiness,” “the joy of a flexible young body.” The landscape also corresponds to the description of youth and freshness in the children: “...Snow - light, dry, blue. It gave off the smell of Antonov apples... something cheerful and cheerful was conveyed to the legs, as if listening to music.” They ate biscuits, laughed, dug trenches and were eager to fight. And they had no idea about the approaching trouble. “Some kind of soul-searching smile” on the lips of the NKVD major, the lieutenant colonel’s warning that 240 cadets would not receive a single machine gun, alerted Alexei, who knew by heart Stalin’s speech that “we will beat the enemy on his territory.” He guessed the deception. “There was no place in his soul where the incredible reality of war could settle down,” but the reader guessed that the boy cadets would become hostages of the war. Tie-up The plot becomes the appearance of reconnaissance aircraft. Sashka’s white nose, an inexorable feeling of fear, not because they are cowards, but because the Nazis do not expect mercy.

Ryumin already knew that “the front had been broken in our direction,” a wounded soldier told about the true situation there: “Even though darkness killed us there, there were even more of us alive!” So now we’re wandering.” “Like a blow, Alexei suddenly felt a painful feeling of kinship, pity and closeness to everything that was around and nearby, ashamed of the painful tears that welled up” - this is how Vorobyov describes the psychological state of the protagonist.

The appearance of political instructor Anisimov raised hopes. He “called on the Kremlin people to be steadfast and said that communications are reaching here from the rear and neighbors are approaching.” But this was another deception. The mortar shelling began, shown by Vorobyov in naturalistic detail, in the suffering of Anisimov, wounded in the stomach: “Cut... Well, please, cut...” he begged Alexei. “An unnecessary tearful cry” accumulated in Alexei’s soul. A man of “swift action,” Captain Ryumin understood: no one needs them, they are cannon fodder to distract the enemy’s attention. "Only forward!" - Ryumin decides to himself, leading the cadets into the night battle. They didn’t shout “Hurray! For Stalin!" (as in the films), something “wordless and hard” burst from their chests. Alexei “no longer screamed, but howled.” The patriotism of the cadets was expressed not in a slogan, not in a phrase, but in act. And after the victory, the first in their lives, the young, ringing joy of these Russian boys: “...They blew it to pieces! Understand? Blast!”

But the German plane attack began. The artist K. Vorobyov stunningly depicted the hell of war with some new images: “trembling of the earth”, “dense carousel of airplanes”, “rising and falling fountains of explosions”, “waterfall merging of sounds”. The author’s words seem to reproduce Ryumin’s passionate internal monologue: “But only night could lead the company to this milestone of final victory, and not this bashful little brat of the sky - day! Oh, if Ryumin could drive him into the dark gates of the night!..”

Climax occurs after an attack by tanks, when Yastrebov, who was running away from them, saw a young cadet clinging to a hole in the ground. “A coward, a traitor,” Alexey suddenly and terribly guessed, not yet connecting himself with the cadet in any way.” He suggested that Alexey report upstairs that he, Yastrebov, shot down the cadet. “A selfish man,” Alexey thinks of him, threatening to be sent to the NKVD after their argument about what to do next. In each of them they fought fear before the NKVD and conscience. And Alexei realized that “death has many faces”: you can kill a comrade, thinking that he is a traitor, you can kill yourself in a fit of despair, you can throw yourself under a tank not for the sake of a heroic act, but simply because instinct dictates it. K. Vorobyov the analyst explores this diversity of death in war and shows how it happens without false pathos. The story amazes with its laconicism and chastity of description. tragic.

Denouement comes unexpectedly. Alexey crawled out from under cover and soon found himself on a field with stacks and saw his own people led by Ryumin. Before their eyes, a Soviet hawk was shot in the air. “Scoundrel! After all, all this was shown to us long ago in Spain! - Ryumin whispered. “...We can never be forgiven for this!” Here is a portrait of Ryumin, who realized the great crime of the main command in front of the hawk, the boys, their gullibility and love for him, the captain: “He cried... unseeing eyes, a sideways mouth, raised wings of his nostrils, but he now sat secretly quiet, as if listening to something and trying to comprehend the thought that eludes him...”

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

Ernest Hemingway

According to the encyclopedia "The Great Patriotic War", over a thousand writers served in the active army; of the eight hundred members of the Moscow writers' organization, two hundred and fifty went to the front in the first days of the war. Four hundred and seventy-one writers did not return from the war - this is a big loss. They are explained by the fact that writers, most of whom became front-line journalists, sometimes happened to engage not only in their direct correspondent duties, but also take up arms - this is how the situation developed (however, bullets and shrapnel did not spare those who did not find themselves in such situations) . Many simply found themselves in the ranks - they fought in army units, in the militia, in the partisans!

In military prose, two periods can be distinguished: 1) prose of the war years: stories, essays, novels written directly during military operations, or rather, in short intervals between offensives and retreats; 2) post-war prose, in which many painful questions were understood, such as, for example, why did the Russian people endure such difficult trials? Why did the Russians find themselves in such a helpless and humiliating position in the first days and months of the war? Who is to blame for all the suffering? And other questions that arose with closer attention to documents and memories of eyewitnesses in an already distant time. But still, this is a conditional division, because the literary process is sometimes a contradictory and paradoxical phenomenon, and understanding the theme of war in the post-war period was more difficult than during the period of hostilities.

The war was the greatest test and test of all the strength of the people, and he passed this test with honor. The war was also a serious test for Soviet literature. During the Great Patriotic War, literature, enriched with the traditions of Soviet literature of previous periods, not only immediately responded to the events taking place, but also became an effective weapon in the fight against the enemy. Noting the intense, truly heroic creative work of writers during the war, M. Sholokhov said: “They had one task: if only their word would strike the enemy, if only it would hold our fighter under the elbow, ignite and not let the burning fire in the hearts of the Soviet people fade away.” hatred for enemies and love for the Motherland." The theme of the Great Patriotic War remains extremely modern today.

The Great Patriotic War is reflected in Russian literature deeply and comprehensively, in all its manifestations: the army and the rear, the partisan movement and the underground, the tragic beginning of the war, individual battles, heroism and betrayal, the greatness and drama of the Victory. The authors of military prose are, as a rule, front-line soldiers; in their works they rely on real events, on their own front-line experience. In the books about the war by front-line writers, the main line is soldier's friendship, front-line camaraderie, the hardship of life on the field, desertion and heroism. Dramatic human destinies unfold in war; life or death sometimes depends on a person’s actions. Front-line writers are a whole generation of courageous, conscientious, experienced, gifted individuals who endured war and post-war hardships. Front-line writers are those authors who in their works express the point of view that the outcome of the war is decided by a hero who recognizes himself as a part of the warring people, bearing his cross and a common burden.

Based on the heroic traditions of Russian and Soviet literature, the prose of the Great Patriotic War reached great creative heights. The prose of the war years is characterized by an intensification of romantic and lyrical elements, the widespread use by artists of declamatory and song intonations, oratorical turns, and resort to such poetic means as allegory, symbol, and metaphor.

One of the first books about the war was the story by V.P. Nekrasov "In the Trenches of Stalingrad", published immediately after the war in the magazine "Znamya" in 1946, and in 1947 the story "Star" by E.G. Kazakevich. One of the first A.P. Platonov wrote a dramatic story of a front-line soldier returning home in the story “Return,” which was published in Novy Mir already in 1946. The hero of the story, Alexey Ivanov, is in no hurry to go home, he has found a second family among his fellow soldiers, he has lost the habit of being at home, from his family. The heroes of Platonov's works "...were now going to live as if for the first time, vaguely remembering what they were like three or four years ago, because they had turned into completely different people...". And in the family, next to his wife and children, another man appeared, who was orphaned by the war. It is difficult for a front-line soldier to return to another life, to his children.

The most reliable works about the war were created by front-line writers: V.K. Kondratyev, V.O. Bogomolov, K.D. Vorobyov, V.P. Astafiev, G.Ya. Baklanov, V.V. Bykov, B.L. Vasiliev, Yu.V. Bondarev, V.P. Nekrasov, E.I. Nosov, E.G. Kazakevich, M.A. Sholokhov. On the pages of prose works we find a kind of chronicle of the war, which reliably conveyed all the stages of the great battle of the Soviet people against fascism. Front-line writers, contrary to the tendencies that developed in Soviet times to gloss over the truth about the war, depicted the harsh and tragic war and post-war reality. Their works are a true testimony of the time when Russia fought and won.

A great contribution to the development of Soviet military prose was made by the writers of the so-called “second war,” front-line writers who entered the mainstream literature in the late 50s and early 60s. These are such prose writers as Bondarev, Bykov, Ananyev, Baklanov, Goncharov, Bogomolov, Kurochkin, Astafiev, Rasputin. In the works of front-line writers, in their works of the 50s and 60s, in comparison with the books of the previous decade, the tragic emphasis in the depiction of war increased. War, as depicted by front-line prose writers, is not only and not even so much about spectacular heroic deeds, outstanding deeds, but about tedious everyday work, hard, bloody, but vital work. And it was precisely in this everyday work that the writers of the “second war” saw the Soviet man.

The distance of time, helping front-line writers to see the picture of the war much more clearly and in greater volume when their first works appeared, was one of the reasons that determined the evolution of their creative approach to the military theme. Prose writers, on the one hand, used their military experience, and on the other, artistic experience, which allowed them to successfully realize their creative ideas. It can be noted that the development of prose about the Great Patriotic War clearly shows that among its main problems, the main one, standing for more than sixty years at the center of the creative search of our writers, was and is the problem of heroism. This is especially noticeable in the works of front-line writers, who in their works showed in close-up the heroism of our people and the fortitude of soldiers.

Front-line writer Boris Lvovich Vasiliev, author of everyone’s favorite books “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” (1968), “Tomorrow There Was War”, “Not on the Lists” (1975), “Soldiers Were Walking Aty Baty”, which were filmed in the Soviet time, in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta on May 20, 2004, he noted the demand for military prose. On the military stories of B.L. Vasiliev raised a whole generation of youth. Everyone remembers the bright images of girls who combined love of truth and perseverance (Zhenya from the story “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet...”, Spark from the story “Tomorrow There Was War,” etc.) and sacrificial devotion to a high cause and loved ones (the heroine of the story “In was not included in the lists”, etc.). In 1997, the writer was awarded the Prize. HELL. Sakharov "For Civil Courage".

The first work about the war by E.I. Nosov had a story “Red Wine of Victory” (1969), in which the hero celebrated Victory Day on a government bed in a hospital and received, along with all the suffering wounded, a glass of red wine in honor of this long-awaited holiday. “A true trenchman, an ordinary soldier, he doesn’t like to talk about the war... A fighter’s wounds will speak more and more powerfully about the war. You can’t rattle off holy words in vain. Just like you can’t lie about the war. But writing badly about the suffering of the people is shameful.” In the story "Khutor Beloglin" Alexey, the hero of the story, lost everything in the war - no family, no home, no health, but, nevertheless, remained kind and generous. Yevgeny Nosov wrote a number of works at the turn of the century, about which Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn said, presenting him with a prize named after him: “And, 40 years later, conveying the same military theme, with bitter bitterness Nosov stirs up what hurts today... This undivided Nosov closes with grief the half-century wound of the Great War and everything that has not been told about it even today.” Works: “Apple Savior”, “Commemorative Medal”, “Fanfares and Bells” - from this series.

In 1992, Astafiev V.P. Published the novel Cursed and Killed. In the novel “Cursed and Killed,” Viktor Petrovich conveys the war not in “the correct, beautiful and brilliant system with music and drums and battle, with fluttering banners and prancing generals,” but in “its real expression - in blood, in suffering, in of death".

The Belarusian front-line writer Vasil Vladimirovich Bykov believed that the military theme “is leaving our literature for the same reason... why valor, honor, self-sacrifice are gone... The heroic has been expelled from everyday life, why do we still need war, where this inferiority is most obvious?” "Incomplete truth" and outright lies about the war for many years have diminished the meaning and significance of our war (or anti-war, as they sometimes say) literature." V. Bykov's depiction of war in the story "Swamp" provokes protest among many Russian readers. It shows the ruthlessness of Soviet soldiers towards local residents. The plot is this, judge for yourself: paratroopers landed behind enemy lines, in occupied Belarus, in search of a partisan base, having lost their bearings, they took a boy as their guide... and kill him for reasons of safety and secrecy of the mission. An equally terrible story by Vasil Bykov - “On the Swamp Stitch” - is a “new truth” about the war, again about the ruthless and cruel partisans who dealt with a local teacher just because she asked them not to destroy the bridge, otherwise the Germans would destroy the entire village . The teacher in the village is the last savior and protector, but she was killed by the partisans as a traitor. The works of the Belarusian front-line writer Vasil Bykov cause not only controversy, but also reflection.

Leonid Borodin published the story “The Detachment Left.” The military story also depicts another truth about the war, about the partisans, the heroes of which are soldiers who were surrounded by the first days of the war, in the German rear in a partisan detachment. The author takes a fresh look at the relationship between occupied villages and the partisans they must feed. The commander of the partisan detachment shot the village headman, but not the traitorous headman, but his own man for the villagers, just for one word against. This story can be placed on a par with the works of Vasil Bykov in its depiction of military conflict, the psychological struggle between good and bad, meanness and heroism.

It was not for nothing that front-line writers complained that not the whole truth about the war had been written. Time passed, a historical distance appeared, which made it possible to see the past and what was experienced in its true light, the necessary words came, other books were written about the war, which will lead us to spiritual knowledge of the past. Now it is difficult to imagine modern literature about the war without a large number of memoirs created not just by participants in the war, but by outstanding commanders.

Alexander Beck (1902-1972)

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

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


"Volokolamsk Highway"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Work...


Alexander Fadeev (1901-1956)

Fadeev (Bulyga) Alexander Alexandrovich - prose writer, critic, literary theorist, public figure. Born on December 24 (10), 1901 in the village of Kimry, Korchevsky district, Tver province. He spent his early childhood in Vilna and Ufa. In 1908, the Fadeev family moved to the Far East. From 1912 to 1919, Alexander Fadeev studied at the Vladivostok Commercial School (he left without finishing the 8th grade). During the civil war, Fadeev took an active part in hostilities in the Far East. In the battle near Spassk he was wounded. Alexander Fadeev wrote his first completed story, “The Spill,” in 1922-1923, and the story “Against the Current,” in 1923. In 1925-1926, while working on the novel “The Rout,” he decided to engage in literary work professionally.

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


"Young guard"

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

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

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


Work...


Vasily Grossman (1905-1964)

Grossman Vasily Semenovich (real name Grossman Joseph Solomonovich), prose writer, playwright, was born on November 29 (December 12) in the city of Berdichev in the family of a chemist, which determined the choice of his profession: he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University and graduated from it in 1929. Until 1932 he worked in the Donbass as a chemical engineer, then he began to actively collaborate in the magazine “Literary Donbass”: in 1934 his first story “Gluckauf” (from the life of Soviet miners) appeared, then the story “In the City of Berdichev”. M. Gorky drew attention to the young author and supported him by publishing “Gluckauf” in a new edition in the almanac “Year XVII” (1934). Grossman moves to Moscow and becomes a professional writer.

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


"The people are immortal"

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

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

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

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






"Life and Fate"

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

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

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

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

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


Work...


Yuri Bondarev (1924)

Bondarev Yuri Vasilievich (born March 15, 1924 in Orsk, Orenburg region), Russian Soviet writer. In 1941, Yu.V. Bondarev, along with thousands of young Muscovites, participated in the construction of defensive fortifications near Smolensk. Then there was an evacuation, where Yuri graduated from the 10th grade. In the summer of 1942, he was sent to study at the 2nd Berdichev Infantry School, which was evacuated to the city of Aktyubinsk. In October of the same year, the cadets were sent to Stalingrad. Bondarev was assigned as the commander of the mortar crew of the 308th regiment of the 98th Infantry Division.

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

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

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


"Hot Snow"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Introduction.

The theme of the Great Patriotic War in our literature is the most multifaceted and significant, because it is associated with a majestic historical event in the tragic fate of the peoples not only of our country, but of the whole world.

However, in recent decades, due to historical changes in the world, different points of view have emerged on the problems associated with the war of 1941-1945. including the world-historical significance of our victory in it, therefore the purpose of my work is to analyze the development of literature about the Great Patriotic War in certain periods of it and to study the processes that are currently underway in understanding the historical past of our country, including and with the past war.

However, in order to understand the nature of a historical event, you need to go from its origins, barely noticeable streams to the birth of a formidable flood, forcing human hearts to fill with trembling and experience shocks. The “springs” of novels, stories, poems and poems about the war flow from the most important thing - from the thought of why our people suffered such losses, so I was faced with the following tasks:

To prove that any revision of the history of the Great Patriotic War and the world-historical significance of our Victory in it is meaningless and impossible.

To trace the dynamics of the development in literature of the theme of war and its reflection in different periods of historical time.

Determine the connection between works about modern wars and literature of past years.

The author of this project, Bibik Daria, has done a great job, studying many sources that reveal the topic of her research article. She has an excellent command of the material that she shared with students in grades 8-11. Daria showed the children a presentation with her research.

Our lyceum is located in a military town, many of whose houses have memorial plaques reminiscent of the heroes who gave their lives during the war. Traditionally, the lyceum holds meetings with veterans of the Great Patriotic War, with combat veterans, which allow our students to better understand the topic of the Great Patriotic War.

The Lyceum has a museum “Chkalovtsy”, where a wealth of material is collected about the participants in the war, so it is no coincidence that Dasha became interested in exploring how the Great Patriotic War was reflected in literature during different periods of the historical development of our country.

Daria Bibik did the work herself.

II. Main part.

The Great Patriotic War became liberation and sacred for us, because it was not about defending territory, but about preserving the very life of the people, their language, culture, and future.

The war brutally affected not only those who directly took part in it in any form. She aimed at many future generations who came into the world after 1945, she aimed, testing the strength, resilience and moral height of each person, his love for the Motherland.

Art sought to analyze those invisible “threads” of spiritual life, thanks to which a person remained human in the most unbearable conditions. There are roots that keep everyone on earth: here is duty, and love of life, and overcoming the fear of death, and a sense of responsibility to future generations, to one’s country.

Thousands of books have been written about the war, but this topic is inexhaustible and still worries readers, because it is in them that a person realizes the strength of spirit and the resilience of his character - these are the most life-affirming works in the world of literature.

The first poetic lines born of the war were heard a few hours after it began. They were brought to life by the holy feeling of the offended people.

The beginning of the war on June 22, 1941, instantly changed the worldview of the masses, stirred up strong emotional experiences, in which there was not only anxiety, a feeling of enormous danger, but also a passionate desire to defend the Motherland, to defeat the enemy at any cost.

This was how the sacred feeling of a great people who had been subjected to a treacherous attack by the Nazis was manifested.

In the first days of the war, a song was born that became unforgettable for all Soviet people: on the platform of the Belorussky station, from where the trains left for the war, the great solemn music of A. Alexandrov sounded, and the sublime, soul-grabbing words of the poet V.I. Lebedeva - Kumach:

Get up, huge country,

Rise to the death!

With fascist dark power,

With the damned horde.

May holiness be noble

Boils like a wave

...There is a people's war going on. Holy war.

At the beginning of the war, writers and poets sought to achieve the birth of a word that would inspire the people to fight the enemy. An important task was to convey this word to every person as quickly as possible, so poetry and works of small prose form came to the fore: a story, an essay, an article that could be printed in a “combat leaflet” and given the opportunity to read them in the trenches on the front line.

Since the beginning of the war, our troops have been retreating. The whole country became aware of the Nazi atrocities in the occupied territory, so the theme of retribution was reflected in poetry. In the poem by K. Simonov “If your home is dear to you...” the idea of ​​everyone’s responsibility for the fate of the Motherland is clearly expressed:

Know: no one will save her,

If you don't save her.

Know that no one will kill him,

If you don't kill him.

And there was no call for cruelty: the lines of the work reflected the highest humanity - to protect your country, your home, your children from the enemy. Any reckoning with the enemy is retribution. M. Aliger’s poem “Zoya” was written on this topic, telling about the heroic death of the partisan girl Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The works of M. Isakovsky “Order to the Son”, “The Avengers” and others were widely known.

However, in the first months of the war, the lyrical current in poetry also intensified: next to essays about heroes and front-line correspondence, newspapers published poems about love and friendship, and images of Russian nature made them especially heartfelt.

The birth and wide dissemination of the song should be noted, because the soul of our people has always been drawn to it, revealing its entire breadth in song motifs.

The song sounded in the front-line dugout, and in the forest camp of the partisans, and in the hospital ward, and at a rest stop after a difficult and long march. There were many popular songs then, most of them have survived to this day and are the decoration of many concerts.

The name of M.V. Isakovsky is widely known in our country. After all, millions of people sang “In the forest near the front”, “Enemies burned their home.” A special place belongs to “Katyusha”. This song became a real fighter during the Great Patriotic War. A. Prokofiev, a front-line poet, wrote: “To make hatred stronger, let’s talk about love.” It must be said that there were a lot of versions of “Katyusha”: fighters, partisans, nurses created their own versions of the poems, the song became truly folk.

The fate of Aleksey Surkov’s “Dugout” is unusual: the poet wrote several lines of poetry in a letter from the front in November 1941 after a difficult battle near Istra, when he was making his way to his own people from encirclement and death was indeed “four steps away.” Maybe unquenchable love took death away from the soldier-poet and gave him life? “Dugout” was dearly loved at the front, and is still loved today.

Despite the great desire to take revenge on the enemy, the theme of retribution was only clearly reflected in literature at the beginning of the war.

Soon the idea of ​​the indissolubility of the fate of an individual person with the fate of the people comes to the forefront, and the theme of patriotism and heroism expands. Works are created about love and fidelity, about soldier's friendship, about a Russian woman who shouldered hard, back-breaking work in the rear.

Everything despite the war undoubtedly reflected the idea of ​​peace, the all-conquering desire for life. A. Tvardovsky spoke about this vividly and succinctly in his poem “Vasily Terkin”:

The battle is holy and right,

Mortal combat is not for glory,

For the sake of life on earth.

The hero of the poem is a simple Smolensk boy, a soldier, who became the bearer of the unbending national spirit, a favorite literary character.

Probably, the literary process of the first decades following 1945 was natural and logical: writers showed the war “close up.” Novels, stories, poems and verses were a kind of reaction to the experience.

The following years were characterized by an expansion of the themes of the works: these were books in which the artist’s thoughts penetrated into the depths of phenomena associated with the past war

There is a unique phenomenon in our military prose - it is called “lieutenant’s prose.”

The heroes of these unusually truthful works are not famous commanders or intelligence officers who penetrate enemy headquarters. No, these are soldiers, sergeants and very young officers, just former tenth graders yesterday.

There were many nineteen-year-old officers in wartime: they were the ones who commanded artillery batteries and infantry platoons, held the defense with their soldiers, raised a platoon or company to attack and were the first to face bullets.

The works of front-line writers became an important link in the literature about the Great Patriotic War, but it was necessary to comprehend the events on a broader “global” scale; it was necessary to critically evaluate, compare, and analyze the objective picture, the causes and consequences of what happened. This direction in literature can be said in the words of Sergei Yesenin:

Face to face

You can't see the face.

Big things can be seen from a distance.

In the 70-80s, many bright and talented books about the war were created. Each writer followed his own path, because the topic was inexhaustible.

Everything that had already been studied in detail and trifles unexpectedly turned into a moral and aesthetic discovery.

Among the representatives of “lieutenant prose”, the name of Boris Vasiliev attracts many readers. At the age of 17, Boris Vasiliev volunteered for the front.

The boys born in the year of Lenin’s death were almost all destined to lay down their lives in the Great Patriotic War. Only 3 percent of them remained alive, and Boris Vasiliev miraculously found himself among them. He recalled that he got a lucky ticket. He did not die of typhus in 1934, he did not die surrounded in 1941, the parachute opened on all seven landing jumps, and in the last combat jump, near Vyazma, in March 1943, he ran into a mine tripwire, but on his body There wasn't even a scratch.

The creative destiny of the writer was not easy, and only the story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet...” brought him fame and recognition. This work was published in the magazine “Youth” (1969, No. 8). It was from this book, which received a huge response from readers, that Boris Vasiliev began to steadily gain heights in his work.

The idea for the story arose from Vasiliev as a result of internal disagreement with the way certain military events and problems are covered in literature. Over the years, his serious fascination with “lieutenant’s prose” was replaced by the conviction that he saw the war with completely different eyes.

B. Vasiliev is attracted by the fates of those who found themselves cut off from their own people during the war, deprived of communication, support, medical care, who, defending their Motherland to the last drop of blood, to the last breath, had to rely only on their own strength. The writer’s military experience could not help but have an impact here. The motive of patriotism sounds lofty and tragic in the story, and at the same time this prose is directed towards an eternally ongoing life.

Quiet dawns at the 171st crossing, on a tiny piece of land with only 12 yards, surrounded on all sides by war, become silent witnesses to the amazing confrontation between anti-aircraft gunner girls and seasoned enemy paratroopers. But in reality - women's opposition to war, violence, murder, everything that the very essence of a woman is incompatible with. One after another, 5 destinies are cut short, and with each one, the dawns above the earth almost palpably become quieter and quieter. And they, the quiet dawns, will also amaze those who come here years after the end of the war and read its pages again.

We are accustomed to the fact that in war there is no place for sentimentality and tenderness, and the word “hero” in our understanding is necessarily a fighter, a soldier, in a word, a man. Everyone knows the names: Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Panfilov and many others, but few people know the names of those girls who went straight from the prom to the war, without whom, perhaps, there would have been no victory.

It’s hard to imagine how nurses, my peers, dragged wounded soldiers from the battlefield to the whistling of bullets. If for a man the defense of the Fatherland is a duty, a sacred duty, then women went to the front voluntarily. They were not accepted because of their young age, but they still went and mastered professions that were previously considered only for men: pilot, tanker, anti-aircraft gunner... They went and killed enemies no worse than men.

The story “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet...” tells about the distant war years. The action takes place in May 1942. The main character, Fedot Evgrafich Vaskov, at his “own request,” receives a women’s anti-aircraft machine-gun battalion at his disposal. The girls have a low opinion of their foreman and constantly make fun of him, calling him “a mossy stump.” And indeed, at thirty-two years old, Sergeant Major Vaskov was “older than himself,” he was a man of few words, but he knew and could do a lot.

All girls are not alike. The assistant sergeant, Sergeant Rita Osyanina, is a strict girl who rarely laughs. Of the pre-war events, she most clearly remembers the school evening when she met her future husband, Senior Lieutenant Osyanin. Rita got married, gave birth to a son, and “there simply couldn’t have been a happier girl.” But then the war began, and this happy fate was not destined to continue. Senior Lieutenant Osyanin died on the second day of the war, in a morning counterattack. Rita learned to hate quietly and mercilessly and, deciding to avenge her husband, went to the front.

The complete opposite of Osyanina is Zhenya Komelkova. The author himself never ceases to admire her: “Tall, red-haired, white-skinned. And the children’s eyes: green, round, like saucers.” Zhenya’s family: mother, grandmother, brother - the Germans killed everyone, but she managed to hide. Very artistic, emotional, she always attracted male attention. Her friends say about her: “Zhenya, you should go to the theater...”. Despite the personal tragedy, Komelkova remained cheerful, mischievous, sociable and sacrificed her life to save her wounded friend.

Vaskov immediately liked the fighter Lisa Brichkina. Fate did not spare her either: from childhood she had to manage the household herself, since her mother was very ill. She fed the cattle, cleaned the house, and cooked food. She became increasingly alienated from her peers. Lisa began to shy away, keep silent, and avoid noisy companies. One day her father brought a hunter from the city to the house, and she, seeing nothing but her sick mother and the house, fell in love with him, but he did not reciprocate her feelings. When leaving, he left Lisa a note with a promise to place her in a technical school with a dormitory in August... But the war did not allow these dreams to come true! Lisa also dies; she drowns in the swamp, rushing for help to her friends.

There are so many destinies for a girl: everyone is different. But in one thing they are still similar: all destinies were broken and disfigured by the war. All five girls who went on the mission died, but they died heroically, for their Motherland.

At the end of the story we see their commander: “Tears flowed down his dirty, unshaven face, he was shaking with chills and, laughing through these tears, shouted: “What, they took it?.. They took it, right?.. Five girls, five girls in total , only five! But you didn’t go through, you didn’t go anywhere and you’ll die here, you’ll all die!..”

Boris Vasiliev does not spare the reader: the endings of his works are mostly tragic, because he is convinced that art should not act as a comforter, its functions are to expose people to the dangers of life in any of their manifestations, awaken conscience and teach empathy and kindness.

B. Vasiliev continued the theme of war and the fate of the generation for which war became the main event in life in the novels “Not on the Lists”, “Tomorrow There Was War”, in the stories “Veteran”, “The Magnificent Six”, “Whose Are You, Old Man ? , “The Burning Bush” and others.

Based on documentary material, the novel “Not on the Lists” can be classified as a romantic parable. The difficult front-line path of the main character, Lieutenant Pluzhnikov, to whom the author gave the name of his deceased school friend, the path of overcoming hardships, fear of death, hunger and fatigue leads to a strengthening of the young man’s sense of dignity, turns him to the values ​​that were embedded in him by family traditions, love for national history and culture: duty, honor, and finally, patriotism - a feeling, according to Vasiliev, intimate and hidden.

Boris Vasiliev’s novel “Not on the Lists” is a book about a person’s moral responsibility to himself, to the past and the future. It makes you think not only about military duty, but also about moral duty, about the purity of the soul, about human and soldier’s commandments, for which one must “stand to the death.” These are the “heights” that cannot be given away, because otherwise you will not be able to honestly look people in the eyes, honestly talk about love for the Motherland.

The first salvos of the terrible war caught Kolya Pluzhnikov suddenly. He had just graduated from college, received an officer rank and an appointment to the Western Military District. He was not going to war, but simply to his place of service, but it overtook him at four hours and fifteen minutes in the morning on June 22, 1941, when he had not yet registered for military service and was not on the lists.

The Brest Fortress was subjected to severe bombing and massive artillery shelling. The author paints a terrible picture of the first day of the war, when houses, warehouses, cars were burning, and in them people were alive in the roar of the flames, in the roar of explosions and in the rattle of burning iron.

Pluzhnikov did not know the fortress, did not know anyone from its garrison, but he was a soldier, its defender, no matter what.

Soon those who survived found themselves in ruins, deep casemates and continued to fight. Days and months passed, but the fortress did not surrender, the Nazis were unable to conquer it. It was already winter, and the lieutenant had long ago lost track of the days, but continued to make sorties and kill Germans. The author depicts his hero at the limit of human capabilities, but the strength of his spirit, his will are unbending. Kolya Pluzhnikov defended the fortress for ten months and did not surrender it. She didn't fall, she bled to death.

The last pages of the novel describe an April morning in 1942. A blind man, barely moving, came out of the basement. “He was without a hat, his long gray hair touched his shoulders... monstrously swollen black frostbitten fingers protruded from his broken boots. He stood straight up, his head thrown high, and without looking up, he looked at the sun with blinded eyes.” And everyone fell silent when they saw a Russian soldier in front of them, the last hero who never surrendered the fortress to the enemy.

These lines are also striking: “And suddenly the German lieutenant loudly and tensely, as if at a parade, shouted a command, and the soldiers, clicking their heels, clearly raised their weapons “on guard.” And the German general, after hesitating a little, raised his hand to his cap. And he, swaying, slowly walked through the ranks of enemies, who now gave him the highest military honors... He was above all conceivable honors, above glory, above life and above death.”

This is how one of the books of “lieutenant prose” ends, stunning with the harsh truth about the war and the greatness of the feat of the Russian soldier.

The book gives an important and important understanding for all of us of the need to give all of ourselves without reserve when it comes to Russia, about the fate of the people.

The spiritual peculiarity of the talent of the author who created it lies in the fact that bitterness, pain, pride, thoughts cease to be a literary phenomenon, but become universal, affirming the highest idea of ​​the spiritual capabilities of each hero.

Whatever Boris Vasiliev writes about, the scale of the writer’s personality, the level of his thinking and talent give each line a broad sound, evoking in readers a noble response and a feeling of pride for the opportunity to count themselves among his contemporaries.

Based on scripts and books by B.L. Vasiliev shot 15 films.

There is no literature about war without the memoirs of commanders, military leaders, implementing the general strategy and tactics of military operations, leading huge masses of people into battle.

Readers will find the deepest analysis of all the years of the Great Patriotic War and an assessment of the greatness of our Victory in the books of G.K. Zhukov “Memories and Reflections”, in the memoirs of Marshals of the Soviet Union Malinovsky, Meretskov, Konev, Govorov, Bagramyan and other famous military leaders, talented creators of such military power that helped us defeat the enemy.

Literature moved forward to analyze the very “brain” of war, the subtle interrelations of processes occurring directly on the front line with the general military doctrine of the state. The load of “material” here was very large, and the writers created epic canvases: “Blockade” by A. Tchaikovsky, “Soldiers” by M. Alekseev, “Teltow Canal” by A. Ananyev - these works reflected the scale of the artist’s vision of wartime events. A qualitatively new step was taken in the exploration of the truth about the war through art.

Times have changed, our country has changed. New books about the feat of arms of fathers and grandfathers are born in search, in polemics. The movement of literature consists precisely in the study of such processes. But no matter how much time passes over the planet, the close and reverent attention of our writers will always be focused on the topic of the Great Patriotic War.

Nowadays there is a lot of talk about its philosophical understanding as something new, but only a philosophical approach can bring a novel or story on an already historical topic closer to the present day, to our reality and explain a lot in it.

A seemingly paradoxical process is taking place: the more the years of war move away from us, the more acute the reader’s interest in it becomes. The nature of this phenomenon was explained more than 150 years ago, speaking about the War of 1812, by the wonderful Russian critic V.G. Belinsky. He wrote that a nationwide war, which awakened and strained all the internal forces of the people, which constituted an era in its history and had an impact on its entire subsequent life - such a war is an epic event in its superiority and provides rich material for the epic. “Premonition of an epic” - this is how the reader’s expectation on the path of development of literature about war can be formulated, because war is the same life of society, only in special, extraordinary circumstances, but even more so revealing both the national character and the nature of social systems opposing each other . The destinies and characters of individuals and events cannot be deeply revealed outside of such moral and philosophical connections.

Mikhail Nikolaevich Alekseev, a famous front-line writer, answering a journalist’s question about how he sees literature about war in the present and future, said that the theme of war in art is an eternal theme. It is about a man who was tested to the end in the most cruel way for his strength and loyalty to the Motherland, people, and time.

But literature about war cannot stand still, be confined to the same problems and plots. Real art is always in motion, and this allows us to draw the following conclusion: a qualitatively different view of the events of those years continues to take shape.

But no matter how life changes, no matter what tests the historical memory of generations is subjected to, no changes can change the main thing in the consciousness of our people: love for their country, respect for its history, for the great feat of their ancestors.

It seems that it is precisely this feeling that is expressed in the poems of the modern prose writer and poet Yu. Polyakov:

Not burned by the forties

With hearts rooted in silence,

Of course, we look with different eyes

For your big war.

We know from confusing difficult stories

About the bitter victorious path,

Therefore, at least our mind should

Go through the road of suffering.

And you have to figure it out yourself

In the pain that the world has suffered,

Of course, we look with different eyes,

The same... full of tears.

Does the question arise in our time about the modernity of the theme of war in art and in life? Without a doubt. It is reflected in two positions: in society’s interest in this topic and in the desire to find new, modern forms of its disclosure.

The process of development of the military theme in literature is now associated with many social and moral problems of society. Literature cannot exist without its reader, just as theater cannot exist without its spectator. However, the high cost of books, the lack of widespread notification and necessary information for the reader, the huge, literally overwhelming amount of literature on currently “fashionable” topics (mainly, unfortunately, criminal), the practical disappearance of meetings with writers and readers’ conferences from the life of society - all this is not benefits the patriotic and moral education of youth. Almost the only opportunity to get acquainted with new works on a military theme is provided to the reader by the work of writers - screenwriters, television, which is trying to combine public interest in the topic and a modern form that reveals significant pages of works about the war to millions of television viewers.

Unfortunately, there are still wars in our time.

The war in Afghanistan, which cost the lives of thousands of our soldiers, still resonates with pain in the consciousness of modern society and evokes conflicting feelings. Books have been written, poems have been composed, many songs have been sung about this war, but still such a work as “The Zinc Boys” by S. Alexievich evokes bitterness, an awareness of guilt before these guys, the heroes of the book, all the “Afghans”, as we now call them .

However, the author Yuri Korotkov, who wrote the book and later created the script for the now widely known film “9th Company,” saw the main thing in this war: loyalty to duty, soldier’s friendship, self-sacrifice, courage and fearlessness - what has always distinguished our war, our national character.

There are other wars going on at the moment, they are directed against terrorism. Vladimir Makanin’s book “Prisoner of the Caucasus” touches on very painful topics: the collapse of the army, the lack of training and unpreparedness of young soldiers, the betrayal of some army officials who sold weapons to enemies - all this is reflected in the fate of two fighters - first-year soldiers and a captured Chechen youth.

The story “Alive” by Igor Porublev is dedicated to the same war, on which a feature film was made.

The work again resonates with Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: “War is the most disgusting thing in life...”. The crippled souls of young children, time that abandoned them to the mercy of fate, the irreversibility of losses, a deep spiritual breakdown that never allowed the young hero to return to ordinary human life, to remain Alive, because there, in the war, his soul died. This is exactly what the book is about, one of the tragic pages of history about new wars.

Why will they always write about war? What is the secret of the impact of such books on the reader? Humanity will be looking for answers to these questions for a very long time, because the earth is still covered with mourning ribbons: excavations are underway at the battle sites, young guys are finding death medallions, establishing the names of heroes, returning the debt of generations to the dead.

V.V. Putin, speaking to young writers, expressed the conviction that literature undoubtedly plays a key role in the education of a moral civil society, in the birth of the national idea that our people are now striving to achieve. Of course, books about war will take a worthy place in this process.

III. Conclusion.

In conclusion we can conclude:

1. The topic of the Great Patriotic War in literature is inexhaustible, since it reflects the greatness of the spirit of the people who accomplished an unprecedented feat in the name of life on earth. Books on this topic are a hymn to courage, fearlessness, love for the Fatherland, now imprinted throughout the centuries.

2. The heterogeneity and difference of views on this topic are a consequence of further philosophical and social understanding of history, evidence of deepening public interest in the problem.

3. The desire of artists to reflect in their work the nature of modern wars is an attempt at a new approach to understanding history and the role of man in the real world, where there are still many social and moral conflicts.

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