In the minds of living people, the name of Konstantin Simonov is strongly associated with works about the Great Patriotic War, with the lines of the poem “Son of an Artilleryman” familiar from school (“Major Deev had a comrade, Major Petrov...”), and even with serial versions about his affair with famous actress Valentina Serova. During the years of Khrushchev’s “thaw”, the suddenly “thawed” anti-Stalinists did not want to forgive the Soviet “general” from literature, neither his lightning success, nor high posts in the Union of Writers of the USSR, nor loyal plays, articles and poems written in the late 1940s - early 50s -s. The post-perestroika “scribes” of Russian history even ranked K. Simonov - laureate of the Lenin and six Stalin Prizes, one of the most famous and (I dare say) talented writers of the 20th century - among the “anti-heroes”. His works were clearly placed in line with the “official” works of Fadeev, Gorbatov, Tvardovsky and others Soviet authors, completely lost for the current generation for big names Bulgakov, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Akhmatova, Nabokov, etc. Such “unambiguity” in the assessment of historical events, as well as poets, writers and their literary works I've played it several times already cruel joke with those who today seek to preach it from the political platform, in the media or school textbooks.
From the history of the country it is impossible to erase either Stalinist repressions or great victory in the Patriotic War. It is truly impossible to erase or “remove” from Russian literature talented works, even if we call their authors unprincipled “Soviet functionaries”, Stalinist sycophants, “custom” socialist realist writers. Looking from the heights of past years, it is much easier to demand displays of civic courage from others than to show it yourself in real life. Today's critics should not forget about this.
And even if we ignore the above “clichés” formed public opinion in recent decades, then today there is simply no one to read the works of K. M. Simonov. The theme of war has long exhausted itself, and for all the time that has passed in conditions of absolute literary freedom, not a single work truly loved by the people has appeared in the Russian-language literature of the post-Soviet space. The Russian literary market, in the form in which it exists now, is focused exclusively on the needs of lovers of “light reading” - low-grade detective stories, various kinds of fantasy and romance novels.
K.M. Simonov faced a different, harsher era. His poem-spell “Wait for me” was read like a prayer. The plays “The Guy from Our Town”, “Russian People”, “So It Will Be” became heroic examples for an entire generation Soviet people. A far from controversial, too frank cycle of lyrical poems dedicated to V. Serova (“With you and without you,” 1942) marked a short period of “lyrical thaw” in Soviet military literature and brought its author truly national fame. Reading these lines, it is impossible not to understand that Konstantin Simonov wrote about the Great Patriotic War not out of obligation, but out of a deep inner need, which from a young age until the end of his days determined the main theme of his work. Throughout his life, the poet, playwright, and thinker Simonov continued to think and write about human destinies related to the war. He was a warrior and poet, capable of igniting in the hearts of millions of people not only hatred of the enemy, but also raising the nation to defend their Motherland, instilling hope and faith in the inevitable victory of good over evil, love over hate, life over death. Being a direct eyewitness and participant in many events, Simonov, as a journalist, writer, screenwriter, and literary artist, made a significant contribution of his work to shaping the attitude towards the events of the Great Patriotic War among all subsequent generations. The novel "The Living and the Dead" is the most large-scale work writer - represents a deep understanding past war as a huge, universal tragedy. More than one generation of readers read them: both those who went through and remembered that war, and those who knew about it from the stories of their elders and Soviet films.
Family and early years
Kirill Mikhailovich Simonov was born in Petrograd, into a military family. His real father, Mikhail Agafangelovich Simonov (1871-?) is a nobleman, a graduate of the Imperial Nicholas Military Academy (1897), major general. In their official biographies K.M. Simonov pointed out that “my father died or went missing” at the front. However, during the First World War, generals did not go missing at the front. From 1914 to 1915 M.A. Simonov commanded the 12th Velikolutsk Infantry Regiment, and from July 1915 to October 1917 he was chief of staff of the 43rd Army Corps. After the revolution, the general emigrated to Poland, from where Kirill’s mother, Alexandra Leonidovna (nee Princess Obolenskaya), received letters from him in the early 1920s. The father called his wife and son to come to him, but Alexandra Leonidovna did not want to emigrate. By that time, another man had already appeared in her life - Alexander Grigorievich Ivanishev, a former colonel of the tsarist army, a teacher at a military school. He adopted and raised Kirill. True, the mother kept her son’s surname and patronymic: after all, everyone considered M.A. Simonov to the dead. She herself took the name Ivanishev.
Kirill's childhood years were spent in Ryazan and Saratov. He was raised by his stepfather, to whom he retained sincere affection throughout his life and good feelings. The family did not live well, so in 1930, after finishing a seven-year school in Saratov, Kirill Simonov went to study to become a turner. In 1931, together with his parents, he moved to Moscow. After graduating from the factory department of precision mechanics, Simonov went to work at an aircraft plant, where he worked until 1935. In his “Autobiography,” Simonov explained his choice for two reasons: “The first and main thing is the five-year tractor factory that was just built not far from us, in Stalingrad, and the general atmosphere of the romance of construction, which captured me already in the sixth grade of school. The second reason is the desire to earn money on your own.” For some time, Simonov also worked as a technician at Mezhrabpomfilm.
During these same years, the young man began to write poetry. Simonov’s first works appeared in print in 1934 (some sources indicate that the first poems were published in 1936 in the magazines “Young Guard” and “October”). From 1934 to 1938 he studied at the Literary Institute. M. Gorky, then entered the graduate school of MIFLI (Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History named after N.G. Chernyshevsky).
In 1938, Simonov’s first poem, “Pavel Cherny,” appeared, glorifying the builders of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. In the "Autobiography" of the writer, the poem is mentioned as the first difficult experience, crowned with literary success. It was published in the poetry collection “Show of Forces.” At the same time, the historical poem “ Ice battle" Turning to historical topics was considered mandatory, even “programmatic,” for a novice author in the 1930s. Simonov, as expected, introduces military-patriotic content into the historical poem. At a meeting in the journal “Literary Studies” dedicated to the analysis of his work, K. Simonov said: “The desire to write this poem came to me in connection with the feeling of an approaching war. I wanted those who read the poem to feel the closeness of war... that behind our shoulders, behind the shoulders of the Russian people there is a centuries-old struggle for their independence..."
War correspondent
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In 1939, Simonov, as a promising author military themes, was sent as a war correspondent to Khalkin-Gol. In a letter to S.Ya. Fradkina dated May 6, 1965, K. Simonov recalled how he first went to the front: “I went to Khalkhin Gol very simply. At first no one was going to send me there, I was, as they say, too young and green, and I should have gone not there, but to Kamchatka to join the troops, but then the editor of the “Heroic Red Army” - a newspaper that was published there, in Mongolia, in our group of troops, - sent a telegram to the Political Directorate of the Army: “Urgently send a poet.” He needed a poet. Obviously, at that moment in Moscow there was no one more respectable in terms of their poetic baggage than me, I was called to the PUR something like one or two in the afternoon, and at five o’clock I left on the Vladivostok ambulance to Chita, and from there to Mongolia..."
The poet never returned to the institute. Shortly before leaving for Mongolia, he finally changed his name - instead of his native Kirill, he took the pseudonym Konstantin Simonov. Almost all biographers agree that the reason for this change lies in the peculiarities of Simonov’s diction and articulation: he did not pronounce “r” and solid sound"l". It was always difficult for him to pronounce his own name.
The war for Simonov began not in forty-one, but in thirty-nine at Khalkhin Gol, and it was from that time that many new accents of his work were determined. In addition to essays and reports, the correspondent brings a cycle of poems from the theater of war, which soon gains all-Union fame. The most poignant poem, “Doll,” in its mood and theme, involuntarily echoes Simonov’s subsequent military lyrics (“Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region,” “Nameless Field,” etc.), which raises the problem of a warrior’s duty to the Motherland and his people.
Immediately before World War II, Simonov twice studied at war correspondent courses at the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze (1939-1940) and the Military-Political Academy (1940-1941). Received the military rank of quartermaster of the second rank.
From the first days of the war, Konstantin Simonov was in active army: was his own correspondent for the newspapers “Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda”, “Red Star”, “Pravda”, “ Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Battle Banner", etc.
As a correspondent, K. Simonov could move in the front-line zone with freedom, fantastic even for any general. Sometimes in his car he literally escaped the pincers of encirclement, remaining almost the only surviving eyewitness to the death of an entire regiment or division.
It is well known, confirmed by eyewitnesses and documented, that in July 1941 K. Simonov was near Mogilev, in units of the 172nd rifle division, which fought heavy defensive battles and broke out of encirclement. When Izvestia correspondents Pavel Troshkin and Konstantin Simonov arrived at the CP of the 172nd Infantry Division, they were detained, threatened to be put on the ground and held until dawn, and taken under escort to headquarters. However, correspondent Simonov was even pleased with this. He immediately felt discipline, order, confidence, and understood that the war was not going as planned by the enemy. K. Simonov finds in the courage and firm discipline of the regiments defending the city a certain “fulcrum”, which allows him to write to the newspaper “not a white lie”, not a half-truth, forgivable in those dramatic days, but something that would serve others a fulcrum, would inspire faith.
For his fantastic “efficiency” and creative fertility, correspondent Simonov was compared to a combine harvester even before the war: literary essays and front-line reports poured from his pen as if from a cornucopia. Simonov's favorite genre is the essay. His articles (very few), in essence, also represent a series of sketches related by journalistic or lyrical digressions. During the war days, the poet K. Simonov appeared for the first time as a prose writer, but the writer’s desire to expand the genres in which he worked, to find new, brighter and more intelligible forms of presenting the material very soon allowed him to develop his own individual style.
K. Simonov’s essays, as a rule, reflect what he saw with his own eyes, what he himself experienced, or the fate of another specific person with whom the war brought the author together. His essays always have a narrative plot, and often his essays resemble a short story. You can find them psychological portrait Hero - an ordinary soldier or officer leading edge; the life circumstances that shaped the character of this person are necessarily reflected; the battle and, in fact, the feat are described in detail. When K. Simonov’s essays were based on the material of a conversation with participants in the battle, they actually turned into a dialogue between the author and the hero, which is sometimes interrupted by the author’s narration (“Soldier’s Glory,” “The Commander’s Honor,” etc.).
In the first period of the Great Patriotic War - from June 1941 to November 1942 - Simonov sought to cover as many events as possible, visit various sections of the front, depict representatives of various military professions in his essays and works of art, and emphasize the difficulties of a normal front-line situation.
In 1942, Konstantin Simonov was awarded the rank of senior battalion commissar, in 1943 - the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the war - colonel. As a war correspondent, he visited all fronts. During the battles in Crimea, Konstantin Simonov was directly in the chains of counterattacking infantrymen, went with a reconnaissance group behind the front line, and participated in the combat campaign of a submarine that was mining a Romanian port. He also happened to be among the defenders of Odessa, Stalingrad, among the Yugoslav partisans, in the advanced units: during the Battle of Kursk, the Belarusian operation, in the final operations for the liberation of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Simonov was present at the first trial of war criminals in Kharkov, and was also in the newly liberated, unimaginably terrible Auschwitz and in many other places where decisive events took place. In 1945, Simonov witnessed the last battles for Berlin. He was present at the signing of Hitler's surrender in Karlshorst. Awarded four military orders.
The difficult, sometimes heroic work of front-line correspondents, who not only collected material for essays and articles, but also took part in battles, saved others and died themselves, was subsequently reflected in the works of the writer K. Simonov. After the war, his collections of essays appeared: “Letters from Czechoslovakia”, “Slavic Friendship”, “Yugoslav Notebook”, “From the Black to the Barents Sea. Notes of a war correspondent." Simonov is the author of the popularly beloved “Song of War Correspondents,” which for many years became the anthem of journalists working in the “hot spots” of the planet:
“Wait for me”: a novel by an actress and a poet
On July 27, 1941, K. Simonov returned to Moscow, having stayed for at least a week Western Front- in Vyazma, near Yelnya, near the burning Dorogobuzh. He was preparing for a new trip to the front - from the editors of "Red Star", but it took a week to prepare the car for this trip.
“During these seven days,” recalled Simonov, “in addition to the front-line ballads for the newspaper, I suddenly wrote in one sitting “Wait for me,” “The major brought the boy on a gun carriage” and “Don’t be angry, for the better.” I spent the night at Lev Kassil’s dacha in Peredelkino and in the morning I stayed there and didn’t go anywhere. I sat alone at the dacha and wrote poetry. There were tall pines all around, a lot of strawberries, green grass. It was a hot summer day. And silence.<...>For a few hours I even wanted to forget that there was war in the world.<...>Probably, on that day more than on others, I thought not so much about the war, but about my own fate in it ... "
Subsequently, very authoritative critics and literary scholars assured that “Wait for Me” is Simonov’s most general poem, that in one lyrical poem the poet was able to convey the features of the time, was able to guess the most important, the most what people need, and thereby help millions of their compatriots in difficult times of war. But he succeeded not at all because he tried to “guess” what was most needed now. Simonov never intended anything like this! On that hot summer day at L. Kassil's dacha, he wrote what was vitally necessary for him. Turning his thoughts to the only addressee of his love lyrics - actress Valentina Serova, the poet expressed what was most important and most desirable for him at that moment. And only for this reason, precisely for this reason, poems written by one person and addressed to one single woman in the world became universal, necessary for millions of people in the most difficult time for them.
With the rising star of Russian cinema, the prima of the Moscow Theater. Konstantin Mikhailovich met Lenin Komsomol V.V. Serova (nee Polovikova) in 1940. His first play, “The Story of a Love,” was staged at the theater. Valentina, by that time already the widow of the famous pilot, hero Soviet Union Anatoly Serova played one of the main roles in it. Before that, in the 1939-40 season, she shone in the play “The Zykovs,” and the young, then still aspiring poet and playwright, did not miss a single performance. According to Serova, Simonov, who was in love, prevented her from playing: he always sat with a bouquet of flowers in the front row and watched her every move with a searching gaze.
However, Simonov’s love for Vaska (the poet did not pronounce the letters “l” and “r” and called his muse that way) was not mutual. Valentina accepted his advances, was close to him, but could not forget Serov. She preferred to remain the widow of the hero-pilot rather than become the wife of a still little-known young writer. Moreover, Simonov was already married to E.S. Laskina (cousin of B. Laskin), in 1939 their son Alexei was born.
From his first literary steps, the poet Simonov wrote “for print,” accurately guessing the path that would lead his work to the printed page. This was one of the main secrets of his early and lasting success. His ability to translate the current official point of view and offer it to the reader already in an emotional and lyrical package was forged from the first literary experiments. But “Wait for Me” and other lyrical poems dedicated to relations with Serova were the only works of the poet that were not originally intended for publication. And who in those pre-war, jingoistic, ideologically consistent years would begin to publish love lyrics, full of erotic drama and suffering about unrequited love?
The war changed everything. Simonov read the completely personal poem “Wait for Me” more than once in a circle of literary friends; it was necessary only for him; read to artillerymen on the Rybachy Peninsula, cut off from the rest of the front; read to the scouts before a difficult raid behind enemy lines; read to sailors on a submarine. They listened to him equally attentively both in the soldiers' dugouts and in the headquarters dugouts. The characteristics of the Russian Soviet reader, already fully formed, were such that he looked for consolation and direct support in literature - especially in the painful situation of war. Critics saw “one of the tasks of poetry” in providing such support. Simonov’s poem went beyond this function, receiving from the first moment of creation another, special function: “spell”, “prayer”, “cure for melancholy”, “faith” and even, if you like, “superstition”...
Soon the lines of the beloved poem began to be scattered in handwritten copies and learned by heart. The soldiers sent them in letters to their loved ones, conjuring separation and imminent death, glorifying the great power of love:
On December 9, 1941, “Wait for Me” was heard on the radio for the first time. Simonov accidentally ended up in Moscow and read the poem himself, having time for the broadcast literally in last minute. In January 1942, “Wait for Me” was published in Pravda.
According to eyewitnesses, at post-war meetings with readers, Simonov never refused to read “Wait for Me,” but somehow darkened his face. And there was suffering in his eyes. It was as if he was falling again in his forty-first year.
In a conversation with Vasily Peskov, when asked about “Wait for Me,” Simonov wearily replied: “If I hadn’t written it, someone else would have written it.” He believed that it was just a coincidence: love, war, separation, and miraculously a few hours of loneliness. Besides, poetry was his work. So the poems appeared through the paper. This is how blood seeps through the bandages...
In April 1942, Simonov submitted the manuscript of the lyrical collection “With You and Without You” to the publishing house “Young Guard”. All 14 poems in the collection were addressed and dedicated to V. Serova.
In the very first large article about this cycle, the critic V. Alexandrov (V.B. Keller), well-known from the pre-war years, wrote:
The collection “With You and Without You” actually marked the temporary rehabilitation of lyrics in Soviet literature. The best of his poems express the conflict between the two strongest driving forces of the poet's soul: love for Valentina and military duty to Russia.
In the days of the heaviest battles of 1942, the Soviet party leadership considered it necessary to bring precisely such poems to the mass reader, contrasting the horrors of war with something eternal and unshakable, for which it is worth fighting and worth living:
However, Simonov’s muse still did not dream of being called his wife by her longtime admirer. She also did not promise to faithfully and selflessly wait for her admirer from front-line business trips.
There is a version that in the spring of 1942, Valentina Serova became seriously interested in Marshal K. Rokossovsky. This version was presented in the sensational series by Yu. Kara “Star of the Epoch” and is firmly rooted in the minds of not only ordinary television viewers, but also television journalists, authors of various publications about Serova in the press and on Internet resources. All living relatives, both Serova and Simonov, and Rokossovsky, unanimously deny the war romance of the marshal and the actress. The personal life of Rokossovsky, who was perhaps even more public person, than Serova and Simonov, is quite well known. Serova and her love simply had no place in her.
Perhaps Valentina Vasilievna, for some reason during this period, really wanted to break off relations with Simonov. Being a direct and open person, she did not consider it necessary to pretend and lie in real life - acting was enough for her on stage. Rumors spread throughout Moscow. The romance of the poet and actress was in jeopardy.
It is possible that at that moment jealousy, resentment, and a purely male desire to get his beloved at any cost began to speak in the rejected Simonov. Having published love lyrics dedicated to Serova, the poet actually went for broke: he gave his consent to the use of his personal feelings for ideological purposes in order to gain real, national fame and thereby “put the squeeze on” the intractable Valentina.
The script for the propaganda film “Wait for Me,” written in 1942, made the personal relationship between Simonov and Serova the property of the entire country. The actress simply had no choice.
It is possible that it was during this period that their romance, largely invented by Simonov himself and “approved” by the authorities, showed its first serious crack. In 1943, Simonov and Serova entered into an official marriage, but, despite all the favorable circumstances and visible external well-being, the cracks in their relationship only grew:
| You and I are both from a tribe, Where if you are friends, then be friends, Where boldly the past tense is not tolerated in the verb “to love.” So it’s better to imagine me dead, So that you remember me kindly, Not in the fall of forty-four, But somewhere in forty-two. Where I discovered courage, Where I lived strictly, like a young man, Where, surely, I deserved love And yet I did not deserve it. Imagine the North, a blizzard Polar night in the snow, Imagine a mortal wound And the fact that I cannot get up; Imagine this news at that difficult time of mine, When I did not occupy your heart even further than the suburbs, When beyond the mountains, beyond the valleys You lived, loving another, When you were thrown from the fire and into the fire Between us. Let's agree with you: I died at that time. God be with him. And with the current me, let’s stop and talk again. 1945 |
Over time, the crack of misunderstanding and dislike turned into “glass a thousand miles thick,” behind which “you can’t hear the beat of the heart,” then into a bottomless abyss. Simonov managed to get out of it and find new ground under his feet. Valentina Serova gave up and died. The poet refused to lend a helping hand to his former, already unloved muse:
As their daughter Maria Simonova would later write: “She [V. Serova – E.Sh.] alone, in an empty apartment, robbed by the crooks who soldered it, from which they took out everything that could be carried by hand.”
Simonov did not come to the funeral, sending only a bouquet of 58 blood-red carnations (in some memoirs there is information about a bouquet of pink roses). Shortly before his death, he confessed to his daughter: “... what I had with your mother was the greatest happiness in my life... and the greatest sorrow...”
After the war
After the end of the war, within three years K.M. Simonov was in numerous foreign business trips: in Japan (1945-1946), USA, China. In 1946-1950, he served as editor of one of the leading literary magazines, New World. In 1950-1954 - editor of the Literary Newspaper. From 1946 to 1959, and then from 1967 to 1979 - Secretary of the Union of Writers of the USSR. During the period from 1942 to 1950, K. Simonov received six Stalin Prizes - for the plays “A Guy from Our City”, “Russian People”, “Russian Question”, “Alien Shadow”, the novel “Days and Nights” and the collection of poems “Friends” and enemies."
Simonov - son tsarist general and princesses from an old Russian family - they served regularly not only Soviet power. During the war, he gave all his talent to the fighting people, his Motherland, that great and invincible country that he wanted Russia to become. But once he got into the party “clip” (Simonov joined the party only in 1942), he immediately acquired the status of a “needed” poet favored by the authorities. Most likely, he himself believed that he was doing everything right: victory in the war and the position that Russia took in the world after 1945 only convinced Simonov of the correctness of his chosen path.
His ascent up the party ladder was even more rapid than his entry into literature and gaining all-Russian fame. In 1946-1954, K. Simonov was a deputy of the USSR Supreme Council of the 2nd and 3rd convocations, from 1954 to 1956 - a candidate member of the CPSU Central Committee. In 1946-1954 - Deputy General Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1954-1959 and in 1967-1979 - Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR. Since 1949 - member of the presidium of the Soviet Peace Committee.
Yes, obeying the “general line of the party,” he participated in the campaign of persecution against Zoshchenko and Akhmatova, wrote “custom” plays about cosmopolitans (“Alien Shadow”) and ballad poems, tried to persuade I. Bunin, Teffi and other prominent white emigrant writers to return to Soviet Russia. As editor-in-chief in 1956, Simonov signed a letter from the editorial board of the magazine " New world" with the refusal to publish Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago" and in 1973 - a letter from a group of Soviet writers to the editors of the newspaper "Pravda" about Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov.
But at the same time, it is impossible not to admit that Simonov’s activities in all his high literary positions were not so clear-cut. The return to the reader of the novels of Ilf and Petrov, the publication of Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” (1966, in an abridged magazine version) and Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, the defense of L.O. Brik, whom high-ranking “literary historians” decided to delete from Mayakovsky’s biography, is the first full translation plays by A. Miller and Eugene O’Neill, the publication of V. Kondratiev’s first story “Sashka” - this is not a complete list of K. Simonov’s services to Soviet literature. There was also participation in the “punching” of performances at Sovremennik and the Taganka Theater, the first posthumous exhibition of Tatlin, the restoration of the exhibition “XX Years of Work” by Mayakovsky, participation in the cinematic fate of Alexei German and dozens of other filmmakers, artists, and writers. Dozens of volumes of Simonov’s daily efforts, which he called “Everything Done,” stored today in RGALI, contain thousands of his letters, notes, statements, petitions, requests, recommendations, reviews, analyzes and advice, prefaces paving the way for “impenetrable” books and publications. There is not a single unanswered letter in the archives of the writer and the editorial offices of the magazines he heads. Hundreds of people began to write war memoirs after reading Simonov’s “tests of the pen” and sympathetically appraising them.
In disgrace
Simonov belonged to that rare breed of people whom the authorities did not spoil. Neither the forced shuffling before his superiors, nor the ideological dogmas within which the path of Soviet literature of the late 1940s - early 1950s lay, killed in him the genuine, living principle, characteristic only of truly talented artist. Unlike many of his literary colleagues, over the years of his “symphony” with the authorities, K. Simonov has not forgotten how to take actions aimed at defending his views and principles.
Immediately after Stalin's death, he published an article in Literaturnaya Gazeta proclaiming main task writers to reflect the great historical role of Stalin. Khrushchev was extremely irritated by this article. According to one version, he called the Writers' Union and demanded the immediate removal of Simonov from the post of editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta.
By and large, editor Simonov did what he considered necessary to do at that moment. His honest nature as a soldier and poet opposed such forms of treatment of the values of the past and present as “spitting and licking.” With his article, Simonov was not afraid to express the opinion of that part of society that truly considered Stalin to be the great leader of the nation and the winner of fascism. They, yesterday’s veterans who went through all the hardships of the last war, were disgusted by the hasty renunciations of the “thaw” changelings from their recent past. It is not surprising that soon after the 20th Party Congress the poet was subjected to severe reprimand and was released from his high post in the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1958, Simonov went to live and work in Tashkent as Pravda’s own correspondent for the republics of Central Asia.
However, this forced “business trip”-exile did not break Simonov. On the contrary, liberation from social and administrative work and the share of publicity that accompanied him almost all his life gave new impetus to the writer’s creativity. “When there is Tashkent,” Simonov joked gloomily, but with courageous dignity, “there is no need to leave for seven years in Croisset to write Madame Bovary.”
"The Living and the Dead"
Simonov's first novel, Comrades in Arms, dedicated to the events at Khalkin Gol, was published in 1952. According to the author's original plan, it was supposed to be the first part of the trilogy he planned about the war. However, it turned out differently. To more fully reveal the initial stage of the war, other heroes were needed, a different scale of events depicted. "Comrades in Arms" was destined to remain only a prologue to monumental work about the war.
In 1955, still in Moscow, Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov began work on the novel “The Living and the Dead,” but political intrigues after the 20th Party Congress, as well as attacks from the new party and literary leadership, prevented the writer from completely devoting himself to creativity. In 1961, Simonov brought a completed novel to Moscow from Tashkent. It became the first part of a large, truthful work about the Great Patriotic War. The author found heroes with whom the reader will go the way from the first days of the retreat to the defeat of the German army near Moscow. In 1965 Simonov completed his new book“Soldiers are not born”, which is new meeting with the heroes of the novel "The Living and the Dead". Stalingrad, the unadorned truth of life and war at a new stage - overcoming the science of winning. In the future, the writer intended to bring his heroes until 1945, until the end of the war, but in the process of work it became obvious that the action of the trilogy would end in the places where it began. Belarus in 1944, the offensive operation “Bagration” - these events formed the basis of the third book, which Simonov called “ Last summer" All three works are combined by the author into a trilogy under common name"The Living and the Dead."
In 1974, for the trilogy “The Living and the Dead,” Simonov was awarded the Lenin Prize and the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
Based on the scripts of K. Simonov, the films “A Guy from Our City” (1942), “Wait for Me” (1943), “Days and Nights” (1943-1944), “Immortal Garrison” (1956), “Normandie-Niemen” were produced (1960, together with S. Spaak and E. Triolet), “The Living and the Dead” (1964), “Twenty Days Without War” (1976).
In 1970, K.M. Simonov visited Vietnam, after which he published the book “Vietnam, winter of the seventieth...” (1970-71). In dramatic poems about the Vietnam War, “Bombing the Squares,” “Above Laos,” “Duty Room,” and others, comparisons with the Great Patriotic War constantly arise:
| The guys are sitting, waiting for rockets, like we once were in Russia somewhere... |
"I'm not ashamed..."
Large documentary value have Simonov’s memoirs “Diaries of the War Years” and his latest book “Through the Eyes of a Man of My Generation. Reflections on Stalin" (1979, published in 1988). These are memories and reflections about the time of the 30s - early 50s, about meetings with Stalin, A.M. Vasilevsky, I.S. Konev, Admiral I.S. Isakov.
In the book “Through the Eyes of a Man of My Generation” K.M. Simonov partly revises his previous views, but does not renounce them at all. Unlike some fairly well-known publicists and memoirists of the “perestroika” period, Simonov is far from “sprinkling ashes on his head.” Doing painstaking work on inevitable mistakes and the misconceptions of his generation, the writer does not stoop to unsubstantiated defamation of the historical past of his country. On the contrary, he invites descendants to listen to the facts so as not to repeat previous mistakes:
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“I believe that our attitude towards Stalin in past years, including during the war years, our admiration for him during the war years - this admiration in the past does not give us the right not to take into account what we know now, not to take into account facts. Yes, now it would be more pleasant for me to think that I don’t have, for example, poems that began with the words “Comrade Stalin, can you hear us.” But these poems were written in 1941, and I am not ashamed that they were written then, because they express what I felt and thought then, they express hope and faith in Stalin. I felt them then, that’s why I wrote. But, on the other hand, I wrote such poems then, not knowing what I know now, not imagining to the smallest extent the entire scope of Stalin’s atrocities against the party and the army, and the entire scope of the crimes he committed in his thirties. seventh to thirty-eighth years, and the entire extent of his responsibility for the outbreak of the war, which might not have been so unexpected if he had not been so convinced of his infallibility - all this that we now know obliges us to reassess our previous views on Stalin , reconsider them. This is what life requires, this is what the truth of history requires...” Simonov K. Through the eyes of a man of my generation. M., 1990. pp. 13-14. |
Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov died on August 28, 1979 in Moscow. According to the will, the ashes of K.M. Simonov was scattered over the Buinichi field near Mogilev, where in 1941 he managed to escape from encirclement.
In conclusion, I would like to cite an excerpt from the book of memoirs by philologist, writer and journalist Grigory Okun, “Meetings on a Distant Meridian.” The author knew Konstantin Mikhailovich during his years in Tashkent and, in our opinion, most accurately described Simonov as one of the most controversial and ambiguous, but bright and interesting people of his time:
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“I knew Konstantin Mikhailovich. An opaque man, he was effectively conscientious. He resisted doublethink and at the same time coexisted with it. He did not like to speak in a whisper and spoke loudly to himself. However, his troubled inner monologue sometimes powerfully broke through. His honest thoughts and motives, noble aspirations and actions strangely coexisted with the codes and regulations of his cruel and hypocritical time. At times he lacked ethical perpendicular stability. Is there a good poet who would not give away his smoke along with his flame?..” |
Read an excerpt from the review. This excerpt discusses language features text. Some terms used in the review are missing. Insert into the blanks (A, B, C, D) the numbers corresponding to the number of the term from the list. Write down the sequence of numbers in the order in which you wrote them down in the text of the review in place of gaps, without spaces, commas or other additional characters.
Show text (K.M. Simonov)
“Konstantin Simonov talks about the life of a soldier in war in such a way that the reader becomes involved in the fate of the hero. The reader sees a picture of military events and understands the state of people. The lexical device – (A)__________ (“threw” in sentence 11) and the trope – (B)__________ (“threw” in sentence 11) help the writer to show all this. bitter expression" in sentence 41). The syntactic device - (B)__________ (in sentences 4, 11, 20) and the device - (D)__________ (“instantly” in sentence 26, “around” in sentence 44) help to understand the author’s thoughts.”
(1) It was in the morning.(2) The battalion commander Koshelev called Semyon Shkolenko to him and explained, as always, without long words: “We need to get the “tongue.”
“(3) I’ll get it,” said Shkolenko.
(4) He returned to his trench, checked the machine gun, hung three disks on his belt, prepared five grenades, two simple and three anti-tank, put them in his bag, then looked around and, after thinking, took the copper wire stored in the soldier’s bag and hid it in your pocket.(5) We had to walk along the shore.(6) After the morning rain, the ground had not yet dried out, and footprints leading into the forest were clearly visible on the path.
(7) There were thickets ahead.(8) Shkolenko crawled through them to the left; there was a hole visible, with weeds growing around it.(9) From the hole, in the gap between the weed bushes, a mortar standing very close and a light machine gun a few steps further away was visible: one German stood at the mortar, and six sat, gathered in a circle, eating from pots.
(10) There was no need to rush: the goal was in sight.(11) He firmly rested his left hand on the bottom of the hole, grabbed the ground so that his hand would not slip, and, rising, threw the grenade.(12) When he saw that six were lying motionless, and one, the one who was standing by the mortar, continued to stand near him, looking in surprise at the barrel disfigured by a grenade fragment, Shkolenko jumped up and, coming close to the German, without taking his eyes off him, He motioned for him to unfasten his parabellum and throw it on the ground, so that he could shoulder the machine gun.(13) The German obediently bent down
And he raised the machine gun. (14) Now he had both hands busy.
(15) So they went back - in front was a German with a machine gun slung on his shoulders, behind Shkolenko.
(16) Shkolenko reached the battalion command post only after noon.
“(17) Okay,” said the regiment commander, “one task,” he nodded at Captain Koshelev, “you have completed, now complete mine: you must find out where their remaining mortars are located.”
“(18) I’ll find out,” Shkolenko said briefly, “will I go alone?”
“(19) Alone,” said Koshelev.
(20) Shkolenko sat for about half an hour, raised his machine gun and, without adding more grenades, again went in the same direction as in the morning.
(21) Now he took to the right of the village and closer to the river, hiding in the bushes growing along the sides of the road.(22) We had to walk along a long ravine, making our way through thick hazel trees that scratched our hands and face, through small forests.(23) Near a large bush, three mortars standing in a beam were clearly visible.
(24) Shkolenko lay down flat and pulled out a piece of paper on which he had decided in advance to draw, for accuracy, exactly where the mortars were located.(25) But at that second when he made this decision, seven Germans standing at the mortars approached each other and sat down at the mortar closest to Shkolenko, only eight meters from him.(26) The decision was born instantly, perhaps so instantly because only today, in exactly the same situation, he had already been lucky once.(27) The explosion was very strong, and the Germans lay dead.(28) Suddenly, two dozen steps away from him, there was a strong rustling in the bushes.(29) Pressing the machine gun to his stomach, Shkolenko fired a long line of fire there like a fan, but instead of the Germans, his good friend Satarov, a soldier of the 2nd battalion, who had been captured a few days ago, jumped out of the bushes.(30) Following him, sixteen more people came out of the bushes.(31) Three were bloodied, one of them was supported in their arms.
- (32) Did you shoot? – asked Satarov. –(33) “Here, I hurt them,” Satarov pointed with his hand at the bloodied people. –(34) Where is everyone?
“(35) And I’m alone,” Shkolenko answered. –(36) What are you doing here?
“(37) We were digging our own grave,” said Satarov, “two machine gunners were guarding us, and when they heard the explosion, they ran away.(38) So, are you alone?
“(39) One,” Shkolenko repeated and looked at the mortars. –(40) Hurry up and take the mortars, now we’ll go to our own people.
(41) He walked behind those he had rescued from captivity and saw the bloody bodies of the wounded, and a bitter expression appeared on his face.
(42) An hour and a half later they reached the battalion.(43) Shkolenko reported and, after listening to the captain’s gratitude, walked away five steps and lay face down on the ground.(44) Fatigue immediately fell on him: with open eyes he looked at the blades of grass growing around him, and it seemed strange that he was living here, and grass was growing all around, and everything around was the same as it was.
(According to K.M. Simonov*)
* Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov (1915–1979) –
Russian Soviet journalist and prose writer, film screenwriter.
List of terms:
1) anaphora
2) dialectism
3) lexical repetition
4) personification
5) spoken word
6) epithet
7) individual author's word
8) introductory words
9) rows homogeneous members offers
Correct answer: 5693
Explanation
“Konstantin Simonov talks about the life of a soldier in war in such a way that the reader becomes involved in the fate of the hero. The reader sees a picture of military events and understands the state of people. The lexical device helps the writer to show all this - (A) spoken word(“threw” in sentence 11) and trope – (B) epithet(“bitter expression” in sentence 41 (a figurative definition that gives the subject an additional characteristic)). Syntactic device – (B) series of homogeneous members of a sentence(in sentences 4, 11, 20) and reception - (D) lexical repetition(“instantly” in sentence 26, “around” in sentence 44) help to understand the author’s thoughts.”
This text for analysis raises the problem of the manifestation of heroism in war.
To attract the reader's attention to it, Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov shows the dedication of Russian soldiers who bravely fought for every inch of their native land.
I completely agree with K. M. Simonov that brave people are ready to sacrifice themselves to save others.
To prove the validity of my point of view, I will give the following literary example.
Let us remember B. Vasiliev’s story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet.” The action takes place during the Great Patriotic War. The female anti-aircraft gunners died while destroying a detachment of Germans that significantly outnumbered them.
In the story “Sotnikov” by Vasily Bykov, Rybak and Sotnikov go to collect food for the partisans. In the village they were captured by the Germans. In order to save his comrade, the woman who is helping to hide, and her children, Sotnikov decided to take all the blame on himself. He also did not reveal the location of the Russian troops, despite the torture.
In conclusion, I want to say again: a person’s heroism is manifested in his willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of others.
Updated: 2017-05-08
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(1) Early in the morning Lopatin and Vanin went to the first company. (2) Saburov stayed: he wanted to take advantage of the calm. (3) First, they sat with Maslennikov for two hours compiling various military reports, some of which were really necessary, and some of which seemed superfluous to Saburov and introduced only due to a long-standing peaceful habit of all kinds of office work. (4) Then, when Maslennikov left, Saburov sat down to the task that had been postponed and was weighing on him - answering the letters that had come to the dead. (5) Somehow it had become his custom almost from the very beginning of the war that he took upon himself the difficult responsibility of answering these letters. (6) He was angry with people who, when someone died in their unit, tried for as long as possible not to inform his loved ones about it. (7) This apparent kindness seemed to him simply as a desire to pass by the grief of others, so as not to cause pain to himself.
(8) “Petenka, dear,” wrote Parfenov’s wife (it turns out his name was Petya), “we all miss you and are waiting for the war to end so that you can return... (9) The tick has become quite big and is already walking on its own, and almost never falls..."
(10) Saburov carefully read the letter to the end. (11) It was not long - greetings from relatives, a few words about work, a wish to defeat the Nazis as quickly as possible, at the end two lines of children’s scribbles written by the eldest son, and then several unsteady sticks made by a child’s hand, which was guided by the mother’s hand, and a note: “And this was written by Galochka herself”...
(12) What to answer? (13) Always in such cases, Saburov knew that there was only one answer: he was killed, he was gone - and yet he always invariably thought about it, as if he was writing the answer in last time. (14) What to answer? (15) Really, what should I answer?
(16) He remembered the small figure of Parfenov, lying supine on the cement floor, his pale face and field bags placed under his head. (17) This man, who died on the very first day of the fighting and whom he knew very little before, was for him a comrade in arms, one of many, too many who fought next to him and died next to him, then how he himself remained intact. (18) He was used to this, accustomed to war, and it was easy for him to say to himself: here was Parfenov, he fought and was killed. (19) But there, in Penza, on Marx Street, 24, these words - “he was killed” - were a disaster, the loss of all hopes. (20) After these words there, on Karl Marx Street, 24, the wife ceased to be called a wife and became a widow, the children ceased to be called simply children - they were already called orphans. (21) It was not only grief, it was a complete change in life, in the entire future. (22) And always, when he wrote such letters, he was most afraid that the one who read it would think that it was easy for him, the writer. (23) He wanted those who read it to feel like it was written by their comrade in grief, a person grieving just like them, then it would be easier to read. (24) Maybe not even that: it’s not easier, but it’s not so offensive, it’s not so sad to read...
(25) People sometimes need lies, he knew that. (26) They certainly want the one they loved to die heroically or, as they say, to die the death of the brave... (27) They want him not just to die, but to die having done something important, and they they certainly want him to remember them before his death.
(28) And Saburov, when answering letters, always tried to satisfy this desire, and when necessary, he lied, lied more or less - this was the only lie that did not bother him. (29) He took a pen and, tearing out a piece of paper from the notebook, began to write in his fast, sweeping handwriting. (30) He wrote about how they served together with Parfenov, how Parfenov died heroically here in a night battle, in Stalingrad (which was true), and how he, before falling, himself shot three Germans (which was not true), and how he died in Saburov’s arms, and how before his death he remembered his son Volodya and asked him to tell him to remember his father.
(31) This man, who died on the very first day of the fighting and whom he knew very little before, was for him a comrade in arms, one of many, too many, who fought next to him and died next to him, then how he himself remained intact. (32) He was used to this, accustomed to war, and it was easy for him to say to himself: here was Parfenov, he fought and was killed.
(By K. M. Simonov*)
* Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov - Russian Soviet prose writer, poet, screenwriter, journalist and public figure.
Explanation.
What is compassion? Are all people capable of manifesting it? The author's text is devoted to finding answers to these questions.
IN this text K. M. Simonov poses the problem of showing compassion towards other people.
Saburov took on enormous responsibility from the very beginning of the war. Notifying the relatives of military personnel about the death was not an easy experience for him. In sentences 5-6 we see that Saburov felt disdain for those people who did not care about the relatives of the deceased. Thus, they showed indifference and indifference, which only increased the emotional pain of their relatives. Saburov himself was a man of a kind heart. Responding to letters, he tried to show the compassion that so helped the relatives of the victims. In 22-23 sentences, the author writes that in this way Saburov could soften the grief of a serious loss.
Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov is convinced that compassion is an integral part of all people. In war or in peacetime, each of us is capable of making this world a kinder place. Indifference, in his opinion, only leads to disastrous consequences.
To prove the validity of this position, I will cite as an example the novel “War and Peace” by L. N. Tolstoy. Natasha Rostova is a truly kind and sympathetic person. She saved many of the wounded, providing them with housing, food and proper care. Natasha didn’t have a second to think, because she knew from the very beginning that this was not an obligation for her, but a spiritual urge.
Not only adults, but also children need support from others. In the work “The Fate of Man” by M. A. Sholokhov we see confirmation of this. Having lost his family and relatives, Andrei Sokolov did not lose heart. One day he met an orphaned boy Vanya, and without thinking twice, he firmly decided to replace his father. By showing compassion and helping him, Andrei made the boy a truly happy child.
The person about whom we're talking about, was an amazing, extraordinary playwright, prose writer, poet and writer of the Soviet era. His fate was very interesting. She presented him with many difficult tests, but he withstood them in a dignified manner and passed away as a real fighter, having fulfilled his civic and military duty to the end. He left as a legacy to his descendants his memory of the war, expressed in numerous poems, essays, plays and novels. His name is Simonov Konstantin. The biography of this man truly deserves special attention. In the literary field he had no equal, because it is one thing to invent and fantasize, and quite another to see everything with your own eyes.
Read more about the life and work of K. Simonov, as well as his own works selected from this virtual exhibition. You can borrow all presented copies from the Central Library System named after. A.M. Gorky.
, "The Living and the Dead"
Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.
The Living and the Dead [Text]: [novel] / K. Simonov. - M.: AST; M.: Transitkniga, 2004. - 508 p. - ( World classics). - ISBN 5-17-024223-9: 9108 rub.
K.M. Simonov’s novel “The Living and the Dead” is one of the most famous works about the Great Patriotic War. Through the deadly precision of details and the painful simplicity of the characters’ feelings, the writer immerses us in the black and white nightmare of that reality, where there are only “friends” and “strangers,” “living” and “dead.”
Karaganov, Alexander Vasilievich, “Konstantin Simonov up close and at a distance”
83.3(2Ros=Rus)6-8
Karaganov, Alexander Vasilievich.
Konstantin Simonov near and at a distance / A. Karaganov. - M.: Sov. writer, 1987. - 281 pp.: ill. + 2 incl.: 16 l. photo. - 2.75 rub.
The book was written by a person who communicated with the writer for many years, jointly participated in many literary and social affairs, and had intimate conversations with him.
The reader will find in the book reliable evidence from a contemporary and friend of Simonov about himself and about time. In addition to personal impressions and knowledge of existing literature about Simonov, the author relied in his research on the carefully studied archive of the writer.
For the first time, Simonov’s activities in cinema are covered in detail, the new things that are associated with his name in our cinema, fiction and especially documentary.
"The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945"
The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: encyclopedia / ch. ed. M. M. Kozlov. - M.: Sov. encyclopedia, 1985. - 832 p. : ill., maps. - 12.20 r.
The book about the multifaceted activities of Soviet people during the war years consists of an introductory overview and 3,300 articles arranged alphabetically. The latter cover the main operations of the Soviet Armed Forces, their organization and weapons, the military economy, the foreign policy of the USSR during the war, contribution to the victory over the enemy of science and culture. The publication reveals the leadership role of the Communist Party, showing moral and political unity Soviet people, the advantages of the socialist system, which led to the victory over fascist Germany and imperialist Japan; placed curriculum vitae about the leaders of the party and state, the largest Soviet military leaders, about the heroes of the front and rear, prominent figures science and culture. Including about K. Simonov.
Stories, “Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.”
Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.
Stories / K. M. Simonov. - Moscow: Sov. Russia, 1984. - 464 p. - (Non-Black Earth Rural Library). - 1.90 rub.
In the book of the famous Soviet writer, laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes, Hero of Socialist Labor K.M. Simonov (1915-1979) included three stories - “Days and Nights”, “Smoke of the Fatherland”, “The Case of Polynin”. These works are well known and loved by readers.
Last summer, “Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.”
Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.
Last summer / Konstantin Simonov. - Moscow: Sov. writer, 1971. - 608 p. - 1.15 rub.
Konstantin Simonov's novel "The Last Summer" completes a large trilogy about the Patriotic War and the feat of the Soviet people. In the novel, the characters we already know and love from previous books ("The Living and the Dead", "Soldiers Are Not Born") live and act: this is Serpilin, who became an army commander, Ilyin, who rose to become a regiment commander, Sintsov - now the commander's adjutant.
The plot of the novel is based on the preparation and conduct of the Belarusian operation. K. Simonov is attracted by the richest military-historical material. The personal fates of the heroes are depicted against the backdrop of the great heroic events of the last war summer.
Different days of the war. Diary of a writer., “Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.”
Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.
Different days of the war. Writer's Diary. M., “Young Guard”, 1975. - 496 p. - 1.13 rub.
Throughout the years of the Great Patriotic War, Konstantin Simonov served as a war correspondent for the Red Army. He had the opportunity to be a participant and witness to many grandiose battles. On the pages of this book by Lenin Prize laureate, Hero of Socialist Labor K. M. Simonov, the reader will meet famous commanders and military leaders, heroes whose exploits will forever remain in the people's memory.
Sofya Leonidovna, “Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.”
Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.
Sofya Leonidovna: story / K. M. Simonov. - Moscow: Sov. writer, 1985. - 144 p. - 0.45 rub.
The events to which K. Simonov's story "Sofya Leonidovna" is dedicated take place during the first military winter in Smolensk captured by the fascist occupiers. The story tells about the underground struggle against the Nazi invaders and their minions, about popular resistance to the fascists, and about the indestructible power of Soviet patriotism.
Poems; Poems, “Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.”
Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich.
Poems; Poems / K. M. Simonov. - Moscow: Sov. Russia, 1985. - 317 p. - (Feat). - 1.40 rub.
This edition of the poetic works of the remarkable Soviet writer Konstantin Simonov (1915-1979) reflects all stages of his poetic path. Did he write about Russian history or about the events at Khalkhin Gol, did he create masterpieces of love lyrics during the Great Patriotic War, integral to poems purely at the front, did he write about battles “ cold war“or about the impressions of a trip to fighting Vietnam - all these various works were in one way or another connected with the theme of military feat.
“Hour of Courage: Poetry from the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945.”
Hour of Courage: Poetry from the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945. / [comp. A. N. Vladimirsky]. - M.: ENLIGHTENMENT, 1990. - 318, p. - (School library). - 506,000 copies. - ISBN 5-09-001933-9 (in translation): 1800.00 rub., 18.00 rub.
The book tells about the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). The authors of the poems and stories included in it know firsthand what front-line brotherhood and soldier’s courage are: many went through the war as privates, officers, correspondents, medical instructors, and worked in the rear.