After the revolutionary era of 1917-1921. Great Patriotic War was the largest and most significant historical event that left the deepest, indelible mark in the memory and psychology of the people, in their literature.
In the very first days of the war, writers responded to the tragic events. At first, the war was reflected in operational small genres - essays and stories, captured individual facts, cases, individual participants in battles. Then a deeper understanding of events came and it became possible to depict them more fully. This led to the appearance of stories.
The first stories “Rainbow” by V. Vasilevskaya and “The Unconquered” by B. Gorbatov were built on the contrast: the Soviet Motherland - fascist Germany, a fair, humane Soviet man - a murderer, a fascist invader.
Writers were possessed by two feelings: love and hatred. Image Soviet people appeared as a collective, undivided, in the unity of the best national qualities. The Soviet man fighting for the freedom of the Motherland was portrayed in romantic light as a sublime heroic personality, without vices and shortcomings. Despite the terrible reality of the war, already the first stories were filled with confidence in victory and optimism. Romantic line The depiction of the feat of the Soviet people was later continued in A. Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard.”
The idea of war, its everyday life, and the always heroic behavior of a person in difficult military conditions is gradually deepening. This made it possible to reflect wartime more objectively and realistically. One of best works, which objectively and truthfully recreated the harsh everyday life of war, was V. Nekrasov’s novel “In the Trenches of Stalingrad,” written in 1947. The war appears in it in all its tragic grandeur and dirty, bloody everyday life. For the first time, she is shown not by an “outside person,” but through the perception of a direct participant in the events, for whom the absence of soap may be more important than the presence of a strategic plan somewhere at headquarters. V. Nekrasov shows man in all his manifestations - in the greatness of feat and baseness of desires, in self-sacrifice and cowardly betrayal. A person in war is not only a fighting unit, but mainly a living being, with weaknesses and virtues, passionately thirsting to live. In the novel, V. Nekrasov reflected the life of the war, the behavior of army representatives at different levels.
In the 1960s, writers of the so-called “lieutenant” conscription came into literature, creating a large layer military prose. In their works, the war was depicted from the inside, seen through the eyes of an ordinary soldier. The approach to the images of Soviet people was more sober and objective. It turned out that this was not at all a homogeneous mass, captured by a single impulse, that soviet people behave differently in the same circumstances, that the war did not destroy, but only muffled natural desires, obscured some and sharply revealed other qualities of character. Prose about the war of the 1960s and 1970s for the first time put the problem of choice at the center of the work. By placing their hero in extreme circumstances, the writers forced him to do moral choice. These are the stories " Hot snow", "Shore", "Choice" by Yu. Bondarev, "Sotnikov", "To Go and Never Return" by V. Bykov, "Sashka" by V. Kondratyev. Writers explored the psychological nature of the heroic, focusing not on social motives of behavior, but on internal ones, determined by the psychology of the fighting person.
IN best stories The 1960-1970s depict not large-scale, panoramic events of the war, but local incidents that, it would seem, cannot fundamentally influence the outcome of the war. But it was precisely from such “special” cases that the big picture wartime, it is the tragedy of individual situations that gives an idea of the unimaginable trials that befell the people as a whole.
The literature of the 1960s and 1970s about war expanded the idea of the heroic. The feat could be accomplished not only in battle. V. Bykov in the story “Sotnikov” showed heroism as the ability to resist “ formidable force circumstances”, to preserve human dignity in the face of death. The story is built on the contrast between external and internal, physical appearance and spiritual world. The main characters of the work are contrasting, in which two options for behavior in extraordinary circumstances are given.
The fisherman is an experienced partisan, always successful in battle, physically strong and resilient. He doesn't really think about anything moral principles. What is self-evident for him is completely impossible for Sotnikov. At first, the difference in their attitude towards things, seemingly unprincipled, slips through in separate strokes. In the cold, Sotnikov goes on a mission wearing a cap, and Rybak asks why he didn’t take a hat from some guy in the village. Sotnikov considers it immoral to rob those men whom he is supposed to protect.
Having been captured, both partisans try to find some way out. Sotnikov is tormented by the fact that he left the detachment without food; The fisherman cares only about his own life. True essence each one manifests itself in an extraordinary situation, facing the threat of death. Sotnikov does not make any concessions to the enemy. His moral principles do not allow him to retreat even one step before the fascists. And he goes to execution without fear, experiencing torment only for the fact that he could not complete the task, that he became the cause of the death of other people. Even on the threshold of death, conscience and responsibility to others do not leave Sotnikov. V. Bykov creates the image of a heroic personality who does not perform an obvious feat. He shows that moral maximalism, unwillingness to compromise one’s principles even under the threat of death are tantamount to heroism.
The Fisherman behaves differently. Not an enemy by conviction, not a coward in battle, he turns out to be cowardly when faced with the enemy. The lack of conscience as the highest standard of action forces him to take the first step towards betrayal. The fisherman himself does not yet realize that the path he has taken is irreversible. He convinces himself that, having saved himself, having escaped from the Nazis, he will still be able to fight them, take revenge on them, that his death is inappropriate. But Bykov shows that this is an illusion. Having taken one step on the path of betrayal, Rybak is forced to go further. When Sotnikov is executed, Rybak essentially becomes his executioner. There is no forgiveness for the fish. Even death, which he was so afraid of before and which he now longs for in order to atone for his sin, retreats from him.
The physically weak Sotnikov turned out to be spiritually superior to the strong Rybak. At the last moment before death, the hero’s eyes meet the gaze of a boy in a Budenovka in a crowd of peasants rounded up for execution. And this boy is a continuation of the principles of life, Sotnikov’s uncompromising position, the guarantee of victory.
In the 1960-1970s, military prose developed in several directions. The tendency towards a large-scale depiction of war was expressed in K. Simonov’s trilogy “The Living and the Dead”. It covers the time from the first hours of hostilities until the summer of 1944 - the period of the Belarusian operation. The main characters - political instructor Sintsov, regiment commander Serpilin, Tanya Ovsyannikova - go through the entire story. In the trilogy, K. Simonov traces how a completely civilian man, Sintsov, becomes a soldier, how he matures, hardens in war, how his personality changes. spiritual world. Serpilin is shown as a morally mature, mature person. This is a smart, thinking commander who went through the civil war, well, the academy. He takes care of people, does not want to throw them into a meaningless battle just for the sake of reporting to the command about the timely capture of the point, i.e. according to the Staff Plan. His fate reflected tragic fate the whole country.
The “trench” point of view on the war and its events is expanded and supplemented by the view of the military leader, objectified by the author’s analysis. The war in the trilogy appears as an epic event, historical in significance and nationwide in the scope of resistance.
In military prose of the 1970s, the psychological analysis of characters placed in extreme conditions deepened, and interest in moral problems intensified. The strengthening of realistic tendencies is complemented by the revival of romantic pathos. Realism and romance are closely intertwined in the story “And the dawns here are quiet...” by B. Vasilyeva, “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess” by V. Astafyev. High heroic pathos permeates the work of B. Vasiliev, terrible in its naked truth, “Not on the lists.” Material from the site
Nikolai Pluzhnikov arrived at the Brest garrison on the evening before the war. He had not yet been included in the lists of personnel, and when the war began, he could have left along with the refugees. But Pluzhnikov fights even when all the defenders of the fortress die. For several months this courageous young man did not allow the Nazis to live in peace: he blew up, shot, appeared in the most unexpected places and killed enemies. And when, deprived of food, water, ammunition, he emerged from the underground casemates into the light, a gray-haired, blind old man appeared before the enemies. And on this day Kolya turned 20 years old. Even the Nazis bowed to the courage of the Soviet soldier, giving him military honor.
Nikolai Pluzhnikov died unconquered, death is a rightful death. B. Vasiliev does not ask the question why Nikolai Pluzhnikov, a very young man who has not had time to live, fights so stubbornly, knowing that one in the field is not a warrior. He depicts the very fact of heroic behavior, without seeing an alternative to it. All defenders Brest Fortress fight heroically. In the 1970s, B. Vasilyev continued the heroic-romantic line that arose in military prose in the first years of the war (“Rainbow” by V. Vasilevskaya, “The Unconquered” by B. Gorbatov).
Another trend in depicting the Great Patriotic War is associated with artistic and documentary prose, which is based on tape recordings and eyewitness accounts. This kind of “tape-recorder” prose originated in Belarus. Her first work was the book “I am from the fiery village” by A. Adamovich, I. Bryl, V. Kolesnikov, recreating the tragedy of Khatyn. Terrible years Leningrad blockade in all their undisguised cruelty and naturalism, allowing us to understand how it was, what a hungry man felt, when he could still feel, appeared on the pages of the “Siege Book” by A. Adamovich and D. Granin. The war that passed through the fate of the country spared neither men nor women. ABOUT women's destinies- book by S. Aleksievich “War does not have a woman’s face.”
Prose about the Great Patriotic War is the most powerful and largest thematic branch of Russian and Soviet literature. From the external image of war, she came to comprehend the deepest internal processes, occurring in the consciousness and psychology of a person placed in extreme military circumstances.
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On this page there is material on the following topics:
- 20th century literature about war
- Portrayal of war in literature essay
- prepare material on the literature of the Patriotic War
- what happened after the war 1960-1970
- The theme of the Second World War in Russian literature of the 20th century
And that memory, probably,
My soul will be sick
For now there is an irrevocable misfortune
There will be no war for the world...
A. Tvardovsky “Cruel Memory”
The events of the Great Patriotic War are moving further and further into the past. But the years do not erase them in our memory. The historical situation itself inspired great feats of the human spirit. It seems that, when applied to literature about the Great Patriotic War, we can speak of a significant enrichment of the concept of everyday heroism.
In this great battle, which determined the destinies of mankind for many years to come, literature was not an outside observer, but an equal participant. Many writers acted in the vanguard. It is known how soldiers not only read, but also kept close to their hearts essays and articles by Sholokhov, Tolstoy, Leonov, poems by Tvardovsky, Simonov, Surkov. Poems and prose, performances and films, songs, works of art found a warm response in the hearts of readers, inspired heroic deeds, instilled confidence in victory.
In the plotting of stories and tales, a tendency towards simple eventfulness was initially evident. The work was mostly limited to the range of events associated with the activities of one regiment, battalion, division, their defense of positions, and escape from encirclement. Events that were exceptional and ordinary in their exceptionality became the basis of the plot. In them, first of all, the movement of history itself was revealed. It is no coincidence that the prose of the 40s includes new plot structures. It differs in that it does not have the traditional contrast of characters in Russian literature as the basis of the plot. When the criterion of humanity became the degree of involvement in history that was happening before our eyes, character conflicts faded before the war.
V. Bykov “Sotnikov”
“First of all, I was interested in two moral points,” wrote Bykov, “which can be simply defined as follows: what is a person before the crushing force of inhumane circumstances? What is he capable of when his ability to defend his life has been completely exhausted and it is impossible to prevent death? (V. Bykov. How the story “Sotnikov” was created. - “Literary Review, 1973, No. 7, p. 101). Sotnikov, who dies on the gallows, will forever remain in the memory of people, while Rybak will die for his comrades. A clear, characteristic conclusion without omissions - characteristic feature Bykov's prose.
War is portrayed as daily hard work with full dedication of all forces. In the story K. Simonov “Days and Nights” (1943 – 1944) it is said about the hero that he felt the war “as a general bloody suffering.” A person works - this is his main occupation in war, to the point of exhaustion, not just to the limit, but beyond any limit of his strength. This was his main military feat. The story mentions more than once that Saburov “got used to war,” to the most terrible thing in it, “to the fact that healthy people who were talking and joking with him just now ceased to exist in ten minutes.” Based on the fact that in war the unusual becomes ordinary, heroism becomes the norm, the exceptional is translated by life itself into the category of ordinary. Simonov creates the character of a reserved, somewhat stern, silent man, who became popular in post-war literature. The war gave a new appreciation to the essential and non-essential, the main and the unimportant, the true and the ostentatious in people: “... people in the war became simpler, cleaner and smarter... The good things in them came to the surface because they were no longer judged by numerous and unclear criteria... People in the face of death, they stopped thinking about what they look like and what they seem like - they had neither time nor desire left for this.”
V. Nekrasovlaid the tradition of a reliable depiction of the everyday course of war in the story "In the trenches of Stalingrad" (1946) - (“trench truth”). In general, the narrative form gravitates towards the diary novel genre. The genre variety also influenced the formation of a deeply suffered, philosophical and lyrical, and not just externally pictorial reflection of the events of the war. The story about everyday life and bloody battles in besieged Stalingrad is told on behalf of Lieutenant Kerzhentsev.
In the foreground are the immediate concerns of an ordinary participant in the war. The author outlines a “local history” with a predominance of individual episodes presented close up. V. Nekrasov interprets heroism quite unexpectedly for the war years. On the one hand, his characters do not strive to accomplish feats at any cost, but on the other hand, performing combat missions requires them to overcome the boundaries of personal capabilities, as a result they gain true spiritual heights. For example, having received an order to take a hill, Kerzhentsev clearly understands the utopian nature of this order: he has no weapons, no people, but he cannot disobey. Before the attack, the hero's gaze is turned to the starry sky. The tall symbol of the Star of Bethlehem becomes a reminder to him of eternity. Knowledge of celestial geography elevates him above time. The star indicated the severe necessity of facing death: “Right in front of me the star is large, bright, unblinking, like a cat’s eye. She brought it and began. Here and nowhere.”
Story M.A. Sholokhov "The Fate of Man" (1956) continues the theme of the Great Patriotic War. Before us is a clash between man and history. Talking about his life, Sokolov involves the narrator in a single circle of experiences. After Civil War Andrei Sokolov has “relatives as big as a ball, nowhere, no one, not a single soul.” Life was kind to him: he got married, had children, built a house. Then a new war came, which took everything from him. He has no one again. All the pain of the people seems to be concentrated in the narrator: “... eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes, filled with such an inescapable mortal melancholy that it hurts to look into them.” The hero is saved from the pain of loneliness by caring for an even more defenseless creature. This turned out to be the orphan Vanyushka - “a sort of little ragamuffin: his face is covered in watermelon juice, covered with dust, dirty as dust, unkempt, and his eyes are like stars at night after the rain!” A joy appeared: “at night you stroke him sleepily, then you smell the hair in his curls, and his heart moves away, becomes softer, otherwise it has turned to stone from grief...”.
It is difficult to imagine how powerfully influential the novel about the heroic deeds of underground Komsomol members had on the upbringing of more than one generation. IN "Young Guard" (1943, 1945, 1951) A.A. Fadeeva there is everything that excites a teenager at all times: an atmosphere of mystery, conspiracy, sublime love, courage, nobility, mortal danger and heroic death. Restrained Seryozha and proud Valya Borts, capricious Lyubka and silent Sergei Levashov, shy Oleg and thoughtful, strict Nina Ivantsova... “The Young Guard” is a novel about the feat of the young, about their courageous death and immortality.
V. Panova “Satellites” (1946).
The heroes of this story come face to face with war during the first voyage of an ambulance train to the front line. It is here that the test of a person’s mental strength, his dedication and devotion to work is carried out. The dramatic trials that befell the heroes of the story simultaneously contributed to the identification and affirmation of the main, authentic thing in a person. Each of them must overcome something in themselves, give up something: Dr. Belov must suppress enormous grief (he lost his wife and daughter during the bombing of Leningrad), Lena Ogorodnikova must survive the collapse of love, Yulia Dmitrievna must overcome the loss of hope of starting a family. But these losses and self-denial did not break them. Spuzhov’s desire to preserve his little world turns into a sad result: loss of personality, illusory existence.
K. Simonov “The Living and the Dead”
From chapter to chapter, “The Living and the Dead” unfolds a broad panorama of the first period of the Patriotic War. All the characters in the novel (and there are about one hundred and twenty of them) merge into a monumental collective image- image of the people. Reality itself: the loss of vast territories, colossal losses of life, the terrible torment of encirclement and captivity, humiliation with suspicion and much that the heroes of the novel saw and went through makes them ask questions: why did this tragedy happen? Who's to blame? Simonov's chronicle became the history of the people's consciousness. This novel convinces that, having united together in a sense of their own historical responsibility, the people are able to defeat the enemy and save their fatherland from destruction.
E. Kazakevich “Star”
“The Star” is dedicated to the scouts who are closest to death, “always in her sight.” The scout has freedom that is unthinkable in the infantry ranks; his life or death depends directly on his initiative, independence, and responsibility. At the same time, he must, as it were, renounce himself, be ready “to disappear at any moment, to dissolve in the silence of the forests, in the unevenness of the soil, in the flickering shadows of twilight”... The author notes that “in the lifeless light of German rockets” the reconnaissance as if “the whole world sees.” The call signs of the reconnaissance group and divisions Zvezda and Earth receive a conventionally poetic, symbolic meaning. The conversation between the Star and the Earth begins to be perceived as a “mysterious interplanetary conversation”, in which people feel “as if lost in cosmic space.” On the same poetic wave, the image of a game arises (“an ancient game in which there are only two existing persons: man and death”), although there is a certain meaning behind it: at the extreme level of mortal risk, too much belongs to chance and nothing can be predicted.
The review includes more than well-known literary works about the Great War; we will be glad if someone wants to pick them up and flip through the familiar pages...
Librarian of KNH M.V. Krivoshchekova
Many years separate us from the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). But time does not reduce interest in this topic, drawing the attention of today’s generation to the distant years at the front, to the origins of the feat and courage of the Soviet soldier - a hero, liberator, humanist. Yes, it is difficult to overestimate the writer’s word on war and about war; An apt, striking, uplifting word, poem, song, ditty, a bright heroic image of a fighter or commander - they inspired warriors to feats and led to victory. These words are still full of patriotic resonance today; they poeticize service to the Motherland and affirm the beauty and greatness of our moral values. That is why we return again and again to the works that made up the golden fund of literature about the Great Patriotic War.
Just as there was nothing equal to this war in the history of mankind, so in the history of world art there was not such a number of different kinds of works as about this tragic time. The theme of war was especially strong in Soviet literature. From the very first days of the grandiose battle, our writers stood in line with all the fighting people. More than a thousand writers took part in the fighting on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, defending with “pen and machine gun” native land. Of the more than 1,000 writers who went to the front, more than 400 did not return from the war, 21 became Heroes Soviet Union.
Famous masters of our literature (M. Sholokhov, L. Leonov, A. Tolstoy, A. Fadeev, Vs. Ivanov, I. Erenburg, B. Gorbatov, D. Bedny, V. Vishnevsky, V. Vasilevskaya, K. Simonov, A Surkov, B. Lavrenev, L. Sobolev and many others) became correspondents for front-line and central newspapers.
“There is no greater honor for a Soviet writer,” A. Fadeev wrote in those years, “and there is no higher task for Soviet art than the daily and tireless service of the weapon of artistic expression to one’s people in the menacing hours of battle.”
When the guns thundered, the muses were not silent. Throughout the war - and in hard time failures and retreats, and in the days of victories - our literature sought to reveal as fully as possible the moral qualities of the Soviet person. While instilling love for the Motherland, Soviet literature also instilled hatred of the enemy. Love and hate, life and death - these contrasting concepts were inseparable at that time. And it was precisely this contrast, this contradiction that carried within itself the highest justice and the highest humanism. The power of wartime literature, the secret of its remarkable creative success- in inextricable connection with the people heroically fighting the German invaders. Russian literature, which has long been famous for its closeness to the people, has perhaps never been so closely connected with life and has not been as purposeful as in 1941-1945. In essence, it became literature of one theme - the theme of war, the theme of the Motherland.
The writers breathed the same breath with the struggling people and felt like “trench poets,” and all literature as a whole, in the apt expression of A. Tvardovsky, was “the voice of the heroic soul of the people” (History of Russian Soviet Literature / Edited by P. Vykhodtsev.-M ., 1970.-P.390).
Soviet wartime literature was multi-issue and multi-genre. Poems, essays, journalistic articles, stories, plays, poems, and novels were created by writers during the war years. Moreover, if in 1941 small - “operative” genres predominated, then over time works of larger literary genres begin to play a significant role (Kuzmichev I. Genres of Russian literature of the war years - Gorky, 1962).
The role of prose works. Based on the heroic traditions of Russian and Soviet literature, the prose of the Great Patriotic War achieved great creative peaks. The golden fund of Soviet literature includes such works created during the war years as “Russian Character” by A. Tolstoy, “The Science of Hate” and “They Fought for the Motherland” by M. Sholokhov, “The Capture of Velikoshumsk” by L. Leonov, “The Young Guard” A. Fadeeva, “The Unconquered” by B. Gorbatov, “Rainbow” by V. Vasilevskaya and others, which became an example for writers of post-war generations.
The traditions of the literature of the Great Patriotic War are the foundation of the creative searches of modern Soviet prose. Without these traditions, which have become classical, based on a clear understanding of the decisive role of the masses in the war, their heroism and selfless devotion to the Motherland, the remarkable successes achieved by Soviet “military” prose today would not have been possible.
Yours further development prose about the Great Patriotic War received in the first post-war years. “The Bonfire” was written by K. Fedin. M. Sholokhov continued to work on the novel “They Fought for the Motherland.” First post-war decade A number of works also appeared that were taken to be called “panoramic” novels for their pronounced desire for a comprehensive depiction of the events of the war (the term itself appeared later, when the general typological features of these novels were defined). This " White birch"M. Bubennova, "Flag Bearers" by O. Gonchar, "Battle of Berlin" Sun. Ivanov, “Spring on the Oder” by E. Kazakevich, “The Storm” by I. Ehrenburg, “The Storm” by O. Latsis, “The Rubanyuk Family” by E. Popovkin, “Unforgettable Days” by Lynkov, “For the Power of the Soviets” by V. Kataev, etc.
Despite the fact that many of the “panoramic” novels were characterized by significant shortcomings, such as some “varnishing” of the events depicted, weak psychologism, illustrativeness, straightforward opposition of positive and negative heroes, a certain “romanticization” of war, these works played a role in the development of military prose.
A great contribution to the development of Soviet military prose was made by writers of the so-called “second wave,” front-line writers who entered the mainstream literature in the late 1950s and early 1960s. So, Yuri Bondarev burned Manstein’s tanks near Stalingrad. E. Nosov, G. Baklanov were also artillerymen; poet Alexander Yashin fought in the Marine Corps near Leningrad; poet Sergei Orlov and writer A. Ananyev - tank crews, burned in the tank. The writer Nikolai Gribachev was a platoon commander and then commander of a sapper battalion. Oles Gonchar fought in a mortar crew; the infantrymen were V. Bykov, I. Akulov, V. Kondratyev; mortarman - M. Alekseev; a cadet and then a partisan - K. Vorobyov; signalmen - V. Astafiev and Y. Goncharov; self-propelled gun - V. Kurochkin; paratrooper and scout - V. Bogomolov; partisans - D. Gusarov and A. Adamovich...
What is characteristic of the work of these artists, who came to literature in greatcoats smelling of gunpowder with sergeant's and lieutenant's shoulder straps? First of all, the continuation of the classical traditions of Russian Soviet literature. Traditions of M. Sholokhov, A. Tolstoy, A. Fadeev, L. Leonov. For it is impossible to create something new without relying on the best that was achieved by predecessors. Exploring the classical traditions of Soviet literature, front-line writers not only mechanically assimilated them, but also creatively developed them. And this is natural, because fundamentally literary process There is always a complex interplay of tradition and innovation.
Front-line experience different writers not the same. The older generation of prose writers entered 1941, as a rule, already established artists of words and went to war to write about the war. Naturally, they could see the events of those years more broadly and comprehend them more deeply than the writers of the middle generation, who fought directly on the front line and hardly thought at that time that they would ever put pen to paper. The circle of vision of the latter was quite narrow and was often limited to the boundaries of a platoon, company, or battalion. This “narrow strip through the entire war,” in the words of front-line writer A. Ananyev, also runs through many, especially early, works of prose writers of the middle generation, such as “Battalions Ask for Fire” (1957) and “The Last Salvos” ( 1959) by Y. Bondarev, “Crane Cry” (1960), “The Third Rocket” (1961) and all subsequent works by V. Bykov, “South of the Main Strike” (1957) and “An Inch of Earth” (1959), “The Dead Shame Not imut" (1961) by G. Baklanov, "Scream" (1961) and "Killed near Moscow" (1963) by K. Vorobyov, "Shepherd and Shepherdess" (1971) by V. Astafieva and others.
But, inferior to writers of the older generation in literary experience and “broad” knowledge of war, writers of the middle generation had their clear advantage. They spent all four years of the war on the front line and were not just eyewitnesses of battles and battles, but also their direct participants, who personally experienced all the hardships of trench life. “These were people who bore all the hardships of the war on their shoulders - from its beginning to its end. These were men of the trenches, soldiers and officers; They themselves went on the attack, fired at tanks with frenzied and furious excitement, silently buried their friends, took high-rise buildings that seemed impregnable, felt with their own hands the metallic trembling of a red-hot machine gun, inhaled the garlicky smell of German felt and heard how sharply and splashingly the fragments pierced the parapet from exploding mines" (Yu. Bondarev. A look into the biography: Collected works. - M., 1970. - T. 3. - P. 389-390.). While inferior in literary experience, they had certain advantages, since they knew war from the trenches (Literature of the great feat. - M., 1975. - Issue 2. - P. 253-254).
This is an advantage - direct knowledge of war, leading edge, trenches, allowed writers of the middle generation to give an extremely vivid picture of the war, highlighting the smallest details of front-line life, accurately and powerfully showing the most intense minutes - minutes of battle - everything that they saw with their own eyes and that they themselves experienced during the four years of war. “It is precisely deep personal upheavals that can explain the appearance of the naked truth of war in the first books of front-line writers. These books became a revelation such as our literature about war had never known before” (Leonov B. Epic of Heroism. - M., 1975. - P. 139.).
But it was not the battles themselves that interested these artists. And they wrote the war not for the sake of the war itself. A characteristic tendency of literary development of the 1950-60s, clearly manifested in their work, is to increase attention to the fate of man in its connection with history, to inner world personality in its indissolubility with the people. To show a person, his inner, spiritual world, most fully revealed at the decisive moment - this is the main thing for which these prose writers took up their pen, who, despite the originality of their individual style, have one characteristic common feature- sensitivity to the truth.
Another interesting one distinguishing feature characteristic of the work of front-line writers. In their works of the 50s and 60s, compared to the books of the previous decade, the tragic emphasis in the depiction of war increased. These books “carried a charge of cruel drama; they could often be defined as “optimistic tragedies”; their main characters were soldiers and officers of one platoon, company, battalion, regiment, regardless of whether dissatisfied critics liked it or didn’t like it, demanding large-scale paintings, global sound. These books were far from any kind of calm illustration; they lacked even the slightest didacticism, tenderness, rational precision, or substitution of internal truth for external ones. They contained the harsh and heroic soldier’s truth (Yu. Bondarev. Trend in the development of the military-historical novel. - Collected works. - M., 1974. - T. 3. - P. 436.).
War, as depicted by front-line prose writers, is not only, and not even so much, spectacular heroic deeds, outstanding deeds, but tedious everyday work, hard, bloody work, but vitally necessary, and from this, how everyone will perform it in their place, victory ultimately depended. And it was in this everyday military work that the writers of the “second wave” saw the heroism of the Soviet man. The personal military experience of the writers of the “second wave” determined to a large extent both the very depiction of war in their first works (the locality of the events described, extremely compressed in space and time, a very small number of heroes, etc.), and the genre forms that were most appropriate the contents of these books. Small genres (story, story) allowed these writers to most powerfully and accurately convey everything that they personally saw and experienced, with which their feelings and memory were filled to the brim.
It was in the mid-50s - early 60s that the story and story took leading place in the literature about the Great Patriotic War, significantly displacing the novel, which occupied a dominant position in the first post-war decade. Such a tangible overwhelming quantitative superiority of works written in the form of small genres has led some critics to hastily assert that the novel can no longer regain its former leading position in literature, that it is a genre of the past and that today it does not correspond to the pace of the times, the rhythm of life, etc. .d.
But time and life themselves have shown the groundlessness and excessive categoricalness of such statements. If in the late 1950s - early 60s the quantitative superiority of the story over the novel was overwhelming, then since the mid-60s the novel has gradually regained its lost positions. Moreover, the novel undergoes certain changes. More than before, he relies on facts, on documents, on actual historical events, boldly introduces real people into the narrative, trying to paint a picture of the war, on the one hand, as broadly and completely as possible, and on the other, historically as accurately as possible. Documents and fiction go hand in hand here, being two main components.
It was on the combination of document and fiction that such works, which became serious phenomena of our literature, as “The Living and the Dead” by K. Simonov, “Origins” by G. Konovalov, “Baptism” by I. Akulov, “Blockade”, “Victory” by A. .Chakovsky, “War” by I. Stadnyuk, “Just One Life” by S. Barzunov, “Sea Captain” by A. Kron, “Commander” by V. Karpov, “July 41” by G. Baklanov, “Requiem for the PQ-17 Caravan” » V. Pikul and others. Their appearance was caused by the growing demands in public opinion, objectively, in in full present the degree of preparedness of our country for war, the reasons and nature of the summer retreat to Moscow, the role of Stalin in leading the preparation and course of military operations of 1941-1945 and some other socio-historical “knots” that have attracted close interest since the mid-1960s and especially during the period of perestroika.
The war that began on June 22, 1941 became a terrible milestone in the history of our country. Literally every family has faced this disaster. However, later this tragedy served as an impetus for the creation of many talented books, poems and films. Particularly talented authors created stunning and exciting poems.
While studying at school, many of us study the Great Patriotic War from literary works. Most of all I like poetry. There are many wonderful poets, but I liked Alexander Tvardovsky the most, who created the brilliant poem “Vasily Terkin”. Main character Vasily is a brave soldier who is capable of difficult moment cheer up your fellow soldiers with a joke. At first, the poems began to be published in small excerpts in the newspaper starting in 1942 and immediately earned enormous popularity among the soldiers. The newspaper was passed from hand to hand and passed from department to department. The character Vasily Terkin turned out to be so vividly depicted, and his figure was so colorful and original, that many soldiers from different sectors of the front claimed that this particular man served in their company.
Terkin appears as a simple Russian soldier, who is a fellow countryman of the author himself. This is not his first war; before that he went through the entire Finnish campaign. This person does not mince words, when necessary he can boast, he loves to eat well. In general - our guy! Everything comes easy to him, he accomplishes his feats as if by accident. Sometimes he dreams of how, having received a medal for courage, he will go to a dance in the village council. How will everyone respect such a hero?
Many soldiers tried to imitate their book idol and wanted to be like him in everything. Vasily experienced many adventures, was wounded, was hospitalized, and killed German officers. The soldiers loved the poems so much that Tvardovsky received many letters asking him to write a sequel.
I liked the character of Vasily Terkin because of its simplicity. He walked through life easily and did not lose heart in the most difficult moments for him. His manner of speaking, his actions, everything he did was very similar to the image of a Russian soldier. In addition, I liked Vasily for his dangerous adventures. He seemed to be playing toss with death every minute.
The theme of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) became one of the main ones in Soviet literature. Many Soviet writers took direct part in hostilities on the front line, some served as a war correspondent, some fought in a partisan detachment... Such iconic authors of the 20th century as Sholokhov, Simonov, Grossman, Erenburg, Astafiev and many others left us amazing evidence . Each of them had their own war and their own vision of what happened. Some wrote about pilots, some about partisans, some about child heroes, some about documentaries, and some about fiction. They left terrible memories of those fatal events for the country.
These testimonies are especially important for modern teenagers and children, who should definitely read these books. Memory cannot be bought; it can either not be lost, lost, or restored. And it’s better not to lose. Never! And don't forget about victory.
We decided to compile a list of the TOP 25 most remarkable novels and stories by Soviet writers.
- Ales Adamovich: “The Punishers”
- Victor Astafiev: “Cursed and killed”
- Boris Vasiliev: ""
- Boris Vasiliev: “I wasn’t on the lists”
- Vladimir Bogomolov: “The moment of truth (In August forty-four)”
- Yuri Bondarev: “Hot snow”
- Yuri Bondarev: “The battalions are asking for fire”
- Konstantin Vorobyov: “Killed near Moscow”
- Vasil Bykov: “Sotnikov”
- Vasil Bykov: “Survive until dawn”
- Oles Gonchar: “Flag Bearers”
- Daniil Granin: “My lieutenant”
- Vasily Grossman: “For a just cause”
- Vasily Grossman: “Life and Fate”
- Emmanuel Kazakevich: “Star”
- Emmanuel Kazakevich: “Spring on the Oder”
- Valentin Kataev: “Son of the regiment”
- Viktor Nekrasov: “In the trenches of Stalingrad”
- Vera Panova: “Satellites”
- Fyodor Panferov: “In the land of the vanquished”
- Valentin Pikul: “Requiem for the PQ-17 caravan”
- Anatoly Rybakov: “Children of Arbat”
- Konstantin Simonov: “The Living and the Dead”
- Mikhail Sholokhov: “They fought for their Motherland”
- Ilya Erenburg: "Storm"
More about the Great Patriotic War The Great Patriotic War was the bloodiest event in world history, which claimed the lives of millions of people. In almost every Russian family There are veterans, front-line soldiers, blockade survivors, people who survived the occupation or evacuation to the rear, this leaves an indelible mark on the entire nation.
The Second World War was the final part of World War II, which rolled like a heavy roller throughout the European part of the Soviet Union. June 22, 1941 became its starting point - on this day, German and allied troops began bombing our territories, launching the implementation of the “Barbarossa Plan”. Until November 18, 1942, the entire Baltic region, Ukraine and Belarus were under occupation, Leningrad was blocked for 872 days, and troops continued to rush deep into the country to capture its capital. Soviet commanders and military were able to stop the offensive at a cost big casualties both in the army and among the local population. From the occupied territories, the Germans drove the population into slavery en masse, distributed Jews into concentration camps, where, in addition to unbearable living and working conditions, they practiced various types of research on people, which resulted in many deaths.
In 1942-1943, Soviet factories evacuated deep to the rear were able to increase production, which allowed the army to launch a counteroffensive and push the front line to the western border of the country. Key event during this period is Battle of Stalingrad, in which the victory of the Soviet Union became a turning point that changed the existing balance of military forces.
In 1943–1945 soviet army went on the offensive, recapturing the occupied territories of right-bank Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states. During the same period, a fire flared up in the not yet liberated territories. partisan movement, in which many local residents, including women and children, took part. The final goal of the offensive was Berlin and the final defeat of the enemy armies; this happened late in the evening of May 8, 1945, when the act of surrender was signed.
Among the front-line soldiers and defenders of the Motherland were many key Soviet writers - Sholokhov, Grossman, Ehrenburg, Simonov and others. Later they would write books and novels, leaving for posterity their vision of that war in the images of heroes - children and adults, soldiers and partisans. All this today allows our contemporaries to remember the terrible price of a peaceful sky above our heads, which was paid by our people.