According to the encyclopedia “The Great Patriotic War,” over a thousand writers served in the active army; out of eight hundred members of the Moscow writers’ organization, two hundred and fifty went to the front in the first days of the war. Four hundred and seventy-one writers did not return from the war - this is a big loss. Once during the Spanish War, Hemingway remarked: “It is very dangerous to write the truth about war, and it is very dangerous to seek the truth... When a man goes to the front to seek the truth, he may find death instead. But if twelve go, and only two return, the truth that they bring with them will really be the truth, and not distorted rumors that we pass off as history. Is it worth the risk to find this truth? Let the writers themselves judge that.”

Newspapers played a special role in the fate of military literature.

I. Erenburg, K. Simonov, V. Grossman, A. Platonov, E. Gabrilovich, P. Pavlenko, A. Surkov worked as correspondents for “Red Star”; its regular authors were A. Tolstoy, E. Petrov, A. Dovzhenko, N. Tikhonov. A. Fadeev, L. Sobolev, V. Kozhevnikov, B. Polevoy worked for Pravda. Army newspapers even created a special position - a writer. B. Gorbatov served in the newspaper of the Southern Front “For the Glory of the Motherland”, in the newspaper of the Western and then the 3rd Belorussian Front “Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda” - A. Tvardovsky... The newspaper at that time became the main intermediary between the writer and the reader and the most influential practical organizer of the literary process. The alliance of the newspaper with writers was born of the newspaper’s need for a writer’s pen (of course, within the framework of journalistic genres), but as soon as it became more or less strong and familiar, it turned into an alliance with fiction (it began to be present on newspaper pages in “pure » form). In January 1942, “Red Star” published the first stories by K. Simonov, K. Paustovsky, V. Grossman. After this, works of fiction - poems and poems, short stories and stories, even plays - began to appear in other central newspapers, in front-line and army newspapers. A previously unthinkable phrase came into use - it was considered an axiom that a newspaper lives for one day - on the newspaper page the phrase: “To be continued in the next issue.” The following stories were published in newspapers: “Russian Tale” by P. Pavlenko (“Red Star”, 1942), “The People are Immortal” by V. Grossman (“Red Star”, 1942), “Rainbow” by V. Vasilevskaya (“Izvestia”, 1942 ), “The Family of Taras” (“Unconquered”) by B. Gorbatov (“Pravda”, 1943); the first chapters of the novel “The Young Guard” by A. Fadeev (Komsomolskaya Pravda, 1945), the novel was finished after the war; poems: "Pulkovo Meridian" by V. Inber ("Literature and Life", "Pravda", 1942), "February Diary" by O. Berggolts ("Komsomolskaya Pravda", 1942), "Vasily Terkin" by A. Tvardovsky ("Pravda" , “Izvestia”, “Red Star”, 1942); plays: “Russian People” by K. Simonov (Pravda, 1942), “Front” by A. Korneychuk (Pravda, 1942).

For the infantry soldier, artilleryman, and sapper, war was not only countless dangers - bombings, artillery raids, machine gun fire - and proximity to death, which was so often only four steps away, but also hard daily work. And from the writer she also demanded selfless literary work - without respite or rest. “I wrote,” recalled A. Tvardovsky, “essays, poems, feuilletons, slogans, leaflets, songs, articles, notes - everything.” But even the traditional newspaper genres intended to cover the present day, its evil - correspondence and journalistic articles (and they, naturally, became most widespread at that time, they were turned to most often throughout the war), when a gifted artist resorted to them, they were transformed : correspondence turned into an artistic essay, a journalistic article into an essay, and acquired the advantages of fiction, including durability. Much of what was then hastily written for tomorrow’s issue of the newspaper has retained its living force to this day, so much talent and soul was invested in these works. And the individuality of these writers clearly manifested itself in journalistic genres.

And the first line in the list of the writers who most distinguished themselves during the war by their work in the newspaper rightfully belongs to Ilya Ehrenburg, who, as evidenced on behalf of the corps of front-line correspondents K. Simonov, “worked harder, more selflessly and better than all of us during the difficult suffering of the war.”

Ehrenburg is a publicist par excellence; his main genre is the article, or rather the essay. In Ehrenburg one can rarely find a description in its pure form. The landscape and the sketch are immediately enlarged and acquire a symbolic meaning. Ehrenburg’s own impressions and observations (and he, a purely civilian, went to the front more than once) are included in the figurative fabric of his journalism on equal terms with letters, documents, quotes from newspapers, eyewitness accounts, testimonies of prisoners, etc.

Laconism is one of the striking distinctive features of Ehrenburg's style. The large number of varied facts that the writer uses requires conciseness. Often the very “montage” of facts carves out a thought and leads the reader to the conclusion: “When Leonardo da Vinci sat over the drawings of a flying machine, he thought not about high-explosive bombs, but about the happiness of mankind. As a teenager I saw the first loops of the French pilot Pegu. The elders said: “Be proud - man flies like a bird!” Many years later I saw Junkers over Madrid, over Paris, over Moscow...” (“The Heart of Man”).

Contrasting comparison, a sharp transition from a particular but striking detail to a generalization, from ruthless irony to heartfelt tenderness, from an angry invective to an inspiring appeal - this is what distinguishes Ehrenburg’s style. An attentive reader of Ehrenburg's journalism cannot help but guess that its author is a poet.

Konstantin Simonov is also a poet (at least, that’s how readers perceived him at that time, and he himself then considered poetry to be his true calling), but of a different kind - he always gravitated towards plot poems; in one of the reviews of his pre-war poems it was insightful noted: “Konstantin Simonov has visual acuity and the demeanor of a prose writer.” So the war and work at the newspaper only pushed him towards prose. In his essays, he usually depicts what he saw with his own eyes, shares what he himself experienced, or tells the story of some person with whom the war brought him together.

Simonov's essays always have a narrative plot, so their figurative structure is indistinguishable from his stories. As a rule, they contain a psychological portrait of the hero - an ordinary soldier or front-line officer, reflect the life circumstances that shaped the character of this person, depict in detail the battle in which he distinguished himself, while the author pays main attention to the everyday life of war. Here is the ending of the essay “On the Sozh River”: “The second day of the battle began on this not the first water line. It was an ordinary, difficult day, after which a new day of battle began, just as difficult,” she characterizes the author’s point of view. And Simonov recreates in great detail what a soldier or officer had to go through in these “ordinary” days, when in the bone-chilling cold or muddy roads he walked along endless front-line roads, pushed skidding cars or pulled out dead stuck cars from impassable mud. guns; how he lit the last pinch of shag mixed with crumbs, or chewed a randomly preserved cracker - for days there was no grub or smoke; how he ran across under mortar fire - overshooting, undershooting - feeling with his whole body that he was about to be covered by the next mine, or, overcoming the dreary emptiness in his chest, rising under fire to rush into enemy trenches.

Viktor Nekrasov, who spent the entire Stalingrad epic on the front line, commanding regimental sappers, recalled that journalists appeared in Stalingrad infrequently, but still, journalists did appear, however, usually “men of the pen” appeared only briefly and did not always go down below the army headquarters. There were, however, exceptions: “Vasily Semenovich Grossman was not only in divisions, but also in regiments, on the front line. He was also in our regiment.” And the most important evidence: “...newspapers with his, like Ehrenburg’s, correspondence were read to our ears.” The Stalingrad essays were the writer's highest artistic achievement at that time.

In the gallery of images created by Grossman in his essays, the two warriors whom the writer met during the Battle of Stalingrad were the living embodiment of the most significant, dearest to him traits of the people’s character. This is the 20-year-old sniper Chekhov, “a young man whom everyone loved for his kindness and devotion to his mother and sisters, who did not shoot with a slingshot as a child,” because he “regretted hitting the living,” “who became a terrible man with the iron, cruel and holy logic of the Patriotic War , an avenger" ("Through the Eyes of Chekhov"). And the sapper Vlasov with the “creepy, like a scaffold” (this is from Grossman’s notebook, such an impression it made on him), the Volga crossing: “It often happens that one person embodies all the special features of a big business, a big work, that the events of his life, his character traits express the character of an entire era. And of course, it is Sergeant Vlasov, a great worker of peacetime, who went behind the harrow as a six-year-old boy, the father of six diligent, unpampered children, the man who was the first foreman on the collective farm and the keeper of the collective farm treasury - and is the exponent of the harsh and everyday heroism of the Stalingrad crossing" (" Vlasov").

Grossman's key word, the key concept explaining the strength of popular resistance is freedom. “It is impossible to break the people’s will to freedom,” he writes in the essay “Volga - Stalingrad,” calling the Volga “the river of Russian freedom.”

“Spiritualized People” is the name of one of the most famous essays and stories (in the absence of others, we will use this genre definition, although it does not convey the originality of the work, in which a specific, documentary basis is combined with a legendary-metaphorical artistic structure) by Andrei Platonov. “He knew,” Platonov writes about one of his heroes, “that war, like peace, is inspired by happiness and there is joy in it, and he himself experienced the joy of war, the happiness of the destruction of evil, and still experiences them, and for this he lives Other people live in war” (“Officer and Soldier”). Time and again the writer returns to the idea of ​​fortitude as the basis of our perseverance. “Nothing is accomplished without preparedness in the soul, especially in war. But this internal preparedness of our warrior for battle can be judged both by the strength of his organic attachment to his homeland, and by his worldview, formed in him by the history of his country” (“About the Soviet Soldier (Three Soldiers)”). And for Platonov, the most disgusting, monstrous thing about the invaders rampaging through our land is “emptiness.”

The war against fascism appears in Platonov’s works as a battle of “spiritual people” with an “inanimate enemy” (this is the title of another Platonov essay), as a struggle of good and evil, creation and destruction, light and darkness. “In moments of battle,” he notes, “the whole earth is freed from villainy.” But, considering the war in fundamental universal human categories, the writer does not turn away from his time, does not neglect its specific features (although he did not avoid this kind of unfair accusations: “In Platonov’s stories there is no historical person colored by time, our contemporary...”). The lifestyle of his contemporaries (or rather, their worldview, for everything everyday, “material” is switched by Platonov into this sphere) is invariably present in his works, but the author’s main goal is to show that the war is being waged “for the sake of life on earth”, for the right to live, breathe, raise children. The enemy has encroached on the very physical existence of our people - this is what dictates Platonov’s “universal”, universal human scale. His style is also oriented towards this, in which philosophy and folklore metaphorism, hyperbole, going back to fairy-tale narration, and psychologism, alien to fairy tales, symbolism and vernacular, equally intensely coloring both the speech of the heroes and the author’s language, merged.

The focus of Alexei Tolstoy is on the patriotic and military traditions of the Russian people, which should serve as a support, a spiritual foundation for resistance to the fascist invaders. And for him, the Soviet soldiers fighting against the Nazi hordes are the direct heirs of those who, “protecting the honor of the fatherland, walked through the Alpine glaciers behind Suvorov’s horse, resting his bayonet, repelled the attacks of Murat’s cuirassiers near Moscow, stood in a clean shirt - gun to his leg - under the destructive bullets from Plevna, awaiting the order to go to inaccessible heights" ("What We Defend").

Tolstoy’s constant appeal to history responds in style with solemn vocabulary; the writer widely uses not only archaisms, but also vernacular language - let us remember Tolstoy’s famous: “Nothing, we can do it!”

A characteristic feature of many wartime essays and journalistic articles is high lyrical tension. It is no coincidence that essays are so often given subtitles of this type: “From the writer’s notebook,” “Pages from the diary,” “Diary,” “Letters,” etc. This predilection for lyrical forms, for narration close to a diary, was not explained so much because they gave great internal freedom in conveying material that had not yet been laid down, material that was today’s in the literal sense of the word - the main thing was something else: this way the writer got the opportunity to speak in the first person about what filled his soul express your feelings directly. “I drew inspiration from the feeling of collective cohesion, from the complete dissolution of a person in the common cause of defending Leningrad,” Nikolai Tikhonov said, but the feeling here is expressed common to most writers. Never before has a writer heard the heart of the people so clearly - for this he just had to listen to his heart. And no matter who he wrote about, he certainly wrote about himself. Never before has the distance between word and deed been so short for a writer. And his responsibility has never been so high and specific.

Sometimes the literary process of the war years in critical articles looks like a path from a journalistic article, an essay, a lyric poem to more “solid” genres: a story, a poem, a drama. It is believed that, as writers accumulated impressions of military reality, small genres faded away. But the living process does not fit into this temptingly harmonious scheme. Until the very end of the war, writers continued to appear on the pages of newspapers with essays and journalistic articles, and the best of them were real literature, without any discounts. And the first stories and plays, in turn, appeared early - in 1942. And, moving from essays and journalism to a review of stories, one must keep in mind that the higher-lower approach, better-worse assessments, is not suitable here. We will talk about the most significant, artistically most striking works, reprinted many times in the post-war years: “The People are Immortal” (1942) by V. Grossman, “The Unconquered” (under the title “The Family of Taras”) (1943) by B. Gorbatov, “Volokolamsk highway" (the first part is called "Panfilov's men on the first line (a story about fear and fearlessness)", 1943; the second - "Volokolamsk highway (the second story about Panfilov's men)", 1944) A. Bek, "Days and Nights" (1944) K. Simonova. They are also remarkable in that they reveal a wide range of literary traditions, which the authors of the stories were guided by, artistically translating the impressions of the catastrophically changing, turbulent military reality.

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

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

“Let there be no word more majestic and holy than the word “people”!” - writes Grossman. It is no coincidence that the main characters of his story were not career military men, but civilians - a collective farmer from the Tula region, Ignatiev, and a Moscow intellectual, historian Bogarev. They are a significant detail, being drafted into the army on the same day, symbolizing the unity of the people in the face of the fascist invasion.

The combat is also symbolic - “as if the ancient times of duels were revived” - Ignatiev with a German tanker, “huge, broad-shouldered”, “who walked through Belgium, France, trampled the soil of Belgrade and Athens”, “whose chest Hitler himself adorned with the “iron cross”. It is reminiscent of Terkin’s fight with a “well-fed, shaved, careful, freely fed” German, described later by Tvardovsky:

Like on an ancient battlefield,
Chest on chest, like shield on shield, -
Instead of thousands, two fight,
As if the fight would solve everything.

How much in common Ignatiev and Terkin have! Even Ignatiev’s guitar has the same function as Terkin’s accordion. And the kinship of these heroes suggests that Grossman discovered the features of the modern Russian folk character.

Boris Gorbatov said that while working on the story “The Unconquered,” he was looking for “words-projectiles” and was in a hurry to “immediately transfer” the story “for the spiritual armament of our army.” He wrote it after Stalingrad, after the liberation of Donbass, having been there, seeing what happened to the people who found themselves in the power of the occupiers, what cities and towns, factories and mines had become. “...I only write what I know well...” admitted Gorbatov. “Only because I myself am a Donbass citizen, born and raised there, and only because during the days of the war I was in Donbass, both during its defense and in battles for it, only because I entered the liberated Donbass with my troops,” I was able to take the risk of writing a book “The Unconquered” about people known and close to me. I didn't study them - I lived with them. And many of the heroes of “Invictus” were simply copied from life - as I knew them.”

Gorbatov strives to paint an epic picture of what is happening. But his aesthetic guide, primarily in revealing the theme of patriotism, is the romantic epic “Taras Bulba” by Gogol. The author of “The Unconquered” does not hide this, the connection with the Gogol tradition is exposed to readers, deliberately emphasized: when first published, Gorbatov’s story was even called “The Family of Taras”; its three main characters - old Taras and his sons Stepan and Andrey - not only repeat the names of the heroes Gogol's story, the attitude of Gorbatov's Taras towards his sons, their fates should have reminded readers of the drama in the family of Taras Bulba, of the conflict between patriotic and paternal feelings. The style of the story “The Unconquered” goes back to the ballad: as in poetry, there are repeating images that hold the narrative together, supporting verbal leitmotifs; the phrase that ends the chapter and which contains the summary of what has just been told is placed at the beginning of the next chapter, creating its emotional field.

Gorbatov’s story begins with the scene of the summer retreat of 1942: “Everything to the east, everything to the east... At least one car to the west! And everything around was filled with anxiety, filled with screams and moans, the creaking of wheels, the grinding of iron, hoarse swearing, the screams of the wounded, the crying of children, and it seemed that the road itself was creaking and groaning under the wheels, rushing in fear between the slopes...” And it ends with liberation from the invaders, the advance of our army and the retreat of the German: “They were going west... They came across long, sad columns of captured Germans. The Germans walked in green overcoats with torn straps, without belts, no longer soldiers - prisoners.” They walked as our prisoners walked a year ago - also “an overcoat without straps, without a belt, a sideways glance, hands behind their backs, like convicts.” And between these events, a year in the life of a factory village occupied by the Nazis was a terrible year of reprisals, lawlessness, humiliation, and a slave existence.

Gorbatov’s story was the first serious attempt to depict in detail what was happening in the occupied territory, how they lived there, how people who found themselves in fascist captivity lived in poverty, how fear was overcome, how resistance arose to the invaders of the civilian population, left to the mercy of fate, to be desecrated by the enemy. To isolate oneself from the surrounding world, which has become hostile, with strong bars and locks (“This does not concern us!”), to sit in one’s home - this was the first reaction of old Taras. But it soon became clear: this is no way to escape.

“It was impossible to live.

The fascist ax has not yet fallen on Taras’s family. No one close to us was killed. No one was tortured. Not stolen. They weren't robbed. Not a single German has ever visited the old house in Kamenny Brod. But it was impossible to live.

They didn’t kill, but they could have killed at any moment. They could have broken in at night, they could have grabbed me in broad daylight on the street. They could have thrown him into a carriage and driven him to Germany. They could have put you up against the wall without guilt or trial; They could have shot you, or they could have let you go, laughing at how the person was turning gray before our eyes. They could do anything. They could - and it was worse than if they had already killed. Fear spread out like a black shadow over Taras’s house, like over every house in the city.”

And then the story tells about overcoming this fear, about how everyone resisted the invaders in their own way, and was involved in one way or another in the fight against them. The old master Taras refuses to restore his factory and engages in sabotage. His eldest son Stepan, who was here the secretary of the regional committee, the “master” of the region, organizes and heads an underground organization; Taras’s daughter Nastya, who graduated from school before the occupation, becomes an underground member. The younger son Andrei, who was captured, crosses the front line and returns to his hometown in the ranks of the troops that liberated him. In the stories of Stepan and Andrei, Gorbatov touches on those painful phenomena of military reality that no one then dared to address. Now, after half a century, it is clear that not everything was then revealed to the author of “The Invictus” in its true light; he was hampered by ideological blinders, but nevertheless he took on explosive material, which at that time there were few hunters to touch.

Putting together underground groups, contacting people who were “active” in peacetime, Stepan discovers - this is a discouraging surprise for him, an expert on “personnel” and an experienced leader - that among those who enjoyed official trust, he was in favor with the authorities , there turned out to be cowards and traitors, and among the unnoticed, “unpromising” or obstinate, thinking and acting in their own way, disliked by the authorities, there were many people who were completely loyal to the Motherland, true heroes. “So you didn’t know people well, Stepan Yatsenko,” Gorbatov’s hero reproaches himself. “But he lived with them, ate, drank, worked... But he didn’t know the main thing about them - their souls.” But that’s not the point, the “owner” of the region is mistaken here (and along with him the author): everything that he, as the secretary of the regional committee, needed to know about people, he knew - the system itself was not suitable, it was false, soullessly official people's assessments.

The fate of Gorbatov's Andrei is projected onto the fate of Taras Bulba's youngest son. But Andrei did not betray his Motherland, and it is not his fault that he, along with tens of thousands of poor fellows like him, was captured, although his father sees him as a traitor and brands him, like Taras Bulba his youngest son, and when Andrei crossed the front line, he was “long and strictly interrogated in a special department.” Yes, he himself believed that he was guilty, since he did not put a bullet in his forehead. And apparently, the author also thinks so, although the story of Andrei he told is decisively at odds with such an assessment. But behind all this was Stalin’s monstrously cruel order: “captivity is treason,” the grave legal and moral consequences of which could not be overcome for half a century.

The plot of “Volokolamsk Highway” by Alexander Bek is very reminiscent of the plot of Grossman’s story “The People are Immortal”: after heavy fighting in October 1941 near Volokolamsk, the battalion of Panfilov’s division was surrounded, breaks through the enemy ring and unites with the main forces of the division. But significant differences in the development of this plot are immediately apparent. Grossman strives in every possible way to expand the general panorama of what is happening. Beck closes the narrative within the framework of one battalion. The artistic world of Grossman's story - the heroes, military units, the scene of action - is generated by his creative imagination, Beck is documentarily accurate. This is how he characterized his creative method: “Searching for heroes active in life, long-term communication with them, conversations with many people, patient collection of grains, details, relying not only on one’s own observation, but also on the vigilance of the interlocutor...” In “ Volokolamsk Highway" he recreates the true history of one of the battalions of Panfilov's division, everything in him corresponds to what happened in reality: geography and chronicle of battles, characters.

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

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

And most importantly, why “Volokolamsk Highway” should be considered fiction, and not journalism. Behind the professional army, military concerns - discipline, combat training, battle tactics - with which Momysh-Uly is absorbed, the author faces moral, universal problems, aggravated to the limit by the circumstances of war, constantly putting a person on the brink between life and death: fear and courage, dedication and selfishness, loyalty and betrayal.

In the artistic structure of Beck's story, a significant place is occupied by polemics with propaganda stereotypes, with battle cliches, open and hidden polemics. Explicit, because such is the character of the main character: he is harsh, not inclined to go around sharp corners, does not even forgive himself for weaknesses and mistakes, does not tolerate idle talk and pomp. Here is a typical episode:

“After thinking, he said:

- “Without knowing fear, Panfilov’s men rushed into the first battle...” What do you think: a suitable start?

“I don’t know,” I said hesitantly.

This is how literature corporals write,” he said harshly. “During these days that you are living here, I deliberately ordered you to be taken to places where sometimes two or three mines burst, where bullets whistle. I wanted you to feel fear. You don’t have to confirm it, I know without even admitting it that you had to suppress your fear.

So why do you and your fellow writers imagine that some supernatural people are fighting, and not people like you?”

Twenty years after the war, Konstantin Simonov wrote about “Volokolamsk Highway”: “When I read this book for the first time (during the war - L.L.), the main feeling was surprise at its invincible accuracy, at its iron authenticity. I was then a war correspondent and believed that I knew the war... But when I read this book, I felt with surprise and envy that it was written by a person who knows the war more reliably and more accurately than me...”

Simonov really knew the war well. Since June 1941, he went into the active army on the Western Front, which then had to take the brunt of the German tank columns, only in the first fifteen months of the war, until an editorial trip brought him to Stalingrad, wherever he visited , I've seen everything. Miraculously escaped in July 1941 from the bloody chaos of the encirclement. I was in Odessa, besieged by the enemy. Participated in the combat campaign of a submarine that mined a Romanian port. Went on the attack with infantrymen on the Arabatskaya Strelka in Crimea...

And yet, what Simonov saw in Stalingrad shocked him. The ferocity of the battles for this city reached such an extreme limit that it seemed to him that there was some very important historical milestone here during the fighting. A man restrained in expressing his feelings, a writer who always shunned loud phrases, he ended one of his Stalingrad essays almost pathetically:

“This land around Stalingrad is still nameless.

But once upon a time the word “Borodino” was known only in the Mozhaisk district, it was a district word. And then one day it became a national word. The Borodino position was no better and no worse than many other positions lying between the Neman and Moscow. But Borodino turned out to be an impregnable fortress, because it was here that the Russian soldier decided to lay down his life rather than surrender. And so the shallow river became impassable and the hills and copses with hastily dug trenches became impregnable.

In the steppes near Stalingrad there are many unknown hills and rivers, many villages, the names of which no one a hundred miles away knows, but the people wait and believe that the name of one of these villages will sound for centuries, like Borodino, and that one of these steppe wide fields will become a field of great victory.”

These words turned out to be prophetic, which became clear even when Simonov began writing the story “Days and Nights.” But events that were already perceived as historical - in the most precise and highest sense of the word - are depicted in the story as they were perceived by the defenders of the ruins of three Stalingrad houses, completely absorbed in repelling the sixth attack of the Germans that day, smoking them out at night the basement they captured, transport cartridges and grenades to the house cut off by the enemy. Each of them did what they thought was a small, but extremely difficult and dangerous task, without thinking about what it all would ultimately add up to. The story in the story seems to have been taken by surprise; it did not have time to put itself in order to pose for future artists - romantics and monumentalists. Transferred into art almost in its original form, what happened in Stalingrad should be shocking, the author of “Days and Nights” believed. It is worth noting the closeness of the aesthetic positions of Simonov and Beck (it is no coincidence that Simonov rated Volokolamsk Highway so highly).

Following the Tolstoy tradition (Simonov said more than once that for him there was no higher example in literature than Tolstoy - however, in this case we are not talking about the epic scope of War and Peace, but about a fearless look at the cruel everyday life of war in “Sevastopol Stories”), the author sought to present “war in its true expression - in blood, in suffering, in death.” This famous Tolstoy formula also accommodates the backbreaking daily work of a soldier - many kilometers of marches, when everything that is needed for battle and for life has to be carried on oneself, dug trenches and dugouts in the frozen ground - there is no number of them. Yes, trench life - a soldier needs to somehow get comfortable in order to sleep and wash, he needs to patch his tunic and repair his boots. It’s a meager cave life, but there’s no getting around it, you have to adapt to it, and besides, if it weren’t for worries about lodging and food, about smoking and foot wraps, a person would never be able to withstand constant proximity to mortal danger.

“Days and Nights” are written with sketchlike precision, with diary immersion in everyday life at the front. But the figurative structure of the story, the internal dynamics of the events and characters depicted in it are aimed at revealing the spiritual image of those who fought to the death in Stalingrad. In the story, the first stage of unprecedentedly brutal battles in the city ends with the enemy, having cut off the division, which included the battalion of the protagonist of the story, Saburov, from the army headquarters, and goes to the Volga. It would seem that everything was over, further resistance was pointless, but the defenders of the city did not admit defeat even after that and continued to fight with unflagging courage. No enemy superiority could cause them fear or confusion. If the first battles, as they are depicted in the story, are distinguished by extreme nervous tension and furious frenzy, now the most characteristic thing for the writer seems to be the calmness of the heroes, their confidence that they will survive, that the Germans will not be able to defeat them. This calmness of the defenders became a manifestation of the highest courage, the highest level of courage.

In the story “Days and Nights” the heroic appears in its most massive manifestation. The spiritual strength of Simon's heroes, which is not striking in ordinary peaceful conditions, truly manifests itself in moments of mortal danger, in difficult trials, and selflessness and unostentatious courage become the main measure of human personality. In a nationwide war, the outcome of which depended on the strength of the patriotic feeling of many people, ordinary participants in historical cataclysms, the role of the ordinary person did not decrease, but increased. “Days and Nights” helped readers realize that it was not the miracle heroes who stopped and broke the Germans in Stalingrad, who didn’t care about everything - after all, they don’t drown in water or burn in fire - but mere mortals who drowned at the Volga crossings and burned in the flames of neighborhoods that were not protected from bullets and shrapnel, which felt hard and scary - each of them had one life, which they had to risk, which they had to part with, but all together they fulfilled their duty, survived .

These stories by Grossman and Gorbatov, Beck and Simonov outlined the main directions of post-war prose about the war and revealed the supporting traditions in the classics. The experience of Tolstoy’s epic was reflected in Simonov’s trilogy “The Living and the Dead” and in Grossman’s dilogy “Life and Fate”. The hard realism of “Sevastopol Stories”, implemented in its own way, reveals itself in the stories and short stories of Viktor Nekrasov and Konstantin Vorobyov, Grigory Baklanov and Vladimir Tendryakov, Vasil Bykov and Viktor Astafiev, Vyacheslav Kondratyev and Bulat Okudzhava; almost all the prose of writers of the front-line generation is associated with it. Emmanuil Kazakevich paid tribute to romantic poetics in “Star”. Documentary fiction took a prominent place, the capabilities of which were demonstrated by A. Beck during the war; its successes are associated with the names of A. Adamovich, D. Granin, D. Gusarov, S. Alexievich, E. Rzhevskaya.

WAR THEME IN PROSE 1940 – 1990s

Literary terminology, generated by the conditions of ideological censorship of the Soviet period, sometimes surprises with its mystery. In simple terms accessible to common sense, an unexpected shade is suddenly revealed, which determines their content. What is “military prose”? It would seem that the answer is obvious: novels, novellas and stories about the war. However, by the seventies of the twentieth century in Soviet literary criticism, the term “military prose” had become established as a synonym for “ideologically acceptable” literary works about the Great Patriotic War. A fictional depiction of the civil war of 1918 – 1920. belonged to the heading “historical-revolutionary prose”, where, for example, a novel about the Great French Revolution (we have only one revolution!) could not be unconditionally included, although about the Paris Commune of 1871 - quite, subject to compliance with the given ideological vector.

For Glavlit (the Soviet censorship department), in the conditions of a permanent “struggle for peace,” there were no wars other than the Great Patriotic War, therefore Soviet writers were forbidden to write about “military actions on a local scale” in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, etc., in which they participated Soviet people performed heroic deeds and died. The Finnish campaign of 1940 could be mentioned in passing (as, for example, in A. Tvardovsky’s poem “Two Lines”: “In that unfamous war”) and in a few words: why talk about something unpleasant? Moreover, one should not have wasted ink on “foreign” wars, the Iran-Iraq war, for example, if only because the “engineers of human souls” under the conditions of the “Iron Curtain” could not obtain clear information about it.

Thus, the multidimensional reality was simplified and represented by the largest phenomenon - the Great Patriotic War, which for ideological reasons was not recommended to be called the Second World War: it was Western European, American and smacked of cosmopolitanism, and in addition, meant recognition of the USSR’s entry into the war since 1939 and clearly not for defensive purposes.

In Soviet literature, by the forties of the 20th century, a fairly strong tradition of reproducing both large and small wars had formed. Without going back centuries, to the treasures of folklore and ancient Russian literature (epics, “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” “Zadonshchina,” etc.), as well as to the literature of the 18th century (military-patriotic odes of M.V. Lomonosov, G. . R. Derzhavin, etc.), undoubtedly retaining its significance for subsequent literary development (the concepts of courage, heroism, patriotism, intransigence towards the enemies of the Russian land - from here), let us turn to the classics of the century before last. Of course, the most significant author here is Leo Tolstoy. He wrote about the Crimean War of 1853 - 1856. (“Sevastopol Stories”), about the Caucasian War of 1817 – 1864. (“Raid”, “Cutting Wood”, “Cossacks”, “Hadji Murat”, etc.) and, of course, about the Patriotic War of 1812 (“War and Peace”). I wonder what of this impressive creative heritage would have survived and with what losses if it had fallen under the control of censorship as severe as the Soviet one?

The work of L. N. Tolstoy had the strongest influence on Russian “military prose” of the second half of the 20th century. In different historical conditions, Tolstoy's epic traditions were embodied by K. Simonov, Yu. Bondarev, V. Grossman, G. Vladimov, V. Karpov and many other authors. Almost always the influence of the classic was beneficial and never became destructive. Of course, no one surpassed Tolstoy, but the focus on high examples of his prose had a mobilizing effect on writers.

Another branch of the tradition, which existed unnoticed for a long time and discovered its relevance for Soviet “military prose,” was nurtured by Vsevolod Garshin. “Cruel realism” (naturalism) of his stories about the Russian-Turkish war of 1877 – 1878. (“Four Days”, 1877; “Coward”, 1879; “From the Memoirs of Private Ivanov”, 1882) gained followers among the authors of “trench” (“lieutenant”) and documentary prose (V. Nekrasov, Yu Bondarev, G. Baklanov, V. Bykov, K. Vorobyov, V. Kondratiev, A. Adamovich, D. Granin, Y. Bryl, V. Kolesnik, etc.).

To a much lesser extent, in our opinion, the influence of works about the civil war on Soviet “military prose” is noticeable. Here the perception of tradition was not systematic: the wars were too different - between our own and against foreigners.

The depiction of military conflicts in the works of individual writers (V. Bykov, K. Vorobyov, V. Kondratiev, etc.) is marked by kinship with the philosophy and literature of existentialism, as well as with Remarque’s prose, which is close to this tradition.

The ideological authorities of that era could not leave the matter of perception of literary tradition to its own creative course. Everything that did not belong to socialist realism or, in extreme cases, to realism, as a rule, remained outside of Soviet literature. Life-affirming and folk humor was allowed, but satire and grotesquery, due to their uncomfortable ambivalent nature, were not approved. The danger of discovering the genetic kinship of Soviet and German totalitarianism forced authors, in order to avoid unwanted associations, to portray enemies either as a faceless anonymous mass or as schematic caricature characters, as in Sholokhov’s “The Fate of Man” (Müller) or “Seventeen Moments of Spring” by Yu. Semenov (again Muller and others).

In the USSR there was a system of military-patriotic education, and literature about the Great Patriotic War occupied one of the leading places in it. For their services in this area, military writers were rewarded with Stalinist awards (in particular, K. Simonov - seven times), and, starting with Khrushchev’s “thaw”, with Lenin and State prizes. The winning works were certainly filmed (the reasons, apparently, were the authorities’ distrust of the reading activity of the “most reading people in the world,” plus the enormous propaganda potential of cinema as “the most important of the arts”).

The cornerstone of Soviet propaganda was the constant emphasis on the leading and guiding role of the Communist Party. The story of the creation of the novel “The Young Guard” is characteristic in this regard. If in the 1945 edition A. Fadeev did not dare to write about the existence in Krasnodon of another - non-Komsomol - anti-fascist underground, then in the new version of the novel (1951) ideologically determined slyness is added to this default: the author claims that the creators and leaders of the organization The Young Guards were communists. Thus, Fadeev denies his favorite heroes an important initiative. This unique book served as the basis for criminal prosecution, often unfounded, of real people who became the prototypes of the negative characters in the novel.

And yet, if we treat The Young Guard as a work of Russian literature, then it should be noted that to this day this novel has not lost its relevance, including pedagogical. Heroism on a positive moral basis is an important component of the content of The Young Guard and is the essence of the characters of Oleg Koshevoy, Ulyana Gromova and their comrades. Fadeev’s artistic skill allowed him to psychologically accurately portray the Young Guards: you believe, their spiritual height and purity are undeniable. And one should not shy away from the truth about what country and what ideals the Krasnodon Komsomol members went to their death for. They died for their Motherland, and their exploits - for all time: both because we live in a country that they and people like them defended and saved, and because we have the right to admire them, as people always admire the heroes of past eras. Denial of this book in our days is absurd: its shortcomings are obvious, but its advantages are also undoubted. Moreover, the literature of the post-Soviet period has little interest in youth problems, and mass culture dissects them from a commercial angle.

Soviet-era “military prose” was plagued by contradictions. The tendency to speak the “whole truth” was opposed by the notorious “social order”. Here is an interesting example of the action of a “social order” (in the Young Guard this happened more clearly and simply). During the years of Khrushchev’s rule, after the timid exposure of some of the crimes of the Stalinist repressive machine, the image of the “organs” and the “chekists” working in them faded considerably, and literature could not avoid the urgent task of resuscitating it. The highly experienced Sergei Mikhalkov stood up for the police and their honest image, creating the unforgettable image of Uncle Styopa. The situation with the KGB was more complicated, and here the reliance was placed on military material, which guaranteed the purity of the experiment: it was in war conditions, in the fight against an external enemy, and not against one’s own people, that examples of courage and selfless service to the Fatherland of Dzerzhinsky’s heirs could be found. In V. Kozhevnikov’s novel “Shield and Sword” (1965), the main character Alexander Belov (a collective image, however, the consonance of A. Belov - Abel, the surname that belonged to the legendary intelligence officer, is quite transparent) appears in the guise of the Soviet James Bond: he phenomenally modest, ascetic, selfless, absolutely invincible and vulnerable only after successfully completing the last task. Using the same model, Yu. Semenov later created the image of Isaev-Stirlitz.

At the same time, one should not treat the ideological component of the Soviet system exclusively negatively. In the difficult conditions of that time, literature nevertheless expressed the main truth about the Great Patriotic War, and often this truth coincided with the ideological demands of the authorities. For example, “The Tale of a Real Man” (1946) by B. Polevoy embodied the theme of individual achievement and in this sense was fully consistent with the “social order.” However, it would be at least strange to demand from the author some kind of ideological “opposition” or “neutrality”. After all, the description of the feat of Alexei Maresyev (in the story his last name sounds like Meresyev) is not just a hymn to human capabilities. Do not forget about the motivation of the feat. The famous pilot first survived and then overcame his disability primarily in the name of patriotic values, which, whatever you say, were Soviet.

Also in 1946, Viktor Nekrasov’s book “In the Trenches of Stalingrad” was published. The everyday life of war, transferred to the pages of this story, impressively conveys the tension of everyday feat. In relation to this book, one can seriously raise the question of its correspondence to the truth of the war, not only because the author is a lieutenant from the Stalingrad trenches, but also because the story contains, perhaps, only one significant factual omission: it does not talk about order No. 227, which received official publicity only in the late 1980s, and about the creation on its basis of barrage detachments and penal units that were sent to the front line, to the most dangerous places of battle (the first work dedicated to “penalties” was “Gu-ga” by Maurice Simashko – published in 1987).

And yet there were certain distortions in the approach to the truth about the Great Patriotic War. From the very beginning, military censorship questioned the dialectics of military labor, tacitly abolishing the unpleasant aspects of the instinct of self-preservation in relation to the Soviet soldier. As a result, Soviet literature was oriented towards the glorification of permanent heroism. This part of the truth about the war coincided with the postulate of socialist realism “a heroic personality in heroic circumstances.” Tolstoy’s idea that war is murder and the idea of ​​murderers, for Soviet “military prose,” if it were not for such authors as V. Nekrasov, would remain a decaying private opinion of the “mirror of the Russian revolution.”

For Russian literature of the 20th century, the story “In the Trenches of Stalingrad” is a book that opened a new genre and thematic section: “trench” or “lieutenant” prose. The timing of the story’s appearance was fortunate: it came out in the wake of hot events, when the ritual of Soviet “military prose” had not yet formed, when many of yesterday’s trench soldiers were still alive. And the author is not a professional writer, not even a journalist, but a military officer. The mention of Stalin’s name in the title and text of the work played a positive role due to the strange inconsistency of Soviet literary existence: protected by the Stalin Prize, the story created a precedent for the appearance in print of books by V. Bykov, K. Vorobyov, Yu. Bondarev, G. Baklanov, V. Kondratiev and other “trench” writers.

However, at first, Viktor Nekrasov’s story was met with a barrage of criticism. Immediately there were negative responses: “True story<…>, but there is no breadth in it"; "View from the Trench"; “The author sees nothing beyond his parapet.” This criticism is fair only externally; its deeper meaning was to distract the reader’s attention from the dangerous truth and transfer it to the zone of fanfare optimism, the apogee of which was the “staff” or “general” prose (the ground was being prepared for it). Both “trench” and “staff” tendencies, if these terms are applied to a classic work, are organically intertwined in “War and Peace.” But Soviet writers often limited themselves to one of the trends, while those who decided to synthesize were spurred on by an epic temptation, which will be discussed below.

It would be right to consider Leonid Leonov to be the forerunner of “staff” prose. In 1944, he published the story “The Capture of Velikoshumsk,” where the war is presented as a large-scale phenomenon, seen through the eyes of a general, and not a trench lieutenant. Comparing the style of two writers whose works belong to the polar trends of “military prose”, we will quickly notice the difference.

From V. Nekrasov: “In war you never know anything except what is happening right under your nose. If a German doesn’t shoot at you, it seems to you that the whole world is quiet and calm; starts bombing - and you are already sure that the entire front from the Baltic to the Black was moving.”

From L. Leonov: “A wave of confusion swept along the living wire of the highway to the front line, and the moment when the phrase “Russian tanks are on the communications” was uttered at the German army headquarters should be considered decisive in the outcome of the Great Noise operation. At the same time, Litovchenko’s corps swept across the battlefield from three directions, and the third tank group was moving exactly along the same route that Sobolkov had paved the day before... The lonely sweeping track of the 203rd, occasionally interrupted by pockets of defeat and devastation, now led them to victory. It looked like not just one, but a whole gang of fairy-tale giants were destroying the German rear camps and moving on, dragging their merciless clubs along the ground.”

The difference is also visible in the attitude towards the heroes: for V. Nekrasov, soldiers are workers, plowmen of war, for L. Leonov - epic heroes.

A conscientious worker of the literary field, Leonid Leonov took up his pen, having thoroughly studied what he was going to tell the world about. Tank battle tactics and military-technical details in “The Capture of Velikoshumsk” are recreated so meticulously that the deputy commander of armored and mechanized forces jokingly offered the writer a “tank engineer rank.” The experience of a subtle and thorough artist was taken into account, supplemented by opportunistic considerations, and the “staff” (“general’s”) prose that arose in subsequent decades became the avant-garde part of official literature (A. Chakovsky, “Blockade”, 1975 and “Victory”, 1980 .; I. Stadnyuk, “War”, 1981; V. Karpov, “Commander” (another name is “Marshal Zhukov”), 1985, etc.).

Municipal government educational institution secondary school named after Hero of the Russian Federation Maxim Passar, Naikhinsky rural settlement

Literature

Grade 11

"Literature of the Great Patriotic War"

(1941 – 1945). Journalism during the war. Lyrics of the war years. Song poetry"

Naikhin

2012

Lesson type: combined.

Lesson type: Integrated (literature, history, computer technology).

The purpose of the lesson: Students will learn to construct a monologue statement, draw up an outline for an article, and analyze the visual means in a poem.

Lesson objectives:

1) Cognitive aspect:

give an overview of journalism and poetry during the Second World War.

2) Developmental aspect:

develop skills in working with text, coherent speech skills, ability

listen, take notes.

formation and development of competence in the field

use of information and communication technologies

3. Educational aspect:

cultivate patriotic feelings: love for the Motherland, interest in the history of the country, one’s family.

create conditions forimprovement of spiritual and moral

student qualities;

cultivate tolerance.

Equipment: computer, projector, presentation, textbook, blackboard, exhibition of books about the Great Patriotic War, articles, essays, poems, songs of the war years.

Literature:

Poetry: Almanac. issue 41. – M.: Mol. Guard, 1985.

Drunk M.F. For the sake of life on earth: Russian. Sov. Poetry about the Great Fatherland. War. Book For the teacher. – M.: Education, 1985.

Chalmaev V.A., Zinin S.A. Literature, 11th grade: Textbook for general education institutions: In 2 hours. Part 2. – 9th ed. – M.: LLC TID “Russian Word - RS”, 2010.

INTRODUCTORY PART

Organizing time.

I . Motivational block

1.1. Content part

Presentation: Topic, epigraph.

Lesson epigraph:Let us, each of us, artists, fulfill to the end with all the highest conscientiousness our high duty: to create sternly, honestly, passionately, so that the Russian man under the steel helmet grunts with pleasure: “The intelligentsia did not let us down...” A. Tolstoy.

- How do you understand the epigraph?

1.2. Organizational part

The expected results are jointly formulated, the rules of work are established (group, research, lexical and analytical work with the text). During the lesson weLet's listen to songs of the war years, read and discuss articles and essays, and plunge into the atmosphere of that time.

II . Main part

2.1. Problem block

Range of questions: Why is it necessary not to forget about the war, about our Victory?

We will try to determine the main feature of wartime literature. The result of our work should be a draft of future sections of the album, telling about the literature of the period of the Great Patriotic War.

Project: Contents of the album “Literature of the Great Patriotic War. Journalism. War poetry. Prose".
1 section. From the history of the Great Patriotic War.
Section 2 Journalism during the war.

Section 3 Poetry of the war years.
Section 4 Prose about war.

Section 5 Poets of my land at war.

Section 6 Works about the Hero of the Russian Federation Maxim Passar.

2.2. Information block

Presentation: Journalism

Teacher's word : The literature of the Great Patriotic War began to take shape long before June 22, 1941. Therefore, the main task of literature became to organize, direct, make the fighting spirit of the people purposeful and irresistible, strengthen their faith in themselves, their readiness to fight for their Fatherland. In the first days of the war, people went to the front as fighters and commanders, political workers and correspondents.1215 writers. For some it was the first war, for others it was the fourth.More than 400 of them died.

In the first days of the war, the most flexible and operative genres occupied a dominant position in literature: journalism, song, essay, short story, lyric poem.

The outstanding publicists of the Great Patriotic War were the true masters of this sharpest weapon of literature: A. Tolstoy and I. Erenburg, L. Leonov and M. Sholokhov, A. Fadeev and V. Vishnevsky... If we talk about A. Tolstoy’s journalism, then the leading theme in it is - theme of the Motherland. He wrote the articles “Moscow is threatened by an enemy”, “What we defend”, “Russian warriors”, “Angry Russia”, “Motherland”. They are the origins of the Russian national character, Russian statehood, culture, and faith in the steadfastness of the Soviet people. In his journalism there are historical analogies with long-past events, designed to show that invaders have never been able to conquer Rus'.

Student performance:

Ilya Erenburg (understanding of fascism), Alexey Tolstoy (historical analogies), Vasily Grossman (war reporting), Olga Berggolts (radio journalism)

Individual-group tasks (p administration)

Read examples of military journalism and answer the questions.

What is special about the journalistic words of Ilya Ehrenburg, the creator of several books, articles, and essays under the general title “War”?

What did Alexei Tolstoy write about?

What is Vasily Grossman's lyrical hero like?

(phonogram of the military song “Song of War Correspondents”)

Teacher's word:

“The poetry of the war years is both a chronicle of people's life and a lyrical diary at the same time. She immediately expressed the whole gamut of feelings that people were experiencing; she supported, helped, and inspired. It was poetry that reflected the extraordinary soul of our man. The poets glorified the military exploits of their compatriots, raised the morale of the soldiers, and called them to fight the fascists.

Drawing up an article outline : “Features of poetry of the war years”

Fizminutka

Presentation: Assignment: After listening to the students’ speeches, draw up a plan “Motifs of military lyrics”

Motives of military lyrics:

• Motherland,

  war,

  death and immortality,

  hatred of the enemy

  military brotherhood and camaraderie,

  love and loyalty,

  dream of victory

  thoughts about the fate of the people.

Lyric genres:

lyrical (elegy, ode, song);

satirical (fable, epigram);

lyric-epic (poem, ballad)

Student performance (message and poem reading):

V. Lebedev-Kumach “Holy War” (listening to the soundtrack)

Mikhail Isakovsky “Katyusha” (listening to the phonogram)

Alexey Fatyanov “Nightingales” (listening to the phonogram)

Mikhail Isakovsky “Enemies burned their home”, “In the forest”

frontline" (listening to the soundtrack)

Vladimir Agatov “Dark Night” (listening to the phonogram)

A. Surkov, A. Tvardovsky, K. Simonov, Y. Drunina

Presentation: Wartime poets

Practical work according to the poem. A. Surkov "Dugout" »
Exercise: fill out the table, naming the means of linguistic expression, determining their meaning, and draw a conclusion.

Quotes

Meaning

Personifications

“The fire is beating”, “the accordion is singing”, “the bushes are whispering”, “the voice is yearning”

Epithets

Lexical repetition

"Far, Far Away", "Snow and Snow"

Comparison

"Resin like a tear"

Antithesis

It's not easy for me to reach you,

And there are four steps to death.

It’s warm in a cold dugout

Conclusion

Presentation: answer

Conclusion : WITHthe quiet poem is rich in linguistic means: Nature expresses the thoughts and feelings of the lyrical hero, helps him endure separation from his beloved. Lexical repetitions and the epithet “lost happiness” emphasize how far they are. The atmosphere of warmth of feeling is conveyed by the comparison “resin, like a tear” (bright, sunny, warm). The antithesis conveys the anxiety of the lyrical hero; in war, death walks nearby, but the last lines still speak of love and hope!

Teacher's word: Poetry during the war years is an operative type of literature that reaches the very heart of the reader. Poetry combined high patriotic feelings with deeply personal experiences of the lyrical hero.

• Efficiency

  Emotionality

  Clarity

  Patriotic feelings

  Deeply personal experiences

Result of activity (product):

Presentation Sections

Outline of the article.

Analysis of visual media.

Assessment (during the lesson, article plan, tables after checking)

III . Final part

Analytical block

expressing one's own positions;

formulation of main conclusions.

Reflexive block

returning to problematic issues;

return to expected results (it is determined what was achieved during the lesson and what was not fully accomplished)

Homework :

Mandatory part: 1. Messages about the prose of WWII pp. 222-226.

To choose from: Creative project on the topic

From the first days of the war, genres of journalism designed to describe the lives of people at the front and in the rear, the world of their spiritual experiences and feelings, their attitude to various facts of the war, took a strong place on the pages of periodicals and radio broadcasts. Journalism has become the main form of creativity of the greatest masters of artistic expression. Individual perception of the surrounding reality, direct impressions were combined in their work with real life, with the depth of events experienced by a person.
Alexei Tolstoy, Nikolai Tikhonov, Ilya Erenburg, Mikhail Sholokhov, Konstantin Simonov, Boris Gorbatov, Leonid Sobolev, Vsevolod Vishnevsky, Leonid Leonov, Marietta Shaginyan, Alexey Surkov, Vladimir Velichko and other publicist writers created works that carry a huge charge of patriotism and faith in our victory. Their creativity contributed to the education of the masses in the spirit of love and devotion to their Fatherland.
The voice of Soviet journalism during the Great Patriotic War reached particular strength when the theme of the Motherland became the main theme of its works. In the difficult conditions of the war, when the fate of the country was being decided, the readership could not be left indifferent to works that called for its defense, for overcoming all obstacles and hardships in the fight against the enemy. This is how millions of readers perceived the articles “Motherland” by A. Tolstoy, “The Power of Russia” by N. Tikhonov, “Reflections near Kyiv” by L. Leonov, “Ukraine on Fire” by A. Dovzhenko, “The Soul of Russia” by I. Ehrenburg, “Lessons of History” Sun. Vishnevsky and many others, in which the true nature of patriotism and the heroic traditions of our country’s past were revealed with enormous emotional force.
The theme of the Motherland and patriotic duty to it took the main place in A. Tolstoy’s journalistic work from the first days of the war. On June 27, 1941, his first war article, “What We Defend,” appeared in Pravda. In it, the author contrasted the aggressive aspirations of Nazi Germany with the firm confidence of the Soviet people in the rightness of their cause, for they defended their Fatherland from the enemy. At a dangerous hour for the country, the words of the publicist sounded like a calling alarm. On October 18, 1941, Pravda published his article “Moscow is Threatened by an Enemy.” Having started it with the words “Not a step further!”, the writer-publicist turned to the innermost patriotic feelings of every Soviet person. The theme of the Fatherland reached exceptional journalistic intensity in A. Tolstoy’s article “Motherland,” first published on November 7, 1941 in the newspaper “Krasnaya Zvezda” and then reprinted by many publications. The prophetic words of the writer contained in this article: “We will survive!” became the oath of Soviet soldiers in the difficult days of the defense of Moscow.
In the works of A. Tolstoy - both artistic and journalistic - two themes are closely intertwined - the Motherland and the internal wealth of the national character of the Russian person. This unity was most fully embodied in “The Stories of Ivan Sudarev,” the first cycle of which appeared in “Red Star” in April 1942, and the last, “Russian Character,” on the pages of the same newspaper on May 7, 1944.
During the war years, A. Tolstoy wrote about 100 articles and texts for speeches at rallies and meetings. Many of them were heard on the radio and published in newspapers.
On June 23, 1941 - on the second day of the Great Patriotic War - the journalistic activities of Ilya Ehrenburg began during the war period. His article “On the First Day,” which appeared in print, is permeated with high civic pathos, the desire to instill in the minds of people an unyielding will to destroy the fascist invaders. Two days later, I. Ehrenburg, at the invitation of the editors of Krasnaya Zvezda, came to the newspaper and on the same day wrote the article “Hitler’s Horde,” which was published on June 26. His articles and pamphlets were also published in many central and front-line newspapers.
The publicist saw his main task as instilling in the people hatred towards those who encroached on their lives, who want to enslave and destroy them. I. Ehrenburg’s articles “On Hatred”, “Justification of Hatred”, “Kyiv”, “Odessa”, “Kharkov” and others erased complacency from the consciousness of Soviet people and exacerbated the feeling of hatred towards the enemy. This was achieved through exceptional specificity. Ehrenburg's journalism contained irrefutable facts about the atrocities of the invaders, testimony, links to secret documents, orders of the German command, personal records of killed and captured Germans.
I. Ehrenburg’s journalism reached a particular intensity during the crisis days of the battle for Moscow. On October 12, 1941, “Red Star” published his article “Stand!” This passionate cry became the leading theme of the articles “Days of Testing,” “We Will Stand,” and “Test.”
During the years of the Great Patriotic War, Ehrenburg wrote about 1.5 thousand pamphlets, articles, correspondence, 4 volumes of his pamphlets and articles entitled “War” were published.
The first volume, published in 1942, opened with a series of pamphlets “Mad Wolves”, in which the images of fascist leaders - Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler - were created with exceptional revealing power.
Articles and correspondence for foreign readers occupied a significant place in Ehrenburg’s work during the war. They were transmitted through the Sovinformburo to telegraph agencies and newspapers in America, England and other countries. This cycle comprised over 300 publications. All of them were then included in the book “Chronicle of Courage”.
At the end of the war, a large number of travel essays are created. Their authors L. Slavin, A. Malyshko, B. Polevoy, P. Pavlenko and others talked about the victorious battles of the Soviet troops that liberated the peoples of Europe from fascism, wrote about the capture of Budapest, Vienna, and the storming of Berlin...
Party and government figures of the country spoke with journalistic and problematic articles in the press and on the radio: M. Kalinin, A. Zhdanov, A. Shcherbakov, V. Karpinsky, D. Manuilsky, E. Yaroslavsky.
On the pages of the Soviet press, the unprecedented labor feat of millions of people on the home front was truthfully captured in the journalism of B. Agapov, T. Tess, M. Shaginyan and others. E. Kononenko, I. Ryabov, A. Kolosov and others devoted their essays to the problems of providing the front and the country's population with food.
Radio journalism had great emotional impact. Radio listeners during the Great Patriotic War remember the performances at the microphone by A. Gaidar, R. Carmen, L. Kassil, P. Manuylov and A. Fram, K. Paustovsky, E. Petrov, L. Sobolev.
During the Great Patriotic War, photojournalism received noticeable development. The camera lens captured the unique events of history and the heroic deeds of those who fought for the Motherland. Names of photo publicists of Pravda, Izvestia, Krasnaya Zvezda, Komsomolskaya Pravda A. Ustinov, M. Kalashnikov, B. Kudoyarov, D. Baltermants, M. Bernstein, V. Temin, P. Troshkin, G. Homzer , A. Kapustyansky, S. Loskutov, Y. Khalip, I. Shagin and many others stood on a par with the names of publicists and documentary filmmakers.
Through the efforts of experienced masters of photography, literature and graphics, the literary and artistic magazine “Front-line Illustration” began to be published in August 1941. Almost simultaneously, another illustrated publication, “Photo Newspaper,” began to be published, six times a month. "Photonewspaper" was published before Victory Day.
Satirical genres and humorous publications remained an invariably powerful force in the arsenal of wartime journalism. Satirical materials often appeared in the central press. So, in Pravda, a creative team worked on them, which included artists Kukryniksy (M. Kupriyanov, P. Krylov, N. Sokolov) and poet S. Marshak. On some fronts, satirical magazines “Front-line Humor”, “Draft”, etc. were created.

The image of an invincible country The literature of the Second World War began to take shape long before it began. The feeling of an impending “thunderstorm” gave rise to the so-called “defense” literature. Literature was “class” in the 30s. 20th century. The USSR was presented by propaganda and official literature as a bastion of socialism, ready to give a powerful rebuff to capitalist states.

Powerful propaganda Songs of the pre-war years demonstrated the power of the state: Ebullient, mighty, invincible by anyone... And we will defeat the enemy on enemy soil with little blood loss with a mighty blow... Movies showed how famously the Red Army defeats narrow-minded and weak opponents (“If Tomorrow is War”). The works of art were similar. The story “The First Strike” by N. Shpanov and the novel “In the East” by P. Pavlenko, published in huge editions, told about glorious victories. This was the propaganda of Stalin's military-political doctrine, which brought the army and the country to the brink of destruction.

K. Simonov's play “A Guy from Our City” was written before the start of the Second World War. It is based on the real experience of the battles at Khalkin-Gol. Later the film was made. The name is symbolic: the main character is a simple guy, just like many others. He is where his courage and support are needed - in Spain and at Halkin-Gol. The play was necessary for those who defended the country from the enemy. She did not get ahead of herself, did not talk about the impending victory, but instilled confidence in it. At the end of the play, the viewer parts with the hero before the battle, the outcome of which is clear - you cannot help but win, because you are defending your loved ones, relatives, and homeland.

E. Schwartz's play "Dragon" Written in 1943, it was greeted with enthusiasm by the audience, but was banned and saw the light only in 1962, after the death of the author. "Dragon" is a fairy tale. The author puts new meaning into folklore stories. The hero of Schwartz's play is the noble knight Loncelot, defender of justice and goodness. Schwartz is interested in the logic of history, he explores questions about what the power of tyrants rests on, how strong it is and how to free oneself from it. The dragon became omnipotent, because no one offered resistance to him, the people accepted their fate and did not want to change anything in their lives. People's souls are struck by fear, poisoned by indifference. And although Loncelot kills the Dragon in a fight, he does not free people from fear and dependence; their souls still belong to the Dragon. Victory over the Dragon is only the beginning: “The work ahead is small. Worse than embroidery. In each of them you will have to kill the Dragon.” Feat lies in daily tedious work, which does not look like heroism, but rather meets with misunderstanding and resistance.

Features of literature The leading theme of the prose was the defense of the Fatherland. The theme and conditions of wartime also determined the genre features. One of the leading roles belonged to journalism. This is an operational, relevant, emotional genre. The small form of journalistic works made it possible to print them in newspapers, that is, every fighter, every person could read them. The essays of Ehrenburg, Tolstoy, Sholokhov, Simonovna, Grossman and others, who saw the war with their own eyes, were popular. The heroes of such works were not generals, but ordinary people, just like newspaper readers.

A large place belonged to the short story genre. The stories were written by Simonov, Sholokhov, Sobolev, Tikhonov. The cyclization of stories (and not only stories) united by a common hero, theme, and image of the narrator was characteristic. A. Tolstoy wrote the cycle “Stories of Ivan Sudarev” (1942). On behalf of the hero - the narrator, the same thought is conveyed: “Nothing, we can handle it!”, “Nothing... We are Russian people.”

“Stories by Ivan Sudarev” are stories about a man at war, about perseverance and not ostentatious courage, about continuity and respect for the past. The final story has a meaningful title - “Russian character”. His hero, Dremov, remembers his father’s order: “Be proud of your Russian name.” This is a simple man, simple, quiet, ordinary, he does not like to talk about his exploits in the war, but he is a real hero. Tolstoy paints him as looking like an epic hero. His face was burned in the burning tank, but he did not lose his “face”. Tolstoy writes about real, not external beauty. The author writes about all the heroes of these stories: “Yes, here they are, Russian characters! It seems like a simple person, but a severe misfortune will happen, in big or small ways, and a great strength rises in him - human beauty.”

A. Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard” This novel is about the feat of the young men and women of Krasnodon. The novel is imbued with romantic pathos. The author saw in his Young Guard heroes the embodiment of the ideal of goodness and beauty. Almost all the characters in the novel have prototypes. Oleg Koshevoy, Ulyana Gromova, Sergei Tyulenin and Lyuba Shevtsova are the same as they were during life, but at the same time, the author sharpened the ideal character traits that were closest to him. Thanks to this, the novel - a document - turned into a novel - a generalization. The writer perceives the war as a struggle between good and evil, where the heroes - the Young Guard are distinguished by both external and internal beauty, and the images of the fascists are grotesque: the dirty, stinking executioner Fenborg, the general who looks like a goose, the traitor Fomin writhing like a worm - these are “non-humans”, these are “degenerates” " The fascist state itself is compared to a mechanism - a concept hostile to romantics.

Aspiring poets - students of the Gorky Literary Institute, IFLI, Moscow University - Mikhail Kulchitsky, Pavel Kogan, Nikolai Mayorov, Vsevolod Bagritsky, as if anticipating their fate and the fate of the country, wrote about the upcoming cruel trials that the war would inevitably bring, in their poems - motive of sacrifice.

In April 1941, Pavel Kogan, a young talented poet who died in the war in 1942, wrote: We have to lie down, where to lie down, And there’s no way to get up, where to lie down. And, suffocated by the International, Fall face down on the dried grass. And you won’t get up and won’t get into the annals, And even your loved ones won’t find fame. It was eighteen-year-old Pavel Kogan who wrote the famous lines: I haven’t liked the oval since childhood! // I've been drawing corners since childhood! (1936). Well-known to everyone, Brigantine (Tired of talking and arguing, // And loving tired eyes...) became a folk song of romantics - also his (1937). In the same year, 1937, he wrote the disturbing poem Zvezda.

Young poets went to war, many of them did not return. What remained were talented poems, promises of a bright creative life, which was cut short at the front. Already on the third day of the war, a song was created that became a symbol of the unity of the people in the fight against the enemy - “Holy War” based on the verses of Vasily Lebedev - Kumach.

The writers also felt this responsibility keenly: 941 of them went to the front, 417 did not return. At the front, they were not only war correspondents, they were war workers: artillerymen, tank crews, infantrymen, pilots, sailors. They died of hunger in besieged Leningrad, and of wounds in military hospitals. Poetry addressed the soul of every person, conveyed his thoughts, feelings, experiences, suffering, and instilled faith and hope. Poetry was not afraid of the truth, even bitter and cruel.

In the poem by Vladislav Zanadvorov (1914–1942), a geologist and poet who died at Stalingrad, there is an unvarnished war: You don’t know, my son, what war is! This is not a smoky battlefield at all, This is not even death and courage. She finds her expression in every drop. This is, day after day, only dugout sand and blinding flashes of night shelling; This is a headache that ache in the temple; This is my youth, which decayed in the trenches; These are dirty, rutted roads; Homeless stars of trench nights; These are my blood-washed letters, Which are written crookedly on the stock of rifles; This is the last dawn in a short life Above the dug up earth. And only as a conclusion - Under the explosions of shells, under the flashes of grenades - Selfless death on the battlefield. 1942

Poetry connected those fighting and those left behind. Thoughts about those who stayed at home, about the relatives of front-line soldiers. The poem by Joseph Utkin (1903–1944) is preceded by an epigraph from N. A. Nekrasov:... I don’t feel sorry for either my friend or my wife, // I don’t feel sorry for the hero himself. From a letter When I see my murdered Neighbor fall in battle, I don’t remember his grievances, I remember about his family. I involuntarily imagine His deceptive comfort. He's already dead. It doesn’t hurt him, And they will also be killed... with a letter! 1942 The connection with home, the confidence that you are protecting your family, that they are waiting for you, gave you the strength to fight and believe in victory. K. Simonov’s poem “Wait for me” was popular

The poem sounds like a spell, like a prayer. This feeling is created by the persistent repetition of the words wait for me, wait. By the beginning of the war, Konstantin Simonov (1915–1979) was already a recognized poet and famous war correspondent; he went through Khalkhin-Gol. Throughout the war he worked as a correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, moved from front to front, and knew the war from the inside. A 1941 poem dedicated to Simonov’s friend, poet Alexei Surkov, made a strong impression on readers. Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region

The poem conveys the pain, bitterness, and shame of the soldiers forced to retreat. And here the leitmotif sounds: We will wait for you. Tired women, villages, villages, villages with graveyards - relatives left in trouble, relatives who pray for their grandchildren who do not believe in God. And although the poem is about retreat, the belief that this is not forever is very strong, it is impossible to leave one’s native land to be torn to pieces by enemies. Annoyance, anger, a fierce desire for revenge in Simonov's poem Kill!. As years pass by, we may be horrified by such a constantly repeated call, but without this thirst for revenge, was victory possible?

The image of Russia in its unity is in lyrical poems, in songs based on the poems of Mikhail Isakovsky: Katyusha, written back in the 30s and sounded in a new way during the war years, Goodbye, cities and huts, Oh, my fogs, foggy, In forest near the front, Ogonyok the Poet conveyed a universal feeling - the desire to save his native land, his nest. This is the feeling of an ordinary person, understandable and close to everyone. This feeling united different people, different poets, regardless of their relationship with the authorities. The main thing was the desire to preserve and protect the Motherland. Let us recall Anna Akhmatova’s poem Courage, in which Russian speech, the great Russian word, is a symbol of the homeland.

Olga Bergoltz, just like Anna Akhmatova, had her own account to pay against the Soviet regime, which brought her a lot of grief: detention, expulsion, prison. In the hungry, besieged Leningrad, Bergoltz wrote her February diary in the terrible winter of 1942: It was day like day. A friend came to me, without crying, and told me that yesterday she had buried her only friend, and we were silent until the morning. What words could I find, I, too, am a Leningrad widow. Bergolz writes sparingly, in short sentences, without outwardly expressing violent emotions. It is precisely because the terrible thing is written so simply that feelings become understandable, as if frozen, frozen in the soul. But anyone who has not lived with us will not believe that it is hundreds of times more honorable and difficult to not turn into a werewolf, into a beast under siege, surrounded by executioners... I have never been a hero. She did not crave fame or reward. Breathing the same breath as Leningrad, I did not act as a hero, but lived.

The war is portrayed not as a feat, not as heroism, but as a test of humanity, simply as life, albeit incredibly difficult. The poetry of the war years captured the very essence of the unfolding war: The battle is holy and just, // Mortal combat is not for the sake of glory, // For the sake of life on earth (A. Tvardovsky).