Alexander Tvardovsky, who wrote the poem "Vasily Terkin", gave it a second name - "The Book of a Fighter." In the image of the main character, to whom the story is dedicated, the writer portrayed the characteristic features of a domestic soldier who was faced with the need to defend his homeland. Vasily Terkin became a favorite character of the war years and the post-war period. This is a collective patriotic image that managed to support the national spirit.
History of creation
Tvardovsky is a popular Soviet writer, poet, and journalist. The image of a Soviet soldier was created during the Great Patriotic War. Thinking through the character's character, Tvardovsky endowed him with ingenuity and resourcefulness, inexhaustible positive and a sense of humor. This was not enough in the everyday life of ordinary citizens in a terrible time for the country. The idea of a brave soldier came to the writer long before writing the poem. The authorship of the image belongs to a team of journalists, which included Tvardovsky.
In 1939, two feuilletons about this hero were published. In the imagination of publicists, he was a successful and strong representative of the common people. Tvardovsky began to work out the character of the main character of the future book while still at the front, during the years of the Soviet-Finnish War. The author set out to create a poetic work. He did not have time to publish the work because of the new war. The German attack in 1941 changed the writer's plans, but the publicist firmly decided to call the work "A Book about a Fighter". 1942 is the year of writing the first lines of the book, which will later be accepted by the publisher.
Although Vasily Terkin is not a real historical figure, Tvardovsky, who endured the hardships of battles and attacks on the enemy, describes the smallest details in the book. Working as a correspondent in the field, he witnessed real stories from the life of the army and tried to reflect them in the plot. The author claims to be authentic, and to depict historical events in the chapters of the work.
The soldier, who was described by the publicist, acquired new features characteristic of the time of war and deprivation. He was not just a kind man and a joker, but a warrior on whom victory depends. The character is ready to take the fight at any moment and give a worthy rebuff to the enemy in the name of the Motherland.
The first chapters of the book were published in a front-line newspaper. Then many publications began to publish it, allowing readers to be inspired by the image of a worker saving their native lands. The chapters reached both the front-line soldiers and the citizens who remained in the rear. The “book about a fighter” was loved by the public, and the author constantly received letters with questions about how the characters of the story live, whether they really exist.
Tvardovsky worked on the work during the war years. In 1943, having ended up in a military hospital after being wounded, the writer decided that he had approached the end of the poem. Subsequently, he had to continue working until 1945, until the victory over the Nazi invaders.
The book was continued thanks to the requests of readers. After the victorious spring, Tvardovsky published the final chapter of the poem, calling it "From the Author." In it, he said goodbye to the hero.
Biography
The central figure of the story is a village boy from near Smolensk. He is forced to go to the front to defend the Fatherland. The cheerful and straightforward character demonstrates remarkable courage and courage, despite the realities surrounding him. The soul of the company, from whom you can always get support, Terkin was a role model. In battle, he was the first to attack the enemy, at his leisure he entertained his comrades by playing the accordion. A charming and charismatic guy is the location of readers.
We get to know the hero at the moment when he and his colleagues cross the river. The operation takes place in winter, but the river is not completely frozen over, and the crossing is disrupted due to an enemy attack. The valiant soldier is wounded and ends up in the medical unit. After recovering from his injury, Terkin decides to catch up with the platoon. The chapter "Accordion" is dedicated to his ability to find an approach to the team and win respect and trust in it.
The soldier becomes a participant in the battles and provides all possible assistance to those with whom he serves in the same detachment, and to civilians. Having received leave, he refuses to travel to his native village, captured by the Germans, in order to be useful at the front. For courage and courage shown in the fight, in which the plane was shot down, Vasily Terkin is awarded a medal. Later, the soldier will receive a new rank. He becomes a lieutenant.
Soldier of the Soviet army Due to the enemy offensive, the front line is shifting, ending up in his small homeland. Vasily's parents live in the cellar. Having made sure that the old people are alive, the soldier no longer worries about their fate. Mother is captured, but Vasily helps her out of trouble. Grandma and Grandpa are alive.
Tvardovsky does not share the details of the hero's biography. The author does not even give names to other characters in the story. The image of Terkin is made up of a description of his character. In the finale, it remains unclear whether the hero survived or died. But this is not important for Tvardovsky. The main idea that he wants to convey to the reader is admiration for the amazing courage and heroism of the people.
The poem sings of the Russian soldier, who is able to defend the honor of the country, protect his family and oppressed fellow citizens. The work motivated readers to new feats. The patriotic ode in verse helped to raise the morale of the front-line soldiers, exhausted from daily battles, and brought a touch of optimism into their lives. The main idea of the book is a confirmation of the purity of intentions and sincerity of a Russian person who is able to find a way out of a difficult situation, not afraid of work, distinguished by courage and ingenuity, honor and dedication.
- It is curious that the readers influenced the writing of the work. Reading alternately published chapters of the poem, people wrote letters to Tvardovsky from all over the Soviet Union. Because of this, the author decided to extend the publication of the book.
- After a resounding victory, Tvardovsky refused to describe Terkin's life in peacetime. According to him, it required new heroes. The image of a soldier was to be preserved in the memory of readers. Later, imitators published stories about Terkin, but the writer himself, as promised, did not touch the writing of new chapters.
- The poem is divided into parts capable of independent existence. Tvardovsky deliberately used such a literary device. Thanks to him, the reader, who was not included in the story from the beginning, could easily perceive the plot. This was important at the front, where thousands of soldiers said goodbye to their lives every day. They had time to read one chapter and might not know how it will continue.
- The name and surname of Vasily Terkin often met in wartime. Readers asked the author questions related to the prototype of the hero, and invariably received an answer about a fictional and collective image. The surname Terkin is speaking, it means that a person has seen a lot in his lifetime, was “worn out” by life.
Quotes
The poem vividly describes the mighty Russian character. The descriptive and reliable lines are:
“Every Russian person loves the holiday of strength, that’s why he is the worst of all in work and fight.”
Indeed, Soviet soldiers did not spare themselves in battle, selflessly giving themselves up to battles so that peace reigned in the Soviet Union.
The cheerful disposition of Vasily Terkin, a soldier distinguished by quick wit and courage, helped his colleagues endure wartime.
“You can live without food for a day, you can do more, but sometimes you can’t live one minute in a war without a joke, the most unwise joke.”
Every platoon and squad had the soul of a company like Terkin. A merry fellow and a joker, he charged with positive and gave people hope.
Human life remains the main value in war. Terkin tries at all costs to help those who get in his way. Whether it is a small matter or a matter of life and death, he risks himself to save his neighbor. At the same time, the soldier jokingly remarks:
“Let me report briefly and simply: I am a big hunter to live up to ninety years.”
Tvardovsky's string
The last memory of him: sitting, terribly thin, near the big country window ...
Shortly before this, in February 1970, many years of rude pressure from various "leading authorities" - the Central Committee of the CPSU, Glavlit (or, simply, censorship), the secretariat of the Writers' Union - forced Alexander Tvardovsky to leave the Novy Mir magazine, of which he was the editor-in-chief more ten years and which during this time has gained immense popularity in our country and even abroad.
In the last century, having experienced the loss of his same favorite offspring - the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, which was closed by the government, Saltykov-Shchedrin sadly wrote that from now on he "lost the use of the language." But what was a metaphor, hyperbole for the great satirist, became a reality for Tvardovsky. Deprived of the magazine, unable to publish his last poem "By Right of Memory", he fell mortally ill and almost lost his speech.
He was surrounded by relatives, visited by friends, and yet for long hours he remained alone with the late autumn looking out the window, leafless trees, withered grass, until the first snowstorms knocked on the glass, scratched. (And didn’t the lines from the tragic chapter of “Vasily Terkin” sound in the memory of the last December night: “Death bowed to the headboard: - Well, soldier, come with me”?)
All life, probably, passed in those days before the eyes of Tvardovsky, and he could say about himself in the words of his favorite hero:
I bent such a hook
I've come so far
And saw such flour
And I knew such sadness ..."Vasily Terkin"
... Oh, how simple everything seemed to a teenager growing up in the Smolensk region, as he would write later: "in a backwater, shocked by the world miracle of new days." Much indebted to his father, a rural blacksmith, for the first inclinations of a love for books and reading, he, having become a Komsomol member, now judged the "backward" views of Trifon Gordeevich with all the passion and categoricalness of youth.
Among the poems of the "selkor poet", as the Smolensk newspapers called their young employee, there were also such as "To the rich father", and in one of his first poems the "negative" character was ... the blacksmith Gordeich!
Many years will pass before his father's fate appears before Tvardovsky in all its complexity. For many years he nurtured the idea of a novel about his father, which, unfortunately, was never realized. He came up with the name - "Pan". This is how Trifon Gordeevich was nicknamed by fellow countrymen for the fact that in every way, very naively and short-sightedly, he emphasized his specialness, independence, different from the usual village way of life.
But already in the poem “Beyond the distance - the distance” both the real picture of the “meager revenue” of the mythical “rich man” and cursory portraits of his poor “clients” will be captured. And in the essay “Notes from the Angara”, talking about a native of the Smolensk region he met, Tvardovsky wrote that, looking at him, “he involuntarily remembered the back of his late father’s head, so familiar to the last wrinkle and dash ...”. For all the laconicism of this mention, behind it there is a noticeable strong spiritual movement, the memory of a man with whom such an irreconcilable war was waged in his youth was stirred up.
In the first versts of life, the father's image became the embodiment of that everyday life and way of life, from which the novice poet sought to push off, as they push off from the coast, setting off for a voyage. This conflict ended with the departure of the young man from home and the beginning of an independent existence as a newspaperman and writer.
We were ready to go.
What could be easier:
Don't lie
Don't be afraid
Be faithful to the people
Loving mother earth
So that for her into fire and water,
And if -
That and life to give.
So Tvardovsky recalled in his last poem a long-standing mentality - his own and his peers. And, wise with everything he had experienced, he added:
What's easier!
Let's leave it intact
Such is the covenant of the early days.
Now let's just add:
Which is easier, yes.
But what is more difficult?
"Complexity" made itself felt immediately. At the time of the beginning of collectivization, among millions of others, the “gentry” family, exiled to the North, suffered unfairly. Almost thirty years later, in 1957, while sketching out the plan for a play about dispossession, Tvardovsky recalled the words spoken to him at that long time by the secretary of the Smolensk regional party committee: “There are times when you have to choose between dad and mom and the revolution.” The same sketches also capture the dilemma faced by the “younger brother”, in which the author himself is guessed: “He must break with his family, abandon it, curse it - then, perhaps, he will still remain “on this shore”, and no - like it or not - you will be an "enemy", a kulak who will never beg for forgiveness from the Soviet authorities in any way.
The incident left in the poet's soul a grave, unhealed wound and at the same time marked the beginning of a long, painful, contradictory sobering up from former naive illusions. And life on his father's farm was already remembered in a completely different way in the poem "Brothers", ending with poignant lines:
What are you, brother?
How are you brother?
Where are you, brother?
On which White Sea Canal?..
Noticeably different in tone from the then literature with its simplified and embellished image of collectivization and Tvardovsky's poem "Country Ant". In the description of the wanderings of Nikita Morgunka, who "left ... his family and home", not wanting to join the collective farm (as the poet's father did), in his anxious thoughts and numerous road meetings, clear echoes of the tragic events of those years are heard. Expressive, for example, is the tale heard by Morgunk about a grandfather and a woman who “lived for a century in their hut”, until the “unprecedently high” spring water “raised ... the hut” and, “like a boat, carried” to a completely new place: “Here and stop." The author himself subsequently appreciated the dramatic nature of this poem, which reached special strength in draft versions:
Houses rot, yards rot
Jackdaws make nests in pipes,
Overgrown master's footprint.
Who ran away, who was taken,
As they say, to the ends of the earth,
Where there is no land.
Nevertheless, the hero of the poem eventually abandoned the search for the legendary country of "individual" peasant happiness, where "no, my God - communes, collective farms", and resigned himself to the need to join the artel. Many poems included in the collections "Road", "Rural Chronicle" and "Zagorye" eloquently testify to how diligently Tvardovsky searched for the bright sides of the then village life, based on the consciousness that it was necessary. One must “have the courage to see the positive,” he would later write bitterly.
On the road, mirror-like,
Why am I going past the porch ...
These lines, conceived as an odic glorification of the new life, turned out, however, to be a caustic and bitter assessment of what was then happening with the poet himself. Until recently, declared in the Smolensk press as a “kulak echoer” and even a “class enemy”, after “Country of Ants”, which critics considered the glorification of collectivization, he found himself in favor with the authorities: he was accepted into the party, awarded the Order of Lenin among famous writers, and even received the Stalin Prize.
It is fortunate that the "mirror-shiny road" did not blind Tvardovsky. He understood that in the works praised by critics, he “rides past” much that exists in real life. At the end of the thirties, in a letter to a relative who also took up a pen, Alexander Trifonovich not only taught the addressee, but reflected on his own: simplifies and “rounds off” the most complex phenomena of life ... be bold, proceed not from the consideration of what is allegedly required, but from your self-inner conviction that this is what you write about, and not otherwise, that you know for sure that that's what you want." And to S. Ya. Marshak, who became a close friend, he confessed: “... I have long wanted to write differently, but I still can’t ...”
However, he still tried to write “differently” - both in “Brothers”, and in the elegiac pre-war “Journey to Zagorye”, and in the poem “Mothers” full of hidden pain (Maria Mitrofanovna was still in exile with her family):
And the first noise of the foliage is still incomplete,
And the trail is green on the granular dew,
And the lonely sound of a roll on the river,
And the sad smell of young hay,
And the echo of a late woman's song,
And just the sky, blue sky -
I am reminded of you every time.
The true birth of Tvardovsky as a great Russian poet took place at a tragic time in folk history - in a protracted and bloody winter campaign in Finland and the Great Patriotic War. He was a front-line correspondent, experienced the bitterness of terrible defeats and losses, was surrounded, faced with many people - sometimes for a long time, sometimes for a brief but forever memorable moment. Later he said this in his "Book about a fighter", which became the poem "Vasily Terkin":
Let us remember with us those who retreated,
Who fought for a year or an hour,
The fallen, the missing
Who have we met at least once,
Seeing off, meeting again,
We drink the water of those who gave,
Prayed for us.
Wonderful and paradoxical fate of this book! Written at a time when for the author, as well as for many contemporaries, Stalin was the greatest authority, the leader liked it. Evidence of this is the new Stalin Prize awarded to the poet, and the fact that, according to Khrushchev’s memoirs, “Stalin looked with emotion at the picture with Vasily Terkin” (painted by the artist Reshetnikov). He saw in the hero of the book a brave, dutiful soldier, a trouble-free "cog" (as the leader used to say) of the army and even the state mechanism.
But here's what's significant. The very first chapters of "Vasily Terkin" appeared in print in the tragic months of 1942 almost simultaneously with Stalin's famous Order No. 227, and in fact boldly contradicted it. Stalin branded the soldiers of the retreating army, who allegedly "covered their banners with shame", accused them of "shameful behavior" and even of "crimes against the Motherland." Tvardovsky, on the other hand, was sick of his soul for his main character - an ordinary "in a salted tunic", and for all other "our short-haired guys" who took the greatest torment in the war:
Our brother was walking, thin, hungry,
Lost connection and part
He walked in a port and platoon,
And a free company
And one, like a finger, sometimes.
He walked, gray, bearded,
And, clinging to the threshold,
Went into any house
Like something to blame
Before her. What could he?
Even when he was thinking about the book, Tvardovsky thought: “The beginning can be semi-lubok. And there this guy will go harder and harder.” And so it turned out. What a "screw"! What a narrow-minded merry fellow and joker there is, how he was sometimes attested in criticism! In Terkino, the people's soul itself began to live, sparkling with all colors - its breadth and scope, lyricism and intelligence, cunning and sensitivity to someone else's grief.
Saltykov-Shchedrin, by the way, one of Tvardovsky's favorite writers, has excellent words about how important it is for an artist who depicts types from the "people's milieu" to discern "the moral grace that they embody." This moral grace manifests itself in various ways in Terkin. It is also in the organic feeling of patriotism for him, in readiness for a feat without a phrase and a pose (“You don’t go to your death for someone to see. It’s good. But no - well, well ...”). It is in the sensitivity that he shows in the story with the “orphaned” accordion, and in the readiness to give up his glory to the namesake, and in the way Terkin tells “about the orphan soldier”, and in his conversation-duel with Death:
- I'm not the worst and not the best,
That I will die in the war.
But at the end of it, listen
Will you give me a day off?
Will you give me the last day,
On the holiday of world glory,
Hear the victorious salute
What will be heard over Moscow?
Give me a little that day
Walk among the living?
Give me one window
Knock on the edges of the native
And, as they come out onto the porch, -
Death, but Death, still me there
Can you say one word?
Half a word?..
“What freedom, what wonderful prowess,” wrote I. A. Bunin after reading this book, “what accuracy, accuracy in everything and what an extraordinary folk soldier’s language - not a hitch, not a single false, ready, that is, literary - a vulgar word!
If already in the "Country of the Ant" such discerning connoisseurs as Boris Pasternak and Nikolai Aseev noted the high culture of verse, then in "Vasily Terkin" the poet's skill reached its peak. Tvardovsky experienced, in his own words, "a feeling of complete freedom of dealing with verse and word in a naturally formed, unconstrained form of presentation."
Diverse in stanza, the intonation-flexible verse of the poem remarkably corresponds to its content, preserving the lively naturalness of the speech of the characters, their polyphony, all the richness of the feelings and experiences of the hero and the author himself:
Early June afternoon
Was in the forest, and every leaf
Full, joyful and young,
It was hot, but fresh and clean.
Leaf to leaf, covered with a leaf,
Assembled deciduous dense
Recalculated, washed
The first rain of the summer.
And in the wilderness native, branchy,
And in the silence of the day, forest
Young, thick, resinous,
The golden heat held on.
And in the calm more often coniferous
He interfered with the earth
With ant wine spirit
And drunk, inclining to sleep.
Each line here echoes the others. In the first stanza, the beginning of the lines also sound the same ( noon - full), and to a certain extent the middle ( early - joyful). The second also has its own instrumentation. In conclusion, there is a whole stream of consonances: wilderness - silence, native - daytime - forest, young - thick - golden, calm - coniferous, ant - wine.
In "Terkin" originate motifs that foreshadowed the next poem by Tvardovsky - about a brief visit to the house of a retreating soldier, about an orphan soldier who found ashes in the place of his native village, about a "working mother" returning from full.
At the beginning of the poem "House by the Road" it is said that this theme, this song "lived, boiled, ached" in the author's soul throughout the war - about the fate of a peasant family, about great human torment and the diversity of a national feat, whether it was the stamina of a husband-soldier or the selflessness of a wife and mother who saved her children in the abyss of hardships and troubles.
The mental conversation of Anna Sivtsova in a foreign land with her tiny son belongs to the most heartfelt pages ever written by Tvardovsky, and can safely be ranked among the masterpieces of world poetry.
We will never know whether the house built by Andrey Sivtsov on the site of the fire will wait for its mistress, whether it will be filled with children's voices. After all, the end of such stories was not the same! And this languishing incompleteness of the fate of the heroes of the poem gave it a special drama.
The fact that “happiness is not in oblivion” of the tragedy experienced by the people is also evidenced by the lyrics of Tvardovsky of the war and peace years - “Two lines”, “I was killed near Rzhev”, “On the day the war ended”, “I know no fault of mine…” In the poem “I was killed near Rzhev”, the strict, reminiscent of the style of funerals of the war period, the thoroughness of the story about the death of a soldier (in the “fifth company, on the left during a cruel raid”) is replaced by a strong emotional outburst:
I am where the roots are blind
Looking for food in the darkness;
I am where with a cloud of dust
Rye walks on the hill;
I am where the cock crow
At dawn on the dew;
I am where are your cars
The air is torn on the highway ...
Repeating “sing-along” (“I am where ...”), internal consonances ( roots - feed; dawn - dew), sound writing (“yOUR CARS ... Highway” - as if the rustle of tires) - all this gives the monologue of a dead warrior a rare expressiveness, melodiousness, and the hero’s voice merges with the breath of the world, where the fallen soldier seemed to dissipate, dissolve.
In vain did the authorities try to tame and caress Tvardovsky, who became a popular favorite after Terkin. He could no longer write in the old spirit about the village, devastated not only by the war, but also by new cruel exactions. To continue the "Book about a fighter", as many naive readers demanded, conscience also did not allow to invent a carefree life for its hero, especially since the author received completely different "tips":
Poet Tvardovsky, excuse me,
Don't forget the backyards
Take a fleeting look,
Where Vasya Terkin dies
Who fought, studied,
He built factories and sowed rye.
In prison, poor fellow, weary,
Died in which for nothing ...
Please believe me, I believe you.
Farewell! There are no more words.
I measured Terkin's guts,
I'm Terkin, at least I'm writing
Popov
Did the author of these touching and inept poems live until the appearance of the poem "Terkin in the Other World", where Tvardovsky, in his own words, wanted to embody "the people's judgment on the bureaucracy and apparatus"? Criticism of the "other world", in which the very real party-state colossus was easily guessed, at times reached extreme sharpness in this book, published only ten years after its creation. So, having learned about the afterlife ration (“It is indicated on the menu, but not in kind”), Terkin ingenuously asks: “It seems like a workday, then?” The reader, in turn, could think about other things that existed only on paper, for example, about freedom of speech, press, assembly, "designated" in the then constitution.
In essence, this was already a trial of Stalinism, but it was not immediately and not easily given to Tvardovsky, who until recently in one of the chapters of the book "Far Beyond - Far" wrote about Stalin's death as "our great grief." And although later this chapter was radically altered by the author, traces of a certain inconsistency, indecision in judgments about the era experienced are palpable in this book, even in such chapters that played a certain role in public life, such as "Childhood Friend" (about a meeting with a man innocently convicted under Stalin ) and “So it was”, directly dedicated to reflections on the leader.
Remarkable, however, are many lyrical fragments of the book - about the Volga, about the native Smolensk region, about the father's forge, and the sharp "literary conversation" that arose not only in the chapter of the same name. Separate places of the poem in sincerity and strength compete with the best poems of the poet:
No, life has not cheated me,
Didn't go around well.
Everything was more than given to me
On the road - light and heat.
And fairy tales in quivering memory,
And mother's songs,
And old holidays with priests,
And new with different music.
... To live and be always with the people,
To know everything that will become of him,
Did not pass the thirtieth year.
And forty first.
And others...From the chapter "With myself"
The last stage of Tvardovsky's life is closely connected with his activities as the editor-in-chief of the Novy Mir magazine. Today there is no shortage of accusations against the literature of that time, and Novy Mir is not spared either, which, they say, was not bold enough and consistent in criticizing the regime and could not renounce many erroneous ideas. But here we recall the words of Herzen about the attitude of the younger generation towards their predecessors, “who were exhausted, trying to pull our barge deep into the sand from the shallows”: “It does not know them, has forgotten them, does not love them, renounces them as less practical people, sensible, less knowing where they were going; it is angry with them and indiscriminately discards them as backward ... I would terribly want to save the younger generation from historical ingratitude and even from historical error.
Back in Stalin's times, Tvardovsky, the editor, published in the Novy Mir a sharply critical essay by V. Ovechkin "District Weekdays", and during the thaw time - A. Solzhenitsyn's story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". Even in the “stagnant” years, the magazine continued to publish truthful works by F. Abramov, V. Bykov, B. Mozhaev, Yu. Trifonov, Yu. Dombrovsky and a number of other writers that spoke of deep trouble in our social life. It was not for nothing that the foreign, and later the domestic press, expressed the fair idea that the journal was turning into an unofficial opposition to the existing regime. It seems that in the history of Russian literature and social thought, Tvardovsky's Novy Mir occupies no less place than Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski.
Inseparable from this activity of Tvardovsky is his last poem “By the Right of Memory”, in which he made the final settlement with Stalinism, “finishing off” it in his own soul, repentantly reviewing the experience and restoring the historical truth.
The central chapter of the poem breathes with scorching autobiography - "The son is not responsible for the father." The well-known words of Stalin put in the title at the time of their utterance looked for many, including Tvardovsky, as an unexpected happiness, a kind of amnesty (although more than once the "kulak" origin was put "on line" to the poet - right up to the very last years of his life) . Now Tvardovsky mercilessly exposes the immoral essence of this false "aphorism" (false - for, as recalled in the poem, "... the title son of an enemy of the people even under them it entered into rights"): compulsion to break natural human ties, justification of apostasy from them, from any moral obligations to loved ones. The poet writes bitterly and angrily about the moral permissiveness encouraged "from above":
The task is clear, the matter is holy, -
With that - to the highest goal - straight.
Betray your brother on the way
And a secret best friend.
And the soul with human feelings
Do not burden yourself by sparing yourself.
And bear false witness in the name
And atrocity in the name of the leader.
Throughout his poem, especially the final chapter "On Memory", Tvardovsky rebelled against attempts to hide, whitewash, embellish the tragic experience of the past decades - in "oblivion to drown living pain":
But all that was is not forgotten,
Not sewn-covered in the world.
One untruth is at a loss to us,
And only the truth to the court!
It is not his fault that he was not heard and that the lines of the poem: “Whoever hides the past jealously, he is unlikely to be in harmony with the future,” turned out to be a prophecy.
No matter how bitter and difficult were the circumstances of the last months of Tvardovsky’s life (leaving Novy Mir, a ban on the publication of the poem By Right of Memory, a new disgrace to Terkin in the Other World, which was excluded from the poet’s collections and was not mentioned in print) , he passed away with the consciousness that "honestly ... pulled his cart."
His later lyrics are imbued with the thought of the artist's duty to be true to the truth, to fearlessly follow the chosen path - and "from his path in nothing, without retreating - to be himself."
The whole point is in one single covenant:
What I will say is melting until the time
I know this better than anyone in the world -
The living and the dead, only I know.
Say that word to no one else
I never could ever
Reassign.
For your own in the answer,
I'm worried about one thing in life:
About what I know best in the world,
I want to say. And the way I want.
There is in this lyricism of Tvardovsky a victorious and, as the future time proved, a completely justified confidence that “everything will pass, but the truth will remain”, a confidence that he once expressed with almost wise cunning that “time, soon for reprisal ... is unable to cope with than you think! - with a rhyme ":
It's his way and that
Strives to betray oblivion
And announce it in the papers
And on the radio...Look, look
For some short period of time -
And have time off the tongue
Suddenly breaks down
From the same verse
Line.
“I won’t speak out with Terkin alone,” Tvardovsky wrote during the war years. However, according to his own feeling, he did not "speak out" even with all his poetry. “Behind these iambs and choreas,” it is said in the article “How Vasily Terkin was written” (1951), “remained somewhere in vain, existed only for me - and the peculiar lively manner of speech of the blacksmith Pulkin (from the poem of the same name. - A. Turkov) or pilot Trusov, and jokes, and habits, and tricks of other heroes in kind.
Alexander Trifonovich more than once jokingly assured that he was, in essence, a prose writer, and from an early age he tried himself in essays.
And just as it was with "Terkin", the desire to convey what "remained in vain", to show all the "brew" of life, gave rise in his prose to "a book without beginning, without end", without a special plot, however, the truth not to harm - "Motherland and foreign land."
It consists not only of completely completed essays and stories, but also of often small, but very remarkable entries “also, as it is said in the“ Book of a Fighter ”,“ I entered in my notebook the lines that lived scatteredly ”!
Not only did the “grains” of the storylines sometimes appear here: “Terkina” and “Houses by the Road” (compare, for example, the history of the new Khudoleev hut in the essay “In Native Places” with the chapter on Andrei Sintsov’s return home). The poet's prose is precious in itself.
Almost in each of the most laconic recordings, the depth and sharpness of the perception of life in all its manifestations, characteristic of the author, manifested itself. Sometimes a face is snatched out, highlighted literally for a moment, and such a face that you will never forget.
In the battle for the village in the poet’s native Smolensk region, “a dozen of our fighters fought off counterattacks, many were already wounded ... women and children roar out loud, saying goodbye to life.” And now “a young lieutenant, covered in sweat, soot and blood, without a cap, kept repeating with the courtesy of a person who is responsible for restoring order: “Just a minute, mother, we’ll free you now, just a minute ...”
The partisan, nicknamed Kostya, has six blown up enemy echelons on her account, and as a reward for her feats ... a kiss from an unknown commander, tired and sleepy (a sweetly languishing memory of a girl ...).
People freed from German captivity and returning home, according to the woeful words of the author, wander to the burnt pipes, to the ashes, to the unhealed grief, which many of them still do not fully imagine what it is waiting for them there. And how close it is again to the chapter “About the Orphan Soldier” and to the “Road House”!
But even the old man who survived the war in his native village “sat near the hut, cut down from logs, on which trench clay was still visible (what kind of work did this “construction” cost him?!). And for all the amazing hopelessness in the eccentric charm of this “world grandfather” (as a passing driver dubbed him), to “how destitute he is, no matter what you look at:“ He was wearing a soldier’s padded jacket and pants made of camouflage fabric with green and yellow stains. He sucked on a pipe, the cup of which was a slice of a cartridge from a heavy machine gun.
It is an infinite pity that Alexander Trifonovich was not destined to realize his new "prosaic" plans. But besides "Pan" there were other extremely interesting ones in the workbook; “... I will make a round-the-world trip on water,” says a 1966 workbook, “and write everything down in Mann with all sorts of distractions,” etc.
That is, in the spirit of the beloved German writer Thomas Mann, numerous extracts from whose books and whose name is repeatedly found in these notebooks.
“Half of Russia looked into it ...” Tvardovsky once said about the Volga, whose waves, as it were, carry “countless reflections”.
And are these words not fair in relation to his own work, which captured so many faces, events and destinies?
Andrey Turkov
"Vasily Terkin"(other name - "The Book of a Fighter") - a poem by Alexander Tvardovsky, one of the main works in the poet's work, which received national recognition. The poem is dedicated to a fictional character - Vasily Terkin, a soldier of the Great Patriotic War.
The poem began to be printed with a continuation in a newspaper version from 1942 and was completed in 1945. The first separate edition of the still unfinished work was published in 1942. For the most part, the poem was written in four-foot trochaic (some chapters in three-foot trochaic).
According to the results of a sociological study conducted in 2015 by the Russian Reporter magazine, the text of the poem took 28th place in the top 100 most popular poetic lines in Russia, including, among other things, Russian and world classics.
About the work
The coincidence of the name of the protagonist with the name of the hero of the novel by the 19th-century writer P. D. Boborykin turned out to be accidental.
The Red Army soldier Terkin already then began to enjoy a certain popularity among the readers of the district newspaper, and Tvardovsky decided that the topic was promising, and it needed to be developed as part of a large-scale work.
On June 22, 1941, Tvardovsky curtailed his peaceful literary activity and left for the front the next day. He becomes a war correspondent for the South-Western, and then the 3rd Belorussian Front. In 1941-1942, together with the editors, Tvardovsky found himself in the hottest spots of the war. Retreats, is surrounded and out of it.
In the spring of 1942, Tvardovsky returned to Moscow. Having collected scattered notes and sketches, he again sits down to work on the poem. "War is serious, and poetry must be serious" he writes in his diary. On September 4, 1942, the publication of the first chapters of the poem (the introductory "From the Author" and "On a Rest") began in the newspaper of the Western Front "Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda".
The poem gains fame, it is reprinted by the central publications Pravda, Izvestia, Znamya. Excerpts from the poem are read on the radio by Orlov and Levitan. At the same time, well-known illustrations created by the artist Orest Vereisky began to appear. Tvardovsky himself reads his work, meets with soldiers, visits hospitals and labor collectives with creative evenings.
The work was a great success with readers. When Tvardovsky wanted to finish the poem in 1943, he received many letters in which readers demanded a continuation. In 1942-1943, the poet experienced a severe creative crisis. In the army and in the civilian readership, The Book of a Fighter was received with a bang, but the party leadership criticized it for its pessimism and lack of mention of the leading role of the party. The secretary of the Union of Writers of the USSR Alexander Fadeev admitted: "the poem answers his heart", But “... one must follow not the inclinations of the heart, but party guidelines”. Nevertheless, Tvardovsky continues to work, extremely reluctantly agreeing to censorship editing and text cuts. As a result, the poem was completed in 1945, along with the end of the war. The last chapter ("In the Bath") was completed in March 1945. Even before the end of work on the work, Tvardovsky was awarded the Stalin Prize.
Finishing work on the poem, Tvardovsky, back in 1944, simultaneously begins the next poem, "Terkin in the next world". Initially, he planned to write it as the last chapter of the poem, but the idea grew into an independent work, which also included some uncensored passages from Vasily Terkin. "Torkin in the Other World" was prepared for publication in the mid-1950s and became another program work of Tvardovsky - a vivid anti-Stalinist pamphlet. On July 23, the secretariat of the Central Committee, chaired by N. S. Khrushchev, adopted a resolution condemning Tvardovsky for the poem “Tyorkin in the Other World” prepared for publication. During the campaign to "expose Stalin", on August 17, 1963, the poem was first published in the Izvestia newspaper. In wartime, the poem (more precisely, its fragments) was memorized, they passed newspaper clippings to each other, considering its main character a role model.
Criticism and artistic features
As such, there is no plot in the poem ( "There is no plot in war"), but it is built around the connecting idea of the military road, along which Terkin, together with the entire Soviet army, goes to the goal. It is not for nothing that most critics consider the chapter "Crossing" to be the central chapter. At the beginning of the poem, continuity with the previous work of Tvardovsky is clearly visible - the utopian poem "Country Ant", which also begins with a story about the road along which the hero has to go. The role of the author's digressions in the narrative is also very important. A peculiar dialogue between the author and the main character occupies a significant place in the text of the poem.
Terkin in the poem acts as a collective image embodying the best features inherent in the Soviet soldier. The heroes surrounding Terkin are nameless and abstract: the soldier’s colleagues, the general, the old man and the old woman, Death - as if borrowed from a folk tale ( in fact, this is a complete rethinking of the poem " Anika the Warrior" with the opposite outcome: even the angels serving Death - who have taken on the everyday look of a funeral team - are on the side of the Warrior [ ]). The language of the poem, despite its outward simplicity, is an example of the poet's recognizable style. It feeds on folk, oral speech. The intonation-rich text of the work is interspersed with phrases that sound like sayings and lines of ditties (“It’s good when someone lies cheerfully and smoothly”, “Well done, but there will be a lot - two at once. - So two ends ...”). The author conveys in an accurate and balanced style Terkin's speech, a lyrically sublime description of nature and the harsh truth of war.
The choice of the four-foot trochaic poem as the size of the poem is not accidental. It is this size that is typical for the Russian ditty and corresponds well to the narrative rhythm of the poem. Critics also believe that in the poem "Vasily Terkin" the influence of Russian folk tales is clearly felt, in particular, Yershov's The Little Humpbacked Horse.
A distinctive feature of the work, reminiscent of a legend about a folk hero, was the absence of an ideological principle. In the poem there are no praises to Stalin, usual for the works of those years. The author himself noted that the ritual mention of the leading and guiding role of the party "would destroy both the idea and the figurative structure of the poem about the people's war." This circumstance subsequently created great problems for publication and delayed the publication of the final version of the poem.
The secret of Tvardovsky's work is not only in the ease of rhythm and virtuoso use of the spoken language, but also in the writer's unmistakable instinct, which allowed him to stay on the right side in the propaganda war, not succumbing to the temptation of lies. The book tells as much truth as circumstances permit.
Original text (English)
The secret of Tvardovsky's, beside his easy rhythms is his virtuosic command of colloquial Russian and his unerring tact in staying on the “right” side of the propaganda line of the moment without telling outright lie, while also propounding as much of the truth as was at all possible under the current circumstances.
cultural significance
The poem "Vasily Terkin" is one of the most famous works created during the Great Patriotic War, glorifying the feat of a nameless Russian soldier. The poem was published in large editions, translated into many languages, entered the school curriculum of the USSR and Russia and was well known to any schoolchild.
Tvardovsky, who himself went through the front, absorbed sharp and accurate soldier's observations, phrases and sayings into the language of the poem. Phrases from the poem became winged and entered into oral speech.
Solzhenitsyn spoke highly of Tvardovsky's work [ ] . Boris Pasternak considered "Torkin" the highest achievement of literature about the war, which had a great influence on his work. Ivan Bunin spoke of the poem like this:
This is truly a rare book: what freedom, what wonderful prowess, what accuracy, accuracy in everything, and what an extraordinary folk soldier's language - not a hitch, not a single false, ready-made, that is, literary-vulgar word!
Monuments
In addition to the monument in Smolensk, there is also a monument to Vasily Terkin in Orekhovo-Zuevo: a golden-colored figure in the form of a man with an accordion. On the opening day of the monument, the famous harmonist Sergei Boriskin wrote a poem. Another monument to Terkin was erected in the city of Satka. It is located in the old part of the city of Satka, in the square near the recreation center "Metallurg", on the square bounded by Bocharova and Komsomolskaya streets. Distance from Chelyabinsk - 180 km, from Ufa - 240 km, from Bakal - 22 km. [ ] In 2017, a monument to Vasily Terkin was also erected in the city of Gvardeisk (until 1946 Tapiau) in the Kaliningrad region, where he met A.T. Twardow Victory Day May 9, 1945
Year of publication of the book: 1942
Alexander Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin" needs no introduction. The name of the protagonist of the poem has long become a household name, and the work itself has gained popular love. The poem "Vasily Terkin" was staged many times on the stage of a wide variety of theaters and was even filmed twice. It is rightfully considered one of the best works about the war, as well as the most famous work of Alexander Tvardovsky. According to polls in 2015, the poem "Vasily Terkin" took 23rd place among the most popular poetic works.
The plot of the poem "Vasily Terkin" briefly
From the author
Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin" begins with the author's reasoning about what is most important in war. Of course it's water and it doesn't matter where it comes from, even from a horse track. Good food and a cook are important. But the most important thing is a good joke. That is why our conversation will focus on Vasya Terkin. And since there is no time to start, our conversation will go right from the middle.
On a halt
In the next chapter of Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin" you can read about our main character. The story begins with the fact that Vasily Ivanovich is an excellent eater. And during the conversation, you will listen to him in general. So he told how he got to the small Sabantuy. Sabantuy he calls the bombing. But he calls the mortar Sabantuy medium. Well, he calls the real Sabantuy when a thousand German tanks rush at you, well, not a thousand, so five hundred, or maybe a hundred. He tells so smoothly that he is asked to tell something before going to bed. By the way, our main character is just as good to sleep. During two wars, I learned to sleep not only for the last lack of sleep, but even for the future. Terkin fought in the first war on the Karelian Peninsula. Three times he was surrounded and three times here he is.
Before the fight
Terkin recalls how, during the retreat, their detachment of ten people made their way from the encirclement to the front. Everyone was discouraged, as they left the cities in captivity of the enemy, and only Terkin was sure that we would return everything. On their way came across the native village of the commander. The soldiers decided to go. They were met by the commander's wife and children. He did not sleep all night - he chopped wood and tried to help his wife with the housework. And in the morning, their detachment, to the roar of children, left, leaving the village in captivity of the enemy. Since then, Terkin dreamed of going to this village when their army was moving back and bowing to this woman. 
Crossing
In the chapter "Crossing" from the poem "Vasily Terkin" you can read about how the crossing over the Dnieper begins at night. The first platoon leaves first on the pontoons, followed by the second and third. All the fighters on the pontoons seemed to have changed and become more friendly. But then a searchlight glided across the surface of the water, and behind it a column of water rose from the water. The pontoons went in a row, and the author of the lines says that he will never forget this sight, how young still warm soldiers went to the bottom. The crossing was broken. No, there is still hope that the first platoon managed to cross, but it is hard to believe in this. And at night, two sentinels see a dot in the river. They are so cold that they think they dreamed it. But no, Vasily Terkin swam across the icy river and now he is standing on the shore, unable to move his teeth or his hands - everything has come together. The main character was immediately wrapped up and taken to the staff hut. Here they rubbed with alcohol, but Vasily asked not to spoil it and give it inside. And after that he reported that the first platoon was entrenched on the left bank and was ready to help the crossing if they were covered by artillery fire. And now the battle for the sake of life on earth begins again.
About war
In the next chapter of "Vasily Terkin" you can read the author's reasoning about the war. She came unexpectedly and now it is the duty of everyone to protect their homeland. After all, the bomb is a fool and you can’t say that my hut is on the edge. And the Germans will keep it like in the book. Therefore, even if an order comes and death meets you, then the deadline has passed, but they will write about us.
Terkin wounded
The next episode of the poem "Vasily Terkin" tells us how the main character in the rifle company pulls the communication wire. A projectile falls next to him, but does not explode. Everyone is hiding, and only Terkin relieves him of a small need. Soon Vasily notices the German "cellar". He decides to take her, but the dugout is empty. Then he arranges an ambush there himself. He waits for a German officer and kills him with a bayonet, but he himself is wounded in the shoulder. Our artillery begins to hit the cellar, and only a day later the wounded protagonist is picked up by tankers and taken to the medical battalion.
About the award
Further, the protagonist of the poem "Vasily Terkin" talks in the medical unit about the need for the order. No, he is not proud and agrees to a medal. The main thing is that when he returns to his native places and gets to a party, he meets the same girl in front of whom it would be great to flash an order, or just a medal. But for this it is necessary that this terrible battle for life itself on earth ends.
Harmonic
In the next chapter of the poem "Vasily Terkin" - "Accordion" our main character catches up with his first company of a rifle regiment. It's freezing outside and a three-ton truck picks him up. They meander along the snowy corridors for a long time until a column blocks their way. This means that they now have to skip it. But it's just cold to wait, and Vasily Terkin asks the tankmen for an accordion. Those say that they have an accordion, but it was left from their commander, who died yesterday in battle. The tankers give Terkin an accordion, and he first sang his native Smolensk sad motive. But then, at the request of the assembled soldiers, he struck cheerful music. And now steam is streaming from the mouths of several soldiers who have begun to dance. And the tankers recognize Terkin. It was they who brought him to the medical unit after being wounded and offer him to keep the accordion for himself.
two soldiers
Further, the author of the poem "Vasily Terkin" transfers the main character three kilometers from the front. He warms himself in the house of an old man and an old woman. The old man sits in front of the window, listening to the sounds of the front, and among other things trying to sharpen his saw. Vasily volunteers to help him and make the wiring. As it turns out, the old man is also a soldier in the past, but now his health is not the same. Vasily repairs his watch, which he brought from his campaigns, and the old man demands from his grandmother to fry the fat. Grandmother did not resist for a long time, but then she fried bacon and even broke two eggs. It was an excellent appetizer and anything better than porridge with broken pieces. And after dinner, Terkin answered the old man's question, if we defeat the Germans - beat the father!
About loss
The image of the Russian soldier in the poem "Vasily Terkin" is well revealed in the chapter "On the Loss". While sleeping, the forty-year-old soldier begins to regret that he has lost his pouch. Before that, he lost his home, family, children, wife, and now he also lost his pouch. Vasily Terkin says that this is nonsense. Here he once lost his hat and was given to him by her young nurse, who bandaged his head with an inexperienced hand. Now he would like to return that hat to that nurse. Terkin gives the war his shabby pouch and says that next year he will be presented with five more of these. And they need to grieve not about the loss of pouches, wives and children, but about the loss of their homeland. Future generations will not forgive them for this. After all, Russia has been standing for a thousand years and there is no way to lose it.
Duel
Well, best of all, the war in the poem "Vasily Terkin" is revealed in the chapter "Duel". Our protagonist went on reconnaissance and ran head-on with a German. An unequal battle ensued with a well-groomed German soldier. Terkin fought not just for himself, but for his homeland. Therefore, even with a broken mouth, and covered in blood, he will be right. When the German decided to hit him with a helmet, Terkin took a grenade without a check and gave it to the German. He fell unconscious. And then the contented Terkin proudly walked across the Soviet land, leading his tongue with him. And everyone they met, even those who did not know Terkin, rejoiced at his victory.
From the author
The image of a soldier in the poem "Vasily Terkin" is best revealed in the next chapter - "From the Author". In it, Tvardovsky offers to forget about the war for at least a minute. Imagine that the soldier returned home, because that is exactly what the goal is. And all the current hardships and strict obedience to the commanders only bring this moment closer.
Who was shooting? 
Well, the character of Vasily Terkin in Tvardovsky's poem is best revealed in the chapter "Who shot?". Yesterday there was a battle, but now the guns have already cooled down, and the thoughts of all the soldiers are about the smell of summer, arable land and the buzzing of the cockchafer. But here comes a new sound. This is the sound of a bomber, from which everyone instantly executes the command: “Lie down!”. And then many people think about death. No, it's not scary to die, but not in the summer. Although if you figure it out, dying is never on time. And when everyone is lying and praying, one soldier jumps up and shoots at the plane from his knee. A three-ruler is, of course, not an anti-aircraft gun, but now the plane spun and crashed into the ground. He collapsed as if he wanted to break through it and fly to America. Everyone rushed to congratulate Terkin, they called from the headquarters and demanded the name of the hero who shot down the plane, and the sergeant enviously said that the order to the guy was like from a bush. But Terkin did not lose his head and said that this was not the last plane for the Germans and the sergeant could still receive the order.
About the hero
In the next chapter, the main character will tell us what prompted him to fight for the order. This was when he was in the medical unit. Next to him lay still quite a boy with an order. Terkin asked him if he was from Smolensk, but the boy proudly replied that he was from Tambov. And in that answer Ivan seemed to be proud of his land and the impossibility of the heroes leaving the Smolensk land. No, Ivan does not boast of his land and the whole of Russia is dear to him, but in their land there are heroes who are capable of a feat. And now he has proven it.
General
But the real war in Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin" is revealed to us in the chapter "General". The war has been going on for the second summer and Vasily had a moment to wash himself and just lie down on the grass near a small stream. But his sleep is interrupted by a messenger who brings the news that a general is waiting for Terkin. The protagonist puts on wet clothes and goes to the only general for many miles around. Of course, he is a little shy, although he knows that he will not be scolded. The general gives the main character an order and gives him a week off to go home. But Vasily says that a week is not enough for him. After all, he is not a river to get past enemy posts. And his village is now on the other side of the front. The general hugs Terkin and says that he means to them on the way, and that he will have a week of vacation when they liberate his native village.
About Me
In the next chapter, "About Me," the author of the poem "Vasily Terkin" takes the floor. He tells how he is sad about his home, fields and forests, how he is sad about his childhood and wants to hug his mother again. The author tells how he is filled with anger towards the enemy, and that in his poems, on behalf of Terkin, who is his countryman, he often expresses his own thoughts.
Fight in the swamp
To the question of which Vasily Terkin in Tvardovsky's poem, the chapter "Fight in the Swamp" gives a good answer. It is about an unknown battle near the village of Borki. Only three pipes and a black spot remained from this settlement. Our soldiers are knee-deep in water and chest-deep in mud. The infantry scolds the tankers, the tankers the infantry and all together the aviation that these Borks still cannot take. A working enemy mortar does not allow you to raise your head out of the mud. And only Terkin says that now they are almost at the resort. After all, they are in the ranks, and behind them are guns and, in general, all of Russia. But two years ago, when they retreated, it was not clear where they were and where they were strangers, and then it was hard. Yes, some of them will die in this unknown battle, but the memory of them will always live in the hearts of people.
About love
Well, the folk character in the poem "Vasily Terkin" is well manifested in the chapter "On Love". In it, the writer says that each of the fighters was accompanied on the way by at least one woman. It could be a mother, whose name is the most precious thing a fighter has, or it could be a wife, whose love and letters warm both ordinary soldiers and generals. The author of the poem asks women to write more often, although he understands perfectly well that it is hard for them at this time. And he also asks to pay attention to Vasily Terkin, who, although not a pilot, and not a tanker or horseman, but just infantry. But it is the infantry that is the main driving force of any war.
Terkin's rest
Well, the life of soldiers in the poem "Vasily Terkin" is best revealed in the chapter "Terkin's Rest". In it, the main character goes straight to heaven. Here you can sleep up to 600 minutes, eat four times a day and not from your knee, but from the table. Here you don’t have to hide the spoon in the bootleg, but you can’t wipe yourself with your sleeve either. Here, before going to bed, you should undress, and as many as two sheets are injected into a stupor. But Vasily Terkin cannot fall asleep in this paradise for a long time. Until he is told to wear a hat. And then the main character really quickly falls asleep. But the war is not over yet. Therefore, in the morning Vasily catches a ride and goes to the front. That's when we get to that border along the Varshavskoe highway, that's when we'll have a rest.
On the offensive
Well, the tragedy of the poem "Vasily Terkin" can be felt in the chapter "On the offensive". It starts with the fact that we were on the defensive for too long. Some even stocked up with brooms for the bath next year. But here comes the order. The soldiers have to take the village. Everything happens clearly on the orders of the general, who sits in a dry dugout and only looks at the hour. "Platoon! For the Motherland! Forward! ”, The young lieutenant gives the command clearly by the clock and he himself is the first to rush around the village. But already near the first houses, he fell, as if diving into the snow. The soldiers rushed to him, but he gave the command "Forward!". After all, he was not wounded, he was killed. And now it fell to Terkin to lead forty people into battle. He gave the command and himself was the first to burst into the village.
death and warrior
Well, the heroism and humor in the poem "Vasily Terkin" can be seen in the chapter "Death and the Warrior". For the distant hillocks, the battle was leaving, and the main character was bleeding in the snow. Death leaned over him and offered to go with her. But Vasily confidently said that he was still alive. Then death offered him not to suffer, he would still freeze and die, and she would not freeze here. But Terkin says he hasn't lived yet. Death is not far behind. Terkin offers to surrender, but only if Death lets him go for a walk on Victory Day. But Death disagrees. And then two members of the funeral team appear. They wanted to sit on Terkin and smoke, but the fighter gives a weak voice. The funeral team immediately decides to carry him to the medical unit, and Death decides to walk nearby. But when the fighters take off their gloves and give them to the barely alive Terkin, Death retreats and marvels at this friendship of the living.
Terkin writes
Well, the characterization of Terkin from the poem "Vasily Terkin" is well revealed in the next chapter "Terkin writes." In it, the main character writes that his leg wound has already been completely cured. And as the doctors say, the leg will be better than before. Therefore, Vasily really hopes that he will soon catch up with his brothers. After all, he wants to liberate his native Smolensk region with his part, and if necessary, he will go further. To do this, he is ready to write a letter even to the general, because he will certainly respect the fighter to whom he personally presented the order.
Terkin-Terkin
And in the next chapter "Terkin - Terkin" the main character has already returned to his native part. But there is almost no one left from the former colleagues. Terkin and other soldiers are resting in someone's house, the barn of which has been cut down for firewood. And then another soldier comes in and declares that he is Terkin. Our protagonist is puzzled. He begins to test the impostor. But he already has two orders, and he plays the accordion no worse than Terkin himself. That's just a red-haired impostor and his name is Ivan. The general laughter and uproar about this is interrupted by the cry of the foreman, who decides to give one Terkin to each company.
From the author
The next chapter is again "From the Author". In it, Tvardovsky reflects on the rumors that are circulating along the front. They say that Vasily Terkin allegedly died, allegedly a shell covered him, while others say that he is still alive as before. But such a hero, who has already walked half the country, cannot die, and he will surely outlive the author of these lines. After all, in two years the country managed to lose with blood and return the lands from the Moscow region to the Zadneprovye with blood. And now victory is close and Vasily Terkin will surely see it.
grandfather and grandmother 
Well, the steps of the Great Patriotic War in the poem "Vasily Terkin" can be traced in the chapter "Grandfather and Woman". It was the third year of the war. The grandfather and the old woman whom Terkin in the chapter “Two Soldiers” repaired watches have been living in occupation for a year now. The Germans took the watch, and people are already accustomed to making their way along the fences on their own land. Grandfather, for the umpteenth time, draws encirclements, offensives and breakthroughs with a stick on the wall, but everyone cannot guess when their native army will free them. And at night the front comes to them. With a chicken and a sack of potatoes, the grandfather and the old woman are sitting in a pit. And only in the morning they hear steps in their direction. Grandfather grabs an ax and decides to give his last fight. But it turns out they are our scouts. And the first in these ranks is the same Terkin. Both are happy to meet, and the grandmother even burns with the desire to fry the fat again. But now officer Terkin must hurry to release him. Nevertheless, he manages to have a bite to eat and pour tobacco to his grandfather and with the words that the connection is behind him. Soon he stink went into the house of his grandfather and grandmother. I immediately asked for the watch, and when I found out their fate, I promised to bring two from Berlin.
On the Dnieper
At the beginning of the chapter "On the Dnieper", the author of the poem "Vasily Terkin" recalls the words of the general from the chapter of the same chapter. In it, the general said that they were on the way. But this turned out not to be the case, and another general liberated Terkin's native village. Vasily himself is very sad for his land and asks her forgiveness, but despite the destruction that the invader left behind, he wants to move further along this vast Russian land. And now Terkin, as the main character, crosses the Dnieper with his platoon. They hide from the shots under the cliff of the right bank. Crossings and bridges will be tomorrow, and today they have already occupied the coast, to which the belated German units are still retreating. And the soldiers cheerfully declare that they should surrender on the left bank.
About the orphan soldier
The truth about the war in the poem "Vasily Terkin" is revealed in the chapter "About the Orphan Soldier". Vasily Terkin met him near Bortki, who was taken for six months. He was cheerful and was in no way inferior to Terkin. And even when he had to retreat, he cheerfully declared that he was going to the West, although he was going to the East. But the retreat is over, and now our army sometimes takes a city in a day, and a regional center in a week. And when they advanced near Smolensk, this fighter asked for a visit home. After all, he is local here and he is not far away. He quickly found his village Red Bridge, but did not recognize it. There was neither his house, nor his wife, nor his son, the fighter lost everything in this war. He stood and cried and returned to the unit. Now he must collect a debt from the enemy. And the author asks all Soviet soldiers to help him and remember this duty of everyone.
On the way to Berlin
In the next chapter, our protagonist is already moving on the road to Berlin. Everything here is not native - red houses, tiled roofs, signs, badges, arrows. They were already three foreign languages away from home, and everywhere they were met in a brotherly manner by Poles, French and other peoples. The whole road to the West is covered with down. Down from feather beds and pillows. After all, all of Europe is moving home to the East. And here among this crowd a familiar voice is heard. This is an ordinary Russian woman going home. It is these Russian mothers who are waiting for their sons from the war, and maybe already grandchildren. She should go far, as far as the Dnieper. Therefore, Terkin quickly organizes for the old woman a horse with a harness, a rug to cover her legs, a cow and a sheep, and here is another mug and a bucket with supplies, and of course a duvet cover and a pillow. The mother objects that she will not be allowed through the checkpoints. But Terkin does not yield and says that at these points she should say that Vasily Terkin gave her everything. And he promises if he is alive to look at the pies.
In the bath
But even in war there is a place to rest. And somewhere in the depths of Germany, as in, our soldiers organized a bathhouse for themselves. In a row are the count's chairs, on which the soldier throws his underpants. The soldier is not tall, but his chest is forward, his body is covered with scars and marks of memorable places. And now he undressed, saying: “Wow!” sneaks into the steam room. Here he demands more and more to add a couple. And although the water is not from the Moscow River, it is still good. Having steamed the bones well, he gives thanks to the pompohose who, even if from Lithuania, carried a real Russian broom to such a distance. Well, after resting after the steam room, washed and dressed. There is no place for medals on his chest, and someone notices if he bought them in the military department. To which the soldier, like a real Vasily Terkin, replies: “That's not all! The rest are yet to come!”
From the author
Well, that's the end of the war. The author of the poem about Terkin says that if he lied in his work, it was only for the sake of laughter, and if he made a mistake somewhere, it was only because the lines of these poems were written in cars, in the rain, in a tent and wherever there was at least one Free minute. From the first days, the author hoped that Vasily Terkin would become that accordion that would bring joy to a soldier for at least a few minutes. And the best reward for him will be if the reader of these lines says that everything is clear in Russian, and the memory of the fighter will live on in the future.
The poem "Vasily Terkin" on the Top Books website
The poem by Alexander Tvradovsky "Vasily Terkin" is so popular to read on the eve of Victory Day that the work fell into ours. Well, among it is one of the highest places. And given the dynamics and the presence of the poem in the school curriculum, we will see it more than once in the ratings of our site.
You can read the poem "Vasily Terkin" online on the Top Books website.
Vasily Terkin:
