Tvardovsky Vasily Terkin Russian soldier. Previous. Terkin's military service

Russian soldier in Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin"

Alexander Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin" stepped from the newspaper sheet into a number of immortal works of Russian literature. Like any great work, Tvardovsky's poem gives a true picture of the era, a picture of the life of his people.

In the image of Vasily Terkin, the poet managed to express the main thing in Russian national character to bring out its best features. "A book about a fighter" is a work "without a special plot", "without a beginning, without an end", since in a war, when one can die at any moment, "who will tell, who will hear - it is impossible to guess ahead..." great responsibility of an eyewitness, Tvardovsky reflects on his hero and says:

In some ways I am richer than him, -

I stepped on that hot trail,

I was there. I lived then...

And more than anything else

Not to live for sure -

Without which? without the truth,

Truth, straight into the soul beating,

Yes, she would be thicker,

No matter how bitter.

The events of the poem take place at the front, that is, on that strip of land where the battles were directly prepared and fought. The plot of "Terkin" gives an answer to the popular question: how to win, what is needed for this? There is in the poem both heroism and humanity, and that "hidden warmth of patriotism" that Leo Tolstoy had when describing another Patriotic War- 1812. This parallel is not accidental. After all, the epic hero of Tvardovsky is a Russian soldier, the heir to his heroic ancestors:

That way we go harsh,

As two hundred years ago.

Passed with a flintlock gun

Russian worker-soldier.

The path of the Russian worker-soldier, the Soviet soldier of the sad days of retreat, appears in the chapter "Before the battle":

Following the Soviet government,

Our brother followed the front...

But in this bitter picture there is more optimism and faith in the final victory than in other bravura marches. In the famous chapter "The Crossing" the tragic turns into the heroic:

The battle is on - holy and right,

Mortal combat is not for glory,

For life on earth.

The usual, "peaceful" word "crossing" acquires a tragic sound:

Crossing, crossing!

Left bank, right bank,

The snow is rough, the edge of the ice ...

To whom is memory, to whom is glory,

To whom is dark water, -

No sign, no trace...

Dynamic, stingy, accurate in the description of events, the lines of the poem shock the reader. Tvardovsky unfolds a picture of the tragic death of Russian soldiers. Deep sorrow sounds in these lines:

And saw for the first time

It will not be forgotten:

people are warm and lively

Going down, down, down...

In the center of the poem is a folk character, generalized in the image of Vasily Terkin. This is not just a joker and a merry fellow, as he seems at first sight. In the chapter "On a Rest", where he first talks about himself - a young fighter, we learn that he already got quite a bit from the war. He was surrounded three times: "I was partially scattered, And partially exterminated ... But, however, the warrior is alive."

And then Terkin comes to the soldiers with his "political conversation", short and simple:

I repeated one political conversation: - do not be discouraged,

Let's not get carried away, let's break through.

We will live - we will not die.

The time will come, we will return back,

What we have given, we will return.

The war is hard, the losses are terrible, but the biggest damage is despondency, despair, unbelief. The soldier needs to brace himself. That's all Terkin's "propaganda", but how much folk wisdom and confidence is compressed in it that evil cannot be endless and unpunished.

Terkin stands in front of everyone like a seasoned soldier, for whom life is a house left from his father, sweet, lived-in and in danger. He is the worker, owner and protector of this house. In Terkin, one feels great mental strength, stamina, the ability to rise after each blow. Here he softens the story of the three "Sabantuys" with a joke; here he eats "with gusto" soldier's food; here he calmly fits on the damp earth in the rain, hiding himself with "one greatcoat".

Terkin's dream of an award ("I agree to a medal") is not a vain desire to become famous or stand out. In fact, this is a desire to see native lands and native people free. In the chapter "On grief", when Terkin remembered his native Smolensk land with love, with "heart trembling", he took a sip of its air, heard her voice, exclaims from the bottom of his heart:

I do not need, brothers, orders,

I don't need fame

And I need, my Motherland is sick,

Native side!

More than once, death appears in the "book about a fighter" in a variety of circumstances and guises. It is said about her without mitigation, in direct words and exact details:

They wait, they are silent, the guys look,

Teeth clenched to calm the trembling ...

You're laying flat, boy

Twenty incomplete years.

Now you have a cover.

Here you are no more.

Death extinguishes all the colors of life, it vilely robs a person. The instinctive fear of death must be able to humanly resist if you cannot overcome it.

No, comrade, evil and proud,

As the law tells a fighter

Death face to face

And at least spit in her face,

If it's all over...

It is significant that Terkin lives, as it were, in two dimensions: on the one hand, he is a very real soldier, a staunch fighter of the Soviet Army. On the other hand, this is a Russian fairy-tale warrior-hero who does not burn in fire and does not sink in water.

The hero is not the same as in a fairy tale -

carefree giant,

And in a hiking belt,

A simple sourdough man...

Hard in torment and proud in grief

Terkin is alive and cheerful, damn it!

Vasily Terkin became the favorite hero; before the author who created it, he was embodied in a sculpture installed in the Smolensk region. Tvardovsky never described Terkin's appearance, but this fighter is recognizable.

Serious, funny

No matter what the rain, what the snow, -

Into battle, forward, into the pitch fire,

He goes, saint and sinner,

Russian miracle man.

So Vasily Terkin goes through all the elements of the world into battle, into the future, into the spiritual history of our society.

Reading "Vasily Terkin" from beginning to end, I saw first of all myself, my close comrades-in-arms, our entire family in all truly truthful form.
From a letter from A.T. Tvardovsky.

Creativity A.T. Tvardovsky is inextricably linked with the theme of the Great Patriotic War. This war for a whole generation of Soviet people was a turning point that radically changed their whole life. Tvardovsky himself took part in the war and was a direct witness to everything that he later wrote about in his works.
Many Soviet poets and writers turned to the topic of war, and each time it appeared in a variety of ways. However, to a greater extent, it was A.T. who managed to create the image of a Russian soldier, in my opinion. Tvardovsky.
It is important to note that on the issue of the role of the individual in history, Tvardovsky adhered to the point of view of L.N. Tolstoy: history is made by ordinary people, only they are able to change something, play a decisive role in some event. On the example of his hero Vasily Terkin, the poet proves this.
We can say that Tvardovsky's poem has become a kind of tribute of respect and gratitude to a simple Russian soldier-worker. The difficult military fate of the hero is in many ways similar to the fate of millions of other soldiers:
And although it was restless -
remained unscathed
Under oblique, three-layer fire,
Under hinged and direct.
But nowhere does Vasily lose his optimism, the people's sense of humor, the desire to live. The author writes about him: "Smokes, eats and drinks with relish. Any position." In my opinion, Vasily Terkin fell in love with readers, first of all, because there is no lie in him, some kind of artificial patriotism. Simplicity and naturalness distinguishes this person. Terkin is the embodiment of the best features of the Russian people.
Despite the playfulness of the hero's tone, at times one can notice real pain and suffering in his words: “I saw such torment. And I knew such sadness! .. ”Love for the native land is an integral part of existence for Vasily Terkin. He cannot imagine his life without his mother earth mother:
Mother Earth is my own,
For a happy day
Forgive me for what - I do not know
Only you forgive me!
Tvardovsky sings of the courage and steadfastness of the Soviet people, who, at the cost of their own lives, sought victory and happiness for their descendants. These people were not timid before the huge fascist force that had already broken Europe:
Who alone is afraid of death -
Who spat on a hundred deaths.
Damn you. Yes, our devils
All the devils
A hundred times hell.
The heroes of the poem not only fight, but also live: they love, laugh, dream of a life without war. Vasily Terkin can always find a way out of difficult situation, laugh at yourself, support your comrades-in-arms. Such is the Russian soldier-worker who knows how to live even in war. According to Tvardovsky, the fighters of the Great Patriotic War are great descendants, heirs of the true human qualities of those soldiers that L.N. Tolstoy in his epic novel "War and Peace":
... That way they go harsh,
As two hundred years ago
Passed with a flintlock gun
Russian worker-soldier.
Thus, Tvardovsky in his poem "Vasily Terkin" sings of an ordinary soldier who, with his everyday, sometimes inhuman, work, was able to achieve the main thing - victory. In my opinion, Tvardovsky is a poet who deeply understood and appreciated all the advantages and disadvantages of the national character. He embodied them in his "Book about a fighter", where Vasily Terkin is a collective image, a symbol of the entire Soviet military generation.

The image of a Russian soldier. Vasily Ivanovich Terkin - main character poems by A. T. Tvardovsky, an ordinary infantryman (then an officer) from the Smolensk peasants:

Just a guy himself

He is an ordinary...

Terkin embodies the best features of the Russian soldier and the people as a whole. As a name for the character, Tvardovsky used the name of the protagonist of P. Boborykin's novel "Vasily Terkin" (1892).

A hero named Vasily Terkin appears in the poetic feuilletons of the Tvardov period of the Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940). This is evidenced by the words of the hero:

I am the second, brother, war

I fight forever.

The character of the hero of the book meets the spirit of the times, its urgent needs. This is a soldier who considers war to be the work that he needs to do. He lives this war, he does not accept any worries of peacetime. Terkin could not even rest like he does outside the war: the soldier could not stand the week-long rest given to him in the rear, with four meals a day and white sheets on the bed.

He has no right to rest when people are dying around him. Our people. When the earth is being twisted. His land. It will be possible to rest later, when the Nazis are driven out. And now the war is his life, and the front is his home.

Is it so, is it, Terkin is at home,

That is - again at war ...

Interesting is Tvardovsky's perception of the war in which he himself fought, in which his literary hero lived, his understanding of military service:

There is a law - to serve until the deadline,

Service is work, a soldier is not a guest.

There is a release - fell asleep deeply,

There is a rise - jumped up like a nail.

There is a war - a soldier is fighting,

The enemy is fierce - he is fierce.

There is a signal: forward!.. - Forward.

There is an order: die! .. - He will die.

Vasily Terkin also understands this. He perceives the German invasion not as a personal tragedy, but as a tragedy for the entire Russian people. Therefore, in the whole poem there is no plot that concerns only the personal experiences of the hero. All his thoughts are the thoughts of everyone in that war, his aspirations are the aspirations of the entire Russian people.

Terkin is an exceptionally capacious image. On the one hand, this is a man of labor with all his inherent qualities: with the fidelity of a keen eye, the dexterity of experienced hands that do not like idleness, with worldly optimism. This is clearly seen in the chapter "Two Soldiers", when easily, as if jokingly, Terkin repairs the saw, and then the watch.

Look - and that is gratifying:

Falling Saw

It's okay, it's so complicated

It went in his hands.

Turn around and you're done.

On the other hand, Terkin is an exclusively Russian person. He is endowed with good nature, patience, modesty, the ability to "take everything as it is" and endure any adversity with humor, calm courage.

Peering into the image of Terkin, you notice that it combined those national and universal features that the soldier people needed for war and victory.

In the literature of the war years, Terkin occupies a special place: he is not just one of the literary characters of his era, but its main character, the most profound, complete and artistically perfect image of the people fighting "for the sake of life on earth."

S. S. Smirnov wrote about this: “It is my deep conviction that the work that most fully reflected the very spirit and nature of the Great Patriotic War is A. Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin”. And in this plan - the plan of comprehending the character of the people in the war - not a single work of prose comes close to the poem.

Without leaving the ground, remaining understandable and close to the reader in his every spiritual movement, Terkin at the same time, as it were, is elevated above everything that matters only for a separate human existence. This is manifested, among other things, in the fact that his front-line biography is composed only of such positions, which almost every front-line soldier has repeatedly visited during the four war years. This is not a personal, but, so to speak, general soldier's fate, not unfolded in the form of any coherent individual plot, but, as it were, superimposed by a string of individual pictures and episodes on the general gigantic plot of the war.

Terkin and all the other soldiers included in the work of A. Tvardovsky are ordinary people, and they are most often shown in the most everyday, by no means heroic circumstances: at a lodging for the night (“The infantry is slumbering, crouching, putting their hands in their sleeves” ), in a multi-day and unsuccessful battle for a tiny village (“Rain is rare, an evil cough torments the chest. Not a piece of native newspaper - wrap a goat’s leg”), in conversations on topics that are not at all “high” - for example, about the advantages of a boot over felt boots. And they end their “war-work” not under the columns of the Reichstag, not at the festive parade, but exactly where all suffering has long ended in our country - in the bathhouse.

After a good, hard work, having worked out "to your heart's content", where would you rest, if not here? And worked

Terkin to the conscience, "not for glory, for the sake of life on earth."

Terkin gate wide open,

Terkin sat down, swallowing snow,

Looks sad, breathes heavily, -

The man worked.

The symbol of the victorious people in Tvardovsky's poem was an ordinary man, an ordinary soldier. His life and military work, his experiences and thoughts made the poet understandable and close to us, glorified his modest feat, awakened to him a living feeling of respect, gratitude and love.

In the field of a blizzard-zaviruha,
Three miles away, war is buzzing.
On the stove in the hut the old woman,
Grandfather is the owner at the window.

Mines are bursting. The sound is familiar
Responds in the back.
This means - Terkin at home,
Terkin is back at war.

And the old man, as if with an ear
Doesn't lead out of habit.
- Flight! Lie down, old woman.-
Or say:
- Undershoot...

On the stove, huddled in a corner,
She keeps a close eye
With respectful fear
For the habit of the old man,

With whom she lived - did not respect,
With whom did you scold on the stove,
From whom did you keep away
Household all the keys.

And the old man, dressed in a fur coat
And in glasses sitting down to the table,
As from cranberries, lips twist -
Sharpening an old saw.

It doesn’t cut, sharpen, sharpen,
Does not take, well, what do you want! ..-
Terkin got up:
- Maybe, grandfather,
Does she have a divorce?

He takes the saw himself:
- Well, well ... -
And drank in his hands,
A well-raised pike,
She led with a sharp back.

She led, hung meekly.
Terkin squints:
- Here you go.
Look, grandfather, wiring,
We will divorce her.

Look - and that is gratifying:
Falling Saw
It's okay, it's so complicated
Passed in his hands.

Turn around and you're done.
- Come on, grandfather, take it, look.
Will cut better than new
In vain do not measles the tool.

And the owner is guilty
Takes a saw from a fighter.

Set carefully in the corner.

And the old woman:
- Weak eyes.
Old for years is my soldier.
I would have looked at the clock
Still standing from that war...

He took off his watch, looks: a car,
Like a mill, in the dust.
Webbed springs
Spiders wrapped around.

He hung them in a new hut
Grandfather-soldier a long time ago:
On a plain pine wall
This is how the spot glows.

After examining the watch in detail, -
All the same hours, but did not drink, -
The master is quiet and sad
Whistled:
- Bad things...

But he stuck it somewhere with a awl,
Looked for something in the dust
Inside somewhere he blew, spat,
What do you think, let's go!

Spins the arrow, puts the fifth,
An hour - another, forward - back.
- That's what we mean, soldiers.-
The grandfather-soldier wept.

Grandfather is touched, and the old woman,
Retracting his ear with his hand,
Listening from the stove:
- They're coming!
- Well, boy, well, jester ...

Surprised. And the guy
Don't hesitate to serve.
- Maybe the fat should be fried?
So again I can help.

Here the old woman groaned:
- Fat, fat! Where is the fat...

Terkin:
- Grandma, fat is here.
There was no German - so there is!

Grandma sighed in alarm.
Imported on the stove.
God bless you, can you...
Shut up, shut up.

And the owner is wicked
Quietly under the elbow:
- That's what we soldiers mean,
But the fat is under lock and key.

The old woman fumbles for a long time,
Climbs from the stove, lard fries
And suffering to the end
Breaks two eggs.

Ah, scrambled eggs! Snacks
There is nothing more useful and stronger.
Relies in Russian
Drink a cup in front of her.

Well, master, little by little,
One at a time, like in a war.
This is the doctor on the track
Gave it to me for my health.

He unscrewed the lid of the flask:
- Drink, father, there will be no excess.
The grandfather-soldier choked.
Pulled up:
- Guilty!

He sniffed a little bread.
Chewed - and immediately full.

A fighter, shaking over his ear
That flask, says:
- Arguing whether it is so, whether it is,
Still such a drop
Do not warm a fighter in battle.
Be alive!
- Drink.
- Drink...

And they sit like brothers
At the table, shoulder to shoulder.
Soldiers are talking
They argue amicably, hotly.

Grandpa boils:
- Allow me, comrade.
Why are you praising my boots?
Allow me to report.
Good? Where to dry?

Do not dry them in a dugout,
No, you give me a boot
Yes, cloth footcloths
Give me - then I'm a god!

Back in the back again
The frozen ground was butted by a shell.
As in nothing - Vasily Terkin,
As in nothing - an old soldier.

These things in our life -
Grandfather boasted - a trifle!
We have fragments even in porridge
Come across. Exactly.
It will fall, throw it away with a spoon,
And in you - and the dead.

But you didn't know the bombings,
I'll tell you father.

That's right, it's science
You can't do it the other way around here.
Say it's a simple thing
Do you have a?
- Which?
- Louse.

And, dipping a crust in bacon,
Continuing to eat
Smiled like Terkin
And said:
- Partially...

So there is? Then you are a warrior
Worth discussing with me.
You are a soldier, even though you are young.
A soldier is a brother to a soldier.

And tell me frankly
Not in jest, but seriously.
From a military point of view
Answer my question.
Answer: we will beat the German
Or maybe we won't?

Wait, father, let's hire
I'll eat, I'll tell you later.

He ate a lot, but not greedily,
Saluted the appetizer
So it's okay, so it's complicated,
Look - you want to eat.

I cleaned the whole pan
He stood up, as if he suddenly grew up,
And a handkerchief to the chin,
Exactly folded, raised.
He shook his hands neatly

And, as duty dictates in the house,
Bowed to the old woman
And the soldier himself.
Silently girded on the way,
I looked around - is everything here?
Honor by honor said goodbye,
He looked at his watch: it's coming!
Remembered everything, checked everything,
Made it to the end
He sighed at the door
And said:
Let's go, father...

In the field of a blizzard-zaviruha,
War is raging three miles away.
On the stove in the hut - an old woman.
Grandfather is the owner at the window.

In the depths of native Russia,
Against the wind, chest forward
Vasily walks through the snow
Terkin. The German is going to be beaten. Published in the publication:
A. Tvardovsky.
Poems and poems in two volumes.
Moscow, " Fiction", 1951.

The poem "Vasily Terkin" in terms of genre is a free narrative - a chronicle ("A book about a fighter, without beginning, without end ..."), which covers the entire history of the war - from the tragic retreat to the Victory. The chapters of the poem are connected with various events of the war: “On a halt”, “Before the battle”, “Crossing”, “Accordion”, “On the offensive”, “On the Dnieper”. The poem is based on the image of the protagonist, Private Vasily Terkin. He has no real prototype. This is a collective image that combines the typical features of the spiritual appearance and character of an ordinary Russian soldier.
Terkin - who is he?
Let's be frank:
Just a guy himself
He is ordinary.
However, the guy at least where,
Guy like that
In each company there is always
Yes, and in every platoon.
The image of Terkin has folklore roots, it is “a hero, a fathom in his shoulders”, “a merry fellow”, “an experienced person”. Behind the illusion of rusticity, jokes, and mischief are hidden moral sensitivity and a sense of filial duty to the Motherland, the ability to accomplish a feat at any moment without a phrase and posture. The feat of a soldier in the war is shown by Tvardovsky as everyday and hard military labor and battle, and moving to new positions, and spending the night in a trench or right on the ground, “shielding black only with his own back from death ...”. And the hero who accomplishes this feat is an ordinary, simple soldier:
A man of simple leaven,
That in battle is no stranger to fear ...
Serious, funny
... He is coming - a saint and a sinner ...
In the image of Terkin, Tvardovsky portrays the best features of the Russian character - courage, perseverance, resourcefulness, optimism and great devotion to his native land.
Our mother earth is ours,
In days of trouble and in days of victory
You are not brighter and more beautiful,
And there is no more desirable heart ...
It is precisely in the defense of the Motherland, life on earth that the justice of the people's Patriotic War lies: "The battle is holy and right, a mortal battle is not for the sake of glory - for the sake of life on earth." And the last thing that can be said: all the poetry of Tvardovsky is a service to a high duty, which includes the eternal service to the military theme. III. As critics have repeatedly noted, Tvardovsky was the first of the poets to touch upon the theme of the responsibility of the living to the fallen, that high responsibility, without which life loses its meaning, for what is it like for a person to endure all the hardships of life if you know that descendants will in no way appreciate what he and his generation have done and not only will they be consigned to oblivion, but they can even trample on all their conquests, as, alas, it has happened more than once in the centuries-old history of mankind ... No, the dying person should at least a moment before death see, even mentally, those I picked it up on the run,” as the poet put it back in 1946 (“I was killed near Rzhev”). “Otherwise, even the dead – how?”

Essay on literature on the topic: “Vasily Terkin” a poem about a soldier

Other writings:

1. The poem "Vasily Terkin" was written by Tvardovsky on the basis of the personal experience of the author - a participant in the Great Patriotic War. In terms of genre, this is a free narrative-chronicle (“A book about a fighter, without beginning, without end ...”), which covers the entire history of the war - from the tragic retreat to the Victory. Chapters Read More ......
2. A man of simple leaven, That in battle is not a stranger to fear ... Serious, sometimes funny, ... He goes - a saint and a sinner ... The poem "Vasily Terkin" was written by Tvardovsky based on the personal experience of the author - a participant in the Great Patriotic War. In terms of genre, this is a free story-chronicle Read More ......
3. Tvardovsky was always interested in the fate of his country at turning points in history. Back in the early 1930s, he created a poetic picture of the complex era of collectivization in the poem "Country Ant". During the Great Patriotic War, when the fate of the people was being decided, A. T. Tvardovsky wrote a poem Read More ......
4. A. T. Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin" is a folk, or rather a soldier's poem. Its main idea is to show the struggle of people for the sake of peace, for the sake of life. It is a whole encyclopedia of the life of a fighter. And according to the writer himself, “this book is about a fighter, Read More ......
5. I lived, I was, for everything in the world I answer with my head. A. Tvardovsky A talented poet, prose writer, critic, publicist - Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky, having come to literature in the mid-thirties, declared himself as an original and talented person, well knowing Read More ......
6. The great Russian poet A. T. Tvardovsky was always interested in the fate of his country at turning points in history. Back in the early 1930s, he created a poetic picture of the complex era of collectivization in the poem "Country Ant". During the Great Patriotic War, A. T. Tvardovsky writes Read More ......
7. There is no plot in war………………….. However, the truth is not to the detriment. It is no coincidence that Tvardovsky's work begins and ends with lyrical digressions. An open conversation with the reader brings the work closer to the inner world, creates an atmosphere of common involvement in the events. The poem ends with a dedication to the fallen. Read More ......
8. In the poetry of Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky, the most important, decisive events in the life of the country found the best reflection. In his works we see the deep realism of the depiction of events, the truthfulness of the characters created by the poet, the accuracy of the folk word. Among many of his works, the poem of the war years “Vasily Read More ......