Analysis of the poem “Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region” by Simonov. Analysis of the poem “Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region? Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region

Surkov is years older: a decade and a half difference in an era when a year can pass in three, and all of them are in combat. Surkov reached conscription age in 1918 - and saw the end of the Civil War.

Born on time!

“Thick blood flows down onto the white snow along the edge of the flare. Come on, my boy, Alyosha! Forward, with hostility, for communism!”

Attack. The battle. Captivity.

"Barracks. Three rows of wire. Concrete debris from fortress ruins. It rains. Trains pass by. Three times a day from Gapsala to Tallinn."

This is how the events are reproduced by the poet.

But as an agitator-propagandist, who, by Surkov’s own admission, somewhat disturbed the poet in his soul, because he seduced him with too simple and clear solutions. The Soviet government opened the way to poetry, but first led along the routes of the same science of hatred: the ordinary agitprop, the izbach, the district village correspondent, the volost wall newspaperman, the fighter against the kulaks, moonshiners and hooligans, the ordinary of political education, the editor of the Komsomol newspaper, the activist of Proletkult...

At this time, Simonov, through the efforts of his stepfather (his father, a general in the tsarist army, died at the front), became one of the cadets at the Soviet military school. From early childhood, from my stepfather - a soldier’s way of life: washed the floor... peeled potatoes... you can’t be late... you’re not supposed to object... you have to keep your word... a lie, even the smallest, is despicable...

The truth is in verse. Poems are about the coming war. The forty-first year is getting closer.

It is he who will make Simonov a great poet.

I remember, how it was. Evacuation. Father at the front. Mother and aunt (who worked part-time as a typist) look at a piece of paper from the typewriter and wipe away their tears. Seizing the moment, I secretly look to see what kind of leaf it is. Third (or fourth) copy. But you can read:

Wait for me and I will come back.
Just wait a lot
Wait when they make you sad
Yellow rains...

How many people later figured out the power of these lines! They asked why the rains are yellow... Others answered (for example, Ehrenburg): if there is anything in this verse, it is yellow rains. Russia did not want to know these subtleties: she read the poems and washed herself with tears.

But Alexei Surkov also had his finest hour on this front.

He conveys a vow of hatred to Konstantin Simonov: “When I first went on the attack, you looked at the world for the first time.” Now we've fraternized - in the Smolensk region. There are no tears. Dry rage.

How was it necessary to bind the soul for a vow of hatred? Where to bury pity, tenderness, love? Or were they no longer there?

Were. Hidden in a letter to his wife are sixteen “homey” lines that could easily have disappeared along with the letter at the same time, in the fall of 1941, when Surkov was breaking out of encirclement near Istra with the headquarters of one of the regiments.

He went out to his people and brought out what was written at night, surrounded by them, hidden from hatred:

The fire is beating in the small stove,
There is resin on the logs, like a tear,
And the accordion sings to me in the dugout
About your smile and eyes.

Where was that smile, those eyes? In what recesses of the heart were feelings driven?

Sophia Krevs - that's who this song is dedicated to. Like all of Surkov’s lyrical poems - throughout his entire life. Sophia Krevs - lover, bride, wife. Is there hidden symbolism in her last name? Are not the ancient Slavs - the Krivichi - dormant in the word "Krevs", preserved by the Baltic peoples?

None of Surkov’s fighting songs, which the country knew by heart, became such a favorite as “Dugout.” The apotheosis of love and the overcoming of hatred - with this masterpiece Surkov was destined to enter the eternal synod of Russian poetry.

Simonov replied. And precisely to Surkov:

Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region,
How the endless, angry rains fell,
How tired women brought us krinkas,
Holding them to my chest like children from the rain,
How they wiped away tears furtively,
As they whispered after us: “Lord save you!”
And again they called themselves soldiers,
As was the custom in great Rus' of old.
Measured by tears more often than by miles,
There was a road, hiding from view on the hills:
Villages, villages, villages with graveyards,
It was as if all of Russia had come to see them.

And at the hour of his death, as he had bequeathed, he lay down here, in this field, under a gravestone. "Near Borisov"...

Do you remember, Alyosha: a hut near Borisov,
For the dead, a girl's crying cry,
A gray-haired old woman in a corduroy cloak,
All in white, as if dressed to death, an old man.
Well, what could we tell them, how could we console them?
But, understanding grief with my woman’s instincts,
Do you remember the old woman said: - Dear ones,
While you go, we will wait for you.
"We'll wait for you!" - the pastures told us.
"We'll wait for you!" - said the forests.
You know, Alyosha, at night it seems to me
That their voices are following me.

"Wait for me!" - pierced the country. “We will wait for you...” - the country responded.

MEN'S TALK

"The old man got emotional. So did I."

“In a small room I found Vereisky, Slobodsky and Surkov, whom at first I didn’t even recognize - he had such a brave wheaten, Chapaev mustache with a scorch. After kissing, we sat for about ten minutes, asking each other about the events that had happened to us during those several months that we did not see each other after the Western Front. Then I read Alyosha a poem dedicated to him, “Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region...” The old man became emotional, and so did I. A bottle of alcohol was pulled out from under the bed, which we They drank without any snacks, because there were no snacks..."

From the front diaries of Konstantin Simonov

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov

Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region,
How the endless, angry rains fell,
How tired women brought us krinkas,
Holding them to my chest like children from the rain,

How they wiped away tears furtively,
How they whispered after us: “Lord save you!”
And again they called themselves soldiers,
As was the custom in great Rus' of old.

Measured by tears more often than by miles,
There was a road, hiding from view on the hills:
Villages, villages, villages with graveyards,
It’s as if all of Russia has come to see them,

As if behind every Russian outskirts,
Protecting the living with the cross of your hands,
Having gathered with the whole world, our great-grandfathers pray
For their grandchildren who don’t believe in God.

You know, probably, after all, the Motherland -
Not the city house where I lived on holiday,
And these country roads that our grandfathers passed through,
With simple crosses from their Russian graves.

I don’t know about you, but I and the village girl
Road melancholy from village to village,
With a widow's tear and a woman's song
For the first time, the war came together on the country roads.

Do you remember, Alyosha: a hut near Borisov,
For the dead, a girl's crying cry,
A gray-haired old woman in a corduroy cloak,
All in white, as if dressed to death, an old man.

Well, what could we tell them, how could we console them?
But, understanding grief with my woman’s instincts,
Do you remember the old woman said: - Dear ones,
While you go, we will wait for you.

“We will wait for you!” - the pastures told us.
“We will wait for you!” said the forests.
You know, Alyosha, at night it seems to me
That their voices are following me.

According to Russian customs, only fires
On Russian soil, scattered behind,
Comrades died before our eyes,
In Russian, he tore his shirt on his chest.

The bullets still have mercy on you and me.
But, having believed three times that life is all over,
I was still proud of the sweetest one,
For the bitter land where I was born,

Because I was bequeathed to die on it,
That a Russian mother gave birth to us,
What, accompanying us into battle, is a Russian woman
She hugged me three times in Russian.

Literally from the first days of the Great Patriotic War, Konstantin Simonov, as a correspondent for the newspaper Pravda, found himself at the front and was forced to retreat almost to Moscow along with Soviet troops. His faithful companion was Alexey Surkov, a war correspondent, with whom the poet had warm and friendly relations.

Konstantin Simonov (left) and Alexey Surkov. 1941 Photo: RGAKFD

It was Surkov who authored the famous poem “Dugout,” which was later set to music and became one of the first front-line songs. But in 1941, neither Simonov nor Surkov thought about what lay ahead for them, and even more so, did not dream of glory. They retreated, leaving Russian cities and villages for the enemy to destroy, realizing that the local residents should hate them for their cowardice. However, everything turned out to be completely different, and in every village they were seen off with tears in their eyes and with blessings, which made an indelible impression on Simonov.

In the fall of 1941, the poet wrote the poem “Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region...”, in which he seemed to be having a leisurely conversation with his front-line comrade. Surkov’s answers remain “behind the scenes”, and they are not so necessary in this case. What is much more important is what both war correspondents feel and remember. The author’s most vivid impression is connected with the way “tired women carried the krinkas to us, pressing them to their chests like children from the rain.” The poet was no less struck by the fact that it was during this difficult time for the country that ordinary people began to remember God, whose very existence the Soviet government rejected. However, by blessing Russian soldiers, ordinary rural women sincerely believe that their prayers will be heard, and the war will soon end, and all the men will return home.

Retreating along dusty, broken and dirty rural roads, near each village the poet sees graveyards - traditional village cemeteries where participants of many wars are buried. And Simonov has the feeling that together with the living, in this difficult time, the dead are also praying for the salvation of the country - those who gave their lives so that Russia would be a free country.

Already in the first months of the war, having walked the dusty roads of the Smolensk region, the poet begins to realize that his homeland for him is not the cozy little world of a metropolitan apartment, where he feels carefree and safe. The Motherland is “the country roads that our grandfathers walked, with the simple crosses of their Russian graves,” women’s tears and prayers that protect soldiers in battle. Simonov sees how his comrades are dying and understands that this is inevitable in war. But he is struck not so much by death as by the faith of ordinary rural women, who again became soldiers, that their native land will be liberated from enemies. This faith has been formed over centuries, and it is this that forms the basis of the Russian spirit and arouses in the poet genuine pride in his country. Simonov is glad that he had the opportunity to be born here, and his mother was a Russian woman - the same as hundreds of other mothers whom he had the opportunity to meet in the villages. Addressing Alexei Surkov, the poet does not want to think ahead and does not know whether fate will be so favorable to him that he will give him life in this terrible and merciless war. However, he sees with what hope and faith Russian women accompany them into battle, hugging them three times according to the good old tradition, as if trying to protect them from all adversity and misfortune. And it is this faith that strengthens the fortitude of Russian soldiers, who understand that by retreating, they are leaving their homeland to be torn to pieces by the enemy.

Very little time will pass before the Soviet troops will be able to win their first victories. However, the autumn of 1941 is the fear, pain and horror of yesterday's boys who came face to face with the war. And only wise Russian women, who understand everything and subtly feel the pain of others, instill hope in young soldiers, forcing them to believe in their own strength in order to not only survive, but also win.

* * *
A. Surkov

Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region,
How the endless, angry rains fell,
How tired women brought us krinkas,
Holding them to my chest like children from the rain,

How they wiped away tears furtively,
As they whispered after us: “Lord save you!” -
And again they called themselves soldiers,
As was the custom in great Rus' of old.

Measured by tears more often than by miles,
There was a road, hiding from view on the hills:
Villages, villages, villages with graveyards,
It’s as if all of Russia has come to see them,

I don’t know about you, but I and the village girl
Road melancholy from village to village,
With a widow's tear and a woman's song
For the first time, the war came together on the country roads.

Do you remember, Alyosha: a hut near Borisov,
For the dead, a girl's crying cry,
A gray-haired old woman in a corduroy cloak,
All in white, as if dressed to death, an old man.

Well, what could we tell them, how could we console them?
But, understanding grief with my woman’s instincts,
Do you remember the old woman said: - Dear ones,
While you go, we will wait for you.

“We will wait for you!” - the pastures told us.
“We will wait for you!” - said the forests.
You know, Alyosha, at night it seems to me
That their voices are following me.

According to Russian customs, only fires
On Russian soil, scattered behind,
Comrades died before our eyes,
In Russian, he tore his shirt on his chest.

The bullets still have mercy on you and me.
But, having believed three times that life is all over,
I was still proud of the sweetest one,
For the bitter land where I was born,

Because I was bequeathed to die on it,
That a Russian mother gave birth to us,
What, accompanying us into battle, is a Russian woman
She hugged me three times in Russian.

This poem by the famous front-line poet and writer Konstantin Simonov, written in 1941, reminded me of the military path of Nikolai Nikitovich Barmatin, a resident of one of the outlying districts of Moscow.
It was near Smolensk that he, then a young, untrained cadet, together with his comrades of the same age, took part in his first battle in 1941. Even today the career officer does not boast about his heroic past, but speaks directly about that battle: “It was scary.”
“We were 20-year-old cadets of the school for junior commanders,” he says, “we were thrown from the train into the heat of battle near Smolensk. The battle with seasoned fascists took place in an open area - no trenches, no trenches, in the hands of the "dragunk" - a three-line rifle of the late 19th century model, and from the other side - a barrage of machine gun and machine gun fire, the roar of artillery, and bombs rained down from above. And as a psychological weapon, the Nazis dropped empty, leaky iron barrels from airplanes, which, when falling, emitted a heartbreaking howl! It was some kind of hell!..
Each time our aircraft arrived only after the Germans had dropped bombs on us and the smoke had cleared into the field. Spinning in the empty sky, the stupid fighters flew away - we laughed after them through our tears. In other military units the situation was no better. And if everything had been more seriously organized, we might have defended Smolensk.
On our side, several regimental machine guns rattled, choking. But this no longer saved the situation - despite heavy losses, the fascist pressed forward unceremoniously. We retreated, losing killed. They carried their bleeding wounded comrades in their arms.
We stopped on the bank of the Vop River. They held the defense there until the last moment, until they were surrounded.
The chief of staff thrust a piece of map into my hand:
- Remove the remnants of the platoon from the encirclement. Go east."
There were 18 fighters left in Barmatin’s platoon. The commander showed ingenuity when crossing a tributary of the Dnieper.
Equipment was crossing the pontoon bridge, but the infantry was not favored: “Get across by swimming.”
Barmatin noticed an empty ambulance with a red cross. The driver sat on her step, clutching his head in his hands and almost crying. "Start it up!" - the commander shouted. Half an hour later, having bandaged their hands and heads with bandages doused in iodine, the fighters got into the back.
- Well, come on, come on, hurry up! - the traffic controller waved a flag to the car with a red cross.
Then we walked at night - during the day we didn’t stick our heads out, because everything around was occupied by the Germans. The soldiers were hungry. They asked the villagers for food. But not everyone greeted them with bread and salt - some scolded them:
- Are you running away from the Germans? Are you abandoning us? Well, go to hell!
There were 6-8 Ukrainians in the platoon. They were so homesick for “bread and lard” that they stubbornly resisted:
- Let’s not go any further - that’s all! Why do we need an encore from your Moscow!
The commander did not shoot them - he did not want to get his hands dirty.
Where did they disappear? Maybe they joined Bandera’s gang, maybe even today, waving crutches, they stand up on the Maidan for an independent Ukraine, shouting: “Get out, Muscovites!”
“At the end of September,” the veteran recalls, “we approached our own - to Zvenigorod. The remnants of the platoon were met by NKVD officers. We didn’t wring our hands or make faces, as is now customary to show in movies, but we were under investigation for a whole month. We didn’t tell them anything about the Ukrainian deserters, but otherwise they couldn’t find fault with us, and they took us peacefully to the formation point. From there the guys were sent to a military location, which occupied defensive lines on the outskirts of the capital.”
The commander of the chemical defense platoon of the 144th division of the 612th rifle regiment participated in the December counteroffensive. The German army in the Moscow region by that time, according to his recollections, was already demoralized. The lightly dressed fascists, who believed in Hitler’s blitzkrieg, were broken by thirty-degree frost and fresh reinforcements from the Red Army. They, wrapped in some rags, rolled further and further in horror. Barmatin's platoon fought closely with the enemy for one of the settlements in the Borodino region. Near Gzhatsk, a platoon commander was concussed by an explosion of an aerial bomb. After spending a couple of weeks in the hospital, he returned to duty.
Nikolai Nikitovich ended the war with the rank of captain, and in total he served in the army for a decade and a half - from 1939 to 1954.
Today, he is reminded of his military path by the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, medals “For Courage”, “For the Defense of Moscow”, “For the Capture of Koenigsberg”, “For Victory over Germany”...

A. Surkov

Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region,

How the endless, angry rains fell,

How tired women brought us krinkas,

Holding them to my chest like children from the rain,

How they wiped away tears furtively,

As they whispered after us: “Lord save you!” –

And again they called themselves soldiers,

As was the custom in great Rus' of old.

Measured by tears more often than by miles,

There was a road, hiding from view on the hills:

Villages, villages, villages with graveyards,

It’s as if all of Russia has come to see them,

As if behind every Russian outskirts,

Protecting the living with the cross of your hands,

Having gathered with the whole world, our great-grandfathers pray

For their grandchildren who don’t believe in God.

You know, probably, after all, the Motherland -

Not the city house where I lived on holiday,

And these country roads that our grandfathers passed through,

With simple crosses from their Russian graves.

I don’t know about you, but I and the village girl

Road melancholy from village to village,

With a widow's tear and a woman's song

For the first time, the war came together on the country roads.

Do you remember, Alyosha: a hut near Borisov,

For the dead, a girl's crying cry,

A gray-haired old woman in a corduroy cloak,

All in white, as if dressed to death, an old man.

Well, what could we tell them, how could we console them?

But, understanding grief with my woman’s instincts,

Do you remember the old woman said: - Dear ones,

While you go, we will wait for you.

"We'll wait for you!" - the pastures told us.

"We'll wait for you!" - said the forests.

You know, Alyosha, at night it seems to me

According to Russian customs, only fires

On Russian soil, scattered behind,

Comrades died before our eyes,

In Russian, he tore his shirt on his chest.

The bullets still have mercy on you and me.

But, having believed three times that life is all over,

I was still proud of the sweetest one,

For the bitter land where I was born,

Because I was bequeathed to die on it,

That a Russian mother gave birth to us,

What, accompanying us into battle, is a Russian woman

She hugged me three times in Russian.

Alexey Aleksandrovich Surkov (1899-1983) wrote a poem that, like the poem “Wait for Me” by Simonov, became a work of national scale. Both were set to music by K.Ya. Listov and became known as the song “In the Dugout”.

Sofye Krevo

The fire is beating in the small stove,

There is resin on the logs, like a tear,

And the accordion sings to me in the dugout

About your smile and eyes.

The bushes whispered to me about you

In snow-white fields near Moscow.

I want you to hear

You are far, far away now.

Between us there is snow and snow.

It's not easy for me to reach you,

And there are four steps to death.

Sing, harmonica, in spite of the blizzard,

Call lost happiness.

I feel warm in a cold dugout

From my unquenchable love.

November 1941

What unites the poems of Simonov and Surkov is that they are actually documents of the era - poetic messages to their loved ones: Simonov to his future wife, Surkov to his wife, the mother of their two children, Sofya Krevo.

Wartime poetry is inextricably linked with the theme of suffering, and, above all, with the image of the bitter grief that the war brought to children, old people, and mothers. It is impossible not to experience emotional shock from Simonov’s poem “The Major brought the boy on a gun carriage...”. However, this feeling was better expressed by Simonov himself in this poem (“Whoever has once seen this boy / Can’t come home until the end”):

The major brought the boy on a gun carriage.

Mother died. The son did not say goodbye to her.

For ten years in this and this world

These ten days will count towards him.

He was taken from the fortress, from Brest.

The carriage was scratched by bullets.

It seemed to my father that the place was safer

From now on there is no child in the world.

The father was wounded and the cannon was broken.

Tied to a shield so as not to fall,

Holding a sleeping toy to your chest,

The gray-haired boy was sleeping on the gun carriage.

We walked towards him from Russia.

Waking up, he waved his hand to the troops...

You say there are others

That I was there and it’s time for me to go home...

You know this grief firsthand,

And it broke our hearts.

Who ever saw this boy,

He won't be able to come home until the end.

I must see with the same eyes

With which I cried there in the dust,

How will that boy return with us?

And he will kiss a handful of his soil.

For everything that you and I treasured,

The military law called us to battle.

Now my home is not where we lived before,

And where he was taken from the boy.

This poem, beautiful in its high sorrow, is in tune with the poetry of Olga Feodorovna Berggolts (1910-1975), who glorified with passionate restraint the tragedy of besieged Leningrad. Compare with it, for example, the lines from the “February Diary” (1942):

It was day like day.

A friend came to see me

without crying, she told me that yesterday

I buried my only friend,

and we were silent with her until the morning.

What words could I find?

I too am a Leningrad widow...

And the city was covered in dense frost.

County snowdrifts, silence...

You can’t find tram lines in the snow,

The runners alone can hear the complaint.

The runners creak and creak along the Nevsky.

On a children's sled, narrow, funny,

they carry blue water in saucepans,

firewood and belongings, the dead and the sick...

This is how the townspeople have been roaming since December

many miles away, in thick foggy darkness,

in the wilderness of blind, icy buildings

looking for a warmer corner.

Here is a woman taking her husband somewhere.

Gray half-mask on the face,

in the hands of a can - this is soup for dinner.

The shells are whistling, the cold is fierce...

Comrades, we are in a ring of fire.

And the girl with the frosty face,

stubbornly clenching his blackened mouth,

body wrapped in a blanket

lucky to go to the Okhtinskoe cemetery.

Lucky, swinging - to get there by evening...

The eyes look dispassionately into the darkness.

Take off your hat, citizen!

They are transporting a Leningrader,

died at a combat post.

The runners in the city creak, they creak...

But we don't cry: they say the truth,

that the tears of the Leningraders froze.

The theme of fallen soldiers who did not return from the front and defenders of the homeland is widely represented in military poetry. It sounds soulfully in the poem “Cranes” by the Dagestan poet Rasul Gamzatov (1923-2003), which was translated from the Avar language into Russian by the translator Naum Grebnev (1968):

Sometimes it seems to me that the soldiers

Those who did not come from the bloody fields,

They once did not perish in this earth,

And they turned into white cranes.

They are still from those distant times

Isn’t that why it’s so often and sad

Do we fall silent while looking at the heavens?

The feeling of repentance for those left on the battlefields is clearly conveyed in the sad poetic meditation of Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky (1910-1971):

I know it's not my fault

The fact that others did not come from the war,

The fact that they - some older, some younger -

We stayed there, and it’s not about the same thing,

That I could, but failed to save them, -

This is not about that, but still, still, still...

Pay attention to the speech structure of the poem: the poet seems to be talking to his memory, the experience is conveyed through repetitions that we allow in speech when we are deeply immersed in our feelings. The theme of the poem is set by the following technique: the author brings the negation “none” forward, thereby showing the acuteness of the feeling of his guilt. And then there are repetitions, slowing down the rhythm of the poem, conveying the severity of the doubt that gripped the lyrical hero: “in that - in that”; “and that’s not what we’re talking about - it’s not about that”; “yet - still - still.” Apparently, these feelings prompted the poet to imagine himself as a dead soldier, thereby creating a lyrical situation of co-experience in the poem “I was killed near Rzhev”:

I was killed near Rzhev

I was killed near Rzhev,

In a nameless swamp

In the fifth company,

On the left,

During a brutal attack.

I didn't hear the break

And I didn’t see that flash, -

Right off the cliff into the abyss -

And no bottom, no tires.

And throughout this world

Until the end of his days -

Not a buttonhole

From my tunic.

I am where the blind roots are

They look for food in the darkness;

I am where with the cloud of dust

Rye is growing on the hill.

I am where the cock crows

At dawn in the dew;

I - where are your cars

The air is torn on the highway.

Where - blade of grass to blade of grass -

A river of grass spins,

Where for the funeral

Even my mother won't come.

In the summer of a bitter year

I'm killed. For me -

No news, no reports

After this day.

Count them alive

How long ago

Was at the front for the first time

Suddenly Stalingrad was named.

The front was burning without subside,

Like a scar on the body.

I'm killed and I don't know -

Is Rzhev finally ours?

Did ours hold out?

There, on the Middle Don?

This month was terrible.

Everything was at stake.

Is it really until autumn?

Don was already behind him

And at least the wheels

Did he escape to the Volga?

No it is not true! Tasks

The enemy did not win that one.

No, no! Otherwise,

Even dead - how?

And among the dead, the voiceless,

There is one consolation:

We fell for our homeland,

Our eyes have dimmed

The flame of the heart went out.

On the ground checking

They are not calling out to us.

We are like a bump, like a stone,

Even more muted, darker.

Our eternal memory -

Who is jealous of her?

By right our ashes

Mastered the black soil.

Our eternal glory -

Sad reason.

We have our own combat

Don't wear medals.

All this for you, the living.

We have only one joy,

That it was not for nothing that they fought

We are for the motherland.

You should know him.

You should have, brothers,

Stand like a wall

For the dead are a curse -

This punishment is terrible.

It's bitter right

We have been given forever

And it’s behind us -

This is sadly true.

In the summer, in forty-two,

I am buried without a grave.

Everything that happened afterwards

Death deprived me.

To everyone that may have been a long time ago

Everyone is familiar and clear.

But let it be

It agrees with our faith.

Brothers, maybe you

And don't lose

And in the rear of Moscow

They died for her.

And in the Trans-Volga distance

They quickly dug trenches,

And we got there fighting

To the limit of Europe.

It's enough for us to know

What was certain

There's the last inch

On the military road, -

That last inch

What if you leave it?

That stepped back

There's nowhere to put your foot...

And the enemy was turned

You are heading west, back.

Maybe brothers.

And Smolensk has already been taken?

And you smash the enemy

On another frontier

Maybe you're heading to the border

Have you arrived yet?

Maybe... Yes it will come true

The word of the holy oath:

After all, Berlin, if you remember,

It was named near Moscow.

Brothers, now deceased

The fortress of the enemy's land,

If the dead, fallen

At least they could cry!

If only the volleys were victorious

Us, dumb and deaf,

Us who are betrayed to eternity,

Resurrected for a moment.

Oh, faithful comrades,

Only then would there be a war

Your happiness is immeasurable

You have achieved it completely!

In it, that happiness is undeniable

Our blood part

Ours, cut short by death,

Faith, hatred, passion.

Our everything! We weren't lying

We're in a tough fight

Having given everything, they did not leave

Nothing on you.

Everything is listed on you

Forever, not temporarily.

Because in this war

We didn't know the difference:

Those who are alive, those who have fallen -

We were equal.

And no one is in front of us

The living are not in debt,

Who from our hands the banner

Picked it up on the run

For the holy cause,

For Soviet power

I was killed near Rzhev,

That one is still near Moscow...

Somewhere, warriors, where are you,

Who is left alive?!

In cities of millions,

In villages, at home - in the family?

In combat garrisons

On land that is not ours?

Oh, is it our own, is it someone else’s,

All in flowers or snow...

I bequeath to you to live -

What more can I do?

I bequeath in that life

You should be happy

Grieving is proud

Without bowing your head.

Rejoicing is not boastful

At the hour of victory itself.

And cherish it sacredly,

Brothers, - your happiness, -

In memory of the warrior-brother,

That he died for her.

The most famous work in Russian poetry about the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. – Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin,” which the poet composed throughout the war. This poem is a book about a Russian soldier; one might say, it was not even created as a literary work, it was born from the thick of a soldier’s life day after day. New chapters of the poem that appeared were published in front-line and central newspapers. The front-line soldiers loved her and waited for her to continue, and she went through all four years of the war with them. The image of Vasily Terkin, a joker soldier, a heroic soldier, represented a purely Russian national type of hero, who ceased to be a literary, fictional character, and became a close, living person. 28 poetic chapters of the poem and the author's addresses convey the history of the four-year war, the path overcome by the Russian soldier. And the last chapter, “In the Bath,” represents the Russian tradition of cleansing oneself from the filth of war.

An international theme occupies a significant place in war poetry. Thus, in his most famous poem about the war, “The Italian” (1943), the poet Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov (Sheinkman) (1903-1964) mourns the senseless death of an Italian soldier who died at the hands of the lyrical hero - the Russian defender of his homeland. Pay attention to the main pathos of the poem - the affirmation of the closeness of peoples, cultures, natural beauty, originality, and any attempt to seize someone else's land, violence is madness and leads only to death.

Black cross on the chest of an Italian,

No carving, no pattern, no gloss, -

Kept by a poor family

And worn by his only son...

Young native of Naples!

What did you leave on the field in Russia?

Why couldn't you be happy

Above the famous native bay?

I, who killed you near Mozdok,

I dreamed so much about a distant volcano!

How I dreamed in the Volga region

Take a ride in a gondola at least once!

But I didn't come with a gun

Taking away the Italian summer

But my bullets didn’t whistle

Over the sacred land of Raphael!

Here I shot! Here where I was born

Where I was proud of myself and my friends,

Where are the epics about our peoples

They never appear in translations.

Is the middle Don bend

Has it been studied by foreign scientists?

Our land - Russia, Russia -

Have you plowed and sowed?

No! They brought you in a train

To capture distant colonies,

To cross from a family casket

Grew to the size of a grave...

I won't let my homeland be taken away

For the vastness of foreign seas!

I shoot - and there is no justice

Fairer than my bullet!

You have never lived or been here!..

But scattered in the snowy fields

Italian blue sky

Glazed in dead eyes...

However, no beauty of poetry, no wisdom of the poet can compensate for the disasters and sorrows brought by war. This experience, the eternal regret about an unlived life, is bitterly expressed in the poem that became the text of the bard song “Goodbye, boys” by the poet Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava (1924-1997):

Oh, war, what have you done, vile one:

our yards have become quiet,

our boys raised their heads,

they have matured for the time being,

barely loomed on the threshold

and went after the soldier soldier...

Goodbye boys! boys,

try to go back.

No, don't hide, be tall

spare neither bullets nor grenades

and you don’t spare yourself... And yet

try to go back.

Oh, war, what have you done, vile one?

Instead of weddings - separation and smoke!

Our girls' dresses are white

They gave it to their sisters.

Boots... Well, where can you get away from them?

Yes, green wings...

Don't give a damn about the gossipers, girls!

We'll settle the score with them later.

Let them chatter that you have nothing to believe in,

Why are you going to war at random...

Goodbye girls! Girls,

Try to go back!

The truly Russian position, the attitude towards aggression - firm, indestructible by fear or confusion - was expressed by the classic of Russian poetry of the 20th century. poetess Anna Akhmatova in the chased miniature “Oath”:

And the one who today says goodbye to her beloved, -

Let her transform her pain into strength.

We swear to the children, we swear to the graves,

That no one will force us to submit!

July 1941, Leningrad

A year later, Akhmatov’s poem “The Oath” continues with another theme, even more relevant - the theme of courage. Russian history teaches us in those times when difficulties seem incredible and trials reach the highest severity and seem incredibly difficult to withstand, that there is the strength of the Russian spirit, unyielding, filled with grace:

COURAGE

We know what's on the scales now

And what is happening now.

The hour of courage has struck on our watch,

And courage will not leave us.

It's not scary to lie dead under bullets,

It's not bitter to be homeless,

And we will save you, Russian speech,

Great Russian word.

We will carry you free and clean,

We will give it to our grandchildren and save us from captivity

And the poem “Victory” (1945) seems to return the reader to the atmosphere of ancient Russian sacred rituals: the celebration of victory, the greeting of defenders, thanksgiving offered to God:

Victory is at our door...

How will we greet the welcome guest?

Let women raise their children higher,

Saved from a thousand thousand deaths, -

This is our long-awaited answer.

"THE CHERRY ORCHARD"

The play “The Cherry Orchard” completes Chekhov’s dramatic work. The writer began working on the play in the spring of 1901, although its concept began to take shape long before that, which is manifested in previous works, the features of future heroes and the characters of “The Cherry Orchard” are discerned in them. And the very theme of the play, based on the sale of the estate, was also touched upon by the writer before. Thus, the problematics of “The Cherry Orchard” seem to generalize and summarize the artistic ideas of both Chekhov himself and Russian literature of the 19th century. generally.

The plot of the play is based on the theme of the sale of the lord's estate for debts, the collapse of the centuries-old way of life of the local nobility. A topic like this is always dramatic in itself, since we are talking about a sad change in people’s destinies, either for the worse or for the unknown. However, “The Cherry Orchard” does not touch on a special case, the history of one estate, one family and people associated with it - the play shows a historical moment in Russia, the time of the inevitable departure from the national life of the landowner class with its cultural, everyday, economic way of life. Chekhov created a system of characters that fully reflects the socio-historical situation depicted in the work: local nobles, a merchant-entrepreneur, a student commoner, the younger generation (the real and adopted daughter of the mistress), an employee, a governess, a servant, numerous episodic and off-stage characters.

The author called his play a comedy at the beginning of work on it; he said that he was writing a work that would be very funny. However, the artistic directors of the Moscow Art Theater, where Chekhov gave the play, perceived it as a heavy drama and treated it that way when staging it on stage. The genre of “The Cherry Orchard” is defined as comedy, drama, and, sometimes, tragicomedy. Perhaps the contradiction is apparent, and the play represents a kind of super-genre unity that has yet to be realized?

The first production of The Cherry Orchard took place at the Moscow Art Theater on January 17, 1904, six months before the writer’s death (July 15, 1904). It turned out to be a significant event in the cultural life of Russia: in addition to the seriously ill Chekhov, many writers and artists were present. We can say that there was also a significant political event, as if predicting the history of the next century - the first Russian revolution, which broke out a year later.

1. A.P. Chekhov wrote to O.L. Knipper: “Why is my play so persistently called a drama on posters and in newspaper advertisements? Nemirovich and Alekseev positively see in my play something other than what I wrote, and I am ready to give any word that both of them have never read my play carefully.” Explain what features of the play you need to pay attention to in order to understand why Chekhov defined its genre as a comedy.

THE ORIGINALITY OF THE Plot AND COMPOSITION OF “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

Any deep understanding of the play is impossible if you do not pay attention to the main dramatic techniques used in it by Chekhov. First of all, let's answer how long the events in The Cherry Orchard take. Experience shows that readers usually answer: a few days, two weeks, a month, sometimes more - although everyone has the same impression - events do not last long. Meanwhile, let's turn to the text. At the beginning of Act 1 we read: “It’s already May, the cherry trees are blooming, but it’s cold in the garden, it’s a matinee.” And in the 4th, last act, Lopakhin says: “It’s October, but it’s sunny and quiet, like in summer.” This means that at least 5 months have passed in the play.

Thus, in the play there are, as it were, two counts of time: an objective one, for everyone, and a subjective one, for the participants in the events and the reader. The plot also distinguishes two plans: a general, historical one, in the center of which is the disappearance of the local way of life in Russia, and a personal one - the private life and destinies of people. Thanks to this display of the conflict and the main event (loss of property), the writer gets the opportunity to convey, on the one hand, the historical inevitability of this process and the severity of its experience, on the other.

The composition of the work, as it turned out, was also influenced by the duality of the plot. Please note that the sale of the garden at auction is inevitable, and the reader understands this already in the first act. But this event should become the culmination of the play, while there is no surprise, tension inherent in the climax, since everyone, both the heroes and we, know the outcome in advance. Consequently, the composition has two plans: external action, starting from arrival, i.e. the gathering of all participants in the conflict in the first act, and their departure from the estate in the last. The second plan of the composition determines the “internal action” in the play, in other words, the experiences of its characters, which merge together, forming a special psychological subtext in the work. Vl.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko called this artistic effect undercurrent. Let's see how it manifests itself in the construction of the play using the example of the climax. According to the external action, the climax occurs in Act 3, in which the garden was sold in reality - on August 8 at auction. However, if we analyze the play taking into account undercurrent, it will be discovered that on a psychological level the climax occurred in Act 2, in the episode with the sound of a breaking string, when the main characters internally recognized the inevitability of losing their estate.

The greatest severity and intensity of the conflict is manifested not in external events, but in the dialogues and monologues of the characters. Even pauses, which, it would seem, should delay the action and distract the attention of readers and viewers, on the contrary, create tension, since we, along with the characters, seem to experience their internal state during the pause. Even some, at first glance, absurd expressions, like Gaev’s billiard words like “from both sides to the middle,” play the role of a kind of pause. The fact is that they do not show the hero’s emptiness and inadequacy, but his embarrassment and serve as a psychological pause for him. The play abounds in these kinds of details; they represent an incredibly complex and varied mosaic, and, being heterogeneous, they constitute a unity of the highest level, depicting life as such.

CHARACTER SYSTEM OF THE PLAY “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

The creation of the play “The Cherry Orchard” and its appearance on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater (1901-1904) covers last the period of Russian national life before global and catastrophic upheavals for the former Russia. Therefore, when considering the play's character system, two considerations need to be taken into account. First, a year after the performance of the play, the Russian society depicted in it will disappear forever. Secondly, Russian society, as it is depicted in the artist’s play, was exactly like that.

In society, as always, there is an active part of the population, which determines the general life, and a passive part, i.e. those who live the way it works. Among the first, of course, should be the nobility, entrepreneurs, and educated commoners. They are presented in the images of nobles - Ranevskaya and a member of her family, Simeonov-Pishchik, merchant-entrepreneur Lopakhinak, student Trofimov. Among the rest are people who do not belong to the privileged classes: small employees, hired workers, servants. In the play, these are the clerk Epikhodov, the governess Charlotte Ivanovna, the maid Dunyasha, and both footmen: the old footman Firs and the young footman Yasha. One should not think that they together constitute a certain mass of insignificant people. No. Each of them is no less important as a member of society and a person. Let's take just one example. You noticed the constant care of the footman Firs for Gaev, which lasted 51 years, from the birth of the master.

What is Russian society like, represented by the characters in The Cherry Orchard? At first glance, this depicts ordinary, traditional local life. However, there is one feature common to all of them: their existence is at odds with reality, i.e. real life today. Thus, Ranevskaya is called a rich landowner, while she no longer has a fortune. Her daughter Anya, therefore, is not a local young lady of marriageable age, but a dowry expelled from her native estate. Gaev is a Russian gentleman who did not notice that he lived for 51 years. The existence of Ranevskaya's adopted daughter Varya does not have any definite basis: she is a rootless orphan and a housekeeper on an estate where there is no household. The life of governess Charlotte Ivanovna is even more ephemeral: there are no children in the house. Who might need her, since Anya grew up, and her brother Grisha drowned at an early age. Epikhodov is a clerk without an office, a restless, unhappy person with a dull existence and an absurd imagination. Dunyasha is a maid girl who does not understand who she is and what is happening in her life. The lackeys Firs and Yasha also turn out to be people at odds with reality: the lordly time has passed and there is no place for Firs in the new reality, and the arrogant Yasha perceives the new life only from the base side. The hectic daily activities of the landowner Simeonov-Pishchik, who is occupied exclusively with debts on the estate, cannot be called life, i.e. not a living, but a surviving person.

Of course, the merchant Lopakhin can be recognized as a person who successfully lives in the real world. He is rich, active, enterprising, strives to become a member of a decent, high circle, wants to be a cultured, educated person, is not averse to getting married and starting a family, i.e. take root in modern life. He buys the estate, as if inheriting the position of its previous owners. However, there are some features in Lopakhin’s image that do not allow him to be fully called a man of today. Please note that the former man Lopakhin lives by the ideals of the past order of life; most of all, he cherishes the childhood memory of how young Ranevskaya washed his bloody nose, and, pronouncing his jubilant monologue after buying a cherry orchard, at the end he exclaims with tears: “Oh “If only all this would pass, if only our awkward, unhappy life would somehow change.”

It is difficult to define a consistent image of student Petya Trofimov. They often say to him that people like him and Anya Ranevskaya are the future. Perhaps this view is to some extent justified: Petya is an intelligent, educated person, he has ideals that seem lofty, and he draws Anya along with them. However, two nicknames that accompany him in the play are alarming: “eternal student” and “shabby gentleman.” The first contains a contradiction: a student is a temporary social state, but Trofimov is forever in it, so some doubt arises in the future activities of the hero, especially since he leads a rather relaxed lifestyle for a promising person, living for six months in someone else’s outbuilding and pronouncing pompous monologues . And one woman on the train eloquently called Petya Trofimov: “a shabby gentleman” - with such a past, the hero looks more like a person from a past life than a future one.

Thus, all the heroes of “The Cherry Orchard” do not live according to their present time, the content of their lives does not coincide with the realities of today, everyone seems to live in the time of “yesterday”. It seems that real life is passing them by. But there is a hero in the play who lived his life in what remained of Russia in the 19th century - the old footman Firs. In act 1, Ranevskaya says to Firs:

“Thank you, Firs, thank you, my old man. I'm so glad you're still alive.

Firs. Day before yesterday.

Gaev. He doesn't hear well."

Of course, Firs is hard of hearing, and this is the reason for the inappropriate answer. But we understand the author’s idea this way: if all the heroes live in the time of “yesterday,” then Firs, like the departing Russia, lives in the time of “the day before yesterday.”

PROBLEMS OF THE PLAY “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

The problems of the play “The Cherry Orchard” can be considered on 3 levels. First of all, these are questions related to the individual life of a person and his fate, and the main ones are how the lives of these people turned out and why it turned out that way. To understand them, the author turns to the hero’s living conditions, circumstances, character, psychology, actions, etc. For example, the most complex character is Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. This character seems especially contradictory with the heroine’s sharp transitions from sentimentality and tearfulness to detachment and even insensibility. How and under the influence of what factors did it develop? It is clear that her life is broken, her family is destroyed, she herself is restless and unhappy. When did this merciless and irreversible process begin? When did she marry a non-nobleman, according to Gaev? Or when Grisha's son drowned? When did she leave everything and go to Paris, leaving her daughter and estate?

Such questions can be asked about every significant character in the play. Why can't Petya Trofimov complete his university course? Why did Gaev not notice his life and have only two passions - playing billiards and lollipops? Why didn’t Lopakhin propose to Varya? Why is Epikhodov pitiful and immersed in meaningless, inadequate dreams? Many such questions arise, which indicates that the play is completely saturated with meaning. In other words, there is not a single line in it, not a single detail that does not carry with it a deep and subtle thought that must be understood, otherwise the work cannot be read, and the performance cannot be watched with the participation that Chekhov wanted to evoke.

So, the first level of the play’s problematics reflects the problems of human existence in the new time of Russia, which in the 19th century increasingly began to be called the sphere existence. It was then that the philosophy of existentialism developed in European thought, and in art the artistic expression of these problems in life.

The second level of the play's problematics represents the depiction of socio-historical changes in the Russian state and Russian national life. The central event in the play is the historical result of centuries-old feudal-serf relations in society: after the abolition of serfdom, the disappearance of the local way of life. Pay attention to the significant dialogue between Gaev and Firs in the episode with the sound of a broken string in Act 2. The characters each explain the strange sound in their own way. Firs explains, at first glance, inappropriately (keep in mind that Chekhov always conveys the real meaning through Firs’ statements):

Firs. Before the misfortune, there was the same thing: the owl was screaming, and the samovar was humming uncontrollably.

Gaev. Before what misfortune?

Firs. Before the will.

And finally, the third level is philosophical, and here the main question of the play is this: how do individual life and the fate of a person relate, i.e. his dreams, ideals, love, feelings, experiences, losses with existence in society, the course of history, changes in living conditions? Are there unshakable, permanent values at the basis of a person’s life? What is its source and support?

The most important question is the question of life as such, not of a person, not of society, not of historical life or any other. This is the question - what is life? Life, which represents an eternal mystery and mystery for man. The same life that transformed the old drying oak tree into a living, mighty tree that has put on leaves in Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace.”

THE PROBLEM OF THE GENRE OF THE PLAY “THE CHERRY ORCHARD”

Do you remember that Chekhov called his play comedy, although the majority of readers and viewers did not share the author’s assessment of the genre and were inclined to consider the play a heavy drama with tragic-comic elements. This is how K.S. Stanislavsky and Vl.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko reacted to the play at the Moscow Art Theater, where it was staged. How to resolve this contradiction and does it really exist?

“Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region” is perhaps the most famous poem by Konstantin Simonov. This is a leisurely conversation with his faithful front-line comrade. A brief analysis of “Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region” according to plan will show 6th grade students all aspects of this work and will help them better understand it in a literature lesson.

Brief Analysis

History of creation– the work was written at the very beginning of the war, in 1941.

Theme of the poem– the greatness of the Russian land and its people, who can withstand anything.

Composition– the poem is divided into two parts: the first part shows the author’s memories of the retreat. The second expresses the idea of the inextricability of the connection between soldiers and people.

Genre- a message to a friend.

Poetic size- amphibrachs with cross rhyme.

Epithets – “evil rains”, “tired women”, “Russian outskirts”, “road melancholy”, “widow’s tear”, “woman’s instinct”, “bitter land“.

Comparisons – “clutching the krinks like children”, “as if dressed for death”.

Metaphors – “a path measured by tears”, “a girl’s cry crying for the dead”, “war brought together on the country roads”.

Personifications – “the pastures were talking”, “the forests were talking”, “the voices are coming”, “the bullets are merciful”.

History of creation

The poem “Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region” was written by Konstantin Simonov in 1941. Then he was impressed by the retreat of the Soviet army. Like his friend Alexey Surkov, during the war years he was a correspondent, which means he retreated with her. The poet could not forget how the soldiers were greeted and seen off in the villages where the Germans were soon to arrive. He captured his emotions in poetic lines.

Subject

The greatness of the Motherland, which is especially clearly manifested in difficult periods for it. Simonov created a large canvas on which he showed this greatness through the image of the road: it leads soldiers to new battles, and those who remain behind are ready to wait until they return and drive away the Nazis. The author expresses the idea that the roots and strength of a nation are not in cities, but in a simple rural wilderness.

Composition

Compositionally, the poem can be divided into two parts. Konstantin Simonov devotes the first to the history of the retreat, which he himself witnessed. They paint everyday pictures of the Russian village - old people, in whose huts soldiers stopped to rest, women carrying jugs of milk to the road.

The second part is filled with the pathos of the connection between generations, the greatness of the Russian people, whose representatives are ready to die for their land.

Genre

The author of the poem “Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region” uses a rather unusual genre of a message to a friend, which became an appeal to the traditions of his native poetry. This verse shows the poet’s attitude to what is happening - he feels a connection with his people, including his ancestors, he feels that it is still preserved in the village. This is a sincere story about feelings that only a loved one can understand.

It is written in amphibrachium with cross rhyme.

Means of expression

In this work, Simonov uses a wide variety of expressive means:

Epithets- “evil rains”, “tired women”, “Russian outskirts”, “road melancholy”, “widow’s tear”, “woman’s instinct”, “bitter land”.
Comparisons- “clutching the krinks like children,” “as if dressed for death.”
Metaphors- “a path measured by tears”, “a girl’s cry crying for the dead”, “the war has brought together the country roads”.
Personifications- “pastures spoke”, “forests spoke”, “voices are coming”, “bullets have mercy”.

With their help, the poet creates images that help him more clearly express the main idea. They also form an equally important part of the poem - its emotional background.