Home Poem " Vasily Terkin

"dated to 1941-1945 - the difficult, terrible and heroic years of the struggle of the Soviet people against the Nazi invaders. In this work, Alexander Tvardovsky created the immortal image of a simple Soviet soldier, defender of the Fatherland, who became a kind of personification of deep patriotism and love for his Motherland.

History of creation

The poem began to be written in 1941. Selected excerpts were published in newspaper versions between 1942 and 1945. Also in 1942, the still unfinished work was published separately.

Oddly enough, work on the poem was started by Tvardovsky back in 1939. It was then that he already worked as a war correspondent and covered the progress of the Finnish military campaign in the newspaper “On Guard of the Motherland.” The name was coined in collaboration with members of the newspaper's editorial board. In 1940, a small brochure “Vasya Terkin at the Front” was published, which was considered a great reward among the soldiers.

The newspaper's readers liked the image of the Red Army soldier from the very beginning. Realizing this, Tvardovsky decided that this topic was promising and began to develop it.

From the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, being at the front as a war correspondent, he found himself in the hottest battles. He gets surrounded with soldiers, gets out of it, retreats and goes on the attack, experiencing first-hand everything that he would like to write about.

In the spring of 1942, Tvardovsky arrived in Moscow, where he wrote the first chapters “From the Author” and “At a Rest”, and they were immediately published in the newspaper “Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda”.

As always, what the common people liked did not receive the support of the party. Tvardovsky was criticized for pessimism, for the lack of mention that the party is in charge of all accomplishments and achievements. In this regard, the author wanted to finish the poem in 1943, but grateful readers did not allow him to do this. Tvardovsky had to agree to censorship edits, in return he was awarded the Stalin Prize for his immortal work. The poem was completed in March 1945 - it was then that the author wrote the chapter “In the Bath”.

Description of the work

The poem has 30 chapters, which can be roughly divided into 3 parts. In four chapters, Tvardovsky does not talk about the hero, but simply talks about the war, about how much ordinary Soviet men who stood up to defend their Motherland had to endure, and hints at the progress of work on the book. The role of these digressions cannot be downplayed - this is a dialogue between the author and the readers, which he conducts directly, even bypassing his hero.

There is no clear chronological sequence in the course of the story. Moreover, the author does not name specific battles and battles, however, individual battles and operations highlighted in the history of the Great Patriotic War are discernible in the poem: the retreat of Soviet troops, so common in 1941 and 1942, the battle of the Volga, and, of course, the capture Berlin.

There is no strict plot in the poem - and the author did not have the task of conveying the course of the war. The central chapter is “Crossing”. The main idea of ​​the work is clearly visible there - a military road. It is along this path that Terkin and his comrades move towards achieving their goal - complete victory over the Nazi invaders, and therefore, towards a new, better and free life.

Hero of the work

Main character- Vasily Terkin. A fictional character, cheerful, cheerful, straightforward, despite the difficult circumstances in which he lives during the war.

We observe Vasily in different situations - and we can note him everywhere positive traits. Among his brothers-in-arms, he is the life of the party, a joker who always finds an opportunity to joke and make others laugh. When he goes on the attack, he is an example for other fighters, showing his qualities such as resourcefulness, courage, and endurance. When he rests after a fight, he can sing, he plays the accordion, but at the same time he can answer quite harshly and with humor. When soldiers meet civilians, Vasily is all charm and modesty.

Courage and dignity, shown in all, even the most hopeless situations, are the main features that distinguish the main character of the work and form his image.

All the other characters in the poem are abstract - they don’t even have names. The brothers-in-arms, the general, the old man and the old woman - they all just play along, helping to reveal the image of the main character - Vasily Terkin.

Analysis of the work

Since Vasily Terkin does not have a real prototype, we can safely say that this is a kind of collective image that was created by the author, based on his real observations of soldiers.

The work has one distinctive feature that sets it apart from similar works of that time - the absence of an ideological principle. The poem contains no praise for the party or Comrade Stalin personally. This, according to the author, “would destroy the idea and figurative structure of the poem.”

The work uses two poetic meters: tetrameter and trimeter trochee. The first dimension occurs much more often, the second - only in certain chapters. The language of the poem became a kind of Tvardovsky card. Some moments that look like sayings and lines from funny songs, as they say, “went among the people” and began to be used in everyday speech. For example, the phrase “No, guys, I’m not proud, I agree to a medal” or “Soldiers surrender cities, generals take them from them” are still used by many today.

It was on people like the main character of this poem in verse that all the hardships of the war fell. And only their human qualities - fortitude, optimism, humor, the ability to laugh at others and at themselves, in time to defuse a tense situation to the limit - helped them not only win, but also survive in this terrible and merciless war.

The poem is still alive and loved by the people. In 2015, the Russian Reporter magazine conducted sociological research regarding hundreds of the most popular poems in Russia. Lines from “Vasily Terkin” took 28th place, which suggests that the memory of the events of 70 years ago and the feat of those heroes is still alive in our memory.

The main character of the poem is a collective, generalized image that embodies the entire warring people. Almost nothing is said about the specific personality of Vasily Terkin. It is only known that he is in his twenties - closer to thirty, and that he, like the author, comes from the Smolensk region, that “he fought in Karelian - beyond the Sestra River.”

Terkin is a great lover of life, “a hunter to live until he is ninety years old,” he joined the ranks from the reserve, serves in the infantry, in the troops “closest to the earth, to the cold, to fire and death.” For him, war is an ordinary job that needs to be done correctly, skillfully, not for the sake of glory, but “for the sake of life on earth.”

Terkin - who is he?
Let's be honest:
Just a guy himself
He's ordinary...
Not tall, not that small,
But a hero is a hero...

Tvardovsky shows through ordinariness and averageness. Typicality of Terkin, because he is the embodiment of the mass of soldiers who bore all the hardships of the war. However, Terkin's image is devoid of schematism. This is a cheerful, full-blooded hero, with his own special character.

He is a cheerful fellow, a jokester at a rest stop, a lover of hearty food, he is not averse to amusing his comrades by playing the accordion (“Accordion”), helping the elderly (“Two Soldiers”), or chopping wood for a soldier (“Before the Battle”).

This is a cheerful, good-natured, broad Russian nature, with a generous heart, combining such primordial Russian qualities as sincerity and nobility, sharpness and wisdom, determination and courage.

Vasily Terkin is a heroic image. Without hesitation, he swims across to the other side in November to report that the platoon that has crossed has gained a foothold on the other side (“Crossing”), occupies an enemy bunker and holds it until his own troops arrive (“Terkin is wounded”), and shoots down an enemy plane (“Who shot?”), taking the place of the killed lieutenant, rouses the soldiers to attack and is the first to break into the village (“On the offensive”), encourages and inspires the exhausted soldiers during the battle for the unknown “settlement of Borki”, “Where the war paved the way , / / ​​Where the water was knee-deep for the infantry, the mud was pile-deep (“Battle in the Swamp”).

In the “Duel” chapter, which is the culmination of the entire poem, Terkin enters into hand-to-hand combat with a German who is physically stronger:

Tervin knew that in this fight
He is weaker: not the same grub.

But Terkin’s morale and confidence in victory are stronger, so he emerges victorious:

And then,
Taking anger and pain into a fist,
An unloaded grenade

The German's terkin - with the left - smack!
The German groaned and went limp...

This chapter echoes epic epic, and the fight itself grows into a symbolic generalization “Man-people”. Terkin, symbolizing Russia, confronts a strong and formidable enemy, symbolizing Nazi Germany:

Like on an ancient battlefield,

Chest to chest, like shield to shield, -
Instead of thousands, two fight,
As if the fight would solve everything.

But it should be noted that the image of Terkin is deliberately devoid of a romantic aura by the author. as if even lowered. This is achieved through the introduction of colloquial vocabulary, vernacular (“he cracked a German between the eyes”, “threw him into a sled”, “gave bream”, Terkin a German with his left - “smack”, etc.)

Thus, the author seeks to emphasize that the main character is not only a generalized image-symbol, but also a personality, individuality, that for him war is work, hard, dirty, but necessary, inevitable, not for glory, not for orders and medals, not for promotion.
And only in the final stanza does the author allow himself to rise to a large-scale, solemn-sounding generalization:

A terrible battle is going on, bloody,
Mortal combat is not for glory,
For the sake of life on earth.

In the dispute between the two forces, goodness, love and life itself won. These lines are heard repeatedly in the poem; they are a kind of refrain that emphasizes main topic works: an unprecedented feat of a Russian soldier.

We encounter the same technique of generalization and individualization in the chapter “Terkin - Terkin”. Vasily meets his namesake Ivan. Ivan differs from Vasily only in his hair color (he is red), his front-line profession (armor-piercer), but otherwise both heroes are similar. The dispute between them is decided by the foreman:

What don't you understand here?
Don't you understand?
According to the regulations of each company
Terkin will be given his own.

Tvardovsky's poem is often called an encyclopedia of military reality of the Great Era Patriotic War"(by analogy with Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin"). Indeed, the book about the fighter is written extremely truthfully. The truth of war, no matter how bitter it is, hits straight into the soul.

The poet does not embellish the events, does not portray the exploits of his hero as light and funny; on the contrary, the strongest chapters in the poem are those colored with tragic pathos: “Crossing”, “Fight in the Swamp”, “Death and the Warrior”, “About the Orphan Soldier” "

The history of the creation of Tvardovsky’s work “Vasily Terkin”

Since the autumn of 1939, Tvardovsky participated in the Finnish campaign as a war correspondent. “It seems to me,” he wrote to M.V. Isakovsky, “that the army will be my second theme for the rest of my life.” And the poet was not mistaken. In the edition of the Leningrad Military District “On Guard of the Motherland,” a group of poets had an idea to create a series of entertaining drawings about the exploits of a cheerful soldier-hero. “Someone,” recalls Tvardovsky, “suggested calling our hero Vasya Terkin, namely Vasya, and not Vasily.” In creating a collective work about a resilient, successful fighter, Tvardovsky was instructed to write an introduction: “... I had to give at least the most general “portrait” of Terkin and determine, so to speak, the tone, the manner of our further conversation with the reader.”
This is how the poem “Vasya Terkin” appeared in the newspaper (1940 - January 5). The success of the feuilleton hero prompted the idea to continue the story about the adventures of the resilient Vasya Terkin. As a result, the book “Vasya Terkin at the Front” (1940) was published. During the Great Patriotic War, this image became the main one in Tvardovsky’s work. “Vasily Terkin” walked along with Tvardovsky along the roads of war. The first publication of “Vasily Terkin” took place in the newspaper of the Western Front “Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda”, where on September 4, 1942 the introductory chapter “From the author” and “At a halt” were published. From then until the end of the war, chapters of the poem were published in this newspaper, in the magazines “Red Army Man” and “Znamya”, as well as in other print media.
“...My work ends coincidentally with the end of the war. One more effort of a refreshed soul and body is needed - and it will be possible to put an end to it,” the poet wrote on May 4, 1945. This is how the completed poem “Vasily Terkin. A book about a fighter" (1941-1945). Tvardovsky wrote that working on it gave him a “feeling” of the legitimacy of the artist’s place in the great struggle of the people... a feeling of complete freedom to handle poetry and words.
In 1946, almost one after another, three complete editions of “The Book about a Fighter” were published.

Type, genre, creative method of the analyzed work

In the spring of 1941, the poet worked hard on the chapters of the future poem, but the outbreak of war changed these plans. The revival of the idea and the resumption of work on "Terkin" dates back to the middle of 1942. From this time it began new stage work on the work: “The entire character of the poem, its entire content, its philosophy, its hero, its form - composition, genre, plot - have changed. The nature of the poetic narrative about the war has changed - the homeland and the people, the people in the war, have become the main themes.” Although, when starting to work on it, the poet was not too worried about this, as evidenced by his own words: “I did not long languish with doubts and fears regarding the uncertainty of the genre, the lack of an initial plan that would embrace the entire work in advance, and the weak plot connection of the chapters with each other. Not a poem - well, let it not be a poem, I decided; there is no single plot - let it be, don’t; there is no very beginning of a thing - there is no time to invent it; the climax and completion of the entire narrative is not planned - let it be, we must write about what is burning, not waiting, and then we’ll see, we’ll figure it out.”
In connection with the question of the genre of Tvardovsky’s work, the following judgments of the author seem important: “The genre designation of “The Book about a Fighter”, which I settled on, was not the result of a desire to simply avoid the designation “poem”, “story”, etc. This coincided with the decision to write not a poem, not a story or a novel in verse, that is, not something that has its own legalized and to a certain extent obligatory plot, composition and other features. These signs didn’t come out for me, but something did come out, and I designated this something as “The Book about a Fighter.”
This, as the poet himself called it, “The Book about a Soldier,” recreates a reliable picture of front-line reality, reveals the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of a person in war. It stands out among other poems of that time for its special completeness and depth of realistic depiction of the people's liberation struggle, disasters and suffering, exploits and military life.
Tvardovsky’s poem is a heroic epic, with objectivity corresponding to the epic genre, but permeated with a living author’s feeling, original in all respects, a unique book, at the same time developing the traditions of realistic literature and folk poetry. And at the same time, this is a free narrative - a chronicle (“A book about a fighter, without beginning, without end...”), which covers the entire history of the war.

Topics

The theme of the Great Patriotic War forever entered into the work of A.T. Tvardovsky. And the poem “Vasily Terkin” became one of his most striking pages. The poem is dedicated to the life of the people during the war; it is rightfully an encyclopedia of front-line life. In the center of the poem is the image of Terkin, an ordinary infantryman from the Smolensk peasants, uniting the composition of the work into a single whole. Vasily Terkin actually personifies the entire people. Found in it artistic embodiment Russian national character. In Tvardovsky’s poem, the symbol of the victorious people became an ordinary person, an ordinary soldier.
In “The Book about a Fighter” the war is depicted as it is - in everyday life and heroism, intertwining the ordinary, sometimes even comic (chapters “At a Rest”, “In the Bath”) with the sublime and tragic. The poem is strong, first of all, with the truth about war as a harsh and tragic - at the limit of possibilities - test of the vital forces of a people, a country, every person.

Idea of ​​the work

Fiction of the Great Patriotic War period has a number of characteristic features. Its main features are patriotic pathos and a focus on universal accessibility. The most successful example of this work of art The poem “Vasily Terkin” by Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky is rightfully considered. The feat of a soldier in 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 from black death only with his own back...”. And the hero who accomplishes this feat is an ordinary, simple soldier.
It is in the defense of the Motherland, life on earth that the justice of the people's Patriotic War lies: “The battle is holy and just, mortal combat is not for the sake of glory - for the sake of life on earth.” Poem by A.T. Tvardovsky’s “Vasily Terkin” has become truly popular.

Main characters

An analysis of the work shows that the poem is based on the image of the main character - private Vasily Terkin. It doesn't have a real prototype. This is a collective image that combines the typical features of the spiritual appearance and character of an ordinary Russian soldier. Dozens of people wrote about Terkin’s typicality, drawing the conclusion from the lines “there is always a guy like this in every company, and in every platoon” that this is a collective, generalized image, that one should not look for any individual qualities in him, so everything typical for a Soviet soldier. And since “he was partially scattered and partially destroyed,” this means that this is not a person at all, but a certain symbol of the whole Soviet army.
Terkin - who is he? Let's be honest: He's just a guy himself. He's ordinary.
However, the guy is no matter what, a guy like that
There is always one in every company, and in every platoon.
The image of Terkin has folklore roots, it is “a hero, a fathom in the shoulders”, “a merry fellow”, “an experienced man”. Behind the illusion of simplicity, buffoonery, and mischief lie moral sensitivity and a sense of filial duty to the Motherland, the ability to accomplish a feat at any moment without phrases or poses.
The image of Vasily Terkin really captures what is typical for many: “A guy like this / There is always a guy in every company, / And in every platoon.” However, in him the traits and properties inherent in many people were embodied brighter, sharper, more original. Folk wisdom and optimism, perseverance, endurance, patience and dedication, everyday ingenuity and skill of the Russian person - a worker and a warrior, and finally, inexhaustible humor, behind which something deeper and more serious always appears - all this is fused into a living and integral human character. The main feature of his character is his love for his native country. The hero constantly remembers his native places, which are so sweet and dear to his heart. Terkin cannot help but be attracted by mercy and greatness of soul; he finds himself in war not because of the military instinct, but for the sake of life on earth; the defeated enemy evokes in him only a feeling of pity. He is modest, although he can sometimes boast, telling his friends that he does not need an order, he agrees to a medal. But what attracts most about this person is his love of life, worldly ingenuity, mockery of the enemy and of any difficulties.
Being the embodiment of Russian national character, Vasily Terkin is inseparable from the people - the mass of soldiers and a number of episodic characters (a soldier grandfather and grandmother, tank crews in battle and on the march, a girl nurse in a hospital, a soldier’s mother returning from enemy captivity, etc.), he is inseparable from Motherland. And the entire “Book about a Fighter” is a poetic statement of national unity.
Along with the images of Terkin and the people, an important place in the overall structure of the work is occupied by the image of the author-narrator, or, more precisely, lyrical hero, especially noticeable in the chapters “About myself”, “About war”, “About love”, in four chapters “From the author”. Thus, in the chapter “About Myself,” the poet directly states, addressing the reader: “And I will tell you: I will not hide, / - In this book, here or there, / What the hero should say, / I say personally myself.”
The author in the poem is an intermediary between the hero and the reader. A confidential conversation is constantly conducted with the reader; the author respects his friend-reader, and therefore strives to convey to him the truth about the war. The author feels his responsibility to his readers; he understands how important it was not only to talk about the war, but also to instill in readers faith in the indestructible spirit of the Russian soldier and optimism. Sometimes the author seems to invite the reader to check the truth of his judgments and observations. Such direct contact with the reader greatly contributes to the fact that the poem becomes understandable to a large circle of people.
The poem constantly permeates the author's subtle humor. The text of the poem is filled with jokes, sayings, sayings, and it is generally impossible to determine who their author is - the author of the poem, the hero of the poem Terkin or the people. At the very beginning of the poem, the author calls a joke the most necessary “thing” in a soldier’s life:
You can live without food for a day, You can do more, but sometimes in a war you can’t live for one minute without a joke, The jokes of the most unwise ones.

The plot and composition of the analyzed work

The originality of the book's plot and composition is determined by military reality itself. “There is no plot in war,” the author noted in one of the chapters. And in the poem as a whole there really are no such traditional components as plot, climax, denouement. But within chapters with a narrative basis, as a rule, there is a plot of its own, and separate plot connections arise between these chapters. Finally, general development events, the revelation of the character of the hero, with all the independence of individual chapters, is clearly determined by the very course of the war, the natural change of its stages: from the bitter days of retreat and the hardest defensive battles - to the hard-fought and won victory. This is how Tvardovsky himself wrote about compositional construction of his poem:
“And the first thing I accepted as the principle of composition and style was the desire for a certain completeness of each individual part, chapter, and within the chapter - of each period and even stanza. I had to keep in mind the reader who, even if he was unfamiliar with the previous chapters, would find in this chapter, published today in the newspaper, something whole, rounded. Besides, this reader might not have waited for my next chapter: he was where the hero is—at war. It was this approximate completion of each chapter that I was most concerned with. I didn’t keep anything to myself until another time, trying to speak out at every opportunity—the next chapter—to the end, to fully express my mood, to convey a fresh impression, a thought, a motive, an image that had arisen. True, this principle was not determined immediately - after the first chapters of Terkin were published one after another, and new ones then appeared as they were written.”
The poem consists of thirty independent and at the same time closely interconnected chapters. The poem is structured as a chain of episodes from the military life of the protagonist, which do not always have a direct event connection with each other. Terkin humorously tells young soldiers about the everyday life of war; He says that he has been fighting since the very beginning of the war, he was surrounded three times, and was wounded. The fate of an ordinary soldier, one of those who bore the brunt of the war on their shoulders, becomes the personification of national fortitude and the will to live.
The plot outline of the poem is difficult to follow; each chapter tells about a separate event from the life of a soldier, for example: Terkin swims twice across the icy river to restore contact with the advancing units; Terkin alone occupies a German dugout, but comes under fire from his own artillery; on the way to the front, Terkin finds himself in the house of old peasants, helping them with the housework; Terkin enters into hand-to-hand combat with the German and, having difficulty defeating him, takes him prisoner. Or, unexpectedly for himself, Terkin shoots down a German attack aircraft with a rifle. Terkin takes command of the platoon when the commander is killed, and is the first to break into the village; however, the hero is again seriously wounded. Lying wounded in a field, Terkin talks with Death, who persuades him not to cling to life; in the end he is discovered by the soldiers, and he tells them: “Take away this woman, / I am a soldier still alive.”
It is no coincidence that Tvardovsky’s work begins and ends lyrical digressions. An open conversation with the reader brings him closer to the inner world of the work and creates an atmosphere of shared involvement in events. The poem ends with a dedication to the fallen.
The poem “Vasily Terkin” is distinguished by its peculiar historicism. Conventionally, it can be divided into three parts, coinciding with the beginning, middle and end of the war. Poetic understanding of the stages of the war creates a lyrical chronicle of events from the chronicle. A feeling of bitterness and sorrow fills the first part, faith in victory fills the second, the joy of the liberation of the Fatherland becomes the leitmotif of the third part of the poem. This is explained by the fact that A.T. Tvardovsky created the poem gradually, throughout the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

Artistic originality

Analysis of the work shows that the poem “Vasily Terkin” is distinguished by its extraordinary breadth and freedom of use of means of oral, literary and folk poetic speech. This is for real vernacular. It naturally uses proverbs and sayings (“out of boredom, I’m a jack of all trades”; “making time for business is an hour of fun”; “the river you float along is the one you create a glory..."), folk songs(about the overcoat, about the river). Tvardovsky perfectly masters the art of speaking simply but poetically. He himself creates sayings that have come into life as proverbs (“don’t look at what’s on your chest, but look at what’s ahead”; “war has a short path, love has a long one”; “guns go backwards to battle”, etc.) .
Freedom - the main moral and artistic principle of the work - is also realized in the very construction of the verse. And this is a find - a relaxed ten-line, eight-, and five-, and six-, and quatrains - in a word, there will be as many rhyming lines as Tvardovsky needs at this moment in order to speak out in full. The main size of “Vasily Terkin” is trochaic tetrameter.
S.Ya. wrote about the originality of Tvardovsky’s verse. Marshak: “Look how one of them was built best chapters"Vasily Terkina" - "Crossing". In this truthful and seemingly artless story about genuine events observed by the author, you will nevertheless find a strict form and a clear structure. You will find here a repeating leitmotif, which sounds in the most crucial places of the narrative, and each time in a new way - sometimes sad and alarming, sometimes solemn and even menacing:
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.
You will find here a lively, laconic, impeccably accurate dialogue constructed according to all the laws of a ballad. This is where real poetic culture comes into play, which gives us the means to depict events from the most vibrant modern life.”

Meaning of the work

Poem "Vasily Terkin" - central work in the works of A.T. Tvardovsky, “the best of everything written about war in war” (K. Simonov), one of the peaks of Russian epic poetry in general. It can be considered one of the truly folk works. Many lines from this work migrated into oral folk speech or became popular poetic aphorisms: “mortal combat is not for the sake of glory - for the sake of life on earth”, “forty souls are one soul”, “crossing, crossing, left bank, right bank” and many other.
The recognition of “The Book about a Soldier” was not only popular, but also national: “...This is a truly 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 hitch, not a single hitch.” a single false, ready-made, that is, literary-vulgar word!” — wrote I.A. Bunin.
The poem "Vasily Terkin" was repeatedly illustrated. The very first were illustrations by O.G. Vereisky, which were created directly after the text of the poem. The works of artists B. Dekhterev, I. Bruni, Yu. Neprintsev are also known. In 1961 at the Moscow Theater named after. Mossovet K. Voronkov staged “Vasily Terkin”. Known literary compositions chapters of the poem performed by D.N. Zhuravlev and D.N. Orlova. Excerpts from the poem are set to music by V.G. Zakharov. Composer N.V. Bogoslovsky wrote the symphonic story “Vasily Terkin”.
In 1995, a monument to Terkin was unveiled in Smolensk (author - People's Artist Russian sculptor A.G. Sergeev). The monument is a two-figure composition depicting a conversation between Vasily Terkin and A.T. Tvardovsky. The monument was erected using publicly collected money.

This is interesting

The painting by Yu.M. became the most famous. Neprintsev “Rest after the battle” (1951).
In the winter of 1942, in a front-line dugout, barely illuminated by a homemade lamp, the artist Yuri Mikhailovich Neprintsev first became acquainted with the poem by A.T. Tvardovsky "Vasily Terkin". One of the soldiers read the poem aloud, and Neprintsev saw how the soldiers’ concentrated faces brightened, how, forgetting about fatigue, they laughed while listening to this wonderful work. What is the enormous power of influence of the poem? Why is the image of Vasily Terkin so close and dear to the heart of every warrior? The artist was already thinking about this. Neprintsev rereads the poem several times and becomes convinced that its hero is not some kind of exceptional nature, but an ordinary guy, in whose image the author expressed all the best, pure and bright that is inherent in Soviet people.
A merry fellow and joker who knows how to lift the spirits of his comrades in difficult times, to cheer them up with a joke and a sharp word, Terkin also shows resourcefulness and courage in battle. Such living Terkins could be found everywhere on the roads of war.
The great vitality of the image created by the poet was the secret of his charm. That is why Vasily Terkin immediately became one of my favorites folk heroes. Captivated by this wonderful, deeply truthful image, Neprintsev long years I couldn't part with him. “He lived in my mind,” the artist later wrote, “accumulating new features, enriching himself with new details, in order to become the main character of the picture.” But the idea for the painting was not born right away. The artist went through a long journey, full of work and thought, before he began painting the painting “Rest after the Battle.” “I wanted,” the artist wrote, “to depict the soldiers of the Soviet Army not at the moment of performing any heroic deeds, when all the spiritual forces of a person are strained to the limit, to show them not in the smoke of battle, but in a simple everyday situation, in a moment of short rest.” .
This is how the idea of ​​a painting is born. Memories of the war years help define its plot: a group of soldiers, during a short break between battles, settled down in a snowy clearing and listened to a cheerful narrator. In the first sketches the general nature of the future picture was already outlined. The group was positioned in a semi-circle, facing the viewer, and consisted of only 12-13 people. The figure of Terkin was placed in the center of the composition and highlighted in color. The figures located on each side of him formally balanced the composition. There was a lot of far-fetched and conditional in this decision. The small number of the group gave the whole scene a random character and did not create the impression of a strong, friendly group of people. Therefore, in subsequent sketches, Neprintsev increases the number of people and arranges them most naturally. The main character Terkin is moved by the artist from the center to the right, the group is built diagonally from left to right. Thanks to this, the space increases and its depth is outlined. The viewer ceases to be only a witness to this scene, he becomes, as it were, a participant in it, drawn into the circle of fighters listening to Terkin. To give even more authenticity and vitality to the whole picture,
Neprintsev abandoned solar lighting, since spectacular contrasts of light and shadow could introduce elements of theatrical convention into the picture, which the artist so avoided. The soft, diffused light of a winter day made it possible to more fully and brightly reveal the diversity of faces and their expressions. The artist worked a lot and for a long time on the figures of the fighters, on their poses, changing the latter several times. Thus, the figure of a mustachioed foreman in a sheepskin coat only after a long search turned into a sitting fighter, and an elderly soldier with a bowler hat in his hands only in the last sketches replaced the girl nurse bandaging the soldier. But the most important thing for the artist was working on the image inner world heroes. “I wanted,” Neprintsev wrote, “for the viewer to fall in love with my heroes, to feel them as living and close people, so that he would find and recognize his own front-line friends in the film.” The artist understood that only then would he be able to create convincing and truthful images of the heroes when they were extremely clear to him. Neprintsev began to carefully study the characters of the fighters, their manner of speaking, laughing, individual gestures, habits, in other words, he began to “get used to” the images of his heroes. In this he was helped by the impressions of the war years, combat encounters, and the memories of his front-line comrades. His front-line sketches and portraits of his fighting friends provided him with an invaluable service.
Many sketches were made from life, but they were not transferred directly to the painting, without preliminary modification. The artist searched for, highlighted the most striking features of this or that person and, on the contrary, removed everything secondary, random, interfering with the identification of the main one. He tried to make each image purely individual and typical. “In my painting I wanted to give a collective portrait Soviet people, soldier of the great liberating army. The true hero of my picture is the Russian people.” Each hero in the artist’s imagination has his own interesting biography. He can talk about them fascinatingly for hours, conveying the smallest details of their lives and fates.
So, for example, Neprintsev says that he imagined the fighter sitting to the right of Terkin as a guy who had recently joined the army from a collective farm, was still inexperienced, perhaps it was his first time participating in battle, and he was naturally scared. But now, lovingly listening to the stories of the experienced soldier, he forgot about his fear. Behind Terkin stands a young, handsome guy with a hat tilted at a jaunty angle. “He,” the artist wrote, “listens to Terkin somewhat condescendingly. He himself could have told it no worse. Before the war, he was a skilled worker at a large factory, an accordion player, a participant in amateur performances, and a favorite of girls>>. The artist could tell a lot about the mustachioed foreman who laughs at the top of his lungs, and about the elderly soldier with a bowler hat, and about the cheerful soldier sitting to the left of the narrator, and about all the other characters... The most difficult task was the search for the external appearance of Vasily Terkin. The artist wanted to convey the image that had developed among the people; he wanted Terkin to be recognized immediately. Terkin should be a generalized image, it should combine the features of many people. His image is, as it were, a synthesis of all the best, bright, pure that is inherent in Soviet man. The artist worked for a long time on Terkin’s appearance, on his facial expression and hand gestures. In the first drawings, Terkin was depicted as a young soldier with a good-natured, sly face. There was no sense of dexterity or sharp ingenuity in him. In another sketch, Terkin was too serious and balanced, in the third - he lacked everyday experience, life school. From drawing to drawing there was a search, gestures were refined, and the pose was determined. According to the artist, the gesture of Terkin’s right hand was supposed to emphasize some kind of sharp, strong joke addressed to the enemy. Countless drawings have been preserved in which a variety of turns of the figure, tilts of the head, hand movements, individual gestures were tried - until the artist found something that satisfied him. The image of Terkin in the film became a significant, convincing and completely natural center. The artist devoted a lot of time to searching for a landscape for the painting. He imagined that the action was taking place in a sparse forest with clearings and copses. It’s early spring, the snow has not yet melted, but is only loosening a little. He wanted to convey the national Russian landscape.
The painting “Rest after the battle” is the result of the artist’s intense, serious work, excited love for his heroes, and great respect for them. Each image in the picture is a whole biography. And before the gaze of an inquisitive viewer passes whole line bright, individually unique images. The deep vitality of the idea determined the clarity and integrity of the composition, the simplicity and naturalness of the pictorial solution. Neprintsev’s painting resurrects the difficult days of the Great Patriotic War, full of heroism and severity, hardships and adversity, and at the same time the joy of victory. That is why she will always be dear to the heart of the Soviet people, loved by the broad masses of the Soviet people.

(Based on the book by V.I. Gapeev, E.V. Kuznetsov. “Conversations about Soviet artists.” - M.-L.: Education, 1964)

Gapeeva V.I. Kuznetsova V.E. “Conversations about Soviet artists. - M.-L.: Enlightenment, 1964.
Grishunzh AL. “Vasily Terkin” by Alexander Tvardovsky. - M., 1987.
Kondratovich A. Alexander Tvardovsky: Poetry and personality. - M., 1978.
Romanova R.M. Alexander Tvardovsky: Pages of life and creativity: A book for high school students. - M.: Education, 1989-
Tvardovsky A. Vasily Terkin. A book about a fighter. Terkin in the next world. Moscow: Raritet, 2000.

Municipal basic educational institution "Platovskaya secondary school"

Research work on literature

Topic: “The image of Vasily Terkin in the work of Tvardovsky”

Checked by: teacher

Platovka 2011

LET'S SUM UP

The poem “Vasily Terkin” is evidence of history. The writer himself was a war correspondent; military life was close to him. The work shows the clarity of what is happening, imagery, accuracy, which makes us truly believe the poem.
The main character of the work, Vasily Terkin, is a simple Russian soldier. His very name speaks of the generality of his image. He was close to the soldiers, he was one of them. Many even, reading the poem, said that the real Terkin was in their company, that he was fighting with them. The image of Terkin also has folk roots. In one of the chapters, Tvardovsky compares him with a soldier from the famous fairy tale “Porridge from an Axe.” The author presents Terkin as a resourceful soldier who knows how to find a way out of any situation and show intelligence and ingenuity. In other chapters, the hero appears to us as a mighty hero from ancient epics, strong and fearless.
What can we say about Terkin’s qualities? All of them are certainly worthy of respect. One can easily say about Vasily Terkin: “he does not drown in water and does not burn in fire,” and this will be the pure truth. The hero exhibits such qualities as courage, bravery, and courage, and the proof of this is in chapters such as “The Crossing” and “Death and the Warrior.” He never loses heart, jokes (for example, in the chapters “Terkin-Terkin”, “In the bathhouse”). He shows his love for life in "Death and the Warrior". He does not fall into the hands of death, resists it and survives. And, of course, Terkin contains such qualities as great patriotism, humanism and a sense of military duty.
Vasily Terkin was very close to the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War; he reminded them of themselves. Terkin inspired soldiers to heroic deeds, helped them during the war, and maybe even, to some extent, the war was won thanks to him.

- a soldier (then an officer) from the Smolensk peasants: “... the guy himself is ordinary.”
Terkin embodies the best features of the Russian soldier and the Russian people. Terkin has been fighting since the very beginning of the war, he was surrounded three times and was wounded. Terkin’s motto: “Don’t be discouraged,” despite any difficulties. So, the hero, in order to restore contact with the fighters located on the other side of the river, swims across it twice in icy water. Or, in order to establish a telephone line during the battle, Terkin alone occupies a German dugout, in which he comes under fire. One day Terkin enters into hand-to-hand combat with a German and, with great difficulty, still takes the enemy prisoner. The hero perceives all these exploits as ordinary actions in war. He does not boast about them, does not demand rewards for them. And he only jokingly says that to be representative, he simply needs a medal. Even in the harsh conditions of war, Terkin retains all human qualities. The hero has a great sense of humor, which helps T. himself and everyone around him to survive. Thus, he jokes and encourages fighters fighting a difficult battle. Terkin is given the accordion of the killed commander, and he plays it, brightening up the soldier's moments of rest. On the way to the front, the hero helps old peasants with their housework, convincing them of an imminent victory. Having met a captured peasant woman, T. gives her all the trophies. Terkin does not have a girlfriend who would write letters to him and wait for him from the war. But he does not lose heart, fighting for all Russian girls. Over time, Terkin becomes an officer. He vacates his native places and, looking at them, cries. The name Terkina becomes a household name. In the chapter “In the Bath,” a soldier with a huge number of awards is compared to the hero of the poem. Describing his hero, the author in the chapter “From the Author” calls Terkin “a holy and sinful Russian miracle man.”

Terkin unexpectedly shoots down a German attack aircraft with a rifle; Sergeant T. reassures the envious him: “Don’t worry, this is / Not the German’s last plane.” In the chapter “General,” T. is summoned to the general, who awards him an order and a week’s leave, but it turns out that the hero cannot use it, since his native village is still occupied by the Germans. In the chapter “Battle in the Swamp,” T. jokes and encourages the fighters who are waging a difficult battle for a place called “the settlement of Borki,” of which “one black place” remains. In the chapter “About Love” it turns out that the hero does not have a girlfriend who would accompany him to the war and write him letters to the front; the author jokingly calls: “Turn your gentle gaze, / Girls, to the infantry.” In the chapter “Terkin’s Rest,” normal living conditions seem to the hero to be “paradise”; Having lost the habit of sleeping in bed, he cannot fall asleep until he receives advice - to put a hat on his head to simulate field conditions. In the chapter “On the Offensive,” T., when the platoon commander is killed, takes command and is the first to break into the village; however, the hero is again seriously wounded. In the chapter “Death and the Warrior,” T., lying wounded in a field, talks with Death, who persuades him not to cling to life; he is eventually discovered by members of the funeral team. The chapter “Terkin Writes” is a letter from T. from the hospital to his fellow soldiers: he promises to definitely return to them. In the chapter “Terkin - Terkin” the hero meets his namesake - Ivan Terkin; they argue which of them is the “true” Terkin (this name has already become legendary), but cannot determine because they are very similar to each other. The dispute is resolved by the foreman, who explains that “According to the regulations, each company / Will be given its own Terkin.” Further, in the chapter “From the Author,” the process of “mythologizing” the character is depicted; T. is called “a holy and sinful Russian miracle man.” In the chapter "Grandfather and Grandmother" again we're talking about about old peasants from the chapter “Two Soldiers”; after spending two years under occupation, they are awaiting the advance of the Red Army; the old man recognizes one of the scouts as T., who became an officer. The chapter “On the Dnieper” says that T., together with the advancing army, is getting closer to his native places; troops cross the Dnieper, and, looking at the liberated land, the hero cries. In the chapter “On the Road to Berlin,” T. meets a peasant woman who was once kidnapped to Germany - she returns home on foot; together with the soldiers, T. gives her trophies: a horse and team, a cow, a sheep, household utensils and a bicycle. In the chapter “In the Bath,” the soldier, on whose tunic “Orders, medals in a row / Burn with a hot flame,” is compared by admiring soldiers to T.: the hero’s name has already become a household name.

VASILY TERKIN - This is a realistic image of great generalizing power, an “ordinary” hero, according to Tvardovsky, born in the special, unique atmosphere of the war years; the image-type of a Soviet soldier, organically included in the soldier’s environment, close to his collective prototype in his biography, way of thinking, actions and language. According to V. T, “having lost his heroic physique,” ​​he “gained a heroic soul.” This is an amazingly correctly understood Russian national character, taken in its best features. Behind the illusion of simplicity, buffoonery, and mischief lie moral sensitivity and an organically inherent sense of filial duty to the Motherland, the ability to accomplish a feat at any moment without phrases or poses. Behind the experience and love of life is a dramatic duel with the death of a person who finds himself in war. Developing as the poem was written and simultaneously published, the image of V.T. acquired the scale of the hero of an epic work about the fate of a Soviet soldier and his Motherland. The generalized type of Soviet warrior became identified with the image of the entire warring people, concretized in the living, psychologically rich character of V. T, in whom each front-line soldier recognized himself and his comrade. V.T. became a household name, ranking with such heroes as Til de Costera and Cola Rolland.

After the end of the war and the publication of the first poem about V.T., readers asked Tvardovsky to write a continuation about the life of V.T. in peacetime. Tvardovsky himself considered V.T. to belong to wartime. However, the author needed his image when writing satirical poem about the essence of the bureaucratic world of the totalitarian system, which was called “Terkin in the next world.” Personifying the vitality of the Russian national character, V. T. demonstrates that “the most terrible thing for the state of the dead is a living person” (S. Lesnevsky).

After the publication of the second poem, Tvardovsky was accused of betraying his hero, who became “submissive” and “lethargic.” in the second poem he continues his dispute with death, begun in the first, but according to the laws of the genre in fairy tales about a journey to the underworld, the hero is required not to actively fight, which is impossible among the dead, but to be able to go through trials and withstand them. The positive beginning in satire is laughter, not the hero. Tvardovsky follows the traditions of the works of Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Dostoevsky (“Bobok”), Blok (“Dances of Death”).

With triumphant success he brought it to life on the stage of the Moscow Theater of Satire (directed by V. Pluchek).

The reader asked Tvardovsky for a continuation from V.T. “Our Vasily,” Tvardovsky reports, “arrived in the next world, but in this world he departed.” The poem ends with a hint-address to the reader: “I gave you a task.” Both V. T. and Tvardovsky remained true to themselves - the battle “for the sake of life on earth” continues.

They look into the joker's mouth,
They catch the word greedily.
It's good when someone lies
Fun and challenging.
Just a guy himself
He's ordinary.
Not tall, not that small,
But a hero is a hero.

I'm a big hunter to live
About ninety years old.

And, save the crust
Having broken off the ice,
He is like him, Vasily Terkin,
I got up alive and got there by swimming.
And with a timid smile
The fighter then says:
- Couldn’t I also have a stack?
Because well done?

No guys, I'm not proud.
Without thinking into the distance,
So I’ll say: why do I need an order?
I agree to a medal.

Terkin, Terkin, kind fellow...

“The Book about a Soldier” (“Vasily Terkin”) by Alexander Tvardovsky became a popular book during the war, because its author managed to tell about the war through the mouth of a soldier, on whom the greatness of Russia and its freedom have always rested and will always rest. Even such a super-strict connoisseur as I. A. Bunin, who was openly hostile to Soviet literature, admired Terkin and the talent of its author. Features of wartime determined artistic originality poem: it consists of separate chapters that are not connected by plot (“There is no plot in war,” says the author), each of which tells about some episode from the combat life of the main character. This composition of the work is also due to the fact that it was published in front-line newspapers, on separate leaflets, and the reader did not have the opportunity to follow the plot - who knows, whether the “continuation” of Tyorkin’s story will reach him, because war is war, one cannot guess here ...

Analysis of the chapter "Crossing"

In the chapter “The Crossing,” Tvardovsky defines the difference between this war and all previous ones: “The battle is holy and just. Mortal combat is not for the sake of glory, For the sake of life on earth.” These words express the author's position, the author's assessment of what is happening, which determines his view of events and heroes, and his attitude towards them. Tyorkin’s feat, described in this chapter, became an integral part of the general feat of the “guys” who completed their task at the cost of losses: “That night a wave carried a bloody trail into the sea.” The “first platoon” that “clung” to the right bank is not left to the mercy of fate, they remember and worry about it, feeling guilty: “As if those on the left bank are to blame for something.” And at this dramatic moment, when the fate of the soldiers remaining on the wrong bank is unknown, Tyorkin appears, having swam across the winter river (“Yes, water.. It’s scary to think about. Even the fish are cold”) in order to report “The platoon on the right bank is alive and well out of spite.” to the enemy!" After he reports that the first platoon is ready to “secure the crossing,” Terkin returns to his comrades, again exposing himself to mortal danger, because his comrades are waiting for him - and he must return.

Analysis of the chapter "Two Soldiers"

The chapter "Two Soldiers" in a humorous spirit shows the connection between generations on which the fighting spirit of the army rests. Terkin, a soldier of the current war, and the “grandfather-master”, who won his own, gave his duty to the fatherland, quickly find mutual language, and this happens not only because Tyorkin easily and simply solves all “economic problems,” but because both of them are defenders of the Motherland, and their conversation is “a conversation ... a soldier’s.” This half-joking conversation, in which each of the interlocutors tries to “pick up” the other, actually concerns very important topic- the outcome of the current war, the most important question that can only worry any Russian person now: “Answer: will we beat the German, or maybe we won’t?” This question is asked to Terkin by an old soldier, and Terkin’s answer, given by him when the soldier, preparing to leave, was already “at the very door,” is short and precise: “We’ll beat you, father...”. Here the author makes excellent use of punctuation: the ellipsis at the end of the sentence deprives this answer of “official patriotism”; it shows that Terkin knows how difficult the path to victory will be, but he is also confident that victory will definitely come, that the Russian soldier will be able to achieve it. From such intonation, the hero’s words simultaneously acquire thoughtfulness and confidence. special meaning, become especially significant. The author ends an obviously humorous chapter (Terkin’s one sentence to “help” the old woman fry lard is worth it!) with serious, hard-won words of the hero, which reach the reader’s heart and become his own conviction of victory.

Analysis of the chapter "Duel"

The chapter “Duel” has a special meaning in the poem “Vasily Terkin”, because in it the author shows hand-to-hand combat, Terkin’s one-on-one fight with the German, who “was strong and dexterous, well cut, tightly sewn,” but in this fight as Russia and Germany and their armies would come together in generalized but individual images: “Like on an ancient battlefield, Chest against chest, like shield against shield, - Instead of thousands, two fight, As if the fight will decide everything.” It turns out that the outcome of the entire war depends on the outcome of this fight between Vasily Terkin, and the hero understands this, he gives all his strength to this fight, he is ready to die, but only together with the enemy. The description of the fight in some places seems to have an epic character, in others it is naturalistic, but the hero knows that his moral superiority is over the enemy (“Are you a man? No. A scoundrel!” says Tyorkin about the German and proves this by describing the “exploits” of this warrior) should help him, he feels the powerful support of the whole country, the whole people: “A brave guy is fighting to the death. So the smoke stands damp, As if the whole country-power Sees Terkin: - Hero!” Tvardovsky shows that the origins of the courage and heroism of the Russian soldier lie precisely in this - in the feeling and understanding of his unity with the people, in the awareness of himself as part of the people, which makes it impossible to retreat in battle, no matter how difficult this battle may be.

Analysis of the chapter "Who Shot?"

Chapter "Who Shot?" begins with a description of the landscape, a “wonderful evening”, which belongs not to war, but to peaceful life, and this evening “disturbed” the soldiers who were accustomed to war and now seem to have returned to the peaceful life for which they are fighting. They seem to be transported into this peaceful life, but “with a terrible roar” a German plane appears, which brings death with it, and the pictures of peaceful life recede before the fear of death: “Now you are done for, now you are no longer there.” However, the author, understanding the reasons for this fear, still cannot agree that it is fitting for a Russian soldier to fear death: “No, comrade, evil and proud, As the law tells a soldier, Face death face to face...”. And one of the soldiers responds to his words, who “hits from his knee From a rifle at the plane,” and this “unequal battle, short battle” ends with the German plane crashing into the ground in a “corkscrew!” A magnificent detail: “The shooter himself looks with fear: What did he do by chance”! The chapter ends with Terkin’s words addressed to the sergeant, who said that “the guy is lucky, Lo and behold, the order is out of the bush”: “Don’t worry, this is not the German’s last plane...”, and the author’s humor helps to avoid unnecessary reasoning about heroism, about the feat that Tyorkin actually accomplished, and the author shows that the hero’s feat was not that he shot down a plane (this could just have been an accident), but that he was able to overcome his fear, challenge death and defeat it.

Analysis of the chapter "Death and the Warrior"

One of the most psychologically profound chapters of the poem “Vasily Terkin” by Tvardovsky is the chapter “Death and the Warrior,” in which the author shows the hero at perhaps the most difficult moment of his life: Terkin is seriously wounded, he is delirious, and in this delirium Death comes to him , with whom he talks and who convinces him to give up life himself: “One sign of agreement is needed, That you are tired of saving life, That you are praying for the hour of death...”. The hero’s complete surrender is if he himself begins to ask Death to “take” him, so she persuades him to give up the fight for life, explaining that it may happen that they will pick him up, and “you will regret that you did not die Here, on the spot, without any hassle.” ..." The weakened hero seems to give in to Death's persuasion ("And with Death it became beyond Man's strength to argue"), but he wants to bargain with her for at least one day to "walk among the living", but she refuses him this. This refusal is perceived by the hero as a sign that he must continue to fight for life: “So go away, Kosaya, I am a soldier still alive.” These words of the hero were not taken seriously by Death, she was sure that he would not get away from her, she was even ready to follow the soldiers from the funeral team, who became orderlies and were delivering the wounded to the medical battalion. The conversations of the half-dead soldiers and those who save him (“They take care of him, they carry him with caution”), giving him their mittens and the warmth of their souls, made Death “for the first time” think that she is not omnipotent, that her power must retreat and is retreating before the strength of human souls, before the strength of the soldier’s brotherhood, so she has to “reluctantly” give a “respite” to the wounded man, who is being torn from her hands by ordinary soldiers like himself. In this chapter of Tvardovsky’s work “Vasily Terkin,” which we analyzed, the author was able to show the unshakable strength of a soldier who will never be alone and can always count on the help and support of his comrades in arms in the common struggle for the freedom of the Motherland.