Composition on “Horrors of War”
The Second World War was the most cruel, the most terrible in the history of mankind. In the memory of those who are destined to pass through it, the military hardships are permanently imprinted. Cautions following generations from the recurrence of the disaster, they tell of the horrors of the war in memoirs, movies, books. The Byelorussian writer V. Bykov took part in that war, was a lieutenant of the Soviet Army, “died” in heavy battles for Kirovograd – his name was struck on the monument in honor of the fallen, and his relatives received “funeral”. After the end of the war, he served for another ten years in the army. Then he was demobilized and completely devoted himself to literary activity. The central theme of his work was the tragic events of the Second World War. Heroes of the story “The Alpine Ballad” (1963) – Belarusian youth Ivan Tereshka and Italian girl Julia. Fate brought them to the factory in Italy, where the death-nicks-captives
But the worst thing is that when a man is etched out all human, like that of the Führer Zandler, who forced the defenseless prisoner to clean his boots with the sleeves of a convict jacket or a policeman Gritz, ready to set fire to his fiance’s house for hiding a Soviet fighter, or those SS men who scoffed at crazy gaftling, poking at him with cigarettes. These nonhumans were no different from those wolfhound dogs that they let down on fugitives.
The souls of Ivan and Julia, despite all the terrible circumstances under which they met, remain alive. In them, unexpectedly for the heroes, pure love is born, like these poppies blooming under the bright sky, among which were young people. The end of three days of freedom against the backdrop of the morning nature, which does not know that there are people around it, provides stories about heroes whose destinies are tormented by war, a special tragedy.
The German H. Belle also participated in the Second World War, but on the other hand, as a soldier of the German fascist army, although he evaded participation in political life, until he was mobilized first to serve labor, and then to the Wehrmacht. At the front, he was wounded several times, after a victory in Germany he was in American captivity for some time. Since 1947, he began to study literature. As a writer G. Belle began in the mainstream of the so-called “literature of ruins”, it was mainly focused on understanding the recent war and its consequences. The military theme has become one of the cornerstones of Bellewski’s “humane aesthetics”.
1950 published a collection of stories by Böll “The Hitler, when you come to the Spa.” In them the writer told about the terrible fate of his generation, that he can not remain silent and thereby enable others to portray the recent past decorated, in heroic tones, turning a blind eye to atrocities and crimes.
The hero of the story “The Hitler, when you come to the Spa.” Very young. Three months ago he studied at the gymnasium. And now he was back in his school, but this time he does not run down the stairs and corridors, but he is seriously injured on stretchers. He even doubts for a long time whether this is really his gymnasium, the school transformed into a hospital became so alien. Doubts were dispelled only after he saw in the class on the blackboard a phrase written in his hand. Almost at the same time, the hero, who could not understand where he was wounded, saw his reflection in the glass of the light bulb – “such a short, white, narrow scroll of gauze, like a freakish fragile cocoon,” and then, when unwound – that he does not have both hands and right foot.
The story of H. Böhl is saturated with symbols that convey the absurdity of the war, which turned the gymnasium into a “dead” house, the room of the watchman Birgeler, where the hero used to drink milk, to the storehouse of the dead, and Biegeler himself is no longer a watchman, but a fireman. The symbolic same and unfinished quotation on the blackboard, which breaks off in mid-sentence, are the famous lines of the ancient Greek poet Simonid Keosky: “The traveler, when you come to Sparta, tell there that we are lying here, honestly the law is vikonazshy.” The phrase is written on the board seven times. The number seven in the biblical context means infinity. Therefore, the work acquires a special philosophical sounding about the eternity of the struggle against evil.
A good word in the confrontation between good and evil belongs to art. The artistic works of the direct participants of the Second World War of the Byelorussian Vasil Bykov and the German Heinrich Böll, condemning the horrors of the war, revealing its absurdity, convincingly prove that the war does not bring happiness to anyone: neither to the one who starts the war, nor to those who against their will are forced to take her participation.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)