The years of the Great Patriotic War will never be forgotten. The more years pass, the more alive and significant they stand in our memory. We talk a lot about the exploits of soldiers, officers. This, of course, is fair, but we must not forget about the feat, which in these difficult times, made Russian literature. When the cannons of the Great Patriotic War rattled, the Muses did not remain silent and could not remain silent. It is difficult to overestimate the significance of what literature did then. There are many witnesses of the front-line soldiers about the role that it played in their military destinies. The poem of K. Simonov “Wait for me”, published in February 1942, immediately won the hearts of soldiers. He was cut from newspapers, copied, sitting in trenches, memorized by heart and sent letters to wives and brides. The writer’s feat in the war is to warm the soldier’s soul, inspire faith in victory, as did the poem “Vasily Terkin” by
A. Tvardovsky, the poem “The Dugout” by A. Surkov. With special excitement you read about the fate of young poets who have not returned from the battlefields. After all, many of them were almost boys, dreamed of devoting themselves to literature, wrote talented poems and, if not for war, could have become classics of Russian literature. Mikhail Kulchitsky, Pavel Kogan, Nikolay Mayorov, Boris Bogatkov, Vsevolod Bagritsky and many others – they were all very young, most were not even twenty years old when they died. Almost all of them went to the front as volunteers, and some were not taken to the front for health reasons, but they nevertheless achieved their goal (S. Gudzenko, P. Kogan). These poets fearlessly looked into the eyes of death. Composing verses that are similar to intravital epitaphs, they everywhere talk about the generation as a whole, not separating himself from him. N. Mayorov writes “about people who left without sharing, not having finished the last cigarettes.” He is sure that: If it were not for the fight, not for the everlasting pursuit of the Steep Paths at the last height,
We would have been preserved in bronze sculptures, In the columns of newspapers, in sketches on canvas… Unlimitedly loving life, these most ordinary, non-heroic people nevertheless for four long years, daily risked it, selflessly went to the feat, to death, only to bring victory closer. In the works of contemporary authors about the war comes to life that severe heroic time. But they are turned to our days and to the future. In every way, each phrase reminds them of what a person should be, about his value, dignity, his right to happiness, about those moral principles that we must be loyal in any circumstances. Love to motherland, loyalty to civic duty, collective, a sense of comradeship – these are the main features inherent in the heroes of literature about the war. This is Nikolai Pluzhnikov, the main character of the novel B. Vasiliev “The lists did not appear.” Experiencing hunger, thirst, a sense of closeness of the end, he defends the Brest Fortress from his last strength. “It’s better to die than to betray your comrades, Motherland!” thinks Nicholas.
He decided for himself immediately that the only thing that remains is to fight to the last drop of blood with the fascists. But how can this be done? Where to get ammunition, food? Pluzhnikov did not want to remember this, the main thing was to destroy the invaders, even if they were bumping into their throats. These were the thoughts of a man who was not insane, but a defender and patriot. Defending the church for several days with the soldiers, Kolya turned into a “robot”, dragging a machine gun from attack to attack, he saw nothing but Germans, then coming in a line, then falling. Pluzhnikov, in extreme circumstances, did not “break”, did not betray his ideals. He fought in the name of people, not thinking about himself. The manifestations of deed are different. It can be committed not only on the battlefield and not only with the help of weapons. The main criterion of heroism is in the moral greatness of man, in the strength of his unruly spirit.
