War is the heaviest and most terrible word of all known to mankind. How good it is when a child does not know what an airstrike is, how a machine gun sounds, why people hide in bomb shelters. However, Soviet people have come across this terrible concept and know about it firsthand. And it is not surprising that many books, songs, poems and stories have been written about it. In this article we want to talk about what works the whole world is still reading.

"And the dawns here are quiet"

The author of this book is Boris Vasiliev. The main characters are anti-aircraft gunners. Five young girls themselves decided to go to the front. At first they did not even know how to shoot, but in the end they accomplished a real feat. It is such works about the Great Patriotic war remind us that there is no age, gender or status at the front. All this does not matter, because every person moves forward only because he is aware of his duty to the Motherland. Each of the girls understood that the enemy must be stopped at any cost.

In the book, the main narrator is Vaskov, the commandant of the patrol. This man saw with his own eyes all the horrors that happen during the war. The worst thing about this work is its truthfulness, its honesty.

"17 moments of Spring"

Exist different books about the Great Patriotic War, but the work of Yulian Semenov is one of the most popular. The protagonist is the Soviet intelligence officer Isaev, who works under the fictitious surname Stirlitz. It is he who exposes the attempted collusion of the American military-industrial complex with the leaders

This is a very ambiguous and complex work. It intertwines documentary data and human relationships. The prototypes of the characters were real people. Based on the novel by Semenov, a series was filmed, which for a long time was at the peak of popularity. However, in the film, the characters are easy to understand, unambiguous and simple. In the book, everything is much more confusing and interesting.

"Vasily Terkin"

This poem was written by Alexander Tvardovsky. A person who is looking for beautiful poems about the Great Patriotic War should first of all turn their attention to this particular work. It is a real encyclopedia that tells about how a simple Soviet soldier lived at the front. There is no pathos here the protagonist not embellished - he is a simple man, a Russian man. Vasily sincerely loves his Fatherland, treats troubles and difficulties with humor, and can find a way out of the most difficult situation.

Many critics believe that it was these poems about the Great Patriotic War written by Tvardovsky that helped to maintain the morale of ordinary soldiers in 1941-1945. Indeed, in Terkin, everyone saw something of their own, dear. It is easy to recognize in him the person with whom he worked together, the neighbor with whom he went out to smoke on the landing, the comrade-in-arms who lay with you in the trench.

Tvardovsky showed the war for what it is, without embellishing reality. His work is considered by many to be a kind of military chronicle.

"Hot Snow"

The book at first glance describes local events. There are such works about the Great Patriotic War that describe a single, specific event. So it is here - it tells only about one day that Drozdovsky's battery survived. It was her fighters who knocked out the tanks of the Nazis, who were approaching Stalingrad.

This novel tells about how yesterday's schoolchildren can love the Motherland, young boys. After all, it is young people who unshakably believe in the orders of their superiors. Perhaps that is why the legendary battery was able to withstand enemy fire.

In the book, the theme of war is intertwined with life stories, fear and death are combined with goodbyes and frank confessions. At the end of the work, the battery, which is practically frozen under the snow, is found. The wounded are sent to the rear, the heroes are solemnly awarded. But, despite the happy ending, we are reminded that the boys continue to fight there, and there are thousands of them.

"Not listed"

Every schoolchild read books about the Great Patriotic War, but not everyone knows this work by Boris Vasilyev about a simple 19-year-old guy Nikolai Pluzhnikov. The protagonist after the military school receives an appointment and becomes a platoon commander. He will serve in the Special Western District. At the beginning of 1941, many were sure that the war would begin, but Nikolai did not believe that Germany would dare to attack the USSR. The guy ends up in the Brest Fortress, and the next day it is attacked by the Nazis. From that day the Great Patriotic War began.

It is here that the young lieutenant receives the most valuable life lessons. Nikolai now knows what a small mistake can cost, how to correctly assess the situation and what actions to take, how to distinguish sincerity from betrayal.

"A Tale of a Real Man"

There are various works dedicated to the Great Patriotic War, but only the book of Boris Polevoy has such an amazing fate. In the Soviet Union and in Russia, it was reprinted more than a hundred times. This book has been translated into more than one hundred and fifty languages. Its relevance is not lost even in peacetime. The book teaches us to be courageous, to help any person who finds himself in a difficult situation.

After the story was published, the author began to receive letters that were sent to him from all the cities of the then huge state. People thanked him for the work, which spoke of courage and great love for life. In the main character, pilot Alexei Maresyev, many who lost their relatives in the war recognized their loved ones: sons, husbands, brothers. Until now, this work is rightfully considered legendary.

"Destiny of Man"

You can recall different stories about the Great Patriotic War, but the work of Mikhail Sholokhov is familiar to almost every person. It was based on real story which the author heard in 1946. It was told to him by a man and a boy, whom he accidentally met at the crossing.

The main character of this story was named Andrey Sokolov. He, having gone to the front, left his wife and three children, and an excellent job, and his home. Once on the front line, the man behaved very dignified, always carried out the most difficult assignments and helped his comrades. However, the war does not spare anyone, even the most courageous. Andrei's house burns down, and all his relatives die. The only thing that kept him in this world was little Vanya, whom the main character decides to adopt.

"Blockade Book"

The authors of this book were (now an honorary citizen of St. Petersburg) and Ales Adamovich (a writer from Belarus). This work can be called a collection of stories about the Great Patriotic War. It contains not only entries from the diaries of people who survived the blockade in Leningrad, but unique, rare photos. Today, this work has acquired a real cult status.

The book was reprinted many times and even promised that it would be available in all libraries in St. Petersburg. Granin noted that this work is not a story of human fears, it is a story of real feats.

"Young guard"

There are works about the Great Patriotic War that are simply impossible not to read. The novel describes real events, but this is not the main thing. The title of the work is the name of an underground youth organization whose heroism is simply impossible to appreciate. During the war years, it operated on the territory of the city of Krasnodon.

You can talk a lot about the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, but when you read about boys and girls who, in the most difficult times, were not afraid to arrange sabotage and prepared for an armed uprising, tears stand in their eyes. The youngest member of the organization was only 14 years old, and almost all of them died at the hands of the Nazis.

The Great Patriotic War is an event that affected the fate of all of Russia. Everyone has touched it in one way or another. Artists, musicians, writers and poets also did not remain indifferent to the fate of their country.

The role of literature during the Second World War

Literature has become something that gave hope to people, gave strength to fight on and go to the end. This is precisely the purpose of this art form.

From the first days of the front, writers spoke about the responsibility for the fate of Russia, about the suffering and deprivation that people endured. Many writers went to the front as correspondents. At the same time, one thing was indisputable - unhindered faith in victory, which nothing could break.

We hear the call to eradicate the "cursed beast that has risen above Europe and swung at your future" in the verses-appeals "To arms, patriot!" P. Komarova, "Listen, Fatherland", "Beat the enemy!" V. Inber I. Avramenko, in L. Leonov's essays "Glory to Russia".

Features of literature during the war

The war made us think not only about real problems, but also about the history of Russia. It was at this time that the works of A. Tolstoy “Motherland”, “Peter the Great”, the story “Ivan the Terrible”, as well as “The Great Sovereign”, a play by V. Solovyov, appeared.

There was such a thing as a work written "In hot pursuit." That is, a poem, essay or story written just yesterday evening could appear in print today. Publicism played an important role, because thanks to it, an opportunity was seen to hurt the patriotic feelings of the Russian people. As A. Tolstoy said, literature has become "the voice of the Russian people."

War poems received the same attention as ordinary political or secular news. The press regularly published excerpts from the work of Soviet poets.

Creativity of writers during the Second World War

A. Tvardovsky's work has become an indisputable contribution to the common collection. Of course, the most famous of his works - the poem "Vasily Terkin" became a kind of illustration of the life of a simple Russian soldier. She opened deeply character traits Soviet soldier, for which she became dearly loved by the people.

In "The Ballad of a Comrade" the poet wrote: "Your own misfortune does not count." This line clearly reveals to us those patriotic impulses, thanks to which people did not give up. They were ready to endure a lot. The main thing is to know that they are fighting for victory. And even if its price is too high. At a rally of Soviet writers, a promise was made "to give all my experience and talent, all my blood, if necessary, to give to the cause of the sacred people's war against the enemies of our Motherland." More than half of them openly went to the front to fight the enemy. Many of them, including A. Gaidar, E. Petrov, Yu. Krymov, M. Jalil, never returned.

Many works of Soviet writers were published in the main newspaper of the USSR at that time - "Red Star". The works of V. V. Vishnevsky, K. M. Simonov, A. P. Platonov, V. S. Grossman were published there.

During the war, the work of K.M. Simonov. These are the poems “Forties”, “If your house is dear to you”, “By the fire”, “Death of a friend”, “We will not see you”. Some time after World War II, Konstantin Mikhailovich's first novel, Comrades in Arms, was written. He saw the light in 1952.

Post-war literature

Many works about the Second World War began to be written later, in the 1960s and 70s. This applies to the stories of V. Bykov (“Obelisk”, “Sotnikov”), B. Vasiliev (“The Dawns Here Are Like This”, “He Was Not on the Lists”, “Tomorrow there was a war”).

The second example is M. Sholokhov. He will write such impressive works as "The Fate of a Man", "They Fought for the Motherland." Truth, last novel never considered completed. Mikhail Sholokhov began writing it back in the war years, but returned to the completion of the plan only 20 years later. But in the end, the last chapters of the novel were burned by the writer.

The biography of the legendary pilot Alexei Maresyev became the basis of the famous book "The Tale of a Real Man" by B. Polevoy. Reading it, one cannot help but admire the heroism of ordinary people.

One of the classic examples of works about the Great Patriotic War can be considered Y. Bondarev's novel "Hot Snow". It was written 30 years later, but it well illustrates the terrible events of 1942 that took place near Stalingrad. Despite the fact that there are only three soldiers left, and only one gun, the soldiers continue to hold back the German offensive and fight to the bitter end.

About the price of victory, which our people paid with the lives of their best sons and daughters, about the price of peace that the earth breathes, you think today, reading bitter and such profound works of Soviet literature.

The most popular books about the war were written by eyewitnesses of the terrible war years:

The three most popular writers who covered the events of the war years:

1. Famous Soviet writer Boris Vasiliev went to the front at 41, while still a schoolboy. His most famous work can be considered the story "The Dawns Here Are Quiet", a film was made based on this book, which occupies an honorable 1st place in our rating of the TOP 70 best films about the war. Boris Vasiliev wrote quite a few interesting books about the war, which later formed the basis of the films.
2. No less popular Belarusian writer Vasil Bykov. He, like Boris Vasiliev, was still very young when the Great Patriotic War began. In June 1941, V. Bykov graduated from the 10th grade, and in 1942 he was called to the front. He participated in military battles. Fame brought him works: "Sotnikov", "To live until dawn", "To go and not return" and others.
3. Konstantin Simonov - another famous Soviet writer military theme. With the outbreak of war, he was drafted into the army. He was a war correspondent and visited all fronts. In 1943 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, after the war he was promoted to colonel. Konstantin Simonov wrote not one of the best books about the war. It is not for nothing that his name is often found on our list.

In our list of the best books about the war, you will see works famous writers, such as Y. Bondarev, M. Sholokhov, B. Polevoy, V. Pikul and others.

Great battles are described in many works about the war. According to these art books you can learn a lot historical facts. Therefore, they are very useful for reading to teenagers and schoolchildren. Patriotism and courage are also described in poems about the war, such poems make everyone think.

The best books about battles and battles

• "In the trenches of Stalingrad" - Viktor Nekrasov
• "The Living and the Dead" - Konstantin Simonov
• "Soldiers are not born" - Konstantin Simonov
• « last summer» - Konstantin Simanov
• "Hot Snow" - Yuri Bondarev
• "Battalions are asking for fire" - Yuri Bondarev
• Blockade Book - Ales Adamovich, Daniil Granin
• "They fought for the Motherland" - Mikhail Sholokhov
• "Road of Life" - N. Hodza
• “I wasn’t on the lists” - Boris Vasiliev
• "Brest Fortress" - Sergey Smirnov
• "Baltic Sky" - Nikolai Chukovsky
• "Stalingrad" - Viktor Nekrasov

The heroism of a common man during the war is not so grandiose, no less important, because it was thanks to the Russian people that we won great victory over fascism.

The best books about heroism and the fate of people

• Sotnikov - Vasil Bykov
• "Vasily Terkin" - Alexander Tvardovsky
• "Obelisk" - Vasil Bykov
• "Survive Until Dawn" - Vasily Bykov
• "Cursed and Killed" - Viktor Astafiev
• "Life and Fate" - Vasily Grossman
• "Live and Remember" - Valentin Rasputin
• "Penal Battalion" - Eduard Volodarsky
• "In war as in war" - Viktor Kurochkin
• "Officers" - Boris Vasiliev
• "Aty-bats were soldiers" - Boris Vasiliev
• "Sign of trouble" - Vasil Bykov
• "Swamp" - Vasil Bykov
• "The Tale of a Real Man" - Boris Polevoy

Soviet intelligence officers made no small contribution during the Great Patriotic War, which is why so many books have been written about the exploits of Soviet intelligence officers. We have selected for you the best books on this subject.

Best Scout Books

• "Moment of Truth" - Vladimir Bogomolov.
• "Seventeen Moments of Spring" - Y. Semyonov
• "Strong in spirit" - Dmitry Nikolayevich Medvedev
• "Shield and Sword" - Vadim Kozhevnikov
• "Take Alive" - ​​Vladimir Karpov
• "On the edge of the abyss" - Y. Ivanov
• "Ocean Patrol" - Valentin Pikul

The role of Russian women during the war. They fought on a par with men, not without reason their heroism is described in the best books about the war.

The best books about the exploits of women

• "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" - Boris Vasiliev
• "War has no female face» - Svetlana Alekseevich
• "Madonna with ration bread" - Maria Glushko
• "The Fourth Height" - Elena Ilyina
• "Go and not return" - Vasily Bykov
• "The Tale of Zoya and Shura" - Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya
• "Mother of Man" - Vitaly Zakrutin
• "Partisan Lara" - Nadezhda Nadezhdina
• "Girl's team" - P. Zavodchikov, F. Samoilov

War through the eyes of children and adolescents. How early they had to grow up.

The best books about the exploits of children and youth

• "Young Guard" - Alexander Fadeev
• "The last witnesses. solo for children's voice» - Svetlana Alekseevich
• "The street younger son» - Lev Kassil, Max Polyanovsky
• "Son of the Regiment" - Valentin Kataev
• "Boys with bows" - Valentin Pikul

Peaceful life before the war years. Romance, love and hope - all this was cut short by the war.

The best books about life before the war

• "Tomorrow there was a war" - Boris Vasiliev
• "Goodbye Boys" - Boris Balter

You might want to add to our list of the best war books. Leave your comments

Military prose is a special layer fiction. Especially for the significant May days, "Foma" compiled a selection of 10 books from different years about the Great Patriotic War. We invite you to read the works of those authors for whom the war has become a key event in their lives and work.

Vasil Bykov. "Sotnikov" (1969)

The plot of the story "Sotnikov" to Vasily Bykov, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, was suggested by his brother-soldier, whom the writer considered dead. "Sotnikov" is a work about the vicissitudes of the fate of partisans in the war. Bykov interested eternal themes and questions about life and death, cowardice and courage, betrayal and loyalty.

Quotes

“No, probably, death does not solve anything and does not justify anything. Only life gives people certain opportunities that they realize or disappear in vain. Only life can resist evil and violence. Death takes away everything.”

“The most exhausting thing in war is uncertainty”

“You can not count on what is not deserved”

Boris Vasiliev. “And the dawns here are quiet…” (1969)

In this story, the writer Boris Vasiliev, who went through the war himself, tells the heartfelt and tragic story of five anti-aircraft gunner girls. The brave heroines, led by their commander, foreman Fedot Vaskov, enter into an unequal battle with German saboteurs.

Quotes:

“War is not just about who shoots who. War is who will change their minds

“A person in danger either does not understand anything at all, or immediately for two. And while one calculation is leading what to do next, the other takes care of this minute: it sees everything and notices everything.

“Stupid things should not be done even out of boredom”

Boris Polevoy. "A Tale of a Real Man (1946)

The world-famous story of Boris Polevoy, who visited the fronts of the Great Patriotic War as a war correspondent, tells about the Soviet pilot Alexei Meresyev, who was shot down in 1942 in one of the air battles. The pilot was wounded, lost both legs, but set himself the goal of returning to duty and achieved this. Pilot Alexei Maresyev, Hero of the Soviet Union, became the prototype of the hero of the story.

Quotes:

“It seemed that the weaker and weaker his body became, the more stubborn and stronger his spirit was”

“All his will, all vague thoughts, as if in focus, were concentrated in one small point: to crawl, move, move forward at all costs”

Konstantin Simonov. "The Living and the Dead" (1955–1971)

The grandiose trilogy "The Living and the Dead" tells about the events of the Great Patriotic War, starting from its first days. The novel is based on the notes of the author himself, made by him in different years, about the fate of people who were affected by the war.

Quotes:

“Sometimes it seems to a person that the war does not leave indelible marks on him, but if he is really a person, then it only seems to him”

“We are all the same in the war now: the evil ones are evil, and the good ones are also evil! And whoever is not evil either has not seen the war, or thinks that the Germans will take pity on him for his kindness.

“War separates people every hour: either forever, or temporarily; now death, now injury, now wound. And yet, no matter how you look at all this, but what it is, separation, you fully understand only when it comes upon you yourself.

Victor Nekrasov. "In the trenches of Stalingrad" (1946)

During the war years, the writer Viktor Nekrasov served at the front as a regimental engineer and took part in the Battle of Stalingrad. His story "In the trenches of Stalingrad" became a real event in the world of literature: the tragic narrative of cruel and exhausting battles became a work that marked the beginning of the so-called "trench prose". Before Nekrasov, few people dared to describe so truthfully and in detail what happened at the front. The writer's book delighted readers and critics around the world and was translated into 36 languages.

Quotes:

“In war, you never know anything except what is going on under your very nose. A German does not shoot at you - and it seems to you that the whole world is quiet and smooth; starts bombing - you are sure that the entire front from the Baltic to the Black Sea was moving"

“The worst thing in war is not shells, not bombs, you can get used to all this; the worst thing is inactivity, uncertainty, the absence of a direct goal. It is much more terrible to sit in a crack in an open field under bombardment than to go on the attack. And in the gap, after all, the chances of death are much less than in the attack. But in the attack - the goal, the task, and in the gap you only count the bombs, whether they will hit or not. ”

“Lucy then asked if I loved Blok. Funny girl. I should have asked if I loved Blok, in the past tense. Yes, I loved him. And now I love peace. Most of all I love peace. So that no one calls me when I want to sleep, does not order ... "

Daniel Granin. "My Lieutenant" (2011)

In his novel, Daniil Granin narrates on behalf of a young lieutenant D., a captain who went through the war and an elderly man who remembers everything that happened to him. Granin, who fought throughout the Great Patriotic War in tank troops, spoke about the concept of his book: “I didn’t want to write about the war, I had other topics, but my war remained untouched, it was the only war in the history of the Second World War that passed two and a half years in the trenches - all 900 blockade days. We lived and fought in the trenches, we buried our dead in cemeteries, we survived the hardest life in the trenches.”

Quotes:

“Life is comprehended when it passes, you look back and understand what was there, and so you live, not looking ahead, where it comes from. Everyone keeps track of their own time. They are in a hurry for one, they lag behind for the other, which is correct - it is not known, there is nothing to compare with, although the dial is common "

“Death is no longer an accident. It was an accident to survive"

“I never believed in God, I knew with all my brand new higher education, all astronomy, the wondrous laws of physics that there is no God, and yet I prayed”

Vyacheslav Kondratiev. "Sashka" (1979)

Kondratiev's story contains the philosophical question of the value human life. A front-line writer writes about a young man, yesterday's schoolboy Sasha, who ends up at the front. In the most difficult conditions, being face to face with the enemy, whom he captured, Sashka does not lose his inherent mercy, kindness and compassion.

Quotes:

"Life is like this - nothing can be postponed"

“Sashka saw a lot, a lot of deaths during this time - live to a hundred years, you won’t see so much - but the price of human life has not diminished from this in his mind ...”

Boris Vasiliev. "Not on the list» (1974)

The novel by Boris Vasiliev belongs to a special branch military literature, which arose in the second half of the twentieth century - lieutenant prose. This book is a true and sincere story of a young lieutenant Nikolai Pluzhnikov. In 1941, immediately after graduation, he went to the place of service in the Brest Fortress. So he ended up not appearing in the lists of the personnel of the garrison of the fortress, which he defends until his very last breath.

Quotes:

“A man cannot be defeated if he does not want to. You can kill, but you can't win."

“He survived only because someone died for him. He made this discovery without realizing that it was the law of war. Simple and necessary, like death: if you survived, then someone died for you. But the tone did not discover this law abstractly, not by reasoning: he discovered it from his own experience, and for him it was not a matter of conscience, but a matter of life.

“He fell on his back, supine, spreading his arms wide, exposing the sun to the unseeing, wide-open eyes. Fell free and after life, trampling death by death.

Svetlana Alexievich. "War has no woman's face" (1985)

Laureate book Nobel Prize in Literature (2015) by Svetlana Aleksievich is dedicated to the heroism of women who participated in the Great Patriotic War. “The war does not have a woman’s face ...” - these are all sorts of conversations, memories of partisans, pilots, nurses, underground workers who talk about what they had to endure during the terrible years of the war.

Quotes:

“The war is over, I had three desires: the first - finally I will not crawl on my stomach, but will ride a trolley bus, the second is to buy and eat a whole loaf, a white loaf, the third is to sleep in a white bed and make the sheets crunch”

“Everything we know about a woman fits best in the word “mercy”. There are other words - sister, wife, friend and the highest - mother. But isn't mercy also present in their content as an essence, as a purpose, as an ultimate meaning? A woman gives life, a woman protects life, a woman and life are synonyms.

“The war is over, and we suddenly realized that we need to study, that we need to get married, have children. That war is not the whole of life. And our female life is just beginning. And we were very tired, tired of the soul ... "

“We aspired ... We did not want to be said about us, “Oh, these women!” And we tried harder than men, we still had to prove that we were no worse than men. And for a long time there was an arrogant, condescending attitude towards us: “These women will fight…”

Michael Sholokhov. "Fate human" (1956)

The story "The Destiny of a Man" is based on real events. In 1946, Sholokhov met a former military man who told him his amazing story, which the writer clothed in work of fiction. The share of the protagonist of the story, soldier Andrei Sokolov, fell to the hardest trials. Once at the front, he ends up in a concentration camp, miraculously escapes execution and escapes. In the wild, he learns that almost all of his family, except for his son, died during the bombing, and returns to the front. On May 9, the most solemn day for the country, Sokolov receives the news that his only son has died. After the war, Sokolov adopts an orphan boy. Sholokhov's story that the war did not break the spirit of a person and did not kill his desire to live and help others.

Quote:

“They beat you because you are Russian, because you still look at the world, because you work for them, bastards. They also beat me because you didn’t look like that, you didn’t step like that, you didn’t turn around like that. They beat him easily, in order to someday kill him to death, so that he would choke on his last blood and die from beatings. There probably weren’t enough stoves for all of us in Germany.”

Valentin Kataev. "Son of the Regiment" (1945)

This story is addressed to young readers. The writer tells the story of the boy Vanya Solntsev, who fights at the front along with adult soldiers. Valentin Kataev shows that heroism, courage and will are inherent in even the youngest participants in the Great Patriotic War.

Quotes:

“Since a person is silent, it means that he does not consider it necessary to speak. And if it does not consider it necessary, then it is not necessary. If he wants, he will tell. And there is nothing to pull a person by the tongue "

"Victory or death!" - said our people in those years. And they went to their deaths so that others who survived would win. It was a fair fight for happiness and peace on earth."

Prepared by Asya Zanegina

The action of the story takes place in 1945, in the last months of the war, when native village Andrei Guskov returns after being wounded and hospitalized - but it just so happened that he returns as a deserter. Andrei simply did not want to die, he fought a lot and saw a lot of deaths. Only Nasten's wife knows about his act, she is now forced to hide her fugitive husband even from her relatives. She visits him from time to time at his hideout and it is soon revealed that she is pregnant. Now she is doomed to shame and torment - in the eyes of the whole village she will become a walking, unfaithful wife. Meanwhile, rumors are spreading that Guskov did not die or go missing, but is hiding, and they are starting to look for him. Rasputin's story about serious spiritual metamorphoses, about the moral and philosophical problems facing the heroes, was first published in 1974.

Boris Vasiliev. "Not listed"

The time of action is the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the place is the Brest Fortress besieged by the German invaders. Along with other Soviet soldiers, there is also Nikolai Pluzhnikov, a 19-year-old new lieutenant, a graduate of a military school, who was assigned to command a platoon. He arrived on the evening of June 21, and in the morning the war begins. Nikolai, who did not have time to be included in the military lists, has every right to leave the fortress and take his bride away from trouble, but he remains to fulfill his civic duty. The fortress, bleeding, losing lives, heroically held out until the spring of 1942, and Pluzhnikov became its last warrior-defender, whose heroism amazed his enemies. The story is dedicated to the memory of all unknown and nameless soldiers.

Vasily Grossman. "Life and Destiny"

The manuscript of the epic was completed by Grossman in 1959, was immediately recognized as anti-Soviet because of the harsh criticism of Stalinism and totalitarianism, and was confiscated in 1961 by the KGB. In our homeland, the book was published only in 1988, and even then with abbreviations. In the center of the novel is the Battle of Stalingrad and the Shaposhnikov family, as well as the fate of their relatives and friends. There are many characters in the novel whose lives are somehow connected with each other. These are the fighters who are directly involved in the battle, and simple people completely unprepared for the troubles of war. All of them manifest themselves in different ways in the conditions of war. The novel turned a lot in the mass ideas about the war and the sacrifices that the people had to make in an effort to win. This is, if you will, a revelation. It is large-scale in scope of events, large-scale in freedom and courage of thought, in true patriotism.

Konstantin Simonov. "Alive and Dead"

The trilogy ("The Living and the Dead", "No Soldiers Are Born", "The Last Summer") chronologically covers the period from the beginning of the war to July 44, and in general - the people's path to the Great Victory. In his epic, Simonov describes the events of the war as if he sees them through the eyes of his main characters Serpilin and Sintsov. The first part of the novel almost completely corresponds to Simonov's personal diary (he served as a war correspondent throughout the war), published under the title "100 Days of War". The second part of the trilogy describes the period of preparation and the Battle of Stalingrad itself - the turning point of the Great Patriotic War. The third part is devoted to our offensive on the Belorussian front. The war tests the heroes of the novel for humanity, honesty and courage. Several generations of readers, including the most biased of them - those who went through the war themselves, recognize this work as a truly unique work, comparable to the high examples of Russian classical literature.

Mikhail Sholokhov. "They fought for their country"

The writer worked on the novel from 1942 to 1969. The first chapters were written in Kazakhstan, where Sholokhov came from the front to the evacuated family. The theme of the novel is incredibly tragic in itself - the retreat of Soviet troops on the Don in the summer of 1942. Responsibility to the party and the people, as it was then understood, could induce to smooth out sharp corners, but Mikhail Sholokhov, as a great writer, openly wrote about insoluble problems, about fatal mistakes, about chaos in front-line deployment, about the absence of " strong hand, able to put things in order. The retreating military units, passing through the Cossack villages, felt, of course, not cordiality. It was not at all understanding and mercy that fell to their lot on the part of the inhabitants, but indignation, contempt and anger. And Sholokhov, dragging an ordinary person through the hell of war, showed how his character crystallizes in the process of testing. Shortly before his death, Sholokhov burned the manuscript of the novel, and only separate pieces were published. Whether there is a connection between this fact and the strange version that Andrei Platonov helped Sholokhov write this work at the very beginning is not even important. It is important that there is another great book in Russian literature.

Viktor Astafiev. "Cursed and Killed"

Astafiev worked on this novel in two books (“Devil's Pit” and “Bridgehead”) from 1990 to 1995, but never finished it. The name of the work, which covers two episodes from the Great Patriotic War: the training of recruits near Berdsk and the crossing of the Dnieper and the battle to hold the bridgehead, was given by a line from one of the Old Believer texts - “it was written that everyone who sows confusion, wars and fratricide on earth, will be cursed and killed by God. Viktor Petrovich Astafiev, a man by no means of a courtly nature, in 1942 volunteered to go to the front. What he saw and experienced melted into deep reflections on the war as a "crime against the mind." The action of the novel begins in the reserve regiment's quarantine camp near the Berdsk station. There are recruits Leshka Shestakov, Kolya Ryndin, Ashot Vaskonyan, Petka Musikov and Lekha Buldakov ... they will face hunger and love and reprisals and ... most importantly, they will face war.

Vladimir Bogomolov. "In August 44th"

The novel, published in 1974, is based on real documented events. Even if you have not read this book in any of the fifty languages ​​it has been translated into, then everyone has probably watched the film with the actors Mironov, Baluev and Galkin. But the cinema, believe me, will not replace this polyphonic book, which gives a sharp drive, a sense of danger, a full platoon, and at the same time a sea of ​​information about the "Soviet state and military machine" and about the everyday life of intelligence officers.So, the summer of 1944. Belarus has already been liberated, but somewhere on its territory a group of spies goes on the air, transmitting strategic information to the enemies about Soviet troops preparing a grandiose offensive. A detachment of scouts led by a SMERSH officer was sent in search of spies and a direction-finding radio.Bogomolov is a front-line soldier himself, so he was terribly meticulous in describing the details, and in particular, the work of counterintelligence (the Soviet reader learned a lot from him for the first time). Vladimir Osipovich simply exhausted several directors who were trying to film this exciting novel, he “sawed” the then editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda for an inaccuracy in the article, proving that it was he who was the first to talk about the method of Macedonian shooting. He is an amazing writer, and his book, without the slightest loss of historicity and ideological content, has become a real blockbuster in the best possible way.

Anatoly Kuznetsov. "Babi Yar"

A documentary novel based on childhood memories. Kuznetsov was born in 1929 in Kyiv, and with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, his family did not have time to evacuate. And for two years, 1941 - 1943, he saw how the Soviet troops retreated destructively, then, already in occupation, he saw atrocities, nightmares (for example, sausages were made from human flesh) and mass executions in Nazi concentration camp in Babi Yar. It is terrible to realize, but this “former in the occupation” stigma fell on his whole life. He brought the manuscript of his truthful, uncomfortable, terrible and poignant novel to the journal Yunost during the thaw, in 1965. But there frankness seemed excessive, and the book was redrawn, throwing out some pieces, so to speak, "anti-Soviet", and inserting ideologically verified ones. The very name of the novel Kuznetsov managed to defend by a miracle. Things got to the point that the writer began to fear arrest for anti-Soviet propaganda. Kuznetsov then simply shoved the sheets into glass jars and buried them in the forest near Tula. In 1969, having gone on a business trip from London, he refused to return to the USSR. He died 10 years later. The full text of Babi Yar was published in 1970.

Vasil Bykov. The stories “The Dead Doesn’t Hurt”, “Sotnikov”, “Alpine Ballad”

In all the stories of the Belarusian writer (and he mostly wrote stories), the action takes place during the war, in which he himself was a participant, and the focus of meaning is moral choice person in a tragic situation. Fear, love, betrayal, sacrifice, nobility and baseness - all this is mixed in different heroes of Bykov. The story "Sotnikov" tells about two partisans who were captured by the police, and how, in the end, one of them, in complete spiritual baseness, hangs the second. Based on this story, Larisa Shepitko made the film "Ascent". In the story "The Dead Doesn't Hurt", a wounded lieutenant is sent to the rear, ordered to escort three captured Germans. Then they stumble upon a German tank unit, and in a skirmish, the lieutenant loses both prisoners and his companion, and he himself is wounded in the leg a second time. Nobody wants to believe his report about the Germans in the rear. In the Alpine Ballad, a Russian prisoner of war Ivan and an Italian Julia escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Pursued by the Germans, exhausted by cold and hunger, Ivan and Julia grow closer. After the war, the Italian lady will write a letter to Ivan's fellow villagers, in which she will tell about the feat of their fellow countryman and about three days of their love.

Daniil Granin and Ales Adamovich. "Blockade book"

The famous book written by Granin in collaboration with Adamovich is called the book of truth. The first time it was published in a magazine in Moscow, it was published as a book in Lenizdat only in 1984, although it was written back in 1977. It was forbidden to publish the Blockade Book in Leningrad as long as the city was led by the first secretary of the regional committee, Romanov. Daniil Granin called the 900 days of the blockade "an epic of human suffering." On the pages of this amazing book, the memories and torments of exhausted people in the besieged city seem to come to life. It is based on the diaries of hundreds of blockade survivors, including the records of the deceased boy Yura Ryabinkin, the historian Knyazev and other people. The book contains blockade photographs and documents from the archives of the city and the Granin fund.

“Tomorrow there was a war” Boris Vasilyev (Publishing house “Eksmo”, 2011) “What a hard year! - Do you know why? Because leap year. The next one will be happy, you'll see! - The next one was one thousand nine hundred and forty-one. A poignant story about how 9-B class students loved, made friends and dreamed in 1940. About how important it is to believe people and be responsible for your words. How shameful to be a coward and a scoundrel. The fact that betrayal and cowardice can cost lives. Honor and mutual assistance. Beautiful, lively, modern teenagers. The boys who shouted "Hurrah" when they learned about the beginning of the war ... And the war was tomorrow, and the boys died in the first days. Short, without drafts and second chances, fast-paced lives. A much needed book and a movie of the same name with a great cast, graduate work Yuri Kara, taken in 1987.

“The Dawns Here Are Quiet” Boris Vasiliev (Azbuka-classika publishing house, 2012) The story of the fate of five anti-aircraft gunners and their commander Fedot Vaskov, written in 1969 by front-line soldier Boris Vasiliev, brought fame to the author and became a textbook work. The story is based on a real episode, but the author made the main characters as young girls. “Women have the hardest time in war,” recalled Boris Vasiliev. - There were 300 thousand of them at the front! And then no one wrote about them.” Their names became common nouns. Beautiful Zhenya Komelkova, young mother Rita Osyanina, naive and touching Liza Brichkina, orphanage Galya Chetvertak, educated Sonya Gurvich. Twenty-year-old girls, they could live, dream, love, raise children ... The plot of the story is well known thanks to the film of the same name, shot by Stanislav Rostotsky in 1972, and the Russian-Chinese TV series in 2005. You need to read the story in order to feel the atmosphere of the time and touch the bright female characters and their fragile destinies.

"Babi Yar" Anatoly Kuznetsov (Publishing house "Scriptorium 2003", 2009) In 2009, a monument dedicated to the writer Anatoly Kuznetsov was opened in Kyiv at the intersection of Frunze and Petropavlovskaya streets. A bronze sculpture of a boy reading a German decree ordering all Jews of Kyiv to appear on September 29, 1941 with documents, money and valuables ... In 1941, Anatoly was 12 years old. His family did not have time to evacuate, and for two years Kuznetsov lived in the occupied city. "Babi Yar" was written according to childhood memories. The retreat of the Soviet troops, the first days of the occupation, the explosion of Khreshchatyk and the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, executions in Babi Yar, desperate attempts to feed themselves, sausage from human flesh, which was speculated on the market, Dynamo Kiev, Ukrainian nationalists, Vlasovites - nothing escaped the eyes of the nimble teenager. A contrasting combination of childish, almost everyday perception and terrible events that defy logic. In an abridged form, the novel was published in 1965 in the journal Youth, the full version was first published in London five years later. After 30 years of the author's death, the novel was translated into Ukrainian.

"Alpine Ballad" Vasil Bykov (Publishing House "Eksmo", 2010) You can recommend any story of the writer-front-line soldier Vasil Bykov: "Sotnikov", "Obelisk", "The dead do not hurt", " Wolf Pack”, “To go and not return” - more than 50 works of the national writer of Belarus, but special attention deserves the Alpine Ballad. A Russian prisoner of war, Ivan, and an Italian, Giulia, escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Among the harsh mountains and alpine meadows, pursued by the Germans, exhausted by cold and hunger, Ivan and Julia draw closer. After the war, the Italian lady will write a letter to Ivan's fellow villagers, in which she will tell about the feat of their fellow countryman, about three days of love that lit up the darkness and fear of war with lightning. From the memoirs of Bykov Long road home”: “I foresee a sacramental question about fear: was he afraid? Of course, he was afraid, and maybe sometimes he was a coward. But there are many fears in war, and they are all different. Fear of the Germans - that they could be taken prisoner, shot; fear due to fire, especially artillery or bombing. If an explosion is nearby, it seems that the body itself, without the participation of the mind, is ready to be torn to pieces from wild torment. But there was also fear that came from behind - from the authorities, from all those punitive organs, of which there were no less in the war than in peacetime. Even more".

“Not on the lists” Boris Vasiliev (Azbuka publishing house, 2010) Based on the story, the film “I am a Russian soldier” was shot. Tribute to the memory of all unknown and nameless soldiers. The hero of the story, Nikolai Pluzhnikov, arrived at the Brest Fortress on the evening before the war. In the morning the battle begins, and they do not have time to add Nikolai to the lists. Formally, he free man and can leave the fortress with his girlfriend. As a free man, he decides to fulfill his civic duty. Nikolai Pluzhnikov became the last defender Brest Fortress. Nine months later, on April 12, 1942, he ran out of ammunition and went upstairs: “The fortress didn’t fall: it just bled out. I am her last drop.

"Brest Fortress" Sergei Smirnov (publishing house "Soviet Russia", 1990) Thanks to the writer and historian Sergei Smirnov, the memory of many defenders of the Brest Fortress has been restored. For the first time, the defense of Brest became known in 1942, from a German headquarters report captured with documents from the defeated unit. "Brest Fortress", as far as possible, is a documentary story, and it describes the mentality quite realistically Soviet people. Readiness for a feat, mutual assistance (not with words, but by giving the last sip of water), putting one's interests below the interests of the collective, defending the Motherland at the cost of one's life - these are the qualities of a Soviet person. In the Brest Fortress, Smirnov restored the biographies of the people who were the first to take the German blow, were cut off from the whole world and continued their heroic resistance. He returned to the dead their honest names and the gratitude of their descendants.

"Madonna with ration bread" Maria Glushko (publishing house "Goskomizdat", 1990) One of the few works that tells about the life of women in the war. Not heroic pilots and nurses, but those who worked in the rear, starved, raised children, gave "everything for the front, everything for victory", received funerals, restored the country to ruin. Largely autobiographical and last (1988) novel by the Crimean writer Maria Glushko. Her heroines, morally pure, courageous, thinking, are always an example to follow. Like the author, sincere, honest and a kind person. The heroine of Madonna is 19-year-old Nina. The husband goes to war, and Nina recent months pregnancy is sent for evacuation to Tashkent. From a prosperous wealthy family to the very thick of human misfortune. Here is pain and horror, betrayal and salvation that came from people whom she used to despise - non-party people, beggars ... There were those who stole a piece of bread from hungry children, and those who gave away their rations. “Happiness teaches nothing, only suffering teaches” After such stories, you understand how little we have done to deserve a well-fed, calm life, and how little we appreciate what we have.

The list can be continued for a long time. “Life and Fate” by Grossman, “Coast”, “Choice”, “Hot Snow” by Yuri Bondarev, which have become classic adaptations of “Shield and Sword” by Vadim Kozhevnikov and “Seventeen Moments of Spring” by Julian Semenov. The epic three-volume book "War" by Ivan Stadnyuk, "Battle for Moscow. Version of the General Staff, edited by Marshal Shaposhnikov, or the three-volume Memoirs and Reflections by Marshal Georgy Zhukov. There are no number of attempts to understand what happens to people in the war. There is no complete picture, no black and white. There are only special cases, illuminated by a rare hope and surprise that such a thing can be experienced and remain human.