The Great Patriotic War is one of those events in the history of the country that remain in the memory of the people for a long time. Such events largely change people's ideas about life and art. The war caused an unprecedented surge in literature, music, painting, and cinema. But, perhaps, there has not been and will not be a more popular work about the war than the poem by Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky "Vasily Terkin".
A. T. Tvardovsky wrote firsthand about the war. At the very beginning of the war, he, like many other writers and poets, goes to the front. And passing along the roads of war, the poet creates an amazing monument to the Russian soldier, his feat. The hero of the “Book about a fighter”, as the author himself defined the genre of his work, is Vasily Terkin, who is a collective image of a Russian soldier. But there is another hero in the book - the author himself. We cannot even say that it is always Tvardovsky himself. Rather, we are talking about the generalized image of the author-narrator, which is present in "Eugene Onegin", "A Hero of Our Time" and other works that form the basis of the Russian literary tradition. Although some facts from the poem coincide with the real biography of A. T. Tvardovsky, the author is clearly endowed with many features of Terkin, they are constantly together (“Terkin - further. The author - after”). This allows us to say that the author in the poem is also a man of the people, a Russian soldier, who differs from Terkin, in fact, only in that “the course passed in the capital”. A. T. Tvardovsky makes Terkin his countryman. And therefore the words
I tremble with sharp pain,
Malice bitter and holy.
Mother, father, siblings
I have beyond that line -
become the words of both the author and his hero. Amazing lyricism colors those lines of the poem that speak of the “small homeland” that each of the soldiers who took part in the war had. The author loves his hero, admires his actions. They are always unanimous:
And I'll tell you, I won't hide,
In this book, here and there,
What to say to the hero,
I speak personally.
I am responsible for everything around
And notice, if you haven't noticed,
Like Terkin, my hero,
Sometimes speaks for me.
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 the “friend-reader”, and therefore seeks to convey to him the “real truth” about the war. The author feels his responsibility to the readers, he understands how important it was not only to tell about the war, but also to instill in the readers (and we remember that “Vasily Terkin” was published in separate chapters during the war, and the idea goes back to the time of the Finnish war) faith in the invincibility of the spirit of the Russian soldier, optimism. Sometimes the author, as it were, invites 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 shows subtle author's humor. 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 days
You can do more, but sometimes
In a one minute war
Can't live without a joke
Jokes of the most unwise.
The text of the poem is filled with jokes, sayings, sayings, and it is impossible to determine who their author is: the author of the poem, the hero of the poem Terkin, or the people in general.
The author's powers of observation, the vigilance of his gaze and the skill of conveying the details of front-line life are striking. The book becomes a kind of "encyclopedia" of the war, written "from nature", in a field situation. The author is faithful not only to details. He felt the psychology of a man in the war, felt the same fear, hunger, cold, just rejoiced and grieved... the author to tell his contemporaries and descendants about the war in which “the battle is holy and right. Mortal combat is not for the sake of glory, for the sake of life on earth.
Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky was born in 1910 on one of the farms in the Smolensk region, into a peasant family. For the formation of the personality of the future poet, the relative erudition of his father, love for the book, which he brought up in his children, also mattered. “Entire winter evenings,” writes Tvardovsky in his autobiography, “we often devoted ourselves to reading a book aloud. My first acquaintance with "Poltava" and "Dubrovsky" by Pushkin, "Taras Bulba" by Gogol, the most popular poems by Lermontov, Nekrasov, A.K. Tolstoy, Nikitin happened in this way.
In 1938, an important event took place in the life of Tvardovsky - he joined the ranks of the Communist Party. In the autumn of 1939, immediately after graduating from the Moscow Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature (IFLI), the poet participated in the liberation campaign of the Soviet Army in Western Belarus (as a special correspondent for a military newspaper). The first meeting with the heroic people in a military situation was of great importance for the poet. According to Tvardovsky, the impressions received then anticipated those deeper and stronger ones that flooded over him during the Second World War. Artists drew amusing pictures depicting the unusual front-line adventures of an experienced soldier Vasya Terkin, and poets composed text for these pictures. Vasya Terkin is a popular popular character who performed supernatural, dizzying feats: he got a tongue, pretending to be a snowball, covered his enemies with empty barrels and lit up, sitting on one of them, “he takes the enemy with a bayonet, like sheaves with a pitchfork.” This Terkin and his namesake - the hero of the poem of the same name by Tvardovsky, who gained nationwide fame - are incomparable.
For some slow-witted readers, Tvardovsky will subsequently specifically hint at the deep difference that exists between a genuine hero and his namesake:
Can't you conclude now?
What, they say, grief does not matter,
What the guys got up, took
Tree without difficulty?
What about constant luck
Terkin accomplished a feat:
Russian wooden spoon
Eight Fritz laid down!
Such lubok heroism was in the spirit of Vasya Terkin, the hero of the humorous page of the newspaper On Guard for the Motherland.
However, the captions to the drawings helped Tvardovsky achieve ease of colloquial speech. These forms are preserved in the "real" "Vasily Terkin", having improved significantly, expressing a deep life content.
The first plans to create a serious poem about the hero of the people's war date back to the period 1939-1940. But these plans changed significantly later under the influence of new, formidable and great events.
Tvardovsky was always interested in the fate of his country at turning points in history. History and people are its main theme. Back in the early 1930s, he created a poetic picture of the complex era of collectivization in the poem "Country Ant". During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) A..T. Tvardovsky writes the poem "Vasily Terkin" about the Great Patriotic War. The fate of the people was decided. The poem is dedicated to the life of the people in the war.
Tvardovsky is a poet who deeply understood and appreciated the beauty of the national character. Large-scale, capacious, collective images are created in “The Land of the Ant”, “Vasily Terkin”: the events are enclosed in a very broad plot framework, the poet turns to hyperbole and other means of fabulous convention. In the center of the poem is the image of Terkin, which unites the composition of the work into a single whole. Terkin Vasily Ivanovich - the protagonist of the poem, an ordinary infantryman from Smolensk peasants.
"Just a guy himself
He is ordinary"
Terkin embodies the best features of the Russian soldier and the people as a whole. A hero named Vasily Terkin first appears in the poetic feuilletons of the Tvardov period of the Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940). The words of the hero of the poem:
"I am the second, brother, war
I'm fighting for the ages"
The poem is built 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 tells young soldiers about the everyday life of the war with humor; says that he has been fighting since the very beginning of the war, he was surrounded three times, was wounded. The fate of an ordinary soldier, one of those who bore the brunt of the war on his shoulders, becomes the personification of the national fortitude, the will to live. Terkin swims across the icy river twice to re-establish contact with advancing units; Terkin occupies a German dugout alone, 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 steps into hand-to-hand combat with the German and, with difficulty, overcoming, takes him prisoner. Unexpectedly for himself, Terkin shoots down a German attack aircraft from a rifle; Terkin reassures the envious sergeant:
“Do not worry, the German has this
Not the last plane
Terkin takes over command of the platoon when the commander is killed and breaks into the village first; however, the hero is again seriously wounded. Lying wounded in the field, Terkin converses with Death, who persuades him not to cling to life; in the end, he is discovered by the fighters, and he tells them:
"Remove this woman,
I am a soldier still alive
In the image of Vasily Terkin, the best moral qualities of the Russian people are combined: patriotism, readiness for a feat, love for work.
The character traits of the hero are interpreted by the poet as traits of the collective image: Terkin is inseparable and inseparable from the militant people. It is interesting that all fighters - regardless of their age, tastes, military experience - feel good with Vasily; wherever he appears - in battle, on vacation, on the way - contact, friendliness, mutual disposition are instantly established between him and the fighters. Literally every scene is about it. The fighters listen to Terkin's playful bickering with the cook at the first appearance of the hero:
And sitting under a pine tree,
He eats porridge, hunched over.
"Mine?" - fighters among themselves, -
"Mine!" - exchanged glances.
I do not need, brothers, orders,
I don't need fame.
Terkin is characterized by respect and careful attitude of the master to the thing, as to the fruit of labor. It is not for nothing that he takes away the saw from his grandfather, which he mangles, not being able to sharpen it. Returning the finished saw to the owner, Vasily says:
On-ko, grandfather, take it, look.
Will cut better than new
In vain do not measles the tool.
Terkin loves work and is not afraid of it (from the hero's conversation with death):
I am an employee
I would go into business at home.
- The house is destroyed.
- I'm a carpenter.
- There is no stove.
And the baker...
a hero is usually a synonym for his mass character, the absence of features of exclusivity in him. But this simplicity has another meaning in the poem: the transparent symbolism of the hero's surname, Terkin's “tolerate-tolerate” sets off his ability to overcome difficulties simply, easily. Such is his behavior even when he swims across an icy river or sleeps under a pine tree, completely content with an uncomfortable bed, and so on. In this simplicity of the hero, his calmness, sober outlook on life, important features of the national character are expressed.
In the field of view of A.T. Tvardovsky in the poem "Vasily Terkin" is not only the front, but also those who work in the rear for the sake of victory: women and the elderly. The characters of the poem not only fight - they laugh, love, talk with each other, and most importantly - dream of a peaceful life. The reality of war is united by what is usually incompatible: tragedy and humor, courage and fear, life and death.
The chapter "From the Author" depicts the process of "mythologization" of the main character of the poem. Terkin is called by the author "a holy and sinful Russian miracle man." The name of Vasily Terkin has become legendary and a household name.
The poem "Vasily Terkin" is distinguished by a kind of historicism. Conventionally, it can be divided into three parts, coinciding with the beginning, middle and end of the war. The poetic comprehension 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 - 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.
The composition of the poem is also original. Not only individual chapters, but also periods, stanzas within chapters are distinguished by their completeness. This is due to the fact that the poem was printed in parts. And it should be accessible to the reader from "any place".
The poem has 30 chapters. Twenty-five of them fully, comprehensively reveals the hero, who finds himself in a wide variety of military situations. In the last chapters, Terkin does not appear at all (“About an Orphan Soldier”, “On the Road to Berlin”). The poet has said everything about the hero and does not want to repeat himself, to make the image illustrative.
It is no coincidence that Tvardovsky's work begins and ends with lyrical digressions. An open conversation with the reader brings the work closer to the inner world, creates an atmosphere of common involvement in the events. The poem ends with a dedication to the fallen.
Tvardovsky talks about the reasons that pushed him to such a construction of the poem:
“I did not long languish with doubts and fears about the uncertainty of the genre, the lack of an initial plan that embraces the whole work in advance, the weak plot connection of the chapters with each other. Not a poem - well, let yourself not a poem, - I decided; there is no single plot - let yourself not, do not; there is no very beginning of a thing - there is no time to invent it; the culmination and completion of the whole story is not planned - let it be written about what is burning, not waiting ... ”
Of course, the plot in the work is necessary. Tvardovsky knew and knows this very well, but in an effort to convey to the reader the "real truth" of the war, he polemically declared his rejection of the plot in the usual sense of the word.
There is no plot in war...
................
However, the truth does not hurt.
The poet emphasized the veracity and reliability of broad pictures of life by calling Vasily Terkin not a poem, but a “book about a fighter.” The word "book" in this popular sense sounds somehow special in a significant way, as a subject "serious, reliable, unconditional," says Tvardovsky.
The poem "Vasily Terkin" is an epic canvas. But lyrical motifs also sound powerful in it. Tvardovsky could call (and called) the poem "Vasily Terkin" his lyrics, because in this work for the first time the appearance of the poet himself, the features of his personality, were so vividly, diversely and strongly expressed.
Alexander Tvardovsky saw the war and the battlefield with his own eyes, as he worked as a war correspondent, so he managed to very accurately bring his work closer to the people and the feelings that engulfed the country at that time.
The poem "Vasily Terkin" Tvardovsky began to write during a military campaign, then the idea of \u200b\u200bthe work arose. The first chapters were published in 1942, at the height of hostilities. After the appearance of the first part, the poem becomes the main work at the front. The work was greeted with approval, the image of the hero-soldier Vasily Terkin was liked by the people and was close to them. Tvardovsky carefully worked on each chapter, trying to create finished parts that "could be read from any open page." Alexander Trifonovich tried to write in an easy, understandable language for people: “I rewrote each chapter many times, checking for slugs, worked for a long time on any one stanza or line.”
Vasily Terkin is a collective image that absorbed the characteristics and features of the Russian people in wartime. Terkin is also the image of a Soviet hero, ready to fight to the death and defend the Motherland.
The protagonist of the poem, a simple Russian soldier, has a wide range of positive traits, but does not stand out in appearance.
Vasily is brave, courageous, confident, modest, simple, honest, brave, noble, kind, is the image of a sincere person who is welcome anywhere and who can join any team. There is also unshakable faith and hope in Turkin. In the chapter "On the Reward" he talks about the world after the war:
Here I came from the station
To your native village council.
I came, and here is a party.
No party? Okay, no.
He dreams of meeting a girl:
And I would joke with everyone
And there would be one among them ...
His dreams are interrupted by a colleague:
Where are the girls, where are the parties?
…….Visit your native village
Despite this, Vasily does not lose faith and continues to hope. In the same chapter, we learn that Terkin is not proud and does not fight for the sake of awards and titles:
No guys, I'm not proud.
Without looking into the distance
So I will say: why do I need an order?
I agree to a medal.
The hero never loses heart, and even on the verge of death, he is able to laugh it off and not give up to the end. In the chapter "Death and the Warrior" one can see his great love for life.
Fulfillment of duty to the Motherland for Vasily is in the first place. In the "Crossing" part, he swam to deliver the order that he could save the platoon. The chapter "Who shot" shows how Terkin makes a brave and courageous act. He shoots down an enemy plane, possibly saving many lives. Such a heroic deed requires the greatest willpower and great courage, which Vasily shows. This shows the courage of Russian soldiers, who are ready to lay their chest on the embrasure for the sake of the Motherland.
Front-line everyday life is undoubtedly difficult, and it is necessary to have incredible fortitude in order to fight and hold on to the end, fight and live. From the chapter "Two Soldiers" we can feel the heaviness and mood of everyday days in the war.
In the field of a blizzard-zaviruha,
Three miles away, war is buzzing.
Turkin is at war again
Respect for the dead, the general spirit and attitude is shown by the chapter "Accordion". From the dialogue of the soldiers, we understand the severity of the war days and the sadness at the loss of a comrade. Simple, human things, the atmosphere and the general spiritual cohesion make the soldiers closer and during the cold, snowy winter it suddenly becomes warmer.
And from that old harmonica,
Who was left an orphan
It suddenly got warmer
On the front road.
Vasily Terkin was close to the soldiers of the Second World War, in him they saw their features, the features of their comrades, in his image there is something native, pleasant and sincere, which reminds of home. Terkin could inspire, support, amuse. Vasily is a separate person, but at the same time an extensive collective image. This is a man of great faith and heroism, this is a Russian man, he does not surrender, neither to the enemy, nor to death:
I will cry, howl in pain,
Dying in the field without a trace
But you are willing
I will never give up.
Updated: 2017-12-12
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A. Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin" helps to understand the true measure of the human casualties and losses that were suffered in the war and which were said in full voice only decades after the Great Victory. But the book was written in the midst of the war, when victory was far away, and the daily problem of the struggle for survival was on the agenda for readers and heroes of the work. That is why the author endows his main character with immortality and the best folk qualities, emphasizing that he is one of many, the same as the rest of the heroes of this cruel war.
Each of the fighters on the front line, reading or listening to the fate of Vasily Terkin, was imbued with his love of life and vitality, which, in the first place, were faith in victory, in the immortality and invincibility of the people. Each fighter worthily on his shoulders bore the burden of great responsibility, proclaimed by the hero Terkin:
* The year has come, the turn has come,
*Today we are responsible
* For Russia, for the people
* And for everything in the world.
In the adventures of Terkin there is fiction, standing somewhere on the border of a half-fairy-half-fact. And characterizing the truth of the stories of Terkin himself, Tvardovsky more than once returns to a playful doubt - whether it is true, or not in them, in these soldiers' stories. This technique allows the author to create the image of a soldier in which each reader could recognize himself. The image “guns go backwards to battle”, repeated in the poem, persistently points the reader to the allegorical meaning of the figurative system of the work, recalls the need to think on the lines of this story, which the author himself defines as “unusual, it may turn out; strange, maybe sometimes ", revealing the author's subtext of a fantastic plot and imagery:
* The point is not that heaven and hell,
* Damn it, the devil - it doesn't matter ...
* Cannons go backwards to battle
* This has been said for a long time.
Writing a book about a war during a war is an ordeal, but the author clearly expresses the goal of writing a book "about a fighter with no beginning, no end, no special plot":
* Let me come back from the war
* When defeating an enemy.
Who is he, this hero, who does not lose heart in the war, who accompanies difficult life trials with jokes and laughter? Just a guy by itself, there is always one in every company, every platoon. Not marked by special beauty, not tall and not small, but "a hero is a hero." His law is to serve to term, his service is work. In war, he does not live a day or an hour without an order: the rise - he jumped up like a nail, there is a signal forward - he will go forward, but if there is an order to die - he will die. He worthily goes through all those difficult trials that the war carried. He is ready to defend his homeland in the face of mortal danger. Even feeling the superiority of the enemy, the soldier engages in hand-to-hand combat: "Terkin knew that in this fight he was weaker: not those grubs." The German was strong and agile, “well-cut, well-tailored”, well-fed, shaved, well-groomed, and slept well. Blow for blow: “even though the face burns with fire, the German is also decorated with a red skirt like an egg.” Terkin spits blood, chokes on the stinking breath of the enemy, but does not give up. The brave boy fights to the death.
This fight looks like an ancient massacre, when instead of thousands, two “chest to chest, shield to shield” fought, as if the result of the battle could decide everything. But this fight has a kind of generalizing meaning: such as this fight was the whole war with the fascist invaders. The Nazi army is stubborn
- New!
The figure of Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky is significant for modern Russian literature of the 20th century. He wrote his poem "Vasily Terkin" throughout the war. And she captured everything that happened in those terrible and harsh years, became a kind of chronicle. Poem...
- New!
There are few oppositions in Vasily Terkin, but there is a lot of movement and development - primarily in the images of the protagonist and the author, their contacts with each other and with other characters. Initially, they are distant: in the introduction, Terkin unites only ...
Terkin Vasily Ivanovich - the protagonist of the poem, an ordinary infantryman (then an officer) from Smolensk peasants ("Just a guy by himself / He is ordinary"); T. embodies the best features of the Russian soldier and the people as a whole. As a name for the character Twardowski...
Tvardovsky was always interested in the fate of his country at turning points in history. Back in the early 1930s, he created a poetic picture of the complex era of collectivization in the poem "Country Ant". During the Great Patriotic War A.T. Tvardovsky...
They say that they were going to erect or have already erected a monument to the fighter Vasily Terkin. A monument to a literary hero is a rare thing in general, and especially in our country. But it seems to me that the hero of Tvardovsky deserved this honor by right. After all, along with...
Municipal basic educational institution "Platovskaya OOSh"
Research work on literature
Topic: "The image of Vasily Terkin in the work of Tvardovsky"
Checked: teacher
Platovka 2011
SUMMING 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, figurativeness, accuracy, which makes us truly believe the poem.
The protagonist 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 they had the real Terkin in their company, that he was fighting with them. The image of Terkin also has folk, folklore roots. In one of the chapters, Tvardovsky compares him with a soldier from the famous fairy tale "Porridge from an ax." The author presents Terkin as a resourceful soldier who knows how to find a way out of any situation, to show intelligence and ingenuity. In other chapters, the hero appears to us as a mighty hero from ancient epics, strong and fearless.
What can be said about the qualities of Terkin? All of them are certainly worthy of respect. It is easy to say about Vasily Terkin: “he does not sink in water and does not burn in fire,” and this will be pure truth. The hero shows such qualities as courage, courage, courage, and the proof of this is such chapters as "Crossing" and "Death and the Warrior". He never loses heart, he jokes (for example, in the chapters "Terkin-Terkin", "In the bathhouse"). He shows his love for life in Death and the Warrior. He is not given into the hands of death, resists it and survives. And, of course, in Terkin there are 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 the soldiers to exploits, helped them during the war years, 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 He 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, was wounded. Terkin's motto: "Cheer up", no matter what the difficulties. So, the hero, in order to restore contact with the soldiers on the other side of the river, crosses it twice in icy water. Or, in order to hold a telephone line during the battle, Terkin alone occupies a German dugout, in which he comes under fire. Once Terkin enters into hand-to-hand combat with a German and, with great difficulty, but still takes the enemy prisoner. The hero perceives all these feats as ordinary actions in the war. He does not brag about them, does not demand a reward for them. And only jokingly says that for representativeness he simply needs a medal. Even in the harsh conditions of the war, Terkin retains all human qualities. The hero has a great sense of humor, which helps T. himself and everyone around him to survive. So, he jokes encourages fighters leading a difficult battle. Terkin is presented with the accordion of a murdered commander, and he plays it, brightening up the soldiers' moments of rest. On the way to the front, the hero helps the old peasants with their household chores, convincing them of an imminent victory. Having met a peasant woman stolen into captivity, T. gives her all the trophies. Terkin does not have a girl who would write letters to him and wait 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. Terkin's name becomes a household name. In the chapter "In the bath" a soldier with a huge number of awards is compared with 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 from a rifle unexpectedly shoots down a German attack aircraft; Sergeant T., who is envious of him, reassures him: “Don’t worry, the German has this / Not the 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 him, since his native village is still occupied by the Germans. In the chapter “Fight in the swamp”, T. jokes with the fighters who are fighting a hard fight for a place called “the settlement of Borki”, from which “one black place” remains. In the chapter "On Love" it turns out that the hero does not have a girl who would accompany him to the war and write him letters to the front; the author jokingly calls: "Pay a gentle look, / Girls, to the infantry." In the chapter "Terkin's Rest", normal living conditions are presented to the hero as "paradise"; unaccustomed to sleeping in bed, he cannot sleep until he is advised to put a hat on his head to mimic field conditions. In the chapter "On the offensive" T., when the platoon commander is killed, takes command and breaks into the village first; 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 crew. The chapter “Terkin writes” is a letter from T. from the hospital to fellow soldiers: he promises to return to them without fail. In the chapter "Terkin - Terkin" the hero meets a namesake - Ivan Terkin; they argue which of them is the "true" Terkin (this name has already become legendary), but they cannot determine, because they are very similar to each other. The dispute is resolved by the foreman, who explains that "According to the charter, each company / Terkin will be given his own." Further, in the chapter "From the author", the process of "mythologization" of the character is depicted; T. is called "the holy and sinful Russian miracle man." The chapter "Grandfather and Woman" again deals with the old peasants from the chapter "Two Soldiers"; having spent two years in occupation, they await the advance of the Red Army; in one of the scouts, the old man recognizes T., who became an officer. In the chapter "On the Dnieper" it is said 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 driven away to Germany - she returns home on foot; together with the soldiers, T. gives her trophies: a horse with a team, a cow, a sheep, household utensils and a bicycle. In the chapter “In the bathhouse” of a soldier, on whose tunic “Orders, medals in a row / Burn with a hot flame”, admiring fighters are compared with T. : the name of the hero has already become a household name.
VASILY TERKIN - This is a realistic image of a great generalizing force, an “ordinary” hero, according to Tvardovsky, born in a special, unique atmosphere of the war years; an image-type of a Soviet soldier who organically entered the soldier's environment, close to his collective prototype in biography, way of thinking, actions and language. According to V. T, “having lost his heroic physique”, “gained a heroic soul”. This is an amazingly true understanding of the Russian national character, taken in its best features. Behind the illusion of rusticity, jokes, mischief, there is a moral sensitivity and an inherent sense of filial duty to the Motherland, the ability to accomplish a feat at any moment without phrase and pose. Behind experience and love of life - a dramatic duel with the death of a person who finds himself in a war. Developed 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 the Soviet soldier and his homeland. The generalized type of the Soviet soldier was identified with the image of the entire warring people, concretized in the living, psychologically rich character of V. T, in which each front-line soldier recognized himself and his comrade. V. T. became a household name, joining the same ranks with such heroes as Til de Costera and Cola Rollana.
After the end of the war and the publication of the first poem about V. T., readers asked Tvardovsky to write a sequel 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 a satirical poem about the essence of the bureaucratic world of the totalitarian system, which was called "Terkin in the next world." Personifying the viability 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 "sluggish." 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 not required to actively fight, which is impossible among the dead, but the ability to go through trials and endure 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 ("Dance of Death").
With triumphant success, he embodied on the stage of the Moscow Theater of Satire (director V. Pluchek).
The reader asked Tvardovsky to continue V. T. “Our Vasily,” Tvardovsky reports, “arrived in the next world, and left in this one.” The poem ends with a hint-appeal to the reader: "I have given 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 mouth of the joker,
The word is eagerly caught.
It's good when someone is lying
Fun and challenging.
Just a guy himself
He is ordinary.
Not tall, not that small
But a hero is a hero.
I am a big hunter to live
Years to ninety.
And, at the shores of the crust
Breaking the ice
He is like him, Vasily Terkin,
I got up alive - I got by swimming.
And with a careless smile
Then the fighter says:
- Is it possible to have a pile,
Because well done?
No guys, I'm not proud.
Without thinking into the distance
So I will say: why do I need an order?
I agree to a medal.
Terkin, Terkin, good fellow...
In the midst of the Great Patriotic War, when our entire country was defending our homeland, the first chapters of A.T. Tvardovsky "Vasily Terkin", where a simple Russian soldier, "an ordinary guy" is displayed in the image of the main character.
The writer himself recalled that the beginning of work on "Vasily Terkin" was accompanied by difficulties: it was not easy to find the required art form, to determine the composition, and it was especially difficult to choose a main character who would be understandable not only to the wartime reader, but would also remain modern for many years. Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky found his hero - Vasily Terkin, whose image helped both the soldiers at the front and their wives and children in the rear, and is also interesting to the modern reader. What made the literary image of Terkin so popular for so many years?
Any artistic image has not only individualistic, personal features, but also carries something collective, general, is a spokesman, a characteristic hero of its time. On the one hand, Vasily Terkin is not like the rest of the soldiers in the company: he is a merry fellow, he is distinguished by a peculiar sense of humor, he is not afraid of danger, but at the same time, Tvardovsky, creating his hero, did not take any particular person as a model, so the writer turned out to be a collective image of a soldier, the defender of the Russian land, ready at any moment to repel the attacks of the enemy:
However, what is there to think, brothers,
We must hurry to beat the German.
That's all Terkin in a nutshell
You have to report.
Terkin is brave, courageous, he is not afraid of bullets, enemy bombing, or ice water. In any situation, the hero knows how to stand up for himself and not let others down. Terkin is a friend to a fighter at a halt, a son to an old man and an old woman in a dilapidated hut, a brother to a young woman who sent all her loved ones to the front. The character of the hero is woven from dozens and hundreds of characters of ordinary Russian soldiers, endowed with universal human traits: kindness, respect for people, decency.
A.T. Tvardovsky endows his hero with a telling surname: Terkin, not without reason the most common phrase of the poem: “We will endure. Let's grind." The strength of the Russian spirit is such that a person can endure everything, can survive a lot, but this does not make him angrier, intolerant, but, on the contrary, seeks to help people, tries to make them believe in their own strength:
He sighed at the door
And said:
Let's go, father...
Savvy and resourceful Terkin not only in the war, during the battle, but also in everyday life. Thus, peaceful and military life merge into one. The hero, as it were, lives in the war, constantly dreaming of victory, of simple village work.
The writer Vasily Terkin calls differently in the poem, then he is an “ordinary guy”, with weaknesses inherent in any person, then a hero.
Gradually, the image of the hero grows from an individual personality to the level of a literary generalization:
Serious, funny
No matter what rain, what snow, -
Into battle, forward, into pitch fire
He goes, saint and sinner,
Russian miracle man...
The fact that the writer does not separate Terkin from himself is also important. In the chapter "About Me" he writes:
I am responsible for everything around
And notice, if you haven't noticed,
Like Terkin, my hero,
Sometimes speaks for me.
Bringing the hero closer to himself, making Vasily Terkin his countryman, A.T. Tvardovsky speaks of a direct connection between people during the war years, that everyone strives for a peaceful life, for returning to their home.
Therefore, the poem by A.T. Tvardovsky "Vasily Terkin" is still so popular, because its main character looks like the most ordinary person.