The main character, foreman, commandant of the patrol. Vaskov is distinguished by a “peasant mind” and “solid reticence.” He is 32 years old, but he feels much older, since he became the breadwinner of the family at the age of fourteen. Vaskov has four years of education.
One of the main characters, a participant in the war who served at the 171st patrol. She was an orphan from an orphanage, who on the very first day of the war was sent as part of a group to the military commissar. She dreamed of participating in the war, but since she was not suitable, either in height or age, they did not want to take her. In the end, she was assigned to an anti-aircraft gunner.
One of the main characters, an anti-aircraft gunner who ended up in Fedot Vaskov’s detachment. Zhenya was a beautiful, slender, red-haired girl, whose beauty was admired by everyone around her. The village in which she grew up was captured by the Germans.
One of the main heroines of the story, a brave girl anti-aircraft gunner who served in Vaskov’s detachment. Lisa grew up in the family of a forester from the Bryansk region. All her life she cared for her seriously ill mother, because of which she could not even finish school.
One of the main characters, the eldest in the platoon. Rita is a serious and reserved person. She almost never laughs or shows emotion. He treats other girls in the squad strictly and always keeps to himself.
One of the main characters, a girl anti-aircraft gunner from the detachment of Sergeant Major Fedot Vaskov. Sonya is a shy girl from Minsk who studied at Moscow University to become a translator, and with the beginning of the war she ended up in a school for anti-aircraft gunners.
Kiryanova
Secondary character, platoon deputy sergeant, senior among the anti-aircraft gunners.
Major
A minor character, the immediate commander of Sergeant Major Vaskov, it was he who provided the female anti-aircraft gunners to his platoon.
Mistress Maria Nikiforovna
War is no place for a woman. But in an effort to defend their country, their fatherland, even representatives of the fair half of humanity are ready to fight. Boris Lvovich Vasiliev in the story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet...” was able to convey the difficult fate of five female anti-aircraft gunners and their commander during the second war.
The author himself claimed that a real event was chosen as the basis for the plot. Seven soldiers who served on one of the sections of the Kirov Railway were able to repel the Nazi invaders. They fought with the sabotage group and prevented the bombing of their site. Unfortunately, in the end only the squad leader remained alive. He will subsequently be given a medal “For Military Merit.”
The writer found this story interesting, and he decided to put it on paper. However, when Vasiliev began writing the book, he realized that in the post-war period many exploits were covered, and such an act was only a special case. Then the author decided to change the gender of his characters, and the story began to sparkle with new colors. After all, not everyone decided to cover women’s lot in the war.
Meaning of the name
The title of the story conveys the effect of surprise that befell the heroes. This junction, where the action took place, was a truly quiet and calm place. If in the distance the occupiers were bombing the Kirov Road, then “here” harmony reigned. Those men who were sent to guard him were drinking themselves to death, because there was nothing to do there: no battles, no Nazis, no missions. Like in the rear. That is why the girls were sent there, as if knowing that nothing would happen to them, the area was safe. However, the reader sees that the enemy was only letting his guard down while planning an attack. After the tragic events described by the author, all that remains is to bitterly complain about the failed justification for this terrible accident: “And the dawns here are quiet.” The silence in the title also conveys the emotion of mourning - a minute of silence. Nature itself mourns, seeing such an outrage against man.
In addition, the title illustrates the peace on earth that the girls sought by giving their young lives. They achieved their goal, but at what cost? Their efforts, their struggle, their cry with the help of the conjunction “a” is contrasted with this blood-washed silence.
Genre and direction
The genre of the book is a story. It is very small in volume and can be read in one sitting. The author deliberately removed from the military everyday life, which was well known to him, all those everyday details that slow down the dynamics of the text. He wanted to leave only emotionally charged fragments that evoke a genuine reaction from the reader to what he read.
Direction: realistic military prose. B. Vasiliev tells the story of the war, using real life material to create the plot.
The essence
The main character, Fedot Evgrafych Vaskov, is the foreman of the 171st railway district. It is calm here, and soldiers arriving in this area often start drinking from idleness. The hero writes reports on them, and eventually they send him anti-aircraft gunner girls.
At first, Vaskov does not understand how to deal with young girls, but when it comes to military operations, they all become a single team. One of them notices two Germans, the main character understands that these are saboteurs who are going to secretly pass through the forest to important strategic objects.
Fedot quickly assembles a group of five girls. They follow a local trail to get ahead of the Germans. However, it turns out that instead of two people there are sixteen fighters in the enemy squad. Vaskov knows that they cannot cope, and he sends one of the girls for help. Unfortunately, Lisa dies, drowning in a swamp and not having time to convey the message.
At this time, trying to deceive the Germans by cunning, the detachment tries to take them as far as possible. They pretend to be lumberjacks, shoot from behind boulders, and find a German resting place. But the forces are not equal, and during the unequal battle the rest of the girls die.
The hero still manages to capture the remaining soldiers. Many years later, he returns here to bring a marble slab to the grave. In the epilogue, the young people, seeing the old man, understand that it turns out there were battles here too. The story ends with a phrase from one of the young guys: “And the dawns here are quiet, quiet, I only saw them today.”
The main characters and their characteristics
- Fedot Vaskov- the only survivor of the team. Subsequently he lost his arm due to injury. Brave, responsible and reliable person. He considers drunkenness in war unacceptable and zealously defends the need for discipline. Despite the difficult nature of the girls, he cares about them and is very worried when he realizes that he did not save the fighters. At the end of the work, the reader sees him with his adopted son. Which means that Fedot kept his promise to Rita - he took care of her son, who became an orphan.
Images of girls:
- Elizaveta Brichkina- a hardworking girl. She was born into a simple family. Her mother is sick and her father works as a forester. Before the war, Lisa was going to move from the village to the city and study at a technical school. She dies while carrying out the order: she drowns in the swamp, trying to lead soldiers to help her team. Dying in a quagmire, she does not believe until the last that death will not allow her to realize her ambitious dreams.
- Sofia Gurvich- ordinary soldier. Former student of Moscow University, excellent student. She studied German and could be a good translator; she was predicted to have a great future. Sonya grew up among a friendly Jewish family. He dies trying to return a forgotten pouch to the commander. She accidentally meets the Germans, who stab her to death with two blows to the chest. Although she did not succeed in everything during the war, she persistently and patiently fulfilled her duties and accepted death with dignity.
- Galina Chetvertak- the youngest of the group. She is an orphan and grew up in an orphanage. He goes to war for the sake of “romance”, but quickly realizes that this is not a place for the weak. Vaskov takes her with him for educational purposes, but Galya cannot withstand the pressure. She panics and tries to run away from the Germans, but they kill the girl. Despite the heroine's cowardice, the foreman tells the others that she died in a shootout.
- Evgenia Komelkova- a young beautiful girl, the daughter of an officer. The Germans capture her village, she manages to hide, but her entire family is shot before her eyes. During the war he shows courage and heroism, Zhenya overshadows his colleagues. First she is wounded, and then shot at point-blank range, because she led the detachment towards herself, wanting to save the rest.
- Margarita Osyanina- junior sergeant and commander of a squad of anti-aircraft gunners. Serious and sensible, she was married and has a son. However, her husband dies in the first days of the war, after which Rita began to hate the Germans quietly and mercilessly. During the battle, she is mortally wounded and shoots herself in the temple. But before his death he asks Vaskov to take care of his son.
- Heroism, sense of duty. Yesterday's schoolgirls, still very young girls, go to war. But they do this not out of necessity. Each comes of her own free will and, as history has shown, each invested all her strength to resist the Nazi invaders.
- Woman at war. First of all, in B. Vasiliev’s work, the fact that the girls are not in the rear is important. They, along with men, fight for the honor of their homeland. Each of them is a person, each had plans for life, her own family. But cruel fate takes it all away. The protagonist says that war is terrible because, by taking the lives of women, it destroys the life of an entire people.
- The little man's feat. None of the girls were professional fighters. These were ordinary Soviet people with different characters and destinies. But the war unites the heroines, and they are ready to fight together. The contribution of each of them to the struggle was not in vain.
- Courage and boldness. Some heroines especially stood out from the rest, showing phenomenal courage. For example, Zhenya Komelkova saved her comrades at the cost of her life, turning the persecution of enemies on herself. She was not afraid to take risks, as she was confident of victory. Even after being wounded, the girl was only surprised that this happened to her.
- Homeland. Vaskov blamed himself for what happened to his charges. He imagined that their sons would rise up and reproach the men who could not protect the women. He did not believe that some White Sea Canal was worth these sacrifices, because it was already guarded by hundreds of soldiers. But in a conversation with the foreman, Rita stopped his self-flagellation, saying that his patronymic name was not the canals and roads that they protected from saboteurs. This is all Russian land that required protection here and now. This is how the author represents his homeland.
- The problem of war. The struggle does not decide who to kill and who to leave alive; it is blind and indifferent, like a destructive element. Therefore, weak and innocent women die by chance, and the only man survives, also by chance. They are facing an unequal battle, and it is quite natural that no one had time to help them. These are the conditions of wartime: everywhere, even in the quietest place, it is dangerous, destinies are breaking everywhere.
- Memory problem. In the finale, the foreman comes to the scene of a terrible massacre of the heroine’s son and meets young people who are surprised that fighting took place in this wilderness. Thus, the surviving man perpetuates the memory of the dead women by installing a memorial plaque. Now descendants will remember their feat.
- The problem of cowardice. Galya Chetvertak was unable to cultivate the necessary courage, and with her unreasonable behavior she complicated the operation. The author does not blame her strictly: the girl was already brought up in difficult conditions, she had no one to learn how to behave with dignity. Her parents abandoned her, afraid of responsibility, and Galya herself was afraid at the decisive moment. Using her example, Vasiliev shows that war is not a place for romantics, because the struggle is always not beautiful, it is monstrous, and not everyone can withstand its oppression.
Themes
Problems
The issues of the story cover typical problems from military prose: cruelty and humanity, courage and cowardice, historical memory and oblivion. She also conveys a specific innovative problem - the fate of women in war. Let's look at the most striking aspects using examples.
Meaning
The author wanted to show how Russian women, who have long been famous for their willpower, fought against the occupation. It is not for nothing that he talks about each biography separately, because they show what trials the fair sex faced in the rear and on the front line. There was no mercy for anyone, and in these conditions the girls took the enemy’s blow. Each of them made the sacrifice voluntarily. In this desperate tension of the will of all the people's forces lies the main idea of Boris Vasiliev. Future and present mothers sacrificed their natural duty - to give birth and raise future generations - in order to save the whole world from the tyranny of Nazism.
Of course, the main idea of the writer is a humanistic message: women have no place in war. Their lives are trampled by heavy soldiers' boots, as if they come across not people, but flowers on their way. But if the enemy has encroached on his native land, if he mercilessly destroys everything that is dear to his heart, then even a girl is able to challenge him and win in an unequal struggle.
Conclusion
Each reader, of course, draws the moral conclusions of the story independently. But many of those who have thoughtfully read the book will agree that it talks about the need to preserve historical memory. We need to remember the unimaginable sacrifices that our ancestors voluntarily and consciously made in the name of peace on Earth. They went into a bloody battle to exterminate not only the occupiers, but also the very idea of Nazism, a false and unjust theory that made possible many unprecedented crimes against human rights and freedoms. This memory is needed so that the Russian people and their equally brave neighbors understand their place in the world and its modern history.
All countries, all peoples, women and men, old people and children were able to unite for a common goal: the return of a peaceful sky above their heads. This means that today we “can repeat” this unification with the same great message of goodness and justice.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!“And the dawns here are quiet...”: the actors continued the fates of the heroes
On the eve of June 22, we remember the terrible war that claimed millions of lives. For several generations already, all the horror of that time has been conveyed by the most tragic war film - “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet...” by Stanislav Rostotsky based on the story by Boris Vasiliev, filmed in 1972. The fate of five girls who died in a clash with German saboteurs in the Karelian forest makes us freeze with sadness, fear and injustice.
Today I can’t even believe that Sergeant Major Vaskov or Zhenya Komelkova could have been played by someone else. But then most of the actors were approved for the roles by chance, sometimes even contrary to common sense. It was fate itself that guided Rostotsky’s hand! She also made the star cast live the way their heroes would have done.
Liza Brichkina became a deputy
The forester's daughter Liza Brichkina captivated Sergeant-Major Vaskov because she also felt at home in the forest, knew the voices of all the birds and noticed every broken twig. 
Lisa is a rosy, lively girl. “Blood with milk, tits in wheels,” recalls actress Elena Drapeko, who played this role. - And I was then a second-year student with a cane, out of this world, studying ballet, playing the piano and violin. What peasant acumen do I have?
Because of this, they even wanted to remove her from the role. But then they lightened the eyebrows, painted red freckles on the face, etched out the hair - and left it.
If other girls played themselves, then I had to remake myself,” says Elena Drapeko.
As a result, her Liza Brichkina turned out to be a little different from the one in the script - lighter, more romantic. And that’s exactly how millions of viewers liked her.
Elena often heard on the street: “There goes the one who drowned in the swamp!” Soon after this, she changed her profession as an actress to an administrative position - now she is a people's deputy and deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Culture.
If Lisa had not drowned in the swamp, but had studied at a technical school, she would also have become a deputy! - Elena Drapeko laughs.
Zhenya Komelkova - screen star and wife of the People's Artist
The most beautiful, cheerful and flirtatious, a real girl without complexes, Zhenya Komelkova distracted the attention of the Germans from her fighting friends either by striptease by the river or by singing songs in the forest. Olga Ostroumova, who played her, is the only one of the five actresses for whom this film was not a debut - by that time she had already played tenth-grader Rita Cherkasova in the film “We'll Live Until Monday” by Stanislav Rostotsky. The director really wanted to see the young actress in this film. 
According to the script, Zhenya was supposed to be a redhead, and this is an important component of her image. And Ostroumova was blonde. It was repainted several times - and it always turned out wrong. There were opinions that she was not suitable for this role at all. But Rostotsky decided to take a risk and released the actress onto the set as she was...
After “Dawns” her creative destiny was more successful than anyone else’s. Ostroumova starred in the films “Earthly Love”, “Fate”, “Garage”, and played in the theater. Viewers even now often see her in TV series - “Poor Nastya”, “Don’t Be Born Beautiful”, “Captain’s Children”. And many also know the actress as the wife of Valentin Gaft. The People's Artist of Russia had his eye on her during the filming of Garage. But he decided to give vent to his feelings only in 1995, when Ostroumova divorced Mikhail Levitin. Until now, the actors live in peace and harmony.
Rita Osyanina: businesswoman and just a good woman
Chubby, with plump lips and big eyes, Rita Osyanina looked like a child. But she had already gone to war to avenge her murdered husband and to be able to visit her little son in the city, next to which a detachment of anti-aircraft gunners was stationed.
For actress Irina Shevchuk, this role became the only memorable one. But in it she gave it her all - when Rita was wounded in the stomach, the actress felt the death throes of her heroine so realistically that after filming she had to be pumped out.
Now she dreams:
I would like to play a normal, good woman, so that everyone would cry with delight that such people exist.
So far she has not been offered such a role, but she is not upset and is very successfully realizing herself in another field - as a businesswoman and director of the Kinoshock festival.
Sonya Gurvich chose quiet service to society
Sonya is an atypical female image for Soviet cinema. An intelligent Jewish girl who went to the front straight from the university, and while lying in ambush, recites poetry. By the way, Boris Vasiliev wrote it with his wife.
This role brought instant and stunning fame to Irina Dolganova, a student at the Saratov Theater School. But she acted quite in the spirit of Sonya - she returned to the province to work in the Gorky Youth Theater.
I met the main director of this theater. I was captivated by the coincidence of his creative concept with the one I was taught in Saratov. They don’t look for good from good: realizing this, I continued my school in Gorky.
Galya Chetvertak writes detective stories
A seventeen-year-old girl from an orphanage whose nerves could not stand it during the war and she shouted “Mom!” ran out of the ambush straight into the German bullets, played naturally, oddly enough, by the prosperous Muscovite Ekaterina Markova, who had parents, and what kind of parents: her father is the first secretary of the Writers' Union! 
“The Dawns,” as one might expect, gave a powerful impetus to her career—but not as an actor, but as a writer.
Thanks to the film, I also became a writer, like my dad,” she says. - I accumulated so many impressions from the trips that I wrote an essay for the magazine “Soviet Screen”. Then the books “Actress” and “The Favorite’s Caprice” were published, and now I’m working on detective novels.
Fedot Vaskov married... a German woman
The images of the dead girls in our minds are inextricably linked with the fearless, kind and worldly wise foreman Fedot Evgrafych Vaskov, his lush mustache and colorful face.
GITIS graduate Andrei Martynov got this role by miraculous chance. At first it was intended for the famous Georgy Yumatov. But during the auditions he looked more like an urban superman than a strong Vologda man. And then the director’s assistant remembered a young man whom she had seen at a student performance. At first, Rostotsky had doubts about his candidacy, because he was only 26 years old at the time, and according to the script, Fedot was well over thirty. But Martynov was approved by secret vote by the entire film crew, including lighting and stage workers.
After Vaskov, the actor had another starring role - Kiryan Inyutin in the serial film “Eternal Call”. And soon a paradoxical event occurred in his personal life:
The performer of the roles of Soviet soldiers fiercely fighting the Nazis married... a German woman. He lived with Franziska Thun, who graduated from Moscow State University and spoke fluent Russian, for several years, but then they separated. It is believed that they could not decide in which country to live. They have a son, a theater artist who lives in Germany, and three grandchildren.
Swamp, nudity - everything is for real
Stanislav Rostotsky, a front-line soldier himself, decided to achieve complete realism on the set at any cost. Even before the start of the process, he brought young actresses to the remote Karelian village of Syargilakhta, gave them uniforms and forced them to get used to the roles of marching, learning to handle weapons, and crawling on their bellies. If the script says that Sonya Gurvich rubbed her feet, then that’s what should have happened on the set.
“I asked for a long time to give me boots of my size,” recalls Irina Dolganova, “but Stanislav Lvovich categorically refused. As a result, I could barely walk because of terrible calluses.
The scene of crossing the swamp in the film takes only a few minutes, but in order to film it, you had to wallow in the swamp for days on end. However, Rostotsky himself honestly shared all the hardships with the actresses. Every morning, creaking with his prosthesis (the director lost his leg at the front), he was the first to get into the dirty slurry with the saying “the woman was sowing peas - oh!”
But the most difficult thing for the actresses was not even the dirty swamp, but the episode in the bathhouse, where they had to act naked. At that time, such a scene could be regarded as real pornography, and the girls tried to dissuade the director from it. But he gathered everyone together and explained: “Understand, girls, I need to show where the bullets fall. Not into men’s bodies, but into women’s bodies that must give birth.”
As a result, Rostotsky’s film really turned out to be so touching that he himself could not keep his cool. When the director edited the footage, he cried because he felt sorry for the girls.
The beginning of the 70s was literally illuminated by the light of "Dawn". The people read Boris Vasiliev’s story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet,” published in 1969 in the magazine “Yunost.” Two years later, readers were already flocking to the famous play “Taganki”. And 45 years ago, a two-part film by Stanislav Rostotsky was released, which was watched by 66 million in the first year - every fourth resident of the USSR, if you count infants. Despite subsequent film adaptations, the viewer gives the undisputed palm to this, mostly black and white, film and generally considers it one of the best films about the war.
From the heroes of old
In those years they filmed the war often, and they filmed it superbly. The film about five dead girls and their rude, but such a sincere foreman managed to stand out from this constellation. Probably because former front-line soldiers gave him their memories, soul, experience, starting with the author of the script, writer Boris Vasiliev.
He knew how to write about war especially. His heroes were never perfect. Vasiliev seemed to be saying to the young reader: look, people like you went to the front - those who ran away from classes, fought, fell in love at random. But there was something in them, which means there is something in you too.
The director of the film, Stanislav Rostotsky, also passed through the front. Vasiliev’s story interested Stanislav Iosifovich precisely because he wanted to make a movie about a woman in the war. He himself was carried out of the battle in her arms by nurse Anya Chegunova, who later became Beketova. Rostotsky found the savior, who, as it turned out, reached Berlin, then got married and gave birth to beautiful children. But by the time filming ended, Anna was already blind and dying from brain cancer. The director brought her to the studio screening room and the entire film recounted in detail what was happening on the screen.
Chief cameraman Vyacheslav Shumsky, chief designer Sergei Serebrennikov, make-up artist Alexey Smirnov, assistant costume designer Valentina Galkina, director of the film Grigory Rimalis fought. They simply physically could not allow untruths to appear on screen.
Petty Officer Vaskov - Andrey Martynov
The difficult task was to find actors who would be believed. Rostotsky had the idea: let the foreman be played by someone famous, and the girls, on the contrary, be debutantes. He chose Vyacheslav Tikhonov for the role of Sergeant Major Vaskov, and Boris Vasiliev believed that front-line soldier Georgy Yumatov would do the best job. But it so happened that the search for “Vaskov” continued. The assistant saw the 26-year-old actor at his graduation performance.
Andrei Leonidovich was born in Ivanovo, and has been fascinated by the theater since childhood. And his hero was not only six years older, but also from the village, had a “corridor education”, he dropped words as if he were giving a ruble.
The first tests were very unsuccessful, but, apparently, Rostotsky was very attracted to the type of actor and his perseverance. In the end, Martynov played Vaskov, so much so that the viewer unconditionally fell in love with this ridiculous foreman after his on-screen fighters. Martynov also superbly conducted the final scenes of the film, where he, already gray-haired and one-armed, together with his adopted son, erects a modest tombstone in honor of his girls.
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The actor had another starring role - in the television series “Eternal Call”. Martynov worked successfully in cinema and theater. He lent his voice to more than 120 foreign films, including “The Godfather” and “Schindler’s List.”
Life gave him a peculiar surprise: his wife was a German citizen whom he met at a festival. Franziska Thun spoke excellent Russian. The couple had a son, Sasha. But Andrei did not want to live in Germany, although in his homeland his colleagues literally pecked him to death for marrying a foreigner. But Franziska did not want to move to the USSR. Their union eventually fell apart.
Rita Osyanina – Irina Shevchuk
Rita is the only one of the heroines who was married and became a widow in the very first days of the war. She left behind a small child with her mother in the rear; Vaskov later adopted him.
Shevchuk helped play the painful personal drama of his heroine through her complex romance with the then gaining popularity actor Talgat Nigmatulin (“Pirates of the 20th Century”). But Irina got to experience the happiness of motherhood many years later. In 1981, she gave birth to a daughter, the famous actress Alexandra Afanasyeva-Shevchuk (the girl’s father is composer Alexander Afanasyev).
Irina Borisovna successfully combines acting and public careers. In 2016, she starred in the film “Stolen Happiness.” At the same time, Shevchuk is vice-president of one of the largest film festivals in Russia, Kinoshock.
Zhenya Komelkova – Olga Ostroumova
By the time of the filming of “The Dawns”, Olga played a memorable role in “We’ll Live Till Monday” with the same Rostotsky. Zhenya Komelkova - bright, daring and heroic - was her dream.
In the film, Ostroumova, whose grandfather was a priest, had to play “nudity,” which was completely unusual for the USSR. According to the scenario, the female anti-aircraft gunners washed themselves in the bathhouse. It was important for the director to show beautiful female bodies intended for love and motherhood, and not for being hit by bullets.
Olga Mikhailovna is still considered one of the most beautiful Russian actresses. Despite her extremely feminine appearance, Ostroumova has a strong character. She was not afraid to divorce her second husband, chief director of the Hermitage Theater Mikhail Levitin, although they had two children in their marriage. Now the actress is already a three-time grandmother.
In 1996, Olga Mikhailovna married actor Valentin Gaft. Two such bright creative people managed to get along, although Gaft is the star of Sovremennik, and Ostroumova works at the Theater. Mossovet. Olga Mikhailovna said that at any time she is ready to listen to Valentin Iosifovich’s poems, which he writes as talentedly as he plays in films and on stage.
Lisa Brichkina - Elena Drapeko
Lena, of course, really wanted to play Zhenya Komelkova. But in her, a thin girl who was born in Kazakhstan and studied in Leningrad, the director “saw” the full-blooded beauty Liza, who grew up in a remote forest village and was secretly in love with the foreman. In addition, Stanislav Iosifovich decided that Brichkina should not be a Bryansk, but a Vologda girl. Elena Drapeko learned to “okat” so well that for a long time she could not get rid of the characteristic dialect.
Some of the most difficult scenes for the young actress were the scenes when her character drowns in a swamp. Everything was filmed in natural conditions, Lena-Lisa was put on a wetsuit. She had to dive into the dirty slurry. She had to die, and everyone around laughed at what the “swamp kikimora” looked like. Moreover, she kept having her pasted-on freckles restored...
Elena Grigorievna’s unbending character manifested itself in the fact that she became not only a very famous actress, who still acts in films, but also a public figure. Drapeko is a State Duma deputy, candidate of sociological sciences.
Political activity did not always contribute to personal life. But Elena Grigorievna has a daughter, Anastasia Belova, a successful producer, and a granddaughter, Varenka.
Sonya Gurvich – Irina Dolganova
Irina Valerievna was as modest in life as her heroine, the quietest and most “bookish” among the five fighters. Irina arrived for the audition from Saratov. She didn’t believe in herself so much that she didn’t even leave her address. They barely found her and immediately sent her to play scenes at the skating rink with the then-beginning Igor Kostolevsky, otherwise she would have had to wait until the next winter.
The courageous death of girls in the work “The Dawns Here Are Quiet”
The work “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet,” written by Boris Lvovich Vasiliev (lived from 1924-2013), was published in 1969. This story, as the writer himself said, was written on the basis of an episode that happened during the terrible and terrible Great Patriotic War, when wounded soldiers, there were only seven of them, prevented the Germans from blowing up the railway. After this cruel and terrible battle, only one soldier remained alive, the one who commanded the Soviet detachment and had the rank of sergeant. Next we will talk about a brief summary of this work with comments.
The Great Patriotic War brought a lot of grief, destruction and death. It destroyed many lives and families, mothers buried their still very young sons, children lost their parents, wives became widows. Soviet citizens experienced all the hardest hardships of the war, its horror, tears, hunger, death, but still survived and became winners.
Vasilyev B.L. was still a schoolboy in 1941, when the war began, but he, without hesitation, went to the front and served with the rank of lieutenant. In 1943 he received a severe concussion and was unable to fight further. Therefore, he knew what battles were, and his best books were written precisely about war and how a man remained a man while fulfilling his military duty.
In the story by B.L. Vasiliev “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” tells about military events. But the main characters of this work are not men, as is usually the case, but young girls. They resisted the Nazis, being among swamps and lakes. But the Germans outnumbered them and were strong, resilient, they had excellent weapons, and there was a complete lack of pity.
The action of the story takes place in the May days of 1942 at a railway crossing, commanded by Fedor Evgrafovich Vaskov, he was only thirty-two years old. The fighters arrived here, but a spree and even drunkenness began. Because of this, the commander wrote several reports and female anti-aircraft gunners arrived on this patrol; they were commanded by Margarita Osyanina, she was widowed, having lost her husband at the front. Then the Nazis killed the shell carrier, and Evgenia Komelkova took her place. There were five girls in total, but they all had different personalities.
The girls (Margarita, Sophia, Galina, Evgeniya, Elizaveta), the author writes about them, are different, but still similar to each other. Osyanina Margarita is gentle, internally beautiful, and has a strong-willed character. She is the bravest of all the girls and has motherly qualities.
Evgenia Komelkova has white skin, red hair, tall stature and the eyes of a child. She has a cheerful character and is prone to excitement and adventure. This girl is tired of war, grief and complicated love for a man, because he is already married and is very far from her. Sophia Gurvich has the poetic, refined character of an excellent student; one gets the impression that Blok wrote about her in his poems.
Brichkina Elizaveta believed that her destiny was to be alive, she knew how to wait. And Galina preferred life in the world of imagination rather than in the real world; she was very afraid of war. This girl is presented in the story as a funny, still immature, clumsy girl from an orphanage. She ran away from the orphanage and dreamed of being like actress Lyubov Orlova, wearing long beautiful dresses, receiving attention from fans.
Unfortunately, the dreams of these anti-aircraft gunner girls did not come true, because they did not have time to really live in this world and died very young.
The anti-aircraft gunners defended their country, they hated the fascists, and always carried out orders accurately. They suffered losses, tears, and experiences. Their friends were dying next to them, but the girls did not give up and did not allow the enemy to pass through the railroad crossing. Their feat allowed the Fatherland to win freedom. There were a lot of such patriots.
These girls had completely different lives, and death overtook them in different ways. Margarita was wounded by a grenade, and in order not to die long and painfully from this mortal wound, she killed herself with a shot to the temple. Galina's death matched the character of the girl herself (with pain and recklessness). Galya could have hidden and survived, but she didn’t hide. Why this happened is unclear, maybe cowardice or short-lived confusion. Sophia died from a dagger pierced into her heart.
Eugenia's death was somewhat reckless and desperate. The girl was confident in herself until her death, even leading the fascists away from Margarita, she thought that everything would end well. And when she received the first bullet in the side, she was only surprised, because she did not believe that she was dying at nineteen years old. Elizabeth's death was stupid and unexpected - she drowned in a swamp.
After the death of the anti-aircraft gunners, their commander Vaskov was left alone with three captured Germans. He saw death, troubles and inhuman torment. But his internal strength became five times greater, all the best qualities hidden in the depths of his soul appeared unexpectedly. He felt and lived not only for himself, but also for his “sisters.”
Vaskov grieved for them, did not understand why they died, because they were supposed to live long and give birth to beautiful children. These girls died without sparing their young lives, fulfilling their duty to the country, they fought bravely, courageously, and were examples of patriotism. Anti-aircraft gunners defended their Fatherland. But the foreman blames himself, not his enemies, for their deaths. He claimed that he “put down all five of them.”
After reading this story, I am left with an indelible feeling that I myself observed the everyday life of these anti-aircraft gunner girls at a Karelian railway crossing destroyed by bombing. The basis of this work was an episode, although, of course, it was insignificant on the scale of the terrible Great Patriotic War, but it is described in such a way that all its severity and horrors appear in all its ugliness and unnaturalness of human essence. The title “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” and the brave girls participating in these terrible events only emphasize this.