“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 story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet,” written by Boris Lvovich Vasiliev (life: 1924-2013), first appeared in 1969. The work, according to the author himself, is based on a real military episode when, after being wounded, seven soldiers serving on the railway prevented a German sabotage group from blowing it up. After the battle, only one sergeant, the commander of the Soviet fighters, managed to survive. In this article we will analyze “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” and describe the brief content of this story.
War is tears and grief, destruction and horror, madness and the extermination of all living things. She brought misfortune to everyone, knocking on every house: wives lost their husbands, mothers lost their sons, children were forced to be left without fathers. Many people went through it, experienced all these horrors, but they managed to survive and win the hardest war ever endured by humanity. We begin the analysis of “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” with a brief description of the events, commenting on them along the way.
Boris Vasiliev served as a young lieutenant at the beginning of the war. In 1941, he went to the front while still a schoolboy, and two years later was forced to leave the army due to severe shell shock. Thus, this writer knew the war firsthand. Therefore, his best works are precisely about it, about the fact that a person manages to remain human only by fulfilling his duty to the end.
In the work “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet,” the content of which is war, it is felt especially acutely, since it is turned on an unusual side for us. We are all used to associating men with her, but here the main characters are girls and women. They stood up against the enemy alone in the middle of Russian land: lakes, swamps. The enemy is hardy, strong, merciless, well armed, and many times outnumbers them.
The events take place in May 1942. A railway siding and its commander are depicted - Fyodor Evgrafych Vaskov, a 32-year-old man. The soldiers arrive here, but then start partying and drinking. Therefore, Vaskov writes reports, and in the end they send him anti-aircraft gunner girls under the command of Rita Osyanina, a widow (her husband died at the front). Then Zhenya Komelkova arrives, replacing the carrier killed by the Germans. All five girls had their own character.
Five different characters: analysis
“And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” is a work that describes interesting female characters. Sonya, Galya, Lisa, Zhenya, Rita - five different, but in some ways very similar girls. Rita Osyanina is gentle and strong-willed, distinguished by spiritual beauty. She is the most fearless, courageous, she is a mother. Zhenya Komelkova is white-skinned, red-haired, tall, with childish eyes, always laughing, cheerful, mischievous to the point of adventurism, tired of pain, war and painful and long love for a married and distant man. Sonya Gurvich is an excellent student, a refined poetic nature, as if she came out of a book of poems by Alexander Blok. She always knew how to wait, she knew that she was destined for life, and it was impossible to avoid it. The latter, Galya, always lived more actively in the imaginary world than in the real one, so she was very afraid of this merciless terrible phenomenon that is war. “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” portrays this heroine as a funny, never-grown-up, clumsy orphanage girl. Escape from an orphanage, notes and dreams... about long dresses, solo parts and universal worship. She wanted to become the new Lyubov Orlova.
The analysis of “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” allows us to say that none of the girls were able to fulfill their desires, because they did not have time to live their lives.
Further developments
The heroes of “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” fought for their homeland like no one had ever fought before. They hated the enemy with all their souls. The girls always followed orders precisely, as young soldiers should. They experienced everything: losses, worries, tears. Right before the eyes of these fighters, their good friends died, but the girls held on. They fought to the death until the very end, did not let anyone through, and there were hundreds and thousands of such patriots. Thanks to them, it was possible to defend the freedom of the Motherland.
Death of Heroines
These girls had different deaths, just as the life paths followed by the heroes of “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” were different. Rita was wounded by a grenade. She understood that she could not survive, that the wound was fatal, and she would have to die painfully and for a long time. Therefore, gathering the rest of her strength, she shot herself in the temple. Galya's death was as reckless and painful as she herself - the girl could have hidden and saved her life, but she did not. One can only guess what motivated her then. Perhaps just momentary confusion, perhaps cowardice. Sonya's death was cruel. She did not even manage to understand how the blade of the dagger pierced her cheerful young heart. Zhenya’s is a little reckless and desperate. She believed in herself until the very end, even when she was leading the Germans away from Osyanina, and did not doubt for a moment that everything would end well. Therefore, even after the first bullet hit her in the side, she was only surprised. After all, it was so implausible, absurd and stupid to die when you were only nineteen years old. Lisa's death happened unexpectedly. It was a very stupid surprise - the girl was pulled into the swamp. The author writes that until the last moment the heroine believed that “there will be tomorrow for her too.”
Sergeant Major Vaskov
Sergeant Major Vaskov, whom we have already mentioned in the summary of “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet,” is ultimately left alone in the midst of torment, misfortune, alone with death and three prisoners. But now he has five times more strength. What was human in this fighter, the best, but hidden deep in the soul, was suddenly revealed. He felt and worried both for himself and for his girls “sisters”. The foreman laments, he does not understand why this happened, because they need to give birth to children, not die.
So, according to the plot, all the girls died. What guided them when they went into battle, not sparing their own lives, defending their land? Perhaps just a duty to the Fatherland, to one’s people, perhaps patriotism? Everything was mixed up at that moment.
Sergeant Major Vaskov ultimately blames himself for everything, and not the fascists he hates. His words that he “put all five down” are perceived as a tragic requiem.
Conclusion
Reading the work “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet,” you involuntarily become an observer of the everyday life of anti-aircraft gunners at a bombed crossing in Karelia. This story is based on an episode that is insignificant in the enormous scale of the Great Patriotic War, but it is told in such a way that all its horrors appear before the eyes in all their ugly, terrible inconsistency with the essence of man. It is emphasized both by the fact that the work is titled “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” and by the fact that its heroes are girls forced to participate in the war.
Composition
“And the dawns here are quiet...” is a story about war. The action takes place during the Great Patriotic War. At one of the railway sidings, soldiers of a separate anti-aircraft machine-gun battalion are serving. These fighters are girls, and they are commanded by Sergeant Major Fedot Evgrafych Baskov. At first this place was a quiet corner. The girls sometimes shot at planes at night. One day something unexpected happened. The Germans appeared. Chasing them into the forest, the girls, led by Vaskov, enter into an unequal battle with them. They die one after another, but rage and pain, the desire for revenge help Vaskov win.
The whole story is written in an easy, colloquial language. Thanks to this, you better understand the thoughts of the characters and what they do. Against the backdrop of the terrible events of May 1942, this junction looks like a resort. At first it really was like this: the girls sunbathed, danced, and at night “excitedly fired at flying German planes with all eight guns.”
There are six main characters in the story: five female anti-aircraft gunners and foreman Vaskov.
Fedot Vaskov is thirty-two years old. He completed four classes of the regimental school, and in ten years rose to the rank of senior officer. Vaskov experienced a personal drama: after the Finnish war, his wife left him. Vaskov demanded his son through the court and sent him to his mother in the village, but the Germans killed him there. The sergeant major always feels older than his years. He is efficient.
Junior sergeant Rita Osyanina married the “red commander” at less than eighteen years old. She sent her son Alik to his parents. Her husband died heroically on the second day of the war, and Rita found out about this only a month later.
Sonya Gurvich is an orphan. Her parents most likely died in Minsk. At that time she was studying in Moscow, preparing for the session. She was a translator in the detachment.
Galya Chetvertak does not know her parents. She was dropped off at an orphanage. Accustomed to surrounding everything with mystery, she made me worry about this. Galya told everyone that her mother was a medical worker. I believe that this was not a lie, but desires presented as reality.
Lisa Brichkina was the daughter of a forester. One day, their father brought a guest to their house. Lisa really liked him. He promised to place her in a technical school with a dormitory, but the war began. Lisa always believed that tomorrow would come and be better than today.
Zhenya Komelkova, the first beauty of the traveling party, grew up in a good family. She loved to have fun, and one fine day she fell in love with Colonel Luzhin. It was he who picked her up at the front. He had a family, and Zhenya was sent on this patrol for contacting him.
One day the girls were transferred from the front line to a site (crossing). Rita asked that her department be sent there, because from there it was easier to get to the city where her parents and son lived. Returning from the city, it was she who discovered the Germans.
The major ordered Vaskov to catch up with the saboteurs (Rita saw two) and kill them. It is in this campaign that the main action of the story unfolds. Vaskov helps the girls with everything. During the stop at the pass, friendly relations reign between them.
The Germans appear. It turns out that there are sixteen of them. Vaskov sends Lisa back to the patrol. Lisa Brichkina died first. She drowned in a swamp while returning to the crossing: “Liza saw this beautiful blue sky for a long time. Wheezing, she spat out dirt and reached out, reached out to him, reached out and believed.” Until the last moment she believed that tomorrow would come for her too.
Sonya Gurvich was shot when she returned for Vaskov’s forgotten pouch.
Galya Chetvertak's nerves could not stand it when she sat with the foreman on patrol.
Rita Osyanina was wounded by a grenade, and Zhenya died while taking the Germans away from her. Rita, knowing that her wound was fatal, shot herself in the temple.
Together with the author, you experience these deaths and the pain of Vaskov, who managed to win.
The story is written very vividly and clearly. Optimistic girls are shown against the backdrop of war. Vaskov's victory symbolizes the victory of the Russians over the Germans. A hard-fought victory full of losses.
At the end of the story, in the epilogue, Boris Vasiliev shows a couple of heroes - Albert Fedotich and his dad. Apparently, Albert is the same Alik, Rita’s son. Fedot Baskov adopted him, the boy considers him his real father.
This means that, despite all the difficulties and hardships, the Russian people are alive and will live.
The depiction of nature is very interesting. Beautiful views drawn by the author highlight everything that happens. Nature seems to look at people with pity and sympathy, as if saying: “Foolish children, stop.”
“And the dawns here are quiet...” Everything will pass, but the place will remain the same. Quiet, silent, beautiful, and only the marble gravestones will turn white, reminding of what has already passed. This work serves as an excellent illustration of the events of the Great Patriotic War.
This story really amazed me. The first time I read it, sitting with a handkerchief in my hand, because it was impossible to resist. It was precisely because of this strong impression, so memorable to me, that I decided to write about this work. The main idea of this story is the invincibility of people fighting for the freedom of the Motherland, for a just cause.
I, like all my peers, do not know war. I don’t know and I don’t want war. But those who died did not want it either, not thinking about death, about the fact that they would no longer see the sun, grass, leaves, or children. Those five girls didn’t want war either!
Boris Vasiliev's story shook me to the core. Rita Osyanina, Zhenya Komelkova, Lisa Brichkina, Galya Chetvertak. In each of them I find a little of myself, they are close to me. Each of them could be my mother, could tell me about beauty, teach me how to live. And I could be in the place of any of them, because I also like to listen to the silence and meet such “quiet, quiet dawns.”
I don't even know which of them is closer to me. They are all so different, but so similar. Rita Osyanina, strong-willed and gentle, rich in spiritual beauty. She is the center of their courage, she is the cement of achievement, she is the Mother! Zhenya... Zhenya, Zhenya, cheerful, funny, beautiful, mischievous to the point of adventure, desperate and tired of war, of pain, of love, long and painful, for a distant and married man. Sonya Gurvich is the embodiment of an excellent student and a poetic nature - a “beautiful stranger”, who came out of a volume of poems by Alexander Blok. Lisa Brichkina... “Oh, Lisa-Lizaveta, you should study!” I would like to study, to see the big city with its theaters and concert halls, its libraries and art galleries. And you, Lisa... The war got in the way! You won’t find your happiness, won’t give you lectures: I didn’t have time to see everything I dreamed of! Galya Chetvertak, who never grew up, is a funny and clumsily childish girl. Notes, escape from the orphanage and also dreams... to become the new Lyubov Orlova.
None of them had time to fulfill their dreams, they simply did not have time to live their own lives. Death was different for everyone, just as their fates were different: for Rita - an effort of will and a shot in the temple; Zhenya’s is desperate and a little reckless, she could have hidden and stayed alive, but she didn’t hide; Sonya's is a dagger strike at poetry; Galya's is as painful and merciless as herself; Lisa - “Ah, Lisa-Lizaveta, I didn’t have time, I couldn’t overcome the quagmire of war...”.
And the Basque foreman, whom I have not yet mentioned, remains alone. Alone in the midst of pain, torment; one with death, one with three prisoners. Is it alone? He now has five times more strength. And what was best in him, humane, but hidden in his soul, was suddenly revealed, and what he experienced, he felt for himself and for them, for his girls, his “sisters.”
As the foreman laments: “How can we live now? Why is this so? After all, they don’t need to die, but give birth to children, because they are mothers!” Tears inevitably come to your eyes when you read these lines.
But we must not only cry, we must also remember, because the dead do not leave the lives of those who loved them. They just don’t grow old, remaining forever young in people’s hearts.
Why is this particular work memorable to me? Probably because this writer is one of the best writers of our time. Probably because Boris Vasiliev managed to turn the topic of war on that unusual side, which is perceived especially painfully. After all, we, including myself, are accustomed to combining the words “war” and “men,” but here are women, girls and war. Vasiliev managed to construct the plot in such a way, to tie everything together in such a way that it is difficult to single out individual episodes, this story is a single whole, fused. A beautiful and indivisible monument: five girls and a foreman, standing in the middle of the Russian land: forests, swamps, lakes, against an enemy, strong, hardy, mechanically killing, who significantly exceeds them in number. But they did not let anyone through, they stood and stand, poured out of hundreds and thousands of similar destinies, exploits, from all the pain and strength of the Russian people.
Women, Russian women, who defeated war and death! And each of them lives in me and other girls, we just don’t notice it. We walk the streets, talk, think, dream like them, but a moment comes and we feel confidence, their confidence: “There is no death! There is life and struggle for Happiness and Love!”
Film “The Dawns Here Are Quiet...”: How do the girls die? Five girls went on a mission and every single one of them died.
The story by Boris Vasiliev and the film based on it, “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet...” leave an indelible impression. The viewer almost feels like a participant in the events, empathizing with the heroines and living with them until their last moment.
"Five girls, just five"
There are five of them. Young, hastily trained and inexperienced. Only Rita Osyanina and Zhenya Komelkova had a chance to see the enemy in person - they were the ones who would hold out the longest.
Lisa Brichkina , a girl who had practically no childhood fell in love with a foreman.
Fedot Vaskov also singled her out from the rest.
But Lisa was not destined to know the happy life of a girl - she went for help, and, not having time to reach her people, drowned in the quagmire.
Sonya Gurvich - “little sparrow,” as the foreman called a girl he did not understand. Smart and dreamy, she loved poetry and recited Blok by heart. Sonya dies from a fascist’s knife when she runs for Vaskov’s pouch.
Galya Chetvertak – the youngest and most spontaneous. She is filled with childlike joy at being entrusted with a responsible task. However, she was unable to cope with her own fear, gave herself away and was shot point-blank by a fascist line. An orphanage girl, Galya, died screaming “Mom.”
Zhenya Komelkova - the most striking character. Lively, artistic and emotional, she always attracts attention. She even got into the women's detachment because of an affair with a married commander. Knowing that she will probably die, she leads the Nazis away from the wounded Rita and Sergeant Major Vaskov.
Husband Rita Osyanina died on the second day of the war. She should have raised her son, but she chose revenge for the death of her loved one. Decisive and courageous, Rita violated the order of Sergeant Major Vaskov and did not leave her position. Seriously wounded, she dies from her own bullet.
Yes, war does not have a woman's face. Woman is the personification of life. And it’s a pity that Rita’s son will grow up without a mother, and the children of the other girls are not destined to be born at all.
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