The main character of the poem is a collective, generalized image that embodies the entire warring people. Almost nothing is said about the specific personality of Vasily Terkin. It is only known that he is over twenty - closer to thirty, and that he, like the author, comes from Smolensk region, that "he fought in Karelskoe - across the Sestroy River."
Terkin is a great life-lover, "a hunter to live up to ninety years", joined the ranks from the reserve, serves in the infantry, in the troops "closest to the earth, to the cold, to fire and death." For him, war is a routine work that needs to be done correctly, skillfully, not for the sake of glory, but "for the sake of life on earth."
Terkin - who is he?
Let's say frankly:
Just a guy by himself
He's ordinary ...
Not high, not that small,
But a hero is a hero ...
Through ordinariness, Twardowski shows averaging. typical of Terkin, because he is the embodiment of the soldier mass, who endured all the hardships of the war. However, the image of Terkin is devoid of schematism. This is a cheerful, full-blooded hero, with his own special character.
He is a merry fellow, a joker at rest, a lover of hearty food, he is not averse to cheering his comrades by playing the accordion ("Harmony"), helping the old people ("Two Soldiers"), chopping firewood to a soldier ("Before the battle").
This is a life-loving, good-natured, broad Russian nature with a generous heart, combining such primordially Russian qualities as sincerity and nobility, sharpness and wisdom, determination and courage.
Vasily Terkin is a heroic image. Without hesitation, he swims to the other side by swimming in November to inform that the platoon that has crossed is entrenched on the other side ("Crossing"), occupies an enemy bunker and holds it until the arrival of his own ("Terkin is wounded"), shoots down an enemy plane ("Who shot?"), Taking the place of the killed lieutenant, raises the fighters to the attack and first bursts into the village ("On the offensive"), cheers and inspires the exhausted soldiers during the battle for the unknown "settlement of Borki", "Where the war paved the way , / / Where the water was for the infantry / Knee-deep, mud - piles ("Fight in the swamp").
In the chapter "The Duel", which is the culmination of the entire poem, Terkin engages in hand-to-hand combat with a physically stronger German:
Tervin knew that in this fight
He is weaker: not those grubs.
But Terkin's morale and confidence in victory turn out to be stronger, so he emerges victorious:
And then,
Taking anger and pain into a fist,
Uncharged grenade
Terkin of the German - on the left - shmyak!
The German gasped and went limp ...
This chapter echoes the epic epic, and the fight itself grows to a symbolic generalization "Man-people". Terkin, symbolizing Russia, confronts a strong and formidable adversary symbolizing Nazi Germany:
Like an ancient battlefield
Chest to chest, that shield to shield, -
Instead of thousands, two fight
As if the fight will decide everything.
But it should be noted that the image of Terkin is deliberately deprived of the romantic halo by the author. as if even lowered. This is achieved through the introduction of colloquial vocabulary, vernacular ("grunted the German between the eyes", "put in a sledge", "gave bream", Terkin of the German on the left - "shmyak", etc.)
Thus, the author seeks to emphasize that the main character is not only a generalized image-symbol, but also a personality, individuality, that for him war is work, hard, dirty, but necessary, inevitable, not for glory, not for orders and medals, not for promotion.
And only in the final stanza, the author allows himself to rise to a large-scale, solemn sounding generalization:
A terrible battle is going on, bloody,
Mortal combat is not for the glory
For life on earth.
In the dispute between the two forces, good, love and life itself won out. These lines are repeated in the poem, they are a kind of refrain emphasizing the main theme of the work: the unparalleled feat of the Russian soldier.
We find the same technique of generalization and individualization in the chapter "Terkin - Terkin". Vasily meets with his namesake Ivan. Ivan differs from Vasily only in hair color (he is red), front-line profession (armor-piercing), but otherwise both heroes are similar. The dispute between them is resolved by the foreman:
What you can't make out here,
Do not you understand among themselves?
According to the charter of each company
Terkin will be given his own.
Tvardovsky's poem is often called the encyclopedia of military reality of the era of the Great Patriotic War "(by analogy with Pushkin's" Eugene Onegin "). Indeed, the book about the fighter is written extremely truthfully. The truth of the war, no matter how bitter, hits right in the soul.
The poet does not embellish the events, does not depict the feats of his hero as light and funny, on the contrary, in the poem the most powerful chapters are the chapters colored with tragic pathos: "Crossing", "Fight in the Swamp", "Death and the Warrior", "About an Orphan Soldier ".
Municipal basic educational institution "Platovskaya OOSh"
Research paper on literature
Topic: "The image of Vasily Terkin in the work of Tvardovsky"
Checked by: teacher
Platovka 2011
LET'S SUMMER
The poem "Vasily Terkin" is evidence of history. The writer himself was a war correspondent, he was close to military life. The work shows the clarity of what is happening, imagery, accuracy, which makes us truly believe the poem.
The protagonist of the work is Vasily Terkin, a simple Russian soldier. His very name speaks of the generality of his image. He was close to the soldiers, was one of them. Many even, reading the poem, said that the real Terkin was 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 to 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 to say about the qualities of Terkin? All of them are certainly worthy of respect. It is easy to say about Vasily Terkin: “he does not drown 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 - such chapters as "Crossing" and "Death and Warrior". He never discourages, jokes (for example, in the chapters "Terkin-Terkin", "In the bath"). 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, Terkin has 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 soldiers to heroic deeds, 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: "... he is an ordinary guy by himself."
Terkin embodies the best features of the Russian soldier and the Russian people. Terkin has been fighting since the beginning of the war, was surrounded three times, was wounded. Terkin's motto: "Cheer up", in spite of any difficulties. So, the hero, in order to restore contact with the soldiers on the other side of the river, swims it twice in icy water. Or, in order to conduct 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, nevertheless takes the enemy prisoner. The hero perceives all these exploits as ordinary actions in a war. He does not boast of them, does not demand a reward for them. And only jokingly he says that he just needs a medal to be representative. Even in the harsh conditions of 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 who are fighting a tough fight. Terkin is presented with the accordion of the killed commander, and he plays on it, brightening up the soldiers' minutes of rest. On the way to the front, the hero helps the old peasants with the housework, convincing them of an early victory. Having met a peasant woman driven into captivity, T. gives her all the trophies. Terkin does not have a girlfriend who would write him letters and wait from the war. But he does not lose heart, fighting for all Russian girls. Over time, Terkin becomes an officer. He frees his native places and, looking at them, cries. Terkin's name is becoming a household name. In the chapter "In the Bath" a soldier with a huge number of awards is compared to the hero of the poem. Describing his hero, the author in the chapter "From the Author" calls Terkin "a holy and sinful Russian miracle - a man."
Terkin unexpectedly knocks down a German attack aircraft from a rifle; Sergeant T. reassures him, envying him: "Do not grieve, 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. jokingly encourages the fighters who are fighting a heavy battle 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 fall asleep until he receives advice - to put a hat on his head to simulate field conditions. In the chapter "On the Offensive" T., when the platoon commander is killed, takes command and is the first to break into the village; however, the hero is again seriously wounded. In the chapter "Death and the Warrior" T., lying wounded in the field, talks with Death, who persuades him not to cling to life; he is eventually discovered by the funeral team. The chapter "Terkin writes" is a letter from T. from the hospital to his 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 cannot determine, because they are very similar to each other. The dispute is resolved by the foreman, who explains that "According to the charter of each company / Terkin will be assigned his own." Further, in the chapter "From the Author", the process of "mythologizing" the character is depicted; T. is called "a holy and sinful Russian miracle man." The chapter "Grandfather and Woman" again deals with the old peasants from the chapter "Two Soldiers"; after spending two years in the occupation, they await the advance of the Red Army; in one of the scouts the old man recognizes T., who became an officer. The chapter "On the Dnieper" says that T., together with the advancing army, is getting closer to their native places; troops are crossing the Dnieper, and, looking at the liberated land, the hero cries. In the chapter "On the Road to Berlin" T. meets a peasant woman, once driven away to Germany - she returns home on foot; along 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 Bath" of a soldier, on whose tunic, "Orders, medals in a row / Burning with a hot flame", admiring fighters are compared with T. : the hero's name has already become a household name.
VASILY TYORKIN - This is a realistic image of a great generalizing force, a hero "ordinary", according to Tvardovsky, who was born in a special, unique atmosphere of the war years; the image-type of the Soviet soldier, organically included in the soldier's environment, close to its collective prototype in biography, way of thinking, actions and language. According to V. T, "having lost his heroic physique," he "gained a heroic soul." This is a strikingly correctly understood Russian national character, taken at its best. Behind the illusion of rusticity, jokes, mischief hides moral sensitivity and an inherent sense of filial duty to the Motherland, the ability to accomplish a feat at any moment without a phrase or posture. For the experience and love of life - a dramatic duel with the death of a person who found himself in a war. Developed as the poem was written and published at the same time, the image of V.T. 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 every front-line soldier recognized himself and his comrade. VT became a household name, joining the ranks with such heroes as Til de Costera and Cola Rolland.
After the end of the war and the publication of the first poem about V.T., readers asked Tvardovsky to write a sequel about V.T.'s life in peacetime. Tvardovsky himself considered V.T. to belong to the wartime. However, the author needed his image when writing a satirical poem about the essence of the bureaucratic world of a totalitarian system, which was named "Terkin in the Next World." Embodying the vitality of the Russian national character, VT 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 "lethargic." in the second poem, he continues his dispute with death, begun in the first, but according to the laws of the genre in the tales of the 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. Laughter, not the hero, has a positive start in satire. Tvardovsky follows the traditions of the works of Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Dostoevsky ("Bobok"), Blok ("Dance of Death").
With triumphant success he embodied it on the stage of the Moscow Theater of Satire (directed by V. Pluchek).
The reader asked Tvardovsky to continue VT "Our Vasily," reports Tvardovsky, "came to the next world, and then left." The poem ends with a hint-address to the reader: "I have given you a problem." Both V. T and Tvardovsky remained true to themselves - the battle "for the sake of life on earth" continues.
Balaguru looks in the mouth,
They catch the word greedily.
It's good when someone lies
Fun and foldable.
Just a guy by himself
He's ordinary.
Not high, not that small,
But a hero is a hero.
I'm a big hunter to live
Up to ninety years old.
And, at the shores of the crust
I broke off the ice,
He is like him, Vasily Terkin,
Got up alive, - got by swimming.
And with a smirk
Then the fighter says:
- And still can not a stack,
Because how well done?
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.
Terkin, Terkin, good fellow ...
The history of the creation of the work of Tvardovsky "Vasily Tyorkin"
From the fall of 1939, Tvardovsky took part in the Finnish campaign as a war correspondent. “It seems to me,” he wrote to M.V. Isakovsky, - that the army will be my second theme for the rest of my life. " And the poet was not mistaken. In the editorial office of the Leningrad Military District "On Guard of the Motherland", a group of poets had an idea to create a series of entertaining drawings about the exploits of a cheerful soldier-hero. “Someone,” recalls Tvardovsky, “suggested calling our hero Vasya Terkin, namely Vasya, not Vasily.” In creating a collective work about a cheerful, successful fighter, Tvardovsky was instructed to write an introduction: "... I had to give at least the most general" portrait "of Terkin and determine, so to speak, the tone and manner of our further conversation with the reader."
This is how the poem "Vasya Terkin" (1940 - January 5) appeared in the newspaper. The success of the feuilleton hero prompted the idea to continue the story of the adventures of the cheerful Vasya Terkin. As a result, the booklet "Vasya Terkin at the Front" (1940) was published. During the Great Patriotic War, this image becomes the main one in the work of Tvardovsky. "Vasily Terkin" walked along with Tvardovsky the roads of war. The first publication of "Vasily Terkin" took place in the newspaper of the Western Front "Krasnoarmeiskaya Pravda", where on September 4, 1942, the introductory chapter "From the Author" and "At Rest" were published. From then until the end of the war, the chapters of the poem were published in this newspaper, in the magazines Krasnoarmeets and Znamya, as well as in other print media.
“... My work ends coincidentally with the end of the war. One more effort of a refreshed body and soul is needed - and it will be possible to put an end to it, ”wrote the poet on May 4, 1945. This is how the finished poem “Vasily Terkin. A book about a soldier "(1941-1945). Tvardovsky wrote that working on it gave him a "sense" of the legitimacy of the artist's place in the great struggle of the people ... a sense of complete freedom of treatment with verse and word.
In 1946, almost one after the other, three complete editions of The Book of the Fighter were published.
Genre, genre, creative method of the analyzed work
In the spring of 1941, the poet worked hard on the chapters of the future poem, but the outbreak of the war changed these plans. The revival of the idea and the resumption of work on "Terkin" refers to the middle of 1942. Since that time, a new stage of work on the work begins: “The whole character of the poem, all its content, its philosophy, its hero, its form - composition, genre, plot have changed. The character of the poetic narration about the war has changed - the homeland and the people, the people in the war have become the main themes. " Although, starting to work on it, the poet was not too worried about this, as evidenced by his own words: “I did not languish for long with doubts and fears about the vagueness of the genre, the absence of an initial plan that embraces the entire work in advance, and the weak plot coherence of the chapters. Not a poem - well, let it not be a poem, I decided; there is no single plot - let it not be, don’t; 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 - even if it is necessary to write about what is burning, does not wait, and then it will be seen, we will figure it out. "
In connection with the question of the genre of Tvardovsky's work, the following judgments of the author seem to be important: “The genre designation of the“ Book about the Fighter ”, which I stopped at, was not the result of a desire to simply avoid the designation“ poem ”,“ story ”, etc. This coincided with the decision to write not a poem, not a story or a novel in verse, that is, not something that has its legalized and, to a certain extent, obligatory plot, compositional and other features. These signs did not come out to me, but something did come out, and I labeled this something "The Book of the Fighter."
This, as the poet himself called it, "The Book of the Soldier" recreates a reliable picture of frontline reality, reveals the thoughts, feelings, experiences of a person in war. It stands out among other poems of that time with a special completeness and depth of a realistic depiction of the people's liberation struggle, disasters and sufferings, exploits and military life.
Tvardovsky's poem is a heroic epic, with objectivity that corresponds to the epic genre, but permeated with a living authorial feeling, unique in all respects, a unique book, at the same time developing the traditions of realistic literature and folk poetry. And at the same time, this is a free narration - a chronicle ("A book about a soldier, without a beginning, without an end ..."), which covers the entire history of the war.
Subject
The theme of the Great Patriotic War forever entered the work of A.T. Tvardovsky. And the poem "Vasily Terkin" became one of his brightest pages. The poem is dedicated to the life of the people in the war, it is rightfully an encyclopedia of front-line life. In the center of the poem is the image of Terkin, an ordinary infantryman from the Smolensk peasants, uniting the composition of the work into a single whole. Vasily Terkin actually personifies the whole people. In it the Russian national character found its artistic embodiment. An ordinary person, an ordinary soldier, became the symbol of the victorious people in Tvardovsky's poem.
In The Book of the Fighter, war is depicted as it is - in everyday life and heroism, the interweaving of the mundane, sometimes even comic (the chapters "At the Rest", "In the Bath") with the sublime and tragic. The poem is strong, first of all, by the truth about the war as a severe and tragic - at the limit of possibilities - a test of the vital forces of the people, the country, each person.
The idea of the work
Fiction during the Great Patriotic War has a number of characteristic features. Its main features are patriotic pathos and an attitude towards universal accessibility. The poem by Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky "Vasily Terkin" is rightfully considered the most successful example of such a work of art. The feat of a soldier in the war is shown by Tvardovsky as everyday and hard military labor and battle, and the transition to new positions, and overnight in a trench or right on the ground, "shielding himself from death with a black only his own back ...". And the hero who accomplishes this feat is an ordinary, ordinary soldier.
It is in the defense of the Motherland, life on earth that the justice of the People's Patriotic War lies: "The battle is holy and right, mortal combat is not for the sake of glory - for the sake of life on earth." Poem by A.T. Tvardovsky "Vasily Terkin" has become truly popular.
Main characters
Analysis of the work shows that the basis of the poem is the image of the main character - private Vasily Terkin. He has no real prototype. This is a collective image that combines the typical features of the spiritual appearance and character of an ordinary Russian soldier. Dozens of people wrote about the typicality of Terkin, making from the lines "there is always a guy of this kind in every company, and in every platoon" the conclusion that this is a collective, generalized image, that one should not look for any individual qualities in it, so much typical of a Soviet soldier. And since “it was scattered partially and partially destroyed,” it means that this is not a person at all, but a symbol of the entire Soviet Army.
Terkin - who is he? Let's face it: He's just a guy by himself. He's ordinary.
However, a guy anywhere, a guy like that
In every company there is always, And in every platoon.
The image of Terkin has folklore roots, it is "a hero, a fathom in the shoulders", "merry man", "experienced man." Behind the illusion of rusticity, jokes, mischief hides moral sensitivity and a sense of filial duty to the Motherland, the ability to accomplish a feat without a phrase or posture at any moment.
The image of Vasily Terkin really captures what is typical for many: "A guy like that / In every company there is always, / Yes, and in every platoon." However, in it the features and properties inherent in many people are embodied brighter, sharper, more distinctive. Folk wisdom and optimism, perseverance, endurance, patience and dedication, everyday ingenuity and skill of a Russian person - a worker and a warrior, finally, inexhaustible humor, behind which something deeper and more serious always appears - all this is fused into a living and integral human character. The main feature of his character is love for his native country. The hero constantly recalls his native places, which are so sweet and dear to his heart. He cannot but attract in Terkin also mercy, the greatness of the soul, in war he finds himself not because of the military instinct, but for the sake of life on earth, the defeated enemy evokes in him only a feeling of pity. He is modest, although he can sometimes boast, telling friends that he does not need an order, he agrees to a medal. But most of all, this person is attracted by his love of life, everyday ingenuity, mockery of the enemy and of any difficulties.
Being the embodiment of the Russian national character, Vasily Terkin is inseparable from the people - the soldiers' masses and a number of episodic characters (grandfather-soldier and grandmother, tankers in battle and on the march, a girl-nurse in a hospital, a soldier's mother returning from enemy captivity, etc.) , it is inseparable from the mother-homeland. And the whole "Book about the Fighter" is a poetic statement of national unity.
Along with the images of Terkin and the people, an important place in the overall structure of the work is occupied by the image of the author-narrator, or, more precisely, the lyrical hero, especially perceptible in the chapters "About Me", "On War", "On Love", in four chapters "From the Author ". So, in the chapter "About Me" the poet directly declares, addressing the reader: "And I will tell you: I will not hide it, / - In this book, there, there, / That which would be said to the hero, / I speak personally myself."
The author in the poem is the mediator between the hero and the reader. A confidential conversation is constantly conducted with the reader, the author respects his friend-reader, and therefore seeks to convey to him the 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 the belief in the invincibility of the spirit of the Russian soldier, optimism. Sometimes the author 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.
In the poem, subtle authorial humor constantly shines through. The text of the poem is filled with jokes, sayings, sayings, and it is generally impossible to determine who their author is - the author of the poem, the hero of the poem Terkin or the people. 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 a day, You can do more, but sometimes In a war one minute Do not live without a joke, The most unwise jokes.
The plot and composition of the analyzed work
The originality of the plot-compositional construction of the book is determined by the military reality itself. “There is no plot in the war,” the author noted in one of the chapters. And in the poem as a whole, there really are no such traditional components as an opening, a climax, a denouement. But within chapters with a narrative basis, as a rule, there is a plot, separate plot links arise between these chapters. Finally, the general development of events, the disclosure of the character of the hero, with all the independence of individual chapters, is clearly determined by the very course of the war, by the natural change in its stages: from the bitter days of retreat and the most difficult defensive battles to the hard-won and won victory. Here is how Tvardovsky himself wrote about the compositional structure of his poem:
“And the first thing that I took for the principle of composition and style is the striving for a certain completeness of each separate part, chapter, and within a chapter - each period and even a stanza. I had to bear in mind a reader who, even if he was unfamiliar with the previous chapters, would find something whole, rounded in this chapter, published today in the newspaper. Besides, this reader might not have waited for my next chapter: he was where the hero was - in the war. It was this approximate completeness of each chapter that I was most concerned about. I kept nothing to myself until another time, trying to express myself at each occasion - the next chapter - to the end, fully express my mood, convey a fresh impression, a thought, a motive, an image. True, this principle was not immediately determined - after the first chapters of "Terkin" were published one after another, and the new ones then appeared as they were written. "
The poem consists of thirty independent and at the same time closely related chapters. The poem is constructed as a chain of episodes from the military life of the protagonist, which do not always have a direct eventual connection with each other. Terkin humorously tells young soldiers about the everyday life of the war; says that he has been fighting since the beginning of the war, was surrounded three times, was wounded. The fate of an ordinary soldier, one of those who bore the brunt of the war on their shoulders, becomes the personification of national strength of mind, the will to live.
The plot of the poem is difficult to trace, each chapter tells about a separate event in the life of a soldier, for example: Terkin twice swims across the icy river to restore communication with the advancing units; Terkin alone occupies a German dugout, 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 enters into hand-to-hand combat with the German and, with difficulty overcoming, takes him prisoner. Or, unexpectedly for himself, Terkin knocks down a German attack aircraft from a rifle. Terkin takes command of the platoon when the commander is killed, and rushes into the village first; however, the hero is again seriously wounded. Lying wounded in the field, Terkin talks with Death, who persuades him not to cling to life; in the end, the soldiers find him, and he tells them: "Take this woman away, / I am a soldier still alive."
It is no coincidence that Tvardovsky's work begins and ends with lyrical digressions. An open conversation with the reader brings you closer to the inner world of the work, creates an atmosphere of general involvement in events. The poem ends with a dedication to the fallen.
The poem "Vasily Terkin" is distinguished by a kind of historicism. It can be conditionally divided into three parts, coinciding with the beginning, middle and end of the war. Poetic comprehension of the stages of the war creates a lyrical chronicle of events from the chronicle. The feeling of bitterness and grief 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 due to the fact that A.T. Tvardovsky created the poem gradually, throughout the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
Artistic identity
Analysis of the work shows that the poem "Vasily Terkin" is distinguished by an extraordinary breadth and freedom of using the means of oral-colloquial, literary and folk poetry speech. This is a truly vernacular language. It naturally uses proverbs and sayings (“I am jack of all trades out of boredom”; “time for business is an hour of fun”; “along which river to sail - to create that and a little slave ...”), folk songs (about a greatcoat, about a river ). Tvardovsky is fluent in the art of speaking simply but poetically. He himself creates expressions that have entered life on the basis of proverbs (“don't look what's on your chest, but look what's ahead”; “war has a short path, love has a long way”; “guns go back to battle”, etc.) ...
Freedom - the main moral and artistic principle of the work - is realized in the very construction of the verse. And this is a find - a relaxed ten-verse, eight-, and five-, and six-, and quatrains - in a word, there will be as many rhyming lines as Tvardovsky will need right now in order to express himself in full. The main size of "Vasily Terkin" is a four-legged trore.
S. Ya. Wrote about the originality of Tvardovsky's verse. Marshak: “Look at how one of the best chapters of Vasily Terkin, The Crossing, was built. In this truthful and seemingly unsophisticated story about authentic events observed by the author, you nevertheless find a strict form, a clear construction. You will find here a repeating leitmotif that sounds in the most crucial places in the narrative, and each time in a new way - sometimes sad and alarming, then solemn and even menacing:
Ferry, ferry! The bank is left, the bank is right. The snow is rough. The edge of the ice ... To whom the memory, to whom the glory, To whom the dark water.
You will find here a lively, laconic, impeccably well-aimed dialogue built in accordance with all the laws of the ballad. This is where the true poetic culture is reflected, which gives us the means to depict events from the most modern hectic life. "
The meaning of the work
The poem "Vasily Terkin" is the central work in the work of A.T. Tvardovsky, "the best of everything written about war in war" (K. Simonov), one of the heights of Russian epic poetry in general. It can be considered one of the truly popular works. Many lines from this work migrated into oral folk speech or became popular poetic aphorisms: "mortal battle not for glory - for the sake of life on earth", "forty souls one soul", "crossing, crossing, left bank, right bank" and many other.
The recognition of the “Book of the Fighter” was not only nationwide, but also nationwide: “... This is a truly rare book: what freedom, what wonderful prowess, what accuracy, precision in everything and what an extraordinary folk soldier's language - no hitch, no a single false, ready-made, that is, literary vulgar word! " - wrote I.A. Bunin.
The poem "Vasily Terkin" has been illustrated several times. The very first were illustrations by O.G. Vereisky, which were created immediately after the text of the poem. Also known are the works of artists B. Dekhterev, I. Bruni, Y. Neprintsev. In 1961, at the Moscow Theater. Moscow City Council K. Voronkov staged "Vasily Terkin". Known literary compositions of the chapters of the poem performed by D.N. Zhuravlev and D.N. Orlova. Excerpts from the poem were set to music by V.G. Zakharov. The composer N.V. Bogoslovsky wrote the symphonic story "Vasily Terkin".
In 1995, a monument to Terkin was unveiled in Smolensk (author - People's Artist of the Russian Federation, sculptor A.G. Sergeev). The monument is a two-figure composition depicting a conversation between Vasily Terkin and A.T. Tvardovsky. The monument was erected using publicly collected money.
It is interesting
The most famous is the painting by Yu.M. Neprintseva "Rest after the battle" (1951).
In the winter of 1942, in the front-line dugout, barely lit by a homemade lamp, the artist Yuri Mikhailovich Neprintsev first got acquainted with the poem by A.T. Tvardovsky "Vasily Terkin". One of the soldiers read the poem aloud, and Neprintsev saw how the concentrated faces of the soldiers brightened, how, forgetting about fatigue, they laughed while listening to this wonderful work. What is the enormous power of the poem's influence? Why is the image of Vasily Terkin so close and dear to the heart of every warrior? The artist was already thinking about this then. Neprintsev re-reads the poem several times and is convinced that its hero is not at all some exceptional nature, but an ordinary guy, in whose image the author expressed all the best, pure and light that is inherent in Soviet people.
A merry fellow and a joker, who knows how to raise the mood of his comrades in difficult times, to cheer them up with a joke, a sharp word, Terkin also shows resourcefulness and courage in battle. Such living Terkins on the roads of the war could be found everywhere.
The great vitality of the image created by the poet was the secret of his charm. That is why Vasily Terkin immediately became one of the favorite folk heroes. Captivated by this wonderful, deeply truthful way, Neprintsev could not part with him for many years. "He lived in my mind," the artist later wrote, "accumulating new features, enriching himself with new details in order to become the main character of the picture." But the idea of the picture was not immediately born. The artist traveled a long, full of work and thought path before starting to paint the painting "Rest after the Battle". “I wanted,” the artist wrote, “to depict the soldiers of the Soviet Army not at the moment of performing any heroic deeds, when all the mental forces of a person are strained to the limit, to show them not in the smoke of battle, but in a simple everyday atmosphere, in a minute of short rest” ...
This is how the thought of a painting is born. Memories of the war years help determine its plot: a group of fighters, in a short break between battles, settled down in a snow-covered meadow and listens to a cheerful storyteller. In the first sketches, the general nature of the future picture was already outlined. The group was located in a semicircle, deployed towards the viewer, and consisted of only 12-13 people. The figure of Terkin was placed in the center of the composition and highlighted in color. The figures on either side of it formally balanced the composition. There was a lot of far-fetched and conditional in this decision. The small size of the group gave the whole scene a character of chance and did not create the impression of a strong, friendly team of people. Therefore, in the subsequent sketches of the Neprintsy, he increases the number of people and disposes them most naturally. The main character Terkin moves from the center to the right, the group is built diagonally from left to right. Thanks to this, the space increases, its depth is outlined. The viewer ceases to be just a witness of this scene, he becomes, as it were, a participant in it, gets involved in the cool of the fighters listening to Terkin. To give even more authenticity and vitality to the whole picture,
Neprintsev refused solar lighting, since the spectacular contrasts of light and shadow could introduce into the picture elements of theatrical convention, which the artist so avoided. The soft diffused light of a winter day made it possible to more fully and brighter reveal the variety of faces and their expressions. The artist worked a lot and for a long time on the figures of the fighters, on their poses, changing the latter several times. So, the figure of a mustachioed foreman in a sheepskin coat only after a long search turned into a seated soldier, and an elderly soldier with a bowler hat in his hands only in the last sketches replaced the nurse girl bandaging the soldier. But the most important thing for the artist was the work on the depiction of the inner world of the heroes. "I wanted," wrote Neprintsev, "for the viewer to fall in love with my heroes, to feel them as living and close people, so that he would find and recognize his own front-line friends in the picture." The artist understood that only then he would be able to create convincing and truthful images of the heroes, when they would be extremely clear to himself. Neprintsev began to carefully study the characters of the fighters, their manner of speaking, laughing, individual gestures, habits, in other words, he began to "get used to" the images of his heroes. In this he was helped by the impressions of the war years, combat meetings, the memories of his front-line comrades. An invaluable service was rendered to him by his front-line sketches, portraits of combat friends.
Many sketches were made from nature, but they were not transferred directly into the picture, without preliminary revision. The artist was looking for, highlighting the most striking features of this or that person and, on the contrary, removed all secondary, accidental, interfering with the identification of the main. He strove to make each image purely individual and typical. “In my picture I wanted to give a collective portrait of Soviet people, soldiers of the great liberation army. The true hero of my picture is the Russian people. " Each hero in the artist's view has his own interesting biography. He can talk about them fascinatingly for hours, conveying the smallest details of their life and fate.
So, for example, Neprintsev says that the fighter sitting to the right of Terkin, he imagined a guy who recently came to the army from a collective farm, is still inexperienced, maybe he took part in a battle for the first time, and he, of course, is scared. But now, lovingly listening to the stories of the experienced soldier, he forgot about his fear. Behind Terkin stands a young handsome guy in a wickedly tilted hat. “He,” wrote the artist, “listens to Terkin somewhat condescendingly. He himself could have said as well. Before the war he was a skilled worker of a large factory, an accordion player, a participant in amateur performances, a favorite of girls >>. The artist could tell a lot about the mustachioed foreman who laughs at the top of his lungs, and about an elderly soldier with a bowler hat, and about a cheerful soldier sitting to the left of the narrator, and about all the other characters ... The most difficult task was to find the outward appearance of Vasily Terkin. The artist wanted to convey the image that had developed among the people, he wanted Terkin to be recognized immediately. Terkin should be a generalized way, it should combine the features of many people. His image is, as it were, a synthesis of all the best, bright, pure that is inherent in Soviet people. The artist worked for a long time on the appearance of Terkin, on the expression of his face, the gesture of his hands. In the first drawings, Terkin was depicted as a young soldier with a good-natured, sly face. There was no dexterity or sharp wit in him. In another sketch, Terkin was too serious, balanced, in the third - he lacked everyday experience, life school. Searches went on from drawing to drawing, gestures were refined, posture was determined. According to the artist, the gesture of Terkin's right hand was supposed to emphasize some sharp strong joke addressed to the enemy. A countless number of drawings have survived, in which a variety of figure turns, head tilts, hand movements, individual gestures have been tried - until the artist found something that satisfied him. The image of Terkin in the picture became a significant, convincing and quite natural center. The artist spent a lot of time looking for a landscape for a painting. He imagined that the action takes place in a thin forest with clearings and copses. It is early spring, the snow has not melted yet, but only slightly loosened. He wanted to convey the national Russian landscape.
The painting "Rest after the Battle" is the result of the artist's intense, serious work, excited love for his heroes, and great respect for them. Each image in the picture is a whole biography. And before the gaze of an inquisitive viewer, a whole series of bright, individually unique images pass. The deep vitality of the idea determined the clarity and integrity of the composition, the simplicity and naturalness of the pictorial solution. The painting by Neprintsev revives the difficult days of the Great Patriotic War, full of heroism and severity, hardships and hardships, and at the same time the joy of victories. That is why it will always be dear to the heart of the Soviet people, beloved by the broad masses of the Soviet people.
(Based on the book by V.I.Gapeev, E.V. Kuznetsov. "Conversations about Soviet Artists". - M.-L .: Education, 1964)
Gapeeva V.I. Kuznetsova V.E. “Conversations about Soviet Artists. - M.-L .: Education, 1964.
Grishunzh AL. "Vasily Terkin" by Alexander Tvardovsky. - M., 1987.
Kondratovich A. Alexander Tvardovsky: Poetry and Personality. - M., 1978.
Romanova R.M. Alexander Tvardovsky: Pages of life and work: A book for high school students. - M .: Education, 1989-
Tvardovsky A. Vasily Terkin. A book about a fighter. Terkin in the next world. Moscow: Rarity, 2000.
"The book about the soldier" ("Vasily Terkin") by Alexander Tvardovsky became a popular book during the war, because its author managed to tell about the war through the lips of a soldier, on whom the greatness of Russia and its freedom have always been and will remain. Even such a super-strict connoisseur as I. A. Bunin, who was openly hostile to Soviet literature, admired Terkin and the talent of its author. The peculiarities of wartime determined the artistic originality of the poem: it consists of separate chapters, which are not related to each other ("There is no plot in the war," the author says), each of which tells about some episode from the fighting life of the protagonist. Such a composition of the work is also caused by the fact that it was published in front-line newspapers, on separate leaflets, and the reader did not have the opportunity to follow the plot - who knows, whether the "continuation" of Tyorkin's story will get to him, after all, war is war, it is impossible to guess here ...
Analysis of the chapter "Ferry"
In the chapter "The Crossing" Tvardovsky defines the difference between this war and all the previous ones: "The battle is holy and right. Mortal battle is not for the sake of glory, for the sake of life on earth." These words express the author's position, the author's assessment of what is happening, which determines both his view of events and heroes, and his attitude towards them. The feat of Tyorkin, described in this chapter, became an integral part of the general feat of the "guys" who completed their task at the cost of losses: "This night a bloody trail A wave carried out into the sea." The "first platoon" who "grabbed" the right bank is not left to fend for themselves, they remember and worry about him, feeling their guilt: "As if they are to blame for something, Who is on the left bank." And at this dramatic moment, when the fate of the fighters who remained on a foreign shore is unknown, Turkin appears, swam across the winter river ("Yes, water .. It's scary to think. Even the fishes are cold") in order to report "A platoon on the right bank Alive and healthy out of spite to the enemy! " After he informs about the readiness of the first platoon to "secure the crossing", Terkin returns to his comrades, again exposing himself to mortal danger, because his comrades are waiting for him - and he must return.
Analysis of the chapter "Two Soldiers"
The chapter "Two Soldiers" in a humorous spirit shows the connection between generations, which keeps the fighting spirit of the army. Terkin, a soldier of the current war, and the "master-grandfather", who won back his own, who gave his debt to the fatherland, quickly find a common language, and this happens not only because Tyorkin easily and simply solves all "economic problems", but because both they are defenders of the Motherland, and their conversation is "a conversation ... a soldier's." This half-joking conversation, in which each of the interlocutors strives to "pin up" the other, actually touches on a very important topic - the outcome of the current war, the most important question that can only worry any Russian now: "Answer: we will beat the German. Or maybe won't we beat you? " This question is asked by an old soldier to Turkin, and the answer given by Terkin when the soldier, getting ready to leave, was already "at the very door", is short and precise: "We will beat you, father ...". Here the author makes wonderful use of punctuation marks: the ellipsis at the end of the sentence deprives this answer of "official patriotism", it shows that Terkin knows how difficult the path to victory will be, but he is also sure that victory will surely come, that the Russian soldier will be able to achieve it. From such an intonation of meditation and confidence at the same time, the words of the hero acquire special meaning, become especially weighty. The author ends the clearly humorous chapter (one sentence of Tyorkin to "help" the old woman to fry the bacon!) With serious, long-suffering words of the hero, which reach the heart of the reader and become his own conviction of victory.
Analysis of the chapter "Duel"
The chapter "The Duel" in the poem "Vasily Terkin" has a special meaning, because in it the author shows hand-to-hand combat, a one-on-one fight with a German who "was strong and dexterous, Okay tailored, tightly sewn", but in this fight how Russia and Germany, their armies would come together in generalized, but individual images: "As on an ancient battlefield, Chest on chest, like shield on shield, - Instead of thousands, two are fighting, As if the fight will decide everything." It turns out that the outcome of the whole war depends on the outcome of this battle of Vasily Tyorkin, and the hero understands this, he gives this fight all his strength, he is ready to die, but only together with the enemy. The description of the duel in places seems to be epic, in places it is naturalistic, but the hero knows that his moral superiority over the enemy ("Are you a man? No. A scoundrel!" he must help him, he feels the powerful support of the whole country, of the whole people: "The brave guy is fighting to the death. So the smoke is damp, As if the whole country-power Sees Terkin: - Hero!" Tvardovsky shows that the origins of the courage and heroism of the Russian soldier lie precisely in this - in the feeling and understanding of his unity with the people, in the awareness of himself as part of the people, which makes it impossible to retreat in battle, no matter how difficult this battle may be.
Analysis of the chapter "Who Shot?"
Chapter "Who Shot?" begins with a description of the landscape, a "wondrous evening" that belongs not to war, but to a peaceful life, and this evening "disturbed" the soldiers who are accustomed to war and now seem to have returned to the peaceful life for which they are fighting. They seem to be transported into this peaceful life, but "with a terrible roar" a German plane appears, which brings death with it, and the pictures of peaceful life recede in the face of the fear of death: "Now you are covered, now you are gone." However, the author, understanding the reasons for this fear, still cannot agree that a Russian soldier should be afraid of death: "No, comrade, evil and proudly, As the law commands a soldier, meet Death face to face ...". And one of the soldiers who "kicks from his knee From a rifle into the plane" responds to his words, and this "unequal battle, a short battle" ends with the German plane crashing into the ground with a "corkscrew"! The detail is magnificent: "The shooter himself looks with fright: What he has done by chance"! The chapter ends with the words of Terkin, addressed to the sergeant, who said that "the guy is happy, Look - and the order, as if from a bush": "- Do not grieve, this German is not the last plane ...", and the author's humor helps to avoid unnecessary reasoning about heroism, about a feat that Turkin actually performed, and the author shows that the hero's feat is not that he shot down a plane (this could just be an accident), but that he was able to overcome his fear, defy death and defeat it.
Analysis of the chapter "Death and the Warrior"
One of the most psychologically profound chapters of Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin" is the chapter "Death and the Warrior", in which the author shows the hero at perhaps the most difficult moment of his life: Terkin is seriously wounded, he is delirious, and in this delirium Death comes to him , with whom he speaks and who convinces him to give up life himself: "We need a sign of one consent, That you are tired of taking care of your life, That you pray for an hour of death ...". Complete surrender of the hero - if he himself begins to ask Death to "take" him, so she persuades him to give up the struggle for life, explaining that it may happen that he will be picked up, and "you will regret that you did not die Here, on the spot, without hassle ... "The weakened hero seems to surrender to the persuasion of Death (" 'And with Death the Man became beyond his powers to argue "), but he wants to bargain with her for at least one day" to walk among the living ", but she refuses him. This refusal is perceived by the hero as a sign that he must continue to fight for life: "- So you went away, Oblique, I am a soldier still alive." These words of the hero were not taken seriously by Death, she was sure that he would not go anywhere from her, she was even ready to follow the soldiers from the funeral team, who became orderlies and deliver the wounded to the medical battalion. The conversations of the half-dead soldiers and those who save him ("They take care, they bear with caution"), giving him their mittens and the warmth of their souls, made Death "for the first time" think that she is not omnipotent, that her strength must retreat and retreat before the strength of human souls, before the strength of a soldier's brotherhood, so she has to "reluctantly" give a "respite" to the wounded, who is being pulled out of her hands by the same simple soldiers as he is. In this chapter of Tvardovsky's "Vasily Terkin", which we analyzed, the author managed to show the unshakable strength of a soldier who will never be alone and can always count on the help and support of his comrades-in-arms in the common struggle for the freedom of the Motherland.
Name symbolism... The real, nepheleton Terkin, the hero of The Book about the Fighter, appeared in the first two chapters of Tvardovsky's book in September 1942. The frontline "biography" of Terkin is as follows: he begins to fight during the Finnish campaign, re-enters service in June 1941, retreats with the entire army, several times finds himself surrounded, then goes on the offensive and ends his journey in the depths of Germany.
Vasily Terkin is an ambiguous image. He is a symbolic image, a man-people, a collective Russian type. It is no coincidence that nothing is said about his personal biography: they seem to be average. He is "a great hunter to live up to the age of ninety", a peaceful man, a civilian, a soldier by necessity. His usual life on the collective farm was interrupted by the war. War for him is a natural disaster, hot work. The whole poem is permeated with the dream of a peaceful life.
Already at the first mention of the surname Terkin clearly outlines the boundaries of character: Terkin means a seasoned, grated person, "grated kalach", or, as the poem says, "grated by life." Compare, for example, with the Russian proverb: "Patience and work will grind everything", etc. This is the core of the name, the core of the image is repeatedly varied, played out in the poem:
From the first days of the bitter year, The world heard through the formidable thunder, Repeated Vasily Terkin: - We will endure. We'll grind ... Terkin - who is he? Let's face it: He's just a guy by himself. He's ordinary.The image of Terkin is a generalized image, for all its realism and ordinariness. Tvardovsky endows his hero with an "all-Russian" appearance, avoids portrait signs (this would make him overly individualized): "He was endowed with beauty / He was not excellent. / Not tall, not that small, / But a hero-hero." Terkin is both a bright, unique personality, and at the same time he includes the features of many people, he seems to be repeated many times in others 1. See, for example, the chapter "Terkin - Terkin": it turns out that there are two Terkin in the book. This is the hero of the book Vasily Ivanovich and his namesake Ivan. Duality emphasizes the generalizing character of the protagonist. But their duality is not absolute: the second Terkin turns out to be red-haired, does not smoke, and his front-line profession is an armor-piercer. The situation is resolved by a "strict foreman":
What you can’t make out here, don’t understand among yourself? According to the charter, each company will be given its own Terkin.Tvardovsky selects the most general, typical episodes of the war, rarely uses specific geographical names and precise chronological designations (the place and time of the action of his book - field, forest, river, swamp, village, road, winter, spring, summer, autumn). The same is true for the military profession of Terkin: in different situations he turns out to be a signalman, then a shooter, then a scout. It is important that Terkin belongs to the most massive branch of the army - the infantry. The hero is an infantryman. "It contains the pathos of the infantry, the army, which is closest to the ground, to the cold, to fire and death," Tvardovsky wrote at the very beginning of his plan. Terkin is one of the unskilled laborers of the war, on whom the country rests, who bore the brunt of the war on their shoulders. The hero of Tvardovsky's poem is the hero of a particular war with the Germans, and at the same time there is something in him that brings him closer to the Russian soldier of all times. Tvardovsky himself always liked this idea of the deep national roots of his hero, and there are lines in the handwritten versions of the poem:
And in his mint overcoat, Thin, bearded He looks just like a Russian soldier of All campaigns and times. 2Tvardovsky paints the life of the war as a whole, but the overall picture of the war is made up of separate, very vivid and accurate details of the war. The concreteness and tangibility of Tvardovsky's paintings are greatly enhanced by the numerous and precise details of life at the front: in the parking lot "ice water thundered from a bucket from a bucket into a smoky tank"; the telephone operator "blew on the receiver for order"; soldiers write letters "at a halt, under fire, on each other's backs, taking off their gloves with their teeth, in the wind in any frost", etc. The pictures of war in the poem are always dynamic, alive, visually tangible.
The system of rhymes used in relation to the name and surname of the hero also contributes to the achievement of the generalization of the image of the protagonist. Tvardovsky uses rhymes that characterize the life of the army and the mood of the hero ("Terkin" - "bitter", "makhorka", "sayings", "in a tunic", "in a storeroom", etc.). The most important rhyme in the poem is the rhyme "Vasily - Russia", repeated several times in the text, that is, it is emphasized that the hero is the embodiment of the heroism of the Russian people, representing the whole of Russia, the whole people.
