Tolstoy Sevastopol stories. Sevastopol stories

Sevastopol stories
Summary of the work
Sevastopol in December
“The dawn is just beginning to color the sky over Sapun Mountain; the dark blue surface of the sea has already thrown off the twilight of the night and is waiting for the first ray to sparkle with a cheerful brilliance; from the bay it carries cold and fog; there is no snow - everything is black, but the morning sharp frost grabs your face and cracks under your feet, and the distant unceasing roar of the sea, occasionally interrupted by rolling shots in Sevastopol, alone breaks the silence of the morning ... It cannot be that

At the thought that you are in Sevastopol, a feeling of some kind of courage, pride, and so that the blood does not begin to circulate faster in your veins did not penetrate into your soul ... ”Despite the fact that hostilities are going on in the city, life goes on as usual: merchants they sell hot rolls, and the men sell sbiten. It seems that camp and peaceful life are strangely mixed here, everyone is fussing and frightened, but this is a deceptive impression: most people no longer pay attention to either shots or explosions, they are busy with “everyday business”. Only on the bastions "you will see ... the defenders of Sevastopol, you will see terrible and sad, great and funny, but amazing, uplifting spectacles there."
In the hospital, wounded soldiers talk about their impressions: the one who lost his leg does not remember the pain, because he did not think about it; a woman carrying lunch to her husband's bastion was hit by a shell, and her leg was cut off above the knee. Dressings and operations are done in a separate room. The wounded, awaiting their turn for surgery, are horrified to see how doctors amputate their comrades' arms and legs, and the paramedic indifferently throws the severed body parts into a corner. Here you can see “terrible, soul-stirring spectacles… war not in the correct, beautiful and brilliant formation, with music and drumming, with waving banners and prancing generals, but… war in its true expression – in blood, in suffering, in death… “. A young officer who fought on the fourth, most dangerous bastion, complains not about the abundance of bombs and shells falling on the heads of the defenders of the bastion, but about the dirt. This is his defensive reaction to danger; he behaves too boldly, cheekily and naturally.
On the way to the fourth bastion, non-military people are less and less common, and stretchers with the wounded come across more and more often. Actually, on the bastion, the artillery officer behaves calmly (he is used to the whistle of bullets and the roar of explosions). He tells how during the assault on the 5th, only one active gun and very few servants remained on his battery, but still the next morning he was already firing from all the guns again.
The officer recalls how the bomb hit the sailor's dugout and killed eleven people. In the faces, posture, movements of the defenders of the bastion, one can see “the main features that make up the strength of the Russian - simplicity and stubbornness; but here on every face it seems to you that the danger, malice and suffering of war, in addition to these main signs, have also laid traces of consciousness of one’s dignity and lofty thoughts and feelings ... A feeling of anger, revenge on the enemy ... is hidden in the soul of everyone. When the cannonball flies directly at a person, the feeling of pleasure and at the same time fear does not leave him, and then he himself waits for the bomb to explode closer, because “there is a special charm” in such a game with death. “The main, gratifying conviction that you made is the conviction that it is impossible to take Sevastopol, and not only to take Sevastopol, but to shake the strength of the Russian people anywhere ... Because of the cross, because of the name, because of the threat, they cannot accept people, these terrible conditions: there must be another high motivating reason - this reason is a feeling that rarely manifests itself, bashful in Russian, but lies in the depths of everyone's soul - love for the motherland ... This epic of Sevastopol, of which the people were the hero, will leave great traces in Russia for a long time Russian… "
Sevastopol in May
Six months have passed since the start of hostilities in Sevastopol. “Thousands of people's vanities had time to be offended, thousands had time to be satisfied, puffed up, thousands - to calm down in the arms of death” The most fair is the solution of the conflict in an original way; if two soldiers fought (one from each army), and victory would remain with the side whose soldier emerges victorious. Such a decision is logical, because it is better to fight one on one than a hundred and thirty thousand against a hundred and thirty thousand. In general, war is illogical, from the point of view of Tolstoy: “one of two things: either war is madness, or if people do this madness, then they are not rational creatures at all, as we somehow usually think”
In the besieged Sevastopol, military men walk along the boulevards. Among them is an infantry officer (headquarters captain) Mikhailov, a tall, long-legged, stooped and awkward man. He recently received a letter from a friend, a retired lancer, in which he writes how his wife Natasha (Mikhailov's close friend) enthusiastically follows through the newspapers the movements of his regiment and the exploits of Mikhailov himself. Mikhailov bitterly recalls his former circle, which was “so much higher than the current one that when, in moments of frankness, he happened to tell infantry comrades how he had his own droshky, how he danced at balls with the governor and played cards with a civilian general” , they listened to him indifferently, incredulously, as if not wanting only to contradict and prove the opposite”
Mikhailov dreams of a promotion. He meets Captain Obzhogov and Warrant Officer Suslikov on the boulevard, employees of his regiment, and they shake hands with him, but he wants to deal not with them, but with “aristocrats” - for this he walks along the boulevard. “And since there are many people in the besieged city of Sevastopol, therefore, there is a lot of vanity, that is, aristocrats, despite the fact that every minute death hangs over the head of every aristocrat and non-aristocrat ... Vanity! It must be a characteristic feature and a special disease of our age... Why in our age there are only three kinds of people: one - accepting the beginning of vanity as a fact that necessarily exists, therefore just, and freely obeying it; others - accepting it as an unfortunate but insurmountable condition, and still others - unconsciously, slavishly acting under its influence ... "
Mikhailov twice hesitantly passes by a circle of "aristocrats" and, finally, dares to come up and say hello (he had previously been afraid to approach them because they might not at all honor him with an answer to the greeting and thereby prick his sick pride). “Aristocrats” are Adjutant Kalugin, Prince Galtsin, Lieutenant Colonel Neferdov and Captain Praskukhin. In relation to the approached Mikhailov, they behave rather arrogantly; for example, Galtsin takes him by the arm and walks a little back and forth only because he knows that this sign of attention should please the staff captain. But soon the “aristocrats” begin defiantly talking only to each other, thereby making it clear to Mikhailov that they no longer need his company.
Returning home, Mikhailov recalls that he volunteered to go the next morning instead of a sick officer to the bastion. He feels that he will be killed, and if he is not killed, then surely he will be rewarded. Mikhailov consoles himself that he acted honestly, that going to the bastion is his duty. On the way, he wonders where he might be wounded - in the leg, in the stomach or in the head.
Meanwhile, the "aristocrats" are drinking tea at Kalugin's in a beautifully furnished apartment, playing the piano, remembering their St. Petersburg acquaintances. At the same time, they behave not at all so unnaturally, importantly and pompously, as they did on the boulevard, demonstrating their “aristocratism” to those around them. An infantry officer enters with an important assignment to the general, but the "aristocrats" immediately assume their former "puffed out" look and pretend that they do not notice the newcomer at all. Only after escorting the courier to the general, Kalugin is imbued with the responsibility of the moment, announces to his comrades that a “hot” business is ahead.
Galtsin asks if he should go on a sortie, knowing that he will not go anywhere, because he is afraid, and Kalugin begins to dissuade Galtsin, also knowing that he will not go anywhere. Galtsin goes out into the street and begins to walk aimlessly back and forth, not forgetting to ask the wounded passing by how the battle is going, and scolding them for retreating. Kalugin, having gone to the bastion, does not forget to demonstrate his courage to everyone along the way: he does not bend down when the bullets whistle, he takes a dashing pose on horseback. He is unpleasantly struck by the "cowardice" of the battery commander, whose bravery is legendary.
Not wanting to take unnecessary risks, the battery commander, who spent half a year on the bastion, in response to Kalugin's demand to inspect the bastion, sends Kalugin to the guns along with a young officer. The general orders Praskukhin to notify Mikhailov's battalion of the redeployment. He successfully delivers the order. In the dark, under enemy fire, the battalion begins to move. At the same time, Mikhailov and Praskukhin, walking side by side, think only about the impression they make on each other. They meet Kalugin, who, not wanting to "expose himself" once again, learns about the situation on the bastion from Mikhailov and turns back. A bomb explodes next to them, Praskukhin dies, and Mikhailov is wounded in the head. He refuses to go to the dressing station, because it is his duty to be with the company, and besides, he has a reward for the wound. He also believes that his duty is to pick up the wounded Praskukhin or make sure that he is dead. Mikhailov crawls back under fire, becomes convinced of the death of Praskukhin and returns with a clear conscience.
“Hundreds of fresh bloody bodies of people, two hours ago full of various high and small hopes and desires, with stiff limbs, lay on the dewy flowering valley that separates the bastion from the trench, and on the flat floor of the chapel of the Dead in Sevastopol; hundreds of people - with curses and prayers on parched lips - crawled, tossed and groaned, some among the corpses on a flowering valley, others on stretchers, on horse-drawn horses and on the bloody floor of the dressing station; the flowering valley, others on stretchers, on cots and on the bloody floor of the dressing station; and all the same, as in the old days, the lightning lit up over Sapun Mountain, the twinkling stars turned pale, a white fog pulled from the noisy dark sea, a scarlet dawn lit up in the east, crimson long clouds fled across the light azure horizon, and everything is the same , as in former days, promising joy, love and happiness to the whole revived world, a mighty, beautiful luminary emerged.
The next day, “aristocrats” and other military men stroll along the boulevard and vied with each other to talk about yesterday’s “affair”, but in such a way that they basically describe “the participation that he took and the courage that the narrator showed in the deed”. “Each of them is a little Napoleon, a little monster, and now he is ready to start a battle, to kill a hundred people just to get an extra star or a third of his salary.”
A truce has been declared between the Russians and the French, ordinary soldiers freely communicate with each other and, it seems, do not feel any enmity towards the enemy. The young cavalry officer is simply delighted to be able to chat in French, thinking he is incredibly smart. He discusses with the French what an inhuman deed they started together, referring to the war. At this time, the boy walks around the battlefield, picking blue wild flowers and looking askance at the corpses in surprise. White flags are displayed everywhere.
“Thousands of people crowd, look, talk and smile at each other. And these people, Christians, professing one great law of love and selflessness, looking at what they have done, will not suddenly fall with repentance on their knees before the one who, having given them life, put into the soul of everyone, along with the fear of death, love for good and beautiful, and with tears of joy and happiness will not embrace like brothers? Not! White rags are hidden - and again the instruments of death and suffering whistle, pure innocent blood is shed again and groans and curses are heard ... Where is the expression of evil, which should be avoided? Where is the expression of the good that should be imitated in this story? Who is the villain, who is her hero? Everyone is good and everyone is bad ... The hero of my story, whom I love with all the strength of my soul, whom I tried to reproduce in all its beauty and who has always been, is and will be beautiful, is true ”
Sevastopol in August 1855
Lieutenant Mikhail Kozeltsov, a respected officer, independent in his judgments and in his actions, not stupid, in many ways talented, a skilled drafter of government papers and a capable storyteller, returns to his position from the hospital. “He had one of those self-esteem, which merged with life to such an extent and which most often develops in some male, and especially military circles, that he did not understand any other choice, how to excel or be destroyed, and that self-esteem was the engine even of his internal motives."
A lot of people passing by have accumulated at the station: there are no horses. Some of the officers heading to Sevastopol do not even have lifting money, and they do not know how to continue their journey. Among those waiting is Kozeltsov's brother, Volodya. Contrary to family plans, Volodya, for minor misconduct, did not join the guard, but was sent (at his own request) to the active army. He, like any young officer, really wants to “fight for the Fatherland”, and at the same time serve in the same place as his elder brother.
Volodya is a handsome young man, he is both shy in front of his brother and proud of him. The elder Kozeltsov invites his brother to immediately go with him to Sevastopol. Volodya seems to be embarrassed; he no longer really wants to go to war, and, besides, he, sitting at the station, managed to lose eight rubles. Kozeltsov pays his brother's debt with the last money, and they set off. On the way, Volodya dreams of the heroic deeds that he will certainly accomplish in the war together with his brother, of his beautiful death and dying reproaches to everyone else for not being able to appreciate “truly loving Fatherland” during their lifetime, etc.
Upon arrival, the brothers go to the booth of a convoy officer, who counts a lot of money for the new regimental commander, who is acquiring a “household”. No one understands what made Volodya leave his quiet place in the far rear and come to the warring Sevastopol without any profit. The battery, to which Volodya is seconded, stands on Korabelnaya, and both brothers go to spend the night with Mikhail on the fifth bastion. Before that, they visit Comrade Kozeltsov in the hospital. He is so bad that he does not immediately recognize Michael, he is waiting for an imminent death as deliverance from suffering.
Leaving the hospital, the brothers decide to disperse, and, accompanied by the batman Mikhail Volodya, goes to his battery. The battery commander offers Volodya to spend the night in the staff captain's bed, which is located on the bastion itself. However, Junker Vlang is already sleeping on the bunk; he has to give way to the ensign (Voloda) who has arrived. At first Volodya cannot sleep; he is now frightened by the darkness, then by a premonition of imminent death. He fervently prays for deliverance from fear, calms down and falls asleep to the sound of falling shells.
Meanwhile, Kozeltsov Sr. arrives at the disposal of the new regimental commander - his recent comrade, now separated from him by a wall of subordination. The commander is unhappy that Kozeltsov is returning to duty prematurely, but instructs him to take command of his former company. In the company, Kozeltsov is greeted joyfully; it is noticeable that he enjoys great respect among the soldiers. Among the officers, he also expects a warm welcome and a sympathetic attitude towards the wound.
The next day, the bombardment continues with renewed vigor. Volodya begins to enter the circle of artillery officers; one can see their mutual sympathy for each other. Volodya is especially liked by the junker Vlang, who in every possible way foresees any desires of the new ensign. The good Captain Kraut, a German, who speaks Russian very correctly and too beautifully, returns from the positions. There is talk of abuse and legalized theft in senior positions. Volodya, blushing, assures the audience that such an "ignoble" deed will never happen to him.
Everyone is interested at lunch at the battery commander's, the conversations do not stop despite the fact that the menu is very modest. An envelope arrives from the chief of artillery; an officer with servants is required for a mortar battery on Malakhov Kurgan. This is a dangerous place; no one volunteers to go. One of the officers points to Volodya and, after a short discussion, he agrees to go “shoot on it”. Together with Volodya, Vlang is sent. Volodya takes up the study of the "Guide" on artillery firing. However, upon arrival at the battery, all “rear” knowledge turns out to be unnecessary: firing is carried out randomly, not a single shot even resembles those mentioned in the “Manual” by weight, there are no workers to repair broken guns. In addition, two soldiers of his team are wounded, and Volodya himself repeatedly finds himself on the verge of death.
Vlang is very scared; he is no longer able to hide it and thinks solely about saving his own life at any cost. Volodya is “a little creepy and fun.” Volodya's soldiers are holed up in Volodya's dugout. He communicates with interest with Melnikov, who is not afraid of bombs, being sure that he will die a different death. Having got used to the new commander, the soldiers under Volodya begin to discuss how the allies under the command of Prince Konstantin will come to their aid, how both warring parties will be given a rest for two weeks, and then they will take a fine for each shot, how in the war a month of service will be considered as year, etc.
Despite Vlang's entreaties, Volodya comes out of the dugout into the fresh air and sits on the doorstep with Melnikov until morning, while bombs fall around him and bullets whistle. But in the morning the battery and guns were put in order, and Volodya completely forgot about the danger; he only rejoices that he performs his duties well, that he does not show cowardice, but, on the contrary, is considered brave.
The French assault begins. Half-asleep, Kozeltsov jumps out to the company, awake, most of all concerned that he should not be considered a coward. He grabs his little saber and runs ahead of everyone at the enemy, shouting to inspire the soldiers. He is wounded in the chest. Waking up, Kozeltsov sees the doctor examining his wound, wiping his fingers on his coat and sending a priest to him. Kozeltsov asks if the French have been driven out; the priest, not wanting to upset the dying man, says that the Russians have won. Kozeltsov is happy; “He thought with an extremely gratifying feeling of self-satisfaction that he had done his duty well, that for the first time in his entire service he had acted as well as he could, and he could not reproach himself with anything.” He dies with the last thought of his brother, and Kozeltsov wishes him the same happiness.
The news of the assault finds Volodya in the dugout. “It was not so much the sight of the calmness of the soldiers as the miserable, undisguised cowardice of the junker that aroused him.” Not wanting to be like Vlang, Volodya commands lightly, even cheerfully, but soon hears that the French are bypassing them. He sees enemy soldiers very close, it strikes him so much that he freezes in place and misses the moment when he can still be saved. Melnikov dies next to him from a bullet wound. Vlang tries to shoot back, calls Volodya to run after him, but, jumping into the trench, he sees that Volodya is already dead, and in the place where he just stood, the French are and shoot at the Russians. The French banner flutters over the Malakhov Kurgan.
Vlang with a battery on a steamboat arrives in a safer part of the city. He bitterly mourns the fallen Volodya; to which he was truly attached. The retreating soldiers, talking among themselves, notice that the French will not be staying in the city for long. “It was a feeling, as if similar to remorse, shame and anger. Almost every soldier, looking from the northern side at the abandoned Sevastopol, sighed with inexpressible bitterness in his heart and threatened the enemies.

You are now reading: Summary Sevastopol stories - Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich

Lev Nikolaevich TOLSTOY

In 1851-53 Tolstoy took part in military operations in the Caucasus (first as a volunteer, then as an artillery officer), and in 1854 he was sent to the Danube army. Shortly after the start of the Crimean War, he was transferred to Sevastopol at his personal request (in the besieged city, he fights on the famous 4th bastion). Army life and episodes of the war gave Tolstoy material for the stories "The Raid" (1853), "Cutting the Forest" (1853-55), as well as for the artistic essays "Sevastopol in the month of December", "Sevastopol in May", "Sevastopol in August 1855 year" (all published in Sovremennik in 1855-56). These essays, traditionally called "Sevastopol Stories", boldly combined a document, a report and a plot narrative; they made a huge impression on Russian society. The war appeared in them as an ugly bloody massacre, contrary to human nature. The final words of one of the essays, that his only hero is the truth, became the motto of all further literary activity of the writer. Trying to determine the originality of this truth, N. G. Chernyshevsky perceptively pointed out two characteristic features of Tolstoy's talent - "dialectics of the soul" as a special form of psychological analysis and "immediate purity of moral feeling" (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 3, 1947, pp. 423, 428).

SEVASTOPOL IN DECEMBER

The morning dawn is just beginning to color the sky over Sapun Mountain; the dark blue surface of the sea has already thrown off the dusk of the night and is waiting for the first ray to sparkle with a cheerful brilliance; from the bay it carries cold and fog; there is no snow - everything is black, but the morning sharp frost grabs your face and cracks under your feet, and the distant unceasing rumble of the sea, occasionally interrupted by rolling shots in Sevastopol, alone breaks the silence of the morning. On the ships, the eighth bottle beats dully.

In the North, daytime activity is gradually beginning to replace the calm of the night: where the change of sentries took place, rattling their guns; where the doctor is already in a hurry to the hospital; where the soldier crawled out of the dugout, washes his tanned face with icy water and, turning to the blushing east, quickly crossing himself, prays to God; where a tall, heavy majara on camels dragged creakingly into the cemetery to bury the bloody dead, with which it was almost covered to the top ... You approach the pier - a special smell of coal, manure, dampness and beef strikes you; thousands of various objects - firewood, meat, tours, flour, iron, etc. - lie in a heap near the pier; soldiers of different regiments, with sacks and guns, without sacks and without guns, are crowding around here, smoking, cursing, dragging weights onto the steamer, which, smoking, is standing near the platform; free skiffs filled with all kinds of people - soldiers, sailors, merchants, women - moor and set sail from the pier.

- To Grafskaya, your honor? Please, - two or three retired sailors offer you their services, getting up from the skiffs.

You choose the one that is closer to you, step over the half-rotten corpse of some bay horse, which lies in the mud near the boat, and go to the steering wheel. You set sail from the shore. All around you is the sea, already shining in the morning sun, in front of you is an old sailor in a camel coat and a young white-headed boy, who silently and diligently work with oars. You look at the striped bulks of ships, scattered close and far across the bay, and at the black small dots of boats moving along the brilliant azure, and at the beautiful light buildings of the city, painted with pink rays of the morning sun, visible on the other side, and at the foaming white line booms and sunken ships, from which in some places the black ends of the masts stick out sadly, and to the distant enemy fleet, looming on the crystal horizon of the sea, and to the foaming jets in which salt bubbles jump, raised by oars; you listen to the steady sounds of the strokes of the oars, the sounds of voices reaching you through the water, and the majestic sounds of the shooting, which, it seems to you, is intensifying in Sevastopol.

It is impossible that at the thought that you, too, are in Sevastopol, feelings of some kind of courage and pride do not penetrate into your soul, and that the blood does not begin to circulate faster in your veins ...

- Your honor! keep right under Kistentin, - the old sailor will tell you, turning back to check the direction that you give the boat - to the right of the rudder.

“But it still has all the guns on it,” the white-haired guy will notice, passing by the ship and looking at it.

“But how is it: it’s new, Kornilov lived on it,” the old man remarks, also looking at the ship.

- You see, where it broke! - the boy will say after a long silence, looking at the white cloud of divergent smoke that suddenly appeared high above the South Bay and was accompanied by the sharp sound of a bomb exploding.

“He’s firing from a new battery today,” the old man will add, indifferently spitting on his hand. - Well, come on, Mishka, we'll overtake the longboat. - And your skiff moves faster along the wide swell of the bay, really overtakes a heavy launch, on which some coolies are piled up and clumsy soldiers row unevenly, and sticks between a multitude of moored boats of all kinds at the Count's Quay.

Crowds of gray soldiers, black sailors and motley women are moving noisily on the embankment. The women are selling rolls, Russian men with samovars are shouting hot sbiten, and right there on the first steps rusty cannonballs, bombs, buckshot and cast-iron cannons of various calibers are lying around. A little further on is a large square, on which some huge beams, cannon-mounts, sleeping soldiers are lying; there are horses, wagons, green guns and boxes, infantry packs; soldiers, sailors, officers, women, children, merchants are moving; carts with hay, with sacks and barrels go; in some places a Cossack and an officer on horseback, a general in a droshky, will pass. To the right, the street is blocked off by a barricade, on which some small cannons stand in embrasures, and a sailor is sitting near them, smoking a pipe. To the left is a beautiful house with Roman numerals on the pediment, under which there are soldiers and bloody stretchers - everywhere you see unpleasant traces of a military camp. Your first impression is certainly the most unpleasant: a strange mixture of camp and city life, a beautiful city and a dirty bivouac, not only is not beautiful, but seems like a disgusting mess; it even seems to you that everyone is frightened, fussing, not knowing what to do. But look closer at the faces of these people moving around you, and you will understand something completely different. Just look at this furshtat soldier who leads some bay troika to drink and hums something under his breath so calmly that, obviously, he will not get lost in this heterogeneous crowd, which for him does not exist, but that he is doing his own thing. the business, whatever it may be - to water the horses or to carry tools - is just as calm, and self-confident, and indifferent, as if all this were happening somewhere in Tula or Saransk. You read the same expression on the face of this officer, who, in immaculate white gloves, passes by, and on the face of a sailor who smokes, sitting on the barricade, and on the face of working soldiers, with a stretcher, waiting on the porch of the former Assembly, and on the face of this girl , who, afraid to get her pink dress wet, jumps over the pebbles across the street.

Year of writing:

1855

Reading time:

Description of the work:

The Sevastopol stories (there are three stories in the cycle), written by Leo Tolstoy in 1855, depict well how Sevastopol was defended. Leo Tolstoy describes the heroism of the soldiers who defended the city, shows the inhumanity and senselessness of the war.

It is noteworthy that this is the first time that such a famous writer as Tolstoy was personally present at the events taking place and immediately wrote about it, thus reporting everything in an authentic form to his readers. It turns out that one can confidently say about Tolstoy that he is the first Russian war correspondent.

Read below a summary of the Sevastopol stories cycle.

Sevastopol in December

“The dawn is just beginning to color the sky over Sapun Mountain; the dark blue surface of the sea has already thrown off the twilight of the night and is waiting for the first ray to sparkle with a cheerful brilliance; from the bay it carries cold and fog; there is no snow - everything is black, but the sharp morning frost grabs your face and cracks under your feet, and the distant unceasing rumble of the sea, occasionally interrupted by rolling shots in Sevastopol, alone breaks the silence of the morning ... It cannot be that at the thought that you are in Sevastopol, a feeling of some kind of courage, pride, and so that the blood does not begin to circulate faster in your veins has not penetrated into your soul ... ”Despite the fact that hostilities are going on in the city, life goes on as usual: vendors sell hot men are a wreck. It seems that camp and peaceful life are strangely mixed here, everyone is fussing and frightened, but this is a deceptive impression: most people no longer pay attention to either shots or explosions, they are busy with “everyday business”. Only on the bastions "you will see ... the defenders of Sevastopol, you will see terrible and sad, great and funny, but amazing, uplifting spectacles there."

In the hospital, wounded soldiers talk about their impressions: the one who lost his leg does not remember the pain, because he did not think about it; a woman carrying lunch to her husband's bastion was hit by a shell, and her leg was cut off above the knee. Dressings and operations are done in a separate room. The wounded, awaiting their turn for surgery, are horrified to see how doctors amputate their comrades' arms and legs, and the paramedic indifferently throws the severed body parts into a corner. Here you can see "terrible, soul-shattering spectacles ... the war is not in the correct, beautiful and brilliant formation, with music and drumming, with fluttering banners and prancing generals, but ... war in its true expression - in blood, in suffering , in death ... ". A young officer who fought on the fourth, most dangerous bastion, complains not about the abundance of bombs and shells falling on the heads of the defenders of the bastion, but about the dirt. This is his defensive reaction to danger; he behaves too boldly, cheekily and at ease.

On the way to the fourth bastion, non-military people are less and less common, and stretchers with the wounded are increasingly coming across. Actually, on the bastion, the artillery officer behaves calmly (he is used to both the whistle of bullets and the roar of explosions). He tells how during the assault on the 5th, only one active gun and very few servants remained on his battery, but still the next morning he was already firing from all the guns again.

The officer recalls how the bomb hit the sailor's dugout and killed eleven people. In the faces, posture, movements of the defenders of the bastion, “the main features that make up the strength of the Russian are visible - simplicity and stubbornness; but here on every face it seems to you that the danger, malice and suffering of war, in addition to these main signs, have also laid traces of consciousness of one’s dignity and lofty thoughts and feelings ... A feeling of anger, revenge on the enemy ... is hidden in the soul of everyone. When the cannonball flies directly at a person, he does not leave a feeling of pleasure and at the same time fear, and then he himself waits for the bomb to explode closer, because "there is a special charm" in such a game with death. “The main, gratifying conviction that you made is the conviction that it is impossible to take Sevastopol, and not only to take Sevastopol, but to shake the strength of the Russian people anywhere ... Because of the cross, because of the name, because of the threat people can accept these terrible conditions: there must be another high motivating reason - this reason is a feeling that rarely manifests itself, shy in Russian, but lies in the depths of everyone's soul - love for the motherland ... This epic of Sevastopol will leave great traces in Russia for a long time, whose hero was the Russian people ... "

Sevastopol in May

Six months have passed since the start of hostilities in Sevastopol. “Thousands of human vanities managed to be offended, thousands managed to be satisfied, puffed up, thousands - to calm down in the arms of death” The most fair is the solution of the conflict in an original way; if two soldiers fought (one from each army), and victory would remain with the side whose soldier emerges victorious. Such a decision is logical, because it is better to fight one on one than a hundred and thirty thousand against a hundred and thirty thousand. In general, war is illogical, from the point of view of Tolstoy: “one of two things: either war is madness, or if people do this madness, then they are not rational creatures at all, as we somehow usually think”

In the besieged Sevastopol, the military walk along the boulevards. Among them is an infantry officer (headquarters captain) Mikhailov, a tall, long-legged, stooped and awkward man. He recently received a letter from a friend, a retired lancer, in which he writes how his wife Natasha (Mikhailov's close friend) enthusiastically follows through the newspapers the movements of his regiment and the exploits of Mikhailov himself. Mikhailov bitterly recalls his former circle, which was "so much higher than the current one that when, in moments of frankness, he happened to tell his infantry comrades how he had his own droshky, how he danced at the governor's balls and played cards with a civilian general" , they listened to him indifferently, incredulously, as if not wanting only to contradict and prove the opposite

Mikhailov dreams of a promotion. He meets Captain Obzhogov and Ensign Suslikov on the boulevard, employees of his regiment, and they shake hands with him, but he wants to deal not with them, but with "aristocrats" - for this he walks along the boulevard. “And since there are many people in the besieged city of Sevastopol, therefore, there is a lot of vanity, that is, aristocrats, despite the fact that death hangs every minute over the head of every aristocrat and non-aristocrat ... Vanity! It must be a characteristic feature and a special disease of our age ... Why in our age there are only three kinds of people: some - accepting the beginning of vanity as a fact that necessarily exists, therefore just, and freely obeying it; others - accepting it as an unfortunate but insurmountable condition, and still others - unconsciously, slavishly acting under its influence ... "

Mikhailov twice hesitantly passes by a circle of "aristocrats" and, finally, dares to come up and say hello (before he was afraid to approach them because they might not at all honor him with an answer to the greeting and thereby prick his sick pride). "Aristocrats" are Adjutant Kalugin, Prince Galtsin, Lieutenant Colonel Neferdov and Captain Praskukhin. In relation to the approached Mikhailov, they behave rather arrogantly; for example, Galtsin takes him by the arm and walks a little back and forth only because he knows that this sign of attention should please the staff captain. But soon the "aristocrats" begin to defiantly talk only to each other, thereby making it clear to Mikhailov that they no longer need his company.

Returning home, Mikhailov recalls that he volunteered to go the next morning instead of a sick officer to the bastion. He feels that he will be killed, and if he is not killed, then surely he will be rewarded. Mikhailov consoles himself that he acted honestly, that it is his duty to go to the bastion. On the way, he wonders where he might be wounded - in the leg, in the stomach or in the head.

Meanwhile, the "aristocrats" are drinking tea at Kalugin's in a beautifully furnished apartment, playing the piano, remembering their St. Petersburg acquaintances. At the same time, they behave not at all so unnaturally, importantly and pompously, as they did on the boulevard, demonstrating their “aristocratism” to those around them. An infantry officer enters with an important assignment to the general, but the "aristocrats" immediately assume their former "puffed up" look and pretend that they do not notice the newcomer at all. Only after escorting the courier to the general, Kalugin is imbued with the responsibility of the moment, announces to his comrades that a “hot” business is ahead.

Galtsin asks if he should go on a sortie, knowing that he will not go anywhere, because he is afraid, and Kalugin begins to dissuade Galtsin, also knowing that he will not go anywhere. Galtsin goes out into the street and begins to walk aimlessly back and forth, not forgetting to ask the wounded passing by how the battle is going, and scolding them for retreating. Kalugin, having gone to the bastion, does not forget to demonstrate his courage to everyone along the way: he does not bend down when the bullets whistle, he takes a dashing pose on horseback. He is unpleasantly struck by the "cowardice" of the battery commander, whose bravery is legendary.

Not wanting to take unnecessary risks, the battery commander, who spent half a year on the bastion, in response to Kalugin's demand to inspect the bastion, sends Kalugin to the guns along with a young officer. The general gives the order to Praskukhin to notify Mikhailov's battalion of the redeployment. He successfully delivers the order. In the dark, under enemy fire, the battalion begins to move. At the same time, Mikhailov and Praskukhin, walking side by side, think only about the impression they make on each other. They meet Kalugin, who, not wanting to "expose himself" once again, learns about the situation on the bastion from Mikhailov and turns back. A bomb explodes next to them, Praskukhin dies, and Mikhailov is wounded in the head. He refuses to go to the dressing station, because it is his duty to be with the company, and besides, he has a reward for the wound. He also believes that his duty is to pick up the wounded Praskukhin or make sure that he is dead. Mikhailov crawls back under fire, is convinced of the death of Praskukhin and returns with a clear conscience.

“Hundreds of fresh, bloody bodies of people, two hours ago full of various high and small hopes and desires, with stiff limbs, lay on a dewy flowering valley that separates the bastion from the trench, and on the flat floor of the chapel of the Dead in Sevastopol; hundreds of people - with curses and prayers on parched lips - crawled, tossed and groaned, some among the corpses on a flowering valley, others on stretchers, on cots and on the bloody floor of the dressing station; and all the same, as in the old days, the lightning lit up over Sapun Mountain, the twinkling stars turned pale, a white fog pulled from the noisy dark sea, a scarlet dawn lit up in the east, crimson long clouds fled across the light azure horizon, and everything is the same , as in former days, promising joy, love and happiness to the whole revived world, a mighty, beautiful luminary emerged.

The next day, the "aristocrats" and other military men stroll along the boulevard and vied with each other to talk about yesterday's "case", but in such a way that they basically state "the participation that he took and the courage that the narrator showed in the case." “Each of them is a little Napoleon, a little monster, and now he is ready to start a battle, to kill a hundred people just to get an extra star or a third of his salary.”

A truce has been declared between the Russians and the French, ordinary soldiers freely communicate with each other and, it seems, do not feel any enmity towards the enemy. The young cavalry officer is simply delighted to be able to chat in French, thinking he is incredibly smart. He discusses with the French what an inhuman deed they started together, referring to the war. At this time, the boy walks around the battlefield, collects blue wildflowers and looks at the corpses in surprise. White flags are displayed everywhere.

“Thousands of people crowd, look, talk and smile at each other. And these people, Christians, professing one great law of love and self-sacrifice, looking at what they have done, will not suddenly fall with repentance on their knees before the one who, having given them life, put into the soul of everyone, along with the fear of death, love for good and beautiful, and with tears of joy and happiness will not embrace like brothers? Not! White rags are hidden - and again the instruments of death and suffering whistle, pure innocent blood is shed again and groans and curses are heard ... Where is the expression of evil, which should be avoided? Where is the expression of the good that should be imitated in this story? Who is the villain, who is her hero? Everyone is good and everyone is bad ... The hero of my story, whom I love with all the strength of my soul, whom I tried to reproduce in all its beauty and who has always been, is and will be beautiful, is true "

Sevastopol in August 1855

Lieutenant Mikhail Kozeltsov, a respected officer, independent in his judgments and in his actions, not stupid, in many ways talented, a skilled drafter of government papers and a capable storyteller, returns to his position from the hospital. “He had one of those self-esteem, which merged with life to such an extent and which most often develops in some male, and especially military circles, that he did not understand any other choice, how to excel or be destroyed, and that self-esteem was the engine even of his internal motives."

A lot of people passing by have accumulated at the station: there are no horses. Some officers heading to Sevastopol do not even have lifting money, and they do not know how to continue their journey. Among those waiting is Kozeltsov's brother, Volodya. Contrary to family plans, Volodya, for minor misconduct, did not join the guard, but was sent (at his own request) to the active army. He, like any young officer, really wants to "fight for the Fatherland", and at the same time serve in the same place as his elder brother.

Volodya is a handsome young man, he is both shy in front of his brother and proud of him. The elder Kozeltsov invites his brother to immediately go with him to Sevastopol. Volodya seems to be embarrassed; he no longer really wants to go to war, and, besides, he, sitting at the station, managed to lose eight rubles. Kozeltsov pays his brother's debt with the last money, and they set off. On the way, Volodya dreams of the heroic deeds that he will certainly accomplish in the war together with his brother, of his beautiful death and dying reproaches to everyone else for not being able to appreciate “those who truly loved the Fatherland” during their lifetime, etc.

Upon arrival, the brothers go to the booth of a convoy officer, who counts a lot of money for the new regimental commander, who is acquiring a "farm". No one understands what made Volodya leave his quiet place in the far rear and come to warring Sevastopol without any profit. The battery, to which Volodya is seconded, stands on Korabelnaya, and both brothers go to spend the night with Mikhail on the fifth bastion. Before that, they visit Comrade Kozeltsov in the hospital. He is so bad that he does not immediately recognize Michael, he is waiting for an early death as a deliverance from suffering.

Leaving the hospital, the brothers decide to disperse, and, accompanied by the batman Mikhail Volodya, goes to his battery. The battery commander offers Volodya to spend the night in the staff captain's bed, which is located on the bastion itself. However, Junker Vlang is already sleeping on the bunk; he has to give way to the ensign (Voloda) who has arrived. At first Volodya cannot sleep; he is now frightened by the darkness, then by a premonition of imminent death. He fervently prays for deliverance from fear, calms down and falls asleep to the sound of falling shells.

Meanwhile, Kozeltsov Sr. arrives at the disposal of the new regimental commander - his recent comrade, now separated from him by a wall of subordination. The commander is unhappy that Kozeltsov is returning to duty prematurely, but instructs him to take command of his former company. In the company, Kozeltsov is greeted joyfully; it is noticeable that he enjoys great respect among the soldiers. Among the officers, he also expects a warm welcome and a sympathetic attitude towards the wound.

The next day, the bombardment continues with renewed vigor. Volodya begins to enter the circle of artillery officers; one can see their mutual sympathy for each other. Volodya is especially liked by the junker Vlang, who in every possible way foresees any desires of the new ensign. The good Captain Kraut, a German, who speaks Russian very correctly and too beautifully, returns from the positions. There is talk of abuse and legalized theft in senior positions. Volodya, blushing, assures the audience that such an "ignoble" deed will never happen to him.

Everyone is interested at lunch at the battery commander's, the conversations do not stop despite the fact that the menu is very modest. An envelope arrives from the chief of artillery; an officer with servants is required for a mortar battery on Malakhov Kurgan. This is a dangerous place; no one volunteers to go. One of the officers points to Volodya and, after a short discussion, he agrees to go "shoot" Together with Volodya, Vlang is sent. Volodya takes up the study of the "Guide" on artillery firing. However, upon arrival at the battery, all “rear” knowledge turns out to be unnecessary: firing is carried out randomly, not a single shot even resembles those mentioned in the “Manual” by weight, there are no workers to repair broken guns. In addition, two soldiers of his team are wounded, and Volodya himself repeatedly finds himself on the verge of death.

Vlang is very scared; he is no longer able to hide it and thinks solely about saving his own life at any cost. Volodya is "a little creepy and fun." Volodya's soldiers are holed up in Volodya's dugout. He communicates with interest with Melnikov, who is not afraid of bombs, being sure that he will die a different death. Having got used to the new commander, the soldiers under Volodya begin to discuss how the allies under the command of Prince Konstantin will come to their aid, how both warring parties will be given a rest for two weeks, and then they will take a fine for each shot, how in the war a month of service will be considered as year, etc.

Despite Vlang's entreaties, Volodya comes out of the dugout into the fresh air and sits on the doorstep with Melnikov until morning, while bombs fall around him and bullets whistle. But in the morning the battery and guns were put in order, and Volodya completely forgot about the danger; he only rejoices that he performs his duties well, that he does not show cowardice, but, on the contrary, is considered brave.

The French assault begins. Half-asleep, Kozeltsov jumps out to the company, awake, most of all concerned that he should not be considered a coward. He grabs his little saber and runs ahead of everyone at the enemy, shouting to inspire the soldiers. He is wounded in the chest. Waking up, Kozeltsov sees the doctor examining his wound, wiping his fingers on his coat and sending a priest to him. Kozeltsov asks if the French have been driven out; the priest, not wanting to upset the dying man, says that the Russians have won. Kozeltsov is happy; “He thought with an extremely gratifying feeling of self-satisfaction that he had done his duty well, that for the first time in his entire service he had acted as well as he could, and he could not reproach himself for anything.” He dies with the last thought of his brother, and Kozeltsov wishes him the same happiness.

The news of the assault finds Volodya in the dugout. "It was not so much the sight of the calmness of the soldiers as the miserable, undisguised cowardice of the junker that aroused him." Not wanting to be like Vlang, Volodya commands lightly, even cheerfully, but soon hears that the French are bypassing them. He sees enemy soldiers very close, it strikes him so much that he freezes in place and misses the moment when he can still be saved. Melnikov dies next to him from a bullet wound. Vlang tries to shoot back, calls Volodya to run after him, but, jumping into the trench, he sees that Volodya is already dead, and in the place where he just stood, the French are and shoot at the Russians. The French banner flutters over the Malakhov Kurgan.

Vlang with a battery on a steamboat arrives in a safer part of the city. He bitterly mourns the fallen Volodya; to which he was truly attached. The retreating soldiers, talking among themselves, notice that the French will not be staying in the city for long. “It was a feeling, as if similar to remorse, shame and anger. Almost every soldier, looking from the North side at the abandoned Sevastopol, sighed with inexpressible bitterness in his heart and threatened the enemies.

You have read the summary of the Sevastopol Stories cycle. We also invite you to visit the Summary section of our website for other presentations by popular writers.

"Sevastopol stories" - a cycle consisting of three works. The author created the book reliable and accurate. And this is the merit of not only his writing talent, but above all the fact that Lev Nikolayevich was in the army from the autumn of 1854 to the end of the summer of 1955, participated in battles, including in the final battle for the city. For the first time in history, a writer who went to war tried to immediately inform his readers about what he saw and suffered. In fact, Tolstoy can be called the first Russian war correspondent.

The first part tells about the events in December 1854. The author was in the army for only a month. A sharp change in the situation contributed to the most acute perception of the surrounding world. There was still no snow, although it was very cold. At the pier, the stench of manure is clearly felt in the air, the smells of fresh meat pulp and dampness. A lot of people have gathered here. The wharf hummed: steamboats came and went from here. From the thought that the hero found himself in Sevastopol itself, his heart began to beat faster, and his soul was filled with joy. But the combination of a beautiful city and a dirty camp was terrifying.

The hero is in the hospital. It was filled with soldiers. All the beds were occupied by the sick, and even more of the wounded lay right on the floor. Moans were heard everywhere, and the persistent smell of blood was in the air. Here is a fighter with a bandaged severed arm. Next to him is a woman without a leg: she took lunch to her husband and found herself under heavy fire. There was no place, so the dressings were done right in the operating room, where they could see the whole horror of the amputation process in the field.

Bastion number four was considered an extremely scary place. The officer met by the hero said that only one gun and only 8 soldiers remained operational in his battery, but they would not surrender. And indeed the next morning they fought the enemy at full strength. It was clear from their glances, faces, and every turn of the sailors that these people were infinitely courageous, and the enemy would not be able to take Sevastopol.

The second part tells about the events in May 1855. The battles went on for six months. Thousands died. The hero comes up with the idea that everyone who is still fighting is crazy people, because war is absolutely illogical.

The hero sees infantry staff captain Mikhailov walking along the boulevard. The main thing that he wants from what is happening is to be let into the circle of the aristocracy. Up to this point, the members of the circle had treated him with arrogance.

On the morning of the next day, Mikhailov goes to the bastion instead of the sick officer. A bomb explodes nearby. A member of the aristocratic circle Kalugin soon arrives here, who demands from the captain to show him the fortifications. Mikhailov understands that he has served for quite a long time, the period of luck has already ended and is trying not to take risks, passing Kalugin into the hands of a young lieutenant, with whom they have always competed in the level of risk.

The third part of the cycle speaks of August 1855. Officer Mikhail Kozeltsov, whom everyone around loved, returned to Sevastopol after treatment in the hospital. He arrives at the station. A crowd has gathered here: there are not enough horses. To his surprise, among those waiting, Mikhail met his brother Volodya, who is going to the army as an ensign. He cannot sleep on the way, as he is tormented by a terrible premonition.

Upon his return, Mikhail was warmly greeted in the company. But the new commander, with whom they were previously friends, now keeps him at a distance.

Volodya became friends with the cadet Vlang. The two of them are sent to a dangerous battery. Everything that Vladimir knew about the war turns out to be insufficient. His friend is injured, and he thinks only about how to survive, hiding in a dugout. Kozeltsov Jr., on the contrary, did not flinch. He held on, his pride in himself growing. But the guy loses his sense of danger. At these moments, during the attack, his brother dies from a wound in the chest. Volodya does not know about Mikhail's death. He is cheerful and courageous, actively commands. But experience is not enough: the enemy bypasses and kills him. The Russians retreat, looking back with great sadness. They hope that the enemy will stay in the city for a short time.

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Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Sevastopol stories

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About "Sevastopol stories"

In the besieged Sevastopol in the winter, spring and summer of 1855, in the most distant points of the defensive line from one another, they repeatedly noticed a short, lean officer, an ugly face, with deeply sunken, piercing eyes greedily peering into everything.

He appeared all the time in those places where he was not at all obliged to be in the service, and mainly in the most dangerous trenches and bastions. This was very few people then known to the young lieutenant and writer, who was destined to glorify himself and the Russian people who gave birth to him - Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. The people who watched him then wondered later how he managed to survive in the midst of a continuous, terrible battle, when he seemed to deliberately run into danger every day.

In the young, beginning his great life, Leo Tolstoy then lived two people: the defender of the Russian city besieged by enemies and the brilliant artist, who peered and listened to everything that was happening around him. But at that time there was in him one feeling that guided his military, official actions and directed and inspired his gift as a writer: a feeling of love for the motherland that was in serious trouble, a feeling of the most ardent patriotism in the best sense of the word. Leo Tolstoy never spoke about how he loves suffering Russia, but this feeling permeates all three Sevastopol stories and every page in each of them. At the same time, the great artist, describing people and events, talking about himself and other people, talking about Russians and the enemy, about officers and soldiers, sets himself the direct goal of not embellishing anything at all, but to give the reader the truth - and nothing but truth.

“The hero of my story,” Tolstoy concludes his second story, “whom I love with all the strength of my soul, whom I tried to reproduce in all its beauty and who has always been, is and will be beautiful, is true.”

And now, under a brilliant pen, the heroic defense of Sevastopol is resurrecting before us.

Only three moments were taken, only three pictures were snatched from the desperate, unequal struggle, which did not subside and did not fall silent for almost a whole year near Sevastopol. But how much these pictures give!

This small book is not only a great work of art, but also a true historical document, the testimony of an insightful and impartial eyewitness, a testimony of a participant precious to the historian.

The first story tells about Sevastopol in December 1854. It was a moment of some weakening and slowing down of hostilities, an interval between the bloody battle of Inkerman (October 24/November 5, 1854) and the battle of Evpatoria (February 5/17, 1855). But if the Russian field army stationed in the vicinity of Sevastopol could rest and recover a little, then the city of Sevastopol and its garrison did not know a respite even in December and forgot what the word “peace” means.

The bombardment of the city by French and English artillery did not stop. The head of the engineering defense of Sevastopol, Colonel Totleben, was in a hurry with earthworks, with the construction of new and new fortifications.

Soldiers, sailors, workers worked in the snow, in the cold rain without winter clothes, half-starved, and worked in such a way that the enemy commander-in-chief, the French General Canrobert, forty years later could not recall without delight these Sevastopol workers, their selflessness and fearlessness, oh invincibly steadfast soldiers, about these, finally, sixteen thousand sailors, who almost all perished along with their three admirals - Kornilov, Nakhimov and Istomin, but did not concede the lines entrusted to them in the defense of Sevastopol.

Tolstoy talks about a sailor with a severed leg, who is being carried on a stretcher, and he asks to stop the stretcher in order to look at the volley of our battery. The original documents preserved in our archives give any number of exactly the same facts. “Nothing, there are two hundred of us here on the bastion, We have enough for two more days!”Soldiers and sailors gave such answers, and none of them even suspected what a courageous person, despising death, must be in order to speak so simply, calmly, businesslike about his own inevitable death tomorrow or the day after tomorrow! And when we read that in these stories Tolstoy speaks about women, then after all, each of his lines can be confirmed by a dozen irrefutable documentary evidence.

Every day the wives of workers, soldiers, and sailors brought lunch to their husbands in their bastions, and not infrequently one bomb ended up with the whole family, who slurped cabbage soup from the brought pot. These girlfriends worthy of their husbands meekly endured terrible injuries and death. At the height of the assault on June 6/18, the wives of soldiers and sailors carried water and kvass to the bastions - and how many of them lay down on the spot!

The second story refers to May 1855, and this story is already marked June 26, 1855. In May, there was a bloody battle of the garrison against almost the entire besieging army of the enemy, who wanted to capture the three advanced fortifications advanced in front of the Malakhov Kurgan at all costs: the Selenginsky and Volynsky redoubts and the Kamchatka lunette. These three fortifications had to be abandoned after a desperate battle, but on June 6/18, the Russian defenders of the city won a brilliant victory, repulsing the general assault undertaken by the French and British with heavy losses for the enemy. Tolstoy does not describe these bloody May and June meetings, but it is clear to the reader of the story from everything that very recently, very important events have just taken place near the besieged city.

Tolstoy, by the way, describes one short truce and listens to peaceful conversations between Russians and French. Obviously, he has in mind the truce that was announced by both sides immediately after the battle of May 26 / June 7, in order to have time to remove and bury the many corpses that covered the ground near the Kamchatka lunette and both redoubts.

In this description of the armistice, the present reader will probably be struck by the picture that Tolstoy paints here. Can the enemies, who have just cut and stabbed each other in a furious hand-to-hand fight, talk so friendly, with such caress, treat each other so kindly and considerately?

But here, as elsewhere, Tolstoy is rigorously truthful and his story is in full agreement with history. When I was working on documents on the defense of Sevastopol, I constantly had to come across such exact descriptions of truces, and there were several of them during the Crimean War.

Tolstoy's third story refers to Sevastopol in August 1855. This was the last, most terrible month of the long siege, the month of continuous, most cruel, day and night bombardments, the month that ended with the fall of Sevastopol on August 27, 1855. As in his two previous stories, Tolstoy describes events as they unfold before the eyes of two or three participants and observers of everything that he has chosen.

It fell to one of the greatest sons of Russia, Leo Tolstoy, to glorify two Russian national epics with his unsurpassed creations: first the Crimean War in Sevastopol Tales, and later the victory over Napoleon in War and Peace.

E. Tarle

Sevastopol in December

On camels, she dragged herself creakingly to the cemetery to bury the bloodied dead, with which it was almost completely overlaid ... You approach the pier - a special smell of coal, manure, dampness and beef strikes you; thousands of dissimilar items - firewood, meat, tours 2
Tours - a special device of braided rods filled with earth.

Flour, iron, etc. - lie in a heap near the pier; soldiers of different regiments, with sacks and guns, without sacks and without guns, are crowding around here, smoking, cursing, dragging weights onto the steamer, which, smoking, is standing near the platform; free skiffs filled with all kinds of people - soldiers, sailors, merchants, women - moor and set sail from the pier.

- To Grafskaya, your honor? Please, - two or three retired sailors offer you their services, getting up from the skiffs.

And the sunken ships, from which the black ends of the masts stick out sadly in some places, and to the distant enemy fleet, looming on the crystal horizon of the sea, and to the foaming jets in which salt bubbles jump, raised by oars; you listen to the steady sounds of the strokes of the oars, the sounds of voices reaching you through the water, and the majestic sounds of the shooting, which, it seems to you, is intensifying in Sevastopol.

- Your honor! right under Kistentina 4
The ship "Konstantin". ( Note. L. N. Tolstoy.)

Hold, - the old sailor will tell you, turning back to check the direction you give the boat - to the right of the rudder.

“But it still has all the guns on it,” the white-haired guy will notice, passing by the ship and looking at it.

“But how is it: it’s new, Kornilov lived on it,” the old man remarks, also looking at the ship.

- It he it’s firing from a new battery now,” the old man will add, indifferently spitting on his hand. - Well, come on, Mishka, we'll overtake the longboat. - And your skiff moves faster along the wide swell of the bay, really overtakes a heavy launch, on which some coolies are piled up and clumsy soldiers row unevenly, and sticks between a multitude of moored boats of all kinds at the Count's Quay.

Crowds of gray soldiers, black sailors and motley women are moving noisily on the embankment. Women are selling rolls, Russian peasants with samovars are shouting: sbiten hot5
Sbiten hot - a drink made from honey with spices.

And right there, on the first steps, rusted cannonballs, bombs, buckshot and cast-iron guns of various calibers are lying around. A little further on is a large square, on which some huge beams, cannon-mounts, sleeping soldiers are lying; there are horses, wagons, green tools and boxes, infantry goats; soldiers, sailors, officers, women, children, merchants are moving; carts with hay, with sacks and barrels go; in some places a Cossack and an officer on horseback, a general in a droshky, will pass. To the right, the street is blocked off by a barricade, on which some small cannons stand in embrasures, and a sailor is sitting near them, smoking a pipe. To the left is a beautiful house with Roman numerals on the pediment, under which there are soldiers and bloody stretchers - everywhere you see unpleasant traces of a military camp. Your first impression is certainly the most unpleasant: a strange mixture of camp and city life, a beautiful city and a dirty bivouac, not only is not beautiful, but seems like a disgusting mess; it even seems to you that everyone is frightened, fussing, not knowing what to do. But look closer at the faces of these people moving around you, and you will understand something completely different. Look at least at this furshtat soldier 6
Furshtat soldier - a soldier from the convoy unit.

Who leads some bay troika to drink and purrs something under his breath so calmly that, obviously, he will not get lost in this heterogeneous crowd, which for him does not exist, but that he does his job, whatever it may be - to water the horses or to carry tools - just as calmly, and self-confidently, and indifferently, as if all this were happening somewhere in Tula or Saransk. You read the same expression on the face of this officer, who, in immaculate white gloves, passes by, and on the face of a sailor who smokes, sitting on the barricade, and on the face of working soldiers, with a stretcher, waiting on the porch of the former Assembly, and on the face of this girl , who, afraid to get her pink dress wet, jumps over the pebbles across the street.

Yes! you will certainly be disappointed if you enter Sevastopol for the first time. In vain will you look for traces of fussiness, confusion or even enthusiasm, readiness for death, determination on even one face - there is none of this: you see everyday people calmly engaged in everyday business, so perhaps you will reproach yourself for excessive enthusiasm, doubt a little about the validity of the concept of the heroism of the defenders of Sevastopol, which was formed in you from stories, descriptions, and the sight and sounds from the North side. But before you doubt, go to the ramparts 7
Bastion - a five-sided defensive fortification, consisting of two faces (front sides), two flanks (sides) and a gorge (rear part).

Look at the defenders of Sevastopol at the very place of defense, or, better, go directly opposite to this house, which was formerly the Sevastopol Assembly and on the porch of which there are soldiers with a stretcher - you will see the defenders of Sevastopol there, you will see terrible and sad, great and funny, but amazing uplifting spectacle.

You enter a large assembly hall. As soon as you open the door, the sight and smell of forty or fifty amputees and the most seriously wounded patients, some in beds, mostly on the floor, suddenly strikes you. Do not believe the feeling that keeps you on the threshold of the hall - this is a bad feeling - go ahead, do not be ashamed that you seem to have come watch sufferers, do not be ashamed to approach and talk to them: the unfortunate love to see a human sympathetic face, they love to talk about their suffering and hear words of love and compassion. You pass in the middle of the beds and look for a face less severe and suffering, to whom you dare to approach in order to have a conversation.

- Where are you injured? - you ask hesitantly and timidly of one old, emaciated soldier, who, sitting on a bunk, follows you with a good-natured look and, as if inviting you to come up to him. I say: “You ask timidly,” because suffering, in addition to deep sympathy, for some reason inspires fear of offending and high respect for those who endure it.

“In the foot,” the soldier replies; but at this very time you yourself notice from the folds of the blanket that he has no legs above the knee. “Thank God now,” he adds, “I want to be discharged.

- How long have you been injured?

- Yes, the sixth week has gone, your honor!

- What, does it hurt you now?

- No, now it doesn’t hurt, nothing; only as if it aches in the calf when the weather is bad, otherwise nothing.

- How did you get hurt?

- On the fifth bucksion, your honor, how was the first gang: he pointed the gun, began to retreat, in a sort of manner, to another embrasure, as he hit me on the leg, exactly as if he stumbled into a hole. Look, no legs.

Didn't it hurt that first minute?

- Nothing; only as hot as being kicked in the leg.

- Well, and then?

- And then nothing; only as they began to stretch the skin, it seemed to hurt so much. It is the first thing, your honor, don't think too much: whatever you think, it's nothing to you. More and more because of what a person thinks.

At this time, a woman in a gray striped dress and tied with a black scarf comes up to you; she intervenes in your conversation with the sailor and begins to tell about him, about his sufferings, about the desperate situation in which he was for four weeks, about how, being wounded, he stopped the stretcher in order to look at the salvo of our battery, like great the princes spoke to him and granted him twenty-five rubles, and how he told them that he again wanted to go to the bastion in order to teach the young, if he himself could no longer work. Saying all this in one breath, this woman looks first at you, then at the sailor, who, turning away and as if not listening to her, nibbles lint on his pillow 8
Korpiya - threads plucked from clean rags, which were used when dressing instead of cotton.

And her eyes sparkle with some special delight.

- This is my mistress, your honor! - the sailor remarks to you with such an expression, as if saying: “You must excuse her. It is known that the woman's business - he says stupid words.

You begin to understand the defenders of Sevastopol; for some reason you feel ashamed of yourself in front of this person. You would like to tell him too much to express your sympathy and surprise to him; but you find no words or are dissatisfied with those that come to your mind - and you silently bow before this silent, unconscious greatness and firmness of spirit, this shame before your own dignity.

“Well, God forbid you get well soon,” you say to him and stop in front of another patient who lies on the floor and, as it seems, awaits death in unbearable suffering.

This is a blond man with a plump and pale face. He lies on his back with his left arm thrown back, in a position that expresses severe suffering. Dry open mouth with difficulty lets out wheezing breath; blue pewter eyes are rolled up, and from under the tangled blanket stick out the remnant of the right hand, wrapped in bandages. The heavy smell of a dead body strikes you more strongly, and the devouring inner heat, penetrating all the limbs of the sufferer, seems to penetrate you too.

What, is he unconscious? - you ask the woman who follows you and looks at you affectionately, as if at home.

“No, he still hears, but it’s very bad,” she adds in a whisper. - I gave him tea today - well, even though he is a stranger, you still have to have pity - so I almost didn’t drink.

- How do you feel? you ask him.

- My heart is roaring.

A little further on you see an old soldier who is changing clothes. His face and body are somehow brown and thin, like a skeleton. He does not have an arm at all: it is hollowed out at the shoulder. He sits cheerfully, he recovered; but from the dead, dull look, from the terrible thinness and wrinkles of the face, you see that this is a creature that has already suffered the best part of its life.

On the other side, you will see on the bed the pained, pale and tender face of a woman, on which a feverish blush plays all over her cheek.

“It was our sailor woman who was hit in the leg by a bomb on the 5th,” your guide will tell you, “she brought her husband to the bastion to dine.

- Well, cut off?

- Cut off above the knee.

Now, if your nerves are strong, go through the door to the left: in that room they make dressings and operations. You will see doctors there with bloody elbows and pale, sullen physiognomies, busy near the bed, on which, with open eyes and speaking, as if in delirium, meaningless, sometimes simple and touching words, lies a wounded man under the influence of chloroform. Doctors are busy with the disgusting but beneficial business of amputations. You will see how a sharp curved knife enters a white healthy body; you will see how, with a terrible, tearing cry and curses, the wounded man suddenly comes to his senses; you will see how the paramedic throws a severed hand into the corner; you will see how another wounded man lies on a stretcher in the same room and, looking at the operation of a comrade, writhes and groans not so much from physical pain as from the moral suffering of waiting - you will see terrible, soul-shaking spectacles; you will see the war not in the correct, beautiful and brilliant formation, with music and drumming, with waving banners and prancing generals, but you will see the war in its true expression - in blood, in suffering, in death ...

Leaving this house of suffering, you will certainly experience a gratifying feeling, breathe fresh air into yourself more fully, feel pleasure in the consciousness of your health, but at the same time, in the contemplation of these sufferings, you will draw the consciousness of your insignificance and calmly, without indecision, go to the bastions ...

“What is the meaning of the death and suffering of such an insignificant worm as I, in comparison with so many deaths and so much suffering? “But the sight of a clear sky, a brilliant sun, a beautiful city, an open church, and military people moving in different directions will soon bring your spirit to a normal state of frivolity, small worries and passion for the present alone.

You will come across, perhaps from the church, the funeral of some officer, with a pink coffin and music and fluttering banners; perhaps the sounds of shooting from the bastions will reach your ears, but this will not lead you to your former thoughts; the funeral will seem to you a very beautiful warlike spectacle, the sounds - very beautiful warlike sounds, and you will not connect either with this spectacle or with these sounds a clear thought, transferred to yourself, about suffering and death, as you did at the dressing station.

Having passed the church and the barricade, you will enter the most lively part of the city with inner life. On both sides are signs for shops and taverns. Merchants, women in hats and headscarves, dapper officers - everything tells you about the firmness of spirit, self-confidence, and the safety of the inhabitants.

Go to the tavern to the right if you want to listen to the talk of sailors and officers: there, surely, there are stories about this night, about Fenka, about the case of the twenty-fourth, about how expensive and bad cutlets are served, and about how he was killed and that comrade.

“Damn it, how bad we are today!” says a white-haired, beardless naval officer in a green knitted scarf in a bass voice.

- Where are we? another asks him.

“On the fourth bastion,” the young officer answers, and you will certainly look at the blond officer with more attention and even some respect at the words: “on the fourth bastion.” His excessive swagger, his waving of his arms, his loud laugh, and his voice, which seemed to you impudent, will seem to you that special bratty mood of spirit that some very young people acquire after danger; but all the same you think that he will tell you how bad it is from bombs and bullets on the fourth bastion: nothing happened! bad because it's dirty. “You can’t go to the battery,” he will say, pointing to boots covered with mud above the calves. “But today they killed my best gunner, slapped me right in the forehead,” another will say. Who is this? Mityukhin? - “No ... But what, will they give me veal? Here are the channels! he will add to the tavern servant. - Not Mityukhin, but Abrosimov. Such a good fellow - he was in six sorties.

On the other corner of the table, behind plates of cutlets with peas and a bottle of sour Crimean wine called "Bordeaux", two infantry officers are sitting: one, young, with a red collar and two stars on his overcoat, tells another, old, with a black collar and without asterisks, about the Alma case. The first one had already drunk a little, and by the stops that occur in his story, by the indecisive look that expresses doubt that he is believed, and most importantly, that the role he played in all this is too great, and everything is too scary, noticeable, that it deviates greatly from the strict narration of truth. But you are not up to these stories, which you will listen to for a long time in all corners of Russia: you want to go to the bastions as soon as possible, namely to the fourth one, about which you have been told so much and in so many different ways. When someone says that he was in the fourth bastion, he says it with special pleasure and pride; when someone says: "I'm going to the fourth bastion," a little excitement or too much indifference is certainly noticeable in him; when they want to play a trick on someone, they say: "You should be put on the fourth bastion"; when they meet a stretcher and ask: “Where from?” - for the most part they answer: "From the fourth bastion." In general, there are two completely different opinions about this terrible bastion: those who have never been on it and who are convinced that the fourth bastion is a sure grave for everyone who goes to it, and those who live on it, like a white-haired midshipman, and who, speaking of the fourth bastion, will tell you whether it is dry or dirty there, warm or cold in the dugout, etc.

In the half-hour you spent in the tavern, the weather had time to change: the fog spread over the sea gathered into gray, dull, damp clouds and covered the sun; some kind of sad drizzle pours from above and wets the roofs, sidewalks and soldiers' overcoats ...

After passing another barricade, you exit the doors to the right and go up the big street. Behind this barricade, the houses on both sides of the street are uninhabited, there are no signboards, the doors are closed with boards, the windows are broken, where the corner of the wall is broken off, where the roof is broken. The buildings seem old, experienced veterans of all grief and need, and seem to proudly and somewhat contemptuously look at you. On the way, you stumble over the balls lying around and into the water holes dug in the stone ground with bombs. Along the street you meet and overtake teams of soldiers, scouts, officers; occasionally there is a woman or a child, but the woman is no longer in a hat, but a sailor in an old fur coat and soldiers' boots. Walking further along the street and descending under a small izvolok, you notice around you no longer houses, but some strange piles of ruins - stones, boards, clay, logs; ahead of you on a steep mountain you see some black, dirty expanse, pitted with ditches, and this is the fourth bastion ahead ... Here you meet even fewer people, you can’t see women at all, soldiers are moving quickly, drops of blood come across along the road, and certainly you will meet here four soldiers with a stretcher and on a stretcher a pale yellowish face and a bloody overcoat. If you ask: “Where is he wounded? “- the porters angrily, without turning to you, will say: in the leg or in the arm, if he is wounded lightly; or they will remain sternly silent if the head is not visible because of the stretcher and he has already died or is seriously wounded.

The near whistle of a cannonball or a bomb, at the same time as you begin to climb the mountain, will shock you unpleasantly. You will suddenly understand, and in a completely different way than before, the meaning of those sounds of gunshots that you listened to in the city. Some quiet-pleasant memory will suddenly flash in your imagination; your own personality will begin to occupy you more than observations; you will become less attentive to everything around you, and some unpleasant feeling of indecision will suddenly take possession of you. Despite this petty voice that suddenly spoke inside you at the sight of danger, you, especially looking at the soldier, who, waving his arms and slicking downhill, through liquid mud, at a trot, laughingly runs past you - you force this voice to be silent, involuntarily straighten your chest, raise your head higher and climb up the slippery clay mountain. You have just climbed a little uphill, on the right and left, choke guns begin to buzz you 9
Fitting (fitting) - the original name of a rifled gun.

Bullets, and you might wonder if you should go along the trench that runs parallel to the road; but this trench is filled with such liquid, yellow, smelly mud above the knee that you will certainly choose the road up the mountain, especially since you see, everyone is on the road. After passing two hundred paces, you enter a pitted, dirty space, surrounded on all sides by tours, embankments, cellars, platforms, dugouts, on which large cast-iron tools stand and cannonballs lie in regular heaps. All this seems to you heaped up without any purpose, connection and order. Where a bunch of sailors are sitting on the battery, where in the middle of the platform, half sunk in the mud, lies a broken cannon, where an infantry soldier, with a gun, goes over the batteries and with difficulty pulls his legs out of the sticky mud. But everywhere, from all sides and in all places, you see shards, unexploded bombs, cannonballs, traces of the camp, and all this is flooded in liquid, viscous mud. It seems to you that you hear the impact of the cannonball not far from you, from all sides you seem to hear various sounds of bullets - buzzing like a bee, whistling, fast or squealing like a string - you hear the terrible rumble of a shot that shocks you all, and which you seems like something terribly scary.

“So here it is, the fourth bastion, here it is, this terrible, really terrible place!” you think to yourself, experiencing a small sense of pride and a large sense of repressed fear. But be disappointed: this is not the fourth bastion yet. This is Yazonovsky redoubt 10
Redoubt - a field fortification surrounded by an earthen rampart.

- the place is relatively very safe and not scary at all. To go to the fourth bastion, take to the right, along this narrow trench, along which, bending down, an infantry soldier wandered. Along this trench you will perhaps again meet a stretcher, a sailor, a soldier with shovels, you will see mine handlers, dugouts in the mud, into which, bending over, only two people can climb, and there you will see the scouts of the Black Sea battalions, who change their shoes there, eat, they smoke pipes, live, and you will again see the same stinking mud everywhere, traces of the camp and abandoned cast iron in all sorts of forms. After walking another three hundred paces, you again go out to the battery - to a platform pitted with pits and furnished with rounds filled with earth, guns on platforms and earthen ramparts. Here you will see, perhaps, about five sailors playing cards under the parapet, and a naval officer who, noticing a new curious person in you, will gladly show you his economy and everything that may be of interest to you. This officer so calmly rolls up a cigarette of yellow paper, sitting on a gun, walks so calmly from one embrasure to another, speaks to you so calmly, without the slightest affectation, that, despite the bullets that buzz over you more often than before, you you yourself become cold-blooded and carefully question and listen to the stories of the officer. This officer will tell you - but only if you ask him - about the bombardment on the fifth day, he will tell you how only one gun could operate on his battery, and eight people remained from all the servants, and how, nevertheless, on the next morning, on the sixth , he fired11
Sailors all say fire, not shoot. ( Note. L. N. Tolstoy.)

Of all the guns; he will tell you how the fifth bomb hit the sailor's dugout and killed eleven people; he will show you from the embrasure the enemy batteries and trenches, which are no further than thirty or forty sazhens. I am afraid of one thing, that under the influence of the buzzing of bullets, leaning out of the embrasure to look at the enemy, you will not see anything, and if you see, you will be very surprised that this white rocky rampart, which is so close to you and on which white haze flares up, this -that white shaft is the enemy - he, as the soldiers and sailors say.

Portal for the student. Self-training

Lev Nikolaevich TOLSTOY

SEVASTOPOL IN DECEMBER

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Sevastopol in August 1855

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Sevastopol stories

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