The exhausted woman sat leaning against the clay wall of the barn, and in a voice calm from fatigue told about how Stalingrad burned down. The exhausted woman sat leaning against the clay wall of the barn, and in a voice calm from fatigue told

K. M. Simonov is one of the greatest writers of Russian Soviet literature. The artistic world of Simonov absorbed the very complex life experience of his generations.

People born on the eve of or during the First World War did not have time to take part in the Great October Revolution and the Civil War, although it was these events that determined their future fate. Childhood was difficult, they gave their youth to the accomplishments of the first or second five-year plans, and maturity came to them in those very years that D. Samoilov would later call "forties, fatal." The break between the two world wars lasted only 20 years, and this determined the fate of the generation to which K. Simonov, who was born in 1915, belongs. These people came into the world before the seventeenth in order to win in the forty-fifth or perish for the future victory. This was their duty, their vocation, their role in history.

In 1942, N. Tikhonov called Simonov "the voice of his generation." K. Simonov was a tribune and agitator, he expressed and inspired his generation. Then he became his chronicler. Already decades after the war, Simonov tirelessly continued to create more and more new works, remaining faithful to his main theme, his favorite heroes. In the work and fate of Simonov, history was reflected with such completeness and obviousness, as it happens very infrequently.

Terrible trials befell the Soviet soldiers, and the more we move away from the four years of war, the clearer and more majestic their tragic meaning becomes. Faithful to his theme for four decades, Konstantin Simonov did not repeat at all, because his books became more and more multifaceted, more tragic, more emotional, more and more rich in philosophical and moral meaning.

But no matter how rich our literature, which comprehends the military theme, the trilogy "The Living and the Dead" (and, more broadly, the entire work of K. Simonov) is today the most profound artistic study of the Great Patriotic War, the most convincing evidence of the innovative nature of our literature about the war.

K. Simonov did a lot to tell about the worldview and character, moral character and heroic life of the Soviet soldier who defeated fascism. His artistic achievements, first of all, testify to the extraordinary creative energy of the writer and the diversity of his talent.

In fact, one has only to list what he created, for example, in the 70s. The book of poems "Vietnam, the winter of the seventieth." The novel "Last Summer". The stories "Twenty days without war" and "We will not see you." The films "Twenty Days Without War", "There is no other person's grief", "A soldier was walking". At the same time, numerous essays, critical and journalistic articles were written, television programs were prepared, and, finally, various public activities were carried out daily.

For the generation to which K. Simonov belongs, the Great Patriotic War was the central event that determined his fate, worldview, moral character, character and intensity of emotions. It was this generation that grew up in the consciousness of its inevitability and largely determined the inevitability of its victorious completion. Simonov's lyrics were the voice of this generation, Simonov's epic was his self-awareness, a reflection of his historical role.

The diversity of Simonov's work, probably, is primarily due to the fact that his many-sided knowledge of his hero did not fit only within the framework of poetry, or dramaturgy, or prose. Lukonin and Saburov, Safonov, Sintsov, Ovsyannikova - all of them together bring us the truth about how the war tested the strength of their spirit, their ideological conviction and moral purity, their ability to do heroic deeds. The historical paradox of their existence lies in the fact that the war has become for them a school of socialist humanism. It was this circumstance that dictated the need for Simonov not to limit himself to depicting his peers, but to make General Serpilin, who went through the school of communism already during the civil war, the central figure of the trilogy "The Living and the Dead". This is how the unity of Serpilin's political, moral-philosophical and military-professional convictions is created - a unity that has both a clear social conditionality and obvious aesthetic consequences.

In Simonov's trilogy, the connections between the individual and society, the fate of the human and the fate of the people are considered deeply and multifaceted. The writer sought, first of all, to tell about how, due to the needs of society and under its unobtrusive powerful influence, soldiers are born, that is, the spiritual formation of a person takes place - a warrior, a participant in a just war.

Konstantin Simonov has been in the forefront of Soviet military writers for more than sixty years, and he, tireless, working without pauses, obsessed with new and new ideas, inspired by a clear understanding of how much more he can tell people about the four years of the war to give "feel what it was" and make "think that the third world war should not be.

K. M. Simonov is a person who is very close to me in spirit, and in my soul there is a place reserved for this great writer. I have great respect for him and I am proud that he studied at our school in 1925-1927. In our gymnasium there is a memorial plaque dedicated to Konstantin Simonov. And in 2005, this great man turned 90 years old, and in connection with this event, the delegation of the gymnasium visited his son Alexei Kirillovich Simonov.

All this, as well as the advice of my teacher Varnavskaya Tatyana Yakovlevna, influenced the choice of the topic of this research work. It also seems to me that this topic is relevant, because our country celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Victory, and K. Simonov can be safely called the chronicler of the Great Patriotic War, because he conveyed all the pain and suffering in the best possible way, but at the same time, faith in victory Russian people. Unfortunately, in our time, the works of K. M. Simonov are not popular with the modern reader, but in vain, because he and his heroes have a lot to learn. Our ancestors gave us a clear and peaceful sky above our heads, a world without fascism. Sometimes we don't appreciate it. And the works of Simonov seem to take us to those terrible and fatal years for Russia, and after reading them, you can feel what our grandfathers and great-grandfathers felt. Novels, novels, poems by Simonov are a great, truly Russian and patriotic reflection of those terrible and heroic days of 1941-1945.

In my work, I would like to examine in more detail the work of K. M. Simonov, trace the features of his style and narrative trends. I want to understand how Simonov's language differs from the styles of other writers. Many researchers of the work of Konstantin Mikhailovich noted that when creating his great works, he relied on Tolstoy's manner of narration. In my work, I tried to see these similarities myself and highlight those stylistic features that are unique to Simonov and determine his unique, personal style.

"Days and Nights" - themes, problems, system of images

"Days and Nights" is a work that raises the question of how the Soviet people became skilled warriors, masters of victory. The artistic structure of the story and its internal dynamics are determined by the author's desire to reveal the spiritual image of those who stood to their death in Stalingrad, to show how this character was tempered, becoming invincible. To many, the resilience of the defenders of Stalingrad seemed an inexplicable miracle, an unsolvable riddle. But in fact, there was no miracle. "The characters of the peoples, their will, spirit and thought" fought in Stalingrad.

But if the secret of victory lies in the people who defended the city under siege, patriotic enthusiasm, selfless courage, the meaning of the story is determined by how truthfully and fully Simonov managed to tell about his heroes - General Protsenko, Colonel Remizov, Lieutenant Maslennikov, experienced soldier Konyukov and, first of all, about Captain Saburov, who was constantly in the center of events. The attitude of the characters to everything that happens is determined not only by the determination to die, but not to retreat. The main thing in their internal state is an unshakable faith in victory.

The main character of the story "Days and Nights" is Captain Saburov. Saburov's principled and moral purity, his perseverance and absolute rejection of compromises with conscience, were undoubtedly those qualities that largely determined his behavior at the front. When you read about how Saburov wanted to become a teacher, in order to educate people in truthfulness, self-esteem, the ability to be friends, the ability not to give up one’s words and face the truth of life, then the character of the battalion commander Saburov becomes both clearer and more attractive, especially since all these traits completely determine his own actions.

The features of the heroic character of Saburov largely help to understand his conflict with the regiment commander Babenko, whose personal courage is also beyond doubt. But Babenko, demanding fearlessness from himself, considers himself entitled not to be afraid of the death of others. It seems to him that the thought of the inevitability of losses frees one from the need to think about the scale, even about their expediency. Therefore, Babenko once said to Saburov: “I don’t think and I don’t advise you. Is there an order? There is".

So, perhaps for the first time in his work and, certainly, one of the first among our military writers, Simonov spoke about the unity of military leadership principles and the humanism of the Soviet Army. But this was said not in the language of journalism, but in a concrete and convincing image of Captain Saburov. He suffered with all his life experience that, striving for victory, one must think about its price. This is a strategy, deep thought, concern for tomorrow. Saburov's love for people is not an abstract philosophical principle, but the very essence of his life and military work, the main feature of his worldview, the most powerful of all his feelings. Therefore, the attitude towards the nurse Anna Klimenko becomes the core of the story, helping to understand the character of Saburov, to highlight his true depth and strength.

The traitor Vasiliev was an alien figure in the story, not psychologically clarified, composed according to the canons of fiction, and therefore not needed. And without Ani Klimenko, we would not have learned a lot about Saburov.

The main thing in Anya is her directness, spiritual openness, complete sincerity in everything. She is inexperienced both in life and in love to the point of childishness, and in the conditions of war such a tender, almost childlike soul requires reciprocal frugality. When a girl directly, without any coquetry, says that she is "brave today" because she met a person who is unfamiliar, but already close to her, then her attitude reliably checks the moral qualities of a man.

The deepening of the image of Saburov was also created by a new twist on the theme of military friendship, traditional for Simonov. We often see Saburov through the eyes of Maslennikov's closest assistant, who is in love with him. In the character of the chief of staff, much is very typical of a young officer who turned twenty years old in the war. In his youth, he envied those who won back in civilian life, and even more fiercely - people older than him by several years. He was ambitious and vain with that vanity for which it is difficult to condemn people in war. He certainly wanted to become a hero and for this he was ready to do any, the most difficult, whatever he was offered.

One of the most successful heroes of Days and Nights, General Protsenko, came to the story from the story Maturity. Its content is one day of the offensive. This ordinary day convinces of the growth of the military skill of the army: “everything pre-war is a school, and the university is war, only war,” Protsenko rightly says. Ripens in battles not only the commander, but his entire division. And the fact that Protsenko is seriously ill during the decisive hours of the battle does not affect the implementation of the military operation.

But not only characters and situations passed from Simonov's essays and stories into his story. The main thing that unites them is a single interpretation of the war, as a terribly difficult, but indispensable thing, which the Soviet people do soberly and with conviction.

The feat of Stalingrad shocked the world. It, like a drop of water, reflected the character of the Soviet man in the war, his courage and sense of historical responsibility, humanity and unprecedented stamina. The truth, spoken by Simonov in Stalingrad, answered in these conditions the most acute social need. This truth permeates every line of the story about the seventy days and nights during which Saburov's battalion defended three houses in Stalingrad.

The polemical spirit that colors all of Simonov's military prose was most clearly revealed in Days and Nights.

Having chosen the genre of the story for the story about the defense of Stalingrad, the writer finds within this genre a form that is most free from convention, absorbing a diary and close to a diary. Publishing some pages of his military diaries, Simonov himself notes this feature of the story "Days and Nights" in the comments to them: "In the spring of 1943, taking advantage of the lull on the fronts, I began to restore the Stalingrad diary from memory, but instead wrote" Days and Nights "- the story of the defense of Stalingrad. To some extent, this story is my Stalingrad diary. But facts and fiction are intertwined in it so closely that now, many years later, it would be difficult for me to separate one from the other.

We can consider the story “Days and Nights” not only as a story dedicated to people who valiantly guarded Stalingrad, but also as a pure everyday life, the pathos of which is in the scrupulous recreation of front-line life, No doubt, Simonov pays a lot of attention to the life of the war, a lot of unique details that characterize the life of heroes in the besieged Stalingrad, contains a book. And the fact that Saburov’s command post had a gramophone and records, and the fact that in the house defended by Konyukov’s platoon, the fighters slept on leather seats, which they dragged from wrecked cars, and the fact that the division commander Protsenko adapted to wash himself in his dugout, in the nursery galvanized tub. Simonov also describes home-made lamps that were used in dugouts: “The lamp was a sleeve from a 76-mm projectile, it was flattened at the top, a wick was inserted inside, and a hole was cut a little higher than the middle, plugged with a cork - kerosene was poured through it or, for lack of it, gasoline with salt," and American canned food, which was ironically called the "second front": "Saburov reached for a beautiful rectangular can of American canned food: on all four sides of it were depicted multi-colored dishes that can be prepared from them. A neat opener was soldered on the side. »

But no matter how much space the descriptions of everyday life occupy in the story, they do not acquire an independent meaning, but are subordinated to a more general and significant task. In a conversation with students of the Gorky Literary Institute, recalling Stalingrad, where people had to overcome “a sense of enduring danger and enduring tension,” Simonov said that they were supported, in particular, by concentration on the task assigned and household worries: “I am especially clear there I felt that everyday life, human employment, which remains in any conditions of battle, play a huge role in human stamina. A person eats, a person sleeps, settles down somehow to sleep In the fact that people tried to make this life normal, and people's stamina was manifested ”Fortitude Stalingrad stamina

That radical turning point in the course of the war, which marked the Battle of Stalingrad, in the mind of Simonov is associated primarily with invincible fortitude, with powerful and inexhaustible spiritual energy, which then made the very word "Stalingrad" a superlative degree to the concepts of "fortitude" and "courage" . In the penultimate chapter of the story, the writer seems to sum up what he is talking about in the book, “deciphering” the content of the word “Stalingraders”: What they did now, and what they had to do next, was no longer only heroism. The people who defended Stalingrad formed a certain constant force of resistance, which developed as a result of a variety of reasons - and the fact that the farther, the more impossible it was to retreat anywhere, and the fact that retreating meant immediately to die aimlessly during this retreat, and the fact that the proximity of the enemy and the almost equal danger for all created, if not a habit of it, then a feeling of its inevitability, and the fact that all of them, cramped on a small piece of land, knew each other here with all the advantages and disadvantages much closer than anywhere else. All these circumstances taken together gradually created that stubborn force whose name was "Stalingraders", and the whole heroic meaning of this word was understood by others before they themselves.

If you carefully read the beginning of the story, it will be evident that the author violates the sequence of the narrative in the first two chapters. It would be natural to begin the book with a story about what is happening in Stalingrad, where the division in which Saburov serves is ordered to go. But the reader will learn about this only in the second chapter. And the first shows the unloading of Saburov's battalion from the echelon that arrived at the Elton station. Simonov sacrifices here not only chronology - this sacrifice, perhaps, is compensated by the fact that the reader immediately gets acquainted with the main character, but also great drama. In the second chapter, the writer shows with what excitement and anxiety Protsenko's division is expected at the army headquarters. It must at least somehow rectify the difficult situation that has arisen in the center of the city. But the reader from the first chapter already knows that the division has unloaded from the echelons, is moving towards the crossing and will be in Stalingrad in time. And this is not a miscalculation of the author, but a conscious victim. Simonov refuses the opportunity to dramatize the narrative, because this would interfere with the solution of a much more important artistic task for him, this would be a deviation from that internal “law” that determines the structure of the book.

Simonov first of all needed to reveal the initial state of mind with which people entered the battle for Stalingrad. He tried to convey how the feeling arose that there was nowhere to retreat further, that here, in Stalingrad, one had to hold out to the end. That is why he began the story by describing the unloading of Saburov's battalion at the Elton station. Steppe, dust, a white strip of a dead salt lake, a provincial railway line - "all this, taken together, seemed to be the end of the world." This feeling of a terrible limit, the end of the world was one of the terms that absorbed the famous slogan of the defenders of Stalingrad: "There is no land for us beyond the Volga."

Characteristics of the features of the style of the story "Days and Nights"

The name of the work of K. M. Simonov "Days and Nights" is built on a comparison of antonyms. They give the headline expressiveness and are used as a means to create contrast. In his work, K. M. Simonov uses military terminology to create a special effect so that readers better understand the essence and meaning of the story. For example, artillery explosions, machine-gun chatter, companies, liaison, division, headquarters, commander, colonel, general, attack, battalion, army, counterattacks, battles, echelon, arrows, front line, grenade, mortars, captivity, regiment, machine gun and many others. other.

But the excessive use of professional and technical vocabulary leads to a decrease in the artistic value of the work, makes it difficult to understand the text and damages its aesthetic side.

In the story "Days and Nights" you can find expressive shades in some words. For example, a face, damn dizziness, torn off, a bloody stump. This gives the work additional figurativeness, helps to identify the author's assessment, the expression of thoughts is accompanied by the expression of feelings. The use of expressive vocabulary is associated with the general stylistic orientation of the text.

K. M. Simonov often uses such a stylistic device as the persistent repetition of one word. He creates a kind of ring, reveals the pathos of the story, reflecting the mood of the defenders of the city, and more broadly - of the entire Soviet people.

“The exhausted woman sat leaning against the clay wall of the barn, and in a voice calm from fatigue spoke about how Stalingrad burned down.” In this first phrase of the story - a kind of key to her style. Simonov tells about the most tragic heroic events calmly and accurately. Unlike writers who gravitate toward broad generalizations and picturesque emotionally colored descriptions, Simonov is stingy in the use of visual means. While V. Gorbatov in The Unbowed creates the image of a crucified, dead city, whose soul was torn out and trampled on, the song was crushed and the laughter was shot, Simonov shows how two thousand German planes, hovering over the city, set fire to him, shows the components of the smell of ashes: burnt iron, charred trees, burnt brick - accurately determines the location of our and fascist units.

Using the example of one chapter, we see that K. M. Simonov uses complex sentences more than simple ones. But even if the sentences are simple, they are necessarily common, most often complicated by adverbial or participial phrases. He uses a definite-personal construction of simple sentences. For example, “she collected”, “he woke up”, “I sew”, “I asked”, “you woke up”. These personal constructions contain an element of activity, manifestation of the will of the actor, confidence in the performance of an action. In sentences, Simonov uses the reverse word order, the so-called inversion with a permutation of words, additional semantic and expressive shades are created, the expressive function of one or another member of the sentence changes. Comparing the sentences: 1. Build everything back and BACK build everything; 2. Comrade Captain, allow me to check the clock with yours and ALLOW, Comrade Captain, the clock to compare with yours. 3. We will dine under lindens and we will din under lindens, we find semantic emphasis, an increase in the semantic load of rearranged words while maintaining their syntactic function. In the first pair, this circumstance is "back", in the second - the predicate "allow", in the third circumstance of the place - "under the lindens". The change in the semantic load, the stylistic expressiveness of the words being rearranged is due to the fact that, despite the significant freedom of word order in the Russian sentence, each member of the sentence has its usual, peculiar place, determined by the structure and type of the sentence, the way the syntactic expression of this member of the sentence, the place among other words that are directly related to it, as well as the style of speech and the role of the context. On this basis, direct and reverse word order are distinguished.

Let's take this text. The echelon unloaded at the extreme houses, right in the steppe. Now, in September, there was the last and nearest railway station to Stalingrad. If in the first sentence there is a direct word order (subject, then the composition of the predicate), then when constructing the second sentence, its close semantic connection with the previous sentence is taken into account: in the first place is the circumstance of time in September, then the circumstance of the place here follows, then the predicate was and, Finally, the composition of the subject. If we take the second sentence without connection with the previous text, then one could say: The last and closest railway station to Stalingrad was here, right in the steppe, where the train was unloaded, or: There, in the steppe, where the train was unloaded, there was the last and closest to Stalingrad railway station. Here we see that a sentence is only a minimal unit of speech and, as a rule, it is associated with close semantic relationships with the context. Therefore, the order of words in a sentence is determined by its communicative role in a given segment of the utterance, primarily by its semantic connection with the preceding sentence. Here we are faced with the so-called actual division of the sentence: in the first place we put what is known from the previous context (given, topic), in the second place - another component of the sentence, for the sake of which it is created (“new”, rheme).

In Simonov's declarative sentences, the subject usually precedes the predicate: On the third day, when the fire began to subside; They ended relatively quickly, because, having burned down several new houses, the fire soon reached the previously burnt streets, finding no food for itself, and went out.

The mutual arrangement of the main members of the sentence may depend on whether the subject denotes a certain, known object or, conversely, an indefinite, unknown object, in the first case the subject precedes the predicate, in the second it follows it. Compare: The city was on fire (certain); The city was on fire (indefinite, some).

As for the place of the definition in the sentence, Simonov uses mostly agreed definitions and uses a prepositive setting, that is, when the noun being defined is placed after the definition: a painful smell, a night landscape, exhausted divisions, burned streets, a stuffy August day.

In "Days and Nights" you can find the use of a predicate with a subject, a pronounced numeral. For example: The first ate, the second repaired torn tunics, the third smoked. This is such a case when the idea of a particular figure is associated with the numeral.

Stylistic considerations, such as great expressiveness, caused semantic agreement in the sentence: Protsenko quite clearly imagined that the majority would obviously die here.

In his work, Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov uses a lot of geographical names. First of all, this is due to the fact that this story about the war is the diary of the writer, who during these terrible days visited many cities, and many memories are associated with each of them. He uses city names that are expressed by inflected nouns that agree with generic words. In all cases: from the city of Kharkov to the city of Valuyki, from Valuyki to Rossosh, from Rossosh to Boguchar. The names of the rivers used by Simonov also, as a rule, agree with the generic names: up to the Volga River, in the bend of the Don, between the Volga and the Don. As for the homogeneous members of the sentence, if in terms of semantic, logical, homogeneous members of the sentence are used mainly to list specific concepts related to the same generic concept, then in terms of stylistic, if the role of an effective pictorial means is assigned. With the help of homogeneous members, the details of the overall picture of a single whole are drawn, the dynamics of the action are shown, and series of epithets are formed that have great expressiveness and picturesqueness. For example, homogeneous members - predicates create the impression of dynamism and tension of speech: “Rushing to Saburov, Maslennikov grabbed him, lifted him from his seat, hugged him, kissed him, grabbed his hands, pushed him away from himself, looked, again pulled him towards him, kissed him and put him back down" - all in one minute. Unions with homogeneous members of the proposal Simonov actively uses with their help a closed series is formed. For example, he knew well by sight and by name; stood on the banks of the Volga and drank water from it.

K. M. Simonov also uses appeals, but they are all related to military topics: Comrade Captain, Comrade Major, General, Colonel.

As for the variants of case forms of the complement with transitive verbs with negation, Simonov uses both the accusative form and the genitive form. For example, 1. But she just did not say anything about her business; 2. I hope you do not think that the lull in you will continue for a long time; 3. The army did not admit defeat. The genitive form emphasizes the negation, the accusative case, on the contrary, glorifies the meaning of the negation, since it retains that form of the complement with the transitive verb, which is available without negation.

Now let's move on to the style of complex sentences. As for the work as a whole, when you read it, it immediately catches your eye that K. M. Simonov uses more complex sentences than simple ones.

Great opportunities for choice associated with a variety of structural types of simple and complex sentences are realized in context and are determined by the semantic and stylistic side. Stylistic features are associated with the nature of the text and language style in the general meaning of this concept (distinguishing between book and conversational styles), and in the particular (styles of fiction, scientific, socio-political, official business, vocational, etc.)

In artistic speech, all types of sentences are presented, and the predominance of some of them characterizes to a certain extent the style of the writer.

Simonov uses a lot of allied words in his sentences, for example, which and which, so their interchangeability is possible: I don’t know what they were before the war and what they will be after. This man, who died with him on the very first day of the fighting and whom he had known very little before. At the same time, there is a difference in shades of meaning between the words under consideration. A union word that introduces a general definitive meaning into the subordinate clause of a complex sentence, and the word what - an additional shade of use, comparison, qualitative or quantitative underlining.

Simonov in his work "Days and Nights" makes extensive use of isolated turns. This is due to their semantic capacity, artistic expressiveness, stylistic expressiveness.

So participial and participle turnovers are predominantly part of book speech.

The stylistic features of participial phrases have been noted for a long time, and their book character was emphasized. M. V. Lomonosov wrote in the Russian Grammar: “It is not at all necessary to make participles from those verbs that are used only in simple conversations, because participles have a certain loftiness in themselves, and for this it is very decent to use them in a high kind of poetry.” The richer the language in expressions and turns, the better for a skilled writer.

The participial turnover can be isolated and non-isolated. Simonov uses isolated phrases, because they have a greater semantic load, additional shades of meaning, and expressiveness. For example: Having built a goose wedge, there were German bombers. This adverbial turnover expresses semi-predicative relations, since the turnover is semantically connected with both the subject and the predicate.

According to the existing rules, the adverbial turnover can be either after the word being defined (and he himself began to wait, clinging to the wall), or in front of him (and himself, clinging to the wall, began to wait).

The sacrament itself can occupy a different place in a separate construction. The variant with the last participle in a separate circulation was typical for the writers of the 18th century. Simonov, in the overwhelming majority of cases, puts the sacrament in the first place in circulation. This is characteristic of modern speech.

Participle, like other forms of verbs of strong control, require explanatory words with them, this is necessary for the completeness of the statement: Maslennikov, who was sitting opposite.

Like participial phrases, participial phrases are the property of book speech. Their undoubted advantage over the synonymous or adverbial adverbial parts of a complex sentence is their brevity and dynamism. Compare: When Saburov lay down for several minutes, he lowered his bare feet to the floor; After lying down for a few minutes, Saburov lowered his bare feet to the floor.

Given that the gerund is often built as a secondary predicate, we can talk about the parallelism of the following constructions: the gerund is the conjugated form of the verb: Saburov asked, entering the dugout = Saburov asked and entered the dugout.

The paragraph also plays an important compositional and stylistic role in the text of the work. Dividing the text into paragraphs performs tasks not only compositional (a clear structure of the text, highlighting the beginning, middle part and ending in each part) and logical and semantic (combining thoughts into microthemes), but also expressive and stylistic (the unity of the modal plan of utterance, the expression of the relationship author to the subject of speech). The paragraph is closely related to the types of speech, and since the type of speech of the work “Days and Nights” is narrative, then here there are mainly dynamic paragraphs, that is, of a narrative type.

In "Days and Nights" you can find direct speech. Direct speech, performing the function of verbatim transmission of someone else's statement, can, at the same time, not only with its content, but also with the way of expressing thoughts and feelings, serve as a means of characterizing the speaking person, a means of creating an artistic image.

Vanin, it's starting again. Call the regiment! Saburov shouted, leaning over the entrance to the dugout.

I'm calling! Communication is interrupted, - Vanin's voice reached him.

It must be said that Tolstoy's traditions - this is more clearly seen in the story than in stories and essays - sometimes serve Simonov not only as an aesthetic guide, but also as a source of ready-made stylistic constructions, he not only relies on Tolstoy's experience, but also borrows his techniques. Of course, this “facilitated” the author’s work, less effort was needed to overcome the resistance of vital material, but the impressive power of the story did not grow from this, but fell. When in “Days and Nights” you read: “Saburov did not belong to the number of people who were silent from gloom or from principle: he simply spoke little: and therefore he was almost always busy with the service, and because he liked, thinking, to be alone with his thoughts , and also because, having got into digging, he preferred to listen to others, in the depths of his soul believing that the story of his life was of no particular interest to other people, ”or:“ And when they summed up the day and talked about what two machine guns on the left flank must be dragged from the ruins of a transformer booth to the basement of the garage, that if you appoint foreman Buslaev instead of the murdered Lieutenant Fedin, then this will be, perhaps, good, that in connection with the losses, according to the old testimony of foremen per battalion they sell twice as much vodka as they should, and it doesn't matter - let them drink because it's cold - about what yesterday broke the watchmaker Mazin's hand and now if the last Saburov clock surviving in the battalion stops, then there will be no one to fix it, about the fact that we are tired of all porridge and porridge - it’s good if we could transfer at least frozen potatoes across the Volga, about the need to present such and such for a medal while they are still alive, healthy and fighting, and not later when it may be too late - in a word, when the same things were said every day that were always talked about - all the same, Saburov's foreboding of the upcoming great events did not decrease and did not disappear, ”when you read these and similar phrases, before you perceive their Tolstoyan “nature”, the Tolstoyan way of conjugation of heterogeneous causes and phenomena, the uniqueness of what Simonov talks about, comes through less clearly because of this. Vast periods of parallel turns and generalizations at the end, carrying Tolstoy's great philosophical thought, Simonov uses for private, little significant observations.

The story "Days and nights" - "the work of the artist"

I believe that I have achieved the goal that I set for myself. I examined the work of K. M. Simonov “Days and Nights” in detail and in detail, singled out stylistic features using this story as an example, followed the style of the writer’s narration and characterized the entire military prose as a whole.

So, let's highlight the stylistic features again:

The title of the work is a comparison of antonyms;

Use of military terminology;

Expressiveness of vocabulary;

Repetition of one word;

Calm and accurate narration;

The use of a definite personal construction of simple sentences;

The role of the definition in the sentence;

The use of numerals;

The use of geographical names;

The role of homogeneous members in the proposal;

The use of appeals;

Variants of case forms of the complement;

Stylistics of complex sentences;

The use of allied words;

Participle and participle turnovers;

The role of the paragraph in the work;

The use of direct speech;

Tolstoy's traditions are not only an aesthetic reference point, but also a source of ready-made stylistic constructions.

All this serves as a businesslike, without pathos, with an interest in the details of military life, in questions of the military profession, the manner of narration “From the outside, it seems to be a dry chronic record, but in essence it is the work of an artist, unforgettable for a long time,” said one of his speeches by M. I. Kalinin

In all the works of K. M. Simonov, the war turned out to be a continuation of one period of peaceful life and the beginning of another, it tested many values and qualities of a person, revealed the failure of some and the greatness of others. The experience of the war, meaningful in the work of Simonov, is necessary for us in the formation of a harmonious person, in defending his values, dignity, in the struggle for moral purity, for spiritual and emotional wealth. Mass heroism during the war years demonstrated with indisputable evidence that in real life we have achieved tremendous success in the most difficult and most important of all social transformations - in a radical change in the worldview and character of millions of people. And isn't this the main source of our military victory!

In his works, Simonov reveals the process of becoming a soldier as a transformation that occurs under the influence of awareness of civic duty, love for the Motherland, responsibility for the happiness and freedom of other people.

The name of Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov is rightfully perceived far beyond the borders of our Motherland as a symbol of the struggle against militarism, as a symbol of the humanistic truth about the war.

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov

Days and nights

In memory of those who died for Stalingrad

... so heavy mlat,

crushing glass, forging damask steel.

A. Pushkin

The exhausted woman sat leaning against the clay wall of the barn, and in a voice calm from fatigue told about how Stalingrad burned down.

It was dry and dusty. A weak breeze rolled yellow clouds of dust under their feet. The woman's feet were burned and barefoot, and when she spoke, she used her hand to scoop up warm dust to the inflamed feet, as if trying to soothe the pain.

Captain Saburov glanced at his heavy boots and involuntarily took half a step back.

He silently stood and listened to the woman, looking over her head to where, at the outermost houses, right in the steppe, the train was unloading.

Behind the steppe, a white stripe of a salt lake shone in the sun, and all this, taken together, seemed to be the end of the world. Now, in September, there was the last and nearest railway station to Stalingrad. Further from the bank of the Volga had to go on foot. The town was called Elton, after the name of the salt lake. Saburov involuntarily remembered the words "Elton" and "Baskunchak" memorized from school. Once it was only school geography. And here it is, this Elton: low houses, dust, a remote railway line.

And the woman kept talking and talking about her misfortunes, and although her words were familiar, Saburov's heart ached. Before they went from city to city, from Kharkov to Valuyki, from Valuyki to Rossosh, from Rossosh to Boguchar, and women wept in the same way, and he listened to them in the same way with a mixed feeling of shame and weariness. But here was the Volga naked steppe, the end of the world, and in the words of the woman there was no longer a reproach, but despair, and there was nowhere to go further along this steppe, where for many miles there were no cities, no rivers - nothing.

- Where did they drive it, huh? - he whispered, and all the unaccountable longing of the last day, when he looked at the steppe from the car, was embarrassed by these two words.

It was very difficult for him at that moment, but, remembering the terrible distance that now separated him from the border, he thought not about how he had come here, but about how he would have to go back. And there was in his gloomy thoughts that special stubbornness, characteristic of a Russian person, which did not allow either him or his comrades, even once during the whole war, to admit the possibility that there would be no “return”.

He looked at the soldiers hastily unloading from the wagons, and he wanted to get through this dust to the Volga as soon as possible and, having crossed it, to feel that there would be no return crossing and that his personal fate would be decided on the other side, along with the fate of the city. And if the Germans take the city, he will certainly die, and if he does not let them do this, then perhaps he will survive.

And the woman sitting at his feet was still talking about Stalingrad, one by one naming the broken and burned streets. Unfamiliar to Saburov, their names were filled with special meaning for her. She knew where and when the now burnt houses were built, where and when the trees cut down on the barricades were planted, she regretted all this, as if it were not a big city, but her house, where friends who belonged to her personal things.

But she just didn’t say anything about her house, and Saburov, listening to her, thought how, in fact, rarely during the entire war he came across people who regretted their missing property. And the longer the war went on, the less often people remembered their abandoned houses and the more often and stubbornly they remembered only abandoned cities.

Wiping her tears with the end of her handkerchief, the woman cast a long, questioning glance over all who were listening to her and said thoughtfully and with conviction:

How much money, how much work!

– What works? someone asked, not understanding the meaning of her words.

“Build everything back,” the woman said simply.

Saburov asked the woman about herself. She said that her two sons had been at the front for a long time and one of them had already been killed, while her husband and daughter had probably remained in Stalingrad. When the bombing and fire began, she was alone and has not known anything about them since.

- Are you in Stalingrad? she asked.

“Yes,” Saburov replied, not seeing a military secret in this, for what else, if not to go to Stalingrad, could a military echelon be unloading now in this God-forgotten Elton.

- Our surname is Klimenko. Husband - Ivan Vasilyevich, and daughter - Anya. Maybe you will meet somewhere alive, - the woman said with a faint hope.

“Maybe I’ll meet,” Saburov answered as usual.

The battalion had finished unloading. Saburov said goodbye to the woman and, having drunk a ladle of water from a bucket put out on the street, went to the railway track.

The fighters, sitting on the sleepers, took off their boots, tucked footcloths. Some of them, having saved the rations given out in the morning, chewed bread and dry sausage. A true, as usual, soldier's rumor spread through the battalion that after unloading, a march was immediately ahead, and everyone was in a hurry to finish their unfinished business. Some ate, others repaired torn tunics, others smoked.

Saburov walked along the station tracks. The echelon in which the commander of the regiment Babchenko was traveling was supposed to come up any minute, and until then the question remained unresolved whether Saburov’s battalion would begin the march to Stalingrad without waiting for the rest of the battalions, or after spending the night, in the morning, the whole regiment.

Saburov walked along the tracks and looked at the people with whom he was to fight the day after tomorrow.

He knew many by face and by name. They were "Voronezh" - this is how he called those who fought with him near Voronezh. Each of them was a treasure, because they could be ordered without explaining unnecessary details.

They knew when the black drops of bombs falling from the plane flew right at them and they had to lie down, and they knew when the bombs would fall further and they could safely watch their flight. They knew that it was no more dangerous to crawl forward under mortar fire than to remain lying still. They knew that tanks most often crush those who run away from them, and that a German submachine gunner, shooting from two hundred meters, always expects to frighten rather than kill. In a word, they knew all those simple but salutary soldierly truths, the knowledge of which gave them confidence that they were not so easy to kill.

He had a third of the battalion of such soldiers. The rest were to see the war for the first time. At one of the wagons, guarding the property not yet loaded onto the carts, stood a middle-aged Red Army soldier, who from a distance attracted the attention of Saburov with his guard bearing and thick red mustache, like peaks, sticking out to the sides. When Saburov approached him, he famously took "on guard" and with a direct, unblinking look continued to look into the face of the captain. In the way he stood, how he was belted, how he held his rifle, one could feel that soldier's experience, which is given only by years of service. Meanwhile, Saburov, who remembered by sight almost everyone who was with him near Voronezh, before the division was reorganized, did not remember this Red Army soldier.

Simonov Konstantin

Days and nights

Simonov Konstantin Mikhailovich

Days and nights

In memory of those who died for Stalingrad

So heavy mlat

crushing glass, forging damask steel.

A. Pushkin

The exhausted woman sat leaning against the clay wall of the barn, and in a voice calm from fatigue told about how Stalingrad burned down.

It was dry and dusty. A weak breeze rolled yellow clouds of dust under their feet. The woman's legs were burned and barefoot, and when she spoke, she used her hand to scoop up warm dust to the inflamed feet, as if trying to soothe the pain.

Captain Saburov glanced at his heavy boots and involuntarily took half a step back.

He silently stood and listened to the woman, looking over her head to where, at the outermost houses, right in the steppe, the train was unloading.

Behind the steppe, a white stripe of a salt lake shone in the sun, and all this, taken together, seemed to be the end of the world. Now, in September, there was the last and nearest railway station to Stalingrad. Further to the bank of the Volga had to go on foot. The town was called Elton, after the name of the salt lake. Saburov involuntarily recalled the words "Elton" and "Baskunchak" memorized from school. Once it was only school geography. And here it is, this Elton: low houses, dust, a remote railway line.

Where did they go, huh? - he whispered, and all the unaccountable longing of the last day, when he looked at the steppe from the car, was embarrassed by these two words.

Wiping her tears with the end of her handkerchief, the woman cast a long, questioning glance over all who were listening to her and said thoughtfully and with conviction:

How much money, how much work!

What works? - someone asked, not understanding the meaning of her words.

Back to build everything, - the woman said simply.

Are you in Stalingrad? she asked.

Yes, - answered Saburov, not seeing a military secret in this, because for what else, if not to go to Stalingrad, could a military echelon be unloaded now in this God-forgotten Elton.

Our surname is Klymenko. Husband - Ivan Vasilyevich, and daughter - Anya. Maybe you will meet somewhere alive, - the woman said with a faint hope.

Maybe I'll meet, - Saburov answered habitually.

The battalion had finished unloading. Saburov said goodbye to the woman and, having drunk a ladle of water from a bucket put out on the street, went to the railway track.

Saburov walked along the tracks and looked at the people with whom he was to fight the day after tomorrow.

He knew many by face and by name. They were "Voronezh", as he called himself those who fought with him near Voronezh. Each of them was a treasure, because they could be ordered without explaining unnecessary details.

He had a third of the battalion of such soldiers. The rest were to see the war for the first time. At one of the wagons, guarding the property not yet loaded onto the carts, stood a middle-aged Red Army soldier, who from a distance attracted the attention of Saburov with his guard bearing and thick red mustache, like peaks, sticking out to the sides. When Saburov approached him, he famously took "on guard" and with a direct, unblinking gaze continued to look into the face of the captain. In the way he stood, how he was belted, how he held his rifle, one could feel that soldier's experience, which is given only by years of service. Meanwhile, Saburov, who remembered by sight almost everyone who was with him near Voronezh, before the division was reorganized, did not remember this Red Army soldier.

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Konstantin Simonov
Days and nights

In memory of those who died for Stalingrad

... so heavy mlat,
crushing glass, forging damask steel.

A. Pushkin

I

The exhausted woman sat leaning against the clay wall of the barn, and in a voice calm from fatigue told about how Stalingrad burned down.

Captain Saburov glanced at his heavy boots and involuntarily took half a step back.

He silently stood and listened to the woman, looking over her head to where, at the outermost houses, right in the steppe, the train was unloading.

- Where did they drive it, huh? - he whispered, and all the unaccountable longing of the last day, when he looked at the steppe from the car, was embarrassed by these two words.

Wiping her tears with the end of her handkerchief, the woman cast a long, questioning glance over all who were listening to her and said thoughtfully and with conviction:

How much money, how much work!

– What works? someone asked, not understanding the meaning of her words.

“Build everything back,” the woman said simply.

- Are you in Stalingrad? she asked.

“Yes,” Saburov replied, not seeing a military secret in this, for what else, if not to go to Stalingrad, could a military echelon be unloading now in this God-forgotten Elton.

- Our surname is Klimenko. Husband - Ivan Vasilyevich, and daughter - Anya. Maybe you will meet somewhere alive, - the woman said with a faint hope.

“Maybe I’ll meet,” Saburov answered as usual.

The battalion had finished unloading. Saburov said goodbye to the woman and, having drunk a ladle of water from a bucket put out on the street, went to the railway track.

Saburov walked along the tracks and looked at the people with whom he was to fight the day after tomorrow.

- What's your last name? Saburov asked.

“Konyukov,” the Red Army man rapped out and again stared fixedly at the captain’s face.

- Did you participate in battles?

- Yes sir.

- Near Przemysl.

- Here's how. So, they retreated from Przemysl itself?

- Not at all. They were advancing. In the sixteenth year.

- That's it.

Saburov looked attentively at Konyukov. The soldier's face was serious, almost solemn.

- And in this war for a long time in the army? Saburov asked.

No, the first month.

Saburov took another look at Konyukov's strong figure with pleasure and moved on. At the last carriage, he met his chief of staff, Lieutenant Maslennikov, who was in charge of the unloading.

Maslennikov reported to him that the unloading would be completed in five minutes, and, looking at his hand-held square watch, he said:

- Allow me, comrade captain, to check with yours?

Saburov silently took out his watch from his pocket, fastened to the strap with a safety pin. Maslennikov's watch was five minutes behind. He looked with disbelief at Saburov's old silver watch with cracked glass.

Saburov smiled:

- Nothing, change it. Firstly, the clock is still fatherly, Bure, and secondly, get used to the fact that in war the authorities always have the right time.

Maslennikov once again looked at those and other watches, carefully brought his own and, having saluted, asked permission to be free.

The trip in the echelon, where he was appointed commandant, and this unloading were the first front-line task for Maslennikov. Here, in Elton, it seemed to him that he already smelled of the proximity of the front. He was excited, anticipating a war in which, as it seemed to him, he shamefully long did not take part. And Saburov fulfilled everything entrusted to him today with special accuracy and thoroughness.

“Yes, yes, go,” Saburov said after a moment of silence.

Looking at this ruddy, lively boyish face, Saburov imagined what it would be like in a week, when the dirty, tedious, merciless trench life would first fall upon Maslennikov with all its weight.

A small steam locomotive, puffing, dragged the long-awaited second echelon onto the siding.

Hurrying as always, the regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Babchenko, jumped off the footboard of the cool carriage while still on the move. Twisting his leg as he jumped, he cursed and hobbled towards Saburov, who was hurrying towards him.

How about unloading? he asked frowningly, without looking into Saburov's face.

- Finished.

Babchenko looked around. The unloading was indeed completed. But the gloomy look and strict tone, which Babchenko considered it his duty to maintain in all conversations with his subordinates, demanded from him even now that he make some kind of remark in order to maintain his prestige.

- What you are doing? he asked curtly.

- I'm waiting for your orders.

- It would be better if people were fed for now than to wait.

“In the event that we start now, I decided to feed people at the first halt, and in the event that we spend the night, I decided to organize hot food for them here in an hour,” Saburov answered leisurely with that calm logic, which he especially does not loved Babchenko, who was always in a hurry.

The lieutenant colonel said nothing.

- Would you like to feed now? Saburov asked.

- No, feed at a halt. Go without waiting for the others. Order to build.

Saburov called Maslennikov and ordered him to line up the men.

Babchenko was gloomily silent. He was used to always doing everything himself, he was always in a hurry and often did not keep up.

Strictly speaking, the battalion commander is not obliged to build a marching column himself. But the fact that Saburov entrusted this to another, while he himself was now calmly, doing nothing, was standing next to him, the regiment commander, annoyed Babchenko. He liked his subordinates to fuss and run around in his presence. But he could never achieve this from the calm Saburov. Turning away, he began to look at the column under construction. Saburov stood nearby. He knew that the regimental commander did not like him, but he was already used to this and did not pay attention.

They both stood silent for a minute. Suddenly Babchenko, still not turning to Saburov, said with anger and resentment in his voice:

“No, look what they do to people, you bastards!”

Past them, heavily stepping over the sleepers, the Stalingrad refugees walked in a file, ragged, exhausted, bandaged with dust-gray bandages.

They both looked in the direction in which the regiment was to go. There lay the same as here, the bald steppe, and only the dust in front, curled on the mounds, looked like distant puffs of gunpowder smoke.

- Place of collection in Rybachy. Go on an accelerated march and send messengers to me, ”Babchenko said with the same gloomy expression on his face and, turning, went to his car.

Saburov took to the road. The companies have already lined up. In anticipation of the start of the march, the command was given: "At ease." The ranks were talking quietly. Walking towards the head of the column past the second company, Saburov again saw the red-moustached Konyukov: he was talking animatedly, waving his arms.

- Battalion, listen to my command!

The column moved. Saburov walked ahead. The distant dust that swirled over the steppe again seemed to him like smoke. However, perhaps, in fact, the steppe was burning ahead.

II

Twenty days ago, on a sweltering August day, the bombers of Richthofen's air squadron hovered over the city in the morning. It is difficult to say how many there were in reality and how many times they bombed, flew away and returned again, but in just one day, observers counted two thousand aircraft over the city.

The city was on fire. It burned through the night, all the next day, and all the next night. And although on the first day of the fire the fighting went on for another sixty kilometers from the city, at the Don crossings, but it was from this fire that the great battle of Stalingrad began, because both the Germans and we - one in front of us, the other behind us - from that moment saw the glow Stalingrad, and all the thoughts of both fighting sides were from now on, like a magnet, attracted to the burning city.

On the third day, when the fire began to die down, that special, painful smell of ashes was established in Stalingrad, which then did not leave it all the months of the siege. The smells of burnt iron, charred wood, and scorched bricks mingled into one thing, stupefying, heavy, and acrid. Soot and ashes quickly settled to the ground, but as soon as the lightest wind from the Volga blew, this black dust began to swirl along the burned streets, and then it seemed that the city was smoky again.

The Germans continued bombing, and here and there new fires flared up in Stalingrad, which no longer affected anyone. They ended relatively quickly, because, having burned down several new houses, the fire soon reached the previously burnt streets and, finding no food for itself, went out. But the city was so huge that there was always something on fire somewhere, and everyone was already used to this constant glow as a necessary part of the night landscape.

On the tenth day after the start of the fire, the Germans came so close that their shells and mines began to burst more and more often in the center of the city.

On the twenty-first day, the moment came when it might seem to a person who believed only in military theory that it was useless and even impossible to defend the city any longer. To the north of the city, the Germans reached the Volga, to the south they approached it. The city, which stretched for sixty-five kilometers in length, was nowhere more than five in width, and along almost its entire length the Germans had already occupied the western outskirts.

The cannonade, which began at seven in the morning, did not stop until sunset. To the uninitiated, who got to the headquarters of the army, it would seem that everything is going well and that, in any case, the defenders still have a lot of strength. Looking at the headquarters map of the city, where the location of the troops was plotted, he would have seen that this relatively small area was densely covered with the numbers of divisions and brigades standing on the defensive. He could have heard the orders given by telephone to the commanders of these divisions and brigades, and it might have seemed to him that all he had to do was follow all these orders exactly, and success would undoubtedly be guaranteed. In order to really understand what was happening, this uninitiated observer would have to get to the divisions themselves, which were marked on the map in the form of such neat red semicircles.

Most of the divisions retreating from behind the Don, exhausted in two months of battles, were now incomplete battalions in terms of the number of bayonets. There were still quite a few people in the headquarters and in the artillery regiments, but in the rifle companies every fighter was on the account. In recent days, in the rear units they took everyone who was not absolutely necessary there. Telephonists, cooks, chemists were put at the disposal of regimental commanders and, of necessity, became infantry. But although the chief of staff of the army, looking at the map, knew perfectly well that his divisions were no longer divisions, but the size of the areas they occupied still required that they should fall on their shoulders exactly the task that should fall on the shoulders of the division. And, knowing that this burden was unbearable, all the chiefs, from the largest to the smallest, nevertheless placed this unbearable burden on the shoulders of their subordinates, for there was no other way out, and it was still necessary to fight.

Before the war, the commander of the army would probably have laughed if he had been told that the day would come when the entire mobile reserve that he would have at his disposal would amount to several hundred people. And yet today it was just like that ... Several hundred submachine gunners, planted on trucks - that was all that he could quickly transfer from one end of the city to the other at the critical moment of the breakthrough.

On a large and flat hill of Mamaev Kurgan, some kilometer from the front line, in dugouts and trenches, the command post of the army was located. The Germans stopped the attacks, either postponing them until dark, or deciding to rest until the morning. The situation in general, and this silence in particular, forced us to assume that in the morning there would be an indispensable and decisive assault.

"We'd have lunch," said the adjutant, squeezing his way into the little dugout where the chief of staff and a member of the Military Council were sitting over a map. They both looked at each other, then at the map, then back at each other. If the adjutant had not reminded them that they needed to have lunch, they might have sat over it for a long time. They alone knew how dangerous the situation really was, and although everything that could be done had already been foreseen and the commander himself went to the division to check the fulfillment of his orders, it was still difficult to break away from the map - I wanted to miraculously find out on this sheet of paper some new, unprecedented possibilities.

“Dine like that, dine,” said Matveev, a member of the Military Council, a cheerful person who loved to eat in those cases when, amid the hustle and bustle of the headquarters, there was time for this.

They took to the air. It began to get dark. Below, to the right of the mound, against the background of a leaden sky, like a herd of fiery animals, Katyusha shells flashed by. The Germans were preparing for the night, launching the first white rockets into the air, marking their front line.

The so-called green ring passed through Mamayev Kurgan. It was started in the thirtieth year by the Stalingrad Komsomol members and for ten years surrounded their dusty and stuffy city with a belt of young parks and boulevards. The top of Mamayev Kurgan was also lined with thin ten-year-old linden trees.

Matthew looked around. This warm autumn evening was so good, it suddenly became so quiet all around, so smelled of the last summer freshness from the lime trees beginning to turn yellow, that it seemed absurd to him to sit in a dilapidated hut where the dining room was located.

“Tell them to bring the table here,” he turned to the adjutant, “we will dine under the lime trees.”

A rickety table was taken out of the kitchen, covered with a tablecloth, and two benches were placed.

“Well, General, sit down,” Matveev said to the chief of staff. “It’s been a long time since you and I dined under the lime trees, and it’s unlikely that we will have to soon.

And he looked back at the burnt city.

The adjutant brought vodka in glasses.

“Do you remember, General,” Matveev continued, “once in Sokolniki, near the labyrinth, there were such cells with a living fence made of trimmed lilacs, and in each there was a table and benches. And the samovar was served ... More and more families came there.

- Well, there were mosquitoes there, - the chief of staff, who was not inclined to lyrics, interjected, - not like here.

“But there is no samovar here,” said Matveyev.

- But there are no mosquitoes. And the labyrinth there really was such that it was difficult to get out.

Matveev looked over his shoulder at the city spread out below and grinned:

- Labyrinth...

Below, the streets converged, diverged and tangled up, on which, among the decisions of many human destinies, one big fate had to be decided - the fate of the army.

In the semi-darkness the adjutant grew up.

- They arrived from the left bank from Bobrov. It was evident from his voice that he ran here and was out of breath.

- Where are they? Rising, Matveev asked curtly.

- With me! Comrade Major! called the adjutant.

A tall figure, barely visible in the darkness, appeared next to him.

- Have you met? Matthew asked.

- We met. Colonel Bobrov ordered to report that they would now begin the crossing.

“Good,” said Matveyev, and sighed deeply and with relief.

The fact that the last hours worried him, and the chief of staff, and everyone around him, was decided.

Has the Commander returned yet? he asked the adjutant.

- Look for the divisions where he is, and report that Bobrov met.

III

Colonel Bobrov was sent early in the morning to meet and hurry up the very division in which Saburov commanded the battalion. Bobrov met her at noon, not reaching Srednyaya Akhtuba, thirty kilometers from the Volga. And the first person he spoke to was Saburov, who was walking at the head of the battalion. Asking Saburov for the number of the division and learning from him that its commander was following behind, the colonel quickly got into the car, ready to move.

“Comrade Captain,” he said to Saburov and looked him in the face with tired eyes, “I don’t need to explain to you why your battalion should be at the crossing by eighteen o’clock.

And without saying a word, he slammed the door.

At six o'clock in the evening, returning, Bobrov found Saburov already on the shore. After a tiring march, the battalion came to the Volga out of order, stretching out, but already half an hour after the first fighters saw the Volga, Saburov managed, in anticipation of further orders, to place everyone along the ravines and slopes of the hilly coast.

When Saburov, waiting for the crossing, sat down to rest on the logs lying near the water, Colonel Bobrov sat down next to him and offered to smoke.

They smoked.

- Well, how is it? Saburov asked and nodded towards the right bank.

“Difficult,” said the Colonel. “It's difficult…” And for the third time he repeated in a whisper: “It's difficult,” as if there was nothing to add to this exhaustive word.

And if the first “difficult” meant simply difficult, and the second “difficult” meant very difficult, then the third “difficult”, said in a whisper, meant terribly difficult, painfully.

Saburov silently looked at the right bank of the Volga. Here it is - high, steep, like all the western banks of Russian rivers. The eternal misfortune that Saburov experienced during this war: all the western banks of the Russian and Ukrainian rivers were steep, all the eastern ones were sloping. And all the cities stood precisely on the western banks of the rivers - Kyiv, Smolensk, Dnepropetrovsk, Rostov ... And it was difficult to defend them all, because they were pressed against the river, and it would be difficult to take them all back, because then they would be across the river.

It began to get dark, but it was clearly visible how German bombers were circling, entering and exiting over the city, and anti-aircraft explosions were covering the sky with a thick layer, similar to small cirrus clouds.

In the southern part of the city a large elevator was burning, even from here it was clear how the flames rose above it. In its high stone chimney, apparently, there was a huge draft.

And across the waterless steppe, beyond the Volga, thousands of hungry refugees, thirsting for at least a crust of bread, went to Elton.

But all this now gave rise to Saburov not an age-old general conclusion about the futility and monstrosity of the war, but a simple clear feeling of hatred for the Germans.

The evening was cool, but after the scorching steppe sun, after the dusty crossing, Saburov still could not come to his senses, he was constantly thirsty. He took a helmet from one of the fighters, went down the slope to the Volga itself, sinking into the soft coastal sand, and reached the water. Having scooped up the first time, he thoughtlessly and greedily drank this cold clear water. But when, having already half cooled down, he scooped it up a second time and raised the helmet to his lips, suddenly, it seemed, the simplest and at the same time sharp thought struck him: Volga water! He drank water from the Volga, and at the same time he was at war. These two concepts - war and the Volga - for all their obviousness did not fit with each other. From childhood, from school, all his life, the Volga was for him something so deep, so infinitely Russian, that now the fact that he was standing on the banks of the Volga and drinking water from it, and there were Germans on the other side, seemed to him incredible and wild .

With this feeling, he climbed up the sandy slope to where Colonel Bobrov was still sitting. Bobrov looked at him and, as if answering his hidden thoughts, said thoughtfully:

The steamboat, dragging the barge behind it, landed on the shore in fifteen minutes. Saburov and Bobrov approached a hastily put together wooden wharf where loading was to take place.

The wounded were carried from the barge past the fighters crowded by the bridges. Some groaned, but most remained silent. A young sister went from stretcher to stretcher. Following the seriously wounded, a dozen and a half of those who could still walk got off the barge.

“There are few lightly wounded,” Saburov said to Bobrov.

- Few? - Bobrov asked again and grinned: - The same number as everywhere else, only not everyone crosses.

- Why? Saburov asked.

- How can I tell you ... they stay, because it is difficult and because of the excitement. And bitterness. No, I'm not telling you that. If you cross over, on the third day you will understand why.

The soldiers of the first company began to cross the bridges to the barge. Meanwhile, an unforeseen complication arose, it turned out that a lot of people had accumulated on the shore, who wanted to be loaded right now and on this very barge heading for Stalingrad. One was returning from the hospital; another was carrying a barrel of vodka from the food warehouse and demanded that it be loaded with him; the third, a huge big man, clutching a heavy box to his chest, pressing on Saburov, said that these were primers for mines and that if he didn’t deliver them today, then they would take off his head; Finally, there were people who simply for various reasons crossed over to the left bank in the morning and now wanted to be back in Stalingrad as soon as possible. No persuasion worked. From their tone and facial expressions, it was by no means possible to assume that there, on the right bank, where they were in such a hurry, was a besieged city, on the streets of which shells were exploding every minute!

Saburov allowed the man with the capsules and the quartermaster to dive in with vodka, and pushed off the rest, saying that they would go on the next barge. The last to approach him was a nurse who had just arrived from Stalingrad and was seeing off the wounded as they were unloaded from the barge. She said that there were still wounded on the other side, and that with this barge she would have to bring them here. Saburov could not refuse her, and when the company sank, she followed the others along a narrow ladder, first to a barge, and then to a steamboat.

The captain, a middle-aged man in a blue jacket and in an old Soviet trade fleet cap with a broken visor, muttered some order into a mouthpiece, and the steamboat set sail from the left bank.

Saburov was sitting in the stern, his legs hanging overboard and his arms around the rails. He took off his overcoat and placed it next to him. It was nice to feel the wind from the river climbing under the tunic. He unbuttoned his tunic and pulled it over his chest so that it puffed out like a sail.

“Get a cold, comrade captain,” said the girl standing next to him, who was riding for the wounded.

Saburov smiled. It seemed ridiculous to him that in the fifteenth month of the war, while crossing to Stalingrad, he would suddenly catch a cold. He didn't answer.

“And you won’t notice how you’ll catch a cold,” the girl insistently repeated. - It's cold on the river in the evenings. I swim across every day and have already caught a cold so much that I don’t even have a voice.

- Do you swim every day? Saburov asked, raising his eyes to her. - How many times?

- How many wounded, so many I swim across. After all, now it’s not like it used to be - first to the regiment, then to the medical battalion, then to the hospital. We immediately take the wounded from the front line and carry them over the Volga ourselves.

She said this in such a calm tone that Saburov, unexpectedly for himself, asked that idle question that he usually did not like to ask:

“Aren’t you scared so many times back and forth?”

“Terrible,” the girl admitted. - When I take the wounded from there, it’s not scary, but when I return there alone, it’s scary. When you're alone, it's scarier, right?

“That's right,” Saburov said, and thought to himself that he himself, being in his battalion, thinking about him, was always less afraid than in those rare moments when he was left alone.

The girl sat down beside her, also hung her legs over the water, and, touching him trustingly on the shoulder, said in a whisper:

- You know what's scary? No, you don't know... You're already many years old, you don't know... It's scary that they'll suddenly kill you and nothing will happen. Nothing will be what I always dreamed of.

- What will not happen?

“But nothing will happen… Do you know how old I am?” I'm eighteen. I haven't seen anything yet, nothing. I dreamed about how I would study, and did not study ... I dreamed about how I would go to Moscow and everywhere, everywhere - and I had not been anywhere. I dreamed ... - she laughed, but then continued: - I dreamed of how I would get married, - and none of this happened either ... And now I am sometimes afraid, very afraid that all of a sudden all this will not happen. I will die, and nothing, nothing will happen.

- And if you were already studying and traveling where you wanted, and were married, do you think you would not be so scared? Saburov asked.

“No,” she said with conviction. - Here you are, I know, not as scary as me. You are many years old.

- How?

- Well, thirty-five - forty, right?

“Yes,” Saburov smiled and thought bitterly that it was completely useless to prove to her that he was not forty or even thirty-five and that he, too, had not yet learned everything he wanted to learn, and had not been where he wanted to be, and loved the way he wanted to love.

“You see,” she said, “that’s why you shouldn’t be afraid. And I'm scared.

This was said with such sadness and at the same time selflessness that Saburov wanted right now, immediately, like a child, to stroke her head and say some empty and kind words that everything would still be fine and that with her nothing will happen. But the sight of the burning city kept him from these idle words, and instead he did only one thing: he really gently stroked her head and quickly removed his hand, not wanting her to think that he understood her frankness differently than he needed to.

“We had a surgeon killed today,” the girl said. - I transported him when he died ... He was always angry, cursed at everyone. And when he operated, he swore and shouted at us. And you know, the more the wounded moaned and the more it hurt them, the more he cursed. And when he began to die himself, I transported him - he was wounded in the stomach - he was very hurt, and he lay quietly, and did not swear, and did not say anything at all. And I realized that he must have actually been a very kind person. He swore because he could not see how people were hurting, and when he himself was hurt, he was silent and said nothing, so until his death ... nothing ... Only when I cried over him, he suddenly smiled. Why do you think?

1942 New units are pouring into the army of the defenders of Stalingrad, transferred to the right bank of the Volga. Among them is the battalion of Captain Saburov. With a furious attack, the Saburovites are knocking out the Nazis from three buildings that have wedged into our defenses. Days and nights of heroic defense of houses that have become impregnable for the enemy begin.

“... On the night of the fourth day, having received an order for Konyukov and several medals for his garrison at the regimental headquarters, Saburov once again made his way to Konyukov’s house and presented awards. Everyone to whom they were intended were alive, although this rarely happened in Stalingrad. Konyukov asked Saburov to screw on the order - his left hand was cut by a fragment of a grenade. When Saburov, like a soldier, with a folding knife, cut a hole in Konyukov's tunic and began to screw the order, Konyukov, standing at attention, said:

- I think, comrade captain, that if you make an attack on them, then it is most capable of going right through my house. They keep me under siege here, and we are right from here - and on them. How do you like my plan, Comrade Captain?

- Wait. There will be time - we will do it, - Saburov said.

Is the plan correct, Comrade Captain? Konyukov insisted. – What do you think?

- Correct, correct ... - Saburov thought to himself that in the event of an attack, Konyukov's simple plan was really the most correct.

“Right through my house—and on them,” repeated Konyukov. - With a complete surprise.

He repeated the words "my house" often and with pleasure; a rumor had already reached him, by soldier's mail, that this house was called “Konyukov's house” in the reports, and he was proud of it. ... "

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