Books about the Second World War. Fiction about the Great Patriotic War

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Books about the Second World War are part of our culture. The works created by the participants and witnesses of the war years became a kind of chronicle that authentically conveyed the stages of the selfless struggle of the Soviet people against fascism. Books about the Second World War are the subject of this article.

The originality of military prose

The Great Patriotic War… It became the main and inevitable theme in the work of Russian writers and poets of the second half of the twentieth century. But, like any other genre of literature, Soviet military prose is divided into several stages of development. Books about the Second World War, which were written in the forties, differ significantly from the works created twenty, thirty or more years after Victory Day.

The literature of the war years is distinguished by an abundance of lyrical and romantic elements. During this period, poetry was especially developed. The tragedy of the Soviet people was depicted in the abstract. The fate of a single person was not given such an important role.

In the late fifties, other trends were observed in military prose. The hero of the book about the Second World War was a man with a difficult fate. Behind him is a tragedy,which will stay with him forever. The authors depicted not only the Great Victory, but also the life of an ordinary person. There is less pathos, more realism.

Mikhail Sholokhov

In June 1941, an ordinary Soviet person believed that victory over the invaders would come very soon. A year has passed. Belarusian cities and villages were covered with ashes. The inhabitants of Ukraine experienced grief, which turned out to be incomparable with anything. The soldiers, natives of Leningrad, no longer believed that they would see their relatives alive. The first feeling that sprouted in the soul of a Soviet person was hatred.

In 1942, Mikhail Sholokhov worked as a war correspondent. At the same time, the story "The Science of Hate" was created. The theme of this work was the evolution of the human soul in war. Sholokhov's story is about how a civilian is gradually changing, and all his thoughts are focused on the desire for revenge and all-consuming hatred.

“They fought for their homeland” is a novel that Sholokhov did not complete. The first chapters were written during the war. Others - after twenty years. Sholokhov burned the last parts.

The heroes of the novel are ordinary people. They fought for their homeland, but at the same time they did not stop missing their relatives, rejoicing and upsetting simple things, and even joking. The most difficult test for them was not battles and battles, but the eyes of Russian women who saw them off during the retreat.

The story "The fate of man"

War is the worst thing in human history. People feel its terrible power even after the victory. The story "The Fate of Man"written in 1956. The volleys have long died down, the shells have ceased to burst. But the echoes of the war were felt by every Soviet person. The inhabitants of the country were entirely people with a crippled fate. So was Andrei Sokolov, the hero of Sholokhov's works.

The fate of man is unpredictable. He can lose everything: home, relatives, everything that makes up the meaning of his life. Especially if war intervenes in this fate. The biography of the protagonist of Sholokhov's story may not be entirely true. During the war, a person who was taken prisoner ended up in a camp. Sokolov safely returned to the ranks of the Red Army. But there is an undeniable truth in the story. And it lies in the fact that a person can overcome grief and despair only when love is present in his life. After the loss of loved ones, Sokolov found the strength to shelter a homeless boy. And it saved them both.

Boris Polevoy

There were real heroes among the Soviet soldiers and officers. Books were dedicated to them, films were made about them. "The Tale of a Real Man" by Boris Polevoy is a work about the legendary pilot Alexei Maresyev. The biography of this person is known to every student. His feat became an example not only for soldiers, but also for civilians. The courage of the hero, to whom Boris Polevoy's "The Tale of a Real Man" is dedicated, is especially admirable. After all, this man made several dozen sorties after he became disabled.

Yuri Bondarev

“The battalions ask for fire” by Yuri Bondarev is one of the first works in which there was no pathos. In the novel there is the naked truth about the war, there is an analysis of the human soul. Such features were uncharacteristic of the prose of the forties. Bondarev's work was written in 1957.

In the post-war period, the authors avoided in their work such topics as the contradiction between the end and the means. If in Sholokhov's story, which was discussed above, the characters were either negative or positive, then Bondarev's story is not so simple. There is no white and black in his novel. But still, despite the trials, the heroes remain true to their duty. None of them become traitors.

Hot Snow Novel

Yuri Bondarev was an artilleryman during the war. Went from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. "Hot Snow" is a work of fiction dedicated to events that the author knew firsthand. The heroes of Bondarev's novel die as a result of a long battle near Stalingrad. It is worth saying that the works of the participants of the Second World War have not only artistic, but also historical value. There is credibility in Hot Snow. Tragic truth permeated the novel "Life and Fate".

Vasily Grossman

This writer began his work with short stories about the Red Army. The culmination of his literary journey was a novel in which the author emphasized the similarities between two tyrants of the 20th century: Stalin and Hitler. For which he suffered. The main book "Life and Fate" was banned.

There are several storylines in this novel. One of them is dedicated to the defense of the legendary Pavlov's house. Battles in the novelthis writer are shown realistically. Grossman portrayed the death of a Soviet soldier simply, without unnecessary pretentious phrases. And the picture of the death of civilians at the hands of the Nazis was also created.

During the war, Grossman worked as a war correspondent. He witnessed the Battle of Stalingrad. And somewhere far away, in a small Ukrainian town, his mother died. She spent her last days in the Jewish ghetto. This grief remained forever in the soul of the writer. The theme of his post-war work was the fate of the millions who died in concentration camps and Jewish ghettos. Perhaps that is why he so penetratingly conveyed the thoughts and feelings of a man who is dying of suffocation in a gas chamber.

Vladimir Bogomolov

"In August 1944" is a novel that covers the events that took place on the liberated Belarusian land. Enemy agents and scattered groups of German soldiers remained on this territory. There were many crimes on their account. In addition, the task of each underground organization was to collect information about the Soviet army. One of the SMERSH counterintelligence groups searched for these agents.

The novel was written in the seventies. It is based on true events. The work of Bogomolov was the first of those that lifted the veil of secrecy of the Soviet secret services.

Boris Vasiliev

One of the most striking works on the military theme is the story "The Dawns Here Are Quiet". Based on the work of Vasiliev, more than one film was made. The uniqueness of the story, written in the late sixties, lies in the fact thatthat her heroes are not experienced and seasoned fighters.

Vasiliev created five unique female images. The heroines of the story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” were girls who were just starting to live. One of them dreamed of parents she didn't know. The other was carrying silk underwear in a knapsack. The third was in love with the foreman. But they all died heroically. Each of them made an invaluable contribution to the Great Victory.

The fortress did not fall…

In 1974, Vasiliev's story "He was not on the lists" was published. This book can make an extremely strong impression. "A person can be killed, but not defeated" - this phrase has become, perhaps, the key in the work.

June 21, no one believed that a war could break out. Any talk on this topic was considered a provocation. The next day, at four in the morning, enemy shells thundered near the Brest Fortress.

Nikolai Pluzhnikov, the hero of Vasiliev's story, was a young, inexperienced officer. But the first days of the war radically changed it. He became a hero. And this heroism is so striking that Pluzhnikov fought almost alone. He spent nine months in the fortress, periodically shooting at German soldiers and officers. Most of the time he was alone. Didn't receive letters from home. Didn't talk to friends. But he survived. Pluzhnikov left the fortress only when the cartridges ran out, and the news came of the liberation of Moscow.

The prototype of Vasiliev's story was one of the Soviet soldiers who did not stop the battle until the beginning of the forty-second year. Walls of the Brest Fortresskeep the memory of their feat. On one of them is scratched with a blade: “I am dying, but I do not give up. 1941-20-11.”

Alexander Kapler

The war claimed the lives of twenty-five million Soviet people. What would be their fate if they survived? This was written by Alexander Kapler in the story "Two out of twenty-five million".

The work deals with the fate of young people who went through the war together. The long-awaited Victory Day is coming. Then - peace time. But the post-war years were not cloudless either. The country is destroyed. Everywhere there is want and hunger. The heroes of Kapler's story go through all the difficulties together. And here comes the ninth of May of the seventy-fifth year. The characters are no longer young. They have a big friendly family: children, grandchildren. Suddenly everything disappears…

In this work, the author used an artistic technique that was not previously used in military prose. At the end of the work, the action is transferred to the distant war years. In the Adzhimushkay catacombs, which were described at the beginning of the story, almost no one survived in 1942.

Kapler's heroes died. Their lives did not take place, as did the fate of twenty-five million Soviet people.

Every person should read books about the Great Patriotic War. After all, the events that are displayed in them are part of history.