Alexander Tvardovsky, "Vasily Terkin": genre, summary

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

One of the most famous works of not only domestic, but also world literature is Tvardovsky's work "Vasily Terkin". The genre of this work is a poem. It was very popular among readers and is considered today an excellent example of military lyrics.

About the writer's work

Alexander Tvardovsky (1910-1971) came from a simple village peasant family. Already at the age of fifteen, he began to write short poems for the local newspaper. The famous poet M. Isakovsky approved of his works and became a mentor to the future famous author. In the 1930s, Tvardovsky wrote several poems and published a collection of poems. It is indicative that, despite the fact that his family and relatives suffered during the collectivization, Alexander Tvardovsky in several of his writings portrayed party politics in the countryside in a very positive light. Before the start of the war, he worked in a Leningrad newspaper, where he first published his first short poems about Vasily Terkin, who later became famous. When the fighting began, the poet went to the front and throughout the war years gradually created his most famous work, which brought him the all-Unionglory.

Creation

One of the most famous works of military subjects is "Vasily Terkin". The genre of this work corresponded to the author's idea: to create a truly folk hero who would be understandable and accessible to everyone. Therefore, he wrote his essay as a poem about a fighter, a simple soldier who went through the whole war. Despite the fact that it does not contain specifics, nevertheless, some battles are guessed in the text: the retreat of Soviet troops at the beginning of the war, the battle on the Volga, the Dnieper. The first chapters were published in the newspaper of the Western Front and enjoyed great popularity among readers.

Features

Tvardovsky's work "Vasily Terkin", the genre of which was, in principle, traditional for the poet, despite criticism of party censorship, gained such fame due to the fact that the author chose as his main character not representatives of the command or party leadership, but himself an ordinary person, in the image of which every soldier of the Soviet army, probably, could recognize himself. Terkin is a collective image of soldiers, and it is not in vain that the author every time emphasizes the typical character of this hero, his recognizability.

The composition "Vasily Terkin", the genre of which allowed the poet to express his thoughts on paper relatively easily and simply, is written in an accessible language. Tvardovsky wrote his work as a poem for a reason. The fact is that this genre presupposes the presence of lyrical-epic motifs andserious narrative in poetic form. And the work in question is really epic in its spirit, since it conveys the spirit and mood of not only the fighters of the Soviet army, but of the whole people during the war years.

Folk motifs

The genre chosen by the author is not accidental. Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin" is close in its language, sound and spirit to folklore, and, as you know, this poetic form just originally arose precisely as a folk epic song, as a kind of legend, a legend about some heroic event. And the author completely follows this principle: he, as it were, deliberately refuses literary and linguistic tricks and expresses his thought with the utmost simplicity, in a language similar to the one that ancient song poems were written in their time. This form allowed him to borrow a lot from popular colloquial speech. Tvardovsky's poem "Vasily Terkin" follows traditional folk motifs. There are many ditties, sayings, proverbs in it, and some statements and whole expressions from this work, in turn, have become phraseological units, which indicates the highest degree of popularity of the hero.

Composition

The poem "Vasily Terkin", the content of which is essentially a reproduction of military life, has become so dear to the reader precisely because it very warmly and touchingly draws ordinary pictures of difficult wartime. The work consists of thirty chapters, the author's prologue and epilogue; however, the poet immediately at the very beginning stipulates that his book is nothas no beginning and no end. Such an idea continues the theme he outlined earlier about the infinity of time, about the long road, about life and death. This gives a special philosophical meaning to the work, forcing the reader to think about fate, about the common misfortune, about the hardships of war. The chapter "Crossing" is rightly recognized by most critics as the main and central part of the entire work.

Contents

Each passage is dedicated to some episode from the life of your favorite hero. Moreover, the author does not focus on depicting the heroic deeds of his character, on the contrary, he very often shows him in a simple setting, during periods of calm, during transitions, in parking lots, and so on. The theme of the poem "Vasily Terkin" is an image of the life of a simple fighter who, despite the horrors of war, has not lost optimism and believes in victory. Even in the most difficult circumstances, he never loses heart, and thus the reader fell in love.

The most significant parts of the work are the following: the description of Terkin's feat during the crossing, his battle with Death, the image of the character on the pass, the episode with the downed plane, the hero's lunch with an old soldier. In these scenes, the author seeks to show his character from different angles: in each of these chapters, he appears before readers in recognizable situations, such as thousands of Soviet soldiers went through.

Storyline

Here Terkin swam across the icy river in order to convey an important message about the location of the enemy and the actions of the Soviet troops. At the same time, the author does not emphasize the heroism of this act, on the contrary, he describes this scene in such a way that the reader understands that any other soldier in Terkin's place would have done exactly the same. In this description, as, indeed, in the entire poem, the author's voice is clearly heard, which, as it were, is invisibly present at the described scene, gives its judgments, comments on what is happening, and this gives the story credibility and truthfulness.

In general, the figure of Tvardovsky himself is guessed in the narrator: he himself periodically enters into a dialogue with his character, addresses him with various questions, expresses his sympathy or admires him. In the chapter "On a h alt" one feels the poet's especially warm attitude towards his hero. The author depicts Terkin in the most ordinary and recognizable setting, on a soldier's vacation, with an accordion in his hands. Perhaps, it was this image of the character that readers especially liked, since it goes back to traditional ideas about an ordinary peasant worker who sings and plays the harmonica in a moment of rest. Not without reason, on one of the monuments, Vasily is depicted as an accordion player.

Image

In the chapter devoted to Terkin's conversation with an old soldier, Tvardovsky again shows his hero in a simple environment, among the peasants, which once again brings him closer to the common people. Both soldiers are talking about the war and during this conversation they immediately find a common language. This is the distinguishing feature of the hero's character: wherever he goes, he immediately finds a common language with those around him. Of course, the poet could not get aroundattention and the military merits of his hero: in addition to the episode with the crossing, he also, for example, shoots down an enemy plane. It is noteworthy how the author described the last episode: that the plane was shot down by Terkin, the reader only learns at the end, when the command began to look for the hero. Thus, the image of the national hero Vasily Terkin, created by Tvardovsky, actually personifies the whole nation.

Rating

The folk epic justifiably received universal recognition. She was highly appreciated by such prominent writers as Pasternak, Fadeev, Bunin. Readers in their letters to the author asked for continuation. And only the censorship committee was dissatisfied with the fact that Tvardovsky did not show the role of the Communist Party in his work. However, the author himself admitted that such digressions would violate the whole idea of the work, and therefore, at his own peril and risk, he continued to write in the direction he considered necessary. According to a recent poll, the poem entered the top of the most read works on military topics. The work is included in the school curriculum and is deservedly popular today.