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

Books about the Second World War are part of our culture. Works created by participants and witnesses of the war years, became a kind of chronicle, which faithfully 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.

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. The books about the Second World War, which were written in the forties, differ significantly from the works created twenty, thirty or more years after the Victory Day.

Literature of the war years is characterized by an abundance of lyrical and romantic elements. In this period, poetry received special development. The tragedy of the Soviet people was portrayed abstractly. The fate of a single person was not so important.

At the end of the fifties, there were other trends in military prose. The hero of the book about the Great Patriotic War was a man with a difficult fate. Behind his shoulders is a tragedy that will remain forever with him. The authors depicted not only the Great Victory, but also the life of an ordinary person. It became less pathos, more realistic.

Mikhail Sholokhov

In June 1941, an ordinary Soviet man 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 knew the grief, which turned out to be incomparable. Soldiers, natives of Leningrad, no longer believed that they would see their relatives alive. The first feeling, which sprouted in the soul of a Soviet man, was hatred.

In 1942, Mikhail Sholokhov worked as a military correspondent. Then the story "The Science of Hatred" was created. The theme of this work was the evolution of the human soul in the war. Sholokhov's story is about how a civilian gradually changes, and all his thoughts focus on the desire for revenge and all-consuming hatred.

"They fought for their homeland" - 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 they did not cease to miss their relatives, to rejoice and be upset with simple things and even joke. The most difficult test for them were not battles and battles, but the eyes of Russian women who escorted them during the retreat.

The story "The fate of a man"

The war is the most terrible in the history of mankind. People also feel its terrible power after the victory. The story "The Fate of Man" was written in 1956. The volleys have long ago died down, shells have ceased to burst. But the echoes of the war were felt by every Soviet person. Residents of the country were completely people with a crippled fate. This was Andrei Sokolov, the hero of Sholokhov's works.

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

Boris Polevoy

Among the Soviet soldiers and officers were real heroes. They were devoted to books, films were made about them. "The Story of a Real Man" by Boris Polevoy - a work about the legendary pilot Alexei Maresiev. The biography of this man is known to every schoolboy. His feat became an example not only for soldiers, but also for civilians. The courage of the hero to whom Boris Polevoy's The Story of the Real Man is dedicated provokes special admiration. After all, this man made several dozen sorties after he became disabled.

Yuri Bondarev

"Battalions ask for fire" Yuri Bondarev - one of the first works in which there was no pathos. In the novel there is a naked truth about the war, there is an analysis of the human soul. Such features were uncharacteristic for prose of the forties. The work of Bondarev was written in 1957.

In the postwar period, the authors avoided in their work such topics as the contradiction between the goal and the means. If in the story Sholokhov, which was discussed above, the heroes were either negative or positive, then Bondarev is not so unambiguous. In his novel there is no white and black. But still, despite the trials, the heroes remain faithful to their duty. None of them becomes a traitor.

The novel "Hot Snow"

Yuri Bondarev during the war was an artilleryman. He traveled from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. "Hot snow" is an artwork devoted to events, about which the author knew not by hearsay. The heroes of the novel Bondarev perish as a result of the long battle at Stalingrad. It is worth saying that the works of the participants of the Great Patriotic War have not only artistic but also historical value. Reliability is in the "Hot Snow". The novel "Life and Fate" is permeated with tragic truth.

Vasily Grossman

This writer began his work with small stories about the Red Army men. The culmination in his literary path was a novel in which the author emphasized the similarity of the two tyrants of the twentieth century: Stalin and Hitler. For which he suffered. The main book "Life and Fate" was banned.

In this novel, there are several storylines. One of them is dedicated to the defense of the legendary house of Pavlov. Battles in the novel of this writer are shown realistically. Grossman depicted the death of a Soviet soldier simply, without unnecessary pathos phrases. And so was the picture of the death of civilians from the hands of the fascists.

During the war, Grossman worked as a military correspondent. I witnessed the Battle of Stalingrad. And somewhere far away, in a small Ukrainian city, his mother died. She spent the last few days in the Jewish ghetto. This grief has remained forever in the writer's soul. The theme of his post-war creativity was the fate of millions of deaths in concentration camps and Jewish ghettos. Perhaps that is why he so deeply conveyed the thoughts and feelings of a man who dies of suffocation in a gas chamber.

Vladimir Bogomolov

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

The novel was written in the seventies. It was based on genuine events. The work of Bogomolov was the first of those who opened the veil of secrecy of Soviet special services.

Boris Vasilyev

One of the most striking works on the military theme is the story "And the Dawns Here Are Quiet". According to Vasilyev's work, not one film was made. The uniqueness of the story written in the late sixties is that its heroes are not experienced and experienced fighters.

Vasiliev created five unique female images. Heroines of the story "And Dawns Here Are Quiet" were girls who were just beginning to live. One of them dreamed of parents who did not know. The other wore silk underwear in a rug. The third one was in love with the sergeant-major. But they all died heroically. Each of them made an invaluable contribution to the Great Victory.

The fortress did not collapse ...

In 1974 Vasilev's story "In the lists did not appear" was published. This book is able to make an extremely strong impression. "A person can be killed, but you can not win" - this phrase has become, perhaps, the key in the work.

June 21, no one believed that the war might begin. 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 Vasilyev'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. Nine months he spent in the fortress, periodically shooting at German soldiers and officers. Most of the time he was alone. I did not receive letters from home. Did not communicate with friends. But I stood firm. Pluzhnikov left the fortress only when the ammunition ran out, and the news came about the liberation of Moscow.

The prototype of Vasilyev's story was one of the Soviet soldiers, who did not stop the battle until the beginning of the forty-second year. The walls of the Brest Fortress preserve the memory of their exploit. One of them was scratched with a blade: "I'm dying, but I'm not giving up. November 20, 1941 ».

Alexander Kapler

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

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

In this work, the author used an artistic device that had not previously been 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, in 1942 almost no one survived.

The heroes of Kapler perished. Their lives did not take place, like the fate of twenty-five million Soviet people.

Books about the Great Patriotic War must be read by every person. After all, the events that are displayed in them are part of the story.