The first chapters were published in 1942, although the name of the book's hero - Vasya Terkin - was known much earlier, from the period of the Finnish War. On the pages of the front-line newspaper “On Guard of the Motherland,” poetic feuilletons about a successful, dexterous fighter began to appear, created by a community of military writers, among whom was Tvardovsky. Then he came up with the idea of ​​​​creating a large, serious work with this main character. Already in 1940, draft versions of individual chapters were written (“At a halt”, “Crossing”, “About the reward”), and the chapter “Harmon” was even published in the newspaper “Red Star” in the form of a poem. The war with Nazi Germany interrupted the work for some time and adjusted the plan. Instead of the feuilleton Vasya Terkin, the image of a Soviet fighter began to emerge, embodying the best moral qualities of an entire generation of the pre-war years. It acquired the character of the broadest generalization, while maintaining the vivid concreteness of the image and its recognizability. “A book about a fighter” - this subtitle appeared in the poem when it was first published. The popularity of “Terkin”, the feeling that this book was necessary for readers, and above all for soldiers who fought on the fields of war, forced Tvardovsky to continue working on the poem. At the end of 1942, the chapter “Who Shot?” appeared. from the second part of the poem, then other chapters, and in May 1943 the work was completed.

In the last chapter of “Vasily Terkin,” the author of “The Book about a Fighter” says goodbye to his hero and reflects on how future readers will accept his creation. Here, at the end of the poem, is named what Tvardovsky considers the main advantage of his book, and along the way...

To understand and appreciate the true scale of the artist’s talent, his contribution to literature, one must proceed from what he said new about life and man, how his vision of the world relates to moral and aesthetic ideals, ideas and tastes...

War through the eyes of a soldier: “To whom is memory, to whom is glory, to whom is dark water” (poem by A.T. Tvardovsky “Vasily Terkin”) In Alexander Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin” the Great Patriotic War is seen through the eyes of its ordinary participant, a simple soldier....

But since the front, I noted “Vasily Terkin” as an amazing success... Tvardovsky managed to write a timeless, courageous and uncontaminated thing... A. Solzhenitsyn. They say that they were going to erect or have already erected a monument...

Fiction during the Great Patriotic War has a number of characteristic features. Its main features are patriotic pathos and a focus on universal accessibility. The poem is rightfully considered the most successful example of such a work of art...

(“investigative journalism”)

IRINA EFEDOVA, VLADIMIR KRASNER

Crossing, crossing!
The guns fire in the pitch darkness.
The battle is holy and just.
Mortal combat is not for glory,
For the sake of life on earth.

A. Tvardovsky. Vasily Terkin

The beginning of the work “Vasily Terkin,” which later began to be called a poem, was written by Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky in March 1941. The first chapters were published in the newspaper Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda in September 1942. That same year, an early version of the poem was published as a separate book. In subsequent reissues 1943-1945. original text significantly processed and supplemented new chapters. The conclusion of the poem - “From the author” - is dated June 30, 1945.

Tvardovsky outlined the history of the creation of the poem in detail in the article “How Vasily Terkin was written.” Here is an interesting excerpt from this article: “Vasily Terkin” has been known to the reader since 1942. But " Vasya Terkin" has been known since 1939-1940 - from the period of the Finnish campaign. At that time in the Leningradsky newspaper A group of writers and poets worked in the Military District “Guarding the Motherland”: N. Tikhonov, V. Sayanov, A. Shcherbakov, S. Vashentsev, Ts. Solodar and me, the author of these lines. Somehow we decided that we needed to start something like a “humor corner” or feuilleton in the newspaper, where there would be poems and pictures. And so we decided to choose a character who would appear in a series of amusing pictures, equipped with poetic captions. This was supposed to be some kind of cheerful, successful fighter, a conventional figure, a popular popular figure. They began to come up with a name. SOMEONE (TVARDOVSKY DOESN'T REMEMBER WHO EXACTLY!!! - I.E. and V.K.) SUGGESTED CALLING OUR HERO VASAYA TERKIN, NAMELY VASAYA, NOT VASILY. This is how this name was born.“Then, during the Finnish campaign, Tvardovsky wrote only a few poems for a newspaper column. However, the accidentally found image captured “all of me without a trace,” the poet would later write.

In the process of maturing the idea of ​​a future “book about a fighter,” the initial

The rollickingly humorous plot took on broad forms of epic storytelling. Tvardovsky’s main literary work during the Patriotic War became “Vasily Terkin”. The fighter's image becomes much larger than before. That is why the poet decisively moves from the slightly familiar “Vasya” to the beautiful Russian name Vasily and never deviates from it. Vasya irrevocably becomes Vasily and a larger personality, primarily because “the depth of the national-historical disaster and the national-historical feat in the Patriotic War from the first days distinguished it from any other wars, and even more so

military campaigns." All lines, every word written in the “book about a fighter” belongs to the pen of Tvardovsky alone and no one else. Here is how wonderfully Alexander Trifonovich himself wrote about this work: “The book about a fighter” during the war years was true happiness for me: it gave me a feeling of the obvious usefulness of my work... “Torkin” was for me a fighting Soviet man - my lyrics, my journalism, song and teaching, anecdote and saying, heart-to-heart conversation and a remark to the occasion.”

From the first days of the bitter year,
In the difficult hour of our native land,
Not joking, Vasily Terkin,
You and I have become friends.

Tvardovsky managed to create an amazingly beautiful image of a Soviet soldier. Terkin is selflessly devoted to the Fatherland, he is fearless, he never loses heart and finds a way out of the most difficult situations, he is ready to lend his faithful shoulder to a friend at any moment; at any moment he can cheer up the fighters with a good joke or joke. He is the embodiment of masculinity and spiritual beauty.

Mayakovsky dreamed that in difficult times a feather could be compared to a bayonet. Tvardovsky managed to do more. His poem about Vasily Terkin was perhaps the most read on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War and in the rear. It would not be an exaggeration to say that his immortal book was one of those that helped the Soviet people survive those terrible years and win.

In many letters received by the poet immediately after the publication of the first chapters, at meetings with soldiers of the Red Army, the following questions were asked more often than others: “Does Terkin really exist?” “Is he a type or a living person known to you?” From many touching letters it was clear that readers had no doubts about the existence of the “living” Terkin, but the question was only about “isn’t he serving in our (the field mail number was further indicated) division?” The poet patiently answered all these questions: “Vasily Terkin is a fictitious person, a figment of the imagination, a creation of fantasy. And although the traits expressed in him were observed by me in many people, - not one of them can be called a prototype of Tyorkin.” Meanwhile, many fighters innocently continued to write letters to Tvardovsky, asking him to convey military greetings to Comrade Tyorkin. Many warm letters were addressed to personally Comrade Vasily Terkin. The authors of the letters asked the “legendary fighter” for advice and shared their most secret things with him. The simple-minded authors were in holy confidence that the field mail would definitely find the addressee... In such cases, it is customary to say that such faith of the readership in a literary character is the highest reward and praise for the author.

And how could a young soldier not believe a poet who spoke to him in a simple, sincere word?

He spoke about the war and about his soldier, his home. This is how piercingly, artlessly the poet speaks in the chapter “Who Shot?” When attacking

of a fascist vulture in an open field, soldiers, having waited for the desired command “Get down!” rushed to the ground:
You're lying on your face, boy
Less than twenty years old.
Now you're finished,

Now you are no longer there.
You pressed your palms to your temples,
You forgot, you forgot, you forgot
How the horses grazed the grass,

What did you drive at night?
Death rumbles in the membranes,
And far, far, far
That evening and that girl,

What you loved and cherished.
And friends and loved ones, Dear home, a knot in the wall...
No, fighter, pray on your face

Not suitable for war.
No comrade, evil and proud,
As the law tells a fighter,
Meet death face to face
And at least spit in her face,

If everything has come to an end...

This is how Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin assessed A. Tvardovsky’s poem: “This is truly a rare book.

What freedom, what wonderful prowess, what accuracy, precision in everything and what an extraordinary folk language - not a hitch, not a single false word!” novel by P.D. Boborykina "Vasily Terkin" and, frankly speaking, I felt great embarrassment: what is common between his and your Vasily Terkins? How is your Vasya Terkin, a smart, cheerful, seasoned Soviet soldier who acted during the Great Patriotic War and defended his Motherland with great patriotism, similar to the rogue merchant, hypocrite Vasily Ivanovich Terkin from Boborykin’s novel? So why did you choose for your (and our) hero such a name, behind which a certain type is already hidden and which has already been described in Russian literature? Were you really guided by the consideration of the kinship between this already described type and the one you created? But this is an insult to the experienced soldier Vasily Tyorkin! Or is this an accident?

Before “giving” the floor to Major M.M. Tvardovsky himself to answer, we will provide a brief historical background.

Boborykin Pyotr Dmitrievich, Russian writer, honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Years of life: 1836-1921. Critics called him a novelist-chronicler, a “marker” of entire periods of public life. Thus, he noted the birth of capitalism in Russian life, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the emergence of a new type of merchant, with a new cultural appearance and an old animal gut. He wrote over 100 novels, stories, and plays. In his masterpiece “Vasily Terkin” (1892, “Bulletin of Europe”) Boborykin made an attempt to draw a new man of the village, who came into the public thanks to his own efforts and managed to combine businesslike practicality with devotion to ideals. As a type, Terkin is not convincing enough, but as a living and truly completely new figure, he speaks eloquently about great changes and the accumulation of new forces in Russian society. According to the respectful words of Maxim Gorky in the novel “Vasily Terkin,” Boborykin was the first in Russian literature to paint the image of an enlightened, thinking merchant who, having come out of the people, wants to give “full speed to everything that is valuable in him, for the needs of his native lands and the same labor and disadvantaged people."

And now let’s return to A. Tvardovsky’s response to the major’s angry letter from Moscow. Tvardovsky: “I confess that I heard about the existence of Boborykin’s novel, when a significant part of “Terkin” had already been published, from one of my older literary friends. I took out the novel, read it without much interest and continued my work. I did not and do not attach any significance to this coincidence of the name of Tyorkin with the name of the Boborykin hero. There is absolutely nothing in common between them. It is possible that one of us, who was looking for the name of a character for feuilletons in the newspaper “On Guard of the Motherland,” came across this combination of first name and surname by chance, like something that had sunk into memory from Boborykin’s book.

I doubt it: it was Vasya that we needed then, and not Vasily; You can’t even call Boborykin’s hero Vasya—that’s something completely different. In a word, there was and is not a shadow of “borrowing” here. There is simply such a Russian surname Terkin, although it previously seemed to me that we “constructed” this surname, starting from the verbs “rub”, “grind”, etc. And here is one of the first letters from my correspondents on the “Book about a fighter”:

To the editors of Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda, poet comrade. A. Tvardovsky.

Comrade Tvardovsky: Is it possible in your poem to replace the name Vasily with Victor, since Vasily is my father, he is 62 years old, and I am his son, Viktor Vasilyevich Terkin, platoon commander.

I am on the Western Front, serving in the artillery. Therefore, if possible, then replace it, and please inform me of the result at: point 312, 668 art. regiment, 2nd division, Viktor Vasilyevich Terkin."
Comparing these two works is a completely unacceptable task: different genres, different eras... Let us just note that the artistic perfection of Tvardovsky’s poem and its (the poem’s) influence on the fate of Russian society and even the state make it an absolutely exceptional and majestic work of Russian literature.
Erkin, Terkin, indeed,
The hour has come, the end of the war.

.......................................

And it's like they're outdated
At once we are both with you.
And although other things
During the years of peace, the singer They might come out worse

This

Books about a fighter -

To me she is more important than all the others

The road, dear to tears,

Once upon a time, in the late 1960s, Literaturnaya Gazeta suddenly sparked a discussion about what the best Soviet novel about the Great Patriotic War should be. Which could be compared - no more and no less - with "War and Peace". Looking from our wonderful distance and knowing at the same time that in the Soviet Union nothing in the ideological field arose by chance, we can assume that the purpose of the discussion was, in today’s terms, the promotion of M. Sholokhov’s novel “They Fought for the Motherland.” A novel that has not yet been completed, but has already been designated by party ideologists as great.

The discussion was sparked, but not very hot. And then it went out completely ahead of schedule. Firstly, Comrade M.A. Sholokhov did not fulfill the party’s task and did not deliver the epic. And secondly, this discussion suddenly revived rumors in literary circles about Vasily Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate.” This novel was arrested by the KGB. Due to such an unusual arrest, no one read it in those years. But precisely for this reason, many of those who had not read it considered V. Grossman’s novel to be a book quite comparable in both scale and quality to the classic novel by Leo Tolstoy. And here they were not mistaken - we will say from our beautiful distance.

In any case, the mentioned discussion was empty. If only because by that time the best book of Soviet literature about the Great Patriotic War had already been written. Even if we don’t consider the disgraced work of V. Grossman as such.

True, this book was not a novel, but a poem. And not even a poem, but a collection of small poetic chapters, united only by a common hero. The book was called "Vasily Terkin" after the name of this hero. With the subtitle "A book about a fighter"

What else?.. And that’s all, perhaps.
In short, a book about a fighter
Without beginning, without end.
Why is this without a beginning?
Because time is short
Start it over again.
Why without end?
I just feel sorry for the guy.

During the war "Vasily Terkin" Alexander Tvardovsky (1910 - 1971) was known and loved by front-line soldiers. Simple poems made up of simple words were easy to remember. And these poems were not at all “fools” like “The bullet fears the brave, but the bayonet does not take the brave.” And they were real poetry, which by definition is a conversation between a person and God. Perhaps that is why the Soviet poet was given the highest rating by such an absolutely anti-Soviet writer as I.A. Bunin. “What freedom, what wonderful prowess, what accuracy, precision in everything and what an extraordinary folk soldier’s language - not a hitch, not a single false, ready-made, that is, literary-vulgar word!”

Yes, Tvardovsky’s book turned out to be stunningly truthful. This is another sign of real poetry. After all, a conversation with God does not tolerate lies. Even the creator of the already mentioned cheerful silly song about a bullet and a bayonet, A. Surkov, understood this. He wrote his only real poem at a time of mental anguish, emerging from a real battle. In that unexpected battle, it became clear to the poet: the foolish bullet is not afraid of anyone, not even the special correspondent of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. So he wrote in a letter to his beloved woman simple and honest words that “there are four steps to death.”

And even then, for these “four steps” he also had to fight censorship. Who knew better than the front-line soldiers themselves what they, the front-line soldiers, needed. After all, in war, singing about death is neither ethical nor patriotic. Is not it?

No matter how it is! In the same "Vasily Terkin" one of the most piercing chapters is called "Death and the Warrior."

- I'm not the worst and not the best,
That I will die in the war.
But at the end of it, listen,
Will you give me a day off?
Will you give me that last day,
On the holiday of world glory,
Hear the victorious fireworks,
What will be heard over Moscow?
Will you give me a little that day
Walk among the living?
Will you give it to me through one window?
Knock on the edges of relatives,
And when they come out onto the porch,—
Death, and Death, is still there for me
Will you let me say one word?
Just a word?
- No. I'm not giving it...

"Vasily Terkin" is a great work that, in general, was not intended to be great. Vasya Terkin appeared in 1939 - 1940 during the war with Finland. People in the Soviet Union did not really like to remember this war. With the light hand of the same A.T. Tvardovsky called it “unfamous”:

Among the great cruel war,
Why - I can’t imagine -
I feel sorry for that distant fate
Like dead, alone
It's like I'm lying there
Frozen, small, killed
In that unknown war,
Forgotten, small I lie.

This war was started - no matter what they say - with one goal: to finally make Finland “red”. There was already a sample. In September 1939, an almost bloodless “liberation campaign” took place in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. It was assumed that the mighty Red Army would not need much time to “liberate” Finland. That is probably why they started the Finnish company at a time that was not the most suitable for war in the north. Hostilities began in winter, on November 30, 1939.

These days, in the newspaper of the Leningrad Military District “On Guard of the Motherland,” a group of writers and poets was organized in order to “culturally support” the fighting, among whom was Alexander Tvardovsky. In the best traditions of front-line propaganda, it was decided to depict on the pages of the newspaper a kind of popular popular hero-soldier, cheerful, skillful, successful, daily performing unprecedented feats.

What to name the hero? Someone suggested: let it be Vasily Terkin. And what? Fine! Vasily is a fairly common name and beloved by the Russian people. By the way, the aforementioned Vasily Grossman was not Vasily at all, but Joseph. It’s just that in childhood, his nanny turned the boy’s diminutive name “Yosya” into “Vasya,” which was more understandable to her. A little later, when choosing a pseudonym, the writer remembered this funny childhood episode. This is how Vasily Grossman appeared.

Well, Terkin - it’s also clear why. Because the hero will grind the enemy into dust. This is what A.T. Tvardovsky wrote about in the introductory feuilleton.

Vasya Terkin? Who it?
Let's be honest:
He's a man himself
Unusual.

Bogatyr, fathoms in the shoulders,
Well-tailored fellow,
Cheerful by nature
An experienced man.
At least in battle, at least somewhere, -
But this is for sure:
First things first, eat
Vasya must firmly...
But it doesn’t protect
Bogatyr strength
And takes enemies to the bayonet,
Like sheaves on pitchforks.

These “sheaves for pitchforks” were taken from popular print poems for soldiers during the First World War. Such “creativity” then flourished in all the warring armies. In Russia of those years, a very real person, a Cossack, became an epic hero, putting the Germans on a pike, like a shish kebab on a skewer. Kozma Kryuchkov (1890 - 1919). The opposite story happened with Vasily Terkin. Conceived as a hero, an example of military and political training, he was initially incorporeal and therefore absolutely uninteresting. But having gone through real battles of the Great Patriotic War, the invented Vasily Terkin also became real. So real that he immediately found living prototypes, and more than one! Moreover, it was the fictional Vasily Terkin who became the main defender of his creator when A. Tvardovsky fell into disgrace, going against the very ideological department of the CPSU Central Committee!

And, as often happens with real people, Vasily Terkin got confused with the most basic, as they say, passport data. To the question of where and when Vasily Terkin was born, at least three answers can be given.

The first follows from what has just been said. The good soldier Vasily Terkin, as the fruit of the collective creativity of mobilized writers and poets, was born in December 1939. Place of birth - political commander of the North-Western Front, which was then located on the western shore of Lake Ladoga, captured from Finland, in the city of Kexgolm. An old and glorious city, which in 1948 for some reason was renamed Priozersk (not Priozersk!).

A book about the exploits of Vasily Terkin in the Finnish war has been preserved. In it you can find the second version of an unusual biography. It turns out that this epic daredevil Vasya Terkin is a boy from the Moscow region.

As for the “real” Vasily Terkin, A.T. Tvardovsky made him his fellow countryman.

...not some other person, not Ensky
Unnamed spine.
And really - Smolensk,
How they teased us, horn!

Anyone who has read the poem will remember this. And those who read it carefully will name the place of birth even more precisely. Remember the heart-tugging chapter “About an Orphan Soldier,” about Terkin’s return to his destroyed native village?

Here is the hill, here is the river,
Wilderness, weeds as tall as a soldier,
Yes, there is a board on the post,
Like, the village of Red Bridge.

And they were found to be alive,
And just tell him
It's all true that the serviceman -
Trustworthy orphan.

The option proposed by the creator, of course, is the most trusted. After all, A.T. Tvardovsky filled the poem about the fictional Vasily Terkin with so many non-fictional details that an attentive reader will be able to reconstruct from them both the biography of the hero and his glorious path at the front. So, we agreed, Vasily Terkin is a Smolensk resident.

The land of Smolensk is rich in heroes and famous people, but it gladly accepted a fictional hero among them. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Great Victory, a monument to two famous fellow countrymen was erected in the center of Smolensk: Alexander Tvardovsky and Vasily Terkin.

1. A. Turkov. There is one life and one death “Vasily Terkin”. Birth. Path. Fate
2. That one from the time of the Finnish war, Vasya Terkin.
3. Ksenofontov, I. From Karelia to Berlin: The combat path of the guard junior lieutenant Vasily Terkin / Igor Ksenofontov // Literary newspaper. - 2010. - June 16-22 (No. 24). - P. 9.
4. A. Surkov. How did the song come about?
5. Death and the Warrior. Excerpt from A. Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin” read by Vyacheslav Gerasimov

The poem “Vasily Terkin” was written by Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky during the Great Patriotic War and was published in various newspapers in chapters. This work supported the morale of the soldiers, gave them hope, inspired them and, most importantly, it could be read from any chapter. This is due to the fact that each chapter in the poem is a separate story, which is full of deep patriotism, optimism, and faith in the future. The image of the Soviet soldier Vasily Terkin was conceived as a feuilleton image designed to make soldiers at the front laugh and raise their morale.

Throughout the Great Patriotic War, the image of Vasya Terkin remained the most beloved among fighters. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that this hero captivated the hearts of readers with his reality and authenticity. The image of the main character Vasily Terkin, a simple Russian soldier, is an example of human dignity, courage, love for the Motherland, honesty and selflessness. All these qualities of the hero are revealed in each chapter of the work.

Since the work was written during the war, it goes without saying that the main qualities of the hero, which the author focuses on, are selfless courage, heroism, a sense of duty and responsibility.

He is a symbolic image, a people-man, a collective Russian type. It is no coincidence that nothing is said about his personal biography. He is “a great hunter of living until he is ninety years old,” a peaceful, civilian man, a soldier by necessity. His usual life on the collective farm was interrupted by the war. War for him is a natural disaster, hard work. The entire poem is permeated with a dream of a peaceful life.

Already at the first mention, the surname Terkin outlines the boundaries of character: Terkin means an experienced, seasoned man, “a seasoned kalach,” or, as the poem says, “a seasoned man.”

A.T. During the Great Patriotic War, Tvardovsky became an exponent of the spirit of soldiers and ordinary people. His poem “Vasily Terkin” helps people survive a terrible time, believe in themselves, because the poem was created during the war, chapter by chapter. "Vasily Terkin" - "a book about a fighter." The poem was written about the war, but the main thing for Alexander Tvardovsky was to show the reader how to live during the years of difficult trials. Therefore, the main character, Vasya Terkin, dances, plays a musical instrument, cooks dinner, and jokes. The hero lives in war, and for the writer this is very important, since in order to survive, any person needs to love life very much.

The problems raised by the writer in this work also help to reveal the military theme of the poem: attitude towards death, the ability to stand up for oneself and others, a sense of responsibility and duty to the homeland, the relationship between people at critical moments in life. Tvardovsky talks with the reader about painful issues, using a special artistic character - the image of the author. Chapters “About Myself” appear in the poem. This is how the writer brings his main character closer to his own worldview. Together with his character, the author empathizes, sympathizes, feels satisfied or indignant:

Many readers believe that the first lines of the famous “Book about a Fighter” by A. Tvardovsky appeared in 1942 and the image of the main character was caused solely by the events of the Great Patriotic War. Meanwhile, everything is somewhat different, and the first mention of the brave Vasya Terkin dates back to the period of the Russian-Finnish war. Let us remember, based on the testimony of the author himself, what is the history of the creation of the poem.

"Vasily Terkin" - beginning

In 1939, when the campaign with the Finns began, A. Tvardovsky worked for the newspaper “On Guard of the Motherland.” At this time, it occurs to the creative team of the publishing house to come up with the image of some amusing character - a conventionally daring and cheerful fighter who would appear on the pages of the publication, accompanied by poetic captions. The name of the hero did not appear right away: we went through several options until we settled on the simple and warm Vasya - as he was called at that time. This is how the story of the creation of “Vasily Terkin” began, known to almost every Soviet reader.

Random coincidence

By the way, in his memoirs, Tvardovsky talks about how once, already during the war years, he received a letter, the author of which was interested in why the main character - a glorious warrior - was named after another literary character. As it turned out, notes Alexander Trifonovich, P. Boborykin’s novel with the same name appeared even earlier. Only Vasily Terkin in him is a dishonest merchant, a scoundrel and a hypocrite. The poet admits that, having received the letter, he found and read the work in question without much pleasure, but decided not to change the name of his hero. More precisely, he did not attach any significance to such a coincidence - especially since the history of the creation of the poem "Vasily Terkin" really had nothing to do with the novel - and continued his work in the same direction.

But let’s return to “The Book about a Fighter.”

Development of the ideological concept

The poet remembered the brave hero, already loved by the reader from the newspaper “On Guard of the Motherland,” in 1940. It so happened that in 1939 the writers, as planned, wrote one or two feuilletons each, and then moved on to other work. Only for a long time did he turn to this image, to which few people attached serious importance. Now Tvardovsky was thinking about how to combine in his work of art - and it was supposed to be a poem - that hero of the feuilletons with the seriousness that reality demanded. And he began to sort through in his memory everything that was connected with the Finnish war, including eyewitness accounts, went to Vyborg, re-read printed articles, etc. However, it was not possible to write the work as planned by the 41st, and then the war began. As a result, the history of the creation of “Vasily Terkin” will for some time be limited to only thinking about the composition, plot, and image of the main character.

1942

From the first days of the war, Tvardovsky was sent to the front as a correspondent. In the first months, the most cruel and hot, there was no time for the poem. The idea that had already arisen in my head for so long was postponed until the summer of 1942, when the story of the creation of A. Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin” was continued. But now it was supposed to be a work about another war - the Soviet people against the fascist invaders. And the hero from Vasya turned into Vasily, who personified the Russian tiller, the worker, the tireless worker who stood up to defend the Fatherland.

The first chapters of Alexander Trifonovich’s new work appeared in one of the front-line newspapers in September. Then the poem was published in parts in many editions, available to both the fighting soldiers and those who remained behind the lines. She helped some to survive the hardships of life at the front, while others waited for their relatives from this terrible war. “The Book about a Soldier” was loved by all readers, and everyone was looking forward to new chapters, the hero of which was a soldier with a simple Russian name - it was A. Tvardovsky - Vasily Terkin - who created his new image.

The history of the creation of the poem during the war years

The work was written until 1945, although back in 1943, after being wounded, successfully cured, and the hero returning to duty, the author thought that he had reached the end. Readers intervened, demanding the continuation of the poem, with whom it was dishonest to argue, as Tvardovsky noted. Vasily Terkin, the story of whose creation is being further developed, again walked through the pages of newspapers and magazines.

The work reflects the main stages of the war: tragic retreats in its first months, battles that became turning points, and the victorious march to the west. There was even a desire to send the hero to the rear of the Germans, but Tvardovsky soon abandoned such a plan, deciding that this would violate the general concept of the work and make the soldier’s story private.

During the war years, the author received many letters, from which it followed that readers were very interested in the history of the creation of “Vasily Terkin,” in particular, whether the person described in the poem actually exists. And although the hero had many namesakes - one of them, Viktor Vasilyevich Terkin, even asked to change his name to his own - the poet’s answer was always categorical: Vasily Terkin is a completely fictional character and has no real prototype. It was formed from the author’s personal observations and embodied the best features of the Russian defender.

Farewell to the hero

The history of the creation of “Vasily Terkin” ends with the victorious spring of 1945. In May, Tvardovsky publishes the final chapter “From the Author,” in which he says that he says goodbye to the soldier. And despite the fact that he was again convinced of the need to continue the work, he was unshakable: Terkin’s time had passed. In his opinion, now, in peacetime, a different character is needed.

This is the history of the creation of “Vasily Terkin”, briefly described on the basis of A. Tvardovsky’s article “How “Vasily Terkin (answer to readers)” was written.”

Instead of an afterword

Already in the post-war years, knowing about the incredible popularity of the poem and its main character, many unscrupulous writers created “continuations” of the hero’s adventures and even “imitations” of the famous book. The answer to them was that the poem - this was repeatedly emphasized by Tvardovsky - "Vasily Terkin", the history of the creation of which is described by the author himself, is definitely over and there is no expectation of returning to it in the future.