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Beloved Komelkova
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Galya Chetvertak is an orphan, a pupil of an orphanage. In the orphanage she received her nickname for her short stature. Dreamer. She lived in a world of her own fantasies, and went to the front with the conviction that war is romance. After the orphanage, Galya ended up in a library technical school. The war found her in her third year. On the first day of the war, their entire group was sent to the military commissar. Everyone was assigned, but Galya didn’t fit anywhere, either in age or height. During the battle with the Germans, Vaskov took Galya with him, but she, unable to withstand the nervous tension of waiting for the Germans, ran out of cover and was shot by the Nazis. Despite such a “ridiculous” death, the foreman told the girls that she died “in a shootout.”
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One of the main heroines of Boris Lvovich Vasiliev’s story “And the dawns here are quiet...”.
Zhenya is a very beautiful red-haired girl, the other heroines were amazed at her beauty. Tall, slender, with fair skin. My wife is 19 years old. Zhenya has her own account with the Germans: when the Germans captured Zhenya’s village, Zhenya herself managed to hide the Estonian woman. In front of the girl's eyes, the Nazis shot her mother, sister and brother. She goes to war to avenge the death of her loved ones. Despite the grief, “her character was cheerful and smiling.” In Vaskov's platoon, Zhenya showed artistry, but there was also enough room for heroism - it was she who, calling fire on herself, led the Germans away from Rita and Vaskov. She saves Vaskov when he fights the second German who killed Sonya Gurvich. The Germans first wounded Zhenya and then shot her point-blank.
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Senior sergeant, deputy platoon commander of female anti-aircraft gunners.
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One of the main heroines of Boris Lvovich Vasiliev’s story “And the dawns here are quiet...”.
Liza Brichkina is a simple village girl, originally from the Bryansk region. The forester's daughter. One day, their father brought a guest to their house. Lisa really liked him. Seeing the conditions in which the girl is growing up, the guest invites Lisa to come to the capital and enter a technical school with a dormitory, but Lisa did not have the chance to become a student - the war began. Lisa always believed that tomorrow would come and be better than today. Lisa died first. She drowned in a swamp while carrying out the task of Sergeant Major Vaskov.
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Postman
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Sergeant Major Vaskov's landlady
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One of the main heroines of Boris Lvovich Vasiliev’s story “And the dawns here are quiet...”.
Rita is strict, she never laughs, she just moves her lips a little, but her eyes still remain serious. “Rita was not one of the lively ones...” Rita Mushtakova, the first of her class, out of great love, married senior lieutenant Osyanin, with whom she gave birth to a son, Albert. And there was no happier girl in the world. At the outpost she was immediately elected to the women's council and enrolled in all the circles. Rita learned to bandage the wounded and shoot, ride a horse, throw grenades and protect against gases, and then... war. On the very first day of the war, she turned out to be one of the few who was not confused and did not panic. She was generally calm and reasonable. Rita's husband died on the second day of the war during a counterattack on June 23, 1941. Having learned that her husband is no longer alive, she goes to war in her husband’s place in order to protect her little son, who is left with his mother. They wanted to send Rita to the rear, but she asked to go into battle. They drove her away, forced her into the heated vehicles, but the persistent wife of the deceased deputy head of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant Osyanin, appeared again at the fortified area headquarters every other day. In the end, she was hired as a nurse, and six months later she was sent to the regimental anti-aircraft school. The authorities valued the unsmiling widow of the hero-border guard: she noted it in orders, set it as an example, and therefore respected her personal request - to be sent, after completing her studies, to the area where the outpost stood, where her husband died in a fierce bayonet battle. Now Rita could consider herself satisfied: she had achieved what she wanted. Even the death of her husband faded into the farthest corner of her memory: Rita had a job, and she learned to hate quietly and mercilessly... In Vaskov’s platoon, Rita became friends with Zhenya Komelkova and Galya Chetvertak. She died last, putting a bullet in her temple and thereby saving Fedot Vaskov. Before her death, she asked him to take care of her son. The death of Rita Osyanina is psychologically the most difficult moment of the story. Boris Vasiliev very accurately conveys the state
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One of the main heroines of Boris Lvovich Vasiliev’s story “And the dawns here are quiet...”.
Sonya Gurvich is a girl who grew up in a large, friendly Jewish family. Sonya is originally from Minsk. Her father was a local doctor. She herself studied for a year at Moscow University and knew German well. A neighbor at lectures, Sonya’s first love, with whom they spent only one unforgettable evening in a cultural park, volunteered for the front. Knowing German, she could have been a good translator, but there were many translators, so she was assigned to an anti-aircraft gunner (of whom, in turn, there were few). Sonya is the second victim of the Germans in Vaskov's platoon. She runs away from the others to find and return Vaskov’s pouch, and stumbles upon patrol saboteurs who killed Sonya with two stabs in the chest.
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Major, Vaskov's commander
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Main character Boris Lvovich Vasiliev's story "And the dawns here are quiet...".
Petty Officer Fedot Vaskov is the commandant of the 171st patrol in the Karelian wilderness. The crews of the anti-aircraft installations of the patrol, finding themselves in a quiet situation, begin to suffer from idleness and get drunk. In response to Vaskov’s requests to “send non-drinkers,” the command sends two squads of female anti-aircraft gunners there... Fedot completed four classes of the regimental school, and in ten years rose to the rank of senior officer. Vaskov experienced a personal drama: after the Finnish war, his wife left him. Vaskov demanded his son through the court and sent him to his mother in the village, but the Germans killed him there. The sergeant major always feels older than his years. The author emphasizes the peasant mind and peasant spirit in the “gloomy foreman” Fedot Vaskov. “Solid taciturnity”, “peasant slowness”, special “masculine thoroughness” since “he was the only man left in the family - the breadwinner, the water provider, and the breadwinner.” The female anti-aircraft gunners subordinate to him call thirty-two-year-old Vaskov behind his back as “an old man” and “a mossy stump who has twenty words in reserve, and even those from the regulations.” “All his life, Fedot Evgrafovich followed orders. He did it literally, quickly and with pleasure. He was the transmission gear of a huge, carefully adjusted mechanism.” Having encountered with his “search group” of five “girls with three-rulers in an embrace” sixteen armed fascist thugs from head to toe, rushing through the Sinyukhin ridge to the Kirov railway, to the “canal named after. Comrade Stalin,” Vaskov “hid his confusion. I thought and thought, turned my heavy brains, sucked at all the possibilities of the upcoming deadly meeting. From his military experience, he knew that “playing Hovanki with a German is almost like playing with death,” that the enemy “must be beaten. Beat until he crawls into the lair,” without pity, without mercy. Realizing how difficult it is for a woman, who always gives birth to life, to kill, he taught and explained: “These are not people. Not people, not people, not even animals - fascists. So look accordingly"
The story “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet,” a brief summary of which is given later in the article, tells about the events taking place during the Great Patriotic War.
The work is dedicated to the heroic feat of anti-aircraft gunners who unexpectedly found themselves surrounded by Germans.
About the story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet”
The story was first published in 1969, it was approved by the editor of the magazine “Youth”.
The reason for writing the work was a real wartime episode.
A small group of 7 soldiers recovering from wounds prevented the Germans from blowing up the Kirovskaya railway.
As a result of the operation, only one commander survived, who subsequently received the medal “For Military Merit” at the end of the war.
The episode is tragic, however, in the realities of wartime this event is lost among the horrors terrible war. Then the author remembered the 300 thousand women who bore the hardships of the front along with male soldiers.
And the plot of the story was based on tragic destinies female anti-aircraft gunners who die during a reconnaissance operation.
Who is the author of the book “The Dawns Here Are Quiet”
The work was written by Boris Vasiliev in the narrative genre.
When the Great Patriotic War began, he had barely finished 9th grade.
Boris Lvovich fought near Smolensk, received a shell shock, and therefore knew first-hand about front-line life.
He became interested in literary work in the 50s, writing plays and scripts. The writer took up prose stories only 10 years later.
The main characters of the story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet”
Vaskov Fedot Evgrafych
The sergeant-major, whose command the anti-aircraft gunners were placed in, occupied the commandant’s position at the 171st railway siding.
He is 32 years old, but the girls gave him the nickname “old man” for his intractable character.
Before the war, he was an ordinary man from the village, had a 4th grade education, and at the age of 14 he was forced to become the sole breadwinner in the family.
Vaskov's son, whom he sued from ex-wife after the divorce, died before the start of the war.
Gurvich Sonya
A simple, shy girl from a large family, born and raised in Minsk. Her father worked as a local doctor.
Before the war, she managed to study for a year at Moscow State University as a translator and spoke German fluently. Sonya's first love was a bespectacled student studying in the library at the next table, with whom they timidly communicated.
When the war began, due to the excess of translators at the front, Sonya ended up in a school for anti-aircraft gunners, and then in Fedot Vaskov’s detachment.
The girl loved poetry very much, her cherished dream was to see her many household members again. During a reconnaissance operation, Sonya was killed by a German with two knife blows to the chest.
Brichkina Elizaveta
Country girl, daughter of a forester. From the age of 14 she was forced to leave school and take care of her terminally ill mother.
I dreamed of entering a technical school, so after my mother’s death, following the advice of one of my father’s friends, I was going to move to the capital. But her plans were not destined to come true; they were adjusted by the war - Lisa went to the front.
The gloomy Sergeant Vaskov immediately aroused great sympathy in the girl. During a reconnaissance mission, Lisa was sent through the swamp for help, but was in too much of a hurry and drowned. After some time, Vaskov will find her skirt in the swamp, then he will understand that he is left without help.
Komelkova Evgenia
Cheerful and beautiful red-haired girl. The Germans shot all members of her family; the merciless reprisal took place right before Zhenya’s eyes.
Her neighbor saved the girl from death. Burning with the desire to avenge the death of her relatives, Zhenya became an anti-aircraft gunner.
The girl’s attractive appearance and perky character made her the object of Colonel Luzhin’s advances, so the authorities, in order to interrupt the romance, redirected Zhenya to the women’s detachment, so she came under the command of Vaskov.
In reconnaissance, Zhenya twice showed fearlessness and heroism. She saved her commander when he was fighting a German. And then, exposing herself to bullets, she led the Germans away from the place where the foreman and her wounded friend Rita hid.
Chetvertak Galina
A very young and sensitive girl, she was short in stature and had a habit of making up stories and fables.
She grew up in an orphanage and didn’t even have her own last name. Because of her small stature, the elderly caretaker, who treated Gala in a friendly manner, came up with her surname Chetvertak.
Before being called up, the girl almost managed to complete 3 years of library college. During a reconnaissance operation, Galya was unable to cope with fear and jumped out of cover, falling under German bullets.
Osyanina Margarita
The senior person in the platoon, Rita was distinguished by her seriousness, was very reserved and rarely smiled. As a girl, she bore the surname Mushtakov.
At the very beginning of the war, her husband, Lieutenant Osyanin, died. Wanting to avenge the death of her loved one, Rita went to the front.
She gave her only son, Albert, to be raised by her mother. Rita's death was the last of five girls in intelligence. She shot herself, realizing that she was mortally wounded and was an unbearable burden for her commander Vaskov.
Before her death, she asked the foreman to take care of Albert. And he kept his promise.
Other characters in “The Dawns Here Are Quiet”
Kiryanova
She was Rita's senior comrade in the industrial platoon. Before serving on the border, she took part in the Finnish War. Kiryanova, along with Rita, Zhenya Komelkova and Galya Chetvertak, were redirected to the 171st crossing.
Knowing about Rita’s secret attacks on her son and mother during her service with Vaskov, she did not betray her long-time colleague, interceding for her that morning when the girl met the Germans in the forest.
A brief retelling of the story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet”
The events of the story are greatly abbreviated. Dialogue and descriptive moments are omitted.
Chapter 1
The action took place in the rear. At the inactive railway siding at number 171, there are only a few surviving houses. There were no more bombings, but as a precaution, the command left anti-aircraft installations here.
Compared to other parts of the front, there was a resort at the junction, the soldiers abused alcohol and flirted with local residents.
Weekly reports from the commandant of the patrol, Sergeant Major Vaskov Fedot Evgrafych, on the anti-aircraft gunners led to regular changes in personnel, but the picture was repeated again and again. Finally, after analyzing the current situation, the command sent a team of female anti-aircraft gunners under the leadership of the foreman.
The new squad had no problems with drinking and revelry, but for Fedot Evgrafych it was unusual to command a female, cocky and trained squad, since he himself had only 4 years of education.
Chapter 2
The death of her husband made Margarita Osyanina a stern and withdrawn person. From the moment of the loss of her beloved, the desire for revenge burned in her heart, so she remained to serve on the border near the places where Osyanin died.
To replace the deceased carrier, they sent Komelkova Evgenia, a mischievous red-haired beauty. She also suffered from the Nazis - she had to see with her own eyes the execution of all family members by the Germans. Two dissimilar girls became friends and Rita’s heart began to thaw from the grief she had experienced, thanks to Zhenya’s cheerful and open disposition.
Two girls accepted the shy Galya Chetvertak into their circle. When Rita finds out that she can transfer to the 171st crossing, she immediately agrees, since her son and mother live very close by.
All three anti-aircraft gunners come under the command of Vaskov and Rita, with the help of her friends, makes regular night trips to her relatives.
Chapter 3
Returning in the morning after one of her secret forays, Rita encountered two German soldiers in the forest. They were armed and carried something heavy in bags.
Rita immediately reported this to Vaskov, who guessed that these were saboteurs whose goal was to undermine a strategically important railway junction.
The sergeant major conveyed important information to the command over the phone and received orders to comb the forest. He decided to go to Lake Vop a short way across the Germans.
Fedot Evgrafych took five girls with him, led by Rita, on reconnaissance. These were Elizaveta Brichkina, Evgenia Komelkova, Galina Chetvertak and Sonya Gurvich as a translator.
Before sending, the soldiers had to be taught how to put on proper shoes so as not to wear out their feet, and also forced to clean their rifles. The conditioned danger signal was the quack of a drake.
Chapter 4
The shortest path to the forest lake was through a marshy swamp. For almost half a day the team had to walk waist-deep in cold swamp slush. Galya Chetvertak lost her boot and footcloth, and part of the way through the swamp she had to walk barefoot.
Having reached the shore, the whole team was able to rest, wash dirty clothes and have a snack. To continue the campaign, Vaskov made a birch bark chunya for Gali. We reached the desired point only in the evening; here it was necessary to set up an ambush.
Chapter 5
When planning a meeting with two fascist soldiers, Vaskov was not very worried and hoped that he would be able to capture them from the forward position, which he placed among the stones. However, in case of an unforeseen event, the foreman provided for the possibility of retreat.
The night passed peacefully, only the fighter Chetvertak became very ill, walking barefoot through the swamp. In the morning, the Germans reached the Sinyukhin ridge between the lakes; the enemy detachment consisted of sixteen people.
Chapter 6
Realizing that he had miscalculated and that he could not stop the large German detachment, Vaskov sent Elizaveta Brichkina for help. He chose Lisa because she grew up in nature and knew her way around the forest very well.
To detain the Nazis, the team decided to depict the noisy activity of lumberjacks. They lit fires, Vaskov cut down trees, the girls shouted and called to each other merrily. When the German detachment was 10 meters away from them, Zhenya ran straight to the river in order to distract the attention of enemy scouts by swimming.
Their plan worked, the Germans took a detour, and the team managed to gain a whole day of time.
Chapter 7
Lisa was in a hurry for help. Having not followed the foreman’s instructions about a pass on an island in the middle of the swamp, she, tired and cold, continued on her way.
Having almost reached the end of the swamp, Lisa became thoughtful and was very frightened by a large bubble that swelled right in front of her in the dead silence of the swamp.
Instinctively, the girl rushed to the side and lost support under her feet. The pole that Lisa was trying to lean on broke. The last thing she saw before her death was the rays of the rising sun.
Chapter 8
The foreman did not know exactly about the trajectory of the Germans, so he decided to go on reconnaissance with Rita. They found a halt, 12 fascists were resting near a fire and drying clothes. It was not possible to establish where the other four were.
Vaskov decides to change his location, and therefore sends Rita to fetch the girls and at the same time asks to bring his personalized pouch. But in the confusion, the pouch was forgotten in its old place, and Sonya Gurvich, without waiting for the commander’s permission, ran to get the expensive item.
After a short time, the sergeant major heard a barely audible scream. As a seasoned fighter, he guessed what this cry meant. Together with Zhenya, they went in the direction of the sound and found the body of Sonya, killed by two stabs in the chest.
Chapter 9
Leaving Sonya, the foreman and Zhenya set off in pursuit of the fascists so that they would not have time to report the incident to their own. Rage helps the sergeant major clearly think through a plan of action.
Vaskov quickly killed one of the Germans; Zhenya helped him deal with the second, stunning the Fritz in the head with a rifle butt. This was the first hand-to-hand combat for the girl, which she endured very hard.
Vaskov found his pouch in the pocket of one of the Fritzes. The entire team of anti-aircraft gunners, led by the foreman, gathered near Sonya. The body of a colleague was buried with dignity.
Chapter 10
Making their way through the forest, Vaskov’s team unexpectedly ran into the Germans. In a split second, the sergeant-major threw a grenade forward, and machine-gun bursts began to crackle. Not knowing the enemy's strength, the Nazis decided to retreat.
During the short battle, Galya Chetvertak was unable to overcome her fear and did not participate in the shooting. For this behavior, the girls wanted to condemn her at a Komsomol meeting, however, the commander stood up for the confused anti-aircraft gunner.
Despite extreme fatigue, perplexed about the reasons for the delay in help, the foreman goes on reconnaissance, taking Galina with him for educational purposes.
Chapter 11
Galya was very frightened by the real events that were taking place. A dreamer and writer, she often immersed herself in a fictional world, and therefore the picture of a real war unsettled her.
Vaskov and Chetvertak soon discovered two bodies of German soldiers. By all indications, the soldiers wounded in the firefight were finished off by their own comrades. Not far from this place, the remaining 12 Fritz continued reconnaissance, two of whom had already come very close to Fedot and Gala.
The sergeant-major reliably hid Galina behind the bushes and hid himself in the rocks, but the girl could not cope with her feelings and jumped out of the shelter screaming right into the machine-gun fire of the Germans. Vaskov began to lead the Germans away from his remaining fighters and ran to the swamp, where he took refuge.
During the chase, he was wounded in the arm. When dawn broke, the sergeant-major saw Liza’s skirt in the distance, then he realized that now he could not count on help.
Chapter 12
Being under the weight of heavy thoughts, the foreman went in search of the Germans. Trying to understand the enemy’s train of thought and examining traces, he came across the Legonta monastery. From a hiding place, he watched as a group of 12 fascists hid explosives in an old hut.
The saboteurs left two soldiers for security, one of whom was wounded. Vaskov managed to neutralize a healthy guard and take possession of his weapon.
The foreman, Rita and Zhenya met on the river bank, in the place where they pretended to be lumberjacks. Having gone through terrible trials, they began to treat each other like brothers. After a halt, they began to prepare for the last battle.
Chapter 13
Vaskov’s team held the defense of the shore as if the entire Motherland was behind them. But the forces were unequal, and the Germans still managed to cross to their shore. Rita was seriously wounded by a grenade explosion.
To save the foreman and her wounded friend, Zhenya, firing back, ran further into the forest, taking the saboteurs with her. The girl was wounded in the side by a blind shot from the enemy, but she didn’t even think about hiding and waiting out.
Already lying in the grass, Zhenya fired until the Germans shot her at point-blank range.
Chapter 14
Fedot Evgrafych, having bandaged Rita and covered her with spruce paws, wanted to go in search of Zhenya and her things. For peace of mind, he decided to leave her a revolver with two cartridges.
Rita understood that she was mortally wounded; she was only afraid that her son would remain an orphan. Therefore, she asked the foreman to take care of Albert, saying that it was from him and her mother that she was returning that morning when she encountered German soldiers.
Vaskov made such a promise, but did not have time to move a few steps away from Rita when the girl shot herself in the temple.
The foreman buried Rita, and then found and buried Zhenya. The wounded arm ached greatly, the whole body burned from pain and tension, but Vaskov decided to go to the monastery to kill at least one more German. He managed to neutralize the sentry; five Fritz were sleeping in the monastery, one of whom he shot immediately.
Having forced them to tie each other up, barely alive, he led them into captivity. Only when Vaskov saw the Russian soldiers did he allow himself to lose consciousness.
Epilogue
Some time after the war, in a letter to his comrade, one tourist describes the amazing quiet places in the area of \u200b\u200bthe two lakes. In the text, he also mentions an old man without an arm, who came here with his son Albert Fedotich, a rocket captain.
Subsequently, this tourist, together with his new comrades, installed a marble slab with the names on the grave of the female anti-aircraft gunners.
Conclusion
A poignant story about female heroism during the Great Patriotic War leaves an indelible mark on hearts. The author repeatedly emphasizes in his narrative the unnatural nature of women's participation in hostilities, and the blame for this lies with the one who started the war.
In 1972, director Stanislav Rostotsky made a film based on the story. He dedicated it to the nurse who carried him away from the battlefield, saving him from certain death.
© B. L. Vasiliev, heirs, 2017
© AST Publishing House LLC, 2017
And the dawns here are quiet...
1
At the 171st siding, twelve courtyards, a fire shed and a squat, long warehouse, built at the beginning of the century from fitted boulders, survived. During the last bombing, the water tower collapsed and trains stopped stopping here. The Germans stopped the raids, but circled over the junction every day, and the command kept two anti-aircraft quadruples there, just in case.
It was May 1942. In the west (on damp nights the heavy roar of artillery could be heard from there), both sides, having dug two meters into the ground, were finally stuck in trench warfare; in the east, the Germans bombed the canal and the Murmansk road day and night; in the north there was a fierce struggle for sea routes; in the south, besieged Leningrad continued its stubborn struggle.
And here was a resort. The silence and idleness made the soldiers thrilled, as if in a steam room, and in twelve courtyards there were still enough young women and widows who knew how to extract moonshine almost from the squeak of a mosquito. For three days the soldiers slept and looked closely; on the fourth, someone’s name day began, and the sticky smell of local pervach no longer evaporated over the crossing.
The commandant of the patrol, the gloomy foreman Vaskov, wrote reports on command. When their number reached a dozen, the authorities gave Vaskov another reprimand and replaced the half-platoon, swollen with joy. For a week after this, the commandant somehow managed on his own, and then everything was repeated at first so precisely that the foreman eventually got around to rewriting the previous reports, changing only the numbers and surnames.
- You're doing nonsense! - thundered the major who arrived according to the latest reports. - The writings were swindled. Not a commandant, but some kind of writer!
“Send in the non-drinkers,” Vaskov stubbornly insisted: he was afraid of any loud-mouthed boss, but he talked his way through like a sexton. - Non-drinkers and this... So, that means about the female gender.
- Eunuchs, or what?
“The authorities know best,” the foreman said cautiously.
“Okay, Vaskov,” the major said, inflamed by his own severity. - There will be non-drinkers for you. And as for women, it will be as it should be. But look, sergeant major, if you can’t cope with them either...
“That’s right,” the commandant agreed woodenly.
The major took away the anti-aircraft gunners who could not stand the test, and in parting he once again promised Vaskov that he would send those who would turn up their noses at skirts and moonshine more vividly than the foreman himself. However, it was not easy to fulfill this promise, since not a single person arrived in two weeks.
“It’s a complicated question,” the apartment foreman explained to his landlady, Maria Nikiforovna. – Two departments are almost twenty people who don’t drink. Shake up the front, and I doubt it...
His fears, however, turned out to be unfounded, since already in the morning the owner reported that the anti-aircraft gunners had arrived. There was something harmful in her tone, but the sergeant-major couldn’t figure it out from his sleep, but asked about what was troubling him:
- Have you arrived with the commander?
- It doesn’t look like it, Fedot Evgrafych.
- God bless! – The foreman was jealous of his commandant position. – Power to share is nothing worse.
“Wait to rejoice,” the hostess smiled mysteriously.
“We will be happy after the war,” Fedot Evgrafovich said reasonably, put on his cap and went out into the street.
And he was taken aback: in front of the house there were two lines of sleepy girls. The sergeant major decided that he was imagining sleep and blinked, but the soldiers’ tunics were still sticking out smartly in places not provided for by the soldier’s regulations, and curls of all colors and styles impudently climbed out from under their caps.
“Comrade sergeant major, the first and second squads of the third platoon of the fifth company of a separate anti-aircraft machine gun battalion have arrived at your disposal to guard the facility,” the eldest reported in a dull voice. – Sergeant Kiryanova reports to the platoon commander.
“So-so,” said the foreman, not at all according to the regulations. - So we found non-drinkers...
He spent the whole day hammering with an ax: building bunks in the fire shed, since the anti-aircraft gunners did not agree to stay with their mistresses. The girls carried the boards, held them where they ordered, and chattered like magpies. The foreman gloomily remained silent: he was afraid for his authority.
“Out of favor, without a word from me,” he announced when everything was ready.
- Even for berries? – the plump one timidly asked: Vaskov had long noticed her as the most intelligent assistant.
“There are no berries yet,” he said. - Maybe cranberries.
– Can sorrel be collected? – Kiryanova asked. “It’s difficult for us without welding, Comrade Sergeant Major.” We're growing thin.
Fedot Evgrafych looked doubtfully at the tightly stretched tunics, but allowed:
There was a moment of grace at the crossing, but this did not make it any easier for the commandant. The anti-aircraft gunners turned out to be noisy and quarrelsome girls, and the foreman felt every second as if he were visiting his own home: he was afraid to blurt out the wrong thing, to do the wrong thing, and there was now no question of entering somewhere without knocking, and if he When he forgot about it, the signal screech immediately threw him back to his previous position. But most of all, Fedot Evgrafych was afraid of hints and jokes about possible courtship and therefore always walked around staring at the ground, as if lost. monetary allowance behind last month.
“Don’t worry, Fedot Evgrafych,” said the hostess, having observed his communication with his subordinates. “They call you an old man among themselves, so look at them accordingly.”
Fedot Evgrafovich turned thirty-two this spring, and he did not agree to consider himself an old man. On reflection, he came to the conclusion that all these words were only measures taken by the hostess to strengthen her own positions: she had melted the ice of the commandant’s heart one spring night and now, naturally, sought to strengthen herself on the conquered lines.
At night, the anti-aircraft gunners excitedly fired from all eight barrels at passing German planes, and during the day they did endless laundry: some rags were always drying around the fire shed. The sergeant-major considered such decorations inappropriate and briefly informed Sergeant Kiryanov about this:
- Unmasking.
“And there is an order,” she said without thinking.
-What order?
- Corresponding. It states that female military personnel are allowed to dry clothes on all fronts.
The commandant said nothing: screw them, these girls! Just get in touch and they’ll be giggling until the fall...
The days were warm, windless, and there were so many mosquitoes that you couldn’t even take a step without a twig. But the twig was nothing, it was still quite acceptable for a military man, but the fact that soon the commandant began wheezing and coughing at every corner, as if he really was an old man - that was completely out of place.
And it all started when, on a hot May day, he turned behind the warehouse and froze: a body so fiercely white, so tight, and even multiplied eightfold, splashed into his eyes that Vaskov was already in a fever: the entire first squad, led by the commander, junior sergeant Osyanina sunbathed on a government-issued tarpaulin in what my mother gave birth to. And at least they would have screamed, perhaps, for the sake of decency, but no: they buried their noses in the tarpaulin, hid, and Fedot Evgrafych had to back away, like a boy from someone else’s garden. From that day on, he began coughing at every corner, like he had whooping cough.
And he singled out this Osyanina even earlier: strict. He never laughs, he just moves his lips a little, but his eyes remain serious. Osyanina was strange, and therefore Fedot Evgrafych carefully made inquiries through his mistress, although he understood that this assignment was not at all for her joy.
“She’s a widow,” Maria Nikiforovna reported, pursing her lips a day later. - So it’s completely in the female rank: you can play games.
The foreman remained silent: you still can’t prove it to the woman. He took an ax and went into the yard: there is no better time for thoughts than to chop wood. But a lot of thoughts had accumulated, and they had to be brought into line.
Well, first of all, of course, discipline. Okay, the soldiers don’t drink, they don’t treat the residents nicely - that’s all true. And inside there is a mess: “Luda, Vera, Katenka - on guard! Katya is a breeder.”
Is this a team? The deployment of guards must be done to the fullest extent possible, according to the regulations. And this is a complete mockery, it must be destroyed, but how? He tried to talk about this with the eldest, Kiryanova, but she had only one answer:
- And we have permission, Comrade Sergeant Major. From the commander. Personally.
The devils are laughing...
- Are you trying, Fedot Evgrafych?
I turned around: my neighbor was looking into the yard, Polina Egorova. The most dissolute of the entire population: she celebrated her name day four times last month.
– Don’t bother too much, Fedot Evgrafych. Now you are the only one left with us, sort of like a tribe.
Laughs. And the collar is not fastened: she dumped the delights onto the fence like buns from the oven.
- Now you will walk around the yards like a shepherd. A week in one yard, a week in another. This is the agreement we women have about you.
- You, Polina Egorova, have a conscience. Are you a soldier or a lady? So behave accordingly.
- War, Evgrafych, will write off everything. And from soldiers and soldiers.
What a loop! It would be necessary to evict, but how? Where are they, the civil authorities? But she is not subordinate to him: he ventilated this issue with the loudmouth major.
Yes, it has gained about two cubic meters, no less. And each thought needs to be dealt with in a completely special way. Quite special.
Still, it’s a big hindrance that he is a man with almost no education. Well, he knows how to write and read and knows arithmetic within four grades, because right at the end of this fourth grade the bear broke his father. These girls would laugh if they found out about the bear. Well, this is necessary: not from gases to the world, not from a blade to a civilian, not from a kulak sawed-off shotgun, not even by his own death - the bear broke. They must have only seen this bear in menageries...
You, Fedot Vaskov, crawled out of a dark corner to become a commandant. And they - don’t look at them as ordinary people - are science. “Lead, quadrant, drift angle...” There are seven classes, or even all nine: you can see from the conversation. Subtract four from nine and five remains. It turns out that he is further behind them than he is...
The thoughts were gloomy, and this made Vaskov chop wood with particular fury. Who's to blame? Unless that impolite bear...
It’s a strange thing: before that, he considered his life lucky. Well, it’s not like it was exactly twenty-one, but there was no point in complaining. Still, he graduated from the regimental school with his incomplete four classes and ten years later rose to the rank of sergeant major. There was no damage along this line, but from other ends, it happened that fate surrounded it with flags and hit it twice right at point-blank range with all the guns, but Fedot Evgrafych still stood. Resisted...
Shortly before the Finnish one, he married a nurse from the garrison hospital. I came across a living woman: she would all sing and dance and drink wine. However, she gave birth to a boy. They called Igor: Igor Fedotich Vaskov. Then the Finnish war began, Vaskov left for the front, and when he returned back with two medals, he was shocked for the first time: while he was dying there in the snow, his wife ended up having an affair with the regimental veterinarian and left for the southern regions. Fedot Evgrafych divorced her immediately, demanded the boy through the court and sent him to his mother in the village. And a year later his little boy died, and from then on Vaskov smiled only three times: at the general who presented him with the order, at the surgeon who pulled out the shrapnel from his shoulder, and at his owner Maria Nikiforovna - for her cleverness.
It was for this fragment that he received his current post. There was some property left in the warehouse; they didn’t post sentries, but having established a commandant’s position, they entrusted him with guarding that warehouse. Three times a day, the foreman walked around the facility, tried the locks, seals, and in the book that he himself kept, he made the same entry: “The facility has been inspected. There are no violations." And inspection time, of course.
Sergeant Major Vaskov served calmly. Almost to this day it is calm. And now…
The sergeant major sighed.
2
Of all the pre-war events, Rita Mushtakova remembered most clearly a school evening: a meeting with the border guard heroes. And although Karatsupa was not at that evening, and the dog’s name was not Hindu, Rita remembered it as if that evening had just ended and the shy lieutenant Osyanin was still walking nearby along the echoing wooden sidewalks of the small border town. The lieutenant was not yet any hero; he became part of the delegation by accident and was terribly shy.
Rita, too, was not one of the lively ones: she sat in the hall, did not participate in greetings or amateur performances, and would rather have agreed to fall through all the floors to the rat cellar than to be the first to speak with any of the guests under thirty. It’s just that he and Lieutenant Osyanin happened to be next to each other and sat, afraid to move and looking straight ahead. And then the school entertainers organized a game, and they got to be together again. And then there was a general phantom: to dance a waltz, and they danced. And then they stood at the window. And then... Yes, then he went to see her off.
And Rita cheated terribly: she took him the farthest road. But he was still silent and just smoked, each time timidly asking her permission. And from this timidity, Rita’s heart fell straight into her knees.
They didn’t even say goodbye by hand: they simply nodded to each other, and that’s all. The lieutenant went to the outpost and wrote her a very short letter every Saturday. And every Sunday she answered with long answers. This continued until the summer: in June he came to the town for three days, said that there was trouble at the border, that there would be no more vacations and therefore they needed to immediately go to the registry office. Rita was not at all surprised, but there were bureaucrats at the registry office and refused to register the marriage, because she was five and a half months away from turning eighteen. But they went to the city commandant, and from him to her parents, and still achieved their goal.
Rita was the first of their class to get married. And not for anyone, but for the red commander, and even the border guard. And there simply could not have been a happier girl in the world.
At the outpost she was immediately elected to the women's council and enrolled in all the circles. Rita learned to bandage the wounded and shoot from all types of weapons, ride a horse, throw grenades and protect against gases. A year later she gave birth to a boy (they named him Albert, Alik), and a year later the war began.
On that first day, she was one of the few who was not confused and did not panic. She was generally calm and reasonable, but then her calmness was explained simply: Rita sent Alik to her parents back in May and therefore could save other people’s children.
The outpost held out for seventeen days. Day and night, Rita heard distant shooting. The outpost lived, and with it lived the hope that her husband was safe, that the border guards would hold out until the army units arrived and, together with them, would return blow for blow - at the outpost they loved to sing: “The night came, and darkness hid the border, but no one will cross over, and we will not allow the enemy to stick his snout into our Soviet garden...” But days passed, and there was no help, and on the seventeenth day the outpost fell silent.
They wanted to send Rita to the rear, but she asked to go into battle. They drove her away, forced her into heated vehicles, but the persistent wife of the deputy head of the outpost, senior lieutenant Osyanin, appeared again at the fortified area headquarters every other day. In the end, she was hired as a nurse, and six months later she was sent to the regimental anti-aircraft school.
And senior lieutenant Osyanin died on the second day of the war in a morning counterattack. Rita found out about this already in July, when a border guard sergeant miraculously broke through from the fallen outpost.
The authorities valued the unsmiling widow of the hero-border guard: she noted it in orders, set it as an example, and therefore respected her personal request - to be sent, after graduating from school, to the site where the outpost stood, where her husband died in a fierce bayonet battle. The front here backed down a little: it caught on the lakes, covered itself with forests, climbed into the ground and froze somewhere between the former outpost and the town where Lieutenant Osyanin once met a student of the ninth “A”...
Now Rita could consider herself satisfied: she had achieved what she wanted. Even the death of her husband faded into the farthest corner of her memory: Rita had work, responsibilities and very real goals for hatred. And she learned to hate quietly and mercilessly, and although her crew had not yet managed to shoot down an enemy plane, she still managed to flash a German balloon. It flared up and shrank: the spotter threw himself out of the basket and flew down like a stone.
- Shoot, Rita! Shoot! - the anti-aircraft gunners shouted. And Rita waited, keeping her crosshairs fixed on the falling point. But when the German pulled the ring just before the ground, throwing out the parachute, she smoothly pressed the trigger. A burst of four guns completely cut the black figure, the girls, screaming with delight, kissed her, and she smiled with a pasted-on smile. She was shaking all night. Platoon commander Kiryanova gave her tea and consoled her:
- It will pass, Ritukha. When I killed the first one, I almost died, by God. I dreamed about a month, bastard...
Kiryanova was a fighting girl: even in Finnish she crawled with an ambulance bag for more than one kilometer of the front line, she had an order. Rita respected her for her character, but did not become particularly close to her.
However, Rita generally kept herself apart: in her department there were entirely Komsomol girls. Not that younger, no: just green. They knew neither love, nor motherhood, nor grief, nor joy; They chatted excitedly about lieutenants and kisses, and now Rita was irritated by this.
- Sleep! – she said briefly, after listening to another confession. “If I hear more about nonsense, I’ll have enough time for hours.”
“In vain, Ritukha,” Kiryanova lazily reproached. - Let them chatter to themselves: it’s interesting.
- Let them fall in love - I won’t say a word. And so, licking in the corners - I don’t understand this.
“Show me an example,” Kiryanova grinned. And Rita immediately fell silent. She could not even imagine that this could ever happen: men did not exist for her. One was a man - the one who led the bayonet into the thinned outpost at the second dawn of the war. A vein tied with a belt. Tightened to the very last hole.
Before May, the crew had a hard time: they fought for two hours with the nimble Messers. The Germans came out of the sun, dived on all fours, pouring fire heavily. They killed the carrier - a snub-nosed, ugly, fat woman who always chewed something in secret - and lightly wounded two more. The unit commissioner arrived at the funeral, the girls roared loudly. They gave a fireworks over the grave, and then the commissioner called Rita aside:
– The department needs to be replenished.
Rita remained silent.
– You have a healthy team, Margarita Stepanovna. A woman at the front, you know, is an object, so to speak, of close attention. And there are cases when they can’t stand it.
Rita remained silent again. The commissioner stomped around, lit a cigarette, and said in a muffled voice:
- One of the staff commanders - a family one, by the way - got himself, so to speak, a girlfriend. A member of the Military Council, having recognized the colonel, took him into account, and ordered me to put this friend to work, so to speak. In a good team.
“Come on,” said Rita.
The next morning I saw her and fell in love: tall, red-haired, white-skinned. And the eyes are children's: green, round, like saucers.
– Fighter Evgeniy Komelkov is at your disposal...
That day was a bathing day, and when their time came, the girls in the dressing room looked at the new girl as if it were a miracle:
- Zhenya, you are a mermaid!
– Zhenya, your skin is transparent!
- Zhenya, you can only sculpt a sculpture!
- Zhenya, you can walk without a bra!
- Oh, Zhenya, you need to go to the museum! Under glass on black velvet...
“Unhappy woman,” Kiryanova sighed. “Packing such a figure in uniform would make it easier to die.”
“Beautiful,” Rita corrected carefully. – Beautiful people are rarely happy.
-Are you referring to yourself? – Kiryanova smiled.
And Rita fell silent: no, her friendship with the platoon commander Kiryanova did not work out. She never came out.
And she went out with Zhenya. Somehow, by itself, without preparation, without probing: Rita took it and told her her life. Partly I wanted to reproach, and partly I wanted to show and brag as an example. And Zhenya in response did not feel sorry or sympathize. She said briefly:
- So, you also have a personal account.
It was said that Rita - although she knew about the colonel thoroughly - asked:
- And you too?
- And I’m alone now. Mom, sister, brother - they all were killed with a machine gun.
- Was there shelling?
- Execution. The families of the command staff were captured and subjected to machine gun fire. And the Estonian woman hid me in the house opposite, and I saw everything. All! My little sister was the last to fall: they were deliberately finishing off...
- Listen, Zhenya, what about the colonel? – Rita asked in a whisper. - How could you, Zhenya?
- But I could! – Zhenya shook her red hair defiantly. – Will you start teaching now or after lights out?
Zhenya’s fate crossed out Rita’s exclusivity, and - strange thing! “Rita seemed to have thawed a little, as if she had trembled somewhere, softened. She even laughed sometimes, even sang songs with the girls, but of course she was only alone with Zhenya.
Red-haired Komelkova, despite all the tragedies, was extremely sociable and mischievous. Either for the amusement of the whole department he will drive some lieutenant to the point of numbness, then during a break he will dance a gypsy girl according to all the rules to the girl’s “la-la”, then suddenly he will start telling a novel - you will listen to him.
– You should go on stage, Zhenya! – Kiryanova sighed. - Such a woman is disappearing!
And so Ritino’s carefully guarded loneliness ended: Zhenya shook everything up. There was only one little girl in their department, Galya Chetvertak. Thin, pointed-nosed, tow braids and a flat chest, like a boy’s. Zhenya scrubbed her in the bathhouse, styled her hair, adjusted her tunic - Jackdaw Chetvertak blossomed. And the eyes suddenly sparkled, and a smile appeared, and the breasts grew like mushrooms. And since this Galka did not leave a single step from Zhenka, the three of them now became: Rita, Zhenka and Galka.
The news of the transfer from the front line to the site of the anti-aircraft gunners was met with hostility. Only Rita remained silent, ran to headquarters, looked at the map, asked questions and said:
- Send my squad.
The girls were surprised, Zhenya started a riot, but the next morning she suddenly changed: she began to agitate for leaving. Why, why, no one understood, but they fell silent: that means it was necessary, - they believed Zhenya. The conversations immediately died down and people began to gather. And when they arrived at the 171st crossing, Rita, Zhenya and Galka suddenly began drinking tea without sugar.
Three nights later, Rita disappeared from the location. She slipped out of the fire shed, crossed the siding like a shadow and melted into the alder thicket wet with dew. I walked along a dead forest road onto the highway and stopped the first truck.
– Are you going far, beauty? - asked the mustachioed foreman: at night cars went to the rear for supplies, and they were accompanied by people far from the combat and regulations.
– Can you give me a lift to the city?
Hands were already reaching out of the car. Without waiting for permission, Rita stood on the wheel and instantly found herself at the top. They sat me down on a tarpaulin and threw on a padded jacket.
- Take a nap, girl, for an hour.
And in the morning I was there.
- Lida, Raya, get dressed!
No one saw, but Kiryanova found out: they reported. She didn’t say anything, she just smiled:
- I got someone, proud girl. Let her maybe thaw.
And not a word to Vaskov. However, none of the girls was afraid of Vaskov, and Rita least of all. Well, a mossy stump is wandering around the crossing: there are twenty words in stock, and those are from the regulations. Who will take him seriously?
But uniform is uniform, especially in the army. And this form demanded that no one except Zhenya and Galka Chetvertak know about Rita’s night travels.
Sugar, biscuits, millet concentrate, and sometimes cans of stewed meat migrated to the town. Crazy with luck, Rita ran there two or three nights a week: she turned black and haggard. Zhenya hissed reproachfully in her ear:
- You went too far, mother! If you run into a patrol or the commander becomes interested, you will burn.
- Shut up, Zhenya, I’m lucky!
Her eyes are shining with happiness: can you really talk to someone like that seriously? Zhenya just got upset:
- Oh, look, Ritka!
Rita quickly guessed from her glances and grins that Kiryanova knew about her travels. Those grins burned her, as if she was really betraying her senior lieutenant. She darkened, wanted to answer, to pull her back, but Zhenya didn’t give it. She grabbed hold of her and dragged her to the side.
- Let him, Rita, let him think what he wants!
Rita came to her senses: right. Let her make up any dirt, as long as she keeps quiet, doesn’t interfere, and doesn’t inform Vaskov. He'll bore you, he'll grind you down - you won't see the light. An example was: the foreman caught two girlfriends from the second squad across the river. For four hours - from lunch to dinner - I read morals: I quoted the regulations by heart, instructions, instructions. He brought the girls to tears a third time: let alone across the river, they swore off leaving the yard.
But Kiryanova was silent for now.
There were windless white nights. The long twilight, from dawn to dusk, breathed with a thick infusion of pouring herbs, and the anti-aircraft gunners sang songs near the fire shed until the second roosters. Rita now hid only from Vaskov, disappeared after two nights on the third shortly after dinner and returned before getting up.
Rita loved these returns most of all. The danger of being caught by the patrol was already over, and now you could calmly splash with your bare feet in the painfully cold dew, throwing your boots tied with eyelets behind your back. Spank and think about the date, about the mother's complaints and about the next AWOL. And because she could plan the next date herself, without depending or almost not depending on the will of others, Rita was happy.
But the war was going on, disposing of human lives at its own discretion, and the destinies of people were intertwined in a bizarre and incomprehensible way. And, deceiving the commandant of the quiet 171st patrol, junior sergeant Margarita Osyanina did not even know that the directive of the imperial SD service No. C219/702 with the stamp “FOR COMMAND ONLY” had already been signed and accepted for execution.
It tells the story of the fates of five female anti-aircraft gunners and their commander during the Second World War.
History of creation
According to the author, the story is based on a real episode during the war, when seven soldiers, after being wounded, serving at one of the junction stations of the Petrozavodsk-Murmansk railway, did not allow a German sabotage group to blow up the railway in this section. After the battle, only the sergeant, the commander of a group of Soviet soldiers, survived, and after the war he was awarded the medal “For Military Merit.” “And I thought: this is it! A situation when a person himself, without any order, decides: I won’t let you in! They have nothing to do here! I started working on this plot and have already written about seven pages. And suddenly I realized that nothing would work. This will simply be a special case in war. There was nothing fundamentally new in this plot. Work stopped. And then I suddenly came up with the idea - let my hero’s subordinates be not men, but young girls. And that’s it - the story immediately lined up. Women have the hardest time in war. There were 300 thousand of them at the front! And then no one wrote about them.”
Plot
Basic storyline The story is a reconnaissance campaign of the heroes of the work. It is during the campaign that the characters’ characters get to know each other, heroism and love feelings appear.
Characters
Fedot Vaskov
Fedot Vaskov was already in the Finnish War, and now he is protecting the rear of the Soviet troops. He is the commandant of the patrol, to whom, after lengthy requests to send soldiers who don’t drink and don’t party, they sent very young girls who had barely crossed the school threshold.
Vaskov is the only survivor of his entire squad, but he lost his arm due to an infection in the wound he received.
There is no direct indication in the book that Vaskov serves in air defense. Anti-aircraft gunners were sent to the site to protect against air raids. During the Winter War, Vaskov was a scout.
Zhenya Komelkova
A very beautiful red-haired girl, the other heroines were amazed at her beauty. Tall, slender, with fair skin. When the Germans captured Zhenya’s village, an Estonian woman managed to hide Zhenya herself. In front of the girl's eyes, the Nazis shot her mother, sister and brother.
In Vaskov's platoon, Zhenya showed artistry; but there was also enough room for heroism - it was she who, calling fire on herself, led the Germans away from Rita and Vaskov. She saves Vaskov when he fights the second German who killed Sonya Gurvich. The Germans first wounded and then shot her at point-blank range.
In the film, the role of Komelkova was played by actress Olga Ostroumova.
Rita Osyanina
Rita Mushtakova was the first in her class to marry Lieutenant Osyanin, with whom she gave birth to a son, Igor. Rita's husband died during a counterattack on June 23, 1941.
In Vaskov's platoon, Rita became friends with Zhenya Komelkova and Galya Chetvertak. She died last, putting a bullet in her temple and thereby saving Fedot Vaskov. Before her death, she asked him to take care of her son.
Lisa Brichkina
Liza Brichkina is a simple village girl who is under pressure from her father. At the same time, a hunter-traveler comes to their house, with whom Lisa falls in love. But not having mutual feelings for Lisa, and seeing at the same time the conditions in which the girl is growing up, he invites her to come to the capital and enroll in a technical school. But Lisa never managed to become a student - the war began.
Lisa drowned in a swamp while carrying out an assignment for Sergeant Major Vaskov, for whom she had loving feelings.
Galya Chetvertak
Galya grew up in an orphanage. It was there that she received her nickname for her short stature.
During the battle with the Germans, Vaskov took Galya with him, but she, unable to withstand the nervous tension of waiting for the Germans, ran out of cover and was shot by the Nazis. Despite such a “ridiculous” death, the foreman told the girls that she died “in a shootout.”
Sonya Gurvich
Sonya Gurvich is a girl who grew up in a large Jewish family. She knew German and could have been a good translator, but there were many translators, so she was assigned to an anti-aircraft gunner (of which, in turn, there were few).
Sonya is the second victim of the Germans in Vaskov's platoon. She runs away from the others to find and return Vaskov’s pouch, and stumbles upon patrol saboteurs who killed Sonya with two stabs in the chest.
Film adaptations
The story was filmed in 1972, 2005 and 2008:
- "" - film directed by Stanislav Rostotsky (USSR, 1972).
- "" - film directed by Mao Weining (China, Russia, 2005).
- “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” - television series (Russia, 2008).
Theater productions
In addition, the story was staged in the theater:
- “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” - performance at the Moscow Taganka Theater, directed by Yuri Lyubimov (USSR, 1971);
- “And the dawns here are quiet” - opera by Kirill Molchanov (USSR, 1973).
- “And the dawns here are quiet” - performance by the Volzhsky Drama Theater, director Alexander Grishin (Russia, 2007).
- “And the dawns here are quiet” - a performance by the Borisoglebsk Drama Theater. N. G. Chernyshevsky (Russia, 2012).
Editions
- Boris Vasiliev, Karelia, 1975
- Boris Vasiliev, DOSAAF, Moscow, 1977
- Boris Vasiliev, Pravda, 1979
- Boris Vasiliev, Soviet writer. Moscow, 1977
- Boris Vasiliev, Daguchpedgiz, 1985
- Georgy Berezko, Boris Vasiliev, Truth , 1991
- Boris Vasiliev, 2010
- Boris Vasiliev, Eksmo, 2011
- Boris Vasiliev, Astrel, 2011
- Boris Vasiliev, AST, 2011
Boris Vasiliev's story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet...” was published in 1969. According to the author himself, the plot was based on real events. Vasiliev was inspired by the story of how seven soldiers stopped a German sabotage group, preventing it from blowing up a strategically important section of the Kirov railway. Only the sergeant was destined to survive. After writing a few pages of his new work, Vasiliev realized that the plot was not new. The story will simply not be noticed or appreciated. Then the author decided that the main characters should be young girls. It was not customary to write about women in the war in those years. Vasiliev's innovation allowed him to create a work that stood out sharply among his peers.
Boris Vasiliev's story has been filmed several times. One of the most original film adaptations was the Russian-Chinese project of 2005. In 2009, the film “Valor” was released in India based on the work of the Soviet writer.
The story takes place in May 1942. The main character Fedot Evgrafych Vaskov is serving at the 171st crossing somewhere in the Karelian outback. Vaskov is not satisfied with the behavior of his subordinates. Forced to remain idle, soldiers start drunken brawls out of boredom and enter into illicit relationships with local women. Fedot Evgrafych repeatedly appealed to his superiors with a request to send him non-drinking anti-aircraft gunners. In the end, a department of girls comes into Vaskov's hands.
It takes a long time for a trusting relationship to be established between the patrol commandant and the new anti-aircraft gunners. “Mossy Stump” is not capable of causing anything but irony in girls. Vaskov, not knowing how to behave with subordinates of the opposite sex, prefers rude and indifferent communication.
Soon after the squad of anti-aircraft gunners arrives, one of the girls notices two fascist saboteurs in the forest. Vaskov goes on a combat mission, taking with him a small group of fighters, which included Sonya Gurvich, Rita Osyanina, Galya Chetvertak, Lisa Brichkina and Zhenya Komelkova.
Fedot Evgrafych managed to stop the saboteurs. He returned alive from a combat mission alone.
Characteristics
Fedot Vaskov
Sergeant Major Vaskov is 32 years old. Several years ago his wife left him. The son whom Fedot Evgrafych was going to raise on his own died. The life of the main character gradually lost its meaning. He feels alone and doesn't belong to anyone the right person.
Vaskov's illiteracy prevents him from expressing his emotions correctly and beautifully. But even the foreman’s awkward and comical speech cannot hide his high spiritual qualities. He becomes truly attached to each of the girls in his squad, treating them like a caring, loving father. In front of the survivors Rita and Zhenya, Vaskov no longer hides his feelings.
Sonya Gurvich
The large and friendly Jewish family of Gurvich lived in Minsk. Sonya's father was a local doctor. Having entered Moscow University, Sonya met her love. However, the young people were never able to get higher education and start a family. Sonya's lover went to the front as a volunteer. The girl also followed his example.
Gurvich is distinguished by brilliant erudition. Sonya has always been an excellent student and is fluent in German language. The last circumstance became main reason, according to which Vaskov took Sonya on a mission. He needed a translator to communicate with captured saboteurs. But Sonya did not fulfill the mission determined by the foreman: she was killed by the Germans.
Rita Osyanina
Rita became a widow early, having lost her husband on the second day of the war. Leaving her son Albert with her parents, Rita sets out to avenge her husband. Osyanina, who has become the head of the anti-aircraft gunners’ department, asks her superiors to transfer her to the 171st crossing point, which is located near the small town where her relatives live. Now Rita has the opportunity to often be at home and bring groceries to her son.
Having been seriously wounded in her last battle, the young widow thinks only of the son her mother will have to raise. Osyanina makes Fedot Evgrafych promise to take care of Albert. Fearing being captured alive, Rita decides to shoot herself.
Galya Chetvertak
Chetvertak grew up in an orphanage, after which she entered a library technical school. Galya always seemed to float with the flow, not knowing exactly where and why she was going. The girl does not experience the hatred for the enemy that overcomes Rita Osyanina. She is not able to hate even her immediate offenders, preferring children's tears to adult aggression.
Galya constantly feels awkward, out of place. She has difficulty adapting to her environment. Friends in arms accuse Galya of cowardice. But the girl is not just afraid. She has a strong aversion to destruction and death. Galya unknowingly pushes herself to death in order to get rid of the horrors of war once and for all.
Lisa Brichkina
The forester's daughter Liza Brichkina became the only anti-aircraft gunner who fell in love with Sergeant Major Vaskov at first sight. A simple girl, who was unable to finish school due to her mother’s serious illness, noticed in Fedot Evgrafych your soul mate. The author speaks of his heroine as a person who spent most of her life waiting for happiness. However, the expectations were not met.
Liza Brichkina drowned while crossing the swamp, having gone on the orders of Sergeant Major Vaskov for reinforcements.
Zhenya Komelkova
The Komelkov family was shot by the Germans right in front of Zhenya a year before the events described. Despite the bereavement, the girl did not lose her liveliness of character. The thirst for life and love pushes Zhenya into the arms of the married Colonel Luzhin. Komelkova does not want to destroy the family. She is only afraid of not having time to receive its sweetest fruits from life.
Zhenya was never afraid of anything and was confident in herself. Even in the last battle, she does not believe that the next moment could be her last. It is simply impossible to die at 19 years old, being young and healthy.
The main idea of the story
Extraordinary circumstances do not change people. They only help reveal existing character traits. Each of the girls in Vaskov’s small squad continues to be themselves, adhere to their ideals and outlook on life.
Analysis of the work
Summary“And the dawns here are quiet...” (Vasiliev) can only reveal the essence of this work, profound in its tragedy. The author strives to show not just the death of several girls. In each of them the whole world perishes. Sergeant Major Vaskov observes not only the fading of young lives, he sees in these deaths the death of the future. None of the anti-aircraft gunners will be able to become either a wife or a mother. Their children were not yet born, which means they will not give birth to future generations.
The popularity of Vasiliev's story is due to the contrast used in it. Young anti-aircraft gunners would hardly attract the attention of readers. The appearance of girls gives rise to hope for an interesting plot in which love will certainly be present. Recalling the well-known aphorism that war does not have a feminine face, the author contrasts the tenderness, playfulness and softness of young female anti-aircraft gunners with the cruelty, hatred and inhumanity of the situation in which they found themselves.
