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 Kirovskaya 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 in India, based on the plot of the work Soviet writer The film "Valor" was released.
The story takes place in May 1942. 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 latter circumstance was the main reason why Vaskov took Sonya on the 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 graduate from school due to her mother’s serious illness, noticed a kindred spirit in Fedot Evgrafych. The author speaks of his heroine as a person who spent most of life in anticipation of 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, 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 he dies the whole world. Sergeant Major Vaskov not only observes 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. Remembering famous aphorism that the war has no woman's face, the author contrasts the tenderness, playfulness and softness of young female anti-aircraft gunners with the cruelty, hatred and inhumanity of the environment in which they find themselves.
“And the dawns here are quiet...” is a story about war. The action takes place during the Great Patriotic War. At one of the railway sidings, soldiers of a separate anti-aircraft machine-gun battalion are serving. These fighters are girls, and they are commanded by Sergeant Major Fedot Evgrafych Vaskov. At first this place was a quiet corner. The girls sometimes shot at planes at night. One day something unexpected happened. The Germans appeared. Chasing them into the forest, the girls, led by Vaskov, enter into an unequal battle with them. They die one after another, but rage and pain, the desire for revenge help Vaskov win.
The whole story is written in an easy, colloquial language. Thanks to this, you better understand the thoughts of the characters and what they do. Against the backdrop of the terrible events of May 1942, this junction looks like a resort. At first it really was like this: the girls sunbathed, danced, and at night “excitedly fired at flying German planes with all eight guns.”
There are six main characters in the story: five female anti-aircraft gunners and foreman Vaskov.
Fedot Vaskov is thirty-two years old. He 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 her husband. 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. He is efficient.
Junior sergeant Rita Osyanina married the “red commander” at less than eighteen years old. She sent her son Alik to his parents. Her husband died heroically on the second day of the war, and Rita found out about this only a month later.
Sonya Gurvich is an orphan. Her parents most likely died in Minsk. At that time she was studying in Moscow, preparing for the session. She was a translator in the detachment.
Galya Chetvertak does not know her parents. She was dropped off at an orphanage. Accustomed to surrounding everything with mystery, she made me worry about this. Galya told everyone that her mother was a medical worker. I believe that this was not a lie, but desires presented as reality.
Lisa Brichkina was the daughter of a forester. One day, their father brought a guest to their house. Lisa really liked him. He promised to place her in a technical school with a dormitory, but the war began. Lisa always believed that tomorrow would come and be better than today.
Zhenya Komelkova, the first beauty of the traveling party, grew up in a good family. She loved to have fun, and one fine day she fell in love with Colonel Luzhin. It was he who picked her up at the front. He had a family, and Zhenya was sent on this patrol for contacting him.
One day the girls were transferred from the front line to a site (crossing). Rita asked that her department be sent there, because from there it was easier to get to the city where her parents and son lived. Returning from the city, it was she who discovered the Germans.
The major ordered Vaskov to catch up with the saboteurs (Rita saw two) and kill them. It is in this campaign that the main action of the story unfolds. Vaskov helps the girls with everything. During the stop at the pass, friendly relations reign between them.
The Germans appear. It turns out that there are sixteen of them. Vaskov sends Lisa back to the patrol. Lisa Brichkina died first. She drowned in a swamp while returning to the crossing: “Liza saw this beautiful blue sky for a long time. Wheezing, she spat out dirt and reached out, reached out to him, reached out and believed.” Until the last moment she believed that tomorrow would come for her too.
Sonya Gurvich shot when she returned for Vaskov’s forgotten pouch.
Galya Chetvertak's nerves could not stand it when she sat with the foreman on patrol.
Rita Osyanina was wounded by a grenade, and Zhenya died while taking the Germans away from her. Rita, knowing that her wound was fatal, shot herself in the temple.
Together with the author, you experience these deaths and the pain of Vaskov, who managed to win.
The story is written very vividly and clearly. Optimistic girls are shown against the backdrop of war. Vaskov's victory symbolizes the victory of the Russians over the Germans. A hard-fought victory full of losses.
At the end of the story, in the epilogue, Boris Vasiliev shows a couple of heroes - Albert Fedotich and his dad. Apparently, Albert is the same Alik, Rita’s son. Fedot Vaskov adopted him, the boy considers him his real father.
This means that, despite all the difficulties and hardships, the Russian people are alive and will live.
The depiction of nature is very interesting. Beautiful views drawn by the author highlight everything that happens. Nature seems to look at people with pity and sympathy, as if saying: “Foolish children, stop.”
“And the dawns here are quiet...” Everything will pass, but the place will remain the same. Quiet, silent, beautiful, and only the marble gravestones will turn white, reminding of what has already passed.
This work serves as an excellent illustration of the events of the Great Patriotic War.
This story really amazed me. The first time I read it, sitting with a handkerchief in my hand, because it was impossible to resist. It was precisely because of this strong impression, so memorable to me, that I decided to write about this work.
The main idea of this story is the invincibility of people fighting for the freedom of the Motherland, for a just cause.
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 raids, but circled over the siding every day, and the command kept two anti-aircraft quads 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 ten, 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 names in them.
You're doing nonsense! - thundered the major who arrived according to the latest reports. - The writings have been 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?
“You know better,” 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, they will also do the same. 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 three days.
The question is complex,” 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 seem like it, Fedot Evgrafych.
God bless! - The foreman was jealous of his commandant position. - Power to share is worse than nothing.
“Wait to rejoice,” the hostess smiled mysteriously.
We will be happy after the war,” Fedot Evgrafych said reasonably, put on his cap and went out.
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, blinked, but the soldiers’ tunics still stuck 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,” the commandant said, not at all according to the regulations. - So we found non-drinkers...
All day long he hammered with an ax: he built 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.
From the location without my word, not a foot,” he announced when everything was ready.
Even for berries? - the redhead asked smartly. Vaskov had noticed her a long time ago.
There are no berries yet,” he said.
Can sorrel be collected? - asked Kiryanova. “It’s difficult for us without welding, Comrade Sergeant Major, we’re getting 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 cocky girls, and the foreman felt every second that he was visiting own house: he was afraid to blurt out the wrong thing, to do the wrong thing, and there was now no question of entering anywhere without knocking, and if he ever forgot about it, the signal screech immediately threw him back to his previous position. Most of all, Fedot Evgrafych was afraid of hints and jokes about possible courtship, and therefore he always walked around staring at the ground, as if he had lost his salary for the 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 Evgrafych 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 were 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 of their rags were always drying around the fire shed. The sergeant-major considered such decorations inappropriate and briefly informed Sergeant Kiryanov about this:
Unmasks.
“And there is an order,” she said without hesitation.
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: 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 a twig is nothing, it’s 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, was sunbathing on a government tarpaulin in what the mother gave birth in. 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 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.
