Essay Tvardovsky A.T. - Vasily Terkin

Topic: - The image of the author in A. T. Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin”

Great Patriotic War refers to those events in the history of the country that remain in the memory of the people for a long time. Such events greatly change people's ideas about life and art. The war caused an unprecedented surge in literature, music, painting, and cinema. But, perhaps, there was not and there will be no more popular work about the war than the poem by Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky “Vasily Terkin”.
A. T. Tvardovsky wrote about the war firsthand. At the very beginning of the war, he, like many other writers and poets, went to the front. And walking along the roads of war, the poet creates an amazing monument to the Russian soldier and his feat. The hero of “The Book about a Fighter,” as the author himself defined the genre of his work, becomes Vasily Terkin, who is collective image Russian soldier. But there is another hero in the book - the author himself. We cannot even say that it is always Tvardovsky himself. Quicker, we're talking about about that generalized image of the author-narrator, which is present in “Eugene Onegin”, “Hero of Our Time” and other works that form the basis of Russian literary tradition. Although some facts from the poem coincide with real biography A. T. Tvardovsky, the author is clearly endowed with many of Terkin’s traits, they are constantly together (“Terkin - further. The author follows”). This allows us to say that the author in the poem is also a man of the people, a Russian soldier who differs from Terkin, in fact, only in that “he completed his course in the capital.” A. T. Tvardovsky makes Terkin his fellow countryman. And therefore the words

I'm trembling from acute pain,
Bitter and holy malice.
Mother, father, sisters
Behind that line I have -

They become the words of both the author and his hero. Amazing lyricism colors those lines of the poem that talk about “ small homeland”, which each of the soldiers who took part in the war had. The author loves his hero and admires his actions. They are always unanimous:

And I’ll tell you, I won’t hide it, -
In this book, here and there,
What a hero should say
I speak personally myself.
I am responsible for everything around me,
And notice, if you didn’t notice,
Like Terkin, my hero,
Sometimes it speaks for me.

The author in the poem is an intermediary between the hero and the reader. A confidential conversation is constantly conducted with the reader; the author respects the “friend-reader”, and therefore strives to convey to him the “real truth” about the war. The author feels his responsibility to the readers, he understands how important it was not only to tell about the war, but also to instill in the readers (and we remember that “Vasily Terkin” was published in separate chapters during the war, and the idea dates back to the Finnish War) faith in the indestructible spirit of the Russian soldier, optimism. Sometimes the author seems to invite the reader to check the truth of his judgments and observations. Such direct contact with the reader greatly contributes to the fact that the poem becomes understandable to a large circle of people.
The poem constantly permeates the author's subtle humor. At the very beginning of the poem, the author calls a joke the most necessary thing in a soldier’s life:

You can live without food for a day,
More is possible, but sometimes
In a one-minute war
Can't live without a joke
Jokes of the most unwise.

The text of the poem is filled with jokes, sayings, and sayings, and it is impossible to determine who their author is: the author of the poem, the hero of the poem Terkin, or the people in general.
The author’s observational skills, the vigilance of his gaze and the skill of conveying the details of front-line life are striking. The book becomes a kind of “encyclopedia” of war, written “from nature”, in a field setting. The author is faithful not only to details. He felt the psychology of a person in war, felt the same fear, hunger, cold, was just as happy and sad... And most importantly, “The Book about a Soldier” was not written to order, there is nothing ostentatious or deliberate in it, it was an organic expression of need the author to tell his contemporaries and descendants about that war in which “the battle is holy and just. Mortal combat is not for the sake of glory, for the sake of life on earth.”

The image of the author in A. T. Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin”

The Great Patriotic War is one of those events in the history of the country that remain in the memory of the people for a long time. Such events greatly change people's ideas about life and art. The war caused an unprecedented surge in literature, music, painting, and cinema. But, perhaps, there has not been and will not be a more popular work about the war than the poem “Vasily Terkin” by Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky.

A. T. Tvardovsky wrote about the war firsthand. At the very beginning of the war, he, like many other writers and poets, went to the front. And walking along the roads of war, the poet creates an amazing monument to the Russian soldier and his feat. The hero of “The Book about a Soldier,” as the author himself defined the genre of his work, is Vasily Terkin, who is a collective image of a Russian soldier. But there is another hero in the book - the author himself. We cannot even say that it is always Tvardovsky himself. Rather, we are talking about that generalized image of the author-narrator that is present in “Eugene Onegin”, “Hero of Our Time” and other works that form the basis of the Russian literary tradition. Although some facts from the poem coincide with the real biography of A. T. Tvardovsky, the author is clearly endowed with many of Terkin’s traits, they are constantly together (“Terkin - further. The author follows”). This allows us to say that the author in the poem is also a man of the people, a Russian soldier who differs from Terkin, in fact, only in that “he completed his course in the capital.” A. T. Tvardovsky makes Terkin his fellow countryman. And therefore the words

I'm trembling from acute pain,

Bitter and holy malice.

Mother, father, sisters

Behind that line I have -

become the words of both the author and his hero. Amazing lyricism colors those lines of the poem that talk about the “small homeland” that each of the soldiers who took part in the war had. The author loves his hero and admires his actions. They are always unanimous:

And I’ll tell you, I won’t hide it, -

In this book, here and there,

What a hero should say

I speak personally myself.

I am responsible for everything around me,

And notice, if you didn’t notice,

Like Terkin, my hero,

Sometimes it speaks for me.

You can live without food for a day,

More is possible, but sometimes

In a one-minute war

Can't live without a joke

Jokes of the most unwise.

The text of the poem is filled with jokes, sayings, and sayings, and it is impossible to determine who their author is: the author of the poem, the hero of the poem Terkin, or the people in general.

The author’s observational skills, the vigilance of his gaze and the skill of conveying the details of front-line life are striking. The book becomes a kind of “encyclopedia” of war, written “from nature”, in a field setting. The author is faithful not only to details. He felt the psychology of a person in war, felt the same fear, hunger, cold, was just as happy and sad... And most importantly, “The Book about a Soldier” was not written to order, there is nothing ostentatious or deliberate in it, it was an organic expression of need the author to tell his contemporaries and descendants about that war in which “the battle is holy and just. Mortal combat is not for the sake of glory, for the sake of life on earth.”