Vladimov G.N. "The General and His Army"
Georgy Nikolaevich Vladimov (real name) Volosevich, February 19, 1931, Kharkov - October 19, 2003, Frankfurt ) - Russian writer.
Born on February 19, 1937 in Kharkov into a teacher’s family. He studied at the Leningrad Suvorov School. In 1953 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Leningrad University. Printed as literary critic since 1954 (articles in the magazine " New world", where he started working: To the dispute about Vedernikov,Ognishchanka village and the big world, Three days in the life of Holden etc.). In 1960, inspired by a business trip to the Kursk magnetic anomaly, he wrote a story Big Ore(published 1961), which sparked debate. Despite the external resemblance to a typical “industrial” novel, the story became one of the programmatic works of the “sixties”. Published in 1969 novel Three minutes of silence, which tells in the genre of confessional prose about the everyday life of a fishing liner, puts forward a “titular” leitmotif about the right of everyone to send their own “SOS” signal and three minutes of silence legitimized by maritime (figuratively - everyday) laws, when each such signal must be heard. Metaphor and authenticity, literary talent, heartfelt elegiac lyricism and hidden accusatory power determine the manner of Vladimov’s writing, which is most manifested in his story about a guard dog Verny Ruslan(published in 1975 in Germany; in 1989 in the USSR), where in the story about a selfless and devoted guard of Soviet camps, the constant theme for the writer arises of the transformation of the best human beings (including those embodied, in the spirit of the traditions of A. Chekhov and L. Tolstoy , in the image of a watchdog) qualities into a tragic “outsider,” homelessness, a feeling of one’s own inferiority or uselessness in the modern sophisticated and deceitful world, in an unnatural and inhumane social order.
In 1977, Vladimov, having left the Writers' Union of the USSR, became the head of the Moscow section of the organization Amnesty International, banned in the USSR. In 1982 he published a story in the West Don't pay attention, maestro. In 1983 he emigrated to Germany, since 1984 - editor-in-chief emigrant magazine "Grani". In 1986 he left his post, having come “to the conclusion that this organization is extremely suspicious, harmful and was used to fight the democratic movement.” Since the late 1980s, he has actively acted as a publicist in domestic publications. In 1994 he published a novel in his homeland General and his army(Moscow literary prize "Triumph", 1995), dedicated to the history of the army of General A.A. Vlasov, who crossed over during the Great Patriotic War on the side of Hitler's troops.
Vladimov's novel, published in an abridged version in the Znamya magazine in 1995, received the Booker Prize and caused a major literary scandal. "The General and His Army" was severely criticized from all sides. Conservative writers accused Vladimov, firstly, of distorting historical facts, and secondly, of showing sympathy for the “iron” Guderian (they immediately recalled that Vladimov himself has been living in Germany since 1983). Liberal critics said that the classic “Tolstyan style” is hopelessly outdated and in the era of the “death of literature” the Booker should be given to, say, Vladimir Sorokin, who sings this death. But there were also more than enough rave reviews about the novel. The military-historical novel “The General and His Army,” which tells about General Kobrisov and the capture of the Myryatin bridgehead, the defense of which was held by the Vlasov battalions, is almost not a military novel and practically not historical. Not historical because there was never General Kobrisov, there was no Myryatin and Predslavl (although it is clear that we are talking about Kyiv, and the key plot collision of the novel - Predslavl-Kyiv should be taken by a general with a Ukrainian surname - took place in reality). Vladimov never claimed that all the events he described were true. "The General and His Army" - no war book, since it lacks the second one stated in the title main character- army. There is a front-line spirit, battle scenes, but there is no army - be it Vlasov, Germans or Russians - in the novel. Kobrisov's troops are orderly Shesterikov, adjutant Donskoy, driver Sirotin and an internal enemy - Major "Smersha" Svetlookov. All together they are the main character of the novel, but his last name is no longer Kobrisov, but an unknown one, most likely Vladimov. “The General and His Army” is a psychological (autobiographical) book, fascinatingly written in a genre that is always too relevant for Russia.
Vladimov, the last great Russian realist, had only one serious flaw: he wrote little. Over four decades of work, Vladimov became the author of only four major works. He did not have time to finish the fifth, his autobiography “Long Way to Tipperary”. So the appearance of a new work by Vladimov was always perceived as a rare holiday. This was the case in 1994, when Znamya published a magazine version of the novel “The General and His Army.” Postmodernists greeted this “old-fashioned” novel with surprise, and even more surprise was caused by its unexpected success: the Booker jury considered it the best novel of the year (later the best novel of the decade). And this despite the fact that magazine version(four chapters out of seven) Vladimov’s main “trump card”, his signature skillful composition, has been lost. Three episodes of the military biography of General Kobrisov - the summer retreat of 1941, the battle for Moscow in 1941 and the battle for the Dnieper in 1943, the fate of Vlasov and the Vlasovites, Guderian and von Steiner - all these elements are skillfully combined. Transitions are always beautiful and natural. With an abundance of digressions, there seems to be not a single extra episode, not a single unnecessary phrase. The style is excellent. Where necessary, there are also decorations: “The light glare path crossing the river burst into flames and turned red-crimson. On both sides of the path the river was still dark, but it seemed that even there, under the dark cover, it was also red, and all of it was steaming, like a fresh wound, abundant with warm blood, smoking.” The novel is easy to read, in one sitting. Only the fact that we have become unaccustomed to more or less serious prose can explain the lack of commercial success.
But it is customary for us to evaluate literature not only on its artistic merits, especially when we're talking about about a war novel. Natalya Ivanova once advised me to re-read Georgy Vladimov’s novel in order to find out how the military leaders “unscrupulously sacrificed” the lives of soldiers. And although I love and respect Natalya Ivanova, one of the most talented modern literary critics, I cannot accept this advice. The novel by Georgy Vladimov differs sharply from the military prose of front-line soldiers - Viktor Nekrasov, Viktor Astafiev, Vasil Bykov, Yuri Bondarev. For front-line soldiers, the main source of “building material” for a new novel, story, story was still personal experience. But “The General and His Army” is not military prose. In Vladimov’s novel, what struck me most was the epigraph from “Othello”:
Sorry, feathered troops.
And proud battles in which
Ambition is considered valor.
That's it, I'm sorry. Sorry, my neighing horse,
And the sound of the trumpet and the roar of the drum,
And the whistle of the flute, and the royal banner,
All the honors, all the glory, all the greatness
And the stormy anxieties of terrible wars...
To the reader, especially to a front-line soldier, it will seem alien, theatrical, and inappropriate. The epigraph, like an overture in an opera, sets the reader up to perceive the text one way and not another. The lines from the play by the greatest playwright of all time are taken very successfully: they tell the reader that this is not trench truth, but a tragedy novel.
Vladimov did not make it to the front (in 1941 he was only ten), but he pursued the military theme almost his entire life. Since the 1960s, he collected materials and documents, was engaged in the “literary recording” of the memoirs of military leaders, and later, in Germany, listened to oral histories former Vlasovites. From this heterogeneous material, Vladimov created his own concept of the Great Patriotic War. Where there were not enough facts, the writer thought up, composed, but composed so well that fictional facts side by side with real ones on equal terms.
1. The myth of the Germans. It is not one of the most generally accepted, it is more common among intelligentsia. Especially popular among those who read a lot of German memoirs. The main thing here is the recognition of the absolute intellectual and professional superiority of German generals over ours: von Steiner, “if he had not as much strength as Tereshchenko, but half as much, he would have crushed him in a few hours”. Firstly, it’s only in German military memoirs that the Red Army always has tons of troops. We lost the war, we need to explain it somehow. The only strange thing is that we (Vladimov is one of many here) believe their stories. After all, German memoirists lie no less than our military, but for us the word of a foreigner is always, for some reason, more significant than the word of a compatriot. It is not surprising that the highest reward for our general is considered to be the praise of the enemy. To emphasize Kobrisov’s military talent, Vladimov “quotes” von Steiner: “Here, on the Right Bank, we have twice seen a surge of Russian operational genius. The first time was when General Kobrisov, advancing against my left flank, dared to capture the deserted, completely shot through plateau in front of Myryatin. His second step, no less elegant, was his personal appearance at the bridgehead in the very first hours of the landing.”. Well, as for the second, this is not a “outburst of operational genius,” but hussarism, youth. Erich von Manstein himself (the prototype of von Steiner) did not allow himself such escapades, nor was he particularly keen to praise the Russians. He referred more to the “overwhelming numerical superiority” of the Soviet troops, which they actually did not have. However, Marshal Konev in his memoirs also quoted Manstein’s praise for himself, not without pleasure.
2. The myth of the “Russian four-layer tactics”, when “three layers lie down and fill the unevenness of the earth’s crust, the fourth crawls along them to victory.” Vladimov writes about this more than once: both in connection with the anti-hero of the novel, General Tereshchenko (Moskalenko), and in connection with Zhukov: “he did not sin against the “Russian four-layer tactics” to the end, until his crowning Berlin operation, putting three hundred thousand on the Seelow heights and in Berlin itself.” Well, yes, of course, our military leaders did not spare the soldiers and did not know how to fight any other way. This is not true, not entirely true. And in the Berlin offensive operation we lost not three hundred thousand, but almost four times less (counting irretrievable losses, that is, without the wounded). However, the images of the generals themselves (except for the disgusting Tereshchenko) least of all resemble those brainless and ruthless butchers that this myth portrays them as. “Lieutenant General” Charnovsky (Chernyakhovsky), “tank father” Rybko (Rybalko) and even Zhukov are shown as smart, talented people. By the way, apart from the mention of the “Russian four-layer”, Zhukov’s image is simply magnificent. No one in our literature has been able to describe him like this, to paint a portrait with a few strokes: “a tall, massive man, with a large, stern face, in a black leather jacket without shoulder straps, in a field cap worn low and straight, not at all askew, but no clothing or manner of wearing it could hide in him a military man born to command<…>tough wolf grin".
3. Vlasov myth. Vlasov is one of Vladimov’s main characters. His portrait is also drawn with a few strokes: Kobrisov’s memory of a meeting at military maneuvers, several author’s comments, Kobrisov’s own reflections. But the most important thing here is still the episode at the church of Andrei Stratelates (the author even changed the name of St. Theodore Stratelates to emphasize the importance of Vlasov the commander). Vlasov in this scene is the savior of Moscow, sent almost by Heaven itself (Vlasov’s pre-war biography becomes known later). The real Andrei Andreevich Vlasov was neither a military genius nor the savior of Moscow. At the Battle of Moscow, he commanded only one of the fourteen armies on the Western Front (the 20th Army) that participated in the counteroffensive. For that matter, the role of the savior of Moscow still belongs to G.K. Zhukov, who was in command of the Western Front. In 1941, Vlasov fought no worse and no better than others. However, K.A. Meretskov in his memoirs noted his professionalism, although, of course, he branded him as a traitor and renegade. Who knows what his fate would have been like in the future? What would Vlasov have become by 1945 if he had not been captured on the Volkhov Front in July 1942?
That the Vlasovites fought almost better than the Germans- it is true that there were a lot of them, alas, it is also true, but the words that Vladimov put into Vatutin’s mouth: “We are fighting more with our own people than with the Germans” are an exaggeration, and a significant one at that. The liberation of Prague by the 1st ROA division is a legend that the author of “The General” apparently heard from former Vlasovites. Taking part in liberation and liberation are not the same thing. And I don’t see much valor in going over to the winning side in the last days of the war.
In addition to these myths, Vladimov’s novel also contains simply historical errors and blunders. But I don’t have the desire not only to list them, but even to specifically look for them, as some historians like to do, who do not recognize or understand artistic fiction. “The General and His Army” is still a novel, and not a scientific monograph about the capture of Kyiv. Unlike the historian, the writer is not a slave to the source. He creates his own world, where there are its own laws, its own heroes and anti-heroes, its own history and philosophy. To understand the difference between history and fiction, let's compare Vladimov's Guderian near Moscow with historical basis- memoirs of the “fast-moving Heinz” himself. I’ll say right away: “Memoirs of a Soldier” is not the most exciting reading. Most of all, they resemble the memoirs of Marshal Zhukov: the same dry business style of a military man that no amount of “could correct.” literary record" And now Vladimov deploys one single phrase from “Memoirs of a Soldier” about the command tank that slid into a ravine into the central event of the entire “Guderian” episode, when the “genius of the blitzkrieg” realizes the inevitability of defeat.
What a boring historian would interpret as an obvious historical blunder is artistically and psychologically justified in Vladimov’s novel. It is impossible to imagine that any general, even the most insane and desperate one, would violate the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and deploy his “Jeep” in order to return to his army and take Predslavl himself (and what a wonderful name, much better, than Kyiv). General N.E. did not dare to do this. Chibisov, prototype of General F.I. Kobrisova. I did not dare to disobey the Supreme and K.K. Rokossovsky, when Stalin transferred him from the Berlin-focused 1st Belorussian to the secondary 2nd Belorussian. Zhukov himself did not dare to protest when Stalin, the “father” of Operation Uranus, sent him to organize a diversionary strike on the Western and Kalinin fronts (so that the commander would not be too proud of the Stalingrad victory). But what does not happen in life is quite possible and justified in a novel. Like, for example, the absolutely fantastic artillery shelling of Kobrisov’s car, organized by the omnipresent and omniscient Major Svetlookov. This stunning scene once again reminds us that Georgy Vladimov’s novel is not at all “the new truth about the war,” but literature, fiction, but fiction that looks more convincing than reality itself. Next to the historical Nefedov, Svetlookov is a theatrical Iago; he is as natural and organic in Vladimov’s world as Platon Karataev (Shesterikov), who migrated from “War and Peace” and changed his appearance. The battles of the Great Patriotic War are a grandiose setting for a great tragedy: retreat, crossing, stolen victory - its acts.
Georgy Vladimov
General and his army
Sorry, feathered troops.
And proud battles in which
Ambition is considered valor.
That's it, I'm sorry. Sorry, my neighing horse
And the sound of the trumpet and the roar of the drum,
And the whistle of the flute, and the royal banner,
All the honors, all the glory, all the greatness
And the stormy anxieties of terrible wars.
Forgive me, deadly weapons,
Which roar sweeps across the earth...
William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice, Act III
Chapter one.
MAJOR SVETLOOKOV
Here he appears from the darkness of the rain and rushes, sputtering tires, along the torn asphalt - “Jeep”, “king of the roads”, the chariot of our Victory. A tarpaulin covered with mud flaps in the wind, brushes rush across the glass, smearing translucent sectors, swirling slush flies behind him like a trail and settles with a hiss.
So he rushes under the sky of warring Russia, constantly rumbling with the thunder of an approaching thunderstorm or distant cannonade - a ferocious little beast, blunt-snouted and flat-faced, howling from an evil effort to overcome space, to break through to his unknown goal.
Sometimes, even for him, entire miles of the road turn out to be impassable - because of craters that have knocked out the entire width of the asphalt and are filled to the top with dark slurry, then he crosses the ditch diagonally and devours the road, growling, tearing off layers of clay along with grass, spinning in the broken rut; Having got out with relief, he again picks up speed and runs, runs beyond the horizon, and behind are wet, bullet-riddled copses with black branches and heaps of fallen leaves, the charred carcasses of cars dumped to rot by the side of the road, and the chimneys of villages and farmsteads that have emitted their last smoke for two years. back.
He comes across bridges - made of hastily sanded logs, next to the old ones, which have dropped rusty trusses into the water - he runs along these logs, like on keyboards, jumping up and down with a clang, and the decking is still swaying and creaking, when there is no longer a trace of the "jeep" only the blue exhaust melts over the black water.
He comes across barriers - and they delay him for a long time, but, confidently bypassing the column of ambulance vans, clearing his path with demanding signals, he makes his way close to the rails and is the first to jump onto the crossing, as soon as the tail of the train rumbles.
He comes across “traffic jams” - from oncoming and cross flows, crowds of roaring, desperately honking cars; Frozen traffic controllers, with manly-girlish faces and swear words on their lips, are undoing these traffic jams, anxiously looking at the sky and threatening each approaching car from afar with a baton - for the Jeep, however, a passage is found, and the crowded drivers look after it for a long time with bewilderment and inarticulate melancholy.
So he disappeared on the descent, behind the top of the hill, and fell silent - it seems that he fell there, collapsed, driven to the point of exhaustion - no, he emerged on the rise, the engine sings a song of stubbornness, and the viscous Russian mile reluctantly crawls under the wheel...
What was the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command? - for the driver, already frozen in his seat and looking at the road dully and intently, blinking his red eyelids, and from time to time, with the persistence of a man who has not slept for a long time, trying to light a cigarette butt stuck to his lip. It’s true that in this very word - “Headquarters” - he heard and saw something high and stable, rising above all the Moscow roofs, like a peaked fairy-tale tower, and at its foot - a long-awaited parking lot, a courtyard surrounded by a wall and lined with cars, like an inn, oh which he heard or read somewhere. Someone constantly arrives there, someone is escorted out, and an endless conversation flows between the drivers - no lower than those conversations that their general owners conduct in gloomy quiet chambers, behind heavy velvet curtains, on the eighth floor. Above the eighth - having lived his previous life on the first and only - the driver Sirotin did not climb the imagination, but the authorities were not supposed to be lower either, you have to watch at least half of Moscow from the windows.
And Sirotin would have been severely disappointed if he had learned that the Headquarters had hidden itself deep underground, at the Kirovskaya metro station, and its offices were partitioned off with plywood boards, and in the carriages of the motionless train there were buffets and changing rooms. This would be completely undignified, it would go deeper than Hitler’s bunker; Our Soviet Headquarters could not be positioned like this, because the German Headquarters were ridiculed for this “bunker.” And that bunker would not have given such awe as the generals walked into the entrance on half-bent cotton legs.
Here, at the foot of the mountain, where he placed himself with his "jeep", Sirotin hoped to learn about his future fate, which could merge again with the fate of the general, or could flow in a separate channel. If you spread your ears well, you could find out something from the drivers - just like he found out about this route in advance, from a colleague from the headquarters auto company. Having gathered for a long smoke break, while waiting for the end of the meeting, they first talked about something abstract - Sirotin, I remember, suggested that if you put the engine from an eight-seater Dodge in the Jeep, it would be a good car, you wouldn’t want anything better; my colleague didn’t object to this, but noticed that the Dodge’s engine was too big and, perhaps, the hood wouldn’t fit under the Jeep; they’d have to build up a special casing, and that’s a hump - and they both agreed that it was better to leave it as is. From here their conversation leaned toward changes in general - how much benefit would they bring? The colleague here declared himself a supporter of constancy and, in this very connection, hinted to Sirotin that changes were expected in their army, just one of these days, unknown only, for better or for worse. The colleague did not reveal what changes specifically, he only said that there was no final decision yet, but from the way he lowered his voice, one could understand that this decision would not even come from the front headquarters, but from somewhere higher up; maybe from such a high place that both of them couldn’t even imagine getting there. “Although,” the colleague suddenly said, “you might get there.” If you happen to see Moscow, take a bow.” Ambition did not allow Sirotin, the commander’s driver, to show surprise - what Moscow could have been like at the very height of the offensive; he only nodded importantly, and secretly decided: his colleague didn’t really know anything, he heard a distant ringing, or maybe this ringing itself was gave birth. But it turned out - not a ringing sound, it really turned out - Moscow! Just in case, Sirotin began to prepare at the same time - he mounted and installed unused tires, “original” ones, that is, American ones, which he was saving for Europe, welded a bracket for another gasoline canister, even pulled up this tarpaulin, which was usually not taken in any weather , - the general didn’t like him: “It’s stuffy under it,” he said, “like in a doghouse, and it doesn’t allow you to quickly disperse,” that is, jump over the sides during shelling or bombing. In a word, it was not so unexpected when the general commanded: “Harness up, Sirotin, let’s have lunch and go to Moscow.”
Sirotin had never seen Moscow, and he was happy that long-standing, pre-war plans were suddenly coming true, and he was worried about the general, who was suddenly recalled to Headquarters for some reason, not to mention for himself: who else would he have to transport, and Isn’t it better to ask for a lorry, there’s just as much hassle, but the chances of staying alive are probably greater, after all, the cabin is covered, not every fragment will penetrate. And there was also a feeling - a strange relief, one might even say, deliverance, which I didn’t want to admit to myself.
He was not the general’s first, there were already two martyrs before him if you count from Voronezh, and it was from there that the history of the army began; before that, according to Sirotin, there was no army, no history, but complete darkness and stupidity. So, from Voronezh the general himself was not scratched, but under him, as the army said, two Jeeps were killed, both times with drivers, and once with an adjutant. This is what the persistent legend was about: no matter what he doesn’t take, he seems to be under a spell, and this was precisely confirmed by the fact that they died next to him, literally two steps away. True, when the details were told, it turned out a little differently; these jeeps were not killed entirely under him. The first time - with a direct hit from a long-range landmine - the general had not yet gotten into the car, he paused for a minute at the division commander's command post and came out to the ready-made porridge. And the second time - when they were blown up by an anti-tank mine, he was no longer sitting, he got out to walk along the road, observe how the self-propelled guns were camouflaged before the attack, and ordered the driver to drive off somewhere from an open place; and take him and turn into the grove. Meanwhile, the road was cleared of mines, and the sappers bypassed the grove; movement along it was not planned... But what difference does it make, Sirotin thought, whether the general forestalled his death or was late for it, that was his conspiracy, but it didn’t affect those accompanying him spread, it only confused them, it was, if you think about it, the reason for their death. Experts had already calculated that for every person killed in this war, up to ten tons of metal would be wasted, but Sirotin, even without their calculations, knew how difficult it was to kill a person at the front. If only you could hold out for three months, learn not to obey either bullets or shrapnel, but listen to yourself, your unconscious chill, which the more unconscious, the more faithfully it whispers to you where it would be better to get away from, sometimes from the most seemingly safe dugout, from under seven rolls, and lie in some kind of groove, behind an insignificant hummock, and the dugout will be blown apart by a log, and the hummock will cover it! He knew that this saving feeling seemed to fade away without training, if you didn’t spend at least a week on the front line, but this general didn’t really adore the front line, but he didn’t disdain it either, so Sirotin’s predecessors couldn’t miss it too much, - that means they died out of their own stupidity, they didn’t listen to themselves!
“The General and His Army” was named the best Russian novel by vote of all the chairmen of the jury of the Russian Booker Prize last decade XX century. Along with the main fictional character, Soviet General Kobrisov, many people act in the novel historical characters, including Stalin, Zhukov, Khrushchev, Vatutin... Special attention The writer is attracted to the figures of the German general Guderian and the Russian traitorous general Vlasov. The clash of wills and characters, the intersection of the military destinies of the three generals give the novel special depth and authenticity.
“A very significant book. From the very first pages there is satisfaction: real literature... Vladimov took on the vast topic of the Soviet-German war not only as an artist, but also as the most responsible historian” (Alexander Solzhenitsyn).
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Georgy Vladimov
General and his army
Sorry, feathered troops.
And proud battles in which
Ambition is considered valor.
That's it, I'm sorry. Sorry, my neighing horse
And the sound of the trumpet and the roar of the drum,
And the whistle of the flute, and the royal banner,
All the honors, all the glory, all the greatness
And the stormy anxieties of terrible wars.
Forgive me, deadly weapons,
Which roar sweeps across the earth...
William Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice, Act III
Chapter one.
MAJOR SVETLOOKOV
Here he appears from the darkness of the rain and rushes, sputtering tires, along the torn asphalt - “Jeep”, “king of the roads”, the chariot of our Victory. A tarpaulin covered with mud flaps in the wind, brushes rush across the glass, smearing translucent sectors, swirling slush flies behind him like a trail and settles with a hiss.
So he rushes under the sky of warring Russia, constantly rumbling with the thunder of an approaching thunderstorm or distant cannonade - a ferocious little beast, blunt-snouted and flat-faced, howling from an evil effort to overcome space, to break through to his unknown goal.
Sometimes, even for him, entire miles of the road turn out to be impassable - because of craters that have knocked out the entire width of the asphalt and are filled to the top with dark slurry, then he crosses the ditch diagonally and devours the road, growling, tearing off layers of clay along with grass, spinning in the broken rut; Having got out with relief, he again picks up speed and runs, runs beyond the horizon, and behind are wet, bullet-riddled copses with black branches and heaps of fallen leaves, the charred carcasses of cars dumped to rot by the side of the road, and the chimneys of villages and farmsteads that have emitted their last smoke for two years. back.
He comes across bridges - made of hastily sanded logs, next to the old ones, which have dropped rusty trusses into the water - he runs along these logs, like on keyboards, jumping up and down with a clang, and the decking is still swaying and creaking, when there is no longer a trace of the "jeep" only the blue exhaust melts over the black water.
He comes across barriers - and they delay him for a long time, but, confidently bypassing the column of ambulance vans, clearing his path with demanding signals, he makes his way close to the rails and is the first to jump onto the crossing, as soon as the tail of the train rumbles.
He comes across “traffic jams” - from oncoming and cross flows, crowds of roaring, desperately honking cars; Frozen traffic controllers, with manly-girlish faces and swear words on their lips, are undoing these traffic jams, anxiously looking at the sky and threatening each approaching car from afar with a baton - for the Jeep, however, a passage is found, and the crowded drivers look after it for a long time with bewilderment and inarticulate melancholy.
So he disappeared on the descent, behind the top of the hill, and fell silent - it seems that he fell there, collapsed, driven to the point of exhaustion - no, he emerged on the rise, the engine sings a song of stubbornness, and the viscous Russian mile reluctantly crawls under the wheel...
What was the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command? - for the driver, already frozen in his seat and looking at the road dully and intently, blinking his red eyelids, and from time to time, with the persistence of a man who has not slept for a long time, trying to light a cigarette butt stuck to his lip. It’s true that in this very word - “Headquarters” - he heard and saw something high and stable, rising above all the Moscow roofs, like a peaked fairy-tale tower, and at its foot - a long-awaited parking lot, a courtyard surrounded by a wall and lined with cars, like an inn, oh which he heard or read somewhere. Someone constantly arrives there, someone is escorted out, and an endless conversation flows between the drivers - no lower than those conversations that their general owners conduct in gloomy quiet chambers, behind heavy velvet curtains, on the eighth floor. Above the eighth - having lived his previous life on the first and only - the driver Sirotin did not climb the imagination, but the authorities were not supposed to be lower either, you have to watch at least half of Moscow from the windows.
And Sirotin would have been severely disappointed if he had learned that the Headquarters had hidden itself deep underground, at the Kirovskaya metro station, and its offices were partitioned off with plywood boards, and in the carriages of the motionless train there were buffets and changing rooms. This would be completely undignified, it would go deeper than Hitler’s bunker; Our Soviet Headquarters could not be positioned like this, because the German Headquarters were ridiculed for this “bunker.” And that bunker would not have given such awe as the generals walked into the entrance on half-bent cotton legs.
Here, at the foot of the mountain, where he placed himself with his “jeep,” Sirotin hoped to learn about his future fate, which could merge again with the fate of the general, or could flow in a separate channel. If you spread your ears well, you could find out something from the drivers - just like he found out about this route in advance, from a colleague from the headquarters auto company. Having gathered for a long smoke break, while waiting for the end of the meeting, they first talked about something abstract - Sirotin, I remember, suggested that if you put the engine from an eight-seater Dodge in the Jeep, it would be a good car, you wouldn’t want anything better; my colleague didn’t object to this, but noticed that the Dodge’s engine was too big and, perhaps, the hood wouldn’t fit under the Jeep; they’d have to build up a special casing, and that’s a hump - and they both agreed that it was better to leave it as is. From here their conversation leaned toward changes in general - how much benefit would they bring? The colleague here declared himself a supporter of constancy and, in this very connection, hinted to Sirotin that changes were expected in their army, just one of these days, unknown only, for better or for worse. The colleague did not reveal what changes specifically, he only said that there was no final decision yet, but from the way he lowered his voice, one could understand that this decision would not even come from the front headquarters, but from somewhere higher up; maybe from such a high place that both of them couldn’t even imagine getting there. “Although,” the colleague suddenly said, “you might get there.” If you happen to see Moscow, take a bow.” Ambition did not allow Sirotin, the commander’s driver, to show surprise - what Moscow could have been like at the very height of the offensive; he only nodded importantly, and secretly decided: his colleague didn’t really know anything, he heard a distant ringing, or maybe this ringing itself was gave birth. But it turned out - not a ringing sound, it really turned out - Moscow! Just in case, Sirotin began to prepare at the same time - he mounted and installed unused tires, “original” ones, that is, American ones, which he was saving for Europe, welded a bracket for another gasoline canister, even pulled up this tarpaulin, which was usually not taken in any weather , - the general didn’t like him: “It’s stuffy under it,” he said, “like in a doghouse, and it doesn’t allow you to quickly disperse,” that is, jump over the sides during shelling or bombing. In a word, it was not so unexpected when the general commanded: “Harness up, Sirotin, let’s have lunch and go to Moscow.”
Georgy Vladimov - writer, literary critic. The most significant works This author is the novel “The General and His Army”, the stories “Faithful Ruslan” and “Big Ore”. What are the reviews of these books? What is special about Vladimov’s prose?
Biography
Vladimov Georgy Nikolaevich was born in 1931. Father and mother were philologists. The future writer was orphaned early. After the death of his parents, he was brought up in the family of the writer Dmitry Stonov.
Georgy Vladimov graduated from the Faculty of Law, but after receiving his diploma he decided to devote himself to literature. In the early seventies he critical articles gained fame. During these same years, Georgy Vladimov served as editor of the New World magazine.
The biography of this writer is closely connected with the socio-political situation that reigned in the country during the Brezhnev era. As you know, these years were unfavorable for the creativity of authors who preferred to raise pressing issues in their writings.
Early creativity
In 1960, after a visit, Georgy Vladimov wrote a story that caused a resonance in society. The work is called “Big Ore”. In the years when the story was created, some opposition had already begun to appear among Soviet intellectuals. It was of a hidden nature and was expressed, as a rule, in reading and discussing literature that did not correspond to Soviet ideology. The program of the so-called sixties also included “Big Ore”.
Georgy Vladimov published his next work only nine years later. “Three Minutes of Silence” - this is the name of the second story by the author, who in the late sixties was already classified as “forbidden” - was published in its entirety thirty-five years after it was written. The work has a confessional character. The book reflects the everyday life of a fishing liner. Before writing the story, the writer worked for several months as a sailor on a Murmansk seiner.
"Faithful Ruslan"
Vladimov's writing style was appreciated by critics. The features of his prose are authenticity, lyricism, and accusatory motives. In 1975, the story “Faithful Ruslan” was published. The story about the devoted guard of the Soviet camp was published for the first time in Germany.
The book tells the story of how a dog protects a person from its own kind. About how she controls the lives of some bipeds who are under the supervision of others. Vladimov spoke about the tragedy of the time in which he lived. But he did it from a special angle.
Prohibited Activities
Vladimov’s desire to cover topics that were dangerous to talk about in Soviet society led to his expulsion from the Writers’ Union. Literary and social activities certainly did not end there.
In the late seventies, the writer led an organization banned in the country. This association was called Amnesty International. Like others Soviet authors, which were refused to be published at home, the hero of this article published his works abroad. And in 1982, in order to avoid arrest, the writer Georgy Vladimov emigrated.
It is worth paying more attention to the book that has already been mentioned in the article. In 1994 he completed writing the famous work Georgy Vladimov. "The General and His Army" is a sensational novel. Critics continue to debate the reliability of the facts that formed the basis of this work today.
"The General and His Army"
The author was awarded for this novel. Before the award was awarded, there were literary disputes surrounding the book. They were caused by the fact that in Vladimov’s work the war was covered from an unusual point of view. One of the critics noted that the opinion about the book is erroneous. The impression that the novel takes place in the Soviet Union in the early forties is deceptive. After all, a general named Kobrisov is unknown to Russian history. The cities of Myryatin and Predslavl never existed in the USSR either. Vladimov’s novel, according to critic O. Davydov, generally cannot be called historical.
The work “The General and His Army” depicts psychological problems, passions and prejudices associated with the fate of the author. The military realities that are present in the novel play the role of a kind of entourage, shading events unrelated to the Second World War from the life of the writer.
According to Oleg Davydov, Vladimov cannot be condemned for using unreliable data. The novel “The General and His Army” is not a historical work, but rather an autobiographical one. What questions did the author raise in the acclaimed book?
The hero of the novel is called by the commander-in-chief. Kobrisov committed some offense for which he must be punished. But at the last moment the situation changes. His action was crowned with success, and he happily returns. This is the plot of the book. Its idea is that there is a higher court. And this, according to Davydov, main idea books. Military events are just the background with which the writer expressed his idea. However, in the book there are both fictional characters, and real.
Germany
In exile, the writer continued his literary and social activities. Worked for two years at Grani magazine. During the period of perestroika, his works gradually began to appear in domestic magazines.
In 1990, Vladimov restored Soviet citizenship. At the beginning of the 2000s, he lived in the legendary writers' village in the southwest of the capital. Vladimov Georgy Nikolaevich died in October 2003. The writer was buried in Moscow, at the cemetery in Peredelkino.
