I was killed near Rzhev - a poem by Alexander Twardowski about the events of the Battle of Rzhev in 1942 , at one of the most tense moments of World War II [1] . Written in 1946 [2] [3] .
I'm killed under Rzhev
In the nameless swamp
In the fifth company, on the left,
With a cruel raid.
I didn’t hear the break
I did not see that flash, -
Like a precipice from a cliff -
And neither the bottom nor the tires.
...
In the summer, at forty-two,
I am buried without a grave.
...
Content
The history of the work
There are several versions of the process of creating a poem, as well as real events (operations), which are implied in the work of the poet.
Twardowski himself in an article on the creation of a poem wrote [4] :
| It is based on the already close memory of a trip near Rzhev in the autumn of 1942 to a section of the front where the division of Colonel Kirillov fought |
- and further [5] :
... The impressions of this trip were for the entire war from the most depressing and bitter to physical pain in the heart. The battles were heavy, the losses were very large, the ammunition was scarce - they were brought up with pack horses. Having returned to the editorial office of my front-line “Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda”, which was then located in Moscow, in the premises of the editorial office of “Gudka”, I could not give anything for the newspaper page, filling out only a few pages of the diary with gloomy notes ...
These verses are dictated by thought and feeling, which throughout the war and in the post-war years most of all filled the soul. The eternal obligation of the living to the fallen for a common cause, the impossibility of oblivion, the inescapable feeling of being in them, and of them in oneself — this is approximately how you can define this thought and feeling ...
In this case, it was about the First Rzhev-Sychev operation .
However, the daughter of Twardowski, Doctor of Historical Sciences (NB) Valentina Alexandrovna Twardowska unexpectedly reports [6] that her father “never spoke about the origins of this poem. Not mom, nor me, nor family. And he did not write about it openly, although he was then on the Western Front, where the Rzhev-Vyazemsky operation was carried out - many months and bloody. In the letters then it was not possible to tell anything. Censorship did not allow any definition of geographical location. Field mail and all. It was one of his trips as a front-line correspondent. Father traveled to different sections of the Rzhev-Vyazemsky operation. ”
But the Rzhev-Vyazemsky operation took place not in the autumn, but in the spring of 1942. The same chronological reference is provided by other sources [1] . By the way, Colonel Kirillov , mentioned by Tvardovsky in his memoirs, was awarded for his participation in the Rzhev-Vyazemsky operation in the spring of 1942 [7] .
It is easy to notice that the poem itself is not about spring, and not about autumn, but about the summer of 1942.
The third version was presented in the journal “ Young Guard ” (No. 5-6 of 2000) [8] by the publicist Oleg Demchenko [9] . Its essence is that at the soldier V. P. Brosalov, who was lying in the Moscow hospital, a "funeral" came to his family, reporting his death near Rzhev. Twardowski, Brosalov and his mother met in the hospital, and showed the document to Twardowski [10] . “After reading it (the funeral), the poet said: he will write poetry about the battles for Rzhev. Twardowski kept his promise. The poem “I was killed under Rzhev” soon sounded throughout the country. ”It should be noted that there were some exaggeration of art. He wrote the poem not “soon”, but after 4 years. Other facts are also stated only from the words of Brosalov and are not confirmed by historical sources.
Cultural Significance
The poem “I was killed under Rzhev” is one of the most famous and significant works of Alexander Twardowski [11] [12] , which was included in school textbooks [13] .
Rodion Shchedrin wrote a cycle of choirs to the poems of Twardowski (“4 choirs to the words of Twardowski”), among which is the work “I was killed under Rzhev” [14] . The cycle also includes works “How dear a friend”, “The war passed” and the popular choir “To you, the fallen”.
The famous Soviet and Russian composer Vladimir Migulya wrote a song for the poem “I was killed under Rzhev” [15] , which he himself performed.
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 Karpach, Mikhail. Wheel of Khabarovsk history: Attacks are fierce those ... // Young Far East. February 27, 2018
- ↑ Who is who in the world / Ch. ed. G.P. Shalaev. - M .: Philological Society "WORD": Olma-press, 2003. - 1680 p. ISBN 5-8123-0088-7
- ↑ Memoirs of Twardowski
- ↑ Volga Magazine, Issue 6. Volga Book Publishing House, 1975
- ↑ Twardowski A.T. About the poem "I am killed under the Rzhev." Articles and notes on literature // Collected Works, Volume 5.
- ↑ Twardowski's daughter told the story of the verse “I am killed under the Rzhev” // mir24.tv, 03/03/2018
- ↑ Collective of authors. World War II: Divisional Commanders. Military Biographical Dictionary. - M.: Kuchkovo field, 2015. - T. 4. - S. 191-193 - 330 copies. - ISBN 978-5-9950-0602-2
- ↑ World War II »I was killed under Rzhev
- ↑ Oleg Demchenko 2 / Proza.ru
- ↑ Demchenko, Oleg . The fate of the soldier
- ↑ Andreeva, I.V. In memory of a warrior-brother ... // Russian in a national school. M .: Publishing House of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR, 1984.
- ↑ Literature. Textbook for secondary vocational education. Authors Collective (Retrieved March 23, 2018) 411.
- ↑ Literature. Textbook for secondary vocational education. Authors Collective (Retrieved March 23, 2018)
- ↑ Rodion Shchedrin - “I am killed under Rzhev”
- ↑ Vladimir Migulya - “I am killed under the Rzhev”
Sources
- I was killed under Rzhev: ill-conceived tales of war.
- Literature and language. Modern Illustrated Encyclopedia / Under. ed. prof. A.P. Gorkina
- The daughter of Twardowski told the story of the verse "I was killed under the Rzhev" // mir24.tv, 03/03/2018
- Nilov, Boris. Nilova, Galina. 75 years from the date of the liberation of Rzhev that the city and its people survived, eyewitnesses say // tverlife.ru, 03/05/2018
- How Rzhev survived the most bloody battle of the Great Patriotic War // mir24.tv, 03/04/2018
- Andreeva, I.V. In memory of the warrior-brother ... // Russian language in the national school. M .: Publishing House of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR, 1984.