Hanko Defenders Response to Baron Mannerheim

• The text below is given on the publication of 1941 in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda ^{[К 1]} , where, unlike the original, two words are replaced by ^{[К 2]} , one line is omitted.

His Highness, henchman of the tail of Her Highness the mare of Emperor Nicholas,
to the glorious executioner of the Finnish people, His Serene Highness Ober Whore
Berlin court, the holder of the diamond, iron and pine cross, Baron von Mannerheim. We send you a response word.

The other day, you deigned to honor us with great honor by inviting you to captivity. In your address, instead of the usual battle, you even flattered us as valiant and heroic defenders of Hanko.

Sly bent, older ...

All dark vtglivskuyu life you drail master's ass without sparing his tongue. Even under the august buttocks of Nicholas the Bloody, you received a baptism of fire. But we are not a gentle people, and this will not take us. In vain language worried. Well, at least amused us, and thanks to that for you, jester pea.

Throughout your whole life, having traded your own body and conscience, you, like an izminzannaya old prostitute, bargain young lives of the Finnish people, throwing them under Hitler's smelly boot. You have filled a beautiful country of lakes with lakes of blood.

So how are you, dirty scum, dared to contact us, stink our clean air?

Is it not in anticipation of a hungry winter, in anticipation of an explosion of national anger, in anticipation of the final defeat of the fascist hordes you squeaked plaintively like a rat driven ?!

Our conversation is short:
Sucking from the sea - answer the sea lead!
You fall from the ground - you fly into the air!
Sucking from the air - we will drive into the ground!

The Red Army is beating from the east, England and America from the north, and do not blame you, Judas, when, at your invitation, we — the heroic defenders of Hanko — are moved from the south!

We will come to revenge. And this revenge will be merciless!

See you, Baron.

Soviet Hanko garrison.

(here in the publication line is omitted) ^{[К 3]}

The month of October, the number 10, the year 1941.

Background

The defense of Hanko , cut off from the main forces of the Red Army, lasted 164 days. Mannerheim promised several times to break the gangutsev: first in three days, but changed it to three weeks. Then the date was named - August 1, then - September 1, and the Gangutz not only did not surrender, but went on the offensive, seizing islands around the peninsula.

The parties conducted an active propaganda . The enemy led at the forefront of the radio program (although the first such attempt on July 11 ended in the fact that the 8th brigade’s mortar gunners burned the house with the radio transmitter), threw leaflets. ^[2] From the Soviet base on Hanko, the newspaper Red Gangut led counter-propaganda, which produced about thirty leaflets.

On Tuesday, October 7, 1941, an unusual silence fell on Hanko. The Finns stopped shelling, defenders of the peninsula also subsided. On the Finnish side, along the front edge of the defense, powerful loudspeakers turned on and speech was heard all over the peninsula, but it was not a scandal that the Finnish radio receptionists spewed at the front edge every day: “Valiant defenders of Hanko!” - the message began with such unusual words. Next was a description of the existing position of the garrison of the defenders of Hanko, indicating even small household details, which everyone knew about, but preferred to remain silent. In his address, the baron assured the Gangutans that he highly valued their military prowess, but since the situation was hopeless, he called for the resistance to cease and surrender.

Mannerheim's message style was psychologically accurate for people who were tormented by heavy fighting, cut off from their homeland, languishing in obscurity. This serious speech of the old man was sharply different from the daily chatter of Finnish propagandists who promised "paradise life" in captivity. Even the field marshal's offer of surrender included a sense of respect for those who listened to him, and everyone listened. The conclusion of the appeal was tough - two days to think.

Even today, after 62 years, the poor sound recording of this appeal makes a strong impression.

- Leonid Vasilievich Vlasov - Russian writer, professor, the only Russian biographer of K. Mannerheim, biography in the series “ ZHZL ”, 2005 ^[3]

The appeal had an effect, as Commander-in-Chief of Defense of the Forward Frontier of the KVF recalled Lieutenant-General S. I. Kabanov :

After the Mannerheim speech, the people began to crack. My commissioner Arseniy Lvovich Raskin said that the situation is very difficult, it is urgent to neutralize this speech, to divert people's attention to him. It was decided to prepare a leaflet "Answer to Baron Mannerheim".

Answer preparation

Leaflets on the instructions of the political department of the base were prepared by the employees of the newspaper “Krasny Gangut”: the text is novice poet Mikhail Dudin — the newspaper’s assistant worker, a junior sergeant who served the Hanko platoon in the artillery intelligence platoon of the 335th infantry regiment; drawings - artist Boris Prorokov - artist at the political department of the 255th Marine Brigade.

According to the memoirs of Boris Prorokov, the head of the political department Brigadier Commissioner P.I. Vlasov called a small meeting of the workers of the political department and the editorial board. He said that something must be opposed to enemy propaganda. According to Prorokov, it was Vlasov who had the idea to give an answer in the spirit of the letter of the Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan. ^[four]

Mikhail Dudin recalled that the regimental commissar A.L. gave instructions to not be shy in expressions. Raskin , smiling added: "We have nothing to fear, the censor from the peninsula has already been evacuated!" ^{[5] [6]}

The first version of the text, according to S.I. Kabanova - a solid swearing curse - was rejected, the second version went to print.

The leaflet was printed on October 10 in the form of a rather large sheet (23 x 39 cm) and repeated the composition of the famous painting “Answer of Zaporizhzhya Cossacks to the Sultan”. ^[7] According to the memoirs of Dudin, on the first thousand copies of the message, the drawings were tinted, and the ornament was gilded. The exact circulation of the leaflet is unknown, Dudin said that they had printed several thousand copies.

The next day, the leaflet along with the newspaper was sent to all units. The fighters rewrote and memorized its text, and the drawing was repeated through a carbon copy, passed to each other. ^{[4] [8]}

The leaflet was published only in Russian. As Dudin pointed out, the text was not translated into Finnish because, as it was the answer to Mannerheim, there was no need for that - the addressee, being a former Tsarist officer, knew Russian very well.

As N.K. Smirnov , a member of the Military Council of the Baltic Fleet, noted in the memoirs, the letter-leaflet to Mannerheim fulfilled her role: “ Hankovtsy scoffed at the leader of the Finnish fascist troops ” ^[9] , but it was intended rather for their fighters - to raise their spirits , and as counter-propaganda, with the release of leaflets beyond the borders of the Hanko Peninsula and its further popularity came as a complete surprise: " As a result, the secret of our correspondence with Mannerheim was broken, although it happened through no fault of ours ." ^[ten]

In October 1942, correspondent Rostislav Iyulsky and photographer Boris Kudoyarov from minesweeper No 215 from the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper took part in the first Baltic campaign of Admiral V.P. Drozd’s squadron, which also visited Hanko Island, then they met with the leaflet Mannerheim's answer. ^[eleven]

According to the memoirs of Rostislav Iyulsky, when in late October he returned from a hike to besieged Leningrad, the first who met him was Olga Bergholz , who knew Mikhail Dudin as a young poet, and who paid attention to the leaflet brought from Julysky from the peninsula: “ I read it several times once she started laughing loudly: “Ay, yes hankovtsy! Ay yes Misha! "". In his memoirs, Yulsky stressed that his essay about Hankov's success was due precisely to that meeting with Bergholz. ^[12]

On November 14, 1941, in the “Komsomolskaya Pravda” No. 268, the essay of R. July “Hanko laughs at you, Baron!” Was published in which the text of the answer-leaflet was given. ^[13]

The text in the newspaper, however, was cited with two bills: two words were replaced by more literary ones, one line was omitted.

The answer due to the publication in the newspaper received All-Union fame. Before this, the defense of Hanko Island was widely covered by newspapers and radio, and often in the form of letters of reply. So, just shortly before the publication in Komsomolskaya Pravda, November 2, 1941, the Letter of the Defenders of the Hanko Peninsula to the Heroic Defenders of Moscow was published in the central organ of the Central Committee of the Party’s party to the Pravda newspaper, and on November 13, 1941 - all newspapers and radio published the “Answer of defenders of Moscow to Hanko’s defenders”

At the same time, among the Leningraders, in the navy and in the troops of the front, the answer of the Khankovites was known even before publication in the newspaper. ^[14] The sailors and pilots of the Baltic Fleet air force told about the leaflet. ^[15] For example, P. I. Kapitsa , who was in besieged Leningrad in his diary on November 2, 1941, wrote that the boatmen returning from Hanko showed him “a mischievous leaflet, similar to a letter from the Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan, written in response to the call of the former the royal stableman Baron Mannerheim surrender . ” ^[sixteen]

The answer became legendary ^{[17] [18]} , becoming on a par with the verses “ Leningraders, my children ” Dzhambul Dzhabayev and “ Kill him!” »K. Simonov. ^[nineteen]

At first, this popularity of the letter was met with by the front's political department negatively, in February 1942, Boris Prorokov wrote in a letter to his wife about the leaflet-answer: ^[20]

... The leaflet that Semyon is ashamed to show you, obviously, the answer to Mannerheim. I composed this answer with Dudny (our poet and my countryman). On the peninsula, she was a great success. The military council of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, however, poured in on us and ordered not to distribute it in the future, and the authors were called vulgar. Subsequently, it smoothed out, as they say, Zhdanov and Voroshilov, and, most importantly, Stalin liked the leaflet very much. So everyone calmed down, although we have already been scolded for the fact that we didn’t spread it.

- from the letter of Boris Prorokov to his wife, Leningrad, February 17, 1942

In the future, the attitude of the command to the leaflet changed, the fact of participation in the preparation of the response leaflet was even noted in the authors ’views on combat awards.

Artist Boris Prorokov was awarded the medal “For Courage” ^[19] for the work on the production of leaflets on Hanko in 1942, but in 1944 this work was noted in the award list on the Order of the Red Star : “ During the period of heroic defense Hanko ... was the organizer issuing posters, leaflets and political cartoons mobilizing personal composition for combat exploits . " ^[22]

In the award list from 1945 for awarding the author of the text - Guard Lieutenant of the poet Mikhail Dudin Order of the Second World War II among the enumeration of merit was specifically noted: “ composed a famous letter of the Gangutans to Mannerheim ”. ^[23]

According to the vigorous strength and expressiveness of expressions, the letter to Mannerheim was not inferior to the letter to the Turkish sultan . Artist Boris the Prophets colorfully and bitingly designed the answer to Mannerheim.

- Literary magazine " Neva " - Organ of the Union of Writers of the RSFSR and the Leningrad Writing Organization, 1981 ^[24]

The biting, salty mot in combination with the deadly evil pattern was worthy of rebuff to the Hitlerite vassal.

- satirical magazine " Crocodile ", 1978 ^[25]

Long before the end of the war - in 1943 - S. Ya. Marshak drew attention to the answer-leaflet as an example of the successful use of folklore:

We have not yet learned how to eavesdrop and catch the oral humor with which our people are so rich, and the people in war in particular. To catch and eavesdrop not for imitation and mechanical processing of folklore, but in order to catch the enthusiasm, fervor, strength and spontaneity that so pleases us in a response letter from Hanko’s defenders to Baron Mannerheim.

- S. Marshak - About our satire, Newspaper "Literature and Art" No. 29, July 17, 1943 ^[26]

In the 1960s, B. N. Putilov noticed, in the form of a text, a parody of the royal manifesto:

The content and form of the letter is peculiar. It resembles a letter of the Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan in some respects. At the same time, the royal manifesto is parodied in it. Thus, the letter vividly reveals the role of the Kholuy, which Mannerheim played first at the court of Nicholas II, and then with Hitler. The characterization of this role, as well as of the whole letter as a whole, is already revealed in the appeal.

- B.N. Putilov , Soviet and Russian folklorist, head of the folklore sector of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences ^[27]

D.T. Khrenkov noted the successful choice of form, taking into account the circumstances and the reader:

Dudin has an amazing sense of form! the ability to accurately guess the mood of the reader. That is why he took the well-known letter of the Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan as a model of our answer. The form was found happily. But the text itself deserved attention. He had astringency and agility. And still valiant boldness. The point, of course, is that there was no shyness in choosing the expressions. You can scold everyone. Dudin made Mannerheim a joke, and this determined the force of the blow. Laughter was the best expression of our Forces.

- D.T. Khrenkov , editor-in-chief of Lenizdat, 1976 ^[28]

I.P. Abramsky , one of the creators and first art editor of the crocodile satirical magazine, praised the satirical leaflet, noting its outstanding role as well:

The sharply satirical text resembled the classic message of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan, whose work is depicted in the famous painting by I. E. Repin. Laughter is a weapon of the strong. In this case, morally strong ... and she was destined to win immense popularity in parts of the army and navy. She remained one of the brightest examples of the high, emotional intensity of our satirical propaganda during the days of the war.

- I.P. Abramsky ^[29]

Nikolai Tikhonov , who even before the war published poems sent by novice poet Dudin who served in Vyborg, did not regret that he had opened the way to literature: ^[30]

Here is a letter written that there is nowhere else. If I could bring this letter to the museum and read to the Cossacks that in the Repin painting , then they would have burst into such a roar that they would have heard again in Istanbul, really. Well done Misha Dudin.

- Tikhonov, Nikolai Semenovich ^[31]

The whole creative work of the satirical department of the military newspaper Krasny Gangut is highly valued as a whole, but the letter-leaflet stands out from their work:

Their legendary “letter to Mannerheim”, composed in the style of Zaporozhye Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan, angry, beating caricatures of the Prophets carved on linoleum, torn from the floor of an abandoned house, and Dudin accompanied with caustic poems, entered the history of the front-line newspaper as remarkable examples of genuine courage and consciousness of high moral superiority over the enemy.

- Journal of the Banner , 1976 ^[32]

An interesting episode in the life of Gangut was the “correspondence” with Mannerheim. Mannerheim had used the “attention” of the Gangutans before: he got into the “Battle Watch”, a leaflet was thrown at the White Finns that satirically exposed Mannerheim (“Who is he?”). This time M. Dudnn and B. Prorokov compiled a more detailed letter in the spirit of the answer of the Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan.

- literary critic V.A. Shoshin , Literary Heritage , 1966 ^[33]

According to the memoirs of Peter Darienko , one copy of the leaflet somehow ended up at the Turkish poet Nazym Hikmet , and he, showing the leaflet, said: "Perhaps it is only Russians who can be so witty in times of the most severe danger ....". ^[34]

And 75 years after the publication of The Response to Mannerheim, he is not forgotten:

This historical document is one of the most vivid examples of the epistolary genre that has developed in the Russian people, which shows how to treat the enemy of our Motherland, including at the time of mortal danger: with undisguised contempt, with endless hatred, with violent disgust.

- V.N. Borisov, Honored Architect of the Republic of Crimea, Freeman of the City of Bakhchisarai ^[35]

The authors themselves referred to him as a cheerful front-line occasion: in 1971, the Prophets in a letter to Dudin wrote: “ Today is the anniversary of the Gangut Response to Mannerheim - thirty years. ... Gathering up some strong hell over the summer, I read the book of General S. I. Kabanov. True book and therefore sad. ... But we will think about funny things, like "Answer to Mannerheim ". " ^[36]

There are allegations that the text of the answer-leaflet after the war was not published, allegedly "in order not to insult the memory of Mannerheim to the Finns." ^[37] However, this is not the case.

The text of the answer-leaflet is fully quoted several times in M. Dudin’s story “War and Diplomacy” published since 1965, and even more fully than in the publication of Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1941 - it has the last but one line, although with a replacement two words in ellipses. ^{[5] [38] [39] [40] [41]}

The text of the Komsomolskaya Pravda of 1941 (without one line) was fully cited before — for example, in 1961 in the published Voenizdat , and then repeatedly reprinted, the book ^{[42] of} General I. I. Fedyuninsky (in October 1941 year - Major General, Commander of the Leningrad Front).

The text was also published in Ukrainian translation - in the journal “ Dnepr ” for 1965 - the text is also in full form, with the last line, although two words are replaced by three points. ^[43]

In varying degrees, an abbreviated form of "The Answer to Mannerheim" was published many times, including becoming part of the artistic work - the novel by Vladimir Rudny "Ganguttsy", first published in 1952 and reprinted several times with a total circulation of over half a million copies.

The original leaflet was repeatedly presented at the exhibition “The Book Fights. 1941-1945 ”: at the very first in 1985 and at the jubilee twentieth in 2005. ^[7]

• R. Yulsky - “Hanko laughs at you, Baron!” // The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, November 14, 1941 (the text is available on the newspaper’s website in November 1941, see page 43)
• Mikhail Dudin - War and Diplomacy // Siberian Lights Magazine, 1965
• Response to Mannerheim // Crocodile Magazine, 1978 - p. 22
• How the Ivanovites composed a message to Baron Mannerheim // Ivanovskaya Gazeta, May 4, 2011