Translated material
For the sake of life on earth
Alexander Tvardovsky was born one hundred years ago
Alexander Tvardovsky was an extraordinary poet, a wise, courageous and courageous editor, and a very large man. All this, of course, is important (hopefully, not only for historians of literature and culture of the twentieth century), but it would have looked completely different if Tvardovsky had not accomplished his main task. And his best poetic lines (some of the lyrics, “House by the Road”, some fragments of the poems “Ant Country” and “Beyond the Distance”), and the long-term struggle of the “New World” for free literature (for the liberation of man and Russia), and the difficult spiritual growth of Tvardovsky, and his tragedy, which brought the poet to an early grave - all this is perceived as a large context for “Vasily Terkin,” a poem about the greatness of an ordinary person and the immeasurable price of human life.The story of a memorable time, / This book about a fighter, / I started from the middle / And finished without end. / With the thought, perhaps daring, / To dedicate my beloved work / To the fallen in sacred memory, / To all friends of the war time, / To all hearts whose expensive court. In the final chapter, “From the Author,” Tvardovsky recalls the first chapter. And worse than anything else / I certainly can’t live without - / Without what? Without real truth,/ Truth that hits straight into the soul,/ If it were thicker,/ No matter how bitter it is.// What else?.. And that’s all, perhaps./ In a word, a book about a fighter/ Without beginning, without end.// Why so - without a beginning?/ Because there is not enough time/ To start it from the beginning.// Why without an end?/ I just feel sorry for the fellow.
It's a pity... Because war knows no pity. Because millions of Terkins did not return from it. Because the truth that hits the soul is infinitely bitter, and the immortality of the only Terkin is a kind fairy tale. I dreamed of a true miracle:/ So that from my invention/ The people living in the war/ might feel warmer.// So that unexpected joy/ The soldier’s chest would be warmed,/ Like that tattered accordion,/ What will happen somehow./ / It makes no sense what could happen, / The accordion has behind its soul / All the reserve that is enough for two dances - / But the spread is big.
Tvardovsky was able to combine truth and fairy tale - a miracle happened, Terkin returned from the war. He returned, although at the very beginning of the poem he reported about himself: I was hit by a shrapnel in battle, / It healed - and so much sense. / Three times I was surrounded, / Three times - here he is! - went out // And even though it was restless - / Remained unharmed / Under oblique, three-layer fire, / Under mounted and direct fire.// And more than once on the usual path, / Along the roads, in the dust of columns, / I was partially scattered ,/ And partially exterminated...
Further Terkin will not only show miracles of courage (“Crossing”, “Who Shot?”, “On the Offensive”), but again and again find himself face to face with death. Following him, another hit, / And suddenly it became darker.// “These are ours,” the guy realized, “/ Ours are hitting, - now the skiff.”// Deafened by the heavy roar,/ Terkin bows his head,/ Tula , Tula, what are you doing, Tula, / There’s your own fighter alive right there <...> It’s a pity for that life, the bait, / I want to live a little, / At least to bask on the couch, / At least to dry my foot wraps...// Terkin wilted. Melancholy bent./ Tula, Tula... What are you doing, Tula?/ Tula, Tula. It’s me.../ Tula... My homeland!.. (“Terkin is wounded”).
Entering into a symbolic (but also absolutely reliable) duel with the German, Terkin knew that in this fight/ He was weaker: not those grubs. By all accounts, Terkin should be defeated in this confrontation - and he wins. How Death itself then wins, clearly explaining its “advantages” to the seriously wounded warrior. - And look, it’s almost nightfall, / The dawn is burning in the frost. / I mean, so that it’s shorter for me / And you don’t have to freeze in vain // - I’ll be patient. / What are you, stupid! / After all, you’re lying there, everything has come together ./ I’d immediately put a sheepskin coat on you,/ So that you’ll be warm forever.// I see, you believe. Here are the tears, / Now I’m dearer to you.// - You’re lying, I’m crying from the cold, / Not from your pity.// - Whether from happiness, or from pain - / It’s all the same. And the cold is fierce./ There is drifting snow in the field,/ No, they won’t find you...// And why would you, think about it,/ If someone picks you up./ You’ll regret that you didn’t die/ Here on the spot without any hassle <... > - And you get up, it’s of little use, - / Death continued, laughing, - / And you get up - all over again: / Cold, fear, fatigue, dirt... And further about the destroyed house, the family disappearing under the Germans , a devastated land, the pointlessness of returning...
No, it is not at all by chance that Tvardovsky will later write about his hero’s temporary visit to the next world. And it is not only the ominous death of the Stalinist regime that is discussed in Terkin’s second poem, it is not only based on “journalisticism”. Death in any guise remains death, unconditional evil, the denial of life - and Terkin does not accept any non-existence , any violation of life and humanity. In “The Duel,” he refused to recognize the enemy as a being co-natural with himself: Who are you? It makes no sense to me, / Whose son are you and whose father are you? / A man by all accounts, - / Are you a man? No. Scoundrel.
It is amazing, however, that Terkin captures this scoundrel and does not kill him . And the point here is not the need to get a tongue - Terkin cannot be a murderer . Of course, a soldier in war shoots at the enemy. Shooting down a plane with a rifle, Terkin most likely sent a German pilot to the next world, but this motive is omitted - the confrontation between a man and a terrible machine is described. There is no episode in the entire poem where the hero takes someone’s life. Just as there is not a single mention of Stalin in the poem, who naturally appears where he belongs - in the next world. Both of these silences are evidence of the poet’s amazing human and artistic tact, perhaps an unconscious, but perfectly accurate sense of truth. That truth that is inseparable from faith in life, in its beauty and meaningfulness, for which the mortal author and his immortal hero fought.
Is it now possible to conclude,/ That, they say, grief is not a problem,/ That the guys got up, took/ The village without difficulty?// That with constant luck, Terkin accomplished a feat:/ With a Russian wooden spoon/ He killed eight Krauts!// No, comrade, Let's face it:/ It was a long time to melancholy,/ The summer battle for this very/ Settlement of Borki. And not only this fight. And not only this terrible war. And it’s not just popular popular caps that Tvardovsky is bitterly ironizing here, whose hero never tires of repeating “don’t lose heart” and is famous for his jokes no less than for his wit and daring. The fact of the matter is that the fabulous joy of the poem about an indestructible fighter does not cancel the deep sadness about those who, according to the propaganda cliche, were exterminated “partially”, about those who disappeared without a sign and a trace at the crossings, about the tankman from whom an accordion remained, about the commander , who shouted “I’m not wounded - I’m killed,” about a bearded man who lost his family before the pouch, about an orphan soldier... And is it really only the major key that can be heard in the author’s assurance following the news of Terkin’s last words, which is preceded by other versions of death hero? - - No, for some other reason/ I heard the wounded soldier say./ Terkin said at that moment:/ “I’m finished - the war is finished.”// If so, then don’t believe it,/ Isn’t it obvious:/ Terkin is not subject to death, / Since the war has not expired...
Not susceptible. There is one in every company. Even in every platoon. And evil in different guises rages and rages. And Terkin will fight with him to the end, which he doesn’t want to think about. A terrible battle is going on, bloody, / A mortal battle not for the sake of glory, / For the sake of life on earth.