How he became far from us ...

Awarded holiday

In the early 80s, a 20-episode film epic (there was no concept of the series) “Unknown War” was in Soviet television. For our television, she was simply called - "Great Patriotic War."

I was then October, and we watched all the episodes with my grandmother. Each series began with the chords "Get up, the country is huge." And every time my grandmother cried. Then the epic was repeated. And we again watched with her all 20 episodes, and the grandmother cried again each time at the beginning of each series. Her older brother Zhenya died near Luga. Her younger brother Volodya sent home a front -line triangle from the Kursk arc: “Dear mother and sisters! I have been fighting for forty days today. ” On the same day, sending this letter home, he died.

Grandmother's husband - grandfather Vanya. Of our entire family, he alone returned alive from the war. One of the five men. Of course, Victory Day from childhood was not just a date for me! Victory Day for me is a portrait of my grandfather, who stands on the table right now in front of me. These are grandmother's brothers, whom I have not seen even in the photographs, because they have not been preserved, but I heard so many stories about them, I saw so much grandmother's tears that for me they were living, dear people. These are mother’s memories of how they bombed Moscow, how the train drove them to the Far East in evacuation.

It always seemed very important to me that people remembered the war, understanding what colossal price a generation of grandmother and grandfather paid. For me, this day has never been to the day of perky fun, but has always been a day of sadness and family memories.

There was a moment when it seemed that on May 9 it turned into something cardboard, for a box, for the sake of the weekend. I was offended, although I understood that time was passing, smoothing the severity of social feelings. It is natural and it's even good. You can’t constantly live in the past - you have to go forward. But I enthusiastically learned about the St. George ribbon campaign, which was invented by the team of Svetlana Mironyuk from RIA Novosti. Not by ordering, not on behalf of the state, but really from a large mental impulse, it began - and we put on these ribbons and were glad to see everyone walking towards the same ribbon. So it was great!

A year later, the authorities "caught on." The ribbons were put on people in the stands and on the TV, in schools they began to say that on May 9, the tape needed to be worn “mandatory”. A wonderful sincere impulse was immediately decided to put into operation, formalize and control.

Time has passed. On May 9 came again. I opened the news from Tomsk in the computer and was dumbfounded. I still think that the photograph I saw is one of the most amazing ones that I saw in my life. In strength and surprise, impression. The local television company “TV-2” without any order or approval of the authorities came up with the “Immortal Regiment” action (then at first they confused and said “forgotten regiment”, which even better corresponded to the moment). People decided to just go out on the street on the street with portraits of their loved ones, and this really turned out to be a whole regiment. I looked at these faces - living people and those who have been gone for a long time - and they seemed to look at me too. It was fantasy.

A year later, the Immortal Regiments began to be held everywhere. And at first it was also touching and good. The son of my friends, a teenager, without telling anyone, went to his school money and made a portrait of her great -grandfather and decided to go with him to the procession. Wasn't it great? And even years later there were many those who really from the heart, with love went to the "Immortal Regiment". But there was another. And there was more and more another. Starting from the obligations and reports and ending with standard blanks for portraits, the first black and white photos of random people were inserted into the framework of which were inserted, and after the procession, all this was in the trash or in a heap in the gateway. Someone began to go out with a portrait of Nicholas II, someone simply distributed these portraits before the start of the procession, which was forced to come to.

... Svetlana Mironyuk and her comrades gradually survived from RIA. The TV-2 television company was dispersed. The invented by them - appropriated to themselves. How they assigned themselves the whole holiday. Which finally ceased to be the day of sorrow and memory. The sorrow in it was limited to the five -minute silence at seven in the evening. In order to give way to the bacchanalia of mummers of half -drunk citizens in caps, putting ribbons on dogs, bicycles and radiators of cars with stickers “trophy” and “on Berlin”.

Victory Day, about which, as it seemed recently, they began to forget - they remembered. And as they remembered. It looked now as if the war had not ended 75 years (then) ago - and is going right now! Every day the Reichstag was re -took. They fought with those who “rewrite” the story - they themselves rewrote it both in the tail and in the mane. The day when the world was won a tremendous price, it turned on the day when the perky propaganda of militarism reached the peak. Instead of “never again”, “we can repeat”.

And these are all idiotic caps and mini-skirts, singing, like at a disco, great front-line songs-they created in people the feeling that war is fun, it is easy, it is not very long. That war is not 27 million dead.

Although we still cannot even count the losses with an accuracy of a million. War is immediately autographs on the walls of defeated Berlin and salute.

The authorities clung to the Great Patriotic War, using the pronoun "we". "We defeated fascism." We? This is generally developed with us. We and Pushkin and Tolstoy together wrote poetry and composed prose. And with Tchaikovsky they stacked notes in the symphony. And with Mendeleev they saw the same dream about the periodic table. We willingly assigned ourselves victories and discoveries, to which we had nothing to do. And they did not allow you to ask a direct question: but in fact - what did we achieve? The generation of my grandfather and grandmother really won the war. They could say to themselves “we”-only for some reason they spoke so rarely. But the "I" with the Gagarin chorus said "We went!"

And at some point the past came to life. Not just “we can repeat” - but we repeat. With new fascists, with enemies who were former allies. With the songs of Okudzhava, Vysotsky, Yevtushenko, which today, it turns out, "would definitely be with us."

The third year is what is called the “special military operation”. It goes right now, at that moment. And on May 9, I traveled around Moscow all day, where it was snowing and blew a piercing wind, forcing me to think about bad symbolism. For the whole day I met only one family with St. George ribbons and one family in caps. And even the usual, alas, idiocy, each time advancing as it approached May 9, became very few.

The war, which became the cornerstone of propaganda, its "fuel", was in the shadow of completely different battles. The important and correct that was in it spilled out of this vessel. And people even stopped congratulating friends on Victory Day. The day, which was the most important, holy day, was the day of shame and awkwardness. Not for those who died for four years and won 79 years ago. Not for them. And in front of them.