15 war books everyone should read

The further the Great Patriotic War is from us, the more memory games we have than memory itself. And now, for many, the old-fashioned “Never Again!” and there are arguments about war as a way to solve political or economic problems. We have selected 15 books that, for good, each of us should read. At least in order to feel how it all really was.

“Tomorrow there was a war”, Boris Vasilyev

The war, it seems, has nothing to do with it, it is only in the name: a promise, and nothing more. Usual life, the usual alarms, small and large, boys and girls in 1940. The stronger the horror of the impending, inevitable disaster that will fall on the main characters, doubt their fate, crush, take away all the joys. A trouble against which all others, so important now, will fade.

"Life and Fate", Vasily Grossman

This is epic. It must be read long and slow, digesting each line. The book is about the war in all its horror: death at the front and behind the front, inhuman humiliations and inhuman fortitude. About the fact that there is meanness of one's own and that from this the enemies do not cease to be enemies. Everything here is the voice of a witness: Vasily Grossman was a war correspondent, and knew the war both from the front and from the rear, and his mother ended up in the Jewish ghetto and was shot. On the night before her death, the woman managed to write a letter to her son and managed to pass it on. In this letter was the whole history of humiliation, all the horror of people waiting for murder. Grossman's epic was written more than with the blood of the people: with the blood of the mother. It is more terrible not to invent ink.

"War has no woman's face" Svetlana Aleksievich

Again the voices of witnesses, only direct speech. Belarusian journalist Svetlana Aleksievich carefully collected the memories of women who fought. Moreover, she collected that face of the war, which is almost not customary to remember - as if wars only affect men. This book is also impossible to read excitedly, living pain oozes from its pages.

"Mother of Man", Vitaly Zakrutkin

The main character of the book did not go to the front, but still could not avoid the war. Alas, when there are hostilities, civilians no longer, if only simply because there is no world. The woman found herself in the face of trouble without a weapon in her hands, and she had to fight for her life and for the life of her children solely with her will and her hard work.

The General and His Army, Georgy Vladimov

It describes the war from the angle in which it is seen by those who took responsibility for thousands of other people's lives. When the scale becomes such that the soldiers seem like toy soldiers, and the cities and villages look like dots on the map, some are tempted to start the game and drag the rest into it.

Sotnikov Vasil Bykov

The book is about how war reveals a person: features that are invisible in peacetime, in an extreme situation come out and determine the main motives and actions of the heroes. One goes to the end, risking his life, the other is a coward and retreats. And yet, reading Sotnikov, one can feel very well how difficult it is to be like the first, and how hard it is to condemn the second when death breathes in the face.

"Time to live and time to die" Erich Maria Remarque

Written from the point of view of a German soldier, this novel tells the story of how there are at least two sides to every war and how it feels to be a miserable pawn on the other side. Even more: “A Time to Live and a Time to Die” is a book about how war is never good and war is never good. If you're even a little human, of course.

"I see the sun" Nodar Dumbadze

Very light, warm and bright book. The main characters are teenagers from a Georgian village, an orphan boy raised by his aunt, and a blind girl who dreams of seeing the sun. Somewhere far away there is a war. Here, in Georgia, they don't kill, they don't drop bombs, they don't shoot by tens and hundreds. But even this heavenly place is devastated by war, no matter how far the front goes. And they reach, reach for the light, despite all the hardships, the future people of the world, those who will one day heal the wounds of their country and live for those who did not return.

"Slaughterhouse Five or The Children's Crusade" by Kurt Vonnegut

A semi-fantastic, or rather surrealistic book about the author's experience of the war on the front lines, German captivity and the bombing of Dresden - by those in Dresden. book about ordinary people, physically and mentally tired, whose only dream is to simply return home.

Blockade book Ales Adamovich, Daniil Granin

A documentary and therefore a very heavy book, after which one somehow unbearably wants to live, breathe, enjoy the air, rain, snow. Call friends, relatives, just to hear them and know that they are with you. This book is not a glorification of the military feat of Leningraders, but a chronicle of suffering for which a person cannot be destined. The authors recorded the stories of dozens of witnesses to the blockade. After each terrible memory, it seems that it cannot be worse. But the next one is even worse.

"Blockade ethics" Sergei Yarov

Another incredibly heavy book about the blockade. About how inhuman suffering in some people shifts the ideas of black and white, while in others it makes them clearer, sharper, more contrasting. Without a doubt, one of the most terrible works about the war.

"Memories of the War" Nikolai Nikulin

These are the memoirs of a famous St. Petersburg art critic about his war years. The author wrote them in the mid-seventies, as he put it, in order to remove from the soul an incredible burden that had been pulling all these years. The manuscript was published only in 2007, two years before Nikulin's death. The book describes a view of the war from the point of view of the private. About how and how a soldier lives, when every next minute brings someone's death.

“War is the biggest scum that the human race has ever invented, ... war has always been mean, and the army, an instrument of murder, has always been a tool of evil. No, and there were no just wars, all of them, no matter how they are justified, are anti-human.

"It's us, Lord!" Konstantin Vorobyov

Another face of war. book about reverse side courage. About what captivity is, especially Nazi captivity. About torture, about the humiliation of the spirit through the humiliation of the body, about horror and suffering. And, of course, about death nearby. There is no war without this gloomy companion.

"In the trenches of Stalingrad", Viktor Nekrasov

The title of the book fully reveals its plot. This is one of the most brutal and important battles of the Great Patriotic War. The author shows the war from the trench - from where the strength of the hand and confidence in comrades more important than decisions taken from above. When life and death go side by side, separated by centimeters and moments, people are revealed as they are. With fear, despair, love and hate.

Cursed and Killed, Viktor Astafiev

Another book from the perspective of a soldier that could teach you how to count human lives. 20,000 when taking a height at school is just a voiced figure. And after this book, 20,000 turn back into people. Dead painfully, ugly, left to lie on the ground, sour with blood. Because war is about people, not numbers.

Text: Vladimir Erkovich

The action of the story takes place in 1945, in the last months of the war, when Andrei Guskov returns to his native village after being wounded and hospitalized - but it just so happened that he returns as a deserter. Andrei simply did not want to die, he fought a lot and saw a lot of deaths. Only Nasten's wife knows about his act, she is now forced to hide her fugitive husband even from her relatives. She visits him from time to time at his hideout and it is soon revealed that she is pregnant. Now she is doomed to shame and torment - in the eyes of the whole village she will become a walking, unfaithful wife. Meanwhile, rumors are spreading that Guskov did not die or go missing, but is hiding, and they are starting to look for him. Rasputin's story about serious spiritual metamorphoses, about moral and philosophical problems that faced the heroes was first published in 1974.

Boris Vasiliev. "Not listed"

The time of action is the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the place is the Brest Fortress besieged by the German invaders. Along with other Soviet soldiers, there is also Nikolai Pluzhnikov, a 19-year-old new lieutenant, a graduate of a military school, who was assigned to command a platoon. He arrived on the evening of June 21, and in the morning the war begins. Nikolai, who did not have time to be included in the military lists, has full right leave the fortress and take his bride away from trouble, but he remains to fulfill his civic duty. The fortress, bleeding, losing lives, heroically held out until the spring of 1942, and Pluzhnikov became its last warrior-defender, whose heroism amazed his enemies. The story is dedicated to the memory of all unknown and nameless soldiers.

Vasily Grossman. "Life and Destiny"

The manuscript of the epic was completed by Grossman in 1959, was immediately recognized as anti-Soviet because of the harsh criticism of Stalinism and totalitarianism, and was confiscated in 1961 by the KGB. In our homeland, the book was published only in 1988, and even then with abbreviations. In the center of the novel is the Battle of Stalingrad and the Shaposhnikov family, as well as the fate of their relatives and friends. There are many characters in the novel whose lives are somehow connected with each other. These are the fighters who are directly involved in the battle, and ordinary people who are not at all ready for the troubles of war. All of them manifest themselves in different ways in the conditions of war. The novel turned a lot in the mass ideas about the war and the sacrifices that the people had to make in an effort to win. This is, if you will, a revelation. It is large-scale in scope of events, large-scale in freedom and courage of thought, in true patriotism.

Konstantin Simonov. "Alive and Dead"

Trilogy ("The Living and the Dead", "Soldiers Are Not Born", " last summer”) chronologically covers the period from the beginning of the war to July 44th, and in general - the path of the people to the Great Victory. In his epic, Simonov describes the events of the war as if he sees them through the eyes of his main characters Serpilin and Sintsov. The first part of the novel is almost entirely personal diary Simonov (he served as a war correspondent throughout the war), published under the title "100 Days of War". The second part of the trilogy describes the period of preparation and the Battle of Stalingrad itself - the turning point of the Great Patriotic War. The third part is devoted to our offensive on the Belorussian front. The war tests the heroes of the novel for humanity, honesty and courage. Several generations of readers, including the most biased of them - those who went through the war themselves, recognize this work as a truly unique work, comparable to the high examples of Russian classical literature.

Mikhail Sholokhov. "They fought for their country"

The writer worked on the novel from 1942 to 1969. The first chapters were written in Kazakhstan, where Sholokhov came from the front to the evacuated family. The theme of the novel is incredibly tragic in itself - digression Soviet troops on the Don in the summer of the 42nd. Responsibility to the party and the people, as it was then understood, could induce to smooth out sharp corners, but Mikhail Sholokhov, as a great writer, openly wrote about insoluble problems, about fatal mistakes, about chaos in front-line deployment, about the absence of " strong hand able to put things in order. The retreating military units, passing through the Cossack villages, felt, of course, not cordiality. It was not at all understanding and mercy that fell to their lot on the part of the inhabitants, but indignation, contempt and anger. And Sholokhov, dragging ordinary person through the hell of war, showed how his character crystallizes in the process of testing. Shortly before his death, Sholokhov burned the manuscript of the novel, and only separate pieces were published. Whether there is a connection between this fact and the strange version that Andrei Platonov helped Sholokhov write this work at the very beginning is not even important. It is important that there is another great book in Russian literature.

Viktor Astafiev. "Cursed and Killed"

Astafiev worked on this novel in two books (“Devil's Pit” and “Bridgehead”) from 1990 to 1995, but never finished it. The name of the work, covering two episodes from the Great Patriotic War: the training of recruits near Berdsk and the crossing of the Dnieper and the battle to hold the bridgehead, was given by a line from one of the Old Believer texts - “it was written that everyone who sows confusion, wars and fratricide on earth, will be cursed and killed by God. Viktor Petrovich Astafiev, a man by no means of a courtly nature, in 1942 volunteered to go to the front. What he saw and experienced melted into deep reflections on the war as a "crime against the mind." The action of the novel begins in the reserve regiment's quarantine camp near the Berdsk station. There are recruits Leshka Shestakov, Kolya Ryndin, Ashot Vaskonyan, Petka Musikov and Lekha Buldakov ... they will face hunger and love and reprisals and ... most importantly, they will face war.

Vladimir Bogomolov. "In August 44th"

The novel, published in 1974, is based on real documented events. Even if you have not read this book in any of the fifty languages ​​it has been translated into, then everyone has probably watched the film with the actors Mironov, Baluev and Galkin. But cinema, believe me, will not replace this polyphonic book, which gives a sharp drive, a sense of danger, a full platoon, and at the same time a sea of ​​information about the “Soviet state and military vehicle"and about the everyday life of intelligence officers.So, the summer of 1944. Belarus has already been liberated, but somewhere on its territory a group of spies goes on the air, transmitting strategic information to the enemies about Soviet troops preparing a grandiose offensive. A detachment of scouts led by a SMERSH officer was sent in search of spies and a direction-finding radio.Bogomolov is a front-line soldier himself, so he was terribly meticulous in describing the details, and in particular, the work of counterintelligence (the Soviet reader learned a lot from him for the first time). Vladimir Osipovich simply exhausted several directors who were trying to film this exciting novel, he “sawed” the then editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda for an inaccuracy in the article, proving that it was he who was the first to talk about the method of Macedonian shooting. He is an amazing writer, and his book, without the slightest loss of historicity and ideological content, has become a real blockbuster in the best possible way.

Anatoly Kuznetsov. "Babi Yar"

A documentary novel based on childhood memories. Kuznetsov was born in 1929 in Kyiv, and with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, his family did not have time to evacuate. And for two years, 1941 - 1943, he saw how the Soviet troops retreated destructively, then, already in occupation, he saw atrocities, nightmares (for example, sausage was made from human flesh) and mass executions in the Nazi concentration camp in Babi Yar. It is terrible to realize, but this “former in the occupation” stigma fell on his whole life. He brought the manuscript of his truthful, uncomfortable, terrible and poignant novel to the journal Yunost during the thaw, in 1965. But there frankness seemed excessive, and the book was redrawn, throwing out some pieces, so to speak, "anti-Soviet", and inserting ideologically verified ones. The very name of the novel Kuznetsov managed to defend by a miracle. Things got to the point that the writer began to fear arrest for anti-Soviet propaganda. Kuznetsov then simply put the sheets in glass jars and buried them in the forest near Tula. In 1969, having gone on a business trip from London, he refused to return to the USSR. He died 10 years later. Full text Babi Yar came out in 1970.

Vasil Bykov. The stories "The Dead Doesn't Hurt", "Sotnikov", "Alpine Ballad"

In all the stories of the Belarusian writer (and he mostly wrote stories), the action takes place during the war, in which he himself was a participant, and the focus of meaning is moral choice person in a tragic situation. Fear, love, betrayal, sacrifice, nobility and baseness - all this is mixed in different heroes of Bykov. The story "Sotnikov" tells about two partisans who were captured by the police, and how, in the end, one of them, in complete spiritual baseness, hangs the second. Based on this story, Larisa Shepitko made the film "Ascent". In the story "The Dead Doesn't Hurt", a wounded lieutenant is sent to the rear, ordered to escort three captured Germans. Then they stumble upon a German tank unit, and in a skirmish the lieutenant loses both prisoners and his companion, and he himself is wounded in the leg a second time. Nobody wants to believe his report about the Germans in the rear. In the Alpine Ballad, a Russian prisoner of war Ivan and an Italian Julia escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Pursued by the Germans, exhausted by cold and hunger, Ivan and Julia grow closer. After the war, the Italian lady will write a letter to Ivan's fellow villagers, in which she will tell about the feat of their fellow countryman and about three days of their love.

Daniil Granin and Ales Adamovich. "Blockade book"

The famous book written by Granin in collaboration with Adamovich is called the book of truth. The first time it was published in a magazine in Moscow, it was published as a book in Lenizdat only in 1984, although it was written back in 1977. It was forbidden to publish the Blockade Book in Leningrad as long as the city was led by the first secretary of the regional committee, Romanov. Daniil Granin called the 900 days of the blockade "an epic of human suffering." On the pages of this amazing book, the memories and torments of exhausted people in the besieged city seem to come to life. It is based on the diaries of hundreds of blockade survivors, including the records of the deceased boy Yura Ryabinkin, the historian Knyazev and other people. The book contains blockade photographs and documents from the archives of the city and the Granin fund.

“Tomorrow there was a war” Boris Vasilyev (Publishing house “Eksmo”, 2011) “What a hard year! - Do you know why? Because leap year. The next one will be happy, you'll see! - The next one was one thousand nine hundred and forty-one. A poignant story about how 9-B class students loved, made friends and dreamed in 1940. About how important it is to believe people and be responsible for your words. How shameful to be a coward and a scoundrel. The fact that betrayal and cowardice can cost lives. Honor and mutual assistance. Beautiful, lively, modern teenagers. The boys who shouted "Hurrah" when they learned about the beginning of the war ... And the war was tomorrow, and the boys died in the first days. Short, without drafts and second chances, fast-paced lives. A very necessary book and a film of the same name with a wonderful cast, graduate work Yuri Kara, taken in 1987.

“The Dawns Here Are Quiet” Boris Vasiliev (Azbuka-classika publishing house, 2012) The story of the fate of five anti-aircraft gunners and their commander Fedot Vaskov, written in 1969 by front-line soldier Boris Vasiliev, brought fame to the author and became a textbook work. The story is based on a real episode, but the author made the main characters as young girls. “Women have the hardest time in war,” recalled Boris Vasiliev. - There were 300 thousand of them at the front! And then no one wrote about them.” Their names became common nouns. Beautiful Zhenya Komelkova, young mother Rita Osyanina, naive and touching Liza Brichkina, orphanage Galya Chetvertak, educated Sonya Gurvich. Twenty-year-old girls, they could live, dream, love, raise children ... The plot of the story is well known thanks to film of the same name, filmed by Stanislav Rostotsky in 1972, and a Russian-Chinese TV series in 2005. You need to read the story in order to feel the atmosphere of the time and touch the bright female characters and their fragile destinies.

"Babi Yar" Anatoly Kuznetsov (Publishing house "Scriptorium 2003", 2009) In 2009, a monument dedicated to the writer Anatoly Kuznetsov was opened in Kyiv at the intersection of Frunze and Petropavlovskaya streets. A bronze sculpture of a boy reading a German decree ordering all Jews of Kyiv to appear on September 29, 1941 with documents, money and valuables ... In 1941, Anatoly was 12 years old. His family did not have time to evacuate, and for two years Kuznetsov lived in the occupied city. "Babi Yar" was written according to childhood memories. The retreat of the Soviet troops, the first days of the occupation, the explosion of Khreshchatyk and Kiev Pechersk Lavra, executions in Babi Yar, desperate attempts to feed themselves, sausage made of human flesh, which was speculated on the market, Kiev Dynamo, Ukrainian nationalists, Vlasovites - nothing escaped the eyes of a nimble teenager. A contrasting combination of childish, almost everyday perception and terrible events that defy logic. In an abridged form, the novel was published in 1965 in the journal Youth, the full version was first published in London five years later. After 30 years of the author's death, the novel was translated into Ukrainian.

"Alpine Ballad" Vasil Bykov (Publishing House "Eksmo", 2010) You can recommend any story of the front-line writer Vasil Bykov: "Sotnikov", "Obelisk", "The Dead Doesn't Hurt", "Wolf Pack", "Go and not return" - over 50 works folk writer Belarus, but Alpine Ballad deserves special attention. A Russian prisoner of war, Ivan, and an Italian, Giulia, escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Among the harsh mountains and alpine meadows, pursued by the Germans, exhausted by cold and hunger, Ivan and Julia draw closer. After the war, the Italian lady will write a letter to Ivan's fellow villagers, in which she will tell about the feat of their fellow countryman, about three days of love that lit up the darkness and fear of war with lightning. From the memoirs of Bykov Long road home”: “I foresee a sacramental question about fear: was he afraid? Of course, he was afraid, and maybe sometimes he was a coward. But there are many fears in war, and they are all different. Fear of the Germans - that they could be taken prisoner, shot; fear due to fire, especially artillery or bombing. If an explosion is nearby, it seems that the body itself, without the participation of the mind, is ready to be torn to pieces from wild torment. But there was also fear that came from behind - from the authorities, from all those punitive organs, of which there were no less in the war than in peacetime. Even more".

“Not on the lists” Boris Vasiliev (Azbuka publishing house, 2010) Based on the story, the film “I am a Russian soldier” was shot. Tribute to the memory of all unknown and nameless soldiers. The hero of the story, Nikolai Pluzhnikov, arrived at the Brest Fortress on the evening before the war. In the morning the battle begins, and they do not have time to add Nikolai to the lists. Formally, he free man and can leave the fortress with his girlfriend. As a free man, he decides to fulfill his civic duty. Nikolai Pluzhnikov became the last defender Brest Fortress. Nine months later, on April 12, 1942, he ran out of ammunition and went upstairs: “The fortress didn’t fall: it just bled out. I am her last drop.

"Brest Fortress" Sergei Smirnov (publishing house " Soviet Russia”, 1990) Thanks to the writer and historian Sergei Smirnov, the memory of many defenders of the Brest Fortress has been restored. For the first time, the defense of Brest became known in 1942, from a German headquarters report captured with documents from the defeated unit. The Brest Fortress, as far as possible, is a documentary story, and it quite realistically describes the mentality of the Soviet people. Readiness for a feat, mutual assistance (not with words, but by giving the last sip of water), putting one's interests below the interests of the collective, defending the Motherland at the cost of one's life - these are the qualities of a Soviet person. In the Brest Fortress, Smirnov restored the biographies of people who were the first to take the German blow, were cut off from the whole world and continued their heroic resistance. He returned to the dead their honest names and the gratitude of their descendants.

"Madonna with ration bread» Maria Glushko (Goskomizdat publishing house, 1990) One of the few works that tells about the life of women during the war. Not heroic pilots and nurses, but those who worked in the rear, starved, raised children, gave "everything for the front, everything for victory", received funerals, restored the country to ruin. Largely autobiographical and last (1988) novel by the Crimean writer Maria Glushko. Her heroines, morally pure, courageous, thinking, are always an example to follow. Like the author, sincere, honest and kind person. The heroine of Madonna is 19-year-old Nina. The husband goes to war, and Nina recent months pregnancy is sent for evacuation to Tashkent. From a prosperous wealthy family to the very thick of human misfortune. Here is pain and horror, betrayal and salvation, which came from people whom she previously despised - non-party people, beggars ... There were those who stole a piece of bread from hungry children, and those who gave away their rations. “Happiness teaches nothing, only suffering teaches” After such stories, you understand how little we have done to deserve a well-fed, calm life, and how little we appreciate what we have.

The list can be continued for a long time. "Life and Fate" by Grossman, "Coast", "Choice", " Hot Snow» Yuri Bondarev, which have become classic film adaptations of Vadim Kozhevnikov's Shield and Sword and Yulian Semenov's Seventeen Moments of Spring. The epic three-volume book "War" by Ivan Stadnyuk, "Battle for Moscow. Version of the General Staff, edited by Marshal Shaposhnikov, or the three-volume Memoirs and Reflections by Marshal Georgy Zhukov. There are no number of attempts to understand what happens to people in the war. There is no complete picture, no black and white. There are only special cases, illuminated by a rare hope and surprise that such a thing can be experienced and remain human.

Books about the Second World War are part of our culture. The works created by the participants and witnesses of the war years became a kind of chronicle that authentically conveyed the stages of the selfless struggle of the Soviet people against fascism. Books about the Second World War - the topic of this article.

The peculiarity of military prose

The Great Patriotic War ... It became the main and inevitable theme in the work of Russian writers and poets of the second half of the twentieth century. But, like any other genre of literature, Soviet military prose is divided into several stages of development. Books about the Second World War, which were written in the forties, differ significantly from the works created twenty, thirty or more years after Victory Day.

The literature of the war years is distinguished by an abundance of lyrical and romantic elements. In this period special development received poetry. The tragedy was depicted in the abstract. The fate of a single person was given a less important role.

At the end of the fifties in military prose other trends were observed. The hero of the book about the Second World War was a man with a difficult fate. Behind him is a tragedy that will forever remain with him. The authors depicted not only the Great Victory, but also the life of an ordinary person. It became less pathos, more realism.

Mikhail Sholokhov

In June 1941, an ordinary Soviet person believed that victory over the invaders would come very soon. A year has passed. Belarusian cities and villages were covered with ashes. The inhabitants of Ukraine experienced grief, which turned out to be incomparable with anything. The soldiers, natives of Leningrad, no longer believed that they would see their relatives alive. The first feeling that sprouted in the soul of a Soviet person was hatred.

In 1942, Mikhail Sholokhov worked. At the same time, the story "The Science of Hatred" was created. The theme of this work was the evolution of the human soul in war. Sholokhov's story is about how a civilian is gradually changing, and all his thoughts are focused on the desire for revenge and all-consuming hatred.

"They fought for their homeland" is a novel that Sholokhov did not complete. The first chapters were written during the war. Others - after twenty years. Sholokhov burned the last parts.

The heroes of the novel are ordinary people. They fought for their homeland, but at the same time they did not stop missing their relatives, rejoicing and upsetting simple things, and even joking. The most difficult test for them was not battles and battles, but the eyes of Russian women who saw them off during the retreat.

The story "The fate of man"

War is the worst thing in human history. People feel its terrible power even after the victory. The story "The Fate of a Man" was written in 1956. The volleys have long died down, the shells have ceased to burst. But the echoes of the war were felt by every Soviet person. The inhabitants of the country were entirely people with a crippled fate. So was Andrey Sokolov - the hero of Sholokhov's works.

The fate of man is unpredictable. He can lose everything: home, relatives, everything that makes up the meaning of his life. Especially if war intervenes in this fate. The biography of the protagonist of Sholokhov's story may not be entirely true. During the war, a person who was taken prisoner ended up in a camp. Sokolov safely returned to the ranks of the Red Army. But there is an undeniable truth in the story. And it lies in the fact that a person can overcome grief and despair only when love is present in his life. After the loss of loved ones, Sokolov found the strength to shelter a homeless boy. And it saved them both.

Boris Polevoy

Among Soviet soldiers and officers were real heroes. Books were dedicated to them, films were made about them. "The Tale of a Real Man" by Boris Polevoy - a work about legendary pilot Alexey Maresiev. The biography of this person is known to every student. His feat became an example not only for soldiers, but also for civilians. The courage of the hero, to whom Boris Polevoy's "The Tale of a Real Man" is dedicated, is especially admirable. After all, this man made several dozen sorties after he became disabled.

Yuri Bondarev

“Battalions ask for fire” by Yuri Bondarev is one of the first works in which there was no pathos. In the novel there is the naked truth about the war, there is an analysis of the human soul. Such features were uncharacteristic of the prose of the forties. Bondarev's work was written in 1957.

In the post-war period, the authors avoided in their work such topics as the contradiction between the end and the means. If in Sholokhov's story, which was discussed above, the characters were either negative or positive, then Bondarev's story is not so simple. There is no white and black in his novel. But still, despite the trials, the heroes remain true to their duty. None of them become traitors.

Novel "Hot Snow"

During the war he was an artilleryman. Went from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. "Hot Snow" - piece of art, dedicated to events that the author knew firsthand. The heroes of Bondarev's novel die as a result of a long battle near Stalingrad. It is worth saying that the works of the participants of the Second World War have not only artistic, but also historical value. There is credibility in Hot Snow. tragic truth permeated the novel "Life and Fate".

Vasily Grossman

This writer began his work with short stories about the Red Army. The culmination of his literary path was a novel in which the author emphasized the similarities between two tyrants of the 20th century: Stalin and Hitler. For which he suffered. main book Life and Fate was banned.

This novel has several storylines. One of them is dedicated to the defense of the legendary Pavlov's house. The battles in this writer's novel are shown realistically. Grossman portrayed the death of a Soviet soldier simply, without unnecessary pretentious phrases. And the picture of the death of civilians at the hands of the Nazis was also created.

During the war, Grossman worked as a war correspondent. Been a witness Battle of Stalingrad. And somewhere far away, in a small Ukrainian town, his mother died. Last days she spent in the Jewish grief remained forever in the soul of the writer. The theme of it post-war creativity became the fate of the millions who died in concentration camps and Jewish ghettos. Perhaps that is why he so penetratingly conveyed the thoughts and feelings of a man who dies of suffocation in a gas chamber.

Vladimir Bogomolov

"In August forty-four" is a novel that covers the events that took place on the liberated Belarusian land. Enemy agents and scattered groups of German soldiers remained on this territory. There were many crimes on their account. In addition, the task of each underground organization was to collect information about Soviet army. One of the SMERSH counterintelligence groups searched for these agents.

The novel was written in the seventies. It is based on true events. The work of Bogomolov was the first of those that lifted the veil of secrecy of the Soviet special services.

Boris Vasiliev

One of the most bright works on the military theme is the story "The dawns here are quiet." Based on the work of Vasiliev, more than one film was shot. The uniqueness of the story, written in the late sixties, lies in the fact that its heroes are not experienced and seasoned fighters.

Vasiliev created five unique female images. The heroines of the story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” were girls who were just starting to live. One of them dreamed of parents she didn't know. The other was carrying silk underwear in a knapsack. The third was in love with the foreman. But they all died heroically. Each of them made an invaluable contribution to the Great Victory.

The fortress didn't fall...

In 1974, Vasiliev's story "I Was Not on the Lists" was published. This book can make an extremely strong impression. "A person can be killed, but not defeated" - this phrase has become, perhaps, the key in the work.

On June 21, no one believed that war could begin. Any talk on this topic was considered a provocation. The next day, at four in the morning, enemy shells thundered near the Brest Fortress.

Nikolai Pluzhnikov - the hero of Vasiliev's story - was a young inexperienced officer. But the first days of the war radically changed it. He became a hero. And this heroism is so striking that Pluzhnikov fought almost alone. He spent nine months in the fortress, periodically shooting at German soldiers and officers. Most time he was alone. Didn't receive letters from home. Didn't talk to friends. But he survived. Pluzhnikov left the fortress only when the cartridges ran out, and the news came of the liberation of Moscow.

The prototype of Vasiliev's story was one of the Soviet soldiers who did not stop the battle until the beginning of the forty-second year. The walls of the Brest Fortress keep the memory of their feat. On one of them is scratched with a blade: “I am dying, but I do not give up. November 20, 1941.

Alexander Kapler

The war claimed the lives of twenty-five million Soviet people. What would be their fate if they survived? This was written by Alexander Kapler in the story "Two out of twenty-five million".

AT work is coming it is about the fate of young people who went through the war together. The long-awaited Victory Day is coming. Then - peace time. But also post-war years not cloudless. The country is destroyed. Everywhere need and hunger. The heroes of Kapler's story go through all the difficulties together. And here comes the ninth of May of the seventy-fifth year. The characters are no longer young. They have a big friendly family: children, grandchildren. Suddenly everything disappears...

In this work, the author used artistic technique, which was not previously used in military prose. At the end of the work, the action is transferred to the distant war years. In the Adzhimushkay catacombs, which were described at the beginning of the story, almost no one survived in 1942.

The heroes of Kapler died. Their lives did not take place, as did the fate of twenty-five million Soviet people.

The most popular books about the war were written by eyewitnesses of the terrible war years:

The three most popular writers who covered the events of the war years:

1. The famous Soviet writer Boris Vasilyev went to the front at 41, while still a schoolboy. His most famous work can be considered the story "The Dawns Here Are Quiet", a film was made based on this book, which occupies an honorable 1st place in our rating of the TOP 70 best films about the war. Boris Vasiliev wrote quite a few interesting books about the war, which later formed the basis of the films.
2. No less popular Belarusian writer Vasil Bykov. He, like Boris Vasiliev, was still very young when the Great Patriotic War began. In June 1941, V. Bykov graduated from the 10th grade, and in 1942 he was called to the front. He participated in military battles. Fame brought him works: "Sotnikov", "To live until dawn", "To go and not return" and others.
3. Konstantin Simonov is another famous Soviet military writer. With the outbreak of war, he was drafted into the army. He was a war correspondent and visited all fronts. In 1943 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, after the war he was promoted to colonel. Konstantin Simonov wrote not one of the most best books about war. It is not for nothing that his name is often found on our list.

In our list of the best books about the war, you will see works famous writers, such as Y. Bondarev, M. Sholokhov, B. Polevoy, V. Pikul and others.

Great battles are described in many works about the war. According to these art books you can learn a lot of historical facts. Therefore, they are very useful for reading to teenagers and schoolchildren. Patriotism and courage are also described in poems about the war, such poems make everyone think.

The best books about battles and battles

• "In the trenches of Stalingrad" - Viktor Nekrasov
• "The Living and the Dead" - Konstantin Simonov
• "Soldiers are not born" - Konstantin Simonov
• "Last Summer" - Konstantin Simanov
• "Hot Snow" - Yuri Bondarev
• "Battalions ask for fire" - Yuri Bondarev
• Blockade Book - Ales Adamovich, Daniil Granin
• "They fought for the Motherland" - Mikhail Sholokhov
• "Road of Life" - N. Hodza
• “I wasn’t on the lists” - Boris Vasiliev
• "Brest Fortress" - Sergey Smirnov
• "Baltic Sky" - Nikolai Chukovsky
• "Stalingrad" - Viktor Nekrasov

Heroism common man, during the war - not so grandiose, no less important, because it was thanks to the Russian people that we won great victory over fascism.

The best books about heroism and the fate of people

• "Sotnikov" - Vasil Bykov
• "Vasily Terkin" - Alexander Tvardovsky
• "Obelisk" - Vasil Bykov
• "Survive Until Dawn" - Vasily Bykov
• "Cursed and Killed" - Viktor Astafiev
• "Life and Fate" - Vasily Grossman
• "Live and Remember" - Valentin Rasputin
• "Penal Battalion" - Eduard Volodarsky
• "In war as in war" - Viktor Kurochkin
• "Officers" - Boris Vasiliev
• "Aty-bats were soldiers" - Boris Vasiliev
• "Sign of trouble" - Vasil Bykov
• "Swamp" - Vasil Bykov
• "The Tale of a Real Man" - Boris Polevoy

Soviet intelligence officers made no small contribution during the Great Patriotic War, which is why so many books have been written about the exploits of Soviet intelligence officers. We have selected for you the best books on this subject.

Best Scout Books

• "Moment of Truth" - Vladimir Bogomolov.
• "Seventeen Moments of Spring" - Y. Semyonov
• "Strong in spirit" - Dmitry Nikolayevich Medvedev
• "Shield and Sword" - Vadim Kozhevnikov
• "Take Alive" - ​​Vladimir Karpov
• "On the edge of the abyss" - Y. Ivanov
• "Ocean Patrol" - Valentin Pikul

The role of Russian women during the war. They fought on a par with men, not without reason their heroism is described in the best books about the war.

The best books about the exploits of women

• "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" - Boris Vasiliev
• "War has no female face» - Svetlana Alekseevich
• "Madonna with ration bread" - Maria Glushko
• "The Fourth Height" - Elena Ilyina
• "Go and not return" - Vasily Bykov
• "The Tale of Zoya and Shura" - Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya
• "Mother of Man" - Vitaly Zakrutin
• "Partisan Lara" - Nadezhda Nadezhdina
• "Girl's team" - P. Zavodchikov, F. Samoilov

War through the eyes of children and adolescents. How early they had to grow up.

The best books about the exploits of children and youth

• "Young Guard" - Alexander Fadeev
• "The last witnesses. solo for children's voice» - Svetlana Alekseevich
• "The outside younger son» - Lev Kassil, Max Polyanovsky
• "Son of the Regiment" - Valentin Kataev
• "Boys with bows" - Valentin Pikul

Peaceful life before the war years. Romance, love and hope - all this was cut short by the war.

The best books about life before the war

• "Tomorrow there was a war" - Boris Vasiliev
• "Goodbye Boys" - Boris Balter

You might want to add to our list of the best war books. Leave your comments

It has been extensively reported in the literature, especially in Soviet time, as many authors shared personal experience and they themselves experienced all the horrors described along with ordinary soldiers. Therefore, it is not surprising that at first the war and then the post-war years were marked by the writing of a number of works dedicated to the feat of the Soviet people in fierce fight With Nazi Germany. You cannot pass by such books and forget about them, because they make us think about life and death, war and peace, past and present. We bring to your attention a list of the best books on the Great Patriotic War that are worth reading and rereading.

Vasil Bykov

Vasil Bykov (books are presented below) - an outstanding Soviet writer, public figure and WWII participant. Probably one of the most famous authors of military novels. Bykov wrote mainly about a person during the most severe trials that fall to his lot, and about the heroism of ordinary soldiers. Vasil Vladimirovich sang in his works the feat of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. Below we look at the most famous novels this author: Sotnikov, Obelisk and Survive Until Dawn.

"Sotnikov"

The story was written in 1968. This is another example of how it has been described in fiction. Initially, the arbitrariness was called "Liquidation", and the plot was based on the author's meeting with a former fellow soldier, whom he considered dead. In 1976, based on this book, the film "Ascent" was made.

The story tells about a partisan detachment that is in great need of provisions and medicines. Rybak and the intellectual Sotnikov are sent for supplies, who is ill, but volunteers to go, since there were no more volunteers. Long wanderings and searches lead the partisans to the village of Lyasiny, where they rest a little and receive a sheep carcass. Now you can go back. But on the way back they run into a squad of policemen. Sotnikov is seriously injured. Now Rybak must save the life of his comrade and bring the promised provisions to the camp. However, he does not succeed, and together they fall into the hands of the Germans.

"Obelisk"

Many were written by Vasil Bykov. The writer's books were often filmed. One of these books was the story "Obelisk". The work is built according to the “story within a story” type and has a pronounced heroic character.

The hero of the story, whose name remains unknown, comes to the funeral of Pavel Miklashevich, a village teacher. At the wake, everyone remembers the deceased kind word, but then the talk of Frost comes up, and everyone falls silent. On the way home, the hero asks his fellow traveler what kind of Moroz has to do with Miklashevich. Then he is told that Frost was the teacher of the deceased. He treated the children as if they were his own, took care of them, and Miklashevich, who was oppressed by his father, took to live with him. When the war began, Frost helped the partisans. The village was occupied by the police. One day, his students, including Miklashevich, filed the bridge supports, and the police chief, along with his henchmen, ended up in the water. The boys were caught. Frost, who by that time had fled to the partisans, surrendered in order to free the students. But the Nazis decided to hang both the children and their teachers. Before his execution, Moroz helped Miklashevich escape. The rest were hanged.

"Survive Until Dawn"

The story of 1972. As you can see, the Great Patriotic War in literature continues to be relevant even after decades. This is also confirmed by the fact that Bykov was awarded the State Prize of the USSR for this story. The work tells about Everyday life military intelligence officers and saboteurs. The story was originally written in Belarusian language, and only then translated into Russian.

November 1941, the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Soviet army lieutenant Igor Ivanovsky, main character story, commands a sabotage group. He will have to lead his comrades behind the front line - to the lands of Belarus, occupied by the German invaders. Their task is to blow up the German ammunition depot. Bykov tells about the feat of ordinary soldiers. It was they, and not staff officers, who became the force that helped win the war.

The book was filmed in 1975. The script for the film was written by Bykov himself.

“And the dawns here are quiet…”

The work of the Soviet and Russian writer Boris Lvovich Vasiliev. One of the most famous front-line stories is largely due to the film adaptation of the same name in 1972. “And the dawns here are quiet…” Boris Vasiliev wrote in 1969. The work is based on real events: during the war, soldiers serving on the Kirovskaya railway, prevented German saboteurs from blowing up the railway track. Only the commander remained alive after a fierce battle Soviet group, that was awarded a medal"For Military Merit".

“The Dawns Here Are Quiet…” (Boris Vasiliev) - a book describing the 171st junction in the Karelian wilderness. Here is the calculation of anti-aircraft installations. The soldiers, not knowing what to do, begin to get drunk and mess around. Then Fyodor Vaskov, commandant of the section, asks to "send non-drinkers." The command sends two squads of anti-aircraft gunners to him. And somehow one of the new arrivals notices German saboteurs in the forest.

Vaskov realizes that the Germans want to get to strategic targets and understands that they need to be intercepted here. To do this, he collects a detachment of 5 anti-aircraft gunners and leads them to the Sinyukhina ridge through the swamps along a path he knows alone. During the campaign, it turns out that there are 16 Germans, so he sends one of the girls for reinforcements, while he pursues the enemy. However, the girl does not reach her own and dies in the swamps. Vaskov has to enter into an unequal battle with the Germans, and as a result, the four girls remaining with him die. But still the commandant manages to capture the enemies, and he takes them to the location of the Soviet troops.

The story describes the feat of a man who himself decides to confront the enemy and not let him walk with impunity. native land. Without the order of the authorities, the main character himself goes into battle and takes 5 volunteers with him - the girls volunteered themselves.

"Tomorrow there was a war"

The book is a kind of biography of the author of this work, Boris Lvovich Vasiliev. The story begins with the fact that the writer tells about his childhood, that he was born in Smolensk, his father was the commander of the Red Army. And before becoming at least someone in this life, choosing his profession and deciding on a place in society, Vasiliev became a soldier, like many of his peers.

"Tomorrow there was a war" - a work about the pre-war period. Its main characters are still very young students of the 9th grade, the book tells about their growing up, love and friendship, idealistic youth, which turned out to be too short due to the outbreak of war. The work tells about the first serious confrontation and choice, about the collapse of hopes, about the inevitable growing up. And all this against the backdrop of a looming grave threat that cannot be stopped or avoided. And in a year, these boys and girls will find themselves in the heat of a fierce battle, in which many of them are destined to burn out. However, for your short life they will learn what honor, duty, friendship and truth are.

"Hot Snow"

A novel by front-line writer Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev. The Great Patriotic War in the literature of this writer is presented especially widely and became the main motive of all his work. But most famous work Bondarev is precisely the novel "Hot Snow", written in 1970. The action of the work takes place in December 1942 near Stalingrad. The novel is based on real events - the attempt of the German army to release the sixth army of Paulus, surrounded at Stalingrad. This battle was decisive in the battle for Stalingrad. The book was filmed by G. Egiazarov.

The novel begins with the fact that two artillery platoons under the command of Davlatyan and Kuznetsov will have to gain a foothold on the Myshkova River, and then hold back the advance of German tanks rushing to the rescue of Paulus's army.

After the first wave of the offensive, Lieutenant Kuznetsov's platoon is left with one gun and three soldiers. Nevertheless, the soldiers continue to repel the onslaught of enemies for another day.

"Destiny of Man"

"Destiny of Man" school work, which is studied within the framework of the topic "The Great Patriotic War in Literature". The story was written by the famous Soviet writer Mikhail Sholokhov in 1957.

The work describes the life of a simple driver Andrei Sokolov, who had to leave his family and native home with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. However, the hero did not have time to get to the front, as he immediately gets injured and ends up in Nazi captivity, and then in a concentration camp. Thanks to his courage, Sokolov manages to survive the captivity, and at the end of the war he manages to escape. Once with his own, he gets a vacation and goes to small homeland, where he learns that his family died, only his son, who went to war, survived. Andrei returns to the front and learns that his son was shot dead by a sniper on the last day of the war. However, this is not the end of the hero's story, Sholokhov shows that even having lost everything, one can find new hope and gain strength in order to live on.

"Brest Fortress"

The book of the famous and journalist was written in 1954. For this work, the author was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1964. And this is not surprising, because the book is the result of Smirnov's ten-year work on the history of the defense of the Brest Fortress.

The work "Brest Fortress" (Sergey Smirnov) is a part of history itself. Writing literally bit by bit collected information about the defenders, wishing that their good names and honor were not forgotten. Many of the heroes were captured, for which, after the end of the war, they were convicted. And Smirnov wanted to protect them. The book contains many memories and testimonies of the participants in the battles, which fills the book with true tragedy, full of courageous and decisive actions.

"Alive and Dead"

The Great Patriotic War in the literature of the 20th century describes life ordinary people who, by the will of fate, turned out to be heroes and traitors. This cruel time crushed many, and only a few managed to slip between the millstones of history.

"The Living and the Dead" is the first book of the famous trilogy of the same name by Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov. The second two parts of the epic are called "Soldiers Are Not Born" and "Last Summer". The first part of the trilogy was published in 1959.

Many critics consider the work one of the brightest and most talented examples of the description of the Great Patriotic War in the literature of the 20th century. At the same time, the epic novel is not a historiographical work or a chronicle of the war. The characters in the book are fictional people, although they have certain prototypes.

"War has no woman's face"

The literature devoted to the Great Patriotic War usually describes the exploits of men, sometimes forgetting that women also contributed to the common victory. But the book Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich, one might say, restores historical justice. The writer collected in her work the stories of those women who took part in the Great Patriotic War. The title of the book was the first lines of the novel "The War under the Roofs" by A. Adamovich.

"Not listed"

Another story, the theme of which was the Great Patriotic War. AT Soviet literature Boris Vasiliev, whom we have already mentioned above, was quite famous. But he received this fame precisely thanks to his military work, one of which is the story "It does not appear on the lists."

The book was written in 1974. Its action takes place in the very Brest Fortress, which is besieged by fascist invaders. Lieutenant Nikolai Pluzhnikov, the protagonist of the work, ends up in this fortress before the start of the war - he arrived on the night of June 21-22. And at dawn the battle begins. Nikolai has the opportunity to leave here, since his name is not on any military list, but he decides to stay and defend his homeland to the end.

"Babi Yar"

The documentary novel Babi Yar was published by Anatoly Kuznetsov in 1965. The work is based on the childhood memories of the author, who during the war ended up in the territory occupied by the Germans.

The novel begins with a short author's preface, a short introductory chapter, and several chapters, which are grouped into three parts. The first part tells about the withdrawal of the retreating Soviet troops from Kyiv, the collapse of the Southwestern Front and the beginning of the occupation. Also included here were scenes of the execution of Jews, explosions of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and Khreshchatyk.

The second part is completely devoted to the occupation life of 1941-1943, the deportations of Russians and Ukrainians as workers to Germany, about hunger, about underground production, about Ukrainian nationalists. The final part of the novel tells about the liberation of the Ukrainian land from the German invaders, the flight of the policemen, the battle for the city, the uprising in the Babi Yar concentration camp.

"A Tale of a Real Man"

Literature about the Great Patriotic War also includes the work of another Russian writer who went through the war as a military journalist, Boris Polevoy. The story was written in 1946, that is, almost immediately after the end of hostilities.

The plot is based on an event from the life of the USSR military pilot Alexei Meresyev. Its prototype was real character, hero Soviet Union Alexei Maresyev, who, like his hero, was a pilot. The story tells how he was shot down in battle with the Germans and badly wounded. As a result of the accident, he lost both legs. However, his willpower was so great that he managed to return to the ranks of Soviet pilots.

The product has been awarded Stalin Prize. The story is imbued with humanistic and patriotic ideas.

"Madonna with ration bread"

Maria Glushko is a Crimean Soviet writer who went to the front at the beginning of the Second World War. Her book Madonna with Ration Bread is about the feat of all mothers who had to survive the Great Patriotic War. The heroine of the work is a very young girl Nina, whose husband goes to war, and at the insistence of her father, she goes to evacuate to Tashkent, where her stepmother and brother are waiting for her. The heroine is in the last stages of pregnancy, but this will not protect her from the flow of human troubles. And in a short time, Nina will have to find out what was previously hidden from her behind the well-being and tranquility of the pre-war existence: people in the country live so differently, what they have life principles, values, attitudes, how they differ from her, who grew up in ignorance and prosperity. But the main thing that the heroine has to do is to give birth to a child and save him from all the misfortunes of the war.

"Vasily Terkin"

Such characters as the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, literature painted the reader in different ways, but the most memorable, resilient and charismatic, of course, was Vasily Terkin.

This poem by Alexander Tvardovsky, which began to be published in 1942, immediately received popular love and recognition. The work was written and published throughout the Second World War, the last part was published in 1945. The main task of the poem was to maintain the morale of the soldiers, and Tvardovsky successfully completed this task, largely due to the image of the protagonist. Daring and cheerful Terkin, who is always ready for battle, won the hearts of many ordinary soldiers. He is the soul of the unit, a merry fellow and a joker, and in battle he is a role model, a resourceful and always achieving his goal warrior. Even being on the verge of death, he continues to fight and is already in a fight with Death itself.

The work includes a prologue, 30 chapters of the main content, divided into three parts, and an epilogue. Each chapter is a small front-line story from the life of the protagonist.

Thus, we see that the literature of the Soviet period widely covered the exploits of the Great Patriotic War. We can say that this is one of the main themes of the middle and second half of the 20th century for Russians and Soviet writers. This is due to the fact that the whole country was involved in the battle with the German invaders. Even those who were not at the front worked tirelessly in the rear, providing soldiers with ammunition and provisions.