During the Great Patriotic War, the writer served as an artilleryman, went a long way from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. Among Yuri Bondarev's books about the war, "Hot Snow" occupies a special place, in which the author solves in a new way the moral questions posed in his first stories - "Battalions ask for fire" and "Last volleys". These three books about the war are a holistic and evolving world that has reached its greatest fullness and figurative power in Hot Snow.

The events of the novel unfold near Stalingrad, south of the 6th Army of General Paulus, blockaded by Soviet troops, in the cold December 1942, when one of our armies held back in the Volga steppe the attack of the tank divisions of Field Marshal Manstein, who sought break through the corridor to the army of Paulus and withdraw it from the encirclement. The outcome of the battle on the Volga and, perhaps, even the timing of the end of the war itself largely depended on the success or failure of this operation. The duration of the action is limited to just a few days, during which the heroes of the novel selflessly defend a tiny patch of land from German tanks.

In "Hot Snow" time is squeezed even tighter than in the story "Battalions ask for fire." This is a short march of General Bessonov, unloaded from the echelons of the army, and a battle that decided so much in the fate of the country; these are cold frosty dawns, two days and two endless December nights. Knowing no respite and lyrical digressions, as if the author’s breath was caught from constant tension, the novel is distinguished by its directness, the direct connection of the plot with the true events of the Great Patriotic War, with one of its decisive moments. The life and death of the heroes of the novel, their very destinies are illuminated by the disturbing light of true history, as a result of which everything acquires special weight and significance.

The events on Drozdovsky's battery absorb almost all the reader's attention, the action is concentrated mainly around a small number of characters. Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and their comrades are part of the great army, they are the people. Heroes have his best spiritual, moral features.

This image of a people who has risen to war appears before us in the richness and diversity of characters, and at the same time in their integrity. It is not limited to images of young lieutenants - commanders of artillery platoons, or colorful figures of soldiers - like the somewhat cowardly Chibisov, the calm and experienced gunner Evstigneev, or the straightforward and rude riding Rubin; nor senior officers, such as the division commander, Colonel Deev, or the army commander, General Bessonov. Only all together, with all the difference in ranks and ranks, they make up the image of the fighting people. The strength and novelty of the novel lies in the fact that this unity is achieved, as it were, by itself, imprinted without much effort on the part of the author - a living, moving life.

The death of heroes on the eve of victory, the criminal inevitability of death, contains a high tragedy and provokes a protest against the cruelty of the war and the forces that unleashed it. The heroes of "Hot Snow" are dying - the medical officer of the battery Zoya Elagina, the shy rider Sergunenkov, a member of the Military Council Vesnin, Kasymov and many others are dying ...

In the novel, death is a violation of higher justice and harmony. Let us recall how Kuznetsov looks at the murdered Kasymov: “Now a shell box lay under Kasymov’s head, and his youthful, beardless face, recently alive, swarthy, turned deathly white, thinned by the terrible beauty of death, looked in surprise with moist cherry half-open eyes on his chest, on a torn to shreds, excised quilted jacket, as if even after death he did not comprehend how it killed him and why he could not get up to the sight.

Kuznetsov feels even more acutely the irreversibility of the loss of Sergunenkov. After all, the cause of his death is fully disclosed here. Kuznetsov turned out to be a powerless witness to how Drozdovsky sent Sergunenkov to certain death, and he already knows that he will curse himself forever for what he saw, was present, but failed to change anything.

In "Hot Snow" everything human in people, their characters are revealed precisely in the war, depending on it, under its fire, when, it seems, one cannot even raise one's head. The chronicle of the battle will not tell about its participants - the battle in "Hot Snow" cannot be separated from the fates and characters of people.

The past of the characters in the novel is important. For some, it is almost cloudless, for others it is so complex and dramatic that it does not remain behind, pushed aside by the war, but accompanies a person in the battle southwest of Stalingrad. The events of the past determined Ukhanov's military fate: a gifted, full of energy officer who would have commanded a battery, but he is only a sergeant. The cool, rebellious nature of Ukhanov also determines his life path. Chibisov's past misfortunes, which almost broke him (he spent several months in German captivity), echoed fear in him and determined a lot in his behavior. One way or another, the past slips in the novel of Zoya Elagina, and Kasymov, and Sergunenkov, and the unsociable Rubin, whose courage and loyalty to soldier's duty we will be able to appreciate only at the very end.

The past of General Bessonov is especially important in the novel. The thought of a son who has fallen into German captivity makes it difficult for him to act both at Headquarters and at the front. And when a fascist leaflet announcing that Bessonov's son was taken prisoner falls into the counterintelligence of the front, into the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Osin, it seems that there is a threat to the general's official position.

Probably the most important human feeling in the novel is the love that arises between Kuznetsov and Zoya. The war, its cruelty and blood, its terms, overturning the usual ideas about time - it was she who contributed to such a rapid development of this love, when there is no time for reflection and analysis of one's feelings. And it all starts with a quiet, incomprehensible jealousy of Kuznetsov for Drozdovsky. And soon - so little time passes - he already bitterly mourns the dead Zoya, and it is from here that the title of the novel is taken, as if emphasizing the most important thing for the author: when Kuznetsov wiped his face wet from tears, "the snow on the sleeve of the quilted jacket was hot from his tears."

Having been deceived at first in Lieutenant Drozdovsky, then the best cadet, Zoya throughout the novel opens up to us as a moral person, whole, ready for self-sacrifice, able to feel with all her heart the pain and suffering of many. She goes through many trials. But her kindness, her patience and participation reach out to everyone, she is truly a sister to the soldiers. The image of Zoya somehow imperceptibly filled the atmosphere of the book, its main events, its harsh, cruel reality with feminine affection and tenderness.

One of the most important conflicts in the novel is the conflict between Kuznetsov and Drozdovsky. A lot of space has been given to this, it is exposed very sharply and is easily traced from beginning to end. Tensions at first, rooted in the prehistory of the novel; the inconsistency of characters, manners, temperaments, even the style of speech: it seems difficult for the soft, thoughtful Kuznetsov to endure Drozdovsky's jerky, commanding, indisputable speech. The long hours of battle, the senseless death of Sergunenkov, the mortal wound of Zoya, in which Drozdovsky is partly to blame - all this forms an abyss between the two young officers, their moral incompatibility.

In the finale, this abyss is indicated even more sharply: the four surviving artillerymen consecrate the newly received orders in a soldier’s bowler hat, and the sip that each of them takes is, first of all, a funeral sip - it contains bitterness and grief of loss. Drozdovsky also received the order, because for Bessonov, who awarded him, he is the surviving, wounded commander of the standing battery, the general does not know about his fault and, most likely, will never know. This is also the reality of war. But it is not for nothing that the writer leaves Drozdovsky aside from those gathered at the soldier's bowler hat.

The ethical, philosophical thought of the novel, as well as its emotional intensity, reaches its highest height in the finale, when Bessonov and Kuznetsov suddenly come closer. This is a rapprochement without immediate proximity: Bessonov rewarded his officer on a par with others and moved on. For him, Kuznetsov is just one of those who stood to death at the turn of the Myshkov River. Their closeness turns out to be more important: it is the closeness of thought, spirit, outlook on life. For example, shocked by the death of Vesnin, Bessonov blames himself for the fact that, because of his lack of sociability and suspicion, he interfered with the friendship between them (“the way Vesnin wanted, and the way they should be”). Or Kuznetsov, who could do nothing to help Chubarikov’s calculation, which was dying before his eyes, tormented by the piercing thought that all this, “it seemed, had to happen because he did not have time to get close to them, to understand everyone, to fall in love. ..".

Divided by the disproportion of duties, Lieutenant Kuznetsov and the army commander, General Bessonov, are moving towards the same goal - not only military, but also spiritual. Suspecting nothing of each other's thoughts, they think about the same thing, they are looking for the same truth. Both demandingly ask themselves about the purpose of life and about the correspondence to it of their actions and aspirations. They are separated by age and are related, like father and son, and even like brother and brother, by love for the Motherland and belonging to the people and to humanity in the highest sense of these words.

He has been in the army since August 1942, and was wounded twice in battle. Then - the artillery school and again the front. After participating in the battle of Stalingrad, Yu. Bondarev reached the borders of Czechoslovakia in artillery battle formations. He began to print after the war; in the forty-ninth year, the first story "On the Road" was published.
Having started working in the literary field, Y. Bondarev did not immediately take up the creation of books about the war. He seems to be waiting for what he saw and experienced at the front to “subside”, “settled”, to pass the test of time. The heroes of his stories, which compiled the collection "On the Big River" (1953), like the heroes of the first story"The Youth of Commanders" (1956) - people who returned from the war, people who join peaceful professions or decide to devote themselves to military affairs. Working on these works, Y. Bondarev masters the beginnings of writing skills, his pen gains more and more confidence. In the fifty-seventh year, the writer publishes the story "Battalions ask for fire."

Soon the story "The Last Volleys" (1959) appears.
It is they, these two short stories, that make the name of the writer Yuri Bondarev widely known. The heroes of these books - young artillerymen, the author's peers, captains Ermakov and Novikov, lieutenant Ovchinnikov, junior lieutenant Alekhin, medical instructors Shura and Lena, other soldiers and officers - were remembered and loved by the reader. The reader has appreciated not only the author's ability to accurately depict dramatically acute combat episodes, the front-line life of artillerymen, but also his desire to penetrate the inner world of his heroes, to show their experiences during the battle, when a person is on the verge of life and death.
The stories “The Battalions Ask for Fire” and “The Last Volleys,” Y. Bondarev later said, “were born, I would say, from living people, from those whom I met in the war, with whom I walked along the roads of the Stalingrad steppes, Ukraine and Poland, pushed the guns with his shoulder, pulled them out of the autumn mud, fired, stood on direct fire ...
In a state of some kind of obsession, I wrote these stories, and all the time I had the feeling that I was bringing back to life those about whom no one knows anything and about whom only I know, and only I must, must tell everything about them.

After these two stories, the writer departs from the topic of war for a while. He creates the novels "Silence" (1962), "Two" (1964), the story "Relatives" (1969), in the center of which there are other problems. But all these years he has been hatching the idea of ​​a new book, in which he wants to say more about the unique tragic and heroic time, on a larger scale and deeper than in his first military stories. Work on a new book - the novel "Hot Snow" - took almost five years. In the sixty-ninth year, on the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of our victory in the Great Patriotic War, the novel was published.
"Hot Snow" recreates the picture of the most intense battle that broke out in December 1942 southwest of Stalingrad, when the German command made a desperate attempt to save their troops encircled in the Stalingrad region. The heroes of the novel are soldiers and officers of the new, newly formed army, urgently transferred to the battlefield in order to thwart this attempt by the Nazis at any cost.
At first, it was assumed that the newly formed army would merge into the troops of the Don Front and would take part in the liquidation of encircled enemy divisions. It was precisely this task that Stalin set for the commander of the army, General Bessonov: “Bring your army into action without delay.

I wish you, comrade Bessonov, to successfully compress and destroy the Paulus group as part of the Rokossovsky front ... ”But at the moment when Bessonov’s army was just unloading northwest of Stalingrad, the Germans launched their counteroffensive from the Kotelnikovo area, ensuring a significant advantage in the breakthrough sector in power. At the suggestion of the representative of the Stavka, a decision was made to take Bessonov's well-equipped army from the Don Front and immediately regroup to the south-west against the Manstein shock group.
In severe frost, without stopping, without halts, Bessonov's army moved from north to south in a forced march, so that, having covered a distance of two hundred kilometers, to reach the line of the Myshkov River before the Germans. This was the last natural frontier, beyond which the German tanks opened up a smooth, even steppe right up to Stalingrad itself. The soldiers and officers of the Bessonov army are perplexed: why did Stalingrad remain behind them? Why do they move not towards him, but away from him? The mood of the heroes of the novel is characterized by the following conversation taking place on the march between the two commanders of the firing platoons, lieutenants Davlatyan and Kuznetsov:

“Do you notice anything? - Davlatyan spoke, leaning towards Kuznetsov's step. - First we went west, and then turned south. Where are we going?
- To the front line.
- I myself know that I’m on the front line, you see, you guessed it! - Davlatyan even snorted, but his long, plum eyes were attentive. - Stalin, the hail is behind now. Tell me, you fought... Why didn't they announce the destination to us? Where can we come? It's a secret, no? Do you know anything? Really not in Stalingrad?
Anyway, to the front line, Goga, - Kuznetsov answered. - Only to the front line, and nowhere else ...
What is this, an aphorism, right? Am I supposed to laugh? I know myself. But where is the front here? We're going somewhere southwest. Do you want to look at the compass?
I know it's southwest.
Listen, if we're not going to Stalingrad, it's terrible. The Germans are being beaten up there, but are we somewhere in the middle of nowhere?”

Neither Davlatyan, nor Kuznetsov, nor the sergeants and soldiers subordinate to them knew at that moment what incredibly difficult combat trials lay ahead of them. Having left at night in a given area, parts of the Bessonov army on the move, without rest - every minute is precious - began to take up defensive positions on the northern bank of the river, began to bite into the frozen ground, hard as iron. Now it was already known to everyone for what purpose this was being done.
Both the forced march and the occupation of the line of defense - all this is written so expressively, so clearly that one gets the feeling that you yourself, burned by the steppe December wind, are walking along the endless Stalingrad steppe together with a platoon of Kuznetsov or Davlatyan, grabbing prickly snow with dry, weathered lips and it seems to you that if in half an hour, in fifteen, ten minutes there is no rest, you will collapse on this snow-covered earth and you will no longer have the strength to get up; as if you yourself, all wet with sweat, are pecking the deeply frozen, ringing earth with a pickaxe, equipping the firing positions of the battery, and stopping for a second to take a breath, you listen to the oppressive, frightening silence there, in the south, from where the enemy should appear ... But the picture of the battle itself is especially strongly given in the novel.
So write the battle could only be a direct participant, who was at the forefront. And so, in all the exciting details, only a talented writer could capture it in his memory, with such artistic power to convey the atmosphere of the battle to the readers. In the book "A look into the biography" Y. Bondarev writes:
“I well remember the furious bombardments, when the sky was blackened to the ground, and these sand-colored herds of tanks in the snowy steppe, crawling on our batteries. I remember the red-hot barrels of guns, the continuous thunder of shots, the screeching, clanking of caterpillars, the open jackets of the soldiers, the hands of the loaders flickering with shells, the sweat black from soot on the faces of the gunners, the black-and-white tornadoes of explosions, the swaying barrels of German self-propelled guns, crossed tracks in the steppe, hot the bonfires of the tanks set on fire, the smoky oil smoke that covered the dim, narrow patch of the frosty sun.

In several places, Manstein's shock army - the tanks of Colonel General Hoth - broke through our defenses, approached the encircled Paulus grouping by sixty kilometers, and the German tank crews already saw a crimson glow over Stalingrad. Manstein radioed Paulus: “We will come! Hold on! Victory is near!

But they didn't come. We rolled out guns in front of the infantry for direct fire in front of the tanks. The iron roar of engines burst into our ears. We fired almost point-blank, seeing the round mouths of the tank barrels so close that it seemed they were aimed at our pupils. Everything burned, tore, sparkled in the snowy steppe. We were suffocating from the oil smoke that was creeping up on the guns, from the poisonous smell of burnt armor. In the seconds between shots, they grabbed handfuls of blackened snow on the parapets, swallowed it to quench their thirst. She burned us just like joy and hatred, like an obsession with battle, for we already felt that the time for retreats was over.

What is compressed here, compressed to three paragraphs, occupies a central place in the novel, constitutes its counterpoint. Tank-artillery battle lasts the whole day. We see its growing tension, its vicissitudes, its moments of crisis. We see both through the eyes of Lieutenant Kuznetsov, the commander of the firing platoon, who knows that his task is to destroy German tanks climbing onto the line occupied by the battery, and through the eyes of the army commander, General Bessonov, who controls the actions of tens of thousands of people in battle and is responsible for the outcome of the entire battle to the commander and the Military Council of the front, in front of the Headquarters, in front of the party and the people.
A few minutes before the bombing of German aviation on our front line, the general, who visited the firing positions of the gunners, turns to the battery commander Drozdovsky: “Well ... Everyone, take cover, lieutenant. As they say, survive the bombing! And then - the most important thing: the tanks will go ... Not a step back! And knock out tanks. Stand - and forget about death! Don't think abouther under no circumstances!" Giving such an order, Bessonov understood how dearly his execution would be paid, but he knew that "everything in the war must be paid with blood - for failure and for success, because there is no other payment, nothing can replace it."
And the gunners in this stubborn, difficult, day-long battle did not take a single step back. They continued to fight even when only one gun survived from the entire battery, when only four people from the platoon of Lieutenant Kuznetsov remained in the ranks with him.
"Hot Snow" is primarily a psychological novel. Even in the stories "The Battalions Ask for Fire" and "The Last Volleys", the description of battle scenes was not for Yu. Bondarev the main and only goal. He was interested in the psychology of the Soviet man in the war, attracted by what people experience, feel, think at the time of the battle, when at any second your life could end. In the novel, this desire to depict the inner world of the characters, to study the psychological, moral motives of their behavior in the exceptional circumstances that developed at the front, became even more tangible, even more fruitful.
The characters of the novel are Lieutenant Kuznetsov, in whose image the features of the author’s biography are guessed, and Komsomol organizer Lieutenant Davlatyan, who was mortally wounded in this battle, and battery commander Lieutenant Drozdovsky, and medical instructor Zoya Elagina, and commanders of guns, loaders, gunners, riders, and commander division colonel Deev, and the army commander, General Bessonov, and a member of the Army Military Council, divisional commissar Vesnin - all these are truly living people, differing from each other not only in military ranks or positions, not only in age and appearance. Each of them has his own spiritual salary, his own character, his own moral foundations, his own memories of the now seemingly infinitely distant pre-war life. They react differently to what is happening, behave differently in the same situations. Some of them, captured by the excitement of battle, really stop thinking about death, others, like the castle Chibisov, are fettered by fear of it and bend to the ground ...

At the front, people's relations with each other also develop differently. After all, war is not only battles, it is also preparation for them, and moments of calm between battles; it is also a special, front-line life. The novel shows the complex relationship between Lieutenant Kuznetsov and the battery commander Drozdovsky, to whom Kuznetsov is obliged to obey, but whose actions do not always seem right to him. They knew each other back in the artillery school, and even then Kuznetsov noticed excessive self-confidence, arrogance, selfishness, some spiritual callousness of his future battery commander.
It is no coincidence that the author delves into the study of the relationship between Kuznetsov and Drozdovsky. This is essential to the ideological concept of the novel. We are talking about different views on the value of the human person. Selfishness, spiritual callousness, indifference turn around at the front - and this is impressively shown in the novel - as unnecessary losses.
Battery orderly Zoya Elagina is the only female character in the novel. Yuri Bondarev subtly shows how, by her very presence, this girl softens the harsh front-line life, ennobles the hardened male souls, evoking tender memories of mothers, wives, sisters, loved ones, with whom the war separated them. In her white sheepskin coat, in neat white felt boots, in white embroidered mittens, Zoya looks like “not a military at all, everything from this is festively clean, wintery, as if from another, calm, distant world ...”

The war did not spare Zoya Elagina. Her body, covered with a cloak, is brought to the firing positions of the battery, and the surviving gunners silently look at her, as if expecting that she will be able to throw back the cloak, answer them with a smile, movement, an affectionate melodious voice familiar to the entire battery: “ Dear boys, why are you looking at me like that? I'm alive..."
In "Hot Snow" Yuri Bondarev creates a new image for him of a large-scale military leader. Army Commander Pyotr Alexandrovich Bessonov is a professional soldier, a man endowed with a clear, sober mind, far from any kind of hasty decisions and groundless illusions. In commanding troops on the battlefield, he shows enviable restraint, wise prudence and the necessary firmness, determination and courage.

Perhaps only he knows how incredibly difficult it is for him. It is difficult not only because of the consciousness of the enormous responsibility for the fate of the people entrusted to his command. It is also difficult because, like a bleeding wound, his son's fate relentlessly worries him. A graduate of a military school, Lieutenant Viktor Bessonov, was sent to the Volkhov Front, was surrounded, and his name does not appear on the lists of those who left the environment. It is possible, therefore, that the worst thing is enemy captivity ...
Possessing a complex character, outwardly gloomy, withdrawn, difficult to get along with people, unnecessarily, perhaps official in dealing with them even in rare moments of rest, General Bessonov is at the same time surprisingly human inwardly. This is most clearly shown by the author in the episode when the commander, having ordered the adjutant to take awards with him, leaves in the morning after the battle to the position of artillerymen. We remember this exciting episode well both from the novel and from the final shots of the film of the same name.
“... Bessonov, at every step, bumping into what yesterday was still a full-strength battery, walked along the firing lines - past parapets cut and completely swept away like steel scythes, past broken guns ulcerated with fragments, earthen heaps, blackly torn mouths of funnels ...

He stopped. It caught my eye: four gunners, in impossibly grimy, sooty, rumpled overcoats, stretched out in front of him near the last gun of the battery. The campfire, fading away, smoldered right at the gun position ...
On the faces of four there was pockmarked burnt-on skin, dark, congealed sweat, an unhealthy sheen in the bones of the pupils; powder coating border on sleeves, on hats. The one who, at the sight of Bessonov, quietly gave the command: “Attention!”, A gloomy calm, short lieutenant, stepped over the frame and, pulling himself up a little, raised his hand to his hat, preparing to report ...
Interrupting the report with a gesture of his hand, recognizing him, this gloomy gray-eyed, with parched lips, the lieutenant's nose aggravated on his emaciated face, with torn off buttons on his overcoat, in brown spots of shell grease on the floors, with worn-out enamel cubes in buttonholes covered with mica frost, Bessonov said:
I don’t need a report ... I understand everything ... I remember the name of the battery commander, but I forgot yours ...
The commander of the first platoon, Lieutenant Kuznetsov...
So your battery knocked out these tanks?
Yes, Comrade General. Today we fired at the tanks, but we only had seven shells left... The tanks were knocked out yesterday...
His voice, in the official way, still struggled to gain a passionless and even fortress; there was a gloomy, non-boyish seriousness in his tone, in his eyes, without a shadow of shyness in front of the general, as if this boy, the platoon commander, had gone through something at the cost of his life, and now this understood something stood dry in his eyes, frozen, not spilling.

And with a prickly convulsion in his throat from this voice, from the look of the lieutenant, from this seemingly repeated, similar expression on the three rough, bluish-red faces of the gunners standing between the beds, behind his platoon commander, Bessonov wanted to ask if the battery commander was alive, where he was which of them endured the scout and the German, but did not ask, could not ... The burning wind furiously pounced on the fire, bent the collar, the hems of the sheepskin coat, squeezed tears out of his inflamed eyelids, and Bessonov, without wiping these grateful and bitter burning tears, no longer embarrassed by the attention of the commanders who were quiet around him, he leaned heavily on his stick ...

And then, presenting all four with the Order of the Red Banner on behalf of the supreme power, which gave him the great and dangerous right to command and decide the fate of tens of thousands of people, he forcefully said:
- Everything that I personally can ... Everything that I can ... Thank you for the knocked out tanks. It was the main thing - to knock out their tanks. That was the main...
And, putting on a glove, he quickly went along the message towards the bridge ... "

So, "Hot Snow" is another book about the Battle of Stalingrad, added to those that have already been created about it in our literature. But Yuri Bondarev was able to talk about the great battle that turned the tide of World War II in his own way, freshly and impressively. By the way, this is another convincing example of how truly inexhaustible the theme of the Great Patriotic War is for our word artists.

Interesting to read:
1. Bondarev, Yuri Vasilievich. Silence; Choice: novels / Yu.V. Bondarev.- M. : Izvestia, 1983 .- 736 p.
2. Bondarev, Yuri Vasilyevich. Collected works in 8 volumes / Yu.V. Bondarev.- M. : Voice: Russian Archive, 1993.
3. Vol. 2: Hot snow: novel, stories, article. - 400 s.

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The story "Hot snow"

"Hot Snow" by Yuri Bondarev, which appeared in 1969, after "Silence" and "Relatives", brought us back to the military events of the winter of 1942.

"Hot Snow", when compared with previous novels and stories of the author, the work is new in many respects. And above all, a new sense of life and history. This novel arose and unfolded on a broader basis, which was reflected in the novelty and richness of its content, more ambitious and philosophically reflective, gravitating towards a new genre structure. And at the same time, it is part of the biography of the writer himself. Biography, understood as the continuity of human life and humanity.

In 1995, the 50th anniversary of the great victory of the Russian people, the victory in the Great Patriotic War, was celebrated. So many years have passed, but that great era, that great feat of the Russian people, cannot be erased from memory. More than 50 years have passed since then. Every year there are fewer and fewer people whose youth coincided with that terrible time, who had to live, love and defend their homeland in the tragic "forties fatal". Memories of those years are captured in many projects. The events reflected in them do not allow us, modern readers, to forget the great feat of the people. Bogomolov - in all these and many other wonderful books about the war "war, misfortune, dream and youth" merged inseparably. Yu. Bondorev's novel "Hot Snow" can be put in the same row. *** The action of the project takes place in 1942. There are fierce battles near Stalingrad. At this turning point, the further course of the entire war is decided. Against the backdrop of a global historical event, the destinies of individual people are shown, a bizarre interweaving of military prowess, cowardice, love and spiritual maturation of heroes. formed from soldiers going into battle for the first time. *** Youth is characterized by carelessness, dreams of heroism and glory. The son of General Bessonov, after graduating from an infantry school, was assigned to the active army. "Shining with crimson cubes, dapperly creaking with the commander's belt, sword belt, all festive, happy, full dress, but it seemed somewhat toy," he said with delight: "And now, thank God, to the front, they will give a company or a platoon - they give all graduates and real life begins. But harsh reality invades these dreams of glory and exploits. Army, in a cat. served Victor Bessonov, was surrounded, he was taken prisoner. The atmosphere of general distrust of the prisoners, characteristic of that time, clearly speaks of the future son of Bessonov. The young man will die either in captivity or in a Soviet camp. *** No less tragic is the fate of the young soldier Sergunenkov. He is forced to fulfill the senseless impracticable order of his commander Drozdovsky - to destroy the enemy self-propelled gun and go to certain death at the same time. to tell, they say, I ... She has no one else ... " *** Sergunenkov was killed. *** Lieutenant Davlatyan also experienced sincere patriotic feelings, together with Kuznetsov immediately sent to the front from the school. He confessed to a friend: "I so dreamed of getting to the front line, I so wanted to knock out at least one tank!" But he was wounded in the first minutes of the battle. A German tank completely crushed his platoon. "It's pointless, pointless everything with me. Why am I unlucky? Why am I unlucky?" cried the naive boy. He regretted not seeing a real fight. Kuznetsov, who had held back the tanks all day, mortally tired, gray-haired during the day, says to him: "I envy you, Goga." During the day of the war, Kuznetsov became twenty years older. He saw the death of Kasymov, Sergunenkov, remembered Zoya huddled in the snow.*** This battle united everyone: soldiers, commanders, generals. All of them became close to each other in spirit. The threat of death and the common cause erased the boundaries between the ranks. After the battle, Kuznetsov wearily and calmly made a report to the general. "His voice, in the prescribed manner, still struggled to gain an impassive and even fortress; in his tone, in his eyes, there is a gloomy, non-boyish seriousness, without a shadow of shyness in front of the general." *** War is terrible, it dictates its own cruel laws, breaks the fate of people, but not all. A person, getting into extreme situations, manifests himself unexpectedly, fully reveals himself as a person. War is a test of character. Pericham can manifest both good and bad traits that are invisible in ordinary life. *** The two main characters of the novel, Drozdovsky and Kuznetsov, underwent such a test in battle. *** Kuznetsov could not send a comrade under the bullets, while remaining in hiding at that time, but shared the fate of the fighter Ukhanov, going with him on a mission .*** Drozdovsky, having got into an unkind situation, could not step over his "I". He sincerely dreamed of distinguishing himself in battle, to commit a heroic deed, but at the decisive moment he chickened out, sending a soldier to his death - he had the right to order. And any excuses before the comrades were meaningless. *** Along with a truthful display of front-line everyday life. the main thing in Yu. Bondarev's novel is also the depiction of the spiritual world of people, those subtle and complex relationships that develop in a front-line situation. Life is stronger than war, the heroes are young, they want to love and be loved. *** Drozdovsky and Kuznetsov fell in love with the same girl - medical instructor Zoya. But in Drozdovsky's love there is more selfishness than true feelings. And this manifested itself in the episode when he orders Zoya, as part of a group of fighters, to go in search of frostbitten scouts. Zoya is mortally wounded, but Drozdovsky at this moment thinks not about her, but about his life. Kuznetsov, during the shelling of the battery, closes it with his body. He will never forgive Drozdovsky for her senseless death. *** Truly portraying the war, the writer shows how hostile it is to life, love, human existence, especially youth. He wants us all, who live in peacetime, to feel more strongly how much courage and spiritual stamina that war demanded from a person.

Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev was born on March 15, 1924 in the city of Orsk. During the Great Patriotic War, the writer as an artilleryman went a long way from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. After the war, from 1946 to 1951, he studied at the M. Gorky Literary Institute. He began to publish in 1949. And the first collection of short stories "On the Big River" was published in 1953.

Widespread fame brought the writer of the story

"Youth of commanders", published in 1956, "Battalions

they ask for fire "(1957)," The last volleys "(1959).

These books are characterized by drama, accuracy and clarity in the description of the events of military life, the subtlety of the psychological analysis of the characters. Subsequently, his works "Silence" (1962), "Two" (1964), "Relatives" (1969), "Hot Snow" (1969), "Shore" (1975), "Choice "(1980), "Moments" (1978) and others.

Since the mid-60s, the writer has been working on

creating films based on their works; in particular, he was one of the creators of the script for the film epic "Liberation".

Yuri Bondarev is also a laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR and the RSFSR. His works have been translated into many foreign languages.

Among Yuri Bondarev's books about the war, "Hot Snow" occupies a special place, opening up new approaches to solving the moral and psychological problems posed in his first stories - "Battalions Ask for Fire" and "Last Salvos". These three books about the war are an integral and developing world, which has reached the greatest completeness and figurative power in "Hot Snow". The first stories, independent in all respects, were at the same time, as it were, a preparation for a novel, perhaps not yet conceived, but living in the depths of the writer's memory.

The events of the novel "Hot Snow" unfold near Stalingrad, south of the blockaded by Soviet troops of the 6th Army of General Paulus, in the cold December 1942, when one of our armies withstood the blow of the tank divisions of Field Marshal Manstein in the Volga steppe, who sought to break through the corridor to the army of Paulus and get her out of the way. The outcome of the battle on the Volga, and maybe even the timing of the end of the war itself, largely depended on the success or failure of this operation. The duration of the novel is limited to just a few days, during which the heroes of Yuri Bondarev selflessly defend a tiny patch of land from German tanks.

In "Hot Snow" time is squeezed even tighter than in the story "Battalions ask for fire." "Hot Snow" is a short march of General Bessonov's army unloaded from the echelons and a battle that decided so much in the fate of the country; these are cold frosty dawns, two days and two endless December nights. Knowing no respite and lyrical digressions, as if the author's breath was caught from constant tension, the novel "Hot Snow" is distinguished by its directness, direct connection of the plot with the true events of the Great Patriotic War, with one of its decisive moments. The life and death of the heroes of the novel, their very destinies are illuminated by the alarming light of true history, as a result of which everything acquires special weight and significance.

In the novel, Drozdovsky's battery absorbs almost all of the reader's attention, the action is concentrated mainly around a small number of characters. Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and their comrades are part of the great army, they are the people, the people, to the extent that the hero's typified personality expresses the spiritual, moral traits of the people.

In "Hot Snow" the image of the people who went to war appears before us in a fullness of expression, unprecedented before in Yuri Bondarev, in the richness and diversity of characters, and at the same time in integrity. This image is not exhausted either by the figures of young lieutenants - commanders of artillery platoons, or by the colorful figures of those who are traditionally considered to be people from the people - like the slightly cowardly Chibisov, the calm and experienced gunner Yevstigneev, or the straightforward and rude riding Rubin; nor by senior officers, such as the division commander, Colonel Deev, or the army commander, General Bessonov. Only collectively understood and accepted emotionally as something unified, with all the difference in ranks and ranks, they constitute the image of a fighting people. The strength and novelty of the novel lies in the fact that this unity is achieved as if by itself, imprinted without any special efforts of the author - a living, moving life. The image of the people, as the result of the whole book, perhaps most of all nourishes the epic, novelistic beginning of the story.

Yuri Bondarev is characterized by aspiration for tragedy, the nature of which is close to the events of the war itself. It would seem that nothing answers this aspiration of the artist so much as the most difficult time for the country to start the war, the summer of 1941. But the writer's books are about a different time, when the defeat of the Nazis and the victory of the Russian army are almost certain.

The death of heroes on the eve of victory, the criminal inevitability of death, contains a high tragedy and provokes a protest against the cruelty of the war and the forces that unleashed it. The heroes of "Hot Snow" are dying - the battery medical officer Zoya Elagina, the shy Eedov Sergunenkov, a member of the Military Council Vesnin, Kasymov and many others are dying ... And the war is to blame for all these deaths. Let Lieutenant Drozdovsky's heartlessness be blamed for Sergunenkov's death, even if the blame for Zoya's death falls partly on him, but no matter how great Drozdovsky's fault, they are, first of all, victims of the war.

The novel expresses the understanding of death as a violation of higher justice and harmony. Let's remember how Kuznetsov looks at the murdered Kasymov: "Now there was a shell box under Kasymov's head, and his youthful, beardless face, recently alive, swarthy, turned deathly white, thinned by the terrible beauty of death, looked in surprise with moist cherry half-open eyes at his chest, at torn to shreds, excised padded jacket, as if even after death he did not comprehend how it killed him and why he could not get up to the sight.In this unseeing squint of Kasymov there was a quiet curiosity about his life not lived on this earth and at the same time a calm mystery death, into which the burning pain of the fragments overturned him when he tried to rise to the sight.

Even more acutely Kuznetsov feels the irreversibility of the loss of the driver Sergunenkov. After all, the mechanism of his death is revealed here. Kuznetsov turned out to be a powerless witness to how Drozdovsky sent Sergunenkov to certain death, and he, Kuznetsov, already knows that he will curse himself forever for what he saw, was present, but failed to change anything.

In "Hot Snow", with all the tension of events, everything human in people, their characters are revealed not separately from the war, but interconnected with it, under its fire, when, it seems, one cannot even raise one's head. Usually the chronicle of battles can be retold separately from the individuality of its participants - a battle in "Hot Snow" cannot be retold except through the fate and characters of people.

The past of the characters in the novel is essential and weighty. For some it is almost cloudless, for others it is so complex and dramatic that the former drama is not left behind, pushed aside by the war, but accompanies a person in the battle southwest of Stalingrad. The events of the past determined Ukhanov's military fate: a gifted, full of energy officer who would have commanded a battery, but he is only a sergeant. The cool, rebellious character of Ukhanov also determines his movement within the novel. Chibisov's past troubles, which almost broke him (he spent several months in German captivity), echoed in him with fear and determine a lot in his behavior. One way or another, the past of Zoya Elagina, and Kasymov, and Sergunenkov, and the unsociable Rubin slips in the novel, whose courage and loyalty to soldier's duty we will be able to appreciate only by the end of the novel.

The past of General Bessonov is especially important in the novel. The thought of his son being taken prisoner by the Germans makes his position both at Headquarters and at the front difficult. And when a fascist leaflet announcing that Bessonov's son was taken prisoner falls into the counterintelligence of the front in the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Osin, it seems that a threat has arisen to Bessonov's service.

All this retrospective material enters the novel so naturally that the reader does not feel its separateness. The past does not require a separate space for itself, separate chapters - it has merged with the present, opened its depths and the living interconnectedness of one and the other. The past does not burden the story about the present, but gives it great dramatic sharpness, psychologism and historicism.

Yuri Bondarev does exactly the same with portraits of characters: the appearance and characters of his characters are shown in development, and only by the end of the novel or with the death of the hero does the author create a complete portrait of him. How unexpected in this light is the portrait of Drozdovsky, always fit and collected, on the very last page - with a relaxed, broken-sluggish gait and unusually bent shoulders.

and immediacy in the perception of characters, feelings

their real, living people, in whom always remains

the possibility of mystery or sudden insight. Before us

the whole person, understandable, close, and meanwhile we are not

leaves the feeling that we only touched

edge of his spiritual world - and with his death

you feel like you haven't fully understood it yet

inner world. Commissar Vesnin, looking at the truck,

thrown from the bridge onto the river ice, says: "What a war, monstrous destruction. Nothing has a price." The monstrosity of war is expressed most of all - and the novel reveals this with brutal frankness - in the murder of a person. But the novel also shows the high price of life given for the Motherland.

Probably the most mysterious of the world of human relations in the novel is the love that arises between Kuznetsov and Zoya. The war, its cruelty and blood, its terms, overturning the usual ideas about time - it was she who contributed to such a rapid development of this love. After all, this feeling developed in those short periods of march and battle, when there is no time for reflection and analysis of one's feelings. And it all starts with a quiet, incomprehensible jealousy of Kuznetsov for the relationship between Zoya and Drozdovsky. And soon - so little time passes - Kuznetsov is already bitterly mourning the dead Zoya, and it is from these lines that the title of the novel is taken, when Kuznetsov wiped his face wet from tears, "the snow on the sleeve of the quilted jacket was hot from his tears."

Deceived at first in Lieutenant Drozdovsky,

then the best cadet, Zoya throughout the novel,

reveals itself to us as a moral, whole person,

ready for self-sacrifice, capable of embracing

heart pain and suffering of many. .Zoya's personality is known

in a tense, as if electrified space,

which almost inevitably arises in the trench with the advent of

women. She goes through a lot of trials.

from intrusive interest to rude rejection. But her

kindness, her patience and compassion reaches everyone, she

Truly a sister to the soldiers.

The image of Zoya somehow imperceptibly filled the atmosphere of the book, its main events, its harsh, cruel reality with a feminine principle, affection and tenderness.

One of the most important conflicts in the novel is the conflict between Kuznetsov and Drozdovsky. A lot of space has been given to this conflict, it is exposed very sharply, and is easily traced from beginning to end. At first, tension that goes back to the background of the novel; the inconsistency of characters, manners, temperaments, even the style of speech: it seems difficult for the soft, thoughtful Kuznetsov to endure the jerky, commanding, indisputable speech of Drozdovsky. The long hours of battle, the senseless death of Sergunenkov, the mortal wound of Zoya, in which Drozdovsky is partly to blame - all this forms an abyss between the two young officers, the moral incompatibility of their existence.

In the finale, this abyss is marked even more sharply: the four surviving artillerymen consecrate the newly received orders in a soldier's bowler hat, and the sip that each of them takes is, first of all, a funeral sip - it contains bitterness and grief of loss. Drozdovsky also received the order, because for Bessonov, who awarded him, he is the surviving, wounded commander of a standing battery, the general does not know about Drozdovsky's grave guilt and most likely will never know. This is also the reality of war. But it is not for nothing that the writer leaves Drozdovsky aside from those gathered at the honest soldier's bowler hat.

It is extremely important that all Kuznetsov's connections with people, and above all with people subordinate to him, are true, meaningful and have a remarkable ability to develop. They are extremely non-service, in contrast to the emphatically service relations that Drozdovsky puts so strictly and stubbornly between himself and people. During the battle, Kuznetsov fights next to the soldiers, here he shows his composure, courage, lively mind. But he also grows spiritually in this battle, becomes fairer, closer, kinder to those people with whom the war brought him together.

The relationship between Kuznetsov and senior sergeant Ukhanov, the gun commander, deserves a separate story. Like Kuznetsov, he had already been fired on in the difficult battles of 1941, and in terms of military ingenuity and decisive character he could probably be an excellent commander. But life decreed otherwise, and at first we find Ukhanov and Kuznetsov in conflict: this is a collision of a sweeping, sharp and autocratic nature with another - restrained, initially modest. At first glance, it might seem that Kuznetsov will have to fight both the soullessness of Drozdovsky and the anarchist nature of Ukhanov. But in reality, it turns out that without yielding to each other in any principled position, remaining themselves, Kuznetsov and Ukhanov become close people. Not just people fighting together, but knowing each other and now forever close. And the absence of author's comments, the preservation of the rough context of life makes their brotherhood real, weighty.

The ethical, philosophical thought of the novel, as well as its emotional intensity, reaches its highest height in the finale, when Bessonov and Kuznetsov suddenly approach each other. This is a rapprochement without close proximity: Bessonov rewarded his officer on an equal basis with others and moved on. For him, Kuznetsov is just one of those who are set to death at the turn of the Myshkov River. Their closeness turns out to be more sublime: it is the closeness of thought, spirit, outlook on life. For example, shocked by the death of Vesnin, Bessonov blames himself for the fact that, due to his lack of sociability and suspicion, he prevented friendly relations between them from developing (“the way Vesnin wanted, and the way they should be”). Or Kuznetsov, who could do nothing to help Chubarikov’s crew dying before his eyes, tormented by the piercing thought that all this “seemed to be

happen because he did not have time to get close to them, to understand everyone, to love ... ".

Divided by the disproportion of duties, Lieutenant Kuznetsov and the army commander, General Bessonov, are moving towards the same goal - not only military, but also spiritual. Unaware of each other's thoughts, they think about the same thing and seek the truth in the same direction. Both of them demandingly ask themselves about the purpose of life and about the correspondence of their actions and aspirations to it. They are separated by age and have in common, like father and son, and even like brother and brother, love for the Motherland and belonging to the people and to humanity in the highest sense of these words.

7. Analysis of the work of A.I. Kuprin "Garnet bracelet"

The story of A.I. Kuprin's "Garnet Bracelet", published in 1910, is one of the most poetic works of Russian literature of the 20th century. It opens with an epigraph referring the reader to the well-known work J1. van Beethoven's "Appassionata" sonata. The author returns to the same musical theme at the end of the story. The first chapter is a detailed landscape sketch, exposing the contradictory changeability of the natural elements. In it, A.I. Kuprin introduces us to the image of the main character - Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the marshal of the nobility. The life of a woman seems at first glance calm and carefree. Despite financial difficulties, Vera and her husband have an atmosphere of friendship and mutual understanding in the family. Only one small detail alarms the reader: on the name day, her husband gives Vera earrings made of pear-shaped pearls. Involuntarily, a doubt creeps in that the heroine's family happiness is so strong, so indestructible.

On the name day, her younger sister comes to Sheina, who, like Pushkin's Olga, who sets off the image of Tatiana in "Eugene Onegin", contrasts sharply with Vera both in character and in appearance. Anna is frisky and wasteful, and Vera is calm, reasonable and economical. Anna is attractive but ugly, while Vera is endowed with aristocratic beauty. Anna has two children, while Vera has no children, although she longs to have them. An important artistic detail that reveals Anna's character is the gift she makes to her sister: Anna brings Vera a small notebook made from an old prayer book. She enthusiastically talks about how carefully she selected leaves, fasteners and a pencil for the book. To faith, the very fact of converting a prayer book into a notebook seems blasphemous. This shows the integrity of her nature, emphasizes how much the older sister takes life more seriously. We soon learn that Vera graduated from the Smolny Institute - one of the best educational institutions for women in noble Russia, and her friend is the famous pianist Zhenya Reiter.

Among the guests who came to the name day, General Anosov is an important figure. It is this man, wise in life, who has seen danger and death in his lifetime, and therefore knows the price of life, tells several love stories in the story, which can be designated in the artistic structure of the work as inserted short stories. Unlike the vulgar family stories told by Prince Vasily Lvovich, the husband of Vera and the owner of the house, where everything is distorted and ridiculed, turns into a farce, the stories of General Anosov are filled with real life details. Hak arises in the story a dispute about what true love is. Anosov says that people have forgotten how to love, that marriage does not at all imply spiritual intimacy and warmth. Women often get married to get out of custody and be the mistress of the house. Men - from fatigue from a single life. A significant role in marriage unions is played by the desire to continue the family, and selfish motives are often not in last place. "Where is the love?" - asks Anosov. He is interested in such love, for which "to accomplish any feat, to give one's life, to go to torment is not labor at all, but one joy." Here, in the words of General Kuprin, in fact, reveals his concept of love: “Love must be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world. No comforts of life, calculations and compromises should concern her.” Anosov talks about how people become victims of their love feelings, about love triangles that exist contrary to any meaning.

Against this background, the story of the telegraph operator Zheltkov's love for Princess Vera is considered in the story. This feeling flared up when Vera was still free. But she didn't reciprocate. Contrary to all logic, Zheltkov did not stop dreaming about his beloved, wrote tender letters to her, and even sent a gift for her name day - a gold bracelet with grenades that looked like drops of blood. An expensive gift forces Vera's husband to take action to end the story. He, along with the brother of the princess Nikolai, decides to return the bracelet.

The scene of Prince Shein's visit to Zheltkov's apartment is one of the key scenes of the work. A.I. Kuprin appears here as a true master-master in creating a psychological portrait. The image of the telegraph operator Zheltkov is typical of Russian classical literature of the 19th century, the image of a little man. A noteworthy detail in the story is the comparison of the hero's room with the wardroom of a cargo ship. The character of the inhabitant of this modest dwelling is shown primarily through gesture. In the scene of the visit of Vasily Lvovich and Nikolai Nikolaevich Zheltkov, he rubs his hands in confusion, then nervously unbuttons and fastens the buttons of his short jacket (moreover, this detail becomes repetitive in this scene). The hero is excited, he is unable to hide his feelings. However, as the conversation develops, when Nikolai Nikolaevich voices a threat to turn to the authorities in order to protect Vera from persecution, Zheltkov suddenly changes and even laughs. Love gives him strength, and he begins to feel his own righteousness. Kuprin focuses on the difference in the mood of Nikolai Nikolaevich and Vasily Lvovich during the visit. Vera's husband, seeing his opponent, suddenly becomes serious and reasonable. He tries to understand Zheltkov and says to his brother-in-law: “Kolya, is he to blame for love and is it possible to control such a feeling as love, a feeling that has not yet found an interpreter for itself.” Unlike Nikolai Nikolaevich, Shane allows Zheltkov to write a farewell letter to Vera. A huge role in this scene for understanding the depth of Zheltkov's feelings for Vera is played by a detailed portrait of the hero. His lips turn white as a dead man's, his eyes fill with tears.

Zheltkov calls Vera and asks her for a small thing - about the opportunity to see her at least occasionally, without showing herself to her eyes. These meetings could have given his life at least some meaning, but Vera refused him this too. Her reputation, the tranquility of her family, were dearer to her. She showed cold indifference to the fate of Zheltkov. The telegraph operator turned out to be defenseless against Vera's decision. The strength of love feelings and maximum spiritual openness made him vulnerable. Kuprin constantly emphasizes this defenselessness with portrait details: a child's chin, a gentle girl's face.

In the eleventh chapter of the story, the author emphasizes the motive of fate. Princess Vera, who has never read newspapers, for fear of getting her hands dirty, suddenly unfolds the very sheet on which the announcement of Zheltkov's suicide was printed. This fragment of the work is intertwined with the scene in which General Anosov says to Vera: “... Who knows? “Maybe your life path, Verochka, was crossed by exactly the kind of love that women dream of and that men are no longer capable of.” It is no coincidence that the princess again recalls these words. One gets the impression that Zheltkov was indeed sent to Vera by fate, and she could not discern selfless nobility, subtlety and beauty in the soul of a simple telegraph operator.

A peculiar construction of the plot in the work of A.I. Kuprin lies in the fact that the author makes the reader a kind of signs that help to predict the further development of the story. In "Oles" this is the motive of divination, in accordance with which all further relationships of the heroes are formed, in "Duel" - the conversation of officers about the duel. In the "Garnet Bracelet", a sign that portends a tragic denouement is the bracelet itself, the stones of which look like drops of blood.

Upon learning of Zheltkov's death, Vera realizes that she foresaw a tragic outcome. In a farewell message to his beloved, Zheltkov does not hide his all-consuming passion. He literally deifies Faith, turning to her the words from the prayer "Our Father ...": "Hallowed be thy name."

In the literature of the "Silver Age" theomachy motives were strong. Zheltkov, deciding to commit suicide, commits the greatest Christian sin, because the church prescribes to endure any spiritual and physical torment sent to a person on earth. But the whole course of the development of the plot A.I. Kuprin justifies Zheltkov's act. It is no coincidence that the main character of the story is called Vera. For Zheltkov, therefore, the concepts of "love" and "faith" merge into one. Before dying, the hero asks the landlady to hang a bracelet on the icon.

Looking at the late Zheltkov, Vera is finally convinced that there was truth in Anosov's words. With his act, the poor telegraph operator was able to reach the heart of the cold beauty and touch her. Vera brings Zheltkov a red rose and kisses him on the forehead with a long friendly kiss. Only after death did the hero get the right to attention and respect for his feelings. Only by his own death did he prove the true depth of his experiences (before that, Vera considered him crazy).

Anosov's words about eternal exclusive love become a running motif of the story. For the last time they are remembered in the story, when, at the request of Zheltkov, Vera listens to Beethoven's second sonata ("Appassionata"). At the end of the story, A.I. Kuprin, another repetition sounds: “Hallowed be thy name”, which is no less significant in the artistic structure of the work. He once again emphasizes the purity and sublimity of Zheltkov's attitude towards his beloved.

Putting love on a par with such concepts as death, faith, A.I. Kuprin emphasizes the importance of this concept for human life as a whole. Not all people know how to love and be faithful to their feelings. The story "Garnet Bracelet" can be considered as a kind of testament of A.I. Kuprin, addressed to those who are trying to live not with their hearts, but with their minds. Their life, correct from the point of view of a rational approach, is doomed to a spiritually devastated existence, for only love can give a person true happiness.

The longest day of the year

This cloudless weather

He gave us a common misfortune

Forever, for all 4 years:

K.Simonov

Therefore, the theme of the Great Patriotic War for many years became one of the main themes of our literature. The story about the war sounded especially deep and truthful in the works of front-line writers: K. Simonov, V. Bykov, B. Vasiliev and others. Yuri Bondarev, in whose work war occupies the main place, was also a participant in the war, an artilleryman who had come a long way along the roads of the war from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. The novel "Hot Snow" is especially dear to him, because this is Stalingrad, and the heroes of the novel are artillerymen.

The action of the novel begins precisely near Stalingrad, when one of our armies withstood the blow of Field Marshal Manstein's tank divisions on the Volga steppe, who sought to break through the corridor to Paulus's army and withdraw it from the encirclement. The outcome of the battle on the Volga largely depended on the success or failure of this operation. The duration of the novel is limited to just a few days, during which the heroes of Yuri Bondarev selflessly defend a tiny patch of land from German tanks.

“Hot Snow” is a story about a short march of General Bessonov, unloaded from the echelons of the army, and a battle. The novel is notable for its directness, direct connection of the plot with the true events of the Great Patriotic War, with one of its decisive moments. The life and death of the heroes of the novel, their very destinies are illuminated by the disturbing light of true history, as a result of which everything acquires special weight and significance.

In the novel, Drozdovsky's battery absorbs almost all the reader's attention, the action is concentrated mainly around a small number of characters. Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and their comrades are part of a great army.

In "Hot Snow", with all the tension of events, everything human in people, their characters are not revealed separately from the war, but interconnected with it, under its fire, when, it seems, one cannot even raise one's head. Usually the chronicle of battles can be retold separately from the individuality of its participants, and the battle in "Hot Snow" cannot be retold except through the fate and character of people.

The image of a simple Russian soldier who has risen to the war appears before us in a fullness of expression, unprecedented before in Yuri Bondarev, in the richness and diversity of characters, and at the same time in integrity. This image

Chibisov, calm and experienced gunner Evstigneev, straightforward and rough driving Rubin, Kasymov.

The understanding of death is expressed in the novel as a violation of higher justice. Let us recall how Kuznetsov looks at the murdered Kasymov: “now there was a shell box under Kasymov’s head, and his youthful, beardless face, recently alive, swarthy, became deathly white, thinned by the terrible beauty of death, surprised looked with damp-cherry half-open eyes at his chest, torn to shreds, excised quilted jacket, as if even after death he did not comprehend how it killed him and why he could not get up to the sight.

In this unseeing squint of Kasymov there was a quiet curiosity about his life not lived on this earth.

Kuznetsov feels even more acutely the irreversibility of the loss of Sergunenkov. After all, the very mechanism of his death is revealed here. Kuznetsov turned out to be a powerless witness to how Drozdovsky sent Sergunenkov to certain death, and he, Kuznetsov, already knows that he will curse himself forever for what he saw, was present, but failed to change anything.

The past of the characters in the novel is significant. For some it is almost cloudless, for others it is so complex and dramatic that the former drama is not left behind, pushed aside by the war, but accompanies a person in the battle southwest of Stalingrad.

The past does not require a separate space for itself, separate chapters - it has merged with the present, opened its depths and the living interconnectedness of one and the other.

Yuri Bondarev does exactly the same with portraits of characters: the appearance and characters of his characters are shown in development, and only by the end of the novel or by the death of the hero does the author create a complete portrait of him.

In front of you is the whole person, understandable, close, but meanwhile we are not left with the feeling that we have touched only the edge of his spiritual world - and with his death you feel that you have not yet had time to fully understand his inner world. The monstrosity of war is most expressed - and the novel reveals this with brutal frankness - in the death of a man. But the novel also shows the high price of life given for the Motherland.

Probably the most mysterious of the world of human relations in the novel is the love that arises between Kuznetsov and Zoya. The war, its cruelty and blood, its terms, overturning the usual ideas about time - it was she who contributed to such a rapid development of this love. After all, this feeling developed in those short periods of march and battle, when there was no time for reflection and analysis of one's feelings. And soon - so little time passes - Kuznetsov is already bitterly mourning the deceased Zoya, and it is from these lines that the title of the novel is taken, when Kuznetsov wiped his face wet from tears, "the snow on the sleeve of the quilted jacket was hot from his tears."

It is extremely important that all Kuznetsov's connections with people, and, above all, with people subordinate to him, are true, meaningful and have a remarkable ability to develop. They are extremely non-service - in contrast to the emphatically service relations that Drozdovsky puts so strictly and stubbornly between himself and people . During the battle, Kuznetsov fights next to the soldiers, here he shows his composure, courage, and lively mind. But he also grows spiritually in this battle, becomes fairer, closer, kinder to those people with whom the war brought him together.

The relationship between Kuznetsov and senior sergeant Ukhanov, the gun commander, deserves a separate story. Like Kuznetsov, he had already been fired upon in the difficult battles of 1941, and in terms of military ingenuity and decisive character, he could probably be an excellent commander. But life decreed otherwise, and at first we find Ukhanov and Kuznetsov in conflict: this is a collision of a sweeping, sharp and autocratic nature with another - restrained, initially modest. At first glance, it might seem that Kuznetsov will have to fight against the anarchist nature of Ukhanov. But in reality, it turns out that, without yielding to each other in any principled position, remaining themselves, Kuznetsov and Ukhanov become close people. Not just people fighting together, but knowing each other and now forever close.

Divided by disproportionate duties, Lieutenant Kuznetsov and army commander General Bessonov are moving towards the same goal - not only military, but also spiritual. Suspecting nothing of each other's thoughts, they think about the same thing and seek the truth in the same direction. They are separated by age and are related, like father and son, and even like brother to brother, by love for the Motherland and belonging to the people and to humanity in the highest sense of these words.

The death of heroes on the eve of victory contains a high tragedy and causes a protest against the cruelty of the war and the forces that unleashed it. The heroes of "Hot Snow" are dying - the battery health instructor Zoya Elagina, the shy rider Sergunenkov, a member of the Military Council Vesnin, Kasymov and many others are dying ... And the war is to blame for all these deaths.

In the novel, the feat of the people who went to war appears before us in an unprecedented fullness of expression in Yuri Bondarev, in the richness and diversity of characters. This is a feat of young lieutenants - commanders of artillery platoons, and those who are traditionally considered to be people from the people, like a little cowardly Chibisov, a calm and experienced gunner Evstigneev or a straightforward and rude riding Rubin feat and senior officers, such as division commander Colonel Deev or army commander General Bessonov.

But all of them in this war were, first of all, Soldiers, and each in his own way fulfilled his duty to the Motherland, to his people.

And the Great Victory that came in May 1945 became their common cause.

Bibliography

For the preparation of this work, materials from the site www.coolsoch.ru/