Presidential Library to mark the 110th anniversary of Alexander Tvardovsky

June 21, 2020 marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Tvardovsky, a Soviet poet, journalist, war correspondent. The Presidential Library’s collections contain electronic copies of works that have come out of his pen and published during the Great Patriotic War both on the pages of newspapers and in individual publications. Thanks to them, every reader can feel the atmosphere of those years, feel the strength of spirit of Soviet people opposing the enemy.

Tvardovsky was born in 1910 on the farm Zagorje near the village of Selzo of the Smolensk county in the family of a blacksmith. His father was an educated man. There were a lot of books in the Tvardovsky house; they liked to read Pushkin, Gogol, Nekrasov, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Ershov. It is not surprising that the boy began to compose poems and stories even before he mastered reading and writing. At the age of 14, Alexander began to write small notes and poems in Smolensk newspapers.

In 1939, Tvardovsky was drafted into military service. As a war correspondent, he took part in the liberation campaign of Soviet troops in Western Belarus, participated in the Finnish campaign. It was during these years that the literary hero Vasya Terkin first appeared: in the newspaper of the Leningrad military district “Guarding the Motherland”, a note from the editorial office was printed in the issue of December 31, 1939: “Special correspondent of our department, Direct Aim, Vasya Terkin, who is at the forefront, preparing interesting material, which will be published in the near future". Here is also a hand-drawn portrait of the future legendary fighter. The Presidential Library’s collections contain electronic copies of the front-line publication, where the reader will find stories about the life and deeds of the people's favorite. 

Before the new hero appeared on the newspaper pages, there was a lot of controversy in the editorial office about how to name a soldier. In the army press there were already conditional characters Machine gunner Vanya, grandfather Sysoi, Pulkin, Mushkin... There was a mischievous combination - Vasya Terkin - a debate for a long time. But the authorship of the pseudonym, probably, is not so important in this case, the main thing is that the “Direct fire” has a hero, whose name eventually became legendary.

Terkin - a successful, savvy fighter, easily accomplishing feats and invariably defeating enemies, fell in love with readers. The fighters eagerly waited for new issues of the newspapers to find out what else had happened to Vasya, memorized plain lines by heart. The fantastic success of the poem is largely due to the fact that the hero of Tvardovsky was a "simple", "ordinary" person.

By mid-1941, Tvardovsky planned to finish work on a collection of poems about the struggle of Vasya Terkin with the White Finns, but the Great Patriotic War began. From the first days, the poet was appointed to the post of military commissar in the newspaper "Red Army" and went to the front. Together with the army he found himself in the hottest spots, often was at the forefront, out of the environment...

But even in the most difficult days of World War II, Tvardovsky continued to write about ordinary people who “always exist”, who do not see anything unusual in their merits. This position is reflected in the poetry's “Frontline Poems” posted on the Presidential Library’s portal. According to one of the heroes of the work, driver Artyukh: “Service is service. A feat is a duty”.  

“Frontline Poems” and another collection of Tvardovsky’s “Frontline Chronicle” can be called a kind of mosaic, which makes up a multifaceted picture of the war years. Unlike the collective image of Terkin, the real heroes became the heroes of these collections; the poet spoke about the events that took place at the front, where he served and most often personally knew those about whom he wrote. According to the author in the preface to the publication of “Frontline Poems” of 1941 “all the names found in the verses are real. Grigory Pulkin, Grigory Laptev, Vladimir Artyukh and Mikhail Trusov are now Heroes of the Soviet Union”...  

In 1942, “The Ballad of Moscow”, written by Alexander Tvardovsky on the Southwestern Front, was published. Published in a book version in 1942 in the Penza edition of the newspaper "Stalin's banner", it opened a series of "Poems and Tales of the Patriotic War".

Describing the terrible days of battles near Moscow, the poet emphasizes the heroism of Soviet soldiers, strong in spirit, fearlessly fighting for their land, home, relatives and relatives.

A year after the outbreak of the war, in June 1942, Tvardovsky returned to the idea of ​​continuing "Terkin." Only the hero now is not Vasya Terkin, but Vasily Terkin. Not only the name has changed, the concept of the image of the hero, designed to embody the best features of the warrior-liberator, has also changed. “War is serious, and poetry must be serious”, the poet will write in his diary.

The poem “Vasily Terkin” has another name “A Book about a Fighter” - which is the work “without a special plot”, “without a beginning, without an end”, because in a war, where every minute of life may be the last, “who will tell you who hears - you cannot guess ahead... "

Vasily Terkin fell in love with fighters no less than his prototype - Vasya Terkin. When in 1943 Tvardovsky wanted to finish the poem, he received many letters from readers with requests and even demands for continuation. As a result, the poem was completed in 1945...

Tvardovsky’s military works sound more penetrating and relevant than ever on the eve of the mournful date of June 22, 1941 and the year of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in World War II. They do not let one forget what a great feat those who conquered the world for future generations made, help to plunge into the atmosphere of the war years, to feel and see how people lived, what they were, what they dreamed about. And this atmosphere was conveyed not just by the narrator and poet, it incorporated everything that Tvardovsky experienced personally, and with it millions of Soviet people. The memory must be kept.

Alexander Tvardovsky said: “Personally, I probably will not be able to move away from the harsh and majestic, infinitely diverse and so slightly ajar world of events, experiences and impressions of the war period in my literature all my life”.