Alexander Tvardovsky about the power of the Russian spirit - in the electronic materials of the Presidential Library

June 21, 2017 marks 107 years since the birth of one of the most famous poets-front-line soldiers Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky. The Presidential Library collection contains electronic copies of his works published during the Great Patriotic War. Thanks to them, the reader can feel the atmosphere of those years, but, most importantly, he can feel the mood and strength of the spirit of people who oppose the enemy and do not want to give him even the smallest span of his native land.   

Alexander Tvardovsky is known primarily as the creator of the well-known and beloved literary hero - the cheerful merry fellow, joker Vasily Turkin, but the image of the die-hard under the pressure of fate and the circumstances of man is found in the writer's works long before the war. So, the Presidential Library's fund makes it possible to get familiar with the digitized copy of the issue of the literary and art magazine "Znamya" for December 1934, in which the poem "Grandfather" was printed. There the poet creates the image of a real Russian colossus - a peasant who survived "five wars and four kings", collectivization, who buried sons and grandchildren, but at the same time became the support of many generations to which he passed his experience and knowledge. It ends with these words: "And grandfather lives! - / Neither give nor take / One hundred and twenty years old to him. / Wish to live, / And to die / And at all to anything".   

Alexander Tvardovsky was called for military service in 1939. As a war correspondent, he took part in the liberation campaign of the Soviet troops to Western Belorussia, later he participated in the Finnish campaign. It was during these years that the literary hero Vasya Tyorkin appeared for the first time: in the newspaper of the Leningrad Military District "On the Guard of the Motherland" in the issue of December 31, 1939, a note from the editorial staff was printed: "Vasya Tyorkin, special correspondent of our department "Direct Call", prepares an interesting material, which will be printed in the near future". Here is also a portrait of a legendary soldier. On the Presidential Library portal, electronic copies of the front-line publication are widely available, in which the reader will find the very first materials on the life and exploits of the people's favorite.  

It is noteworthy that the image of the literary hero eventually acquired other features. During the Great Patriotic War it was no longer Vasya Tyorkin, but Vasily Tyorkin. Not only the name was changed, the concept of the hero's image, designed to embody the best features of the epic warrior-liberator, was replaced. "The war is serious, and the poetry should be taken seriously", - wrote Tvardovsky in his diary.

This position of the writer was reflected in a whole series of poems dedicated to real fighters of the Red Army, heroes of the Finnish and Great Patriotic Wars. For example, this is Vladimir Artyukh from the collection of 1941 "Front Verses" - the future Hero of the Soviet Union, at the crossing he distracted to himself the attention of the enemy: "The White Finns are watching, / Stunned: / The car is rushing / From our side. / Then it's not a tank, not formidable / An armored car is rolling, / That's a simple waggon, / A gray truck. / Tows without stopping / Ahead of the cars. / A man with a rifle, / Behind the wheel – one…". Or Ivan Gromak, who alone managed to defeat a whole detachment of fascists: "They crawl, they want to take it alive. / Crawl, say mercy, / Courage, too: five together / At one decided. / Here - to throw a grenade enemy, / Gromak with his grenade, / There are two nearby. What is Gromak? / Gromak - let's shovel". For these characters in such acts there is nothing unusual, as Vladimir Artyukh says from the pages of the "Frontline Chronicles": "Service is a service. A feat is a duty".

Such people, strong in spirit, fearlessly fighting for their land, house, relatives and relatives, were a whole people: "And it was in thousands of hearts: / - Keep the price of any. / And thrice-wounded fighter / Does not leave the fight. / And the other creeps under the fire, / To fight the enemy with a machine gun / Close - by itself", - wrote Alexander Tvardovsky in the "Ballad of Moscow".

Tvardovsky's military poems are more relevant than ever before on the eve of June 22, the mournful date of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War in 1941. These works will always serve as a living reminder of how those who literally conquered the world for future generations, what a feat our ancestors performed without hesitation giving their lives for the sake of the Great Victory.