Vasiliev tomorrow was war analysis of the work. What did the heroes of the story fight for? Tomorrow there was a war
Boris Vasiliev's story “Tomorrow There Was War” was written in 1984. In 1987, a film of the same name was made based on the work.
The action takes place in the USSR in 1940. The story tells about students of grade 9 "B" of an ordinary Soviet school. Yesterday's girls and boys have managed to grow up.
Many of them already feel responsible for themselves, for their future and even for their schoolmates. New academic year brought a lot of challenges to the guys.
Schoolchildren are confident that the coming 1941 will be much happier. 1940 did not bring good luck because it was a leap year. Nobody knew that New Year prepares not only 9 “B”, but also the entire Soviet people.
Iskra Polyakova
Iskra is a student of 9 “B”. This is the “conscience of the class.” Iskra tries not only to study well, but also to engage in social work. The girl considers it her duty to re-educate Sashka Stameskin, a hooligan who does not want to learn. In the class, Polyakova is not just afraid, but truly respected, because she is one of the most responsible and serious students.
Iskra's idol has always been her mother, Commissar Polyakova. A stern woman who went through the civil war, she raised her daughter in strictness and devotion to Soviet power. Iskra does not remember her father, who gave her unusual name. Commissioner Polyakova considered her life partner too weak and cowardly. Next to such a person it is impossible to fight for your ideals. Iskra's parents separated, and her mother mercilessly destroyed all photographs of her former lover. One day, the mother’s personality is revealed to the girl from a completely different side: Commissar Polyakova is capable of crying, but deep down she is just an unhappy woman.
Transformation of the heroine's views
The weakness living in the soul of Iskra’s mother makes her herself soften. main character. By the end of the story, the girl reconsiders some of her views. The first kiss makes Iskra think that in addition to social work, there can be personal happiness in life, which inspires the soul and gives strength to fight for one’s political ideals.
Polyakova also changes her opinion about one of her classmates, whom she always considered an arrogant prude. The poems of the “decadent” Yesenin also cease to seem anti-Soviet to the girls.
Iskra died heroically during the Great Patriotic War. The Polyakovs were executed by the Nazis.
Vika Lyuberetskaya
Vika is Iskra’s classmate. Vika's father held a high position, which allowed him to pamper his daughter in every possible way. The girl was left without a mother early and became the only joy in the life of engineer Lyuberetsky.
The wealth of Vicky’s family alienated her from the rest of her classmates. The guys never entered into open conflicts with her, but they always avoided the well-dressed “potbelly stove” who came to school by car. The girl did not try to become one of her own, but she also did not oppose herself to the class. Vika's father knew that his daughter was prudent enough to properly manage her opportunities, and he allowed her a lot.
Iskra is stricter towards Lyuberetskaya than other classmates. Vika seems to her too spoiled, arrogant and unadapted to life. A Soviet schoolgirl simply does not have the right to be like that. Serious trouble in the Lyuberetsky family makes Iskra regret her contempt for her classmate. Vika's father was arrested on suspicion of espionage activities. The girl understands that her comrades who disliked her will hate her even more. Nevertheless, classmates reacted to the family grief with understanding. They began to treat Vika much better than before.
Despite the support of her classmates, Vika could not bear the severity of the ordeal. She became the daughter of an “enemy of the people.” To rehabilitate herself in the eyes of the public, she had to renounce her father. But Vika could not do this. Unable to find a way out of her situation, the girl poisoned herself. The desperate act of the daughter of an “enemy of the people” aroused even greater sympathy from the children in the class. Vicky's death was in vain. All charges against her father were dropped.
After Lyuberetskaya’s death, Iskra received a parcel from her, in which she found two books and a letter. One of the books turned out to be a collection of poems by Yesenin, the second - by a writer unknown to Iskra, Green. These were the favorite books of a deceased classmate. In her letter, Vika regretted that Iskra did not become her friend earlier. Lyuberetskaya always dreamed of being friends with the most honest girl in the class, but was afraid to take the first step.
Other characters
In addition to Iskra Polyakova and Vika Lyuberetskaya, there are other main characters in the story who deserve the reader’s attention. Such characters include Zinochka Kovalenko, a frivolous girl who is always in love with someone; Vanka Alexandrov, nicknamed “Edison” for his passion for invention; Zhorka Landys, who unrequitedly loved Vika Lyuberetskaya, and many others.
The teaching staff of the school occupies an important place in the lives of young people. Cool lady 7 "B" Valentina Andronovna once acted as director educational institution. Under her rule, the school turned into something like a soldier's barracks with strict military discipline. For her obnoxious character, Valentina Andronovna received the nickname Valendra. The cruel headmistress did not have a chance to hold her post for long. Nikolai Romakhin was hired in her place, under whom the students finally felt the long-awaited freedom.
Main idea
Almost every person tends to panic and dramatize. A minor trouble often leads to despondency and great despair. Students of 9 “B” feel that real, “adult” problems have come into their lives. However, none of them realizes that in just a few months the country will face such a difficult test that even the death of a close friend pales against the background of the coming tragedy.
There are special works in the world of literature that are hardly suitable for acquaintance with. summary. “Tomorrow there was war” (Vasiliev) is a story about growing up. Boys and girls who continue to be considered children have already lost their childish naivety, but have not yet lost that spontaneity that is characteristic only of a child. At the same time, young people want to participate in public life, to be useful and necessary members of society.
In the actions of schoolchildren, despite their desire to appear adults, there is still a lot of childishness noticeable. Some of them only imitate adults, and are not actually adults. Iskra Polyakova was raised by a woman who does not recognize weaknesses in people. The girl also wants to become an “iron lady.” Iskra is too young to understand that a woman who takes on the role of a man will face loneliness and misunderstanding of others. Vika Lyuberetskaya’s action also cannot be called deliberate. Probably, the girl expressed her protest in this way, considering her actions to be adult and decisive. In reality, Vika committed a great stupidity by giving up her life at the very first difficulties in life.
The war remains behind the scenes of the work. It is an event of the past at the beginning of the story and an event of the future at its end. The author prefers not to directly touch on a topic that is painful for many, allowing readers to see their heroes only before and after the most terrible era in the history of the twentieth century.
We invite you to read a summary of “Tomorrow there was war” - a work written by Boris Vasiliev in 1984. In 1987, the director made a film of the same name based on this book, which will also help you learn about the events and issues of this work.
Prologue (summary)
“And Tomorrow There Was War” begins as follows. The author of the work recalls the class in which he once studied - 9 "B". All he had left as a memory of his classmates was an old photograph blurred around the edges. Then Iskra Polyakova encouraged everyone to do it.
Only 19 people out of the entire class survived to old age. In addition to Iskra and the author, the company also included Valka Alexandrov (inventor nicknamed Edison), Pasha Ostapchuk (athlete), Zinochka Kovalenko (frivolous girl) and timid Lenochka Bokova. They gathered most often at Zinochka's. Iskra loved to tell stories, read them out loud, and the inventor Valka was always constructing various devices that usually did not work.
The company treated Zinochka’s father, a quiet man, rather dismissively, until one day the guys saw his back in the bathhouse, striped with scars - the autograph of a past civil war. Everyone was afraid of Iskra’s mother, Polyakova, who walked around in a leather jacket and boots, and could not understand that she had the same scars on her soul as those that they saw on the back of Zinochka’s father.
First chapter
Let's describe the events of the first chapter. Here is a summary of it.
"Tomorrow There Was War" begins as follows. That fall, Zinochka Kovalenko discovered for the first time that she was a woman. During her parents' absence, she sadly looked in the mirror at her breasts, mature beyond her years, thin hips and legs with thin ankles, when Iskra rang the bell at her door. The girl was a little afraid of this “conscience of the class,” her strict friend, although she was a year older than her.
Polyakova’s idol was her mother, from whom the girl followed an example. Only recently did she realize that this woman was lonely and deeply unhappy. One night, Iskra saw her mother crying and was flogged for this with a soldier’s belt. Her father, whom the girl no longer remembered, called her so unusually. This commissar turned out to be a weak person, and Iskra’s mother mercilessly burned his photographs in the stove.
Iskra came to her friend with the message that their friend Sashka Stameskin would no longer study at school. Classes now had to be paid for, but Sashka’s mother did not have money, since she was raising her son without a father. Chisel was Iskra's conquest and personal achievement. More recently, just a year ago, he led the life of a loser and a bully. But then this girl appeared. Having joined the Komsomol, she decided that her first feat would be as a young man.
In Stameskin's house, Iskra found beautiful drawings planes and stated that they would not fly. Sashka was affected by this and became interested in physics and mathematics. But Iskra foresaw that he would soon get tired of it, so she took the hero to an aviation club. Now this young man, who had become a good student, had to leave school.
Zinochka found a way out. She offered to get Sasha a job at an aircraft factory, which had an evening school. Vika Lyuberetskaya could help in this matter, since she was the daughter of the chief engineer of this plant and sat at the same desk with Zinochka. Lyuberetskaya had already turned into a woman, a little arrogant and beautiful, and she was aware of it. For Spark this is rich dressed girl It was like she was from another world. Zina decided to get down to business. Soon Vika announced that Sashka would be hired at the factory.
Chapter two
Artem Shefer was prevented from becoming an excellent student only by one oddity - he spoke poorly and could not successfully answer orally. It started in the 5th grade, when a boy accidentally broke a microscope, and Zina took the blame upon himself. From that time on, the boy was speechless - he fell in love. Only Zhorka Landys, his best friend, knew the secret of his comrade.
Artem, having worked as a worker all summer, decided to spend his earnings on celebrating his sixteenth birthday. A company led by Iskra gathered in his house. That evening the guys decided to read Yesenin, and even Iskra liked these poems.
Chapter Three
The school where the children studied was built recently. The director was Nikolai Grigorievich Romakhin, a former military man. The whole school adored him and did not like Valendra (Valentina Andronovna), the former headmistress, who was angered by Romakhin’s innovations. The woman began to fight him, writing letters “to the right place” for any reason.
We continue to describe the summary. “Tomorrow there was a war,” chapter three is brought to your attention. Further events are as follows. Zinochka let Valendra know that they had read Yesenin. Having learned that Vika had done this, the woman retreated, since her father was very respected in the city.
Her mother died long ago, and Lyuberetsky raised his daughter alone. He was constantly worried about her and took great care of her and spoiled her. Vika, despite the gifts and expensive clothes, was a decent and smart girl. She lived a very secluded life due to her father's special position. When the girls visited her, the man was glad that his daughter had friends.
Zinochka and Iskra found themselves in a rich, beautiful house. It turned out that Vika’s father knew Polyakova’s mother - they fought in the same division during the civil war. Iskra thought about the conversation with Lyuberetsky for a long time. She was struck by the idea that truth should be constantly tested, and not be a dogma.
Chapter Four
We have reached the fourth chapter of the work “Tomorrow There Was War” in a brief summary. Zinochka decided every year who to fall in love with. She wrote three letters with a promise of friendship, absolutely identical, to three boys, after which she began to think about which of them she should send the letter to. The girl lost two of them, but Valentina Andronovna accidentally got one. She took it to the director, but he just laughed.
One day Iskra and Sasha Stameskin kissed, and this gave impetus to the forces already in motion. The spark was drawn to Vika, who had already crossed this difficult milestone of growing up. She visited the Lyuberetskys again. After this, the girl wrote an article reflecting on guilt and innocence, but her mother burned it, saying that one should not reason, but believe.
Chapter Five
Yura invited Zinochka to the cinema for the last showing. Afterwards, he offered to sit somewhere, and the girl took him to the Lyuberetskys’ house, near which there was a secluded bench. While sitting here, the guys noticed that a car had arrived and three men entered the house. Vika's father came out of the entrance, accompanied by them, and behind them, crying and screaming loudly, Vika. Lyuberetsky shouted from the back, and the car drove off.
Zinochka ran to Iskra to tell him that he had been arrested. Polyakova’s mother wrote a letter to the central committee in which she stood up for Vika’s father.
Chapter Six
We continue to describe the story “Tomorrow there was a war.” A summary of the events of the sixth chapter is as follows. At school, Iskra discovered that everyone already knew about the arrest - Yurka spilled the news and thereby betrayed Zina. For this, the boys punished him by beating him in the boiler room. Among them was Artem, who also had personal motives for this.
Iskra met with Sashka, and he reported that Lyuberetsky was indeed an “enemy of the people.” There were rumors that he sold the plane's drawings to the Nazis. Iskra believed this, but believed that Vika had nothing to do with it.
Valentina Andronovna, having learned about the fight, decided to turn it into a political matter, and put Artyom as the ringleader. She said that Iskra should hold a meeting at which Vika would be expelled from the Komsomol. The girl refused to do this and fainted.
Then Zinochka said that Artem took part in the fight because of her.
Chapter seven
We continue the description of the events of the work written by B. L. Vasiliev. “Tomorrow there was a war” continues as follows. The girl wrote a report, and Artem stayed at school because of this. On Saturday, Vika suggested that the class go to Sosnovka, where her dacha was. The house was now sealed.
On Monday the girl did not show up to school. During the meeting, Zina, who had been sent for her, returned and reported that Vika was dead.
Chapter Eight
You are reading the description of the story "Tomorrow there was a war." Summary further developments following. Vika, as it turned out, was poisoned by sleeping pills. On the day of her funeral, Romakhin closed the school, and schoolchildren carried the coffin through the city, since a car could not be obtained. At the cemetery, Iskra began to read Yesenin’s poems.
Soon the girl's mother returned home. She was furious when she heard about her daughter's poetry reading.
Chapter Nine
Boris Lvovich Vasiliev ends his work “Tomorrow There Was War” as follows. Iskra received a parcel from Vika. It contained a letter and two books. One is a collection of Yesenin's poems, and the other is Green's book. In the letter, she said that she decided to take this step because it was easier for her to die than to renounce her own father.
Romakhin was fired. Valendra was triumphant.
Iskra went for a walk with Stameskin. She became convinced that he was a coward and wanted nothing to do with Vika and those who stood up for her. The girl was upset and cried on the way home.
you are reading brief description works "Tomorrow there was war" (Boris Vasiliev). Its content does not cover all events. For a complete understanding of the issues and the fate of the heroes, we recommend turning to the original source.
Soon Romakhin returned to the post of director, but became gloomy and quiet. After some time, the guys learned that he had been expelled from the party.
Gradually everything returned to its place. Romakhin was nevertheless returned to the party. In November, Lyuberetsky was released. The whole class went to Vika's father and talked about her last days. Zinochka expressed hope that next year should be better, since this year is a leap year. The next year was 1941.
Epilogue
Our article describing the summary is coming to an end. "Tomorrow There Was War" ends as follows. The author returns 40 years later to the city for a reunion of graduates. Of the company, only Valka "Edisson", Pashka Ostapchuk and Zina survived.
The story by B. L. Vasiliev “Tomorrow there was a war” raises serious, by no means childish problems that make you think about a lot.
Boris Vasiliev dedicated the story “Tomorrow there was war” last year, which preceded the Great Patriotic War. The main characters of this story are schoolchildren, so we are watching the last quiet school year of ninth-graders who study in a regular school in a small town.
These children are from 14 to 16 years old; their parents took part in the events of the revolution and civil war in one way or another. They know about these events firsthand.
Based on this, we see two contradictory feelings in them. The first is sadness that they did not have time to participate in such historically significant events in their country. But on the other hand, they have hope that fate has prepared larger events for them in which they can participate and leave their mark.
Their idols are their parents, their role models. From here, all the boys, as one, dream of commanding the Red Army and accomplishing some significant feat that will be marked in history.
Girls, on the other hand, dream about different things. One of them, the most lively, Iskra Polyakova, sees herself as a commissar in the future, and denies any other dreams.
Other girls - cheerful Zina Kovalenko, pragmatic Lenochka Bokova, Vika Lyuberetskaya with her head in the clouds - dream of how they will have a large and friendly family, how their husband will love and the children will all be smart and beautiful.
But what will happen to their dreams if war starts soon, and now repression and total control over all people are in full swing?
The fate of one of the girls unfolds quite tragically in the story. Vicky Lyuberetskaya. It is her father who is arrested, and he used to work as a very high-ranking aircraft designer. After his arrest, the disfavor of society falls on the family - relatives are declared enemies of the people, and the girl is simply persecuted in her own school. Finding herself between two conflicting opinions and not wanting to betray her father by renouncing him, she decides to commit suicide.
The relationship between Vika’s classmates and her unfolds very touchingly. They decide, despite everything, to support the girl, because she really is not to blame for anything. One boy even punched a senior student for not keeping his mouth shut and telling everyone at school about Vika’s father. The school principal, after committing suicide, sends her friends to her funeral because no one else came.
As for Iskra Polyakova, an ardent activist and Komsomol member, her faith in the party is significantly shaken after the events that occurred. She is no longer so confident in the unquestioning correctness of the Komsomol and the adequacy of the decisions made by the party.
Throughout the story we see the children growing up and their characters developing. We see girls growing up faster; they grow up both morally and physically. The boys are catching up with them. We can say that many changes in the character of the main characters are facilitated by their director, Nikolai Grigorievich.
In the epilogues, we learn that the schoolchildren eventually managed to accomplish their dreamed feats - almost all of them died in the war.
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Analysis of the story
B. L. Vasilyeva “Tomorrow there was war”
The story “Tomorrow There Was War” by Boris Lvovich Vasiliev was written in 1972. And along with another story by this writer, “The Dawns Here Are Quiet...” became one of the best and most famous works in our country about the period of the Great Patriotic War.
In his story, B. Vasiliev uses such an artistic method as realism.
The theme of the work is the relationship between generations of fathers and children.
The story begins with a prologue and ends with an epilogue. Through the prologue, Vasiliev introduces the reader to the world of his memories of his youth, introduces him to his former classmates and teachers, to school and parents, and the like. At the same time, the writer seems to be reflecting, pondering and reevaluating everything that happened to him forty years ago.
The epilogue sums up the story, sharply, but, nevertheless, harmoniously flowing into the content. We find ourselves again almost forty years in the future, in 1972, and learn about the further fate of the book’s characters not only from the memories of the narrator, but also from the words of the school principal.
Several classmates are at the center of the story. Iskra Polyakova is a lively and purposeful girl who dreams of becoming a commissar, an excellent student, an activist, and a wall newspaper editor. Her friends always go to her for advice, and Iskra has an accurate and precise answer for everyone, a solution to the most insoluble problems and questions. True, at the end of the story, Iskra changes greatly; she begins to doubt the “truths” that her mother so diligently instilled in her. That is, Iskra is gradually growing up.
Zina Kovalenko is flighty and fickle. Spark said that she was a real girl. Zina solves all her questions either with the help of Iskra, or by trusting her unmistakable intuition. But she also begins to grow up, feels that the boys like her, and at the end of the story even acquires the independence and prudence of Iskra.
Vika Lyuberetskaya is the most mysterious and incomprehensible girl for her classmates. She seemed to be morally older than them and therefore had no friends until the ninth grade. Vika admires her father, considers him an ideal, and loves him to the point of oblivion. The worst thing for her is to doubt her father. And when he is arrested, Vika commits suicide not out of whim, but as an adult.
Girls grow up first physically and then mentally. Boys grow up somewhat differently; they seem to follow their older classmates. So, Iskra takes the hooligan Sasha Stameskin under his wing, makes him an excellent student, enrolls him in the aviation club, and then helps him get a job at an aircraft factory.
Zhora Landys, a loyal friend and assistant to all the boys in the class, falls in love with Vika and strives to grow up. The same process happens with some other guys.
In principle, we can say that the initiator of all these age-related changes was involuntarily the new school director, Nikolai Grigorievich Romakhin. His unusual upbringing system does not hinder the growing up and spiritual search of children, but, on the contrary, provokes growing up.
The antipode of Romakhin in the story is the class teacher and literature teacher Valentina Andropovna (Valendra, as the guys call her). She is not satisfied with the new principal's routine at school. In an almost open struggle with him, she used all means, for example, writing denunciations to higher authorities, arguing and the like. However, Valentina Andropovna cannot be considered a negative character. The author writes that she absolutely sincerely believed in the correctness of her beliefs, that the new director was ruining the school. And this sincerity ultimately allowed her to find a common language with the matured class and change.
The importance of minor characters in the story is great. The literature teacher and the director cannot be classified as one of them, since the main conflict of the story unfolds around their relationship. The secondary characters are the parents of the students and two teachers who are not involved in the conflict. Parents, raising their children, created an exact copy of themselves, with their own character traits, but they all accepted with understanding the growing up of their children, their new understanding of reality. And even Polyakov’s comrade, Iskra’s mother, an “iron” woman, accustomed to commanding her daughter as a subordinate, having met the rebuff of the matured Iskra, resigns herself, realizing that this had to happen. The same can be said about Vika Lyuberetskaya’s father, who unwittingly changed the lives of many children, becoming their ideal.
The theme of the work is expressed precisely by this growing up. The main idea that permeates the work is that in no case should adults influence the growing up of children; it is, of course, necessary to educate them, but growing up follows its own special path.
However, this idea can be traced only in the main part of the story, and a new idea appears in the prologue and epilogue. The theme of the prologue and epilogue is the author's memories of his youth. And the idea is expressed in the fact that only the most beautiful things in life are remembered - youth. The story is called “Tomorrow there was a war,” but it says practically nothing about the war, and this is not accidental.
The war does not appear in the action of the story, but seems to follow from its content, logically completing the school years. Boris Vasiliev writes that the difference between the generation of his youth and the current one is that they knew that there would be a war, but we know that it will not happen, and we sincerely believe in it.
And now, forty years later, on the train that symbolizes life, these eternal ninth-graders remember not the war, not how they burned in a tank and went into battle, but what happened before that.
Tomorrow there was a war... And what happened the day after tomorrow?
(About the story by B. Vasiliev)
Boris Vasiliev’s wonderful story “Tomorrow There Was War” was published in 1984 in the magazine “Yunost”, No. 6, that is, even before the start of perestroika. At the same time, some particularly courageous literature teachers took the risk of discussing it in class, albeit in extracurricular reading lessons.
This story is not only work of art, but also a picture of pre-war Soviet Russia, described in the words of a witness of that time. Autobiographical touches give it a memoir-like character. Before us is the Soviet country of 1940. But a country is not a fragment of land, it is the people who inhabit it. And it is precisely the portraits of these people that we see in the story.
The characters in the story are Soviet schoolchildren. We, our generation of the 60s - 70s, were also Soviet schoolchildren, but completely different. The main characters of Vasiliev’s work are the generation of our parents, and for today’s schoolchildren, this is the generation of their grandparents. And the book shows us what those people really were like. And they were different, not at all like us. And for them then everything was extremely simple.
A lot of blood was shed for their “great truth” and they could not doubt it. But what this “great truth” was was not supposed to be known.
They had to “love all people” and “hate the enemies” of these same “all people.” And none of them thought about the paradoxical nature of these words from the school director.
And they do not doubt this unknown truth and sacredly trust in it. Their life was pure and open. Reading the book, you envy their infantile faith in something unknown and are horrified by the dictates that surrounded these pure and bright-hearted children, teenagers, boys and girls. Each of them at any moment may turn out to be an “enemy of the people,” and schoolchildren cannot write in a wall newspaper, or even just openly say publicly what they think, what they consider correct. Wonderful people and scary world. But their world tomorrow is even more terrible, because “Tomorrow there was war.”
The story covers the generation of the first war year, but its main characters are female: they are two girls and both die tragically in their youth: one is a victim of repression, the other of fascist occupation. The narrator, on whose behalf the story is told, appears only at the beginning of the story to talk about his class, and at the end to report on the results. His role is so inconspicuous that during the film adaptation of the story, the narrator was made not of the student, but of the school principal.
You admire these young men and women, but you also feel sorry for them at the same time. You bow down because we, the schoolchildren of the 70s and 80s, no longer had their purity and faith. We are their children, children of developed socialism. The “great truth” was already an empty symbol for us, and we cynically knew that there was nothing in this symbol. And we knew perfectly well that it was impossible to say and write, what you think, and secretly dreamed of not living to see communism. But that's another story.
Let's return to the generation that went to war from school, to the generation about which Boris Vasiliev wrote his wonderful work. The story has an epilogue, and this small, a couple of pages of book text, conclusion stuns its reader.
Let's start by calculating the ages of the characters and specifying the years. It's not hard to do.
Students who were in ninth grade in 1940 must have been born around 1924. The events described in the epilogue take place, according to the author, forty years later, when the former students of 9 "b" are approximately 56 years old (1940 + 40 years = 1980).
In the epilogue, the speech is again conducted by our narrator, who was shown to the reader only at the very beginning of the story. He is traveling on the train to a meeting of classmates and anxiously awaits this date with his youth. During a sleepless night in the train, he remembers another meeting of his classmates, which took place after the end of the war, in 1951. He recalls that his classmate Pashka Ostapchuk, having lost his leg at the front, was embarrassed to return to his former lover, Lenochka Bokova, who dreamed of the stage. Lenochka, to spite Pashka, got married in '46, that is, she was then 22 years old, and five years later she was widowed - this is 1951, that is, she and the others are 27 years old. “Just that year,” the narrator continues, “we came to the opening of a memorial plaque at the school...”
The climax of this flashback episode is the moment when the director, Nikolai Grigorievich Romakhin, "...read out the names of the dead in front of the frozen line of survivors..." This episode makes the hearts of readers tremble, as well as the participants in the events: “We knelt without any command. The whole hall - former students, current schoolchildren and teachers, disabled people, widows, orphans, lonely people - all as one.”, writes Vasiliev. But what is written next is even more striking and sensitive.
“...He was beating and shaking, and I don’t know what would have happened to our Romakhin if not for Zina. And, having aged, she did not mature: she suddenly stepped towards him, taking her adult sons by the hands:
And these are my guys, Nikolai Grigorievich. The eldest is Artem, and the youngest is Zhorka. Are they really similar to ours?
Former director hugged her boys, bowing their heads towards him, and whispered:
Like two peas in a pod..."
A touching scene. But these are memories of the events of 1951! Zinochka at this moment, if she was born in 1924, is twenty-seven years old. It becomes scary that the author calls a twenty-seven-year-old girl old. What was supposed to happen to her when, at the age of 27, she turned to old age? The writer, however, for some reason calls her children adults, while the eldest of them in 1951 physically cannot be more than eleven years old.
“Six months later, at the beginning of fifty-two, Nikolai Grigorievich died”- writes Vasiliev. That is, the director died when the former students of 9 "b" were 28 years old.
So, classmates meet for the first time in 1952. They are approximately 28 years old. This is not even adulthood, this is late adolescence. They are still young, although they are adults at the same time. So what do we see? The most honest and principled ones died: Artyom, Landys, Iskra. And the rest - Valka Alexandrov, nicknamed Edison, repairs watches, the one-legged Pashka Ostapchuk married the nurse who looked after him in the hospital. Zinochka grew old at 27 years old, Lenochka Bokova somehow got married unsuccessfully... Behind the whole sad picture painted by Vasilyev one sees premature old people, pensioners who live out their lives - whether in a watch repairman’s booth or somewhere, it’s not clear where in their hole, so that it is neither seen nor heard. What did you become when the war ended? Nobody!
It turns out that although the war was a terrible time, it was the finest hour of these young men and women. They took risks, sacrificed, did not retreat, died... But the war ended, and all of them were left out of work. Who are they? Losers waiting for retirement?
The author himself uses the word “surviving” in relation to the characters in the story. He writes about further alumni meetings, which Valentin Alexandrov (Edisson) regularly attended: he “...had tea with mothers who were living out their sad days and aging classmates, looked at endless albums, listened to stories and repaired everyone’s watches.”
Mothers are called “survivors” here, but also their aging classmates next to them share their fate, i.e. live with their mothers.
In 1940, no less terrible than the war, Komsomol organizer 9 "b" class Iskra Polyakova says words to the cowardly Stameskin that are striking in their directness and honesty: “How convenient it is when everyone around is old people! Everyone will hold on to their sick livers, everyone will strive just to live, but it will never occur to anyone to simply live. No, no, everyone will live out their lives quietly, carefully, obediently: no matter what happens. So this is all not for us! We are the youngest country in the world, and don’t you dare ever become an old man!”
What bright, bold words! They may be a little maximalistic, but they fully reflect the worldview of Iskra herself and most of her comrades. This was their position in life. But why did they cheat on her when the war ended? It turns out that these honest and principled ninth-graders, who went to war from their school days, now, after the war, are not exactly living, but rather surviving - unnoticed, quietly, holding on to their crippled leg and ears burned in a tank. Yes, Pavel Ostapchuk only had one leg left after being wounded at the front. But the absence of a leg did not prevent Mexican General Jose Santa Anna from being elected to the post of president and commander-in-chief 10 times and from fighting the United States; the absence of an eye did not prevent Kutuzov from defeating Napoleon. Yes, it is very bad to have some kind of injury or physical damage, but this is not a reason, starting from the age of 28, to “live out” quietly waiting for a pension.
It turns out that the words that Iskra spoke in her youth were in vain? And it was not Stameskin who needed to say them, but, on the contrary, all the other classmates.
Wanting to show Stameskin from the negative side, the author says about him that after the war he became “a director, laureate, deputy, etc.” In general, he is a careerist. But it turns out that he is the one who lives, and does not sit in a booth for repairs. He is the one who does something, the only one of all. It is he who makes this life what it was then, and everyone else sits out. Let Stameskin do it poorly, because the author initially showed him as a cowardly, unprincipled, opportunist. But at least Stameskin is doing something! And he does as best he can. And others - honest and principled - withdrew themselves, stepped aside to quietly wait there for old age, starting at the age of twenty-eight.
Who is to blame? Chisel? Is he guilty of not sitting in a booth and therefore in the eyes of others, his classmates, the author of the story and its readers, has become a careerist? He, too, should have sat in the kennel of “Custom Key Making” or “Shoe Repair” or some other, and then justice would have prevailed? No, Stameskin’s release from the post of director or deputy would hardly have prompted the rest of his classmates to dramatically change their lives. They would have continued to sit out anyway.
No, the trouble is not that the Stameskins become directors and laureates, but that the rest - straightforward, honest and fair - strive to sit out. We can say that the state broke them: the totalitarian communists crushed them, spread them out, showed that heroes are needed only in beautiful films, and in life we need opportunistic chisels, but life did not stop even in Soviet era, there were still people who created something new in science and art and in production, but did not sit out.
This strange epilogue to the story affects the reader almost more powerfully than the entire story. It's too little to be principled at sixteen years old. You still have your whole life ahead and I want to finally repeat the words of Iskra: “Don’t you dare live!”
