Essay Tvardovsky A.T. Tvardovsky's attitude towards Terkin in the poem "Vasily Terkin" The author's attitude towards the hero Vasily Terkin

In addition to Terkin and minor characters, plays an important role in the book author-poet. This is not necessarily Tvardovsky himself in everything; it is more correct to talk about a specially created according to the laws of art, an artistically generalized image of the author-narrator. The character of the author-narrator, his personality emerges from the work, even external biographical information is provided that coincides with Tvardovsky’s real biography. The author is an intermediary between the hero and the reader, conducts a free conversation with the reader, whose presence is also felt in the poem. In addition to the “epic” chapters, the book has four “lyrical” chapters “From the author”. In them, the author either introduces his hero to the reader, or reflects on the plot of the book itself. Terkin's feelings and thoughts are at the same time the feelings and thoughts of the author himself and the entire people. This explains why it is difficult to discern the line between what the author says about himself and what he directly relates to his hero.

However, the distance between the author and the hero is not the same throughout the book. At first, the hero is revealed mostly in action, about his inner world little is said, and the author compensates for this “lack” of psychologism. The author reflects and emotionally “highlights” the plot. For example, in the chapter “Crossing” at the beginning there is no Terkin, and the general tone of the author’s narration is distinguished by restrained sorrow:

The appearance of Terkin with his playful request to pour a second glass takes the chapter to a different plane and brings emotional release.

As the plot develops, the boundary between the hero and the author becomes blurred. In the chapter “About Myself,” the author talks about his closeness with the hero:

However, a complete merger of the author and the hero does not occur. The author sees the perspective of events, his horizons are wider than those of his hero, he views events from the point of view of the entire people. The author, like his hero, grew up during the war, became wiser, his voice and view of the war became sadder.

The author and the hero... But there is also a reader in the book - the one with whom the author is talking. “L. Ozerov successfully defined Tvardovsky’s book as not only a book about a fighter, but also as a book for a fighter, a help in life, a soldier’s bible, “which you open anywhere, point your finger and read”” 1. This is largely true. And yet, the readership of Tvardovsky’s book is much wider: it includes the author’s appeals to the wives of fighters, and a hidden appeal to his literary brother - criticism of his poem:

The readership of Tvardovsky's poem is devoid of professional, age, geographical, and social boundaries. Although, perhaps, there are still boundaries: aesthetic boundaries (deafness to the living Russian word) and national-linguistic ones, since an adequate (congenial) translation of the poem into other languages ​​is hardly possible. But this is already a translation problem.

Read also other articles about Alexander Tvardovsky’s poem “Vasily Terkin”.

Great Patriotic War refers to those events in the history of the country that remain in the memory of the people for a long time. Such events greatly change people's ideas about life and art. The war caused an unprecedented surge in literature, music, painting, and cinema. But, perhaps, there has not been and will not be a more popular work about the war than the poem “Vasily Terkin” by Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky.

A. T. Tvardovsky wrote about the war firsthand. At the very beginning of the war, he, like many other writers and poets, went to the front. And walking along the roads of war, the poet creates an amazing monument to the Russian soldier and his feat. The hero of “The Book about a Soldier,” as the author himself defined the genre of his work, is Vasily Terkin, who is a collective image of a Russian soldier. But there is another hero in the book - the author himself. We cannot even say that it is always Tvardovsky himself. Rather, we are talking about that generalized image of the author-narrator that is present in “Eugene Onegin”, “Hero of Our Time” and other works that form the basis of the Russian literary tradition. Although some facts from the poem coincide with the real biography of A. T. Tvardovsky, the author is clearly endowed with many of Terkin’s traits, they are constantly together (“Terkin - further. Author - next”). This allows us to say that the author in the poem is also a man of the people, a Russian soldier, who differs from Terkin, in fact, only in that “he completed his course in the capital.” A. T. Tvardovsky makes Terkin his fellow countryman. And therefore the words

I'm trembling from acute pain,

Bitter and holy malice.

Mother, father, sisters

Behind that line I have -

become the words of both the author and his hero. Amazing lyricism colors those lines of the poem that talk about the “small homeland” that each of the soldiers who took part in the war had. The author loves his hero and admires his actions. They are always unanimous:

And I’ll tell you, I won’t hide it, -

In this book, here and there,

What a hero should say

I speak personally myself.

I am responsible for everything around me,

And notice, if you didn’t notice,

Like Terkin, my hero,

Sometimes it speaks for me.

The author in the poem is an intermediary between the hero and the reader. A confidential conversation is constantly conducted with the reader; the author respects the “friend-reader”, and therefore strives to convey to him the “real truth” about the war. The author feels his responsibility to the readers, he understands how important it was not only to tell about the war, but also to instill in the readers (and we remember that “Vasily Terkin” was published in separate chapters during the war, and the idea dates back to the Finnish War) faith in the indestructible spirit of the Russian soldier, optimism. Sometimes the author seems to invite the reader to check the truth of his judgments and observations. Such direct contact with the reader greatly contributes to the fact that the poem becomes understandable to a large circle of people.

You can live without food for a day,

More is possible, but sometimes

In a one-minute war

Can't live without a joke

Jokes of the most unwise.

The text of the poem is filled with jokes, sayings, and sayings, and it is impossible to determine who their author is: the author of the poem, the hero of the poem Terkin, or the people in general.

The author’s observational skills, the vigilance of his gaze and the skill of conveying the details of front-line life are striking. The book becomes a kind of “encyclopedia” of war, written “from nature”, in a field setting. The author is faithful not only to details. He felt the psychology of a person in war, felt the same fear, hunger, cold, was just as happy and sad... And most importantly, “The Book about a Soldier” was not written to order, there is nothing ostentatious or deliberate in it, it was an organic expression of need the author to tell his contemporaries and descendants about that war in which “the battle is holy and just. Mortal combat is not for the sake of glory, for the sake of life on earth.”

The author and his hero in the poem "Vasily Terkin". Movement of the poem's plot

In “Vasily Terkin” there are few contrasts, but there is a lot of movement and development - primarily in the images of the main character and the author, their contacts with each other and with other characters. Initially, they are distanced: in the introduction, Terkin is combined only with a good saying or saying - and vice versa, the author clearly pronounces words about truth from himself. The dissimilarity deepens even more in the chapter “At a Rest,” where the two characteristics of the hero do not coincide in any way. At first he is introduced

Terkin - who is he?

Let's be honest:

He's just an ordinary guy.

And then a self-characterization is given, sharply different from the previous one in its undoubted, albeit crafty, fabulousness:

Three times I was surrounded

Three times - here it is! - went out.

This is not a contrast - rather, complementarity, but the roles in the exhibition are still clearly distributed. So “The Crossing” opens with the author’s narration, and before Terkin’s appearance, both in situation and in tone, it is tragic. The moment is taken when the soldiers are most dependent on fate - they are in its hands, and fate is merciless:

And he placed a pillar of water

Suddenly a shell. Pontoons in a row.

There were a lot of people there -

Our short-haired guys...

And I saw you for the first time,

It will not be forgotten:

People are warm and alive

We went to the bottom, to the bottom, to the bottom...

The first part of the story ends on such a bitter note: death has equalized everyone, depersonalized everything - now

... unknown

Who is timid, who is a hero.

A turning point in the plot and mood is brought by Terkin, who sailed across the November water. Not only the ice crust off the coast - it breaks off the feeling of fatal hopelessness, prolonged obscurity. Conceiving the poem, A. Tvardovsky wrote in the spring of 1941: “The difficulty is that such “funny”, “primitive” heroes are usually taken in pairs, in contrast to the real, lyrical, “high” hero. More digressions, more of oneself in the poem,” that is, for himself he assumed a special, more elevated position. In the chapter “Crossing”, and not in it alone, the opposite happened, however: it was the hero who supported the author, instilled hope in him and in his fellow soldiers. Complementarity is gradually replaced by interpenetration.

The pairing of heroes, well known from both Don Quixote and Till Eulenspiegel, ultimately also manifested itself in a unique way in Tvardovsky. The functionality outlined in the first two chapters is exhausting itself. The high and the low, the tragic and the comic - that which, according to the original plans, should have been distributed between the two images - came together. It was combined, first of all, in the hero, who already in the third chapter, “Before the Battle,” shows, in addition to a resilient spirit, sensitivity, tact, and an acute sense of personal guilt.

The hero of “The Book about a Soldier,” as the author himself defined the genre of his work, is Vasily Terkin, who is a collective image of a Russian soldier. But there is another hero in the book - the author himself. It is difficult to say that it is always Tvardovsky himself. Rather, we are talking about that generalized image of the author-narrator. Although some facts from the poem coincide with the real biography of A. T. Tvardovsky, the author is clearly endowed with many of Terkin’s traits; they are constantly together
(“Terkin - further. Author-trace”).
This allows us to say that the author in the poem is also a Russian soldier, who differs from Terkin, in fact, only in that “he completed his course in the capital.”
A. T. Tvardovsky makes Terkin his fellow countryman. And therefore the words

I'm trembling from acute pain,
Bitter and holy malice.
Mother, father, sisters
Behind that line I have -
become the words of both the author and his hero.

Amazing lyricism colors those lines of the poem that talk about the “small homeland” that each of the soldiers who took part in the war had. The author loves his hero and admires his actions. They are always unanimous:

And I’ll tell you, I won’t hide it, -
In this book, here and there,
What a hero should say
I speak personally myself.
I am responsible for everything around me,
And notice, if you didn’t notice,
Like Terkin, my hero,
Sometimes it speaks for me.

The author in the poem is an intermediary between the hero and the reader. A confidential conversation is constantly conducted with the reader; the author respects the “friend-reader”, and therefore strives to convey to him the “real truth” about the war. The author feels his responsibility to his readers; he understands how important it was not only to talk about the war, but also to instill in readers faith in the indestructible spirit of the Russian soldier and optimism. Sometimes the author seems to invite the reader to check the truth of his judgments and observations. Such direct contact with the reader greatly contributes to the fact that the poem becomes understandable to a large circle of people.
The poem constantly permeates the author's subtle humor. At the very beginning of the poem, the author calls a joke the most necessary in a soldier’s life.

The text of the poem is filled with jokes, sayings, sayings, and it is impossible to determine who their author is: the author of the poem, the hero of the poem Terkin, or the people in general.
The author’s observational skills, the vigilance of his gaze and the skill of conveying the details of front-line life are striking. The book becomes a kind of “encyclopedia” of war, written “from nature”, in a field setting.
The author is faithful not only to details. He felt the psychology of a person in war, felt the same fear, hunger, cold, he was just as happy and sad...
And most importantly, “The Book about a Fighter” was not written to order, there is nothing ostentatious or deliberate in it, it was an organic expression of the author’s need to tell his contemporaries and descendants about the war in which “the battle is holy and just. Mortal combat is not for the sake of glory, for the sake of life on earth.”

The hero of “The Book about a Soldier,” as the author himself defined the genre of his work, is Vasily Terkin, who is a collective image of a Russian soldier. But there is another hero in the book - the author himself. It is difficult to say that it is always Tvardovsky himself. Rather, we are talking about that generalized image of the author-narrator. Although some facts from the poem coincide with the real biography of A. T. Tvardovsky, the author is clearly endowed with many of Terkin’s traits; they are constantly together
(“Terkin - further. Author-trace”).
This allows us to say that the author in the poem is also a Russian soldier, who differs from Terkin, in fact, only in that “he completed his course in the capital.”
A. T. Tvardovsky makes Terkin his fellow countryman. And therefore the words

I'm trembling from acute pain,
Bitter and holy malice.
Mother, father, sisters
Behind that line I have -
become the words of both the author and his hero.

Amazing lyricism colors those lines of the poem that talk about the “small homeland” that each of the soldiers who took part in the war had. The author loves his hero and admires his actions. They are always unanimous:

And I’ll tell you, I won’t hide it, -
In this book, here and there,
What a hero should say
I speak personally myself.
I am responsible for everything around me,
And notice, if you didn’t notice,
Like Terkin, my hero,
Sometimes it speaks for me.

The author in the poem is an intermediary between the hero and the reader. A confidential conversation is constantly conducted with the reader; the author respects the “friend-reader”, and therefore strives to convey to him the “real truth” about the war. The author feels his responsibility to his readers; he understands how important it was not only to talk about the war, but also to instill in readers faith in the indestructible spirit of the Russian soldier and optimism. Sometimes the author seems to invite the reader to check the truth of his judgments and observations. Such direct contact with the reader greatly contributes to the fact that the poem becomes understandable to a large circle of people.
The poem constantly permeates the author's subtle humor. At the very beginning of the poem, the author calls a joke the most necessary thing in a soldier’s life:

You can live without food for a day,
More is possible, but sometimes
In a one-minute war
Can't live without a joke
Jokes of the most unwise.

The text of the poem is filled with jokes, sayings, sayings, and it is impossible to determine who their author is: the author of the poem, the hero of the poem Terkin, or the people in general.
The author’s observational skills, the vigilance of his gaze and the skill of conveying the details of front-line life are striking. The book becomes a kind of “encyclopedia” of war, written “from nature”, in a field setting.
The author is faithful not only to details. He felt the psychology of a person in war, felt the same fear, hunger, cold, he also rejoiced and grieved...
And most importantly, “The Book about a Fighter” was not written to order, there is nothing ostentatious or deliberate in it, it was an organic expression of the author’s need to tell his contemporaries and descendants about the war in which “the battle is holy and just. Mortal combat is not for the sake of glory, for the sake of life on earth.”