âThe Street of the Youngest Sonâ is a beautiful kind book that contains elements of history. The book is intended for middle-aged children. The story itself was written already in 1949, when the post-war time came, but no one has forgotten all those sacrifices made for the sake of peace.
Briefly about the book
The authors of the book âThe Street of the Youngest Sonâ are Lev Kassil and Max Polyanovsky, who managed to recreate the whole military atmosphere. This anger that was boiling in the veins of every soldier. This fear that has seized many. And this bitterness that has pervaded people who have lost all their loved ones. The story "The Street of the Youngest Son" was written by Lev Kassil together with Max Polyanovsky. The two-part story is truly capable of conveying all the moods that reigned among ordinary people. Events "Streets of the youngest son" Polyanovsky and Kassil managed to describe as real as possible. All events of the story are reliable and supported by historical facts.
In 1951, the story was awarded the Stalin Prize. This is precisely what shows how important the works of Kassil and Polyanovsky turned out to be. The summary of "Streets of the Youngest Son", which you can find in this article, will not be able to convey all the emotions that arise when reading the full work.
A little bit about the author: Cassille
Leo Kassil was born on June 27, 1905. The writer's homeland is considered the Saratov region, the city of Engels.
The writer devoted many of his works to World War II. Along with the story, one of the authors of which is Lev Kassil (âThe Street of the Youngest Sonâ), the author wrote such stories as âYour Defendersâ, âMy Dear Boysâ, âOrdinary Guysâ and others. All the works of Kassil describing specific periods of history are reliable and have a solid foundation. But it is worth noting that Lev Abramovich described the events from a very interesting point of view: if the textbooks on the history of his native country are not able to really interest students, then books immerse every young reader in those war years, make him worry about all those terrible days and weeks helps to understand the meaning of all those terrible events that the Russian people experienced. Many of Kassil's works describe the attitude of children specifically to war. The way very young children were pulled into military squabbles, forcing them to participate in battles. How strongly the sense of patriotism was developed in youths. In his works, the writer was able to show how much the war affects the character of the younger generation, how it is able to change life values, breaking or hardening its participants.
A little about the author: Polyanovsky
The writer was born on June 10, 1901 in Odessa.
In the process of collaboration, both writers for a long time searched for information about the hero boy in all kinds of archives, where they had access to them. After full recognition by readers of the story âThe Street of the Youngest Sonâ, Polyanovsky, along with Kassil, wrote several more short stories about wartime. Such works were âPioneer Friendsâ, âIt Wasâ and âHonest Pioneer!â.
Together, the authors managed to convey the atmosphere that prevailed during the war years. It was thanks to Kassil and Polyanovsky that the even more terrible side of the war was revealed to the people.
It is worth noting that both authors participated in hostilities, so they knew what they were writing about. All that they set out on paper is not just words, it is a story that every person who honors his homeland must know.
Summary of the streets of the youngest son
In the center of the plot of the book is a boy who is in the midst of a war with his family. The Dubinins family lived in the Ukrainian city of Kerch. Volodya Dubinin, a boy whose father - Vladimir Nikiforovich Dubinin - served as captain in the navy, is experiencing terrible military events. Having lost his father, who taught the boy everything that a man needs to know, Volodya joins the partisans. Having become a small but brisk scout in the squad, Volodya gets the opportunity to collect much more information than any other partisans - due to the fact that he is small, it is harder to notice. Thus, making his invaluable contribution to the victory over the German troops, Volodya helps his colleagues draw up various plans for the attack. Anger and bitterness do not give the boy rest - having lost all his loved ones in this war, he is obliged to take revenge on the Germans who took his family from him. Volodya recalls the lessons of Vladimir Nikiforovich Dubinin, who taught his son not to be offended, but to restrain his ardor. Remembering the death of his father, Volodya makes a very important decision: he will avenge all who have had so much to lose in this war. Soon other boys appeared in the detachment - pioneers who, along with adult partisans, were fighting for peace in their homeland. It was Volodya Dubinin who was the first to know that the enemy troops had retreated.
The heroes of the story "Street of the youngest son"
The main characters of the "Streets of the Youngest Son" were brave and courageous people who actually lived during the Second World War.
- Volodya Dubinin is the main character of the story. The boy, whose story people will never forget, became the personification of not just courage and courage, but absolute self-sacrifice and heroism. His image opened for people something new, something even more terrible than a huge number of deaths in wartime. His image is the image of a child of war, deprived of childhood and forced to grow up too early.
- Evdokia Timofeevna - the mother of a pioneer hero, worried about her son, like no other.
- Valya is the sister of the protagonist, who missed her brother, looked for any connection with her brother to find out how he was doing, whether he was injured, and in general, whether his brother was alive under such circumstances.
- Vanya Gritsenko is Volodya's best friend, who understood him very well and supported him in difficult times.
- Adult partisans are comrades and older âbrothersâ Volodya Dubinin. It was they who accepted the boy into their ranks and relied on his courage and cunning. They also taught everything they knew to a young partisan. But apart from the common cause, they were connected by something more: having traveled so hard together, they really fell in love with the boy and treated him like a younger brother, worrying about him as if he were his family.
- Vladimir Nikiforovich Dubinin is Volodya's father, who became an example for the boy, laying the foundations of patriotism and honor in the character of his son.
The image of Volodya: the value of the hero for the story
In the book âStreet of the Youngest Sonâ Volodya Dubinin became not just the main character. Already in the brief content of âThe Streets of the Youngest Sonâ it can be seen that in this character the authors embodied all the torment and pain that had to endure not only for adult soldiers, but also for all children who were likewise inevitably drawn into the war. The boy, whose courage was able to inspire the whole detachment, the boy, whose courage did not harden the partisan detachments, but, on the contrary, forced to look at the war with different eyes ... It was the image of Volodya Dubinin that showed how terrible the war can be, how deeply it can affect even the most innocent souls that still had so much to happen in life. The lyrical image of this hero indicates how previously not only the moral qualities of the whole society were developed, but also the patriotism of each man, albeit a small one, individually.
Further life of the story
The story of Leo Cassil did not stand aside, forgotten on the bookshelf. In 1962, the film of the same name was shot according to the book.
Credibility of the facts of the work
Some chapters indicate specific places where partisan movements actually functioned. For example, the authors write about the hostilities that took place in the Artek children's camps. That is how it was. However, three such camps were noted in the book. In fact, in the years that are described in the story, only two out of three camps worked. The third was opened only in 1944.
The authors also write that the director of the Artek camp was a certain Boris Yakovlevich. However, during the war years, Ovchukov-Suvorov Boris was repressed, and then fought. Ovchukov managed to become the director of the Artek camp only in the post-war years.
Despite the fact that some of the information presented in the book is not entirely believable, perhaps a little embellished to create the most striking plot, in general, we can say that the book tells about real events that actually happened in the war years. The reliability of the facts even in a brief summary of âStreets of the Youngest Sonâ can be verified by examining the course of events in the history of the Soviet Union.