One of the most famous works of not only domestic but also world literature is the work of Twardowski "Vasily Terkin." The genre of this work is a poem. It was very popular among readers and today is considered an excellent example of military lyrics.
About the writer's work
Alexander Twardowski (1910-1971) came from a simple village peasant family. Already at the age of fifteen, he began to write small poems in a local newspaper. The famous poet M. Isakovsky approved his writings and became a mentor to the future famous author. In the 1930s, Twardowski wrote several poems and published a collection of poems. It is indicative of the fact that, despite the fact that his family and relatives suffered during collectivization, Alexander Twardovsky in several of his compositions portrayed party politics in the village in a very positive light. Before the war, he worked in the Leningrad newspaper, where he first printed his first short poems about the later become famous Vasily Terkin. When hostilities began, the poet went to the front and for all the war years gradually created his most famous work, which brought him all-Union fame.
Creature
One of the most famous works of military subjects is "Vasily Terkin." The genre of this work corresponded to the author’s idea: to create a truly national hero, which would be understandable and accessible to everyone. Therefore, he wrote his work as a poem about a soldier, a simple soldier who went through the whole war. Despite the fact that there is no specifics in it, nevertheless, some battles are guessed in the text: the retreat of Soviet troops at the beginning of the war, the battle on the Volga, Dnieper. The first chapters were published in the newspaper of the Western Front and were very popular among readers.
Features
Twardowski’s work “Vasily Terkin”, the genre of which was, in principle, traditional for the poet, despite criticism of party censorship, gained such fame due to the fact that the author chose not the representatives of command or party leadership, but the most ordinary person in the image which every soldier of the Soviet army could probably recognize himself. Terkin is a collective image of soldiers, and it is not for nothing that the author always emphasizes the typical character of this hero, his recognition.
The work “Vasily Terkin”, the genre of which allowed the poet to express his thoughts on paper relatively easily and simply, is written in an accessible language. Twardowski wrote his work as a poem for a reason. The fact is that this genre assumes the presence of lyro-epic motifs and serious narration in poetic form. And the work in question is really epic in spirit, because it conveys the spirit and mood not only of the soldiers of the Soviet army, but of the whole people during the war years.
Folk motives
The genre chosen by the author is not accidental. Twardowski’s poem “Vasily Terkin” is close in its language, sound and spirit to folklore, and, as you know, this poetic form arose from the very beginning as a folk epic song, as a kind of legend, a legend about some heroic event. And the author completely follows this principle: he as if deliberately refuses literary and linguistic tricks and expresses his idea very simply, in a language similar to the one used to write old song poems. This form allowed him to borrow a lot from popular colloquial speech. Twardowski's poem "Vasily Terkin" follows traditional folklore motifs. It has many ditties, sayings, proverbs, and some statements and whole expressions from this work, in turn, have become phraseological units, which indicates the highest degree of popularity of the hero.
Composition
The poem "Vasily Terkin", the content of which is essentially a reproduction of military life, has become so dear to the reader precisely because it very warmly and touchingly draws ordinary pictures of difficult wartime. The work consists of thirty chapters, the author's prologue and epilogue; however, the poet immediately stipulates at the very beginning that his book has no beginning or end. Such an idea continues the theme he had previously outlined about the infinity of time, about the long road, about life and death. This gives a particular philosophical meaning to the work, forcing the reader to think about fate, about the common misfortune, about the hardships of war. The chapter "Crossing" is rightly recognized by most critics as the main and central part of the entire work.
Content
Each passage is dedicated to an episode from the life of a beloved hero. Moreover, the author does not focus on depicting the heroic exploits of his character, on the contrary, he very often shows it in a simple setting, during periods of calm, during transitions, in parking lots and so on. The theme of the poem “Vasily Terkin” is a depiction of the life of a simple fighter who, despite the horrors of war, has not lost optimism and believes in victory. Even in the most difficult circumstances, he is never discouraged, and so the reader liked him.
The most significant parts of the work are as follows: a description of Terkin’s feat during the crossing, his battle with Death, the image of the character on the pass, an episode with a shot down airplane, a hero’s lunch with an old soldier. In these scenes, the author seeks to show his character from different angles: in each of these chapters he appears before readers in recognizable situations, such as through which thousands of Soviet soldiers passed.
Plot
Terkin swam across the ice river in order to transmit an important message about the location of the enemy and the actions of the Soviet troops. However, the author does not emphasize the heroism of this act, on the contrary, he describes this scene in such a way that the reader understands that any other soldier in Terkin’s place would have done the same. In this description, as, indeed, throughout the poem, the author’s voice is clearly heard, which is as if invisibly present in the described scene, gives its judgments, comments on what is happening, and this gives the narrative authenticity and truthfulness.
In general, the figure of Tvardovsky himself is guessed in the narrator: he himself periodically enters into dialogue with his character, addresses him with various questions, expresses his sympathy for him or admires him. In the chapter “On a Halt” one feels a particularly warm attitude of the poet to his hero. The author depicts Terkin in the most ordinary and recognizable setting, on a soldier's vacation, with an accordion in his hands. Perhaps it is this image of the character that the readers especially liked, since it goes back to the traditional ideas of the ordinary peasant worker, who sings and plays the accordion at the moment of rest. No wonder Vasily is depicted as a harmonist on one of the monuments.
Form
In the chapter devoted to Terkin’s conversation with the old soldier, Twardowski again shows his hero in a simple environment, among the peasants, which once again brings him closer to the common people. Both soldiers are talking about the war and immediately find a common language behind this conversation. This is a distinctive feature of the character of the hero: wherever he goes, he immediately finds a common language with others. Of course, the poet could not ignore the military merit of his hero: in addition to the episode with the crossing, he also, for example, shot down an enemy plane. It is noteworthy that the author described the last episode: the reader only finds out that the plane was shot down by Terkin only at the end, when the command began to search for the hero. Thus, the image of the national hero Vasily Terkin created by Tvardovsky actually personifies the whole people.
Rating
The national epic justifiably received universal recognition. She was praised by such prominent writers as Pasternak, Fadeev, Bunin. Readers in their letters to the author requested continuation. And only the censorship committee was dissatisfied with the fact that Twardowski did not show the role of the communist party in his work. However, the author himself admitted that such deviations would violate the whole idea of the work, and therefore, at his own peril and risk, he continued to write in the direction in which he considered it necessary. According to a recent survey, the poem entered the top most read works on military topics. The work is included in the school curriculum and is deservedly popular today.