One of the most prominent representatives of "lieutenant" prose, Vorobyev Konstantin Dmitrievich was born in the blessed "nightingale" Kursk region, in a distant village called Nizhny Reutets, in the Medvedinsky district. The very nature there is disposed to singing or composing songs, the very soul of the Kursk land gives rise in its grateful inhabitants to the desire to master the word and capture this beauty.
Childhood
The family was a peasant and, like many in those parts, a large family - a brother and five sisters grew next to the future famous writer. In September 1919, he was born in order to truly love Russian with all his heart, to rejoice with all his heart, to fight fiercely, to fight cruelly and, of course, to suffer inevitably. Many of Constantine’s generation had to suffer grief, but so much and so much suffering fell to a few.
Such a fate
It’s good that no one knew their fate at first ... Konstantin Vorobyov, writer, did not expect anything from the incident. At first, his biography was no different from the rest: he graduated from a seven-year school in the village, then he studied courses in film mechanics. But in August of the thirty-fifth, he suddenly got a job in a regional newspaper. There were published his first poems, first essays. He always lacked education - as Vorobyov the writer felt. Therefore, at thirty-seventh he moved to Moscow, where he finished his studies in high school and became the executive secretary of the factory newspaper. For two pre-war years he served in the army and wrote essays for an army newspaper there. Already in his first works, it is clearly felt that Konstantin Vorobyov is a highly gifted writer and a brave man, endowed with real civic courage, at the same time deeply feeling and empathizing with other people's grief and pain.
Moscow and the Military Academy
Demobilized, Konstantin Vorobyov, the writer, already worked in the newspaper of the Moscow Military Academy. It was the Frunze Military Academy that sent him to study at the Higher Infantry School. He was supposed to guard the Kremlin, like the rest of the cadets, but in November 1941 he was no longer caught in Moscow - the whole company of Kremlin cadets went to the front in October. And in December, Vorobiev Konstantin Dmitrievich, severely shell-shocked, was captured by the Nazis.
Concentration Camp in Lithuania
Konstantin Vorobyov himself wrote about the living conditions in captivity. The photos presented here do not so vividly illustrate this life. Moreover, he did not have a concentration camp. He fled several times, and they killed him during the capture. But Konstantin Vorobyov - the writer is immortal, and a tenacious man - survived. As soon as the wounds closed, he ran again. Finally it worked out. Hit the partisan detachment. He became an underground. He wrote the story of the atrocities in the concentration camps, hiding in safe houses. He called it "The Road to the Old Home." In the title this was the main dream of his life. But the first publication, which took place only forty years later, in 1986, Our Contemporary magazine dubbed otherwise - more succinctly and whole-heartedly: "This is us, Lord!" As you read through the inhumanity of war and captivity with the meat grinder of destinies and characters where every letter bleeds, the reader suddenly grows and gains wings of an indestructible feeling of pride for his country, for his army, for his people. Konstantin Vorobyov is a real writer. They re-read it, even if they love only the positive. They just feel - it’s necessary, IT must not be forgotten.
Vorobyov's stories
After the liberation of Lithuania, Konstantin Vorobyov, a writer still almost unknown to anyone, has not returned home to the Kursk region. Apparently, the land of Lithuania, for which he shed blood, stopped him. In 1956, his Snowdrop, a collection of short stories, grew up there, after which Konstantin Vorobyov, a writer, is already a professional. This book was not the last, fortunately. Almost next was published the collection “Gray Poplar”, then “Geese-Swans” and “Who Have the Angels Settled”, as well as many others. The fate of the lyrical heroes is usually not as easy as that of the author. Terrible trials tempered the soul so much that the simplest people found themselves in conditions of heroic take-off and - took off! The author, despite unbearable circumstances full of mental pain, was able to cure the reading soul with an indispensable catharsis - every time!
Tales of War and Peace
The sensational story “The Scream”, the famous “Killed near Moscow”, as well as the legend about the pre-war rural life “Alex, son of Alexei” - these are the stories that brought real fame. They were conceived by Konstantin Vorobyov, a front-line writer, as a trilogy, but it happened differently. Each story lives its own life and is evidence of the greatness of the human (Soviet!) Character, which manifests itself even in the most unbearable realities of life. A number of post-war stories about rural life, despite the label of "sentimental naturalism," are still loved and read. And how can you not read the story "My Friend Momich", or "How much in the Rocky joy", or "Here came the giant"? And how can you not re-read all the rest? The writer Vorobyov, and after escaping from concentration camps, troubles did not end until the end of his life. Such a fate.
Manuscripts will not be reviewed and returned. Hurrah!
Vorobiev Konstantin Dmitrievich wrote about thirty stories, ten large stories, many essays. And it was always possible to publish the best, the most cherished, not just late and with hard notes ... The worst evidence of fascist atrocities in concentration camps is not even a film and film. These are letters. Dry as numbers. Murderous, because the truth is about people and nonhumans. In 1946, Vorobyov proposed this autobiographical story to the New World magazine, but refused to publish it. Years passed. There were fewer leaves with bleeding letters. After the death of the writer, this story was not found anywhere in its entirety. Even in his personal archive. And only in 1986, by chance, all loyal forty years ago, the manuscript was found in TsGALI (archive of literature and art of the USSR), where all the archival documentation of the New World was acquired. The story was immediately published by Our Contemporary magazine (the chief editor at that time was S. V. Vikulov), and the people were shocked by the recognition, although it would seem that the new humanity could learn about fascist atrocities? .. The strength is not in the description of the atrocities , as the writer Vorobyov says, but in the fact that under no circumstances should one lose its human appearance, even under such circumstances. “This is me, Lord,” the author managed to say much earlier than the publication of the autobiographical “This is us, Lord!” As already mentioned, the story was completed in 1943, published in 1986, posthumously. Another - “My Friend Momich” - was written in 1965, was published only in 1988. The same thing happened with the stories “One Breath”, “Ermak” and many other works. Almost in time, only one of those annals of the war came out that Konstantin Vorobyov wrote with the blood of his soul - “Killed near Moscow.” In 1963, the story was published. And this is also the "New World". But the chief editor is different - Alexander Trifonovich Twardowski.
Konstantin Vorobyov, “Killed near Moscow”
She became the first story of the author in the cage of "lieutenant prose." The description of the battles near Moscow in 1941, of which Vorobyov himself was a participant, breathes that front-line phenomenon which even witnesses find incredible. Near Volokolamsk there are Kremlin cadets - a training company led by Captain Ryumin. Two hundred and forty young cadets. All of the same height - one hundred eighty three centimeters. In peacetime, they also have to walk on guard of honor on Red Square. And here - rifles, grenades, gas bottles. And fascist tanks. And mortar round-the-clock shelling. The comrades of the protagonist (known from the story “The Scream”), Lieutenant Alexei Yastrebov, are dying. Politruk dies. The dead are buried. The wounded are sent to the village. The Germans are advancing, the company is surrounded. A heroic decision was made - to attack the village occupied by the Germans. The battle begins at night. An incomplete company destroyed almost a battalion of enemy machine gunners. Alexei also killed a fascist with a point blank shot. In the afternoon, the remnants of the company tried to hide in the forest, but a reconnaissance aircraft with a swastika on the wing found them. And the carnage began. After the bombers, tanks entered this forest, and under their cover the German infantry. The company died. Alexey and one of his fellow cadets escaped. After waiting out the danger, they began to get out of the environment to their own and found captain Ryumin and three more cadets. We spent the night in haystacks. We watched the Messerschmitts kill the hawks, using the numerical advantage. After that, Ryumin shot himself. While digging out the grave of the commander, we waited for German tanks. Aleksey remained in the undigested grave, and the cadets hid back in the hay. And they perished. Alexey set fire to the tank, but this tank managed to fill up Alexei's grave ground before it burned down. The main character managed to get out of the grave. He took all four rifles and staggered toward the front line. What was he thinking? Everything at once. About what happened in these five days. Through the great sorrow from the loss of comrades, through hunger, through inhuman fatigue, a childish resentment glowed: "How so - no one saw me burn a German tank! .." In 1984, according to this story (and partly there were episodes from the story " Scream ”) the film“ Exam for Immortality ”was directed by director Alexei Saltykov, which we watched publicly and more than once. When a song about Seryozha and Malaya Bronnaya is heard, many women cry, and also at other moments of the film.
Everlasting memory
Stories and some fragments from the stories are translated into German, Bulgarian, Polish, Latvian. Translated the story "Nastya", an excerpt from the story "This is us, Lord!" in Lithuanian; also in Lithuanian published collections of short stories of the writer.
Konstantin Dmitrievich Vorobyov died on March 2, 1975 in Vilnius. Humanity honors the memory of a front-line writer. A memorial plaque was installed on his house in Vilnius , in 1995 the writer was awarded the Prize of St. Sergius of Radonezh, in 2001 the prize of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a monument to the writer was unveiled in Kursk, secondary school No. 35 is named after K. D. Vorobyov, and in Kursk The street was named after him, and a museum was opened in the village of Nizhny Reutets in the writer's small homeland.