Vasil Bykov is a famous Belarusian and Soviet writer. As a direct participant in the Great Patriotic War, he described in his works very clearly the hardships of that time.
Among his many tales of the war, there are several truly fascinating. One of them is the Alpine Ballad.
Background
The story was released in 1964. According to Bykov’s recollections, during the war years, and more precisely in 1945, when their regiment occupied some provincial town in the Alps, in the deep rear of the German army, a thin girl walked through a motorcade. Stopping at each car, she asked if Ivan was here. Since Ivanov was quite a lot, but all of them did not cause her a positive response, Vasil decided to ask what kind of person she was looking for.
The girl turned out to be an Italian named Julia, a year ago she fled from a German camp and lost in the mountains. Fate to her companions tossed a Russian soldier named Ivan, with whom they tried to get to the Allied forces. He also fled from one of the nearby German camps. Despite hunger and lack of warm clothes, they crossed the mountain range, but one day they ran into a German raid on a foggy morning, and she was again thrown into the camp, and since then she has not known anything about his fate ...
At that moment, this Alpine ballad, of course, had not yet formed into something literally meaningful, but after 18 years Vasil remembered an amazing story and decided to write an incredibly piercing, beautiful and tragic love story, which he called “Alpine Ballad”.
Plot
The story heard by Bykov led to the creation of a very moving story, the plot of which almost completely coincides with that told by Julia. An element of fiction, for lack of real factual material, was only the tragic end of the work. Which, obviously, was an extremely advantageous technique, given the context of what is happening. Almost any episode of the war can be called tragedy anyway.
So, Bykov’s “Alpine ballad” begins with the main character’s thoughts about the impossibility of continuing life because of captivity, because if a Soviet person was captured, this is equivalent to treason. Then there is an explosion in the camp. The same incident catches a girl, an Italian, who, taking advantage of the moment, flees from the camp to the mountains.
Fate connects them in the mountains. Such a course of events is extremely unpleasant to the main character, this reduces his chances of survival even in difficult conditions. However, it is this turn that allows the author to introduce into the plot a love line that looks so beautiful against the backdrop of the tragedy that develops in the course of the narrative. The appearance of a high and pure feeling in such inhuman, bestial conditions is an incredibly spectacular moment, which gives the work a huge force of influence on the reader.
The finale of the story "Alpine Ballad" is beautiful and strikes on the spot. First, the main character sacrifices himself in the name of love and salvation of a dear person, and then he covers the reader with a heartbreaking epilogue with the heroine’s letter to the protagonist’s native village.
The meaning of the name
A ballad is a lyrical work, usually in poetic form, dedicated to some historical or legendary topic. It is characterized by tragedy, dramatic dialogue, mystery. Why is Vasil Bykov so named his story? The Alpine Ballad is a prime example of historical narrative. Here you can find tragedy and dramatic moments. So the legitimacy of the name is quite obvious.
On the other hand, the ballad is a romantic genre, apparently, therefore, on the pages of the work we observe such feelings that Shakespeare himself would envy the fullness of their description. After all, this love conquers everything: cold, hunger, and suffering, and war, and even death.
Staging
A wonderful movie was made from the book. Bykov’s Alpine Ballad found a lively response from the director Boris Stepanov, who very accurately managed to convey the atmosphere created by the writer. A screen adaptation followed almost immediately after the publication of the story. Moreover, the Italians tried to buy the right to stage it, but the Soviet cinematographic leadership resolutely refused. As a result, we have a very beautiful tape shot on Belarusfilm.
Conclusion
The “Alpine ballad,” which we reviewed briefly, is an incredibly soulful piece about human feelings, which are not afraid of either war or the bestial behavior of people who have gone mad because of it.
This is a pure story about an ordinary Soviet guy from the hinterland, who has been an ordinary citizen all his life, but in difficult conditions, reforging, becoming stronger, he shows what a person should do with a capital letter.