As a piercing confession, as the result of his whole life, Boris Vasiliev wrote “My horses are flying.”
It is difficult to compile a summary of the story, because there is nothing superfluous in the work. The book is written concisely (only the most remembered, brightest, most important) about yourself, your family, your time, your path to creativity. A story of 36 pages, but it turns out to read in about four hours. After all, the author writes with trepidation about the most intimate, the most dear to himself. Therefore, more than once involuntarily you stop and think about the phrases of the author. His thoughts, comparisons are concise and deep.
Boris Vasilyev (“My horses are flying”) spoke very frankly about his life. The summary of the book is a figurative rethinking of all life, an expression of deep human gratitude to parents and people, thanks to whom he was able to realize his vocation.
The images of these people, created by a true master of words, fascinate with their originality.
Retell the story can be multivariate. It is impossible only one thing: to allow indifference. This is simply impossible to do when discussing a story in which the writer has invested all of himself, which is truly a “cubic piece of steaming conscience”. Such a book should be kept in your library as a friend - an adviser and inspirer.
Vasiliev about the inner need to write a story
So where to start the story about what Boris Vasiliev told about himself (“My horses are flying”)? We will begin to outline the summary of the story with a figurative justification by the author why he undertook to write the book. He motivated this by comparing human life with an arc-shaped bridge thrown across the river of being. If you follow this analogy, then childhood, youth go to climb up, but this climb over the years gives way to descent. Therefore, it is important not to be late to remember and capture everything that was expensive in childhood and adolescence. After all, these years are very important.
It is precisely at this interval, according to the author of the story, that the aspect of the essence of a person develops - what he will be like. And then, in adulthood, another aspect of his personality is formed - who he is.
And on the descending trajectory of movement on this bridge there is a point of conditional non-return. A man looking back will no longer be able to see the path overcome in childhood and adolescence.
Rethinking age
The epigraph of the work is a dry line, which is the standard beginning of any autobiography, indicating the birth of its author: 05/21/1924. However, the epigraph contrasts with the very first line of the story "My horses are flying."
Boris Vasiliev writes that he is traveling from the fair. This phrase is the leitmotif of the story, it is repeated more than once. What does this literally mean? The fair acts collectively in the ascending spans of the "bridge of life": childhood, youth, active maturity. About the unusual luggage, consisting of intangible things, the author tells in the story "My horses are flying." The entire text, like a patchwork quilt, consists of vivid memories, impressions and exciting thoughts.
Smolensk - the small homeland of the writer
Boris Lvovich closely associates his memories with his hometown of Smolensk. Since childhood, Vasiliev dreamed of being a historian. With gratitude, he recalls school teachers raising citizenship and love for a small homeland. It was a period of change of two eras. The country was moving away from the wounds of the civil war. The ancient city, which once grew up on the way from the Varangians to the Greeks, was international: Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Jews ... Polish quarters, Latvian streets, Tatar suburbs ... The writer compares with the raft the always bordering Smolensk, which adjoined at different times with Lithuania, the Commonwealth, and through which the Pale of Settlement passed. Different people made up the population of the raft city, fleeing arbitrariness, persecution ...
Childhood memories
About how different people starving around the world did not divide themselves into winners and losers, but helped each other, tells the story "My horses are flying."
Boris Vasiliev childishly and vividly tells the story of the city streets with hundreds of scrap cabmen; with admiration, it tells about the ruins of a medieval dungeon in the Lopatinsky garden, about the place where, on the orders of Svyatopolk, the holy martyr Prince Gleb was slaughtered, about Varyazhskaya Street, the moats of the Royal Bastion, ancient barrows, about the ancient oak tree on Pokrovskaya Hill, which, according to legend, was one of the sacred trees in a grove planted by the ancient Krivichi Slavs.
He recalls how, in 1936, in a drained fortress, the children discovered a weapon Klondike: from medieval Tatar sabers to machine gun belts from the First World War.
A writer about his birth. Dr. Jansen
He was born in the Pavlovs' house on Pokrovskaya Gora in the family of a red commander, a participant in four wars, wounded by the White Cossacks and shell-shocked by the Germans.
But in the birth of Boris Vasilyev there is the merit of another person who is not a relative to him. The vivid and piercing image of a man with a capital letter, beloved by all of Smolensk, a doctor, by the will of the Lord Dr. Jansen is really pathetic. He advised the mother of the future writer, suffering from consumption, to give birth: “Give birth, El. Childbirth is a great miracle ”... Seven years later, the writer’s unbelieving mother knelt in the mud and prayed earnestly ... The whole population came to the funeral of the last holy city. Bessrebrenik Jansen, unaware of the weekend, living extremely ascetic, died, saving two boys who fell into the sewer well.
The Vasiliev family. Father image
The writer tells in detail about his family: about dad, mom, grandmother, two sisters Gal and Ola. Thanks to his father’s ration, the family did not starve, recalls Vasiliev Boris Lvovich (“My horses are flying”). However, in the house there was always only the most necessary. The cult of labor was distinguished by the lifestyle of the Vasilyevs.
The image of the father is touching and sincere. A short man who accepted the Revolution with all his heart, he, scorched by the war, loved and recited poetry, initiated and created a car club for children. And once Boris Lvovich witnessed his father’s real courage when he prevented the fire by rolling out a red-hot and heavy gasoline barrel from the fire. Unrestrained, always dressed in officer uniform, not recognizing other transport than a bicycle. He was happy when his son entered the armored academy, and unhappy when he left her for creative work in the theater. The father did not live one year before the final creative formation of his son. The writer, having gone through a long period of creative searches, writing the novel “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet,” came to his father’s grave with the phrase that he had not waited for during his lifetime: “Dad, I did ...”.
The dream in which Boris Lvovich sees his late father walking with him in the old, neglected garden is impressive. The sky is covered with autumn clouds, but the garden is quiet, light and warm. Bushes of currants and gooseberries are covered with leaves. Under them, besides berries, are apples. However, the sun is not visible. All the light comes from the father, calm, not expressing either censure or approval to his son, treating him with cool apples picked up from the ground.
Grandma is the first teacher of creativity
The image of his beloved grandmother, an indefatigable visionary, a noble, impractical and sincerely generous woman is unique in the masterfully conveyed by the writer. In its naive desire for good and justice, it is somewhat reminiscent of Don Quixote. It was by her example that awakened the desire for creativity in little Boris. A moment before her death, she, who was previously silent, opened her eyes and strictly asked her daughter: “Where is Borya, El? Where is my Borya? .. ".
Vasiliev - an idealist who changes his fate abruptly
The full content “My horses are flying” tells readers in detail about life and creative searches. Vasiliev talks about how he three times of his own free will abruptly changed his fate. For the first time - having entered the Faculty of Engineering at the Armored Academy. The second time - in 1954, demobilized "for engaging in literary work", more precisely, wanting to write theatrical plays.
The third time - in 1969, when a writer with 25 years of experience finally realized and felt the peculiarities of his talent, realized what and how he should write, stopped working "for his daily bread" and began to really create. He changed the theater to cinema and was not mistaken.
Impressions of the war are hushed up by a front-line writer
Boris Lvovich, a front-line soldier and at the same time a thinker, a humanist, writes very briefly in the book about his participation in the Great Patriotic War. He does not idealize war, considering science to kill forced, unnatural. The writer recalled an episode when, with a gray face, the school principal informed him and his three other classmates about the start of the war on June 22, 1941. What was the guys reaction? At that time, the boys knew all types of weapons in the same way that today's guys are guided by the brands of cars ... The reaction was paradoxical: the four boys cried out without saying a word: “Hurray! ..”. And only Boris returned from home from the front. The writer, having survived the war, simply turned over this page of his biography.
Ascent to creativity
On 36 pages of the text Boris Vasiliev talks about himself, about his places, his aspirations in the autobiographical novel “My Horses Fly”. The content of his story about the creative path includes several stages. He gratefully recalls the people who helped him in his creative development.
The head of the TsTSA (Central Theater of the Soviet Army) Alexey Dmitrievich Popov , who spoke on May 3, 1954 with the young writer Vasiliev, who wrote the play Tankists, influenced his decision to demobilize.
The director of the scenario studio V.E. Dulgerov, who contributed to the promotion of the film script for the film "The Next Flight" and the shooting of the film of the same name by the Sverdlovsk Film Studio. This studio was remembered for meeting Y. Drunina and K. Rapoport.
Director Petrov Vladimir Mikhailovich, which contributed to the writer’s awareness of the features of his talent. He was the first to seriously work with Vasiliev. Unfortunately, this did not last long: the director died a worthy death right on the set.
The writer Boris Nikolaevich Polevoy, whom Boris Lvovich told about his creative plans in 1954. He contributed to the creation of the story "And the Dawns Here Are Quiet", which brought Vasilyev all-Union fame. Then they wrote “It was not listed”, “There was a war tomorrow”, “Magnificent Six”, “Burning Bush”.
In the heart of every real officer, Boris Vasiliev’s phrase “There is such a profession - to defend the homeland!” Found its review. from the movie “Officers”, where Yumatov and Lanova brilliantly played.
In the last years of his life, Vasiliev wrote historical novels about the Old Russian princes.
Conclusion
It is no coincidence that Vasiliev Boris Lvovich wrote the story “My horses fly.” The text of the work is read voraciously. Readers of the story notice a paradox: the writer talks so fully about his being that it causes them to respond in earnest to seriously think about their own lives.
Boris Vasiliev (“My horses are flying”) expresses his thoughts in an exciting way. The summary of the story, following the train of thought of its author, should contain features of documentary, and a deep philosophy of life, and subtle unobtrusive humor. The story itself does not literally follow the chronological order of events. It is similar, like the author's life (by his own admission), to a bright patchwork quilt. The writer reveals to us all his creative potential, all his intangible wealth. He really appears before us without any swagger, but with the true dignity of a creative person.