Books about the war in Afghanistan have become an important layer of Russian military literature of the 20th century. The war, which claimed the lives of more than 15 thousand soldiers and officers, was a disaster for a whole generation. The lost generation. To understand what happened there, what our boys fought for and how to survive what happened, help writers who tackle this difficult topic.
Journalist Scheinin
Most books about the war in Afghanistan were written by those who were there, saw with their own eyes what was happening, experienced the loss of close friends and colleagues. The war, which lasted from 1979 to 1989, was attended by more than 100 thousand Soviet troops. Among them was Artem Sheinin, a writer and television journalist now, and in those years - a sergeant of the airborne troops.
Recently, Artyom Sheinin has been working on Channel One and is conducting his own project called Time Will Show, is the producer of the Posner program, and has written two books on Afghanistan.
Novels about Afghanistan
In 2012, the novel "I was Lucky to Return" was released. In it, Sheinin describes his own service, in many characters you can recognize his real colleagues who came to this Asian country as part of a battalion of airborne troops. Scheinin describes a painful day of expectations, during which paratroopers wait for the enemy to appear on the mountain slopes. Occasionally, special units descend into the hollow for water and food. In one of these sorties they send a young sergeant Sheinin. Such is the plot of this novel.
In 2015, the writer released another book about the war in Afghanistan - "Airborne assault brigade. Uninvented Afghanistan . " This is a collection of "non-invented", the author insists on the terminology of the stories of the soldiers of the 56th Air Assault Brigade. She fought in Afghanistan in the middle of the war - from 1984 to 1986. This is the so-called "trench truth" about the last war waged by the Soviet Union. The reader will be able to find out how the war is able to bring to the surface all the most terrible and unpleasant that is in a person, and at the same time demonstrate that good feelings remained deep inside.
Oleg Ermakov
Ermakov is one of the most famous domestic writers, the author of several books about the war in Afghanistan.
The writer was originally from Smolensk, in his youth he worked as a forester in the reserve, collaborated with Soviet newspapers, and in 1981 he joined the ranks of the Soviet Army. Until 1983, he served in the artillery troops, performing an international duty in the democratic republic of Afghanistan, which was exactly what the country was officially called at that time.
What Ermakov survived formed the basis of most of his literary works - books about the war in Afghanistan.
Today, he is already a well-known and honored writer, was a member of the Union of Russian Writers, was a member of the very first jury of the O. Henry International Prize "Gifts of the Magi" in New York. It is worth noting that Yermakov received international recognition thanks to books about Afghanistan.
Writings
One of Yermakov’s most famous novels is called The Sign of the Beast. It was with him that he first entered the shortlist of the Russias Booker Prize. This is a story about a country where absolutely everyone is fighting against the protagonist - not only local residents who do not understand why soldiers and officers came here for several thousand kilometers, but also mountains, the scorching sun, and storms, and endless steppes, and deep snow, and impassable passes, and dangerous caves, and gorges.
The climate that meets the heroes of the novel "The Sign of the Beast" here is unfamiliar to most Soviet soldiers and scares them. It seems to them that they were on the verge of hell, and after one wrong step they will no longer be able to return. You can take the fatal step at any moment, because dangers await man everywhere in Afghanistan. Especially if you are still a young soldier who has just arrived in the army. In this case, you have many responsibilities and almost no rights.
The main character - Private Cherepakhin, nicknamed Skull, falls into the outfit at a checkpoint. This mission to a young soldier only at first seems easy, but he soon realizes the horror of war.
In 2010, another prominent novel by Oleg Ermakov, "Return to Kandahar," was released. In it, war and peace appear as two concepts completely divorced from each other, this is no longer a philosophical dialectic - this is death according to Heidegger. The main and most terrible symbol of the novel is the coffins, the so-called "Cargo 200", which is transported from Afghan airfields to all corners of the country.
Mikhail Evstafiev
The Russian writer Mikhail Evstafiev has been involved in photography and painting since childhood. After receiving a diploma from the Journalism Department of Moscow State University, he volunteered to serve in Afghanistan, and from there returned as a writer.
From 1987 to 1989 he served as senior lieutenant. After Afghanistan, coverage of events in hot spots became the basis of his profession: he visited the wars in Tajikistan, Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Georgia, Bosnia, Transnistria.
At the same time, Evstafiev is known as a professional and talented photographer, whose work is exhibited at exhibitions in Russia, China, the USA and many other countries. Since 2003, he has been the OSCE spokesperson.
The main novel by Evstafiev
His main novel is the only one. In 2006, the publishing house "Eksmo" published a book by Mikhail Evstafiev "Two steps from paradise."
The main character is a lieutenant named Sharagin, who serves in Afghanistan. The main thing that he dreams about is to stay alive, return to his young wife and elderly parents who pray every night for his health.
At the same time, Sharagin serves willingly, because he sincerely loves and appreciates his homeland, being firmly convinced that she will not betray him, and the war in which he found himself is necessary and necessary for his state. But in the finale of the novel, this belief dies with the hero, only it is not clear when: after returning home or in Afghanistan, in one of the fierce battles, when the life of each soldier hung in the balance. This is a worthy novel, which is considered one of the main works written about the Afghan war.
"Missing"
The novel, the title of which is subtitled, was released in 2008 by Eksmo Publishing House. The work of Stanislav Oleinik, “Missing”, tells of the uprising of Soviet prisoners of war who were imprisoned in the training center of Afghan Mujahideen in the Badaber camp in Pakistan.
The author of the novel is the deputy head of the special unit of the KGB residency in Kabul. He has been working in this position since the spring of 1985, he immediately informs the Center about the incident, but further events develop according to an unpredictable scenario. For the first time, Oleinik tells readers about this story in the Internationalist magazine; later, he is forced to return to this topic by Yevgenia Kirichenko's essays, "Uprising in Badaber's Hell."
After reading it, Oleinik begins to explore his own archives and decides to convey to all the most plausible version of the events that happened then. And not in the documentary, but in the art form. So the small but piercing novel “Missing” is born.
The reader will encounter an unusual experience when real facts and events are set forth in a work of art. The names of the characters have been changed for obvious reasons. In this piercing novel, he used all the materials on Afghanistan that he had, as well as information taken from newspapers and magazines of those times.
Yuri Korotkov
The collection of Yuri Korotkov's “Ninth Company” formed the basis of the famous dramatic action movie of the same name, which in 2005 was shot by Fedor Bondarchuk. The main roles in it were played by Arthur Smolyaninov, Fedor Bondarchuk, Konstantin Kryukov and Alexey Chadov.
Korotkov was directly involved in making the film - he was the author of the script. The book and film tells about the latest developments in Afghanistan in 1989. After lengthy and fierce battles, the strategically important road from Khost to Gardez passes under the complete control of the Soviet troops. At a key height, the 9th company of the parachute assault regiment settles.
The road is important, so the positions of Soviet troops begin to attack the gangs operating in the district, and the number of opponents is ten times greater than the number of Soviet soldiers and officers who hold this height. Brave fighters hold the defenses all night, having experienced during these hours the whole nightmare of expectation of death: despair, fear, pain, bitterness of the loss of the closest people who are fighting shoulder to shoulder, the last unsteady hope. No one leaves the position, remaining to fight to the last. The words became symbolic: "We left Afghanistan. We, the ninth company, won our war. Then we did not know much, did not know that in two years the country for which we were fighting would disappear and it would become unfashionable to wear the orders of a non-existent power .. . "
Thus, a real feat is born when the most ordinary guys decide on courageous deeds, while maintaining honor and dignity.
Igor Athos
Wuthering Heights novel by Igor Afonsky was written on the basis of a military mission. Surprisingly, the author describes stunning landscapes, against which bloody battles and atrocities take place.
The composition of the novel is built as simple as possible, but the denouement of the work will shock even the most sophisticated reader to the core. With each page it will become increasingly clear what is really important in this life, for which it is worth risking yourself.