The story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” by Boris Vasiliev is one of the most heartfelt and tragic works about the Great Patriotic War. First published in 1969.
The story of five anti-aircraft gunners and a foreman who fought sixteen German saboteurs. Heroes speak to us from the pages of the story about the unnaturalness of war, about the personality in war, about the strength of the human spirit.
The main theme of the story - a woman at war - reflects all the "ruthlessness of war", but the topic itself was not raised in the literature about the war before the appearance of Vasiliev's story. To understand the series of events in the story, you can read the summary of “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” chapter by chapter on our website.
main characters
Vaskov Fedot Evgrafych- 32 years old, foreman, commandant of the patrol, where anti-aircraft gunner girls are assigned to serve.
Brichkina Elizabeth-19 years old, the daughter of a forester, who lived before the war on one of the cordons in the forests of the Bryansk region in "a premonition of dazzling happiness."
Gurvich Sonya- a girl from an intelligent “very large and very friendly family” of a Minsk doctor. After studying for a year at Moscow University, she went to the front. Loves theater and poetry.
Komelkova Evgenia- 19 years. Zhenya has his own account with the Germans: her family was shot. Despite the grief, "her character was cheerful and smiling."
Osyanina Margarita- the first of the class got married, a year later she gave birth to a son. Her husband, a border guard, died on the second day of the war. Leaving the child to her mother, Rita went to the front.
Chetvertak Galina- a pupil of an orphanage, a dreamer. She lived in the world of her own fantasies, and went to the front with the conviction that war is romance.
Other characters
Kiryanova- Sergeant, platoon commander of anti-aircraft gunners.
Chapter 1
In May 1942, several yards survived at 171 railway sidings, which turned out to be inside the hostilities going around. The Germans stopped bombing. In case of a raid, the command left two anti-aircraft installations.
Life at the junction was quiet and calm, the anti-aircraft gunners could not stand the temptation of female attention and moonshine, and according to the report of the commandant of the junction, foreman Vaskov, one half-platoon “swollen from fun” and drunkenness replaced the next ... Vaskov asked to send non-drinkers.
Arrived "non-drinking" anti-aircraft gunners. The fighters turned out to be very young, and they were ... girls.
It was quiet at the crossing. The girls teased the foreman, Vaskov felt embarrassed in the presence of "learned" fighters: he had only 4 classes of education. The main concern was caused by the internal “disorder” of the heroines - they did everything not “according to the charter”.
Chapter 2
Having lost her husband, Rita Osyanina, the commander of the anti-aircraft gunners, became harsh and withdrawn. Once a carrier was killed, and instead of her they sent the beautiful Zhenya Komelkova, in front of whom the Germans shot her loved ones. Despite the tragedy. Zhenya is open and mischievous. Rita and Zhenya became friends, and Rita "thawed out".
Galya Chetvertak becomes their friend.
Hearing about the possibility of transferring from the front line to the junction, Rita perks up - it turns out that she has a son next to the junction in the city. At night, Rita runs to visit her son.
Chapter 3
Returning from an unauthorized absence through the forest, Osyanina discovers two strangers in camouflage robes, with weapons and packages in their hands. She hurries to tell the commandant of the section about this. After carefully listening to Rita, the foreman understands that she has encountered German saboteurs moving towards the railway, and decides to go to intercept the enemy. 5 female anti-aircraft gunners were allocated to Vaskov. Worried about them, the foreman tries to prepare his “guard” for a meeting with the Germans and cheer him up, joking, “so that they laugh, so that cheerfulness appears.”
Rita Osyanina, Zhenya Komelkova, Liza Brichkina, Galya Chetvertak and Sonya Gurvich, with the group leader Vaskov, set out on a short path to Vop-Ozero, where they expect to meet and detain saboteurs.
Chapter 4
Fedot Evgrafych safely leads his fighters through the swamps, bypassing the swamps (only Galya Chetvertak loses his boots in the swamp), to the lake. It's quiet here, like in a dream. “And before the war, these lands were not very crowded, and now they are completely wild, as if lumberjacks, and hunters, and fishermen went to the front.”
Chapter 5
Expecting to quickly deal with the two saboteurs, Vaskov nevertheless chose the retreat path "for safety net". While waiting for the Germans, the girls had lunch, the foreman gave a combat order to detain the Germans when they appeared, and everyone took up positions.
Galya Chetvertak, drenched in a swamp, fell ill.
The Germans appeared only in the morning: “grey-green figures with automatic weapons at the ready came out of the depths”, and it turned out that there were not two of them, but sixteen.
Chapter 6
Realizing that "five laughing girls and five clips for a rifle" cannot cope with the Nazis, Vaskov sends the "forest" resident Lisa Brichkina to report that reinforcements are needed.
Trying to frighten off the Germans and force them to go around, Vaskov and the girls pretend that lumberjacks are working in the forest. They loudly call to each other, scorch fires, the foreman cuts down trees, and the desperate Zhenya even bathes in the river in full view of the saboteurs.
The Germans left, and everyone laughed "to tears, to exhaustion", thinking that the worst was over ...
Chapter 7
Lisa "flew through the forest as if on wings", thinking about Vaskov, and missed a conspicuous pine tree, near which it was necessary to turn. With difficulty moving in the swamp slurry, she stumbled - and lost the path. Feeling the bog engulfing her, she saw the sunlight for the last time.
Chapter 8
Vaskov, who understands that the enemy, although he has fled, can attack the detachment at any moment, goes with Rita to reconnaissance. Having found out that the Germans settled on a halt, the foreman decides to change the location of the group and sends Osyanina for the girls. Vaskov is upset to find that he forgot his pouch. Seeing this, Sonya Gurvich runs to pick up the pouch.
Vaskov does not have time to stop the girl. After a while, he hears "a distant, weak, like a sigh, voice, an almost soundless cry." Guessing what this sound could mean, Fedot Evgrafych calls Zhenya Komelkova with him and goes to his former position. Together they find Sonya killed by enemies.
Chapter 9
Vaskov furiously pursued the saboteurs to avenge Sonya's death. Having imperceptibly approached the "Fritz" walking without fear, the foreman kills the first one, there is not enough strength for the second one. Zhenya saves Vaskov from death by killing the German with a rifle butt. Fedot Evgrafych "was full of sadness, full to the throat" because of Sonya's death. But, understanding the state of Zhenya, who painfully endures the murder she committed, she explains that the enemies themselves have violated human laws and therefore she needs to understand: “these are not people, not men, not even animals - fascists.”
Chapter 10
The detachment buried Sonya and moved on. Looking out from behind another boulder, Vaskov saw the Germans - they were walking straight at them. Starting an oncoming battle, the girls with the commander forced the saboteurs to retreat, only Galya Chetvertak, out of fear, threw away her rifle and fell to the ground.
After the battle, the foreman canceled the meeting where the girls wanted to judge Galya for cowardice, he explained her behavior by inexperience and confusion.
Vaskov goes on reconnaissance and takes Galya with him for educational purposes.
Chapter 11
Galya Chetvertak followed Vaskov. She, who always lived in her fictional world, at the sight of the murdered Sonya was broken by the horror of a real war.
The scouts saw the corpses: the wounded were finished off by their own. There were 12 saboteurs left.
Hiding with Galya in an ambush, Vaskov is ready to shoot the Germans who appear. Suddenly, Galya Chetvertak, who did not understand anything, rushed across the enemies, and was struck down by machine gun fire.
The foreman decided to take the saboteurs as far as possible from Rita and Zhenya. Until night, he rushed between the trees, made noise, briefly shot at the flickering figures of the enemy, shouted, dragging the Germans closer and closer to the swamps. Wounded in the arm, hid in the swamp.
At dawn, getting out of the swamp to the ground, he saw Brichkina's army skirt blackening on the surface of the swamp, tied to a pole, and realized that Liza had died in the quagmire.
There was no hope for help now ...
Chapter 12
With heavy thoughts that "he lost his whole war yesterday", but with the hope that Rita and Zhenya are alive, Vaskov goes in search of saboteurs. He comes across an abandoned hut, which turned out to be a refuge for the Germans. He watches how they hide explosives and go to reconnaissance. Vaskov kills one of the remaining enemies in the skete and takes the weapon.
On the bank of the river, where yesterday “a performance was staged for the Fritz”, the foreman and the girls meet - with joy, like sisters and brothers. The foreman says that Galya and Liza died the death of the brave, and that they all have to take the last, apparently, battle.
Chapter 13
The Germans went ashore, and the battle began. “Vaskov knew one thing in this battle: do not retreat. Do not give the Germans a single shred on this shore. No matter how hard, no matter how hopeless - to keep. It seemed to Fedot Vaskov that he was the last son of his Motherland and its last defender. The detachment did not allow the Germans to cross to the other side.
Rita was seriously wounded in the stomach by a grenade fragment.
Shooting back, Komelkova tried to take the Germans away with her. Cheerful, smiling and resilient Zhenya did not even immediately realize that she had been wounded - after all, it was stupid and impossible to die at the age of nineteen! She fired as long as she had bullets and strength. “The Germans finished her off at close range, and then looked at her proud and beautiful face for a long time ...”
Chapter 14
Realizing that she is dying, Rita tells Vaskov about her son Albert and asks him to take care of him. The foreman shares with Osyanina his first doubt: was it worth protecting the canal and the road at the cost of the death of girls who had their whole lives ahead of them? But Rita believes that “Motherland does not begin with canals. Not from there at all. And we protected her. First her, and only then the channel.
Vaskov went towards the enemies. Hearing the faint sound of a shot, he returned. Rita shot herself, not wanting to suffer and be a burden.
Having buried Zhenya and Rita, almost exhausted, Vaskov wandered forward to the abandoned monastery. Bursting into the saboteurs, he killed one of them, and took four prisoners. In delirium, the wounded Vaskov leads saboteurs to his own, and, only realizing that he has reached, loses consciousness.
Epilogue
From a letter from a tourist (it was written many years after the end of the war) resting on quiet lakes, where there is "complete carlessness and desertion", we learn that a gray-haired old man without an arm and a rocket captain Albert Fedotych who arrived there brought a marble slab. Together with visitors, the tourist is looking for the grave of anti-aircraft gunners who once died here. He notices how quiet the dawns are here ...
Conclusion
For many years, the tragic fate of the heroines does not leave readers of any age indifferent, making them realize the price of a peaceful life, the greatness and beauty of true patriotism.
The retelling of “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” gives an idea of the storyline of the work, introduces its characters. It will be possible to penetrate into the essence, to feel the charm of the lyrical narration and the psychological subtlety of the author's story when reading the full text of the story.
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Retelling rating
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(1103 words) The story takes place in May 1942 at the 171st railway siding. The place turned out to be a "safe haven" among the ongoing hostilities throughout Russia. A couple of yards have been preserved here, and the command, in case of a bombing, left two anti-aircraft installations. The Germans stopped shelling the crossing, and the lives of the soldiers sent here flowed measuredly and peacefully. Young fighters drank a lot and often stayed with local girls, which upset the foreman Vaskov. He tirelessly wrote reports to the headquarters on new guys and asked to send a non-drinking platoon. And so, non-drinking anti-aircraft gunners arrived location. Young girls. Drinking and partying really stopped, but other characteristic disadvantages of such a “correct platoon” appeared - the girls laughed at the foreman (only 4 grades of education), it was impossible to go to the platoon without knocking (there was a screech), once they completely went out to sunbathe naked, did everything by statute.
Rita Osyanina - squad leader. The war claimed the life of her husband, after which she decided to go to the front, leaving her son to her mother. Only Zhenya Komelkova, who was sent instead of the murdered carrier, could melt the heart of the stern Rita (all her relatives were shot before her eyes). She was not at all like the squad leader, despite the horrors she had experienced, Zhenya was cheerful and beautiful; washes and combs the unsightly Galya Chetvertak, and the three of them begin to make friends.
The news about a possible transfer to the siding from the front line gives Rita the opportunity to see her son, and at night she runs to him in the city. On one of these nightly sorties, Osyanina stumbles upon two German scouts who imprudently approached the junction with weapons and some kind of packages in their hands. Rita informs Vaskov about what she saw, concealing the reasons for her being at such an early hour in that place. Vaskov notices Osyanina's bare and wet feet, but says nothing - now there is a more important problem. The foreman, having carefully considered the words of the anti-aircraft gunner, concludes that she encountered German saboteurs and determines their route - the railway. Vaskov decides to intercept the Germans and takes 5 girls with him. Since his soldiers are not hardened by battles, he tells and prepares his “detachment” for a collision with the enemy, encourages with jokes. Ritka Osyanina, Lizka Brichkina, Galka Chetvertak, Zhenya Komelkova and Sonya Gurvich with a foreman are sent to intercept saboteurs to Wol-ozer. The main task is to get to the lake before the Germans, in order to have time to settle down and prepare, for this it is necessary to cut off the path through the swamp. Fedot Evgrafych safely transports his “platoon” across the swamp, only the little Chetvertak leaves his boots in the swamp. On the shore, they build a new one from a warm sock. There is a bewitching silence over the swamp, as if the war had never visited these parts. They won a lot of time from the Germans, so the foreman allowed the girls to wash off the swamp mud and have lunch. Having reached the planned location, Vaskov orders to take the enemy immediately and not stick out anywhere from their positions. Lost boot A quarter does not pass without a trace, and the girl falls ill. The next morning, German machine guns begin to appear from the forest, and it turns out that there are not 2, but 16. The foreman understands the deplorable situation: a detachment of 5 girls is with him, and on the other side there are 16 soldiers with a clearly defined task. Fedot Yevgafych sends the forester's daughter, Lisa Brichikna, on a voyage for help, to inform them that they need reinforcements. The remaining forces put on a performance for the saboteurs in order to scare them away and force them to go around: Zhenya runs out naked to swim, Fedot Evgrafych picks up and also runs unarmed and plays with Komelkova, all together loudly shout to each other, burn and cut down trees. The Germans leave, and the whole platoon laughs with tears in their eyes, they still do not know that the worst is ahead ...
Lisa liked the foreman, and she flew with a message to the headquarters, representing their future life. She has not yet known love; one day, her father invited a young forester to their house, Lisa felt attracted, but only on the last day she decided to come to him in the hayloft, but he drove her away, and in the morning left a note in which he called to study. It blossomed in anticipation, and then the war came. So now, all in her thoughts, Liza forgets about the beds of the conspicuous pine and makes her way through the slimy swamp to the touch, stumbles, loses her path and dies.
Vaskov and Rita go on reconnaissance and decide to change their location. Osyanina leads the girls to a new place, forgetting the foreman's pouch. Gurvich runs after him. A faint sound is heard in the distance, and the foreman already understands what this silent scream means. With Komelkova, he returns to his previous position and finds Sonya dead. The foreman furiously takes revenge on the enemies, he pounces on the walking "fritzes", kills one himself, and finishes off the second Komelkov with a butt, saving the commander. Fedot is having a hard time with the death of an anti-aircraft gunner, but the emotions on Zhenya's face, after the first murder committed, are even worse. He explains to the girl that the enemies are not people or animals, but fascists. A small detachment buries Gurvich. Having scouted the situation from behind the stone, Vaskov sees the Fritz walking towards them; an oncoming battle begins, which again knocks the enemy astray. Pebble Chetvertak can't stand the stress, throws his weapon and falls to the ground. After the battle, the girls will condemn her for cowardice, but the foreman will justify this with lack of training and she will be taken to the next reconnaissance for training, although she understands in advance that in vain. Galya Chetvertak is an orphan and lives in a fictional world, her ideas about war are very romantic. Sonya's death reveals the realities of what is happening. The scouts see the bodies of the dead: there are 12 Fritz left. They hide in ambush, but Chetvertak again succumbs to fear and runs across the Germans. Automatic queue. Vaskov's detachment remained in the amount of 2 anti-aircraft gunners, and he is ready to do everything to save the remaining girls from death. He shoots back and tries to drag the saboteurs away from his fighters. Gets injured and hides in the swamp. There he finds all 5 beds near a pine tree and realizes with bitterness that Lizka Brichkina climbed into the swamp without help, and the skirt seen on the surface of the swamp confirms her fears - she died. Now you need to rely only on yourself.
Vaskov accidentally goes to the hut with saboteurs, they leave the explosives and leave. One foreman kills and takes away the weapon. In the same place where Zhenya Komelkova recently swam naked in front of the Germans, the foreman and the remaining girls collide. He announces the death of Chetvertak and Lisa, everyone understands that the next fight will be the last.
A battle begins on the shore: Rita is wounded in the stomach by a fragment of a grenade (before her death, she tells the foreman about her son, his name is Albert, and asks not to forget about him after the war), Komelkova shoots back to the last bullet and takes her deeper into the thicket of the Germans, gets wounded and dies. Vaskov doubts whether the canal was worth the lives of the dead anti-aircraft gunners. Osyanina assures that the whole motherland stood behind this channel, that it was for her that they went into battle. Later, a shot is heard - Rita has finished her torment.
Embittered, Vaskov bursts into the sleeping Germans, kills one, ties up the remaining four and leads them to the junction. Exhausted, with a wound in his hand, he ferries all the prisoners through the swamp and, realizing that he has brought the saboteurs to the departure, falls exhausted.
Later, from a letter from a tourist, we learn about the arrival of a gray-haired man without an arm and a certain rocket captain named Albert on the quiet lakes. They were looking for anti-aircraft gunners who once gave their lives for their homeland here, they wanted to bury them. The author of the letter notices how quiet the dawns are here...
Interesting? Save it on your wall!Boris Vasiliev
At junction 171, twelve yards survived, a fire shed and a squat long warehouse built at the beginning of the century from fitted boulders. During the last bombing, the water tower collapsed, and the trains stopped stopping here, the Germans stopped the raids, but circled over the siding every day, and the command, just in case, kept two anti-aircraft quads there.
It was May 1942. In the west (on wet nights the heavy rumble of artillery came from there), both sides, having dug into the ground two meters, finally got stuck in a positional war; in the east, the Germans bombed the canal and the Murmansk road day and night; in the north there was a fierce struggle for sea routes; in the south, besieged Leningrad continued a stubborn struggle.
And here was the resort. From silence and idleness, the soldiers were thrilled, as in a steam room, and in twelve courtyards there were still quite a few young people and widows who knew how to get moonshine almost from a mosquito squeak. For three days the soldiers slept and watched; on the fourth, someone's name day began, and the sticky smell of the local pervach no longer vanished over the junction.
The commandant of the patrol, the gloomy foreman Vaskov, wrote reports on command. When their number reached ten, the authorities rolled another reprimand to Vaskov and replaced the half-platoon swollen with fun. For a week after that, the commandant somehow managed on his own, and then everything was repeated at first so exactly that the foreman eventually got around to rewriting the previous reports, changing only numbers and names in them.
You're doing bullshit! - thundered the major who arrived according to the latest reports. - The scribble was divorced! Not a commandant, but some kind of writer! ..
Send the non-drinkers, - Vaskov stubbornly repeated: he was afraid of any loud-voiced boss, but he spoke his own like a sexton. - Non-drinkers and this ... That, then, about the female.
Eunuchs, right?
You know better, - the foreman said cautiously ..
Okay, Vaskov! ... - inflamed by his own severity, the major said. - There will be non-drinkers for you. And about women, too, will be as expected. But look, sergeant major, if you can't even deal with them...
That's right, - the commandant agreed woodenly.
The major took away the anti-aircraft gunners who could not stand the temptation, promising Vaskov once more in parting that he would send those who would turn their noses up more lively from skirts and moonshine than the foreman himself. However, fulfilling this promise was not easy, since not a single person arrived for three days.
The question is complicated, - the foreman explained to his mistress Maria Nikiforovna. - Two departments - that's almost twenty people who do not drink. Shake the front, and then - I doubt ...
His fears, however, turned out to be unfounded, since already in the morning the hostess announced that the anti-aircraft gunners had arrived. Something harmful sounded in her tone, but the foreman did not understand from sleep, but asked about what was disturbing:
Did you arrive with the commander?
It doesn't look like it, Fedot Evgrafych.
God bless! - The foreman was jealous of his commandant position. - The power to share is worse than that.
Wait a minute to rejoice, - the hostess smiled enigmatically.
We will rejoice after the war, ”Fedot Evgrafych said reasonably, put on his cap and went out.
And he was dumbfounded: two lines of sleepy girls stood in front of the house. The sergeant-major thought that he was half asleep, blinked, but the tunics on the soldiers still briskly stuck out in places not provided for by the soldier's charter, and curls of all colors and styles impudently climbed out from under the caps.
Comrade foreman, the first and second squads of the third platoon of the fifth company of a separate anti-aircraft machine-gun battalion have arrived at your disposal to guard the facility, - the elder reported in a dull voice. - Sergeant Kiryanova reports to the platoon commander.
Ta-ak, - the commandant said not at all in a statutory way. - Found, then, non-drinkers ...
All day long he pounded with an ax: he built bunks in the fire shed, since the anti-aircraft gunners did not agree to stay with the hostesses. The girls dragged boards, held them where they ordered, and crackled like magpies. The foreman gloomily remained silent: he was afraid for his authority.
Not a foot from the location without my word, ”he announced when everything was ready.
Even for berries? the redhead asked briskly. Vaskov had already noticed her for a long time.
There are no berries yet,” he said.
Can sorrel be collected? Kiryanova asked. - It is difficult for us without welding, comrade foreman, - we are emaciated.
Fedot Evgrafych looked doubtfully at the tightly pulled tunics, but permitted:
Grace came at the junction, but this did not make the commandant feel better. The anti-aircraft gunners turned out to be noisy and cocky girls, and the foreman felt every second that he was a guest in his own house: he was afraid to blurt out the wrong thing, do it wrong, let alone enter where without knocking, there could now be no question, and if when he forgot about it, the signal screech immediately threw him back to his previous positions. Most of all, Fedot Evgrafych was afraid of hints and jokes about possible courtship, and therefore he always walked about, staring at the ground, as if he had lost his allowance for the last month.
Yes, don’t be afraid, Fedot Evgrafych, ”said the hostess, observing his communication with subordinates. “They call you an old man among themselves, so look at them accordingly.
Fedot Evgrafych turned thirty-two this spring, and he did not agree to consider himself an old man. On reflection, he came to the conclusion that all this was the measures taken by the hostess to strengthen her own positions: she did melt the ice of the commandant's heart on one of the spring nights and now, naturally, sought to strengthen herself on the conquered lines.
At night, anti-aircraft gunners recklessly thrashed German planes with all eight barrels, and during the day they made endless laundry: some of their rags were always drying around the fire shed. The foreman considered such decorations inappropriate and briefly informed Sergeant Kiryanova about this:
Unmasks.
And there is an order, - she said without hesitation.
What order?
Corresponding. It says that female military personnel are allowed to dry clothes on all fronts.
The commandant said nothing: well, these girls, to hell with them! Just get in touch: they will giggle until autumn ...
The days were warm and windless, and there were so many mosquitoes that you couldn't take a step without a twig. But a twig is still nothing, it is still quite acceptable for a military man, but the fact that soon the commandant began to wheeze and cackle at every corner, as if he really was an old man - that was absolutely useless.
And it all started with the fact that on a hot May day he turned behind a warehouse and froze: his eyes splashed so violently white, so tight and even eight times multiplied by the body that Vaskov was already thrown into a fever: the entire first squad, led by the commander, junior sergeant Osyanina, was on fire on a government tarpaulin in what the mother gave birth. And even if they squealed, or something, for decency, but no: they buried their noses in the tarpaulin, hid, and Fedot Evgrafych had to back away like a boy from someone else's garden. From that day on, he began to cough at every corner, like whooping cough.
And he singled out this Osyanina even earlier: strict. He never laughs, he just moves his lips a little, but his eyes remain serious as before. Osyanina was strange, and therefore Fedot Evgrafych carefully made inquiries through his mistress, although he understood that this assignment was not at all for joy.
She is a widow,” Maria Nikiforovna reported, pursing her lips a day later. - So it is completely in the female rank: you can flirt with games.
The foreman said nothing: you still can’t prove it to a woman. He took an ax, went into the yard: there is no better time for thoughts, how to chop wood. A lot of thoughts have accumulated, and it was necessary to bring them into line.
Well, first of all, of course, discipline. Okay, the fighters don’t drink, they don’t be nice to the residents - that’s all right. And inside - a mess:
Lyuda, Vera, Katenka - on guard! Katya is a breeder. Is this a team? Divorce of guards is supposed to be done to the fullest extent, according to the charter. And this is a complete mockery, it must be destroyed, but how? He tried to talk about this with the eldest, with Kiryanova, but she had one answer:
And we have permission, comrade foreman. From the commander. Personally.
Laughing, damn...
Are you trying, Fedot Evgrafych?
He turned around: a neighbor looked into the yard, Polinka Yegorova. The most dissolute of the entire population: she celebrated her name day four times last month.
Don't bother too much, Fedot Evgrafych. You are now the only one left with us, sort of like a tribe.
Laughs. And the gate is not fastened: she dumped charms on the wattle fence, like rolls from the oven.
Now you will walk around the yards like a shepherd. A week in one yard, a week in another. This is what we, the women, have an agreement about you.
You, Polina Egorova, have a conscience. Are you a soldier or a lady? Here you go accordingly.
War, Yevgrafych, will write everything off. Both from soldiers and from soldiers.
What a loop! Should be evicted, but how? Where are they, civil authorities? But she is not subordinate to him: he ventilated this issue with a screaming major.
Yes, there were two cubic meters of thoughts, no less. And with each thought it is necessary to deal with it in a special way. Absolutely special...
Still, a big hindrance is that he is a person with almost no education. Well, he knows how to read and write and knows how to count within four classes, because right at the end of this, the fourth, his father's bear broke. The girls would laugh at this if they knew about the bear! Well, this is necessary: not from gases to the world, not from a blade to civilian, not from a kulak sawn-off shotgun, not even by his own death - the bear broke it! They, go, only saw this bear in the menageries ...
From a dense corner you, Fedot Vaskov, crawled out into the commandants. And they, don't look like ordinary ones, are science: lead, quadrant, drift angle. There are seven classes, or even all nine, you can see from the conversation. Subtract four from nine - five remains. It turns out that he lagged behind them more than he himself has ...
Thoughts were gloomy, and from this Vaskov chopped firewood with special fury. And who is to blame? Is that a bear, impolite ...
Strange thing: before that, he considered his life lucky. Well, not that it was really twenty-one, but there was no point in complaining. Still, with his incomplete four classes, he graduated from the regimental school and rose to the rank of foreman ten years later. There was no damage along this line, but from other ends, it happened that fate laid flags around and twice hit point-blank from all trunks, but Fedot Evgrafych still resisted. Resist…
Shortly before the Finnish, he married a nurse from the garrison hospital. A living woman got caught: she would have to sing and dance, and drink wine. However, she gave birth to a baby. Igorkom was named: Igor Fedotovich Vaskov. Then the Finnish war began, Vaskov left for the front, and as he returned back with two medals, he was shocked for the first time: while he was bent there in the snow, his wife completely spun with the regimental veterinarian and departed for the southern regions. Fedot Evgrafych divorced her immediately, demanded the boy through the court and sent him to his mother in the village. A year later, his boy died, and since then Vaskov smiled only three times: to the general that he was awarded the order, to the surgeon who pulled a splinter from his shoulder, and to his mistress Maria Nikiforovna, for ingenuity.
It was for that fragment that he received his current post. There was some property left in the warehouse, sentries were not posted, but, having established a commandant's position, they instructed him to watch that warehouse. Three times a day, the foreman walked around the object, tried the locks and in the book, which he himself started, made the same entry: “The object was inspected. There are no violations." And inspection time, of course.
Quietly served foreman Vaskov. It's calm almost to this day. And now…
The foreman sighed.
Of all the pre-war events, Rita Mushtakova most vividly remembered the school evening - a meeting with the heroic border guards. And although there was no Karatsupa at this evening, and the dog’s name was not Hindu at all, Rita remembered this evening as if it had just ended and the shy Lieutenant Osyanin was still walking along the echoing wooden sidewalks of a small border town. The lieutenant was by no means a hero, he got into the delegation by accident and was terribly shy.
Rita, too, was not one of the brisk ones: she sat in the hall, not participating in either greetings or amateur performances, and would rather agree to fall through all the floors to the rat cellar than to be the first to speak to any of the guests under thirty. It was just that he and Lieutenant Osyanin happened to be next to each other and sat, afraid to move and looking straight ahead. And then the school entertainers organized a game, and they again fell out to be together. And then there was a common phantom: to dance a waltz - and they danced. And then they stood at the window. And then ... Yes, then he went to see her off.
And Rita terribly cheated: she led him on the farthest road. But he was still silent and only smoked, each time timidly asking her permission. And from this timidity, Rita's heart fell right into her knees.
They didn’t even say goodbye by the hand: they just nodded to each other, that’s all. The lieutenant went to the outpost and wrote her a very short letter every Saturday. And every Sunday she answered long. This went on until the summer: in June he came to the town for three days, said that it was not calm at the border, that there would be no more holidays, and therefore they should immediately go to the registry office.
Rita was not at all surprised, but bureaucrats were sitting in the registry office and refused to register, because she was five and a half months short of eighteen. But they went to the commandant of the city, and from him to her parents, and still got their way.
Rita was the first of their class to get married. And not for anyone, but for the red commander, and even the border guard. And a happier girl in the world simply could not be.
At the outpost, she was immediately elected to the women's council and enrolled in all circles. Rita learned to bandage the wounded and shoot, ride a horse, throw grenades and defend against gases. A year later, she gave birth to a boy (they named him Albert - Alik), and a year later the war began.
On that first day, she was one of the few who did not lose her head, did not panic. She was generally calm and reasonable, but then her calmness was explained simply: Rita sent Alik to her parents in May and therefore could save other people's children.
The outpost held out for seventeen days. Day and night, Rita heard distant gunfire. The outpost lived, and with it lived the hope that the husband was safe, that the border guards would hold out until the army units arrived and, together with them, would answer blow for blow - they loved to sing so much at the outpost: “Night has come, and darkness has hidden the border, but no one he will cross over, and we will not allow the enemy to poke his snout into our Soviet garden ... ”But days passed, and there was no help, and on the seventeenth day the outpost fell silent.
They wanted to send Rita to the rear, and she asked to fight. She was persecuted, stuffed by force into the wagons, but the stubborn wife of the deputy head of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant Osyanin, reappeared at the headquarters of the fortified area a day later. In the end, they took me as a nurse, and six months later they sent me to the regimental anti-aircraft school.
And senior lieutenant Osyanin died on the second day of the war in the morning counterattack. Rita found out about this already in July, when a border guard sergeant miraculously broke through from the fallen outpost. The authorities appreciated the unsmiling widow of the hero-border guard: they noted in orders, set an example and therefore respected a personal request - to send her to the site where the outpost stood, where her husband died in a fierce bayonet battle after graduation. The front then backed away a little: it caught on the lakes, covered itself with scaffolding, climbed into the ground and froze somewhere between the former outpost and the town where Lieutenant Osyanin once met a student of the ninth "B" ...
Now Rita was pleased: she had achieved what she wanted. Even the death of her husband went somewhere in the most secret corner of memory: she had a job, a duty and very real goals for hatred. And she learned to hate quietly and mercilessly, and although her calculation had not yet succeeded in shooting down an enemy aircraft, she still managed to flash a German balloon. He flared up, cringed; the spotter jumped out of the basket and flew down like a stone.
Shoot, Rita!.. Shoot! shouted the anti-aircraft gunners. And Rita waited, not removing the crosshairs from the falling point. And when the German pulled the parachute just before the ground, already thanks to her German god, she smoothly pressed the trigger. A burst of four barrels cut the black figure clean, the girls screaming with delight, kissed her, and she smiled with a glued smile. She was shaking all night. Kiryanov, assistant commander of the platoon, soldered tea, consoled:
It will pass, Rituha. When I killed the first one, I almost died, by golly. The moon was dreaming, bastard ...
Kiryanova was a fighting girl: even in Finnish she crawled with a sanitary bag for more than one kilometer of the front line, she had an order. Rita respected her for her character, but did not particularly get close.
However, Rita generally kept to herself: in the department she had entirely Komsomol girls. Not that younger, no: just green. They knew neither love, nor motherhood, nor grief, nor joy, they chatted about lieutenants and kisses, and Rita was now annoyed by this.
Sleep! .. - she briefly threw, after listening to another confession. - I'll hear about stupid things - you'll insist on the clock enough.
In vain, Ritukha, lazily blamed Kiryanova. - Let them talk to themselves: amusing.
Let them fall in love - I won’t say a word. And so, licking in the corners - I don’t understand this.
Show me an example, Kiryanova smiled. And Rita immediately fell silent. She could not even imagine that this could happen: men did not exist for her. One was a man - the one that led to the thinned bayonet outpost at the second dawn of the war. Lived, tightened with a belt. Tightened to the very last hole.
Before May, the calculation got it: for two hours they fought with nimble "Messers". The Germans came in from the sun, dived into quadruplets, pouring fire heavily. They killed the carrier - a snub-nosed, ugly fat woman who always chewed something on the sly, two more were easily wounded. The commissar of the unit arrived at the funeral, the girls roared loudly. They gave a salute over the grave, and then the commissioner called Rita aside:
You need to fill up the department.
Many talented writers were worried about the topic of the Great Patriotic War for more than a dozen years after the end of the horror that they had experienced. One of the most exciting books about the war is Boris Vasiliev's story "The Dawns Here Are Quiet", based on which the film of the same name was made. It tells about the generation that did not have time to take place, irreplaceable and lost, carried away by the war. The picture shocks to the depths of the soul even the most persistent viewer.
The Dawns Here Are Quiet was filmed in 1972 by director Stanislav Rostotsky. It brings the viewer back to the harsh and tragic times of the war. Lyrical tragedy is the genre of the film. And it's very accurate. A woman in war is a soldier, but she is also a mother, a wife, and a lover.
The film starred: Andrey Martynov, Irina Dolganova, Elena Drapeko, Ekaterina Markova, Olga Ostroumova, Irina Shevchuk, Lyudmila Zaitseva, Alla Meshcheryakova, Nina Emelyanova, Alexey Chernov
Director: Stanislav Rostotsky
Writers: Stanislav Rostotsky, Boris Vasiliev
Operator: Vyacheslav Shumsky
Composer: Kirill Molchanov
Artist: Sergey Serebrennikov
The premiere of the film took place: November 04, 1972
Rostotsky himself was born in 1922 and knows firsthand about the sorrows of the war. Participation in the Great Patriotic War left an imprint on his soul forever, which he reflected in his picture. He has many legendary films on his account, such as "White Bim Black Ear", "We'll Live Until Monday", "It Was in Penkovo", etc. He himself went through the war, and a woman, a nurse, saved his life, pulling him, wounded, from the battlefield. She carried a wounded soldier several kilometers in her arms. Paying tribute to his savior, Rostotsky made a picture about women in the war. In 2001, the director died. He was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery, not having lived only a year before the thirtieth anniversary of his film.
Theme of the film: “Oh, women, women, you unfortunate people! For peasants, this war is like smoking a hare, and for you it’s something ... ” The idea of the film: “And I thought to myself: this is not the main thing. And most importantly, that Sonya could give birth to children, and they would have grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and now there will be no this thread. A small thread in the endless yarn of humanity, cut with a knife.
Rostotsky was for the actresses as foreman Vaskov was for the heroines of the film. Filming took place in difficult climatic conditions and they went through all the hardships together. So, in the scene of passing through the swamp together with the girls every morning in the slush with the saying "the woman sowed peas - wow!" the director was walking, slightly creaking with the prosthesis he had left after being wounded.
The director managed to create a well-coordinated ensemble of actors, consisting mainly of debutants, and to reveal in some detail the characters of the main characters. Particularly vivid and dramatic was the scene of the death of the heroine Olga Ostroumova, who in the last minutes of her life sang verses of an old romance ... Andrey Martynov was also remembered in the role of the "girlish commander" foreman Vaskov.
On the right is a lake, on the left is a lake, on the isthmus there is a dense forest, in the forest there are sixteen Nazi saboteurs, and foreman Vaskov must detain them with the forces of five anti-aircraft gunners armed with three-rulers.
Vaskov sets the task: “Comrade soldiers! The enemy, armed to the teeth, is moving in our direction. We have no neighbors either to the right or to the left, and there is nowhere for us to wait for help, therefore I order: to all the soldiers and myself personally: to hold the front! Hold! Even when there is no strength, you still hold on. There is no land for the Germans on this side! Because we have Russia behind us ... Motherland, then, simply put.
There were many front-line soldiers in the film group, so before the actresses were approved for the role, a casting was arranged with a vote for each girl.
Five anti-aircraft gunners who followed Vaskov into the forest are five accurate portraits of the era.
Iron Rita Osyanina (I. Shevchuk), the widow of a young commander. After the release of the film, the actors traveled all over the world with him. The abundance of foreign voyages aroused increased interest in actresses from state security.
- There was a moment right after the release of the film, when I, 20 years old, was recruited by the KGB, - says Irina Shevchuk. - I was promised mountains of gold, they hinted that I needed to get an apartment somehow, etc. I answered honestly: I don’t think that the motherland is in danger. And in case of something - somehow I will decide for myself who to find and to whom what to say.
The daring beauty Zhenya Komelkova (O. Ostroumova) is from a "commander" family. Before Olga Ostroumova, many actresses auditioned for the role of Zhenya Kamelkova. But Rostotsky opted for her. It is noteworthy that Ostroumova was the only one for whom “The Dawns Here Are Quiet…” was not a debut. Prior to that, she had already managed to star in the film "We'll Live Until Monday" by the same director.
Actress Olga Ostroumova, who played Zhenya Kamelkova, was almost removed from the role - problems arose with makeup.
They dyed me red and did chemistry, - says Olga Ostroumova. - Everything was curled up with a small demon, which doesn’t suit me terribly. The first shots are ridiculous. The bosses began to put pressure on the director Rostotsky, they demanded that I be removed from the role. To which Stanislav Iosifovich replied: "Stop making up her and leave her alone." And they left me alone for a week - I got a tan, the chemistry began to go off, and somehow everything corrected itself.
Despite the tough shooting schedule and the exactingness of the director, youth took its toll, and the young actresses and crew members arranged fun gatherings and dances, sometimes dragging on until 3 o'clock in the morning.
Two hours were left for sleep, and then again for shooting, - says the film's artist Yevgeny Shtapenko. - We met the dawn, the places there are of amazing beauty.
Silent forester's daughter Liza Brichkina (E. Drapeko); And Elena Drapeko from the role of Lisa Brichkina ... was removed. For a while.
In the script, Liza Brichkina is a ruddy, lively girl. Blood with milk, boobs with a wheel, - Elena Drapeko laughs. - And then I was a sophomore-reed, not of this world a little bit. I studied ballet, played the piano and violin. What is my peasant grip? When they watched the first filming material, I was removed from the role.
But then Rostotsky's wife Nina Menshikova, having seen the footage at Gorky's studio, called Rostotsky in Petrozavodsk and said that he was wrong. Rostotsky watched the material again, gathered a film crew, and they decided to leave me in the role. They etched my eyebrows, painted about 200 red freckles. And they asked to change the dialect.
Quiet Sonya Gurvich (I. Dolganova), an excellent student at the university with a volume of Blok in a soldier's bag;
The hard mode of filming and extremely realistic makeup in the death scenes caused fainting on the set. The first difficult moment was the scene of the death of Sonya Gurvich (actress Irina Dolganova played her).
Rostotsky made us believe in the reality of death,” says Ekaterina Markova (Galya Chetvertak). - When Ira Dolganova began to make up, we were taken away so that we would not see this process. Then we went to the place of filming - the crevice where Sonya Gurvich was supposed to lie. And they saw something that made them faint: a completely lifeless face, white with yellowness, and terrible circles under the eyes. And there the camera is already standing, filming our first reaction. And the scene when we find Sonya turned out to be very realistic in the film, just one to one.
When my chest in the scene of Sonya's death was smeared with bull's blood and flies began to flock to me, Olga Ostroumova and Ekaterina Markova became ill with their hearts, says Irina Dolganova. - I had to call an ambulance to the set.
Orphanage Galya Chetvertak (E. Markova). - In this film, they almost didn’t send me to the next world, - recalls Ekaterina Markova, who plays the role of Galka Chetvertak. - Remember the scene when I, frightened, run out of the bushes shouting "Mom!" and getting shot in the back? Rostotsky decided to shoot a close-up of the back so that the bullet holes and blood could be seen. To do this, they made a thin board, drilled it, “mounted” vials of artificial blood and fixed it on my back. At the moment of the shot, the electrical circuit was supposed to be closed, the tunic was supposed to break through from the inside and “blood” would pour out. But the pyrotechnicians miscalculated. "Shot" was much more powerful than planned. My tunic was torn to shreds! Only the board saved me from injury.
The task will be done at a high cost. Only Sergeant Major Vaskov will remain alive. “The case takes place in the forty-second year,” said the writer Boris Vasiliev, “and I know the Germans of the forty-second model well, my main skirmishes took place with them. Now such can be spetsnaz. At least eighty meters, well-armed, knowing all the techniques of close combat. You can't get rid of them. And when I confronted them with the girls, I thought with anguish that the girls were doomed. Because if I write that at least one survived, it will be a terrible lie.
Only Vaskov can survive there. Who fights in his native places. He smells, he grew up here. They can't beat this country when we're protected by landscape, swamps, boulders."
Field shooting began in May 1971 in Karelia. The film crew lived in the Severnaya hotel in Petrozavodsk. Only in it there were no interruptions in hot water.
Rostotsky meticulously selected actresses for the roles of anti-aircraft gunners. During the three months of the preparatory period, several hundred yesterday's graduates and current students of creative universities passed in front of the director.
Ekaterina Markova fell in love with the audience as Gali Chetvertak. Few people know that this actress is currently successfully working on the creation of detective novels.
Sonya Gurvich was superbly played by Irina Dolganova, whom the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, admiring her work, presented with a Volga.
Elena Drapeko was approved for the role of Liza Brichkina.
Elena Drapeko was studying at the Leningrad Institute of Theater when Rostotsky's assistants drew attention to her. Elena was approved for the role of Liza Brichkina, the one who dies first, dies a terrible, desperate death - drowns in a swamp, going with a report to the unit. Filming in the swamp was difficult from a technical point of view. Movie cameras were installed on rafts, and filmed from them.
“She actually played herself,” says Drapeko. - Although, of course, I had to work, because I didn’t live in any village, but I was a girl from a quite intelligent family, I played the violin. But my “roots” coincided with Liza Brichkina: my father’s ancestors were crests, they are from peasants, so this is apparently present in the genes. ”At some point, she had trouble with Rostotsky, and he even wanted to fire her from the picture. In the end, the conflict was settled. In real life, Drapeko was, according to Fedot (Andrey Martynov), who was in love with her, a dazzling “filling apple”, a beauty, the daughter of an officer, and she had to play the red-haired village Lisa.
With each shooting, makeup was applied to the face of the actress, which “highlighted” the cheekbones and “showed” freckles. And although the actress herself believed that she had a fairly heroic character, she had to be very romantic in the frame. But today the Brichkin-Drapeko fighter sits in the State Duma
When Lisa drowned in the swamp, the audience cried. How was this tragic scene filmed?
I played the episode of death in a swamp without an understudy. At first, Rostotsky tried to shoot something from afar, not with me. It turned out what we call "linden". The audience simply would not believe us. We decided to shoot "live", in a real swamp, to make it scary. They laid dynamite, rushed, formed a funnel. Liquid mud, which in the North is called jerky, flowed into this funnel. This is the hole I jumped into. The director and I had an agreement that when I go under the water with a cry of “Ahhh! ..”, I sit there until there is enough air in my lungs. Then I had to show my hands out of the water, and they pulled me out.
Second double. I hid under the trap. The volume of my lungs was quite large. Moreover, I understood that the swamp should close over me, settle down, calm down ... With each movement, I deepened everything and deepened the bottom with my boots. And when I raised my hands up, they were not seen from the site. I was completely, as they say, “with handles” hidden by a swamp. On the set, they started to get worried. One of the assistants to the cameraman, who was counting the meters of film and time spent, noticed that I should have somehow proved myself, but for some reason I didn’t appear for a long time.
He shouted: “It looks like we really drowned her! ..” Wooden shields were thrown into the swamp, the guys crawled along these shields to the funnel, found me and pulled me out like a turnip from the garden. Karelia has permafrost. The swamp is a swamp, but the water warmed up only twenty centimeters, and then the ice crumb began. The feeling, I tell you, is not pleasant. Each time, after the next take, I was washed and dried. From cold to hot water. A little rest, and - a new double. Now, as far as I know, tour buses take tourists from Petrozavodsk to the swamp where Liza Brichkina was drowning. True, for some reason there are already several such swamps ...
Actress Irina Shevchuk recalled: “And I had a very difficult scene where I die. Before shooting, I heard a lot of doctors about how people behave when they are wounded in the stomach. And so she got into the role that after the first take she lost consciousness! The actress felt the death throes of the heroine so realistically that after filming she had to be “revived.” So Irina Shevchuk became famous for her role as Rita Osyanina. Today Shevchuk is the director of the Open Film Festival of the CIS and Baltic countries "Kinoshock"
On October 5, the group returned to Moscow. However, filming in the pavilion began only after a week and a half: Martynov, Ostroumova and Markova with the Theater for Young Spectators went on tour to Bulgaria.
When all the anti-aircraft gunners were assembled, they started filming the episode in the bathhouse. For five hours, Rostotsky persuaded the girls to pose naked, but they refused, as they were brought up in strictness.
We doubted this scene very much and tried our best to refuse: take doubles, shoot them in a steam room, and we will not shoot naked! - says Olga Ostroumova. Rostotsky convinced that this was very necessary for the film: “You are always in boots, in tunics, with guns at the ready, and the audience will forget that you are women, beautiful, tender, expectant mothers ... I need to show that they kill not just people, but women, beautiful and young, who should give birth, continue the race. …There were no more disputes. We followed the idea.
At the film studio, they selected a female camera crew, searched for female illuminators, and there was only one condition: on the set of men, only director Rostotsky and cameraman Shumsky - and then behind the film enclosing the bathhouse. But, as everyone remembers, there was no sex in the Soviet Union, therefore projectionists on the ground often cut out these famous shots.
Elena Drapeko recalls:
The meeting about this scene lasted four hours. We were persuaded. A pavilion called “Banya” was built, a special filming regime was introduced, since we set a condition: not a single man should be in the studio during this scene. A more chaste procedure cannot be imagined. An exception was made only for director Rostotsky and cameraman Shumsky. Both were fifty - for us ancient old people. In addition, they were covered with a film in which two holes were cut: for one eye of the director and for the camera lens. We rehearsed in swimsuits.
The girls rehearsed everything in swimsuits, and only undressed for the shooting. All those washcloths, washcloths, steam… Then the bathing suits were taken off. Motor. Camera. We started. And behind the pavilion there was a special installation that was supposed to give us steam, so that everything really looked like a real bathhouse. And near this installation was a certain uncle Vasya, "not discussed", who was supposed to follow her work. He stood behind a plywood partition, and therefore we did not see him at the rehearsal. But, when they started the camera, steam went up, suddenly there was a wild howl, like from a high-explosive bomb: “Uuu! ..” Roar! Roar! And this uncle Vasya flies into the pavilion in a padded jacket and boots, and we are naked on the shelves, soaped ... And this happened because Uncle Vasya “looked into the frame” ... He had never seen so many naked women.
The scene was filmed anyway. She soloed on the screen - sixteen seconds! - Olga Ostroumova.
There were many problems with the bath episode afterwards. After the first viewing of the picture, the authorities demanded that the explicit scene be cut out. But Rostotsky, by some miracle, managed to defend it.
In "Dawns ..." there was another scene where anti-aircraft gunner girls sunbathe naked on a tarpaulin. The director had to remove it.
For the role of foreman Vaskov, the director wanted to invite a well-known performer. The candidacy of Georgy Yumatov was considered. Then a young artist of the capital's Theater for Young Spectators appeared Andrey Martynov. He was approved for the role.
At first, the director had doubts about the choice of the actor, but Martynov was approved by secret ballot by the entire film crew, including illuminators and stage workers. For filming, Martynov even grew a mustache. They agreed with the director that Vaskov would have a peculiar dialect in the film - a local dialect, and since Andrei is from Ivanovo, it was enough for him to simply speak the language. The role of foreman Vaskov in the film “The Dawns Here Are Quiet…” became a stellar debut for him - the 26-year-old actor played an elderly foreman surprisingly naturally.
Andrei Martynov discovered in his foreman Vaskov a wonderful human depth. “But if you saw how work on Zorya began with him,” said Rostotsky. - Martynov could do nothing. With such a “masculine” appearance, he is extremely feminine. He could neither run, nor shoot, nor chop wood, nor row, nothing.
That is, he could not perform the physical actions necessary for the film. Because of this, he could not play anything. But he worked, he learned something. And at some point, I felt that things had gone well.
When the foreman with a heart-rending cry: "Lie down !!!" disarmed the Germans, applause broke out in domestic cinema halls more than once ...
Writer Boris Vasiliev came to the shooting only once. And he was very dissatisfied. He said that he was a fan of Lyubimov's performance, but he did not agree with the concept of the film.
A heated argument between Rostotsky and Vasiliev was caused by the scene of the death of Rita Osyanina. In the book, Vaskov says: “What will I tell your children when they ask - why did you kill our mothers?” And Rita answered: “We did not fight for the White Sea-Baltic Canal named after Comrade Stalin, but we fought for the Motherland.” So, Rostotsky flatly refused to insert this phrase into the film, because this is a look from today: “What a brave boy you are, Borya, all of a sudden, it means that you said about it. But Rita Osyanina, volunteer, Komsomol member of the 42nd year. It couldn't even cross her mind." Boris Vasiliev objected. On that they parted...
Rostotsky was very hurt by the words of the writer Astafiev, who said that there is no truth about the war in the cinema, the heroines, when they are killed with bullets in the stomach, sing the song “He told me: be mine.” This, of course, is about Zhenya Komelkova. “But this is distorted,” the director was indignant. - No one kills her at this moment with bullets in the stomach, she is wounded in the leg and, overcoming the pain, she does not sing at all, but shouts out the words of the romance, which then, after the "Dowry" was on everyone's lips, and drags her into the forest Germans. This is quite in the nature of the reckless heroic Zhenya. It's very sad to read this."
Rostotsky himself is a front-line soldier, he lost his leg at the front. When he mounted the picture, he cried because he felt sorry for the girls.
Goskino chairman Alexei Vladimirovich Romanov told Rostotsky: “Do you really think that we will ever release this film on the screen?” The director was confused, did not know what he was accused of. For three months the painting lay motionless. Then it turned out that it was necessary to make amendments. And suddenly, one fine day, something changed, and it turned out that "Dawns ..." are quite worthy of a wide screen.
Moreover, the picture was sent to the Venice Film Festival. This film festival was remembered by actresses for life.
At the preview for journalists, Rostotsky experienced terrible moments. Before that, a two-part Turkish film was shown, the audience was already mad, and now they are also shown some kind of two-part film about girls in tunics. They laughed all the time. Twenty minutes later, according to Rostotsky, he wanted to take a Kalashnikov assault rifle and shoot everyone. The frustrated director was taken out of the hall by the arms.
The next day there was a viewing at 11 pm. "Dawns ..." lasts 3 hours and 12 minutes. “I perfectly understood that the picture would fail: two and a half thousand people, a tuxedo festival, the picture is in Russian with Italian subtitles, there is no translation,” Stanislav Rostotsky shared his impressions. - I was walking in my tuxedo, which I put on for the second time in my life, and they held me by the arms, because I just fell. I decided that I would count how many people would leave the picture. But somehow they didn't leave. And then suddenly, applause broke out in one place. The most precious to me. Because it was not applause for me, not for the actors, not for screenwriting ... This hostile hall in Italy, he suddenly began to sympathize with the girl Zhenya Komelkova and her actions. That was the most important thing for me."
In 1974, The Dawns Here Are Quiet was nominated for an Oscar, but lost the top prize to Buñuel's The Modest Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, "Dawns ..." were purchased all over the world. Actors, coming somewhere abroad, sometimes saw themselves speaking a foreign language.
“I was completely dumbfounded when I heard myself in Chinese,” Andrey Martynov laughs. - I was told that over a billion people have watched the film in China. Deng Xiaoping himself called “The Dawns Here Are Quiet…” a truly Chinese painting.”
The first screening of the film abroad in Venice and Sorrento made a splash. At the Rossiya cinema, there was a queue for a month. The picture became the winner of several international film festivals, and it was recognized by the American Film Academy as one of the five best world films of the year. The film received a prize at the Venice Film Festival, and a year after its release, it was nominated for an Oscar.
After watching “The Dawns Here Are Quiet…”, a seemingly quite distinct idea of the war is created, but we cannot understand all the torments of the fascist hell, all the drama of the war, its cruelty, senseless deaths, the pain of separated mothers with their children, brothers and sisters, wives with husbands.
This film was the debut in the cinema for all the performers of the main roles, with the exception of Olga Ostroumova. He enjoyed great success at the box office, in 1973 he became the leader of the Soviet box office, gathering 66 million viewers.
The film "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" was highly appreciated by both critics and government authorities. He was awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1975, screenwriter B. Vasiliev, director S. Rostotsky, cameraman V. Shumsky, actor A. Martynov), the Lenin Komsomol Prize (1974, director S. Rostotsky, cameraman V. Shumsky, actor A. Martynov ), the first prize of the All-Union Film Festival in 1973 in Alma-Ata, a commemorative prize of the Venice Film Festival in 1972, was nominated for an Oscar in the category "Best Foreign Language Film" (1972), was recognized as the best film of 1972 according to a survey of the Soviet Screen magazine ".
The action took place in May 1942 in the Russian outback. At the 171st railway siding, positional battles were fought. After the German bombing, trains stopped stopping there, only 12 yards survived. In all parts of the country there was a patriotic war. Compared to other sidings, 171 was a "resort". Sergeant Major Fedot Evgrafych Vaskov was appointed commander of the sergeant. Even though he only had 4 grades of education, he was an experienced commander. His wife left him and went to the regimental veterinarian, and his son soon died. The soldiers arriving at the junction, over time, relaxed and began to "drink and go for a walk." The commander did not like this, and he wrote reports all the time asking him to send him “non-drinking” fighters.
In the end, they sent him anti-aircraft gunners. At first, Vaskov did not even know how to command them, and they laughed at him. The platoon leader was Rita Osyanina. Her husband was killed by the Germans in the war, and her son Albert lived with her mother. Rita herself studied at the regimental anti-aircraft school and dreamed of avenging her husband. She hated the Germans with all her heart. She treated the girls of her department strictly and generally kept herself apart. Soon a brand new, slender beauty Zhenya Komelkova was sent to the department.
The fate of this red-haired girl immediately crossed out Rita's "exclusivity", which, after talking with Zhenya, thawed a little and became softer. Zhenya's relatives were shot a year ago in front of her eyes. After that, she went to the front, where a married colonel Luzhin looked after her. When it came to the authorities, the colonel was taken seriously, and Zhenya was sent to another, more suitable detachment. By nature, she was sociable and cheerful. With her, even the stern Rita smiled and sang songs. The team immediately fell in love with her.
Soon they started talking about the transfer of the detachment to the siding. Rita asked to send her department, as her mother and son lived not far from the junction. She wanted to visit them at least once in a while, to bring them food. Once, returning from them at dawn, she noticed two Germans in the forest. She reported this to Vaskov, and he ordered to gather a detachment and head for the railroad. It was decided to go a short way, which lay through the swamps. He took Rita, Zhenya and three more girls with him - Sonya Gurvich, Galya Chetvertak and Lisa Brichkina. The fate of these girls could not be called easy.
Lisa was the daughter of a forester from the Bryansk region. All her life she took care of her sick mother, because of which she could not even finish school. Once a hunter visited them, who promised to help Lisa with admission to a technical school and a place in a hostel. But Liza still does not have time to go to school, since the war began and she ended up in the anti-aircraft unit. She likes foreman Vaskov for his laconicism and "masculine solidity."
Sonya Gurvich was from a large and friendly family. She was from Minsk, but studied for one year at Moscow University. There she met her first love, but he volunteered for the front. Sonya knew German well and wanted to become a translator. But there were enough translators, so she was taken to the anti-aircraft gunners. Her family remained in Minsk, but most likely none of them survived. Galya Chetvertak was from an orphanage. She studied at the library technical school, and in the third year the war began.
Vaskov himself was 32 years old, but he felt much older, as he became the breadwinner of the family at the age of fourteen. When he was 20, he joined the army and since then sacredly honored the charter. Everything in life could be explained with the help of the charter. As a foreman, he knew his place: older than the privates, equal to the majors and younger than any colonel. His wife was frivolous, walking. When he divorced her, he sued his son and sent him to his mother. But the boy died before the war.
Before setting off for the Sinyukhina Ridge, Vaskov taught the girls how to properly wrap footcloths and how to give prearranged signals. In a detachment they crossed the quagmire and safely reached the lake. Hiding there, they began to wait for the Germans. In the morning they appeared, but there were not two, but sixteen. Until they got to Vaskov's detachment, he sends Liza, as the most capable, for help to her. But on the way, Lisa stumbled and drowned in a swamp. Nobody knew about this and everyone was waiting for help.
Meanwhile, Vaskov decides to outwit the Germans in order to buy some time before reinforcements arrive. Depicting lumberjacks, they sing loudly with the whole detachment, burn fires, cut down trees. The frightened Germans change their route and go to Legontov Lake, and the detachment changes its location. In the same place, Vaskov left his pouch, for which Sonya went. However, on the way, she ran into two Germans and died. Vaskov and Zhenya caught up with these Germans and killed them.
Soon the surviving fighters stumble upon the rest of the Germans and a head-on battle begins. The detachment, shielded by bushes and boulders, attacks first and the Germans retreat. Galya is afraid to go further, since Sonya's death has left an indelible mark on her soul. The girls accuse her of cowardice, but the foreman takes her with him on reconnaissance, to raise her spirits. He believes that this is not cowardice, but banal confusion. The frightened Galya, on the orders of Vaskov, hides in the bushes, but at the most crucial moment she betrays herself and rushes straight at the machine gunners. She is being killed.
The foreman decides to save the other girls by all means and hardly escapes from the bullets of the Germans. Through the fog-shrouded forest, he reaches the swamp, in which he notices Lisa's skirt and realizes that she has drowned. Now help was nowhere to be found. Having stumbled upon two German sentries, he kills one of them and moves on in search of Rita and Zhenya. They have the last fight, not an easy one. During the unequal struggle, several Germans were killed and Rita was mortally wounded by a fragment of a grenade. While Vaskov is dragging her to a safe place, Zhenya shoots back and leads the Germans in the other direction. She is being killed.
Rita, realizing that her wound is fatal, does not want to suffer from pain and asks Vaskov for a gun and shoots herself in the temple. Before she dies, she asks to take care of her son. After burying the girls, he heads to the German camp. He kills one of them and takes the rest prisoner. Wounded in the hand, the foreman, with the last of his strength, leads the prisoners to his own, and loses consciousness when he sees the soldiers of the Red Army running towards them. As requested by Rita, he takes charge of her son Albert and adopts him. Many years later, the two of them arrived at the place where the entire detachment died and erected a monument to the brave girls.
