The division of Colonel Deev, which included an artillery battery under the command of Lieutenant Droz-dovsky, among many others, was transferred to Stalin-grad , where the main forces of the Soviet Army accumulated. The battery included a platoon commanded by Lieutenant Kuznetsov. Drozdovsky and Kuznetsov graduated from the same school in Aktyubinsk. At the school, Droz-dovsky “stood out with his emphatic, as if innate bearing, the imperious expression of his thin, pale face - the best cadet in the division, the favorite of the commanders of the formation.” Vikov." And now, after graduating from college, Drozdovsky became Kuznetsov’s closest commander.
Kuznetsov's platoon consisted of 12 people, among whom were Chibisov, the gunner of the first gun Nechaev and senior sergeant Ukhanov. Chibisov managed to be in German captivity. People like him were looked at askance, so Chibisov tried his best to serve. Kuznetsov believed that Chibisov should have committed suicide instead of giving up, but Chibi-owl was over forty, and at that moment he was thinking only about his children.
Nechaev, a former sailor from Vladivostok, was an incorrigible womanizer and, on occasion, loved to court the sanitar battery leader Zoya Elagina.
Before the war, Sergeant Ukhanov served in the criminal investigation department, then graduated from the Aktyubinsk Military School together with Kuznetsov and Drozdovsky. One day, Ukhanov was returning from AWOL through the toilet window, and came across the division commander, who was sitting on a push and could not contain his laughter. A scandal broke out, because of which Ukhanov was not given the officer rank. For this reason, Drozdovsky treated Ukhanov with disdain. Kuznetsov accepted the sergeant as an equal.
Sanin-structor Zoya at every stop resorted to the cars in which Drozdovsky’s battery was located. Kuznetsov guessed that Zoya came only to see the battery commander.
At the last stop, Deev, the commander of the division, which included Drozdovsky’s battery, arrived at the train. Next to Deev, “leaning on a stick, walked a lean, unfamiliar general, slightly uneven in his gait.<...>It was the army commander, Lieutenant General Bessonov.” The general's eight-year-old son went missing on the Volkhov Front, and now every time the general's gaze fell on some young lieutenant, he remembered about my son.
At this stop, Deev’s division unloaded from the train and moved on at horsepower. In Kuznetsov’s platoon, the horses were driven by riders Rubin and Sergunenkov. At sunset we took a short break. Kuznetsov guessed that Stalin-grad remained somewhere behind him, but did not know that their division was moving “towards the German tank divisions that had begun the offensive with the aim of de-blocking the Paulus’ army of many thousands married in the area of Stalin-grad.”
The kitchens fell behind and were lost somewhere in the rear. People were hungry and instead of water they collected trampled, dirty snow from the roadsides. Kuznetsov spoke about this with Drozdovsky, but he sharply besieged him, saying that at the school they were equal, and now he is the commander. “Every word of Droz-dovsky<...>raised such an irresistible, mute resistance in Kuznetsov, as if what Drozdovsky was doing, saying, ordering him was a stubborn and calculated attempt to remind him of his power, to humiliate him." The army moved on, cursing in every possible way the elders who had disappeared somewhere.
While Manstein’s tank divisions began a breakthrough to the grouping of Colonel General Paulus, surrounded by our troops, the newly formed army, which included Deev’s division, was, on Stalin’s orders, thrown to the south, towards the German strike group "Goth". This new army was commanded by General Pyotr Aleksandrovich Bessonov, a middle-aged, reserved man. “He didn’t want to please everyone, he didn’t want to seem like a pleasant conversationalist for everyone. Such a petty game for the purpose of winning sympathy always disgusted him.”
Lately it seemed to the general that “his son’s whole life had passed miraculously unnoticed, slipped past him.” All his life, moving from one military unit to another, Bessonov thought that he would still have time to rewrite his life completely, but in a hospital near Moscow “for the first time the thought came to him that his life, the life of a military man, probably, it can only be in a single option, which he himself chose once and for all.” It was there that his last meeting took place with his son Victor, a freshly baked infantry junior lieutenant. Bessonov's wife, Olga, asked him to take his son with him, but Victor refused, and Bessonov did not insist. Now he was tormented by the knowledge that he could have saved his only son, but did not. “He felt more and more acutely that the fate of his son was becoming his father’s cross.”
Even during Stalin’s reception, where Bessonov was invited before his new appointment, a question arose about his son. Stalin was well aware that Viktor was part of the army of General Vlasov, and Bessonov himself was familiar with him. Nevertheless, Stalin approved the appointment of Bessonov as general of the new army.
From November 24 to 29, troops of the Don and Stalingrad fronts fought against the encircled German group. Hitler ordered Paulus to fight to the last soldier, then the order came for Operation Winter Storm - a breakthrough of the encirclement by the German Army Don under the command of Field Marshal Manstein. On December 12, Colonel General Hoth struck at the junction of the two armies of the Stalingrad Front. By December 15, the Germans had advanced forty-five kilometers to Stalingrad. The introduced reserves were unable to change the situation - German troops stubbornly made their way to the encircled group of Paulus. The main task of Bessonov's army, reinforced by a tank corps, was to delay the Germans and then force them to retreat. The last frontier was the Myshkova River, after which the flat steppe stretched all the way to Stalingrad.
At the army command post, located in a semi-ruined village, an unpleasant conversation took place between General Bessonov and a member of the military council, divisional commissar Vitaly Isaye -vich Vesnin. Bessonov did not trust the commissar, he believed that he was sent to keep an eye on him because of his fleeting acquaintance with the traitor, General Vlasov.
In the dead of night, Colonel Deev’s division began to dig in on the banks of the Myshkova River. Lieutenant Kuznetsov's battery dug guns into the frozen ground on the very bank of the river, cursing the foreman, who was a day behind the battery along with the kitchen. Having sat down to rest for a while, Lieutenant Kuznetsov remembered his native Zamosk-vo-reche. The lieutenant's father, an engineer, caught a cold at a construction site in Magnitogorsk and died. My mother and sister remained at home.
Having dug in, Kuznetsov, together with Zoya, went to the command post to Drozdovsky. Kuznetsov looked at Zoya, and it seemed to him that he “saw her, Zoya,<...>in a house comfortably heated at night, at a table covered for the holiday with a clean white tablecloth,” in his apartment on Pyatnitskaya.
The battery commander explained the military situation and stated that he was dissatisfied with the friendship that arose between Kuznetsov and Ukhanov. Kuznetsov objected that Ukhanov could be a good platoon commander if he received the rank.
When Kuznetsov left, Zoya remained with Drozdovsky. He spoke to her “in the jealous and at the same time demanding tone of a man who had the right to ask her that way.” Drozdovsky was unhappy that Zoya visited Kuznetsov’s platoon too often. He wanted to hide his relationship with her from everyone - he was afraid of gossip that would start circulating around the battery and seep into the headquarters of the regiment or division. Zoya was bitter to think that Drozdovsky loved her so little.
Drozdovsky was from a family of hereditary military men. His father died in Spain, his mother died the same year. After the death of his parents, Drozdovsky did not go to an orphanage, but lived with distant relatives in Tashkent. He believed that his parents had betrayed him and was afraid that Zoya would betray him too. He demanded from Zoya proof of her love for him, but she could not cross the last line, and this angered Drozdovsky.
General Bessonov arrived at Drozdovsky’s battery and was waiting for the return of the scouts who had gone for the “language.” The general understood that the turning point of the war had come. The evidence of the “language” was supposed to provide missing information about the reserves of the German army. The outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad depended on this.
The battle began with a Junkers raid, after which German tanks went on the attack. During the bombing, Kuznetsov remembered the gun sights - if they were destroyed, the battery would not be able to fire. The lieutenant wanted to send Ukhanov, but realized that he had no right and would never forgive himself if something happened to Ukhanov. Risking his life, Kuznetsov went to the guns together with Ukhanov and found there riders Rubin and Sergunenkov, with whom the seriously wounded scout was lying.
Having sent a scout to the OP, Kuznetsov continued the battle. Soon he no longer saw anything around him, he commanded the gun “in an evil rapture, in a reckless and frantic unity with the crew.” The lieutenant felt “this hatred of possible death, this fusion with the weapon, this fever of delirious rage and only at the edge of consciousness understanding what he was doing.”
Meanwhile, a German self-propelled gun hid behind two tanks knocked out by Kuznetsov and began to shoot the neighboring gun at point-blank range. Having assessed the situation, Drozdovsky handed Sergenenkov two anti-tank grenades and ordered him to crawl to the self-propelled gun and destroy it. Young and frightened, Sergu-nenkov died without fulfilling the order. “He sent Sergu-nen-kov, having the right to order. And I was a witness - and I will curse myself for the rest of my life for this,” thought Kuznetsov.
By the end of the day, it became clear that the Russian troops could not withstand the onslaught of the German army. German tanks had already broken through to the northern bank of the Myshkova River. General Bessonov did not want to bring fresh troops into battle, fearing that the army did not have enough strength for a decisive blow. He ordered to fight until the last shell. Now Vesnin understood why there were rumors about Bessonov’s cruelty.
Having moved to the Deeva checkpoint, Bessonov realized that it was here that the Germans directed the main attack. The scout found by Kuznetsov reported that two more people, along with the captured “tongue,” were stuck somewhere in the German rear. Soon Bessonov was informed that the Germans had begun to surround the division.
The head of the army's counter-intelligence arrived from headquarters. He showed Vesnin a German leaflet, which contained a photograph of Bessonov’s son, and told how well the son of a famous Russian military commander was being cared for in a German hospital. Nick. The headquarters wanted Bess-nonov to remain permanently at the army command post, under supervision. Vesnin did not believe in the betrayal of Bessonov Jr., and decided not to show this leaflet to the general yet.
Bessonov brought tank and mecha-ni-zi-ro-van corps into battle and asked Vesnin to go meet them and shoo-ro-drink them. Fulfilling the general’s request, Vesnin died. General Bessonov never found out that his son was alive.
The only surviving Ukhanov gun fell silent late in the evening, when the shells obtained from other guns ran out. At this time, the tanks of Colonel General Goth forced the Myshkova River. With the onset of darkness, the battle began to subside behind us.
Now for Kuznetsov, everything was “measured in different categories than a day ago.” Ukhanov, Nechaev and Chibisov were barely alive from fatigue. “This is the only surviving weapon<...>and there are four of them<...>were rewarded with a smiling fate, with the random happiness of surviving the day and evening of the endless battle, of living longer than others. But there was no joy in life.” They found themselves behind German lines.
Suddenly the Germans began to attack again. In the light of the rockets, they saw the body of a man two steps from their firing platform. Chibisov shot at him, mistaking him for a German. It turned out to be one of those Russian intelligence officers that General Bessonov had been waiting for. Two more scouts, along with the “tongue,” hid in a crater near two damaged armored vehicles.
At this time, Drozdovsky appeared at the crew, along with Rubin and Zoya. Without looking at Drozdovsky, Kuznetsov took Ukhanov, Rubin and Chibi-sov and went to help the scout. Following Kuznetsov’s group, Drozdovsky got involved with two signalmen and Zoya.
A captured German and one of the scouts were found at the bottom of a large crater. Drozdovsky ordered to look for the second scout, despite the fact that, while making his way to the crater, he attracted the attention of the Germans, and now the entire area was under machine-gun fire. Drozdovsky himself crawled back, taking with him the “tongue” and the surviving intelligence officer. On the way, his group came under fire, during which Zoya was seriously wounded in the stomach, and Drozdovsky was concussed.
When Zoya was brought to the crew on her overcoat, she was already dead. Kuznetsov was like in a dream, “everything that kept him in unnatural tension these days<...>suddenly it relaxed.” Kuznetsov almost hated Drozdovsky because he did not save Zoya. “He cried so lonely and desperately for the first time in his life. And when he wiped his face, the snow on the sleeve of his quilted jacket was hot from his tears.”
Already late in the evening, Bessonov realized that the Germans had not been pushed off the northern bank of the Myshkova River. By midnight the fighting had stopped, and Bessonov wondered if this was due to the fact that the Germans were using all their reserves. Finally, a “tongue” was brought to the checkpoint, who reported that the Germans had indeed brought reserves into the battle. After interrogation, Bessonov was informed that Vesnin had died. Now Bessonov regretted that their relationship “was his fault, Bessonova,<...>did not look the way Vesnin wanted and what they should have been.”
The front commander contacted Bessonov and reported that four tank divisions were successfully reaching the rear of the Don Army. The general ordered an attack. Meanwhile, Bessonova’s adjutant found a German leaflet among Vesnin’s things, but did not dare to tell the general about it.
Forty minutes after the start of the attack, the battle reached a turning point. Watching the battle, Bessonov could not believe his eyes when he saw that several guns had survived on the right bank. The corps brought into battle pushed the Germans back to the right bank, captured the crossings and began to encircle the German troops.
After the battle, Bessonov decided to drive along the right bank, taking with him all the available awards. He awarded everyone who survived after this terrible battle and the German encirclement. Bessonov “didn’t know how to cry, and the wind helped him, gave vent to tears of delight, sorrow and gratitude.” The entire crew of Lieutenant Kuznetsov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Ukhanov was offended that Drozdovsky also received the order.
Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and Nechaev sat and drank vodka with orders dipped into it, and the battle continued ahead.
Colonel Deev's division, which included an artillery battery under the command of Lieutenant Drozdovsky, along with many others, was transferred to Stalingrad, where the main forces of the Soviet Army were amassed. The battery included a platoon commanded by Lieutenant Kuznetsov. Drozdovsky and Kuznetsov graduated from the same school in Aktyubinsk. At the school, Drozdovsky “stood out with the emphasized, as if innate in his bearing, the imperious expression of his thin pale face - the best cadet in the division, the favorite of the combat commanders.” And now, after graduating from college, Drozdovsky became Kuznetsov’s closest commander.
Kuznetsov's platoon consisted of 12 people, among whom were Chibisov, the first gunner Nechaev and senior sergeant Ukhanov. Chibisov managed to be in German captivity. People like him were looked at askance, so Chibisov tried his best to be helpful. Kuznetsov believed that Chibisov should have committed suicide instead of giving up, but Chibisov was over forty, and at that moment he was thinking only about his children.
Nechaev, a former sailor from Vladivostok, was an incorrigible womanizer and, on occasion, loved to court the battery medical instructor Zoya Elagina.
Before the war, Sergeant Ukhanov served in the criminal investigation department, then graduated from the Aktobe Military School together with Kuznetsov and Drozdovsky. One day, Ukhanov was returning from AWOL through the toilet window, and came across a division commander who was sitting on a push and could not contain his laughter. A scandal broke out, because of which Ukhanov was not given the officer rank. For this reason, Drozdovsky treated Ukhanov with disdain. Kuznetsov accepted the sergeant as an equal.
At every stop, medical instructor Zoya resorted to the cars that housed Drozdovsky’s battery. Kuznetsov guessed that Zoya came only to see the battery commander.
At the last stop, Deev, the commander of the division, which included Drozdovsky’s battery, arrived at the train. Next to Deev, “leaning on a stick, walked a lean, unfamiliar general with a slightly uneven gait. It was the army commander, Lieutenant General Bessonov.” The general’s eighteen-year-old son went missing on the Volkhov front, and now every time the general’s gaze fell on some young lieutenant, he remembered his son.
At this stop, Deev's division unloaded from the train and moved further by horse traction. In Kuznetsov's platoon, the horses were driven by riders Rubin and Sergunenkov. At sunset we took a short break. Kuznetsov guessed that Stalingrad was left somewhere behind him, but did not know that their division was moving “towards the German tank divisions that had begun the offensive in order to relieve Paulus’ army of thousands encircled in the Stalingrad area.”
The kitchens fell behind and got lost somewhere in the rear. People were hungry and instead of water they collected trampled, dirty snow from the roadsides. Kuznetsov spoke about this with Drozdovsky, but he sharply besieged him, saying that at the school they were equal, and now he is the commander. “Every word of Drozdovsky aroused in Kuznetsov such an irresistible, dull resistance, as if what Drozdovsky did, said, ordered him was a stubborn and calculated attempt to remind him of his power, to humiliate him.” The army moved on, cursing in every possible way the elders who had disappeared somewhere.
While Manstein’s tank divisions began to break through to the group of Colonel General Paulus, surrounded by our troops, the newly formed army, which included Deev’s division, was thrown south, on Stalin’s orders, to meet the German strike group “Goth”. This new army was commanded by General Pyotr Aleksandrovich Bessonov, an elderly, reserved man. “He didn’t want to please everyone, he didn’t want to seem like a pleasant conversationalist for everyone. Such petty games aimed at winning sympathy always disgusted him.”
Lately it seemed to the general that “his son’s whole life had passed monstrously unnoticed, slipped past him.” All his life, moving from one military unit to another, Bessonov thought that he would still have time to rewrite his life completely, but in a hospital near Moscow “for the first time the thought came to him that his life, the life of a military man, could probably only be in one option, which he himself chose once and for all.” It was there that his last meeting took place with his son Victor, a newly minted junior lieutenant of the infantry. Bessonov's wife, Olga, asked him to take his son with him, but Victor refused, and Bessonov did not insist. Now he was tormented by the knowledge that he could have saved his only son, but did not. “He felt more and more acutely that his son’s fate was becoming his father’s cross.”
Even during Stalin’s reception, where Bessonov was invited before his new appointment, the question of his son arose. Stalin was well aware that Victor was part of the army of General Vlasov, and Bessonov himself was familiar with him. Nevertheless, Stalin approved Bessonov’s appointment as general of the new army.
From November 24 to 29, troops of the Don and Stalingrad fronts fought against the encircled German group. Hitler ordered Paulus to fight to the last soldier, then the order came for Operation Winter Storm - breaking through the encirclement of the German Army Don under the command of Field Marshal Manstein. On December 12, Colonel General Hoth struck at the junction of the two armies of the Stalingrad Front. By December 15, the Germans had advanced forty-five kilometers to Stalingrad. The introduced reserves could not change the situation - German troops stubbornly made their way to the encircled Paulus group. The main task of Bessonov's army, reinforced by a tank corps, was to delay the Germans and then force them to retreat. The last frontier was the Myshkova River, after which the flat steppe stretched all the way to Stalingrad.
At the army command post, located in a dilapidated village, an unpleasant conversation took place between General Bessonov and a member of the military council, divisional commissar Vitaly Isaevich Vesnin. Bessonov did not trust the commissar; he believed that he was sent to look after him because of a fleeting acquaintance with the traitor, General Vlasov.
In the dead of night, Colonel Deev’s division began to dig in on the banks of the Myshkova River. Lieutenant Kuznetsov's battery dug guns into the frozen ground on the very bank of the river, cursing the foreman, who was a day behind the battery along with the kitchen. Sitting down to rest for a while, Lieutenant Kuznetsov remembered his native Zamoskvorechye. The lieutenant's father, an engineer, caught a cold during construction in Magnitogorsk and died. My mother and sister remained at home.
Having dug in, Kuznetsov and Zoya went to the command post to see Drozdovsky. Kuznetsov looked at Zoya, and it seemed to him that he “saw her, Zoya, in a house comfortably heated at night, at a table covered with a clean white tablecloth for the holiday,” in his apartment on Pyatnitskaya.
The battery commander explained the military situation and stated that he was dissatisfied with the friendship that arose between Kuznetsov and Ukhanov. Kuznetsov objected that Ukhanov could have been a good platoon commander if he had received the rank.
When Kuznetsov left, Zoya remained with Drozdovsky. He spoke to her “in the jealous and at the same time demanding tone of a man who had the right to ask her that way.” Drozdovsky was unhappy that Zoya visited Kuznetsov’s platoon too often. He wanted to hide his relationship with her from everyone - he was afraid of gossip that would start circulating around the battery and seep into the headquarters of the regiment or division. Zoya was bitter to think that Drozdovsky loved her so little.
Drozdovsky was from a family of hereditary military men. His father died in Spain, his mother died the same year. After the death of his parents, Drozdovsky did not go to an orphanage, but lived with distant relatives in Tashkent. He believed that his parents had betrayed him and was afraid that Zoya would betray him too. He demanded from Zoya proof of her love for him, but she could not cross the last line, and this angered Drozdovsky.
General Bessonov arrived at Drozdovsky’s battery and was waiting for the return of the scouts who had gone for the “tongue.” The general understood that the turning point of the war had come. The testimony of the “tongue” was supposed to provide the missing information about the reserves of the German army. The outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad depended on this.
The battle began with a Junkers raid, after which German tanks went on the attack. During the bombing, Kuznetsov remembered the gun sights - if they were broken, the battery would not be able to fire. The lieutenant wanted to send Ukhanov, but realized that he had no right and would never forgive himself if something happened to Ukhanov. Risking his life, Kuznetsov went to the guns together with Ukhanov and found there riders Rubin and Sergunenkov, with whom the seriously wounded scout was lying.
Having sent a scout to the OP, Kuznetsov continued the battle. Soon he no longer saw anything around him; he commanded the gun “in an evil rapture, in a reckless and frantic unity with the crew.” The lieutenant felt “this hatred of possible death, this fusion with the weapon, this fever of delirious rage and only at the edge of his consciousness understanding what he was doing.”
Meanwhile, a German self-propelled gun hid behind two tanks knocked out by Kuznetsov and began to shoot at the neighboring gun at point-blank range. Having assessed the situation, Drozdovsky handed Sergunenkov two anti-tank grenades and ordered him to crawl up to the self-propelled gun and destroy it. Young and frightened, Sergunenkov died without fulfilling the order. “He sent Sergunenkov, having the right to order. And I was a witness - and I will curse myself for the rest of my life for this,” thought Kuznetsov.
By the end of the day it became clear that the Russian troops could not withstand the onslaught of the German army. German tanks have already broken through to the northern bank of the Myshkova River. General Bessonov did not want to bring fresh troops into battle, fearing that the army did not have enough strength for a decisive blow. He ordered to fight until the last shell. Now Vesnin understood why there were rumors about Bessonov’s cruelty.
Having moved to K.P. Deev, Bessonov realized that it was here that the Germans directed the main attack. The scout found by Kuznetsov reported that two more people, along with the captured “tongue,” were stuck somewhere in the German rear. Soon Bessonov was informed that the Germans had begun to surround the division.
The chief of army counterintelligence arrived from headquarters. He showed Vesnin a German leaflet, which printed a photograph of Bessonov’s son, and told how well the son of a famous Russian military leader was being cared for in a German hospital. The headquarters wanted Bessnonov to remain permanently at the army command post, under supervision. Vesnin did not believe in Bessonov Jr.’s betrayal, and decided not to show this leaflet to the general for now.
Bessonov brought tank and mechanized corps into battle and asked Vesnin to go towards them and hurry them up. Fulfilling the general’s request, Vesnin died. General Bessonov never found out that his son was alive.
Ukhanov's only surviving gun fell silent late in the evening when the shells obtained from other guns ran out. At this time, the tanks of Colonel General Hoth crossed the Myshkova River. As darkness fell, the battle began to subside behind us.
Now for Kuznetsov everything was “measured in different categories than a day ago.” Ukhanov, Nechaev and Chibisov were barely alive from fatigue. “This one and only surviving gun and four of them were rewarded with a smiling fate, the random happiness of surviving the day and evening of the endless battle, and living longer than others. But there was no joy in life.” They found themselves behind German lines.
Suddenly the Germans began to attack again. In the light of the rockets, they saw the body of a man two steps from their firing platform. Chibisov shot at him, mistaking him for a German. It turned out to be one of those Russian intelligence officers that General Bessonov had been waiting for. Two more scouts, along with the “tongue,” hid in a crater near two damaged armored personnel carriers.
At this time, Drozdovsky appeared at the calculation, along with Rubin and Zoya. Without looking at Drozdovsky, Kuznetsov took Ukhanov, Rubin and Chibisov and went to help the scout. Following Kuznetsov’s group, Drozdovsky joined forces with two signalmen and Zoya.
A captured German and one of the scouts were found at the bottom of a large crater. Drozdovsky ordered a search for the second scout, despite the fact that, making his way to the crater, he attracted the attention of the Germans, and now the entire area was under machine-gun fire. Drozdovsky himself crawled back, taking with him the “tongue” and the surviving scout. On the way, his group came under fire, during which Zoya was seriously wounded in the stomach, and Drozdovsky was shell-shocked.
When Zoya was brought to the crew with her overcoat unfurled, she was already dead. Kuznetsov was like in a dream, “everything that had kept him in unnatural tension these days suddenly relaxed in him.” Kuznetsov almost hated Drozdovsky for not saving Zoya. “He cried so lonely and desperate for the first time in his life. And when he wiped his face, the snow on the sleeve of his quilted jacket was hot from his tears.”
Already late in the evening, Bessonov realized that the Germans had not been pushed off the northern bank of the Myshkova River. By midnight the fighting had stopped, and Bessonov wondered if this was due to the fact that the Germans had used all their reserves. Finally, a “tongue” was brought to the checkpoint, who reported that the Germans had indeed brought reserves into the battle. After interrogation, Bessonov was informed that Vesnin had died. Now Bessonov regretted that their relationship “through the fault of him, Bessonov, did not look the way Vesnin wanted and what it should have been.”
The front commander contacted Bessonov and reported that four tank divisions were successfully reaching the rear of the Don army. The general ordered an attack. Meanwhile, Bessonov's adjutant found a German leaflet among Vesnin's things, but did not dare to tell the general about it.
About forty minutes after the attack began, the battle reached a turning point. Watching the battle, Bessonov could not believe his eyes when he saw that several guns had survived on the right bank. The corps brought into battle pushed the Germans back to the right bank, captured crossings and began to encircle the German troops.
After the battle, Bessonov decided to drive along the right bank, taking with him all the available awards. He awarded everyone who survived after this terrible battle and German encirclement. Bessonov “didn’t know how to cry, and the wind helped him, gave vent to tears of delight, sorrow and gratitude.” The entire crew of Lieutenant Kuznetsov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Ukhanov was offended that Drozdovsky also received the order.
Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and Nechaev sat and drank vodka with orders dipped into it, and the battle continued ahead.
Option 2
Kuznets and his classmates were supposedly going to the Western Front, but after stopping in Saratov it turned out that the entire division was being transferred to Stalingrad. Shortly before unloading at the front line, the locomotive makes a stop. The soldiers, waiting for breakfast, went out to warm up.
Medical instructor Zoya, in love with Drozdovsky, the battery commander and Kuznetsov’s classmate, constantly came to their carriages. At this stop, Deev, the division commander, and Lieutenant General Bessonov, the army commander, joined the squad. Bessonov was approved by Stalin himself in a personal meeting, presumably because of his reputation as a cruel man, ready to do anything to win. Soon the entire division was unloaded and sent towards Paulus's army.
The division had gone far ahead, but the kitchens were left behind. The soldiers were hungry, eating dirty snow, when the order came to join the army of General Bessonov and go out to meet the fascist strike group of Colonel General Goth. Bessonov's army, which included Deev's division, was tasked by the country's supreme leadership with the task of keeping Hoth's army at any sacrifice and not letting them reach Paulus's group. Deev's division is digging in at the line on the banks of the Myshkova River. Fulfilling the order, Kuznetsov’s battery dug in guns near the river bank. Afterwards, Kuznetsov takes Zoya with him and goes to Drozdovsky. Drozdovsky is dissatisfied that Kuznetsov is making friends with another of their classmates, Ukhanov (Ukhanov was unable to receive a worthy title, like his classmates, only because, returning from unauthorized absence through the window of the men's toilet, he found the general sitting on the toilet and laughed for a long time). But Kuznetsov does not support Drozdovsky’s snobbery and communicates with Ukhanov as with his equal. Bessonov comes to Drozdovsky and waits for the scouts who have gone to get the “tongue”. The outcome of the battle for Stalingrad depends on the denunciation of the “tongue”. Suddenly the battle begins. Junkers flew in, followed by tanks. Kuznetsov and Ukhanov make their way to their guns and discover a wounded scout. He reports that the “tongue” with two intelligence officers is now in the fascist rear. Meanwhile, the Nazi army encircles Deev's division.
In the evening, all the shells at the last surviving dug-in gun, behind which Ukhanov stood, ran out. The Germans continued to attack and advance. Kuznetsov, Drozdovsky with Zoya, Ukhanov and several other people from the division find themselves behind German lines. They went to look for scouts with a “tongue”. They are found near the explosion crater and try to rescue them from there. Under fire, Drozdovsky is shell-shocked and Zoya is wounded in the stomach. Zoya dies and Kuznetsov blames Drozdovsky for this. She hates him and sobs, wiping her face with snow hot from tears. “Language”, delivered to Bessonov, confirms that the Germans introduced reserves.
The turning point that influenced the outcome of the battle was the guns dug in near the shore and, by luck, surviving. It was these guns, dug in by Kuznetsov’s battery, that pushed the Nazis back to the right bank, held the crossings and allowed them to encircle the German troops. After the end of this bloody battle, Bessonov collected all the awards that he had and, driving along the banks of the Myshkova River, awarded everyone who survived the German encirclement. Kuznetsov, Ukhanov and several other people from the platoon sat and drank.
Orders of the Red Banner were lowered into glasses, and explosions, screams, and machine gun fire were heard in the distance. There was still a battle ahead.
Summary of Hot Snow Bondarev
During the Great Patriotic War, the writer served as an artilleryman and traveled a long way from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. Among Yuri Bondarev's books about the war, “Hot Snow” occupies a special place; in it, the author solves in a new way the moral questions posed in his first stories - “Battalions Ask for Fire” and “The Last Salvos”. These three books about war are a holistic and evolving world, which in “Hot Snow” reached its greatest fullness and imaginative power.
The events of the novel unfold near Stalingrad, south of the 6th Army of General Paulus, blocked by Soviet troops, in the cold December 1942, when one of our armies held back in the Volga steppe the attack of the tank divisions of Field Marshal Manstein, who was trying to break through a corridor to Paulus's army and lead it out of encirclement. The outcome of the Battle of the Volga and, perhaps, even the timing of the end of the war itself largely depended on the success or failure of this operation. The duration of the action is limited to just a few days, during which the heroes of the novel selflessly defend a tiny patch of land from German tanks.
In “Hot Snow,” time is compressed even more tightly than in the story “Battalions Ask for Fire.” This is a short march of General Bessonov’s army disembarking from the echelons and a battle that decided so much in the fate of the country; these are cold frosty dawns, two days and two endless December nights. Knowing no respite or lyrical digressions, as if the author had lost his breath from constant tension, the novel is distinguished by its directness, direct connection of the plot with the true events of the Great Patriotic War, with one of its decisive moments. The life and death of the novel's heroes, their very destinies are illuminated by the disturbing light of true history, as a result of which everything acquires special weight and significance.
The events at Drozdovsky's battery absorb almost all the reader's attention; the action is concentrated primarily around a small number of characters. Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and their comrades are part of the great army, they are the people. The heroes have his best spiritual and moral traits.
This image of a people who has risen to war appears before us in the richness and diversity of characters, and at the same time in their integrity. It is not limited to images of young lieutenants - commanders of artillery platoons, nor colorful figures of soldiers - like the somewhat cowardly Chibisov, the calm and experienced gunner Evstigneev, or the straightforward and rude driver Rubin; nor by senior officers, such as the division commander, Colonel Deev, or the army commander, General Bessonov. Only all together, with all the difference in ranks and titles, they form the image of a fighting people. The strength and novelty of the novel lies in the fact that this unity is achieved as if by itself, captured without much effort by the author - with living, moving life.
The death of heroes on the eve of victory, the criminal inevitability of death contains a high tragedy and causes a protest against the cruelty of the war and the forces that unleashed it. The heroes of “Hot Snow” die - battery medical instructor Zoya Elagina, shy rider Sergunenkov, member of the Military Council Vesnin, Kasymov and many others die...
In the novel, death is a violation of the highest justice and harmony. Let us remember how Kuznetsov looks at the murdered Kasymov: “Now a shell box lay under Kasymov’s head, and his youthful, mustacheless face, recently alive, dark, had become deathly white, thinned by the eerie beauty of death, looked in surprise with its damp cherry half-opened with his eyes at his chest, at the torn into shreds, dissected padded jacket, as if even after death he did not understand how it killed him and why he was never able to stand up to the gun.”
Kuznetsov feels even more acutely the irreversibility of the loss of his driver Sergunenkov. After all, the cause of his death is fully revealed here. Kuznetsov turned out to be a powerless witness to how Drozdovsky sent Sergunenkov to certain death, and he already knows that he will forever curse himself for what he saw, was present, but was unable to change anything.
In “Hot Snow,” everything human in people, their characters are revealed precisely in war, in dependence on it, under its fire, when, it seems, they cannot even raise their heads. The chronicle of the battle will not tell about its participants - the battle in “Hot Snow?” cannot be separated from the destinies and characters of people.
The past of the characters in the novel is important. For some it is almost cloudless, for others it is so complex and dramatic that it does not remain behind, pushed aside by the war, but accompanies a person in the battle southwest of Stalingrad. The events of the past determined Ukhanov’s military fate: a gifted officer, full of energy, who should have commanded a battery, but he is only a sergeant. Ukhanov’s cool, rebellious character also determines his life path. Chibisov's past troubles, which almost broke him (he spent several months in German captivity), resonated with fear in him and determine a lot in his behavior. One way or another, the novel glimpses the past of Zoya Elagina, Kasymov, Sergunenkov, and the unsociable Rubin, whose courage and loyalty to soldier’s duty we will be able to appreciate only at the very end.
The past of General Bessonov is especially important in the novel. The thought of his son being captured by the Germans complicates his actions both at Headquarters and at the front. And when a fascist leaflet informing that Bessonov’s son was captured falls into the counterintelligence of the front, into the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Osin, it seems that a threat has arisen to the general’s official position.
Probably the most important human feeling in the novel is the love that arises between Kuznetsov and Zoya. War, its cruelty and blood, its timing, overturning the usual ideas about time - it was precisely this that contributed to such a rapid development of this love, when there is no time for reflection and analysis of one’s feelings. And it all begins with Kuznetsov’s quiet, incomprehensible jealousy of Drozdovsky. And soon - so little time passes - he is already bitterly mourning the dead Zoya, and this is where the title of the novel is taken, as if emphasizing the most important thing for the author: when Kuznetsov wiped his face wet from tears, “the snow on the sleeve of his quilted jacket was hot from his tears.”
Having initially been deceived by Lieutenant Drozdovsky, the best cadet at that time, Zoya throughout the novel reveals herself to us as a moral, integral person, ready for self-sacrifice, capable of feeling with all her heart the pain and suffering of many. She goes through many trials. But her kindness, her patience and sympathy are enough for everyone; she is truly a sister to the soldiers. The image of Zoya somehow imperceptibly filled the atmosphere of the book, its main events, its harsh, cruel reality with feminine affection and tenderness.
One of the most important conflicts in the novel is the conflict between Kuznetsov and Drozdovsky. A lot of space is given to this, it is revealed very sharply and can be easily traced from beginning to end. At first there is tension, the roots of which are still in the background of the novel; inconsistency of characters, manners, temperaments, even style of speech: the gentle, thoughtful Kuznetsov seems to find it difficult to endure Drozdovsky’s abrupt, commanding, indisputable speech. Long hours of battle, the senseless death of Sergunenkov, the fatal wound of Zoya, for which Drozdovsky was partly to blame - all this forms a gap between the two young officers, their moral incompatibility.
In the finale, this abyss is indicated even more sharply: the four surviving artillerymen consecrate the newly received orders in a soldier’s bowler hat, and the sip that each of them takes is, first of all, a funeral sip - it contains bitterness and grief of loss. Drozdovsky also received the order, because for Bessonov, who awarded him, he is a survivor, a wounded commander of a surviving battery, the general does not know about his guilt and, most likely, will never know. This is also the reality of war. But it’s not for nothing that the writer leaves Drozdovsky aside from those gathered at the soldier’s bowler hat.
The ethical and philosophical thought of the novel, as well as its emotional intensity, reaches its greatest heights in the finale, when an unexpected rapprochement between Bessonov and Kuznetsov occurs. This is rapprochement without immediate proximity: Bessonov rewarded his officer on an equal basis with others and moved on. For him, Kuznetsov is just one of those who stood to death at the turn of the Myshkova River. Their closeness turns out to be more important: it is the closeness of thought, spirit, and outlook on life. For example, shocked by the death of Vesnin, Bessonov blames himself for the fact that, due to his unsociability and suspicion, he prevented the friendship between them (“the way Vesnin wanted and the way they should be”). Or Kuznetsov, who could do nothing to help Chubarikov’s calculation, which was dying before his eyes, tormented by the piercing thought that all this “seemed to have happened because he did not have time to get close to them, to understand everyone, to love them. .."
Separated by the disproportion of responsibilities, Lieutenant Kuznetsov and army commander General Bessonov are moving towards one goal - not only military, but also spiritual. Suspecting nothing about each other’s thoughts, they think about the same thing, looking for the same truth. Both demandingly ask themselves about the purpose of life and the correspondence of their actions and aspirations to it. They are separated by age and related, like father and son, or even like brother and brother, love for the Motherland and belonging to the people and to humanity in the highest sense of these words.
Yuri Bondarev
HOT SNOW
Chapter One
Kuznetsov could not sleep. The knocking and rattling on the roof of the carriage grew louder and louder, the wind lashed like a blizzard, and the barely visible window above the bunk became more and more densely covered with snow.
The locomotive, with a wild, blizzard-piercing roar, drove the train through the night fields, in the white haze rushing from all sides, and in the thunderous darkness of the carriage, through the frozen squeal of the wheels, through the anxious sobs, the muttering of the soldiers in their sleep, this roar was heard continuously warning someone locomotive, and it seemed to Kuznetsov that there, ahead, behind the snowstorm, the glow of a burning city was already dimly visible.
After the stop in Saratov, it became clear to everyone that the division was urgently being transferred to Stalingrad, and not to the Western Front, as was initially assumed; and now Kuznetsov knew that the journey remained for several hours. And, pulling the hard, unpleasantly damp collar of his overcoat over his cheek, he could not warm himself up, gain warmth in order to sleep: there was a piercing blow through the invisible cracks of the swept window, icy drafts walked through the bunks.
“That means I won’t see my mother for a long time,” thought Kuznetsov, shrinking from the cold, “they drove us past...”.
What was a past life - the summer months at the school in hot, dusty Aktyubinsk, with hot winds from the steppe, with the cries of donkeys on the outskirts suffocating in the sunset silence, so precise in time every night that platoon commanders in tactical exercises, languishing with thirst , not without relief, they checked their watches, marches in the stupefying heat, tunics sweaty and scorched white in the sun, the creaking of sand on their teeth; Sunday patrol of the city, in the city garden, where in the evenings a military brass band played peacefully on the dance floor; then graduation from school, loading into the carriages in alarm on an autumn night, a gloomy forest covered in wild snow, snowdrifts, dugouts of the formation camp near Tambov, then again in alarm at a frosty pink December dawn, hasty loading into the train and, finally, departure - all this unsteady , temporary, someone-controlled life has faded now, remained far behind, in the past. And there was no hope of seeing his mother, and just recently he had almost no doubt that they would be taken west through Moscow.
“I’ll write to her,” Kuznetsov thought with a suddenly aggravated feeling of loneliness, “and I’ll explain everything. After all, we haven’t seen each other for nine months...”
And the whole carriage was sleeping under the grinding, squealing, under the cast-iron roar of the runaway wheels, the walls swayed tightly, the upper bunks shook at the frantic speed of the train, and Kuznetsov, shuddering, having finally vegetated in the drafts near the window, turned back his collar and looked with envy at the commander of the second platoon sleeping next to him. Lieutenant Davlatyan - his face was not visible in the darkness of the bunk.
“No, here, near the window, I won’t sleep, I’ll freeze until I reach the front line,” Kuznetsov thought with annoyance at himself and moved, stirred, hearing the frost crunching on the boards of the carriage.
He freed himself from the cold, prickly tightness of his place, jumped off the bunk, feeling that he needed to warm up by the stove: his back was completely numb.
In the iron stove on the side of the closed door, flickering with thick frost, the fire had long gone out, only the ash-blower was red with a motionless pupil. But it seemed a little warmer down here. In the gloom of the carriage, this crimson glow of coal faintly illuminated the various new felt boots, bowlers, and duffel bags under their heads sticking out in the aisle. The orderly Chibisov slept uncomfortably on the lower bunks, right on the soldiers’ feet; his head was tucked into his collar up to the top of his hat, his hands were tucked into the sleeves.
Chibisov! - Kuznetsov called and opened the door of the stove, which wafted out a barely perceptible warmth from inside. - Everything went out, Chibisov!
There was no answer.
Orderly, do you hear?
Chibisov jumped up in fear, sleepy, rumpled, his hat with earflaps pulled low and tied with ribbons under his chin. Not yet waking up from sleep, he tried to push the earflaps off his forehead, untie the ribbons, crying out incomprehensibly and timidly:
What am I? No way, fell asleep? It literally stunned me into unconsciousness. I apologize, Comrade Lieutenant! Wow, I was chilled to the bones in my drowsiness!..
“We fell asleep and let the whole car get cold,” Kuznetsov said reproachfully.
“I didn’t mean to, Comrade Lieutenant, by accident, without intent,” Chibisov muttered. - It knocked me down...
Then, without waiting for Kuznetsov’s orders, he fussed around with excessive cheerfulness, grabbed a board from the floor, broke it over his knee and began to push the fragments into the stove. At the same time, stupidly, as if his sides were itching, he moved his elbows and shoulders, often bending down, busily looking into the ash pit, where the fire was creeping in with lazy reflections; Chibisov's animated, soot-stained face expressed conspiratorial servility.
Now, Comrade Lieutenant, I’ll get you warm! Let's heat it up, it will be smooth in the bathhouse. I myself am frozen because of the war! Oh, how cold I am, every bone aches - there are no words!..
Kuznetsov sat down opposite the open stove door. The orderly's exaggeratedly deliberate fussiness, this obvious hint of his past, was unpleasant to him. Chibisov was from his platoon. And the fact that he, with his immoderate diligence, always reliable, lived for several months in German captivity, and from the first day of his appearance in the platoon was constantly ready to serve everyone, aroused wary pity for him.
Chibisov gently, womanishly, sank onto his bunk, his sleepless eyes blinking.
So we're going to Stalingrad, Comrade Lieutenant? According to the reports, what a meat grinder there is! Aren't you afraid, Comrade Lieutenant? Nothing?
“We’ll come and see what kind of meat grinder it is,” Kuznetsov responded sluggishly, peering into the fire. - What, are you afraid? Why did you ask?
Yes, one might say, I don’t have the fear that I had before,” Chibisov answered falsely cheerfully and, sighing, put his small hands on his knees, spoke in a confidential tone, as if wanting to convince Kuznetsov: “After our people freed me from captivity.” , believed me, Comrade Lieutenant. And I spent three whole months, like a puppy in shit, with the Germans. They believed... It’s such a huge war, different people are fighting. How can you immediately believe? - Chibisov glanced cautiously at Kuznetsov; he was silent, pretending to be busy with the stove, warming himself with its living warmth: he concentratedly clenched and unclenched his fingers over the open door. - Do you know how I was captured, Comrade Lieutenant?.. I didn’t tell you, but I want to tell you. The Germans drove us into a ravine. Near Vyazma. And when their tanks came close, surrounded, and we no longer had any shells, the regimental commissar jumped onto the top of his “emka” with a pistol, shouting: “Better death than being captured by the fascist bastards!” - and shot himself in the temple. It even splashed from my head. And the Germans are running towards us from all sides. Their tanks are strangling people alive. Here is... the colonel and someone else...
Colonel Deev's division was sent to Stalingrad. Its gallant composition included an artillery battery, led by Lieutenant Drozdovsky. One of the platoons was commanded by Kuznetsov, Drozdovsky’s college classmate.
There were twelve fighters in the Kuznetsov platoon, among whom were Ukhanov, Nechaev and Chibisov. The latter was in Nazi captivity, so he was not particularly trusted.
Nechaev used to work as a sailor and was very fond of girls. Often the guy looked after Zoya Elagina, who was a battery medical instructor.
Sergeant Ukhanov worked in the criminal investigation department in quiet times of peace, and then graduated from the same educational institution as Drozdovsky and Kuznetsov. Due to one unpleasant incident, Ukhanov did not receive the rank of officer, so Drozdovsky treated the guy with disdain. Kuznetsov was friends with him.
Zoya often resorted to the trailers where the Drozdov battery was located. Kuznetsov suspected that the medical instructor appeared in the hope of meeting with the commander.
Soon Deev arrived along with an unknown general. As it turned out, it was Lieutenant General Bessonov. He lost his son at the front and remembered him while looking at the young lieutenants.
The field kitchens lagged behind, the soldiers were hungry and ate snow instead of water. Kuznetsov tried to talk about this with Drozdovsky, but he abruptly interrupted the conversation. The army began to move on, cursing the elders who were disappearing somewhere.
Stalin sent the Deevsky division to the south to delay Hitler's strike group "Goth". This formed army was to be controlled by Pyotr Aleksandrovich Bessonov, an aloof and elderly soldier.
Bessonov was very worried about the disappearance of his son. The wife asked to take Victor into her army, but the young man did not want to. Pyotr Alexandrovich did not force him, and after a while he very much regretted that he had not saved his only child.
At the end of autumn, Bessonov’s main goal was to detain the Nazis who were stubbornly making their way to Stalingrad. It was necessary to make sure that the Germans retreated. A powerful tank corps was added to Bessonov's army.
At night, Deev’s division began preparing trenches on the banks of the Myshkovaya River. The soldiers dug into the frozen ground and scolded their commanders who had fallen behind the regiment along with the army kitchen. Kuznetsov recalled his native place; his sister and mother were waiting for him at home. Soon he and Zoya headed to Drozdovsky. The guy liked the girl and he imagined her in his cozy home.
The medical instructor remained face-to-face with Drozdovsky. The commander stubbornly hid their relationship from everyone - he did not want gossip and gossip. Drozdovsky believed that his dead parents had betrayed him and did not want Zoya to do the same to him. The fighter wanted the girl to prove her love, but Zoya could not afford to take certain steps...
During the first battle, the Junkers attacked, then began to attack the fascist tanks. While the active bombing was going on, Kuznetsov decided to use the gun sights and, together with Ukhanov, headed towards them. There friends found the mounts and a dying scout.
The scout was promptly taken to the OP. Kuznetsov selflessly continued to fight. Drozdovsky gave the order to Sergunenkov to knock out the self-propelled gun and gave him a couple of anti-tank grenades. The young boy failed to carry out the order and was killed along the way.
At the end of this weary day it became obvious that our army would not be able to withstand the onslaught of the enemy division. Fascist tanks broke through to the north of the river. General Bessonov gave the order to the others to fight to the end; he did not attract new troops, leaving them for the final powerful blow. Vesnin only now realized why everyone considered the general cruel...
The wounded intelligence officer reported that several people with a “tongue” were in the rear of the Nazis. A little later, the general was informed that the Nazis began to surround the army.
The counterintelligence commander arrived from the main headquarters. He handed Vesnin a German paper with a photo of Bessonov’s son and a text describing how wonderfully he was being looked after in a German military hospital. Vesnin did not believe in Victor’s betrayal and did not give the leaflet to the general yet.
Vesnin died while fulfilling Bessonov’s request. The general was never able to find out that his child was alive.
The surprise German attack began again. In the rear, Chibisov shot at a man because he mistook him for an enemy. But later it became known that it was our intelligence officer, whom Bessonov never received. The remaining scouts, along with the German prisoner, were hiding near the damaged armored personnel carriers.
Soon Drozdovsky arrived with a medical instructor and Rubin. Chibisov, Kuznetsov, Ukhanov and Rubin went to help the scout. They were followed by a couple of signalmen, Zoya and the commander himself.
“Tongue” and one scout were quickly found. Drozdovsky took them with him and gave the order to look for the second one. The Germans noticed Drozdovsky's group and fired - the girl was wounded in the abdominal area, and the commander himself was shell-shocked.
Zoya was hastily carried to the crew, but they could not save her. Kuznetsov cried for the first time, the guy blamed Drozdovsky for what happened.
By evening, General Bessonov realized that it was impossible to detain the Germans. But they brought in a German prisoner who said that they had to use all their reserves. When the interrogation ended, the general learned of Vesnin's death.
The front commander contacted the general, saying that the tank divisions were safely moving to the rear of the Don army. Bessonov gave the order to attack the hated enemy. But then one of the soldiers found among the things of the deceased Vesnin a paper with a photograph of Bessonov Jr., but was afraid to give it to the general.
The turning point has begun. Reinforcements pushed the fascist divisions to the other side and began to surround them. After the battle, the general took various awards and went to the right bank. Everyone who heroically survived the battle received awards. The Order of the Red Banner went to all Kuznetsov’s fighters. Drozdovsky was also awarded, which displeased Ukhanov.
The battle continued. Nechaev, Rubin, Ukhanov and Kuznetsov drank alcohol with medals in their glasses...
