From the Soviet information bureau articles of the Second World War. A patriot is a person serving the Motherland, and the Motherland is, first of all, the people

Theme of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. still interests historians not only in our country, but also abroad. The history of war has deep research traditions and extensive literature.

The researchers provided answers to many questions, but not all. Some problems were closed to scientists, and archival materials were inaccessible. Until recently, one of the “blank spots” remained the activities of the Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformburo).

For the Soviet people, the Sovinformburo was inextricably linked with the name of the All-Union Radio announcer Yuri Levitan and daily reports from the front. The messages of the Sovinformburo were eagerly awaited in every corner of our country; they were secretly distributed in the occupied territory. At stations, on trains, hospitals and city squares, display cases with the latest messages from this agency were installed, and the front line was marked on maps with flags.

The Sovinformburo was formed by a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on June 24, 1941, two days after the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR. A.S. Shcherbakov, secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, who was in charge of ideological issues, was appointed its head. The Sovinformburo included S.A. Lozovsky, Y.S. Khavinson, D.A. Polikarpov and others.

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR entrusted the Sovinformburo with the leadership of the coverage of international events and the internal life of the Soviet Union during the war years on the radio and in the press, the organization of counter-propaganda against the Nazi media, and the publication of military reports based on materials from the High Command of the Red Army 2. The Soviet Information Bureau was also supposed to direct the activities of the All-Slavic Committee and anti-fascist committees created at the beginning of the war: Soviet women, youth, scientists, and Jewish. Since 1942, the Sovinformburo was reoriented mainly to communication with foreign media, public and political organizations. For this purpose, 11 departments were created within the structure of the Sovinformburo 3.

Historical literature, memoirs of military leaders and statesmen showed the role of the information agency as the only source of daily information about the course of hostilities and the most important events in the country and abroad 4 .

At the same time, the assessment of the activities of the Sovinformburo was of an informative, illustrative nature; often the information agency was combined with the radio committee. Historical journalism has also avoided this topic. Employees of departments and anti-fascist committees did not leave any memories. Meanwhile, the timeliness and relevance of studying the history of the news agency is seen in the exceptional role of this body in the formation of public consciousness during the war years.

This article analyzes published and unpublished sources. Of greatest interest is the 8-volume edition of “Messages of the Soviet Information Bureau” 5. Here are collected messages and reports of the Sovinformburo from the moment of its creation until May 15, 1945. The materials are compiled on a chronological basis. The volumes are accompanied by a reference book containing chronological, alphabetical, geographical, subject-thematic and name indexes, as well as an index of special and individual messages of the Sovinformburo 6.

The Sovinformburo published its first military information on June 25, 1941: reports of the Red Army High Command for two days of fighting, June 22 and 23, were printed 7 . Subsequently, reports from the front began to appear daily. The morning edition covered the events of the previous night, and the evening edition analyzed the results of the day's military operations.

To quickly convey information to the population, from November 22, 1941, the Sovinformburo issued separate messages under the heading “At the Last Hour.” They contained reports about the victories of the Red Army over the enemy. The first issue was called “Strike on Enemy Troops” and announced the successful offensive operation of Soviet troops near the city of Rostov-on-Don 8 . The last one was published on March 11, 1943, and reported on the occupation of the city of Vyazma by the Red Army troops 9 . From March 12, 1943, when victories at the fronts became frequent, the Sovinformburo switched to its previous mode of operation. From July 6, 1943, instead of morning and evening information, daily operational reports began to be published 10.

The messages of the Sovinformburo were structured according to a certain pattern. First, the results of the battles were summed up in each direction, then the numbers of destroyed enemy equipment and manpower were given, then the losses of Soviet troops (but not always). From the very first day, descriptions of combat episodes and exploits of the Red Army soldiers began to be given. In total, during the war years, reports named 14,470 names of distinguished soldiers 11.

The daily combat report of the Sovinformburo, going from the General Staff to the radio committee announcer, underwent significant changes. The final version belonged to A.S. Shcherbakov, who was guided by one rule - that the ratio of losses should always be in favor of the Red Army. Thus, reports on downed aircraft for June 22-24, 1941 indicated that Soviet aviation lost 374 aircraft, and German aviation lost 381 12; On June 25, our losses - 17 aircraft, German - 76 13; On June 30, the losses were 21 and 102 aircraft, respectively 14.

The results of the fighting during the first three months of the war were discussed in an article signed by A.S. Shcherbakov, “Hitler is deceiving his people,” published in the newspaper Pravda on October 5, 1941 and broadcast by the Sovinformburo on radio 15. The draft text of the article stated: “... German losses near Leningrad - 105 thousand”; after editing by A.S. Shcherbakov, the figure 140 thousand appeared. In the draft we read: “... it has been documented that in three months of the war the Germans lost 11,100 tanks, about 13,200 guns, at least 10,000 aircraft..., the Red Army inflicts 3 -4 times more damage compared to your losses.” In the final version, “3-4 times” was corrected to “2-3 times” and the expression “documentedly established” was crossed out 16. Overtly enthusiastic expressions were also removed and German losses were somewhat reduced: “... during 3 months of the war, the Germans lost more than 11 thousand tanks, 13 thousand guns, 9 thousand aircraft and over 3 million soldiers” 17. Compared to the losses of German troops, our losses looked much more modest: “1,128 thousand in manpower, about 7 thousand tanks, 8.9 thousand guns, 5316 aircraft” 18.

Comparing the “Messages of the Soviet Information Bureau” based on the figures of combat losses with the materials of A.S. Shcherbakov’s draft notes, we can conclude that the digital material of the messages did not correspond to reality and was compiled for propaganda purposes. In the latest issue of the book “The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.” It was noted that by November 1941, German losses in the ground forces amounted to only 750 thousand people 19. The research of M.I. Meltyukhov provides the following data: before the start of the war with the USSR, the Germans had only 3899 tanks and 4841 aircraft 20 . Thus, A.S. Shcherbakov’s article “destroyed” the Nazis’ military equipment at least twice.

The collection “Messages of the Soviet Information Bureau” contains materials refuting the speeches of the leaders of Nazi Germany and the messages of the German Information Bureau about the course of hostilities on the Soviet-German front. The Wehrmacht High Command and Goebbels propaganda, trying to maintain the morale of the soldiers and the chauvinistic frenzy of the German population, tried in every possible way to hide the true figures of their losses on the Eastern Front, fabricating legends about the “defeat of the Red Army”, about the number of captured Soviet soldiers. With the help of disinformation, the enemy tried to influence Soviet soldiers, the population of temporarily occupied areas of the USSR and world public opinion.

The eight-volume collection contains eyewitness accounts, photographs, acts and other materials about the barbarity, robberies, and atrocities that the Nazis committed in the occupied territory of our country. In particular, the facts of the monstrous outrage against the memory of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana, the order of Field Marshal Reichenau on the destruction of historical and artistic values, on the extermination of the civilian population 21 were made public and brought to the attention of the Soviet people and the world community. It should be noted that these messages occupied a prominent place in ideological and political work during the Great Patriotic War. For this purpose, the Information Bureau reports were published in all newspapers, broadcast on the radio, conversations, political information, and meetings were held on them.

Deploying counter-propaganda, the Soviet Information Bureau published more than 15 major materials in the first six months of the war alone 22. The Information Bureau revealed in its publications how the enemy calculated the losses of Soviet tanks, aircraft, guns, etc. The collection contains a lot of other data that is of undoubted interest to historians.

In 1962, the Central State Archive of the October Revolution published a collection of documents and materials included in the series “History of International Proletarian Solidarity” 23 . It contains resolutions of anti-fascist rallies, messages about expressions of support for the Soviet people, telegrams and manifestos from various foreign organizations, governments and individuals. All appeals and appeals called for the unification of peoples to fight against fascism. Based on the analysis of published documents, it is possible to trace the formation and strengthening of international relations of anti-fascist committees, growing international solidarity with the struggle of the Soviet people against fascist aggression. The materials in the collection were published in the central press.

In 1982, the two-volume book “From the Soviet Information Bureau” was published with an introductory article by E. Henry, authorized by the Soviet Information Bureau in London during the war. The publication is a collection in which, unlike the texts included in the eight-volume edition, materials of an artistic and journalistic nature are published, addressed to a foreign reader, but also published in our country. It opens with an article by I. Ehrenburg “On the first day of the war.” The following works are also included here: V. Grossman “Direction of the Main Strike”, F. Panferov “Gifts”, V. Stavsky “Elninsky Strike”, K. Simonov “Cover Parts”, N. Tikhonov “City in Armor”, A. Tolstoy “ Only victory and life”, M. Sholokhov “On the way to the front”, L. Leonov “To an unknown American friend”, K. Fedina “Volga-Mississippi”, etc. 24

The collection contains a significant artistic and emotional charge. The materials collected in it allow you to feel the mood and moral-psychological state of the Soviet people, transport you back to the times of general elation and the desire to give a worthy rebuff to the fascist invaders, makes it possible to identify propaganda methods, the logic of evidence, and the style of materials sent by the Bureau to foreign publications.

An important source for the scientific development of the history of the war are the memoirs of Soviet commanders. Their memories are full of rich factual material and allow us to reconstruct many events in more detail. So, from the memoirs of S.M. Shtemenko managed to find out how the General Staff of the Red Army prepared data for the reports of the Soviet Information Bureau, how they were personally reported to A.S. Shcherbakov 25 .

However, the main source for studying the activities of the Sovinformburo are archival materials. First of all, it is necessary to note the documents stored in the State Archives of the Russian Federation, fund 8581 - Sovinformburo. There are 175 cases reflecting the foreign policy activities of the Information Bureau. Among them are materials such as reports on the work of departments and committees for certain periods of activity, transcripts of staff meetings, manuscripts of articles, copies of which were sent for publication in foreign press, articles by prominent political figures, representatives of science and art, translations of their diaries and letters from German soldiers and officers, proposals for improving work, etc. Materials are arranged chronologically. The reports on the work done are of greatest interest; These documents were drawn up according to a certain scheme; they succinctly and briefly outlined the activities of the relevant department for a certain period.

Information Bureau employees had to make enormous efforts to establish relations with foreign publishing houses, public and political organizations, since before the Great Patriotic War, thanks to the Stalinist system, an iron curtain was created in communication with other countries. As a result of the signing of the non-aggression act with Nazi Germany, enormous damage was caused to the international prestige of the USSR, anti-fascist forces were weakened and disoriented; Even earlier, ties with the Social Democrats were completely severed.

At first, the team of authors of the Sovinformburo did not know how to adapt to the requirements of the foreign press (articles had to be brief, specific and prompt), there were few specialists in literary translations into foreign languages, and there was departmental disunity in the mass media of the Soviet Union. Each newspaper and magazine wanted to have their own correspondents so that they would work only for their own publication. During the initial period of the war, many foreign correspondents were not allowed to collect information at the front. Therefore, foreign media were forced to use materials from the Sovinformburo.

At meetings of Sovinformburo staff, problems of improving the quality of materials sent to the foreign press were resolved. The low efficiency of the work of the Sovinformburo was repeatedly noted. “The Germans work much better, much more efficiently,” S.A. Lozovsky said at one of the meetings 26 . These difficulties were then successfully overcome.

Among other documents of the fund, individual issues of foreign newspapers and telegraph messages to the Sovinformburo about the dissemination of its articles in various countries are of significant interest. Using these materials, it is possible to trace in which countries and press organs the articles of the Information Bureau employees were published. Reading manuscripts of articles, copies of which were sent to foreign press, leaves not only an indelible impression, but also helps to identify the mechanism of their editing (editing by military censorship). Another extremely interesting layer of the fund’s documents is translations of letters from German soldiers and officers. As a rule, documents of this kind were selected for a specific purpose for use in counter-propaganda, preparation of this or that material for print or radio broadcasts.

Archival documents require critical analysis, since information and assessments of the activities of Sovinformburo bodies were often distorted for propaganda purposes. Documents reflecting the activities of the Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Scientists, materials of editorial edits, documents of the Military (censorship) department, resolutions and instructions of higher authorities were confiscated from the funds of the Sovinformburo.

Until recently, researchers had limited access to documents from the fund of A.S. Shcherbakov, head of the Sovinformburo, which is stored in the Russian Center for the Storage and Study of Documents of Contemporary History 27 . These are articles and messages of the Sovinformburo with editing by A.S. Shcherbakov, transmittal notes to J.V. Stalin with the most important, final messages, notebooks with draft reports, business notes, transcripts of speeches at meetings. This group of documents made it possible to identify the role of A.S. Shcherbakov as Secretary of the Party Central Committee in shaping the style of work of the subordinate apparatus, determining its tasks and methods. “The basic principle of all our work,” noted A.S. Shcherbakov, “should be such an iron rule, from which you cannot deviate and which you strictly carry out, this rule is this: use newspapers, magazines, radio, the devil, the devil, Satan, anyone , but in the interests of our Soviet cause and under no circumstances allow yourself to be used” 28. With this conclusion about the role of the media, A.S. Shcherbakov emphasized that they were, first of all, an ideological instrument of the policy being pursued.

The influence of the ideological concept of the party on the activities of the Sovinformburo was emphasized by the leadership not by chance. The situation at that time forced both editors and correspondents to strictly adhere to certain rules, such as: the Soviet system is the most just system in the world, everything Soviet is the best in the world, the Soviet person is the freest, the proletariat of other countries is certainly oppressed, etc. d. Deviation from ideological postulates entailed inclusion in the category of enemies of the people, followed by repression.

Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformburo) January 15th, 2013

"From the Soviet Information Bureau." During the war years, radio broadcasts began with these words. Frozen at the loudspeakers - at work, on the streets, at home - millions of people across the country, with bated breath, listened to reports about the situation at the front, about the courage and heroism of Soviet soldiers. Created on the third day after the start of the war by decision of the Central Committee of the party and the government, the new agency fulfilled the task assigned to it: “... to cover international events, military operations on the fronts and the life of the country in the press and on the radio.”

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the need arose to intensify propaganda and explanatory work in the USSR and in anti-fascist countries. To solve this problem, the Soviet Information Bureau was created under the Council of People's Commissars and the highest party body - the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

To solve this problem, the Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformburo, NIB) was created under the highest executive and administrative body of the Soviet state, its government - the Council of People's Commissars (SNK USSR) and the highest party body - the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

It was an information political body formed by the decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated June 24, 1941 "On the creation and tasks of the Soviet Information Bureau" to guide media coverage of military actions on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, compilation and publication of military reports on materials from the main command, as well as coverage of internal events of the USSR and international life.

(Military Encyclopedia. Chairman of the Main Editorial Commission S.B. Ivanov. Military Publishing House. Moscow. in 8 volumes. 2004)

Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, Alexander Shcherbakov, was appointed head of the NIB. The bureau included the head of TASS, Yakov Khavinson, the head of the All-Union Radio Committee, Polikarpov, and a group of workers from the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

The structure of the Sovinformburo included a military department, a translation department, a propaganda and counter-propaganda department, an international affairs department, a literary department, etc.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Sovinformburo supervised the work of war correspondents, provided information to embassies and consulates of the USSR abroad, foreign broadcasting corporations and radio stations, telegraph and newspaper agencies, societies of friends of the USSR, newspapers and magazines of various directions.

The responsibilities of the ISS included compiling and publishing reports on materials from the High Command (produced mainly by the General Staff and then by a special group that worked in the apparatus of the Propaganda and Agitation Directorate of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) to collect additional facts and compile information for the main report of the General Staff) and informing the public foreign countries about the events taking place on the Soviet-German front and about the work of the Soviet rear.

Information Bureau reports were necessarily delivered to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. There was one more direction in the propaganda work of the NIB, which was given great importance. These are leaflets with appeals to German soldiers, which were prepared jointly with the main political department of the Red Army.

The work of the Soviet Information Bureau during the Second World War. Video archive

From October 14, 1941 to March 3, 1942, the SIB was located in Kuibyshev, from where reports were transmitted to regional newspapers. They usually consisted of two parts: information from the Supreme High Command at the end of each day: about destroyed aircraft, tanks, and enemy personnel. These messages were supplemented by news received from correspondents of central and front-line newspapers, radio and TASS correspondents.

The ISS had an extensive network of bodies and permanent correspondents at the fronts and fleets, and maintained close contact with party bodies in the country and the Armed Forces, with military command and control bodies.

At this time, the NIB author staff consisted of approximately 80 people. These were famous Soviet writers, journalists, public figures, as well as their own correspondents. A literary group was formed as part of the Soviet Information Bureau, which included Vera Inber, Valentin Kataev, Evgeny Petrov, Boris Polevoy, Konstantin Simonov, Nikolai Tikhonov, Alexey Tolstoy, Alexander Fadeev, Konstantin Fedin, Korney Chukovsky, Mikhail Sholokhov, Ilya Erenburg and many others . The role of Ilya Ehrenburg was especially significant - during the war years he wrote more than three hundred articles for the NIB, which invariably caused a wide resonance both in the USSR and in the West. War correspondent of the Sovinformburo Evgeny Petrov (one of the creators of “The Twelve Chairs” and “The Golden Calf”) died in the line of duty in 1942.

The anti-fascist committees were under the direct jurisdiction of the Sovinformburo: the All-Slavic Committee, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Scientists, the Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Youth and the Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Women.

(APN from the Sovinformburo to RIA Novosti, Publishing House of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise RIA Vesti, 2001, pp. 13, 18, 19)

Through 1,171 newspapers, 523 magazines and 18 radio stations in 23 countries of the world, the Sovinformburo introduced readers and listeners of foreign countries to the struggle of the Soviet Army and people against fascism.

The Sovinformburo programs “At the Last Hour”, “Sovinformburo Reports”, “Letters from the Front and to the Front” and others were listened to by the whole country.

NIB operational reports were issued daily from June 25, 1941 to May 15, 1945. In total, more than two thousand front-line reports were issued during the war years.

Radio reports were usually read out by Yuri Levitan, whose voice became a symbol of the most important government messages. From the first days of the Great Patriotic War, millions of people every day froze in front of their radios at the words of Levitan “From the Soviet Information Bureau...”

Front-line reports for newspapers were broadcast from 5 to 6 o'clock in the morning, while the announcer read the text slowly, and spelled out the names of settlements, so it was not difficult to write down the text. Sovinformburo reports were front-page materials in Soviet newspapers. At that time, not every village had radio points, and they worked with great interruptions, and then the newspaper got its word across.

People recorded and reproduced messages from the information bureau, and read them out to work groups. They were even painted. The famous artist Alexander Volkov created the painting “At the Sovinformburo Report,” which depicts people eagerly reading messages from the front. This painting went down in the history of Soviet art during the war period.

Sovinformburo reports were published until the very last days of the Great Patriotic War. They stopped being produced only after the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany.

The last operational report of the Sovinformburo was published on May 15, 1945. Then, on Moscow radio, Yuri Levitan reported: “The reception of captured German soldiers on all fronts has been completed.”

The difficult conditions of the war years did not allow recording on magnetic tape reports and messages from the Sovinformburo broadcast live. To preserve these historical materials, in the 60-70s. XX century they were again voiced and recorded on magnetic tape by the announcer of the All-Union Radio, People's Artist of the USSR Yuri Levitan. During the research work, the editors of the radio fund were able to find and preserve a unique recording of Levitan’s message about the completion of the Berlin operation and the capture of the capital of Germany, the city of Berlin, on May 2, 1945.

By June 1944, the Sovinformburo was reorganized into 11 departments, employing up to 215 people. At the same time, a special bureau for propaganda in foreign countries was created. In 1946, the NIB staff increased to 370 people.

In 1946, in accordance with the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated October 9, 1946, the Sovinformburo was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The main attention of the Sovinformburo after the end of the war was focused on covering the domestic and foreign policies of the USSR abroad and events in people's democracies. For the work of the Sovinformburo to publish literary materials about the life of the USSR in foreign countries, its representative offices abroad were established.

In 1953, in accordance with the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated March 28, 1953, the Sovinformburo, with the rights of the Main Directorate, became part of the USSR Ministry of Culture.

In March 1957, the Sovinformburo was transferred to the jurisdiction of the State Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

By resolution of the CPSU Central Committee of January 5, 1961, the Sovinformburo was liquidated and on its basis the News Press Agency (APN) was created, which became the leading information and journalistic body of Soviet public organizations.

From June 24, 1941 until May 9, 1945, every day of millions of Soviet citizens began and ended with the words: “From the Soviet Information Bureau...”

The Great Patriotic War confirmed that the word is no less effective a weapon than machine guns and tanks. Levitan's name was one of the first on the list of enemies of the Third Reich...

About how the first Soviet news agency was created, how it resisted German propaganda at home and abroad, and how it developed after the war - in the program “Made by the USSR” - “From the Soviet Information Bureau”.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Levitan, who has a voice of extraordinary power, read the reports of the Sovinformburo during the Great Patriotic War, announced the capture of Berlin on May 4, 1945 and the Victory. And in April 1961, Yuri Borisovich informed the world about Yuri Gagarin’s first flight into space.

Yurbor - that’s what his colleagues from the Radio Committee called him. The Soviet Information Bureau was created on the third day of the war - June 24, 1941. Every day people froze at the loudspeaker at the words spoken by Yuri Levitan: “From the Soviet information bureau...” General Chernyakhovsky once said: “Yuri Levitan could replace an entire division...” Levitan often received letters from the front. The soldiers wrote: “Let's go forward. Take care of your voice. There will be more work for you."

Hitler declared him his personal enemy number one and promised to “hang him as soon as the Wehrmacht enters Moscow.” A reward of 250 thousand marks was promised for the head of the first announcer of the Soviet Union.

In the summer of forty-one, a bomb fell into the courtyard of the Radio Committee, and German radio hastened to report: “The Bolshevik radio center has been destroyed! Levitan has been killed! But rumors about the announcer's death were clearly exaggerated: the bomb fell into a sewer hatch and did not explode. As Levitan himself recalled, not even a quarter of an hour had passed before his voice sounded on the air again.

“My friends from the editorial office of the Yunost magazine asked me: did I know in those years that the Nazis had placed a monetary reward on my head? - Levitan recalled. - Well, what should I answer? Yes, military comrades who came from the front to Moscow showed me leaflets of this kind. The point here is not that it was my head that was valued highly. As far as I am aware of events, someone in Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda wanted the Moscow Radio announcer to notify the whole world from Berlin about the fall of Moscow and the surrender of Russia, which the Nazis expected any day. Jesuit idea!..”

Mark Bernes (left) and Yuri Levitan on the set of the film "Two Fighters"

In his memoirs, published in Yunost in 1966, Yuri Levitan admitted: “So, I have no hopes of ever writing memoirs. And I have already come to terms with this thought. But then one day, many years after the war, I performed in Leningrad. Somehow it happened by itself that I read to the public an old report from the Sovinformburo about breaking the siege of Leningrad. I reproduced not only the text, but also the nuances of the intonation with which I read the same summary then. And I saw that many in the hall were crying, and I myself suddenly got goosebumps. We all seemed to plunge into the atmosphere of those difficult years, as if a long-past day had returned. I read from memory the reports of the Soviet Information Bureau and, it seems to me, created in the listeners the mood that once, with the sensitivity of a barometer, reflected the state of affairs on the war fronts; more and more various details emerged in my memory. It turned out that the situation was not so bad, that I remember much more than I thought. Obviously, there are events of such power and significance that years cannot erase them from the faintest memory..."

Levitan was born in Vladimir and lived in Moscow for many years. But for the besieged St. Petersburg residents, over the course of 900 terrible days, he became a truly dear person who helped them survive.

“I remember a lot, but very fragmentarily, like individual episodic pictures snatched from the darkness by a spotlight - this is from the memories of the siege survivor Zinaida Stepanova. “There was quiet despair, but the radio saved me from it. They clung to the black plate of the loudspeaker, listened to Levitan’s voice, and if the Information Bureau’s report was good, they rejoiced... Olga Berggolts’s poems were perceived not as poetry, but as a continuation of the front-line report. I also remember, of course, the Leningrad metronome and the air raid siren. They hid from the bombings in the basement of the house, which was turned into a bomb shelter. They burned luxurious St. Petersburg parquet in ovens, burned furniture and books. They carried water from the Griboyedov Canal on sleds. They sold cards in a bakery, which was called “U Krin” after the previous owner and was decorated with figurines of angels...”

And here is another testimony from blockade survivor Alexander Leonov: “Levitan seemed like a dear person living nearby. It seemed that the words he spoke helped to survive in those inhuman conditions, to believe that this hell would end, and he would definitely announce it...”

Yuri Levitan reads out the “Act of Unconditional Surrender of the German Armed Forces.”

He was a people's artist, but few knew him by sight. He recalled that because of this he was almost late to report the Victory over Nazi Germany. “The radio studio from which such broadcasts were broadcast was located not far from the Kremlin, behind the GUM building. To get there, you had to cross Red Square. But before us is a sea of people. With the help of the police and soldiers, we took about five meters in battle, but nothing further. “Comrades,” I shout, “let me through, we’re on business!” And they answer us: “What’s going on there! Now Levitan will transmit the order of victory on the radio and there will be fireworks. Stand like everyone else, listen and watch!” Wow advice... And then it dawned on us: there is a radio station in the Kremlin, too, we need to read from there! We run back, explain the situation to the commandant, and he gives the command to the guards not to stop the two people running along the Kremlin corridors. Here is the radio station. We tear off the wax seals from the package and reveal the text. The clock shows 21 hours 55 minutes. “Moscow speaks. Nazi Germany is defeated..."

And after his death, the great announcer remained in the shadows. After the war, people heard him less and less; since the early 70s, Levitan almost never went on the air, because it seemed to his superiors that his voice was associated by listeners, who should be exclusively positive, with emergency situations. He began dubbing newsreels. He died in August 1983, when, despite heart pain, he went to meet veterans. Before leaving he said: “I can’t let people down. They're waiting for me."

That August turned out to be unusually hot - the thermometer showed more than 40 degrees. On August 4, on the field near Prokhorovka, where the famous Battle of Kursk took place during the Great Patriotic War, Yuri Borisovich became ill. The doctors of the rural hospital to which Levitan was taken could no longer do anything. On the night of August 4, 1983, the country lost its main voice. Tens of thousands of people came to say goodbye to Levitan in Moscow...

In 2008, a documentary film about life in rear-facing Sverdlovsk during the war was filmed in Yekaterinburg. One of the main characters of the film is the famous radio announcer Yuri Levitan. There are almost no documents left about his work in the Urals, much less witnesses. Levitan's stay in Sverdlovsk was strictly classified. He was transported there in September 1941. The radio committee was located in a two-story mansion at the intersection of Radishchev and 8th March streets (a memorial plaque is now installed on this house - see the photo below). Now there is a regional branch of the Yabloko party, Pelmennaya and an employment bureau for people without a fixed place of residence. The basement in which Levitan worked still exists.

The Urals preserves the memory of Levitan; Streets and ships are named after the announcer...

Levitan worked in Sverdlovsk until March 1943. This secret was revealed only twenty years after the victory. And, according to playwright Alexander Arkhipov, who wrote the script for the film about rear-facing Sverdlovsk, today it is almost impossible to find documents about that time: “There is nothing left. There is no newsreel... Or rather, there was one at one time, a newsreel, for example, about the life of Sverdlovsk in 1942-43, but it is not in the archives, it has not been preserved. During the war, no one wrote down reports. Now it’s no longer a secret that Levitan read all the reports that were published after the war.”

During more than half a century of service in the All-Union Radio Committee, Yuri Borisovich made mistakes more than once or twice (but much less often than other colleagues). One of these “punches” is associated with the name of the “gray eminence of the Kremlin,” Secretary of the Central Committee Mikhail Suslov. Having received an urgent message about Suslov’s award in connection with his next anniversary, Levitan sat down at the microphone and read: “Today in the Kremlin, Comrade Suslov was solemnly presented with the People’s Friendship Organ.” For a long time after this, the radio employees figured out among themselves what kind of organ the friendship of peoples could have...

Levitan’s long-time friend, the famous scientist and bard Alexander Moiseevich Gorodnitsky, recalled: “I copied Levitan’s voice well and depicted how he read us the reports of the Soviet Information Bureau. Of course, I was exaggerating, but I was close to the truth and thereby amused Yura: “Attention, attention! Today, across all the expanses of our vast Motherland, it’s Thursday again! Listen to an important message! The Soviet government, meeting the wishes of the working people, decided to reduce prices for basic necessities. Gynecological chair - the price was reduced by eighteen percent, acrid smoke - by twenty-six percent, broken glass - by thirty-five percent, grated globes - by fifteen, watches without mechanisms - by nineteen percent. Thus, every Soviet family will save three hundred four rubles and eighty-seven kopecks within ten years... (And tongue twister.) Prices for butter, meat, sugar and milk have been increased... In addition, the Soviet government solemnly swears that every family in this five-year period will have your own buoy on the Black Sea!”

Nikita Bogoslovsky, a famous composer and great joker, once persuaded Yuri Borisovich to draw some kind of completely childish house with a chimney, put this piece of paper in a frame and hung it on the wall... And then he challenged the guests to an argument, claiming that this was “the real Levitan”! Without specifying, of course, Isaac or Yuri...

Activist Vyacheslav Volkov proposes to erect a monument in St. Petersburg to the legendary announcer Yuri Levitan, whose voice helped to survive in the besieged Leningrad. The authorities do not support the idea, citing the letter of the law.

Moscow and Berlin spoke out in defense of this idea. The project was supported, among others, by Nikolai Belyaev, a participant in the storming of the Reichstag, a Komsomol organizer of the regiment of the 150th Infantry Division, who handed over the assault flag to Egorov and Kantaria (he is over ninety, he lives in St. Petersburg); Ivan Klochkov is a legendary man, also a participant in the storming of Berlin and the hoisting of the Victory Banner over the Reichstag; People's Artist of Russia Vasily Lanovoy; Vladimir Khodyrev, who once headed the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council; People's Artist of Russia, professor, author of monuments in many cities of the country Anatoly Dema.

But the authorities of St. Petersburg did not like the idea. At one of the meetings held in October 2009, the organizing committee for preparations for the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Victory decided: “the installation of a monument to Yu. B. Levitan is currently not possible...” The explanation is simple - it has passed since the death of the great announcer 26 years old. And, as the city authorities explained to Volkov, according to the law of St. Petersburg, this is not enough time to talk about installing a monument.

And finally, I will return again to Alexander Gorodnitsky. On October 14, 1987, he dedicated the simple and precise lines of a new song to his friend Yuri Levitan:

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You can prepare a very creative video greeting on Victory Day usingwww.bagration.su . Post your photo on this site and see what happens next.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on June 22, 1941, the emergency of the current situation necessitated the need to intensify propaganda and explanatory work both in the USSR and in anti-fascist countries. To solve this problem, the Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformburo, NIB) was created under the highest executive and administrative body of the Soviet state, its government - the Council of People's Commissars (SNK USSR) and the highest party body - the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

The political information body was formed by the decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated June 24, 1941 "On the creation and tasks of the Soviet Information Bureau" to guide media coverage of military operations on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, compilation and publication of military reports based on materials from the Main command, as well as coverage of internal events of the USSR and international life.

(Military Encyclopedia. Chairman of the Main Editorial Commission S.B. Ivanov. Military Publishing House. Moscow. in 8 volumes. 2004)

Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, Alexander Shcherbakov, was appointed head of the NIB. The bureau included the head of TASS Yakov Khavinson, the head of the All-Union Radio Committee Dmitry Polikarpov and a group of workers from the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Sovinformburo supervised the work of war correspondents, provided information to USSR embassies and consulates abroad, foreign broadcasting corporations and radio stations, telegraph and newspaper agencies, societies of friends of the USSR, newspapers and magazines of various directions.

Information Bureau reports were necessarily delivered to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

There was one more direction in the propaganda work of the NIB, which was given great importance. These are leaflets with appeals to German soldiers, which were prepared jointly with the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army.

At this time, the NIB author staff consisted of approximately 80 people. These were famous Soviet writers, journalists, public figures, as well as their own correspondents. A literary group was formed as part of the Soviet Information Bureau, which included Vera Inber, Valentin Kataev, Evgeny Petrov, Boris Polevoy, Konstantin Simonov, Nikolai Tikhonov, Alexei Tolstoy, Alexander Fadeev, Konstantin Fedin, Korney Chukovsky, Mikhail Sholokhov, Ilya Erenburg and many others . The role of Ilya Ehrenburg was especially significant - during the war years he wrote more than three hundred articles for the NIB, which invariably caused a wide resonance both in the USSR and in the West. War correspondent of the Sovinformburo Evgeny Petrov (one of the creators of “The Twelve Chairs” and “The Golden Calf”) died in the line of duty in 1942.

(APN from the Sovinformburo to RIA Novosti, Publishing House of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise RIA Vesti, 2001, pp. 13, 18, 19)

The Sovinformburo programs “At the Last Hour”, “Sovinformburo Reports”, “Letters from the Front and to the Front” and others were listened to by the whole country.

NIB operational reports were issued daily from June 25, 1941. Radio reports were usually read out by Yuri Levitan, whose voice became a symbol of the most important government messages. From the first days of the Great Patriotic War, millions of people every day froze in front of their radios at the words of Levitan “From the Soviet Information Bureau...”

People recorded and reproduced messages from the information bureau, and read them out to work groups. The famous artist Alexander Volkov created the painting “At the Sovinformburo Report,” which depicts people eagerly reading messages from the front. This painting went down in the history of Soviet art during the war period.

Sovinformburo reports were published until the very last days of the Great Patriotic War. They stopped being produced only after the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany.

In total, more than two thousand front-line reports were heard during the war years.

In 1953, in accordance with the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated March 28, 1953, the Sovinformburo, as the Main Directorate, became part of the USSR Ministry of Culture. In March 1957, the Sovinformburo was transferred to the jurisdiction of the State Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

By a resolution of the CPSU Central Committee of January 5, 1961, the Sovinformburo was liquidated and on its basis the News Press Agency (APN) was created, which became the leading information and journalistic body of Soviet public organizations.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

TALLINN, June 24 – Sputnik. The Sovinformburo was created on June 24, 1941 to inform the public of foreign countries about the events taking place on the Soviet-German front and about the work of the Soviet rear. His successors were the largest international agencies - the Novosti Press Agency, RIA Novosti and MIA Rossiya Segodnya.

Sputnik Belarus correspondent Vera Dashkevich visited the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War and learned how news was created and disseminated during the war.

"What's happening?" and "Where are ours?" - these issues were on the agenda in the first hours of the war, and then they did not lose relevance. It was important for people - especially in the occupied territories - to know where the front was and whether there was hope.

To satisfy the information hunger, the Soviet Information Bureau was created on June 24, 1941. The radio broadcast sounded: “Moscow speaking! From the Soviet Information Bureau...”

Belarusian Pruzhany, Ruzhany and Kobrin, Lithuanian Kaunas and Vilnius by this time were already occupied by the enemy. Minsk was occupied on June 28.

Handwritten reports

“When the occupation began, one of the first prohibitory acts was the ban on using radios. Radios had to be handed over. Failure to comply was punishable by death - execution. But I wanted to know, especially in 1941, because the Germans were already saying that Moscow had been captured,” said Sputnik Head of the Department of Written and Visual Sources of the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War Galina Pavlovskaya.

Those who managed to hide the receiver and overhear something wrote down reports and, if possible, pecked out their handwritten notes in the occupied villages and cities.

“The leaflets, of course, were mercilessly torn down and destroyed. Therefore, from 1941, unfortunately, we have nothing preserved,” said Pavlovskaya.

But what was preserved were thin sheets of paper from 1942 printed on a typewriter as a carbon copy, and full-fledged newspapers and leaflets with Sovinformburo reports that appeared among the partisans by 1943, already printed in portable partisan printing houses.

Printed on cards, wallpaper and wrapping paper

There wasn't enough paper. That’s why they printed on the back of wallpaper, on cards, and on wrapping paper. Both candy wrappers from Kommunarkovsky sweets and match labels were used.

“The hunger for information was especially acute until 1943, until partisan printing presses began to work actively. But then 160 newspaper titles were published throughout Belarus - this is more than was published before the war. Each district had its own newspaper during the war,” said Pavlovskaya .

Newspaper is, of course, a strong word. Most often it was an A4 piece of paper, where the lion's share was occupied by orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and reports of the Sovinformburo. But there was also information - reports on partisan operations.

“The leaflets regarding the retreat often contained warnings for the civilian population - to hide, to go into the forests, because the Nazis, retreating, could take them to Germany. But you understand that for keeping such a leaflet or such a newspaper in occupied territory you can there was serious injury,” a museum employee noted.

At first, nothing good was expected from the Sovinformburo news, recalled the legendary Belarusian radio announcer Ilya Kurgan on Sputnik radio. Then these radio news, which began with the invariable “Moscow speaking!” became, in his words, “a light in the window.”