Yuri Vasilyevich Bondarev was born on March 15, 1924 in the city of Orsk. During the Great Patriotic War, the writer as an artilleryman went a long way from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. After the war, from 1946 to 1951, he studied at the M. Gorky Literary Institute. He began to publish in 1949. And the first collection of short stories "On the Big River" was published in 1953.

Widespread fame brought the writer of the story

"Youth of Commanders", published in 1956, "Battalions

they ask for fire "(1957)," The last volleys "(1959).

These books are characterized by drama, accuracy and clarity in the description of the events of military life, the subtlety of the psychological analysis of the characters. Subsequently, his works "Silence" (1962), "Two" (1964), "Relatives" (1969), "Hot Snow" (1969), "Shore" (1975), "Choice "(1980), "Moments" (1978) and others.

Since the mid-60s, the writer has been working on

creating films based on their works; in particular, he was one of the creators of the script for the film epic "Liberation".

Yuri Bondarev is also a laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR and the RSFSR. His works have been translated into many foreign languages.

Among Yuri Bondarev's books about the war, "Hot Snow" occupies a special place, opening up new approaches to solving the moral and psychological problems posed in his first stories - "Battalions Ask for Fire" and "Last Salvos". These three books about the war are an integral and developing world, which has reached the greatest completeness and figurative power in "Hot Snow". The first stories, independent in all respects, were at the same time, as it were, a preparation for a novel, perhaps not yet conceived, but living in the depths of the writer's memory.

The events of the novel "Hot Snow" unfold near Stalingrad, south of the 6th Army of General Paulus, blockaded by Soviet troops, in the cold December 1942, when one of our armies withstood the blow of the tank divisions of Field Marshal Manstein in the Volga steppe, who sought to break through the corridor to the army of Paulus and get her out of the way. The outcome of the battle on the Volga, and maybe even the timing of the end of the war itself, largely depended on the success or failure of this operation. The duration of the novel is limited to just a few days, during which the heroes of Yuri Bondarev selflessly defend a tiny patch of land from German tanks.

In "Hot Snow" time is squeezed even tighter than in the story "Battalions ask for fire." "Hot Snow" is a short march of General Bessonov's army unloaded 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 and lyrical digressions, as if the author's breath was caught from constant tension, the novel "Hot Snow" 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 heroes of the novel, their very destinies are illuminated by the alarming light of true history, as a result of which everything acquires special weight and significance.

In the novel, Drozdovsky's battery absorbs almost all of the reader's attention, the action is concentrated mainly around a small number of characters. Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and their comrades are part of the great army, they are the people, the people, to the extent that the hero's typified personality expresses the spiritual, moral traits of the people.

In "Hot Snow" the image of the people who went to war appears before us in a fullness of expression, unprecedented before in Yuri Bondarev, in the richness and diversity of characters, and at the same time in integrity. This image is not exhausted either by the figures of young lieutenants - commanders of artillery platoons, or by the colorful figures of those who are traditionally considered to be people from the people - like the slightly cowardly Chibisov, the calm and experienced gunner Yevstigneev, or the straightforward and rude riding Rubin; nor by senior officers, such as the division commander, Colonel Deev, or the army commander, General Bessonov. Only collectively understood and accepted emotionally as something unified, with all the difference in ranks and ranks, they constitute 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, imprinted without any special efforts of the author - a living, moving life. The image of the people, as the result of the whole book, perhaps most of all nourishes the epic, novelistic beginning of the story.

Yuri Bondarev is characterized by aspiration for tragedy, the nature of which is close to the events of the war itself. It would seem that nothing answers this aspiration of the artist so much as the most difficult time for the country to start the war, the summer of 1941. But the writer's books are about a different time, when the defeat of the Nazis and the victory of the Russian army are almost certain.

The death of heroes on the eve of victory, the criminal inevitability of death, contains a high tragedy and provokes a protest against the cruelty of the war and the forces that unleashed it. The heroes of "Hot Snow" are dying - the battery medical officer Zoya Elagina, the shy Eedov Sergunenkov, a member of the Military Council Vesnin, Kasymov and many others are dying ... And the war is to blame for all these deaths. Let Lieutenant Drozdovsky's heartlessness be blamed for Sergunenkov's death, even if the blame for Zoya's death falls partly on him, but no matter how great Drozdovsky's fault, they are, first of all, victims of the war.

The novel expresses the understanding of death as a violation of higher justice and harmony. Let us recall how Kuznetsov looks at the murdered Kasymov: “now there was a shell box under Kasymov’s head, and his youthful, beardless face, recently alive, swarthy, turned deathly white, thinned by the terrible beauty of death, looked in surprise with moist cherry half-open eyes at his chest, at torn to shreds, excised quilted jacket, as if even after death he did not comprehend how it killed him and why he could not get up to the sight.In this unseeing squint of Kasymov there was a quiet curiosity about his unlived life on this earth and at the same time a calm mystery death, into which the burning pain of the fragments overturned him when he tried to rise to the sight.

Even more acutely Kuznetsov feels the irreversibility of the loss of the driver Sergunenkov. After all, the mechanism of his death is revealed here. Kuznetsov turned out to be a powerless witness to how Drozdovsky sent Sergunenkov to certain death, and he, Kuznetsov, already knows that he will curse himself forever for what he saw, was present, but failed to change anything.

In "Hot Snow", with all the tension of events, everything human in people, their characters are revealed not separately from the war, but interconnected with it, under its fire, when, it seems, one cannot even raise one's head. Usually the chronicle of battles can be retold separately from the individuality of its participants - a battle in "Hot Snow" cannot be retold except through the fate and characters of people.

The past of the characters in the novel is essential and weighty. For some it is almost cloudless, for others it is so complex and dramatic that the former drama is not left 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, full of energy officer who would have commanded a battery, but he is only a sergeant. The cool, rebellious character of Ukhanov also determines his movement within the novel. Chibisov's past troubles, which almost broke him (he spent several months in German captivity), echoed in him with fear and determine a lot in his behavior. One way or another, the past of Zoya Elagina, and Kasymov, and Sergunenkov, and the unsociable Rubin slips in the novel, whose courage and loyalty to soldier's duty we will be able to appreciate only by the end of the novel.

The past of General Bessonov is especially important in the novel. The thought of his son being taken prisoner by the Germans makes his position both at Headquarters and at the front difficult. And when a fascist leaflet announcing that Bessonov's son was taken prisoner falls into the counterintelligence of the front in the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Osin, it seems that a threat has arisen to Bessonov's service.

All this retrospective material enters the novel so naturally that the reader does not feel its separateness. The past does not require a separate space for itself, separate chapters - it has merged with the present, opened its depths and the living interconnectedness of one and the other. The past does not burden the story about the present, but gives it great dramatic sharpness, psychologism and historicism.

Yuri Bondarev does exactly the same with portraits of characters: the appearance and characters of his characters are shown in development, and only by the end of the novel or with the death of the hero does the author create a complete portrait of him. How unexpected in this light is the portrait of Drozdovsky, always fit and collected, on the very last page - with a relaxed, broken-sluggish gait and unusually bent shoulders.

and immediacy in the perception of characters, feelings

their real, living people, in whom always remains

the possibility of mystery or sudden insight. Before us

the whole person, understandable, close, and meanwhile we are not

leaves the feeling that we only touched

edge of his spiritual world - and with his death

you feel like you haven't fully understood it yet

inner world. Commissar Vesnin, looking at the truck,

thrown from the bridge onto the river ice, says: "What a war, monstrous destruction. Nothing has a price." The monstrosity of war is expressed most of all - and the novel reveals this with brutal frankness - in the murder of a person. But the novel also shows the high price of life given for the Motherland.

Probably the most mysterious of the world of human relations in the novel is the love that arises between Kuznetsov and Zoya. The war, its cruelty and blood, its terms, overturning the usual ideas about time - it was she who contributed to such a rapid development of this love. After all, this feeling developed in those short periods of march and battle, when there is no time for reflection and analysis of one's feelings. And it all starts with a quiet, incomprehensible jealousy of Kuznetsov for the relationship between Zoya and Drozdovsky. And soon - so little time passes - Kuznetsov is already bitterly mourning the dead Zoya, and it is from these lines that the title of the novel is taken, when Kuznetsov wiped his face wet from tears, "the snow on the sleeve of the quilted jacket was hot from his tears."

Deceived at first in Lieutenant Drozdovsky,

then the best cadet, Zoya throughout the novel,

reveals itself to us as a moral, whole person,

ready for self-sacrifice, capable of embracing

heart pain and suffering of many. .Zoya's personality is known

in a tense, as if electrified space,

which almost inevitably arises in the trench with the advent of

women. She goes through a lot of trials.

from intrusive interest to rude rejection. But her

kindness, her patience and compassion reaches everyone, she

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 a feminine principle, affection and tenderness.

One of the most important conflicts in the novel is the conflict between Kuznetsov and Drozdovsky. A lot of space has been given to this conflict, it is exposed very sharply, and is easily traced from beginning to end. At first, tension that goes back to the background of the novel; the inconsistency of characters, manners, temperaments, even the style of speech: it seems difficult for the soft, thoughtful Kuznetsov to endure the jerky, commanding, indisputable speech of Drozdovsky. The long hours of battle, the senseless death of Sergunenkov, the mortal wound of Zoya, in which Drozdovsky is partly to blame - all this forms an abyss between the two young officers, the moral incompatibility of their existences.

In the finale, this abyss is marked even more sharply: the four surviving gunners 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 the surviving, wounded commander of a standing battery, the general does not know about Drozdovsky's grave guilt and most likely will never know. This is also the reality of war. But it is not for nothing that the writer leaves Drozdovsky aside from those gathered at the honest soldier's bowler hat.

It is extremely important that all Kuznetsov's connections with people, and above all with people subordinate to him, are true, meaningful and have a remarkable ability to develop. They are extremely non-service, in contrast to the emphatically service relations that Drozdovsky puts so strictly and stubbornly between himself and people. During the battle, Kuznetsov fights next to the soldiers, here he shows his composure, courage, lively mind. But he also grows spiritually in this battle, becomes fairer, closer, kinder to those people with whom the war brought him together.

The relationship between Kuznetsov and senior sergeant Ukhanov, the gun commander, deserves a separate story. Like Kuznetsov, he had already been fired on in the difficult battles of 1941, and in terms of military ingenuity and decisive character he could probably be an excellent commander. But life decreed otherwise, and at first we find Ukhanov and Kuznetsov in conflict: this is a collision of a sweeping, sharp and autocratic nature with another - restrained, initially modest. At first glance, it might seem that Kuznetsov will have to fight both the soullessness of Drozdovsky and the anarchist nature of Ukhanov. But in reality, it turns out that without yielding to each other in any principled position, remaining themselves, Kuznetsov and Ukhanov become close people. Not just people fighting together, but knowing each other and now forever close. And the absence of author's comments, the preservation of the rough context of life makes their brotherhood real, weighty.

The ethical, philosophical thought of the novel, as well as its emotional intensity, reaches its highest height in the finale, when Bessonov and Kuznetsov suddenly approach each other. This is a rapprochement without close proximity: Bessonov rewarded his officer on an equal basis with others and moved on. For him, Kuznetsov is just one of those who are set to death at the turn of the Myshkov River. Their closeness turns out to be more sublime: it is the closeness of thought, spirit, outlook on life. For example, shocked by the death of Vesnin, Bessonov blames himself for the fact that, due to his lack of sociability and suspicion, he prevented friendly relations between them from developing (“the way Vesnin wanted, and the way they should be”). Or Kuznetsov, who could do nothing to help Chubarikov’s crew dying before his eyes, tormented by the piercing thought that all this “seemed to be

happen because he did not have time to get close to them, to understand everyone, to love ... ".

Divided by the disproportion of duties, Lieutenant Kuznetsov and the army commander, General Bessonov, are moving towards the same goal - not only military, but also spiritual. Unaware of each other's thoughts, they think about the same thing and seek the truth in the same direction. Both of them demandingly ask themselves about the purpose of life and about the correspondence of their actions and aspirations to it. They are separated by age and have in common, like father and son, and even like brother and brother, love for the Motherland and belonging to the people and to humanity in the highest sense of these words.

7. Analysis of the work of A.I. Kuprin "Garnet bracelet"

The story of A.I. Kuprin's "Garnet Bracelet", published in 1910, is one of the most poetic works of Russian literature of the 20th century. It opens with an epigraph referring the reader to the well-known work J1. van Beethoven's "Appassionata" sonata. The author returns to the same musical theme at the end of the story. The first chapter is a detailed landscape sketch, exposing the contradictory changeability of the natural elements. In it, A.I. Kuprin introduces us to the image of the main character - Princess Vera Nikolaevna Sheina, the wife of the marshal of the nobility. The life of a woman seems at first glance calm and carefree. Despite financial difficulties, Vera and her husband have an atmosphere of friendship and mutual understanding in the family. Only one small detail alarms the reader: on the name day, her husband gives Vera earrings made of pear-shaped pearls. Involuntarily, a doubt creeps in that the heroine's family happiness is so strong, so indestructible.

On the name day, her younger sister comes to Sheina, who, like Pushkin's Olga, who sets off the image of Tatiana in "Eugene Onegin", contrasts sharply with Vera both in character and in appearance. Anna is frisky and wasteful, and Vera is calm, reasonable and economical. Anna is attractive but ugly, while Vera is endowed with aristocratic beauty. Anna has two children, while Vera has no children, although she longs to have them. An important artistic detail that reveals Anna's character is the gift she makes to her sister: Anna brings Vera a small notebook made from an old prayer book. She enthusiastically talks about how carefully she selected leaves, fasteners and a pencil for the book. To faith, the very fact of converting a prayer book into a notebook seems blasphemous. This shows the integrity of her nature, emphasizes how much the older sister takes life more seriously. We soon learn that Vera graduated from the Smolny Institute - one of the best educational institutions for women in noble Russia, and her friend is the famous pianist Zhenya Reiter.

Among the guests who came to the name day, General Anosov is an important figure. It is this man, wise in life, who has seen danger and death in his lifetime, and therefore knows the price of life, tells several love stories in the story, which can be designated in the artistic structure of the work as inserted short stories. Unlike the vulgar family stories told by Prince Vasily Lvovich, the husband of Vera and the owner of the house, where everything is distorted and ridiculed, turns into a farce, the stories of General Anosov are filled with real life details. Hak arises in the story a dispute about what true love is. Anosov says that people have forgotten how to love, that marriage does not at all imply spiritual intimacy and warmth. Women often get married to get out of custody and be the mistress of the house. Men - from fatigue from a single life. A significant role in marriage unions is played by the desire to continue the family, and selfish motives are often not in last place. "Where is the love?" - asks Anosov. He is interested in such love, for which "to accomplish any feat, to give one's life, to go to torment is not labor at all, but one joy." Here, in the words of General Kuprin, in fact, reveals his concept of love: “Love must be a tragedy. The greatest secret in the world. No comforts of life, calculations and compromises should concern her.” Anosov talks about how people become victims of their love feelings, about love triangles that exist contrary to any meaning.

Against this background, the story of the telegraph operator Zheltkov's love for Princess Vera is considered in the story. This feeling flared up when Vera was still free. But she didn't reciprocate. Contrary to all logic, Zheltkov did not stop dreaming about his beloved, wrote tender letters to her, and even sent a gift for her name day - a gold bracelet with grenades that looked like drops of blood. An expensive gift forces Vera's husband to take action to end the story. He, along with the brother of the princess Nikolai, decides to return the bracelet.

The scene of Prince Shein's visit to Zheltkov's apartment is one of the key scenes of the work. A.I. Kuprin appears here as a true master-master in creating a psychological portrait. The image of the telegraph operator Zheltkov is typical of Russian classical literature of the 19th century, the image of a little man. A noteworthy detail in the story is the comparison of the hero's room with the wardroom of a cargo ship. The character of the inhabitant of this modest dwelling is shown primarily through gesture. In the scene of the visit of Vasily Lvovich and Nikolai Nikolayevich Zheltkov, he rubs his hands in confusion, then nervously unbuttons and fastens the buttons of his short jacket (moreover, this detail becomes repetitive in this scene). The hero is excited, he is unable to hide his feelings. However, as the conversation develops, when Nikolai Nikolaevich voices a threat to turn to the authorities in order to protect Vera from persecution, Zheltkov suddenly changes and even laughs. Love gives him strength, and he begins to feel his own righteousness. Kuprin focuses on the difference in the mood of Nikolai Nikolaevich and Vasily Lvovich during the visit. Vera's husband, seeing his opponent, suddenly becomes serious and reasonable. He tries to understand Zheltkov and says to his brother-in-law: “Kolya, is he to blame for love and is it possible to control such a feeling as love, a feeling that has not yet found an interpreter for itself.” Unlike Nikolai Nikolaevich, Shane allows Zheltkov to write a farewell letter to Vera. A huge role in this scene for understanding the depth of Zheltkov's feelings for Vera is played by a detailed portrait of the hero. His lips turn white as a dead man's, his eyes fill with tears.

Zheltkov calls Vera and asks her for a small thing - about the opportunity to see her at least occasionally, without showing herself to her eyes. These meetings could have given his life at least some meaning, but Vera refused him this too. Her reputation, the tranquility of her family, were dearer to her. She showed cold indifference to the fate of Zheltkov. The telegraph operator turned out to be defenseless against Vera's decision. The strength of love feelings and maximum spiritual openness made him vulnerable. Kuprin constantly emphasizes this defenselessness with portrait details: a child's chin, a gentle girl's face.

In the eleventh chapter of the story, the author emphasizes the motive of fate. Princess Vera, who has never read newspapers, for fear of getting her hands dirty, suddenly unfolds the very sheet on which the announcement of Zheltkov's suicide was printed. This fragment of the work is intertwined with the scene in which General Anosov says to Vera: “... Who knows? “Maybe your life path, Verochka, was crossed by exactly the kind of love that women dream of and that men are no longer capable of.” It is no coincidence that the princess again recalls these words. One gets the impression that Zheltkov was indeed sent to Vera by fate, and she could not discern selfless nobility, subtlety and beauty in the soul of a simple telegraph operator.

A peculiar construction of the plot in the work of A.I. Kuprin lies in the fact that the author gives the reader peculiar signs that help to predict the further development of the story. In "Oles" this is the motive of fortune-telling, in accordance with which all further relationships of the heroes are formed, in "Duel" - the conversation of officers about the duel. In the "Garnet Bracelet", a sign that portends a tragic denouement is the bracelet itself, the stones of which look like drops of blood.

Upon learning of Zheltkov's death, Vera realizes that she foresaw a tragic outcome. In a farewell message to his beloved, Zheltkov does not hide his all-consuming passion. He literally deifies Faith, turning to her the words from the prayer "Our Father ...": "Hallowed be thy name."

In the literature of the "Silver Age" theomachy motives were strong. Zheltkov, deciding to commit suicide, commits the greatest Christian sin, because the church prescribes to endure any spiritual and physical torment sent to a person on earth. But the whole course of the development of the plot A.I. Kuprin justifies Zheltkov's act. It is no coincidence that the main character of the story is called Vera. For Zheltkov, therefore, the concepts of "love" and "faith" merge into one. Before dying, the hero asks the landlady to hang a bracelet on the icon.

Looking at the late Zheltkov, Vera is finally convinced that there was truth in Anosov's words. By his act, the poor telegraph operator was able to reach the heart of the cold beauty and touch her. Vera brings Zheltkov a red rose and kisses him on the forehead with a long friendly kiss. Only after death did the hero get the right to attention and respect for his feelings. Only by his own death did he prove the true depth of his experiences (before that, Vera considered him crazy).

Anosov's words about eternal exclusive love become a running motif of the story. For the last time they are remembered in the story, when, at the request of Zheltkov, Vera listens to Beethoven's second sonata ("Appassionata"). At the end of the story, A.I. Kuprin, another repetition sounds: “Hallowed be thy name”, which is no less significant in the artistic structure of the work. He once again emphasizes the purity and sublimity of Zheltkov's attitude towards his beloved.

Putting love on a par with such concepts as death, faith, A.I. Kuprin emphasizes the importance of this concept for human life as a whole. Not all people know how to love and be faithful to their feelings. The story "Garnet Bracelet" can be considered as a kind of testament of A.I. Kuprin, addressed to those who are trying to live not with their hearts, but with their minds. Their life, correct from the point of view of a rational approach, is doomed to a spiritually devastated existence, for only love can give a person true happiness.

In the book Yuri Bondarev"Hot snow" describes two acts. The two heroes of the novel find themselves in similar situations, and act differently. Every minute a person is tested for strength and humanity. One remains a man, while the second cannot stand it and goes into another state in which he can send a subordinate to a deliberate and unjustified death.

"Hot Snow" is the fourth novel by Yuri Bondarev. Written in 1970. The events of the Great Patriotic War take place in 1942. The scene of action is the territory near Stalingrad.
The action of the novel takes place literally within two days, although in the book the characters, as Bondarev always does, often turn to the past, and the narrative is interspersed with scenes from civilian life (General Bessonov, Lieutenant Kuznetsov), from the hospital (Bessonov), memories of school and a military school (Kuznetsov) and a meeting with Stalin (Bessonov).

I will not recount the plot of the novel, which everyone can read and get an idea of ​​what Soviet soldiers experienced when they resisted fascism.

I will dwell on two points that seemed important to me after the event that happened to me - acquaintance with the film "Ascent" Larisa Shepitko. In the film, two Soviet soldiers face a terrible choice: to betray and live, or to remain loyal to their Motherland and die a painful death.

With Bondarev, the situation, it seems to me, is even more complicated, because there is no betrayal. But there is a lack of something human in the personality of Lieutenant Drozdovsky, without which even the desire to destroy fascism loses its meaning. That is, in my opinion, it loses for this personality itself. It is characteristic that the central figure of the novel, General Bessonov, feeling in Drozdovsky this absence of an important human component (perhaps the ability to love), says in surprise: “Why die? Instead of the word "die" it is better to use the word "survive". Don't be so determined to make a sacrifice, Lieutenant."

It is difficult to analyze the actions of Bondarev's heroes, but I will give a few convex fragments to highlight the thought that seemed important to me.

Act of Lieutenant Drozdovsky

The antagonist of the novel, battalion commander Lieutenant Vladimir Drozdovsky, during the battle, decided to send his subordinate Sergunenkov to his death.

They [Kuznetsov and Drozdovsky] ran into the firing room, both fell on their knees by the gun with a pierced knurler and shield, with an ugly breech crawling back, a black mouth gaping, and Kuznetsov uttered in a fit of never-ceasing anger:

- Now look! How to shoot? Do you see the kicker? And the self-propelled gun hits because of the tanks! All clear?
…
Kuznetsov answered and saw Drozdovsky as if through a cold thick glass, with a feeling of the impossibility of overcoming it.

- If not for the self-propelled gun ... Hidden in the smoke behind the wrecked tanks. He is hitting Ukhanov from the flank... He must go to Ukhanov, he can hardly see her! There is nothing for us to do here!

A German self-propelled gun, hidden by a tank, fired at the remnants of the battalion. Drozdovsky decided that it needed to be blown up.
Drozdovsky, sitting down under the parapet, looked around the battlefield with narrowed, hasty eyes, his whole face instantly narrowed, drew up, asked intermittently:

- Where are the grenades? Where are the anti-tank grenades? Three grenades were issued for each gun! Where are they, Kuznetsov?
“What the hell are grenades for now!” A self-propelled gun is a hundred and fifty meters from here - can you get it? Can't you see the gun too?
“What did you think, we’ll wait like that?” Quick grenades over here! Here they are!.. Machine guns are everywhere in war, Kuznetsov!..

On Drozdovsky's bloodless face, disfigured by a spasm of impatience, an expression of action appeared, readiness for anything, and his voice became piercingly ringing:

- Sergunenkov, grenades here!
- Here they are in the niche. Comrade Lieutenant...
- Grenades here!

At the same time, the determination to act, indicated on the face of Drozdovsky, turned out to be the determination to destroy the self-propelled gun with the hands of a subordinate.

- Well! .. Sergunenkov! You do it! Or the chest in crosses, or ... Did you understand me, Sergunenkov? ..
Sergunenkov, raising his head, looked at Drozdovsky with an unblinking, fixed gaze, then asked in disbelief:
- How do I ... comrade lieutenant? Behind the tanks. Me... there?...
- Crawling forward - and two grenades under the tracks! Destroy the self-propelled gun! Two grenades - and the end of the reptile! ..

Drozdovsky said this indisputably; with trembling hands, with an unexpectedly sharp movement, he picked up grenades from the ground, handed them to Sergunenkov, who mechanically held out his palms and, taking the grenades, almost dropped them like red-hot irons.

“She’s behind the tanks, Comrade Lieutenant… She’s standing far away…”
- Take grenades! .. Do not hesitate!
- I got it...

It was obvious that Sergunenov would die.

- Listen, combat! Kuznetsov couldn't resist. - Can't you see? You have to crawl one hundred meters in the open! Don't you understand this?
- How did you think? - Drozdovsky said in the same ringing voice and hit his knee with his fist. - Shall we sit? Hands folded!.. And they put pressure on us? - And he turned abruptly and authoritatively to Sergunenkov: - Is the task clear? Crawling and dashes to the self-propelled gun! Forward! - Drozdovsky's team fired a shot. - Forward!..

Kuznetsov understood that Sergunenkov's death was not only inevitable, but also meaningless.

What was happening now seemed to Kuznetsov not only hopeless despair, but a monstrous, absurd, hopeless step, and Sergunenkov had to make it according to this order "forward", which, due to the iron laws that came into effect during the battle, no one - neither Sergunenkov nor Kuznetsov had the right not to execute or cancel, and for some reason he suddenly thought: “Now, if there were a whole gun and only one shell, there would be nothing, yes, nothing would happen.”

The rider Sergunenkov took grenades, crawled with them to the self-propelled gun and was shot point-blank. He could not undermine the fascist equipment.

Kuznetsov did not know what he would do now, not yet quite believing, but seeing this monstrously naked death of Sergunenkov near the self-propelled gun. Gasping for breath, he glanced at Drozdovsky, at his painfully twisted mouth, barely squeezing out: “I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t, why did he get up? :

- Couldn't? So, you can, battalion commander? There, in the niche, is another grenade, do you hear? Last. If I were you, I would take a grenade - and to the self-propelled gun. Sergunenkov couldn't, you can! Do you hear?..

"He sent Sergunenkov, having the right to order ... And I was a witness - and for the rest of my life I curse myself for this! .."- flashed foggy and distant in the head of Kuznetsov, not fully aware of what he was saying; he no longer understood the extent of the reasonableness of his actions.

- What? What you said? - Drozdovsky grabbed with one hand the shield of the gun, with the other the edge of the trench and began to rise, throwing up his white, bloodless face with flaring thin nostrils. What, I wanted him dead? - Drozdovsky's voice broke into a squeal, and tears sounded in it. - Why did he get up? .. Did you see how he got up? ..

Shortly before Drozdovsky's act, Kuznetsov found himself in a situation where it was possible to send a subordinate under fire.

He knew that he needed to get up immediately, look at the guns, do something now, but his heavy body was pressed down, squeezed into the trench, it hurt in his chest, in his ears, and the diving howl, hot blows of air with the whistle of fragments pressed him more and more strongly to the shaky bottom of the ditch.
…
— Panoramas, Ukhanov! Hear, sights! - not paying attention to Chibisov, Kuznetsov shouted and instantly thought that he wanted and could order Ukhanov - he had the right to do this - to take panoramas, that is, by the power of the platoon commander to force him to jump out now under bombardment to the guns from the saving land, himself remaining in the ditch, but could not order it.

But he felt that he had no moral right to do so. He took the biggest risk, and sent a subordinate to the gun, located closer to the trench in which both were hiding. Kuznetsov chose a different solution for himself than Drozdovsky.

"I have and do not have the right," flashed through Kuznetsov's head. "Then I will never forgive myself ...".
…
- Ukhanov! .. Listen ... We need to remove the sights! Raskokosit to all hell! Not sure when this will end?
“I think so, lieutenant! Without sights, we will remain as naked! ..
Ukhanov, sitting in the trench, pulled up his legs, hit his hat with his mitten, pulling it closer to his forehead, put his hand on the bottom of the ditch to get up, but immediately Kuznetsov stopped him:
- Stop! Wait! As soon as they bombard in a circle, we will jump out to the guns. You - to the first, I - to the second! Let's take off the sights! .. You - to the first, I - to the second! Is that clear, Ukhanov? On my command, okay? - And, forcibly holding back a cough, he also pulled up his legs so that it was easier to get up.

“Now, Lieutenant. Ukhanov's bright eyes, from under a cap pulled over his forehead, looked narrowly at the sky. - Now...

Kuznetsov, looking out of the ditch, saw all this, hearing the leveled sound of the engines of the Junkers again coming in behind the smoke to bombard, he commanded:

- Ukhanov! .. We'll make it in time! Let's go!.. You go to the first one, I go to the second one...

And with unsteady weightlessness in his whole body, he jumped out of the ditch, jumped over the parapet of the firing position of the first gun, ran through the snow black from burning, along the earth radially sprayed from the craters to the second gun.

Soviet soldiers are described in Hot Snow in different ways. The book reveals the characters of several people, most of whom died, having accomplished a feat. Kuznetsov remained alive, and could not forgive himself for not stopping Drozdovsky, who sent Sergunenkov to undermine the self-propelled gun with a grenade. When he started talking about the dead rider, he finally understood that this death would forever remain in his memory as something unfair, cruel, and this despite the fact that he blew up two tanks, was shell-shocked, lost a loved one (medical instructor Zoya) almost the entire battalion.

- When we were coming here, Rubin said one terrible phrase to me: "Sergunenkov will never forgive his death to anyone in the next world." What it is?

- No one? asked Kuznetsov, and, turning away, he felt the icy iciness of his collar, as if it were scorching his cheek with wet emery. "But why did he tell you that?"

“Yes, and I’m to blame, and I won’t forgive myself for this,” Kuznetsov thought. “If I had the will to stop him then ... But what will I tell her about Sergunenkov’s death? how it was. But why do I remember it, when two-thirds of the battery died? No, for some reason I can't forget!.."

Bondarev himself wrote about his book "Hot Snow".

During the Great Patriotic War, the writer served as an artilleryman, went a long way from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. Among Yuri Bondarev's books about the war, "Hot Snow" occupies a special place, in which the author solves in a new way the moral questions posed in his first stories - "Battalions ask for fire" and "Last volleys". These three books about the war are a holistic and evolving world that has reached its greatest fullness and figurative power in Hot Snow.

The events of the novel unfold near Stalingrad, south of the 6th army of General Paulus, blockaded 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 sought break through the corridor to the army of Paulus and withdraw it from the encirclement. The outcome of the battle on 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 squeezed even tighter than in the story "Battalions ask for fire." This is a short march of General Bessonov, unloaded from the echelons of the army, 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 and lyrical digressions, as if the author’s breath was caught from constant tension, the novel is distinguished by its directness, the 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 heroes of the novel, 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 on Drozdovsky's battery absorb almost all the reader's attention, the action is concentrated mainly around a small number of characters. Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and their comrades are part of the great army, they are the people. Heroes have his best spiritual, moral features.

This image of a people that 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, or colorful figures of soldiers - like the somewhat cowardly Chibisov, the calm and experienced gunner Evstigneev, or the straightforward and rude riding Rubin; nor 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 ranks, they make up the image of the fighting people. The strength and novelty of the novel lies in the fact that this unity is achieved, as it were, by itself, imprinted without much effort on the part of the author - a living, moving life.

The death of heroes on the eve of victory, the criminal inevitability of death, contains a high tragedy and provokes a protest against the cruelty of the war and the forces that unleashed it. The heroes of "Hot Snow" are dying - the medical officer of the battery Zoya Elagina, the shy rider Sergunenkov, a member of the Military Council Vesnin, Kasymov and many others are dying ...

In the novel, death is a violation of higher justice and harmony. Let us recall how Kuznetsov looks at the murdered Kasymov: “Now a shell box lay under Kasymov’s head, and his youthful, beardless face, recently alive, swarthy, turned deathly white, thinned by the terrible beauty of death, looked in surprise with moist cherry half-open eyes on his chest, on a torn to shreds, excised quilted jacket, as if even after death he did not comprehend how it killed him and why he could not get up to the sight.

Kuznetsov feels even more acutely the irreversibility of the loss of Sergunenkov. After all, the cause of his death is fully disclosed here. Kuznetsov turned out to be a powerless witness to how Drozdovsky sent Sergunenkov to certain death, and he already knows that he will curse himself forever for what he saw, was present, but failed to change anything.

In "Hot Snow" everything human in people, their characters are revealed precisely in the war, depending on it, under its fire, when, it seems, one cannot even raise one's head. The chronicle of the battle will not tell about its participants - the battle in "Hot Snow" cannot be separated from the fates 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, full of energy officer who would have commanded a battery, but he is only a sergeant. The cool, rebellious nature of Ukhanov also determines his life path. Chibisov's past misfortunes, which almost broke him (he spent several months in German captivity), echoed fear in him and determined a lot in his behavior. One way or another, the past of Zoya Elagina, and Kasymov, and Sergunenkov, and the unsociable Rubin slips in the novel, 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 a son who has fallen into German captivity makes it difficult for him to act both at Headquarters and at the front. And when a fascist leaflet announcing that Bessonov's son was taken prisoner falls into the counterintelligence of the front, into the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Osin, it seems that there is a threat 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 terms, overturning the usual ideas about time - it was she who 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 starts with a quiet, incomprehensible jealousy of Kuznetsov for Drozdovsky. And soon - so little time passes - he already bitterly mourns the dead Zoya, and it is from here that 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 the quilted jacket was hot from his tears."

Having been deceived at first in Lieutenant Drozdovsky, then the best cadet, Zoya throughout the novel opens up to us as a moral person, whole, ready for self-sacrifice, able to feel with all her heart the pain and suffering of many. She goes through many trials. But her kindness, her patience and participation reach out to 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 has been given to this, it is exposed very sharply and is easily traced from beginning to end. Tensions at first, rooted in the prehistory of the novel; the inconsistency of characters, manners, temperaments, even the style of speech: it seems difficult for the soft, thoughtful Kuznetsov to endure Drozdovsky's jerky, commanding, indisputable speech. The long hours of battle, the senseless death of Sergunenkov, the mortal wound of Zoya, in which Drozdovsky is partly to blame - all this forms an abyss 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 the surviving, wounded commander of the standing battery, the general does not know about his fault and, most likely, will never know. This is also the reality of war. But it is not for nothing that the writer leaves Drozdovsky aside from those gathered at the soldier's bowler hat.

The ethical, philosophical thought of the novel, as well as its emotional intensity, reaches its highest height in the finale, when Bessonov and Kuznetsov suddenly come closer. This is a rapprochement without immediate proximity: Bessonov rewarded his officer on a par with others and moved on. For him, Kuznetsov is just one of those who stood to death at the turn of the Myshkov River. Their closeness turns out to be more important: it is the closeness of thought, spirit, outlook on life. For example, shocked by the death of Vesnin, Bessonov blames himself for the fact that, because of his lack of sociability and suspicion, he interfered with 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, “it seemed, had to happen because he did not have time to get close to them, to understand everyone, to fall in love. ..".

Divided by the disproportion of duties, Lieutenant Kuznetsov and the army commander, General Bessonov, are moving towards the same goal - not only military, but also spiritual. Suspecting nothing of each other's thoughts, they think about the same thing, they are looking for the same truth. Both demandingly ask themselves about the purpose of life and about the correspondence to it of their actions and aspirations. They are separated by age and are related, like father and son, and even like brother and brother, by love for the Motherland and belonging to the people and to humanity in the highest sense of these words.

Features of the problematics of the work “Hot Snow” by Y. Bondarev”

Many years have passed since the victorious volleys of the Great Patriotic War died down. But even today, time reveals to us new details, unforgettable facts and events of those heroic days. And the farther we go from that war, from those severe battles, the fewer heroes of that time remain alive, the more expensive, more valuable becomes the military chronicle that writers created and continue to create. In their works, they glorify the courage and heroism of the Soviet people, our valiant army, millions and millions of people who bore all the hardships of war on their shoulders and accomplished a feat in the name of peace on Earth.

The Great Patriotic War demanded from each person the exertion of all his mental and physical strength. It not only did not cancel, but made moral problems even more acute. After all, the clarity of goals and objectives in the war should not serve as an excuse for any moral promiscuity. It did not free a person from the need to be fully responsible for their actions. Life in war is life with all its spiritual and moral problems and difficulties. The most difficult thing at that time was for writers, for whom the war was a real shock. They were filled with what they saw and experienced, so they tried to truthfully show how high the price of victory over the enemy was for us. Those writers who came to literature after the war, and during the years of trials themselves fought on the front line, defended their right to the so-called "trench truth". Their work was called "the prose of lieutenants." These writers, about whom Tvardovsky well said that they “did not rise above lieutenants and did not go further than the regiment commander” and “saw the sweat and blood of war on their tunic”, made up a whole galaxy of names well-known to the current reader: Baklanov, Bogomolov, Bondarev, Vorobyov, Bykov, Astafiev. I would like to note one common feature of their works about the war - memoirs. The favorite genre of these writers is a lyrical story written in the first person, although not always strictly autobiographical, but thoroughly saturated with the author's experiences and memories of front-line youth. In their books, general plans, generalized pictures, panoramic reasoning, heroic pathos have been replaced by a new experience. It consisted in the fact that the war was won not only by headquarters and armies, in their collective meaning, but also by a simple soldier in a gray overcoat, father, brother, husband, son. These works highlighted the close-up plans of a man in the war, his soul, which lived in pain in the hearts left in the rear, his faith in himself and his comrades. Of course, each writer had his own war, but the ordinary front-line experience had almost no differences. They were able to convey it to the reader in such a way that the artillery cannonade and automatic bursts do not drown out the groans and whispers, and in the powder smoke and dust from exploding shells and mines one can discern in the eyes of people determination and fear, torment and rage. And one more thing these writers have in common is the “memory of the heart”, a passionate desire to tell the truth about that war.

Y. Bondarev tells about the heroic qualities of the people in a different artistic manner in the novel "Hot Snow". This is a work about the endless possibilities of people for whom the defense of the Motherland, a sense of duty are an organic need. The novel tells about how, despite the growing difficulties and tension, the will to win intensifies in people. And every time it seems: this is the limit of human capabilities. But soldiers, officers, generals, exhausted by battles, insomnia, constant nervous tension, find the strength to again engage in a duel with tanks, go on the attack, save comrades Serafimov V.D. Russian literature of the second half of the twentieth century. Educational minimum for applicants. - M.: Higher school, 2008. - p. 169..

In the novel, essentially, only one military episode is revealed, which serves as a turning point in the entire subsequent course of battles. There are fierce battles near Stalingrad. The author focuses on the battery, which is part of the artillery barrier, before which the task is set: at any cost not to miss the huge tank forces of the enemy, rushing to the city to help the encircled fascist troops. This battle may decide the fate of the front. And therefore the order of General Bessonov is indisputable: “Not a step back! And knock out tanks. Stand - and forget about death! Don't think about her under any circumstances." But the soldiers themselves understand this. The writer depicts his heroes with great artistic truth: the young lieutenant Kuznetsov, the gun commander Ukhanov, the medical instructor Zoya. In their everyday actions and actions, he sees a manifestation of the heroic. Boundless courage and steadfastness are combined in these people with spiritual softness, nobility and humanity. The pure and bright feeling of love born in cruel conditions in Kuznetsov and Zoya testifies to the strength of the human spirit. The Great Patriotic War in Russian literature. - M.: AST, Astrel, Harvest, 2009. - p. 129..

Depicting the battle scenes of one battery, Bondarev conveys the atmosphere of the entire war with its drama. In one day, Lieutenant Kuznetsov, who held back the German tanks, is mortally tired, turning gray in a day, becomes twenty years older. The writer reveals to us the "trench truth" and the true extent of this battle. Drawing the meeting of General Bessonov with the Supreme Commander, the author emphasizes its strategic importance. The outstanding skill of Bondarev manifested itself in the ability to create deeply psychological images not only of ordinary participants in the war, but also of major military leaders. The great achievement of the writer is the image of the courageous, direct and insightful General Bessonov. But the threat of death and a common cause often blur the boundaries between ranks. We see how, after the battle, Kuznetsov tiredly and calmly reports to the general. “His voice, according to the regulations, still struggled to gain a passionless and even fortress; but in the tone, in the look, there is a gloomy, non-boyish seriousness, without a shadow of timidity in front of the general.

War is terrible, it dictates its cruel laws, breaks the fate of people, but not all. A person, getting into extreme situations, manifests himself unexpectedly, fully reveals himself as a person. War is a test of character. Moreover, both good and bad features that are invisible in ordinary life can appear. The two main characters of the novel, Drozdovsky and Kuznetsov, passed such a test. Kuznetsov could not send a comrade under the bullets, while remaining in hiding at that time, he shared the fate of the fighter Ukhanov, going with him on a mission. Drozdovsky, on the other hand, could not step over his "I". He dreamed of distinguishing himself in battle, of committing a heroic deed, but at the decisive moment he chickened out. We sincerely feel sorry for the young soldier who must carry out the senseless order of his commander Drozdovsky, sending him to certain death. “Comrade Lieutenant, I beg you,” he whispers with his lips alone, “if something is wrong with me ... tell your mother: I was bringing news, they say, I ... She has no one else ...”

Truly depicting the complex relationships of people in war, where cowardice is sometimes manifested alongside genuine heroism, cruelty alongside high humanity, Bondarev focused his main attention on identifying in the heroes those qualities that ensured victory over the enemy.

The longest day of the year

This cloudless weather

He gave us a common misfortune

Forever, for all 4 years:

K.Simonov

Therefore, the theme of the Great Patriotic War for many years became one of the main themes of our literature. The story about the war sounded especially deep and truthful in the works of front-line writers: K. Simonov, V. Bykov, B. Vasiliev and others. Yuri Bondarev, in whose work war occupies the main place, was also a participant in the war, an artilleryman who had come a long way along the roads of the war from Stalingrad to Czechoslovakia. The novel "Hot Snow" is especially dear to him, because this is Stalingrad, and the heroes of the novel are artillerymen.

The action of the novel begins precisely near Stalingrad, when one of our armies withstood the blow of Field Marshal Manstein's tank divisions on the Volga steppe, who sought to break through the corridor to Paulus's army and withdraw it from the encirclement. The outcome of the battle on the Volga largely depended on the success or failure of this operation. The duration of the novel is limited to just a few days, during which the heroes of Yuri Bondarev selflessly defend a tiny patch of land from German tanks.

“Hot Snow” is a story about a short march of General Bessonov, unloaded from the echelons of the army, and a battle. The novel is notable for 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 heroes of the novel, their very destinies are illuminated by the disturbing light of true history, as a result of which everything acquires special weight and significance.

In the novel, Drozdovsky's battery absorbs almost all the reader's attention, the action is concentrated mainly around a small number of characters. Kuznetsov, Ukhanov, Rubin and their comrades are part of a great army.

In "Hot Snow", with all the intensity of events, everything human in people, their characters are not revealed separately from the war, but interconnected with it, under its fire, when, it seems, one cannot even raise one's head. Usually the chronicle of battles can be retold separately from the individuality of its participants, and the battle in "Hot Snow" cannot be retold except through the fate and character of people.

The image of a simple Russian soldier who has risen to the war appears before us in a fullness of expression that Yuri Bondarev has never seen before, in the richness and diversity of characters, and at the same time in integrity. This image

Chibisov, calm and experienced gunner Evstigneev, straightforward and rough driving Rubin, Kasymov.

The understanding of death is expressed in the novel as a violation of higher justice. Let us recall how Kuznetsov looks at the murdered Kasymov: “now there was a shell box under Kasymov’s head, and his youthful, beardless face, recently alive, swarthy, became deathly white, thinned by the terrible beauty of death, surprised looked with damp-cherry half-open eyes at his chest, torn to shreds, excised quilted jacket, as if even after death he did not comprehend how it killed him and why he could not get up to the sight.

In this unseeing squint of Kasymov there was a quiet curiosity about his life not lived on this earth.

Kuznetsov feels even more acutely the irreversibility of the loss of Sergunenkov. After all, the very mechanism of his death is revealed here. Kuznetsov turned out to be a powerless witness to how Drozdovsky sent Sergunenkov to certain death, and he, Kuznetsov, already knows that he will curse himself forever for what he saw, was present, but failed to change anything.

The past of the characters in the novel is significant. For some it is almost cloudless, for others it is so complex and dramatic that the former drama is not left behind, pushed aside by the war, but accompanies a person in the battle southwest of Stalingrad.

The past does not require a separate space for itself, separate chapters - it has merged with the present, opened its depths and the living interconnectedness of one and the other.

Yuri Bondarev does exactly the same with portraits of characters: the appearance and characters of his characters are shown in development, and only by the end of the novel or by the death of the hero does the author create a complete portrait of him.

In front of you is the whole person, understandable, close, but meanwhile we are not left with the feeling that we have touched only the edge of his spiritual world - and with his death you feel that you have not yet had time to fully understand his inner world. The monstrosity of war is most expressed - and the novel reveals this with brutal frankness - in the death of a man. But the novel also shows the high price of life given for the Motherland.

Probably the most mysterious of the world of human relations in the novel is the love that arises between Kuznetsov and Zoya. The war, its cruelty and blood, its terms, overturning the usual ideas about time - it was she who contributed to such a rapid development of this love. After all, this feeling developed in those short periods of march and battle, when there is no time for reflection and analysis of one's feelings. And soon - so little time passes - Kuznetsov is already bitterly mourning the deceased Zoya, and it is from these lines that the title of the novel is taken, when Kuznetsov wiped his face wet from tears, "the snow on the sleeve of the quilted jacket was hot from his tears."

It is extremely important that all Kuznetsov's connections with people, and, above all, with people subordinate to him, are true, meaningful and have a remarkable ability to develop. They are extremely non-service - in contrast to the emphatically service relations that Drozdovsky puts so strictly and stubbornly between himself and people . During the battle, Kuznetsov fights next to the soldiers, here he shows his composure, courage, and lively mind. But he also grows spiritually in this battle, becomes fairer, closer, kinder to those people with whom the war brought him together.

The relationship between Kuznetsov and senior sergeant Ukhanov, the gun commander, deserves a separate story. Like Kuznetsov, he had already been fired upon in the difficult battles of 1941, and in terms of military ingenuity and decisive character, he could probably be an excellent commander. But life decreed otherwise, and at first we find Ukhanov and Kuznetsov in conflict: this is a collision of a sweeping, sharp and autocratic nature with another - restrained, initially modest. At first glance, it might seem that Kuznetsov will have to fight against the anarchist nature of Ukhanov. But in reality, it turns out that, without yielding to each other in any principled position, remaining themselves, Kuznetsov and Ukhanov become close people. Not just people fighting together, but knowing each other and now forever close.

Divided by disproportionate duties, Lieutenant Kuznetsov and army commander General Bessonov are moving towards the same goal - not only military, but also spiritual. Suspecting nothing of each other's thoughts, they think about the same thing and seek the truth in the same direction. They are separated by age and are related, like father and son, and even like brother to brother, by love for the Motherland and belonging to the people and to humanity in the highest sense of these words.

The death of heroes on the eve of victory 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" are dying - the medical officer of the battery Zoya Elagina, the shy rider Sergunenkov, a member of the Military Council Vesnin, Kasymov and many others are dying ... And the war is to blame for all these deaths.

In the novel, the feat of the people who went to war appears before us in an unprecedented fullness of expression in Yuri Bondarev, in the richness and diversity of characters. This is a feat of young lieutenants - commanders of artillery platoons, and those who are traditionally considered to be people from the people, like the slightly cowardly Chibisov, the calm and experienced gunner Evstigneev or the straightforward and rude riding Rubin, the feat of senior officers, such as division commander Colonel Deev or army commander General Bessonov.

But all of them in this war were, first of all, Soldiers, and each in his own way fulfilled his duty to the Motherland, to his people.

And the Great Victory that came in May 1945 became their common cause.

Bibliography

For the preparation of this work, materials from the site www.coolsoch.ru/