When there is war, you feel everything for real, especially when you love... Memories of love at the front from women who fought, from the books of Svetlana Aleksievich and Artem Drapkin.

Nina Ilinskaya, senior sergeant, nurse

“... Of course, there, at the front, love was different. Everyone knew that you can love now, and in a minute this person may not be. After all, probably, when we love in peaceful conditions, we do not look from such positions. Our love did not have today, tomorrow ... If we loved, then we loved. In any case, there could be no insincerity there, because very often our love ended in a plywood star on the grave ... "

Sofya Kriegel, senior sergeant, sniper

“Leaving for the front, each of us took an oath: there will be no novels there. Everything will be, if we survive, after the war. And before the war, we did not even have time to kiss. We looked at these things more strictly than today's young people. Kissing for us was - to fall in love for life. At the front, love was, as it were, forbidden, if the command recognized it, as a rule, one of the lovers was transferred to another part, simply separated. We took care of her. We didn't keep our childhood vows... We loved... I think that if I hadn't fallen in love during the war, I wouldn't have survived. Love saved. She saved me…”

Vera Shevaldysheva, military surgeon

“At one of our recent front-line meetings, a man admitted to me that he remembers my young smile, as he now remembers the smile of his little grandson. This is the most precious thing in his life. And for me it was an ordinary wounded man, I didn’t even remember him. When he told me this, I blushed like a girl. Agree that people do not often say such sincerity to each other. But when we remember the war, we are more sincere than ever ... "

Efrosinya Breus, captain, doctor
“My husband and I went to the front. Together.
I forgot a lot. Though I remember every day...
The battle was over... I couldn't believe the silence. He stroked the grass with his hands, the grass is soft... And he looked at me. I watched ... With such eyes ... "Go to bed." - "It's a pity to sleep."
And such a sharp feeling ... Such love ... My heart is breaking ...
... We were already going through East Prussia, everyone was already talking about the Victory. He died ... He died instantly ... From a fragment ... Instant death. Second. They told me that they had been brought, I ran... I hugged him, I didn't let him pick him up. Bury….
In the morning ... I decided that I would take him home. To Belarus. And this is several thousand kilometers. Military roads ... Confusion ... Everyone thought that I had gone crazy from grief. “You must calm down. You need to sleep." Not! Not! I went from one general to another, so I got to the commander of the front, Rokossovsky. At first he refused ... Well, some kind of crazy! How many have already been buried in mass graves, lie in a foreign land ...
Once again I made an appointment with him:
Do you want me to kneel before you?
-I understand you... But he's already dead...
I don't have any children from him. Our house burned down. Even the photos are gone. There is nothing. If I bring him home, at least the grave will remain. And I will have somewhere to return after the war.
Silent. Walks around the office. Walks.
Have you ever been in love, Comrade Marshal? I'm not burying my husband, I'm burying love.
Silent.
“Then I want to die here too.” Why should I live without it?
He was silent for a long time. Then he came up and kissed my hand.
I was given a special plane for one night. I entered the plane ... I hugged the coffin ... And lost consciousness ... "

Anna Michelet, medical instructor
“We were alive, and love was alive .... It used to be a big shame - they said to us: PZh, a field, mobile wife. They said that we were always abandoned. Nobody left anyone!
My marriage was illegal for half a year, but we lived with him for 60 years ... I came to his dugout in February 1944.
– How did you go? he asks.
-Usually.
In the morning he says:
-Come on, I'll walk you.
-Do not.
- No, I'll accompany you.
We went out, and all around it was written: "Mines, mines, mines." It turns out that I went to him through a minefield. And passed."

“The commander of a reconnaissance company fell in love with me. He sent notes through his soldiers. I went to see him once for a date. “No,” I say. “I love a man who has been dead for a long time.” He moved so close to me, looked straight into my eyes, turned around and left. They shot, but he walked and did not even bend down ...
Then, it was already in Ukraine, we liberated a large village. I think: "Let me walk, I'll see." The weather was bright, the huts were white. And outside the village so - graves, fresh land ... Those who died in the battle for this village were buried there. I don't know, how it drew me. And there is a photograph on the board and a surname. On every grave... And suddenly I see a familiar face... The commander of a company of scouts, who confessed his love to me. And his last name ... And I felt so uneasy. Fear of such strength... Budo he sees me, as if he were alive...
At this time, his guys from his company are going to the grave. They all knew me, they carried notes to me. No one looked at me as if I wasn't there. I am invisible. Then, when I met them, it seems to me ... That's what I think ... They wanted me to die too. It was hard for them to see that I was ... alive ... So I felt ... As if I were to blame for them ... And before him ... "

Nina Vishnevskaya, foreman, medical officer of the tank battalion
“Only recently did I learn the details of the death of Tonya Bobkova. She shielded a loved one from a fragment of a mine. Fragments fly - these are some fractions of a second ... How did she manage? She saved Lieutenant Petya Boychevsky, she loved him. And he stayed alive.
Thirty years later, Petya Boychevsky came from Krasnodar and found me at our front-line meeting, and told me all this. We went with him to Borisov and found the clearing where Tonya died. He took the earth from her grave… Carried and kissed…”.

Nina Afanasyeva, foreman of the women's reserve rifle regiment

“The chief of staff was Senior Lieutenant Boris Shesterenkin. He is only two years older than me.
And so he began, as they say, to make claims against me, to pester me endlessly ... And I say that I did not go to the front in order to get married or have some kind of love, I came to fight!
When Gorovtsev was my commander, he always told him: “Leave the foreman! Don't touch her!" and under the new commander of the chief of staff, he completely disbanded, began to pester me endlessly. I sent it to three letters. And he told me: "Five days." I turned around and said: “I obey, five days!” That's all.
She came to the company commander (the women had already come as company commanders): “Five days in the guardhouse” - “For what? Why?"
And I just: “Take the direction,” and she herself took off her belt, took off her shoulder straps, everything was narrower. I go to the company and say: "Girls, take rifles - I'm to lead the guardhouse."
Well, everyone went crazy: “How is it? Why?!" We had such a Baranova, and now I tell her: "Let's go." And she is in tears. I say: “An order is an order. Get a rifle!"...
In the evening, the clerk brings me a pillow and a blanket. She puts them in the evening for me and says: “Shesterenkin sent me,” and I say: “Bring the pillow and blanket back to him and tell him to put it under his ass.” I was stubborn then! »

Tamara Ovsyannikova, signalman

“Valya Stukalova served as a medical instructor for us. She dreamed of becoming a singer. She had a very good voice and such a figure ... Blonde, interesting, blue-eyed. We became friends with her a little. She participated in amateur performances. Before breaking the blockade, they traveled with performances in parts. Our destroyers "Brave" and "Brave" were stationed on the Neva. They fired at the Ivanovskaya area. The sailors invited our amateur performances to perform at their place. Valya sang, and she was accompanied by a foreman or midshipman from the destroyer Bobrov Modest, originally from the city of Pushkin. Valya liked him very much. In the same Krasnoborsk sack where I was wounded, Valya was also wounded in the thigh. Her leg was amputated. When Modest found out about this, he asked the commander of the ship to go on vacation to Leningrad. I found out which hospital she was in. I have no idea where, but he got flowers, today you can order flowers delivery, but at that time they didn’t even hear about it! In general, I came to the hospital with this bouquet of roses and handed these flowers to Valya. He knelt down and asked for her hand .... They have three children. Two sons and a daughter."

Lyubov Grozd, medical instructor
"My first kiss...
Junior Lieutenant Nikolai Belokhvostik ... Oh, look, I blushed all over, and already my grandmother. And then there were the young years. Young. I thought ... I was sure ... That ... I did not admit to anyone, even to my girlfriend, that I was in love with him. Over the ears. My first love... Maybe the only one? Who knows ... I thought: no one in the company guesses. I've never liked anyone like this before! If you liked it, then not so much. And he ... I went and thought about him constantly, every minute. What... It was true love. I felt. All signs... Ay, look, she blushed...
We buried him… He was lying on a raincoat, he had just been killed. The Germans are firing at us. It is necessary to bury quickly... Right now... We found old birch trees, chose the one that stood at a distance from the old oak. The biggest. Near it ... I tried to remember so that I could return and find this place later. Here the village ends, here is a fork ... But how to remember? How to remember if one birch is already burning before our eyes ... How? They began to say goodbye ... They say to me: “You are the first!” My heart jumped, I realized ... What ... Everyone, it turns out, knows about my love. Everyone knows… The thought hit: maybe he knew? Here... He lies... Now they will lower him into the ground... They will bury him. They'll cover it with sand... But I was terribly glad at this thought, which, perhaps, he also knew. What if he liked me too? As if he is alive and will answer me something now ... I remembered how on New Year's Eve he gave me a German chocolate bar. I didn’t eat it for a month, I carried it in my pocket.
Now it doesn’t reach me, I remember all my life ... This moment ... Bombs are flying ... He ... Lies on a raincoat ... This moment ... And I rejoice ... I stand and smile to myself. Abnormal. I am glad that he, perhaps, knew about my love ...
She came over and kissed him. Never kissed a man before… It was the first…”

Olga Omelchenko, medical officer of a rifle company

“They brought the wounded, completely bandaged, he had a wound in the head, he could barely see. A little. But, apparently, I reminded him of someone, he addresses me: “Larisa ... Larisa ... Lorochka ...” Apparently, the girl he loved. I know that I have never met this comrade, but he calls me. I approached, I don’t understand, I’m looking at everything. "You've come? You've come?" I took his hands, bent down… “I knew that you would come…” He whispers something, I can't understand what he is saying. And now I can’t tell, when I remember this incident, tears break through. “I,” he says, “when I went to the front, I didn’t have time to kiss you. Kiss me…” And so I leaned over him and kissed him. A tear jumped out of his eye and floated into the bandages, hid. And that's all. He died…"

Zinaida Ivanova, signalman
“In 1944, when they broke through and lifted the blockade of Leningrad, the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts merged. We liberated Veliky Novgorod, the Pskov region, went to the Baltic. When Riga was liberated, there was a time of calm before the battle, we arranged songs and dances, and pilots from the airfield came to us. I danced with one. There was strict discipline: at 10 o'clock the foreman commanded the "lights out", and the soldiers lined up for testing. The boys said goodbye to the girls and left. The soldier we danced with asks, "What's your name?" - "Zina". “Zina, let’s exchange addresses. Maybe the war will end, we will stay alive, we will meet? I gave him my grandmother's address...
After the war, working as a pioneer leader, I come home, I look, my grandmother is standing at the window, smiling. I think: "What is it?" I open the door, there is a pilot Anatoly, with whom we danced. He ended the war in Berlin, kept the address and came. When we signed with him, I was 19, and he was 23 years old. So I ended up in Moscow, and we lived together all our lives.

Already at 7.00 on May 9, the telethon “Our Victory” begins, and the evening will end with a grandiose festive concert “VICTORY. ONE FOR ALL”, which will start at 20.30. The concert was attended by Svetlana Loboda, Irina Bilyk, Natalia Mogilevskaya, Zlata Ognevich, Viktor Pavlik, Olga Polyakova and other popular Ukrainian pop stars.

“A wife is worth nothing if she cannot be a real helper to her husband,” - Yuri German, “My dear man.”

On Monday, May 9, 2016, all of Russia celebrates the 71st anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The country honors its heroes. All cities host parades and festive events in honor of the winners who paid with their lives and incredible suffering for freedom and peace on our planet.

Many veterans say that the horror of war kills all feelings in a person, leaving only the oppressive expectation of a new battle and bitterness from the loss of loved ones. However, in spite of everything, people felt the need for simple human feelings: fleeting joy from a nightingale chirping in the distance; burning in the chest of longing for loved ones, with whom the war separated. It also happened that, unaccustomed to warm, kind feelings, emotionally starved warriors found their love on the battlefields. MOSLENTA collected stories of real happy military and post-war love.

Yulia Andrianovna Gulina, 92 years old

Yulia Gulina at the celebration of Victory Day in Gorky Park

from the personal archive of Yulia Gulina

Just before the start of the war, I went to my aunt in Melekess (now Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region) and finished 10th grade there. I was 18 years old. The war began, and since I was a very big patriot of my country, I immediately ran with my friends to the military enlistment office to be taken to the front.

We were told: Girls, what will you do there? We had no profession, so we rushed straight to nursing courses. After they graduated in 1942, my girls and I were sent to the Kuibyshev region, where an airborne division was being formed. We were divided into parts, and I ended up in the 76th regimental battery and became a sanitary instructor.

My relatives, of course, were not enthusiastic about the fact that I was rushing to the front. Everyone said: “What are you, a fool? And I decided that without me there would be no victory.”

I didn’t say such pompous words, but I answered: “No, I must.” Then the Battle of Stalingrad began, we were in the Middle Don and then reached Ukraine, where in Kharkov I was surrounded and stayed there for about seven months. Then fate brought me to Dnepropetrovsk. There was a unit where Nikolai Vasilyevich Gulin served - a doctor and my future husband. In the 35th Guards Regiment of the Airborne Division.

While we were on the Don, they were fighting in Stalingrad. The division was thrown there, and the Germans smashed them to smithereens. Some parts of the entire regiment remained, they were taken out and sent to Dnepropetrovsk. There our joint war began.

I was sent to his regiment, which was literally a kilometer from the front line. Our task was to deliver the wounded to the sanitary station, bandage them, feed them, drink them, put them to bed and immediately transport them.

All the girls in the regiment were Ukrainian, he didn't like them. Clearly, I stood out among them.

And suddenly, in December 1943, before the New Year, the regiment commander called me to his place. I showed up as expected. The commander said: “Gulin is sitting with me, and he says that he likes you.” I answer: “So what, what was the matter?” And he: “Well, can’t you say that you like him too?” I said: "Well, like it, and what's next?" He called the chief of staff and told him to write an order for the regiment, that from such and such a date Lyapigovskaya (Yulia Andrianovna's maiden name) should be considered Gulina, that she was his wife. It was an official paper, like in the registry office.

I did not attach any importance to her then. Of course, we met with Nikolai before, I really liked him, but I did not make any encroachments in his direction. We did not succeed in celebrating such a peculiar “wedding”. At the front, there was absolutely no opportunity to somehow get together, sit, and even more so dance, for example.

Well, they poured something there, noted a little and that's it, that was the end of it. And so, he has his own duffel bag, I have mine - that's how we lived throughout the war.

When there was an offensive, we, as orderlies, walked behind us, they found some place for us suitable for a sanitary station, and we had to turn up our tents, spread out the medicines. Our commander - the senior doctor of the regiment and my husband - at that time organized the whole process.

He made sure that we set up our tents in time and were ready to receive the wounded. If we were late, then we got it very hard. And no concessions were made to me because of my marriage to one of the commanders of our regiment. At the front, everyone was in the same position.

I even have only three medals, for example, unlike my colleagues, other nurses. In general, my husband was very afraid of somehow overestimating me, so that they wouldn’t think anything there that I was just being rewarded.

My marriage did not give me any privileges in the war. It was such a feature of his character. I told him later: “Yeah, I was modest. He gave me only three medals, and they won how many.

And there really wasn't any love at the front. Some fleeting meetings and nothing more. There were no conditions for this. Simply, two servicemen met, they treat each other well and that's it. He is the boss, and you are the subordinate, nothing like that. Nikolai reminded me very much of Batalov from “My Dear Man” (actor Alexei Batalov, who played the main character in the film “My Dear Man” by Iosif Kheifits, doctor Vladimir Ustimenko).

We did not show our feelings at all, because we did not know how, and in general we were not brought up that way. Maybe the characters are. Our love was within us, always there. And we got together on a date and sang songs when we walked 45 kilometers on the march.

The infantry had no cars, nothing, so they had to carry everything on themselves. Once, when my colleagues learned that I was considered the wife of our commander, one of them told me: “Well, wife, you have a bag with your husband’s things and dispose of them.”

Together, Nikolai and I were only when there was some kind of respite. We went across Ukraine, liberated Odessa, then we were sent to Warsaw. This was in 1944. In Poland in August 1944 there was an order for the armies. Women who were called up voluntarily and serve in the lower ranks could be demobilized. And I went to Odessa to enter the medical institute. I began to study, and my husband fought.

At the very end of the war, my future mother-in-law called me to Moscow from Odessa, and I was already graduating from the institute here, and my husband was at the front. They lived in a wooden house on 2nd Meshchanskaya Street (now Gilyarovsky Street). I lived with my mother-in-law, she took me very well. She treated me with very great respect, did not say: Some kind of front-line soldier arrived there. I immediately began to study.

He received several more wounds, because he was a very brave commander, he always went on the attack with his subordinates. Never shied away from the front line.

We often corresponded and, despite the long separation, he and I, we turned out to be true to that very order of our commander in 1943.

Yulia Gulina (far right) with fighting friends, 1942

Photo: from the personal archive of Yulia Gulina

When the war ended, he was in Germany and called me there. In Berlin, at the consulate, there was an official marriage. Since then we have been living together. In fact, our family life began there. In Germany, in Saalfeld, there was one funny episode when I was in the hospital, pregnant with our first son.

Nikolai and his regiment went to some kind of exercises all the time. And when my son was born, he sent from there to this medical battalion, where I was lying, a suitcase with things for the child. When I opened it, it was full of bottles of vodka. They were intended for the team of doctors who took delivery. It turned out that the suitcases were simply mixed up.

In Germany, my son and I did not stay long, we were asked to leave for Moscow, and I never returned there, and he remained there to serve for almost six years. I lived with my mother-in-law on Meshchanskaya. Then our occupying troops began to withdraw from Germany, and Nikolai returned to Moscow. We have lived in this wooden house for almost 30 years.

They were broken and we were moved to our own apartment. And so, with the character of my husband, I don’t know when we would have received our housing at all. He never asked for anything, never fussed, he was not at all such a person.

This is how my family was created, it was tested by the front, by time. With him we lived a long happy life, gave birth to two children. It so happened that he died earlier, and I'm still alive.

Vladimir Farafonov, 63 (tells the love story of his parents)

Mstislav and Lydia Farafonov

On the day the war began, June 22, 1941, my father Farafonov Mstislav Prokofievich graduated from the 10th grade. From the military registration and enlistment office he was sent to study at the Sevastopol Naval School. My father always wanted to be a sailor, because he was born in Bashkiria, never saw the sea and had romantic feelings for him. He got on the accelerated courses of the swimming composition.

The front moved quickly enough to Sevastopol, the Crimea was left to the Germans, so he had, as a cadet, to participate in the defense of the city. He was injured in both legs and frostbite. He was sent to finish his studies in Baku, while his school certificate and other documents remained at the school in Sevastopol. Father participated in the protection of the rear units, which were engaged in oil production.

After graduating from college on the Caspian Sea, he ended up serving in the northern navy in the city of Vaenga (now Severomorsk). He was first the first assistant, then the captain of the big sea hunter, the "turbinist" series.

Why, at such a young age, he was only 19 years old, was he put in command of an entire ship? Because they were engaged in escorting English caravans, which were delivered to us under Lend-Lease, and often died.

There were a lot of German submarines in these places. Plus, the Soviet ships were not the most perfect. There were no acoustics and all sorts of other technical devices. Therefore, teams were recruited mainly from prisoners, young people and those who did not have families.

Mstislav Farafonov (second from left) with his comrades at the naval school

from the personal archive of Vladimir Farafonov

But, by a lucky chance, my father survived and even knocked out one German boat. For this, he was even presented for an award, awarded the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union, and paid a monetary reward. However, since they were actually children, 20 years old, the money, of course, was spent on drink.

Then a fight broke out in the port of Vaenga, and then another skirmish with the British pilots. Father was nevertheless sent to the penal battalion, and the star was taken away.

At the end of 1944, he participated in the landing in Norway. He was wounded by a machine-gun burst in the back, and then sent to the hospital, where he lay almost until May 1945 and was commissioned for injury.

When millions die, the happiness of two - so fragile and crystal - becomes almost unreal ...

Hundreds of thousands of books and articles have been written about the Great Patriotic War, and many films have been made. All this so that we remember how terrible and destructive it can be, how easy it is to end a human life. It is not customary to talk about love, and even more so about sex in war. Like, this is not a suitable topic for discussion, “shameful” ... Nevertheless, this is also part of our history, and you need to know your history.

Here's what our elders remember....

I will never forget you

It was July forty-first. Western Belarus. And we are retreating on all fronts.

We are an artillery crew of five people. We have at our disposal a "lorry" and a "forty-five" attached to it (a 45-caliber gun). There are thousands of refugees along the way. They go, they carry, they drive ... Messerschmites periodically fly in, bomb and water the road with machine guns. Refugees rush in droves from the road into the forest.

Our commander - an elderly, compassionate man who met the third war (he went through a civil, Finnish, and now the Great Patriotic War), - planted women and children in our car so that it was impossible to move. They put a young girl in my arms, our gunner is sitting next to him with a boy in his arms ...

And he throws the “one and a half” from side to side, throws it up on potholes ... And the girl sitting in my arms crawls over me so that I’m completely unbearable ... A light cotton dress served as a poor insulator, and panties at that time, and even in village, no one wore. I spoke to her, asked her what her name was, she said that her name was Olesya and that she was 17 years old. I said that my name was Ivan and that I was 20 ... I need to understand my condition, and I began to persuade her ...

And if, - I say, - now there will be a raid, a direct hit and there will be nothing left of us ?! But she does not agree to any. She clutched at her dress, pulls it on her knees and only trembles all over. And suddenly - a powerful explosion behind the car. In the darkness, the "one and a half" was thrown to the left. The woman screamed. The beam of our gunner's flashlight slid towards the wounded woman, she was helped by women ... And then Olesya touched my hand and I realized that she agreed ...

She let go of her dress, I clasped my hands on her stomach and began to act slowly.

It's good that there is only one top button on the soldier's underpants. And here we have it all. After the first shock, she calmed down, I realized that she was going into a rage, she even began to help me slowly ... And ... a strong explosion on the starboard side. The car was thrown to the left, and I felt that Olesya began to slide off me, but in a strange way. Not with my own voice, I shouted to the gunner to light the lantern. The beam slid over the girl's face.

A black trickle trickled down to his chin. The shard hit right in the temple. Her death was instant.

That was the time. No one knew where and how death would have to meet ...

The story of the front-line soldier was recorded by a teacher of physical education at secondary school No. 7 in Pyatigorsk

Vladimir Vasilievich DENISOV.

The end of Frau Elsa

My countryman Pavel Matyunin returned from the front as a hero. When he, in chrome boots polished to a shine, in breeches stretched like a string, in a tunic hung with orders and medals and a strapped harness, walked along the village street, girls and young widows leaned waist-deep out of the windows and frankly admired the handsome officer. It seemed that the entire female half of the village was head over heels in love with the front-line hero.

We, the boys, accompanied Pavel in a gang. Each of us strove to touch his awards, to try on a cap with a brilliant cockade, to walk side by side with the hero.

And how happy I was when Uncle Pavel came to visit us to talk over a glass of moonshine with my father, a front-line soldier! At the very beginning, my father was seriously wounded, remained disabled and knew the whole truth about the war only by hearsay. And Uncle Pavel reached Berlin, and he had something to talk about. I listened to him with bated breath and was once again convinced that Uncle Pavel was a real hero. But once, having drunk heavily, my idol told his father such a story.

It was 1945. The victory was close. The rifle regiment, in which Lieutenant Matyunin served, crossed the Elbe River and occupied the city of Dresden with battles. The platoon commander with a group of machine gunners decided to check the mansion on the outskirts of the city - did the Nazis hide there? The mistress of the mansion, a young German woman, came out to knock. She was so beautiful that the officer was speechless. Noticing Pavel's confusion, the girl singsongly said: “Their Frau Elsa. Bitte in House,” and motioned the guests into the house.

Recovering his senses, Pavel instructed the submachine gunners to check the outbuildings and wait for him in the yard, and he himself entered the hostess's apartment. She immediately laid the table: she put on schnapps, an appetizer, and cordially invited a Russian officer to the table.

Further events developed with catastrophic speed. The intoxicated hostess clung to the handsome officer and Pavel, who had missed female affection for many years of the war, could not resist. Taking the beautiful Elsa in his arms, he carried her into the bedroom, where he showed her all his valiant prowess.

When it was all over, and it was time for Pavel to leave, the insatiable hostess did not want to part with the frantic Russian. Taking the initiative in their own hands, the German suddenly switched to oral sex. It is known that at that time sex was considered something shameful in our country. For a country boy, such a display of passion was something unheard of and wild. Shocked, Pavel took a pistol from his holster and shot at the beautiful German woman ...

When the story was over, the father, without uttering a word, somehow disapprovingly looked at the interlocutor and lowered his head. Noticing his reaction, Uncle Pavel offered to drink another one each. And I ran out into the street, huddled in a haystack and cried.

Petr Petrovich KUZNETSOV, Bryansk region.

Military field novel

When the war began, I was only 14 years old, but despite my age, my peers and I were already working on the collective farm on a par with adults. Of course, we were not paid money, but they gave us food, which meant a lot then. There were few literate people in the village, and I finished six classes, which is why I was appointed as an accountant in the first field-growing brigade. It was also my duty to read newspapers with reports from the Sovinformburo to the brigade. In almost every newspaper, soldiers came across with a request to the girls to write letters to them and get acquainted ...

And we have only women in the brigade, I read to them, and they cry. All of them were married before the war. But as soon as the husbands went to the front, they disappeared right away - who died, who went missing ... Ten-year-old children and hundred-year-old old people remained ... So I suggested: “Do not grieve, women, let's all write together to the field mail address, where my friend serves, maybe there will be grooms there ”... And I have long corresponded with my friend’s brother. What affectionate letters Petya wrote to me! He confessed his love, promised that as soon as we drive the Fritz out, he would immediately call me in marriage "...

We wrote a collective letter, saying: “Hello, comrade fighters, greetings to you, girls ...”, and everyone signed under it. And everyone received answers ... Thus, I had a new friend, Senior Lieutenant Alexander Ivanovich Ionin. We began a lively correspondence with him, and he asked me for a photograph. I sent ... one - to Ionina, and the other - to Petya. I wanted to keep up the morale of the guys. But it turned out the other way around ... Petya sent me a letter with the words: “We serve Sasha in one unit.

Did you think we didn't know each other? Do you know how sick I felt when he showed me a photo of “his girlfriend”? Apparently, you, Ninochka, wanted an extra star ... After all, I am a lieutenant, and he is a senior lieutenant ... Well, consider that you got it ... "

No matter how much I wrote to Peter, trying to explain everything, he did not forgive me. And then they killed him. So I lost a person dear to my heart ... And with Ionin, the correspondence continued until the very end of the war. I felt that he fell deeply in love with me. And something awakened in me too ... I began to consider him my fiancé.

Moreover, he introduced me to his relatives in absentia ... His sister and nephew (Volodya) and I often wrote to each other. (They lived in the village of Berezanskaya in the Kuban). Finally, the long-awaited news: he is coming! Volodya calls to visit. I went ... He met me and said ... So, they say, and so, Sasha is married, and married before the war. But he doesn't like his wife, so... As I heard this, everything swam in my eyes. I realized that this was retribution for Petya's betrayal. I refused to go to Sasha (although I wanted to see him more than anything in the world), I returned home. I didn’t even think that it was possible to love a married man - I was brought up in such a way that I considered it impossible.

And in the end, I got married only at the age of 32 ... Unmarried men after the war were a rarity ... Now I'm alone again, I buried my husband ... And I often remember my lieutenants and think about our failed love. I console myself with one thing ... All four years, while Sasha fought on the front line, I was waiting for him and warmed his soul with affectionate letters. Once he said that only thanks to this he remained unharmed - because he wanted to return to his beloved girl. I don't know if he is alive? Now he should be 88 years old ...

Nina Savelyevna BORODANOVA (nee CHEKHONINA), Krasnodar.

I look at you from the sky

The dusty military summer of 1943. Captured Red Army soldiers wander along the central street of the village of Ilskaya. Exhausted by the long march, hungry. The sun is blinding, sweat covers the eyes. The thirst becomes unbearable, like pain. The German escorts were also tired: after five hours of a tedious march, their boots became heavy, the straps of their machine guns painfully cut into their shoulders. Near some wattle fence, under a shady mulberry tree, there is a well.

- Halt! - the corporal commands.

The Red Army soldiers are falling into the withered grass. The well gate creaks, the prisoners watch with envy as the Germans douse themselves with cold water. When the turn comes to them, they arrange a brawl around the bucket of water. After drinking, sit down somewhere. The Germans are in no hurry. They opened the cans of stew. In the ensuing silence, Fritz spoons tinkle and the stomachs of prisoners of war rumble.

The gloomy aunt, who was watching what was happening from behind the wattle fence, spat out of annoyance and disappeared into the hut. A minute later she brought out a loaf of bread, pinching off small pieces, tried to treat everyone. Hands reached out to her from all sides, there was not enough bread. Auntie wiped away a tear and, angrily muttering something, went into the hut.

You! - full, and therefore the escort, who had become wiser, nodded to the young lieutenant. - Get up! Go! - With a kick, he opened the gate and let the prisoner go forward.

The hostess ordered to give the guy more food, otherwise "the hungry Russians will not reach." And in the house, after the advanced units of the occupiers passed through the village, even with a rolling ball.

They stole the cow, they took everything clean out of the cellar, - the aunt shook her head, and the lieutenant did not take his eyes off her beautiful black-browed daughter. Having received a poke in the stomach with an iron muzzle, he did not even wince, but leaving, he carefully looked at the house number.

A few days later, our units released the prisoners and the lieutenant visited the inhabitants of the treasured house. Ivan had a catastrophically little time - he just declared his love, and it's time ...

A string of letters “with a secret” stretched from heart to heart - Masha found a dried flower inside each message. The girl was waiting for victory, and with it - a funny lieutenant. But one day, instead of a letter, the postman brought a notice to receive money.

As many as two thousand! And from whom is this money? mother rejoiced.

And Masha saw a line from Vanya’s last letter pop up before her eyes: “If I return, I will give you flowers every day, and if they kill me, they will send you money, at least occasionally buy bouquets yourself. There is nothing more beautiful in this world than a beautiful girl with flowers. And I will look at you from the sky and smile.

The story of the unfulfilled love of her aunt was told by Valentina Gavrilovna Shastina from the village of Ilsky, Krasnodar Territory.

Favorite guest

This story began in 1942, when a 25-year-old soldier, shell-shocked and wounded in the leg, was returning home from the hospital. Somehow I got to Pskov, and there the station was bombed and the trains run very badly. And there are thousands of miles to go home. What is a soldier to do? He turned into a street near the station, knocked on the first house he came across and asked to spend the night. The hostess with her daughter (the girl was 13 years old) greeted the guest cordially.

And the mistress of the house, her name was Grunya, turned 32 years old, the very juice ... Her husband was killed in the 41st. It’s hard for a woman alone... But a soldier is fine: tall, black-haired, mustachioed, with blue eyes... And he also yearned without a woman... In general, everything worked out for them on the very first night... Grunya offered Nikolai to stay, and he stayed.

The wounds bothered him, but Nikolai helped Grune as best he could with the housework: he would chop firewood, bring water, cook dinner ... All the women envied Grune's happiness: such a prominent man, he came to the house himself! So they lived for about three years, and then Nikolai suddenly noticed that Grunin's daughter had turned into a beautiful girl. Nikolai did not notice how he fell in love. And Tonya looked at him as a girl ... A secret love broke out between them. But can you hide your shining eyes?

When everything was revealed, Grunya wept bitterly, cursing Nikolai and Tonya ... And it was as if she was calling trouble into the house: less than a week later, Nikolai fell ill in delirium and fever - the battle wounds made themselves felt. The doctors said that Nikolai was hopeless. Tonya looked after him and quietly cried. And Grunya roared loudly ... They buried Nikolai. And Tonya gave birth to a girl from him three months later. She brought her from the hospital and went to no one knows where. Olesya grew up all in her father, the same beauty. Grunya raised her ... Olesya still does not know who her real mother is.

Olga Vladimirovna MELENCHUK, Pskov.

gypsy girl

It was, it seems, in the 42nd. And we lived in Altai, in a village near the famous resort of Belokurikha. All the sanatoriums were then packed with seriously wounded soldiers, and evacuees lodged in almost every house. All local men went to the front, and 14-16-year-old boys fled there. Only the elderly and the children remained. I was then 13 years old. Mom is on the collective farm from morning to night, and I manage the house ...

I planted a garden, milked a cow, cooked food, and even looked after my brothers and sisters - I was the oldest. Life was hard for everyone. But life is life, a living person always wants something ... We also found time for entertainment. They will gather, used to be girls with women, and, well, tease each other. One evacuee stood out in particular. She was very beautiful; He says: “If you don’t agree, I’ll kill you!”. Ha ha ha! Girls! If he kills me, bury me at Krasny Yar, please (as we called the cemetery), but closer to the edge ... so that I can see how you whore here! Ha ha ha!"

And Mitka is still a fruit. He had three wives, and children from each. Why they didn’t take him to the front, I don’t know ... He worked as an electrician at the resort, and Tsyganochka worked as a nurse. Both lived in the Bear Log (that was the name of the street). The road there is winding, on the one hand the mountain is steep, and on the other the river .... Every morning, our water carrier came to the river, on a horse harnessed to a cart with a barrel, for some water. And then he moves down to the river and sees something strange in the side. He stopped the horse, it fits, and these panties are hanging on a bush! Before he had time to be surprised, he sees - and under the bush the woman is dead! And next to her is a man! He didn’t even remember about the water, rather to the village council ...

They identified, of course, Gypsy. It was already cold. And Mitka is still alive. After all, after all, he was on guard ... At first, apparently, he hit him well, and then he dragged him into the bushes and raped him. And he himself poisoned himself after everything, he drank acid. Of course, they started saving him. Hurry, wash the stomach, give medicines ... and he screams: “I don’t want to live without her, don’t save me !!!”. They took him to the hospital, and we, the kids, followed. Curious...everyone looked in the window of the ward. In the evening they told us that he had died.

The whole village saw off Gypsy on her last journey. The old women howled - it was heard far away. And her husband was released from the front to the funeral. I remember that he was very handsome, a military officer... He obviously loved his wife very much, he cried in the cemetery... But Mitka was buried later, and there were also a lot of people. Behind the coffin, his three wives with children walked, and everyone wept. Apparently, they also loved ...

Alexandra Alekseevna POPRUGA, labor front veteran, labor veteran. Sovetskaya Gavan, Khabarovsk Territory.

Letters were read by Svetlana Lazebnaya

Larionov A.E.

Love and war ... It would seem that there could be more opposite than these two concepts, as if denying each other. However, in reality, looking closely at the facts and episodes of the Great Patriotic War, analyzing memoirs and archival documents, one can see that love, like a song, was constantly present in the daily life of soldiers and officers of the Red Army throughout all four years of the struggle against Nazi Germany and her allies. What is the solution to this paradox?

It has long and repeatedly been noted that war exacerbates human feelings, experiences, and emotions to an extraordinary degree. In addition, the extremity and fatality, more precisely, the pathological nature of war for society and the individual, gave rise to a reciprocal and diametrically opposite desire among the participants in the hostilities - at least for some time to fence themselves off from the terrible realities of war and death, to recreate, albeit for a brief moment, a corner of peaceful life , to oppose in one's own consciousness and everyday life life to death and, through one's own behavior, to affirm the predestination of the victory of the first over the second. The last leitmotif can be generally regarded as a constant throughout the daily life of the Red Army during the war years.

Love between a man and a woman is precisely the brightest manifestation of life, as well as the inextricably linked desire for procreation. That is why, despite the horrors of war and the threat of death, which found daily confirmation in the mass death of people, or rather, in spite of all this, love in the army was a natural and integral part of front-line everyday life throughout the Great Patriotic War, from its first to its last day. .

However, love is a very capacious word that includes many semantic shades. Considering that during the war years about 34 million people, including about 800 thousand women, passed through the active army, and adding to this contacts with the civilian population, it is easy to come to a self-evident conclusion about the extraordinary diversity of love in the real conditions of front-line everyday life. . At the same time, one should not forget about the variety of situations in which love arose and manifested itself.

Love as a memory and expectation, as a dream or anguish, as the last letter before a mortal battle, from which they did not expect to get out alive, as a testament to a friend to visit his bride after the war, as a fleeting but unusually strong flash of passion during a brief acquaintance, as a military field novel , which had different continuations after the war ... You can continue the enumeration indefinitely and not exhaust the whole variety of feelings.

Without even trying to do this, one can try to determine the degree of importance of love in the mentality of the military society of the USSR in 1941-1945. The question is not an unsolvable riddle. It is enough to turn to such publicly available material as poems and songs of the war years. If, in relation to the Wehrmacht, the stereotype captured in the newsreel is a gallant Aryan on a tank with a harmonica, then in relation to the Red Army, this is a fighter with an accordion or button accordion at a halt, surrounded by listening and singing comrades. The popularity of such songs as “In the forest near the front”, “In the dugout”, “Dark Night”, “Spark” (“The girl escorted the fighter to the position”), “Katyusha”, “The candle burns”, etc. was huge on the part of the soldiers and officers of the Red Army. The same can be said, for example, about Konstantin Simonov's poems "Wait for me" (later also set to music). They were listened to with pleasure, rewritten, memorized, sometimes supplemented. It is noteworthy that in all the works mentioned and many similar ones, one way or another, the image of a beloved girl or woman dominates, or even dominates. The war appears as nothing more than an external background, at most an annoying hindrance that must be eliminated in order to connect with your beloved. Even the probability of death in such a context appeared in a different perspective - as the fulfillment of one's duty to a loved one to the end. In this case, it can be stated how the concept of love approached its Christian interpretation: “No one can have more than sowing love, unless one lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Love acquired the meaning of a selfless sacrifice, passing into the plane of absolute ideals of a metaphysical nature and archetypal scale.

Of course, in everyday front-line life, this was rarely mentioned, excessive pathos was generally alien to the front-line generation, which was brilliantly shown by E.S. Senyavskaya in her works devoted to the wars of Russia in the 20th century. Reality could be simpler and rougher. However, ideals should not be forgotten either.

Everyday reality is reflected in memoirs and archival documents. It is to them that we turn below. However, let us first make a few general remarks. Being at the front, the soldiers recalled their home, wives and children, waiting for their brides to return:

Where the Christmas trees fall, Where the Christmas trees stand,

Which year beauties walk without guys.

Why do they need early dawns, since the guys are at war,

In Germany, in Germany, far away.

For others, a chance meeting with a stranger on the roads of war, which could end in a brief but passionate kiss, or a fleeting romance, followed by an inevitable separation, often forever, stuck in their memory. At the same time, the attraction could be so strong that it pushed people to outwardly reckless actions. Artilleryman Pyotr Demidov cites a typical example from his front-line biography: “Suddenly, the division was relocated to the village of Khotyn ... It was a pity to part with Anyuta, who had fallen in love with me. How long we would stay in Khotyn, no one knew, but I suddenly wanted to see my mistress: I hastily said goodbye to her then, saying only a few kind words. Began to think about how and on what to go to Baratin? The car was excluded. Bicycle! .. Soon I was already knocking on Anyuta's window ... The night flew by like one hour ... The parting was touching: both understood that it was unlikely that we would see each other again ... ". Just imagine: an officer of the active army, the commander of a battalion of rocket launchers (“Katyushas”), preparing for redeployment in connection with the assigned combat mission, travels several kilometers alone at night, warning only the orderly and deputy for combat training about this! In the event that he was late for the general meeting, he would have been threatened with a tribunal, but this did not frighten him. Without a doubt, there were a huge number of such examples, although not all of them ended as happily as this one.

The Moscow militiaman Vladimir Shimkevich, who survived both mortal danger in the battles in the Moscow direction, and the horrors of captivity, recalls fleeting love with extraordinary warmth and tenderness on the way to the front in one of the villages near Moscow. The girl promised to wait for him and asked to return alive….

In addition to such fleeting-random meetings, novels with female soldiers were quite common. Here, however, there was such a situation as the deliberate inequality of various categories of servicemen - both because of their official status (and, accordingly, the ability to care for women), and because of the many times fewer women in the Red Army compared to men called up for service. Although there were exceptions due to circumstances. A characteristic episode is cited in his memoirs by the former commander of the penal battalion, Mikhail Suknev: “As luck would have it, a battalion stood up from the reserve for distribution in the forest nearby ... SIGNALER! Yes, one is better than the other! Odessans immediately came to me, they avoided Commissioner Kalachev. They ask to be allowed to invite girls-communicators to visit, only for one evening ...

“Comrade battalion commander, we will bring you the most beautiful one!” one suggested...

- One main condition: silence and no unnecessary libations, comrades! At midnight, so that none of the signalers was in the battalion's location. I'm not supposed to be at your masquerade ball!

One hundred thanks to me. The night passed half cheerfully, but by morning everything was peaceful and quiet. Even our Smersh missed this ball, but Commissar Kalachev, my friend, kept silent. In this case, we are again faced with a direct violation of the charter, this time collective and with the actual connivance of the battalion commander, who could not help but understand what was in store for him in the event of exposure. However, even here we can look at the situation from the other side: life turned out to be stronger than both war and army regulations.

However, much more often relationships with women that crossed the boundaries of service could be afforded by senior and senior officers in the rank of major and above. Even for battalion commanders, a front-line romance was more often a pipe dream than a real possibility. Such novels could be both fleeting and long-term. In the latter case, the rather pejorative expression “camping field wife” or abbreviated “PPZH” could be used in soldier’s everyday life, especially if the officer who “twisted love” with a nurse or signalman from the headquarters of the regiment or division already had an official family in the rear. Also in the soldier's rude humor, if the staff girl was awarded the medal "For Military Merit", then she was called "For Sexual Merit".

It can be argued that in the mass consciousness of the soldiers and officers of the army there existed, albeit an unwritten, but quite clear gradation of love relationships. If such arose between unmarried / unmarried men and women, then they were usually perceived sympathetically, with a touch of good humor, sometimes with slight envy. In the same case, when the officer was already married, or a selfish calculation was seen in the actions of the girl, then a shade of moral condemnation was present in the assessments in one way or another, although not necessarily expressed aloud.

However, it was not uncommon in the general mass that there were cases when a girl experienced pressure from her superiors, sometimes threatening to turn into moral, and even physical violence. This caused a sharply negative reaction from most of those around him. The girl who defended her honor, on the contrary, commanded respect, some soldiers and officers, to the best of their ability and ability, tried to protect her from the encroachments and harassment of annoying boyfriends.

Here is the story of a participant in the war, a female sniper, Zinaida Nekrutova-Kotko, about one of the episodes of her non-combat life at the front: “We are in the dugout, 2 lieutenant colonels are sitting, the table is laid royally ... They sat down, ate, did not drink, got up, said thanks and heading out the door. I am the first. Tamara by the hand. They blocked the road for us: “It won’t work like that, we have to pay.” What a shame! I say that we have nothing to pay with, except for our honor, and the bad thing is that you are losing your officer honor, and now I will shout so much that all the sentries will come running. They opened the door for us and almost threw us out. And the next day, to our joy, we were expelled to the regiment. And most importantly, my sniper rifle was returned to the regiment. It was a holiday for me!” .

Love, even in peaceful life, is often associated with separation and loss. What then to say about the war, where death is more natural than life. And the stronger were the feelings of love, spiritual and bodily unity between loved ones, the more acutely and bitterly experienced the separation and death of a loved one. We find evidence of such a sad, but sublime and bright love in the diary entries of the military translator of the Leningrad Front, I. M. Dunaevskaya. Having met and married her husband V. Gratsiansky even before the war, she lived a year filled with happiness, and soon after the start of the war, the young candidate of biological sciences Vladimir Gratsiansky, a militia member of the Leningrad militia, was killed in positions near Leningrad on September 16, 1941.

August 3, 1942 Today, as always, as every day - thoughts of Volodya, longing for him. I can't and won't be able to reconcile. People are so rarely bright, and Volodya was just bright, bright, not outwardly, but inwardly: the reflection of his soul in mine does not dim.

August 20, 1942 I constantly remember the last night with Volodya in the OPAB (Separate machine gun and artillery battalion) in the open. We cover ourselves with his overcoat. He whispers: “Quietly, my Mouse! Hush, my Lasochka! Rain, legs stuffed into Volodin's large duffel bag that I sewed. Nettles all around. Everything got wet. And yet we are happy! We are together!

November 1, 1942 It is sickening to live without heartfelt affection, but there is not the slightest desire to exchange money. The memory of Volodya is the most precious thing even now.

November 21, 1942 Thoughts about Volodya. Thinking about Volodya, by an effort of will and love, as it were, I bring him back to life, to life in me, although he is not with me, my only, beloved. It doesn’t exist and never will… And again tears, which I didn’t have then… How can I believe?

5 December 1942 I am very lonely and sad. Volodya! Dear, dear, beloved, my joy, my sun, my life ...

December 19, 1942 Volodya, dear, dear, how to believe that we are not apart, that you are not! .

These are just a few excerpts from an extensive diary. Comments here, as they say, are superfluous, I just want to say that thousands and millions of those who lost loved ones in the war could subscribe to these lines. But there is one more thing: this fidelity to the memory of the deceased husband, paradoxically, again proves that love was stronger than both war and death!

As already mentioned, the war inevitably sharpened the worldview. But it could also lead to a sharp change in him, when a person did things that would have seemed unthinkable to him a little earlier. In terms of love relationships, this could lead not only to stories with a happy ending, but also to real dramas, in which many people voluntarily or involuntarily found themselves drawn into. Especially such cases became more frequent at the end of the war, when the joy and happiness of some turned into tears for others. The latter refers to those moments when the officers terminated the pre-war marriage bonds for the sake of their "front-line love." A trace of such dramas was preserved in the documents of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army.

From letters to the editor of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

“From the wife of Captain Rybinyuk Nikolai Timofeevich - Lydia Fomovna Rybinyuk - S.V. Golyaki, Korninsky district, Zhytomyr region.

Dear editor!

Sorry for the inconvenience I'm about to cause you. But, dear editor, I was forced by a fatal circumstance, which I ask readers to share with me.

I connected my life with Rybinyuk Nikolay in 1934 in February M-tse. They lived happily and happily. We have an 8 year old daughter. But the war came and our lives were separated. How much grief, tears and poverty had to endure during this time; but having received news from the front from her husband and father, all this seemed to be forgotten. Hope for the future grew, and we patiently waited for it, the future.

So 4 years have passed. My husband and the father of my daughter informed us about himself, about the conditions in which, as he wrote, he was. We, having received a letter from him, were worried, with trepidation we followed the situation in which he was (so we thought), mentally and soulfully asking him for well-being. He also did not forget us, wrote letters, calling us "his own", "dear for his life." There was even a case when, at the first opportunity (as he said), in 1943. came to visit us in the fall. At that time, my daughter and I were evacuated in Saransk (military unit 18). He called me his wife, and his daughter also. Later he also wrote that in general his life depends on our well-being. He lived with the hope of the end of the war to return to his family again. So the husband wrote to his wife and the father to his daughter for 4 years.

The long-awaited Day of Victory over the enemy of mankind has come ... This means that the end of separation will come, and a prosperous and happy life will be established.

29 May 1945 letter from husband. What a mother’s happiness when she saw her daughter with a joyful beaming smile, carrying a letter from her father, and what grief when a sad shadow covered the face of a child who, in the letter he received, found out that his father was not a father for him, but just a familiar person, which is as easy to forget as last year's snow. He said that, by the way, he was married to a woman he loved very much, for whom he was ready to give his life, asking him to forget about him, "without making any noise, forget it as soon as possible."

I wonder what he really thought about his family, being under a hail of bullets, or maybe the war is a fun excursion for him, during which there is time to please and fall in love?

Yes, we were wrong, we thought that he, like all honest citizens, was defending the fatherland. And he, for 4 years of the war, called us his own. What made him deceive his family? What was his goal?

Did he not think for an accident, or just in case, to prepare a shelter for himself? Now that he has remained unharmed and healthy, he wants to “live”, forgetting about his loved ones, because now he will manage without them.

Dear editor! Please do not refuse my request to publish this outrageous fact in your newspaper. Let the readers know what other husbands and fathers there are for children.

I enclose copies of his last two letters. Respectfully yours, L.F. Rybinyuk. In case of doubt, please contact the Korninsky military registration and enlistment office, Zhytomyr region.

Good afternoon, Linda! Good afternoon, dear daughter Taisochka!

I convey my warm greetings to both of you and inform you that while you are alive, healthy, I wish you much, much happiness, and most importantly, health.

Lidochka, dear, you, of course, forgive me for everything that I will write to you, but I want to write about this.

Of course, when we were together, we loved each other; I respected you and still respect you. But no matter how sorry it is, I must nevertheless confess, sooner or later, namely: a lot of time has passed since the beginning of the Patriotic War; I wrote absolutely nothing to you, but now I decided to tell the truth. Be it known to you, and I ask you not to talk about yourself and be calm, namely: I no longer want you to consider me yours, since I will not return to you again and for only one reason, namely, that I have a wife, whom I love more than anything in the world, for whom I will give everything that I have, and also she loves me more than you. Therefore, I ask you not to worry and worry about me anymore, and most importantly, do not interfere with my life and do not make any noise. Lidochka, I’m not angry with you and I’m not offended, but you must understand one thing, that I can’t live with you anymore, that we have been together for a long time, fell in love with each other, brought little benefit to each other in our young years, and I was forced to look for a loved one, because life itself prompted this. Further, you can ask about your daughter, then I must say that I do not refuse, and everything that will be due to me, I will pay and everything more. Of course you can call me a son of a bitch. I agree with this, but I have to tell you one thing, I ask you to give one answer to this letter and ask you not to write to me anymore and forget me faster. For rudeness, of course, forgive me, but it's true.

I wish you happiness and health. I don't intend to write anything to you anymore and I don't intend to. Stay happy and healthy. Kolya.

Good afternoon, Linda! Good afternoon, my own daughter Taisochka.

I convey to you, my relatives, the warmest front-line greetings and inform you that I am still alive, healthy and unharmed, I wish you both, my dears, good success in your hard life. Lidochka, I was surprised why there is no letter from you for a long time. What is the reason for this?

I, dear, am in Germany. Today is the first of May, but believe me, my dear, how sad it is, how I want to come to you and spend this day with you together, together with my own daughter. But believe me, my dear, that this day will come soon, since the end of the war is already visible, and I will come to you and tell you about everything that I saw, what I experienced during these years of the war.

Lidochka, write, dear, whether you received the parcels, the certificate. If you received all this, please let me know. Now write, dear, whether you received a certificate or not. Say hello to all family and friends.

Kiss them both hard, hard.

Your loving Kolya. .

The war also highlighted many hidden sides of the human soul, which in some were bright, while in others - with a fair amount of wormholes. The same applies to relationships with women. In addition to an elevated and respectful attitude, or even passion, there were cases of outright licentiousness, when a person violated elementary moral standards, hoping that "the war would write everything off." This is also evidenced by the following documents from the archives, previously unpublished:

TO THE CHIEF OF THE MAIN POLITICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE RKKA ARMY COMMISSAR OF THE 1st RANK comrade. MECHLISU

REPORT OF THE POLITICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE WESTERN FRONT

emergency

Commissar 269obs 18gsd (49th army), battalion commissar Kanyuk I.E., born in 1908, a native of the Poltava region, using his official position, forced women to cohabit. Buzzard systematically drank in a circle of women and squandered the Red Army rations. In this dirty business, Buzzard dragged the battalion commander Captain Khudoverdov, the secretary of the party bureau, political commissar Bobkov, the secretary of the Komsomol bureau, political commissar Mokryi, and deputy political commissar Mantsuev.

In November 1941, in the village of Chuprino, Buzzard settled a woman in his apartment, with whom he drank and cohabited. In order to win her over, he ordered the deputy political instructor Mantsuev to give her family a Red Army ration. In the village of Mikhailovskoye, Kanyuk lived with a teacher, who, on his orders, was given a Red Army ration. During the deployment of the battalion in the village of Linen Plant, Buzzard tried to rape a girl, the daughter of the owner of the apartment. Being in the village Sloboda, Buzzard, together with the secretary of the party bureau Bobkov, took food and vodka from the warehouse, went to the Linen Factory and there, in a circle of unknown women, they got drunk. In the village of Karmanovo, due to the lack of comfortable apartments, Buzzard lived in an insulated car. A local girl lived with him in the car. The buzzard ordered the head of the food warehouse to give out food to the relatives of this girl without any restrictions. In the city of Yukhnov, Kanyuk tried to force a 17-year-old girl into cohabitation. Buzzard for moral decay and theft of food was removed from his post, expelled from the party and brought to trial by the BT. The secretary of the party bureau, political instructor Bobkov, and the secretary of the bureau of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, political instructor Mokry, were removed from work and brought to party responsibility for moral decay.

Head of the political department of the Western Front

Brigadier Commissar / Makarov / ".

Among the various cases, there were also frankly curious ones, which can be seen even from the style of documents. Here is a typical passage:

“Major Sharykin was courting Vinogradova, the proofreader of the editorial office. As a result of this, Vinogradova is currently in her second month of pregnancy. Sharykin and Vinogradova disappeared from the editorial office during office hours, which delayed proofreading. When the editorial secretary Petrov called her to explain the reasons for leaving, she complained to Sharykin. Sharykin then summoned Petrov and demanded an end to nit-picking Vinogradova. In addition, Sharykin sowed squabbles among the editorial staff, advised some "to leave the editorial office before it's too late, otherwise they will live anyway." At present, Major Sharykin has been relieved of his post as head of the army life department of the newspaper and sent to the rifle unit, where he is currently located.

However, among archival documents one can also find those that testify to truly high feelings, being in the literal sense of the word, “voices of a great era”, even if their pathos and style may not always seem clear to us. By citing such a document, I will end the citation within this article:

"DEAR AND BELOVED MY LEADER, FRIEND, FATHER,

TEACHER AND MARSHAL TOV. STALIN!

To you, the best friend of youth, our teacher and beloved father, I am addressing you with a big and maybe somewhat strange, unusual request...

For 4 years I walked the thorny roads of the war: from Volkhov to Leningrad, where we stood for about two years on the defense of the city of Lenin, through Moldavia, Bessarabia, Romania liberated by us, whose troops are now fighting hand in hand with us, Hungary and, finally, Czechoslovakia ...

I was on a business trip for 4 months, in the Romanian town of Alba Iulia in a large responsible post, and in this town I met a girl ... a simple Romanian peasant woman, but what a girl! She worked as a waiter in a restaurant where we officers had lunch.

The daughter of Romanian poor peasants, she works in a restaurant to support the meager existence of her mother and sisters, she has no father.

We passionately, forever fell in love with each other, but I don’t know if our happiness is possible after the war?

Can I bring my beloved girl, my trophy for the liberation of Romania, to my homeland, to my happy, dear Moscow?

I am 31 years old, but from everything experienced over these 4 years, I became almost all gray-haired ...

Have I earned my right to happiness, to a peaceful, joyful life? Yes! I acquired this right by expelling my Sylvia from the Motherland - fascist bastards !!!

And I beg, I beg, wise, beautiful, sensitive to everything bright, my great friend Comrade Stalin, to allow me - a Russian, your officer - to marry a girl from the mountains. Alba Iulia by Silvia Compianu!

I know you are busy great, dearly beloved! But who is closer, dearer than you?

To whom, if not to your greatest and most sensitive heart, should I turn with my fervent request?

Without this girl, life is not sweet to me!

This marriage will be my best reward for all the services to the Motherland, it will be my dear, won trophy! I beg you for my happiness!

Lieutenant - Vladimir German.

P.S. I ask you to send the answer to the address of my sister Herman Lyudmila Nikolaevna, at the address: Moscow 155, Malaya Gruzinskaya, d. No. 10, apt. 8. I myself am personally in the mountains of Czechoslovakia. Bratislava"

6.06.45 .

All the documents cited here are not cited in order to purposefully condemn or discredit anyone, to revise the history of the Great Patriotic War, as is sometimes observed in the works of some authors, or to abstractly moralize, etc. It is my deep conviction that we, the descendants and heirs of the Winners, who actually squandered our grandfather's legacy, are not at all given the right to judge those who broke the back of the most terrible military-political machine in history.

Simply, by citing such documents and facts, excerpts from uncensored memoirs, I would like to once again draw the attention of readers to how complex and multifaceted, dramatic in various planes was the front-line everyday life of the Great Patriotic War, how it affected the fates and souls of those who at least somehow touched her.

Obviously, front-line love was a special and one of the most intimate facets of the entire military everyday life of 1941-1945, along with the world of inner feelings and emotions of the soldiers of the great war.

Love in the war was many-sided, like all military everyday life, it seemed to be looking for the slightest opportunity to splash out of human hearts exhausted by war and death - that's why soldiers and officers decided on reckless actions, which sometimes cost them very dearly. In fact, love in front-line conditions, where “there are four steps to death,” personified its polar opposite, as if abolishing death, proving its impotence and even deprivation of its own essence, the absence of death in the structure of being. Thus, we can say that love, being an objective constant of front-line everyday life, in this capacity oriented people towards goals higher than the destruction of the enemy in battle, towards what lay outside the boundaries of the war and could only serve as its justification. Orientation towards these goals could only give our soldiers and officers the strength to turn the tide of the war and end it in Berlin, having gone through the bitterness of separation and loss and finally affirming the triumph of life.

Sources and literature

1. Glukhov A. Notes of the regimental postman. SPb., 2005.
2. Demidov P. M. In the service of the god of war. There is a black cross in the scope. M., 2007.
3. Dunaevskaya I. M. From Leningrad to Koenigsberg. Diary of a military translator 1942 - 1945. M., 2010.
4. Nekrutova-Kotko Z. K. My dazzling moment. / Mukhin Yu. On the agenda and on the call: non-cadre soldiers of the Great Patriotic War. M., 2005.
5. Suknev M. I. Notes of the penal battalion commander. M., 2009.
6. Shimkevich VN The fate of the Moscow militia. M., 2008.
7. TsAMO. F.32. Op.11302. D.87. Memorandums and political reports of the fronts on the work of front-line newspapers and field mail.
8. TsAMO. F.32. Op.11302. D.286. Letters and complaints of servicemen and correspondence on them.
9. ​ http://ww2.pp.ru (accessed 31.01.2012).