What do we know about the war? - To mark the 80th anniversary of the Victory, a literary journalistic collection of the same name was published.

‘All those who fought fascism are heroes! And it is our duty - the sons and grandsons of the participants of the Great Patriotic War - to preserve the historical memory for future generations. We are obliged to accurately capture the memories of our fathers and grandfathers. The truth that they knew and take with them into the next world. We must tell about that terrible trench truth of the war, about which the majority of today's youth knows little, and some of them do not even guess. But it is necessary to know about it. So that the grief and tragedies that fell to the share of our fathers and grandfathers, never repeated!’, - writes in the preface to the book author-compiler Valentin Bayukansky.

 

In the essay ‘Life Long a Century’ by Lyudmila Bakhtina from Lebedyany, it is told about the officer Alexander Filatov, whom she knew personally. 

 

Reading the diary entries of the front man, one wonders how it was possible to stay alive and endure everything that fell to his lot: Alexander Fyodorovich went through the scorcher of war, spent several years in captivity, experienced the post-war attitude to former prisoners, but never complained about his fate and the Motherland. He worked honestly, brought up children, valued friendship and lived 103 years, earning the respect of others and the love of loved ones. He was awarded the medal ‘For Victory over Germany’, the Zhukov Medal, the Order of Patriotic War II degree.

 

He recalls in detail how Alexander Filatov met the war: ‘The first battle was near Vitebsk. The artillery platoon was firing at the enemy from a distance of about 13 kilometres - that was the distance to the Germans' forward positions. And since they were a reserve unit, they were sometimes moved to one place or another, to plug the gaps in the defence of our troops. The battles were fought without respite, one after another. From the air were irradiated by ‘Junkers’. These dive bombers arranged the so-called ‘hellish carousel’, i.e. the planes lined up in the sky in a wide circle and began to circle over our positions, and then one by one with a terrible howl, which was called ‘Jericho's trumpet’, fell into a steep dive, dropping bombs. It happened that young soldiers, who had not been shot, got up and, mad with fear, ran somewhere - it did not matter where, as long as they did not hear that roar and bursts of shells. Naturally, a quick, inevitable death awaited them, they were immediately mowed down by shrapnel or covered by a blast wave.

 

Lipchanka Marina Roshchina (Popova) dedicated her story ‘The Witch’ to a military doctor, great-aunt of her husband, Lyubov Eslivanova, who finished the Great Patriotic War with the rank of captain of medical service.

‘The face of the holidaymaker Lyubov Vasilievna Eslivanova seems beautiful. The stern crease between her eyebrows has smoothed out, her stern lips have softened. What is dreaming resident, captain of the medical service at this moment? I can't believe that the orderlies call her ‘Witch’ for her rigidity, pickiness and sharp tongue. Yesterday I had to operate on a prisoner. The German was conscious, the wound is trifling. But when he saw the stern woman surgeon, he lost his senses from fear, whispering: ‘Judin.’ The operation was successful, the German recovered. She saved the life of another enemy, knowing that his information is needed by the regiment’, - says the author of the story.

One small fragment from his diary:

 

‘The Germans were retreating, but very slowly, and we needed to drive the Krauts into the forest to attack them there. And while they were in the trench, it could not be done. So we lay at the bottom of the trench until darkness fell. Then free movement was restored under cover of night. We with the gunner went behind the machine, and here I saw the terrible fate of machine-gunner Soroka. After our departure, while moving along the trench, the Germans shot the trench with artillery, and a shell hit the place where the wounded machine gunner was. The burst tore off both his legs above the knees. I found him like that, without dressing, without legs, with skinned meat. He was moaning, asking me to cover him with an overcoat. When he saw me, he began to ask me to shoot him. It was pitiful to look at this ‘spoilt’ man, though soldiers have no pity at all. I bandaged Soroka, and the medics arrived and took him away. I am still surprised at the vitality of the man. After all, he lay there for eleven hours without bandages, without legs, and he did not lose consciousness during that time.

Tamara Kovalchuk herself dedicated two stories to the war events: ‘According to the Laws of Wartime’ and ‘White Snow’. The first is dedicated to her grandfather Matvey and his family, the second - to the prisoners of the concentration camp ‘Ozarichi’, located during the Great Patriotic War on the ‘Bagration Line’ in Belarus.

 

‘In two and a half months the whole territory of Belarus was occupied by German troops. Those who had time - joined the Soviet army, those who did not have time - went to the forest, to the partisans. Old men, women and children were left in towns and villages. 

 

The brothers went to the front, and Matvey went to the partisans, to one of Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak's detachments, and the family stayed in the village. And where was Alyona to run to, having seven children in her arms, the youngest of whom, daughter Nadenka, was not yet a year old. The woman never told anyone that Matvey was in the partisans. And if anyone asked, she replied that he had disappeared somewhere, but where, she herself did not know. But in fact, her husband came to the village often, either for provisions that Alyona collected, or for warm clothes for the partisans, or for information about the enemy. Matvey knew the forest very well, and was always a guide. Especially his help was valuable in the swamps, which were full of forests. Partisans destroyed enemy vehicles, engaged in open battles with the invaders. And the Germans were atrocious,’ writes Tamara Kovalchuk.

I would like to end this short review of the collection with her own words: ‘Can we forgive the fascists for the destruction of civilians in Russia and Belarus? Is it possible to keep silent about it, even after many and many years? It must be talked about! It must be shouted about! All mankind must be reminded about it in order to prevent the revival of the plague called ‘fascism’’.

 

And what do we know about the war? 

The literary and publicistic collection

of the Writers' Union “Military Commonwealth”.

Lipetsk LLC ‘Tipografiya “Lipetsk-Plus”, 2024 - 200 p.