Tenacious childhood memory. Galina Nevolina: “Evil can be stronger, but up to a certain point

• 27.04.2015

Galina Aleksandrovna Nevolina is a wonderful Russian playwright and theater teacher. She created and since 1982 has continuously directed the youth theater-studio “Generation”, for which she was awarded the title of Honorary Worker of General Education of the Russian Federation. Galina Nevolina is the author of the books “Notes or Advice from a Practicing Director”, “Theater at School” and “Game of Finding”, and her plays are successfully performed in many children's theaters in our country. Today Galina Aleksandrovna is visiting our literary portal

— Please tell us about yourself, your childhood, your parents. And about how your love for beauty began.
— I was born in 1957 in Ufa. Southern Urals. The city where my parents were assigned, where my brother Zhenya was born three years before me. Our other relatives lived far away. This is probably why I learned to make the people who surrounded me family. The concept of a friend includes much more than what is generally accepted. And I learned to value my roots—my family tree—for the rest of my life. I wrote about this in the afterword to the play “The Address for Letters is the Same.”
It seems to me that we get a lot from our parents. And the older you become, the more you understand this. This is probably why I would like to say a few words about them: as I grew older, I realized that they determined a lot in me, although it seemed that there was no special spiritual closeness.
My father fought since 1943, was shell-shocked, fought again, was demobilized from Berlin only in 1947, he was 21 years old...
What is a 21-year-old young man like now? Very often an ambitious, dependent creature, stuffed with “information”, with headphones in his ears and a tablet in his bag!
All my father’s friends gathered in our apartment for bachelor parties. Oh, if only I had written down all their stories from beginning to end! But still, I remembered a lot, and these memories formed the basis of my plays about the war. And so, it was precisely the atmosphere of these memories that remained. My father learned to play the captured accordion and graduated with honors from Gnesinka and the history department of Bashkir University. He taught accordion class at the 1st children's music school. Both my brother, a musician, and I graduated from it. And although I did not continue my musical education, it helps me a lot in life, sometimes I insert my songs into performances.
During the war, my mother studied at the Tashkent Institute, while working at night at a military plant, and took courses for radio operators. I keep all the documents, including her ID card as a paratrooper cadet and reserve officer. She took flight courses, jumped from the wing of an airplane, and skydiving, although she did not take part in hostilities because the war was over. Mom was “assigned” to Ufa. At the age of 28, she became the head of a spinning mill and organized DOSAAF in Bashkiria. She was a woman of strong will, sometimes it was hard for me as a little girl - I lacked affection, my mother’s warmth, which I, as a girl, needed more than my brother. Her determination, will and hard work were passed on to me. She devoted herself entirely to work. Mom worked like probably no one else. Therefore, dad took us children fishing for a week or two - the only one in the company of men who went through the front. This taught me not to whine, not to be capricious. Such a desire simply could not be born in my girlish head!
From the age of 4 I lived with him in a tent, sleeping in a sleeping bag. Once, when a heavy night rain soaked the tent, my dad took me to the pioneer camp, to the building with the children. And when he returned, he saw that the tent had been crushed by a huge birch tree, which had fallen after a lightning strike.
On such trips I learned a lot of useful things. I fell in love with nature: for two or three weeks only lakes and forests. And the water is so clear that you can see the pike under your boat. They even tried to catch her with their hands! My brother and I took rubber boats for adults, my brother tied one to the other: at the age of 8 I had little strength to row, and they swam far, far away. I am absolutely a city dweller, but it was then that I learned to chop wood, build a fire so that I could cook fish soup, dry clothes, brew tea from herbs, and even at night so that it would not be cold to sleep by the fire. I fell in love with the silence: just us and nature. Modern children are unable to live without a mobile phone. Its absence causes panic if there is no connection. (We should write the next children's comedy about this.) And even more so, they have forgotten how to listen to the forest and field. Probably, from the ability to notice the nature around me, from this feeling, I wrote the fairy tales “Ulya the Snail” and “Dandelion”.
None of my father's friends were surprised when my father took us with him. It was surprising that we NEVER heard a single obscene word. Isn't this a lesson in education? No, once, when my brother and I were approaching through the forest, we heard a man talking in a language I didn’t understand: I wish those who fought wouldn’t speak it perfectly! I immediately began asking my brother what certain words meant. To which he told me that I was a fool. A couple of times, having heard something from the boys in the yard, I asked what it meant, but they laughed at me. But I have more than once encountered the fact that swearing can occupy a certain niche in linguistic communication, as with Grigory Gorin:

I am deeply convinced that it is possible and necessary to do without swearing in literature and art!

— Can you call a screwdriver obscenity?
- No!
- What if she got lost?
- Now, if she got lost, and even at the right moment, then, of course...

— How do you yourself feel about profanity, especially if it is used in theater or literature?
— I am deeply convinced that it is possible and necessary to do without swearing in literature and art! My passion and hobby are black and white films about the war of the 1950s and 60s, very truthful and sincere. They were filmed by front-line directors, and without swearing. And the epic film “Liberation,” a film in which they tried to get as close to history as possible, was filmed without swearing. Therefore, I do not agree that swearing should become the norm when reproducing certain scenes, supposedly “for real.” Realistic! It’s just that the level of master artists is such that it doesn’t hold up.
We grew up at a time when most children were left to their own devices. Especially if it was after kindergarten or school. This is how all the children from my circle grew up: they ran around construction sites, pits or landfills, and independently traveled by tram or bus to any part of the city. My brother and I were generally very independent and played a lot on the street: hide and seek, Cossack robbers, war (namely war, not “war games”). They were scouts, wrote some “documents” on cardboard, ran around with homemade weapons, “took” snowy mountains. Even though it was the Southern Urals, the winter was down to -40, the snowdrifts were huge. I don't remember the slush. And there were no clothes made from Bolognese jacket fabric, so after many hours of walking on the street, our clothes were covered with an ice crust, and we were not allowed home until we had knocked all the ice off of them at the entrance. None of the parents supervised the preparation of lessons. But my pride did not allow me to study poorly.
I was left to my own devices throughout my childhood, this determined a lot: first, the inability to organize myself: try in the first grade to force yourself to learn homework when you don’t understand the meaning of the dial? I studied second shift. They set three alarms for me: when to study lessons, when to eat, and when to go to school. Therefore, in the first two grades I studied quite averagely: there was no perseverance. But the further the better. Self-awareness grew.
I was sent to the most prestigious school, but this was only because my dad worked in the next building, and my mother worked across the intersection, so it was easier for them to send me to school. But that’s why I often felt out of place. Most of the children who studied there were not from ordinary families; many already had nannies or unemployed grandmothers, so these children studied better in primary school and were more neatly dressed, although we all wore the same clothes. school uniform. I understood that I was lagging behind them, but it took enough time for me to organize myself and change with better side: became diligent and neat, began to study well, despite the fact that she was a “crazy head”...
There was no preschool education back then; few children could read before school, including me, except for writing. in block letters"Mom and Dad". And after finishing first grade, due to my sloppiness, I read slowly. Parents of successful students made fun of me, and I began to experience an inferiority complex, which was aggravated by the fact that I was lagging behind and English language. The school was elite.
Mom never took my brother and me to the seaside or anywhere else on vacation, but sent us in the summer to a pioneer camp for two shifts, or to my grandmother.
— When did you become interested in literature?

Previously, children's literature was a state program

— After first grade, I was sent alone by train to Kazakhstan to visit my grandmother! Before that, I hardly remember her. They told us not to leave the carriage anywhere. I don’t remember why my brother wasn’t with me then. And this is where the first turning point in my life began.
Grandma was strict! And I addressed her as you, like my mother and her sister. Why this was so, I didn’t think about it. My grandmother made me read, and there were a lot of children's books. At first I re-read the lightest, most colorful ones, and then I began to read more and more. It was a breakthrough.
Yes! The first books should be colorful. Separated from my friends for three months, I began to read a lot. I started reading avidly! From Chukovsky to children's stories by Leo Tolstoy. All Russian fairy tales and epics were read! As a result, it was forever embedded in the subconscious that Good should always defeat Evil. When life unfolded in such a way that at 30, and at 40, and at 50, blow followed blow, I still did not lose faith, and thereby supported others, saying: “Good will always defeat Evil!” And if you heard a bitter smile of despair in response: “Something doesn’t look like it!” And the circumstances, however, were such that it seemed like this was the end. I answered: “Be patient!” Yes, Evil can be stronger, and for now it is so, but up to a certain point, when its concentration becomes excessive, it will begin to consume itself!
Fairy tales instilled this belief in Good in me!
— Tell us about your literary debut.
— I wrote my first fairy tale-play based on the Bashkir folk epic. The play "Akyal-batyr". The Ministry of Culture of Bashkortostan held a competition: the play received the state prize of the Republic of Bashkortostan (II place) and was published. This was my first publication. I installed it. For the first time using computer light on a huge stage in Ufa, representatives of the Council of Ministers came and awarded me a valuable gift. There was a series of TV shows about this. It was 1997. This is the official start of my career as a playwright. I did not take into account the plays written before.
— How acceptable is a sad ending in works of children’s literature?
- I don’t know if it should, not necessarily, but it can! How else? And “Children of the Dungeon” by Korolenko?
I remember my friend and I cried over the tiny book “Cosette,” and dad said that it was part of a big novel, and the girl’s fate was going well in it. And I wanted to grow up and read the whole novel.
Such works give rise to a feeling of compassion and mercy in children. If modern children read them, then there would not be such brutal children’s fights with subsequent posting of videos on the Internet. The end may be sad, but not hopeless, for example, Ilyusha Malyshev in the 9th grade wrote a poem “9 pages” about Tanya Savicheva, and despite such sadness it carries life affirmation! You know how modern schoolchildren love to read it. It's amazing!
— What books did you grow up reading?
— I really liked the stories of Lev Kassil, the novel by Ivan Vasilenko “The Life and Adventures of the Zamorysh”, “The Mysterious Island” by Jules Verne (read it twice), books about the war. Together with my parents I waited in huge queues to subscribe to the collected works. And we always carried the entire library with us. My husband’s family also collected books; one of his grandmother’s beautiful libraries burned down during the war in Voronezh. The love of books brings us very close.
Even now in my dacha there is a huge closet with children’s books from those years; my sons grew up on them. These are priceless books of all kinds, but I keep them all, because of their difference (difference) they are valuable. In my grandmother’s closet, among others, there was a “Book for Reading in the Gymnasium” (1908) with stunning illustrations, it is still with me. I was so interested that I didn’t notice that I could easily read with the old “yat” and a hard sign at the end. And its first page is a lesson in mercy - the poem “Beggar Woman” over which I cried for several days: the point is that a freezing girl dreams of a doll! She, hungry, did not even have money for bread. But at Christmas, an Angel flies for the girl and takes her to Heaven, and there the angels give her a doll. It is clear that the ending is sad - the girl died of hunger, but how much compassion! And a program is laid down: help your neighbor, don’t pass by!
When my first son was growing up, I subscribed to the magazine “Funny” Pictures,” and kept the issue where “XIV” Congress of the CPSU was written on the cover! What could a child understand in this cover at 4 years old? It is unlikely that this would increase the feeling of mercy in anyone.
At the age of 14, I took the magazine “Young Guard” (No. 1.1971) from my brother; there were diaries from the siege. I cried all night, it was forever etched in my memory, since then I have been looking for the siege diaries, many materials were classified, and then, when the Internet appeared, I began to collect various documents that had previously been closed. Everything came together into a single whole, and I wrote the play “BlokADA”, only on the basis of documents. We recently met with the guys from Tomsk who staged a performance based on this play, it is very expensive.
We are raising a generation that knows nothing about this. Example: I enter the office, and children (5-7 years old) are throwing candy. Then I agreed and instead of the next lesson on the big screen for all students children's center showed the film “Winter Morning”. Forgetting about their tablets, 250-300 children sat with their mouths open and watched this wonderful black and white film. And this is exactly what needs to be shown. And not what is on the TNT channel.
When in the 8th grade I saw the amazing film “Romeo and Juliet” by Franco Zeffirelli with music by Nino Rota, I became sick with everything at the same time: Shakespeare, read it completely, knowledge of historical costume, fighting technique, learned a dozen sonnets and “Romeo and Juliet” - completely . I began to read film scripts avidly, starting with Andrei Rublev, to learn how they were written. I decided that I would try to enter the directing department; if I didn’t get in the first time, then I would go to the history department. But I entered and graduated with one B in scientific communism.

Gerasim drowned the dog and shocked children have been crying over it for almost 200 years, and we are talking about 20 million dead and are met with absent eyes

— What to do to get children to read more?
— Previously, children's literature was a state program. It seems to me that this is not the case now, which is why store shelves are flooded with books about witchers, elves, and fantasy, often of the lowest level. After all, fantasy can be of different levels. Our generation read, for example, Bradbury, Lamm.
If they want science fiction, give them S. Lukyanenko’s “Knights of the 40 Islands,” this book has passed over many modern children. But in vain.
Give them an interesting and understandable book, at least Remarque’s “Three Comrades” - modern teenagers they practically don’t know Remarque.
When I was little, films were shown on TV only 2-3 times a day. But among them there was the heading “Screen adaptation literary works", for example, "Taman", "Bela". My brother boasted, rushing to retell the end, and I was jealous, promising myself that when I grew up I would read it myself! And in the second grade, she signed up for the library herself, traveled 12-15 stops by tram, and was already able to borrow books that were not at home. Where is now such a mandatory program that would promote good literature? There is a program, but like Boris Vasiliev: “We devalue our own heroic history. Gerasim drowned the dog and for almost 200 years shocked children have been crying over it, and we are talking about 20 million dead and are met with absent eyes.” school curriculum The mention of the Young Guard disappeared. Therefore, it turns out as in the poem by E. Yevtushenko:

And looks at the descendants playing swastikas, Karbyshev,
Frozen again from shame and horror.

Ask schoolchildren who General Karbyshev is. Will they be able to answer you? We don't know our history. That’s why we clone low-grade Western standards so easily, but our education was amazing, and our literacy was much higher!
It’s like Pushkin: “It’s not only possible, but also necessary, to be proud of the glory of your ancestors; not to respect it is shameful cowardice!”
I work a lot with teenagers (38 years old), write for them, stage plays, I think I have a good understanding of their psychology, for several years I had a theater where “difficult” teenagers performed. One of the articles about this theater began with the words of one of the guys: “If I had not met Galina Aleksandrovna, I would have been in prison a long time ago,” then this teenager became a professional director. And my family and friends like to send their children to live with me. Then metamorphoses that are surprising to them occur: children without scandals begin to wash dishes, make something, cook, and study well. Why? Because I speak to them in their language, make friends and just do what I’m supposed to do. And they are happy to help me. I wrote all this in the book “Notes or Advice from a Practicing Director.” There is a chapter on “How to Raise Parents.” And it turns out that children are reading the wrong books and watching the wrong films. I wasn’t overprotective as a child, and I tell my parents that they shouldn’t do it. All great people were not excellent students, but more often C students. Over one summer, my grandmother taught me to sew, clean, braid, iron, etc. These were not lessons, she just lived in such a way that I wanted to imitate her. And she gave a little hint. This is how I live too.
I can’t consider myself an example, I was just so interested: I read adult books in middle age. Including Makarenko’s “Book for Parents”. Sometimes you look at a whole generation of young, ill-mannered and illiterate parents, and you want to cry. Where will the children come from? Thank God there are not many of them.

We don't know our history. That’s why we clone low-grade Western standards so easily

— And yet, why dramaturgy?
“It just so happens that for me literature is closely connected with theatre, primarily with drama. The reason I started writing children's plays and scripts was because at a certain stage of time there was a sense of failure in children's drama: in the 1990s it was impossible to find a good children's play. Perhaps only for the little ones, for example, “Cat House”, and everything else was about the pioneer unit, competitions on the collective farm. Then the play “Still She Spins!” came out. A. Khmelik, perhaps, that’s all. And I wanted to say a lot. So, first dramatizations began to appear, and then original plays entirely based on my plot.
For example, the All-Union Festival “Ecology” was held. Creation. Children,” and every time I wrote a new play. I never noticed how many of them were added to the collection. And then I found out that they were staged in other children’s theaters in other cities: “The Sky Without Patches,” “We Will Defeat the Evil Fire,” “How Animals Saved the Forest from Garbage,” etc. There were often composers who wrote music to the poems in these plays. Maybe I’m the kind of person who attracts people to me, but creatively gifted musicians Timuk Anton and Timuk Pavel, Oleg Shaumarov wrote wonderful music for my performances absolutely free of charge, recording it in a professional studio.
We must try to load ourselves with positivity. How Eldar Ryazanov, left without a garage, made a wonderful film.
At the age of 50, I got behind the wheel for the first time, and it was quite difficult. If you didn't even have a bicycle as a child. Sometimes I wanted to swear at those who cut me off and set me up on the roads. But I described everything in verse, all the problems, including potholes on the roads. Carelessness in road construction, all the laws that supposedly help eliminate traffic jams. I put a lot of love for Moscow into this text, knowledge of its history, all the streets and alleys, and the result was the musical “Moscow Fairy Tale.” Moscow, because there are a lot specific names and precisely the problems of Moscow, and the “fairy tale” - because by the end all the traffic jams had “resolved”. Sleek Foreign Cars argue with Trucks. Bikers break out of a traffic jam, Tram and Trolleyus sing a touching ballad. An amazing Metro song plays and the carriage children dance during it. And everything is told on behalf of the little girl and the Bicycle Man. Composer Andrei Drozdov fell ill with this text, together with Rinat Nasyrov, also a professional musician, they made crazy music. A performance that gets everyone excited! The text gave free rein to imagination, Cork - rap, Foreign cars - blues. Bikers are hard rock. Adults laugh, and children, many come to the performance several times. Probably for me it is the most expensive. One song about kindness and friendship in the finale is worth it. Sometimes adult graduates - already professional actors - come running to act if the play is performed on the stage of a professional theater. Once on the stage of the Taganka Theater there was a festival of professional theaters performing for children, and only two amateur groups: our Generation Theater and a theater from Saratov got there. This performance needs to be in mandatory show to the Moscow government. Maybe at least humor will help solve problems.
What would I wish for parents now for their children to read? There are different methods, for example, our priest friend has three well-educated children, but the TV in this family almost never turns on, and the Internet is used as a last resort. Perhaps this is an extreme case. But children read! And not only the school curriculum.
Or, for example, a girl from a very problematic family came to my theater. I was already in the fifth grade, but I could barely read syllables. But I wanted to play. I took on all the roles, and everything worked out, but in order to master the texts, I had to read. And such a breakthrough in six months! I began to learn everything instantly. He listens greedily on any excursion, reaches out to any useful information. It's changing before our eyes!
I bring it to the holiday dedicated to international day theater, a bunch of prizes and I arrange a quiz on the history of the theater, just history and literature, I allow parents to take part. In the first year there was a complete stupor, no one answered anything, the next year they already wanted to receive prizes, began to prepare, and now even the little ones, ahead of the adults, will answer the question “Which princess was the first to stage Moliere’s play “The Captive Doctor”? (Princess Sophia)
Once at a festival of children's theaters we watched a play by the Kirill Korolev Theater with profanity. A dispute arose. Adult leaders argued: “This is reality, why hide from it?” It’s hard for me to hear such nonsense, and the little one sitting in the front row will think that this is how it should be if half the performance is swearing.

As long as the Russian language is preserved, there will be great Russian literature

— How much do children need political education?
— My grandmother was a believer, but at that time there was Khrushchev’s persecution of the church, she copied prayers secretly from my grandfather, who was a party leader, an honorary pensioner of Union significance. During the war, I was a resident somewhere in the German headquarters, every evening at the same time I listened to the news from the receiver. And then he “chased” me and my grandmother to test our knowledge of “political information.” I was 7-9 years old! But on the other hand, I received the vaccination to follow all the news, to be aware of what is happening in the country.
My grandmother’s first husband died in July 1941, and she married the second, whom I considered my grandfather, at the age of 50. Just before his death, he told what he had hidden all his life, how he was tortured in 1937. I learned another truth.
My grandmother went to visit someone, met with older people, they had some conversations, I sat quietly and listened. It was very interesting to listen carefully to the stories of people who have seen a lot in their lives. The memory turned out to be tenacious. And I understood: you just need to remember this and keep it to yourself for the time being. I loved listening to old people. Where does this come from in me? Like Yevtushenko: And I love Russia... its Pushkin. Stenka and her old people!
So, we are leaving the guests, and the grandmother is talking about her friend: - Poor Tanya. After the swamps, his legs were paralyzed, but now he sits in a seat. That's all life is. I ask, “Why?” — I was in the camps. - Which ones? And besides the German ones there were also our camps, they don’t talk about that. But the file has been downloaded and remains in my head for a while. One day we meet a thin man, he greets grandma with joy: he almost kisses her hands. And when he left, the grandmother sighed: “I never recovered.” Thin! Survived the gas chamber. - How did you survive? - I ask. - And like this... I urinated in my clothes and breathed through them. Then they threw me into a common pit, and crawled out at night. And then ours were imprisoned. - For what? - They thought that he had surrendered. I then fed him, he fenced the barn for me. The puzzle in my head doesn’t come together right away, my grandmother won’t tell me more, I’m little, suddenly I’ll start chatting, although it’s not 1937, but still. And I’m putting the file back into the piggy bank for the time being. I could listen to old people for hours. I didn’t understand everything, but I remembered everything. Or here’s another: “They escorted Panfilov from this station.” More precisely, our Volodya. At night. We came as close as we could, and there was a military echelon, and their main one, the one with the mustache, barked at us. Then they only found out that it was Panfilov. And before that they sent the Kazakh division, and there was no one left of them. That’s why Panfilov’s men held out a little longer.
And I have the file in my piggy bank again. And then I inserted everything into the play “The Address for Letters is the Same.” In the anniversary year of the Victory, it was widely distributed throughout the country. They started calling, inviting me to the premiere. I went online to see where else it was installed, and counted 16 cities. And I was so surprised when I saw the films on YouTube, posted in 2014, that the play was staged in Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. This means that there were, probably, and still are, people who care about this topic. And near Dnepropetrovsk, my own grandfather, my father’s father, died, my grandmother (father’s mother) did not even receive a pension, as the “missing” notice came, she raised five children herself, two died of hunger. So this play turned out to be the most popular and expensive. She paid tribute to her ancestors. Once my little actress asked: “Please write a play so that I can play and everyone around me will cry!” And so it turned out that everyone writes that both the actors and the audience cry. And Gulya, who asked for this, works as a TV presenter. From my friend’s grandmother I received another book, the pre-revolutionary “Gospel”. I was already in 8th grade. And few people wanted to sit with the old woman chained to the bed with a blue stick; probably, the relatives were simply tired. And when I came, I sat with pleasure. I sat and listened to stories about another life, incomprehensible, but interesting. We were already walking and had to approach communism, we sang pioneer and Komsomol songs. I still love to sing them with my friends: there is a bewitching magic in them, especially in the songs of the revolution - bravura, a feeling of victory, heroism. And here... stories that you can’t write. It just WAS, but they didn’t tell us about it. So I got the picture that life is multifaceted. She gave me the Gospel, which I easily read, despite the fact that the style was different. I still don’t know what year it was published; the paper is almost falling apart. It was the discovery of a new world, or rather, it was already in me, but I did not know the way to it. After that, they gave me other new editions, but I only read this one.
Teenagers who come to my theater become different, “a cut above their classmates.” We have in our repertoire the play “Living Memory of Generations”, which has been performed by many generations. From performance to performance I change the text, because it is alive and reflects what is happening in our country with people, with their souls. Only volunteers perform there and the genre of this performance is reflection. And studio graduates learn about the performance in unknown ways and come in order to ask for it and read at least a line there. Those who are younger sulk, but give in. This is a sad performance, but the “battle” to get there is at least knowledge of the history of your homeland, love for it. This year I inserted documentary notes or poems by children that are in different museums in Russia. It is not true that young people are not interested in history, or that the topic of victory in the Great Patriotic War is not dear to them.
Parents come to watch and at the same time express that their child misses a lot of school, and then they leave in shock and say: “What a blessing that the child goes here!”
Diaries and old letters are my passion. They contain the whole story. A separate story - publications about the descendants of the Volkonskys, about Princess Elena Vadimovna Volkonskaya - the direct granddaughter of Stolypin, whose ancestors were Lomonosov, Lermontov, with whom we were familiar. About Countess Fersen, whose grandfather, the Governor-General of Moscow, was shot dead in a building on Tverskaya 13. These materials were published by the magazine “Bereginya” and Nikita Mikhalkov’s magazine “Svoy”. When you personally know these people, you understand how amazing these people are, what a core they have inside, but the most stunning thing is their feeling of love for Russia, despite the fact that they have lived their lives far from their homeland.

Wars are not won by commanders, but by teachers.

—What does it mean to be a good or bad playwright?
— It’s difficult to answer. The main thing is what the work of this or that writer brings. This is very important to me. “Genius and villainy are two incompatible things.” And it doesn’t matter how many plays this or that playwright wrote. His civic position is important to me. For example, in 1983, a play by Yaroslav Stelmakh was published in the Theater magazine
“Ask the Herbs Someday” is a reflection on the fate of the guys from the Young Guard. It was performed all over the country; hardly any youth theater did not stage it. How many wonderful kids grew up on this material.
I really respect Elena Isaeva among modern playwrights, she is not only an author who is constantly staged, a wonderful poet, but also a very open person, constantly supervising some projects, for example, promoting productions by young authors who write on historical topics. Very open soulful person, ready to help all older authors through the Moscow Writers Union. Amazing man.
— Do you refuse commercial offers?
- Yes and no, depending on what you mean by that. For example, I write scripts game programs on any topics they ask for, often in poetry, children’s fairy tales, etc., I publish in the collections “Scripts and Repertoire”, at least forty pieces. It's a small salary, though. But sometimes my former graduates offer to write something for the plot of a children’s commercial film, and I really don’t like the plot (for example, about a child’s suicide, I categorically refused). Or they offered to remake my play “Just Live” into a film script, but in such a way as to film it on a budget: not to invest, but then to recoup everything - railway station, for example, remove it and replace it with two policemen running through the woods, etc. I refuse all this. But I constantly write congratulations in poetry or songs for anniversaries. And I never wonder whether I will be paid: in any situation I will make friends. And if they thank you with something, fine, no, I won’t think about it.
— You’ve probably noticed how much young people today distort their native language. This is especially noticeable on the Internet. What do you say about this?
— I have a bad attitude towards the distortion of the Russian language. It is clear that it is easier to write without quotation marks; now words such as “vapsche” are constantly being used instead of “in general”, etc. But now, for the first time, all teacher vacancies have been filled, which means we need to test teachers themselves in the Russian language even more rigorously; schools will not be left without them, let them improve their level. I like that there is such an event as an all-Russian dictation in the Russian language. As long as the Russian language is preserved, there will be great Russian literature. Preservation of the language should be a state program. It should cover everything: for example, fewer names like the restaurant “Uryuk”, like “Killfish” - is that “dead fish” or “kill the fish”? This needs to be ridiculed and removed from life. It started in the form of a game by Mikhail Zadornov. But this is a serious problem. Every day in offices they hear: “Xerify me” or even “Xerani me two sheets!” This is a catastrophe! English words creep in constantly, some things cannot be changed, but some things must be stopped. What does advertising do?!! “Like me.”
We need to show good films. For example, "Wounded Man". And show it at a time when the children are at home, and not at 8 am. The program “Smart Men and Women” is not only broadcast early on Saturday, when the children are either at school or sleeping off. Youth need to be engaged. Every adult should feel responsible. There is an expression that war is won not by commanders, but by teachers. And we, those who are associated with literature and art, are doubly responsible.

Interviewed Elena SEREBRYAKOVA

I was 1.5 years old when the war began, and 5 years old when Victory came. Children's memory turned out to be tenacious for some events and - especially - for the state in which civilians were when they met the enemy.

My roots are in Kuban, in the Abinsk region Krasnodar region. My grandparents and parents lived there. I was also born there, in the village of Mingrelskaya (as recorded in the documents). More precisely, the maternity hospital was in the village of Abinskaya (now the city of Abinsk), and my grandmother lived in Mingrelskaya, to whom my mother came from Leningrad before giving birth.

I was born on January 10, 1940 in Krasnodar region, and soon my mother went with me to Krasnogvardeysk (now Gatchina) near Leningrad, where my father Alexey Grigorievich Kravets served there since 1938. Mom, Kravets Efrosinya Mikhailovna, came there in 1939, rented a room, got a job as a teacher in kindergarten No. 4 and entered the evening department of Leningradsky pedagogical institute. She went to my mother to give birth to me and now she has returned. She found a nanny for me – a 14-year-old girl. Mom worked, studied, raised me. Dad served in the Red Army and became the commander of the 2nd division of the 94th IPTAP ( anti-tank fighter artillery regiment). I grew up as a healthy, strong child.

But in May-June I fell ill with a disease that was then difficult to cure - dyspepsia (now called dysbacteriosis). She was in the hospital for a long time. And suddenly this terrible war began. I, like other similar children, was discharged as hopeless. Imagine my mother’s despair! Dad, at her insistence, turns to a military doctor and he decides on a bold and risky method: a complete direct blood transfusion from donors, if any are found. Dad turned to his colleagues: volunteers are needed. Many responded. The doctor selected four and performed this operation in a military hospital. Everything worked out, my blood was replaced with donor blood, and I began to recover. This is how death passed me by for the first time.

The Germans rapidly advanced and within a month they were on the outskirts of Leningrad. A hasty evacuation of state valuables began from museums, as well as factories and industrial equipment. Residents were not evacuated because... there were not enough trains. Many people left and left as best they could. Mom, taking a certificate that she was the wife of an officer, with incredible persistence made her way through the cordoned-off platform to the already overcrowded train, holding me, one and a half years old and weak, in one arm, and in the other a bundle of clothes and crackers. She managed to hand me and the bundle to the people through the carriage window, and then break through those besieging the door and squeeze into the vestibule and carriage, finding me. The train was already heading towards the Volga, to the east. We were lucky we didn't get bombed like my mother did. younger brother Zhora and was mortally wounded. My mother and I “ran away” from hostilities, but not from the war.

Then new difficulties began. Everyone was taken without fail beyond the Urals, and my mother decided to get to her home, to the village of Mingrelskaya. We left the train before the Volga. Along the river, on passing boats, barges, etc., bypassing control posts in every possible way - only military cargo and soldiers were allowed through to the west - we finally reached Stalingrad. Then, also hitchhiking, we finally got to my grandmother’s house a month later. We ate as needed, with help from soldiers and other people we met. But crackers and water saved me - I couldn’t eat anything else. The disease passed and did not return. This overcoming – the road home – was my mother’s victory in the war, her feat. She saved us both.

We lived in the village of Mingrelskaya with our grandmother Polina Ivanovna, treated ourselves with home remedies, gained strength and did not yet know what awaited us ahead.

We hoped that the war would end soon and were looking forward to meeting dad. We didn’t know anything about him, because... he defended the city of Leningrad, which was under siege. The mail didn't arrive. Anxiety for him, for my mother’s brothers who fought: Sergei, Gabriel, Nikolai, Zhora was constantly with us. But the war did not subside, the Germans approached Stalingrad and captured the North Caucasus.

In the autumn of 1942, we also fell under occupation. Life immediately turned upside down: my mother had no job, no money, the necessary products could only be exchanged for other products or things. Adults tried to make supplies from the garden and garden, and carried the harvest to the market in the village. Sometimes my mother made it to the bazaar in Krasnodar. There, one day my mother got involved in an “action” - intimidation of the population for sabotage by partisans. It was a raid - people surrounded at the bazaar were driven with dogs to standing “gas chamber” cars. People already knew that everyone who got into them was suffocated by gas. Then they were taken straight to the pits, where they dumped everyone; the people were already dead.

Mom miraculously escaped this fate, falling in this run. German soldiers and the dogs ran past. She was often exposed to such mortal risk.

We lived under occupation for a whole year. Probably my earliest memories date back to the autumn of 1943, when I was about 4 years old. I remember two episodes related to my intense fear. We were all always afraid of the Germans. After all, in our family there were six men, including our partisan grandfather, who fought in the Red Army. Such families, especially those of officers, if the Germans found out, could have been arrested, taken away and even killed. Here was a case. Grandmother went to the market, and locked my mother and me in the hut, hanging a large padlock so that it was clear that there was no one in the house. Suddenly we hear voices breaking down the door. Mom hid in the bedroom with me. We climbed into bed. I was under the blanket, and my mother put a wet towel on her forehead: she pretended to be sick. The Germans entered the kitchen and began looking for food in the stove. They pulled out the cast iron with boiled corn and cabbage soup. They ate everything and went into the bedroom. We were taken aback; we didn’t expect to see anyone. Mom explained with signs that she was sick, at her own peril and risk. The Germans were very afraid of getting infected and, if they suspected cholera or plague, they burned houses along with people. But God protected us. Mom and I survived again. The Germans simply left.

There was another case. Hearing the barking of the neighbor’s dogs, I hung on the boards of the gate, curious about who was walking along the street, usually deserted. I see men walking: young, cheerful. They are approaching. Suddenly, the thought flashes through my mind: “These are the Germans!” I fly head over heels from the gate and run for cover, under a lilac bush. She froze. We passed by. But fear settled in my head, and for many years later I dreamed at night that the Germans were coming, and I had to run and hide. War is scary!

During the war, my toys were multi-colored pieces of glass from bottles and jars, some boxes, and wooden blocks. I hid all this “wealth” of mine under a lilac bush. That was my “home”. I had a rag doll, sewn by my mother, with a celluloid head, and a pre-war bear, covered with blue fabric. I learned about sweets and white rolls much later, after the war, in 1946.

When in the fall of 1943 our army won in Stalingrad, encircling German army Paulus, the Germans fled. They rolled away from North Caucasus for Don, fearing encirclement. And somehow the Germans suddenly disappeared from our village. None of local residents Then I didn’t know what was happening, everyone sat quietly and waited for a day or two. Suddenly other Germans appeared - in black uniforms. They fussed, looked for something and quickly, finding nothing, left. Much later it became clear that this was a punitive SS unit, and they were looking for prepared lists of people to be shot. But it turned out that they were carried away by the retreating units. These lists were found later by village residents. Apparently, the Germans abandoned them and other documents along the road when they fled. Our family, as it turned out, was also on these lists. So, once again death passed me and my mother by.

When the war ended, the soldiers began to return to their families. And we waited for dad. But when he finally arrived, this is what happened. I see that my military uncle has come. Everyone is happy to welcome him, treat him. But not me. I watch from afar, I’m surprised, I hide. This uncle tells me: “I am your dad!” I didn’t know him, so I didn’t believe him. I said: “You are not my dad, I have a different dad,” and ran away. Everyone is at a loss. And I took the only photograph of my dad from the chest of drawers, a small one, with a beard. I carry it and show it: “Here is my dad.” Everyone laughed, but I was offended and cried.

Dad brought me a gift, some white object. He gives it, and I hide and ask: “What is this?” “Bun, eat!” This is how I first saw and tried white bread.

It was 1946, and dad, a military man, came only to take us to his place of service - to the city of Omsk, in Siberia. We got there by train, and everything was extraordinary.

At first we were accommodated in a woodshed, in a fenced-off room. Then we moved to another room - in the basement. We also lived in a real dugout. One day there was a heavy downpour and we were flooded. It was scary and interesting at the same time. Later we were given a tiny room on the third floor of a 3-story building in a military town. I slept on chairs pushed together, and when sister Lyudmila appeared, she was sleeping in a trough. In the summer, dad took us “to camps.” This military unit went on training exercises.

In the winter of 1947, in Omsk, I went to the 1st grade of an elementary school in a military town. After 2nd grade we moved to Far East, to a military town near the city of Iman. There in 1950 my brother Zhenya appeared. I graduated from the town primary school, and in 5th grade, in high school, I went to the city of Iman. We were taken there every day in a large military vehicle with a canvas top. And a year later - another school again.

In 1952, dad was transferred to serve in the GDR. Families were not accepted, and my mother went with us, 3 children, to her homeland, to Krasnodar. She rented a room in a private house and enrolled me in a girls' school, in the 6th grade. Soon we had to change rooms and schools. After 7th grade - moving again. In the GDR, military personnel were allowed to bring their families. I studied 8th and 9th grades in Stendal. Despite frequent moves, I always studied well. I attended a photo club, a dance club, played sports, read a lot... My parents decided that I should finish 10th grade in Russia in order to then go to college. That's why Last year I studied in Krasnodar. She graduated from school with a gold medal.

In 1957 she entered the Moscow Energy Institute. She graduated from it in 1963. While studying, she married a student at the same institute, Ivan Ivanovich Tatarenkov, and in 1962 gave birth to a son, Alexei.

My husband graduated from the institute with honors, and he himself chose the place of assignment - the city of Serpukhov. He worked as the head of the boiler room at the MUZ plant (assembly units and workpieces). Later the plant became known as KSK (Building Structures Combine). I came here to my husband in 1963, after graduating from college. In 1964, our daughter Tatyana was born. Now our children live in Moscow with their families.

From 1963 to 1998 I worked at the Metalist plant. She worked for 22 years as a design engineer, then as a group leader, bureau chief, and site manager.

I have always been involved in social work: trade union organization, wall newspaper, participation in tourist rallies. For the last 15 years at the plant, she was the head of the culture section of the party office. I went to seminars on cultural issues in Moscow. Conducted classes with political informants of workshops and departments on all types of culture: art (literature, music, fine arts, cinema), family and raising children, relations in society, in the workforce. She was a lecturer at the Knowledge Society. She gave lectures on art in workshops and departments, in dispensaries, at propaganda sites, and in courtyards. For 10 years she sang in the choir of the Teacher's House under the direction of Inna Evgenievna Pikalova.

After finishing work at the plant at the end of 1998, social work continued at the Veterans House, in the Mashinostroitel club. From 2000 to 2007, I was a member of the Veterans Council of the Metallist plant, and since 2007 I have been the chairman of the Friendship club.

Material provided by Tamara Alekseevna Tatarenkova.

The material was processed by Olga Anatolyevna Bautina.

Memory is perhaps the most controversial topic of discussion among scientists and psychologists. When does a person develop memory, the ability to remember the people around us, objects, poems, numbers?.. What is a child’s memory, when and how is memory formed in children? Is it possible to influence it and how to do it correctly?

The most mysterious and controversial issue in wide circles of scientists, psychologists and doctors is the question of memory. Probably, each of us would be interested to know at what age a person begins to remember certain events, recognize people seen before, or remember sounds heard. What is children's memory, when and how does it form, is it worth influencing these processes and how to intelligently approach the development of a child's memory we will discuss today.

Most reputable scientists claim that memory is inherent in a person from the moment of his birth. Moreover, there are hypotheses that the child remembers his intrauterine life at the subconscious level. So how does this actually happen?

When a child overcomes the nine-month mark of his existence, his consciousness undergoes certain changes - the child's brain acquires the minimum size required for the basic functioning of the intellect. This value, or rather the volume, is 750-800 cubic meters. cm. For smaller volume human brain unable to carry out mental operations.

When a child is born, his brain volume is no more than 360-400 cubic meters. cm. This is a relatively small indicator, since the volume of the adult human brain is about 1400-1600 cubic meters. cm.

That is why it is worth discussing the issue of memory formation in babies starting from 9 months. Why this happens, and why not earlier than 9, can be checked experimentally. Observe your 6 month old baby. If you hide the toy he was playing with from him and quietly replace it, the child will not look for the previous one. After 9 months, the reaction will be completely different - the baby will definitely go in search of the hidden toy, perhaps even accompanying this process with crying and cries of indignation. Using such a simple experiment, it is easy to see that a certain image of a toy is formed in a child after 9 months. Awareness of reality becomes stronger, and memory begins to develop faster and more efficiently every day.

The difference between the brain of a seven-year-old child and the brain of an adult is only 10%. However, children, despite such a small difference, have a different type of thinking from adults. To better understand the processes of remembering information by children, remember the Little Prince of Saint-Exupéry, who everywhere carries with him a portrait of a boa constrictor who swallowed an elephant. But the adults in this picture stubbornly see the hat, which is why main character forced to adapt to this strange adult world.

To understand the characteristics of children's memory, we can cite the hero of Saint-Exupéry's book “The Little Prince” as an example. Its main character carries with him everywhere a drawing, in his opinion, of a boa constrictor that swallowed an elephant. However, none of the adults sees this; they all unanimously claim that the picture shows a hat. And then the hero, to please the adults, stops insisting on his own, and disappointingly adapts to their adult world.

Consequently, the work of a child's brain is more focused on perception than on thinking. Syncretism is inherent in children's memory; the child perceives the world in its entirety, connecting objects, images and actions. Impressions are more vivid, the emotional component comes to the fore, which allows children's memory to develop into long-term memory. As a rule, it is easier for an adult to recall some vivid event from childhood than to remember the day before yesterday.

What do children remember?

Parents should not forget that the child’s memory is inextricably linked with the emotions that he experiences. And he remembers his state in a particular event rather than the facts accompanying it.

Regarding training and rational use children's memory, remember: your task is to make this process exciting for the child. Any classes should be held in a playful way, especially for children preschool age. Try not to overexert your child with reading, alternate types of work. There are a number of exercises for memory training, but the main thing here is not to overdo it.

Your child forgot the poem about the sun and only found out during his performance at the matinee. And he also doesn’t remember where he puts his pants, scoops and toys... The reason is simple: children’s memory is structured a little differently than ours!

journalist

When we expect a child to behave “good,” we completely overlook the fact that children are organized in unexpected ways. We demand awareness common sense and excerpts. We make some arguments, persist, and get a dubious result: the guy is still tapping his grandmother’s set on the radiator. Knowing the peculiarities of the processes occurring inside the incomprehensible creature that runs around the apartment in your shoes is what will help you maintain your health and even a good mood at the ill-fated matinee.

Of course, we need memory not only to clearly know where exactly we touched the keys. Memory helps us accumulate experience, recognize a variety of situations, connect individual signs into an understandable picture, and anticipate events based on initial signals. Let's say, guess by the sound of a traffic police officer's voice that he is not bringing peace, but a fine for illegal parking.

There are two types of memory: short-term (you quickly reproduced a one-time five-digit PIN code, but five minutes later nothing could make you remember this set of numbers) and long-term (it includes a bunch of important information starting with the unconscious about motor skills and ending with the lines from Tatiana’s letter to Onegin, which you learned at school and can still recite if you have to). That is, to form short-term memory you need to glance once at an article in a magazine, for long-term memory you will have to torment your loved ones many times with a free interpretation of Pushkin or playing “The Dog Waltz.”

When it comes to mental abilities, which also includes memory, one cannot miss the fact that the human brain grows greatly even after birth. If a chimpanzee's brain size increases 1.6 times after birth, then a person's gray matter grows 4 times! We were given a long childhood and three years on maternity leave for a reason. Probably, it is the rapid growth that can explain the strange work of the beloved curly head.

Features of children's memory:

1. Children under three years old form “emotional memories.”

No one remembers what happened to them at the age of 6 months. It is quite difficult to reproduce the words of the nanny who fed you semolina porridge in the nursery when you were 2 years old. And in general, we know the events before the three-year mark only from photographs and the words of your mother, who for some reason, in front of guests, begins to tell how you once peed on the bus. However, this does not give us the opportunity to leave the upbringing of children to fate. It turns out that their unconscious emotions are imprinted in the brain and even influence the rest of their lives.

Until the age of three, we don’t remember that stupid story on the bus, because until then the hippocampus (this is the part of the brain that is involved in the formation of long-term memory) has not yet matured. Scientists believe that emotional memories may be stored in the amygdala, which is already fully functional in newborns. “The genes of well-fed baby rats work differently than the genes of their poorly cared for identical twins, so the brains of well-fed baby rats undergo changes that lead to a decrease in anxiety. The results of a study of brain cells of adult suicide victims who were victims of abuse as children, lead to the assumption that similar phenomena are characteristic of people, writes science journalist Rita Carter in her book How the Brain Works.

How we communicate with the baby during the first years of our acquaintance determines no less than his well-being as an adult. Let it not stick in a person’s head how he once took offense at a rattle, but what he will probably remember is your sensitive treatment of him, your friendly intonation and the general pleasant impression of the world around him.

2. The child’s memory is connected with his physicality.

If an adult can hover for a long time in some abstractions and not pay attention to a damp sock, then children, on the contrary, are terribly physical creatures. They comprehend the world by crawling, with their bellies under the table, they taste all sorts of rubbish on their tongues (honey, spit out the shoe polish quickly!), grab frogs and other puddle ingredients with their hands, pinch and bite their friends in the sandbox, climb onto your neck and cling to your hair. The main breakthrough in understanding your body occurs at the age of 3-5 years. It is then that the main motor skills characteristic of a person are formed, including somersaults, which will later be useful for lower breakdancing.

What is not obvious to the parent is that the mental abilities of children are strongly interconnected with their physicality, sensations in space, physics and sensory. Sensory Integration Specialists address developmental challenges with bean baths, weighted blankets, cocoon chairs, and swings—and it really works. There are studies that show a strong relationship between mastering one's body and the development of a child's memory. So if it is important for you that your baby remembers valuable information, link it to his motor skills, coordination or sense of rhythm. Children learn what they experience with their bodies.

3. In children, information is erased from memory faster.

“Do you really not remember how you solved this problem at your grandfather’s dacha last summer?” - yes, he really forgot. It is more difficult for children to retain in their memory events that were not colored by vivid emotional experiences, and, surprisingly, the problem is not one of those things that he will remember with nostalgia for many years.

So that you once again were not surprised by the child's forgetfulness, a Japanese-Canadian group of neuroscientists published the results of their study. True, the experiments were carried out on mice, and not on children, but scientists were able to prove that the active growth of neurons stimulates forgetting. Neurons, of course, grow faster in young individuals, no matter whether this individual has a tail or sandals. Growth comes at the price of memory loss.

The experiments compared very young mice with adult rodents. Both of them developed a fear reaction (it’s better not to even find out how), and then scientists were left to watch how it was erased. Adult mice remembered the danger for the entire next month, while young mice completely forgot about it after two weeks.

This knowledge will help the parent to reassure himself at every opportunity: “Aha, the child forgot his shift again! Well, that means his neurons are actively growing!” Also, keep in mind that after strong shocks, both mice and people do not forget whatever happens to their neurons. In order for the child to assimilate the information, help him connect it with the emotional side of life: let the fact bring joy or excitement.

4. Children's memory works with a delay.

If we have just left a performance, we remember well what happened there, but after a week, the details will disappear from memory. The child’s picture is upside down: he will better remember today’s event only a few days later. Scientists from Ohio State University talk about this. Researchers played a game with 4-5 year old children where they had to understand how different objects were connected to each other. Psychologists were able to observe a remarkable effect: information that children did not remember well when repeated on the first day miraculously resurrected in their heads a few days later.

So if you are disappointed to discover that your child has left the theater and no longer knows who sang Chanterelle’s aria, then there are two options: either he will remember this in a couple of days and you will be happy to discuss the performance, or you took him to a modern production for adult theatergoers, and he slept well there.

Without going into details about the reasons for the appearance of these lines, I only want to assure those to whom they come across that I am far from the idea of ​​convincing (or convincing) anyone of anything or giving any assessment of events. Simply because at the time when these events took place, I was too young.

So, briefly about the reasons for the appearance of these lines.

The more we move away from the war years, the more people want to reassess and revise the events of that time. What was, in the full sense of the word, sacred for the people of my generation is being questioned.

What goal can the “businessmen from public education” pursue when they offer eleventh-grade students an essay on the topic: “Was the assault on Sapun Mountain necessary in May 1944?” What kind of patriotic education can we talk about? Who needs to sow doubt and nihilism in the souls of the younger generation? Basically these are people who know about the war only from books and films.

My generation is the generation of “CHILDREN OF WAR”! And we know about it firsthand.

A very good American short story writer, O. Henry, whom I love, said: “...he didn’t live life to the fullest, who did not know poverty, love and war." I read this relatively recently and tried it on for myself: I survived the war, poverty too, but love lives in me and with me even now...

And now - about the war.

On June 22, 1941, I was less than 5 years old. Ask yourself: what do you remember about being five years old? Not everything, but what is remembered first is everything unusual and extreme. And this extreme began on the night of June 21-22, 1941: searchlights rummaging through the night sky, the hum of aircraft engines, the barking of anti-aircraft guns, the sound of fragments falling on the metal roof and, finally, two powerful explosions, one of which thundered several hundred meters from our home. In the afternoon, when we learned from the conversations of our elders that people had died, I realized for the first time that they could kill me too. And I began to be afraid. It turns out that even very young children really want to live! And they understand that every bomb, every shell can take this life away from them. I had to be afraid for a long time: it lasted for 250 long days and nights of the defense of Sevastopol!

Of course, I didn’t see much of what I’m talking about here with my own eyes, but I heard about it from my elders back then, back in 1941-42. And I remember the fact that we, children (me and my brother, 7 years older), were going to be evacuated from Sevastopol literally in the first days of the war.

In the book of memoirs of the secretary of the Sevastopol city party committee B.A. Borisov's "Feat of Sevastopol" says this: "... the regional party committee demanded that we immediately evacuate mothers with children. The headquarters created for this purpose by the city party committee attracted a large number of housewives, teachers, Komsomol members and took them out of the city on the very first day of the war several thousand women and children." The trouble is that children were evacuated most often without their mothers, since they worked and were needed by the city. Who and where were waiting for these refugees? (Then this word was firmly in common use). Omitting details, B. Borisov himself concludes: “Many of us on this day said goodbye to our families for many, many years.”

My mother became the guardian angel of our entire family: she quickly took my brother and me to Bakhchisarai, where her sister lived, and left her there until the situation changed. In the future, she always opposed evacuation, believing that we should all be together. She herself worked at Voenflottorg (current Voentorg). At the beginning of the war, my father worked in the Repair Department of Krymenergo and had a reservation. In December 1941, he was transferred to the position of repairman for high-voltage equipment of the Electric Power Supply utility trust. Translated into simple language, the trust was engaged in ensuring an uninterrupted supply of electricity to the city, which was a very difficult task in the conditions of constant bombing and shelling.

The elder of our family was my paternal grandmother Olga Grigorievna - the widow of my grandfather Ivan Nikolaevich, whose last name I bear. Non-commissioned officer of the Russian Imperial Navy, who served as a conscript on battleships and rose to the rank of mine-machine quartermaster 1st class, after retiring he worked in a military port as a fireman, died literally in the first days of the defense of Sevastopol at the age of 66 years. Here is an example of how you can fit a person’s entire biography into one phrase. My grandmother inherited a house (it’s loudly said, since it was a typical house for Sevastopol, standing, however, on a basement) on Drozdova Street, 14. Directly opposite, in house No. 15, our family lived, also in a small house taken by my rented by the father from the state. It came out as follows.

Before the war, many Greeks lived in Sevastopol, some of whom were subjects of the Republic of Greece. After the restoration of the monarchy in Greece in 1935, all of them were asked to either accept Soviet citizenship or leave the country. Those who left left their housing to the state. We lived in one of these houses. The fact that our houses were located directly opposite each other turned out to be very useful, since in my grandmother’s yard there was a cellar (we called it a basement) in which we hid during the bombings. The basement was dug under the street at a depth of about 2 meters. From direct hit He, of course, could not save a serious high-explosive bomb. And yet it was OWN bomb shelter. Why do I talk so much about this notorious basement? Now he is the "notorious" one. And then it was my life, my hole! When I was in my basement and holding my mother's hand, I was, of course, afraid, but... not very afraid.

In addition to basements, Sevastopol residents took refuge from bombing in air-raid shelters. These were solid, sometimes even with filter-ventilation installations, structures against gas attacks), but there were very few of them. They mostly hid in cracks. These were simply trenches, covered on top with some kind of ramp made of boards or logs. And there were a lot of them.

Until the end of October 1941, German aircraft regularly carried out raids on Sevastopol. The airfields were located far from Sevastopol. An air raid signal was given 10-15 minutes before the start of the raid. It was a very long whistle from the Morzavod (factory named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze) and a powerful siren installed at the SNIS (surveillance and communications service) post located on the building of the hydrographic department of the Black Sea Fleet. This service is still located in the same building on Suvorov Street (formerly Proletarskaya), literally a hundred meters from our former home on Drozdova Street.

In addition, the radio sounded: “Air raid warning!” Our fighters appeared in the sky and began to work flak, which prevented the Germans from conducting targeted bombing and sometimes shot down bombers. Air battles broke out between our fighters and the Me-109 escort fighters, which we boys watched with interest.

By the beginning of November, when German aviation began to be based at airfields near Sevastopol, large formations heavy bombers began to appear over the city at any time of the day and often without announcing an alarm. Often the alarm signal was given after the Germans, having been bombed, flew away. It was very unpleasant.

The war taught us children things that modern children had never even heard of. For example, how to quickly and correctly put on a gas mask (fortunately, this was not needed), to know that during a bombing, if you find yourself at home, you need to hide under the bed, under the table or in the doorway. I knew how to distinguish my planes from German ones by the sound of their engines, I knew that if a bomb separated from the plane above you, it would fall far, but if when it fell, the whistle of the bomb turned into a loud hiss, this bomb could be yours. And he clearly distinguished “Junkers-87” from “Junkers-88” and “Me-109” from “Heinkel-111”.

Of course, during the defense of Sevastopol, only a small group of command and leadership of the city knew the true situation on the front line, the plans of the Germans, and the population of the city felt those very three assaults by the amount of “iron” that fell on our heads. We didn't know about landing operations, which were carried out with the aim of releasing Sevastopol, we only felt that we were being bombed more or less.

The second assault on Sevastopol (this was the second half of December 1941) was memorable for the fact that we had to literally live in the basement. The bombings followed one after another, and the city was constantly bombarded with heavy artillery. Constantly staying in the basement did not improve anyone's health, especially for us children.

And the New Year of 1942 was also remembered for the fact that we celebrated it at home, where almost all the windows were broken. The glass was broken by the main battery of the battleship Paris Commune, which on December 29, together with several other ships that came from the Caucasus, fired at German positions on the Mekenzie Mountains and other critical defense areas, anchored in the South Bay near the refrigerator.

For us, these volleys were music.

Then came a period of relative calm. For five whole months! How did the city live during this time, what did the residents do, what was the situation on the front line? This is written very well and fully in the book of the secretary of the city party committee during the period of defense B.A. Borisov, which he titled simply and modestly - “The Feat of Sevastopol. Memories.” I re-read it several times, and it evoked a certain resonance in me as a person of THAT generation. I don’t want to retell or quote anything from this book, except for a few numbers that I will mention a little later. Anyone who wants can read it themselves. It became clear to me why Sevastopol was able to resist Hitler’s colossal machine for 250 days!

Nothing grows out of nowhere - the people of Sevastopol had a great inspiring example of the first heroic defense. And this example served as a role model. The descendants turned out to be worthy of their ancestors!

And finally, the third assault.

Historians write that it began on June 2, 1942. I can't help but believe them. I remember that from some point on, the bombings followed one another almost continuously - the air raid alert was not announced, since the previous one had not been cleared. And so on for days! They bombed with high-explosive bombs, incendiary bombs, and at the same time they were shelled with long-range heavy artillery. In order to psychologically influence the defenders of the city, the Germans began to use sound sirens when diving on the Yu-87 target, and also dropped various metal objects (rails, leaky metal barrels, etc.) from a great height, which made heartbreaking sounds when they fell.

And here I want to quote B.A. this time. Borisov: “From the second to the seventh of June, according to conservative estimates, enemy aircraft attacked the city and battle formations our troops flew nine thousand sorties, dropping forty-six thousand high-explosive bombs. During the same period, enemy artillery fired more than one hundred thousand shells at the city and our troops."

What did we see, what did we hear, what did we feel, sitting in the basement?

We didn't see anything. We heard a continuous roar. We felt that the ground was not just shaking, but was literally swaying and bouncing from nearby explosions. And then even we, children, understood how unsteady and unreliable our shelter was.

According to the stories of the elders, the most difficult day was June 19. The bombing and shelling began at 5 o'clock in the morning. Obviously, the Germans set a goal to destroy and burn the city on that day. Lighters rained down on the city center by the thousands. We were forced to look for another shelter, as my grandmother’s house, which caught fire, threatened to block the entrance to our basement. What I remember well: my mother grabbed me in her arms, wrapped me in a blanket and ran out into the street. From this place we could see houses on Tolstoy Square (now Lazarev) and the adjacent Karl Marx and Frunze streets (now B. Morskaya Street and Nakhimov Ave., respectively). All this and our street was also on fire! We ran along the street for several tens of meters and found shelter in a standard bomb shelter. My father and my brother, who was not even 13 years old, remained on the roof of my grandmother’s house, throwing down lighters that continued to fall.

Borisov’s book describes the facts that my father and brother told us that day: German fighters they flew at low level over the city and shot those who were on the roofs and trying to fight the fire. From one of these “hunters”, the father and brother managed to hide behind a chimney, along which the “Messer” slashed with a burst.

Then fighting the fire became useless, since the house was already burning from the inside. Our house also burned down. After some time, my father and brother were brought to our bomb shelter by a man who happened to be on our street and saw two “blind men” sitting under the supporting wall - the smoke and smoke blinded them completely for several hours.

And a few more words about our guardian angel - my mother. As soon as there was relative calm (and it came when the Germans transferred the main air strike from the city to the front line and made further attempts at an offensive), my mother insistently demanded that my father clear the entrance to our basement and return there. So we didn’t stay in the bomb shelter for long. The whole family returned to their shelter.

And the bombing and shelling continued. And what was it like for us to find out that in one of the next raids, everyone who was in the air-raid shelter was killed by a direct hit from a heavy bomb!

On the night of June 30 to July 1, when our troops were retreating to Cape Chersonesos, and the Germans were not on their shoulders, the city remained a nobody's place for some hours.

On the morning of July 1, two German machine gunners appeared in our yard. They took all the men and took them with them. And so on throughout the city. All the men were herded to Kulikovo Field - it was an airfield starting from the recent DOSAAF building and stretching to the recent Ocean store. Some space was promptly fenced off by the Germans with barbed wire, and the entire male population of the city was driven there (and there was very little of it left), and prisoners were driven there from Cape Chersonesus for several more days.

One can only imagine the whole nightmare of those days: July, heat, masses of wounded and the worst thing - lack of water.

By the way, water (or rather, the lack of it) is one of the reasons why the city could not continue to hold on. By the end of the last assault, the city was left without water supply: only wells remained. Plus, it must be added that as the prisoners of war arrived, the Germans immediately shot the commissars and Jews. This also did not lift my spirits.

Then all the civilians were sorted by age, they were told that any underground activity or sabotage would be punishable by execution on the spot, and they were partially released. My father also ended up in this “unit”.

And then many months of that same occupation dragged on, which cast a Cain’s mark not only on my parents, but also on my older brother, who, I repeat, was not even 15 years old at the end of the occupation. Government officials told my parents on occasion: “You must atone for your guilt” (?!).

Well, that was the time...

So, in conclusion, once again (now in a little more detail) about the reasons for the appearance of these lines.

I recently saw one documentary, in which the author (or authors), in strict accordance with the wise saying from Sh. Rustaveli’s poem “The Knight in the Skin of a Tiger”: “Everyone considers himself a strategist, seeing the battle from the outside...”, tries to prove that Sevastopol could have resisted, if not... And two circumstances are named that led to the surrender of the city: the death of the 35th coastal defense battery and the explosion of adits with naval ammunition in Inkerman (special plant No. 2 and a champagne wine factory were also located there).

In relation to Sevastopol, we are more familiar with the word “defense”. First defense, second defense... So, during the first defense, Russian troops abandoned Sevastopol, and in the second, the Germans occupied Sevastopol. The reason for this was the blockade. The city was blocked from land and sea, the defenders were deprived of the most important things: the supply of ammunition, replenishment of people, evacuation of the wounded (in last days blockade of the wounded, who could not be evacuated, accumulated about 23 thousand people).

In principle, the abandonment of Sevastopol came as a surprise both to the high command and to the defenders themselves.

Here is a timeline of policy guidance and responses from the last week of defense. On the afternoon of June 22, the commander of the SOR received a directive from S.M. Budyonny, Marshal, Commander of the North Caucasus Front: “Your task remains the same - the strong defense of Sevastopol. Stop further withdrawal... You need to speed up sea transportation... Everything you need is concentrated in Novorossiysk. To provide assistance on 21.06. they will start working on 20 "Douglas" (at night only). Ensure landing, speed of unloading and loading." Based on the content of the directive, it can be judged that the front command and the Supreme Command Headquarters, despite the German breakthrough to the North Side, considered it possible to hold Sevastopol.

On the same day, Oktyabrsky sent a telegram to the Caucasus for orientation: “Most of my artillery is silent, there are no shells, a lot of artillery was killed.

Enemy aircraft fly all day at any altitude, search all bays for watercraft, sink every barge, every boat.

Our aviation is essentially not working, there is continuous shelling, Me-109s are constantly flying.

The entire southern shore of the bay is now the front line of defense.

The city is destroyed, destroyed hourly, burning.

The enemy is choking, but still advancing.

I am completely confident that by defeating the 11th German Army near Sevastopol, we will achieve victory. Victory will be ours. She's already behind us."

Judging by the telegram, the SOR command also did not consider the situation in Sevastopol hopeless.

On June 23, 1942, Oktyabrsky reported: “To Budyonny, Kuznetsov, the General Staff: ... The most difficult defense conditions are created by enemy aviation; aviation paralyzes everything with thousands of bombs every day. It is very difficult for us to fight in Sevastopol. 15 aircraft are hunting for a small boat in the bay. All ships (watercraft) were sunk."

In fact, during the last 25 days of the siege, as is clear from reliable sources, German artillery fired 30 thousand tons of shells at the fortifications, and the planes of the 8th air fleet Richthofen carried out 25 thousand sorties and dropped 125 thousand heavy bombs.

The strength of the city's defenders was thinning, there were no reserves, and the delivery of reinforcements and ammunition could not make up for the losses. The enemy managed to actually blockade Sevastopol from the sea with the actions of a strong aviation group, depriving the city of replenishment and supplies from the mainland.

Despite the heavy losses in manpower and equipment, ships, despite the overwhelming superiority of the Germans, the defenders of Sevastopol, the command of the fleet and the Primorsky Army did not think about leaving the city, everyone was convinced that Sevastopol would survive. But hopes were not destined to come true.

After the capture of the Northern side, the enemy, without weakening his attacks on the city’s targets, secretly prepared an operation to land an amphibious assault force through the bay using improvised means to the rear of the main defense centers, where he was not expected.

On the night of June 28-29, after a hurricane fire south coast In the northern bay, the Germans, under the cover of a smoke screen, began landing troops on boats and boats in the direction of the Troitskaya, Georgievskaya and Sushilnaya beams with the aim of breaking through to the rear of the main strongholds of our defense. The possibility of landing troops across the bay using available means was considered unlikely. The surprise factor worked. The sudden small naval landing did its job: it caused panic and confusion in some areas of the defense. Subsequently, powerful attacks from the front and rear disrupted communication and interaction between the defense units. The leadership of the SOR and the Primorsky Army lost control of their subordinate troops in a few hours. The enemy broke through to the city.

In the memoirs of the People's Commissar of the Navy N.G. Kuznetsov has a phrase that is key to understanding the current situation: “The enemy’s breakthrough from the Northern side to Korabelnaya was unexpected for us.”

This is where the “dog is buried”!

In the bloody battles of June, moral superiority was undoubtedly on the side of the city’s defenders. But as soon as shouts were heard in the battle formations: “There are Germans all around! We are surrounded!”, a spontaneous and irreparable violation of the defense began. The brave defenders, deprived of reliable information about the enemy, were forced to leave their inhabited impregnable fortifications and seek salvation in the area of ​​​​Cape Chersonesus, on the last piece of Soviet land not occupied by the enemy.

So much has been written about this that I certainly have nothing to add.

The line from the famous song “The last sailor left Sevastopol...” can be considered purely conventional and pathetic. According to some estimates, about 40 thousand of these “last” remained in captivity of the Germans in Sevastopol. They are not to blame for anything.

The people remained heroes!

Vladimir Pavlovich TKACHENKO, retired captain 2nd rank, resident of besieged Sevastopol, member of the Black Sea Fleet Military Scientific Society

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