Аннотация: Warm featherbeds and Adlig Schwenkitten. A story about the literary work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Warm featherbeds and Adlig Schwenkitten. A story about the literary work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Alexander Isaich did a good job with archival materials, formed a card index and was ready to write a story about the encircling of the artillery battery in the East Prussia.
'They now are recalling how I threw the battery and fled to the rear.
Many memories. "
Let's look at the situation from the another side. From the point of view of the commander of a German tank division and from the point of view of the military man who cut off orders [awards] from the chest of Major Boev ...
"From the evening of January 25, when the first Soviet tanks broke through up to the coast of Baltic Sea, to the Frisches Haff [Vistula Lagoon], and when East Prussia was cut off from Germany, the Germans' counter-offensive against the breakthrough was prepared in just a day, already by the next evening." [unofficial translation]
We will also write about the Soviet lieutenant general, the chief of artillery of the army ...
Why such a structure of the story is good? A reader sees sequentially unfolding pictures of events and moves from one plot element to another. The panorama of events is clear to a reader ...
'Who was I? One of the many subordinates? "
It's good not to be subordinate. Although it's hard ... Eternal trips with heavy food bags...
'... They suspected my special close ties with Khrushchev..., they called me to give out for me a Moscow apartment [Moscow flat] in half an hour (they owned this possibility, in their hands),' I proudly refused to go. ... I proudly refused a Moscow apartment ... I doomed myself and my wife to a 10-year difficult existence in hungry Ryazan, then I was oppressed [was encircling, was surrounded] there; I was in a trap, and there were eternal trips with heavy product bags... (And from the point of view of the perspective [of a future life] - it was good ...)' [unofficial translation]
It was hard, it was heavy to carry bags of groceries from Moscow to hungry Ryazan ... But with this option there is more independence ...
Let's build the story in other way ...
Alexander Isaich wrote the title of the story: "Adlig Schwenkitten".
Featherbeds! Downy feather beds ...
'High stone houses with steep high roofs. A sleeping on a soft, or even under warm featherbeds. In the cellars - food stocks with curiosities of snacks and sweets. Also a free booze, who will find it. " [unofficial translation]
'Every house is like a miracle. Every night is like a holiday.
The brigade commissar, Lieutenant Colonel Vyzhlevsky, occupied the most prominent house in the village ...
When Veresov came in to report, Vyzhlevsky - large-shouldered, large-headed, with ears pulled back, sat drowned in a soft ottoman at an oval table, with a blissful pink face. (This head would not [wished to] wear a military cap, but a wide-brimmed hat.)
On the same couch, next to him, sat SMERSH's captain (level of the brigade) Tarasov ...
On the side, the door to the dining room was open... - and supper was being cooked there, two or three female figures flashed, one in a bright blue dress, probably a German. And there was also woman from the brigade's political department, she changed a military suit, because Prussian wardrobes were full with wardrobe goods. The smell of hot food.
Veresov with what did come? In the absence of the brigade commander, he was formally a senior officer, and could have made any further decision himself. But, having served in the army for a decade and a half, he learned well not to decide without political instructors [commissars], he always need to know their will and not quarrel. So what about the transportation [march] of the headquarters? - Wouldn't we ought to start a march now [immediately]?
But it's clear: it is not possible, at all! They was looking forward to dinner and other amenities. Such a sacrifice cannot be demanded from living people.
The commissar listened to the music with half-closed eyes. Kindly replied:
- Well, Kostya [Konstantin], where to go now? In the middle of the night - what to do there? where will we stop? We'll get up early tomorrow and will go, will start a march.
And the operative [SMERSH's captain Tarasov], always confident in his every gesture, nodded clearly.
Veresov did not object, did not agree. He was standing like a stick.
Then Vyzhlevsky, to [escourt situation to] a good attitude:
- Come to us and have supper with us. Here, in about twenty minutes.
Veresov stood thinking. He didn't want to start a march now [immediately]...: these Prussian lodgings greatly softened them. And another consideration: the 1st division [1st unit] is dismantled [disintegrated]. He didn't want to abandon, to leave it.
But they can find themselves in a bad situation. [There was a risk - if to evoid of march, but to have a dinner and to sleep]
Tarasov found, advised:
- And you - will cut off the connection with the army and with the divisions. And so, for all we will be - on the way, on the move [on the march].
Well, if the SMERSH officer is advising, he is going to knock [to do secret reports]?
And to go into the night is really a variant, which is beyond [above] [human] abilities." [unofficial translation]
The headquarters remained in warm featherbeds, the brigade moved to new positions, which were not protected by infantry. The radio stations were sent - to follow the cannons to new positions. So the commanders at the batteries did not have communication with the headquarters and did not have the opportunity to report, receive orders and to change the defenseless positions to a less vulnerable ones.
'And the brigade headquarters stopped responding on the radio. Well, they must have gone [started to march] already. " [unofficial translation]
'Having interrogated the defector ... and listening to his voice, his friendly readiness, Toplev believed that he was not lying ...
But if he does not lie and does not make mistakes, then our cannons are completely defenseless. There is no infantry! ..
But - what was needed now? What could he do now? ..
Hurry! The brigade headquarters ought be found as soon, as it possible!
He pushed the radio operator: call them, call them!
But - there is no connection...
Well, what about them? It's an inexplicable situation! " [unofficial translation]
Major Boev: 'But to relocate two other batteries behind Passarge River [Pasłęka]? This is a completely unauthorized change of position, a retreat. And there is a holy principle of the Red Army: no one step backward! Is there an unauthorized retreat in our army? ...this cannot be! This is treason to the motherland. For this they are judging - even to death and to a penalty.
Here is powerlessness.
A clear, full meaning: of course, we must retreat...
And it's even clearer: this is completely forbidden. " [unofficial translation]
Yes, this is a good option of the plot ... Warm feather beds ...
The finish of the plot: 'Comrades went to look for both Boev and his battalion commanders. Several soldiers and battalion commander Myagkov lay dead nearby Boev. And he himself [Boev], was shot [killed] in the nose and in the jaw, was lying on his back. The short fur coat was taken off him, carried away, and felt boots were taken off, and there was no hat. And somebody of the Germans wished for his orders [awards], to report [with demonstrating of orders] about success: with a knife he cut out the entire group of orders [awards] from the military shirt, a knife mark [trace] was remained on the chest of the deceased. " [unofficial translation]
And I, recalled Alexander Isaich, in those events did not lose a single person [did not lose a single military man of the subordinates].
And even when working in Ryazan, when i was completely surrounded, losses were minimal, almost none of them ... Almost no one died.
So it was not in vain that I didn't go for a Moscow apartment, I stayed in Ryazan ... it's good from point of view of the far skylight of life ...
Alexander Isaich doubted a little. This variant of the story has a lot of plot lines, a lot of information elements. For a reader - especially for a reader not accustomed to military details - all this is difficult to keep in mind and make a coherent picture of what is happening.
Here is the geographic ambiguity: who, where to, where from? ... And the organizational ambiguity: who obeys whom, who decides, why the decisions of this or that actor are important and what is the meaning of each decision? Everything is clear when there is a card index. But a reader doesn't have a card index?
Or maybe it's good that there is this informational stochasticity? Maybe during the breakthrough period in East Prussia and during the short era of warm feather beds, information fog was in many heads?
(1) Quotes from the works by Alexander Solzhenitsyn "Adlig Schwenkitten" and "The Oak and the Calf (1975) - "Бодался теленок с дубом" "A Calf Head-butting with an Oak";
(2) Adlig Schwenkitten is a settlement in East Prussia during the East Prussian Offensive of the Red Army (1945).
December 17, 2020 11:05
Translation from Russian into English: December 17, 2020 17:17.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Тёплые перины и Адлиг Швенкиттен. Рассказ о литературном произведении Александра Солженицына'.