Simonov Brest Fortress summary. Sergey Sergeevich Smirnov

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Sergey Sergeevich Smirnov
Brest Fortress

Return of destiny

Sometimes, probably, everyone sadly feels imperfection human memory. I'm not talking about sclerosis, which we are all approaching as we get older. The imperfection of the mechanism itself, its inaccurate selectivity is saddening...

When you are small and clean, like a white sheet of paper, your memory is just preparing for future work - some barely noticeable events, due to their familiarity, pass by your consciousness, but then you suddenly realize with bitterness that they were significant, important, otherwise and the most important. And you will be tormented by this incompleteness, the impossibility of returning, restoring a day, an hour, resurrecting a living human face.

And it’s doubly offensive when we're talking about O a loved one– about my father, about those who surrounded him. Unfortunately, I am almost deprived of childhood memories of him that are common in normal families: childhood left few clues, and when the memory mechanism started working, we rarely saw each other - either the door to the office was closed and his silhouette at the table was blurry dark through the corrugated glass, or a long-distance call crushed the peace of the apartment that had gone silent in his absence, and the dispassionate voice of the telephone lady told us where, from what corner of the country or the world, my father’s hoarse baritone would now be heard...

However, this happened later, after the Lenin Prize for “Brest Fortress”, after the incredible popularity of his television “Stories about Heroism”. That was later...

And at first there was a small apartment in Maryina Roshcha, where in the mid-fifties - during the time of my childhood - some unattractive personalities came every day and night, their very appearance arousing suspicion among the neighbors. Some in a quilted jacket, some in a darned overcoat with worn out insignia, in dirty boots or knocked down tarpaulin boots, with worn fiber suitcases, official-looking duffel bags or simply with a bundle, they appeared in the hallway with an expression of submissive hopelessness on their sallow faces, hiding their rough rough hands. Many of these men were crying, which did not fit in with my then ideas about masculinity and decency. Sometimes they would spend the night on the green fake velvet sofa, where I actually slept, and then they would throw me onto a folding bed.

And after a while they appeared again, sometimes even having time to replace the tunic with a Boston suit, and the padded jacket with a toe-length gabardine coat. Both of them looked bad on them - it was felt that they were not used to such outfits. But, despite this, their appearance subtly changed: hunched shoulders and bowed heads suddenly rose for some reason, their figures straightened. Everything was explained very quickly: under the coat, on the ironed jacket, the orders and medals that had found them or returned to their owners were burning and jingling. And it seems, as far as I could judge then, my father played some important role in this.

It turns out that these Uncle Lesha, Uncle Petya, Uncle Sasha were wonderful people who performed incredible, inhuman feats, but for some reason - which did not seem surprising to anyone at that time - were punished for it. And now the father explained everything to someone, somewhere “above”, and they were forgiven.

...These people entered my life forever. And not just as constant friends at home. Their fates became for me fragments of a mirror that reflected that terrible, black era whose name is Stalin. And yet - war...

She stood behind their shoulders, collapsing with all her monstrous mass, all the burden of blood and death, the burnt roof of her home. And then also captivity...

Uncle Lesha, who cut me a most luxurious pistol with a patterned handle from a linden log, and could make a whistle from any twig, is Alexey Danilovich Romanov. I will never forget this living embodiment of kindness, spiritual meekness, and mercy towards people. The war found him in the Brest Fortress, from where he ended up - neither more nor less - in concentration camp in Hamburg. His story about his escape from captivity was perceived as fantastic: together with a comrade, miraculously escaping from the guards, spending two days in ice water, and then jumping from the pier onto a Swedish cargo ship standing five meters away, they buried themselves in coke and finally sailed to neutral Sweden! Jumping then, he knocked off his chest on the side of the steamer and appeared after the war in our apartment as a thin, transparent tuberculosis man, breathing his last. And where did he get the strength to fight tuberculosis, if all these post-war years they told him to his face that while others were fighting, he “sat out” in captivity, and then rested in Sweden, from where, by the way, Alexandra did not let him go to the front Kollontai was the then Soviet ambassador. It was he who was “resting” - a half-dead man, pulled out of the hold along with a dead man in the same camp clothes!.. He was not reinstated in the party, he was not given work, he had practically nowhere to live - and this was in his homeland, on his own land... But then there was a telegram from my father...

Petka – that’s what he was called in our house, and needless to say, what a bosom friend he was to me. Peter Klypa is the youngest of the fortress defenders, during the defense he was a twelve-year-old student of the music platoon - he appeared to us as a thirty-year-old man with the timid, suffering smile of a martyr. Of the 25 years (!) allotted to him by the authorities, he served seven in Kolyma for a crime incommensurate with the punishment - he did not inform on a friend who committed a crime. Not to mention the imperfection of this criminal code on non-reporting, let us ask ourselves the question: should a boy, yesterday’s boy, but who had the Brest citadel behind him, be hidden for half his life for such an offense?! Is this him, about whom experienced soldiers almost told legends?.. Many years later, in the seventies, when Pyotr Klypa (whose name was given to pioneer squads throughout the country and who lived in Bryansk and, as they said then, worked hard at a factory ) somehow unkindly collided with the former secretary of the Bryansk regional committee of the CPSU Buivolov, again they began to remember his “criminal” past, his nerves began to fray again. I don’t know what he didn’t like, and there’s no one to find out from him: this whole campaign was not in vain for Petya - he died only in his sixties...

Uncle Sasha - Alexander Mitrofanovich Fil. He was one of the first to show up at Oktyabrskaya, although it took the longest to get there. From Hitler's concentration camp, he went by direct message to Stalin's prison camp, to the Far North. Having served 6 years for no reason, Fil remained on Aldan, believing that with the stigma of a “Vlasovite” he would not have life on the mainland. This “Vlasov man” was casually labeled to him by an investigator at a filtration checkpoint for prisoners, forcing him to sign a protocol without reading it.

...The details of these three and many other equally dramatic destinies are recreated on the pages of the main book of my father - Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov - “ Brest Fortress" The main one not only because she was awarded the Lenin Prize in the memorable year of the 20th anniversary of the Victory, and not even because he devoted most of his life in literature to work on “The Brest Fortress”. As far as I can judge, it was during the period of work on this book that he formed as a person and as a documentary writer, laid the foundations of his somewhat unique creative method, which brought back from oblivion the names and destinies of the living and the dead. Nevertheless, for almost two decades, “The Brest Fortress” was not reprinted. The book, which, like no other, spoke about the feat of the Soviet soldier, seemed harmful to the Soviet authorities. As I learned much later, military doctrine Communists, who were preparing the population for war with the Americans, did not in any way agree with the main moral content of the Brest-Litovsk epic - the need to rehabilitate prisoners. So Dzhugashvili’s “catchphrase” “We have no prisoners - we have traitors and traitors” was still in use by the party apparatus in the late 80s...

“Manuscripts don’t burn,” but they die without a reader. And until the beginning of the 90s, the book “Brest Fortress” was in a dying state.

In the early 70s, one of the most prominent defenders of the Brest Fortress, Samvel Matevosyan, was expelled from the party and deprived of the title of Hero Socialist Labor. He was accused of administrative and economic abuses such as abuse of power and abuse of official position - Matevosyan served as manager of the Armenzoloto trust of the geological exploration department of non-ferrous metallurgy of the Council of Ministers of Armenia. I don’t undertake to discuss here the extent of his violation of party ethics, but one thing was surprising: law enforcement agencies dropped their charges “for lack of corpus delicti.” Nevertheless, I remember very well how, a year before his death, my father came home with a gray face that had suddenly aged - from Gorky they reported that the Volga-Vyatka publishing house had scattered the set of “The Brest Fortress”, and the printed edition was put under the knife - any mention of The allegedly guilty S. Matevosyan demanded that it be removed from the book. As it happens with us to this day, then, during the years of the “heyday of stagnation,” the wild absurdity of Stalinism made itself felt - a person cannot wash himself away from slander, no matter how monstrous and illegal it may be. Moreover, his entire life before and after the incident was called into question. And no evidence from eyewitnesses, fellow soldiers, or service comrades was taken into account - the work went on the well-trodden rails of a tendentious selection of “facts” and facts that could somehow prove the unprovable.

For sixteen years this very elderly man, who was also a war invalid, had been knocking on the thresholds of various authorities in the persistent hope of achieving justice; For sixteen years, the book, awarded the highest literary prize in our country, lay hidden under a departmental ban. And it was impossible to reach the officials, to explain to them that the composition and structure literary work do not give in to administrative criticism and simply fall apart.

In the era of Brezhnev's timelessness, all attempts to revive the book ran into an impenetrable " layered cake» all kinds of authorities. At first, on the upper floors there were sweet assurances of the need to republish and return “Brest Fortress” to the circle of literature. Then the middle “layer” - harder and with a bitter taste - nibbled the book: it was no longer just about the “seizure” of S. Matevosyan, but also of Pyotr Klypa and Alexander Fil; until, finally, things came up against an absolutely impenetrable wall, or rather, cotton wool, where all efforts were silently extinguished. And our letters, regular requests for meetings - like pebbles in water, however, there weren’t even any circles... And there was already information that somewhere some official Tsekov lecturer publicly stated that “Smirnov’s heroes are fake”, and similar delights.

Fortunately, times are changing - “Brest Fortress” has returned to readers. She returned to tell people once again how amazing Man is, what high moral standards his spirit is capable of achieving...

And yet the past years of the ban do not leave my memory, and when I think with dull pain about this sad story, a strange feature of my father’s fate suddenly appears to me - after death, he seemed to repeat the path of the people he brought back to life, doomed to experience its unevenness in his own the soul contained in the book “Brest Fortress”. If only he had known all this back then, in the fifties...

But no!.. There was no need for this sad foresight then, at the end of the fifties. Then his living work, visibly embodied in these early aged people, proudly walked along the Moscow streets. Our neighbors no longer feared for the safety of their apartments, but smiled joyfully when they saw one of them - now they knew them by sight. Passers-by recognized the crowd, shook hands, and patted shoulders politely and respectfully. It happened that I walked with them, in the glow of national recognition, which on occasion also fell on me, because I was childishly vain. For me, they were all nothing famous heroes, but close friends, almost relatives, who easily spent the night on my sofa. And this, you see, warms the soul.

But father!.. Father really reveled in what was happening. It was the work of his hands, a tangible result of his energy, which drove him thousands of kilometers into remote, bearish corners, confronted him with the impenetrable soullessness of the reigning system.

After all, it was he who spent the night in the kitchen reading dozens, then hundreds, and then thousands of letters that filled the apartment - opening the window in the summer became a problem: first it was necessary to move the thick stacks of envelopes covering the window sills. It was he who studied thousands of documents in various archives - from the military to the prosecutor's office. It was he who was the first after Rodion Semenyuk to touch in 1955 the fragile fabric of the regimental banner, buried in the casemate of the fortress during the days of defense and dug up by the same hands. There was something to admire - everything had now materialized in the people around him.

But still main reason His delight became clear to me much later, over the years. He returned to these people Faith in justice, and this, if you like, is faith in life itself.

He returned these people to the country, the people, without which they could not imagine life. There, in deadly Brest, and then, in the death camps, they - mutilated, having gone through all degrees of hunger, having forgotten the taste of human food and clean water, rotting alive, dying, it seems, a hundred times a day - they still survived, saved with his incredible, improbable faith...

I think my father was then happier than anyone to be convinced of the far from indisputable fact of the existence of justice. He promised it to them who had lost faith; he was its involuntary executor. And my God, how grateful he was to everyone who helped even in the smallest way, who shared this heavy burden with him.

Father and his numerous and selfless assistants, such as, say, Gennady Afanasyevich Terekhov - an investigator for especially important cases, known throughout the country during perestroika, who, unfortunately, is no longer alive - who has since become a long-term friend of his father, and many other people, carried out, in my opinion, a process of rehabilitation of the country, people, our history itself, unique in the history of mankind, in the eyes of those who had to go through all the circles of hell - Hitler’s and Stalin’s...

And then there was a trip to Brest - a real triumph for the heroes of the fortress. Yes, it was, it was... And there was also a holiday for us, but especially, of course, for my father, when the fortress was given a Star, and May 9 was declared a non-working day and a parade was scheduled on Red Square!

Then, apparently, it seemed to him that everything had been achieved. No, not in the sense of work - the road just rolled out ahead of him. Achieved in the sense of moral support of the title “War Veteran”. In those days of the early sixties, a person with a row of medal bars on his jacket did not need to, blushing, reach into his pocket for a certificate of participation or, moreover, a disabled war veteran - the line parted itself.

Yes, we have since experienced a long period of erosion of public morality. But there are, and cannot but exist among enlightened peoples, to which we consider ourselves, saints, values ​​that are unshakable either by time or by people, without which a people is not a people. Today we cannot devalue the enormous spiritual potential contained in the words “War Veteran.” After all, there are few of them. There are very few of them, and this number is decreasing every day. And - it’s somehow painful to imagine - the day is not far off when the earth will accept the last one. The last Veteran of the Great War...

There is no need to compare them with anyone or anything. They are simply incomparable. My father once amazed me by declaring that it was unfair for us to have the same status of Hero of Socialist Labor and Hero Soviet Union, since the first one sheds sweat, and the second one sheds blood...

Let it not seem to you, reading these lines, that he was a man without a hitch. The father is inextricably linked with his difficult, terrible time. Like most of those who grew up and lived then, he did not always know how to distinguish between white and black, he did not live in harmony with himself in everything, and he did not always have enough civic courage. Unfortunately, there were actions in his life that he did not like to remember, admitting, however, openly the mistakes he had made and carrying this cross to his very grave. And this, I think, is not a very common quality.

However, it’s not for me to judge my father and his generation. It only seems to me that the work he served with such amazing conviction and spiritual strength, the work he did, reconciled him with life and with time. And as far as I can judge, he himself understood this, understood and acutely felt the tragic unevenness of the time in which he had to live his life. In any case, the following lines, written in his hand, suggest this conclusion.

Once, after my father’s death, I found in his desk a draft letter to Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky. Tvardovsky, whose father was his deputy in the first composition of the New World, turned sixty in those days. My father retained a reverent love for the hero of the day throughout his life and admired his personality. I remember this letter struck me. Here is an excerpt from it.

“Peredelkino, 20.6.70.

Dear Alexander Trifonovich!

For some reason I don’t want to send you a congratulatory telegram, but I’m tempted to write something non-telegraphic in my own hand. You played such an important role in my life that the day of your sixtieth birthday involuntarily feels like significant date in your own destiny.

These are not red anniversary words. I have often thought about how lucky I am to have met you and have had the fortunate opportunity to work with you and to be your close friend for some time (I hope this is not insolence on my part). This happened at a very critical, probably turning point, moment in my life, when energy and thirst for activity were bursting, and the era in which we lived at that time could, after all, direct all this in different directions. And although, I believe that I was not capable of conscious meanness even then, God knows how the circumstances and difficulties of those times could have affected me, I would not have met you, with your great sense of truth and justice, with your talent and charm. And in everything that I did later, after parting with you, there was always a share of your influence, the influence of your personality on me. Believe me, I am very far from exaggerating my capabilities and what I have done, but still I sometimes had to do good human deeds, which in old age give a feeling of inner satisfaction. I don’t know whether I would have been able to do them or not if I had not had a meeting with you and your never-ending influence. Probably not! And for this, my heartfelt thanks to you and my deepest bow from student to teacher...”

It’s a pity, a mortal pity, that my father did not live to see the day when “Brest Fortress” saw the light of day for the first time after a long ban. It is a pity that he is not destined to find out the posthumous fate of his main book, to hold in his hands the signal copy that smells of printing ink, to touch the cover with the embossed words “Brest Fortress”. He left with a heavy heart, without illusions about the main work of his life...

And in conclusion, a few words about this publication. In post-Soviet times, the book was published several times. Of course, over the past period, many new facts, evidence, and documents have appeared in the historical science of the Great Patriotic War. In some cases, they correct some inaccuracies or errors made by documentary historians in widely known works on the history of the war. To a certain extent, this also applies to the “Brest Fortress”, since at the time of its creation historical science did not have a modern complete view of the initial period of the war.

Nevertheless, given the insignificance of discrepancies between the author’s lifetime edition of the book and the current position of historians, we will refrain from alterations. This is obviously a task for future publications, which require more extensive scientific tools.

Of course, there are ideological overlaps in this narrative. But don’t judge strictly: no matter how we, today, feel about the realities of the time when this book was created, the author’s sincerity should not be questioned. Like every significant creation, “Brest Fortress” belongs to its era, but no matter how many years separate us from the events described in it, it is impossible to read it with a calm heart.

K. Smirnov

Open letter to the heroes of the Brest Fortress

My dear friends!

This book is the fruit of ten years of work on the history of the defense of the Brest Fortress: many trips and long thoughts, searches for documents and people, meetings and conversations with you. She is the final result of this work.

Stories and novels, poems and historical studies will be written about you, about your tragic and glorious struggle, plays and films will be created. Let others do it. Perhaps the material I collected will help the authors of these future works. IN big deal It's worth taking one step if that step leads up.

Ten years ago, the Brest Fortress lay in forgotten, abandoned ruins, and you - its hero-defenders - were not only unknown, but, as people who mostly went through Hitler’s captivity, you encountered offensive distrust in yourself, and sometimes experienced direct injustice . Our party and its 20th Congress, having put an end to the lawlessness and mistakes of the period of Stalin’s personality cult, opened up a new phase of life for you, as well as for the entire country.

Now the Brest Defense is one of the pages of the history of the Great Patriotic War dear to the hearts of Soviet people. The ruins of the old fortress above the Bug are revered as a military relic, and you yourself have become the beloved heroes of your people and are surrounded by respect and care everywhere. Many of you have already been awarded high state awards, but those who do not yet have them are not offended, because one title “Defender of the Brest Fortress” is equivalent to the word “hero” and is worth an order or medal.

Now there is a good museum in the fortress, where your feat is fully and interestingly reflected. A whole team of enthusiastic researchers is studying the struggle of your legendary garrison, revealing new details, looking for still unknown heroes. All I can do is respectfully make way for this team, wish them success in a friendly manner and turn to other material. In the history of the Patriotic War there are still many unexplored “blank spots”, undisclosed exploits, unknown heroes who are waiting for their scouts, and even one writer, journalist, historian can do something here.

With the publication of this book, I handed over to the fortress museum all the material collected over ten years and said goodbye to the topic of the defense of Brest. But to you, Dear friends, I want to say not “goodbye”, but “goodbye”. We will have many more friendly meetings, and I hope to always be as your guest at those exciting traditional celebrations that are now held in the fortress every five years.

Until the end of my days I will be proud that my humble work played some role in your destinies. But I owe you more. Meetings with you, acquaintance with your feat determined the direction of the work that I will conduct throughout my life - the search for the unknown heroes of our four-year struggle against German fascism. I was a participant in the war and saw a lot during those memorable years. But it was precisely the feat of the defenders of the Brest Fortress that illuminated everything I saw with a new light, revealed to me the strength and breadth of the soul of our man, made me experience with particular acuteness the happiness and pride of knowing that I belong to a great, noble and selfless people, capable of doing even the impossible. It is for this priceless gift for a writer that I bow deeply to you, dear friends. And if in my literary work I manage to convey to people even a particle of all this, I will think that it was not in vain that I walked the earth.

Goodbye, see you again, my dear residents of Brest!

Always yours S.S. Smirnov. 1964

(his son), gradually disappeared from funds mass media, a generation has grown up that has no idea that there was such a person, there was such a book. We are talking about the "Brest Fortress". In the 50s, Sergei Smirnov found living heroes of the Brest Stronghold, spoke about their fates, and in 1955, on the advice of Irakli Andronikov, he made a radio broadcast that literally the whole country listened to. After Stalin's death, Sergei Smirnov was the first to say that not all prisoners of war were traitors. The writer argued that many suffered innocently. For these efforts to restore the good name of thousands of front-line soldiers, Sergei Smirnov has already earned a deep bow. As a result of many years of searches and investigations, a book was published, for which the author was awarded the Lenin Prize. But soon, on Suslov’s instructions, the set was scattered, and “The Brest Fortress” was not published for almost two decades...After 18 years it was republished, I can’t help but mention the people who did this: the last edition was Valentin Osipov, the publisher who ensured that this book was republished for the anniversary of the Victory. This publication was for charity, it was practically not sold, it was sent mainly to libraries, and was also given as a gift to war veterans who came to Moscow to celebrate Victory Day. And so our mother reproaches me and my brother, saying: “Why don’t you do anything to remember your father?” My answer to this is that he did such an important thing that, I hope, maybe over time it should not be erased in the memory of the Russian people. And if it is erased, then all efforts are useless.

The fact is that people who do not go to work today on May 9 and March 8 do not even suspect that they also owe this to my father.

In 1955, for the first time, in the month of August, his radio broadcasts, which were called “In Search of the Heroes of the Brest Fortress,” were heard on the radio. Following the first traces of this search, he managed to find and question the first living participants in the defense of Brest. I went to school two weeks later, and it turned out that the whole country was listening to the radio, literally the whole country, my father instantly became famous. But what was the most important thing in these programs? Of course, stories about the heroism of the Russian soldier, about the people who fought and continued to fight in conditions that were absolutely unpromising and hopeless. After all, there were still pockets of resistance in the fortress, when the Germans were already beyond Smolensk, Minsk had already been taken. Nevertheless, these people, simple Russian guys - and not only Russians, of course, Russian guys, because there were Tatars, and Armenians, and Volga Germans, and whoever was there, and Kazakhs, in short, from all over ends of the empire - continued to fight, not give up, kill Germans, starve... And, naturally, all of them later - who did not shoot themselves or were not killed - were captured, fled repeatedly, then joined the partisans, when they were able, right up to what they tried to harm there, inside Germany. Yes, in fact, if there had not been such soldiers, the outcome of the war would probably have been different. And all these people were denied the right of citizenship. Father was the first to talk about how circumstances forced these people to be captured, that these are soldiers who have the right to the same, and perhaps even more, respect than anyone else. And gradually this took root not only in the consciousness of the people, but also in the consciousness of the authorities. I will never forget how we tried - when Brezhnev died, but the “living dead” bosses were replaced one after another, until it came to Gorbachev - once again my mother and I were on Old Square, in the Central Committee of the Party, talking about that it would not be a bad idea to publish this book. And every time they promised, they said that this was our national treasure, and then at the Young Guard the editor - I will never forget! - he said in a completely stately voice, explained to me... I remember his last name well - let this scoundrel, perhaps, hear or his children - his last name was Mashavets, Chief Editor then the publishing house "Young Guard", some party or Komsomol figure. I vouch for the accuracy of the quote, because I wrote it down right there, behind the doors of his office. He explained that the book could not be in this moment republished because it gave “an incorrect and superficial assessment of the first stage of the war, and secondly, if published, all references to those who were captured must be removed from the book.” And those who were not captured were not mentioned in the book. This was already the time of Afghanistan, our army was stuck there, the problem of our prisoners rose to its full height, and therefore familiar guiding notes began to sound. And in 1965, there was a decree that May 9, the 20th anniversary of the victory, would become a day off. Let me remind you that from 1945 to 1965 this was a working day. But the generous government also gave the people March 8, which was also a working day, and the decree said: as a sign of respect (something like that) for the contribution Soviet women in the war and in labor on the home front. So let them know when they drink on May 9 and March 8, who they should clink glasses with.

P. Krivonogov “Defenders of the Brest Fortress”, 1951

Smirnov Sergey Sergeevich (1915-1976).

Smirnov Sergey Sergeevich (1915-1976).

Prose writer, playwright, journalist, public figure. Born in Petrograd. He began his career at the Kharkov Electromechanical Plant. In 1932-1937 studied at the Moscow Energy Institute. Since 1937 - an employee of the newspaper "Gudok" and at the same time a student at the Literary Institute. A.M. Gorky. “He took part in the Great Patriotic War, first as a combat commander, and from 1943 as a special correspondent for an army newspaper.”1 After the war, he worked at the Military Publishing House, then at the editorial office of the magazine “New World.” In 1950-1960 - editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta. Member of the Soviet War Veterans Committee, secretary of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union of the RSFSR, member of the Board of the USSR Writers' Union, member of the editorial board of the Smena magazine. He was awarded two Orders of the Red Star, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and medals.

S. Smirnov is the author of plays and film scripts, documentary books and essays about unknown heroes of the Great Patriotic War, including “Brest Fortress” (1957; expanded edition - in 1964), “Stories about unknown heroes” (1963) etc. He was on television for many years popular show- TV almanac “Feat”.

The most important feat of S. Smirnov was the rehabilitation of the heroes of the Brest Fortress. He was one of the initiators of the creation of the fortress defense museum; he donated the materials he collected (more than 50 folders with letters, 60 notebooks and notebooks with recordings of conversations with the defenders of the fortress, hundreds of photographs, etc.) to the museum. There is a stand dedicated to him in the fortress museum. Smirnov recalled: “Our enemies spoke with amazement about the exceptional courage, fortitude and tenacity of the defenders of this stronghold. And we consigned all this to oblivion... In Moscow, in the Museum of the Armed Forces, there is no stand, no photographs, nothing about the defense of the Brest Fortress. Museum workers They shrugged their shoulders: “We have a museum of the history of exploits... What heroism could have been on the western border.” The German crossed the border unhindered and reached Moscow under a green traffic light. Don’t you know this?’” In 1965, S. Smirnov became a Lenin Prize laureate for his book “Brest Fortress.” On this occasion, G. Svirsky wrote:

“Until 1957, the press did not say a word about the heroism of the defenders of the Brest Fortress,2 which later became a symbol of the Resistance in the history of the war. The photograph of the leaders of the defense of the Brest Fortress, foreheads pressed together, crying, who met in Moscow on the way from the Siberian camps - this stunning photograph, reproduced by the Literary Gazette in Khrushchev's times, became an irrefutable document of the vile cruelty of Stalin's time. “We have no prisoners of war.” “- Stalin is known to have said, “there are traitors.” Who needs traitors?.. The Sovinformburo reported on the tragedy of time with a fake headline: “How German generals are fabricating Soviet prisoners of war.”

In the mid-sixties, the history of the defense of the Brest Fortress and its heroes who fell into German captivity(and later in Soviet camps), said Sergei Smirnov - in the documentary book “Brest Fortress” (awarded the Lenin Prize in 1965). The book is prefaced by “An Open Letter to the Heroes of the Brest Fortress”, in which the author writes: “Ten years ago the Brest Fortress lay in forgotten and abandoned ruins, and you - its heroic defenders - were not only unknown, but, as people who mostly went through Hitler's captivity, you encountered offensive distrust of yourself, and sometimes experienced direct injustice. Our party and its 20th Congress, having put an end to the lawlessness and mistakes of the period of Stalin’s personality cult, opened up a new phase of life for you, as well as for the entire country.”

“Direct injustices”, “lawlessness and mistakes”, “offensive mistrust” - all these euphemisms mean that the heroes who fought bravely in a fortress, deep behind German lines, were arrested by the Soviet security authorities only because they turned out to be prisoners of war, and that these war heroes spent the post-war years in camps. But even at that time of Khrushchev’s “thaw” their chronicler, writer S.S. Smirnov, could not tell the whole truth about them without resorting to shameful, deceitful substitutions: “concentration camp” is replaced by the phrase “direct injustice”, the words “crimes” and “terror” - the words “lawlessness” and “mistakes”, the words “Stalinist despotism” " - the stereotype "the period of the personality cult of Stalin"" (Svirsky G.S. On frontal place. Literature of moral resistance. M., 1998. S. 471-472).

The work of writer S.S. Smirnova ended with the rehabilitation of A. Fil, the release of P. Klyp, the removal of all suspicions from majors P. Gavrilov and S. Matevosyan and other surviving defenders of the Brest Fortress. Those expelled from the party were reinstated and properly employed (Viktorov B.A. Not classified as “secret.” Notes of a military prosecutor. Issue 3. M., 1990. P. 286).

Son of S.S. Smirnova - Konstantin Smirnov (b. 1952) largely continues his father’s work. He is the host of the Sunday TV show Big Parents, which consistently has high ratings. In one of the interviews, to the question “Which main idea Have you learned from communicating with the children of great parents? he replied: “I realized that the Soviet government was so inhumane that it even ate its beloved children, those who served it not out of fear, but out of conscience, like a pig eats its piglets. IN own life or in the life of their loved ones there must have been some kind of tragedy, which often no one knows about at all” (NTV: hunting for children // Arguments and Facts. 2000. No. 9. P. 8). The eldest son of S.S. Smirnova - Andrey Smirnov (b. 1941) - film director, author of the films “Belorussky Station” (1971), “Autumn” (1975), etc.

Notes

1) These data are taken from the reference book “Screenwriters of Soviet Feature Cinema” (Moscow, 1972, p. 336). In a different

And now the ruins of the Brest Fortress rise above the Bug, ruins covered military glory, every year thousands of people from all over our country come here to lay flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers and pay tribute to their deep respect for the selfless courage and fortitude of its defenders.
The defense of the Brest Fortress, like the defense of Sevastopol and Leningrad, became a symbol of the perseverance and fearlessness of Soviet soldiers and was forever included in the annals of the Great Patriotic War.
Who can remain indifferent when hearing today about the heroes of the Brest Defense, who will not be touched by the greatness of their feat?!
Sergei Smirnov first heard about the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress in 1953. Then it was believed that all participants in this defense died.
Who are they, these unknown, nameless people who have shown unprecedented resilience? Perhaps one of them is alive? These are the questions that worried the writer. Painstaking work began on collecting materials which requires a lot of strength and energy. It was necessary to unravel the most complex interweaving of destinies and circumstances in order to restore the picture of the heroic days. The writer overcomes difficulties step by step, unraveling the threads of this tangle, looking for eyewitnesses and participants in the defense.
Thus, initially conceived as a series of essays, “Brest Fortress” turned into a historical and literary epic grandiose in its scope of events. The novel combines two time planes... Bygone days and modernity stood side by side, revealing all the beauty and greatness of the Soviet man. The heroes of the defense pass before the reader: Major Gavrilov, amazing in his tenacity and fortitude, who fought to the last bullet; full of bright optimism and fierce fearlessness, Private Matevosyan; little trumpeter Petya Klypa is a fearless and selfless boy. And next to these heroes, who miraculously survived, the readers see images of the dead - nameless soldiers and commanders, women and teenagers who took part in battles with enemies. Very little is known about them, but even these meager facts make one marvel at the resilience of the Brest residents, their selfless devotion to the Motherland.
The strength of Sergei Smirnov's work lies in the rigor and simplicity with which the writer presents dramatic events. His stern, restrained manner of narration further emphasizes the significance of the feat accomplished by the defenders of the Brest Fortress. In every line of this work one feels deep respect writer to these simple and at the same time extraordinary people, admiration for their courage and bravery.
“I was a participant in the war and saw a lot in those memorable years,” he writes in the essay preceding the novel, “but it was the feat of the defenders of the Brest Fortress that, as if with a new light, illuminated everything I saw, revealed to me the strength and breadth of the soul of our man, made me feel especially acute experience the happiness and pride of belonging to a great, noble and selfless people..."
The memory of the feat of the heroes of Brest will never die. Book by S.S. Smirnova, awarded the Lenin Prize in 1965, returned to the country the names of many fallen heroes, helped restore justice, and reward the courage of people who gave their lives in the name of the Motherland.
Each historical era creates works that reflect the spirit of his time. Heroic Events civil war found their embodiment in Furman’s “Chapaev”, in Ostrovsky’s crystal clear novel “How the Steel Was Tempered.” Many wonderful books have been written about the Great Patriotic War. And among them, a worthy place belongs to the strong and courageous book of S. S. Smirnov. The heroes of the “Brest Fortress” will stand next to the immortal images created by D. Furmanov and N. Ostrovsky, as a symbol of unparalleled devotion to the Motherland.

S. SMIRNOV

FROM THE BOOK “THE BREST FORTRESS”

GAVROCHE OF THE BREST FORTRESS
HEROIC PAGE
CIRCLE OF FAME

And now the ruins of the Brest Fortress, ruins covered in military glory, rise above the Bug. Every year thousands of people from all over our country come here to lay flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers, to pay tribute to their deep respect for the selfless courage and fortitude of its defenders.
The defense of the Brest Fortress, like the defense of Sevastopol and Leningrad, became a symbol of the perseverance and fearlessness of Soviet soldiers and was forever included in the annals of the Great Patriotic War.
Who can remain indifferent when hearing today about the heroes of the Brest Defense, who will not be touched by the greatness of their feat?!
Sergei Smirnov first heard about the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress in 1953. Then it was believed that all participants in this defense died.
Who are they, these unknown, nameless people who have shown unprecedented resilience? Perhaps one of them is alive? These are the questions that worried the writer. The painstaking work of collecting materials began, requiring a lot of effort and energy. It was necessary to unravel the most complex interweaving of destinies and circumstances in order to restore the picture of the heroic days. The writer overcomes difficulties step by step, unraveling the threads of this tangle, looking for eyewitnesses and participants in the defense.
Thus, initially conceived as a series of essays, “Brest Fortress” turned into a historical and literary epic grandiose in its scope of events. The novel combines two time planes... Bygone days and modernity stood side by side, revealing all the beauty and greatness of the Soviet man. The heroes of the defense pass before the reader: Major Gavrilov, amazing in his tenacity and fortitude, who fought to the last bullet; full of bright optimism and fierce fearlessness, Private Matevosyan; little trumpeter Petya Klypa is a fearless and selfless boy. And next to these heroes, who miraculously survived, the readers see images of the dead - nameless soldiers and commanders, women and teenagers who took part in battles with enemies. Very little is known about them, but even these meager facts make one marvel at the resilience of the Brest residents, their selfless devotion to the Motherland.
The strength of Sergei Smirnov's work lies in the rigor and simplicity with which the writer presents dramatic events. His stern, restrained manner of narration further emphasizes the significance of the feat accomplished by the defenders of the Brest Fortress. In every line of this work one can feel the writer’s deep respect for these simple and at the same time extraordinary people, admiration for their courage and bravery.
“I was a participant in the war and saw a lot in those memorable years,” he writes in the essay preceding the novel, “but it was the feat of the defenders of the Brest Fortress that, as if with a new light, illuminated everything I saw, revealed to me the strength and breadth of the soul of our man, “I was able to experience with particular acuteness the happiness and pride of the consciousness of belonging to a great, noble and selfless people...”
The memory of the feat of the heroes of Brest will never die. Book by S.S. Smirnova, awarded the Lenin Prize in 1965, returned the names of many fallen heroes to the country, helped restore justice, and reward the courage of people who gave their lives in the name of the Motherland.
Each historical era creates works that reflect the spirit of its time. The heroic events of the civil war found their embodiment in Furman’s “Chapaev”, in Ostrovsky’s crystal clear novel “How the Steel Was Tempered.” Many wonderful books have been written about the Great Patriotic War. And among them, a worthy place belongs to the strong and courageous book of S. S. Smirnov. The heroes of the “Brest Fortress” will stand next to the immortal images created by D. Furmanov and N. Ostrovsky, as a symbol of unparalleled devotion to the Motherland.

Some of the sources claim that the history of the Brest Fortress began a century before its heroic feat in 1941. This is somewhat untrue. The fortress has existed for a long time. The complete reconstruction of the medieval citadel in the town of Berestye (the historical name of Brest) began in 1836 and lasted 6 years.

Immediately after the fire of 1835, the tsarist government decided to modernize the fortress in order to give it the status of a western outpost of national importance in the future.

Medieval Brest

The fortress arose back in the 11th century; mentions of it can be found in the well-known “Tale of Bygone Years,” where the chronicle recorded episodes of the struggle for the throne between two great princes - Svyatopolk and Yaroslav.

Having a very advantageous location - on a cape between two rivers and Mukhavets, Berestye soon acquired the status of a large shopping center.

In ancient times, the main routes of merchant movement were rivers. And here two whole waterways made it possible to move goods from east to west and vice versa. Along the Bug it was possible to get to Poland, Lithuania and Europe, and along Mukhavets, through Pripyat and the Dnieper, to the Black Sea steppes and the Middle East.

One can only guess how picturesque the medieval Brest Fortress was. Photos of illustrations and drawings of the fortress early period- a great rarity, they can only be found as museum exhibits.

Due to the constant transition of the Brest Fortress under the jurisdiction of one state or another and the development of the town in its own way, the plan for both the outpost and settlement suffered minor changes. Some of them were inspired by the requirements of the time, but for more than half a thousand years the Brest Fortress managed to preserve its original medieval flavor and appropriate atmosphere.

1812 French in the citadel

The border geography of Brest has always been the reason for the struggle for the town: for 800 years, the history of the Brest Fortress captured the dominion of the Turov and Lithuanian principalities, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Poland), and only in 1795 did Brest become an integral part of Russian lands.

But before Napoleon's invasion Russian government didn't give of great importance ancient fortress. Only during the Russian-French War of 1812 did the Brest Fortress confirm its status as a reliable outpost, which, as people said, helps its own people and destroys its enemies.

The French also decided to leave Brest behind, but Russian troops recaptured the fortress, winning an unconditional victory over the French cavalry units.

Historical decision

This victory served Starting point for the decision of the tsarist government to erect a new and powerful fortification on the site of a rather flimsy medieval fortress, corresponding to the spirit of the times in architectural style and military significance.

And what about the heroes of the Brest Fortress of the seasons? After all, any military action presupposes the appearance of desperate daredevils and patriots. Their names remain unknown wide circles the public of that time, but it is possible that they received their awards for courage from the hands of Emperor Alexander himself.

Fire in Brest

The fire that engulfed the ancient settlement in 1835 accelerated the process of general reconstruction of the Brest Fortress. The plans of the engineers and architects of that time were to destroy the medieval buildings in order to erect in their place completely new structures in terms of architectural character and strategic significance.

The fire destroyed about 300 buildings in the settlement, and this, paradoxically, turned out to be beneficial for the tsarist government, the builders, and the population of the town.

Reconstruction

Having given compensation to the fire victims in the form of cash and building materials, the state convinced them to settle not in the fortress itself, but separately - two kilometers from the outpost, thus providing the fortress with a single function - protective.

The history of the Brest Fortress has never known such a grandiose reconstruction: the medieval fortification was razed to the ground, and in its place grew a powerful citadel with thick walls, a whole system of drawbridges connecting three artificially created islands, with bastion forts equipped with ravelins, with an impregnable a ten-meter earthen rampart, with narrow embrasures, allowing the defenders to remain as protected as possible during shelling.

Defensive capabilities of the fortress in the 19th century

In addition to defensive structures, which, of course, play a leading role in repelling enemy attacks, the number and training of the soldiers serving in the border fortress are also important.

The defensive strategy of the citadel was thought out by the architects down to the subtleties. Otherwise, why give an ordinary soldier’s barracks the significance of a main fortification? Living in rooms with walls two meters thick, each of the servicemen was subconsciously ready to repel possible enemy attacks, literally, jumping out of bed - at any time of the day.

The 500 casemates of the fortress could easily accommodate 12,000 soldiers with a full set of weapons and provisions for several days. The barracks were so successfully camouflaged from prying eyes that the uninitiated could hardly have guessed their presence - they were located in the thickness of that same ten-meter earthen rampart.

A feature of the architectural design of the fortress was the inextricable connection of its structures: the towers protruding forward protected the main citadel from fire, and from the forts located on the islands it was possible to conduct targeted fire, protecting the front line.

When the fortress was fortified with a ring of 9 forts, it became practically invulnerable: each of them could accommodate an entire garrison of soldiers (that’s 250 soldiers), plus 20 guns.

Brest Fortress in peacetime

During the period of calm state boundaries Brest lived a measured, unhurried life. An enviable order reigned both in the city and in the fortress; services were held in churches. There were several churches on the territory of the fortress; however, one church could not possibly accommodate a huge number of military personnel.

One of the local monasteries was rebuilt into a building for meetings of officers and was named the White Palace.

But even in quiet periods it was not so easy to get into the fortress. The entrance to the “heart” of the citadel consisted of four gates. Three of them, as a symbol of its inaccessibility, have been preserved by the modern Brest Fortress. The museum begins with the old gates: Kholmsky, Terespolsky, Northern... Each of them was ordered to become the gateway to paradise for many of its defenders in future wars.

Equipping the fortress on the eve of the First World War

During the period of unrest in Europe, the Brest-Litovsk fortress remained one of the most reliable fortifications on the Russian-Polish border. The main task of the citadel is to “facilitate freedom of action for the army and navy,” which did not have modern weapons and equipment.

Of the 871 weapons, only 34% met the requirements for combat in modern conditions, the remaining guns were obsolete. Among the guns, old models prevailed, capable of firing shots at a distance of no more than 3 miles. At this time, the potential enemy had mortars and artillery systems

In 1910, the aeronautical battalion of the fortress received its first airship, and in 1911, by a special royal decree, the Brest-Litovsk Fortress was equipped with its own radio station.

First war of the 20th century

I found the Brest Fortress engaged in a rather peaceful activity - construction. Attracted villagers from nearby and distant villages actively built additional forts.

The fortress would have been perfectly protected if military reform had not broken out the day before, as a result of which the infantry was disbanded and the outpost lost its combat-ready garrison. At the beginning of the First World War, only militias remained in the Brest-Litovsk Fortress, who during the retreat were forced to burn the strongest and most modern of the outposts.

But the main event of the first war of the 20th century for the fortress was not associated with military operations - the Brest Peace Treaty was signed within its walls.

Monuments of the Brest Fortress have different kind and character, and this treaty, significant for those times, remains one of them.

How did the people learn about the feat of Brest?

Most contemporaries know the Brest Citadel from the events of the first day of the treacherous attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union. Information about this did not appear immediately; it was made public by the Germans themselves completely in an unexpected way: showing discreet admiration for the heroism of the defenders of Brest in personal diaries, which were subsequently found and published by military journalists.

This happened in 1943-1944. Until that time, the feat of the citadel was unknown to a wide audience, and the heroes of the Brest Fortress who survived the “meat grinder,” according to the highest military officials, were considered ordinary prisoners of war who surrendered to the enemy out of cowardice.

The information that local battles took place in the citadel in July and even in August 1941 also did not immediately become public knowledge. But now historians can say for sure: the Brest Fortress, which the enemy expected to take in 8 hours, held out for a very long time.

Hell started: June 22, 1941

Before the war, which was not expected, the Brest Fortress looked completely unthreatening: the old earthen rampart had collapsed, was overgrown with grass, and there were flowers and sports grounds on the territory. In early June, the main regiments stationed in the fortress left it and went to summer training camps.

In all the centuries, the history of the Brest Fortress has never known such treachery: the pre-dawn hours of a short summer night steel for its inhabitants. Unexpectedly, out of nowhere, artillery fire was opened on the fortress, taking everyone in it by surprise, and 17,000 ruthless “well done” from the Wehrmacht burst into the territory of the outpost.

But neither blood, nor horror, nor the death of comrades could break and stop the heroic defenders of Brest. They fought for eight days according to official data. And another two months - according to unofficial ones.

The not so easy and not so quick surrender of its positions in 1941 became an omen of the entire further course of the war and showed the enemy the ineffectiveness of his cold calculations and superweapons, which were defeated by the unpredictable heroism of the poorly armed, but ardently loving Slavs.

"Talking" stones

What is the Brest Fortress silently shouting about now? The museum has preserved numerous exhibits and stones on which you can read the notes of its defenders. Short phrases of one or two lines touch the heartstrings and touch representatives of all generations to tears, even though they sound stingy, masculine, dry and businesslike.

Muscovites: Ivanov, Stepanchikov and Zhuntyaev chronicled this terrible period - with a nail on a stone, with tears on a heart. Two of them died, the remaining Ivanov also knew that he did not have long left, he promised: “The last grenade remained. I won’t surrender alive,” and immediately asked: “Avenge us, comrades.”

Among the evidence that the fortress held out for longer than eight days were the dates in stone: July 20, 1941 is the clearest of them.

To understand the significance of the heroism and steadfastness of the defenders of the fortress for the entire country, you just need to remember the place and date: Brest Fortress, 1941.

Creation of a memorial

For the first time after the occupation, representatives of the Soviet Union (official and popular) were able to enter the territory of the fortress in 1943. It was during this period that the publication of excerpts from the diaries of German soldiers and officers appeared.

Before that, Brest was a legend, passed from mouth to mouth on all fronts and in the rear. To give events officiality, to stop all kinds of inventions (even positive character) and to capture the feat of the Brest Fortress through the centuries, it was decided to reclassify the western outpost as a memorial.

The implementation of the idea took place several decades after the end of the war - in 1971. Ruins, burnt and shelled walls - all this became an integral element of the exhibition. The wounded buildings are unique, and they form the main part of the evidence of the courage of their defenders.

In addition, during the years of peace, the Brest Fortress memorial acquired several thematic monuments and obelisks of later origin, which harmoniously fit into the unique ensemble of the fortress-museum and, with their severity and brevity, emphasized the tragedy that occurred within these walls.

Brest Fortress in literature

The most famous and even several scandalous work a book by S. S. Smirnov became about the Brest Fortress. Having met with eyewitnesses and surviving participants in the defense of the citadel, the author decided to restore justice and clear the names of the real heroes, whom the then government blamed for being in German captivity.

And he succeeded, even though the times were not the most democratic - the mid-50s of the last century.

The book “Brest Fortress” helped many to return to a normal life, not despised by their fellow citizens. Photos of some of these lucky ones were widely published in the press, and their names were heard on the radio. There was even a series of radio broadcasts dedicated to the search for the defenders of the Brest Fortress.

Smirnov’s work became the saving thread along which, like the mythological heroine, other heroes emerged from the darkness of oblivion - the defenders of Brest, privates and commanders. Among them: Commissioner Fomin, Lieutenant Semenenko, Captain Zubachev.

The Brest Fortress is a monument to the valor and glory of the people, quite tangible and material. Many mysterious legends about its fearless defenders live among the people to this day. We know them in the form of literary and musical works, and sometimes we find them in oral folk art.

And these legends will live on for centuries, because the feat of the Brest Fortress is worthy of being remembered in the 21st, 22nd, and subsequent centuries.