Just created a great book. It was published this week — the Day of Victory. Called “Future in the memory…”
the Book outside the genre, outside of any rules. It represents on paper the acute human desire to tell “how it was”. It was created by Alexei Vengerov — PhD, but not historical. He is a techie, a rocket, therefore, correct to say that this book, he invented, designed and built.
For an objective book about the War memories of his own person is not enough. Who fought, and those who did not (and fought differently; most of the survivors did not happen on the front). Someone who lived and survived in besieged Leningrad, some in Siberia. Someone chewed the Kremlin rations, someone died in a concentration camp, someone was sitting in the General staff, and someone in the trenches. Their memories differ greatly, sometimes it’s hard to believe we are talking about one time about the great Patriotic war, about World war II.
But there are objective witnesses — books published then, the songs written then, things, posters, records, films…
a Collection of real artifacts, this is not the current interpretation and speculation, which is something silent, something exaggerating, trying to please the authorities or protest. Books published in the USSR from 1939 to 1946 — that’s the basis, the Foundation on which the building is constructed Stories about.
Work is unique, incomparable; not a memoir, and encyclopedia. More precisely: the time machine can go in the fateful 41st or winning the 45th, or in 1939, which is causing such fierce debate that the opponents of the Kremlin versions of the bones crunch. And there is not an interpretation, not condemnation and not praise. Then headers then Newspapers, then the decrees, pictures, songs.
…Cover the color of dried blood, she embossed the words: the Future is in your memory… Apparently, the author suffered in search of the name because on the front page other: Nobody is forgotten, nothing is forgotten?!
If after these words was a period or no punctuation, it would be a banal hackneyed phrase. But when these are known to all familiar words is a question mark and then an exclamation mark — these words are a sad reproach to the present day.
the First document that precedes any further — a big picture of the front page of the newspaper “Evening Moscow”. The huge headline: “radio address of the President of the State Defense Committee I. Stalin”.
somebody will ask: why not “the Truth”, and “Evening”? Yes, because July 3, when Stalin said on the radio: “Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters! The soldiers of our army and Navy! I am addressing you, my friends!” when this speech “live” sound on the radio, the newspaper “Pravda” has long gone, was already in newsstands, mailboxes, and the first newspaper, op��oblikovalca these words, was the “Vecherka”.
***
…the Story only exists because someone wrote it. If you think about it — it is amazing. Everything we know about Ancient Egypt, based on recordings made 3 thousand years ago, barely read, rightly or wrongly interpreted.
the Outcome, Greece, Ancient Rome… All we know about it, then written; or on the basis of what was written then.
Imagine that Karamzin would not have written the “History of the Russian State”; that nothing, no lines would be left from chroniclers and historians: Nestor, Kliuchevskoi, Herodotus, Plutarch, Tacitus… Or they would have written, but their work would have remained unknown.
Finished Karamzin its “History”, printed 100 copies, sent to the Emperor, friends. Someone would read, some even opened (once) and that’s it. In the school curriculum, in University libraries, the book would not fall. And the world never would have learned what happened in Russia when the terrible atrocities that happened when the rioted impostors.
Plutarch, the evangelists (who wrote a great story), Karamzin, all the historians of the planet was a huge advantage. All the previous thousands of years the book has no competitors.
Performances, concerts, Gladiator fights — all the fun has been somewhere: in the theater, Coliseum, on the square in the hall at Home… people could only read (if able want). Do not distract him, no TV, no clock radio, no phone, no social network.
Book in the second half of the twentieth and especially the twenty-first century, for the first time in the history of mankind has ceased to be the sole bearer of history.
to compete with mp3 and mp4, it can not. All these thousands of years she had not had to compete. It could choke censorship, but the book has long since learned how to cheat and get around (from the time of Aesop, and even earlier).
And to compete it could only be “their”. Good books always won. With time always. Contemporaries sometimes did not understand that before them the great book. Because the words “luck” and even the word “masterpiece” can sound at once, but the epithet “great” the book gets only with time.
Let not everyone has a home “History” Karamzin, but it is already two centuries is in the school curriculum; it is incredibly the place of honour on the title-page of “Boris Godunov”
Precious for Russians, the memory of Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin this work, his genius inspired with awe and gratitude dedicates to the Alexander Pushkin.
…When the book came out when she was born, that she lived — it is necessary to read it. And not a dozen specialists, and millions. Today, this is a big problem.
***
a time Machine. Open that heavy thing and can’t because this the book not only to read but to look at, to think.
1939. Under the heading “Witnesses of time” magazine covers and books. “XX years of experience in the medical-sanitary Department of the Kremlin.” Magazines “Bezbozhnik”, “Murzilka”. The poster of the Leningrad theatre: “the Minor” Fonvizin, “How the steel was tempered” Ostrovsky “guilty Without guilt” Ostrovsky another, “hamlet” by Shakespeare, “the Servant of two masters” Goldoni, “Vassa Zheleznova”, “Othello” — chic repertoire. The magazine “Behind the wheel”, on the cover of a grandiose Palace of Soviets with a gigantic monument to Lenin on the roof (he never will be built; steel I-beams intended for the Foundation, cut and cook antitank “hedgehogs”). The book “companion of the pioneer and student of military Affairs”, the book “Stalin in the visual arts”, the book “Future fighters”, “War in the air”, “Intelligence and counterintelligence”… the air smelled of storm.
Next: dates and documents.
January 10, 1939, cryptogram I. V. Stalin to the secretaries of regional committees, the regional Committee of the Central Committee of accompancy, Commissar of internal Affairs, head of the NKVD (the management of people’s Commissariat of internal Affairs): “Central Committee of the CPSU considers that the method of physical impact must continue to be applied, the exception in relation to explicit and nerazrushaushsii enemies of the people as absolutely correct and expedient method”. In Russian this instruction means: to beat, beat, beat.
January 29. At Sofrinsky range near Moscow, was held the first test launch of a cruise missile “earth — Earth”.
10-21 March. the EIGHTEENTH Congress of the CPSU(b) stated the victory of socialism in the USSR and decided on a “gradual transition from socialism to communism”.
March 15. Germany in violation of the Munich agreement, occupied the rest of Bohemia and Moravia. German troops marched into Prague. Bohemia and Moravia declared a German protectorate. Britain and France made no response.
March 31. Britain’s military guarantee of Polish independence.
10. In Malenkov’s office arrested a former Commissar of internal Affairs Yezhov.
April 15. U.S. President Roosevelt sends peace message to Hitler and Mussolini.
April 15. In new York, was Tolstoy Foundation to help Russian emigrants. Among the founders and sponsors: Sikorsky (helicopters), Rachmaninoff…
April 28-29. Soviet pilots Kokkinaki and Gordienko are in a non-stop flight on the route Moscow-the United States on the plane PPM-30 “Moscow”.
may 11. Japan’s Attack on Mongolia.
may 15. Arrested writer Babel.
June 12. the Beginning of the negotiations of great Britain and France with the Soviet Union in Moscow.
June 15 a Decree of PresidiomA of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On the abolition of parole for prisoners serving sentences in the GULAG of the NKVD of the USSR”.
June 20. the arrest of the Director Meyerhold.
June-August. Anglo-German secret talks in London.
August 1. Established a medal “gold Star” Hero of the Soviet Union.
August 5. Fire ramming at the river Khalkin-Gol. Soviet pilot Mikhail Lukin the first in the world sent a burning plane on the ground the opponent’s goal.
August 19. Stalin’s Speech at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b): “the Question of peace or war is entering a critical phase for us. If we conclude a Treaty of mutual assistance with France and great Britain, Germany will abandon Poland and will look for the “modus Vivendi” (way of being) with the Western powers. War is averted, but further events could take the dangerous nature of the USSR. If we accept the offer of Germany to conclude with her a Pact of non-aggression, it is, of course, will attack Poland and the intervention of France and England in this war becomes inevitable. Western Europe would be subjected to serious unrest and riots. In these circumstances, we will have many chances to stay out of the conflict, and we can rely on our favorable entry into the war”.
If somewhere in the Kremlin quietly worked German, English and other Stirlitz (which cannot be avoided) after this speech from the rulers of Western countries there is not the slightest illusions about the intentions of the Soviet leadership.
***
…Leaf through this book and it’s hard to stop, begin to quote and difficult to stop. When I first picked up this volume, it opened on the very fateful place.
front page of “Pravda” newspaper, Monday, June 23, 1941. Title: “radio address of the Vice-Chairman of the Council of people’s Commissars of the USSR and people’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs comrade. V. M. Molotova”:
Nazi Germany made a predatory attack on the Soviet Union. Our valiant army and Navy and brave falcons of the Soviet air force will deal a crushing blow to the aggressor. The government encourages citizens of the Soviet Union more closely to unite its ranks around our glorious Bolshevik party, around the Soviet government, around our great leader comrade Stalin.
And what songs we sang in 1941? “Holy war”, words by Lebedev-Kumach, music by Alexandrov.
Arise, great country,
Get up to fight to the death
With the dark fascist force,
Cursing Horde.
Let noble fury
Boil like a wave,
The national war,
Holy war!
And “the Cart”, the words Ruderman, music Listov.
On the ground is covered with tAnki,
The planes of the loop view,
Budennovskiy about the cart
In the sky, the pilots are singing.
the enemy still dreaming
Rain of lead and thick
Chariot,
The young gunner.
he Released the movie “four Hearts”, “Valery Chkalov”, “pig and shepherd”, “the Masquerade” by Lermontov.
Published book. Including the reference book “insignia of the German army”. It is signed on the second day of the war, 23 June 1941. It is clear that the reference made in advance. Although it was forbidden any public discussion of a possible war with Nazi Germany, the war was waiting and was ready for it. The directory that contained the image of the shoulder straps, buttonholes, shoulder patch and badges, hats, officers and soldiers of the German armed forces, intended for those who are in direct visual contact with soldiers, officers and generals not only the German army units, but also units of the SS. Lists the colors of the edging cuts, the caps, the stripes on the uniform. For these colors we can discern the kind of German troops: white — infantry, green — mountain troops, red for artillery, pink — armored troops, blue — trucking, Golden yellow — the cavalry, lemon yellow — tie, Burgundy-red — chemical part of black engineers. But it’s not so much a book, as a Handbook, a working tool.
But high literature — the four-volume “War and peace” Tolstoy. When I picked up these books — I gasped: they signed print 5 December 1941. The Germans at Moscow, and Moscow Tolstoy prints a hundred thousand copies.
small Format, paper, easy, loose. A compact book, easy to stuff in a soldier Sidor. All considered publishers, though a word not mentioned anywhere on their down-to-earth thoughts. They knew that a soldier’s ration included shag, and printed a hundred thousand chetyrekhtomnym (400 million books), knowing that they will be useful not only for reading that they will go for a spin, and maybe something else…
All the war years, published literature, textbooks and magazines, children’s books, albums-coloring pages for kids… All this required a huge investment of manpower and resources. And the country was on these expenses in the cruelest period of its history.
***
Military volume appeared in the series “Bibliohroniki”. This is a personal project about a cultural phenomenon of global importance.
Volume “Bibliohroniki” about Russian cities, Russian scientists, Russian women, etc. gratefully accepted at Lomonosov Moscow state University, the library of the State Pushkin Museum, Kiev state Academy, Stanford and Columbia universities (USA), Cambridge (UK), Sorbonne (France) and the Library of the President of Russia…
One problem — these books are printed with a circulation of 300 copies. Part Vengerov gives universities �� libraries of the world level. Part buy rich. Books are very expensive: leather bound, embossed, coated paper, high quality printing. Vengerov has offered to provide free email the layout to anyone who will undertake to print many thousands of cheap copies. Hasn’t been found yet no one-neither the government nor wealthy Lord. But all the volumes of “Bibliohroniki” is available to anyone for free on the Internet.
Doctor of Economics, Professor, rocketeer Vengerov, of course, makes these volumes not one. But we deliberately don’t list all the assistants and accomplices, because he is the only inventor, the organizer and inspirer of this fantastic historical work. This is true: to name one author. Palace Rastrelli, Tarkovsky’s film, the Strait of Magellan… and who were the superintendents, operators, boatswains and sailors — God knows.
the Creator of this encyclopedia of war-time was born 1933. When the War started, he was 8, not fought. So what? The best book about the Patriotic war of 1812 Tolstoy wrote that then all the world was not. Vengerov did not fight, but found and much remembered. He was 87, he hastens to do as much as possible.
…About the terrible history of the twentieth century, the Second world written a lot of talented honest books, shot a lot of talented films, but the force of impact with the document nothing can be better. If not forget it if you read it.
