Dot. Part 1

“Dot” is possibly the most paradoxical war book. Without giving way in captivation to famous adventure novels, it shows how people—fighting against other people, on both sides—remain human. How do they manage to survive—despite everything—light and love? For they do not yet know that Hell has come to the earth.

On the 69th anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War, June 22, the OLMA Media Group publishes the complete version of Igor Akimov’s novel “DOT” on its website. This is one of the most powerful works about the first months of the bloody battle between the USSR and Germany ever published in Russia.

The first version of “Dot” was published in the magazine “Podvig” under the title “The Legend of the Small Garrison,” and without exaggeration became a literary bestseller of the 1970s, reaching hundreds of thousands in circulation. A few years ago, based on the story, the film “Stronger Than Fire” was made, starring well-known actors Nikita Zverev and Tatyana Arngolts.

Editorial censorship in the 1970s removed many episodes from the manuscript, so the author himself considered the first version incomplete and wanted to return to “Dot,” recreate the lost fragments, and generally rewrite the work in accordance with the experience of the years lived, modern knowledge of the Great Patriotic War, and today’s literary language. That is how a new “Dot” was born—which OLMA Media Group presents.

A garrison—escape—Dot—an encounter of a small detachment of Soviet border guards with a whole German army, an intellectual and human confrontation between Sergeant Egorov and Major Ortner… This is a book about courage, resourcefulness, and mutual help among young, spirited soldiers and officers on both sides of the front; about patriotism that comes from the very heart. And it is also about how much they want to live and survive in the meat grinder of the most terrible war in human history.