Vasily Tyorkin
4 hrs. 19 min.
Language
Russian
Author
Alexander Tvardovsky
Author
Alexander Tvardovsky
Narrator
Semyon Yanishevsky
Narrator
Semyon Yanishevsky
Description
In 1941, Tvardovsky began work on the poem “Vasili Terkin,” giving it the subtitle “A Book About a Fighter.” The first chapters were published in September 1942 in the newspaper “Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda” (Red Army Truth); that same year an early version of the poem came out as a separate book. The final version was completed in 1945.
In the article “How ‘Vasili Terkin’ Was Written,” Tvardovsky wrote that the image of the main hero was invented in 1939 for a permanent humorous column in the newspaper of the Leningrad Military District “On Guard of the Motherland.” As Tvardovsky put it, “The image I found accidentally seized me completely.” The initial humorous concept took on the forms of epic storytelling. The poem became for the author “my lyrics, my journalism, a song and a lesson, an anecdote and an adage, a talk from the heart and a remark for the occasion.” In the poem, the “just an ordinary guy” Vasili Terkin became the main hero of the people’s war. Like all heroes of world epics, he is granted immortality (not by accident: in the 1954 poem Terkin, on the other side of the world, ends up in an afterlife world reminiscent of not-so-bright Soviet reality) and at the same time living optimism, making him the embodiment of the people’s spirit.
The poem enjoyed enormous success with readers. Vasili Terkin became a folkloric character, and Tvardovsky remarked on this: “Where he came from—there he goes back.” The book also received official recognition (the State Prize, 1946), as well as high praise from contemporaries. I. Bunin wrote about it: “This is truly a rare book. What freedom, what marvelous dash, what precision and accuracy in everything—and what an extraordinary people’s language—no ‘plug,’ no bluster, no a single ready-made, false word—words that are, in other words, literary!”
In the article “How ‘Vasili Terkin’ Was Written,” Tvardovsky wrote that the image of the main hero was invented in 1939 for a permanent humorous column in the newspaper of the Leningrad Military District “On Guard of the Motherland.” As Tvardovsky put it, “The image I found accidentally seized me completely.” The initial humorous concept took on the forms of epic storytelling. The poem became for the author “my lyrics, my journalism, a song and a lesson, an anecdote and an adage, a talk from the heart and a remark for the occasion.” In the poem, the “just an ordinary guy” Vasili Terkin became the main hero of the people’s war. Like all heroes of world epics, he is granted immortality (not by accident: in the 1954 poem Terkin, on the other side of the world, ends up in an afterlife world reminiscent of not-so-bright Soviet reality) and at the same time living optimism, making him the embodiment of the people’s spirit.
The poem enjoyed enormous success with readers. Vasili Terkin became a folkloric character, and Tvardovsky remarked on this: “Where he came from—there he goes back.” The book also received official recognition (the State Prize, 1946), as well as high praise from contemporaries. I. Bunin wrote about it: “This is truly a rare book. What freedom, what marvelous dash, what precision and accuracy in everything—and what an extraordinary people’s language—no ‘plug,’ no bluster, no a single ready-made, false word—words that are, in other words, literary!”
