I Went Into My Own Attack...

"War with Germany. I’m going to Moscow"—this short entry made by Alexander Tvardovsky on June 22, 1941, marked the beginning of his war diaries and working notebooks that the poet would keep day by day throughout all four years of the war. Without Tvardovsky’s personal experience of war, the national hero Vasily Terkin would not have been possible in quite the way it appeared. The publication in newspapers of the first chapters of "Vasily Terkin" caused both delight and irritation.

In the foreword to the book, the poet’s daughters write: "The poem and its hero didn’t suit those who then directed literature… Critics made rather serious reproaches for those times, finding in Terkin too few features of the Soviet soldier. The author was urged to strengthen the hero’s political and ideological consciousness." And he—"not entirely conscious"—simply won over the consciousness and sympathy of millions. According to Alexander Fadeev’s words, Stalin, having failed to find Tvardovsky’s name in the lists of "nominees" for a literature prize for 1944–1945, wrote it in personally. In 1946, A.T. Tvardovsky received the Stalin Prize, 1st degree, for the poem "Vasily Terkin".

Preparing this book for publication, the publishers discovered that modern literature in recent times had not known such a piercing document from the war years. Discussing the book’s title with the poet’s daughters, they concluded that the most correct one—today shown on the cover—would be: "I went at my own attack..." Yes, each attack was someone’s. But Victory was one for all. The program created from the pages of the book presents the dramatic correspondence between Alexander Tvardovsky and his wife, and a loyal friend, Maria Illarionovna, who supported the poet in the hardest times of harassment and attacks on the author of "Vasily Terkin".

The program includes excerpts from the poem "Vasily Terkin" performed by the author.