The soldier from the poster “Glory to the Red Army! Come on! never been to Berlin and died before the release of the legendary poster.
The brave fighter with swirling bangs on the famous poster of the Soviet artist Leonid Golovanov is not an ordinary soldier, but one of the best snipers of the Great Patriotic War, who, alas, did not reach Berlin in reality. He himself had never seen this work, and he had never been to Berlin - very few people know that when the poster was being created, the "merry soldier" was no longer alive - he died two years before the Victory.
To become a sniper, the shooter had to own a rifle with a telescopic sight, says historian Roy Medvedev. - During the war, there were whole schools of snipers, where they taught not only to shoot, but also to camouflage, navigate the terrain, and track down the enemy.
According to the historian, snipers were considered the elite during the Great Patriotic War. War correspondents wrote a lot about them, newsreels were filmed about them. So it was with Vasily Golosov. In the winter of 1943, he distinguished himself in battle and since then began to regularly appear in the newspapers.
Golosov himself, according to his memoirs, did not boast of fame, but was very sensitive to his award - a personalized rifle, which he received during a gathering of snipers in the summer of 1943 from the command of a personalized rifle, which he received from the Southwestern Front.
On the rifle, a mistake crept into the name of Vasily Ivanovich. There it was written "Kolosov V. I." It upset him terribly, - says Miroshnichenko.
The registered rifle did not last long. In August 1943, Golosov died. He was at the headquarters of the regiment in the woods near the village of Dolgenkoye when the German aircraft raided. Golos was fatally wounded in the chest and was buried in a mass grave. In October of the same year, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The poster was drawn from a sketch.
The author of the poster, Leonid Golovanov, did not have the task of perpetuating Golosov. In 1944, Golovanov received an order from the studio to write a poster on the theme "Let's get to Berlin!" In the materials, he found a portrait of Golosov.
Many artists created a generalized image on the posters, and Golovanov wanted to paint a specific person, because the attitude to such work is warmer, - explains Sokolov. - Moreover, they knew Golosov.
The 1944 poster shows a smiling soldier against the background of a column of Soviet troops heading west. After the end of the war, Golovanov wrote another poster, which became one of the symbols of Victory and was called simply "The Merry Soldier" among the people. On it - a fragment of an old poster and the same handsome fighter, but against the background of the wall with the inscription "Got it!"
This is how the dream of Lieutenant Vasily Golosov, who died in 1943, came true.
