The cruel truth about the beginning of the war told in the letters of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War
65 years have passed since the end of the Great Patriotic War, the ashes of those who fell in battles have long since decayed, but the soldiers' triangles-letters remained incorrupt - small yellowed sheets of paper, covered with a simple or chemical pencil in a hasty hand. They are invaluable witnesses to history and the memory of relatives and friends who left and did not return from the war. My mother kept such letters for more than 50 years, and then gave them to me.
And it all started like that. On the very first day of the war, the elder and younger brothers of my father, Dmitry and Alexei, were called to the military registration and enlistment office. My father was offended that he was not taken with them to the war, and the next day he went to the military enlistment office. There he was refused: they said that he was booked for the national economy as an employee of the regional communications center. But after three and a half months, when the German-fascist troops launched an offensive in the Bryansk and Mozhaisk directions and the country was in great danger, a summons came to him - the signalman Matvey Maksimovich Chikov, born in 1911, a native of the village of Dedilovo, Tula region.
Before leaving the half-ruined house, my father took my brother Valery, who was born two weeks ago, from a cradle suspended from the ceiling, pressed a living little lump to his chest and, removing a tear that had come from his face, said: “Marusya, take care of the guys. Whatever happens to me, you have to raise and educate them. And I will try to stay alive …”Then he said goodbye to my grandmother, kissed her several times, said something to her, but his words were drowned out by the strong, soul-tearing cry of my mother. When her father stepped through the threshold of the house, she began to scream so that it seemed that the earthen floor shook from her cry …
Having said goodbye, my father walked further and further away from us, often looked around and raised his hand in farewell. Mom, covering her face with her hands, continued to cry. She probably felt that she was seeing her husband for the last time.
But let's touch the triangles that have turned yellow with time and wear off at the folds.
So, the first letter dated October 13, 1941:
“Hello, my dear Marusya, Vova and Valera!
Finally, I had the opportunity to write. Even my hands tremble with excitement.
I am on military courses in Murom, learning how to fight. Rather, I am learning to kill, although none of us ever thought that we would have to do it. But fate obliges us to this: we must defend the country, our people from fascism, and if necessary, then give our lives for the Motherland. But in general, as the old campaigner-instructor, who returned disabled from the war, told us, it is not difficult to die, to perish, but it is more difficult and necessary to remain alive, because only the living bring victory.
In three weeks I am finishing the courses for sergeants-mortars. It is not known when we will be sent to the front …"
Every day, my mother reread this letter several times with tears in her eyes, and in the evening, after hard work on the collective farm, she told me how cheerful and caring our father was, that everyone in the village loved and appreciated him. I don't know what she wrote back, but the second triangle had to wait a long time. The letter arrived only on November 30, but what a great deal!
“My dear, beloved mother, Valera, Vova and Marusya!
I received news from you back there, in Murom. If you knew, my dear little wife, how much joy she brought me. Now, as soon as we have a free minute, we read your letter together with Vasil Petrovich (fellow villager and father's friend. - V. Ch.). By the way, he sends you greetings and envies me that I have a family - Valera with Vovka and you.
I didn't have time to answer from Murom - preparations were hurriedly going to leave for the front. Then there was the departure itself. After courses in Murom, I received the rank of sergeant and am located between Moscow and Leningrad. As you can see, I got into the very heat of the war - on the front line. And he already managed to test himself in the first battle. This is a terrible sight, Maroussia. God forbid to see my children and grandchildren! And if they were big, I would tell them: never believe those who say or write in the newspapers that they are not afraid of anything in war. Every soldier always wants to get out of battle alive, but when he goes on the attack, he does not think about death. Whoever went on the attack at least once, he always looked death in the face …"
A frank letter from his father can cause mistrust: how, they say, could it have reached if there was censorship, and the letter contained bold judgments about the war? I was also surprised for the time being, and then everything fell into place: in the first months of the war, censorship did not work.
And soon the postman brought to our house the first funeral from the front: "The death of the brave in battles for the Motherland died near Leningrad" father's younger brother, Alexei. A few days later they brought us another terrible news: our elder brother, Dmitry, was killed in the war. Their old mother, my grandmother Matryona, took out of the top drawer of the chest of drawers photographs of the dead sons and, holding the cards of Alexei and Dmitry, looked at them for a long time, and they looked at her. They were no longer in the world, but she could not believe it. My poor grandmother, she could be understood, for nothing can compare with the pain and bitterness of mothers who lost their sons in the war. Grandmother Matryona could not bear this bitter grief: when she saw the fascists who appeared in the village, the murderers of her two sons, her heart, either from strong anger at them, or from great fright, could not stand it and she died.
Three Germans settled in our small wooden house. But they did not find peace in it: at night and during the day, my two-month-old brother often cried in a cradle suspended from the ceiling in a closet. One of the Fritzes, angry with him, grabbed Walther from his holster and went to the baby. I don’t know how it would have ended if it hadn’t been for my mother. Hearing the click of the shutter from the kitchen, she rushed into the room and, with a shrill cry, pushed the fascist away, covering the cradle with the baby. Fritz put the pistol back in its holster, walked over to the cradle, took it off the hook, and, saying something in his own language, carried it into the cold, unheated hallway. The resigned mother realized that we had to leave home. And we left, for more than a week we lived in the dark basement of the neighbor's grandmother Katerina, hiding from the Germans.
We returned from the cold basement to our house only when the village was freed by the horsemen of General Belov. After the Germans had been driven out, the mother began to go out on the road more and more often and look to see if a postman would appear with a letter. Mom was looking forward to hearing from her father. But only after the New, 1942, the post office started working again. At Christmas we received our third letter:
“Hello, my dear children and beloved little wife!
Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to you! May God help us all to defeat the fascists as soon as possible. Otherwise, we are all khan.
Dear Marusya! My heart was torn to pieces when I read your letter with the message that my brothers Alexey and Dmitry had died, and my mother, unable to bear the grief, died. The Kingdom of Heaven to all of them. Perhaps it is true when they say that God takes the best, young and beautiful. Well, you know, I was always proud that I have such a handsome and beloved brother, Alexey. It's a shame that no one knows where he and Dima are buried.
How much grief and misfortune the war brings to people! For our beloved brothers, for our dead friends and for the death of my mother, Vasil Petrovich and I vowed to take revenge on the reptile fascists. We will beat them without sparing ourselves. Don't worry about me: I'm alive, well, well-fed, dressed, shod. And I assure you, Marusya, that I fulfill my duty to my fellow villagers and my children as it should be. But I'm getting more and more scared for you. How do you manage alone there with such small children? How I would like to transfer part of my strength to you and take on part of your worries and worries …"
After the New Year, my father sent letters home often, as soon as the front-line situation allowed. All his "triangles" written in pencil are intact. After 68 years of storage and repeated reading, some of the lines, especially on the folds, are difficult to make out. There are also those on which the black bold nib of the military censor's ink went or simply did not spare the time: no matter how we cherished his news in the family, several letters written on tissue paper have decayed completely or faded.
But already in April 1942, my father announced that letters from him would rarely come, because:
“… We broke through the enemy's defenses and went on the offensive. We have not slept for four nights, all the time we are driving the Fritzes to the west. Hurry to destroy this fascist bastard and return home. But will we return? Death grazes us every day and hour, who knows, maybe I am writing for the last time.
War, Maroussia, is an inhumanly hard work. It is difficult to count how many trenches, trenches, dugouts and graves we have already dug. How many fortifications have been made by our hands. And who can count how many weights they carried on their hump! And where does our brother's strength come from? If you saw me now, you would not recognize me. I lost so much weight that everything became great on me. I dream of shaving and washing, but the situation does not allow: there is no peace either at night or during the day. You cannot tell everything that I have experienced during this time … That's all. I'm going into battle. Kiss my sons for me and take care of them. How glad I would be to see you even for an hour.
I will send this letter after the end of the fight. If you get it, then I am alive and well. But everything can be.
Goodbye, my dears."
And then the penultimate letter arrived, dated May 15, 1942. It is filled with heartache and heavy thoughts about the upcoming battle. He really wanted to stay alive. But the heart, obviously, had a premonition of unkindness:
“… It's cold and damp here now. All around there are swamps and forests, in which in some places there is still snow. Every day, or even an hour, the explosions of bombs, shells and mines are heard. The battles are stubborn and fierce. After the recently undertaken offensive by the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, the Nazis put up strong resistance and therefore from the end of April we went on the defensive. There were seven of us left after the battle yesterday. But we still held on to the defense. Reinforcements arrived in the evening. For tomorrow, according to intelligence, the Nazis are intensively preparing for battle. Therefore, if I stay alive tomorrow, I will live long to spite all deaths. In the meantime, I have never been caught by a German bullet. Who knows if she will bypass me tomorrow?"
For us, these were not the last words of our father. At the end of June 1942, my mother received two letters at once in one thick envelope: one from a fellow villager and a friend of father V. P. Chikov, with whom fate had not separated him from childhood, death. Here are both of them:
“Greetings from the active Red Army from V. P. Chikov!
Maria Tikhonovna, although it is difficult for me, I want to tell you about the death of my friend and your husband Matvey.
It was like this: on May 16, early in the morning, the order "To battle!" Was distributed. Well, it buzzed. Ours beat them with mortars and long-range artillery, and then, out of nowhere, Nazi aviation appeared and began to bombard us with bombs. They tore up the ground and the forest in which we were hiding. After 10 minutes, the bombing ended. I, wiping my face splattered with mud, leaned out of the trench and shouted: "Matvey, where are you?" Not hearing an answer, I got up and went to look for my beloved friend … I saw Matvey, thrown by the blast wave, lying motionless on the bushes next to the bomb crater on the bushes. I go up to him, say something, and he looks at me and is silent, there is only frozen surprise in his eyes …
… We collected his remains, wrapped him in a raincoat and, together with other dead soldiers, buried him in a bomb crater, not far from the village of Zenino. As a close friend of his, I did everything as it should be, in a Christian way. He laid out the grave with turf, put up an Orthodox wooden cross, and we fired a volley from machine guns …"
That fight was the last for Vasily Petrovich. This was later evidenced by a narrow, yellow paper strip of the funeral, brought to his parents a little later than the thick envelope that was sent to my mother. In it, as reported above, there were two letters: one from V. P. Chikov, the content of which has already been given, and the other, written in the hand of my father, was his posthumous message:
“My dear sons, Valera and Vova!
When you grow big, read this letter. I am writing it on the front lines at a time when I feel it might be the last time. If I do not return home, then you, my beloved sons, will not have to blush for your daddy, you can boldly and proudly say to your friends: “Our father died in the war, faithful to his oath and his Motherland”. Remember that in a mortal battle with the Nazis, I won your right to life with my blood.
And since the war will come to an end sooner or later, I am sure that the peace will be long for you. I really want you to love and always listen to Mother. I wrote this word with a capital letter and I want you to write it just like that. Mother will teach you to love the land, work, people. To love the way I loved it all.
And one more thing: no matter how your life turns out, always stick together, amicably and tightly. In memory of me, study well at school, be pure in your soul, courageous and strong. And may you have a peaceful life and a happier fate.
But if, God forbid, the black clouds of war begin to thicken again, then I would very much like you to be worthy of your father, to become good defenders of the Motherland.
Don't cry, Marusya, about me. It means that it is so pleasing to God that I give my life for our Russian land, for its liberation from the fascist bastards, so that you, my relatives, remain alive and free and that you always remember those who defended our Motherland. The only pity is that I fought a little - only 220 days. Goodbye, my beloved sons, my dear little wife and my own sisters.
I kiss you hard. Your father, husband and brother Chikov M. M.
May 14, 1942.
And then came the funeral, it laconically said: “Your husband, Matvey Maksimovich Chikov, faithful to the military oath, having shown heroism and courage in the battle for the socialist Motherland, was killed on May 16, 1942. He was buried near the village. Zenino.
Commander of military unit 6010 Machulka.
Ml. political instructor Borodenkin.
However, my mother hoped and waited for her father, went out to the gate and looked at the road for a long time. And always in a black scarf and a black jacket. From then to this day, mother did not know other clothes than black. At 22, having remained a widow, she never once complained about life, remained faithful to the person whom she considered the best in the world. And for many decades now, every time I come to my native Dedilovo, I hear her quiet voice: "If you knew what your father was like …"
