Summaries of the first days of the war sparingly report on the bombing of dozens of our cities. And - unexpectedly, already on June 24, they inform about the Soviet (!) Bombing of Danzig, Koenigsberg, Lublin, Warsaw …
“In response to a two-time raid on Sevastopol by German bombers from Romania, Soviet bombers bombed Constanta and Sulin three times. Constanta is on fire”[1].
And two days later, on June 26:
“Our aviation bombed Bucharest, Ploiesti and Constanta during the day. Oil refineries in the Ploiesti region are burning”[2].
"SOVIET AIR CARRIER ATTACKING GERMAN OIL"
And it is true! In those terrible days, it was from the Crimea, from Sevastopol, that news came that encouraged the whole country, which became the first signs of future victories that were not yet soon. The details were not known to everyone. Pavel Musyakov, editor-in-chief of the front-line newspaper Krasny Chernomorets, reveals them in his diary. It turns out that not only aviation, but also the Black Sea Fleet participated in the retaliatory strike against the enemy:
“Yesterday the ships returned from the operation to shell Constanta from the sea. Hundreds of shells were sent through the city, port and oil tanks. The black smoke of oil fires stood on the horizon for a long time, when our ships were already tens of miles from the Romanian shores”[3].
During a dangerous raid to the enemy shore on one of our ships, pipes burst in two boilers. There was no time left to cool the hot firebox. And then the boiler-house drivers Kaprov and Grebennikov put on asbestos suits, wrap their heads with wet bandages and work in real hell for half an hour, take out faulty pipes, drown them into their sockets. They lose consciousness several times, they are dragged out, poured over with water, brought to their senses with "encouraging liquid", they are allowed to catch their breath … And again - into the furnace, armed with hammers and chisels. Finally, the malfunction is eliminated, and our leader goes at full speed to his home harbor [4].
And in those days, amazing rumors spread with lightning speed to the capital itself: “The Red Army bombed and took Warsaw, Koenigsberg and is conducting a successful offensive against Romania”, and “Ribbentrop shot himself” [5] …
… Hitler was going to take Sevastopol in the summer of 1941. However, this Black Sea blitzkrieg was also thwarted by the heroes of Sevastopol, who detained the enemy here for eight long months. The defense of the city lasted 250 days - from October 30, 1941 to July 4, 1942.
Then, in 1941, the resilience of the defenders of Sevastopol, who pulled off significant enemy forces on themselves, contributed to the defeat of the German troops near Moscow. Heinz Guderian recalls Adolf Hitler's order of August 21, 1941:
"The most important goal before the onset of winter is not to consider the capture of Moscow, but the capture of Crimea …" But the "city of Russian sailors" continued to defend itself, even being surrounded by enemies. They say that at the same time the Fuhrer called Crimea "an unsinkable Soviet aircraft carrier attacking German oil …"
Yes, now it's German, not Romanian …
"LET'S ALWAYS STAY ALIVE"
Hundreds of "fighters of the cultural front" went to the front so that the huge warring country lived not by rumors, but by truthful information from the battlefields. And very soon in the front-line editorial office of "Krasniy Chernomorets" there appeared "brothers-writers", journalists, artists seconded from the capital, who were called upon to create a historical chronicle of the heroic resistance of the Crimeans to the enemy. Not ready for the harsh everyday life of "deeply civilian people" they seemed at first to the chief editor Musyakov, who called them "bespectacled".
Although it soon became clear that they were desperate daredevils, and, it seemed, more than others in those harsh days, who believed in our upcoming Victory.
Writers Pyotr Gavrilov (author of a wonderful story for children "Yegorka" - about a bear cub who made friends with sailors), Vasily Ryakhovsky (author of the historical novels "Native Side" and "Evpatiy Kolovrat"), Ignat Ivich (author of popular science books for children) and August Yavich, who after the war will create his "Sevastopol story". Poet Lev Dligach, famous for children's poetry, and poet-satirist Yan Sashin. Artists Fyodor Reshetnikov (the future author of the famous paintings "Deuce Again", "Arrived for Vacation", "Got the Language!"
… Combat operations, heroic deeds, examples of the unbending will of the Sevastopol people and their life at the front, touching in its simplicity, became the main topics of the reports of cameramen: Dmitry Rymarev, Fyodor Korotkevich, Abram Krichevsky, G. Donets, Alexander Smolka, Vladislav Mikoshi. And more than once they heard words full of hope from the heroes of their movie sketches during the battles:
“Brothers, we are being filmed. We will stay alive forever …
Indeed, how many then relatives and friends saw them on the screen … still alive and young.
Two documentaries that the whole country watched were filmed in Sevastopol by director Vasily Belyaev during the war years. During the defense of the city (1942) - "Chernomorets", in the days of its liberation (1944) - "Battle for Sevastopol".
“The enemy brings down tons of metal, it destroys magnificent buildings - residential buildings, scientific institutes, temples, monuments of art … But the bombing ended, the artillery shelling subsided, and the boulevards and streets revived again. A young mother rolls a baby in a stroller, a fighter shines a shine on the boots of a street cleaner.
The guys march in step with a detachment of Red Navy men passing to the front and with indescribable pride they flaunt in their sea-sewn pea jackets and peakless caps.
… In the ruins of an ancient cave city located near Sevastopol, in the quarries of Inkerman, under a natural shelter of rocks and stone piles, the intensive work of the defense factories, bakeries and hospitals located there is going on. There, weapons of struggle and victory are forged, the wounded are brought there, and they are operated on and nursed in underground hospitals "[6], - the film" Chernomorets "conveyed the atmosphere of a warring city.
"LIFE AND POETRY" IN THE LENS OF V. MIKOSHI
In the days of especially fierce raids, operator Vladislav Mikosha, while on a boat, removes a Soviet destroyer from a distance of 40-50 m. The boat circles around helplessly, and up to 70 enemy bombers dive on an already burning destroyer. Our sailors continue to shoot from anti-aircraft guns, even when their clothes are on fire and even when the ship begins to sink and the water reaches their waist. The last shots: the bow of the destroyer and the broken flag can be seen above the water …
And, perhaps, it is no coincidence that the fearless special correspondent of Pravda with the “affectionate” surname Mikosha, derived from the name Mikolai, Nikolai, wrote many bright pages into the chronicle of the defense of Sevastopol, because the saint bearing this name has long been considered the patron saint of sailors.
Vladislav Vladislavovich Mikoshi's father was a sea captain. The sea gave also attracted a son, who was born and raised in Saratov, a ten-year-old boy who swam across the great river, was fond of aerial acrobatics, and painting, and music, and cinema. He even mastered the craft of a projectionist. And the Volzhan decided to enter in 1927, nevertheless, to the Leningrad sailor. But he did not pass the medical commission, because, to his annoyance, he had a bad cold the day before.
He returned to his native Saratov, where his former position at the Iskra cinema was awaiting him. And two years later, Vladislav became a student of the State Film Technical School in Moscow (now the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography), which he graduated in 1934. It was he who shot the explosion of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the opening of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VDNKh), the epic of the rescue of the Chelyuskin people and the flights of Valery Chkalov and Mikhail Gromov to America, the visits to Moscow of world celebrities: Bernard Shaw, Romain Rolland, Henri Barbusse. Sent to the Black Sea Fleet, he was finally able to put on a black naval uniform and removed the defenses of Odessa, Sevastopol, and then defeated Berlin.
The director of the epic "The Great Patriotic War" Lev Danilov wrote:
"About Mikosha's military filming, it is fair to say that they are both everyday life and poetry … The temperature of the event is always present on the film of documentaries shot by Mikosha."
L. SOYFERTIS AND THE "STORY APPROACH"
Throughout the long Sevastopol days and months, the "temperature of the event" in the city remained tense, and this tenseness is noticeable not only in newsreels, but also in the front-line sketches of the artist Leonid Soyfertis.
In No. 36 for 1944, the Krokodil magazine published the Sevastopol Album of its permanent author, the artist Leonid Soyfertis. A native of the town of Ilyintsy in the Vinnitsa district of the Podolsk province, so far from the sea, by the will of fate, he glorified the sailors of Odessa, Sevastopol, Novorossiysk in his work. The cartoonist, who arrived from the capital to the Black Sea Fleet in the early days of the war, drew cartoons on the topic of the day for the newspaper Krasny Chernomorets, although the everyday life of the heroic city provided so much food for creative thinking that the artist soon discovered a new genre for himself.
Later, experts will note in his sketches of the times of the defense of Sevastopol a special approach to resolving the topic - the “storytelling approach”. And they told the viewer "with a thoughtful perception … about the nation-wide war, about the ardent love that surrounded the country with its heroic Army and Navy" [7]. Critics also noted a special "ability to recognize in a small, seemingly random, even funny episode, a great, majestic time" [8] …
In the graphic drawings of Soyfertis, depicting the life of the war, there is not a single one killed and no one is shooting, and the people shown in everyday situations do not even seem to feel like heroes.
The artist himself was surprised at this familiar heroism. The nurse girl changed for the celebration of March 8 in a red guipure dress with a white bow:
“She came in an overcoat, and she had a spoon behind her boot, and the advanced positions were very close, and where she was holding a suitcase with a dress - only God knows” [9].
“In Sevastopol,” the artist recalled, “I lived in the center of the city, but it was enough to leave the house to feel at the front. I was amazed at the continuity of life that persists everywhere, despite the horror of the incessant bombing and incessant fighting. I remember seeing a pilot at the airfield shaving before a combat flight with the composure of a man confident of his return.
Or such a detail: in the trench next to the mortar there is a balalaika. I remember the postman delivering letters as she made her way through the newly destroyed building to the bomb shelter; she knew in which bomb shelter her addressee was. The confidence of everyone in victory was conveyed to me, and I wanted to tell about what I see, optimistically, cheerfully”[10].
In the picture “Once upon a time” - two boys, shoe shiners, are cleaning the shoes of a gallant sailor on the move. He spread his legs wide and leaned his elbows on the theatrical curbstone - he is in a hurry to fight! Another sailor froze in front of the photographer's camera right in the bomb crater, among the ruins, - "Photo on party document." And the third sailor, in mighty hands, which, perhaps a minute ago, strangled the enemy, is carefully holding the kitten - "The kitten has been found!"
The kid dashingly and cheerfully works with brooms, sweeping the stairs, only now she does not lead into the house, and in the empty doorway - the sky - "Cleaning the stairs". In another picture, the kids are sitting on the hedge and watching a detachment of sailors pass by, and above their heads, in the same way, in a row, swallows are sitting on a wire - "The sailors are coming" …
A few subtle strokes - and the sketches are filled with air, movement, sun, hope …
The commander of the unit with which L. Soyfertis was in the newspaper "Literatura i iskusstvo" spoke about the same ordinary heroism of the artist himself. It turns out that he was lying next to a machine gunner under German fire in order to capture "what a person's expression is when he shoots at the Nazis" [11].
VEST ON FLAGPOINT
… And yet, despite the massive heroism of the Sevastopol residents, the city had to be abandoned in July 1942 after the appearance of German long-range cannons on the mountains, which changed the alignment of forces. It is difficult, scary, with very large losses. Let's remember: at this time the Germans are standing at the walls of Stalingrad, on the outskirts of the oil regions of the Caucasus.
… From April 8 to May 12, 1944, the troops of the 4th Ukrainian Front and the Separate Maritime Army, in cooperation with the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Military Flotilla, conducted an operation to liberate Crimea, which began with a brave landing of the Separate Maritime Army on the Kerch Peninsula.
The liberation of the largest cities of Crimea by our troops was swift: Feodosia, Evpatoria, Simferopol. And they roll into Sevastopol in a powerful wave. Three strips of iron and concrete, combined into powerful knots of resistance with an extensive system of anti-tank and anti-personnel barriers, surrounded the city. Sapun Mountain is the dominant height, with steep slopes, chained in reinforced concrete with a four-tier system of trenches, entangled with engineering structures.
The assault began on May 7 with strikes by our bomber aviation. Then came the artillery, destroying the pillboxes on the slopes of the mountain. The fighters of the assault groups with anti-tank rifles went into battle, they dragged the guns along the mountain slopes - they hit the embrasures of the pillboxes. The infantry followed them to the top of the mountain …
… Among the advanced units that broke into Sevastopol were cameramen: Vladislav Mikosha, David Sholomovich, Ilya Arons, Vsevolod Afanasyev, G. Donets, Daniil Caspiy, Vladimir Kilosanidze, Leonid Kotlyarenko, Fedor Ovsyannikov, Nikita Petrosov, Mikhail Poychenko, Alexander Smolom Vladimir Sushchinsky, Georgy Khnkoyan and others. The footage of the battles they shot will be included in the film "Battle for Sevastopol".
From the top of the mountain, on which the old Italian cemetery is located, cameraman Mikosha is filming a tank battle in the Inkerman Valley, he sees how German ships hastily leave for the sea. And on the Grafskaya wharf, in the absence of a red flag, the Red Navy men tie a striped vest and a peakless cap to the flagpole.
These shots will become a spectacular ending to the film, accompanied by a voice-over: "Where at the beginning of the war it took the Germans two hundred and fifty days to overcome the defenses of the Soviet soldiers, there now the Red Army broke the German resistance in five days."
SO DIFFERENT SOURCE OF WAR
… The war left us, researchers, a variety of source material, and this is by no means only archival documents and eyewitness memories. It is also newsreels, front-line newspapers, sketches of artists and even …
… My senior colleague - Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Mansur Mukhamedzhanov - did military service in Sevastopol in 1955-1959. It seemed that the hero-city had completely healed its battle wounds. But once in the mountains during exercises, young sailors, digging in, found a lead strip, twisted like an ancient letter, unfolded and read:
"We stand here until the end!"
And - a short list of surnames …
The unexpected find was transferred to the museum, and the post-war generation of sailors, with a special sense of belonging to the heroic defenders of the city, sang with all ranks, marching to the Lunacharsky Theater, a front-line song by an unknown author, far from literary perfection, but so important for the historical relay race of generations:
From Black - I, you - from far away, You came from the Far East.
You and me together
We beat the Germans hard
Defending the city of Sevastopol.
Heavy battles await us.
There is still a lot of battle ahead.
Russian was and is
Sevastopol is ours.
Sevastopol is the city of the Black Sea!
… The most instructive and touching thing for us, descendants, is the attitude of the survivors to the memory of the fallen. Already on October 17, 1944, an obelisk monument to Soviet soldiers who fell in the battles for the liberation of the city was unveiled on Sapun Mountain.
NOTES
[1] Sovinformburo. Operational reports for 1941. [Electronic resource] // Great Patriotic War https://1941-1945.at.ua/forum/29-291-1 (date of access: 2016-07-03).
[2] Ibid.
[3] P. I. Musyakov Sevastopol days // Moscow-Crimea: Historical and publicistic almanac. Special issue: Crimea in the Great Patriotic War: diaries, memoirs, research. Issue 5. M., 2003. S. 19.
[4] See ibid.
[5] RGASPI, F. 17, Op. 125, D. 44.
[6] Smirnov V. Documentary films about the Great Patriotic War. M., 1947. S. 39.
[7] Fine arts during the Great Patriotic War. M., 1951. S. 49-51.
[8] Ibid. P. 80.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid. S. 117-118.
[11] Ibid. P. 80.
