Сто Суток Войны

by Konstantin Simonov, Константин Симонов

Ранее не публиковавшаяся полностью книга воспоминаний известного советского писателя написана на основе его фронтовых дневников. Автор правдиво и откровенно рассказывает о начале Великой Отечественной войны, о ее первых трагических ста днях и ночах, о людях, которые приняли на себя первый, самый страшный удар гитлеровской военной машины.

580 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov was a Soviet author. He was best known as a poet who wrote a popular poem, "Wait for Me," about a soldier at the front asking his beloved to await his return. Simonov addressed the poem to his future wife, the actress Valentina Serova. The poem was immensely popular at the time and remains one of the best-known poems in the Russian language. Simonov wrote many more poems to Valentina, subsequently included in the collection With You and Without You.

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Константин Михaйлович Симонов, советский писатель, общественный деятель. Герой Социалистического Труда (1974). Лауреат Ленинской (1974) и шести Сталинских премий (1942, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1950). Заместитель генерального секретаря СП СССР. Член ВКП(б) с 1942 года

Reviews

[Vlad · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's difficult to find raw and uncensored books on the subject of WWII by Russian authors of the Soviet period that show events close to how they happened and were felt by the people. The history of the USSR of the 1917-1945 is tragic history written in blood and it's a history that was heavily cut and edited by the Communist Party in the post-war years. So it's rarely that you can find non-dissident patriotic description of events that you can actually trust.

This is such a book. It feels sincere and deeply, truly Russian in its character, full of good common people accomplishing heroic acts daily, and not even realising it. There is plenty of scared, weak people as well, and then there are a few bad, rotten people (mostly, it seems, the politruks / chekists, that were universally hated and despised).

Simonov was becoming a rising star poet just before the war, and was given unprecedented access to the Russian general staff of the front. His task was to get as many stories and photos from the front, as possible, and understandably he was mostly a bit outside of the heavy battles, so his experience is definitely a lighter version of the events, but at least he lived to tell about it.

Even though the book covers only the first three months of the war, this was the period of a great, almost unencumbered advance of Germans deep into the USSR. The sense of surprise and disappointment into how open and vulnerable the USSR turned out to be in the face of a well planned attack is visible on almost every page. There are some bright dramatic scenes throughout, but mostly it's toned down, softly spoken, measured description of the events. Highly recommended, and definitely should be a required reading for Russian schools (lest we forget).

I am not sure when the first edition was published, but it seems that the books is almost as unknown in Russia as it is in the rest of the world. I am also not sure if it was ever translated into English, at least I couldn't find a book on Amazon. My edition of the book includes extensive notes that take 50% of the book that were added at a later stage, and those notes show how Simonov bowed to the Soviet propaganda and explained away the initial criticism, seemingly with new facts coming to light (still, it's probably taken him a lot of effort to just keep the original intact and add the corrections as notes). I mostly stopped reading those as it takes away from the experience and gets your blood boiling against the rigid stupidity of the Soviet censorship, so afraid to look the truth in the eye.