Would you say there is no such word? Why not? Here it is - written. It’s as if it’s not a filmstrip, or a movie, or a shadow theater—all at once about a past life that was cut short overnight. About the “blooming peaceful tomorrow” that never happened and never came - whoever remembers the USSR will remember these words from newspapers, from magazines of the great era, which was also called “pre-war times”.
The film “Hearts of Four”, and moreover its title song, is the most powerful of its markers. When everything was possible and all paths were open, but the storm of an inevitable and terrible war was approaching, a war that took away everything that they lived with in the first Soviet peacetime - between the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars. A short time. Bright as the sun at its zenith.
Like the sun at its zenith...
And then there were anti-aircraft guns. And with all their might they pulled out black blots with crosses that came to destroy our homes and our lives. Ours... Or rather, those who were and lived before us. Thinking about them, thinking about the time in which they both created and created a reality never before seen by anyone, one thing comes to mind: the civilization of the titans, the great warriors who challenged the “society of sound calculation and reasonable competition.” I would also like to add about the “necessary living space” - that sound calculation and that reasonable competition implied a convenient self-organization at the expense of us - our homes, our lands, our lives and our future...
Trying to travel back in time to the pre-war spring of 1941, I invariably feel such a sharp beat of life that it seems: one more moment, one more mental effort - and I will be able to reveal the secret, to see the essence of that unbending faith in my cause, and in Victory, and into life itself... We can only remember and be grateful...
Everything around became blue and green,
The water began to bubble and sing in the streams.
All life flowed according to spring laws,
Now there is no escape from love.
Evgeny Dolmatovsky, future front-line correspondent and poet of his generation. Liberated Western Belarus, Finnish winter, Great Patriotic War. Wounded in the head and arm in the Uman pocket, captivity, daring escape... Crossing the front line in November 1941, checks, checks... Return to duty in January 1942 with the rank of battalion commissar in the division of Alexander Rodimtsev, a legendary hero Stalingrad. Personal presence at the signing of the act of unconditional surrender of Germany. This is all Dolmatovsky. And so - one line: “author of the text”...
And meetings are rare, and the wait is long,
And the looks are anxious, and the speech is confused.
I wish I could cancel the separations,
But without parting, there would be no meetings.
Even earlier than for the film “Hearts of Four,” Dolmatovsky, completely by accident and at the very last moment (it happens - the film was almost shot and realized that the main song was missing), at the request of the director of the film “Fighters” (1939) Eduard Penzlin, wrote the poem “Beloved city".
That’s right - a poem (and not just a song text), because the pilots were then (and even now, of course) not just heroes - gods - conquerors of the skies.
And it was necessary to talk about those gods in simple and understandable words. And through and through. Everyone. And Dolmatovsky did it like no one else. Nikita Bogoslovsky set the poems to music, and no matter what times it is, we sing, echoing the voice of Bernes:
A comrade flies to a distant land,
The native winds fly after him.
My favorite city is melting in a blue haze:
A familiar house, a green garden and a gentle look.
For several years (and almost all of the 1930s), the darkness of the impending war hung over our country. Meanwhile, the USSR not only did not intend to surrender, but was preparing with all its might for war as the cruelest inevitability. What is it like to see Europe torn to shreds, to know what the fascists are doing, and to understand without any rosy illusions: the day will come when you need to get back into action? And fight. Not for life, but for death, because the enemy is not just terrible - he is devoid of human form.
So we lived - believing in life.
And they sang songs - the right ones.
Maybe naive. Maybe visionary. It’s not for us to judge. Another thing is important: we sing, we have been singing for decades, and we will continue to sing.
Comrade will go through all the fronts and wars,
Not knowing sleep, not knowing silence.
The beloved city can sleep peacefully,
And see dreams, and turn green in the middle of spring.
“Hearts of Four” - they have a difficult fate. The film was accepted by the Mosfilm artistic council in February 1941 and was not only accepted - it was recognized as an absolute success for the entire creative team of the film. The premiere was scheduled for the end of May, but at the May creative party event at the Cinematography Committee, Andrei Zhdanov tore the film to smithereens as “not corresponding to future events.” She seemed too vaudeville, too cheerful then. And I think: what if they hadn’t “noticed”? If they had released it?.. With what bitterness, perhaps, they would have watched it all over the country. After June 22...
The tape lay on the shelf until the fall of 1944 - Zhdanov was a figure, a “steel Leningrader,” a complex personality, but definitely selfless. So much dirt was poured on him during the “bright years of freedom”... This, however, is a different story.
By the winter of 1944, films about love were needed. About life. About the future tomorrow, which became more and more possible and visible every day. The future after the Victory.
And “Hearts of Four” was released on January 5, 1945 - under a devastating article in Pravda (what can you do, this has happened) and an absolute success with audiences. They say that people cried in the halls, not embarrassed by their tears. They cried about that time, about the time before the great war, when everything was so simple and so different...
Nothing can be returned. Just looking at the last frames of the film, where Galya and Shurochka Murashova, and with them senior lieutenant Pyotr Kolchin and biologist Gleb Zavartsev, wave their hands at us and smile so sincerely and so heartily, from the distant and soon terrible 41st, I still believe that you can return...
How and when?
No answer...
There is only life and destiny.
And the path that each of us must go through.
Love will not let anyone go,
Nightingales sing above every window.
Love is never without sadness
But it's more pleasant than sadness without love...
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editors.