About the product
The story “Sashka” by Kondratiev, written in 1979, is in many ways an autobiographical work. It is based on the memoirs of a writer who fought in a rifle brigade and personally took part in fierce battles near Rzhev.
On our website you can read online a summary of “Sashka” chapter by chapter, as well as take a test to test your knowledge. A retelling of the story will be useful both for the reading diary and for preparing for a literature lesson.
The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.
Summary
Chapter 1
After the end of the firefight with the Germans, it was “time for Sashka to take up his night post.” He had been on the front line for two months already, but still he had not been able to see “a live enemy up close.” The partner with whom Sashka must alternate was a completely useless one: “weak from hunger, and age is taking its toll.” And even during his legal rest, he had to check on his partner, who “didn’t sleep, but was nodding off.”
After the shelling, Sashka noticed the Fritz’s corpse and decided to take off his shoes to give to the company commander, who had soaked his feet in the wormwood. He would never take such a risk for himself, “but I feel sorry for the company commander.” Sashka crawled to the dead German and with great difficulty pulled off his warm felt boots.
As soon as Sashka decided to light a cigarette, he saw “a huge German rising from behind a hill.” He was followed by others who, like gray shadows, disappeared into the forest. At first, Sashka thought that “he won’t be able to stand it now, he’ll get up, scream” and run away, but he soon calmed down, pulled himself together and went to report to the company commander about what he saw. He ordered everyone to lie down behind the ravine and under no circumstances rise to their full height.
Soon a pleasant voice was heard offering to lay down arms in exchange for freedom and work. Then the company commander realized that this was a provocation of a small reconnaissance detachment, and gave the order to attack.
For the first time in his life, Sashka “came so close to the Germans, for some reason he did not feel fear.” Noticing the retreating figure of the German, he rushed after him and threw him to the ground. Soon a company commander came to his aid and ordered the captured German to be taken to headquarters.
On the way, the prisoner, as best he could, began to assure Sashka that he was not a fascist, but an ordinary soldier, but the guy did not pay any attention to him. On the way, he decided to take a little rest. The opponents sat down and lit a cigarette. At this moment, Sashka regretted that he did not know German at all - “I wish I could talk…”.
At headquarters, the chief was not there, and Sashka and the prisoner were sent to the battalion commander. After his girlfriend was killed in a shootout, he was completely out of sorts, and immediately ordered the young German to be shot.
From this news, “Sashka’s eyes darkened and everything around him swam,” because on the way he, as best he could, explained to the German that his life would be spared. Having difficulty containing his excitement, he explained to the battalion commander that he had given his word to the prisoner and could not break it. Only at the last moment the battalion commander changed his decision and ordered the German to be taken to brigade headquarters.
Chapter 2
When Sashka was filling a pot with water from a stream, he suddenly felt a red-hot pain in his hand and realized that he had been wounded. Seeing the blood, he “was afraid that it would all leave him without bandaging.” Gathering his strength, Sashka bandaged his hand as best he could and made it to his company. He handed over his machine gun to the company commander, said goodbye to his comrades and went to the rear.
This road was incredibly dangerous: it was regularly shelled, and it was very lucky to pass it safely. “It took Sashka a long time to gain the courage” before setting off, but there was nothing to do - he had to go.
Like all his comrades in arms, Sashka was incredibly dirty, overgrown, and tattered. On the way, he began to dream about how for the first time in two months he would wash himself with hot water and soap, put on clean clothes... But he reined himself in in time: “you can’t make any guesses yet, his position is too precarious.”
Sashka sat down to rest for a while, “but a groan somewhere very close startled” him. Not far from him, he noticed a soldier wounded in the chest. He quickly realized that the wound was fatal, but still promised to bring paramedics. Sashka managed to find the military unit and give the orderlies the coordinates of the wounded soldier - his conscience was clear.
Sashka continued on his way, and “now allowed himself to think about Zina, the sister from Sanrota.” These thoughts were surprisingly pleasant: Sashka had high hopes for a date with the girl he met during one of the bombings.
When Sashka finally got to the reception center for the wounded, Zina greeted him surprisingly coldly. During the examination and dressing, Sashka did not immediately understand that the senior lieutenant suspected him of having wounded himself in the arm. From a terrible insult, “blood gushed from his wounds, his eyes darkened.” They calmed him down and took him to the ward, where he quickly fell into a deep sleep.
Zina admitted to Sasha that the senior lieutenant was caring for her “in a good way, without nonsense,” and there was love between them.
Chapter 3
Sashka was discharged, and with him “two more wounded walkers” - Private Zhora and Lieutenant Volodya. They had a long road ahead to the village of Babino, where they could exchange their food certificates for food.
Having walked twelve miles, “they became completely exhausted.” All the way they, tired and hungry, dreamed only of how they would be well fed - this thought helped the fighters move forward.
They were very happy when “a village with several houses appeared behind the hill.” The soldiers were allowed to spend the night, but their owners could not feed them: they themselves had nothing to eat.
Soon the soldiers learned that there had been no checkpoint in Babino for a long time. In order not to die of hunger on the way to the evacuation hospital, the friends are forced to wander around the villages and ask local residents for food.
Having reached the evacuation hospital with difficulty, they were forced to wait another half a day before dinner to be fed: no one cared that their sales certificate had already been “unused for ten days.”
After a medical examination and dressing, it turned out that Lieutenant Volodka was the most seriously wounded, and the doctor strongly recommended that he stay in the hospital for a week, but he wanted to get to his mother in Moscow as soon as possible.
The friends are getting ready to hit the road again, but the journey to the capital is long, and they are forced to take a break in the hospital. During dinner, the wounded soldiers began to complain about the frankly meager food. Volodka was not afraid and directly expressed his opinion to the major, but he only began to “talk about temporary difficulties.”
At that moment, a plate of porridge flew past the major’s head, “and smashed into pieces with a ringing sound on the opposite wall” - the impulsive Volodka could not stand it. Sashka quickly realized that for such an act he could be demoted and sent to court, and therefore took the blame upon himself.
Sasha was lucky, and the case was quickly hushed up, and he was asked to leave the hospital. The farewell of friends was difficult: everyone understood that there was a war going on and it was unlikely that fate would give them another meeting.
Once in Moscow, Sashka was surprised to see people not in dirty tunics with machine guns at the ready, but in everyday civilian clothes. They seemed to him “as if from a completely different world, almost forgotten to him, and now by some miracle returned.” For a moment it even seemed to him that there was no war and never had been. And it was at that moment that he realized how important his work was there at the front...
Sashka
Sashka
Chapter 1.
-Where are you going? – the conductor of the reserved seat carriage shouted at the man in the prisoner’s pea coat. - For you tramps, there are common trains in your head!
- Why are you making noise, beautiful?
The man put the plywood suitcase on the ground, clutching a large package to his chest with his right hand, reached into the side pocket of his pea coat with his left hand, took out a sheet of paper folded into four and handed it to the conductor.
“Read, you’re literate, I suppose,” the passenger chuckled.
She did not have time to familiarize herself with the contents, as she was stopped by the irritated voices of approaching passengers.
- What's the matter? Why are we standing?
The woman looked up and saw in front of her an elderly married couple.
“Here,” the conductor said in a quiet voice, almost a whisper, handing a note to the man in colonel’s uniform. The colonel, having read the document, rudely demanded a certificate of release.
“Please, citizen chief,” the man handed out the required certificate without a shadow of embarrassment. To satisfy his companion's curiosity, the colonel began to read aloud:
“The certificate was given to citizen Ivan Vasilyevich Kozlov, born in 1904, a native of Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky), convicted by the Troika of the NKVD of the Gorky Region on January 23, 1934 under the article ... well, this is not important,” the colonel hesitated for a moment and continued: for a term of 25 years. We have no previous convictions. Released early by decision of the pardon commission on April 18, 1953. A railway ticket was issued for travel from the station of the city of Mariinsk to the station of the city of Gorky in the name of I. V. Kozlov and his son Alexander Ivanovich Kozlov, born on February 21, 1953. Head of Siblag ITL 42/311. Marchenko T. M. Head of the second part Grigoriev N. A.
Without having time to listen to the contents of the certificate, the colonel’s wife and the conductor exclaimed:
- And where?!
“Hush, ladies, the child deigns to rest,” Ivan answered, clutching the bundle to his chest.
- So what are you doing, Herod! It's not the month of May to keep your child in the cold! “Get into the carriage quickly,” the conductor rushed at him and picked up the suitcase standing on the ground.
“Of course, it’s not May,” Ivan muttered, going up the steps, one of the lucky ones of Beria’s amnesty in April ’53. “You’d think that everyone here in May would be drenched in sweat...
There were no more than a dozen passengers in the carriage, but Ivan went to the very end, in case Sashka woke up and started crying - it wouldn’t be so audible.
Ivan unswaddled the child, put him on the bottom shelf, sat down by the window and thoughtfully examined the flashing buildings and sparse vegetation along the railway track. The train picked up speed, occasionally emitting characteristic whistles, as if saying goodbye forever to the places where our character spent a significant part of his reckless life. About an hour later the conductor came and brought bed linen.
“We don’t need this, it’s not a bar,” said Ivan, seeing snow-white sheets in the woman’s hands.
- Not you, the child... There is no need to pay.
- Thank you, beautiful! Maybe you have some tea, about forty degrees?
“Are you crazy, can’t you see what kind of passengers I have in the carriage?”
- So we won’t serve them well...
“Listen, Ivan Vasilyevich,” she called him by his patronymic, remembering how the colonel read the certificate of release. -What was in the note?
“The owner’s request to the head of the train is to place me and the little one in a reserved seat. - Then he thought a little and added: - And also, so that you, beautiful, give me a check every day during the journey. How many days until Gorky?
- Eight. Yes, Ivan Vasilyevich, you didn’t read the note carefully, because instead of the check mark it says “milk for the baby.” - They both laughed. “At the stations, I’ll buy milk for you myself, just don’t get out of the car, otherwise you’ll fall behind and you’ll end up in trouble later.” Do you have any food?
- A full suitcase, I’m not coming from the zone, but from the settlement, the local women gave me everything.
- Tell me, Ivan Vasilyevich, where is your boy’s mother?
Ivan’s face stretched out, his teeth began to grind, it seemed that just a little more and fiery arrows would rain down from his eyes.
- Mom?! She's a whore, not a mother, two months after Sashka's birth she ran away, the bastard, with some tramp!
The child began to cry, apparently he did not like the name they were calling the woman to whom he was born. Ivan touched the baby.
- Dry, probably wants to eat. - And climbed onto the shelf for the suitcase.
“Feed your son, I’ll stop by in the evening,” said the conductor.
The next day, around noon, the conductor brought milk. She refused the money.
“Ivan Vasilyevich, the colonel’s wife wants to talk to you,” she began, but Ivan abruptly interrupted:
- I won’t give up the child!
- Just talk, she’s a cultured and smart woman, maybe she’ll give some useful advice.
- Well, okay, I persuaded her, just tell her that without a check there won’t be a market.
An hour later the colonel's wife arrived.
- Will you allow me?
- Come in, lady boss, sit down.
– Call me Nina Petrovna. – She sighed and put the bottle of vodka on the table. - Drink only in my absence.
- As you say.
– Are you coping with the baby?
- Yes, I still don’t understand, I’ve only had him for ten days. He sleeps more and eats sometimes.
– Who’s waiting for you at home?
- There is no one to wait for me, only one, like a finger, remains. No, that's not right, now there are two of us.
– Do you have housing?
– I didn’t go to prison, I wandered around the dorms... I hope that I’ll get a job, maybe I’ll get a room in a family.
- Excuse me, Ivan, how old are you?
“It’s forty-nine.”
- Yes, not young. What will you do with the child? Will you send it to an orphanage?
- No, I can’t go to the shelter, because because of this kid I got an early deadline. There is no evil without good: if this bastard had not escaped, he would have had to pull the burden for another six years. True, to be honest, I’ve already gotten used to it after nineteen years... After all, I served time and am still not alive. Maybe now we will survive where ours did not disappear. And in old age there will be someone to give a glass of water. Nina Petrovna, why are you interested?
– I won’t hide it, my husband and I discussed your situation half the night. It will be difficult for you: no housing, no work, and the boy is just a baby; not every woman can stand it, and even more so a man. We are already at a respectable age, our son, also Sasha, died at Stalingrad in 1942. If you gave us the baby, then, believe me, he would grow up to be a worthy person, receive an excellent education... We have a large apartment in Moscow, my husband has a good position in the ministry, I myself am a housewife. If you agree, your spouse will travel with you to Gorky, get you a job, help with housing, and we will transfer money to you once a year. Think carefully... The woman looked at Sashka again and quietly left.
Chapter 2.
Ivan sat down on the shelf in thought, mechanically put his hand under the baby's diaper to see if it was dry, then took out a simple snack, poured vodka into a glass and drank it in one gulp. Hot bliss spread throughout the thin body. Ivan decided to take a nap, lay down for a while, but sleep did not come.
“What else should I drink? “- reached for the bottle. But thinking that Sashka might wake up and he would be passed out, he abandoned this idea. The conversation with Nina Petrovna couldn’t get out of my head. In essence, the general’s wife, of course, is right: what kind of father is he, what can he give to his son if he himself has not yet decided in this life. He did not feel any special fatherly love for him; rather, the birth of Sashka interfered with his further plans. Ivan dreamed of leaving his prison term for some remote village, finding himself a woman, preferably childless, drinking his legal drink every day after work, and then going to bed until the next morning.
For some reason, memories of a past life suddenly came flooding back.
Ivan was born into the family of a small shopkeeper Vasily Kozlov, who ran a hardware store on Rozhdestvenskaya. Of the three children that his wife Glafira Stepanovna gave birth to, only he, Vanka, survived; the rest died in infancy. She didn’t live richly, but she didn’t live in poverty either; she had her own small house of two rooms, to which there was a shop adjoining. Vanya grew up as an ordinary child and did not stand out in any way among his peers. Together with the neighboring boys, I ran to the river - it flowed a hundred meters from the house. Often with my friends, sitting on the shore, I looked at the ships sailing past and dreamed that when I grew up, I would definitely serve as a sailor in the merchant fleet and visit all the cities on the banks of the great Volga River.
All of Ivan's dreams collapsed with the outbreak of the First World War. My father was drafted into the army in 1915, and a year later a notice came to the house: “I inform you that Vasily Kozlov, a private in the company entrusted to me, was killed on August 25, 1916 near the village. Ivanteevka. The company commander is Lieutenant Ulanov.” Glafira Stepanovna was forced to stand behind the counter herself; Vanka, after school, no longer hurried to the river, but helped his mother in the trade, which was going worse and worse. Just before the revolution of 1917, my mother completely sold the shop and the house, and she and Vanka moved to a rented tiny apartment. In 1920, Glafira Stepanovna fell ill with consumption and, after suffering for seven months, died. Vanka was left an orphan. He had to move out of the apartment because he had nothing to pay, and he dropped out of school two years before his mother’s death. While his mother was alive, Vanka spent all his time on the river, subsisting on fishing, his mother sold her catch at the market, and that’s what they fed on, barely making ends meet. Orphaned by the age of 16, Ivan took on any job, most often grub and corner work. It was then that he became addicted to the “green serpent.” This bad habit followed him all his life. During the NEP years, Ivan worked at various small enterprises, where they provided a room in a dormitory, but he did not stay anywhere for long - he was kicked out because of his addiction to drinking.
On May 2, 1930, near Nizhny Novgorod, the first stone was laid for the foundation of the future automobile plant. Workers were needed, Ivan, being literate (after all, seven classes at a real school), was accepted into the warehouse as an accountant. Life began to get better, he began to think about starting a family, but his love for vodka brought down all his dreams. At the beginning of 1934, he stole two kilograms of nails to recover from his hangover. Gotcha. At the trial, the angry prosecutor accused Ivan Kozlov of undermining the economy of the entire country and said that it was not enough to shoot such people. Ivan listened and grinned: just think, just a couple of kilograms, well, they’ll give you two or three years in prison, or even send you to a national economy construction site for a year... But when the word “execution” came from the mouth of the judge reading out the verdict, Ivan fell into dismay. into prostration and remained in it until, in prison, one of the experienced inmates advised him to submit a petition for pardon addressed to Klim Voroshilov. The appeal was upheld and capital punishment was replaced by 25 years in the camps.
In memory of this event, Ivan will keep a portrait of Klim Voroshilov for the rest of his life, at first it was a newspaper clipping, later, after his imprisonment, he will order a photograph, put it in a frame and hang it on the wall
And Ivan went along the stage to fell the forest to “Siblag” near the city of Mariinsk, Kemerovo region. In the first years of imprisonment, time passed very slowly, he did not get along with either thieves or politicians, and together with the “men” he felled wood and naively believed that for good behavior and work he would have his sentence cut off. During the difficult days for the country in 1942, Ivan tried to enlist in a penal battalion, but prisoners with long sentences were not taken to the front. After the war in 1946, when the camps became crowded due to the influx of new prisoners from among the Vlasovites and former prisoners of war, Ivan was transferred to a colony settlement twenty kilometers from the zone.
A colony settlement is, of course, not a camp, but it is far from freedom. About three years later, he met a young woman twenty years younger than himself. They would have lived with her until the end of her term if Sashka had not been born in February 53, an unwanted child for neither her nor Ivan. Two months after the birth of the child, the young woman ran away, leaving no news to the newly-made father...
The crying of his son interrupted Ivan Vasilyevich’s memories.
- Are you hungry, little one? Now I’ll get some rations, I’ll ask for milk, you can eat it.
The conductor brought warmed milk and showed how to properly swaddle a baby. After the baby ate and fell asleep again, she asked:
- What did you think, Ivan Vasilyevich, about the child?
- It’s okay, I still have a week.
“You shouldn’t drink, otherwise the colonel will take your son away by force.”
“You’re right here, she’s beautiful, he’ll be fine, I’ll be in the clear.”
The day before the train arrived, Nina Petrovna came to Moscow.
– What did you decide, Ivan Vasilyevich?
- Sorry, Nina Petrovna, but I’ll keep my son, maybe through him my life will change: I’ll stop drinking, I’m the only one left, and here everyone is a dear little man, and it’s not right for a man to sell his son, so excuse me again, but Sashka will come with me.
“I expected roughly the same answer from you, so I asked my husband to call Gorky.” When you arrive, go to the head of the station police, he will be in the know and will help with housing and work. – And handed over the money wrapped in newspaper.
- This is for your baby.
– Thank you, Nina Petrovna, you are a good person, I will never forget you.
