Earth!.. I wish I could take a break from captivity,
To be in a free draft...
But the walls freeze over the groans,
The heavy door is locked.

Oh, heaven with a winged soul!
I would give so much for a swing!..
But the body is at the bottom of the casemate
And the captive hands are in chains.

How freedom splashes with rain
Into the happy faces of flowers!
But it goes out under the stone vault
The breath of weakening words.

I know - in the arms of the light
Such a sweet moment of life!
But I'm dying...And this—
My last song.

Eleven suicide bombers

On August 25, 1944, in the Berlin Plötzensee prison, 11 members of the Idel-Ural Legion, a unit created by the Nazis from Soviet prisoners of war, primarily Tatars, were executed on charges of treason.

The eleven sentenced to death were assets of an underground anti-fascist organization that managed to disintegrate the legion from within and thwart German plans.

The procedure for execution by guillotine in Germany was debugged to the point of automation - it took the executioners about half an hour to behead the “criminals.” Executors scrupulously recorded the order in which sentences were carried out and even the time of death of each person.

The fifth, at 12:18, lost his life writer Musa Gumerov. Under this name, Musa Mustafovich Zalilov, also known as Musa Jalil, died, a poet whose main poems became known to the world a decade and a half after his death.

In the beginning there was "Happiness"

Musa Jalil was born on February 15, 1906 in the village of Mustafino, Orenburg province, in the family of peasant Mustafa Zalilov.

Musa Jalil in his youth. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Musa was the sixth child in the family. “I first went to study at the village mekteb (school), and after moving to the city I went to the primary classes of the Husainiya madrasah (theological school). When my relatives left for the village, I stayed in the madrasah boarding house,” Jalil wrote in his autobiography. “During these years, Husainiya was far from the same. The October Revolution, the struggle for Soviet power, and its strengthening greatly influenced the madrasah. Inside “Khusainiya” the struggle is intensifying between the children of the bais, mullahs, nationalists, defenders of religion and the sons of the poor, revolutionary-minded youth. I always stood on the side of the latter and in the spring of 1919 I signed up for the newly formed Orenburg Komsomol organization and fought for the spread of Komsomol influence in the madrasah.”

But even before Musa became interested in revolutionary ideas, poetry entered his life. He wrote his first poems, which have not survived, in 1916. And in 1919, in the newspaper “Kyzyl Yoldyz” (“Red Star”), which was published in Orenburg, Jalil’s first poem, called “Happiness,” was published. Since then, Musa's poems have been published regularly.

“Some of us will be missing”

After the Civil War, Musa Jalil graduated from the workers' school, was engaged in Komsomol work, and in 1927 entered the literary department of the ethnological faculty of Moscow State University. After its reorganization, he graduated from the literary department of Moscow State University in 1931.

Classmates of Jalil, then still Musa Zalilov, noted that at the beginning of his studies he did not speak Russian very well, but he studied with great diligence.

After graduating from the Faculty of Literature, Jalil was the editor of Tatar children's magazines published under the Central Committee of the Komsomol, then head of the literature and art department of the Tatar newspaper "Communist", published in Moscow.

In 1939, Jalil and his family moved to Kazan, where he took the position of executive secretary of the Writers' Union of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

On June 22, 1941, Musa and his family were going to a friend’s dacha. At the station he was overtaken by the news of the beginning of the war.

The trip was not cancelled, but carefree country conversations were replaced by conversations about what awaits everyone ahead.

“After the war, one of us will be missing...,” Jalil told his friends.

Missing

The very next day he went to the military registration and enlistment office with a request to send him to the front, but they refused and offered to wait for the summons to arrive. The wait did not last long - Jalil was called up on July 13, initially assigning him to an artillery regiment as a mounted reconnaissance officer.

RIA News

At this time, the premiere of the opera “Altynchech” took place in Kazan, the libretto for which was written by Musa Jalil. The writer was put on leave, and he came to the theater in military uniform. After this, the command of the unit found out what kind of fighter was serving with them.

They wanted to demobilize Jalil or leave him in the rear, but he himself resisted attempts to save him: “My place is among the fighters. I must be at the front and beat the fascists."

As a result, at the beginning of 1942, Musa Jalil went to the Leningrad Front as an employee of the front-line newspaper “Courage”. He spent a lot of time on the front line, collecting material necessary for publication, as well as carrying out orders from the command.

In the spring of 1942, senior political instructor Musa Jalil was among the soldiers and commanders of the Second Shock Army who were surrounded by Hitler. On June 26 he was wounded and captured.

How this happened can be learned from the surviving poem by Musa Jalil, one of those written in captivity:

"What to do?
Refused the word pistol friend.
The enemy shackled my half-dead hands,
The dust has covered my bloody trail.”

Apparently, the poet was not going to surrender, but fate decided otherwise.

In his homeland, he was assigned the status of “missing in action” for many years.

Legion "Idel-Ural"

With the rank of political instructor, Musa Jalil could have been shot in the first days of his stay in the camp. However, none of his comrades in misfortune betrayed him.

There were different people in the prisoner of war camp - some lost heart, broke down, and others were eager to continue the fight. From among these, an underground anti-fascist committee was formed, of which Musa Jalil became a member.

The failure of the blitzkrieg and the beginning of a protracted war forced the Nazis to reconsider their strategy. If earlier they relied only on their own strengths, now they decided to play the “national card”, trying to attract representatives of different nations to cooperate. In August 1942, an order was signed to create the Idel-Ural legion. It was planned to be created from among Soviet prisoners of war, representatives of the peoples of the Volga region, primarily the Tatars.

Musa Jalil with his daughter Chulpan. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

The Nazis hoped, with the help of Tatar political emigrants from the Civil War, to educate former prisoners of war into staunch opponents of the Bolsheviks and Jews.

Legionnaire candidates were separated from other prisoners of war, freed from hard work, better fed, and treated.

There was a discussion among the underground - how to relate to what was happening? It was proposed to boycott the invitation to enter the service of the Germans, but the majority spoke in favor of another idea - to join the legion, so that, having received weapons and equipment from the Nazis, they could prepare an uprising within the Idel-Ural.

So Musa Jalil and his comrades “took the path of fighting Bolshevism.”

Underground in the heart of the Third Reich

This was a deadly game. “Writer Gumerov” managed to earn the trust of the new leaders and received the right to engage in cultural and educational work among legionnaires, as well as publish the legion’s newspaper. Jalil, traveling to prisoner of war camps, established secret connections and, under the guise of selecting amateur artists for the choir created in the legion, recruited new members of the underground organization.

The efficiency of the underground workers was incredible. The Idel-Ural Legion never became a full-fledged combat unit. His battalions rebelled and went to the partisans, legionnaires deserted in groups and individually, trying to get to the location of the Red Army units. Where the Nazis managed to prevent a direct rebellion, things were also not going well - the German commanders reported that the legion’s soldiers were not able to conduct fighting. As a result, legionnaires from the Eastern Front were transferred to the West, where they also did not really prove themselves.

However, the Gestapo was also not asleep. The underground members were identified, and in August 1943, all the leaders of the underground organization, including Musa Jalil, were arrested. This happened just a few days before the start of the general uprising of the Idel-Ural legion.

Poems from fascist dungeons

The underground members were sent to the dungeons of the Berlin Moabit prison. They interrogated me with passion, using all conceivable and unimaginable types of torture. Beaten and mutilated people were sometimes taken to Berlin, stopping in crowded places. The prisoners were shown a piece of peaceful life, and then returned to prison, where the investigator offered to hand over all accomplices, promising in exchange a life similar to that on the streets of Berlin.

It was very difficult not to break down. Everyone was looking for their own ways to hold on. For Musa Jalil, this method was writing poetry.

Soviet prisoners of war were not entitled to paper for letters, but Jalil was helped by prisoners from other countries who were imprisoned with him. He also tore blank margins from the newspapers that were allowed in prison and sewed them into small notebooks. He recorded his works in them.

The investigator in charge of the case of the underground fighters honestly told Jalil during one of the interrogations that what they did was enough for 10 death sentences, and the best he could hope for was execution. But, most likely, the guillotine awaits them.

Reproduction of the cover of the “Second Maobit Notebook” by the poet Musa Jalil, transferred to the Soviet embassy by the Belgian Andre Timmermans. Photo: RIA Novosti

The underground fighters were sentenced in February 1944, and from that moment on, every day could be their last.

“I will die standing, without asking for forgiveness”

Those who knew Musa Jalil said that he was a very cheerful person. But more than the inevitable execution, in prison he was worried by the thought that in his homeland they would not know what had happened to him, they would not know that he was not a traitor.

He gave his notebooks, written in Moabit, to his fellow prisoners, those who were not facing the death penalty.

August 25, 1944 underground fighters Musa Jalil, Gainan Kurmashev,Abdullah Alish, Fuat Sayfulmulukov,Fuat Bulatov,Garif Shabaev, Akhmet Simaev, Abdulla Battalov,Zinnat Khasanov, Akhat Atnashev And Salim Bukhalov were executed in Plötzensee prison. The Germans who were present in prison and saw them in the last minutes of their lives said that they behaved with amazing dignity. Assistant Warden Paul Duerrhauer said: “I have never seen people go to the place of execution with their heads held high and sing some kind of song.”

No, you're lying, executioner, I won't kneel,
At least throw him in the dungeons, at least sell him as a slave!
I will die standing, without asking for forgiveness,
At least chop my head with an ax!
I'm sorry that I am those who are related to you,
Not a thousand - only a hundred he destroyed.
For this, his people would
I asked for forgiveness on my knees.
Traitor or hero?

Musa Jalil's fears about what people would say about him in his homeland came true. In 1946, the USSR Ministry of State Security opened a search case against him. He was accused of treason and aiding the enemy. In April 1947, the name of Musa Jalil was included in the list of especially dangerous criminals.

The basis for suspicion was German documents, from which it followed that the “writer Gumerov” voluntarily entered the service of the Germans, joining the Idel-Ural legion.

Musa Jalil. Monument in Kazan. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Liza vetta

Musa Jalil's works were banned from publication in the USSR, and the poet's wife was summoned for interrogation. The competent authorities assumed that he could be on the territory of Germany occupied by the Western allies and conduct anti-Soviet activities.

But back in 1945, in Berlin, Soviet soldiers discovered a note from Musa Jalil, in which he talked about how he and his comrades were sentenced to death as an underground worker, and asked to inform his relatives about this. In a roundabout way, through writer Alexander Fadeev, this note reached Jalil's family. But suspicions of treason against him were not removed.

In 1947, a notebook with poems was sent to the USSR from the Soviet consulate in Brussels. These were poems by Musa Jalil, written in Moabit prison. The notebook was taken out of prison the poet's cellmate, Belgian Andre Timmermans. Several more notebooks were donated by former Soviet prisoners of war who were part of the Idel-Ural legion. Some notebooks survived, others then disappeared in the archives of the secret services.

Symbol of Fortitude

As a result, two notebooks containing 93 poems fell into the hands of poet Konstantin Simonov. He organized the translation of poems from Tatar into Russian, combining them into the collection “Moabite Notebook”.

In 1953, on Simonov’s initiative, an article about Musa Jalil was published in the central press, in which all charges of treason were dropped against him. Some poems written by the poet in prison were also published.

Soon the Moabite Notebook was published as a separate book.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of February 2, 1956, for exceptional steadfastness and courage shown in the fight against German fascist invaders, Zalilov Musa Mustafovich (Musa Jalil) was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).

In 1957, Musa Jalil was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize for his cycle of poems “The Moabit Notebook.”

The poems of Musa Jalil, translated into 60 languages ​​of the world, are considered an example of great courage and perseverance in the face of the monster, whose name is Nazism. “The Moabit Notebook” is on a par with the “Report with a Noose Around the Neck” by the Czechoslovakian writer and journalist Julius Fucik, who, like Jalil, wrote his main work in Hitler’s dungeons while awaiting execution.

Don't frown, friend,— we are only sparks of life,
We are stars flying in the darkness...
We will go out, but the bright day of the Fatherland
Will rise on our sunny land.

Both courage and loyalty are next to us,
And that's all - what makes our youth strong...
Well, my friend, don't have timid hearts
We will meet death. She's not scary to us.

No, nothing disappears without a trace,
The darkness outside the prison walls does not last forever.
And the young - someday - will know
How we lived and how we died!

Moabit notebooks are sheets of decayed paper covered in the small handwriting of the Tatar poet Musa Jalil in the dungeons of the Berlin Moabit prison, where the poet died in 1944 (executed). Despite his death in captivity, in the USSR after the war, Jalil, like many others, was considered a traitor, and a search was opened. He was accused of treason and aiding the enemy. In April 1947, the name of Musa Jalil was included in the list of especially dangerous criminals, although everyone understood perfectly well that the poet had been executed. Jalil was one of the leaders of the underground organization in the fascist concentration camp. In April 1945, when Soviet troops stormed the Reichstag, in the empty Berlin Moabit prison, among the books of the prison library scattered by the explosion, the fighters found a piece of paper on which was written in Russian: “I, famous poet Musa Jalil, imprisoned in the Moabit prison as a prisoner, facing political charges and, probably, will soon be shot ... "

Musa Jalil (Zalilov) was born in the Orenburg region, the village of Mustafino, in 1906, the sixth child in the family. His mother was the daughter of a mullah, but Musa himself did not show much interest in religion - in 1919 he joined the Komsomol. He began writing poetry at the age of eight, and before the start of the war he published 10 collections of poetry. When I studied at the literary faculty of Moscow State University, I lived in the same room with the now famous writer Varlam Shalamov, who described him in the story “Student Musa Zalilov”: “Musa Zalilov was short in stature and fragile in build. Musa was a Tatar and, like any “national”, he was received more than warmly in Moscow. Musa had many advantages. Komsomolets - once! Tatar - two! Russian university student - three! Writer - four! Poet - five! Musa was a Tatar poet, muttering his verses in native language, and this captivated Moscow student hearts even more.”

Everyone remembers Jalil as an extremely life-loving person - he loved literature, music, sports, and friendly meetings. Musa worked in Moscow as an editor for Tatar children's magazines and headed the literature and art department of the Tatar newspaper Kommunist. Since 1935, he has been called to Kazan - the head of the literary department of the Tatar Opera and Ballet Theater. After much persuasion, he agrees and in 1939 he moves to Tataria with his wife Amina and daughter Chulpan. The man who occupied not the last place in the theater was also the executive secretary of the Writers' Union of Tatarstan, a deputy of the Kazan city council, when the war began, he had the right to remain in the rear. But Jalil refused the armor.

July 13, 1941 Jalil receives a summons. First, he was sent to courses for political workers. Then - the Volkhov Front. He ended up in the famous Second Shock Army, in the editorial office of the Russian newspaper “Courage”, located among swamps and rotten forests near Leningrad. “My dear Chulpanochka! Finally I went to the front to beat the Nazis,” he wrote in a letter home. “The other day I returned from a ten-day business trip to parts of our front, I was on the front line, performing a special task. The trip was difficult, dangerous, but very interesting. I was under fire all the time. We didn’t sleep for three nights in a row and ate on the go. But I saw a lot,” he writes to his Kazan friend, literary critic Ghazi Kashshaf in March 1942. Jalil’s last letter from the front was also addressed to Kashshaf, in June 1942: “I continue to write poetry and songs. But rarely. There is no time, and the situation is different. There are fierce battles going on all around us right now. We fight hard, not for life, but for death...”

With this letter, Musa tried to smuggle all his written poems to the rear. Eyewitnesses say that he always carried a thick, battered notebook in his traveling bag, in which he wrote down everything he composed. But where this notebook is today is unknown. At the time he wrote this letter, the Second Shock Army was already completely surrounded and cut off from the main forces. Already in captivity, he will reflect this difficult moment in the poem “Forgive me, Motherland”: “The last moment - and there is no shot! My pistol has betrayed me...”

First - a prisoner of war camp near Siverskaya station Leningrad region. Then - the foothills of the ancient Dvina fortress. A new stage - on foot, past destroyed villages and hamlets - Riga. Then - Kaunas, outpost number 6 on the outskirts of the city. In the last days of October 1942, Jalil was brought to the Polish fortress of Deblin, built under Catherine II. The fortress was surrounded by several rows of barbed wire, and guard posts with machine guns and searchlights were installed. In Deblin, Jalil met Gaynan Kurmash. The latter, being a reconnaissance commander, in 1942, as part of a special group, was sent on a mission behind enemy lines and was captured by the Germans. Prisoners of war from the Volga and Urals nationalities - Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Mari, Mordvins, and Udmurts - were collected in Demblin.

The Nazis needed not only cannon fodder, but also people who could inspire legionnaires to fight against the Motherland. They were supposed to be educated people. Teachers, doctors, engineers. Writers, journalists and poets. In January 1943, Jalil, along with other selected “inspirers,” was brought to the Wustrau camp near Berlin. This camp was unusual. It consisted of two parts: closed and open. The first was the camp barracks familiar to prisoners, although they were designed for only a few hundred people. There were no towers or barbed wire around the open camp: clean one-story houses painted with oil paint, green lawns, flower beds, a club, a dining room, a rich library with books on different languages peoples of the USSR.

They were also sent to work, but in the evenings classes were held where the so-called educational leaders probed and selected people. Those selected were placed in the second territory - in an open camp, for which they were required to sign the appropriate paper. In this camp, prisoners were taken to the dining room, where a hearty lunch awaited them, to the bathhouse, after which they were given clean linen and civilian clothes. Then classes were held for two months. The prisoners studied the government structure of the Third Reich, its laws, the program and the charter of the Nazi Party. Classes were held on German language. Lectures on the history of Idel-Ural were given to the Tatars. For Muslims - classes on Islam. Those who completed the courses were given money, a civil passport and other documents. They were sent to work assigned by the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Regions - to German factories, scientific organizations or legions, military and political organizations.

In the closed camp, Jalil and his like-minded people carried out underground work. The group already included journalist Rahim Sattar, children's writer Abdulla Alish, engineer Fuat Bulatov, and economist Garif Shabaev. For the sake of appearances, they all agreed to cooperate with the Germans, as Musa put it, in order to “blow up the legion from the inside.” In March, Musa and his friends were transferred to Berlin. Musa was listed as an employee of the Tatar Committee of the Eastern Ministry. He did not hold any specific position in the committee; he carried out individual assignments, mainly on cultural and educational work among prisoners of war.

Meetings of the underground committee, or Jalilites, as it is common among researchers to call Jalil’s associates, took place under the guise of friendly parties. The ultimate goal was the uprising of the legionnaires. For purposes of secrecy, the underground organization consisted of small groups of 5-6 people each. Among the underground workers were those who worked in the Tatar newspaper published by the Germans for legionnaires, and they were faced with the task of making the work of the newspaper harmless and boring, and preventing the appearance of anti-Soviet articles. Someone worked in the radio broadcasting department of the Ministry of Propaganda and established the reception of Sovinformburo reports. The underground also organized the production of anti-fascist leaflets in Tatar and Russian - they printed them on a typewriter and then reproduced them on a hectograph.

The activities of the Jalilites could not go unnoticed. In July 1943, far in the east, Battle of Kursk, which ended in the complete failure of the German Citadel plan. At this time, the poet and his comrades are still free. But the Security Directorate already had a solid dossier on each of them. The last meeting of the underground took place on August 9. On it, Musa said that contact with the partisans and the Red Army had been established. The uprising was scheduled for August 14. However, on August 11, all the “cultural propagandists” were summoned to the soldiers’ canteen, supposedly for a rehearsal. Here all the “artists” were arrested. In the courtyard - to intimidate - Jalil was beaten in front of the detainees.

Jalil knew that he and his friends were doomed to execution. In the face of his death, the poet experienced an unprecedented creative surge. He realized that he had never written like this before. He was in a hurry. It was necessary to leave what was thought out and accumulated to the people. At this time he writes not only patriotic poems. His words contain not only longing for his homeland, loved ones, or hatred of Nazism. Surprisingly, they contain lyrics and humor.

"Let the wind of death be colder than ice,
he will not disturb the petals of the soul.
The look shines again with a proud smile,
and, forgetting the vanity of the world,
I want again, without knowing any barriers,
write, write, write without getting tired.”

In Moabit, Andre Timmermans, a Belgian patriot, was sitting in a “stone bag” with Jalil. Musa used a razor to cut strips from the margins of the newspapers that were brought to the Belgian. From this he was able to stitch notebooks. On the last page of the first notebook with poems, the poet wrote: “To a friend who can read Tatar: this was written by the famous Tatar poet Musa Jalil... He fought at the front in 1942 and was captured. ...He will be sentenced to death. He will die. But he will have 115 poems left, written in captivity and imprisonment. He's worried about them. Therefore, if a book falls into your hands, carefully and carefully copy them out, save them and after the war report them to Kazan, publish them as poems by a deceased poet of the Tatar people. This is my will. Musa Jalil. 1943. December."

The death sentence for the Jalilevites was handed down in February 1944. They were executed only in August. During six months of imprisonment, Jalil also wrote poetry, but none of them reached us. Only two notebooks containing 93 poems have survived. Nigmat Teregulov took the first notebook out of prison. He transferred it to the Writers' Union of Tatarstan in 1946. Soon Teregulov was arrested in the USSR and died in a camp. The second notebook, along with things, was sent to Andre Timmermans' mother; it was also transferred to Tataria through the Soviet embassy in 1947. Today, the real Moabit notebooks are kept in the literary collection of the Kazan Jalil Museum.

On August 25, 1944, 11 Jalilevites were executed in the Plötzensee prison in Berlin by guillotine. In the “charge” column on the cards of the convicted it was written: “Undermining power, assisting the enemy.” Jalil was executed fifth, the time was 12:18. An hour before the execution, the Germans arranged a meeting between the Tatars and the mullah. Memories recorded from his words have been preserved. Mulla did not find words of consolation, and the Jalilevites did not want to communicate with him. Almost without words, he handed them the Koran - and they all, placing their hands on the book, said goodbye to life. The Koran was brought to Kazan in the early 1990s and is kept in this museum. It is still not known where the grave of Jalil and his associates is located. This haunts neither Kazan nor German researchers.

Jalil guessed how the Soviet authorities would react to the fact that he had been in German captivity. In November 1943, he wrote the poem “Don’t Believe!”, which is addressed to his wife and begins with the lines:

“If they bring you news about me,
They will say: “He is a traitor! He betrayed his homeland,”
Don't believe it, dear! The word is
My friends won’t tell me if they love me.”

In the USSR, in the post-war years, the MGB (NKVD) opened a search case. His wife was summoned to the Lubyanka, she went through interrogations. The name of Musa Jalil disappeared from the pages of books and textbooks. Collections of his poems are no longer in libraries. When songs based on his words were performed on the radio or from the stage, it was usually said that the words were folk. The case was closed only after Stalin's death for lack of evidence. In April 1953, six poems from the Moabit notebooks were published for the first time in Literaturnaya Gazeta, on the initiative of its editor Konstantin Simonov. The poems received a wide response. Then - Hero of the Soviet Union (1956), laureate (posthumously) of the Lenin Prize (1957) ... In 1968, the film “The Moabit Notebook” was shot at the Lenfilm studio.

From a traitor, Jalil turned into one whose name became a symbol of devotion to the Motherland. In 1966, a monument to Jalil, created by the famous sculptor V. Tsegal, was erected near the walls of the Kazan Kremlin, which still stands there today.

In 1994, a bas-relief representing the faces of his ten executed comrades was unveiled nearby on a granite wall. For many years now, twice a year - on February 15 (the birthday of Musa Jalil) and August 25 (the anniversary of the execution) ceremonial rallies are held at the monument with the laying of flowers. What the poet wrote about in one of his last letters from the front to his wife: “I’m not afraid of death. This is not an empty phrase. When we say that we despise death, this is actually true. A great feeling of patriotism, a full awareness of one’s social function, dominates the feeling of fear. When the thought of death comes, you think like this: there is still life beyond death. Not the “life in the next world” that priests and mullahs preached. We know that this is not the case. But there is life in the consciousness, in the memory of the people. If during my lifetime I did something important, immortal, then I deserved another life - “life after death”

Musa Mustafovich Zalilov (Dzhalilov)
(2 (15) February 1906 - 25 August 1944)

DINA NEMIROVSKAYA

MONUMENT TO JALIL

In our city, the street where the regional children's library is located, above the porch of which there is a memorial plaque in honor of the fearless warrior, and the theater for young spectators are named after the poet-hero Musa Jalil (1906-1944). On May 13, 2017, a bust was erected in Astrakhan in his honor. Astrakhan regional branch of the political party " Communist Party Russian Federation» together with Astrakhan regional office The all-Russian public organization "Union of Writers of Russia" annually holds a competition of patriotic poetry and prose named after Musa Jalil.

Musa Jalil (Musa Mustafovich Zalilov) was born in the Tatar village of Mustafino in the former Orenburg province (now Sharlyk district of the Orenburg region) on February 2 (15), 1906 in a peasant family. At the age of six he went to study at a rural mekteb, where within a year he mastered the basics of literacy and memorized several suras from the Koran. Soon the family moved to Orenburg in search of a better life. The father managed to place his son in the Khusainiya madrasah. It was considered a “new method”, that is, a progressive madrasah at that time. Along with the obligatory cramming of the Koran and all kinds of religious scholasticism, secular disciplines were also studied here, and lessons in native literature, drawing and singing were taught.

During the civil war, Orenburg became the scene of fierce battles, power alternately passed from one force to another: first the Dutovites and then the Kolchakites established their own rules. In the Orenburg caravanserai (hotel for visitors), twelve-year-old Musa saw the bloody corpses of Red Army soldiers, women and children, hacked to pieces by White Cossacks during a night raid. Before his eyes, Kolchak’s army established “firm power” - it requisitioned livestock, took away horses, arrested and shot sympathizers of Soviet power. Musa went to rallies and meetings, voraciously read newspapers and brochures.

When in the spring of 1919, in Orenburg, surrounded by the White Guards, a Komsomol organization arose, thirteen-year-old Musa enlisted in the ranks of the Youth Union and rushed to the front. But they don’t take him into the detachment: he is small, frail, he looks like just a boy. Returning to his native village after the death of his father, Jalil creates the children's communist organization "Red Flower". In 1920, on the initiative of Musa, a Komsomol cell appeared in Mustafina. Ebullient and active by nature, Musa becomes the recognized leader of rural youth. He is elected a member of the volost committee of the RKSM and is sent as a delegate to the provincial Komsomol conference.

Musa did not just campaign for new life, but he also defended the young Soviet power with arms in hand: in special forces units he fought against white gangs. On May 27, 1920, V.I. Lenin signed a decree proclaiming the formation of the Tatar Autonomous Republic within the RSFSR. A solid basis has emerged for the development of the national economy, science and culture. Young Tatar writers, musicians, and artists, obsessed with the desire to take part in the formation of a new art, come to Kazan.

In the fall of 1922, sixteen-year-old Jalil also moved to Kazan. “I was led... inspired by faith in my poetic power,” he later wrote (“My Path of Life”).

On the very first day of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Musa Jalil volunteered to join the ranks of the active army.

In June 1942, on the Volkhov Front, he was seriously wounded and captured by enemies. In the concentration camp, Musa carried out active underground work, for which he was thrown into the fascist prison Moabit. A prisoner of the terrible Moabit prison, who received a death sentence at a trial in Dresden in March 1944, Jalil spent six months in enemy captivity and did not break in spirit, creating the heroic “Moabit Notebooks” in fascist dungeons for those already sentenced to execution:

The gallows awaits me every day,
I'm getting closer to her every morning.
My whole life from now on is just a dream,
Joy is in a dream, heavy, vague,
And rarely through the bars a ray of dawn
He will come here with warmth, with sympathy.
Then it seems to me: it came to me
Covering yourself with a scarlet handkerchief, happiness.

On August 25, 1944, on the execution site of Europe, in the Pletzensee prison, Musa Jalil was beheaded along with his companions. What kind of fortitude must one have in order to continue to write not just poetry, but unique documents of poetic significance, for six months while awaiting the cruel death penalty, knowing for sure that he has been sentenced!

Musa Jalil visited Astrakhan in July 1933 at the First Interdistrict Congress of Shock Fishermen. A few days before the convening of the congress, Musa got acquainted with the city, visited the fishing grounds, and talked with the arriving delegates. And Musa Jalil stayed in the house of the chairman of the Kilinchi collective farm, Ibragim Makhmudovich Makhmudov, whose grandson, Nail Bashirov, editor of the newspaper "Mig", treated family memories with care. Thanks to him, we know about the “Kilinchin Summer of Jalil.” This way the connection between the past and the present is not interrupted.

This is how well-known Astrakhan blogger Damir Shamardanov writes about that time in Live Journal, referring to the book of historical and literary essays about the Lower Volga region “In the Land of a Thousand Rivers” by Nikolai Sergeevich Travushkin (Volgograd Nizhnee-Volga Book Publishing House, 1988): “At that time, a Tatar newspaper was published in the Lower Volga region - “Yalkon” (“Flame”), its editorial office was located in Astrakhan. Musa Jalil met its employees who came to the Dergachevsky district, and soon they published a joint issue of the newspapers “Kommunist” and “Yalkon”, edited by Musa Jalil.

Having finished his business in the Saratov region, Musa Jalil went to Astrakhan. He arrived on July 20 and immediately felt the intense pulse of the reconstruction of life in the region. Workers of the Astrakhan district were preparing for the opening of the First Interdistrict Congress of Shock Fishermen. By this time, the unification of scattered fishing farms had largely been completed, and the collective farm movement had strengthened. A few days before the convening of the congress, Musa got acquainted with the city, visited the fields, and talked with the arriving delegates. He listened with great interest to the speeches at the congress, and during breaks asked participants about the successes of individual farms.

But a tragic note was also heard at the congress: the class struggle made itself felt cruelly, and the collective farm system had enemies. In the village of Durnoye (now the village of Rassvet), kulak Nekozyrev, while sweeping a seine, threw off his strap and pushed the young collective farmer Marusya Shurayeva, who was walking with him, into the rapids of the river.

Musa Jalil gave correspondence to the Yalkon newspaper about the shock workers of the Krasnoyarsk region, about the death of Marusya; it was published on July 27 under his initials. “Because a woman on a collective farm is a great force,” Jalil wrote, “the fist of Nekozyrev drowned the best shock worker Shurayeva.” Excited by the death of the girl, Musa immediately wrote a poem and the next day read it at a literary evening in the building of the Tatar Pedagogical College. A day later, he read “The Fisher Girl’s Song” on the radio; it was also published in the “Yalkon” newspaper.

This poem is immediately remembered. It is noticeable in any collection of the poet’s works. The tragic incident, taken from the life of a Volga village, is not retold in the poem; the poet transforms it into the image of the harsh Caspian Sea, threatening disaster; and the lyrical picture of the labor courage of the fishermen is given in a light, major tone: the girl does not die, she waits for her beloved to return from the sea, sings about brave people who know how to withstand the elements:

Tame yourself, gray Caspian wave,
You prevent me from listening and watching.
Old Caspian, I didn’t come here to you -
I was attracted to a young fisherman,
What sings, pulling out its net.
But the evil Caspian does not want to pacify:
He pulled out his foamy lips slyly,
So that the fisherwoman can profit from it as prey.
Leave! The fisherman is not afraid of you.
Leave! And don't touch our girl!

The stay of the poet, already famous in the country at that time, in the Lower Volga was an important event in the cultural life of the region. It is worth leafing through the binder of the regional newspaper “Yalkon” (bound sets of it can only be obtained in archives and large all-Union libraries). "Yalkon" captured the contribution of the journalist and poet to the rapid progress of the first five-year plans. The newspaper advertised his public appearances, published his biography and portrait, and a large poem, “Song of the Volga,” brought from the Dergachevsky district. At the beginning of August, the poet was already in the Tatar village of Kilinchi, about twenty kilometers from Astrakhan, located in the heart of the delta, in a beautiful, green area. Jalil visited the vegetable growing team and visited the gardeners; The newspaper “Yalkon” carried his notes about the affairs of collective farmers, about the struggle for labor discipline, for instilling a collectivist spirit among people. Half a century has passed, but the village has not forgotten that he stayed and worked with them for two weeks good man, correspondent Musa Jalil. He lived with the chairman of the collective farm, Ibragim Makhmudovich Makhmudov. His grandson Nail Bashirov has preserved an impressive folder of newspaper clippings, documents and records dating back to that ancient time.

The newspaper “Komsomolets Kaspiya” published a meaningful essay by N. Bashirov, “The Kilinchin Summer of Jalil.” Ibrahim Makhmudovich and his wife Saliha, and other residents of the village, retained many characteristic details in their memory. Neatly dressed, in a snow-white shirt, polite, sociable, a lot knowledgeable person capable of telling a joke - this is how Musa appears in the memories of old-timers.

Jalil significantly helped to establish order on the collective farm with his articles in the Yalkon newspaper. Some literary notes The mousses were published on August 5 under the heading “Collective farmers of the village of Kilinchi are fighting for labor discipline”: “The fifth brigade in tow”, “Collective farm fields do not have enough water”, “At the shock workers’ table”. Here successes and shortcomings were noted, names and specific facts were given. Jalil said that in one of the brigades, food for lunch was given out of two cauldrons: one was for shock workers, the other for quitters. That’s what the note is called: “There were two boilers...”

Impressions from the Astrakhan trip also appeared in the central Tatar newspaper “Kommunist”, when the poet was already in Moscow. On August 27, his poem “Scow No. 24” was published. It contrasts pictures of life in the old and new Caspian Seas, and the image of a young fisherman reappears. The Komsomol girl Aidzhan, “giving her unruly braids to the winds, dries the net, laughs and sings songs.” On September 9, an entire column in Kommunist was devoted to an article by Jalil (signed “Musa”) about the affairs of the Kalinin collective farm in the village of Kilinchi. Here again we are talking about the struggle for order, about careless people, satirical couplets about the collective farmer Latifah taken from the wall newspaper are given. One might think that Musa himself wrote these poems in Kilinchi.

The trip to the Lower Volga was remembered by the poet for a long time; it enriched him with themes and ideas. In 1935, Jalil had to manage the literary part of the Tatar opera studio then created in Moscow; Later, the Opera and Ballet Theater was opened in Kazan. Jalil wrote the libretto for the opera “Altynchech” (“Golden Hair”) for the new theater, and it was successfully staged in July 1941. And in plans for a long time there was another Tatar opera - about a fisherman girl. The songs “Sailors” and “Waves” were created (the music was composed by composer D. Faizi); Texts were also written for the fishermen's choir and for the fisherwoman's aria. Jalil also wrote poems about fishermen in Moabit prison...

The poet-hero in Kilinchi is known to literally every resident. A street is named after him. A museum has been created at the school - it contains books and collections of articles, photographs, gifts from the poet’s family, from his daughter Chulpan. At the House of Culture on the poet’s birthday there is a literary holiday, the concert opens with the song “Red Daisy”, it is performed in the Tatar language. Poets from Astrakhan perform at the evening, entries are made in the guest book of the school museum. The glorious name of the patriotic poet gives rise to high feelings in the souls of people.”

Jalil's poems, which he wrote in his native Tatar language, are still read at university evenings and enjoy well-deserved success.

Jalil has these lines:

I will not bend my knees, executioner, before you,
Although I am your prisoner, I am a slave in your prison.
When my time comes, I will die. But know this: I will die standing,
Although you will cut off my head, villain.

Alas, not a thousand, but only a hundred in battle
I was able to destroy such executioners.
For this, when I return, I will ask for forgiveness,
I bowed my knees at my homeland.

(“To the Executioner”, translation by S. Lipkin)

Memoirs of eyewitnesses bring to us the scene of the trial of a group of underground fighters. Musa Jalil spoke on behalf of the accused. “WE DID NOT KNEEL. WE HAVE PERFORMED OUR DUTY AS SOVIET PEOPLE,” the poet so proudly responded to all attempts to buy those sentenced to death with the promise of life, at the price of a shameful betrayal. No one knows what was in the poet’s soul during these last months of awaiting execution. The answer to this is in the verses of Musa Jalil:

ABOUT HEROISM

The brave are always recognized in battle,
The hero is tested in grief.
The fight requires courage, horseman
He who is brave goes into battle with hope.
With courage, freedom is like granite,
He who does not know courage is a slave.
You cannot be saved by prayer if the enemy
We will be taken captive by iron chains.
But don't have shackles on your hands,
Saber striking enemies.
If life passes without a trace
In baseness, in captivity, what is honor?
There is beauty only in freedom of life!
Only in a brave heart there is eternity!

Musa Jalil was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. He was right to say:

I dedicated my song to the people,
I give my life to the people.

The installation of a bust of Musa Jalil in the Astrakhan park of ASU was preceded by these poems written in 2013:

LET'S PLACE A MONUMENT TO MUSA JALIL!

It happens that there are no names or surnames
And feats accomplished on exact dates.
Let's erect a monument to Musa Jalil
In the name of all underground soldiers.
Not for the sake of orders, awards and titles
Jalil blew up in fascist captivity
In the name of the stars of Moscow, the lights of Kazan
German Legion "Idel - Ural".
But the insidious villains found out
Miracles did not descend on Earth,
When in the dark dungeons of Plötzensee
The valiant Musa was beheaded.
Six months in the twilight of Moambit
In the fog of torture, moldy walls
He wrote poetry proudly and openly,
Without bending my knees before the executioners.
When else, when not on the anniversary
Victorious, clear, bright peaceful year
The time has come for us to bend our knees
Before those who, sensing death ahead,
I composed poems that I couldn’t even dream of
Write to all those who breathed by will.
Let's erect a monument to Musa Jalil!
The sixth berth misses him.

Literary translation from the Tatar language of the poem “Instruction” by Musa Jalil
MUSA JALIL
Interlinear translation by A.R. Khalitova
INSTRUCTION
How many elephant people have I seen,
In which power is the basis of all foundations.
I saw the power of the body, but not the spirit.
Sisyphus's work is as big as a sparrow's knees.

What is the use of such strength?
When you bend iron with your hand
For no reason, for the sake of boasting?
Foreheads are impenetrable

For those who only brag sometimes.
For those around him, that caliph for an hour,
Who is thick-skinned at heart, like an elephant,
At the same time, he is not strong in fortitude.

So live your life in the world,
So that they say about you: “Man!”
So that chains and prison do not break,
Live your life profitably, with clarity of mind.

Be your life a cherished beacon
For the generations that will come later.
After all, they are strong not with the sword, but with loyalty
Heroes who crushed minds.

Live for the glory of your Motherland!
Be glorified by your work until the end of your days!
To the one in whom the conscience is clear, like crystal,
The people's path will not be overgrown!
(Translated by Dina Nemirovskaya)

Today, on the eve of the day of the poet’s death, our portal publishes the front-line lyrics of Musa Jalil. The world knew many poet-heroes, but before Jalil, he did not know one who, knowing for sure that he was sentenced to beheading, wrote lightly and sunnyly in prison dungeons.
FRONT POEMS OF MUSA JALIL
This poem by Musa Jalil not only has not lost its relevance, but has acquired a new meaning:
BROTHERHOOD

Our fraternal union, Ukraine,
Like steel, tempered in fire,
You saw the blood and ruins,
You were nailed to the wall.

Your fertile steppes
The Nazis trampled and burned.
How bitter, how terrible the ashes were
The fire of the scorched earth.

Brothers and sisters remember
Those dark years when
The sadness of unsociable graveyards
Lay down on your cities.

The enemy rushed with dark force
For everything that is so sacred to us.
He dared to desecrate the grave,
Where does your great Taras sleep?

You have endured a lot of torture.
The days were blacker than each other.
But you also fought in captivity,
And your anger burned more and more intensely.

Nothing can measure our strength,
Since peoples live in friendship.
And how could you not believe,
That the brothers will come to the rescue.

They came with one will
To my sister, who was languishing from her wounds.
And among them was Ukraine,
Your reliable brother is Tatarstan.

He told his sons to be fearless
An avalanche passes over the Dnieper,
To free the fields and arable lands
And warm every home with happiness.

Did you know: dashing horsemen
In battles there are no barriers.
They swore to defend
And they will stand up and protect you.

There are many of us in a big and united
The mighty Soviet family.
Our fraternal union, Ukraine,
Like steel, tempered in fire.

March 1942
Volkhov Front
AGAINST THE ENEMY

Turning many countries into black coal,
Piles of bodies scattered along the roads, fields,
Evil Hitler, bloodthirsty beast,
Now he is reaching out to us with his dirty paws.
He wants to incinerate our land,
And turn free people into slaves,
He wants the wealth of our country
Carried away by a pack of fascist dogs.
To our lushly blooming spring garden,
Into the garden of freedom, cultivated by our labor,
He broke in, carrying shameful chains,
He swung his bloody ax at us.
In our silver, cheerful stream
He wants to wash his stained hands,
Sunbathe under the hot sun in Crimea,
And our little children - to strangle!..
Grinding, spitting out a fiery bark,
He tramples our land step by step.
He comes - the enemy of freedom and beauty,
Humanity's worst enemy!
We lit the dawn over our native country.
We won the fight and made our dreams come true.
Not for greedy fascists - for ourselves
We raised flowers that never fade.
The Fatherland flourished year after year -
She led the working people to a bright life,
Golden flowers of happiness rose
The sweat we honestly shed.
There is no place for a robber in our country,
The villain will not save his own head,
A hail of bombs and shells will fall on him
The anger and hatred of our people.
All their thoughts and feelings are directed
To one thing: so that the fascist beast perishes!
Human blood
What he swallowed for so many years,
Let's make him burp now.
Let this mad dog about our ranks
He will crush his stone forehead, -
The enemy brought an evil flame to our region,
He will burn himself in this flame!

INTO THE LAST BATTLE

Robbers are rushing into our father's house,
To take away happiness from your native country.
Arise, our land, to fight the enemy,
We are entering the storm, the last battle!
Let's open fire
By the fascist horde


The enemy couldn't stand up!
Stand up for the defense of the Fatherland, people,
Blooming under the sun of happy days,
Let Hitler's damn head break
O our ranks, what armor is stronger.

On land, at sea, in the sky - everywhere!
Chop at the root, knock you down
The enemy couldn't stand up!
To the golden steppes where wheat grows,
Let the enemy not pull his greedy claws, -
Not gold grains, not sweet honey,
And the villain will get plenty of lead.
Let's open fire on the fascist horde
On land, at sea, in the sky - everywhere!
Chop at the root, knock you down
The enemy couldn't stand up!
We bring death to the fascist killer,
We will carry out the final judgment on him:
Our bombs will fall like burning rain
And his ashes will be carried to the wind.
Let's open fire on the fascist horde
On land, at sea, in the sky - everywhere.
Chop at the root, knock you down
The enemy couldn't stand up!

ARTILLERIST'S OATH

You were silent for a long time, steel guns,
On guard, frozen in border silence.
But the order has been given, and the time has come
Express all hatred to the angry soul.

Hitler forgot about human words,
His words are blood and poisoned smoke,
And only in one language - weapon -
Now I have to talk to him.

Oh, our fields, silky fields!
With heavy guns to the front line
We are in a hurry to meet the hordes of fascists
Bring down a stream of shells.

And in the volleys that smash the fascist evil spirits, -
All the hatred of our Soviet country:
All the blood of the innocent, all the tears of the unfortunate
Now they are reflected in this flame.

I'll aim the pupil of my gun at you,
And when I burst out, I will destroy your nesting place!
I'll shoot your herds of tanks at point-blank range
And I’ll fill your corpse with lumps of clay!

For the blood of your victims and for the heaps of the slain,
For the sorrow of mothers and for the tears of children
May my heavy projectile be retribution -
The striking lightning of my vengeance.

May it cut through the sky like a word of curse,
It will collapse on the heads of vile gangs...
The sight is calculated, the battery is ready,
Give the command quickly, Lieutenant!

Say with a tongue of fire, my gun,
Damn Hitler has his verdict,
Spit in the face of this reptile, my gun,
Enemies are doomed to defeat and shame.

Let the projectile flash like thunderous lightning
And smoke rises up like a heavy cloud,
So that the remains of the fascists fly into the sky,
So that not a single enemy remains alive!

MY DAUGHTER CHULPAN

I stood on duty, and in the dawn darkness
The Chulpan star was rising,
Like my daughter Chulpan on earth
She held out her hands to me then.

When I left, why were you sad?
Did you look into your father's eyes?
Didn't you know what was next to you
Does my heart beat to the end?

Or did you think that separation is bitter,
What, like death, is separation terrible?
After all, love for you forever, forever
My whole soul is full.

I left and saw in the carriage window
My sweet daughter's features.
For me, you lit up like a star in the heights,
You were the morning of my life.

You and your mother, you two lit up,
So that life is not dark.
What a bright, glorious life
Our country gave us.

But the Nazis invaded our country.
They raised an ax over her.
They burn and rob, they wage war.
We enter into a mortal dispute with them.

But the fascist will not take away our happiness,
I then rushed into battle.
If I fall, I'll fall face first
To block you with myself.

I will protect you with all my blood in battle,
I will take an oath to my Motherland,
And I will find the star Chulpan at dawn,
And again I will be glad to see her.

My blood will not dry up in your blood,
A daughter born into the world by me.
I will give you the thrill of my love,
To sleep peacefully underground.

Burn brighter and brighter
Reflect my anxiety.
I don’t care about your happiness or death,
I will greet her with a smile.

Goodbye, Chulpan! And when the dawn
Will flare up over the whole country,
I will return to you, with the victory of grief,
With his machine gun behind his back.

Both father and daughter - we will hug,
And, laughing easily through tears,
We will see how after the storm and darkness
A clear day rises high.

GO MY SONG!

In you, my song, heartbeats,
In love with the Motherland, embodied.
You sounded like an oath: “And live and work,
And die for our country!”

In the red-sunny garden of friendship and happiness,
Like a fresh branch, tender and light,
Permeated with joy, people's affection,
You have brought a lot of good fruits.

You reflected the days of the Soviet Fatherland -
Their glory, freedom, the height of their labors.
It was in full swing - and young hearts
You ignited with sparks of words...

The fascists appeared - with their pig snouts
The gates of the Soviet country were broken into...
Their bloody ax hung over Europe,
All peoples must work for them...

The hour has struck! We interrupted halfway
Our peaceful rise... The time has come
To give to the war for the Fatherland without a trace
All the best powers of soul and pen.

Forward, my argamak! Fly with wings
Fly like a whirlwind to the battle plains.
The fire of my song is like a red-hot spear
I hold it in my hands, tense and stern.

I put the feather in my travel bag,
And next to him hangs a machine gun over his shoulder, -
Let bullets and songs be with me
And together the damned fascists are smashed.

Let in a song flying through the waves of the ether,
The voice of the working country is heard,
And let this song be like a menacing bomb
It will explode over the predatory fascist horde!..

Sound my song! On the national banner
Become a flaming prophetic word.
And, inspiring hearts with a thirst for victory,
Strike all cities and villages.

Forward, my song! The time has come:
We go to the battlefield together:
We will cut the black soul of fascism,
And we’ll throw the disgusting corpses to the dogs.

Forward, my song! With heroic courage
It's time for us to rush into battle,
And if I die, you, song, remain,
As a monument to our immortal deeds.

August 1941

GOODBYE MY SMART GIRL
Amine

I send it to you with the wind.
I send you my heart,
Where the flame does not fade, blazing.

I saw you leaving Kazan,
Kremlin white walls,
It seemed like you were waving a handkerchief from the balcony,
And your appearance faded gradually.

It seemed like you were looking into my face for a long time
With a brilliant, excited look,
And I, comforting you, kissed you,
It's like you're next to me.

My dear friend, I left you
With hot and passionate hope.
So I will fight so that it’s bold in your eyes
See our homeland clear.

How joyful it will be when you arrive in victory,
It hurts to hug you!
What could be better? But I'm at war
Where anything can happen.

Goodbye, my smart girl! If fate
Send me a mortal wound
Until the very last minute
I will look at your face.

Goodbye, my smart girl! At my hour of death,
When you have to part,
The soul, before it fades away forever,
It will light up with the glow of the past.

The chills will subside in a warm embrace,
And I, like living water,
I'll feel it on my dead lips
The warmth of your kiss.

And, looking at the stars, at the sweet eyes
I will languish to death,
And the palms of the wind are like your hands,
Coolness will fall on the wound.

And only love will remain in the heart
To you and your native land,
And the last lines with your blood
I will write about her as I die.

So as not to give our happiness to our enemies,
I left you, dear...
I, the wounded one, will fall chest first,
Blocking the enemy's path.

My sleep will be calm and joyful,
If I give life to the Fatherland,
And the immortal heart is in your heart
It will beat like it did during life.

Goodbye, my smart girl. This hello
I send you with the wind,
I send you my heart,
Where the flame does not fade, blazing.

August 1941

IN MEMORY OF A FRIEND

You went into your outfit, and immediately it became
It's somehow very sad without you.
Well, will you be so sad about your friend,
When will it be my turn?

We've been through so much together,
Bound by front-line friendship!
We would never be separated until the end,
You and I would like to go to the end!

And when we return with victory
To our hometown - you and me,
How much joy and affection awaits us,
How they will greet us!.. Oh, dreams, dreams!

We were between life and death
So many days!.. And how many are ahead?!
Will we remember the past?
Will we fall with a bullet in our chest?

If, having served your Fatherland,
I will sleep eternally in my grave,
Are you sad about your poet-friend,
Wandering the streets of Kazan?

Our friendship was cemented by blood and fire.
That's why she's so strong!
We will stand up for each other to the death,
If separation is destined for us.

The Fatherland looks at its soldiers,
Like they destroy fire with fire...
We swore a military oath,
That we will come back with victory.

September 1941

If the heart is not a stone, then it is clear to you -
The heart of a soldier is not made of stone.
It’s hard even to part with clothes sometimes,
If you once got along with her.

I saved my fighting fuse in battles,
The strength of hands that have overcome fatigue,
And courage... But my helmet has a star
Left at the distant trench.

There is a forest in front of us... Enemy batteries
They fell like a wave of fire,
And a crimson arc connected
Flaming sky and earth.

I stood up to take a better look at the forest,
And instantly two evil bullets
They whistled, almost piercing my temple,
They slid on my steel helmet.

This means that the enemy sniper made his way forward
And patiently watches the goal...
Even for two seconds, you scoundrel, he won’t let you
Rise above the narrow gap!

I took off my helmet, on the parapet in front of me
He put it down quietly, with caution.
And now my enemy is shooting accurately
He raised dust over his broken helmet.

Wait a minute, my dear, your ardor is in vain,
You won't live long in this world!
I managed to notice where he was hitting from,
And without missing a bullet he answered...

And a little later we went on the attack,
A thunderous “hurray” was heard.
And the bullet-pierced helmet is covered in dust
Lying near the old trench...

She served, poor thing... And yet, friends,
Something trembled in the soldier’s heart:
And it’s impossible to part with clothes without pain,
If you once fought in it.

Not a piece of equipment - a weapon in battle -
You fought with me everywhere.
Silent friend, you saved my life,
I will never forget you.

FROM THE HOSPITAL

I'm wounded...When I go to the trench early in the morning
Enemy vehicles rushed
I threw a grenade at the nearest tank,
And suddenly my hand weakened...

A grenade, spattered with my blood,
I managed to blow it up
And the flame illuminated the trench for a moment,
What a triumph for my revenge.

It seemed to me: I see the glory of the Fatherland
And I realized the sweetness of victory.
And there was almost no life in the heart anymore,
And, hugging the earth, I fell silent...

I’m lying in the ward... Melancholy, ill health.
But don't worry, wife,
Let the last drop of blood splash
There will be no stain on the oath!

I may be wounded in the hand, but I will endure the wound,
I’ll forget about the stray bullet, -
I mourn for my Motherland, seriously wounded,
About the troubles of our dear Fatherland.

The damned vulture torments with its claws
Great heart of the country,
Ukrainian huts are burning in the steppes,
The villages were burned by the enemy.

Rivers swell from mother's tears,
And leaving no traces,
In the gaping abyss they perish forever
The fruits of inspired labors.

And a cloud swollen with blood and tears,
Darkening the dawn, it floats...
So will the sacred flame go out,
What is the heart calling for retribution?!

And what about my wound? After all, tears are foggy
My country's sad gaze!
I still have enough strength and blood
Fight enemies head-on.

In vain the enemies rejoiced, believing
To my hasty death:
I killed ten German officers
In a difficult but glorious battle.

But I am wounded: drops of my own blood,
I burned the enemy like sparks...
Murderers, we are already preparing a shroud for you!
Our snow will cover you!

A ridiculous wound, a random wound
Treat quickly, doctors.
The fight is heating up... Will I fall behind?
It's time to return to the front!

Don’t worry about me, dear!
Until the war is over,
Let another anxiety torment you -
Anxiety for our country.

Don't waste your lonely tears on me,
Dedicate their flame to the country.
Say: “Get well, black-eyed horseman,
You must come victorious!”

I swear to you, Motherland, sacredly and firmly,
I swear to you by my wound:
Until the fascist hordes are defeated,
I can't see the sun's rays.

October 1941

LETTER FROM OXCHEN

Ghazi Kashshafu

Beloved friend!
From your letter
A living spring began to flow in my chest.
I read it, took my weapon
And he repeated the military oath.

I'm not tall. And in cramped conditions
Okopnoy doesn’t look like a hero at all.
But now in my heart, in my mind,
It seems to me that the whole world fits in.

My trench is narrow, today it’s a line
Hostile two worlds.
Here is darkness and light
We agreed
This is humanity's destiny
It takes hundreds of hundreds of years to decide.

And I feel, my friend, that the eyes
All peoples are now looking at us,
And, having breathed strength into us, here, to the front,
Their greetings and hopes fly.

And I hear all night long
The spindle sings incessantly.
For mittens for heroic sons
Without sleep, the mother spins sheep yarn.

I see our sister girls -
In the distance, in huge workshops, near the machines.
They make grenades for us
To quickly crush your enemies.

And I see - my Timurovites
They consult in the silence of courtyards,
How to help the family of a front-line soldier,
Cover the barn and prepare firewood.

Without leaving the factory for days,
The gray-haired worker works for us.
What is deeper than the feeling of friendship? Which is stronger
How does friendship inspire you in a terrible hour?

My weapon! I am your fire
Not only am I defending myself, I am
I send it to the fascists as an answer,
Like the judgment of my people.

No, the warmth of the heart will not cool down,
After all, it contains the warmth of my native country!
Hope will not go out if it
The hot breath of the whole country!

Let everything become more menacing above my trench
Death spreads its wings, the stronger
I love freedom, the brighter life is
Boils in my flaming blood!

Let there be tears in your eyes... But they could
Only a proud feeling of life to give birth.
What is higher than in battles for the native land
Is it courageous to live in a narrow trench?!...

Thank you friend! Like a pure spring,
Your letter refreshed my soul.
It was as if I felt the whole life of the country,
Freedom, courage, excess strength.

I kiss you goodbye warmly.
Oh, how, dear friend, I wish I could
Having defeated the fascists, again with you
Happy to meet you in your native country!

October 1941

TO SISTER INSHAR

Perhaps I will forget the sight of Menzelinsk,
His white silk snow outfit.
But the dark eyebrows will not be forgotten forever
And your silent, smiling look.

I always found you at work,
Whenever he comes - at dawn, in the evening...
I won’t hide: I loved you with all my heart,
How affectionate, like a sister.

I was received by your kind family,
I was protected by your warm roof,
And I’m glad that I managed to make strong friends
With you, Inshar, and with your Azat.

How much work there is in this small house
It passed through your deft hands!
Not just poetry - I would write a novel
About this perseverance, diligence, love.

And if you have a free hour,
You pick up a good book right away...
I wonder, dear Inshar: how can you
Work so hard and you don’t get tired?!

The other day I looked at you - and funny,
A naive thought suddenly came to me:
Let her be like Inshar, my daughter
Prompt at work, modest and sweet.

It’s like I’m admiring a wonderful flower
For your tenderly blooming youth.
The fire of this youth - bright lightning -
I would like to sparkle in my native land.

MENZELIN'S MEMORIES

Farewell, Menzelinsk! I'm leaving. It's time!
I didn't stay long. I won't be gone for another day.
Accept these lines of mine that were yesterday
Suddenly feeling sad, I wrote it as a joke.

Long live these streets and houses
And the gray, snowy horizon!
And may the lieutenants who arrived from the front
The most beautiful girls are driven crazy!

May your old ladies live long,
That people have been clinging to the spindles for a long time!
They have to cry now: battles
Young soldiers are called up to face bullets!

Long live the boys too! They,
Fighting in the streets, they “go on the attack”
And “Hitler” is aptly called these days
Someone's dog became hoarse from anger.

Long live the brewery!
On the square he stood like a fashionable girl.
I must admit that I feel sad:
You have to part with the cold foam.

May your Shunkar live for another hundred years!
He is not tired of thundering with acting fame.
But damn your theater for that
That he plays few plays these days.

Long live your every noisy bazaar!
You can hardly find tastier seeds than yours.
Long live the bathhouse, but only steam,
But if only they would let the water in more often!

Long live your club! He wouldn't be bad
Yes, polar bears are warmer than a den.
I would like to gather all the young daughters-in-law there,
So that they warm this club up a little.

Long live the brides! I feel sorry for them to the point of tears.
The lack of lipstick doesn't bother them.
But how do you resolve their most important question?
When are there not enough suitors in Menzel?

You need to think seriously about girls
After all, every accountant who loves specificity
The “groom’s question” is not taken into account
And they are deducted a tax for childlessness.

Farewell, friends! And forgive me
Joking lines. I'm going to fight.
I'll return if I stay alive in the war.
Happy staying, Menzelinsk.

November 1941

WHAT DID YOU DO?

Accelerate the defeat of the fascist horde.
Drive out the adversaries... Answer me, comrade

Only one duty: an armored strike
Break the backs of the enemy divisions.
Knock out their fangs!.. So answer:
What did you do for the front today?

Heavy clouds are darkening over the homeland.
Bloody paws hung over her, -
Have you thought about how the paws of fascism
Should I cut him off and throw him out quickly?

More tanks, guns, shells
We need it now on the front line, -
Could you, friend, while working at the factory,
Achieve development of this?

More bread, meat, clothes
It is necessary for fighters to defeat the enemy -
Could you, friend, while working in the field,
Should we send enough food to the front?

Of course you want victory, you believe
Into her with all the strength of my soul and mind,
But if you sit and just wait and believe,
Think: will victory come on its own?

Through hard work you must bring
Victory in this cruel war.
All work is for the front! That's the only way to prove it
Love and loyalty to one's native country.

Now we have only one debt:
Accelerate the defeat of the fascist horde!
What about you, comrade? Tell us honestly:
What did you do for the front today?

BLAGVALU LESSON

“You can already see Moscow through binoculars,
Which means, soon
We will walk around Moscow!” —
So Hitler chattered.

The noise of the guns did not stop,
A flock of tanks circled.
And the Fuhrer barked like a jackal,
Wanting to take it out of fear.

The famous regiment was thrown into battle
"Greater Germany"
And after the battle of Moscow
All that's left is the name.

The boaster has found the end of himself,
He left his copper forehead bruised,
Dear the same one who came,
Got back home.

One shame from boasting!
It should be clear to everyone:
There aren't enough forests for the coffins
Fascists to make.

Where are the famous shelves,
Where are the miracle generals?
Die, Hitler, of melancholy:
After all, this is just the beginning!

You won't be able to collect even the bones,
Our right-wing anger is furious.
Hammer this into your head:
Let's wipe out all the fascists!

Leaving the city in a quiet hour,
For a long time I looked into your eyes.
I remember how from those black eyes
A light tear rolled down.

And love and hate in it
There was an inexhaustible spring.
But to your blushing cheek
I pressed my lips to the heat.

I leaned close to the holy spring,
To drink away the sadness of your tears
And for everything to the cruel enemy
Take revenge with full measure of anger.

And from now on a bright tear
Has become worse for the enemy than thunderstorms,
So that your eyes never
No more blurred from tears.

February 1942
Volkhov Front

German, German! By compass
Have you checked your path?
When you start to run away,
So don't forget your pants!
We are now a new azimuth
We give you, tramps: 270°-
And run to the west!
Forget your previous goal,
Turn your back to her
And run... And we’ll catch up with you -
We'll slap you so hard that you hold on!..

Hitler ordered the gang:
“Hit! Forward! Right through!.."
But we trained the thugs
And the team all around.
Look how they are scurrying
And neither bird nor beast
German officer
They won't catch up now.

German, German!.. By compass
Run without error!
Can't you confuse left and right?
Are your brains gone?
Get a new azimuth
Together with the Fuhrer-dog:
270° - And run to the grave!

February 1942
Volkhov Front

Having defeated the damned Nazis,
We
The village on the mountain was liberated.
Fire of victory
In the middle of winter
We set its inhabitants on fire.

And the whole village is seething with joy,
The smoke above every roof turned white.
One ancient old woman
sobbing
She cried, falling into my overcoat.

And my heart filled up in response,
And tears welled up in my eyes:
I was the proudest!
Nothing more beautiful
For the warrior
No glory, no calling:

In heavy
For the native land
Hour
To his suffering people,
Shining like a soldier's red star,
On the point of a bayonet
Bring freedom!

February 1942
Volkhov Front

BEFORE THE ATTACK

Let's have a drink, friend! For battle happiness!
For the fearlessness of youth alive!
If only I could live! And courage and passion
We have more than enough for a hundred lives.

Fill your glass with champagne, my friend,
The girls sent us wine.
Is it because I'm happy about the gift?
I just fell in love with it.

Let him rage with effervescent foam,
Flows into the veins in waves of fire...
Maybe from imminent death
You will take me out of the fight.

Maybe something worse will happen.
Just which of us? With you? With me?
Guess what? Bread from copper mugs
The moisture of our earthly joy!

You, fellow countrymen, are inventors, really, -
Or is spring just confusing? —
Your blush glows slyly
In every drop of scarlet wine.

We are going to attack at dawn...
In the meantime, in the silence of the night,
Dear fellow countrymen, these mugs
We will drink for your happiness.

Will an evil bullet hit the heart?
Or I will remain unharmed
Anyway, I know one thing for sure:
We will win in this attack!

We strive for victory with all our hearts.
Why be sad when she's in the shower?
Drink, fellow countryman! Let's enjoy the gift
When smoking in a cramped dugout...

Drain the mug in an instant,
Scarlet current burns your mouth.
Like the touch of beloved lips,
Let her light a fire in you.

The heat of people's love, the cherished heat,
He came to us in that living flame.
And attack him at dawn
We will bring dear glory!

February 1942
Volkhov Front

That bridge stood large and majestic
Where there were battles day and night.
Below him is a river covered in glory,
Rolled its menacing waters.

In such darkness when the watches do not sleep
And the bushes whisper quietly,
An alarming rustling sound was heard nearby,
And the German posts trembled.

The trees rustled above the shore,
And there was a whiff of thunder in the air.
A soldier in a simple overcoat hurried to the bridge,
With an open and bright soul.

The river, heavy with anger,
She moaned menacingly: “Warrior, take revenge!”
The night sky lit up with lightning,
He only managed to crawl to the bridge.

For the last time I looked at the iron bridge
And he moved to his full height.
And a strong explosion, like great thunder, struck -
And this bridge flies over the water.

Under the powerful roar of stone and iron
An enemy detachment is rushing towards the river.
But here the way back is already cut off -
The guards who arrived in time do not sleep.

And only a fighter, hugging a coastal stone,
Doesn't see friends going camping
And how over the golden shores
The dawn of liberation is rising.

The battle will die down and rise in the fog
There is a new bridge over the noisy river.
And the immortal hero will stand over the bridge
In all his heroic stature.

February 1942
Volkhov Front

A bluish fog rises from the ground,
Tanks rumble, stretched out in a row.
Like brave, winged falcons,
Red flags float above the roof.

The old woman hugged the fighter's neck,
She cried with joy,
And, smiling, fresh trophies
The stern foreman is counting.

Like the shadow of the fate of fascist Germany,
On all the paths, wherever you look.
On clay that is torn apart and slimy
The corpses of enemy soldiers turn black.

February 1942

Above the village
The glow is shaking
Fire victims cannot find a place.
At the fork I saw a horseman
A child's torn body.
I saw -
And a tear fell
And a child in trembling arms
Raised
And kissed my eyes
How they kiss sleeping children.
Dropped to the ground
Not myself
Gritted his teeth
Hatred in the eyes:
“You, fascist, will pay us with interest!
You will still ask for mercy!”
And behind the fierce predator
Dzhigit
On a trail spattered with blood,
Chasing...
And the sword in my hand burns
Hate and love!

February 1942
Volkhov Front

IT'S SPRING IN EUROPE

You drowned in blood, fell asleep under the snow,
Come to life, countries, peoples, lands!
Your enemies tortured you, tortured you, trampled you,
So get up to meet the spring of life!

No, there has never been a winter like this
Not in the history of the world, not in any fairy tale!
You've never frozen so deeply,
A chest of earth, bloody, half-dead.

Where the fascist wind blew dead,
There the flowers withered and the springs dried up,
The songbirds fell silent, the thickets crumbled,
The sun's rays have become scarce and faded.

In those regions where the enemy's boots walked,
Life fell silent, leaving burning dwellings,
At night only fires blazed in the distance,
But not a drop of rain fell on the arable land.

A fascist entered the house and they carried out the dead man.
The dear fascist walked - his blood flowed dearly.
The executioners did not spare old men and women,
And the cannibalistic oven devoured the children.

About such a frenzy of evil persecutors
In terrible fairy tales, in legends, no words are said.
And in the history of the world of such suffering
Man has not experienced this in a hundred centuries.

No matter how dark the night is, it still gets light.
No matter how frosty winter is, spring comes.
Hey Europe! Spring is coming for you,
It shines brightly on our banners.

Half-dead under the fascist heel,
To life, orphan countries, arise! It's time!
Glowing rays of future freedom for you
The sun of our earth stretches out in the morning.

This sunny new spring approaching
Everyone feels it—Czech, Pole, and French.
Brings you long-awaited liberation
The mighty winner is the Soviet Union.

Like birds flying north again,
Like the waves of the Danube breaking the ice,
A word of encouragement is flying to you from Moscow,
Sowing light along the way. Victory is coming!

Soon it will be spring... In the abyss of the fascist night,
Like shadows, the partisans rise to fight...
And under the sun of spring - that time is coming! —
The winter of grief will be carried away by the Danube ice.

Let the hot tears of joy break through
In these spring days from millions of eyes!
Let them light up in millions of weary hearts
Revenge and thirst for freedom are still hot!..

And living hope will awaken millions
On a great rise, unprecedented in centuries,
And the dawn banners of the coming spring
They will turn red in the hands of free peoples.

February 1942
Volkhov Front

The ward woke up in the morning,
Full of the breath of spring.
The sister entered the room
Like a gentle spring.

She holds mimosas in her hands,
Fresh, in dew.
With a smile of expectation
Everyone is looking at the girl.

"Guys! - She said.-
Spring sends you a gift,
And the gray lark
Sings about you today.

He's been singing since morning today
Streams and birds chime
That spring has arrived
On the wings of our banners.

In the lands of the liberated
The spring stream is noisy,
Mimosa above him, smiling,
She opened the first flower.

The cranes are flying north,
Fun in their voices
The old one and the little one returned,
Hiding in the forests.

What news, guys!
The enemy is retreating everywhere.
The earth grows younger under the sun,
The darkness is dissipating..."

The horsemen are looking at their sister
And, full of joy,
Laughing, breathing deeply
The pure breath of spring.

And the girls warm obscurity
I felt it in my chest,
And the happiness of imminent victory,
And a new life is ahead.

February 1942
Volkhov Front

So that your ears don't hear
Unbridled fascist language,
We would gladly give our souls
In war, in thunderstorm battles;
So that they don’t sound anywhere
Their cackling and cursing,

Neither at night, nor in the early hours...
Only this is what happened, brothers, -
The captain called us into the dugout:
Get some “language”, brothers! —
There was a secret order given to us.-
Get some “language”, brothers!
To thwart the enemy's plan,
Get to the fascist headquarters
And to hell blow up their nest!”
Well! Ordered by the captain -
This is an honest soldier's duty.
And in this responsible matter
Our fighter understands the point.
Three horsemen got down to business
And the three of us went abroad.
If only the night would quickly darken,
We'll figure out the rest there!
Night has come. And, having collected as necessary,
In stock for the dashing hunt,
Looking around and cocking grenades,
We climbed the hill in a hurry.
We hear the dull fascist talk,
Take a closer look: the Nazis are close!
“Unsere Tat ist die Sachen
Abnehmen und den Besitzer
Zu der Wand stellen... ist..."
This is true! Before our eyes he
And he swears and threatens,
This dirty fascist bandit!
The tramps muttered smoothly.
We heard their praise,
And they rushed, and with a raincoat
At the same moment they covered two.
Only a dry shot broke
Silence around, and when
One enemy ate our bullet,
We take another one and off we go!
We tied him up and dragged him
Crawling to your command post,
So that our captain with the present
I got acquainted with the language.
They brought him, and, like a cat,
The dear one trembled and remained silent.
As we expected, little by little
Untied the tongue darling.
How many of them have not yet been mowed down,
How many guns did you see on the way?
He laid out everything through force,
To save your life...
So that your ears don't hear
Unbridled fascist language,
We would gladly give our souls
In war, in thunderstorm battles;
So that they don’t sound anywhere
Their cackling and cursing,
So that dogs don't growl when they get mad
Neither at night, nor in the early hours...
Just know, fighter, that it happens
The horseman will get there by crawling
And kills fascist dogs
Their own “language”!

February 1942

I think about you all the time, dear,
In a distant unknown place.
And somewhere along the way, closing my eyes,
I meet you only in a short dream.

You are coming to me in a snow-white dress,
Like the morning fog of native fields.
And, bending over, in a timid voice
You whisper to me quietly about your love.

With what anxiety are you stroking my cheeks?
And you straighten your hair again.
“Why, dear, is this deep sigh?”
In response, you begin to whisper to me:

“And I waited, I waited so much, my dear.
I was waiting for the end of the war.
In battle, having fought with a formidable enemy force,
Will you rush to me in victory?

I prepared a lot of gifts.
But I still couldn’t find a more valuable gift,
Than a heart that is overwhelmed with anxiety,
I saw so many sleepless nights.”

I opened my eyes. What's wrong with me?
I'm full of strange dreams -
My hair with an anxious hand
My beloved stroked it.

How bitter and sweet the awakening is to me.
Darling, do you know about that? —
You were there for me not only for a moment
And a bright dream, and a sweet dream.

I can't forget, like the first time
You gave me fire to drink.
Mischievous sparks sparkled in the eyes
From a joyful, hidden fire.

And there was so much tenderness in you,
You caressed me like a baby...
You taught your friend to love spring,
So that his soul is eager to fly!

I'm going into mortal combat with a new rifle
For a life that is forever dear to the heart.
Hate is calling us and we are ready
Climb to victory over the bones of the enemy.

Wait, smart girl, we will meet you,
I will return, sweeping all evil spirits over the threshold.
The dawn will break over our native country,
How is the source of our immortality.

You will press me to your heart, as before,
And you will say: “I give everything to you.
There are many gifts, but accept them first
My love!

For this love, for our happiness
I'm heading towards the fury of war.
Believe me, my friend: I have storms and bad weather
And no battles are scary.

March 1942
Volkhov Front

YOUR SHARE

We are advancing. There are piles of scrap everywhere,
Rifles and cannons are signs of defeat.
Here is a helmet, unsightly in appearance,
Lying in the grass with a badge on his side.

Rusted. The owner has rotted... Grave
At the crossroads it rises sadly.
They made a cross by breaking some pole,
And they placed the helmet on the cross,
Vultures and skinny crows
The funeral yasin is read over him...

The one who is buried here, being alive,
He was obsessed with many desires:
He wanted to rule these lands
A landowner, a rabid satrap.
In his imagination dull
Our proud, pitiful people were slaves.
But the bitter fascist was caught in the collapse -
He himself lay down in cold dust.

Yes, yes, fascist, you have a cunning plan.
But it’s not for you to divide the countries goodness!
An arshin of earth and an oak cross in the field -
Here, as the proverb says, is silver,
Which was your lot!

DEATH OF A GIRL

She saved a hundred wounded alone
And she carried it out of the firestorm,
She gave them water to drink
And she bandaged their wounds herself.

Under a shower of hot lead
She crawled, crawled without stopping
And, having picked up the wounded soldier,
I didn’t forget about his rifle.

When she crawled for the hundred and first time,
She was struck down by a fragment of a fierce mine...
The silk of the banners bowed in a sad hour,
And it was as if her blood was burning in them.

Here is a girl lying on a stretcher.
The wind plays with a golden strand.
Like a cloud that the sun is in a hurry to hide,
Eyelashes shaded the radiant gaze.

A calm smile on her
Lips, calmly arched eyebrows.
She seemed to have fallen into oblivion
I stopped the conversation mid-sentence.

Young life lit a hundred lives
And suddenly it went out in the bloody hour...
But a hundred hearts for glorious deeds
Her posthumous glory will inspire her.

Spring went out before it could bloom.
But, as the dawn gives birth to the day, burning,
Having brought death to the enemy, she
She remained immortal while dying.

April 1942

JOY OF SPRING

Spring will come, illuminating with a smile
Expanses of green fields.
The young grove will spread its branches,
A nightingale will scatter trills in the garden.

Then you will go along the forest road,
Two braids will flutter in the breeze.
Cold dew will sprinkle your feet,
And you will be sad - your dear one is far away.

I am where the field is covered in prickly rust,
Where death whistles through the forest clearings,
The starlings are circling in the sky as clouds too,
But these ones have steel plumage.

Here bombs explode, blocking out the sun.
You can smell blood here, but not roses,
It is not the dew of cheese that makes the grass thick,
From human blood and tears.

Sometimes I follow the sun through the smoke.
A sharp melancholy creeps into my heart.
I sprinkle dew on my hair,
Catching a dewdrop in a flower's cup.

Then I smell the scent of spring.
Then the soul is full of blossoms.
And you stand with a smile in the distance,
My beloved, my spring!

The enemies came in a horde of robbers,
We parted, trouble was near.
Clutching my weapon, I go into a bloody battle
Dispel evil spirits with the point of a bayonet.

And there is no stronger desire in my soul,
And all my dreams are about one thing -
I would like to see my sweetheart,
Having finished with the dark enemy nest.

How proud I would be, that from the power of the enemy
I was able to protect my native and spring, -
The sun will not be covered in soot and soot,
And the enemy will no longer enter the country.

Having passed through the fire rapids,
I want to return to my native land
To see you and have a great spring,
Rescued from an enemy in battle.

The poems are reprinted from the book “Musa Jalil. Red Daisy", Tatar book publishing house, Kazan, 1981

The story of how, thanks to a notebook with poems, a man accused of treason against the Motherland was not only acquitted, but also received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, is known to few today. However, at one time they wrote about her in all newspapers former USSR. Its hero, Musa Jalil, lived only 38 years, but during this time he managed to create many interesting works. In addition, he proved that even in fascist concentration camps a person can fight the enemy and maintain the patriotic spirit in his fellow sufferers. This article presents a short biography of Musa Jalil in Russian.

Childhood

Musa Mustafovich Zalilov was born in 1906 in the village of Mustafino, which today is located in the Orenburg region. The boy was the sixth child in the traditional Tatar family of simple workers Mustafa and Rakhima.

From an early age, Musa began to show interest in learning and expressed his thoughts unusually beautifully.

At first, the boy studied at a mektebe - a village school, and when the family moved to Orenburg, he was sent to study at the Khusainiya madrasah. Already at the age of 10, Musa wrote his first poems. In addition, he sang and drew well.

After the revolution, the madrasah was transformed into the Tatar Institute of Public Education.

As a teenager, Musa joined the Komsomol, and even managed to fight on the fronts of the Civil War.

After its completion, Jalil took part in the creation of pioneer detachments in Tatarstan and promoted the ideas of young Leninists in his poems.

Musa's favorite poets were Omar Khayyam, Saadi, Hafiz and Derdmand. His passion for their work led to Jalil’s creation of such poetic works as “Burn, Peace,” “Council,” “Unanimity,” “In Captivity,” “Throne of Ears,” etc.

Study in the capital

In 1926, Musa Jalil (biography as a child is presented above) was elected a member of the Tatar-Bashkir Bureau of the Komsomol Central Committee. This allowed him to go to Moscow and enter the ethnological faculty of Moscow State University. In parallel with his studies, Musa wrote poetry in the Tatar language. Their translations were read at student poetry evenings.

In Tatarstan

In 1931, Musa Jalil, whose biography is practically unknown to Russian youth today, received a university diploma and was sent to work in Kazan. There, during this period, under the Central Committee of the Komsomol, children's magazines began to be published in Tatar. Musa began working as their editor.

A year later, Jalil left for the city of Nadezhdinsk (modern Serov). There he worked hard and hard on new works, including the poems “Ildar” and “Altyn Chech”, which in the future formed the basis for the libretto of operas by composer Zhiganov.

In 1933, the poet returned to the capital of Tatarstan, where the Kommunist newspaper was published, and headed its literary department. He continued to write a lot and in 1934, 2 collections of Jalil’s poems, “Ordered Millions” and “Poems and Poems,” were published.

In the period from 1939 to 1941, Musa Mustafaevich worked at the Tatar Opera Theater as the head of the literary department and secretary of the Writers' Union of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

War

On June 23, 1941, Musa Jalil, whose biography reads like a tragic novel, appeared at his military registration and enlistment office and wrote a statement asking to be sent to the active army. The summons arrived on July 13, and Jalil ended up in an artillery regiment that was being formed on the territory of Tatarstan. From there, Musa was sent to Menzelinsk for a 6-month course for political instructors.

When Jalil’s command learned that in front of them was a famous poet, city council deputy and former chairman Tatar Writers' Union, it was decided to issue an order for his demobilization and sending to the rear. However, he refused, because he believed that the poet could not call on people to defend their Motherland while in the rear.

Nevertheless, they decided to protect Jalil and kept him in reserve at the army headquarters, which was then located in Malaya Vishera. At the same time, he often went on business trips to the front line, carrying out orders from the command and collecting material for the newspaper “Courage.”

In addition, he continued to write poetry. In particular, such works as “Tear”, “Death of a Girl”, “Trace” and “Farewell, My Smart Girl” were born at the front.

Unfortunately, the reader did not reach the poem “The Ballad of the Last Patron,” which the poet wrote shortly before his capture in a letter to a comrade.

Wound

In June 1942, together with other soldiers and officers, Musa Jalil (biography in Last year the poet's life became known only after the death of the hero) was surrounded. Trying to break through to his own people, he was seriously wounded in the chest. Since there was no one to provide medical assistance to Musa, an inflammatory process began. The advancing Nazis found him unconscious and took him prisoner. From that moment on, the Soviet command began to consider Jalil missing.

Captivity

Musa's comrades in the concentration camp tried to protect their wounded friend. They hid from everyone that he was a political instructor and tried to prevent him from doing hard work. Thanks to their care, Musa Jalil (his biography in the Tatar language was known to every schoolchild at one time) recovered and began to provide assistance to other prisoners, including moral assistance.

It’s hard to believe, but he was able to get a stub of a pencil and wrote poetry on scraps of paper. In the evenings they were read by the whole barracks, remembering the Motherland. These works helped prisoners survive all difficulties and humiliation.

While wandering through the camps of Spandau, Plötzensee and Moabit, Jalil continued to encourage the spirit of resistance among Soviet prisoners of war.

“Responsible for cultural and educational work”

After the defeat at Stalingrad, the Nazis decided to create a legion of Soviet prisoners of war of Tatar nationality, supporting the principle of “Divide and conquer.” This military unit was named “Idel-Ural”.

Musa Jalil (the biography in Tatar was republished several times) was in the special regard of the Germans, who wanted to use the poet for propaganda purposes. He was included in the legion and appointed to lead cultural and educational work.

In Jedlinsk, near the Polish city of Radom, where Idel-Ural was formed, Musa Jalil (a biography in the Tatar language is kept in the poet’s museum) became a member of an underground group of Soviet prisoners of war.

As an organizer of concerts designed to instill a spirit of resistance against the Soviet authorities, who “oppressed” the Tatars and representatives of other nationalities, he had to travel a lot to German concentration camps. This allowed Jalil to find and recruit more and more new members for the underground organization. As a result, members of the group even managed to contact underground fighters from Berlin.

At the beginning of the winter of 1943, the 825th battalion of the legion was sent to Vitebsk. There he raised an uprising, and about 500 people were able to go to the partisans along with their service weapons.

Arrest

At the end of the summer of 1943, Musa Jalil (you already know his brief biography in his youth), together with other underground fighters, was preparing an escape for several prisoners sentenced to death.

The group's last meeting took place on August 9. On it, Jalil informed his comrades that contact with the Red Army had been established. The underground planned the start of the uprising for August 14. Unfortunately, among the resistance members there was a traitor who betrayed their plans to the Nazis.

On August 11, all “cultural educators” were called to the dining room “for a rehearsal.” There they were all arrested, and Musa Jalil (his biography in Russian is in many Christians of Soviet literature) was beaten in front of the detainees to intimidate them.

In Moabit

He, along with 10 comrades, was sent to one of the Berlin prisons. There Jalil met Belgian resistance member Andre Timmermans. Unlike Soviet prisoners, citizens of other states in Nazi dungeons had the right to correspondence and received newspapers. Having learned that Musa was a poet, the Belgian gave him a pencil and regularly handed over strips of paper cut from newspapers. Jalil stitched them into small notebooks in which he wrote down his poems.

The poet was executed by guillotine at the end of August 1944 in the Plötzensee prison in Berlin. The location of the graves of Jalil and his comrades is still unknown.

Confession

After the war in the USSR, a search was opened against the poet and he was included in the list of especially dangerous criminals, as he was accused of treason and collaboration with the Nazis. Musa Jalil, whose biography in Russian, as well as his name, were removed from all books about Tatar literature, would probably have remained slandered if not for the former prisoner of war Nigmat Teregulov. In 1946, he came to the Writers' Union of Tatarstan and handed over a notebook with the poet's poems, which he miraculously managed to take out of the German camp. A year later, the Belgian Andre Timmermans handed over a second notebook with Jalil’s works to the Soviet consulate in Brussels. He said that he was with Musa in fascist dungeons and saw him before his execution.

Thus, 115 of Jalil’s poems reached readers, and his notebooks are now kept in the State Museum of Tatarstan.

All this would not have happened if Konstantin Simonov had not found out about this story. The poet organized the translation of “Moabit Tetarads” into Russian and proved the heroism of the underground fighters under the leadership of Musa Jalil. Simonov wrote an article about them, which was published in 1953. Thus, the stain of shame was washed away from Jalil’s name, and the entire Soviet Union learned about the feat of the poet and his comrades.

In 1956, the poet was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and a little later became a laureate of the Lenin Prize.

Biography of Musa Jalil (summary): family

The poet had three wives. From his first wife Rauza Khanum he had a son, Albert Zalilov. Jalil loved his only boy very much. He wanted to become a military pilot, but due to an eye disease he was not accepted into the flight school. However, Albert Zalilov became a military man and in 1976 was sent to serve in Germany. He stayed there for 12 years. Thanks to his searches in different parts of the Soviet Union, a detailed biography of Musa Jalil in Russian became known.

The poet's second wife was Zakiya Sadykova, who gave birth to his daughter Lucia.

The girl and her mother lived in Tashkent. She studied at a music school. Then she graduated from VGIK, and she was lucky enough to take part in the filming of the documentary film “The Moabit Notebook” as an assistant director.

Jalil's third wife, Amina, gave birth to another daughter. The girl was named Chulpan. She, like her father, devoted about 40 years of her life to literary activity.

Now you know who Musa Jalil was. short biography This poet's Tatar language should be studied by all schoolchildren in his small homeland.

Musa Jalil was born in the village of Mustafino, Orenburg province, into a large family on February 15, 1906. His real name is Musa Mustafovich Zalilov, he came up with his pseudonym in academic years, when he published a newspaper for his classmates. His parents, Mustafa and Rakhima Zalilov, lived poorly, Musa was already their sixth child, and in the meantime there was famine and devastation in Orenburg. Mustafa Zalilov seemed to those around him to be kind, flexible, and reasonable, and his wife Rakhima was strict with children, illiterate, but having wonderful vocal abilities. At first, the future poet studied at an ordinary local school, where he was distinguished by his special talent, curiosity and unique success in the speed of obtaining education. From an early age, a love of reading was instilled in him, but since there was not enough money for books, he made them by hand, independently, writing in them things he heard or invented, and at the age of 9 he began writing poetry. In 1913, his family moved to Orenburg, where Musa entered a religious educational institution - the Khusainiya madrasah, where he began to more effectively develop his abilities. At the madrasah, Jalil studied not only religious disciplines, but also those common to all other schools, such as music, literature, and drawing. During his studies, Musa learned to play a plucked string musical instrument - the mandolin.

Since 1917, unrest and lawlessness began in Orenburg, Musa became imbued with what was happening and devoted time to creating poems. He joins the Communist Youth League to participate in Civil War, however, does not pass the selection due to an asthenic, thin physique. Against the backdrop of urban disasters, Musa's father goes bankrupt, and because of this he goes to prison, as a result of which he falls ill with typhus and dies. Musa's mother does dirty work in order to somehow feed the family. Subsequently, the poet joins the Komsomol, whose instructions he carries out with great restraint, responsibility and courage. In 1921, a time of famine began in Orenburg, Musa's two brothers died, and he himself became a homeless child. He is saved from starvation by an employee of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, who helps him enter the Orenburg Military Party School, and then the Tatar Institute of Public Education.

Since 1922, Musa began to live in Kazan, where he studied at the workers' faculty, actively participated in the activities of the Komsomol, organized various creative meetings for young people, and devoted a lot of time to creating literary works. In 1927, the Komsomol organization sent Jalil to Moscow, where he studied at the philological department of Moscow State University, pursued a poetic and journalistic career, and managed the literary area of ​​the Tatar opera studio. In Moscow, Musa finds his personal life, becomes a husband and father, and in 1938 he moves with his family and opera studio to Kazan, where he begins working at the Tatar Opera House, and a year later he already holds the positions of chairman of the Writers' Union of the Tatar Republic and a deputy of the city council.

In 1941, Musa Jalil went to the front as a war correspondent, in 1942 he was seriously wounded in the chest and captured by the Nazis. To continue to fight the enemy, he becomes a member of the German legion "Idel-Ural", in which he served as the selection of prisoners of war to create entertainment events for the Nazis. Taking this opportunity, he created an underground group within the legion, and in the process of selecting prisoners of war, he recruited new members of his secret organization. His underground group tried to start an uprising in 1943, as a result of which more than five hundred captured Komsomol members were able to join the Belarusian partisans. In the summer of the same year, Jalil’s underground group was discovered, and its founder Musa was executed by beheading in the fascist prison of Plötzensee on August 25, 1944.

Creation

Musa Jalil created his first known works in the period from 1918 to 1921. These include poems, plays, stories, sample recordings folk tales, songs and legends. Many of them were never published. The first publication in which his work appeared was the newspaper "Red Star", which included his works of a democratic, liberation, folk character. In 1929, he finished writing the poem "Traveled Paths", and in the twenties his first collection of poems and poems also appeared "Barabyz", and in 1934 two more were published - "Ordered Millions" and "Poems and Poems". Four years later, he wrote the poem “The Letter Bearer,” which tells the story of Soviet youth. In general, the leading themes of the poet’s work were revolution, socialism and civil war.

But the main monument of Musa Jalil’s creativity was the “Moabit Notebook” - the contents of two small notebooks written by Musa before his death in the Moabit prison. Of these, only two have survived, containing a total of 93 poems. They are written in different graphics, in one notebook in Arabic, and in the other in Latin, each in the Tatar language. For the first time, poems from the “Moabit Notebook” saw the light of day after the death of I.V. Stalin in the Literary Gazette, since for a long time after the end of the war the poet was considered a deserter and a criminal. The translation of the poems into Russian was initiated by war correspondent and writer Konstantin Simonov. Thanks to his thorough participation in the consideration of the biography of Musa, the poet ceased to be perceived negatively and was posthumously awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union, as well as the Lenin Prize. The Moabite Notebook has been translated into more than sixty world languages.

Musa Jalil is a model of endurance, a symbol of patriotism and the unbreakable spirit of creativity despite any hardships and sentences. With his life and work, he showed that poetry is higher and more powerful than any ideology, and strength of character is capable of overcoming any hardships and disasters. “The Moabit Notebook” is his testament to his descendants, which says that man is mortal, but art is eternal.