Exactly 75 years ago, on January 14, 1942, Konstantin Simonov’s poem “Wait for Me” was published in the pages of the Pravda newspaper.

“Wait for me” was written in July 1941, at Lev Kassil’s dacha in Peredelkino. Konstantin Simonov sends the poem he wrote to Valentina Serova, because the famous lines are dedicated to her.

- You know, Kostya, the poems are good, but they look like a spell... Don’t print it now... now is not the time to print it yet..." - says Lev Kassil.

But the poet still shows his poems to the editor of “Red Star” David Ortenberg. He says: “These poems are not for a military newspaper. There is no point in poisoning the soul of a soldier...”.

For the first time, Konstantin Simonov reads “Wait for me” in October, on the Northern Front, to his comrade, photojournalist Grigory Zelma. For him, he rewrites a poem from a notebook and puts the date: October 13, 1941, Murmansk.

-I thought that these poems were my personal business... But then, a few months later, when I had to be in the far north and when blizzards and bad weather sometimes forced me to sit for days in a dugout somewhere... I had to read poems to a variety of people . And a variety of people dozens of times, in the light of a smokehouse or a hand-held flashlight, copied on a piece of paper the poem “Wait for me,” which, as it seemed to me before, I wrote only for one person - recalled Simonov.

In November 1941, Konstantin Simonov read “Wait for me” to artillerymen on the Rybachy Peninsula, cut off from the rest of the front. Then - to naval reconnaissance officers, who take him on a raid behind German lines.

On December 9, 1941, he was asked to stop by the radio and read poetry. Simonov recalled that he was late for that broadcast, and the announcer was already reading the third of four poems collected for this program; all that remained to be read was “Wait for me.” Konstantin Simonov showed the announcer with gestures that he would read it himself, “the announcer just had to announce that the author would read the poem.”

- The poem “Wait for me” has no special story. I just went to war, and the woman I loved was in the rear. And I wrote her a letter in verse... - writes Konstantin Mikhailovich to the reader in 1969.

At the end of December 1941, Pravda editor Pyotr Pospelov asked Konstantin Simonov if there were any poems, but Simonov replied that they were not for the newspaper, especially Pravda. But Pospelov insists, and Simonov gives him “Wait for me.”

On January 9, 1942, Simonov returns from Feodosia. He was immediately sent to Mozhaisk, and in Pravda on the evening of January 13 he was put in the “Wait for me” issue.

The author does not know about this. Only after returning from Mozhaisk, he sees in Pravda for January 14 on the third page the headline: “Wait for me.” It’s hard not to notice such a headline: it’s the largest on the page, although the poems take up the least amount of space.

Millions of soldiers survived, and their loved ones did not lose hope thanks to this poem, perhaps the most famous and popular.

- I don’t like writing letters. As a result of this, in short free minutes on different fronts, I wrote a book of lyrical poems, which are nothing more than a collection of unsent letters to the woman I loved. This was my inner need... But it soon became clear that people at the front really wanted to hear poetry, and it was poetry about love - the poet spoke.

"Wait for me"

Wait for me and I will come back.

Just wait a lot

Wait when they make you sad

Yellow rains,

Wait for the snow to blow

Wait for it to be hot

Wait when others are not waiting,

Forgetting yesterday.

Wait when from distant places

No letters will arrive

Wait until you get bored

To everyone who is waiting together.

Wait for me and I will come back,

Don't wish well

To everyone who knows by heart,

It's time to forget.

Let the son and mother believe

In the fact that I am not there

Let friends get tired of waiting

They'll sit by the fire

Drink bitter wine

For the sake of the soul... Wait.

And with them at the same time

Don't rush to drink.

Wait for me and I will come back,

All deaths are out of spite.

Whoever didn't wait for me, let him

He will say: - Lucky.

They don’t understand, those who didn’t expect them,

Like in the middle of fire

By your expectation

You saved me.

We'll know how I survived

Just you and me, -

You just knew how to wait

Like no one else.

Konstantin Simonov, 1941

For reference:

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov came to the assembly point immediately after Molotov’s speech. By that time, he had completed military correspondent courses at the Frunze Academy, where they taught tactics, topography, and shooting for four weeks.

The poet received an appointment to the newspaper "Battle Banner". Having gone to the front, he does not find his editorial office. Wandering under bombing, among rushing refugees, crush at crossings, spending the night in villages where only old people remained. On July 12, near Mogilev, Simonov and two other military officers fell into the position of the 388th regiment of the 172nd rifle division, commanded by Semyon Kutepov. His fighters skillfully, without panic, held back the German tanks in their direction. Simonov brings a report to Moscow about these people who stood to their death. Only after the war he learns that Kutepov and his regiment died in the same July 41st. The circumstances are still unknown. Simonov's report is published by Izvestia.

Since the end of the summer of 1941, Simonov has been a war correspondent for Red Star. In 1942 he was awarded the rank of senior battalion commissar, in 1943 - the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the war - colonel. By order of the Armed Forces of the Western Front No. 482 dated May 3, 1942, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Most of his military correspondence was published in Red Star. As a war correspondent, he visited all fronts, walked through the lands of Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland and Germany, and witnessed the last battles for Berlin.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the poet, writer and military journalist Konstantin Simonov, the Russian Military Historical Society unveiled his graffiti portrait on Marxistskaya Street in Moscow.

In September 2016, in Novosibirsk, the Chairman of the Russian Historical Society, Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky opened the sculptural composition “To the Mothers and Wives of Defenders of the Fatherland.” The lines of the legendary poem are carved at the top of the monument.

- A huge role in providing the front with everything necessary was played by women who worked in factories and factories, in fields and hospitals, raised children, cared for the sick and elderly. In their name our grandfathers fought -said at the opening ceremony Vladimir Medinsky.

Photos from open sources.

The poem “Wait for me” has long become legendary. There are several versions of its creation, but we will tell you about the one that the author himself adhered to. In July 1941 he arrived in Moscow after his first trip to the front. He saw with his own eyes all the horrors of the first defeat of the Soviet troops, complete confusion from the sudden offensive of the Nazis and our unpreparedness for the upcoming war. He was supposed to stay in Moscow for two days - waiting until he was transferred from the Izvestia newspaper to the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. My father’s friend, writer Lev Kassil, offered to live with him at his dacha in Peredelkino. And there, on July 28, 1941, the poem “Wait for Me” was written.

It is dedicated - and there is no doubt about it - to the actress Valentina Vasilyevna Serova. Over time, the poem became more and more popular, and they stopped remembering that its addressee was a specific woman. Moreover, when the love passed and the father separated from Serova, he had no particular desire to remain faithful to this dedication. Therefore, in different editions the text appears either with or without a dedication to Serova.

By the way, the poem was not published immediately. David Ortenberg, editor-in-chief of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, turned out to be absolutely not a visionary. He was a very good editor, but things didn’t work out in the poetry field. Ortenberg said that “Wait for Me” is a very intimate poem and he will not publish it. As a result, my father read the text twice on the radio, but it was published much later. Six months after it was written, on January 14, 1942, the poem appeared on the third page of the Pravda newspaper and immediately gained incredible popularity.

In 2015, we, the children of Konstantin Simonov, came up with a project to install a monument to our father in

The poem by the poet Konstantin Simonov “Wait for me, and I will return” is a text that became one of the symbols of the terrible war that ended in 1945. In Russia, they know it almost by heart from childhood and repeat it from mouth to mouth, remembering the courage of Russian women who were expecting sons and husbands from the war, and the valor of the men who fought for their own homeland. Listening to these lines, it is impossible to imagine how the poet managed to combine death and the horrors of war, all-encompassing love and endless loyalty in several stanzas. Only real talent can do this.

About the poet

The name Konstantin Simonov is a pseudonym. From birth, the poet was called Kirill, but his diction did not allow him to pronounce his name without problems, so he chose a new one for himself, keeping the initial, but excluding the letters “r” and “l”. Konstantin Simonov is not only a poet, but also a prose writer; he has written novels and stories, memoirs and essays, plays and even scripts. But he is famous precisely for his poetry. Most of his works are created in military themes. This is not surprising, since the poet’s life has been connected with war since childhood. His father died during the First World War, his mother’s second husband was a military specialist and former colonel. Simonov himself served for some time, fought at the front and even had the rank of colonel. The poem “All his life he loved to draw war,” written in 1939, most likely has autobiographical features, since it clearly intersects with the life of the poet.

It is not surprising that Simonov is close to the feelings of a simple soldier who misses his loved ones during difficult battles. And if you analyze the poem “Wait for me, and I will return,” you will notice how alive and personal the lines are. What is important is how subtly and sensually Simonov manages to convey them in his works, to describe all the tragedy and horror of the military consequences, without resorting to excessive naturalism.

Most famous work

Of course, the best way to illustrate the work of Konstantin Simonov is his most famous poem. The analysis of the poem “Wait for me, and I will return” should begin with the question of why it became such. Why did it sink so deeply into the souls of the people, why is it now firmly associated with the name of the author? After all, initially the poet did not even plan to publish it. Simonov wrote it for himself and about himself, or rather about a specific person. But in a war, and especially in a war like the Great Patriotic War, it was impossible to exist alone, all people became brothers and shared their most intimate things with each other, knowing that perhaps these would be their last words.

So Simonov, wanting to support his comrades in difficult times, read his poems to them, and the soldiers listened to them with fascination, rewrote them, memorized them by heart and whispered them in the trenches, like a prayer or like a spell. Probably, Simonov managed to capture the most hidden and intimate experiences of not only an ordinary fighter, but also every person. “Wait, and I will return, just wait very long” - the main idea of ​​​​all literature is what the soldiers wanted to hear about more than anything else.

Military literature

During the war years there was an unprecedented rise in literary creativity. Many works on military subjects were published: short stories, novels, and, of course, poems. Poems were remembered faster, they could be set to music and performed in difficult times, passed from mouth to mouth, and repeated to oneself, like a prayer. Poems on military themes became not just folklore, they had a sacred meaning.

Lyrics and prose raised the already strong spirit of the Russian people. In a sense, the poems pushed the soldiers to heroic deeds, inspired them, gave them strength and deprived them of fear. Poets and writers, many of whom themselves participated in hostilities or discovered their poetic talent in a dugout or the cockpit of a tank, understood how important universal support and glorification of the common goal was for fighters - saving the homeland from the enemy. That is why the works that appeared in large numbers at that time were classified as a separate branch of literature - military lyrics and military prose.

Analysis of the poem “Wait for me and I will return”

In the poem, the word “wait” is repeated many times - 11 times, and this is not just a request, it is a plea. Word forms are also used 7 times in the text: “waiting”, “waiting”, “waiting”, “waiting”, “waiting”, “waiting”. Wait, and I will return, just wait a lot - such a concentration of words is like a spell, the poem is imbued with desperate hope. It seems as if the soldier completely entrusted his life to the one who remained at home.

Also, if you analyze the poem “Wait for me and I will return,” you will notice that it is dedicated to a woman. But not a mother or daughter, but a beloved wife or bride. The soldier asks not to forget him under any circumstances, even when children and mothers no longer have hope, even when they drink bitter wine for the remembrance of his soul, he asks not to remember him with them, but to continue to believe and wait. Waiting is equally important for those who remained in the rear, and first of all for the soldier himself. Faith in endless devotion inspires him, gives him confidence, makes him cling to life and pushes the fear of death into the background: “They cannot understand, those who did not wait, how in the midst of the fire you saved me with your expectation.” The reason the soldiers were alive in battle was because they realized that they were waiting for them at home, that they could not die, they needed to return.

The Great Patriotic War lasted 1418 days, or about 4 years, and the seasons changed 4 times: yellow rains, snow and heat. During this time, not losing faith and waiting for the fighter after so much time is a real feat. Konstantin Simonov understood this, which is why the poem is addressed not only to the soldiers, but also to everyone who kept hope in their souls until the last, believed and waited, no matter what, “in spite of all deaths.”

War poems and poems by Simonov

1. "The General" (1937).
2. "Fellow Soldiers" (1938).
3. "Cricket" (1939).
4. "Hours of Friendship" (1939).
5. "Doll" (1939).
6. "The Artilleryman's Son" (1941).
7. “You told me “I love you”” (1941).
8. "From the Diary" (1941).
9. "The North Star" (1941).
10. “When on a scorched plateau” (1942).
11. "Motherland" (1942).
12. "Mistress of the House" (1942).
13. "Death of a Friend" (1942).
14. "Wives" (1943).
15. "Open Letter" (1943).

Wait for me and I will come back.
Just wait a lot
Wait when they make you sad
Yellow rains,
Wait for the snow to blow
Wait for it to be hot
Wait when others are not waiting,
Forgetting yesterday.
Wait when from distant places
No letters will arrive
Wait until you get bored
To everyone who is waiting together.

Wait for me and I will come back,
Don't wish well
To everyone who knows by heart,
It's time to forget.
Let the son and mother believe
In the fact that I am not there
Let friends get tired of waiting
They'll sit by the fire
Drink bitter wine
In honor of the soul...
Wait. And with them at the same time
Don't rush to drink.

Wait for me and I will come back,
All deaths are out of spite.
Whoever didn't wait for me, let him
He will say: - Lucky.
They don’t understand, those who didn’t expect them,
Like in the middle of fire
By your expectation
You saved me.
We'll know how I survived
Just you and me, -
You just knew how to wait
Like no one else.

1941;

It is believed that this is one of Simonov’s best poems, dedicated to the actress Valentina Serova, the poet’s future wife (later, after the war, after his divorce from Serova, this dedication will be removed by Simonov...). The poem was written in August 1941 in Peredelkino, when Simonov returned from the front to the editorial office (from the very beginning of the war he was at the front as a correspondent for Red Star). Before this, in July 1941, Simonov was on the Buinichi field near Mogilev. witnessed a massive enemy tank attack, which he wrote about in the novel “The Living and the Dead” and the diary “Different Days of the War.”
A wonderful poem, but here’s the thing: exactly twenty years before this poem was written, in August 1921, somewhere near St. Petersburg, the poet Nikolai Gumilyov was shot…. Anna Akhmatova’s archive contains an autograph of a poem attributed to Nikolai Gumilyov, which I will allow myself to quote in full:

Wait for me. I will not be back -
It's beyond my strength.
If you couldn't do it before -
that means he didn’t love.
But tell me why then,
what year has it been?
I ask the Almighty
to take care of you.
Are you waiting for me? I will not be back,
- I can not. Sorry,
that there was only sadness
on my way.
May be
among the white rocks
and holy graves
I will find
Who was I looking for, who loved me?
Wait for me. I will not be back!

This is the story. Gumilyov's line “Wait for me. I won’t return..." is an order of magnitude stronger than Simonov’s, who distorted it and borrowed it (along with the poetic meter)...

Today Simonov would have turned one hundred years old. He died several epochs ago, in August 1979. He did not become a long-liver: the overexertion of the war years affected him, which he endured in subsequent years. Undoubtedly, he was not only one of the most beloved Russian Soviet writers among the people, but perhaps the most prolific.

Simonov's literary heritage is enormous. Poems, fiction, drama, journalism, several volumes of diaries, without which it is impossible to get an idea of ​​the Great Patriotic War. But among Simonov’s many volumes, one poem will never get lost. Same thing. It brought a special shade of meaning and feeling into our lives.

Simonov wrote it at the beginning of the war, when he was stunned by the first battles, the first defeats, the tragic encirclements, and retreats. The son and stepson of an officer, he did not separate himself from the army. Simonov was often asked: how did these lines appear to him? He once responded in a letter to a reader: “The poem “Wait for Me” has no special history. I just went to war, and the woman I loved was behind the lines. And I wrote her a letter in verse...” The woman is Valentina Serova, the famous actress, widow of the pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union, future wife of Simonov. The poem really appeared as a cure for separation, but Simonov did not write it in the active army.

In July 1941, having briefly returned from the front, the poet spent the night at the Peredelkino dacha of the writer Lev Kassil. He was burned by the first battles in Belarus. All his life he dreamed of these battles. The darkest days of the war were passing, and it was difficult to tame despair. The poem was written in one sitting.

Simonov had no intention of publishing “Wait for Me”: it seemed too intimate. Sometimes I read these poems to friends, the poem went around, rewritten, sometimes on tissue paper, with mistakes... The poem was heard on the radio. It first became legendary, and then published. The publication took place not just anywhere, but in the main newspaper of the entire USSR - in Pravda, on January 14, 1942, and after Pravda it was reprinted by dozens of newspapers. Millions of people knew him by heart - an unprecedented case.

War is not only battles and campaigns, not only the music of hatred, not only the death of friends and cramped hospitals. This is also parting with one’s home, separation from loved ones. Poems and songs about love were valued at the front above patriotic appeals. “Wait for Me” is one of the most famous Russian poems of the twentieth century. How many tears were shed over him... And how many did it save from despondency, from dark thoughts? Simonov’s poems convincingly suggested that love and loyalty are stronger than war:

Wait for me and I will come back.

Just wait a lot

Wait when they make you sad

Yellow rains,

Wait for the snow to blow

Wait for it to be hot

Wait when others are not waiting,

Forgetting yesterday.

Wait when from distant places

No letters will arrive

Wait until you get bored

To everyone who is waiting together.

The poem shook the country and became an anthem of anticipation. It has the power of healing. The wounded whispered the lines of this poem like a prayer - and it helped! The actresses read “Wait for me” to the fighters. Wives and brides copied each other's prayer lines. From then on, wherever Simonov performed until his last days, he was invariably asked to read “Wait for Me.” Such a melody, such cohesion of words and feelings - this is strength.

But one can also understand the poet’s mother, Alexandra Leonidovna Obolenskaya. She was offended by her son's main poem. In 1942, his mother’s letter found him: “Without waiting for an answer to my letters, I am sending a response to the poem “Wait” published on 19/1-42 in Pravda, in particular to the line that especially hits me in the heart with your stubborn silence:

Let the son and mother forget...

Of course you can slander

For son and mother,

Teach others how to wait

And how to save you.

You didn’t ask me to wait,

And I didn’t teach you how to wait,

But I waited with all my might,

As soon as a mother can,

And in the depths of my soul

You must be aware:

They, my friend, are not good,

Your words about your mother.”

Of course, this is an unfair line - “Let the son and mother forget...” This is what happens with poets: along with autobiographical motives, introduced ones also appear that have nothing to do with his personal family. Simonov needed to thicken the colors, emphasize the invisible connection between two lovers - and maternal love had to be sacrificed. To sharpen the image! And Alexandra Leonidovna forgave her son - soon they were already friendly discussing Simonov’s new poems and plays in letters.

Simonov reads poetry to soldiers and officers. Photo: godliteratury.ru

...Prayer for love and fidelity. There is probably no poem in the history of Russian poetry that has been repeated so often in difficult times. It helped millions of people who knew by heart the lines that Simonov initially considered too personal and not suitable for publication...

It is impossible to forget how he read “Wait for Me” from the stage in the late seventies, shortly before his death. An aged, haggard “knight of the Soviet image,” he did not resort to theatrical intonations or raise his voice. And the huge hall listened to every word... The war brought us so many losses, so many separations, so much expectation that such a poem could not help but appear. Simonov managed to recreate in poetry the state dimension of the war, the army dimension, and the human, personal dimension.

And the poems influenced the fate of the war, the fate of people. Simonov wrote many years later: “I remember the camp of our prisoners of war near Leipzig. What happened! Furious screams: ours, ours! Minutes later, and we were surrounded by a crowd of thousands. It is impossible to forget these faces of suffering, exhausted people. I climbed up the porch steps. I had to say in this camp the first words that came from my homeland... I feel my throat is dry. I can't say a word. I slowly look around at the vast sea of ​​people standing around. And finally I say. I can’t remember what I said now. Then I read “Wait for Me.” I burst into tears myself. And everyone around is also standing and crying... That’s how it happened.”

That's exactly how it was. It’s fitting to remember this on the day of the poet’s centenary.