I would not allow publication, even if this version is better than the original. But even without a magnifying glass, you can see that the text is degraded. And further. I left the poems composed at the front in the form in which they were born. <…>There is no need to change anything in my name or in what I wrote.
Ion Degen. Letter to " New newspaper", 06/27/2005
It is known that in large collections of poetry there are errors, which are treated as a necessary evil. However, there are times when errors are not acceptable. In particular, when a publisher, for the first time presenting to readers an author unknown to them, all the more so - outstanding person, and advertising his published poem as brilliant, distorts the name of the author and the original of this poem. Just such a case took place during the publication of Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem by Ion Degen "My comrade ...".
Ion Degen - great person, a unique orthopedic surgeon, Soviet tank ace, poet and writer, author of the famous poem "", recognized as the best military poem by leading Soviet front-line poets. Numerous articles about him begin with this poem, written by him in December 1944 at the front, as a 19-year-old tanker. He left a considerable literary legacy (poems, memoirs, stories, journalism, books). In the well-known 4 Internet publications of E.M. Berkovich (“Notes on Jewish History”, “7 Arts”, “Jewish Antiquity”, “Workshop”), more than a hundred of his works have been published. He is a doctor and scientist in the field of orthopedics and traumatology, Dr. medical sciences. He defended his candidate (1965) and doctoral (1973) dissertations in Moscow. Author of 90 scientific articles and the book "Magnetotherapy". In 1959, for the first time in the world, he performed a successful replantation of a limb (“sewn on” the hand of a Kyiv locksmith, which he accidentally cut off on a milling machine).
Ion Lazarevich Degen died on April 28, 2017 at the age of 92 in the town of Givatayim in Israel, where he emigrated with his family in 1977 from Kyiv. One of the farewell speeches over his body was delivered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Three photos:
Guard Lieutenant Ion Degen. 1944
Ion Degen. Israel
At the beginning of Yuri Solodkin's remarkable and rather complete essay "The Tale of Ion Degen", Yevtushenko's version of the poem "My Comrade ..." is first presented, which in his book "Stanzas of the Century: Anthologies of Russian Poetry" is presented as Degen's text, and then - the original of this poem, written by Ion Degen.
Yevtushenko's version:
My friend is in death throes.
I'm freezing. He's warmer.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.
What's wrong with you, what's wrong with you, my little one?
You're not hurt, just killed.
Let me take off your boots.
I still have to fight.
Original by Ion Degen:
My comrade, in death agony
Do not invite your friends in vain.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.
Don't cry, don't moan, you're not small
You're not hurt, you're just dead.
Let me take off your boots as a keepsake.
We have yet to advance.
December 1944
I draw your attention to the fact that the first line of the poem, by which the poem is called, is different in these versions and differs by a comma after the word "comrade" in the original.
The publication of Yevtushenko's version of this poem, as well as the misrepresentation of Degen's name in Yevtushenko's anthology, led to a serious confrontation between Degen and Yevtushenko, which has received some coverage in the literature and is of interest. Let us consider it and the accompanying history of the publication of this poem.
Even during the war and after it, this poem went from hand to hand without the name of the author. It was believed that he was dead. It was said that this poem was allegedly found in a field bag taken from a wrecked tank.
Many great poets - front-line soldiers - Alexander Mezhirov, Boris Slutsky, Evgeny Vinokurov, Mikhail Dudin, Mikhail Lukonin - called these lines the best military poem. Vasily Grossman published it in his novel "Life and Fate" as anonymous, since he did not know the name of the author. But they all reported different versions of this poem. Yevtushenko wrote about this and conditionally called these options "folk".
One of the versions of this poem, which turned out to be close to the original, Yevtushenko published in 1988 in the poetic anthology of the Ogonyok magazine No. 47 as an anonymous poem, since he did not know who its author was. This publication in Ogonyok is the merit of Yevtushenko and is considered the first publication of this poem by Degen in the USSR and Russia.
But then Yevtushenko chose, as he thinks, the best version of this poem that went from hand to hand (according to Yevtushenko, "I think Mikhail Lukonin's version"), given above, and published it in 1995 in his anthology of Russian poetry, which will be said below. And since then, under the name of Degen in all editions of the anthology of Russian poetry by Yevtushenko, this version of it appears, although it was changed by him, according to Degen, for the worse compared to the publication in Ogonyok, and not the author's original by Ion Lazarevich.
But in reality, for the first time this poem was published anonymously by Vasily Grossman in his novel Life and Fate, first in 1980 in Switzerland, and then in the USSR in 1988 in the journal Oktyabr (No. 2, p. 68):
My comrade, in death agony
Don't call you are helping people.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.
And don't cry out of fear small,
You're not hurt, you're just dead.
Let me take off your boots,
To me more fight to be.
This post is for you. Grossman is much closer to Degen's original than Yevtushenko's version above. In this text you. Grossman's words in bold type differ from the original.
closest to the option you. Grossman is the publication of this poem in the collection "Soviet poets who fell in the Great Patriotic War" / / comp. M.A. Benin. E.P. Semenov (St. Petersburg - Publishing house "Academic project", 1995. - 576 p.) in the section "Unknown poets":
My friend, in dying agony
Don't call people for help.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.
And do not cry from fear, like a little one.
You are not injured - you only killed.
I'm in memory I'll take off your boots
I still have to fight
In this text, words in bold type differ from those indicated in the option you. Grossman. And this publication of 1995, which is mentioned in the introduction “From the editorial board” by E. Berkovich and V. Kagan to the book “Black and White Kaleidoscope” by Ion Degen (Hannover: Publishing House of the Society of Lovers of Jewish Antiquity, 2009), is much closer to original than Yevtushenko's version, published in the same 1995 in the first edition of his Anthology of Russian Poetry.
In total, three editions of the thick and heavy book “Strophes of the Century. Anthology of Russian Poetry” / compiled by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, scientific editor Yevgeny Vitkovsky: editions of 1995 and 1997. (Minsk-Moscow: Polifact) and 1999 edition (Moscow: Polifact). All three editions contain exactly the same information about Degen and the same texts of his only poem published in these editions, "My Comrade ..." in a later version of Yevtushenko compared to the one he published in Ogonyok in 1988. In all three editions, 1056 p. , information about the author and the poem "My comrade ..." - on p. 701, information about the author's name in the Index of Names - on p. 1006.
"Degen Jonah (real name - Joseph Lazarevich)".
But this is not just a gross mistake - it looks like a strange writing of his "pseudonym" and "real name": not Iona, but Ion and the real name is Ion Lazarevich, not Joseph.
Where did the name Jonah come from? Maybe by analogy with the commander Iona Emmanuilovich Yakir? Many people confuse, thinking that Ion and Jonah are the same names. But this different names, although close. The name Jonah comes from the Old Testament prophet Jonah. It is often used by Christians (Monk Jonah, Bishop Jonah, Saint Jonah, Metropolitan Jonah).
It is curious that in 2015, when Yevtushenko already knew for sure that Degen's name was Ion, and when he knew the original poem "My comrade ...", nevertheless, the collection "Poetry of Victory" was published / compiled by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (ed. -vo "Eksmo"), in which the non-existent Ion Degen (and not Ion) is again named the author of the poem "My comrade ..." and Yevtushenko's version of this poem is again published.
One can learn about Yevtushenko's attitude to the problem of choosing one of the two versions of this poem (Yevtushenko's version, or Degen's original) and his opposition to Degen from two texts by Yevtushenko, dedicated respectively to his two meetings with Ion Degen. Consider these texts.
The first meeting of Yevgeny Yevtushenko with Ion Degen described in Yevtushenko’s article “Victory has a face that has suffered” in Novaya Gazeta dated May 12, 2005, No. 33, in a fragment dedicated to Degen:
The first time I managed it poem "My comrade" - V.Zh.) to include in the Ognikov perestroika version of the anthology "Strophes of the Century". The posting was anonymous. And suddenly a letter came from Ukraine, from Chernivtsi, from Dr. D.E. Nemerovsky. It turned out that the author Joseph Degen. He volunteered for the front. Managed to escape from the flaming tank. He was awarded many military orders and medals. Graduated from Chernivtsi Medical Institute. He worked in Kyiv as an orthopedic doctor. Was friends with Viktor Nekrasov. It remains strange why Nekrasov did not tell anyone about this. The fact that he could not hear Degen's poems is out of the question; they were found wherever there are typewriters. But maybe Degen had reason to hide the authorship of this poem?
Yevtushenko's version of this poem is also published there, the author of which is indicated Joseph Degen. Yevtushenko played on this "name" of the author, but extremely unsuccessfully, since in the surname Degen the emphasis is on the first syllable, and not on the second, which Yevtushenko did not know:
What did Joseph Degen's verse do?
He cut sharper than an autogen
all that is called war,
damned, dirty, blood and native.
Evg. YEVTUSHENKO
But Degen's name was not Joseph or Jonah, but And he. And this if don't mess around could easily be found out by contacting the Human Resources Department medical institute in Chernivtsi, which Ion Lazarevich graduated from, or to the personnel department of the organization where he worked, or in Moscow - to the Higher Attestation Commission, which approved him as a candidate, and then a doctor of medical sciences. Then Yevtushenko would not have had to come up with the ridiculous rhyme "Degen - autogen."
I note that in all his speeches, Yevtushenko does not read Degen's original, but only his own version of the poem "My comrade ...". So, at a conference at the National News Service (NSN) on May 19, 2016, Yevtushenko read his version of this poem.
“He came to me in Tel Aviv - the vice president of the council of veterans, a round-shouldered, but sculpturally broad-shouldered, slightly limping man of few words. "Spark" with own publication (Yevtushenko distorts: not with his own, but with Yevtushenko's anonymous publication, to which Degen had nothing to do—V.Zh.) saw and did not object to my choice of this particular option from all that went from hand to hand.
And here Yevtushenko shudders: “I didn’t mind” does not mean that he agreed - Degen simply remained silent.
When it was (in what year, approximate date), Yevtushenko does not indicate. But from the description of his second meeting with Degen, which will be discussed below, it follows that Yevtushenko's first meeting with Degen in Israel took place in 1995, that is, in the year when the first edition of his book, Stanzas of the Century. Anthology of Russian poetry.
Therefore, in 1995, when he met Degen, Yevtushenko knew that he was neither Joseph nor Jonah, but in subsequent editions of his Anthology (1997 and 1999), a false statement was preserved that Degen's real name was Joseph, and the name in his pseudonym - Jonah. This is confirmed by Ion Degen himself in a letter to M. Lezinsky: “In the Anthology of Russian Poetry, Yevtushenko, knowing me personally, for some reason called Joseph” (Mikhail Lezinsky. “Ion Degen and Yevgeny Yevtushenko.”
Meanwhile, it is a pity that Yevtushenko did not know that in Russia, 5 years before this article of his in Novaya Gazeta and 5 years before the release of the first edition of his Anthology of Russian Poetry, the original poem “My comrade, in a deadly agony", its author is called Degen, although with a mistake in the name - Jonah, not Ion, but not Joseph, and it is printed short biography indicating that the author lives and works in Israel. This was published in the journal "Questions of Literature" in 1990, No. 3 in the article of the literary critic Professor Vadim Solomonovich Baevsky "A poem and its author."
In the same article in Novaya Gazeta, Yevtushenko talks about the post-war unpleasant story that happened to Degen, after which he decided to stop writing poetry:
“Immediately after the war, he was invited to an evening of front-line poets, it seems, in the recently liberated Kharkov.”
Here, “it seems”, Yevtushenko “forgotten” Degen’s story: the evening was held not in Kharkov, but in Moscow at the Central House of Writers (CDL) in the summer of 1945 and was organized specifically for listening to Degen at the request of the Copyright Protection Committee. Strange forgetfulness. The chairman of the evening was Konstantin Simonov, who, after Degen read the poem "My comrade, in mortal agony ...", sharply attacked Degen, accusing him of apologia for looting. According to Yevtushenko, this is due to the fact that Simonov played it safe, fearing provocations.
This story is described by Degen himself (Ion Degen. Briefly about himself. - "Notes on Jewish History", 2006, No. 10 (71):
« Yevgeny Yevtushenko once told me that I was wrong to hang dogs on Simonov. “He saved your life,” said Yevtushenko. Pray, they say, he should. In one of my poems there is a line "The commander is recognized as a genius." Someone reported where necessary that I had raised my hand against Comrade Stalin. And Simonov, defending me, explained that for a tanker, even a brigade commander is already a commander. So it really was».
Later, the late Felix Berezin, Doctor of Medical Sciences, a close friend of Ion Lazarevich, whom he called Janya, writes about this in more detail, who unselfishly created a website about him. On this site, F. Berezin, who had known this story for a long time and was in correspondence with Degen, recounted this story partly based on published materials, partly on Degen's stories and partly on the recorded materials of his speech in 2013 at the Museum of Jewish Culture and the Tolerance Center in Moscow, where F. Berezin was present Berezin F.B. “One life through four eras: 800. Ion Degen and the last meeting. 5, Berezin F.B. "801. Ion Degen and the last meeting. 6". In section 801, F. Berezin, in particular, cites the following words of Ion Degen:
“Yevtushenko said that Simonov could not have behaved differently in the House of Writers, that he knew that there were at least five people sitting in the hall, who, if he behaved differently, would report “to the right place” tomorrow that Degen came out with ideologically vicious poems, but he, Simonov, was present and did not stop.
“I myself understood well that the initial indignation at the word “commander” was due to the fact that this word was mainly applied to the Supreme Commander. All the rest were "warlords".
Yevtushenko considers it possible to explain to Degen why K. Simonov arranged for him to be defeated in 1945. Isn't it strange that Yevtushenko, in 1945, a thirteen-year-old student of an incomplete high school, I am sure that, approximately 60 years after this evening, he can confidently, almost like an eyewitness, present his explanation as the truth to the one who lived long life, beaten and well-informed Degen? In my opinion, this is too much on the part of Yevtushenko. After all, he only has guesses, considerations and post-war "tales". In fact, other stories coming from Simonov are also known, which Degen himself retold (see section 801 of F. Berezin):
“Recalling this episode, Simonov later said: “Stalin said to me:“ So, for this tanker, the brigade commander is a commander? And he answered my affirmative gesture with a condescending smile: "He, sitting in his tank, I suppose, did not even see the general alive."
And Yevtushenko's suspicious remark about why Viktor Nekrasov did not talk about his friendship with Degen? It only shows that Yevtushenko did not know the facts. Viktor Nekrasov and Ion Degen became friends when Degen became a Kievan. Read the memoirs of Ion Degen "Viktor Platonovich Nekrasov".
Very interesting. Here is the text from these memoirs of Degen:
« Victor seemed to know everything about me. But never once did I tell him that, besides case histories and scientific articles, I occasionally wrote something that had no direct relation to medicine. I was shy. It was possible, of course, to show front-line poems. But Victor once said that he doesn't like poetry. (highlighted by me - V.Zh.) .
Many years later, I had the opportunity to doubt the veracity of his statement. But then I, as they say, took my word for it.
One day, returning from Moscow, Nekrasov asked me:
—Have you crap Zhenya Yevtushenko? I shrugged vaguely.
—You see, I’m having lunch at the Central House of Writers, Zhenya came up to me and said:« For some reason your Kyiv friends don't like me. But in a couple of days I will chip off such a number that you will gasp» . And, as you can see, it broke off.
Nekrasov had in mind what appeared the day before in« Literary newspaper« poem« Babi Yar« . I did not intend to discuss the literary merits of this poem. But I didn't really like that man wrote a poem, to break off the number.
After a joint trip to Paris, Victor spoke well of Andrei Voznesensky. I considered him a decent person. But he never said a word about Voznesensky's poetry.
No, I had no reason not to believe Nekrasov when he said that he did not like poetry.» .
It turns out that Evgeny Alexandrovich did not understand Viktor Nekrasov.
Professor Leon Aronovich Koval in the article “Who likes what kind of poems”, writes about the article under consideration by Yevtushenko “Victory has a face that has suffered” (“Novaya Gazeta” dated 12.05.2005, No. 33) the following:
“The poet Yevtushenko, alas, in a patronizing, disrespectful way, tells about the history of the poem and quotes it in his own careless edition.”
Ion Degen's reaction was posted on the Novaya Gazeta forum:
“... I read it and was inflamed to a white heat. Yevtushenko in his repertoire. First, I have never been JOSEPH. Secondly, he messed up my text ugly. Thirdly, I have never given, do not give and will not give him permission to defile what was born in me at the front. I do not consider it fair to edit myself - a front-line soldier. Fourth,<…>. Fifthly, Viktor Nekrasov did not know at all that, apart from medicine, I was engaged in some other activity. It's a pity I don't know Yevtushenko's address. And yet, good. Because I would answer him<…>I have never performed in any Kharkov. He performed in Moscow, in the Central House of Writers. For the first time, Vasily Grossman included a poem in his book. But why truth? It's Yevtushenko, after all. "Slightly limps." I wish I could limp a LIGHT…”
And yet, much later, Ion Lazarevich said (I do not exclude that diplomatically) about his conflict with Yevtushenko in an interview with Maria Dubinskaya ( “My comrade in death agony…”: “War and peace of Ion Degen”. — Windows of Moscow”, 07.12.2016): “And although the situation was, I don’t hold a grudge against a wonderful poet and person.”
The second meeting of Yevgeny Yevtushenko with Ion Degen described in Yevtushenko's material "A tanker who wanted to become a doctor" ("New News", 11/23/2007).
In this material, Yevtushenko writes:
“I trusted the first option I heard and used to it. It was he who was included in one of the publications in Ogonyok from the future anthology Stanzas of the Century. And suddenly I received a letter from Ukraine from a person who personally knew the author. My correspondent reported that the author is alive and his name is Ion Degen. I met him twelve years ago in Israel(i.e. in 1995 - V.Zh.), but, unfortunately, somehow on the go, between performances. The main thing for me then was to make sure that he really exists and that the poems really belong to him. But there was not enough time for a meticulous reconciliation of options. ”
“We met on November 17, 2007 in the Israeli town Givataim (there is no such town in Israel, the correct name is — Givatayim; I note that such a mistake is unacceptable for an anthology—V.Zh.) not far from the anticipating filling of the Tel Aviv stadium. Yevtushenko was limited in time, because he came to football between Israel and Russia, performing a socio-political function - to support the Russian team. I do not rule out that the name of the town of Givataym came to Yevtushenko by association with the football term "time".
Yevtushenko notes in the same place that "Degen spoke about the " folk version” in his samizdat book to offensively sharp. But didn’t I myself explode sometimes if I was “improved” without me? All of us poets are morbidly proud when we are ruled. Here Yevtushenko demagogically opposes his own version of Degen's original as "folk". And he writes: “Being angry with me, you needlessly got angry at the co-authorship of the “language-creating people”.”
But Degen is not painfully proud, but simply principled: he calmly outlined his position in his letter to Novaya Gazeta, which will be given below.
In his answers to Dear Jon, Yevtushenko tries to defend his version of the poem, but his arguments are very weak and not fundamental. One of Yevtushenko's arguments in defense of his version of the poem: used to it". He writes for the sake of objectivity: "Today I present both options - the so-called "folk" and the author's." However, having placed both versions in this material, Yevtushenko, as a master, leaves his own version for his anthology.
Since Yevtushenko acknowledged Degen's authorship, there can be no reason for him NOT to publish the original poem, which belongs to Degen. Moreover, in the book of Ion Degen "Poems from the tablet of the guards of Lieutenant Ion Degen" (with a preface by Mordechai Tverskoy). - Ramat Gan, Israel, 1991, in which the original poem "My comrade, in death agony" is published, printed: " All rights reserved by I. Degen". This book is in Moscow in the Russian State Library (RSL), the former Library. Lenin. And it was published four years before the first edition of the book by E. Yevtushenko “Strophes of the century. Anthology of Russian poetry", 1995.
Let us compare the indications of the name of the author of this poem in Yevtushenko's texts devoted to his two meetings with Degen described above. In the first text, Yevtushenko writes that he received a letter from Dr. Nemerovsky, who said that the author of the poem was Joseph Degen. And in the second text it is reported that the author is Ion Degen. This is essentially a correction of the error pointed out by Degen in his protest to Novaya Gazeta. However, the 1997 and 1999 editions of Yevtushenko's anthology did not correct this error.
In the text about the second meeting with Degen, Yevtushenko devotes considerable space to the artistic representation of the image of Degen, the football match between Russia and Israel, even coach Guus Hiddink and, in general, a kind of "entertainment".
But the most interesting, in my opinion, is a letter from Ion Lazarevich Degen to the editors of Novaya Gazeta against the renaming of Ion to Joseph Degen and against the alteration of the original of his poem "My comrade, ...". In a letter to Israeli journalist Mikhail Lezinsky, to whom he forwarded his letter to Novaya Gazeta, Degen writes:
« Dear Michael!
IN« Anthologies of Russian poetry« Yevtushenko, knowing me personally, for some reason called me Joseph. And then he repeated this name in a large article dedicated to me and published in« Novaya Gazeta« . I was forced to answer. Through the newspaper» .
“WITHOUT MY OPUSES, LITERATURE WILL NOT BE POVERER”
“Dear editors, a publication by Yevgeny Yevtushenko reached me, in which for some reason he calls me Joseph. Now that I know the meaning of my name Ion in Hebrew - a dove, I might agree to become Joseph. I do not like pigeons either in nature or in politics. But my parents signed me up as Ion. I was listed as Ion in my passport, which I managed to get three weeks before the start of the war and five weeks before my first battle. I was listed as Ion in the Komsomol ticket and in the party ticket handed to me at the front. I was recorded as Ion in the certificate of graduation from the tank school and in the order book. I was named Ion in the diploma of a doctor, in the diplomas of a candidate and a doctor of medical sciences issued to me by the Higher Attestation Commission. And even in Israel, despite the dislike for this name, I continue to be called Ion.
In 1988, Yevgeny Yevtushenko published in Ogonyok my poem "My comrade, in mortal agony ..." in the form in which it was composed, replacing only two words - "mortal" instead of "mortal" (more precisely) and "fight ' instead of 'advance'. But the version in the current publication by E. Yevtushenko has nothing to do with my text. In the same way, E. Yevtushenko's statement that I allowed him to publish the poem in this form has nothing to do with the truth.
I would not allow publication, even if this version is better than the original. But even without a magnifying glass, you can see that the text is degraded. And further. I left the poems composed at the front in the form in which they were born. For example, regarding the poem "From Intelligence", Lev Anninsky wrote that the first two lines are Shakespeare, and the next two are a commentary on Shakespeare, in the last line - terrible in banality. Regarding the first two lines, a prominent critic turned out to be excessively generous. As for the rest - accurate. Now I could improve the last line, which would justify the penultimate one. But why? I do not want to change anything and seem better and smarter than I was at that time. Literature will not be poor without my opuses. I'm a doctor, not a writer.
There is no need to change anything in my name or in what I wrote.
Sincerely, Ion Degen.
There was no answer.
So, Yevtushenko refused to publish the original poem "My comrade, ..." in his anthology. It's a pity. This is extremely annoying. But don't be afraid.
Numerous Russian-language sites published the original poem by Ion Degen "My comrade, in mortal agony." In particular, it was published in the online journal "Notes on Jewish History", which is read on all continents (see I. Degen's selection "From military poems. In the war and after the war" in "Notes on Jewish History" No. 5 (66 ), May 2006.
It is curious that there are authors who, citing the original of this poem in their articles, mistakenly write that Yevtushenko published it in his Anthology of Russian Poetry. This is Mikhail Degtyar, a Russian film director who shot together with Yulia Melamed documentary“Degen” (“Look into the eyes of death so that it looks away.” - “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, 06/06/2015), Israeli journalists - Mikhail Lezinsky (“Ion Degen and Yevgeny Yevtushenko”), and Vladimir Beider (“Life between two poems”, 04/28/2017). Apparently, this happened because they themselves did not read this huge anthology, published in the form of a very heavy book in a large format, but they heard that Yevtushenko published the poem “My Comrade” in it, and did not suspect that it did not contain the original. Degen, and Yevtushenko's version of this poem.
It is very important that the original of this poem 9 and 7 years ago appeared in Russian printed publications. So, he entered the encyclopedic collection "Poems and songs about the Great Patriotic war”, foreword by A.M. Turkova, compiled by L.V. Polikovskaya, - M .: World of encyclopedias Avanta +, 2008, p. 80 (volume 447 pages) and in the poetry collection "Scars on the Heart", compiled by N.V. Laidinen, - M .: Publishing House "Red Star", 2010, p. 136 (length 408 pp.). I hope that the number of publications of the original poem "My comrade, in mortal agony" will increase and that Yevtushenko's version under the name of Degen will no longer be published.
Note
In all three editions of the book “Strophes of the century. Anthology of Russian poetry ”/ compiled by E. Yevtushenko, in the information about Degen (on p. 701), the surname Nemerovsky is corrected to Nemirovsky. - V.Zh.
Original: http://7i.7iskusstv.com/2017-nomer11-zhuk/
These verses will never get into school textbooks for one simple reason - they are true. And this truth is not incredibly inconvenient for modern “sofa” patriots who write on their cars “1941-1945. If necessary, we will repeat. The author of these poems - 19-year-old tank lieutenant Ion Degen - wrote them back in December 1944.
After finishing the 9th grade, Ion Degen went to work as a counselor in a pioneer camp in Ukraine. There he found the war. The draft board refused him due to his age. Then he thought that literally in a few weeks the war would end, and he would not have time to contribute to the Victory.
The ninth grade ended only yesterday.
Will I ever finish the tenth?
Holidays are a happy time.
And suddenly - a trench, a carbine, grenades,
And above the river a burnt house to the ground,
The roommate is forever lost.
I'm confused helplessly in everything
That cannot be measured by school standards.
Together with his comrades, he escaped from the train that was taking them to the evacuation. They managed to get to the location of the 130th Infantry Division, which fought at the front, and achieve admission to the platoon. So in July 41, Ion was at war.
Only a month has passed, out of 31 people from the platoon, only two remained. Ion survived the encirclement, wandering through the forests, being wounded and hospital, from which he left only in January 1942. He again rushed to the front, but he was 1.5 years short of military age, and he was sent to the rear, to the Caucasus. Ion worked on a tractor at a state farm, but in the summer of 1942 the war came there. At the age of 17, as a volunteer, he again went to the front and ended up in intelligence. In the fall, he was again seriously injured. His comrades in an unconscious state pulled him out from behind the front line.
On December 31, 1942, he leaves the hospital, and as a tractor driver, he is sent to study at a tank school. Two years of training, and in the spring of 1944, junior lieutenant Ion Degen was again at the front. This time on the brand new T-34. His tank epic begins: dozens of battles, tank duels, 8 months at the front. When your comrades perish one by one, a different attitude to life and death appears. And in December 1944, he will write that very famous poem in his life, which will be called one of the best poems about the war:
My comrade, in death agony
Do not invite your friends in vain.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.
Don't cry, don't moan, you're not small
You're not hurt, you're just dead.
Let me take off your boots as a keepsake.
We have yet to advance.
He fought in good conscience, and for his luck, Ion was even called the lucky one. It’s not for nothing that today his name can be found at number fifty on the list of the best Soviet tank aces: Iona Lazarevich Degen, lieutenant of the guard, 16 victories (including 1 Tiger, 8 Panthers), twice presented to the title of Hero Soviet Union, awarded the Order of the Red Banner. For Lieutenant Degen, the commander of a tank company, everything will end in January 1945 in East Prussia.
On January 21, 1945, Iona's tank was shot down, and the Nazis shot the crew that jumped out of the burning tank. When the 19-year-old boy was taken to the hospital, he was still alive. Seven bullet wounds, four shrapnel wounds, broken legs, open fracture jaw and sepsis. At the time, it was a death sentence. He was saved by the head physician, who did not regret the scarce penicillin for the dying soldier, and God, who had his own plans for Jonah. And the brave tanker survived!
And although at the age of 19 lifelong disability seemed like a sentence, our hero was able to reach incredible heights in his difficult life. In 1951, he graduated from medical school with honors, became an orthopedic surgeon, and in 1958 became the first surgeon in the world to perform a replantation. upper limb. He has a PhD and a doctorate scientific work. But this little lame and fearless man, who was never afraid to speak the truth, was very inconvenient for the officials.
In 1977, Iona Lazarevich left for Israel, long years worked as a doctor, but never renounced his homeland. Today he is 91 years old, but he is still young at heart. When in 2012, among the veterans, the military attache at the Russian embassy presented him with the next anniversary awards, the ruffed hero read the following verses:
Habitually molasses spilled speech.
In the mouth set on edge from the words of unctuous.
Royally on our hunched shoulders
Added a load of anniversary medals.
Solemnly, so sugary-sweetly,
Moisture trickles down her cheeks from her eyes.
And why do you think they need our glory?
Why ... they need our former courage?
Silently time is wise and weary
Hardly scars wounds, but no trouble.
On a jacket in the metal collection
Another medal for Victory Day.
And there was a time, rejoiced at the load
And overcoming the pain of loss bitterly,
Shouted "I serve the Soviet Union!"
When they screwed the order to the tunic.
Now everything is smooth as the surface of the abyss.
Equal within current morality
And those who whore in the distant headquarters,
And those who were in the tanks burned alive.
The time of heroes or the time of scoundrels -
We ourselves always choose how to live.
By the will of fate and politicians today these people live in different countries, but they all fought for one Great Victory. And a vivid reminder of both unity and that Victory.
***
Do not invite your friends in vain.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.
These poems were written by 19-year-old tank lieutenant Jonah Degen in December 1944. They will never be included in school anthologies about that great war. For a very simple reason - they are true, but this truth is different, terrible and incredibly inconvenient for those who write on their machines: “1941-1945. If necessary, we will repeat.
Jonah, after the 9th grade, went as a counselor to a pioneer camp in Ukraine in the last peaceful June days of 41 years. There he found the war. The military registration and enlistment office refused to call because of infancy. Then it seemed to him that in a few weeks the war would end in Berlin, and he would not have time to go to the front. Together with a group of the same young men (some of them were his classmates), having escaped from the evacuation echelon, they were able to get to the front and ended up at the location of the 130th Infantry Division. The guys made sure that they were enrolled in one platoon.
So in July 41, Jonah was at war.
The ninth grade ended only yesterday.
Will I ever finish the tenth?
Holidays are a happy time.
And suddenly - a trench, a carbine, grenades,
And above the river a burnt house to the ground,
The roommate is forever lost.
I'm confused helplessly in everything
That cannot be measured by school standards.
Until the day I die, I will remember:
Glare lay on the breaks of chalk,
Like a brand new school notebook
The sky was blue over the battlefield,
My trench under the blossoming elderberry,
A flock of squeaky swifts flew by,
And the cloud shone white
Just like without ink "non-pouring".
But a finger with a purple spot,
Following dictations and control work,
Pressing the hook, I thought about
That I start the account is no longer school.
July 1941
In a month, only two of their platoon (31 people) will remain. And then - the environment, wandering through the forests, injury, hospital. He left the hospital only in January 42. And again he demands to send him to the front, but he still has a year and a half to 18 - military age.
Jonah was sent to the rear to the south, to the Caucasus, where he learned to work on a tractor on a state farm. But the war itself came there in the summer of 42, and Degen was taken as a volunteer at the age of 17, he was again at the front, this time in a reconnaissance platoon. In October - a wound and again severe. The bullet entered the shoulder, passed through the chest, abdomen and exited through the thigh. The scouts pulled him unconscious from behind the front line.
On December 31, 1942, he was discharged from the hospital and, as a former tractor driver, was sent to study at a tank school. At the beginning of 44, he graduated from college with honors, and in the spring, junior lieutenant Iona Degen, on a brand new T-34, was again at the front.
Thus began his 8 months of tank epic. And it is not just words. Eight months at the front, dozens of battles, tank duels - all this is many times greater than what fate measured out to many thousands of other tankers who died in that war. For Lieutenant Degen, the commander of a tank company, everything will end in January 1945 in East Prussia.
How did he fight? On conscience. Although the T-34 was one of the best tanks of the Second World War, by the year 44 it was still outdated. And these tanks burned often, but Jonah was lucky for the time being, he was even called the lucky one.
***
You won't go crazy at the front,
Not learning to forget right away.
We raked out of wrecked tanks
Anything that can be buried in the grave.
The brigade commander rested his chin on his tunic.
I hid my tears. Enough. Stop doing that.
And in the evening the driver taught me
How to properly dance padespan.
Summer 1944
Random raid on the enemy's rear.
Only a platoon decided the fate of the battle.
But the orders will not go to us.
Thank you, at least nothing less than oblivion.
For our random crazy fight
Recognize the brilliant commander.
But the main thing is that we survived with you.
And the truth is what? After all, that is how it is done.
September 1944
***
I didn't hear a cry or a groan.
Above the towers are tombs of fire.
In half an hour the battalion was gone.
And I'm still the same, saved by someone.
Perhaps only until tomorrow.
July 1944
When your comrades perish one by one, a different attitude to life and death appears. And in December 1944, he will write that very famous poem in his life, which will be called one of the best poems about the war:
***
My comrade, in death agony
Do not invite your friends in vain.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.
Don't cry, don't moan, you're not small
You're not hurt, you're just dead.
Let me take off your boots as a keepsake.
We have yet to advance.
BATTLE LOSSES
It's all on music paper:
The whistle and roar of a lead blizzard,
The heavy rustle of drooping flags
Over the grave of a best friend
On a pine tree, killed by a shell,
The woodpecker knocks the Morse code with its beak,
Foreman to the crew as a reward
Vodka sips with a tin can ..
Joy, rage, love and torment,
The tank, up to the tower, enveloped in fire, -
Everything gave birth to images, sounds
In the young heart of a singer and a soldier.
In the commander's bag severe
In front of death and agony
Together with a map of kilometers
Scores of his symphonies
And when over his car
Smoke rose like a black headstone,
The men could not hold back the sobs
In a burned-out tank uniform.
The heart is bound with great pain.
Tears of grief did not dissolve.
Maybe a second Beethoven
We buried today.
Summer 1944
BED NEIGHBOR.
Punch hit...
There...
Once upon a time...
And the score of broken vertebrae
Conducted by a surgeon from the medical battalion.
By smells and by calls
He recognizes his room.
The wife does not write.
Well, she...
Not many people need a husband like that.
I found myself another husband.
She is not a mother.
She is a wife.
But know
What else are friends
In the men's commonwealth of iron
And that means you can't get overwhelmed.
And you have to live
And be helpful.
December 1942
He did not know that fate measured out quite a bit. Only a month. And after many years, his name will be carved on a granite monument on a mass grave. In the list of the best Soviet tank aces at number fifty you will read - Iona Lazarevich Degen. guard lieutenant, 16 victories (including 1 "Tiger", 8 "Panthers"), twice presented to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
On January 21, 1945, his T-34 was shot down, and the crew, who managed to jump out of the burning tank, were shot by the Germans and thrown with grenades.
He was still alive when he was taken to the hospital. Seven bullet wounds, four shrapnel wounds, broken legs, an open fracture of the jaw. Sepsis set in and at the time it was a death sentence. He was saved by the head physician, who demanded that he be given a terribly scarce penicillin intravenously. It seemed to be a waste of precious medicine, but God had other plans for him - Jonah survived!
Then there was rehabilitation, lifelong disability - and all this at the age of 19 ...
And then a long and very difficult life in which our hero-tanker was able to reach new incredible heights. While still in the hospital, he decided to become a doctor. In 1951 he graduated from the Medical Institute with honors. Became an orthopedic surgeon. In 1959, he was the first in the world to carry out the replantation of the upper limb (he sewed a severed arm to a tractor driver).
He will have both a candidate and a doctorate, a long way to recognition. This little fearless lame Jew was already very uncomfortable, never shy about telling the truth, always ready to punch a presumptuous boor in the face, regardless of rank and position.
In 1977, Iona Lazarevich will leave for Israel. And there he will be in demand as a doctor, will receive honor and respect, but he will never renounce his homeland.
He lives to this day. In 2015, he turned 90 years old, but his character has not changed at all.
In 2012, he, like the rest of the veterans in the Russian embassy, was presented with the next anniversary awards by the military attache to the sounds of solemn music. After the ceremony was over, our ruffy hero read these poems of his.
***
Habitually molasses spilled speech.
In the mouth set on edge from the words of unctuous.
Royally on our hunched shoulders
Added a load of anniversary medals.
Solemnly, so sugary-sweetly,
Moisture trickles down her cheeks from her eyes.
And why do you think they need our glory?
Why ... they need our former courage?
Silently time is wise and weary
Hardly scars wounds, but no trouble.
On a jacket in the metal collection
Another medal for Victory Day.
And there was a time, rejoiced at the load
And overcoming the pain of loss bitterly,
Shouted "I serve the Soviet Union!"
When they screwed the order to the tunic.
Now everything is smooth as the surface of the abyss.
Equal within current morality
And those who **** were at the distant headquarters,
And those who were in the tanks burned alive.
The time of heroes or the time of scoundrels - we ourselves always choose how to live.
There are people who make history. And these are not politicians at all, but people like Iona Lazarevich Degen.
How much do we know about them?
Poet Ion Degen
Ethics is one of the most ancient sciences. It arose in the depths of philosophy and thanks to it. Aristotle can be considered the founders of ethics. One of the first ethical categories were "good" and "virtue".
To many literary works, be it an anecdote, a fable or a story, other ethical categories are also quite applicable: honor and dishonor, good and evil, justice and lawlessness, altruism and greed, etc. Even on the narrow "patch" of a small lyrical poem, ethical categories " work,” even if in the opposite direction.
Ion Degen- the last of the living poets of the front generation. Former tanker and medical practitioner. Lives in Israel. Glory to Degen was brought by the octagon, which is quoted in novel by V. Grossman “Life and Fate". It for a long time went in the lists and learned by heart, breaking away from the name of the author, so that it became practically a folk text. Here is the author's version:
My comrade, in death agony
Do not invite your friends in vain.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.
Don't cry, don't moan, you're not small
You're not hurt, you're just dead.
Let me take off your boots as a keepsake.
We have yet to advance.
This text contrasts sharply with many works in which the war is presented, albeit from a tragic, but not naturalistic side. Behind the heroism of the Soviet soldiers, the "generals from literature" did not seem to want to see the exhausting everyday life, the proximity of death, the "childish" psychology when you live in the present and one day.
“In war as in war,” the old saying goes. And there certainly is not up to ethical principles. And yet, Degen's poem is unusual, capable of shocking with its "homemade" truth and "offal". This is especially true of the endings of both quatrains.
In the first case, the intention is to warm the palms over the smoking blood of a mortally wounded comrade. What does the science of ethics teach in civilian life? There is always a chance. It is necessary to immediately provide assistance, pull the wound with a tourniquet or other improvised means - only to stop the blood. And then deliver the wounded to the medical battalion as soon as possible. But decisions are made promptly, even at lightning speed. And there is no place for any kindness. Mercy will no longer help, but the cold canine. So let there be some warmth from the steaming blood. Cruel and cynical? May be. But the reaction of those few veterans, front-line soldiers, who went through the fiery roads of the war and were always at the forefront of the attack, is interesting. They will almost certainly answer that the lyrical hero of Degen's poem is acting according to the case, according to the situation. The dead do not hurt, they are not responsible for themselves. Eternal memory to them, but "we still have to advance."
It is for the offensive that boots are required, which the dead (almost dead) comrade has not yet had time to wear out. They are of no use to him, but they will be useful to the living. From the point of view of ethics (what is there ethics - the criminal code!) An act can be equated with nothing less than looting. Still - take off your shoes! But he has no right to condemn who has not smelled gunpowder, who represents war by
Ion was not only a hero who stood up to defend his homeland at only 16 years old, but also an outstanding front-line poet. His poems were passed from mouth to mouth, instilling in the soldiers hope and strength to go to the end. But few people know how the fate of this man developed and what prompted him to become what he became.
Born in 1925, Ion Lazarevich did not manage to taste the joys of a young life. When he was three years old, the father of the family died. Without reliable support in the family, twelve-year-old Ion was forced to work
as a blacksmith's assistant to somehow help his mother.
My childhood was hungry: it was very hard to feed myself on one mother's salary as a nurse.
Exactly seven days after the end of the ninth grade, on the night of June 22, 1941, Ion noticed how a heavily loaded train passed over the bridge to Germany. Early in the morning, people began to speak in secret: “The war has begun!” Still quite a boy, Ion immediately rushed to the draft board, but there he was convinced that they could not take a child into the army.
I ran to the city committee of the Komsomol, from there to the military registration and enlistment office, but nobody wanted to talk to me anywhere. I shook the air with exclamations about the duty of a Komsomol member, about defending the Motherland, about heroes civil war. I shot out the slogans I was stuffed with like a dumpling with potatoes.
Ten days later, a volunteer fighter battalion was formed, consisting of students in the ninth and tenth grades. Ion Lazarevich also joined there.
Ion remembered the summer of the first year of the war for a long time. He regularly buried colleagues and participated in skirmishes with the Germans.
Nearby, my classmates, seventeen-year-old boys, were dying. For me it was a shock. I could hardly hold back my tears as we buried our dead comrades.In early August, our platoon set fire to two German tanks with grenades and bottles of KS.
In the end, Ion's division was surrounded. Many began to disperse to the surrounding villages in search of salvation, but the remnants of Degen's battalion decided to break through. In one evening there were two of them left: Ion and his colleague, Sasha Soiferman. When they once again fired back from the advancing Germans, Ion was wounded in the leg. His friend bandaged the wound and they continued their journey. We reached the Dnieper, where rescue was waiting for the young guys on the other side, but they still had to swim there. Throwing off all weapons and boots, Ion and Sasha swam. In the middle of the river, Degen looked around, but his comrade was not there. Ion had no doubt: Soiferman drowned. Having swum to the shore and collapsed on the beach from fatigue, Degen heard German speech. Fortunately, they did not notice him and passed by.
And then I cried: neither pain, nor loss, nor fear were the cause of these tears. I cried from the realization of the tragedy of the retreat, which I had to become a witness and participant of, from the terrible thoughts that all our victims were in vain ... I cried because I didn’t even have a grenade to blow myself up with the Germans. I cried at the very thought that the Germans were already on the left bank of the Dnieper.
No less difficult for Ion Degen were the subsequent years of the war. After a five-month treatment in the hospital, he entered the intelligence department of the armored train division. In its composition, in the Caucasus, there were the most cruel times. I had to extort food from the local population with weapons, and even kill my rear colonel, who, out of fear, refused to take the wounded soldiers to the hospital.
They looked at the documents of the driver and said: “Now we know who you are and what you are. If you blabbed to someone about what you just saw, we will get you out of the ground and kill you! Understood?! Then drive to the sanbat!
In October 1942, Ion was wounded again, and again in the leg. After three months of hospitalization, he was sent to a tank school, from which he graduated with honors in the spring of 1944. Subsequently, Ion Degen became a master ace of tank combat, destroying 12 German tanks, 4 self-propelled guns and a lot of enemy manpower.
But even the period of Ion's "tanker" activity was not at least a little calm. The funeral of comrades and the cleaning of the tank from the blood after the battle remained in the order of things until the end of the war.
You won't go crazy at the front,
Not learning to forget right away.
We raked out of wrecked tanks
Anything that can be buried in the grave.
In his last battle, Ion showed himself as a real hero. In the capture of a small city in Prussia, he was placed at the head of a company assembled from the remnants of other tank companies. He was obliged to lead her in a frontal attack without any support, literally to certain death.On the morning of January 21, 1945, at 8:00, Ion received the order to attack. All twelve cars started their engines. Lieutenant Degen commanded: "Forward!", But no one moved. Ion jumped out of the car and ran to the nearest tanks, on which he began to hit with a crowbar, accompanying his actions with a choice obscenity. None of the crew responded. There was nothing to do, Ion's tank jumped forward. He did not have time to notice if the rest of the tanks went on the attack. After 300 meters, the crew stumbled upon an enemy armored vehicle. After Ion ordered the attack, he felt terrible pain.
My blood, smelling of vodka, flooded my face. On shell "suitcases" lay a bloody tower. The frontal gunner froze in his seat, instead of his head I saw a bloody mess. And at that moment Zakharia groaned: "Lieutenant, my legs were blown off."
Miraculously, Ion jumped out of the tank and collapsed into the bloodied snow. Of the four bullet wounds on the left hand and three on the right oozed blood. German speech was clearly heard at 40 meters. Ion decided to shoot himself, but before he had time to remove the pistol from the safety lock, he regained consciousness in the hospital. It turned out that Degen was saved by the crew of a colleague.
Ion spent six months in the hospital. There he decided what he would do after demobilization.
Encased completely in plaster, all the time he thought only about one thing: what will I do after the war? Disabled on crutches, without education and profession. But, seeing the noble feat of doctors saving the lives of wounded soldiers, I decided to become a doctor too. And he never regretted choosing his profession in the future.
After the war, Ion graduated from the Medical Institute and worked as an orthopedist-traumatologist until the end of his life.
At the front, in his spare time, Ion Degen wrote poetry, many of which were transmitted orally and until 1980 were considered folk. His works are imbued with realism and despair, which the front-line poet experienced during the war, but nevertheless these poems played an important role in raising the spirit of all the defenders of the country.
I would like to end the article with the famous poem by Ion Degen "My comrade in death agony." According to many real comfrey front-line soldiers, it contains the whole cruel truth about the war.
My comrade, in death agony
Do not invite your friends in vain.
Let me warm my palms
Above your smoking blood.Don't cry, don't moan, you're not small
You're not hurt, you're just dead.
Let me take off your felt boots as a keepsake.
We still have to come.
