General Panfilov's Reserve
General Panfilows Reserve ( Russian Резерв генерала Панфилова / Reserv generala Panfilowa ) is a novel by the Soviet writer Alexander Bek , published in 1960. The translation into German by Rahel Strassberg came out in 1962 in East Berlin's Deutsche Militärverlag .
The text - Episodes from the Battle of Moscow from October 16 to November 20, 1941 - is the continuation of the book The Volokolamsker Chaussee . Battalion commander Oberleutnant Momysch-Uly, courageously delaying the advance of the Germans towards Moscow in the German-Soviet war as General Panfilov's last reserve .
From the perspective of the 21st century there is something like a heroic epic. Only five percent of the battalion survived the fighting, but Alexander Bek portrays the commander and his twenty-three survivors as the victor.
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As a battalion commander, Lieutenant Momysch-Uly may call in to General Panfilov's division staff at any time without prior notice. This time Lieutenant General Svyagin is present. This "clumsy, domineering" deputy to the Army Commander-in-Chief disapproves of the order introduced by Panfilov. A battalion commander does not address the division commander directly. Svyagin also doesn't like Momysh-Ulys plastering. The commander of a Sagittarius nbataillons never wear saber . Momysch-Uly replies that he carries this weapon according to the regulations, because he comes from the artillery and has not yet been reassigned.
"It's a shame we're still going back!" Exclaimed Svyagin. In the spring of 1941, posters everywhere read: "If we are attacked, the war will take place on the territory of the enemy." Lieutenant General Svjagin returns with an iron broom. "Take action, punish, never let go ... that is our duty, first lieutenant," he hammers Momysch-Uly. He rebukes a certain Major Kondratiev, commander of a composite regiment : “Are you aware of the order that it is forbidden to give up a position independently?” The major is disarmed, arrested and, on Svyagin's orders, is to be judged on the same day .
In any case, Momysh-Uly was assigned a five-kilometer-long defensive section on the Lama River from Panfilow and only had five hundred people. In addition, the battalion commander has to fight the enemy if he should meet him beforehand - i.e. on the march to the Lama. Momysch-Uly proves to be an intrepid commander who, on his mare Lyssanka, seeks one focal point of the fight after the other and is not damaged in the process. Momysh-Uly is plagued by doubts on such rides, all alone to the companies that are scattered miles wide; for example when he is afraid he has lost his way in the dark. But the hero gets there every time. He loses one fighter after the other. Momysch-Uly still holds the position when the Germans overtake his battalion with their guns, thus cutting off Panfilov's division and advancing, among others, with bombers against Moscow. The commander said: "I was merciless, I didn't give them [the subordinates] any peace ... and I didn't allow them to flee from the bullets ..." The situation is becoming increasingly confusing. Because the commander was unable to reach Company Commander Panjukov for a long time on the front that was "torn open and fragmented" by the enemy, he considers him a deserter. Panjukov and some of his soldiers were killed when he entered a village occupied by Germans.
When the battalion shrank to 450 men, Momysch-Uly received young soldiers without any combat experience. The newbies learn how a group of infantry can stop the motorized enemy - with the "Panfilow's spiral spring tactic" But this whimsical tactic is not that simple. When the Germans are advancing once again with tanks and infantry, Svyagin inquires about the situation by telephone. Momysch-Uly has to admit that one of his companies is being wiped out in a hail of shells. The lieutenant general withdraws command from the battalion commander on the spot. Panfilow and Momysch-Uly ignore Swagin's tantrum, just carry on, and ultimately they are right. At the end of the novel everything is forgotten. The lieutenant general lets search for the disguised, hugs and kisses his black sheep the Russian way out of sheer joy of reunion and entrusts him with a regiment. Previously, the same Momysh-Uly had been raised by Panfilov to command all forces of the Red Army in Gorjuno. This is Momysch-Uly's current defense section.
Before Panfilow fell on November 18, 1941 - a shell strikes at his feet - his unit was honored with the title "8th Guards Rifle Division ".
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- Momysh-Uly, when he thinks of the soldiers entrusted to him, how they fall man by man: "Yes, but one must also die when the hour has struck, with understanding, with reason."
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Two first-person narrators appear. Alexander Bek edits Momysch-Uly's memories of the war. The latter have a documentary character in places: The German fights in daylight as much as possible, is numerically stronger and uses more tanks .
Although Alexander Bek is not a military man, he uses military abbreviations - for example HKL .
The structure of the novel is episodic throughout. “Let's make a big point,” says Momysch-Uly, marking the resulting gaps in the narrative flow and, for example, continues from the perspective of the war year 1942 - which is now on the Kalinin front . Sometimes the narrator Momysch-Uly announces the essence of the following chapter with a succinct hint at the end of the current chapter. So the fate of the wounded, lonely Dordia comes up.
The text is full of side stories. Only two should be mentioned: First, that of the paramedic Varya Sajowrashina. Momysch-Uly does not tolerate any "women" in the battalion, as experience shows that his officers run after their skirts instead of throwing themselves at the attacking Germans. Varya, who always appears, teaches the commander better: women, especially Russian, are indispensable in war. And secondly, the story of the very young lieutenant Ugrjumov, who as an infantryman stops twenty enemy tanks and falls.
Momysh-Uly is amazed and almost insane when he ponders how he could survive after the fall of Volokolamsk and suspects that he was destined to tell about the fall of his battalion.
The reader has to read over the speeches on the glory and superiority of communism and the unprecedented greatness of the noble Soviet man et cetera, if he wants to experience Alexander Beck's unique gallows humor . On the one hand, the ubiquitous, everyday dying on the battlefield is treated with due seriousness - there is no other way. On the other hand, the behavior of the actors appears as a hilarious chamber play-like Russian state circus: For example, towards the end of the novel, Momysh-Uly falls over his saber while getting off his horse - just as Svjagin is watching. Or the chamber opera, when the otherwise courageous and brave company commander, Lieutenant Krajew, flees in panic from the attacking Germans with horse and cart and returns much later with a captured machine gun . Panfilov knows that Momysh-Uly will have the prodigal son shot, comes by in person, but lets the battalion commander guess the reason for his arrival. Krajew, one of the general's favorites, is allowed to prove himself in battle. Or: Panfilow's division goes down in the onslaught of the Germans man for man and Svjagin orders “a green theater in the forest” with “division orchestra” and “ Red Army ensemble ”. When the battalion is encircled again and the military doctor Dr. Belenkov abandons the wounded, Momysh-Uly demotes the doctor. Dr. Belenkov only wants to be demeaned by a People's Commissar . The battalion commander trumps that he represents state power in that survival situation. Panfilow does not hide anything. In retrospect, the general makes fun of the exclamations from his battalion commander when he almost risen to the rank of generalissimo : 'I am the Soviet power' and 'I am the supreme commander'. Or: the fighters go hungry for days. When a kolkhoz chairman once slaughtered the last heifer at Momysch-Uly's insistence and used it to cook soup for the battalion, the stomachs of the starving soldiers couldn't stand the high-fat diet. Momysch-Uly, who has dismissed his military doctor for cowardice in front of the enemy, has the numerous gastric patients given an opium-containing drink that could have cured a horse.
Sometimes Panfilow has to talk to Momysh-Uly like the father to his child. Something like this - Momysch-Uly: I want to sleep. Panfilov: You are not allowed to sleep. Momysch-Uly: We can't fight, the October mud blocked our weapons. Panfilov: Then clean the weapons ... Panfilov likes to mingle with the soldiers and, on occasion, with the people. Once the non-party Momysch-Uly overheard a conversation between the superior and an old farmer. The dialogue ends like this: the farmer says to the general: "It is terribly difficult to live with you party people." And Panfilow replies: "That's right ... We communists are difficult people."
German-language editions
- P. 261–569 in: Alexander Bek: The Wolokolamsker Chaussee. Translated from the Russian by Rahel Strassberg. Deutscher Militärverlag, Berlin 1971. 569 pages (used edition)
Web links
In Russian language
- The text online (Chapter 38) at royallib.ru
Individual evidence
- ↑ Russian Momysch-Uly
- ↑ Edition used, p. 561, 14. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 281, 16. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 380, 18. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 489, 8. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 284, 12. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 339, 5th Zvu
- ↑ Edition used, p. 427, 9. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 481, 10. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 272 middle
- ↑ Edition used, p. 340, 12th Zvu
- ↑ see also russian The Panfilower
- ↑ Edition used, p. 407, 8. Zvo
- ↑ Edition used, p. 388 above
- ↑ Edition used, p. 429, 2nd Zvu