Wolf Pack (Bykau)

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Wassil Bykau in 1944

Wolf Pack ( Belarusian Воўчая зграя, Russian Волчья стая ) is an amendment to the Belarusian writer Vasil Bykaŭ that emerged in 1974 and a year into it by the author Russian was transferred. The text was printed in 1975 in issue 7 of the Roman newspaper, which appears twice a month in Moscow . Boris Michailowitsch Stepanow, who worked for Belarusfilm, filmed the novella - also in 1975 - with Anatoly Dmitrijewitsch Gratschow as partisan Lyautschuk and Svetlana Sergejewna Kuznetsova as radio operator Klawa Sharochina.

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Platonov

Before the war , Lyautschuk had served as the commander of a communications department in Brest . In his regiment he met Captain Viktor Platonov, the head of the scout service at the regimental headquarters. After the division was broken up, the two met again in the spring of 1942 at the partisan scouts. At the end of May 1942 two Red Army soldiers - escaped prisoners of war - reported to the partisans. The latter did not recognize in one of the two - the attractive Leningrad harmonica player Kudryavtsev - the spy of the SD . Kudryavtsev later lured the experienced scout Platonov into an ambush. After Platonov was killed in this action, the traitor Kudryavtsev disappeared. Ljautschuk was shortly after the incident as a simple MG - Sagittarius displaced Company partisan in one.

Frame narration

In the early 1970s the rising war invalids Ljautschuk at the station an unnamed Soviet of big city and embarks on a search of the apartment of Viktor's son. The Belarusian Lyautschuk has lost sight of Viktor, who was born thirty years ago, and has now finally found his home address at Kosmonautenstrasse 78. On the approach to the address, the protagonist's memories come up - episodes from the war of extermination against the Soviet Union on the territory of Belarus :

Internal narration

Summer in Belarus : The partisan unit Heroiski Brigade of MG Rifleman Ljautschuk is encircled in the swampy forest of Belarus and is to be wiped out in the forthcoming fifth attack attempt by the punitive squad deployed by the Germans . During a break in the fight, Ljautschuk dared recklessly a little bit out of his foxhole and was promptly injured in the shoulder by an enemy rifle shot. The wounded need to command the most cherished and cultivated MG transferred to another partisan of his company commanders, is in the stage of a doctor who practiced before the war as a dentist, connected and get from company commander a new task. Lyautschuk was given command of an ambulance from the basin over a stick embankment to the neighboring brigade of May Day . The young, heavily pregnant Moscow radio operator Klawa Sharochina and the seriously wounded paratrooper Zichanau are still lying on the horse-drawn wagon of the 45-year-old driver from the Hrybajed medical unit. Lyautschuk, who is only armed with a Browning , looks eagerly at Zichanau's MPi . The newly appointed commander Lyautschuk could use this weapon for the imminent breakthrough from the encirclement to the May Day Brigade 25 kilometers away . The dying, apparently blind paratrooper, however, holds his MPi convulsively. Because Ljautschuk suspects Germans lurking at the Knüppeldamm, he drives through the swamp against the will of the carter Hrybajed and against the recommendation of the partisan scouts. When German uniforms become visible in the bushes behind the swamp between cars, Lyautschuk orders a vain wait. Zichanau loses his nerve and shoots himself. Klawa puzzles: “Maybe he did it for us?” Lyautschuk takes the MPi.

Shortly before Klawa comes down, the three reach a threshing floor with grain kiln . Klawa gives birth to a healthy boy. Hrybayed thinks the newborn is like the face of his father, Captain Viktor Platonov. Collaborating police with Kudryavzew in their wake get wind of the hiding place, attack and set fire to the threshing floor. Lyautschuk holds his position and is able to flee from the threshing floor when his clothing is already on fire. As the commander of the company, he feels responsible for his people, goes back, finds the fallen hrybayed and - miraculously - the living newborn. The young mother Klawa has disappeared without a trace. Lyautschuk has to flee with the baby in front of a German search party that is carrying several tracking dogs over the nearby alder bushes into the swamp. Fortunately, the dogs lose track. Lyautschuk is later recognized by partisans when they arrive at the edge of the swamp. He can hand the baby over to the partisan Kulesh of the Kirov Brigade. Kulesch asks for the boy's name. Lyautschuk calls the two-day-old child Viktor Platonov. The partisan hands Viktor over to a mother in the family camp. Lyautschuk must immediately join a partisan company and fight on the side of the encircled. Lyautschuk hides his wound.

Later one arm is removed from Lyautschuk. After recovering, he takes care of the horses of the medical unit instead of Hrybayed

title

In one of the episodes from the partisan era, Ljautschuk is surrounded by a pack of wolves in winter and is able to escape the predators. The sense of this insertion only becomes clear to the reader at the end of the novella, when Wassil Bykau writes about the Ljautschuk of the 1970s: “He lived on the past, and first of all there was the little boy whom he had saved from the wolf pack. “In Wassil Bykau's case, the eponymous pack is the German search party with its detection dogs.

reception

Lola Debüser goes into the conclusion of the novella in May 1975. Lyautschuk has found the apartment of the now 30-year-old Viktor and is kindly invited in by him. At that moment the author closes. Debüser comments: "For him [Bykau] it is not the encounter with this young man that matters, but the thoughts and feelings that move the former partisan today."

German-language editions

  • Wolf pack. From the Russian by Ruprecht Willnow . S. 429-575 in Wassil Bykau: Novellen. Volume 2. With an afterword by Lola Debüser. Publishing house Volk und Welt. Berlin 1976 (1st edition, edition used)

Web links

annotation

  1. ↑ The summer of 1944 is probably meant, because “Christmas forty-three” (edition used, p. 534, 10. Zvo) is history.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian: Роман-газета
  2. ↑ Russian: Борис Михайлович Степанов (1927–1992)
  3. ↑ Russian: Беларусьфильм
  4. ↑ Russian: Анатолий Дмитриевич Грачёв (1937–2005)
  5. ↑ Russian: Светлана Сергеевна Кузнецова (born April 24, 1955)
  6. ↑ Entry at kino-teatr.ru (Russian) and entry in the IMDb (English)
  7. ↑ See also Operation Barbarossa # Planning as a War of Annihilation
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 478, 6. Zvo
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 575, 10. Zvo
  10. ↑ Debüser in the afterword of the edition used, p. 599, 7. Zvo