(509 words) Nowadays you can often hear about how war awakens courage and patriotism in the human heart. However, all these enthusiastic speeches are always uttered by those people who know about the fighting firsthand. If we ask a veteran, he will probably say that he would not want a repetition of those terrible events for anything in the world, and he would not look for any nobility on the battlefield. I completely agree with this and believe that war destroys not only cities, but also the human personality.
M. Sholokhov also wrote about the depressing effect of war on people in his story “The Fate of Man.” While talking with a front-line soldier, the narrator notices his eyes and describes them: “Eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes, filled with such an inescapable mortal melancholy that it is difficult to look into them.” This is exactly how the soldier emerged from the bloody mess of the World War, broken and crushed by melancholy. Andrei Sokolov lost his entire family there. Most During the war, he was held captive by the Nazis, and there he had to live from hand to mouth and work for three people. But still there he was supported by the hope of a quick victory and a meeting with his wife and children. But a shell killed his wife and daughters, and his son died on the last day of the fight, while in Berlin. Returning home from captivity, he discovered that he had nowhere to go: no home, no loved ones. On the way, he saw a boy and introduced himself to him as his father, because he felt sorry for the homeless child. So they went together to look for shelter. But Andrei could not forget his family and the pain of their loss. He asked his random listener a rhetorical question that had come to his mind more than once: “Why have you, life, maimed me so much? Why did you distort it like that?” After the war, Sokolov did not enjoy the victory, but suffered from melancholy and terrible memories that will never be erased from his memory. The struggle, captivity, death and blood brought him so much disappointment that even peaceful life no longer pleased him. From this we can conclude that war oppresses a person and makes him suffer even after fighting.
No less illustrative example M. Sholokhov cited it in the epic novel “Quiet Don”. Grigory Melekhov was a gallant soldier and rose to a high rank. He began his journey with the First World War and ended up in a gang of fugitive Cossacks hiding from Soviet power. All this time, the hero was tormented by the need to kill people and almost went crazy, attacking the sailors and chopping them into pieces with his saber. Remorse became commonplace in his life. But Gregory could not find truth and justice in any of the warring parties, so there was nothing to justify himself with. He did not believe in the monarchy, nor in Bolshevism, nor in the separation of the Cossacks from Russia. As a result, the endless struggle led him, broken and aged before his time, to complete surrender. The novel ends with Melekhov coming to surrender to Soviet power, no matter what follows. The cheerful Gregory was driven by the war to the last degree of despair.
Thus, war always destroys personality and brings a person to complete disappointment in life. After numerous injuries, losses and hardships, the fighter stops fighting melancholy and despondency and continues to live by inertia, no longer hoping for anything. This condition befalls both winners and losers.
1) “Although war may have peace as its goal, it is undeniably evil.” (Lao Tzu)
2) “War is a disease. Like typhus." (Saint-Exupery A.)
3) “To be created to create, to love and to conquer is to be created to live in the world. But war teaches us to lose everything and become something we were not.” (Camus A.)
4) “The greatest evil that the enemy can do to us is to accustom our hearts to hatred.” (F. La Rochefoucauld)
5) “War is not a courtesy, but the most disgusting thing in life, and we must understand this and not play at war. We must take this terrible necessity strictly and seriously. That’s all there is to it: throw away the lies, and war is war, not a toy.” (L.N. Tolstoy)
6) “There was no one between the squadron and the enemies, except for small patrols. An empty space, three hundred fathoms, separated them from him. The enemy stopped shooting, and the more clearly one felt that strict, menacing, impregnable and elusive line that separates the two enemy troops ... "
“One step beyond this line, reminiscent of the line separating the living from the dead, and - the unknown of suffering and death. And what's there? who's there? there, beyond this field, and the tree, and the roof illuminated by the sun? Nobody knows, and I want to know; and it’s scary to cross this line, and you want to cross it; and you know that sooner or later you will have to cross it and find out what is there on the other side of the line, just as it is inevitable to find out what is there on the other side of death. And he himself is strong, healthy, cheerful and irritated, and is surrounded by such healthy and irritably animated people.” So, if he doesn’t think, then every person who is in sight of the enemy feels, and this feeling gives a special shine and joyful sharpness of impressions to everything that happens in these minutes.” (L.N. Tolstoy)
Argumentation:
1. “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” (translated by D.S. Likhachev)
“And on the sixth day, early in the morning, the filthy ones went to the city - some with lights, others with battering guns, and others with countless ladders - and took the city of Ryazan in the month of December on 21 days. And they came to the cathedral church of the Most Holy Theotokos, and Grand Duchess Agrippina, the mother of the Grand Duke, with her daughters-in-law and other princesses, they flogged them with swords, and they betrayed the bishop and priests to fire - they burned them in the holy church, and many others fell from weapons. And in the city they flogged many people, wives, and children with swords, and drowned others in the river, and flogged the priests and monks without a trace, and burned the whole city, and all the famous beauty, and the wealth of Ryazan, and the relatives of the Ryazan princes - the princes of Kyiv and Chernigov - captured. But they destroyed the temples of God and shed a lot of blood in the holy altars. And not a single living person remained in the city: they all died anyway and drank the single cup of death. There was no one moaning or crying here - no father and mother about their children, no children about their father and mother, no brother about their brother, no relatives about their relatives, but they all lay dead together. And all this happened for our sins.”
The author of “The Tale..”, describing the battlefield, recreating before the reader the picture of the devastation and burning of a Russian city, remembers the feelings of his readers and expresses what he saw using traditional formulas.
“And Prince Ingvar Ingvarevich went to where his brethren were beaten by the wicked Tsar Batu: Grand Duke Yuri Ingvarevich Ryazansky, his brother Prince Davyd Ingvarevich, his brother Vsevolod Ingvarevich, and many local princes, and boyars, and governors, and the entire army, and daredevils, and frolics, the patterned Ryazan. They all lay on the devastated ground, on feather grass, frozen with snow and ice, uncared for by anyone. The beasts ate their bodies, and many birds tore them to pieces. They all lay there, they all died together, they drank the same cup of death.”
Death in “The Tale...” is poeticized: people lie on the ground “devastated,” “frozen with snow and ice,” they “drank the cup of death.” Remembering the historical time, we can assume how ugly and severe the wounds of the participants in the battle were, how terrible the picture of the city destroyed by Batu’s troops was, but this is not conveyed in the text. But this does not indicate the powerlessness of a work of art in recreating reality. This speaks of the wisdom of the creator of “The Tale”, of the humanity of ancient Russian literature.
2. “Valerik” (M.Yu. Lermontov)
- The convoy had barely gotten out
- It was a terrible silence
- It didn't last long,
- But in this strange expectation
- More than one heart began to beat.
- Suddenly a volley... we look: they lie in rows,
- What needs? local shelves
- Tested people... With hostility,
- More friendly! came behind us.
- The blood caught fire in my chest!
- All the officers are ahead...
- He rushed on horseback to the rubble
- Who didn't have time to jump off the horse...
- Hurray - and it fell silent. - There are the daggers,
- Butts! - and the massacre began.
- And two hours in the jets of the stream
- The battle lasted. They cut themselves brutally
- Like animals, silently, chest-to-chest,
- The stream was dammed with bodies.
- I wanted to scoop up some water...
- (And the heat and the battle tired
- me), but a muddy wave
- It was warm, it was red.
M.Yu. Lermontov, who considered war to be the destruction of the beauty of the world, the unity of man and nature, accurately expresses this thought in an episode of the poem “Valerik”. Showing the madness of what is happening, Lermontov likens people to wild animals and calls the battle a “massacre.” The stream is filled with corpses, its waters, poisoned by death, turn red. Just a few strokes - and the horror of what happened is conveyed to the reader. The emotionality of the hero’s monologue enhances the impression:
- I thought: pathetic man
- What does he want!...the sky is clear,
- There's plenty of room for everyone under the sky,
- But incessantly and in vain
- He is the only one who is at enmity - why?
3. “War and Peace” (L.N. Tolstoy)
L.N. Tolstoy shows the Borodino field after the battle. In order to express disgust, horror, pain, suffering from what he saw, Tolstoy makes the silent Nature “speak.” The rain falling “on the dead, on the wounded, and on the exhausted people” seems to say: “Enough, enough, people. Stop it...Come to your senses. What are you doing?"
4. “Quiet Don” (Sholokhov M. A.)
The picture of the battlefield that took place between the Russians and the Germans during the First World War near the village of Svinyukha made even the Cossacks, accustomed to the horrors of war, shudder. The corpses lay rolling, in “indecent and terrible” positions, the ground was dug up, the grass crushed by the wheels of the cart resembled scars. There is a “sweetish, heavy” smell of carrion in the air. The Cossacks were struck by the appearance of the young lieutenant, who continued to remain handsome even after death; they are shocked by the sight of a dead soldier, just a boy, who was overtaken by an enemy bullet. Witnesses of this spectacle lament, looking at the boy: he must not have had a chance to know the sweetness of a girl’s kiss. “Where did they get so fancy?” ask themselves those who deal with the enemy just as ruthlessly. Apparently there is no limit to human cruelty.
- Updated: May 31, 2016
- By: Mironova Marina Viktorovna
There are battles near Moscow, and in the Altai village the main character of the story, Vanya Popov, dreams of getting three logs to heat the hut before his mother arrives. It’s lonely and cold and I really want to eat. The mother, returning from work already after dark, brings flour and a piece of meat. Dumplings are prepared quickly and cheerfully. But they still need to be cooked. Vanya and his mother go out into the cold winter darkness to get firewood. It’s cold, it’s hard to chop wood and then drag it home. Tired Vanka falls asleep without waiting for the dumplings to be ready. The mother has difficulty waking up her children and feeding them. While falling asleep, Vanka hears his mother scribbling on a typewriter: tomorrow he will go to school in a new shirt. Despite the difficult years of the war, Vanya’s mother says that it is now much more difficult for the soldiers sitting somewhere in the trenches, and apparently this gives strength to the tired woman.
2. E.E. Fonyakova “Bread of that winter”
The story is dedicated to the difficult winter of the siege, when the norm was 125 grams of bread per person per day: “On a porcelain saucer there is a pot-bellied, “childish” cup with flour soup - a greenish liquid-bumpy and plastic black bread, so thin that air can be seen through it " This is food for the whole day, left by parents for their daughter. The girl is tormented by the problem of eating everything at once or stretching it out throughout the day. Can't stretch it. Everything is eaten instantly and unnoticed. At this time, the neighbor is frying pancakes in the kitchen. The girl literally prays, repeating to herself like a spell: “Well, give me, give me!.. Well, half, well, a quarter of a pancake!..” However, the neighbor does not share with the girl. But some time later, Irka’s girlfriend comes into the room and leaves three fragrant butter pancakes on the table, wrapped in newspaper. People remain merciful and continue to help each other even in such difficult times.
3. B. Vasiliev “Not on the lists”
Nikolai Pluzhnikov finds himself in Brest Fortress on the eve of the Great Patriotic War. The defeated garrison goes underground. Nikolai and the few surviving defenders continue to fight. Moving from basement to basement, suffering from hunger and thirst, Nikolai only once tries to commit suicide. However, at this moment he is dissuaded by Mirra, a Jewish girl in love with Nikolai. In the fall, the girl admits that she is pregnant. Pluzhnikov, wanting to save the girl, sends her to clear the rubble. But she is recognized by a German, whom Kolya once spared. Mirra tries to move away so that Pluzhnikov, who is watching everything from a hole in the basement, does not understand anything and does not interfere. The girl is brutally beaten and pierced with a bayonet. So Mirra saves Nikolai at the cost of her life. In conditions of inhuman cruelty, love remains in people, the thirst to save their neighbor.
4. V.G. Rasputin "Live and Remember"
The story tells the story of the fate of Nastya, who is trying to last years war to save her deserter husband. Andrei Guskov, in a moment of weakness, afraid of dying in the war, runs home to his native village. Hiding at night, they meet secretly. Nastya tries in every possible way to atone for her husband’s sin, works more than others, buys government loan bonds almost with her workdays. When a woman finds out that she is pregnant, she tries to hide her husband's secret until the last moment. But she is being tracked. At this moment, realizing that it will not be possible to escape the pursuit, she drowns in the river, saving at the cost of her own life and the life of her husband’s unborn child. The title of the story is addressed to Andrei, who doomed the person dearest to him to death. In war, a person shows both his best and worst qualities.
How do military events and related human tragedies affect people’s state of mind? This problem is considered by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev in the text read.
Reflecting on this problem, the famous writer talks about the hero’s return to native home after being in the war and about events that could greatly influence him. Leonid Andreevich Andreev draws our attention to the grief of loved ones who met their loved one. The wife cries and feels sorry for the person closest to her.
“How cruel people are” in our world, they are ready to cause pain and suffering to others for personal gain, and most do not even have an understanding of what it means to be a participant in open murder, starvation and other horrific situations. It should be noted that the author emphasizes such incredibly contradictory details that instill quiet happiness in a person’s soul, such as “the bed, which was bought four years ago, was clean, with fluffed pillows, with a wrapped blanket.”
The author's position is unambiguous and expressed quite clearly. He convinces that war cripples the destinies of people, brings pain, grief and suffering to families. Such losses are irreparable. They change people beyond recognition and become decisive in a person’s fate.
I completely share the author's position. The topic of the text is close and understandable to me. Indeed, there is nothing worse than war and the torment it brings to people's lives. People who are, in one way or another, connected with the war will never be able to look at many things differently, because the war breaks and destroys their lives, sparing no one. I will give examples from fiction.
Firstly, as an argument, one can cite the work of M. A. Sholokhov “The Fate of Man”. The tragic fate of Andrei Sokolov makes each of us think about the impact of war on people's lives. The man lost all his relatives and friends and went through many difficulties that not everyone could survive. Betrayal and murder caused enormous damage to the main character. The war predetermined the further course of events in his life. And the worst thing is that after everything he has experienced, he must move forward to a vague future, strive for victory and know that all the losses were not in vain.
Secondly, let's remember the wonderful work “Quiet Don”, written by M. A. Sholokhov. Before us is Grigory Melekhov - a hot-tempered and independent person. His life also took an unexpected turn. Accustomed to constant rural life, the main character believes that war for his homeland is a man’s duty. But being in the center of the fire, he understands the meaninglessness of the actions that took place. People act as “pawns” played by people from above. Here human life is equated to zero, and fate turns out in a completely different way. There is no justification for military action, and the people at the center of events are only suffering mental suffering and trying to survive in such a terrible situation.
So, we can conclude that military events bring enormous pain and endless suffering to people. They survive in such conditions and carry a heavy burden on their shoulders. The influence of war in people's lives is so great that it can never be compared with anything else.
Arguments on the topic "War" from literature for essays
The problem of courage, cowardice, compassion, mercy, mutual assistance, care for loved ones, humanity, moral choice in war. The influence of war on human life, character and worldview. Participation of children in war. A person's responsibility for his actions.
What was the courage of soldiers in the war? (A.M. Sholokhov “The Fate of Man”)
In the story by M.A. Sholokhov’s “The Fate of Man” can be seen as a manifestation of true courage during the war. Main character story Andrei Sokolov goes to war, leaving his family at home. For the sake of his loved ones, he went through all the trials: he suffered from hunger, fought courageously, sat in a punishment cell and escaped from captivity. The fear of death did not force him to abandon his beliefs: in the face of danger, he retained his human dignity. The war took the lives of his loved ones, but even after that he did not break, and again showed courage, although not on the battlefield. He adopted a boy who also lost his entire family during the war. Andrei Sokolov is an example of a courageous soldier who continued to fight the hardships of fate even after the war.
The problem of moral assessment of the fact of war. (M. Zusak "The Book Thief")
In the center of the story of the novel “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak, Liesel is a nine-year-old girl who finds herself in a foster family on the threshold of war. The girl’s own father was associated with the communists, so in order to save her daughter from the Nazis, her mother gives her to strangers to raise. Liesel begins new life away from her family, she has a conflict with her peers, she finds new friends, learns to read and write. Her life is filled with ordinary childhood worries, but war comes and with it fear, pain and disappointment. She doesn't understand why some people kill others. Liesel's adoptive father teaches her kindness and compassion, even though it only brings him trouble. Together with her parents, she hides the Jew in the basement, takes care of him, reads books to him. To help people, she and her friend Rudi scatter bread on the road along which a column of prisoners must pass. She is sure that the war is monstrous and incomprehensible: people burn books, die in battles, arrests of those who disagree with official policy are taking place everywhere. Liesel does not understand why people refuse to live and be happy. It is no coincidence that the book is narrated from the perspective of Death, the eternal companion of war and the enemy of life. Is human consciousness capable of accepting the very fact of war? (L.N. Tolstoy “War and Peace”, G. Baklanov “Forever – Nineteen Years Old”)
It is difficult for a person faced with the horrors of war to understand why it is needed. Thus, one of the heroes of the novel L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" Pierre Bezukhov does not participate in battles, but tries with all his might to help his people. He does not realize the true horror of war until he witnesses the Battle of Borodino. Seeing the massacre, the count is horrified by its inhumanity. He is captured, experiences physical and mental torture, tries to comprehend the nature of war, but cannot. Pierre is unable to cope with his mental crisis on his own, and only his meeting with Platon Karataev helps him understand that happiness lies not in victory or defeat, but in simple human joys. Happiness is found within every person, in his search for answers to eternal questions, awareness of himself as part of the human world. And war, from his point of view, is inhumane and unnatural.The main character of G. Baklanov’s story “Forever Nineteen,” Alexey Tretyakov, painfully reflects on the causes and significance of the war for the people, people, and life. He finds no compelling explanation for the need for war. Its meaninglessness, the devaluation of human life for the sake of achieving any important goal, terrifies the hero and causes bewilderment: “... The same thought haunted me: will it ever turn out that this war might not have happened? What could people do to prevent this? And millions would remain alive...”
What feelings does the steadfastness of a defeated enemy evoke in the victor? (V. Kondratyev "Sashka")
The problem of compassion for the enemy is considered in V. Kondratiev’s story “Sashka”. Young Russian fighter takes prisoner German soldier. After talking with the company commander, the prisoner does not give out any information, so Sashka is ordered to take him to headquarters. On the way, the soldier showed the prisoner a leaflet on which it was written that the prisoners were guaranteed life and return to their homeland. However, the battalion commander, who lost loved one in this war, orders the Germans to be shot. Sashka’s conscience does not allow him to kill an unarmed man, a young guy like himself, who behaves the same way he would have behaved in captivity. The German does not betray his own people, does not beg for mercy, maintaining human dignity. At the risk of being court-martialed, Sashka does not follow the commander’s orders. Belief in the rightness saves his and his prisoner’s life, and the commander cancels the order.How does war change a person’s worldview and character? (V. Baklanov “Forever - nineteen years old”)
G. Baklanov in the story “Forever - Nineteen Years” speaks about the significance and value of a person, about his responsibility, the memory that binds the people: “Through a great catastrophe there is a great liberation of the spirit,” said Atrakovsky. – Never before has so much depended on each of us. That's why we will win. And it won't be forgotten. The star goes out, but the field of attraction remains. That’s how people are.” War is a disaster. However, it leads not only to tragedy, to the death of people, to the breakdown of their consciousness, but also contributes to spiritual growth, the transformation of the people, the definition of true life values everyone. In war, a reassessment of values occurs, a person’s worldview and character change.The problem of the inhumanity of war. (I. Shmelev “Sun of the Dead”)
In the epic “Sun of the Dead” I. Shmelyov shows all the horrors of war. “The smell of decay,” “the cackling, stomping and roaring” of humanoids, these are cars of “fresh human meat, young meat!” and “one hundred and twenty thousand heads!” Human!” War is the absorption of the world of the living by the world of the dead. It turns a person into a beast and forces him to do terrible things. No matter how great the external material destruction and destruction may be, they are not what terrify I. Shmelev: neither a hurricane, nor famine, nor snowfall, nor crops drying up from drought. Evil begins where a person begins who does not resist it; for him “everything is nothing!” “and there is no one, and no one.” For the writer, it is indisputable that the human mental and spiritual world is a place of struggle between good and evil, and it is also indisputable that always, in any circumstances, even during war, there will be people in whom the beast will not defeat man.A person's responsibility for the actions he committed in war. Mental trauma of war participants. (V. Grossman "Abel")
In the story “Abel (Sixth of August)” by V.S. Grossman reflects on the war in general. Showing the tragedy of Hiroshima, the writer speaks not only about the universal misfortune and environmental disaster, but also about a person’s personal tragedy. Young bombardier Connor bears the burden of responsibility for becoming the man destined to activate the killing mechanism with the press of a button. For Connor, this is a personal war, where everyone remains just a person with their inherent weaknesses and fears in the desire to preserve their own lives. However, sometimes, in order to remain human, you need to die. Grossman is confident that true humanity is impossible without participation in what is happening, and therefore without responsibility for what happened. The combination in one person of a heightened sense of the World and soldierly diligence, imposed by the state machine and the education system, turns out to be fatal for the young man and leads to a split in consciousness. The crew members perceive what happened differently; not all of them feel responsible for what they did, and they talk about high goals. An act of fascism, unprecedented even by fascist standards, is justified by public thought, presented as a fight against the notorious fascism. However, Joseph Conner experiences an acute consciousness of guilt, washing his hands all the time, as if trying to wash them from the blood of innocents. The hero goes crazy, realizing that he inner man cannot live with the burden that he has taken upon himself.What is war and how does it affect people? (K. Vorobyov “Killed near Moscow”)
In the story “Killed near Moscow” K. Vorobyov writes that war is a huge machine, “made up of thousands and thousands of efforts different people, has moved, is moving not by someone else’s will, but by itself, having received its own move, and therefore unstoppable.” The old man in the house where the retreating wounded are left calls the war the “master” of everything. All life is now determined by war, changing not only everyday life, destinies, but also the consciousness of people. War is a confrontation in which the strongest wins: “In war, whoever breaks down first.” The death that war brings occupies almost all the soldiers’ thoughts: “In the first months at the front, he was ashamed of himself, he thought he was the only one like this. Everything is so in these moments, everyone overcomes them alone with themselves: there will be no other life.” The metamorphoses that happen to a person in war are explained by the purpose of death: in the battle for the Fatherland, soldiers show incredible courage and self-sacrifice, while in captivity, doomed to death, they live guided by animal instincts. War cripples not only people’s bodies, but also their souls: the writer shows how disabled people are afraid of the end of the war, since they no longer imagine their place in peaceful life.SUMMARY