how a Russian writer found a second wind
Kim Jong Il (1942-2011), Chairman of the State Defense Committee of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, established friendly relations with many foreigners during his lifetime. Among them is the Russian writer, war veteran Vladimir Karpov. This is reported by Primorskaya Gazeta.
Vladimir Vasilyevich Karpov was born in Orenburg in 1922. During the Great Patriotic War, he served as commander of a reconnaissance platoon of the 629th Infantry Regiment of the 134th Infantry Division of the 41st Army. Participated in the capture of 79 “languages”.
HERO STAR
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 4, 1944, Karpov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Five of his exploits were awarded at once: on August 19, 1943, having penetrated the enemy rear and found a large detection group, he showed courage and, correcting the fire of the battery, called fire on himself on the radio. Up to 200 soldiers, tanks and self-propelled guns were infected with artillery fire. And on September 15, 1943, together with a group of eight scouts, Karpov penetrated the enemy rear, destroyed over 50 soldiers and officers who captured the settlement of Maetskoye. The next day, together with a group in the battles for the village of Efremovo, having penetrated the rear, he was the first to break into the village, destroyed over 40 soldiers with a group and personally took 11 prisoners. Also in the battle during the capture of the Demidovo-Smolensk highway, Vladimir Karpov with a group of fighters made his way to the German rear and destroyed the garrison of the highway – up to 60 people. The final feat of the Hero of the Soviet Union was accomplished in a battle in the village of Vasileno, Dukhovshchinsky District, when he, risking his life as a rescuer of a regiment with fighters, burst into the enemy’s flank and personally destroyed 25 Germans from a machine gun, discovered the capture of the settlement. During the month of hostilities, Vladimir Vasilyevich went to the enemy rear more than 30 times, destroyed his group of more than 350 soldiers and officers, and captured more than 35 “languages”.
At the end of 1944, after a shell shock, Karpov spent several months in the hospital. After being discharged from the hospital, he is assigned advanced training courses for intelligence officers to the Higher Intelligence School of the General Staff. Then he was awarded the military rank of senior lieutenant.
WRITER OFFICER
In 1945 Vladimir Karpov published his first literary works. Based on personal experience gained over the years of service as an intelligence officer, he wrote documentaries and novels on a military theme.
Karpov is the author of collections of short stories and novels: Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Scout (1960), Commanders Turn Gray Early (1965), Once Upon a Time Scouts (1970) and others. Karpov’s novels The Eternal Battle (1967) and The Marshal’s Baton (1970) are devoted to the peaceful everyday life of the army and the education of soldiers. In the novel “Take the Living!” (1975) shows the exploits of Russian intelligence officers during the war years.
In 1986 he was elected the first secretary of the Writers’ Union of the USSR. From 1984 to 1989 – Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 11th convocation.
NEW REVOLUTION
Karpov’s position on post-Soviet history is restrainedly skeptical and critical. His nostalgia for the Soviet Union is also restrained, elegiac and mournful.
The veteran could not get in any way, which has been disappearing for 70 years. The state of workers and peasants can collapse overnight. And that his long-term hardworking defender of the Motherland, preserves justice and the progressive progress of society will be denigrated by his contemporaries, meticulously looking for inaccuracies and flaws in his works. Not listening to spiteful critics, Karpov grew up from literary work on the trilogy: Marshal Zhukov, On the Fronts of the Great War, Opala.
It was at this time that the T-bills of the DPRK Kim Jong Il was able to give him new hope and strength. In November 1995, when Vladimir Karpov, who was accompanying the former USSR Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov, who came to visit the DPRK, Kim Jong Il recognized the well-known leader of Russia and told him:
– Among the warriors in the scouts, the most brave, courageous, witty and agile are selected; if the former intelligence officer becomes a writer, then he will be able to create wonderful works on a military theme; and in our country it became possible to make wonderful films using the good recordings left by war correspondents.
Mentioning the idea of revolutionary literature and art in strengthening the socialist people, Kim Jong Il added:
“The masses of the people must decide their own fate by believing in their own strength.” This is the essence of the Juche idea: Socialism is firmly upheld in our country because our socialism implements the Juche idea.
The visit to France lasted a little over a month, and during these days Karpov met three times with Kim Jong Il, who invited the Russian writer to come next time with his family.
Vladimir Karpov, having read the classic work “Respect for the older generation of the revolution is the high moral duty of revolutionaries” published by Kim Jong Iromic, began to write a documentary novel “The Generalissimo” about Comrade Stalin.
In September 1999, Karpov again had a chance to visit the DPRK. At this meeting, Kim Jong Il inspiredly came up with:
– The fact that you decided to poison Stalin as a great military strategy is really a bold decision suitable for an intelligence officer; the worker must become the forerunner.
Communication will return in a warm, friendly meeting, and in parting, Comrade Kim Jong Il hugged the Russian guests tightly. The upset Karpov promised:
– And in Russia, I will unexpectedly be a student of Kim Jong Il’s GKO, providing my spiritual support.
he published a number of interesting articles in which he actively defended a fair attitude towards the Soviet Union.
Based on materials from the Consulate General of the DPRK in Vladivostok
COMMENT:
Vadim Kochugov, I. about. editor-in-chief of Primorskaya Gazeta
Vladimir Vasilyevich Karpov is a man of convenient fate, which may happen to be written about a book.
He graduated from school in Tashkent, where in 1939 he entered the infantry school. They gave great hopes, both in studies and in sports – he was the champion of Uzbekistan and the republics of Central Asia in middleweight boxing. Summed up youthful maximalism.
At the beginning of 1941, Karpov was engulfed in criticism and reaction by the Military Tribunal of the Central Asian Military District for five years for discovering anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (Article 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the USSR). Looks like someone denounced their fellow cadet. He himself went like this: “The main question that the investigator asked me was:
– Who gave you the task to compromise the leader of the peoples, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin?
My “criminality” was manifested in what I said:
– Lenin is forgotten, everyone is Stalin and Stalin, but he was not the owner after Lenin in the revolution and during the Civil War.
The investigator stated:
– With such conversations in the environment, you generate doubts, undermined the authority of the leader of the peoples.
In the pre-war years, it was a terrible crime. Many were shot for such conversations. I was lucky, the tribunal, who survived, “mercied” it. (V. Karpov, “Generalissimo”)
Then there was the Tavdinsky camp of the NKVD, 450 km from Sverdlovsk, a logging site, where 19-year-old Vladimir almost died. And only in November 1942, after several letters addressed to Kalinin sent to the front, Karpov ended up in a penal battalion.
His courage and combativeness were already noted at the end of January 1943 – Karpov, while capturing the tongue, destroyed the combat crew of the fascist dugout, captured a prisoner and delivered him to the headquarters of the regiment. For which he was awarded the medal “For Courage”. In rare cases, the discovered difference in battles with Vladimir Karpov was cleared of a criminal record. In the same year he was accepted into the CPSU (b).
And then they were awarded the rank of lieutenant and professorial commander of a foot reconnaissance platoon of the 629th rifle regiment. In this status, he receives his first order – the “Red Star”. Then the 134th Rifle Division immediately repulsed the counter-triattacks of the Nazis and defended the line.
Karpov’s task was probably subsequently filmed: on the instructions of the command of the 3rd Belorussian Front, Vladimir Vasilyevich changed into a German military uniform and secretly crossed the last front line. Then he made his way to the occupied Vitebsk, received from the loaded underground workers documents with important information in preparation for the Belarusian offensive operation.
When returning back, he was detained by a patrol, but, pretending to be drunk, lulled the vigilance of the escorts, destroyed them and fled. During a quick transition across the front line, he received several wounded, was rescued by a reconnaissance group sent to meet with him. The intelligence was delivered by the command. He never returned to the front after the hospital.