by Artem Degtyarev
[REGNUM] These letters (in fragments) are published for the first time.
In October 1941, their author, 20-year-old student of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute Volodya (Wulf) Glikman, volunteered for the front.
He could probably have been one of the 600 MPEI students who evacuated to Leninogorsk (Kazakhstan) together with the faculty that same October. But he went to war when the Germans were standing in Khimki and looking at the Kremlin through binoculars, and documents were flying in flocks along the Moscow streets – the institutions were feverishly evacuating. His father was already at the front, he volunteered back in July 1941.
At times it seemed as if these cheerful messages had come from a pioneer camp, or perhaps from a student military training camp. It was not so much a matter of censorship (all letters were read by censors), but of a huge, all-consuming concern for his loved ones - his mother, wife, little sister and brother. He cherished them. His cheerful, deliberately frivolous tone seemed to tell his family: his war was a cadet's outing. Articles for the divisional newspaper, exercises in the fresh air, food, tobacco, a bathhouse, political studies, funny night forays to the Germans with a megaphone - there was absolutely nothing to worry about.
The 356th Rifle Division, which included Volodya's 1181th Rifle Regiment, took part in the Battle of Moscow, fought defensive and offensive battles in various directions, suffered losses - and Volodya, from the very center of blood, pain and deprivation, continued to write his cheerful letters to the hostel at the mine in the city of Kizel (Molotov Region, now Perm Region) and to Mstera (Vladimir Region), where his family and the family of his young wife were evacuated.
He asked not to send him parcels, but to send envelopes and paper, he was glad that the family was given potatoes for planting, he bragged a little (he rose from a private to a junior commander), he complained only about the weather and the poor work of the postmen.
This was the case until July 1943, when the Battle of Kursk began.
Alive, well, and with a nose full of tobacco
29.04.1942
My dear, sweet mother! I just received a bunch of letters and postcards from you, Dinochka, Raya, Volodya and Sholom. At the same time, your letter to the battalion commander dated 10.04 was passed on to me... My dear! On top of all that, you still have to worry about the post office, because I write to you and Dinochka very often.
M. b. all my letters will arrive at once, M. b. the military censor found something harmful in them and did not let them through, although I tried not to touch on slippery topics, or maybe they just get lost along the way, although the strange thing is that I often receive news from you, often write to you, and you receive nothing. In any case, the point, of course, is not that I have forgotten you, because now I am thinking about you, because now I am thinking only about you. Who else should I think about? It's just that my heart is simply torn to pieces for Daddy, but you can't do anything, and that makes it even harder.
Mommy! Don't worry about me. I'm alive, healthy, I feel good, I'm well-fed, I hardly run out of tobacco, we go to the bathhouse 2-3 times a month, we change our underwear. What can you expect from life now, being about a thousand meters away from the German dugouts? It seems to me - nothing.
Daddy - Zalman Mendelevich Glikman. He, like Volodya himself, was born in the town of Chereya (now Vitebsk region), served in the Red Army, joined the party in 1920, and was expelled from it a year later (as relatives assume, because he held a religious wedding with Volodya's future mother). In Moscow, he worked as a literary contributor and editor at Gudok, Promyshlennaya Gazeta, and Izvestia.
Volunteer Zalman Glikman was a radio operator in a communications regiment. His last letter came from the Yelnya-Dorogobuzh line. In December 1941 (Volodya was already at the front), he and a soldier left to restore the telephone line and did not return.
That's why I'm the commander!
16.05.1942
…Mommy! I already know from previous letters about Daddy that he remained near Yelnya. I am convinced that this region will soon be liberated by our victorious units and Daddy will return to us safe and sound. I am unshakably sure of this. And you, Mommy, don’t be upset, take care of yourself for the little ones, for all of us…
…Here, my soldiers and I also use everything the same: we eat from the same pot, smoke the same tobacco, the same newspaper. Sometimes I find it funny: as a squad commander, I have all the executive power in the squad, and I have a soldier who is five years older than my dad, and, for example, he asks me every day what time to cook (what to put in first, what to leave for next time, etc.). I find it funny every time, but I have to give all sorts of instructions with the most imperturbable look. That's what I'm a commander for! I have to think about everything, so that the weapons are clean, and there is enough ammunition. So that the soldiers are well-fed, shaved, etc. It's hard, of course, to keep track of everything, but I try as much as possible.
Mommy - Olga (Elka) Davydovna Glikman. Worked as the head of the planning department at the Voskhod printing association. She tried for a long time to find out about the fate of her missing husband, wrote many inquiries. In the 1950s, she married again - to an engineer who returned to Moscow after eighteen years in the GULAG.
…Dinochka, today I watched our “Katyusha” in action. What a wonderful weapon! It was not for nothing that Kostikov received the Stalin Prize for it! The fascists, I think, would give a lot for us not to have these “Katyushas”. But I am sure that there will be more and more of them every day and they will play a significant role in the defeat of Hitler.
…As a party work, I and several other people are working on the moral decomposition of German soldiers. To do this, we crawl up to the front line of the Germans at night and through megaphones in German convey to them elementary concepts about what they are fighting for, what we are fighting for, who their real enemies are, that they must fight Hitler, come over to our side, etc. I hope, my dears, that in this way I also contribute to our common cause of defeating Hitler.
…We live well. It’s just sad without you, my dears. How I now value that pre-war life, in which we had never seen “anything special” before.
…I wish we could destroy the damned Fritzes, Hans and Alfreds as soon as possible and return to you, to work and study! Well, never mind! The time will come, we will smash all the evil spirits and all together raise a toast to our victory, to our Red Army, to its generals and to its leader – Comrade Stalin. Be healthy, my dears.
Dinochka is Volodya's wife. They got married very young, in 1940.
07.06.1942
We have really bad weather. It often drizzles. It's cold... It's not really summer, but real autumn. I even put my grey wool sleeveless jacket back on. I even wanted to put on a blue sweater, but I was just embarrassed by myself, otherwise I would have put that on. It's not bad during the day, but it's often quite frosty at night.
I often remember the institute, my classes. I imagine what I would be doing now if it weren't for the war. (I would be lying on the couch preparing for another exam. And you would be guiding me on the "true path", teaching me how to prepare simultaneously for the 15th time, assuring me that this time you would definitely "fall asleep"... After the exam, we would go to the "Coliseum" or somewhere else. Does this picture resemble you? My mouth is watering at the prospects.)
Alas! For now I have to do other things. But never mind. If not this year, then next year, and we will still study, graduate from the institute, work, relax, have fun... All this is ahead of us! Bye, I'll finish here. Be healthy, baby. Kisses to you, your Vova.
Healthy and cheerful
11.06.1942
… Mommy! I am very happy for Osik's success. He is truly a great guy. To receive a book with the autograph of a famous general at his age (and not at his age) for excellent work, and to also pass the exams with flying colors.
… Mommy, how is Ellochka feeling now? Is there anything left on her cheek? Write, does she know that she has a brother whom she hasn’t seen yet, but who remembers and wants to see her?
… Well, what should I write about myself? I feel good, healthy, cheerful, the mood is “expectant”. I think that soon we will fuck the Fritzes well.
Osik, Volodya's brother - Iosif Zalmanovich Glikman (1930-2016). He became a famous teacher, a specialist in A.S. Makarenko. Author of textbooks and books on pedagogy. He was a professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, taught until the last years of his life, and was greatly loved by students.
Ella, Volodya's sister, Stella Zalmanovna (born in 1940), hardly had time to remember Volodya - she was one year old when he went to the front. But love for her unknown brother illuminated her entire life. She grew up a dazzling beauty. She worked as an engineer.
I love you more than is necessary to be jealous
14.06.1942
…Dinushenka! In one of your letters that arrived, there was a pinch of salt. I understood that you sent it for pancakes. We have enough salt now. However, if you continue down this path, I am afraid that the post office will not deliver your letters to us, because we do not yet have such things as chickens, piglets, and ham on the menu. I am wondering - maybe you will send all this in other letters?
…As for your observations of Ellochka’s speech development and the transfer of conclusions to all of primitive humanity, this work seems futile to me, since, according to the theory of evolution (and it is accepted by Marxism), nothing is created immediately in a finished form. Although development occurs in leaps and bounds, these leaps are small, almost imperceptible at times. Therefore, of course, the speech of primitive man should have been little dissected in the early stages of his development. You don’t even have to be an expert in theories of the origin of language to understand this. (I remember the theory of evolution well, huh?)
…Dinok! How I envy Oleg, about whom you write. Think about it, this man had the good fortune to see you (I don’t know how often or for how long, but that’s less important) up close, to talk to you, etc. And I, your lawful, dear husband, haven’t seen you for almost a year now. It’s really offensive. Don’t think, my dear, that I’m jealous of you. No. I love you and value you more than is necessary to be jealous (I’m afraid that the last phrases sound too pompous, even banal, but I couldn’t explain my idea any other way).
...You can't imagine how much I want to see you! Yesterday afternoon, our company's platoon commander died in reconnaissance. Too bad. Of all the command staff, he was, in my opinion, the nicest guy. The chairman of the collective farm. At first, he was a clerk in the company. He showed himself well. He was nominated for an order and appointed platoon commander.
...Well, there's nothing to write about myself. Everything is the same as before, healthy, cheerful. Recently there was a note of mine in the divisional newspaper. I wanted to cut it out and send it to you, but the newspaper was smoked out faster than I could even look back. Now the political officer has given me the task of writing an article for the front-line newspaper.
Dear girl, you are not a nun!
15.06.1942
... Innochka's desire to get "the skin of a captured German" pleases me, if you want to know. If children are against the Nazis now, then, of course, when they are older, this feeling will become stronger, "mature". They will be real "Soviet Citizens" (with a capital letter). In addition, this means that our people - I am now talking about adults - hate the enemy with every fiber of their soul, which is necessary, as Comrade Stalin said, for our victory.
…Dinok, you ask if I “don’t mind” your going to the cinema. My dear, I have already written to you asking you to have more fun and to have better fun, so that you don’t get too bored without me. You must have fun for both of us now, because I am currently deprived of this opportunity, and I have no time for it here.
…And you, my dear girl, don’t forget that you are not an old woman, not a nun. If there is a theater, go to performances, concerts, etc. You write, Dinok, that I am probably not interested in the trifles you write about. But you forget that soon it will be a year since I was torn away from you, Mom, from home, so everything that happens with you is of great interest to me. There are no trifles!
Don't be homesick
23.08.1942
…Mommy, summer is ending soon. For me, the end of summer is an unpleasant factor, because we are not at home, where there is always the opportunity to wait out the rain; here life does not change one iota whether it is raining or hailing, you just throw on a raincoat…
...Well, that's nothing. That's not the main thing. The main thing is to defeat Hitler as quickly as possible. Before that, all the inconveniences, troubles and similar things pale in comparison and recede not into the background, but at least into the tenth place.
...I will, of course, try to send you a certificate. If it is possible. I am afraid, however, that junior commanders, of which I am one, do not have the right to send certificates. Tomorrow I will see the political instructor and will talk to him about this. Mommy, you want to send me a parcel. No need, because you yourself do not have everything you need now.
I hope that at least Raya uses the military store? Maybe you have at least some papers that Dad is in the army? Then you can also register with the military store.
…Live, my dears, without longing for home. Here, too, we want to drive out and destroy the Germans and go home. But for now we have to endure, although, I hope, not for long now. Be healthy, Mommy, and take care of the children. I kiss you all very much, Vova.
We will soon drive Hitler and his gang into their graves
15.06.1942
Mommy, how are you now with food after school left? Judging by the letter that Innochka dictated to Dina, where she reports that Osik did not buy lunch, consisting of black noodles and millet porridge, we used to eat more or less tolerably. How is it now? Be sure to write.
Now, on the company commander's orders, I fired several mines at the Germans, and he is watching them hit from up ahead. Mommy, I am sure that soon we will drive Hitler and his gang into the coffin. The treaty between the USSR and England, which we read today in Pravda, is another nail in this coffin.
Every day I rejoice, reading in the newspapers about the successes of our industry, which produces tanks, planes, ammunition for the defeat of Hitler's robber army. Everything is as before with me. Alive, healthy, cheerful. Greetings to Raya. I am very happy for Osik, that he is still a good student. Well done. Tell him to listen to you. Dina writes that he argues with you all the time. Tell him that I will return and box his ears. Be healthy, my dear, sweet Mommy.
Eternal lines
Volodya Glikman never got to box his younger brother's ears. He was wounded on July 11, 1943, in the Battle of Kursk and died three days later in the medical unit.
He is buried in a mass grave in a garden on the southern outskirts of the village of Rydan, Arsenyevsky District, Tula Region, together with 106 soldiers and officers.
As Ella Astakhova, librarian of the Kuzmenskaya rural library of the structural division of the MBU "Arsenyevskaya", writes, soldiers who died from wounds in medical battalion No. 5, which was located in the village of Sorokoletovo, are buried in the mass grave. Also buried here are soldiers from the 37th Guards Rifle Regiment, the 12th Guards Rifle Division, the 1967th Machine Gun Artillery Regiment, the 535th Mortar Division, soldiers of the 504th Rifle Regiment, who died in the battles for the liberation of the village of Rydan and the settlement of Krasnosel'ye.
In 1959, a monument to the "Grieving Woman" was erected on the grave; the author is unknown. For many years, festive rallies in honor of Victory Day were held here.
Nobody lives in the village of Rydan now. But the grave is looked after by local administration workers, district cultural institutions and schoolchildren. Volodya Glikman's relatives also visit here.
Volodya's mother kept his letters until the end of her days. According to the recollections of relatives, she often took them out, stroked them tenderly, reread them and cried quietly. As relatives say, "maybe because of these tears the letters are hard to read, and you have to enlarge the font many times with a magnifying glass."
Letters for publication in the Regnum news agency were provided by Boris Abramovich Kogan, Stella Zalmanovna’s husband.