The truth of war in the characteristics of the main characters of “Son of the Regiment”

Plot - summary

1. On the way back to the unit, the scouts find a sleeping boy in a ditch and take him with them.
2. Vanya Solntsev wants to stay with the scouts, but Captain Enakiev orders the boy to be sent to the rear.
3. Vanya escapes from the highly experienced corporal Bidenko and meets with Enakiev.
4. He remains with the scouts, but during one of the raids he is captured by the Germans.
5. Enakiev takes Vanya and the scouts and makes him an artilleryman, but during the battle he sends Vanya to headquarters.
6. Enakiev dies, and Bidenko takes the matured Vanya to the Suvorov Military School.

A summary of the story “Son of the Regiment” in detail by chapter.

Chapter 1.

After the battle, the military made their way to the headquarters through the grove, when suddenly they heard a strange quiet sound. Having walked a little further, they came across a small trench in which a boy was sleeping. His sleep was restless - he shuddered and moaned quietly. Hearing the movement, the boy jumped up and pointed a sharpened nail at the military.

One of the military men, Sergeant Yegorov, consoled the boy and convinced him that there was no need to be afraid of them, and that the Germans had already retreated.

Chapter 2.

The scouts served in a battery led by Captain Enakiev. He was a worthy leader and a brave fighter. Together with Captain Akhunbaev, they checked the data reported by intelligence and marked important strategic zones.

Captain Enakiev and Captain Akhunbaev were true friends; together they went through a lot. And even now, preparing for the coming battle, they acted together, and each understood perfectly well what to expect from a comrade in service.

Chapter 3.

The boy told the military that his name was Vanya Solntsev and he was left without parents. My father died almost immediately after he went to the front, my mother was killed by German soldiers when she was defending the last cow, and my grandmother and sister could not stand the hunger. When Vanya was left completely alone, he had to look for food. During his wanderings, he was found by the military and sent to a children's detention center.

Author: Valentin Kataev

There the boy suffered very hard from typhus and consumption and was on the verge of death. Having recovered a little, Vanya decided to escape, realizing that he would not survive here.

After escaping, he decided that he had to cross the front line and find his own people. In his rag bag, the scouts found a homemade blade - a sharpened nail with which the boy wanted to defend himself and a torn alphabet.

Vanya awakened Enakiev’s memories of his family who died during the bombing.

Chapter 4.

The scouts fed Vanya potatoes and stew with spices - the boy found this food incredibly tasty and filling. He couldn't remember the last time he ate something like that. For the first time in a long time, he was among people who did not need to be feared.

Vanya was placed in a tent with corporals Kuzma Gorbunov and Vasily Bidenko. Their strong friendship was heard throughout the entire regiment. Before the war, Bidenko was a Donbass miner, and Gorbunov a Transbaikal lumberjack.

The comrades promised that the boy would soon have food that would be allocated to him personally, and he himself would begin to study military affairs. All that remains is to get approval from the captain.

However, no matter how much the comrades wanted to accept Vanya into their ranks, Enakiev decided otherwise. The captain instructed Corporal Bidenko to send Vanya to the second echelon of the front and hand him over to one of the commandants against receipt. He, in turn, must issue an order to enroll Vanya in an orphanage, because a child is not supposed to be in a hot spot. The angry boy said that he would run away at the first opportunity.

Chapter 5.

The next day, Bidenko went with Vanya to the rear, and the corporal returned only a day later, late in the evening. The man was gloomy and silent, but did not admit to what led him to such a state.

During the time that Bidenko was away, the army advanced significantly further to the West. Now the scouts were no longer huddled in tents, but moved to a dugout left by German officers. The Germans left many things, for example, a carbide lamp, hand grenades, a cast-iron camp stove and a supply of firewood for it, in their haste to leave this place. However, during the stay of Russian soldiers and officers here, the dugout acquired a more familiar appearance to Russian people.

Chapter 6.

It was difficult for Bidenko to admit that Vanya was able to outwit him twice and escape, but sooner or later he had to tell the story, and the corporal revealed everything as it was.

The boy made his first escape almost immediately. When the truck slowed down at a turn, he jumped over the side of the bed and ran into the forest. The corporal immediately went in search of the fugitive, but catching him was not so easy. After searching through the forest all day, Bidenko found Vanya at the top of a tree. And if it weren’t for the ABC book that accidentally fell out of the fugitive’s hand, the scout would have passed by.

Chapter 7.

In case Vanya tried to escape again, Bidenko wrapped a rope around his hand and clenched its opposite end tightly in his fist. It was necessary to travel at night and the corporal was constantly falling asleep, but from time to time waking up, the man pulled the rope to check whether his ward had made another escape.

In the morning, having finally woken up, the corporal decided to personally check on Vanya, and only then noticed that the guy had not been there for a long time. And the rope is tied around the boot of a fellow traveler-surgeon.

Chapter 8.

Vanya, wandering for days along the roads and abandoned villages, came across the headquarters. On the way, he met someone his own age - a boy with short hair, washed and dressed in a military uniform. He told Vanya that he served as Major Voznesensky’s liaison officer and called himself “the son of the regiment.”

This meeting inspired Ivan so much that he firmly decided to find the main commander of the battery and ask him for permission to return to the scouts. Going in search of this main commander, Vanya came across a hut. The boy decided that some important boss could live in such a place. It is he who will order Yenakiev to accept Vanya into the headquarters if he is convinced.

Sitting down nearby, the boy began to wait patiently for someone to come out of this hut. And after a while an officer appeared on the porch - he called someone and demanded a horse.

Chapter 9.

Judging by how quickly a soldier with two saddled horses appeared in front of the porch, Vanya realized that this was not an ordinary officer, but some very influential general.

Quite by chance, this influential general turned out to be Yenakiev himself. Today he went to see the regiment commander and was a little alarmed. However, the commander not only did not reprimand Captain Enakiev, but praised his battery.

As soon as Enakiev left the regiment commander, he heard someone’s thin voice. Vanya called out to him - not knowing what Captain Enakiev looked like, the boy poured out his soul to him, annoyed at his current position and complaining that the stern Enakiev did not want to accept him as a “son of the regiment.”

The captain, after listening to this story, decided to give the boy a chance and took him with him to headquarters, but did not reveal his identity.

Chapter 10.

Having gone down to the dugout, Captain Enakiev received a report on what happened during his absence. Having reprimanded Bidenko for allowing Vanya to escape, he lit a cigarette and invited Shepherd into the room.

At that moment, the boy realized what an important general he had met, and his fate once again changed dramatically.

Chapter 11.

The scouts were glad that the boy returned to them and were welcomed again. And as soon as the captain left the dugout, they surrounded Vanya and began asking him everything: how did he manage to escape from such an experienced intelligence officer as Bidenko? Where was the boy all this time? How did you get here, and where did you find Captain Enakiev?

The boy talked about everything slowly, while at the same time looking at the dugout, which already seemed familiar and familiar to him.

Chapter 12.

One day, when Bidenko and Gorbunov went out on reconnaissance, they took Vanya with them without reporting to the captain. They had a task - to get as far as possible into the enemy’s location and find the most convenient road for further advance of Soviet troops along it, find convenient positions for the placement of guns and observation posts, and also scout out information about German reserve units.

Vanya acted as a guide - he knew this area well. Still dressed in shabby civilian clothes, the boy resembled a village shepherd and would not have aroused much suspicion among the enemy. In case Vanya does end up caught by the Nazis, a legend was invented: Vanya leads a runaway horse home.

We left early in the morning, when it was just beginning to get light. Vanya walked ahead and checked if everything was clear, and a few meters away from him the scouts were crawling.

At first everything went well: a group of scouts advanced several kilometers into the German rear, when suddenly the boy noticed the Germans ahead. The first feelings he experienced were uncontrollable fear and panic; Vanya wanted to immediately run away as far as possible.

However, the boy was able to overcome himself and spoke to the rude German officer, pretending to be a stupid shepherd who had caught a runaway horse and was going home with it. And it really worked - the German believed Vanya and left. Then the boy made a quiet sound, warning his friends that the danger had passed.

Chapter 13.

It was already quite dawn, Vanya, Bidenko and Gorbunov continued to move according to the same plan. The scouts were convinced that the boy was doing an excellent job with his task. But once again, having gone far ahead to inspect the territory, Vanya disappeared - only his horse returned.

The scouts assumed that he would return in a maximum of an hour, but he was not there after either two or three hours. The comrades realized that they needed to look for Vanya immediately, even if it cost them their lives.

Following Vanya's footsteps, the scouts crossed the swamp and hid near a large forest, in which, according to their assumption, the German headquarters were located.

Looking around, Gorbunov noticed a pencil on the ground, which he had recently given to Vanya. Then the scout began to look more closely and noticed a few more details: a tuft of white horse mane, Vanya’s whip, a bush with torn leaves, footprints of boots. From all this we had to draw a sad conclusion: the boy was captured by German soldiers.

Gorbunov, appointed senior in this operation, ordered Bidenko to go to headquarters to report on what they had learned about the area. And he stayed. Gorbunov hoped that even if the boy was caught, he still had nothing that could arouse suspicion: he would be interrogated and released.

However, deep down, the scout felt something was wrong, something would complicate the situation.

And indeed, there was something that would have horrified Gorbunov. Vanya was not an ordinary boy. It was not enough for him that he was taken into reconnaissance - he wanted to prove himself, to distinguish himself.

Secretly from everyone, he took out a compass, armed himself with a donated pencil and the alphabet (as a notebook). The boy decided, like real scouts, to conduct real observation.

Moving away from the scouts, the guy not only looked at the territory, he drew a plan of the area in the margins of his book. It was precisely this business that the Germans caught him doing.

Chapter 14.

Taking the boy to their headquarters, they locked him in a dugout for prisoners, and then took him for interrogation. In the room reserved for interrogation there were a man and a woman. After wiping her glasses, she turned to Vanya and asked him to answer the questions.

After asking Vanya for a long time for information about where he got the compass and how he correctly translated the area plan into ABC, the woman did not hear a clear answer and began to lose her temper.

And although the notes in the book were clear evidence against the boy, he said nothing. After several strong blows to the face that followed his silence, Vanya lost consciousness.

Chapter 15.

The dugout where Vanya was sitting shook terribly from exploding bombs. Due to the strong blows, the boy had a terrible headache, the feeling of hunger was so strong that he began to feel sick, but his consciousness was clear.

Vanya immediately realized that it was necessary to look for a way out of the dugout. Groping his way in the darkness, the boy approached the exit, but literally at that very moment one of the bombs hit the dugout door and blew it to pieces. Bright daylight hit Vanya’s eyes, and the boy, without wasting a minute, jumped out of his prison.

We had to leave the German headquarters through the forest, which until recently had been a landscaped place, but was now shredded beyond recognition: uprooted trees lay on the once neat sandy paths, charred corpses of Germans, and pieces of camouflage nets hung on smoldering branches.

The Germans hastily left the headquarters, and the Soviet soldiers were actively advancing. The first soldier to break into the enemy headquarters was Gorbunov. Vanya immediately called out to him, trying to shout over the sound of the machine-gun fire, the corporal heard - their eyes met, and a smile so familiar to Vanya spread on the man’s face.

Chapter 16.

Upon arrival back at Soviet headquarters, Vanya was given uniforms. Bidenko brought the package to the boy. Vanya at first did not believe that all this was for him, but after asking the corporal several times, he was convinced that the uniform was now at his disposal.

The guy immediately wanted to try on the uniform, but Bidenko stopped him, saying that first he needed to wash in the bathhouse and shave off his unkempt hair. And no matter how much Vanya wanted to quickly put on a new uniform, he silently agreed and followed the scout to the bathhouse.

Although the boy did not yet know what military service actually was, he understood with what responsibility he needed to treat military affairs. He was familiar firsthand with the consequences of self-will, which he allowed himself to do on his first mission, and he understood that the scouts were then responsible for him with their heads.

Vanya did not know that when Bidenko returned to his unit and reported his disappearance to Captain Enakiev, he became so furious that he promised to bring Lieutenant Sedykh to justice and send a group of scouts to search for Vanya. But on the same day the battle began and everything was decided on its own.

He promised to hand over Lieutenant Sedykh.

Chapter 17.

After Vanya was thoroughly washed and cut, a significant moment came for him: it was time to put on his uniform. Vanya did this with incredible trepidation and excitement, feeling proud that he was now not just a boy, but a soldier of the Red Army.

Bidenko and Gorbunov taught Vanya how to wrap footcloths around his legs, helped make an additional hole in the belt so that it could be fastened properly, and led him into the dugout. Before the scouts had time to stop admiring their new colleague, Sergeant Egorov entered the dugout and announced to Vanya that Captain Enakiev was waiting for him.

Chapter 18.

Vanya had a wonderful ability to win people over. Captain Enakiev and each of his subordinates fell in love with Vanya, like a younger brother, cheerful and mischievous.

But the boy awakened deeper feelings in the captain’s soul - Vanya reminded the captain of his late son. And although the boys were not alike in appearance, age, or character, the captain drew an invisible parallel between them.

The battery captain decided to take up the boy's upbringing thoroughly, and he began by keeping Vanya with him as a liaison.

Chapter 19.

After that conversation, Vanya moved into the dugout with Captain Enakiev. The captain thought through the plan for raising the boy as thoroughly as he thought through all the combat missions. And the first responsibility that Enakiev decided to entrust to Vanya was mastering the duties of an artilleryman. The boy was immediately assigned to the gun as a backup number.

At first, Vanya really missed the scouts, but later, seeing that the new “family” treated him no worse, he got used to it and felt in his place.

When Vanya arrived at the new unit, the soldiers already knew a lot about him: they knew how he got into the battery, how he escaped from Bidenko twice, how he found Captain Enakiev and returned to headquarters, how he went on reconnaissance with a blind horse, and how he escaped from German captivity. But the new colleagues especially liked the story about the escape, and they asked to tell it again and again.

The talented accordion player Senya Matveev, famous far beyond the gun crew, and the best front-line gunner, Kovalev, Hero of the Soviet Union, served in this battery.

Vanya treated Kovalev with deep respect and timidity. This man, a veteran of the First World War, “lived” in the army. His wife and three sons were also at the front. Kovalev was loyal to his gun and did not agree to any offers of promotion. Vanya dreamed of asking the veteran about everything, but discipline did not allow him to turn to the elders first.

Chapter 20.

Vanya learned from the gunner that Soviet troops had almost crossed the German border, and the scouts had already been there personally.

Before they could finish speaking, the battle began. Everyone around Vanya: people, weapons and even the sky above their heads prepared for battle.

This was the first battle in which the boy took part: he did not just collect cartridges, but pulled the trigger, sending shells to Germany. Vanya felt such inspiration and pleasant excitement that he had never felt before.

Chapter 21.

Early in the morning after the battle, Captain Enakiev and Captain Akhunbaev were considering a plan for further action. Captain Akhunbaev had a clear and carefully thought out plan of attack: two companies were supposed to bypass the Germans, but only one was supposed to open fire - the other company would be in reserve. When the Germans launched a retaliatory offensive, it was necessary to surround them and force them to surrender by superior forces.

Enakiev was satisfied with this plan, but he doubted whether the enemy had spare parts that intelligence did not know about. But since these doubts were not supported by clear facts, Enakiev had no choice but to agree and confirm Akhunbaev’s plan.

Enakiev went to the gun and learned from the duty officer about the situation and the readiness of the guns for battle.

Chapter 22.

In addition to Captain Enakiev and the duty officer, one more person was not sleeping - gunner Kovalev. The captain talked to him about Van and admitted that after the war he intended to adopt him and raise him as his own son.

Suddenly loud volleys of gunfire were heard. After listening, Captain Enakiev realized that what he had expected and was so afraid of had happened: the Germans had sent their reserves. An active German offensive began, the enemy understood the captain’s intentions and managed to get ahead of him.

The captain heard the bullets of his battery whistling, and an infantry battle began nearby.

German troops descended into the lowland, straight to the company of captain Akhunbaev, which was just preparing for the attack. In this situation, the captain had two ways to resolve it: retreat and take a more advantageous position for more successful combat, or begin to advance towards him.

The last course of action was incredibly risky, and Enakiev immediately realized that his comrade in arms would choose this option.

And indeed: right there, he was informed by telephone that a counter-offensive had begun.

Chapter 23.

Akhunbaev asked Enakiev to send help, and the captain immediately sent the first platoon of the battery forward. And only after I gave the order, I remembered that Vanya was fighting there. The first thought was to cancel the order and change platoons: send the second one to attack, and leave the first one to cover the flanks. However, Captain Enakiev thought over the further plan of action and decided not to change the instructions. Instead, he hurried towards Akhunbaev’s command post.

Having reached the right place, Enakiev saw that Captain Akhunbaev was no longer there - he, along with his company, had already gone into battle. Enakiev was amazed by the speed and determination of his comrade - this cheered him up a little and gave him greater confidence in the successful outcome of the battle.

At this time, Vanya, together with his colleagues, was driving a truck into battle. He did not know where they were being taken or what exactly was to be done. The only thing the boy knew was that this fight was something special, unlike the previous ones.

Chapter 24.

During the battle, Captain Enakiev realized that he himself needed to join the first weapons platoon, in which Vanya fought.

Enakiev was worried about the boy and, as soon as he met him, tried to convince him to return to the rear, but Vanya flatly refused. Then the captain had to resort to a little trick: having written something on paper, he put the note in an envelope and handed it to Vanya, as a liaison. He ordered the package to be immediately delivered to the division command post, to the chief of staff. Then Vanya could no longer resist the order and took the letter to headquarters.

Chapter 25.

When Vanya completed the task and ran back to the battlefield, the battle was already over. The boy had no idea that when the cartridges ran out, the soldiers had to defend themselves with improvised objects: shovels and bayonets, and then captain Enakiev took the fire upon himself. The entire first platoon, led by the captain, was killed. Vanya walked across the field and saw the lifeless body of the captain.

Bidenko approached Vanya. Only then did the boy realize what had happened, he pressed himself against the corporal’s wide chest and cried bitterly.

Chapter 26.

Enakiev was a very prudent and responsible person, and therefore, going into a fierce battle and assuming that he might not return, he left a note in the outer pocket of his tunic so that it could be seen.

In the note, Enakiev said goodbye to his comrades and asked to be buried on Soviet soil, and also to take care of Van, his named son. Immediately after the captain’s funeral, Bidenko took Vanya to the Suvorov Military School, giving him food for the first time, soap and Captain Enakiev’s shoulder straps as a souvenir.

Chapter 27.

On his first night at the Lyceum, Vanya slept deeply, but restlessly: having thrown off the blanket, the boy tossed and turned, and his face reflected all the emotions that the boy experienced in his sleep.

At this time, the head of the school, an elderly general, who, as usual, woke up earlier than everyone else, walked through the rooms and watched his charges sleep. The man stopped near Vanya’s bed and began to watch the boy’s troubled sleep.

The head of the school knew the story of Vanya Solntsev, and the nickname “Shepherd Boy”, which the scouts gave him, especially stuck in his soul. Looking at the sleeping Shepherd, the old general could not hold back a gentle, sincere smile.

At this moment, a loud and solemn melody began to play, foreshadowing the rise. Vanya woke up from this loud sound, but the realization of reality did not come to him immediately. The boy had his last dream before fully awakening.

I dreamed that a snow-white truck was carrying the murdered captain Enakiev along an equally bright and long road. This road is surrounded by a winter forest. Four soldiers stand at the coffin, covered with a crimson banner, and Vanya stands at their heads. The car was surrounded by a dense forest, a moonlit night and peace.

Suddenly the piercing sound of a trumpet was heard - Vanya realized that the trumpet was calling him. And suddenly the situation magically changed, Vanya was no longer in the forest, but in a large, bright hall, and ahead was a wide marble staircase, along which Vanya began to rapidly climb. It was difficult to run, but at the top he was met by an old man with a star paved on his chest and supporting him, he led him higher, saying: “Go boldly, Little Shepherd!”

Proverbs for the work

There is no such thing as a good war.

He is small, but the feat is great.

Although he is short in stature, he is rich in courage.

The Russian gave the German some pepper.

We don’t want to fight ourselves, but we won’t give up our land.

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Main characters

Minor characters

Bidenko

A former Donbass miner, and now a scout. A huge giant, who received the nickname “skeleton” from his witty friends. A fair and honest fighter, an excellent intelligence officer. He became attached with all his heart to Vanya, whom the scouts called “the shepherd.” Unable to bring the boy to the front headquarters, Vanya managed to escape from him. He is secretly proud of the boy’s ingenuity; his friends make fun of him that such a famous scout missed the little “shepherd.”

Gorbunov

In “Son of the Regiment” the heroes remain real people even during the war, they do not lose their human appearance, and the intelligence officer Gorbunov is an example of this. He is a good-natured and hospitable person, a hospitable and sociable interlocutor. He is economical, neat, and even in combat conditions he tries to arrange the soldier’s life as much as possible and restore order. Bidenko's bosom friend. He is proud of the title of intelligence officer, and a good vanity lives in him: Gorbunov loves to boast of his special position in the detachment. A reliable friend, always ready to help.

Kovalev

An artillery gunner famous throughout the front, he earned the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Having every right not to go to the front due to his age, a former artilleryman of the First World War, he did not stand aside from the defense of his native land in 1941, and already on the first day of the war, he volunteered to go to the front to defend his native land. Kovalev is a real hero who selflessly loves his homeland and fiercely hates his enemies. He treats his weapon with care and love, keeping it in perfect order. Courageous, brave, and strong-willed hero.

This was a brief description of the main characters of Kataev’s story “Son of the Regiment”; it can be used for a reader’s diary.

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The main characters of "Son of the Regiment"

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Reader's diary "Son of the Regiment"

Work test

1. /16
   Question 1 of 16

Option 2

Valentin Petrovich Kataev is the author of the work “Son of the Regiment”. The well-known work was published in 1944 in the form of one of the articles in the magazine. And in 1945 it was published in print as a separate publication. Since then, many people know about the existence of such an interesting and instructive work.

The main characters of the work are:

— Vanya Solntsev, is a boy who recently turned 12 years old and who, due to random life circumstances, was found in the forest by soldiers of the Soviet Army. This is a very brave and intelligent boy who knows the value of respect and dignity. But this is not just a boy, this is a boy who was liked by the whole squad. The entire detachment perceived him as an uneasy assistant; he became a full-fledged member of the army. This is a positive boy who takes all the responsibilities assigned to him with great responsibility. Enakiev, decided to adopt the boy and subsequently make him a student of the Suvorovsky School.

— Captain Enakiev, he is a respected and courageous man who occupies a high position in the Soviet Army. Most of his colleagues highly value his experience and knowledge. As fate would have it, one fine day the Germans kill his entire family, and then his little son. But he didn’t have to grieve for long, as he met the little boy Vanya Solntsev. Whom he immediately accepted as his own son. But despite this, he is a strict captain in relation not only to the army, but also to himself.

The secondary characters of the work are:

— Bidenko, is an intelligence officer of the Soviet Army. All the fighters read him as a huge man. I fell in love and became attached to Vanya very much. Despite this, at one point Vanya managed to outwit him and escape from him. Of course, all the fighters made fun of the scout, because he failed to deliver the boy to the appointed place.

- Gorbunov is also a scout. Like all other fighters, he is very attached to Vanya Solntsev. He is Bidenko's best friend. Besides all this, this is a person who deserves the respect and trust of his friends. He is always ready to help and give a helping hand.

— Kovalev, this is a former military man. Who, due to his advanced age, has every right not to go to the front. And also thanks to his service, he received the Hero of the Soviet Union award. He is a hero who loves his weapons very much and is very scrupulous about the quality and cleanliness of weapons.

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