"The Dawns Here Are Quiet..." by Boris Vasiliev, summary

This 1969 novella recounts a tragic combat encounter between five young anti-aircraft gunners and their commander and a detachment of experienced German saboteurs. The text contrasts the quiet beauty of Karelian springtime with the brutal reality of war, which cuts lives short before their time. In 1975, the book won the USSR State Prize. Director Stanislav Rostotsky created a highly successful film adaptation of the work in 1972, which was later nominated for an Academy Award.

Arrival of anti-aircraft gunners at the patrol station

It was May 1942. Sergeant Fedot Vaskov, commandant of the 171st railway siding, regularly wrote reports to his superiors. The soldiers of his garrison were idle, drinking moonshine and carousing with local women. Vaskov demanded that they send sober soldiers. The major fulfilled his request in a rather unusual way: two squads of female anti-aircraft gunners, led by Sergeant Kiryanova, arrived at the siding.

The commandant feels uneasy around his noisy subordinates. The girls wash clothes, sunbathe, and tease the thirty-two-year-old sergeant, dismissing him as an old man. Vaskov tries to maintain order, but is confronted by the women’s spontaneity.

Among the soldiers, squad leader Margarita Osyanina stands out. She is stern and unsmiling. Rita’s husband, a border lieutenant, was killed on the second day of the war. Rita managed to send her young son Albert to his parents and then secured a transfer to the front. Her squad includes the beautiful Evgeniya Komelkova, who witnessed the Germans execute her entire family. The two women become close. At night, Rita secretly sneaks out of the unit to bring food to the mother and son in a neighboring town.

Enemy detection

Returning from yet another unauthorized absence early one foggy morning, Rita spots two unknown individuals in the forest. They are dressed in camouflage robes and armed with German machine guns. She immediately wakes the commandant. Vaskov reports the situation up the chain of command and receives orders to neutralize the enemy reconnaissance.

The sergeant major takes five men with him. The detachment includes Margarita Osyanina, Evgeniya Komelkova, Liza Brichkina, a forester’s daughter who grew up in the forest, Sonya Gurvich, an excellent student from Minsk, and Galya Chetvertak, an orphan from an orphanage. Vaskov hopes to intercept the Germans at Sinyukhina Ridge, the only convenient route to the Kirov Railway.

The detachment sets out on a campaign. The girls move through a swampy forest. The sergeant teaches them to move through the quagmire, following footsteps, using hewn poles as support. The youngest anti-aircraft gunner, Galya Chetvertak, loses a boot in the mud. Vaskov makes her temporary footwear from birch bark. The detachment successfully crosses the swamp, washes away the mud in a clean river, and by evening takes up defensive positions among the boulders of the Sinyukhina Ridge.

Sixteen saboteurs

In the morning, the sergeant major and Rita spot Germans emerging from the forest. Instead of two scouts, sixteen tall, heavily armed saboteurs head for the lake. Vaskov realizes that such a group cannot be stopped by direct combat. He sends Liza Brichkina back to the patrol with a report on the changing situation.

The remaining soldiers retreat to a reserve position across the river. Vaskov decides to throw the enemy off course by simulating the presence of a large logging crew. The girls yell loudly, chop down trees, and light smoky fires. Evgeniya Komelkova goes out onto the open riverbank and ostentatiously swims, singing songs. The Germans, unwilling to engage in firefights, skirt the dangerous area, heading for Lake Legontovo.

Meanwhile, Liza Brichkina rushes to deliver a report. She remembers her gravely ill mother, her sullen father, and the visiting hunter who promised to help her with her studies in the city. Dreaming of the future and Sergeant Major Vaskov, the girl forgets to be careful on the swampy path. Liza stumbles, loses her balance, and sinks into the merciless quagmire. Reinforcements will not arrive at the patrol station.

The first losses of the detachment

Vaskov and Rita go on reconnaissance and find a saboteur’s camp. The sergeant major discovers his personal tobacco pouch is missing. Sonya Gurvich, hearing about this, secretly runs back to retrieve it. After a while, Vaskov hears a faint cry. He takes Komelkova with him and rushes to the rescue.

They find Sonya dead in a rock crevice. A German knife had pierced her chest with two precise blows. The enraged commandant pursues two enemy scouts. In a brief skirmish, Vaskov kills one German with a dagger, and Zhenya bludgeons the second with a rifle butt. The girl is shaken by the first hand-to-hand combat. The sergeant major takes Sonya’s dead boots for the barefoot Galya Chetvertak, and the detachment buries the Minsk student under rocks.

The group continues its pursuit and suddenly encounters the main body of the German detachment. A brief head-on battle ensues. Vaskov and Osyanina, with heavy fire, force the saboteurs to retreat into the forest. Galya Chetvertak falls into a stupor, throws down her rifle, and hides her face behind a rock. The Germans retreat, unaware of the true size of the Soviet group.

Gali’s death and the flanking maneuver

Vaskov decides to take Galya Chetvertak on the next patrol to instill resilience in her. The girl lives in a fantasy world and is terrified of real blood. They find the body of a wounded German, abandoned by saboteurs, killed by a shot to the back of the head from their own men. The sergeant major hides Galya in the bushes and prepares to stab a passing enemy patrol in the back.

Galya’s nerves are frayed. She runs out of cover, screaming, right into the path of the German machine gunners. A short burst hits her in the back, killing her instantly. Vaskov immediately opens fire, drawing all the enemy’s attention to himself. He leads the saboteurs deeper into the forest, saving Rita and Zhenya.

During a lengthy chase, the sergeant major runs out of ammunition. A German bullet pierces his arm. Vaskov escapes his pursuers through a swampy marsh. Reaching an island, he spots Lisa Brichkina’s army skirt sticking out of the mud. The commandant realizes there’s no help to be had.

Battle by the River

Exhausted, Vaskov makes his way to the old Legontov hermitage. He finds a saboteur’s camp there, kills a sentry at a well, and seizes a German machine gun. Armed, the sergeant returns to the river, where Zhenya and Rita greet him with tears of joy. They share their meager rations and prepare to fight their final battle.

The Germans reach a riverbank. Vaskov orders the girls to fire only if the enemy attempts to cross the river. An intense firefight ensues. In the midst of the battle, a fragment from an exploding German grenade seriously wounds Rita Osyanina in the stomach.

Zhenya Komelkova draws the saboteurs’ attention to herself. She fires her machine gun and leads the enemies into the forest, giving Vaskov time to bandage Rita. Zhenya fires back until her last bullet. The Germans wound her blindly through the foliage, then finish her off at point-blank range.

End of the confrontation

Vaskov hides Rita under a fallen spruce tree. The girl realizes the inevitability of death. She asks Fedot Evgrafych to take care of her son Albert. The sergeant major kisses her and goes off to scout. Hearing a soft shot, Vaskov returns. Rita shot herself in the temple with the revolver he left her, so as not to burden her commander.

Vaskov buries Osyanina and Komelkova. Driven by cold rage, he heads for Legontov Hermitage. The elder has only a revolver with a single bullet and a grenade without a fuse. He silently kills a German sentry with a knife and bursts into the hut.

The commandant shoots a saboteur trying to grab a weapon with his revolver and takes the remaining four Germans prisoner. The German soldiers can’t believe they’re facing only one wounded man. Vaskov forces them to tie each other together with belts. The exhausted sergeant major escorts the prisoners to the Soviet lines and only there loses consciousness from pain and blood loss.

Memory

The action shifts to the post-war period. Tourists are relaxing on the Karelian lakes. A motorboat moors. A gray-haired, one-armed old man and a member of the missile-carrying forces, Captain Albert Fedotovich, emerge from it. The visitors are bringing a marble slab to be installed in the forest beyond the river, at the burial site of five female anti-aircraft gunners. Only now do the vacationers notice that the dawns in these parts are incredibly quiet.