"A Russian man has always been a mystery to a foreigner, " is a line from the story of the legendary pilot Aleksey Maresyev, which was written by a Russian journalist and prose writer Boris Polev in just 19 days. It was in those terrible days when he was present at the Nuremberg trials. This is a story about a mysterious Russian soul, about the desire to live and survive in the most difficult conditions, without losing strength of mind. About the ability to be friends and not betray, forgive with all my heart and resist the blows of fate. This is a pain for millions of broken fates, for their country, which was drawn into a bloody massacre, but survived and won. Like any book about the war, this story did not leave contemporaries indifferent; a film was shot and an opera was staged based on it. The story of a heroic man is one of the few that received the highest award of the post-war period - the Stalin Prize. But most importantly, the story of a pilot who was left without legs, his love of life and fortitude became an example to follow for several generations.
The dream of becoming a journalist
Boris Kampov was born in Moscow in 1908. From childhood, his parents instilled in his son a love of reading. The Kampovs had a magnificent library at home, where the best works of Russian and foreign classics were collected. Mom instilled good taste in Boris by reading the works of Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov. Before the revolution, the family moved to Tver, where the boy entered school No. 24. Having received a seven-year education at school and studied at a technical school, he decided to become a technologist at the Proletarka factory.
But even in the school of little Boris, journalism was of interest. After all, he grew up in a noisy and crowded factory yard, and he always wanted to talk about the people around him, their characters and actions. I wanted to write about the emotions and feelings that overwhelmed the young man.
Editor alias
The biography of Boris Polevoy as a journalist began with a short article in the regional newspaper Tverskaya Pravda. And for several years he wrote essays, articles, actively working as a correspondent. The pseudonym Polevoy appeared on the advice of the editor of this newspaper. The word campus in Latin means "field".
Journalism became the meaning of his life, he described the life of ordinary people with pleasure and creative greed, praised toilers, and ridiculed the idiot and idlers. His talent did not go unnoticed, and after the publication of the book “Memoirs of a Lousy Man, ” Maxim Gorky took him under his protection. This was the first significant event in the biography of Boris Polevoy. In 1928, he became a professional journalist and devoted his life to his work. And in 1931 the magazine "October" publishes the story "Hot Shop", which brings him literary fame.
War and the newspaper "Pravda"
The next milestone in the difficult biography of Boris Polevoy is war. In 1941, he moved to live in Moscow and began working as a war correspondent for the newspaper Pravda. He writes essays, notes, stories about military operations, about the advancement of our troops to the West. There are many articles about ordinary people, about their courage and immense love of life. It was Boris Polevoy who proudly wrote about Matvey Kuzmin, who in his 83 years repeated the feat of Ivan Susanin. At the front lines he often and often talked with soldiers and nurses, listened to their stories and recorded in detail.
From these records interesting literary works and essays were born. Boris Polevoy, as a journalist, was interested in the characters of people, the way with which selflessness they fought against the enemy. In wartime and post-war times, in addition to newspaper notes, such works as Doctor Vera, The Tale of a Real Man, and the documentary book “In the End” about the Nuremberg Trials come from the pen. Boris Polevoy captured this trial of the leaders of the Wehrmacht on the pages of the book, where he shared his impressions of the awesome truth about Nazi criminals. All his books were very popular, they were read to the holes, and "The Story of a Real Man" became mandatory in the school curriculum.
