Vsevolod Vishnevsky was born in 1900. As a teenager fought with the Russian Army in the First World War and was seriously wounded. He joined the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and later fought on their side in the Civil War. A considerable part of his life is connected with the fleet. A “Hymn to Sailors” – such is the central idea of his most important work – a play called “An Optimistic Tragedy” telling about the turbulent post-revolutionary years in the Navy. 

“… A little old woman pressed herself against his breast. Then, as I looked round, I saw another woman. Take my word for it, there must be plenty of beauties elsewhere, but I for one have never met anybody like her… “Katya! – Yegor says. – Katya, why have you come? You promised to wait for that one, not this one…” 
 Though I was in the inner porch I heard the beautiful Katya answer: Yegor, I’ll stay with you for ever and I’ll always love you with all my heart… Don’t send me away… 
 Here it is, the Russian character at large! A person might seem so ordinary but as disaster strikes, no matter whether big or small, out comes a great strength  – personal beauty.” 
 The words wind up “The Russian Character” written by Alexei Tolstoi in 1942. The war was raging on with another three years to go before the V-Day. But a simple story of this kind inspired confidence that the Day would come. 
 A person’s inner world at wartime was also at the focus of attention of Konstantin Simonov, a prominent writer, poet and playwright. Nearly all of Simonov’s works – be it poems, plays, notes, stories or novels – are devoted to the war. The writer saw what the war was like even before it began, during local conflicts on Khalkhin-Gol. It was then that Simonov started writing about the war glorifying the heroism of the soldiers and difficulties of war days. As the war broke out, Simonov became a correspondent making frequent trips to the frontlines. He happened to be in Stalingrad, in the besieged Odessa and near Kursk, the site of a major tank battle, and he witnessed the retreat of the Nazis near Moscow and the crushing storming of Berlin. And as usual, his attention was focused on people – from soldiers to commanders. His stories and novels written hot on the heels of the events were about people he had met. Such is his novel “Days and Nights” – his most important wartime work. “To some extent, - the writer pointed out,- this is my Stalingrad diary”. The plot and the characters of the novel help portray the people who fought to the last man in Stalingrad. Simonov succeeded in capturing and depicting a sudden change in the psychology of the city’s defenders. People refused to be defeated and their inner strength they had never suspected of being there came out. However outnumbered by the enemy forces, they never felt fear or confusion. They were calm and that calmness was the highest degree of courage or tenacity. “He is very tired, - Simonov wrote about the main character of the novel battalion commander Saburov, - not because of permanent danger but because of responsibility that fell on him. He did not know what was happening to the south or to the north, though judging by the shelling, fighting was everywhere, what he knew and felt for sure was that those three houses, broken windows, destroyed homes, he, his soldiers, both killed and alive, the woman with her three children in the basement – all, taken together, was Russia and he, Saburov, was defending it”. 
 Along with publications in the press radio programs were of great importance too, among them documentaries, correspondences, extracts from new stories and novels. The programs were listened on the battle and home fronts and abroad. A great number of responses from foreign listeners of Radio Moscow came after Alexander Fetisov’s radio documentary about the Battle of Moscow. Witnesses say crowds of people were gathering on the streets and squares of London and with bated  breath the people were listening to gun volleys, bursts of machine-guns and the story about the battle. 
 A writer’s work in wartime required self-sacrifice, will power and confidence of victory. Writer Alexander Kuznetsov, who had become popular before the war, was killed by a bomb in Ukraine. One of his books – “The Diary of War” that he wrote in the first months following the Nazi invasion – came out 20 years after his death. One of the notes says: “What makes our soldiers heroes is that they are fighting against …..a strong army that has crushed the whole of Central Europe… To defeat it, we must display even greater determination, a greater will-power and unshakable belief in the righteousness of our cause. These are the qualities I must show in my reports”. 
 This correspondence that has come to us from the days of the war shows that the literature of those years was saturated with optimism and unflagging determination to win. 
 After the end of the war Russian prose and poetry got new impetus. Writers use their wartime diaries and experience to create major works of art about the heroism of people who fought the enemy. Memoirs played an important role. The attention of the writers was also focused on the post-war life of those who had seen so much grief and suffering. The topic captured the attention of Mikhail Sholokhov in his famous story “A Man’s Life Story”. The main character, Andrei Sokolov, was an ordinary soldier during the war and the ordeals he had experienced – a wound, captivity, a loss of his beloved ones and his home – were fairly typical for people of his generation. From first glance, there is nothing heroic or even unusual about Andrei Sokolov, who works as a driver after the war. But it in him where genuine humanism and heroism are permanent qualities. That is the way he was at the front, in the days of Nazi captivity and that is the way he is now, in the time of peace. Lonely, with shattered health, he is not indifferent to other people’s sufferings and is ready to open his heart towards an orphaned boy he meets by chance… 
  “Bitter tears were about to choke me, - says Sholokhov's hero, - and I thought at once: we cannot afford to perish each on his own! I’ll adopt him”. All of a sudden I felt peace at  heart. Bending over him I asked quietly: “Vanyushka, do you know, who I am?” And he breathed out: “Who?” And I said as breathlessly: “I’m your father”. My God, he threw himself on my neck, kissing my cheeks, lips, teeth, forehead, his shrieking voice filling the cabin: “Dad, Daddy. I knew! I knew you’d find me! I knew you would!” He pressed himself against me, trembling. Looking at him with my misty eyes, I was trembling too, my hands shaking… 
 I left my car near the gates, took my new son in my arms and carried him home…. The landlord and the landlady happened to be in. Winking at them with my both eyes I say cheerfully: “Here he is, my son, I’ve found him! There are now two of us, my dear friends!”… 
 “Two orphaned souls, two grains of dust that have been tossed far away by the hurricane of war, - Mikhail Sholokhov writes at the end. – Something is in store for them. And I hope that  this man, a Russian man of iron will, will survive and raise a son, strong enough to cope with any difficulties, overcome all kind of hardship…”