Letter one: “Mentally normal with a slight clouding of mind on seeing you.”
Good afternoon, Tanya!
Forgive me for being a stranger and suddenly writing this letter. But the fact is that I saw you (or rather your image) in a group photo of one of my combat life partners. I don’t know why, but it was you who especially caught my attention.
I remembered the old life, the city life, the life with all the beautiful things that were so hard to wean from. It is impossible to see here and there are absolutely no girls as beautiful as it seemed to me. And now, being in the courses, when we have a little more free time than during the fighting, I decided to write you this letter, I hope this does not offend you.
This letter is, as it were, the 8th symphony, but not Shostakovich’s, but mine (the comparison came to mind, because now in the front-line newspaper, among the notes about our military life, I read a note that you have a concert of the 7th symphony there in the Col. Casa de los Sindicatos).
class photo. Tanya Kogoy is on the far left. Photo: all photos – Museum complex “Dialogue of Generations” of the Maryina Roshcha School
So how do you live now, how do people live in Moscow, what do you think, what interests you in our life? Write, of course, if it is possible and if it does not make it difficult for you. I can inform you Questionnaire: Russian, almost 30 years old, no criminal record, single (oddly enough), literate, resident (formerly) in Ivanovo. Mentally normal with a slight clouding of mind on seeing you.
My address: Active Army, Campo Postal {inaudible} No. 801, courses ml. lieutenants Mudretsov Vladimir Alexandrovich
05/20/42
First Letter.
Second letter: “If in the future your card is found by an orderly examining my dead body…”
Hello Tanya!
Your letter made me very happy. I just made an estimate of the time it will arrive, when you can expect a response. Even the mail went to meet our correspondence and instead of 12 days, as it was before, letters to Moscow began to last 5-7 days. Now we are lying in the field with a group of comrades and discussing various tactical issues, and I am writing this message, but it is inconvenient to write, there is nothing to put.
You write to me to write more often, it’s better that way, but why don’t you follow your own advice? For my part, I’ll do my best until you get bored. And sometimes you think what to write? Writing about the everyday life of your life is uninteresting for you. You just have to envy your life. You write that you were in a nursing home – a good thing. Here, however, nature is better than in the Moscow regions, but…
For the second year now, I don’t know what a complete rest of soul and body is, for the second year already, things like a berth, tooth powder and other things have disappeared from my everyday life, the meaning of which you do not realize while living in the city.
Tanya’s student ID.
In relation to nature, there is more than enough here: streams, springs, hills and groves. A very beautiful and picturesque area – the landscape of the resort, only life and business in this landscape is not resort. Yesterday, for example, during the “offensive” in the forest, they came across raspberries and collected them for several hours… in the mouth. You have no idea how many wild raspberries are here, for example, before that I had no idea that this could be found. We have record holders: 28 glasses of raspberries are destroyed per day.
I have a norm: 6 glasses of raspberries or strawberries, poured into 1 liter of milk, a little sugar and a wonderful dish. I love her very much.
Well, anyway, this is nonsense.
I don’t know how to start and how to proceed, but I have a big and important request for you. I had wanted to write about this for a long time, but I did not have the courage to do it. I don’t know how and why you will consider this, but I apologize in advance and beg your pardon if you consider this blatant. I will write immediately, otherwise I will not decide again. The point is this. Can you send me your photo card? I have many reasons for asking you this.
1. Most importantly: I want to have it.
2. Our correspondence arouses a lot of interest among those around me, and I am positively uncomfortable because I do not even have the opportunity, at least in words, to give the general lines of my correspondent.
3. One of these days I will have to leave this place and therefore part with Kuzmin, who has something I would like to have, your photo.
4. And once again: I want, I passionately desire to have your image.
Now in Maryina Roshcha there is no house with such an address, but there are eight buildings with a similar one.
Now decide. Give or not give Believe me, there is nothing wrong with that, and if in the future an orderly finds your card, examining my corpse, he will know that such a card, this card, was one of the most valuable and expensive items in the last days of life.
If I’m still alive, then… I can talk a lot more, but for now I’ll finish, because all the paper and everyone is going “home”. Sorry I misspelled, it’s very uncomfortable, I took 30 different poses, it’s still uncomfortable.
One of these days I will write you again, very soon, in 2-3 days and I will inform you of the new address if it changes.
When deciding on a card, keep in mind that it is not good to refuse the defender of the Fatherland, the Soviet officer, do you really decide to refuse?
08/20/42 Regards, Tanya, great, great, I’m staying {signature}
Letter three: “I’m going with a group of comrades to enemy territory to fulfill a mission”
Hello Tania!
2 am I am sitting on a bench and in a few minutes with a group of comrades I go to enemy territory to carry out a mission. And right now I am writing you a letter, although the truth is that I sent it to you yesterday. Write to me and send me what I wrote, I beg you.
Warm rain is falling, terrible darkness, cannons are roaring somewhere – this is our reality prose and at the same time poetry.
Well, bye (what a simple word and how much does it mean, right?)
The shortest letter, before a mortal combat mission, is written between the lines of another letter.
8.09.42
Fourth letter: “Too close, kind of dear and maybe already loved”
Tanya, hello!
After a hectic and nervous day, further marred by unpleasant weather, I arrived at my refuge at nightfall and lit a cigarette with pleasure, waiting for dinner. And at that moment the signalman brought me his letter. Do I have to tell you how nice it is? To receive a letter from a person cut off from the usual culture, whose culture has turned into war, “the culture of barbarism”! Especially from a girl who, by some miracle, becomes too close, some kind of darling, and which is good, maybe already loved.
You will forgive me for these words, but now, when it is raining, the body, together with the soul, has warmed up by the small stove, these words were somehow involuntarily written, but it is a pity to cross them out, and why? Perhaps this is true, true, perceived by an internal reflection. And besides, each person can have dreams and fantasies, I have them too. Even to a greater extent than I write about them, but you can’t write everything; It may seem absurd to you, but premature for me.
From your letter I have the impression that I did not receive any letter sent by you before. Maybe this is a mistake, in any case I will request it from the above address.
I was scared when I saw your triangle, I thought there was no photo and I was very happy when I read that you sent it in the next one. You, the girl, don’t have a stock photo? This is something strange. Point me to another girl in the world, besides you, that she does not have a photo. I think, of course, that this is not a delicate refusal; it would be too sharp a dissonance for our correspondence. It only remains to wait, wait impatiently, and with great desire and regret that the days drag so slowly.
The other day I wrote you a postcard, I hope you received it. All went well. You see, I am fulfilling his request: I write often, because and without asking, I want to write to you, it remains only to wish that our opinions were the same.
How would you like to have your card?
The penultimate letter…
Why don’t you write me about how you live, what surrounds you, how the days go by. I am very interested
Congratulations on your entry into the student path and I wish you success. I too was once a student at 3 universities, although I didn’t finish everything.
So, Tanya, send photos, write more often.
Remember that somewhere far away, in some sector of the front, there is a person who, in the fight for your happy life, has always been waiting and will be waiting for your letters.
Write, send, wait.
With a mass of all wishes to you and me, I remain your duty lieutenant Mudretsov
09/18/42
Card five: “Your card is so good!”
Hello Tania!
I finally got what I had been waiting for so long. But the card is very small and it seems to me that there is some difference between it and the one that Kuzmin has, in which I cannot understand.
The card is as good as the letter, it’s not about the paper of course: the letters really got a bit worse: they are very small and contain many common phrases.
Why are you silent and do not write in detail about the topics that I touched on in my letters? True, in the last letter they wrote that they wanted to write a “detailed” one, but it is still missing.
You write in a postscript that I am in your debt. In what? In letters, I write to you more often than you write to me. Maybe I’m tired of this, but I’ll say it. I expect from you a large and detailed letter and an armchair photograph. I envy you, celebrate your anniversary, live for your own pleasure. Describe what type of business you had.
Congratulations on your anniversary, thank you for the invitation for next year. But how long is it, a whole eternity, a whole abyss, and the main thing is to be complete. And then, I thought: what if, like in a fairy tale, I suddenly found myself among your friends? Who are they? Obviously there is a big difference between us. Now they live in Moscow, and I am at the front. By the way, I’m somewhere else now.
Yesterday I received an order from the command and today I arrived at another unit, over which I took command. I spent all day walking around my new defense site and now I am writing you a letter. There in Moscow, near you, I would probably be an insignificant person, but here I am the owner and commander of a large unit in which only I give orders.
Still, Tanya, I am waiting for a detailed letter from you, where you must answer all the questions that I raised in previous letters. If I went here, I would order you, but there I cannot and I am not in my power, no one gave me such rights. So I can only ask.
… and the last, but not from Mudretsov.
With the card with the photo sent, I have more faith in you that you will fulfill my request: write a very, very big letter and attach a card with a huge photo, or even better, write several letters, ie. Tanya needs to write more often, unless, of course, she is tired.
Every day I await your message with the greatest impatience, and they are so rare, rare.
Then answer in detail about what I wrote, to all my questions, Tanya, don’t be shy, frankly. I love the frankness.
Write, Tanya, I wait for you.
10/19/42
The last letter, from the chief of staff – Tatyana Kogoy
Comrade Kogo!
I inform you about Mudretsov Vladimir Alexandrovich at your request. He left our unit. His fate is still unknown to us.
4.02.43 early Headquarters M. Denisov
Mudretsov Vladimir Alexandrovich died in December 1942 at the age of 30. Kogoy Tatyana graduated from Moscow school No. 243 in 1941. they never met…
The letters were deciphered by Nina Roganova, a student at Maryina Grove School.
