75 years ago, 23 September 1942, the author of the famous "Brigantine" and many other poems, died in battle with the Nazi invaders under Novorossiysk, on the Sugar Loaf hill.
He could have survived. Could not go to war. The young man suffered from severe myopia, chronic bronchitis. He was declared unfit for military service. But he did his best to get to the front. For he could not sit in the rear - it would contradict his principles and his poems. He is one of those poets about whom we can safely say: he wrote how he lived. He lived as he wrote.
The future poet was born in Kiev in 1918 year. When the boy was four years old, his family moved to Moscow.
Since childhood, Paul was fond of poetry, knew by heart many verses. Manil his free spirit of travel - while still a schoolboy, he walked a lot on foot in Russia. He loved to read Alexander Green, which was later reflected in his work:
At the hour when the mountain ash is burning down,
The yellow leaf whirls in the wind,
We will raise a glass of Green
And quietly drink for Liss.
It is these Green's motives — and in the very “Brigantine”:
We drink for furious, for dissimilar,
For despised penny comfort ...
In 1936, Pavel Kogan entered the Moscow Institute storiesphilosophy and literature. Three years later, in 1939, he became a student of the famous Gorky Institute of Literature (continuing, however, while also studying at IFLI). Engaged in a seminar by Ilya Selvinsky.
Unfortunately, many of those who enrolled in Literature at that time did not manage to finish it. A war was approaching the country, with which many did not return. In the book “Soviet poets who fell in the Great Patriotic War,” published in 1965, the name of Pavel Kogan is just one of dozens of those who gave their lives in battle.
The news of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War found him in Armenia, where the young man was part of a geological expedition. He hurried back to Moscow, where he learned that his family had gone to another city. The young poet, like many, many young men of that time, went to the draft board to get to the front. And could the one who so despised "penny coziness", act differently?
However, for reasons of health, he was not subject to appeal. In order not to remain in the rear ”, Pavel entered the courses of military interpreters (which really was not enough). It helped him fascination with foreign languages.
After graduating from courses, Kogan went to the front. He became a military translator of the regimental reconnaissance detachment with the rank of lieutenant
“What to write about myself: alive and well, cheerful, at war. I really want to believe that I will stay alive and that we will all meet with us, on Pravda Street. Only here, at the front, I realized how dazzling, what a charming thing is life. Next to death, it is very well understood. And for the sake of life, for the sake of your gray-haired wonderful head, I will die if necessary, because a person with a normal head and heart cannot reconcile with fascism, ”such news from the front, full of vitality and hope, he sent to his father.
September 23 1942 Pavel headed the reconnaissance group on the Sugar Loaf Hill, near Novorossiysk. The group came under fire, it was there that the poet died at the age of 24. “Heading up the search for intelligence officers, he went under the bullets in height, as he walked through life ...”, wrote another well-known front-line poet, Sergey Narovchatov, about the death of Pavel.
In his poems, Paul seemed to predict his own fate:
But we still get to the Ganges,
But we still die in battles,
So from Japan to England
My Motherland shone.
No, he did not reach the Ganges, but he died in battle in the south of Russia, near the Black Sea, which he repeatedly sang in his lines.
The first poetic collection of Pavel Kogan was released only in 1960 year. He was called to match the fate of the author - "Thunderstorm."
In one of the poems he wrote:
So let it be in bitterness and in reward
The descendants will say about me:
"He lived. He thought. Often fell.
But he never changed the century. ”
He did not change the century, did not change the principles, did not change his country in his fiery lines filled with romance, sea and patriotism, or in his last battle ...