Scientific Regiment. Moscow Polytech graduate, writer Kondratyev fought near Rzhev

Vyacheslav Kondratyev, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, a graduate of the Department “Artistic and Technical Design of Printed Products” of the Moscow Polygraphic Institute (currently Moscow Polytech) for a long time worked as a graphic designer, and then began writing honest and very poignant military prose.

Vyacheslav Kondratyev was drafted into the Workers and Peasants' Red Army back in 1939. He served in the railway troops in the Far East. After the commencement of the Great Patriotic War, he was sent to the front in December 1941. In 1942, he participated in the Rzhev Battle as part of the 132nd Separate Rifle Brigade of the 30th Army of the Kalininsky Front. After the injury leave he served in railway troops, he was injured again. In 1944 after lengthy treatment at hospital, he was commissioned with a disability with the rank of a sergeant.

In 1953, he graduated from the Moscow Polygraphic Institute. For a long time he worked as a graphic designer, was involved in industrial graphics and in creating posters.

In the sixties, Vyacheslav Kondratyev started writing military prose. In February 1979, in the journal “Friendship of Peoples” with a foreword by Konstantin Simonov, the novel “Sashka” was published. The plot covered several days of a life of an ordinary infantryman, a participant of the Rzhev Battle. In 1980, Vyacheslav Kondratyev was accepted into the USSR Writers' Union.

Andrey Tashkov in the movie “Sashka”

Among his works are also the stories “Injury Leave” (1980), The Meetings at Sretenka” (1983) and a novel “Red Gates"(1988), the stories “At the 105th kilometer”, the play “The Battles had Local Significance” (1984) and others.

All of Kondratyev’s works are autobiographical. In his novels and stories he wrote about the main thing in the life of his generation, about those who fought and died near Rzhev, that hasn’t though received an official status of a hero-town , but stayed in the memory of all who fought there, as one of the most heroic and tragic pages of the Great Patriotic War. His prose, “Rzhev Novel”, as stated by V. Astafyev, became an immersion into the past, re-experience of “his war”. 

Based on the works of Kondratyev, feature movies were produced: “Sashka”(1981, film director Alexander Surin), “Greetings from the Front” (1983, Ivan Kiasashvili), “Champaign Splashes” (1989, Stanislav Govorukhin; on the novel “Injury Leave”), “Rzhev”(2019, Igor Kopylov; based on the novel “Redeemed in Blood”). The novel “Injury Leave” was staged at Moscow Drama Theater on Malaya Bronnaya, the novel “Sashka” - at the State Academic Theater named after Mossovet.

Vyacheslav Kondratyev was awarded with the First Degree Order of the Patriotic War, medals “For Bravery” (1942) and “For the Victory over Germany in Great Patriotic War 1941-1945”. He received the Moscow Komsomol Award. In addition, he was a prizewinner of the journal “Friendship of Peoples” and “Literary Gazette”.

Photos from the Faded Stars website

Reference: Moscow Polytech takes part in the campaign of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of RF “Scientific Regiment”, and is presenting a series of materials dedicated to the scientific discoveries that contributed to the Victory during the Great Patriotic War, and telling about the fates of students and teachers during the war.