The Boy and the Red Army Mentors

This flow follows the boy’s attachment to Gavrila and Mitka, whose teaching, protection, and personal example create a chosen community that competes with his eventual return to family life.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

Taken In by the Regiment

Taken In by the Regiment Care After Injury After the arrival of the Red Army, the boy is hospitalized with a broken chest injury. When he is released, the regiment allows him to stay, replacing the recurring threat of being expelled from villages with a temporary place among soldiers. Two Sources of Attention Political instructor Gavrila spends time with the boy in the field library, while Mitka the Cuckoo looks after his food, medical needs, and everyday comfort. The boy receives different kinds of care from each man and begins to rely on both. Their welcome matters because it is chosen rather than imposed by a household’s labor needs. The regiment becomes the first sustained community in which adults treat the boy as someone worth teaching and protecting.

Gavrila’s Lessons

Gavrila’s Lessons Reading and Instruction Gavrila teaches the boy to read and introduces him to books, beginning with Childhood. The boy takes the lessons seriously, finding in reading a world of thought and intention that ordinary life has rarely allowed him to know. A New Explanation Gavrila also teaches a political account of history in which people, rather than God, shape their destinies through collective action. The boy listens closely and imagines that he might grow into a useful participant in the society Gavrila describes. The mentorship gives the boy intellectual companionship as well as direction. Its promises are compelling because they answer his longing for protection and purpose, though he also worries about the judgments and classifications built into Gavrila’s political world.

Mitka’s Care and Example

Mitka’s Care and Example Practical Tenderness Mitka feeds the boy especially well, helps him through painful medical treatment, and stays with him when he is sick from overeating. He also takes him to films and demonstrations of military skills, including the work of sharpshooters. Admiration and Identification The boy admires Mitka’s medals and reputation, but is most affected by the attention he gives him as a companion. Sitting beside Mitka, he imagines a future in which he might become a respected marksman himself. The relationship offers intimacy through small acts and through a shared imaginative world. Mitka’s care becomes inseparable from the boy’s admiration, so that the soldier is both a protective adult and a model for the person the boy hopes to become.

A Private Mission

A Private Mission Mitka’s Grief After four of Mitka’s friends are killed in an attack at a village feast, the sniper withdraws into silence and distress. The boy sees his mentor’s public composure give way to private grief over the men he had regarded as close friends. Shared Risk Before dawn, Mitka takes the boy out of camp with his rifle and equipment. The boy helps him climb a tree overlooking the village, then witnesses Mitka use his skill in a personal act of retaliation that risks his military standing. The boy’s pride in being chosen strengthens their bond, but it also brings him into Mitka’s morally troubling response to loss. Mitka’s example complicates the boy’s understanding of loyalty: care and admiration do not prevent the mentor from choosing violence.

The Farewell to the Regiment

The Farewell to the Regiment Separation by Regulation Gavrila explains that the war is ending and that rules require the boy to be sent to a center for lost children. He promises to care for him if no relatives claim him, but the promise cannot keep the boy with the regiment now. A Chosen Community Left Behind The soldiers give the boy books and gifts, and the regimental tailor makes him a uniform. Mitka pats his shoulder, Gavrila embraces him, and the boy tries to hold back tears as he leaves with Sergeant Yury. The farewell exposes how temporary the boy’s secure community has been. His bond with the two mentors remains powerful, but administrative decisions and the possibility of family reunion carry him away from the adults he had chosen to follow.

Autumn 1944, after the boy leaves the hospital

During the boy’s lessons with Gavrila

Before the soldiers’ village excursion

Several days after the attack on the Red Army soldiers

Near the end of the war