Vasil Vladimirovich Bykov is a world-famous writer, whose fame was brought by novels and stories about the war. Bykov experienced its horrors and hardships firsthand, fighting at the front in the infantry for three years. He took part in the battles for Ukraine and Moldova, liberated Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Austria from the Nazis.
Vasil Bykov's memoirs are distinguished by extreme accuracy in detail, uncompromisingness in describing the ugly sides of the war: he shows its cruel truth through the eyes of a simple infantryman who sees how his comrades fight and die, often paying with their lives for the mistakes of others.