We singled out the second part of the trilogy, because its plot is centered on the final stage of the Battle of Stalingrad. The book begins in January 1943, and the rifle division under the command of one of the main characters has spent six weeks surrounding the military group led by Friedrich Paulus. Now, all they are waiting for is the order to launch into the final attack.

Furthermore, on February 2, 2023, right on the square in front of our Central Train Station, Volgograd saw the pre-premiere run of the play "Soldiers Are Not Born" directed by Polina Agureeva and Yuri Bashmet.

The central character of this stage adaptation is Fyodor Serpilin, a military commander whose life has featured personal tragedies, false accusations, and betrayal by his loved ones. His actor Ilya Shakunov, had a particularly difficult task to face in this role. Previously, Serpilin's character had been portrayed by an outstandingly versatile actor Anatoly Papanov, and it was this very portrayal that, according to Konstantin Simonov himself, largely influenced his own depiction of Serpilin's character in the final part of the novel.

To those wishing to draw their own comparison between the book and the new play (as well as the old movie), we also recommend Alexander Stopper's two-part screen adaptation The Living and the Dead (1964) and Retribution (1967) at the same time.

"That former respect, with a touch of hatred, that he used to feel for the Germans – no, not for the Germans themselves, but rather for their ability to fight (and he used to always feel this respect, and the others did, too; even when the newspapers were calling the Germans smelly and lousy Fritzes, this respect was still there, because you can't fool yourself…) – well, Stalingrad shattered this respect inside him. And it wasn't in November, the month our offensive began, that it happened. It had happened earlier, in that hellish October, when it looked like the Germans had already cut his division in two and were this close to pushing it into the Volga River… and yet never actually managed to cut the division and never got to deliver the final push!

It was not like his division had not believed in themselves before that. They had believed all right, but on a smaller scale. As a result, when October ended, their belief in themselves grew twofold, whereas their belief in the Germans – that is, again, in their ability to fight – started to drop. Which was quite natural, for one to grow at the expense of the other! So, that's how it happened, and that's how it was now, and that's how it was bound to continue.

And as he was sitting in front of the German soldier, he no longer believed that this German could be stronger than him. Not because this particular German was now a POW... In fact, this particular German had nothing to do with those thoughts..."

© Konstantin Simonov, "Soldiers Are Not Born"