And soldiers are poets in their souls: the Literary Crossing festival named the winners

Soldiers and front-line poets met on the same stage

In the Great Hall of the Central House of Cinematographers, an awards ceremony for the participants of the festival of modern front-line poetry “Literary Crossing” was held. Public figures, theater and film actors presented prizes to NWO participants and caring citizens. The latter sang wartime songs and recited poems from festival winners.

The festival of modern front-line poetry “Literary Crossing” started on April 1 with the support of the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives and now summed up the results.

From more than four hundred applications, the professional jury of the Writers’ Union of Russia selected fifty-six in two categories: “Call Sign – Poet” (among front-line authors) and “Poets – Front” (among authors of works on front-line topics). “This festival is a confession of the participants about the heroism of the soldiers participating in the hostilities in the Donbass, about their courage, aspirations and experiences, about faith in the strength of the Russian character and victory,” is the main idea of ​​the festival.

The awarding of the winners in the nomination of the festival “Callsign – Poet”, according to the organizers, “which has a special meaning for them, because the lines are written in blood”, was one of the culminating events of the event. In any case, it was especially interesting to watch people “on the other side of the front” and listen to their speeches. In third place was Sergey Lobanov with the poem “My Wife”, in second place was Dmitry Artis (“The wind will rise”), and, finally, the first place was taken by veteran Stanislav Vedrintsev (“How much does a child’s cry cost”). And he, indeed, has the call sign “Poet”.

Stanislav, having stepped on stage and thanked for the award, modestly stated: “This, honestly, is not only my award. The guys, my brothers on the front line, asked me to thank everyone for their support and understanding… Victory will be ours, we will win!”.

The participants of the ceremony and members of the jury also presented special prizes to Natalya Tebeleva, Alena Khrycheva, Brook Vetr and others. And Andrey Dmitriev, Mikhail Chudakov and Victoria Belyaeva won in the nomination “Poets for the Front”. Some participants could not personally receive awards: someone else at the front.

The evening ended with the unofficial anthem of the unconquered Donbass “Donbass is behind us and God is with us!” performed by François Maud d’Aime, a volunteer from France who fought in the DPR, and author of poetry Vladimir Skobtsov.