[Кирилл Сызранский]

Ernst I. Unknown student at the Leningrad School of Art was evacuated to Samarkand.
In 1942, the 17th, he volunteered for the army and went to military school in Kushka in Turkestan small arms and machine-gun school (TSPU).
          
The artist says about this study:
- Maybe, field exercises and would become a truly grueling work, if not a machine gun, the heavy "Maxim", which was our inseparable companion everywhere, except, perhaps, beds and dining room. And it also had to learn how to command, so do not be left to the lumen and some outsiders, is not something that works, but and thoughts.
     - But - laughing sculptor - the most striking, perhaps, that I was an art school student yesterday, very quickly became involved in this hectic life of the voltage. Moreover - I liked it. I have successfully mastered the intricacies of not only uncomplicated machine-gun practice, infantry tactics, but also showed stamina by forced marches. Moreover - has become one of the best on the course martial arts masters that came in handy later on the front.
          And now I think - I worked in the family inheritance is unknown, a family of hereditary military. His great-grandfather was the Nikolaev cantonists grandfather - the king's officer, his father - a white adjutant general in the Civil Annenkov. Probably military bone manifested in Kushka, helping to overcome the monstrous power uchilishchnyh race.
          But not only that. I, as a Jew, was in a special account. And it felt unfriendly attention every minute. Watched the whole platoon - how to endure forced marches, as the shoot exercise. And the cost just stumble - in the face laughing: "What Abgasha, weak? It's not pigozhkami toggovat"! Though I have no burr, it is still teased. Well, I wore my best not to give a reason.

... Did not get to the front, Lieutenant Unknown hit by the tribunal. For the murder of a Red Army officer who raped his girlfriend. Death sentences. It was clear from the outset that no longer rely on that.
          

- you would have done differently, right? - Asks us Swinarenko journalist - wrote a statement the district b. And Ernst I. killed the villain of the machine. Does he regret what he did?
          - There would be an opportunity to kill him again, I would have killed him again.

The shooting, however, replaced the penal battalion.
          Then the front EI Unknown fought in the penal battalion, assault units and at the very end of the war he was wounded.
         
From representation to the award:
     

Art. E.I.Neizvestny in the fighting west Ryukkendorfa April 28, 1945 proved to be a bold and enterprising commander in the battle and capture of controlling a prisoner. He was one of the first up to the attack, carrying the men of his platoon.
     Breaking into the trench, he grenades and fire a machine gun machine-gun and killed 16 German soldiers. Being wounded, Lieutenant E. Neizvestnyi continued to command a platoon, and thus the enemy trenches were cleaned and taken prisoner.
          The commander of 260 guards. Major joint venture Velichko. May 2, 1945
 
     ORDER
by the 86th Guards Rifle Division of the Red Nicholas
N 088 /N on May 4, 1945
          On behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for the exemplary performance of tasks at the front against the German invaders, and for his valor and courage, was awarded the Order of the "Red Star" Guard lieutenant Unknown Ernst Iosifovicha, commander of an infantry platoon 260th Guards Rifle Regiment.

But soon the Unknown was wounded again, hard.
 He was in a state of clinical death, and it was only saved by a miracle ...
          - The wounds of war, in any case give of themselves to know - both physical and mental. After all, the military experience is inevitable, anyway, is reflected in my work. And I would not say that I do not have "war work." Its a very specific attitude to the war, I expressed in a series of small sculptures called "War - it ...".
          Another thing is that I'm not trying to be objective historian, being an artist with his personal view. I think I have that right. In the 17 years I have volunteered, he commanded a company, while still "green" lieutenant - then simply because the officers lacked. On the war I got seriously wounded - was shot through the spine. Survived clinical death: medics dropped me plastered on the stairs leading to the morgue - and that, oddly enough, saved my life. Plaster cracked from the impact, and I'm waking up in pain, he shouted.

Parents meanwhile managed to get a death notice.

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Andrei Voznesensky

NEIZBESTNY - REKBIEM B DBUH STEPS with an epilogue

Lieutenant Ernst Unknown.
For thousands of miles around
plain ironing death
fiery iron.

In the attack the platoon did not raise,
but home to the radio:
"In attack - calling - your mother!"
And Ernst replied: "Yes".

But vzvodik your land eats.
He valiantly motionless.
Lieutenant Ernst Unknown
There is a
advance
One!

And death says, "Get out!
You're like one finger.
Against whom are you you're going?
Against bulk, Ernst!

- Against миллионопятьсотсорокасемитысячевосемь -
сотдвадцатитрехквадратнокилометрового monster
against -
against the army, navy, and carbon rabble, against -
kulturgervyshibal against
National -
socialism -
against!
Against global atrocities.
You're already dead, punk? "...
"Still" - Ernst decides.
And he does
The first step!

And Life said: "Eric,
Need living alive
Lilac swing in public gardens
I do not you, and they,
will not be -
1945, 1949, 1956, 1963 - there will be no
and only the formula of humanity will be killed -
3823568004 + 1

and you did not go to university
and not go to the sculpture,
and never will understand that the hot smell of plaster,
as milk,
will not be a workshop on Sretenke which is locked
on the wire,
will not show in the Arena,
will not be a cordial conversation with Nikita Sergeyevich,
and you're not going to marry Anne -
No, no, no ...
there will be no New York City or the "Tree of Life"
(Or rather will be, but not for you, but for the whitish
Mitki Owl, who then got out of the trench)
and for you to never, nothing -
No!
No!
No! ..

Only a mother will slip at the door
with an envelope in which the death
you know, Eric "?
"You bet," - thinks Ernst.

But beyond Life and Death
Piercing, like light,
We need something to third -
than isolated people.

Animal life is taken.
Only people give their lives.

Alarmingly and floodlighting,
Unlike animals -
capacity for self-sacrifice
is unique in humans.

The only Russian,
my only,
unique thank you
you elected me.

Unknown Lieutenant Ernst,
when surrounded by Babi,
as ichthyosaurus drunk,
do you drink at my table

when the government in a panic
wheezing that you are weak in the feast,
I feel like a monument
stirs in you.

I will draw out a head
and politely tell them:

"Of course, you are freshly shaven
and you did not change the taste.
But have you killed
spot for their country? "

1964