The book includes famous stories by B. Vasiliev, telling about the Great Patriotic War, of which the author was a participant and witness, and works written in recent years, in which the writer tried to comprehend and artistically reflect the moral contradictions of our time in the destinies of people. Success film adaptations of the stories “Tomorrow there was war”, “And the dawns here are quiet...”, “Not on the lists” were largely due to the poignancy of the author’s narration, the authenticity of the events described, the tragedy of the stories about the war, which B. Vasiliev knew firsthand, but from personal experience