Stalingrad is not just a city on the Volga, a symbol of our Victory. This is also the main military-political factor of World War II; its influence affected the entire course of human history. The novel-reflection “Barbarossa” is dedicated to the heroic and tragic Battle of Stalingrad - the first volume of the last, unfinished duology “Square of Fallen Fighters” by Valentin Pikul. The author did not have time to write the second volume because his health was undermined by many years of exhausting work. Valentin Savvich honestly admitted that he did not consider himself to have the right to invite readers to the “trenches of Stalingrad,” because he had never been there himself. But as the son of the hero of Stalingrad, as a writer-historian and participant in the war (Solovetsky cabin boy), he could not ignore the grandiose events on the great Russian river.