The first world war in L. N. Andreev’s creative work

The problem of human life during the war finds special understanding in the works of L.Andreev about the First World War. His articles, devoted to the events of the First World War (" At this terrible hour", "Love soldiers, people!", "Trading in the Temple", "Sorry, France!" and others), were reprinted in dozens of Russian and foreign publications. In those articles the writer with his journalistic emotional expressiveness speaks of the necessity of winning the war. The article "Woe to the conquered!" (1916) is about the aftermath of the military defeat. Among other articles, military theme can be found in plays of the writer. The drama "King, Law and Freedom "(1914) was based on the events of the first year of the war: defence of the Belgians against the German occupiers. Newspaper articles were the material of the play. Despite the high proportion of artistic conventions and fictional character names, readers can recognize the historical prototypes of the main heroes of plays: King Albert, leader of the social democrats Emil Vandervelde and the writer - Maurice Maeterlinck. The culmination of the play is based on the event of undermining a dam for the sake of delay of the German advance on Antwerp. The writer does not simply display the events unfolding in reality, but uses them to reflect on the profound questions of human existence in general. Conclusion: The First World War found its reflection in the journalism and prose by L.N.Andreev. The crisis of survival in a constant and apparent proximity of death force heroes to think and to reflect continuously on ways of their existence. Publicistic works by L.N.Andreev reveal man’s feat during the war while in prose and drama the writer is interested in internal changes of a hero in crisis situations.