Abstract. A person achieves self-awareness through a narrative, its interpretation, continuous self-interpretation, through which he identifies certain moments in the flow of life that have important meanings for him. In his biographical account of the Great Patriotic War, the author of the manuscripts, Fyodor Efimovich Tokarenko (1911-2003), writes about the spiritual and physical trials that befell him on the brink of survival. The article shows that an autobiographical narrative is a reproduction of past experience in new circumstances in which this experience was in demand.

Keywords: manuscript, F.E.Tokarenko, Great Patriotic War, military everyday life, survival formula, autobiography, war memories.