The article studies the principles and criteria for the selection of memoirs devoted to the Great Patriotic War, published in the literary magazine Novy Mir during the thaw. The authors demonstrate how the decision to publish certain materials correlated with the overall aesthetic strategy of the magazine under A. Tvardovsky. The authors make a systemic analysis of one of the most typical examples of military memoirs on the pages of Novy Mir, i.e. General of the Army Gorbatov's Years and Wars.