Front-line Life of the Great Patriotic War: Structure and Specifics

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2021-54-2/7-25

Abstract

Front-line life is a combination of the danger of battle and everyday life in all the variety of their typical and unique manifestations. This article examines the specifics of the front-line life of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War based on ego-documents (letters, diaries, memoirs) and on “oral history” – memoirs-interviews of its participants belonging to the armed forces and military professions of the rank-and-file and the command staff. It is shown that the morale of the troops and their fighting capacity largely depended on the quality of the soldier’s life, its organization in extreme military conditions. Insufficient attention to certain household factors negatively affected the course of hostilities or led to unjustifiably large losses. The study of the front-line everyday life in all its diversity and controversy through the eyes and the fates of individual front-line soldiers allows us to better understand the “human perspective” of recent military history, the elusive subjective factor that in extreme conditions could unexpectedly outweigh all material factors and turn out to be the “last straw” that tips the scales in favor of victories or defeats.

For Citation: Senyavskaya, E.S. 2021. Front-line life of the Great Patriotic War: structure and specifics. Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 2: 7–25.

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