Russkii Arkhiv

94-107

Authors: Natalya V. Dmitrieva

In the early 1880s after the senatorial revision of the Livland and Courland Governorates of the Russian Empire by Senator N.A. Manasein (1882–1883) began the development of several reforms for the three Baltic Governorates at once: police, judicial, educational, etc. In the course of their preparation, the central tsarist government paid special attention to the state of the local community and the moods that dominated its environment. To this end, the Ministry of the Interior urged the governors to describe in more detail the state of affairs in the provinces when preparing weekly reports on incidents. The materials published in this article are of interest in connection with a detailed description of the views of the local crown administration on political and national sentiments in the Livonian province among different population groups. The categorization of “parties” given by the governor reflects, on the one hand, the established ideas about social and interethnic contradictions within the province itself, and, on the other hand, the attitude towards the privileged position of the German nobility in the Russian Empire itself.

120-136

Authors: Igor O. Tumentsev

The workbook and personal documents of the commissar and head of intelligence of the Neftegorsk formation of the Kuban partisan detachments, Gavriil Mikhailovich Gunko, are of considerable interest as historical sources. The Neftegorsk formation of partisan detachments was formed in 1941 and consisted of six partisan detachments: Apsheron, Armenian, three Neftegorsk and Ryazan. The Ryazan detachment was defeated in the first days of the occupation, so there is no information about it in the records. All operational information refers to the other five detachments, especially to the Armenian, which was defeated by the Germans on the very first mission. The records are encrypted, but easily revealed with the help of the memoirs of the chief of staff of the formation F.S. Gotvan. The names of traitors, policemen and deserters are not published for ethical reasons.

149-158

Authors: Refat V. Vorobyov

Two stages of the armed conflict on the territory of the Chechen Republic in 1994−1996 and 1999−2009 are an almost inexhaustible source for the military sciences of modern Russia, in particular, for military psychology. The experience of psychological services with former combatants of these armed conflicts, as well as the experience of private research, allows us to apply and make adjustments to the moral and psychological training of military personnel of the RF Armed Forces. Despite the richness of narratives in the form of interviews, there is a risk of encountering opposition from a potential respondent related to finding the memories of a former combatant in the trigger zone. This introduces some difficulties in interviewing ex-combatants. The article provides an interview with the captain of the military intelligence reserve of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, who took part in the second stage of the armed conflict on the territory of the Chechen Republic.

27-49

Authors: Andrey M. Ryabkov, Igor O. Tyumentsev

In 2017–2018, fragments of memoirs of Ivan Abramovich Makhanov, head of the artillery design bureau of the Leningrad Kirov Plant, were published in “Russian Archive”. This publication, which continues to cover the stages of the designer's life path, presents the documents from the personal file of the communist I.A. Makhanov and from his family archive, covering the period from 1929 to 1975. I.A. Makhanov was an energetic person, ready to go to his goal, not being shy about the means, while he replaced the lack of deep professional knowledge and the ability to get along with people with “Bolshevist” pressure. He took part in the Civil War on the side of the Reds as a sixteen-year-old teenager, and his future fate fully illustrated the well-known thesis: “the revolution devours its children”. Despite the efforts made by the designer, both of a technical and administrative nature, Makhanov's final contribution to the formation of the pre-war USSR military-industrial complex turned out to be very limited, and in some cases his activities even went against the intentions of the country's top leadership for the speedy rearmament of the Red Army.

63-69

Authors: Sergey V. Nehamkin

Partisan medicine during the Great Patriotic War is a unique and little-known page of our military history. Physicians in the partisan detachments and brigades were sorely lacking in everything – medicines, tools, elementary dressings. At the same time, they had to return the wounded and sick soldiers to the service, help the surrounding population. They had to look for and find the most unexpected solutions. A typical example is a peat treatment, about which the recent head of the sanitary and medical service of the 12th Cavalry Partisan Brigade named after Stalin, Dr. R. Krasnoperko, reported in May 1945 at the Minsk Congress of Partisan Doctors.

165-180

Authors: Igor O. Tumentsev

This publication introduces into scientific circulation, for the first time, the memoirs of one of the oldest workers of the Maikop oil fields, Secretary of the Union of Miners, Potap Denisovich Provotorov, dedicated to the beginning of oil development in the Maikop Department of the Kuban Cossack army, about the events of the Russian Revolution and the Civil War of 1917-1922, as well as the beginning of socialist construction. Although the author belonged to the generation of revolutionaries and at the time of the described events was a member of the RKP(b), for unknown reasons, in the 30–50s of the 20th century, he fell out of the local nomenclature and ended his career as a simple worker. He wrote his memories for the anniversary collection “The Generation of the October”, in which they, apparently for political reasons, were not included. Although this is the only known memories of the revolutionary events on “Maineft’”.

189-196

Authors: Sergey V. Nehamkin

The unique experience of partisan doctors is one of the little-studied pages in the history of the Great Patriotic War. Unlike his army counterparts, the partisan medic was not part of a coherent, well-functioning system of care for the wounded. In the conditions of constant battles, raids, hunger and cold of the occupation, with the most severe shortage of medicines, instruments, cotton wool and dressings, he could only rely on his head and hands. At the same time, he faced a wide variety of injuries, diseases, epidemics, the need for medical assistance to the surrounding population... A Belarusian doctor, a prisoner of the Minsk ghetto, Rakhil Aronovna Krasnoperko (1902−1976) in December 1942 managed to escape from the barbed wire. Her professional skills became very soon useful for the partisans. In the 12th Cavalry Brigade named after I. Stalin, doctor Krasnoperko headed the medical and sanitary service. Through the “forest hospital” of R.A. Krasnoperko passed about a thousand wounded and sick. After the war, her memories of that time were discovered in the family archive.

210-223

Authors: Vladimir D. Savenkov

In December 1988, the leadership of the Rostov region was one of the first, along with the union republics bordering with Armenia, to provide humanitarian assistance, providing qualified specialists from the The Office of Mechanization Nr 2 of the Trade and Construction Association “Rostovstroy” and specialized equipment necessary for restoration work. The interview of Vladimir Dmitrievich Savenkov is dedicated to his activities as a disaster fighter of the consequences of the catastrophic Spitak earthquake. The respondent tells in detail how his conscription and transportation of equipment was carried out, how he had to adapt to the specifics of the military rescue operation and endure all the hardships associated with the peculiarities of emergency deployment to the place of emergency. Memories of V.D. Savenkov are valuable evidence of how the emergency situation in the Armenian SSR revealed the unpreparedness of the top party leadership headed by M.S. Gorbachev, in relation to the prompt elimination and prevention of major Urban Emergencies.

12-28

Authors: Tatiana K. Shcheglova

The article considers Russian experience of the development of oral history in the years 1990-2020-ths as a variant of "oral history" – the research trend that appeared in foreign countries in the middle of the XX century. By using historical-comparative analysis of the processes of foundation, activity and liquidation of research groups and centers on the diachronic and synchronic levels the author contemplates the directions of their research, subjects and forms of activities of the centers, reveals tendencies and peculiarities of Russian oral history. The conclusions are made that the pioneers of oral history in its «foreign understanding» (oralhistory) in Russia in the very beginning were universities with laboratories of oral history and human rights organizations. The effect of this was a breakthrough in the formation of source base of modern Russian history and scientific- methodological maintaining of research projects and young oral historians training. Scientific trends in the beginning of development of Russian oral history were determined not only by the peculiarities of current political situation (glasnost and perestroika) and numerous problems in Russian source studies and historiography but also by compensatory significance of oral history oriented on the work with social groups whose rights were violated in the tragic periods of history. Certain breakthrough in trends of research work took place in the years 2000−2020-ths and manifested itself in the extension of topical research projects using oral history as a source and method in all spheres of past historical life. The article pays attention to the fact that the oral history of the World war and the Great Patriotic war became a problematic zone that appeared in the focus of international confrontation. The author also describes a new tendency of the development of oral history – the involvement not only educational institutions but cultural-educational institutions as well, first of all, regional museums for which oral history granted new opportunities of exhibition activities. The increase in number of participants of oral history research projects coincides with the development of global information nets that led to both positive and negative consequences. The positive consequences mentioned in the article are scientific contacts in Russia and in the world, and the new forms of research work with the help of Internet resources for formation and presentation of sources (Internet-portals, websites). But their life does not last long that leads to the loss of unique sources. As a result, the most important thing is the formation of oral archives and publication of interview materials, that has its advantages and disadvantages revealed in this article.

44-56

Authors: Tatiana Iu. Vlaskina

A fragment of a large autobiographical interview with Anna Sergeevna Filimonova is dedicated to the war period. Anna Sergeevna belongs to the Filimonov family of the Upper Don Cossacks, who made a significant contribution to the events of the Civil War and collectivization. Anna Sergeevna herself in the first days of the Great Patriotic War became a tractor driver of the collective farm named after S.M. Budyonny. At this time, A.A. Plotkin (a recognized prototype of the hero S. Davydov of Virgin Soil Upturned) was a head of this collective farm. Having arbitrarily taken from the store the vegetables that were due to her as payment for her work days, Filimonova commits a serious offense, which is assessed by the laws of wartime as theft of socialist property, and receives 5 years of correctional labor. In her interview, Anna Sergeevna talks about the daily life of the youth of the wartime collective farm, about selfless work, youthful enthusiasm, but also about constant hunger, formalism and neglect of people by the leadership. She continues the theme of everyday fatalism in a story about prison life, which turns out to be inscribed in the usual realities of war. As a bearer of the Cossack tradition, A.S. Filimonova conveys the details of her life in a juicy Upper Don dialect. Folklore images, omens and superstitions are woven into the fabric of everyday story. Interview with A.S. Filimonova is a valuable source on everyday wartime life and the worldview of Soviet people in the first half of the 20th century.

76-92

Authors: Natalia A. Arkhipenko, NinaA. Vlaskina

The interview with Irina Abramovna Belikova was recorded by the authors in May 2010 in the Novokumskiy village.It is a part of the long-term comprehensive work of Rostov ethnolinguists in the Nekrasov Cossack communities. The topic of the published conversation was the daily life of the Nekrasovites in Turkey and Russia after their return (1930–1960s). Irina Abramovna tells in detail about the life of adults and children, the structure of courtyards, the Nekrasovite’s costume, and typical occupations. She describes in detail agricultural work in Turkey (participation in it of Nekrasovites of different generations, cultivated crops, the process of harvesting grain and legumes), emphasizes the hard work of the Cossacks. I.A. Belikova talks about the entertainment of young people, the contexts of communication with the Turks (trade relations, she tells in detail about studying at a Turkish school and relationships with teachers), about leaving Turkey, returning to their homeland and relationships with local residents after repatriation.The published material is a valuable source for studying the dialect and everyday life of this ethno-confessional group of the Russian people.

110-124

Authors: Larisa M.Salakhova

In the second half of the XX century, life of the Angara region changed dramatically thanks to the ambitious industrial projects of the Soviet era. In a relatively short time of 40 years, on the Angara River there were built Irkutsk, Bratsk, Ust-Ilimsk hydroelectric power plants, which gave rise to metallurgical, timber, mining giants, and also the construction Boguchanskaya HPP began. The region's three-century way of life has undergone some major changes in the context of urbanization transition. This publication presents the oral memories of the former residents of submerged settlements. The interviewees vividly describe their lost homeland, relying on their stories from everyday life and family history. They describe how and where they were resettled, and also the relationships and fates of forced migrants in the new socio-cultural conditions.

130-135

Authors: Ekaterina A. Bobrik

The publication contains several documents that make it possible to trace the chain of bureaucratic changes in the legislative regulation of the life of highlanders prisoners of war during the Caucasian War.The issue that has been most acutely raised in the article has risen in recent years of the war, despite the tens of thousands of prisoners of war across the country. All the documents are part of a large-scale project to change the legal basis of the ability of mountain natives to return to their homeland. According to the sources, the main stumbling block was religious and ethnic affiliation. For the first time, these sources reveal new details about how the Russian government addressed one of the most important issues of the Great Caucasus War.

148-159

Authors: Igor O. Tumentsev, Alexander L. Kleitman

This publication is a continuation of the testing of the source in the framework of the project of preparing the entire text of the memoirs of the constructor I.A. Makhanov for scientific publication. As a Bolshevik-Leninist, faced in 1940 with the order that reigned in the Gulag, the memoirist was deeply shocked by what he saw. He came to the conclusion that the Leninist penitentiary system, based on the re-education of people who committed crimes by working in labor camps and communes, was transformed by the Stalinists into Gulag concentration camps similar to the fascist ones. These camps were based on the very real slave labor of prisoners and aimed to destroy political opponents-Leninists through their disposal “in the Stalin’s dump”. The criminals held in the camps were considered by the camp administration as lumpens – an element that was socially close to the proletariat and were used for secret reprisals of political prisoners. Makhanov showed how the Stalinist regime turned normal people into criminals and found that, despite everything, many of them remain human and in other circumstances could have become full-fledged members of socialist society. The memoirs contain new information about the death of V.E. Meerhold's wife, actress Z. Reich.

185-199

Authors: Nicholas W. Mitiukov, Anatoly N. Loshkarev, Olga A. Nelzina

In this work, the publications of the newspaper of the city of Votkinsk “Leninsky Put’” of 1950-1960, dedicated to the river transport of the city, were selected. This is the decade of the heyday of the work of the Office of Small Rivers under the Council of Ministers of the Udmurt ASSR, which is practically not reflected in archival documents. Thanks to the newspaper, it becomes possible to clarify a number of facts about the biography of the Votkinsk courts that are absent in other sources. So the steamboats of the Votkinsk timber industry enterprise “Azin” and “Oktiabr’”, according to newspaper information, were reliably operated until 1960. Perhaps, “Oktiabr’” in 1959 was taken to the reserve for technical reasons and was not used more actively. The boat “Volna” of the Votkinsk operational office in 1960 was transferred to the disposal of the Votkinsk club of young sailors. This fact was also not reflected in office's documents. During the indicated period, three farms of the Votkinsk pond had their own fleet: plant No. 235, Votkinsk timber industry enterprise and Votkinsk operational office. There is practically no information about the fleet of the defense plant No. 235 in the newspaper's publications. The timber industry fleet is mainly mentioned in the light of the fulfillment of the logging plan, with both critical and approving assessments. But in publications about the Votkinsk operational office, critical notes prevail. The appearance of new ships of the office, as a rule, on the pages of the newspaper remains unreported, which may indicate the low popularity of this type of transport among the town dwellers. But the appearance in 1957 of the large (by the standards of Votkinsk) motor ship “Pobeda” leads to a significant increase in the popularity of the office. The boat becomes the object of literary sketches and photo sketches. In general, the newspaper “Leninsky Put’” is a valuable source on the water transport of Votkinsk, which makes it possible to significantly supplement and expand the understanding of the work of Votkinsk river workers.