THE RUSSIAN FRONT

Turns out the Russian government’s fight against historical falsification has some good sides as well. The site runivers.ru (all material in Russian) has a truly amazing collection of scanned historical works. Interlibrary loan offices throughout the country will give thanks for everything that’s now available digitally. It starts with the standard great works of Russian-language historiography (Karamzin, Soloviev, Kliuchevskii), extends to three major pre-revolutionary military encyclopedias, and includes a host of 19th century military histories.

My only quibble is that the works are overwhelmingly pre-1917, which reduces the site’s usefulness to me personally. Nonetheless, there are a few post-revolutionary publications. I was delighted to see, for example, the Red Army’s seven-volume Strategicheskii ocherk of World War I. I weep for the trees I killed a couple of years ago making copies of what’s now available online. Likewise, there’s A. A. Svechin’s Evoliutsiia voennogo iskusstva, which will immediately handy.

For a site that seems inspired by the anti-falsification campaign, there’s remarkably little on the things that have preoccupied the Putin-Medvedev regime. Those fall under the site’s category “historical themes.” The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact page, say, has some standard documents (text of the Pact and the secret protocol) but nothing at first glance that seeks to whitewash Stalin. The Katyn section likewise recognizes Soviet responsibility for the massacre and the clear evidentiary trail.

A couple of drawbacks from a technical point of view–the site loads slowly. Full functionality seems to require the use of a DejaVu plugin, which I could not make function on my Mac system. Nonetheless, I was still able to get to everything I wanted to see.

My imperial Russian comrades should bookmark this site and visit often.

Thanks to colleagues at the Command and General Staff College for pointing me to this video on Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevskii.  The historical commentary is OK, though its list of Tukhachevskii’s feats omits his disastrous defeat before Warsaw in the 1920 Russo-Polish War.

Its real value is in the archival footage of Tukhachevskii, including an excerpt from an actual speech.  The vignettes are somewhat datable. The budyonovka peaked cap (which looks strikingly like the German pikelhaube spiked helmet in several of these shots) is earlier–Civil War era and the early 1920s. You can also note the rank insignia on Tukhachevskii’s collar–in late 1935, Tukhachevskii and four others (Voroshilov, Budyonny, Bliukher, and Egorov) were made Marshals of the Soviet Union, with a single star.  Before that, he had four diamonds.

There’s also some very nice shots of other leading Red Army commanders of the time:
Ian Alksnis, key figure in the development of the Soviet air force (2:43)
Vasilii Bliukher, who fought the Japanese at Lake Khasan  (2:51–far right)
Semyon Budyonny, cavalry hero and namesake of the budyonovka peaked cap (2:51–with mustache)
Aleksandr Egorov, Chief of the General Staff 1931-1935 (1:39–on right)
Ieronym Uborevich, ninety-eight pounds soaking wet, whom Georgii Zhukov called the most military man he ever met (2:46)
Kliment Voroshilov, Stalin’s lackey and dim-witted long-time head of the Red Army (2:09)
plus non-military figures like
Sergo Ordzhonikidze, industry tsar (2:34)
Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin’s right hand man and World War II foreign minister, who appears with Tukhachevskii while both are in civilian clothes (3:06)

No Stalin, though.

Of these, Alksnis, Bliukher, Egorov, and Uborevich died in the purges; Ordzhonikidze committed suicide.

As the only English-language print journal devoted to Russian & East European military history and defense issues, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies (JSMS) is an essential and highly regarded resource for professional scholars and graduate students. Despite its status as a peer-reviewed academic publication, JSMS has a great deal to offer non-academics as well.

The Journal features readable articles on topics relating to war, diplomacy, and espionage; authoritative reviews of related scholarly and trade books; discussions of works- and research-in-progress; and historically informed analysis of contemporary developments as well as translations of recently released archival documents otherwise unavailable in English.

The Journal’s editors (whose numbers include more than a few “Frontoviki“) are hardly constrained by conventional academic models. They encourage North American and European scholars at all stages of their careers to contribute articles, notes, and related items for consideration of publication. Whether you are a senior scholar, young graduate student, or lay reader interested in the military history of Eastern Europe and the lands of the former Soviet Union,  The Journal of Slavic Military Studies should be considered “must” reading.

For more information on JSMS (including recent Tables of Contents and instructions on subscribing) stop by the Journal’s official website.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: It’s amazing what one can find on the Internet.

In the summer of 2005, the city of Moscow played host to a photographic exhibit honoring the 60th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War. Titled, “1418 Days,” the exhibit drew upon a collection of rare wartime images contained in the archives of the Moscow House of Photography (Moskovskii Dom fotografii) to tell the story the USSR’s wartime experience.

Not surprisingly, most of the images concerned the battlefield heroism of Red Army soldiers at the front. But the exhibit included more than a few photographs drawn from the rear as well including scenes of factory life, public demonstrations, the air-raid shelters in Moscow’s metro, and bears (no, really).

The material from the 2005 exhibit (including a 40-minute video produced for the occasion) is available for viewing on-line. As is so often the case with these types of things, English-language translations are few and far between, so non-Russian readers will find themselves at a disadvantage.

To view the photographic collection in chronological order, click HERE.

ScP

Late last week I went back home to deliver a couple of talks at the University of Kansas.

While there, I took a side trip to downtown Kansas City, MO in order to spend a couple of hours at the National World War One Museum.

As it has only been open since December 2006, many folks may not yet be aware of its existence.

The museum has state-of-the-art facilities, extremely well done displays, and what may well be the world’s second largest collection of WWI artifacts (after the Imperial War Museum in Great Britain) all housed in a fantastic complex built beneath Kansas City’s Liberty Memorial. (The museum was designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the same firm responsible for the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC)

Given that it’s America’s official museum to the Great War, it shouldn’t some as a surprise that the collection leans toward the USA’s role in the conflict. Still, there’s plenty material for those interested in the Western Front. For the time being, the museum’s holdings on Russia and Eastern Europe are slim, but if you live near Kansas City (or will be coming through sometime in the future) you really should plan to visit. It’s an important, though still unheralded, American treasure.

P.S.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!