THE RESEARCH OF THE EVENTS OF «ZELENA BRAMA»: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ASPECT

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Iryna Ivanovna ROMANKO

Abstract

The article analyzes the state of initial phase development of the German-Soviet war, particularly the encirclement of the 6th and 12th Armies in July – August 1941 ; causes of a massive hit in captivity of the Red Army soldiers, their detention in German concentration camps; a controversial issue of the number of prisoners is initiated. Prospects of scientific studies are outlined in this segment of basic research.

One of the first large scale encirclement of the Soviet Army took place on the territory of the woodland «Zelena Brama» situated in Novoarkhangelsk District of Kirovograd Region.

This woodland became known for its grief after publishing the book by Eugeny Dolmatovsky called «Zelena Brama» in 1979. The author narrated about the battles of two armies that were encircled between the towns of Uman and Novoarkhangelsk. The woodland «Zelena Brama» became the last place where Soviet soldiers and officers put up resistance to the enemy. Thousands of them were killed and tens of thousands were taken prisoners there.

Today, the issues of national awareness and national identity and memory become exceptionally topical in terms of aggravation of Russian-Ukrainian military and information confrontation.

«Maidan» and aggression of Russia against Ukraine in 2014 became the catalyst of ideological distancing from the Soviet version of the interpretation of the events of World War II and their rethinking not only among professionals but also the public.

A complex and always important social problem of military captivity, which was ideological by Soviet historiography, has not been studied – Kremlin regime could not openly admit that in 1941–1942 such a huge mass of troops was in the hands of the enemy with its direct fault. Thus, the problem does not fit into officious myth of «the Great Patriotic War», the essence of which (according to the head of the Department of History of Ukraine during the Second World War the Institute of History of Ukraine NASU O. Lysenko) was in sacralization, glorification, romanticizing of the events that by their nature could not be right to show all the contradictions of the German-Soviet war.

Due to objective reasons Ukrainian historiography was able to launch a comprehensive analysis of the mentioned problems much later, explore biographies of prisoners of war in Ukraine. It is too far to comprehensive answers about the fact which really was the life of Soviet prisoners of war.

The theme of Soviet prisoners of war in historiography of World War II continues to be investigated in a form of a meta-narrative. Historians’ attention is concentrated on general policy issues concerning Nazi prisoners of the Red Army, their conditions of detention and exploitation on the territory of the Third Reich, the functioning of the camp system.

A full picture of Nazi policy towards Soviet prisoners of war either on the entire territory of Ukraine or its separate regions still is not restored, the scale of prisoners’ destruction in the camps and on the battlefield is not discovered. Yet research published by the scientists of our country and foreign scientists enable the author of this article to reconstruct the whole issue.

So, despite the serious historiographical heritage in the study of the tragic events of the Battle of Uman scientists’ work in this direction continues and provides a deeper and more in-depth factual and compiled materials on this subject. In part, this situation is caused by the discovery of new, previously not processed by historians source arrays complement or even radically changing the definition of the subject.

However, existing achievements «do not close» the question in full. Causes and consequences of the capture and death in captivity of the huge number of soldiers remain meaningful from the theoretical and military point of view, and also their moral and psychological state, the circumstances in places of detention and survival strategies, moral and legal rehabilitation etc.

The tasks that are needed to be studied: clarification and specification of statistics on the number of Soviet soldiers who were in captivity because of Uman «pocket»; writing some stories about definite concentration camps and studying the fate of specific prisoners in terms of social history and the history of everyday life and so on.

Defeat in Uman as previous and subsequent defeats and victories of the Red Army in the war exposed a major flaw, and perhaps a feature of Soviet troops – his slavish nature, which, actually, was a logical continuation of the totalitarian society in general. A slave-soldier by his nature was not prepared to make decisions, he was not taught to do that.

Displacement of research focus from the organizational structure of military captivity to a person of the prisoner will allow scientists to focus not only on the causes of mass destruction, but also on ways of prisoners’ surviving. This kind of problem will help to see not a monotonous group of Soviet prisoners of war, but a lot of options for life stories, national, ideological, psychological characters, which ultimately can lead to understanding the motivation of certain actions, assess their consequences.

The historical science in Ukraine faces new, extremely responsible tasks in modern conditions. First of all this is a promotion of the Armed Forces construction and the national and patriotic education of the youth. Solving these problems is possible only through a deep and comprehensive rethinking of the military experience of the past.

It is necessary to take into account the bitter experience of the initial phase of the German-Soviet war in the extreme conditions of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, which continues today. No mechanism of «a rapid response», psychological confusion, even helplessness cause significant losses for the society.

Focus displacement from the large-scale military operations towards the man, his life strategies, experiences, behaviours in captivity opened «parallel world» of the war. Social, verbal, intellectual, gender history, the history of everyday life and other areas of modern historical science is the most active area for answering challenges.

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References

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