«КОРЕННОЙ ПЕРЕЛОМ» ВО ВТОРОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЕ: СОВРЕМЕННЫЕ АКАДЕМИЧЕСКИЕ ДИСКУССИИ

Abstract

The aim of the article is to review the contemporary scholar discussions which take place in the Russian and foreign historiography about the “turning point” in the Second World War. The use of the “turning point” term by scholars was inevitably linked to the question about the relative con - tribution made by the countries of the “Grand Alliance” to the victory over the “Axis Powers”. Thus, it was logical that after 1945, during the rise of the Cold War, the academic and media discussions about the “turning point” had not only a historiographical but also political significance. Such disputes continue nowadays. This article analyses one of the recent revisionist conceptions about the “turning point” proposed by the British historian Ph. O’Brien. He tried to revise the widely held thesis that the huge land battles at the Soviet-German front were crucial to the outcome of the whole war. A critical evaluation of O’Brien’s conception is fruitful to the further scholar research on the topic as well as to the understanding of the historiographical process itself.