«Имея пропитание, и одежду, и кров, удовлетворимся этим»

Abstract

The article is devoted to the survival strategies of the population of the rear territories (drawing on the example of Molotov region) during the Great Patriotic War. The article is based on the methodology of sociocultural trauma. The strategies for biological adaptation to trauma associated with the need for physical self-preservation (food search, housing, providing clothes) are revealed. The narrative sources were used for the study: memories of eyewitnesses of the events: children of the war, home front workers; oral interviews were also involved, as well as written memoirs. As a result of the study it`s possible to conclude that the mechanisms of social adaptation of an individual in the conditions of the war trauma helped to survive in the rear with a shortage of food, a lack of comfortable living conditions, difficulties in providing clothes, as well as the need to work hard and be separated from relatives. Adaptation to the traumatic situation was associated with the need to adapt to difficulties and hardships as a survival strategy. The efforts of people were addressed at this time, first of all, to the issues of biological survival: providing food, shelter and clothing. The food shortage led to the fact that the state of hunger became constant, despite the existence of both state food supply strategies and self-sufficiency mechanisms that were actively used by the population. However, the search for food in the form of “sacking” was faced with tough prohibitive measures by government agencies. During the war, the housing situation in the rear deteriorated sharply, a large number of evacuated settled in existing residential areas. There were mainly state strategies for the distribution of living space: “compaction” and the construction of temporary housing – barracks and dugouts, which in general made it possible to adapt to the trauma of the war and allowed to survive in war conditions. Since the enterprises provided workers with work clothes, work clothes were becoming usual cloth for dailylife. Clothing was restored, changed, made in a handicraft way. Generally, adaptation to sociocultural trauma at the biological level for the population of the rear territories occurred on the verge of physical survival.