Две России в одной судьбе: к биографии Ивана Гавриловича Галкина (1896-1937)

Abstract

The transformation of Russian society, caused by the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War, led to the emergence of categories and strata of the population that became alien to the Soviet society, as a result, were subjected to various kinds of restrictions and discrimination. The officers were in a special position in this respect. On the one hand, they attracted the attention of the Soviet government, since they were “potentially inclined” to counterrevolution. But on the other hand, their experience, both military and civilian, was, at times, relevant for the institutions of the new regime. Studying the difficult situation of the former officers in the RSFSR-USSR, specialists are increasingly resorting to biographical research. At the same time, close attention is paid to, among other things, ordinary participants in the events, whose fate, sometimes, is also in many ways indicative. In the light of this problem, this work presents the complex and ambiguous life path of the wartime officer Ivan G. Galkin, who consistently served in the Russian (Imperial), White and Red armies, who later became a Soviet employee in Novosibirsk. The genre features of the presentation determined the theoretical basis for the preparation of the work - the combined combination of the anthropological approach, the theory of social adaptation and the historical and biographical method. The purpose of this publication is to reconstruct the life path of Ivan G. Galkin, to present the forms of social adaptation of “former people” in Soviet Russia. The study is based on a set of unpublished biographical sources from the funds of federal and regional state archives, as well as documents and oral history preserved in the family of the hero of the publication. The fate of the hero of the article vividly demonstrates the contradictions of social and political everyday life in the first years of Soviet power. The ambiguous position of the representatives of the former officers in Soviet Russia is clearly shown. Indeed, as can be seen from the example under consideration, despite honest service in the Red Army and Soviet institutions, Ivan G. Galkin remained a stranger to Soviet society. This publication may be of interest to researchers of the military and social history of Russia in the first quarter of the 20th century, as well as to specialists in practical genealogy.