CRIMES OF THE RED ARMY DURING THE PERIOD OF PREVENTIVE SOVIETIZATION OF TRANSCARPATHIAN UKRAINE

Abstract

In the article, the author investigates the crimes of the Red Army in Transcarpathia in 1944-1945. It was a time, when preventive Sovietization was carried out in the region, the purpose of which was to ensure the process of incorporating Transcarpathia into Soviet Ukraine. The basis of this scientific work are archival materials of the Transcarpathian regional archive (DAZO), as well as oral-historical sources. The archival documents contain: complaints of the injured population, materials of official investigations, documents of the People’s Council of Transcarpathian Ukraine (NRZU), military prosecutor's office and authorities of villages and cities. Declassified archival data give an idea of the scale of criminal activity of Soviet soldiers and officers in the territory of Transcarpathia in the period, when the military administration had the highest power compared to civilian authorities. Evidence suggests that crimes existed both at the horizontal (grass-roots level) and vertically, when they were committed as a consequence of the orders of the senior officers, for example, regiment or garrison commander. In addition to the comon requisition of food and feed, soldiers, using weapons, robbed civilians for personal enrichment, which undermined the authority of the new communist government. Representatives of the civil administration (especially the People’s Council of Transcarpathian Ukraine) tried to level out the consequences of the criminal activities of the Red Army, but in the confrontation with the military power the positive result was not always successful. The data obtained as a result of the research allow us to change the existing romanticized cliches about “the Liberators” and create a more realistic image of the Red Army of the study period.