Cultural and educational work in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War (22.06.1941–09.05.1945): the first attempts to study the problem undertaken in the Soviet historiography in hot pursuit

Abstract

In the Soviet, post-Soviet and modern Russian historiography of the beginning of the 21st century, it was established that the system of party and political work successfully functioned in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War (22.06.194109.05.1945). Its integral element was (albeit with a relative degree of independence) cultural and educational work. Moreover, in the Soviet historical science, their research was held in the category of priority, which cannot be said about the post-Soviet historiography. The author of the paper has made an attempt to consider the history of studying the problem of cultural and educational work in the Soviet historical science during the Great Patriotic War, figuratively speaking, in hot pursuit. In the coverage of the topic indicated in the title of this paper, the following circumstances are fully taken into account: the conditions for the performance of the first works, determined by the emerging military-political situation, and the process of restructuring of the Soviet historical science during the war; a small number of historiographical and historical sources that were published in the chronological framework indicated above; the absence of works that would correspond strictly to academic canons, the presence of a certain chronicle on them on the subject of the feat of the Soviet people in the fight against Nazi Germany and its satellites; the absence of a proper historiographical understanding of our topic. The paper is made from the standpoint of modern theoretical and methodological approaches, in the key of a lapidary historiographical review (with small elements of conciseness). Consequently, there are no copyright claims to the completeness of the coverage of the problem.