Evolution of Repertoire of Military Ego-Documents Publications in Modern Russia (1990–2020s)

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to provide an overview of the modern practice of publishing military ego-documents (memoirs, diaries, correspondence). Over the past 30 years of post-Soviet history, this process, according to the observations of the author of the article, has gone through two stages. The first one, chronologically related to the period of the 1990s, manifested itself in domination of repeated re-publication in large quantities of printed materials in high demand – memoirs and diaries of the leaders of the White movement, famous “white” generals and other emigrant publications of 1920–1930.The second (currently ongoing) stage included the republication of the Soviet military memoir heritage; revival of the traditions of publishing memoirs and diaries of military leaders (and then ordinary participants in wars) of pre-revolutionary Russia; scientific academic publications of little-known memoir sources extracted from archives; memoirs and diaries of Soviet/Russian participants in local wars in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Africa and other foreign countries. The most characteristic feature of modern book publishing on military topics is the appearance of a large number of memoir books, mostly self-published by participants in the Great Patriotic War, in ranks from a private soldier to a junior officer.