Family correspondence of veterans of the Great Patriotic War in the archives of Siberia: source value, prospects for use.

Abstract

The object of the study is the personal correspondence of Siberians who participated in the Great Patriotic War. The purpose of the work is to characterize the regional archival and museum collections of epistolary ego documents of the war period and to assess their information potential. The need to consider the problem in all its diversity has led to the use of such general scientific research methods as analysis and synthesis, logical method, descriptive method, classification method. Special research methods were also used: source studies, textual, problem-chronological, content analysis. Frontline letters are classified as a historical source. By means of textual analysis of epistolary documents of 1941-1945, the informational component of the letters of the Siberian soldiers was revealed. The problem-chronological method made it possible to identify the specifics of letters depending on the time of their writing. An array of epistolary sources of the period of the Great Patriotic War, not previously studied and not introduced into scientific circulation, consisting of 400 front-line letters of Siberian soldiers, is analyzed. As a result of the analysis of front-line correspondence, valuable information was revealed about various aspects of military everyday life: about living conditions in the rear, about front-line life, about the combat path of Siberian military units. The signs of the mental transformation of Siberian soldiers in military conditions are recorded and considered: a change in the perception of the enemy, a rethinking of the pre-war lifestyle, increased awareness of the value of the family, the formation of elements of religious consciousness. Conclusions are drawn about the significant informational value of the epistolary heritage for a comprehensive understanding of the events of the Great Patriotic Wars, about the need to intensify work on the introduction of ego documents into scientific circulation.