Fears of Submarine Sailors during the Great Patriotic War (with Reference to the Battlefield Diaries of Georgy I. Sennikov)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is a historical and anthropological examination of the phenomenon of fear, the methods of its manifestation and overcoming in the shadow of war. The authors refer to battlefield and postwar diaries from 1943–1946 of G. I. Sennikov, a submarine sailor of the Northern Fleet, marine electrician of “М-107” and “М-119”. The authors use methods of historiographical and mythopoetic analysis, and the biographic method. In Sennikov’s battlefield diary, the authors observe the sailor’s analytical approach to the problem of fear: his story is not just a documentation and detailed description of the physical signs of horror, but also a classification of the types of fear, exploration of different aspects of a person’s fear at war, and an attempt to get an insight into the essence of this phenomenon. The research reveals that the young sailor perceived the war as a death-defying admission and initiation at the ultimate threshold and is described with the help of archetypical figures: a monster ship, a coffin boat, the sea, etc. The young man who found himself in the extremely harsh wartime conditions identifies such characteristic features of a submarine sailor’s psychology as sailor fatalism, a certain superstitious religiousness (belief in signs, dreams, “marked” spaces and taboos, amulets, and taboo systems). In his diaries, G. I. Sennikov does not only identify superstitious religiousness and ritual activities as the most efficient weapon against fear, but also creativity, laughter, games, and, most significantly, personal values, the authority of commanding officers, and conviction that Soviet submarine sailors fight for the right cause, on the side of the good, saving the world from the horrors of fascism.