The effect of "memory aberration" in M.T. Kalashnikov's memoirs about the Great Patriotic War.

Abstract

The object of the work is the memoirs of the famous Russian designer-gunsmith M. T. Kalashnikov about his participation in the battles of the Great Patriotic War in 1941. The author subjects fragments of M. T. Kalashnikov's memoirs of various publications to comparative analysis. The key publications are "Notes of the designer-gunsmith" in 1992 and "Kalashnikov: the Trajectory of Fate", published in 2007. In addition, the text of the designer's memoirs is compared with documentary sources: combat documents of the 108 tank division, in which M.T. Kalashnikov served at the time of his participation in the battles. The author also provides a review of literature and research on the military biography of M.T. Kalashnikov. The author concludes about the serious chronological distortion that M. T. Kalashnikov made when describing his participation in the battles. The designer himself clearly indicated in his memoirs that he spent at least several weeks at the front in September and October 1941. The analysis of the documents clearly shows that the participation of M.T. Kalashnikov in the battles was actually reduced to two days of fighting: August 30 and 31, 1941. In addition, a comparison of the texts of memoirs of different publications revealed noticeable discrepancies between them. Some of these discrepancies could only have been made deliberately. In addition, the historiographical review revealed the following: the authors who worked on the biography of M.T. Kalashnikov earlier were aware of this phenomenon. However, no one carried out a detailed source analysis of the designer's memoirs, and no attempts were made to explain these distortions. At the same time, the author of the work notes that a detailed analysis of the memoirs of M.T. Kalashnikov has yet to be carried out and the information potential of this source cannot be considered exhausted.