Postwar Years Research Articles

Crime in the law enforcement agencies in 1948–1952 and its counteraction

The article reveals the state of crime in the police in 1948–1952, identifies its main manifestations and measures to counteract it. Crime in the police in the post-war years remained an acute and permanent problem. The late 1940s and early 1950s were no exception. This was influenced by the very nature of the totalitarian regime, which was based on violence and violation of the rule of law, the difficult socio-economic situation in the country, as the consequences of the post-war devastation were only beginning to be eliminated, and the low level of professional training and education of a certain number of police officers. For many of them, the perceptions of the state of legality were quite specific, formed mainly under the influence of the events of the war, combined with a tendency to be quick to punish those who were considered criminals and a relatively low level of awareness of the law. All of this has led to the existence of the problem of crime in the law enforcement agencies of the republic, and this problem is still relevant today, both from a theoretical and practical point of view. The most common violations in the police at that time were: alcoholism, abuse of office, connections with criminals, violations of the law during the detention of citizens and the conduct of investigations, failure to comply with orders, bribery, embezzlement, domestic and moral decay, desertion, disclosure of official secrets, unauthorised abandonment of duty, illegal use of weapons and, as a result, injury or killing of citizens, negligence in the performance of official duties, and loss of personal weapons. Most cases of lawbreaking were committed by police officers who were intoxicated. During this period, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR took a number of measures to improve the situation: offenders were dismissed from the police and brought to trial, and the leadership of those local police forces with the highest number of such violations was changed. This was done on the basis of an analysis of the flow of investigative cases, inspection of documentation and the state of work of local police bodies in the field of training their personnel.

“El Principal Enemigo Nacional”: Revolutionary Guatemala's Response to Allied Policy toward German Presence in Latin America (1944–1952)

AbstractThis article examines the migration and expropriation policies of Guatemala's revolutionary governments toward Germans present in the country during the postwar years and the start of the Cold War. It reconstructs the challenges around the domestic and international articulations of their strategy. Revolutionary governments’ concerted efforts to confiscate valuable land and condition the return of German-Guatemalans classified as ‘dangerous’ can be interpreted as part of a cohesive plan to regain control of strategic domestic resources for future redistribution. It also reflects financial policies that have both electoral and financial purposes. The article is built around newly available judicial, legislative, and consular (France) Guatemalan sources, along with personal letters from Guatemala's top politicians, and complemented by Mexican, Chilean, Argentine, British, and US diplomatic documents. In methodological terms, this article shows the importance of articulating long-term processes, here the nineteenth-century German presence in Guatemala, in the context of historical junctures such as the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. It also draws attention to the importance of analyzing events on domestic, regional and global scales to understand foreign policy-making. This article enriches an already complex set of global, regional, and domestic interactions of the postwar period, as well as the role of Guatemala during that time.

ПРОФСПІЛКИ УКРАЇНИ В УМОВАХ РАДЯНСЬКОГО ПОЛІТИЧНОГО РЕЖИМУ (1945–1991)

In the post-war years democratic principles were effectively nullified in the practical activities of Communist party structures at both the central and local levels. The role of the appointed party apparatus continued to expand, reinforcing bureaucratic methods of management. Centralism permeated all aspects of society, elevating arbitrary management techniques. The party, represented by the apparatus, assumed control over all facets of life. Trade unions constituted a link in the Soviet political system. Under the conditions of the totalitarian regime, they were subordinated to the party, transforming into a quasi-state entity performing political, industrial, and ideological functions as defined for them. Trade unions did not play an independent political role in the USSR and Ukrainian SSR. They merely served as a “transmission link from the party to the masses”, an additional tool for social regulation and a conduit for party influence in production across millions of workers engaged in various branches of the economy, culture, and science. The primary function of trade unions, protective in nature, took a backseat. They were now primarily tasked with production objectives such as “organizing workers and employees to fight for the steady development of the national economy...”. In essence, trade unions transformed into a branch of the administrative apparatus, intended to ensure the implementation and over-implementation of business plans, and increase labor productivity. Furthermore, they fulfilled certain ideological and educational functions based on Lenin's definition of trade unions as “schools of communism”. They had at their disposal clubs, houses of culture, libraries, and movie theaters. The cultural realm became a massive and potent channel through which the perception of the steadfastness and “correctness” of the principles of the totalitarian system was ingrained in the minds of the people.

Restoration of Monumental Painting in Ukraine in the 1950–1960s. Social Aspirations and Ideological Collisions

The purpose of the article is to consider the peculiarities of restoration of sites of monumental painting of Ukraine in the post-war years 1945-1960s in the context of the influence of social, economic, and ideological factors. The research methodology consists in the application of general scientific and special research methods, in particular, analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction, generalisation and abstraction, semitic, descriptive, which together made it possible to obtain well-founded conclusions. The scientific novelty consists in outlining the general directions and approaches in preserving the artistic heritage of the post-war period of the 1950s-1960s, identifying gains and losses. Conclusions. Against the background of the global scale of the destruction of cultural heritage monuments, which required the implementation of complex monument protection and restoration tasks, the foundations of scientific methodology in the field of restoration of wall paintings were formed. The increase in the pace and volume of the restoration of cultural and artistic monuments after the Second World War was affected by new challenges caused by the lack of a material, technical and methodological base, qualified human resources, and shortcomings in the organisation of work. At the same time, deep destructive manifestations caused by atheistic state policy with a pronounced totalitarian colour have become fatal for a number of Ukrainian historical and cultural monuments, introducing a contradictory character into the establishment of the restoration work in the country. Thanks to the active position of leading cultural figures and the founders of the new Ukrainian restoration school of monumental art – Luka Kalenichenko, Olha Plihusch, Yevhen Mamolat, the first post-war decades became decisive in the formation of the national restoration and monument protection industries. Keywords: monumental painting, restoration, restoration workshop, preservation of monuments.

Creating the Conditions for Western European Petroculture: The Marshall Plan, the Politics of the OEEC, and the Transition from Coal to Oil

In the postwar years, petroleum products pervaded more and more aspects of Western European life. In this article, we study the origins of this pervasive petroculture through the lens of the Marshall Plan/European Recovery Program (ERP), its Refinery Expansion Program, and the politics of the Organisation of European Economic Co-operation (OEEC). To that end, we examine the creation and expansion of technological infrastructures for petroleum, the institutions that promoted its growing use, and how those changes enabled the transition from coal to oil. The case is made that the ERP and OEEC had a key role in the making of a pervasive petroculture in Western Europe.

Kemerovo Regional Medical Exercises Dispensary in 1949–1965

The establishment of the Kemerovo Region in 1943 marked the institutionalization of regional physical culture and sports management bodies. Regional sports competitions needed medical support and control. The Kemerovo Regional Medical Exercises Dispensary appeared in 1949 as an important structural component of the system of medical control and medical support of physical culture and sports in the Kemerovo Region. The archives of the Regional Health Department and the Kemerovo Regional Medical Exercises Dispensary made it possible to determine the advantages and shortcomings of the new institution. The author relied on the principles of historicism and objectivity, as well as on the methods of problem chronology and historical system, to describe the role of the Dispensary in the new system of medical support of physical culture and sports in the postwar years. In the mid-1950s, the Kemerovo Region developed an elaborated network of institutions of medical and physical therapy service, and the Dispensary became a core institution that organized its work. The early 1960s saw a steady increase in the number of medical control and physical therapy services. The Dispensary acquired new functions but suffered from poor facilities and staffing until the mid-1960s, which restrained its developmental potential. The state used the positive experience gained during World War II to improve the network of medical and physical therapy institutions. In 1949–1965, the Kemerovo Region introduced a fundamentally new system of medical support for physical culture and sports.

“Our children”: Moral panic associated with children and collective violence against the Jews in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War in Poland

AbstractBetween 1945 and 1946, Poland witnessed three large anti‐Jewish pogroms. The infamous Kielce pogrom of July 4, 1946, which claimed the lives of over 40 Holocaust survivors was preceded by outbursts of collective violence in Rzeszów and in Kraków. All three pogroms were perpetrated by police officers, soldiers of the Polish army, and civilians forming a pogrom mob, and all were preceded and inflamed by rumors about Jews kidnapping and harming Christian children. Studies of widespread antisemitism and the common belief in blood libel do not seem to offer an adequate explanation of how the people of Rzeszów, Kraków, and Kielce could have believed the rumors that Jews were abducting and murdering children. They explain even less what made possible the social mobilization leading toward mass violence against Holocaust survivors in Poland in the immediate aftermath of WWII. We address this issue by using the concept of moral panic as proposed by Erich Goode and Nachman Ben‐Yehuda and examining possible reasons why Polish society after the WWII seems to have been particularly attuned to the fate of children. We argue that in the early postwar years there was a moral panic in Poland associated with the vulnerability of children. It was propelled by wartime experience but also by omnipresent violence and hideous crimes committed against children in the wake of WWII. Although there was no fact‐based connection between these crimes and the Jews, many Polish Christians eagerly put the blame on “the Other,” that is, the Jews, and sought facts that could serve as confirmation of an old prejudice—the blood libel. Polish Christians who accepted the blood libel as truth could have found confirmation of their belief when Jewish relatives or Jewish organizations undertook to “recover”—through legal procedures, by payment, by subterfuge or by force—children who had been hidden in Christian families during the Holocaust.

Development of the Shipbuilding Industry of Ukraine in the Postwar Period (1946–1965)

The article deals with development of the shipbuilding industry of Ukraine in the postwar period (1946–1965). The author determined that in the postwar period the reconstruction of the entire industrial structure was accomplished, the most important works at releasing the shipbuilding plants from their uncharacteristic functions were carried out, the specialization profile in building of watercrafts of different types was worked out, the watercraft typing, unification of master ship engines and supplementary mechanical devices, standardization and normalization of materials and equipment were developed. All that allowed each enterprise to make a speciality of multiple building of one or two types of ships. The problem of technical reconstruction of production also became of great importance in the postwar years. Increasing requirements for the ship technical characteristics caused radical changes in shipbuilding technology. The pace of reconstruction and development of the Ukrainian shipbuilding industry was largely determined by the replenishment of enterprises in the industry by qualified specialists. The author concludes that in the postwar period shipbuilding turned into a highly developed industry and became the most important part of the shipbuilding complex of the USSR. Ukrainian engineering and work force made a decisive contribution to the formation of the Soviet postwar fleet.

The Wehrmacht’s Complicity in Late-War Genocide: The Palmnicken Massacre and the Military in East Prussia, 1944–1945

Abstract By examining the death marches from Stutthof’s East Prussian subcamps in January 1945 and the following “Palmnicken Massacre,” this article retraces the role of the Wehrmacht in late-war genocidal violence. Scholars have established the complicity of Wehrmacht soldiers in acts of genocide during their stay on the Eastern Front, and documented the racist mindset that underpinned their behavior. Yet no such research exists on the final year of the war. From Summer 1944 until May 1945, the Wehrmacht’s main task was to defend its home soil. Scholarship has thus focused more on the military’s defense of Germany rather than their willingness to support the regime’s genocidal demands. This article argues that many Wehrmacht commanders were fully aware of the genocide perpetrated in their midst during the war’s final months, and when called upon, different Wehrmacht commanders actively assisted the SS in carrying out the regime’s racist mission even at the very end of the war. Finally, the author reveals how the military attempted to conceal these acts of violence throughout the postwar years.

SOVIET MONUMENTAL PROPAGANDA PROBLEMS IN WESTERN UKRAINIAN LANDS IN 1944 – 1953

The article characterizes the problems of Soviet monumental propaganda in the Western Ukrainian lands in the post-war years, mainly related to building monuments of republican significance. Based on the analysis of archival documents, the author has outlined the peculiarities of legislative regulation and financing of the monuments’ construction, which affected the delay or non-implementation of government decrees regarding the construction of memorials. The financial problems and the shortcomings of the Soviet bureaucratic system have been described in the example of the building of monuments to Lenin in L’viv, Drohobych and Chernivtsi, the monument to Oleko Dundych in Rivne, the “Hill of Glory” in L’viv, and the military cemetery in Stanislav. The reasons contributing to the failure to fulfill the tasks of monumental propaganda included the limitation of funding for building monuments by both the central and republican authorities, the lack of funds in local budgets, and the delay in submitting or approving project or financial documentation. Furthermore, an ideological factor has been identified as the primary reason for postponing the construction of memorials to Ivan Franko and Taras Shevchenko in L’viv. The author concluded that Soviet memory politics, which aimed to Sovietize the memorial space rapidly, lacked the resources to create essential symbolic places to disseminate Soviet commemorative culture in the Western Ukrainian lands effectively. The delay in constructing new monuments of republican significance caused dissatisfaction among the party leadership, which demanded an immediate solution to these problems. These demands, in turn, resulted in cost-cutting measures during monument building, leading to deviations from their original projects. The article pays particular attention to the issue of the quality of typical monuments to the state’s leaders and fallen soldiers of the Soviet army, which was also one of the problems of Soviet monumental propaganda.

“Young people don’t even know the dish…” Disappearing day-to-day dishes in the memories of settlers in Lower Silesia Analysis of selected materials of the Polish Ethnographic Atlas

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the state of knowledge of age-old foods brought to Lower Silesia after the end of World War II by settlers and resettlers from the eastern corners of the country and the Eastern Borderlands. The studied region is a post-migration area, within which – in the post-war period – there were processes of reevaluation, adopting or abandoning elements of the new and found cultural heritage. These processes also involved culinary heritage. The issue of culinary traditions surfaced quite often during conversations with elderly people, who in their recollections reached back to the pre-war period in their hometowns and to the first post-war years after resettlement. The present discussion will focus primarily on liquid dishes – soups/pottages, less often on thick and baked dishes. What distinguished them is the fact that they were still prepared a few years after resettlement, but nevertheless, gradually lost their popularity and eventually were abandoned. Interesting details on the subject are provided by source materials collected during field research, as part of the Polish Ethnographic Atlas project. The source basis will be the information obtained in the questionnaire “People’s material culture.”

The role of the Polish Army in the military settlement action in the years 1945–1948

The article discusses the issue of military settlement on the so-called Recovered Territories in the years 1945–1948. The text examines the role of the army and military institutions in this process, the status of military settlers and the system of mutual links between military and civilian institutions dealing with military settlement. The article presents the overall organizational effort related to military settlement, difficulties accompanying settlers, problems of cooperation between military institutions and civil administration and the scale of military settlement against the background of the nationwide settlement action. The action of military settlement took place in extremely difficult conditions (e.g. migration and resettlement of the Polish and German population, or war damage). Despite this, between 1945 and 1948, about 534,000 people with the status of military settlers (including demobilized soldiers, as well as members of their families and families of fallen soldiers) settled in the so-called Recovered Territories. Of these, fewer than 180,000 people settled in the districts designated in June 1945 only for military settlements, while the vast majority (354,000) lived outside these districts. Nevertheless, the settlement of 180,000 people in border powiats can be considered a great success in the process of their development, conducive to better protection of the new Polish-German border. Military settlers played an important role in the process of settling the so-called Recovered Territories, because they constituted almost 12% of all settlers. Due to the extensiveness of the issue concerning the broadly understood Polish settlement in these lands in the first post-war years, the subject matter discussed in the article was limited to selected issues of military settlement, which were discussed on the basis of archival materials and Polish historiography related to the topic of this type of settlement.

Making Holocaust Memory in Finland: The Jewish Community and Conflicting Loyalties, 1944–1950s

Abstract This article analyzes how Finnish Jews defined their position during the Second World War when Finland fought against the Soviet Union as a co-belligerent of Nazi Germany. After the Moscow Armistice in September 1944, the Jewish community’s leadership created an official narrative that transformed the community’s travails into a positive experience. They wanted to signal to the Allied forces and Jewish communities worldwide that their rights had not been violated during the war, even though Finland had been de facto allied with Nazi Germany. By doing so, they suppressed knowledge of the treatment of Jewish refugees and their deportations, as well as of their own volatile positions during the war. By inviting Marshal Mannerheim to the Helsinki synagogue in December 1944, the community helped forge Mannerheim into a national hero by honoring him for saving the Finnish Jewish community from the Holocaust. In addition, this article examines how Finnish Jews commemorated Holocaust victims vis-à-vis the commemoration of fallen Jewish soldiers in the transnational Jewish (survivor) community in the immediate postwar years.

Creation and Establishment of the State Emergency Medical Services and Disaster Medicine Services in Russia (to the 100th Anniversary of the N.V. Sklifosovsky Research Institute for Emergency Medicine)

After the October Revolution of 1917, the creation of the state healthcare and medical education system in the country played a decisive role in the organization of emergency medical services (EMS) in Moscow on the basis of the former Sheremetev Hospital which later became a large multidisciplinary medical institution — N.V. Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Medicine (since 1943 — N.V. Sklifosovsky Research Institute for Emergency Medicine), — and the city EMS station as a part of it.In the pre-war period, the working out of the main principles for the EMS provision was critically important for the development of the services. It became possible to solve scientific and methodological problems related to the training of specialists. The Institute grew into a large institution, research in the field of emergency medicine was carried out at the world level. This contributed to the organization of a network of EMS institutions in the country during 1926–1935.The years of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 enriched the practice of providing emergency medical care, including during mass patient admission.In the post-war years (1946–1970s), the Institute became the leading institution on the problems of EMS in the country. Corresponding divisions were created within the Institute, and on its basis — “Emergency Medicine” scientific and practical association, research and organizational structures of the USSR Ministry of Health, the RSFSR Ministry of Health and the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences. Thanks to this, outstanding results were achieved in the EMS organization: the specialty of “emergency medicine physician” was introduced; emergency hospitals were created in a number of the country’s regions; government programs for EMS provision were successfully implemented; а large number of regulatory documents were prepared to facilitate the further EMS development.N.V. Sklifosovsky Research Institute for Emergency Medicine was among the main initiators of the disaster medicine service, which made it possible to fundamentally solve its organizational and technical problems. Thus, a significant contribution was made to the foundation of this service in Moscow and around the country.At the current stage (from 1992 to the present), EMS improvement has been continued, many developments turned out to be relevant for this services in the Russian Federation. In particular, the created structure of the Institute’s admission and intensive care unit remained the flagship among emergency care institutions in the country for about 20 years. The state program “Improving medical care for road accident victims” was successfully implemented. The Institute’s departments are being actively specialized, making it possible to obtain fundamentally new scientific and practical results for widespread implementation.Since 2011, “Scientific achievements in the field of emergency medical care in the Russian Federation” - collections of research works - have been published annually. The information presented in them can be used throughout the country.The experience in treatment for the novel coronavirus infection COVID-19 allowed the Institute to begin a new page in the history of emergency medical services.The recent opening of an emergency inpatient complex at the Institute contributed to optimizing the work of the hospital’s resuscitation and intensive care units and expanding their treatment and diagnostic capabilities.For more than 10 years, the public and consolidating activities of the scientific and practical society of emergency medicine specialists have been effective. Its work primarily concerns the organization and conduct of scientific and practical events, especially congresses of emergency medicine physicians, as well as the publication of Sklifosovsky Journal Emergency Medical Care, which has unifying significance for a large number of Russian specialists in the field of EMS. The decisions made at the congresses and conferences became the basis for expanding the introduction of advanced medical technologies in the Russian regions, as well as for carrying out important structural reforms in EMS institutions.One of the main achievements of the N.V. Sklifosovsky Research Institute for Emergency Medicine is the creation of the state EMS as a separate branch of healthcare in the country. Over the 100 years of the Institute’s activity, the foundations of its theory and practice have been developed, moreover, a contribution of world significance was made to the EMS development, thereby strengthening the scientific foundation for the activities of the Institute for many years to come.

Postwar Intellectuals and the Concept of European Literature: Exile, Memory, Reparation

This article focuses on the concept of European literature—its invention in Western cultural history, as well as the meaning and value attributed to it as a form of a supranational identity in warring Europe. It addresses the contributions of key European intellectuals of the interwar period and the postwar years, such as Victor Klemperer, Paul Valéry, Thomas Mann, Edmund Husserl, Ernst Robert Curtius, Jean Guéhenno, Karl Jaspers, and Erich Auerbach. The article discusses the important and often obscured similarities between the two periods and holds up the cultural assumptions and representations of these intellectuals’ collective discourse alongside their later critical reception by scholars like Edward Said, Armando Gnisci, Franca Sinopoli, and Magdi Yousef. Through this critical review of postwar intellectual thought, the article analyzes the ideological and affective charge of the idea of European literature as it is perpetuated through schooling and the paradigm of literary history. It demonstrates how, even though it was used as a defense against barbarism after the two world wars, the notion of “European literature,” like that of “tradition,” became a highly vulnerable construct after the advent of post-structuralism.

Reparations and Oil in the Cold War: British Perspectives on the Luxembourg Agreement of 1952

This article analyses the British perspectives on the Luxembourg Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany from 1952. Short-term economic interests were of central importance when it came to assessing the consequences of this deal for the United Kingdom. Her Majesty's Government welcomed West German reparations as a means of securing Israel's ability to pay for oil supplied by British companies, but at the same time saw them as a threat to its economic and political interests in the Middle East. British diplomats underestimated the long-term political value of the Luxembourg Agreement precisely because they read it verbatim. They recognized the reservations on both sides but did not expect that working relations between Israel and the Federal Republic would improve rapidly after the Agreement was ratified, limiting in turn the UK's political and economic room for manoeuvre in the region. By examining a hitherto little-noticed chapter of British foreign policy in the postwar years, the article foregrounds the commercial aspects of diplomacy in the early 1950s and contributes to a better understanding of international relations in the Cold War.

КОНЦЕПЦІЯ МІСТА-САДУ: ФОРМУВАННЯ І РОЗВИТОК НА ПОЛЬСЬКИХ ТЕРЕНАХ УПРОДОВЖ ПЕРШОЇ ЧВЕРТІ XX СТОЛІТТЯ

The article examines the formation and development of the garden city concept in Poland during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The experience of Polish architecture and urbanism in the context of the garden city idea before the First World War and in the first postwar years is highlighted. Examples of realized Polish garden cities, the activities of both individual figures and entire societies and organizations that promoted the garden city concession are described. The relevance of the topic is determined by the need to create a balanced and unified urban strategy for the restoration of Ukraine, which would have not only a proper legal basis, but also a strong value character, which is inherent in the garden city concept.

Latin American Banks and Euromarkets: A View on the Process of Early Bank Globalization from the Periphery

Abstract Global banks and interconnected national banking sectors have been a main characteristic of the modern international financial systems over the last half century. After a sluggish wake up in the early postwar years, international banking took off in the 1970s as the Euromarkets gained traction and strongly developed in the lead up to the international debt crisis of 1982. This article examines the birth of bank globalization in Latin America, a region of the developing world at the centre of global finance and Euromarket developments during this period. It shows that, like their counterparts in industrial countries, leading banking institutions from the region also went international, expanding their presence overseas and their participation in the Euromarkets. The world leading financial centres of London and New York were the main destinations, but they also settled in offshore centres in the Caribbean and other US financial districts from where they conducted international business on their own or in collaboration with other banks. The presence in Germany along with the joint business between Latin American and German banks in the Euromarkets are explored as well. While assessing the extent and scope of early Latin American bank globalization for the first time, the article also provides insights on the evolution and changing nature of this process over the following period.

Zwalczanie chorób wenerycznych występujących w pierwszych latach powojennych wśród żołnierzy WP na podstawie publikacji zamieszczonych w „Lekarzu Wojskowym”

Combating venereal diseases occurring in the first post-war years among Polish Army soldiers on the basis on publications in “Military Physician” The article discusses issues related to combating venereal diseases among Polish Army soldiers in the last months of World War II and in the first post-war years, based on the bibliography of “Military Physician” from the discussed period. In January 1945 publishing of the magazine addressed to military doctors was resumed and aimed to inform about the developments of the military health service, promotion of new medical achievements and theories on their practical use. One of the serious problems discussed in the journal were venereal diseases, which recorded an epidemic increase in incidence, especially syphilis. A systematic, planned action to combat these diseases was already carried out in the 2nd Army of the Polish Army, where venereology ranked second among medical specialties. In the post-war period, the fight against the epidemic was undertaken by the Ministry of Health on a national scale. Legal regulations were introduced, appropriate laboratory, diagnostic and treatment facilities were prepared, effective drugs were used, including penicillin. One of the forms of infection prevention was the implementation of serological tests among the population, detection of sources of infection and conducting a wide propaganda campaign. The military health service worked closely with state authorities. The actions taken turned out to be beneficial and already in 1948 a clear decrease in the incidence of venereal diseases was observed.

The Kurds and World War II: Some Considerations for a Social History Perspective

Scholars generally argue that during the Second World War the Middle East, and the Kurdish areas in particular, was a peripheral theatre of an otherwise global war. While this is largely true, it seems necessary to introduce some nuances into this analysis. A view from the borderlands, combined with a socio-historical approach to how the war was experienced on a daily basis behind the front line, reveals that military tensions, large-scale arms smuggling, inflation, food shortages and economic migration were common features in the Kurdish borderlands between 1941 and 1945. Furthermore, looking at the uneventful can help us to better understand the context in which the Kurdish nationalist movement developed during the war and in the immediate post-war years.