“None the less the greatest credit for victory in the war surely belongs to the Soviet population itself. It was the Soviet men and women who sowed the fields, operated the lathes, stormed enemy positions, and survived siege and occupation. They often did so with signal heroism under conditions of unspeakable deprivation”- William C. Fuller, … Continue reading Hero of the Soviet Union →
Month: March 2018
Modern System of Force Employment Explanation?
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Last week in class my group attempted to answer the below question: Why was the Soviet Union so ill-prepared for the conflict known as the “Great Fatherland War”? Our three most-likely explanations were: The Nazi-Soviet Pact Skill of the German Army The Purges It is because in all honesty I don’t know which of these …
Continue reading Modern System of Force Employment Explanation?
All is Fair in Love and War
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“Two Soldiers” During World War II, many things were changing, especially gender roles and the importance of romance in the lives of those on and off the battlefield. Because of the war, people were feeling the stress of not knowing if or when they would next see their loved ones. This desperation to find time … Continue reading All is Fair in Love and War →
Factory Evacuees
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What do you do when the Germans invade from the West? You move to the East and South. Something that … More
Episode 5: The Motherland Strikes Back
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It was a dark time for the Soviet Union. By the summer of 1942, the Nazi southern objective was the oil fields of Baku. If captured by the Germans, it would stop the flow of oil to the Red Army. Adolf Hitler, leader of the German Third Reich, sought a symbolic victory in the German […]
Religious Return
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Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht was unstoppable. Their operational and tactical levels in war were resilient- “the finest army in the world” (Freeze, 276) at the time. The Soviet Union was going to be easy to take, right? Wrong. Joseph Stalin was able to mobilize his people in a remarkable way. The centralization under Stalin’s dictatorship unified the […]
The Katyn Forest Massacre
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The Katyn Forest Massacre was one of many great atrocities carried out during World War II. Shortly after Poland had be divided between the Soviets and the Nazi’s, in 1939, the mass executions of over 4,000 Polish officers was carried out in 1940. This massacre was carried out in the Katyn Forest, hence the name, … Continue reading The Katyn Forest Massacre
The Veterans are Back in Town!!
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We did it! After all these years we finally prevailed! It wasn’t easy and it caught us off guard but we were able to overcome the hardships on the front-line. We are all war heroes and are going to be treated as such when we finally are able to return home….. I imagine that is … Continue reading “The Veterans are Back in Town!!”
The Girl with the Tokarev SVT-40 semi-automatic rifle.
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From a western perspective, female roles during wartime are kept nearly exclusively to the home front. Women are placed in temporary industry jobs in order to advance the war effort, which is where iconic personas such as Rosie the Riveter emerge. However, this concept of females roles vary on the eastern front. During World War … Continue reading The Girl with the Tokarev SVT-40 semi-automatic rifle. →
Innocence Lost: The Great Fatherland War in “Ivan’s Childhood”
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Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1962 debut film, Ivan’s Childhood (available on Kanopy), follows a 12 year old boy serving as a scout in the Soviet military during World War II. Although it was made a couple decades after the war, this film not only portrays the mental and physical destruction wrought by the war, but also raises fascinating…
