"Letters from the front as a document of war epoch"
How to Cite
Markova O. "Letters from the front as a document of war epoch". Interaction. Interview. Interpretation. 2016. Vol. 8. No. 12. P. 54-67. (in Russ.).
Abstract
The article discusses the issue of the structure of soldiers’ experience, which is reflected in the narrative of personal letters. Letters from the front are not just the fact of participation in the war, but the phenomenon of history that allows us to understand men at war and behind the front lines. Using narrative analysis I examined the dominant themes of wartime letters, such as attitudes towards life and war, the image of the enemy, everyday practices, soldier fatalism and so on. Study of private sources helps to realize many aspects of front line experience. The starting point of the study was shifting the focus of interest of historiography, war sociology and related disciplines from macro level patterns of war to individual episodes, as well as the lack of research of epistolary sources as a way of narrating soldiers’ experience. The object is the soldiers’ individual narratives expressed in letters to the families from the Great Patriotic War and the War in Chechnya. Comparative analysis of the structure of wartime experience revealed changes in the subjective meanings of those who were involved in the war. The identity of the participants of the Great Patriotic War and the War in Chechnya was transformed under the influence of differing formats of the wars, their scope and objectives together with the different social and historical context. The research was carried out at the intersection of several disciplines, namely oral history, war studies, memory studies and qualitative sociology. The combined approach helped to ensure the progressive development of knowledge about the war.
Keywords:
memory studies, qualitative research, narrative analysis, private sources, wartime letters, soldier’s experience
References
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Senyavskaya E. (1997) Chelovek na voyne. Istoriko-psikhologicheskie ocherki [Men at War. Historical and Psychological Essays]; Moscow: Institut rossiyskoy istorii RAN.
Senyavskaya E. (1999) Psikhologiya voyny v XX veke: istoricheskiy opyt Rossii [The Psychology of War in the Twentieth Century: the Historical Experience of Russia]; Moscow: Rossiyskaya politicheskaya ehntsiklopediya.
Thomas W.; Znaniecki F. (1918) The Polish Peasant in Europe and America: Monograph of an Immigrant Group; Boston: Richard G. Badger; The Gorham Press.
Vasil’ev A. (2009) Memorializatsiya i zabvenie kak mekhanizmy proizvodstva kul’turnogo edinstva i raznoobraziya [Memorialization and Obliteration as the Mechanisms of Production of Cultural Unity and Diversity]. Fundamental’nye problemy kul’turologii [Fundamental Problems of Culturology] (eds. D. Spivak); Moscow: Novyy khronograf; pp. 56–68.
Vasil’ev A. (2012) Memory studies: edinstvo paradigmy – mnogoobrazie ob’ektov [Memory Studies: the Unity of Paradigms – the Diversity of Projects]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie; no 117; pp. 461–480.
Yarskaya-Smirnova E. (1997) Narrativnyy analiz v sotsiologii [Narrative Analysis in Sociology]. Sotsiologicheskiy zhurnal; no 3; pp. 38-61.
Bannikov K. (2002) Antropologiya ehkstremalnykh grupp. Dominantnye otnosheniya voennosluzhashchikh srochnoy sluzhby Rossiyskoy Armii [Anthropology of Extreme Groups. The Dominant Attitude in the Russian Army]; Moscow: Institut ehtnologii i antropologii RAN.
Batygin. G. (1995) Lektsii po metodologii sotsiologicheskikh issledovaniy: uchebnik dlya studentov gumanitarnykh vuzov i aspirantov [Lectures Note on the Methodology of Sociological Research: Textbook for Students and PhD]; Moscow: Aspekt Press.
Bulygina T. (2005) Pis’ma s fronta kak istochnik istorii povsednevnosti v gody Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyny [Letters from the Front as Sources of History of Everyday Life during the Great Patriotic War]. Stavropol’e: pravda voennykh let. Velikaya Otechestvennaya v dokumentakh i issledovaniyakh [Stavropol: the Truth of the War. The Great Patriotic War in the Documents and Studies] (eds. T. Bulygina); Stavropol: SGU; pp. 530–540.
Ermachenko I. (2003) Voyna i mir: vzaimodeystvie kul’turnykh kontekstov [War and Peace: the Interaction of Cultural Contexts]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie; no 64; pp. 424–431.
Gudkov L. (2001) Chechenskaya voyna i razvalivsheesya “my”. Stat’ya 2. K antropologii “zritelya” chechenskoy voyny [The War in Chechnya. Article 2. Anthropology of “spectator” of the War in Chechnya]. Neprikosnovennyy zapas; vol. 16; no 2; pp. 31–47.
Halbwachs M. (2007) Sotsial’nye ramki pamyati [On collective memory]; Moscow: Novoe izdatel’stvo.
Ivanov A. (2008) Analiz frontovykh pisem perioda Velikoy otechestvennoy voyny v svete innovatsionnykh istochnikovedcheskikh podkhodov [Analysis of Letters from the World War II in the Light of Innovative Approaches]. Vestnik Chuvashskogo universiteta. Seriya: Gumanitarnye nauki; no 4; pp. С. 37–41.
Kurnosov A. (1965) Istochniki po istorii narodnogo soprotivleniya v tylu nemetsko-fashistskikh zakhvatchikov 1941–1945 [Sources on the History of Anti-German Soviet Resistance 1941–1945]. Istoriya SSSR; no 3; pp. 35–45.
Labov W. (2001) Uncovering the Event Structure of Narrative; Georgetown: Georgetown University Press.
Nora P. (1999) Problematika mest pamyati [Realms of Memory]. Frantsiya – pamyat’ [France – Memory] (eds. P. Nora; M. Ozouf; G. de Puymège; M. Vinok); Saint Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo uiversiteta; pp. 17–50.
Olick J. K.; Robbins J. (1998) Social Memory Studies: From “Collective Memory” to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices. Annual Review of Sociology; no 24; p. 105–140.
Riker P. (2004) Pamyat’; istoriya; zabvenie [Memory; History; Forgetting]; Moscow: Izdatel’stvo gumanitarnoy literatury.
Rozhdestvenskaya E. (2016) Afghan Veterans: Resonance of Memory. Collective Memories in War (eds. Elena Rozhdestvenskaya; V. Semenova; I. Tartakovskaya; K. Kosela); London: Routledge; pp. 139-151.
Rozhdestvenskaya E.; Semenova V. (2011) Sotsial’naya pamyat’ kak ob’ekt sotsiologicheskogo izucheniya [Social Memory as Object of Sociological Study]. INTERaction. INETview. INTERpretation; no 6; pp. 27–48.
Sadykova R. (2011) Chelovek na voyne: soldatskie pis’ma [Men at War: Soldiers' Letters]. Rol’ lichnosti v istorii: real’nost’ i problemy izucheniya: nauch. sb. [The role of Personality in History; the Reality and the Problems of Study: the Scientific Research Book] (eds. V. Sidortsov); Minsk: BGU; pp. 29–34.
Senyavskaya E. (1995) 1941–1945. Frontovoe pokolenie. Istoriko-psikhologicheskoe issledovanie [1941–1945. Front Generation. Historical and Psychological Research]; Moscow: Institut rossiyskoy istorii RAN.
Senyavskaya E. (1997) Chelovek na voyne. Istoriko-psikhologicheskie ocherki [Men at War. Historical and Psychological Essays]; Moscow: Institut rossiyskoy istorii RAN.
Senyavskaya E. (1999) Psikhologiya voyny v XX veke: istoricheskiy opyt Rossii [The Psychology of War in the Twentieth Century: the Historical Experience of Russia]; Moscow: Rossiyskaya politicheskaya ehntsiklopediya.
Thomas W.; Znaniecki F. (1918) The Polish Peasant in Europe and America: Monograph of an Immigrant Group; Boston: Richard G. Badger; The Gorham Press.
Vasil’ev A. (2009) Memorializatsiya i zabvenie kak mekhanizmy proizvodstva kul’turnogo edinstva i raznoobraziya [Memorialization and Obliteration as the Mechanisms of Production of Cultural Unity and Diversity]. Fundamental’nye problemy kul’turologii [Fundamental Problems of Culturology] (eds. D. Spivak); Moscow: Novyy khronograf; pp. 56–68.
Vasil’ev A. (2012) Memory studies: edinstvo paradigmy – mnogoobrazie ob’ektov [Memory Studies: the Unity of Paradigms – the Diversity of Projects]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie; no 117; pp. 461–480.
Yarskaya-Smirnova E. (1997) Narrativnyy analiz v sotsiologii [Narrative Analysis in Sociology]. Sotsiologicheskiy zhurnal; no 3; pp. 38-61.
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APA
Markova, O. (2016). "Letters from the front as a document of war epoch". Interaction. Interview. Interpretation, 8(12), 54-67. Retrieved from https://inter-fnisc.ru/index.php/inter/article/view/4913
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Field work research
