A Look at the History of the Great Patriotic War through the Prism of Micro-history

Abstract

In the year of the 80th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War beginning, the expe-rience of modern reading of one of the bloodiest events in the history of the country is of current interest. From the author’s point of view, at present there is a tendency to-wards pathos patriotism and romanticization of the feat in the use of military issues for educational purposes. This, like any deviation, can lead to dangerous consequences, in this particular case, to militarization of consciousness. The article uses the example of one of the largest villages in the Almetyevsk district of the Republic of Tatarstan to demostrate a wide range of different aspects of the history of the war, which show not only the greatness of the victory and the heroes who won it. Considerable attention is given to the coverage of war as the most severe inhumane form of manifesting social relations that require people to make excessive efforts to survive and preserve human dignity. The article includes recollections of the villagers about the first day of the war, about the front-line everyday life, severe hardships, and tragic details of the military battles in which the Novonadyrovtsy participated. The article depicts domestic disorder, extreme stress, psychological overload, constant physical fatigue on the verge of hu-man capabilities. It also tells about remarkable encounters in the war and close front-line friendship. The paper also highlights the extreme conditions in which peasants sur-vived in the rear, women's labor to the point of exhaustion, the unity of people in the harsh realities of the war years, and at the same time ambiguous manifestation of pat-riotism. The uneasy fates of the soldiers who were in German captivity are also depicted.

Keywords

• the great patriotic war
• a. sh. kabirova
• tatar assr
• “oral history”
• collective farm peasantry
• local history
• military everyday life