Konstantin Bolshakov in military service: Revisiting the issue

Abstract

The note provides a clarifying commentary on the final part of V.I. Mozalevsky’s memoirs “Paths, ways, encounters”. The commentary concerns the Russian poet and prose writer Konstantin Aristarkhovich Bolshakov (1895– 1938) and the details associated with his entry into military service. On the basis of unpublished archival materials, in particular on letters to Sergey Bobrov and to Alexei Alekseevich Borovoy (1875–1935), the author clarifies a number of facts from Bolshakov’s biography related to the period when, as it is traditionally stated in the research literature on the basis of Bolshakov’s well-known autobiographies and his novel “Marshal of the 105th day”, he left Moscow University and entered Nikolaev Cavalry School. The author establishes that in reality Bolshakov was sent to the Chuguev Military School (Kharkov Province), which he soon left. The first evidence of his stay in military service in the army, according to the investigations, the results of which are presented in the article, refers not to 1915, but to December 1916. Restoring the further biography of Bolshakov by correspondence, the author comes to the conclusion that significantly corrects the established reputation of “brave cavalryman ”, who entered the army only at the end of 1916, but continued to lead a predominantly civilian lifestyle away from the fronts.

Keywords

• commentary
• viktor mozalevsky
• memoirs
• konstantin bolshakov
• military service