CHAPTER 3
Да, были люди в наше время,
Могучее, лихое племя.1
Many of the North Caucasian 18th Army were either born locally or chose to remain in the Krasnodar region after the war, with some veterans even choosing to settle in Novorossiisk.2 For this reason, the incipient myth of Malaia zemlia remained for several years far more localised than the myth of the siege of Leningrad or the London Blitz. Despite the far-reaching claims of war correspondents Svetov and Miliavskii, it is difficult to gauge the effectiveness of the oral propagation of memory in the aftermath of war. Although Elena Zubkova notes considerable nostalgia for the front and its camaraderie elsewhere in the Soviet Union, observing that veterans remained in touch through informal meetings in cafés, snack bars, and beer halls, it is questionable whether this so-called ‘Blue Danube’ network was operational in Novorossiisk in the three postwar years before it was closed down by the state.3 All but annihilated by German and Soviet artillery during the military action of 1942 to 1943, the town had to be both rebuilt and repopulated after the war, doubtless exacerbating any postwar fatigue and compromising physical and emotional recovery such that it is unlikely that veterans in Novorossiisk managed to see much of each other in the difficult postwar period.4 As in Leningrad, the trials of everyday life in the postwar Soviet Union were pressing to the exclusion of virtually every other activity. Oral memory was relatively slow to develop, as veterans to a great extent survived their recent wartime experiences by not speaking widely about them, even within the family.5
Jay Winter proposes a valid mechanism in the We st for the expansion of memory over time from the individual to the wider social circle, as groups of the bereaved create memorial ceremonies to express and assuage their joint loss.6 This type of process, whereby ‘individuals can express and compare their memories with the experience of contemporaries, can begin to formulate a shared language and identify common themes’, was even slower in the Soviet Union, thanks to restrictive state dominance. The recounting of war stories was discouraged by Stalin and it is probable that discussions about the war were confined to the immediate social circle, although bonds were doubtless forged through mourning.7 Catherine Merridale finds that, even though private conversations could not be controlled, any attempt by the individual to spread memory was hampered, sometimes by self-censorship, under such oppressive political conditions. The bereaved often accommodated their own memories within Soviet ideology, although individual memories may not always have coincided with the politically correct version, especially in the case of minorities, leading to a complex process of myth building between sometimes competing images.8 It was not until years after the war that formal reunions of former comrades-in-arms were able to create a shared identity and play a key role in promoting remembrance activities. Only at this late stage could individual loss finally evolve into public remembering, which was eventually assimilated into the national narrative as patriotism.
Nor did the official postwar climate welcome war memoirs, only a few of which were published by veterans during Stalin’s rule.9 Observing that Stalin did not want to risk personal humiliation by criticism of his wartime leadership or the questioning of officially established war myths, Lazar Lazarev quotes the official line that ‘it was too early to be writing memoirs so soon after these great events, at a time when passions were still too much aroused, and thus the memoirs would not have the required objectivity’.10
After the death of Stalin in 1953 and following Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin’s war record in 1956, a temporary thaw permitting some degree of remembrance led to the publication in 1959 of Konstantin Simonov’s popular war novel, Zhivye i mertvye (The Living and the Dead). This was made into a film in 1964, an addition to the many iconic war films which saw huge box-office success, notably Mikhail Kalatozov’s Letiat zhuravli (The Cranes are Flying), 1957, and Grigorii Chukhrai’s Ballada o soldate (The Ballad of a Soldier), 1959.11 The 1956 radio programme in search of the heroes of Brest Fortress mutated into the successful Saturday evening television series Rasskazy o geroizme (Tales of Heroism), which started in 1962 and ran for a decade.12 Its war veteran host, Sergei Smirnov, also published books based on the series, with a mention of ‘the famous Malaia zemlia’ in the context of the war’s greatest battles. Claiming to be exposing the truth about the war, this programme broke through previous barriers to public discussion by opening up debate on hitherto closed subjects. In this way ordinary Soviet citizens learned, for example, of the harsh treatment by Stalin of Soviet soldiers taken as prisoners of war in 1941 through no fault of their own. At times, though, it was deemed to be rather too open in its discussions, falling foul of both the KGB and the Communist Party in the mid-1960s.13
Taking advantage of the thaw, some war memoirs by high-rankin military commanders started to appear towards the end of the 1950s, for example General Chuikov’s 1959 memoir, which in a politically correct manner highlighted Khrushchev’s role in the Battle of Stalingrad.14 In Leningrad, too, memoirs of individual citizens were published from 1957, serving to increase local identity.15 Very few memoirs specifically about Malaia zemlia were published in this period, however, although the more general war in the Black Sea and the Caucasus was more widely covered.16 With continuing swings in the party’s attitude to memoirs, the national memory climate again became more welcoming from the early 1960s, although the prevalent communist ideology dictated a highly standardised approach, with some distortion in the rendering of the historical past. Memoirs were also reliant on a good memory, as most military personnel had not been allowed to keep a diary or notes about their war service, in contrast with civilians, journalists and writers who later benefited from their wartime documents.17 Most memoirs were produced by officers, as in the West, rather than by other ranks, whose command of literary language was usually more tenuous.
While in Leningrad in the 1960s most of the memoirs were published by civilians, only military personnel had been present during the Malaia zemlia campaign. Georgii Sokolov, a twice-wounded captain commanding the 165th Marine Infantry Reconnaissance Brigade, had spent virtually the whole 225 days of the campaign on Malaia zemlia, latterly working as editor of a front-line newspaper.18 Although Sokolov as a privileged military veteran, had written his first short books of war memoirs in 1949 and 1954,19 it is his later, longer works that remain on the library shelves in Novorossiisk. The first of these was produced only after Sokolov had collected together the addresses of many of his former comrades-in-arms such that he was able to organise the first reunion of just over 60 Malozemel’tsy in September 1963, on the twentieth anniversary of the liberation of Novorossiisk.20 Like the television programme Tales of Heroism, this first reunion provided a valuable forum for the assembly and exchange of war memories, enabling Sokolov to expand his personal perspective. After a period of enforced latency, this meeting proved to be the catalyst for other Malozemel’tsy to contribute their own stories, while correcting inaccuracies and expanding on Sokolov’s original to enable him to publish a work of collected short stories in 1967.21
Eighteen years after his first publication, the time was indeed ripe for a completely new version of Sokolov’s memoirs. As soon as Brezhnev came to power at the end of 1964, following his ousting of Khrushchev, the flourishing of the memory climate was apparent. A book of Brezhnev’s first important speech about the war was published for export and Victory Day was reinstated in 1965, with its new minuta molchaniia (minute’s silence) ritual introduced to all Soviet radio and television channels, which would later include a specific tribute to the heroes of the Malaia zemlia campaign.22 Television increasingly brought war memory to the masses, with the series Vyzyvaem ogon’ na sebia (We Draw Fire on Ourselves) and Smirnov’s Podvig (The Exploit) both starting in 1965. The latter, in particular, focused on the stories of individuals and their regiments.23
Although under Khrushchev’s leadership the publication of memoirs had coincided with periods of thaw with respect to de-Stalinisation Brezhnev introduced a degree of re-Stalinisation with increased censorship and repression of writers.24 Paradoxically, at the same time the publication of memoirs by top military commanders was encouraged after 1965. During this period the local newspaper in Novorossiisk often published articles submitted by high-ranking veterans of the Malaia zemlia campaign, notably Vice Admiral Kholostiakov. However, approval by a special commission was necessary.25 All memoirs were referred to Voenizdat (the military publishing house), having to conform strictly with the official master narrative attributing victory to a united people that saved not only eastern Europe, but the whole of Europe, from the fascist enemy.26
In the context of a growing war cult, Sokolov’s work, Malaia zemlia Rasskazy i ocherki (Malaia zemlia: Stories and Essay) of 1967 was one o many memoirs to appear across the country. Published in the regional capital of Krasnodar, the book measures 21 by 13 centimetres, comprisin 408 pages. While the red and cream hard-backed cover proclaims it Soviet provenance, the frontispiece reflects the military theme through the black and white image of a sailor in the act of throwing a grenade, machine-gun in hand and dagger in belt. The publishers obviousl envisaged substantial local interest, in view of the relatively high quality and price of the book (85 kopecks), with an initial print run of 50,000 Their confidence was rewarded: Sokolov was made a member of the Wr iters’ Union as a result of the first full edition of his memoirs, and the book ran to a further nine editions, with key updates in 1971, 1979 and 1985, some of the subsequent editions being published centrally i Moscow and with print runs as large as 200,000 27
The book’s 31 chapters include an introduction by the author and a supportive, validating epilogue, ‘Pamiat’ serdtsa’ (‘Remembrance from the Heart’), by Colonel A. Ryzhov, Hero of the Soviet Union and former commandant of the political section on Malaia zemlia. Ryzhov praises Sokolov for his wartime service, while also mentioning the author’s efforts over several years to trace the veterans of Malaia zemlia.28 The bulk of the book, 23 chapters in all, is devoted to a series of broadly chronological discrete stories about individual people and events. It is noteworthy that, in line with national trends, Stalin appears rarely in the work, with merit being given rather to individuals even over military units. Collating the memories of his former comrades, Sokolov’s work narrates in the third person the exploits of both officers and other ranks, living and dead, many of whom had been made Heroes of the Soviet Union. Not only decorated heroes, but also heroes conforming to socialist realism, they are often writers and sometimes musicians. Although serious in tone, the work is lightened by conversations, some of them reminiscences of the home life left behind and many of them between the protagonist of the particular episode and his senior officer, a mentor in the socialist realist mould.
Women also feature in the work, often medical orderlies, although one chapter is devoted to Klavochka, the morale-boosting ‘postman’ who risks her life carrying the mail in her leather bag to and from Malaia zemlia in the nightly boat convoy over the bay from Gelendzhik, the nearby port remaining in unoccupied Soviet territory.29 In the story of Klavochka, Sokolov narrates how the boat she was in one night was sunk by enemy fire and everybody thought that she had drowned. Their relief was immense when she appeared the next day, having survived being thrown into the water. Another boat had apparently picked her up shortly afterwards and delivered her to Malaia zemlia, where she was welcomed, although the mail had suffered badly from the incident. Sokolov admits in a later edition that he had invented the ending to this chapter, being convinced that Klavochka had indeed drowned that night. His editors, however, preferred a happier ending and persuaded Sokolov to keep her alive as an example of female heroism. According to the author, it was only much later that he learned that Klavochka had indeed survived and married a local headmaster after the war.30 Presumably it was only in 1979 that he felt able to admit this historical duplicity. Here is an example of the delicate equilibrium maintained during the Brezhnev era, when authors and editors charted unknown waters and where historical accuracy was compromised in the interests of presentist politics, leading to a dynamic outcome as writers tacked to port or starboard according to the prevailing political wind.
Sokolov describes the exploits of one unusually young hero in the chapter ‘U iungi tozhe serdtse moriaka’ (‘A Sea-cadet also had the Heart of a Sailor’), about 15-year-old Viktor Chalenko.31 Young ‘Vitia’ was already part of the national mythology of Malaia zemlia, as his story had appeared in the official state history of the war in 1961.32 Son of a fisherman and a natural seaman, Vitia joined the navy straight from school in 1942, following the marine infantry to Malaia zemlia in February 1943. One week into the campaign, during the battle for the village of Myskhako, the agile Vitia managed to approach and destroy an enemy machine-gun nest by hand-grenade attack, losing his life in the consequent explosions. This spontaneous heroic action is an example of the reality of the times, when the rigid Soviet prewar rules ceased to apply and ‘both troops and officers learned the necessity of making independent decisions and acting on them without specific, detailed orders from above’.33
Vitia was not forgotten amidst the chaos of war, as he left behind in his notebook a letter to his mother, written in pencil:
If I should die on active service, I ask the leader of the political section, Vershinin, and Senior Lt. Kunytsin to go to my home in Eisk and tell my mother that her son died fighting for the liberation of the Motherland. Please give her my Komsomol card, my medal, this notebook and my sailor’s cap, that she may keep them in memory of her son, the sailor.
15-year-old sailor, Viktor Chalenko34
Although Vitia’s two mentors, Vershinin and Kunitsyn, both died in the fierce April engagements on Malaia zemlia, his request was eventually fulfilled and a school named after him in his home town. The following year, a street in Novorossiisk was also named in honour of this young Hero of the Soviet Union.35
With death an inevitable part of war and self-sacrifice an integral aspect of the prevalent socialist realism, Sokolov does not flinch from examining the tragedy of the fall of young combatants. Despite the realism of the narration, he avoids, however, any consequent ethical or moral dilemmas such as those that arose in similar circumstances in the trenches of World War I and gave rise to a degree of cynicism in subsequent Western memoir literature about the waste of young lives, often attributed to poor military leadership.36 This type of critical examination of a dystopian war would not have been allowed in the Soviet Union, where censors demanded rather instances of the triumphant success associated with heroic self-sacrifice.
While the main body of Sokolov’s work is narrated in the third person, the final six chapters of the book cover his postwar encounters with former comrades, which are narrated in the first person by the author. Written during the Cold War, the chapter ‘Tsvetok Korei’ (‘The Flower of Korea’) is both unusual in providing some retrospective analysis and revealing as a political statement in comparing the troops of Malaia zemlia fighting the ‘fascist occupiers’ with the North Koreans waging their own war of independence against the ‘American imperialist’ invaders.37 This chapter is the only one in the book in which Sokolov considers the Malaia zemlia campaign from a presentist political perspective, emphasising the ravages of capitalism in what appears to be a concocted tale. Furthermore, in a convoluted comparison of capitalism and communism, the still devastated Chemin des Dames, a World War I battlefield in France, is contrasted with the green and regenerated area of Malaia zemlia during the period of the Korean War (1950–3).This comparison renews the socialist realist symbolism found in the wartime articles of Svetov and Miliavskii of the perfect future built as a result of the Malaia zemlia campaign.38 The latter thereby takes its place in an historical continuum of wars against the invader over the previous half-century, in a specific instance of a national pattern of artificial associations between the present and great moments in Soviet history.39
Sokolov’s democratic bottom-up venture both determines the form of the memoirs and their content, while ignoring the weighting attached to any one individual’s memory by virtue of their social position or military rank. Sokolov, with the official censor, had the opportunity to remove any stories not conforming to his own and the state’s ideal of the heroic myth they wished to construct on behalf of others. Through his unifying pen, these collected memoirs offer a varied yet coherent account of the Malaia zemlia campaign, conveying the single ideological message necessary for a myth. With one dominant voice pervading a work written from several different perspectives, Sokolov’s memoirs may be considered ‘collected’ rather than ‘collective’ memory. In fact, later editions of Sokolov’s memoirs contain the names of well over 200 individuals.40 Just as the former comrades-in-arms reinforced their group identity at the first official reunion in 1963, so that identity was maintained through Sokolov’s work, with his epilogue ‘Twenty Years Later’ describing their interaction on the twentieth anniversary of the liberation of Novorossiisk as a synthesis of the preceding individual stories.41
While Sokolov’s book of collected memories of Malaia zemlia was not published until 1967, in Leningrad a similar book of stories written during the siege, 900 Days, had been published ten years previously. This was the first major volume about the city, as works about the siege of Leningrad had been actively discouraged by Stalin, who had only permitted histories which portrayed the siege in the context of the war as a whole, thus denying any possibility of heroism not directly linked to his own command.42 However, 900 Days was not a work under a single authorship, rather a multi-voiced anthology of civilians’ experiences of the blockade. This anthology was not to be followed until the thaw and the war cult permitted a wider collection, Blokadnaia kniga (Book of the Siege), published in 1979. Although the latter was under the sole authorship of Ales Adamovich and Daniil Granin, it differs from Sokolov’s book in that it represents the authors’ hundreds of (heavily censored) interviews with citizens of Leningrad, including some diary extracts in its substantial 44 chapters (496 pages).43 Thus the work simply records a collection of sometimes brief interviews, using the words of those interviewed, unlike Sokolov’s memoirs, which relate episodes from the war in the words of the author, including the literary device of conversations which render the work more immediate and personal.
Furthermore, these two Leningrad works were devoted entirely to civilians during the siege, whereas Sokolov’s work was exclusively based on the memories of military personnel, albeit occasionally mentioning civilians. Treading a fine balance between the party and the individual, Sokolov recognises the initiative and heroism of individuals, in common with the earlier works on Leningrad which, from the civilian perspective, focus on family life in the city.44 With the family one of the key tropes of Soviet wartime propaganda, Sokolov’s more intimate conversations between the troops often relate to those left behind, or plans for a happy family future together, sometimes, however, thwarted by events. Moreover, in common with Blokadnaia kniga, it is to the family that Sokolov attributes his motivation for writing his work, stating that his book is intended for the young reader.45 This was in line with the tenets of socialist realism, reiterated by Zhdanov in 1946, shortly after the relative liberalism of the war years, whereby its didactic function was to offer communist role-models of physical and moral heroism to the younger generation.46 This concept of social moral education (vospitanie), particularly applied to young people by means of the war narrative, exists to this day, if latterly without its overt ideological connotations.
At the end of the book, Ryzhov applauds Sokolov for fulfilling his military and literary duty in writing up these memoirs of comrades. Dedicating his work as a ‘pamiatnik’ (‘monument’) to those who gave their lives, Sokolov appears to have considered his work to be a creative tribute, a monument in the Pushkinian literary tradition. In this case, however, it was not intended as a monument to himself as its creator, but rather as a memorial to his fallen comrades.47
However well Sokolov crafted a coherent narrative from collected personal memories, the position of the individual within the construction of the war myth remains complex. Surely individual memories must remain personal, as people are not able to share others’ discrete memories, despite their potentially collective experience of past events. However, in the case of veterans of the same campaign, it is possible that individuals may retain similar, if not perfectly uniform, memories of a past event, which, however subjectively they may affect the individual, can nevertheless result in a collective representation of individual memories. All shared a similar type of experience, such that their individual memories offer the complementary perspectives collected by Sokolov, reinforced by their mutual interaction over reunions, where any differences could be discussed and mutual agreement reached. It seems that groups develop shared stories to define their identity and in order that members may find a common significance in their own memorial narratives.48 It is probable, therefore, that contestation by any individual of the final version would be limited by the overriding strength of group identity.
Sokolov’s first published collected version of the myth achieved a convergence of story and tone, by bringing the private memories of witnesses into the public domain as socially constructed memory with a consistent and self-confirming heroic tone and no element of defeatism or disillusionment present.49 Concentrating on the human side of history in the shape of the nationally recognised Heroes of the Soviet Union emerging from the campaign, and some, but by no means all those characters singled out by the original war correspondents, the collaborative work speaks more authoritatively than the voice of any one individual. These discrete memories, freely given to Sokolov and formulated collectively, became subsumed into the overall myth under construction, as ownership of war memory passed into the public domain in the Krasnodar region.