Post-War Letters of Front-Line Veterans as Ego Documents about the Great Patriotic War

The purpose of the article is to characterize the post-war letters of fellow soldiers as one of the types of ego documents that allow reconstructing the history of the formation of military units and their military path during the Great Patriotic War, as well pay attention at post-war sociocultural and commemorative practices. The article introduces into scientific circulation the post-war letters of fellow-veterans as one of the types of ego-documents and forms of preserving historical memory about the Great Patriotic War. For the first time it presents the history of creation and the combat path of the 5th Separate Guards’ Motorcycle Warsaw-Berlin Red Banner Order of Suvorov 3rd Degree Regiment of the 2nd Guards Tank Army. Information from the unique personal correspondence of the author of the article with veterans of the regiment was analyzed and systematized, as well as documents identified in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The 4514 fund of the 5th separate guards’ motorcycle regiment was examined: combat log (01.04.1944 – 30.06.1945); reports of hostilities (18.07.1944 – 07.08.1944); minutes of the general Komsomol meetings of the regiment (24.04.1944 – 22.11.1944).

The research results demonstrate the possibility to reconstruct the history of the certain military unit for military-patriotic education of military personnel and the younger generation, for further work on the theory of ego documents, primarily when considering them as unique historical sources.

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