Abstract
June 22 1941 seemed to be just another sunny summer’s day. Many people were enjoying a day off, walking in the streets, on their way to the amusement park or to friends. In Cheliabinsk, news of the German attack was received only at midday. The whistles at the factories started to blow and the radio loudspeakers in squares and public places sent the official TASS message that the country was at war and Viacheslav Molotov’s speech about how Nazi Germany had ‘insidiously attacked the Soviet Union and broken the non-aggression treaty’.
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Notes
K.I. Zubkov, ‘Ural v geopoliticheskikh stratagemakh Vtoroi Mirovoi voiny’, in Ural v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine, 1941–1945 gg. Ekaterinburg: RAN UO, Institut istorrii, 1995; Iu.V. Velichko, ‘Strategicheskoe znachenie Urala v period Vtoroi Mirovoi voiny’, Ural v strategii Vtoroi Mirovoi voiny, Ekaterinburg 2000, pp. 72–76.
D.V. Gavrilov, ‘Ural’skii tyl v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine: Geopoliticheskii aspekt’, in Ural v Velikoi Otechetsvennoi voine, 1941–1945 gg., Ekaterinburg 1995, pp. 55–62.
See Oleg Veprev & Viacheslav Liutov, Gosudarstvennaia bezopasnost: Tri veka na Iuzhnom Urale,, Cheliabinsk: Iuzhno-Uralskoe Knizhnoe Izdatelstvo, 2002, pp. 319–352; Vladimir P. Motrevich, ‘Novye materialy o deiatel’nosti germanskoi razvedki na Urale v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny’, VOENnyi KOMmentator, Ekaterinburg, no. 1, 2002, pp. 63–76.
P.G. Agaryshev & N.P. Paletskikh, ‘Cheliabinskaia oblast v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny’, in Iuzhnyi Ural v sud’be Rossii, Cheliabinsk 2003, pp. 208–211.
In general, on the Soviet railway system in World War II and the question of moving troops to the front in the first phases of the German-Russian war and the simultaneous evacuation of industry and people eastwards, see Georgii A. Kumanev, ‘Podvig zheleznodorozhnikov’, Eshelony idut na vostok: Iz istorii perebazirovaniia proizvoditel’nykh sil SSSR v 1941–1942 gg., Moscow: Nauka 1966, pp. 116–140.
E. B. Druzhinina, ‘Korol tankov’: Fakty iz biografii I.M. Zaltsmana’, in Industrializatsiia v SSSR: Uroki istorii (K 70-letiiu puska Cheliabinskogo traktor-nogo zavoda), Cheliabinsk 2003, p. 180.
OGAChO, f. R-1402, op. 1, d. 1, l. 225–229; Memorandum for a report on which theatre plays should be performed. It was regretted that no plays with local themes had been written by Urals authors, l. 82–83. In general, on the cultural life in Cheliabinsk during the war years, see Aleksandr V. Speranskii, V gornile ispytanii: Kul’tura Urala v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, Ekaterinburg: UrO RAN 1996, ch. V, pp. 175–218 on the role of theatres in the mobilization efforts of the population.
See G.K. Pavlenko, ‘Kadry trudovykh rezervov Cheliabinskoi oblasti, 1940– 1945 gg.’, in Iuzhnyi Ural v sudbe Rossii, Cheliabinsk 2003, pp. 240–244.
OGAChO, f. P-288, op. 6, d. 358, l. 1; G. A. Goncharov, ‘Chislennost’ i razmeshchenie’trudarmeitsev’ na Urale v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny’, Promyshlennost’ Urala v XIX–XX vekakh, Moscow: AIRO-XX 2002, p. 247.
Leonid L. Mininberg, Sovetskie evrei v nauke i promyshlennosti SSSR v period vtoroi mirovoi voiny (1941–45gg.), Moscow: ITs-Granit 1995, p. 372. It was also said that on cloudy days the Lenin statue would not be seen at all, and on sunny days the building would cast a shadow even over the Kremlin. In the 1990s, the ‘new Russians’ and the city authorities managed to quickly rebuild the cathedral according to the original drawings from the 19th century.
For the decisions concerning the Soviet Germans, being citizens of the USSR, see the documentary volumes edited and commented by the leading expert Nikolai F. Bugai, ‘Mobilizovat’ nemtsev v rabochie kolonny… I. Stalin’, Moscow: Gotika 1998;
and A.A. German & A.N. Kurochkin, Nemtsy SSSR v ‘trudovoi armii’ (1941–1945), Moscow: Gotika, 1998.
T.V. Koshman, ‘Trudarmeitsy Kazakhstana na voennykh obiektakh Urala v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny’, in Ural v voennoi istorii Rossii: traditsii i sovremennost, Ekaterinburg 2004, pp. 71–75.
Nikita V. Petrov & K.V. Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD, 1934–1941. Spravochnik, Moscow: Zvenia 1999, pp. 356–357.
Gennadii Kornilov, Uralskoe selo i voina (Problemy demograficheskogo razvitija), Ekaterinburg: Uralagropress 1993, pp. 38–39. Kornilov was a pioneer in the analysis of the near-famine conditions in the Urals during the war years, a topic that was carefully censored in Soviet historiography. Kornilov based his research on extensive reports from the countryside of how hundreds of families whose husbands had been called up to the army were starving and how many children had bellies swollen from malnutrition.
Nadezhda P. Paletskich, ‘Spetsposeleniia na Urale v period Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny’, in Industrializatsiia v SSSR: Uroki istorii, Cheliabinsk 2003, pp. 154–157.
On the food situation in general in the USSR during the war, see William Moskoff, The Bread of Affliction: The Food Supply in the USSR during World War II, Cambridge, New York & Melbourne: Cambridge University Press 1990.
I.A. Usjlik, ‘Bor’ba s ugolovnoj prestupnost’iu v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny’, in Iuzhnyi Ural v sud’be Rossii, Cheliabinsk 2003, pp. 225–227.
Iakov Goldstein, Otkrovenno govoria. Vospominaniia, razmyshleniia, Cheliabinsk: Rifei 1994, p. 166. Goldstein offers a lot of his own observations of the city. However, he just as often retells rumours on the love lives and affairs of his compatriots when, according to his view, fiancées and partners were changed more often than shirts and with a lack of attention to the usual morals. Goldstein’s assertion that Isaak Zaltsman had numerous love affairs with female crane operators and secretaries should be taken with a pinch of salt (ibidem., pp. 162–166).
N. L. Usol’tseva, ‘Mediko-sanitarnoe obsluzhivanie trudiashchichsia ChTZ v gody Velikoi Otetejstvennoi voiny (1941–1945 gg.)’, in Industrializatsiia v SSSR: Uroki istorii, Cheliabinsk 2003, pp. 162–165.
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© 2011 Lennart Samuelson
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Samuelson, L. (2011). 1418 Long Days on the Home Front in the Southern Urals. In: Tankograd. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230316669_8
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