Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
Video is translatable into English
[ColonelCassad] Artyom Drabkin and Yegor Yakovlev review Nikolai Nikulin's book "Memories of the War"
Annotation:
Artyom Drabkin and Yegor Yakovlev analyze the book by Nikolai Nikulin. How much does War Memories tell about real events? How much do they talk about the psychological state of the author? Can this work be trusted?
0:00 – About XIII Digital History Festival
1:32 – Introduction. Memoirs of Nikolai Nikulin about the Great Patriotic War
4:05 - Memories: why do they differ for different people? On the example of the heroes of the film "Span of the Earth"
8:45 - The character of Nikolai Nikulin and his strategy for survival in the war. The historical context of the events of the war
14:06 - Attitude towards the war and the people. About addressing the common people as "Ivans". Why didn't Nikolin have friends?
20:52 - Attitude towards power and superiors. Personalities described by Nikulin and their real correspondence
26:05 - Stress and erotic overtones in memories
32:17 - Nikulin after the war. On the question of the veterans' movement and its participants
34:33 - Source analysis of memories. To the question of "tales" in the text.
42:57 - Claims to the authorities. Memories as a way to "unload" the psyche from the nightmares of the war
47:51 - How did the veterans of the Great Patriotic War cope with difficult memories of the war?
51:37 - On the issue of the phenomenon of "changed memory". Is there such a phenomenon in Nikulin's memoirs?
Plus a review from Comrade Periscope:
An interesting analysis of the book by Nikolai Nikulin "Memories of the War" was released at "Digital History". If anyone remembers, this is where the whole book is about dirt, blood, sex, guts, moronic bosses, tyrants and idiots in military uniforms and this book is how our domestic liberals of all stripes loved to trump with this book.
This is the second version of the analysis, and it seems to me that it came out deeper. Artem Drabkin disassembled the essence of the text in tandem with Yegor Yakovlev, practically without raids on the late author. Basically, they tried to figure out WHY Nikulin wrote this way and not otherwise, and why he dragged so many third-party tales into the text, passing them off as the opinions of his colleagues or just random military acquaintances.
This time, Artyom chose a very true trick - he entered the names mentioned in the "Feat of the People" database, was not too lazy and found reviews about these commanders from other non-boss authors. The comparison is impressive, yes. And yes, it is also significant that the literate and highly educated Nikulin calls his ordinary colleagues "Ivans" in the book.
I also remember well my feelings from this book, I read it 12 years ago - somewhere in 2011. And when I came across in the text about the story about visiting the unit by Marshal Zhukov, I was dumbfounded by the "trench truth from the Hermitage Nikulin" (c). Who remembers, there the troops cleared the way for Zhukov's "jeep" to drive fast. And his type was overtaken by some naive driver in a truck, who quickly carried shells to his unit, since they were already running out on the front line - and therefore did not obey the signals of the traffic controllers. According to Nikulin, the petty tyrant Zhukov indignantly commanded his retinue: "Turn around, catch up, then beat the piss out of him and leave him in a ditch somewhere." And there's a lot of that.