Great Patriotic War

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PHJ № 1 (49) 2026 — A. M. Skvortsov. POSTGRADUATE HISTORICAL STUDIES IN 1941–1945: PROBLEMS OF ADAPTING THE SYSTEM OF ACADEMIC TRAINING TO WARTIME CONDITIONS

This article examines the specific features of postgraduate education in history during the Great Patriotic War. Drawing on statistical data, legal regulations, administrative records, and personal documents, the author analyzes how wartime mobilization and the general context of war influenced the training of highly qualified academic personnel. The article highlights challenges related to student recruitment, the quality of academic preparation, and the shifting focus of postgraduate activity toward propaganda work and the production of popular literature — trends that had a tangible impact on dissertation research. Concrete examples reveal a tendency to narrow the scope of dissertation topics to individual sources or specific historians which led to an increase in historiographical and source-critical studies during the war years. Starting in 1943, the All-Union Committee for Higher Education sought to tighten its oversight of postgraduate training. This was to be achieved through formal bureaucratic procedures — including the introduction of individual work plans, reporting activities, and scheduled evaluations — and by strengthening the responsibility of the academic advisor. In both administrative practice and normative documents, particular attention was given to the advisor’s role, with an emphasis on intensifying their engagement with the candidate.

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PHJ № 4 (48) 2025 — V. A. Livtsov. FOR THEM, THE WAR DID NOT END IN 1945. BOOK REVIEW: KOVALEV B. N. “THE THAW” AND HITLER’S HEIRS: FROM THE HISTORY OF THE SEARCH AND PUNISHMENT OF NAZI COLLABORATORS IN NORTHWESTERN RUSSIA IN THE LATE 50S — THE FIRST HALF OF THE 60S OF THE 20TH CENTURY. MOSCOW: ISTORICHESKAYA PAMYAT, 2025. 224 P.

“The Thaw” brought liberation not only to innocent victims. Real criminals, guilty of the death of many thousands of civilians, partisans and soldiers of the Red Army, were also released. Who is to blame for it? Many war criminals found refuge in the West — both in West Germany and in the countries allied with the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition. How could it happen? Former collaborators of the Nazis, Vlasovites and punishers were often able to successfully hide their past. They were respected as honored veterans of the Great Patriotic War. Why did it happen? The Soviet state security agencies spent decades searching for them. What did they do to ensure that justice prevailed? Answers to these questions can be found in the new book by St. Petersburg historian Boris Kovalev.

PHJ № 4 (44) 2024 – B. N. Kovalev. KILLERS ABOUT KILLERS: TESTIMONY OF FORMER PUNISHERS AGAINST THEIR ASSOCIATES (THE CASE OF G. M. GUREVICH-GURVICH)

The 667th Shelon Battalion, comprising individuals who had collaborated with the Nazi regime, left a trail of violence and destruction in the vicinity of Leningrad. The Soviet state security agencies continued their search for war criminals until 1991. It is regrettable that, following the conclusion of the Second World War, a considerable number of these individuals were able to regularise their immigration status in a number of Western countries, including the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada and West Germany. However, some former punishers who returned to the USSR were subsequently held to account for their actions. From 1947 to 1950, the death penalty was abolished in the Soviet Union. In 1955, an amnesty was proclaimed. The sentences handed down to those who had collaborated were reduced by a factor of two or three. Following their release from incarceration between the 1960s and 1980s, these individuals provided testimony as witnesses to the crimes of their former associates. One of the most notable trials occurred in Novgorod in 1962.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — E. Yu. Skvortsova. LIBERATOR OF AUSCHWITZ GENERAL F. M. KRASAVIN: ORDER OF ALEXANDER NEVSKY DURING LIFE, REHABILITATION — POSTHUMOUSLY

The Order of Alexander Nevsky is the only one that existed (with some changes) in the times of the Russian Empire, in the USSR and in new Russia. To trace the fate of the holders of the Order and collect them in a single catalogue is a topic for a major study, which it seems will be done sooner or later. This is also required by the culture of remembrance as in the fates of the heroes one can trace the continuity of the country’s history. On the example of the fate of one of the awardees of the Order of Alexander Nevsky — General F. M. Krasavin — shows the reflection of turning events in the life of Russia.