V.V. Bibikov
Remember by name.
Electronic database “Alphabetical lists of losses of lower ranks 1914-1918.”
Project of the Union for the Revival of Genealogical Traditions (SVRT)
The 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War will be celebrated in the middle of this year.
First World War- one of the largest armed conflicts in human history. Before that, it was called the “Great War”, “Second Patriotic War”. And I remember well the words of my grandmother, who called her “German”. In Soviet historiography, the war was considered “unjust and aggressive” and before the outbreak of World War II it was called nothing less than “imperialist.”
As a result of the war, four empires ceased to exist: Russian, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and German.
The participating countries lost more than 10 million people in soldiers killed, about 12 million civilians killed and about 55 million people were wounded.
It is known that during that war, about 15.5 million soldiers were mobilized in the Russian Empire. Of these, about 1.7 million were killed, about 3.8 million were wounded, and almost 3.5 million were captured.
Often, when studying the history of our huge country, we perfectly remember the dates and events that took place in it over many centuries, without thinking at all that all these events were directly related to the fate of our ancestors. The history of a country and society is made up of the stories and destinies of many individual people. Studying the history of one’s family, knowing one’s roots, one’s pedigree helps one to realize the importance of each individual person, allows one to feel one’s belonging to a family and clan, acts as a kind of connecting link, and prevents the disunity and alienation of people in the modern world.
That is why SVRT, an organization engaged in the promotion of genealogy, considered it its duty on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War to restore the names of ordinary soldiers - heroes of the Great War.
The idea of systematizing the losses of lower ranks in the First World War came to us back in 2010. From that moment on, the search began for documents where this data would be reflected.
According to available information, lists of losses compiled during the First World War are now stored in regional archives in the funds of provincial boards. They are also available in the collections of the largest libraries in Russia.
About two years ago, these lists began to be posted on the electronic resources of the Russian State Library and the Tsarskoye Selo online library. There were also enthusiasts who began processing the lists, but most of them were engaged in sampling only for a specific district, at best a province, or the processed lists were subject to various kinds of conditions limiting free access to them.
Seeing this state of affairs, the Union for the Revival of Genealogical Traditions decided to optimize all publicly available lists and make them available to everyone. The work was based on the alphabetization of lists by territory Russian Empire. This principle of processing lists allows you to quickly search for the person you are looking for. We first turned to these lists in August 2012, and since August 2013, the project “The First World War, 1914-1918” began to be systematically implemented. Alphabetical lists of losses of lower ranks.”
We began to form a team of volunteer helpers for this project, and volunteers who wanted to help in its implementation began to actively join us. The project was headed by SVRT member Nikolai Ivanovich Chernukhin, a doctor living in the Stavropol Territory, on whose shoulders the main work of implementing the project fell.
Currently, the project is working in full force, the lists are being actively processed and posted on the SVRT website for free access. 59 volunteers are participating in the project: these are both members of our Union and simply people living in our country and abroad, united by a common goal.
Thanks to the active participation of such volunteers as Bogatyrev V.I., Gavrilchenko P.V., Efimenko T.D., Kalenov D.M., Kravtsova E.M., Myasnikova N.A., Naumova E.E., Shchennikov A. N. and many others, the project has practical content and is nearing completion.
At the moment, all lists found in the public domain have been sorted out and are being worked on. Of the 97 territories on the lists, 96 territories have already been processed and posted on our website. The formed database already contains information about more than one million people of lower ranks, and each of us can now look for our relatives there.
The lists posted on the websites of the previously mentioned libraries contain information about approximately 1 million people, and in total about 1.8 million people were taken into account.
Unfortunately, not all lists are freely available, but only about half, but work continues, including searching for missing information.
People are already beginning to use our findings, and samples for the relevant territories are being posted on regional websites.
We welcome any help, including providing us with the missing lists. Elena Kravtsova and Andrey Gorbonosov helped and continue to help us with this. Some of the lists were provided by Boris Alekseev.
The actual results of the project can be found on the SVRT website.
All volunteers who have already shown practical results are noted with gratitude by the SVRT Board, some of them were awarded SVRT Badges of the III degree for their selfless and noble work. At the end of the project, the most active participants will be nominated for orders and medals of the Russian Imperial House.
I would like to present our project with the help of a small electronic presentation of scans from the SVRT website. So,
Frame 1. Screensaver of the project from the SVRT website.
Frame 2. On the main page of our website there are buttons for the largest SVRT projects, among them there is a button with the image of a gallant soldier during the war of 1914-1918.
Frame 3. By clicking on this button we are taken to the website page dedicated to this project.
Frame 4. Here we see a brief summary of the project, a list of project participants by name (site visitors should know who prepared the lists of losses for the work). Next is an alphabet of letters: by clicking on one of them, you can get to the page on which the provinces are located, the name of which begins with the corresponding letter. Just below the alphabet is a reminder that the territorial division of the Russian Empire is not in all cases identical to the modern one. For people involved in genealogy, this is an obvious thing, but for the rest of the Internet users it is not at all true.
Frame 5. By clicking, for example, on the letter “O” we see three provinces at once: Olonetsk, Orenburg and Oryol. Next, you should click in the corresponding province on the letter with which the desired surname begins.
Frame 6. Now we get to the pivot table. The table contains several columns with persons corresponding to the corresponding letter. Column names: title, full name, religion, marital status, county, parish (settlement), reason for departure, date of departure, number of the published list and page in the list.
Frame 8. Why did a person end up on the list of casualties twice? From the list data it follows that on May 31, 1915 he was wounded, but left in service, and on July 16 of the same year it is recorded that he was wounded and apparently sent to the hospital. I easily found his potential father, Stepan Yakovlevich, in my database. Having compared the dates of birth of the hero’s sisters, brothers, and nephews, I understood why he was not included in the family tree earlier. Georgy Stefanovich probably did not return to his native village after the war, and there could be several reasons. Perhaps the “whirlwind of the revolution” radically changed the person’s fate, or perhaps he was mortally wounded, which is why he was not included in the 1917 election lists, which I looked through in the archive. Now I know that Georgy Stefanovich Bibikov is my second cousin, a participant in that “ forgotten war" This kind of indirect genealogical information can be obtained from these lists, i.e. these lists are a good addition to the well-known OBD-Memorial database, which we all actively use. But, of course, the main goal of working on the lists is to list by name the undeservedly forgotten heroes of the First World War of 1914-1918.
Frame 9. The SVRT forum page is presented. You can follow the discussion of the project, its developments, additional information on the project, as well as participate in discussions, conversations and debates on our forum.
Frame 10. The most active participants in the project are awarded with our award, the “SVRT Project Participant” badge. The badge is approved in three degrees and is awarded for each project separately. The picture shows the 3rd and 2nd degrees of the sign. Currently, 20 project participants have been awarded this badge.
Join our project, remember your great-grandfathers!
Bibikov V.V. — President of the Union for the Revival of Genealogical Traditions, member of the Public Council at the Federal Archival Agency, member of the Council of the Russian Genealogical Federation, full member of the Historical and Genealogical Society in Moscow.
On the eve of anniversaries associated with the First World War, descendants of its participants are increasingly becoming active, who, based on scant information, want to find more detailed information about their relatives. This short guide has been compiled especially for such people.
The main body of documents about the combat path of participants in the First World War is located in the Russian State Military Historical Archive(city of Moscow, website: rgvia.rf). The most important thing you need to know to begin with is whether your ancestor was an officer (from ensign and above) or a lower rank (this includes both non-commissioned officers and sub-ensigns). If you are an officer, everything is simple. You need to come to the archive, contact the “Catalog” department and give your full name. relative. The archive employee will check in the electronic catalog whether there is a track record for such a person (fund 409). There is a slightly greater than 50% chance that a track record will be found. Then you order it, wait a few days, and then write out from it the combat path, numbers of units and formations where your ancestor served, then order documents from the relevant funds, etc. If you can’t visit the Russian State Historical Archive, you can try to find information about a relative -officer in open sources:
The author of this site, Alexey Likhotvorik, did a great thing: he digitized the highest orders for the military department, through which the awards of various orders (St. Anne, St. Stanislav, etc.) were approved. To find a relative, you can use the general search on the site.
Gurdov Pavel Vasilievich (1882-1915), captain
This project is an open database and photo archive of officers and formations of the Russian Imperial Army of the early twentieth century. The portal provides information about 56 thousand people who served in the period from 1900 to 1917.
Shmukler Vyacheslav Mikhailovich (1891-1961), non-commissioned officer
Let us note that back in the 2000s, V. M. Shabanov’s reference book on holders of the Order of St. George and the Arms of St. George was published. In 2008, another catalog was prepared at the Dukhovnaya Niva publishing house (it was mainly handled by the historian V.L. Yushko), which collected information only about the holders of the Order of St. George and provided small portraits and extracts from the orders for which he was awarded (it is necessary to say, such extracts for both officers and lower ranks are of the same type and do not reveal all the circumstances of the feat, since the wording was tailored to a specific article from the statute; if you are interested specifically in the description of the feat, you need to look up the award documents on the basis of which the decision of the St. George’s Duma was made) .
Bochkareva Maria Leontievna (1889-1920), lieutenant
The portal is dedicated to Russia's losses during the First World War. Its basis is a card file of losses (more than 10 million cards: 6 million have been digitized so far, 2.2 million have been posted). These cards were compiled for the wounded, shell-shocked, and out of action for other reasons. In addition, the portal will contain data from the RGVIA Fund 16196 (this is a list of losses). There are also some track records.
Bogoslovsky Andrey Alexandrovich (1869-1918), military priest
It is more difficult to search if your ancestor was of lower rank. To search in the RGVIA databases, you need to know the unit (regiment) where he served. Place of birth or recruiting will not be suitable. If the regiment is known, it is necessary to take an inventory of the fund of this regiment - it may contain documents related to replenishment (including personalized lists of arrivals), awards, etc. In addition, the inventory of Fund 16196 contains lists of losses by regiment. Now these lists have been digitized, and working with them has become easier.
If there is no information at all about the place of service of a relative, you need to contact various electronic databases:
The same (still incomplete, but regularly updated) portal about losses during the First World War. If your ancestor was wounded or shell-shocked, then a card could be kept in his name. Then you will find out the place of duty. Next, you need to contact the RGVIA.
Ivanova Rimma Mikhailovna (1894-1915), sister of mercy
This electronic database brings together lists of those killed and wounded that were published in newspapers of the time. The rank, full name, and place of residence were indicated. It is convenient to search if you know where your relative is from. The main disadvantage is that the place of service is not indicated, so at best, on this portal you can find confirmation of the fact that a person was injured or killed, but there will not be enough data to go to the archive.
Kryuchkov Kozma Firsovich (1890-1919), Don Cossack
- Consolidated lists of holders of the St. George Cross 1914-1922
More than a million lower ranks became Knights of St. George. S.V. Patrikeev, a well-known collector, created consolidated lists for 15 years at the Russian State Historical Archive (they were compiled during the war years, but in the 1920s they were used for waste paper). There are more than one million people on the lists. The disadvantage of the lists is that they are arranged by cross numbers (these are serial numbers and have nothing to do with the order of awarding), but the advantage is that the documents are posted in pdf format via the link, this allows for an automatic search.
Nesterov Petr Nikolaevich (1887-1914) pilot ace
- A list of St. George's cavaliers is also possible *, but it is less complete than Patrikeev's directory
If your ancestor was drafted in the Ryazan, Voronezh provinces, Crimea, or served in the Black Sea Fleet, you are very lucky. There is such a great man - Alexander Grigorov. He and his team compiled the corresponding books of memory of the First World War for these provinces and the fleet.
Tsaregradsky Georgy Savvich (1888-1957), military doctor
If you are also looking for the burial place of a deceased relative, then similar data for many regiments is presented in the city archive (TsGIA) of St. Petersburg. It preserved the registers of regiments and hospitals. Let us note inventory 128 (Fund 19, Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg). If you look through it, then somewhere towards the end you will come across metric books on the shelves. For a nominal fee you can watch them from home. If only information about the place of conscription is known, then you need to go to the regional archives and look at the funds of military commanders and military presences.
*For technical reasons, these sites may be temporarily unavailable
A unique Internet resource has been launched in Russia - the electronic archive “In Memory of the Heroes of the Great War of 1914–1918”. It has already published more than 2.5 million personal cards for dead, wounded, captured and missing servicemen of the Russian army.
About 25 thousand of them were drafted in Vidzeme, Kurzeme and Zemgale - the then Livonia and Courland provinces. With Latgale there is less clarity: more than 36 thousand cards of military personnel who came to the tsarist army from the Vitebsk province have already been published. However, the province “covered” not only Latgale, but also a significant part of today’s Belarus. But, for example, there are already almost 7 thousand cards marked “Dvinsky” and “Rezhitsky” counties. Finally, part of the modern territory of Latvia during the First World War was administratively part of the Kovno and Pskov provinces, and approximately half of the former Livonia province today is the territory of Estonia.
The portal became operational thanks to the joint efforts of the Federal Archival Agency, the Russian Historical Society and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Its filling is still ongoing.
It is planned to complete the process of transferring 9 million cards to the Internet in a year, when the world celebrates the centenary of the end of the First World War.
...The Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA), the largest in the country, is located in the Lefortovo Palace, once built by order of Peter I. Information about the Russian army, from the end of the 17th century to 1918, is stored here. To the right of the entrance arch is an inconspicuous entrance and a lone policeman who allows you into the territory only with a passport. Having an official identification document is perhaps the main condition for access to archival documents.
The head of the scientific and reference department, Oleg Chistyakov, says that interest in the archive has been steadily growing over recent years. Behind him is the entrance to the reading room, which is visited by about 70 people every day.
People have become interested in history, genealogy... Most of the visitors to the reading room are those who are looking for relatives, or genealogists working on someone else's order. As a percentage [among visitors], there are now fewer professional scientists than those who study the history of their family,” explains Chistyakov.
Visitors quietly pass by into the reading room. After they fill out a not very complicated form, the archive employee will open a personal file on them, where he will note the documents issued. Chistyakov says that despite the launch of the resource on the Internet, in many cases it is still necessary to contact the archive directly. He recalls that during the Soviet era, the archive was not formally considered closed, but getting into it “was problematic.”
It was necessary to provide sufficiently serious reasons to get into the archive. This was usually associated with scientific work, when the documents necessary for admission could be obtained from a research institute, a union of writers or journalists, and other official organizations.
Now there are no special restrictions.
Documents may not be provided, for example, if they themselves are in poor condition and handing them over could harm them. Then they are given out either under supervision, or an archive employee looks at it for free and passes on the information from the document to the visitor,” says Chistyakov as he walks, opening the door to a room with metal cabinets. They contain personal cards of participants in military events of 1914-1918.
Sample RGVIA account:
● Itneris, Adam Tomov(ich), married Lutheran from Gazenpot (Aizput) district,
● Skuin(ish), Fedor (Theodor) Andreev(ich), a single Lutheran from Sterlitamak district (near Orenburg in Russia),
● Heinrich-Viktor Yanov(ich) Fischer, a single Lutheran from Grobinsky (Grobinsky) district,
● David Eliyas(ovich) Friedman, a single Jew from Tukum district,
● Yan Andreev(ich) Grayer, a single Lutheran from Grobinsky district,
And their comrades in arms - Gerasimov, Nikolai Vasilievich, a married Old Believer from Dvina (Daugavpils) district, Ozolin, Evald Karlov (ich), a single Lutheran from Gazenpot (Aizput) district, Yoskvad, Kazimir Mikelev (ich), a single Catholic from Grobinsky district of Palanginskaya volost, Karl Ansov(ich) Berzin, single Lutheran from Aizpute district, Ans Yakovlev(ich) Gail, single Lutheran from Mitava (Jelgava) district, Borukh Peritsev(ich) Perau, single Jew from Aizpute district, Kipste, Indrik Yanovich, single a Lutheran from the Prekulinsky volost of the Grobinsky district and more than 100 more soldiers of the 20th mortar artillery division, who went missing in 1914-1915 during the fighting in East Prussia. (The full list is on the RGVIA website).
The archive also provides paid services, which are often used by researchers who do not live in Moscow. Their number in last years is also increasing.
Those interested in archival data from abroad can send a request or come in person. Unofficially, but still, those who come here from abroad receive increased attention and they are tried to be served first. Still, the person came from afar... It’s difficult, of course, to say from which countries people apply more often. The spread is large. But, probably, there are a lot of requests from Eastern Europe, for example, Poland, because it was part of the Russian Empire,” explains Chistyakov, adding that there are practically no difficulties in working with foreigners due to the language barrier.
And search requests are also coming in from Latvia, which was also once part of the Russian Empire. Those who were unable to find relatives in the data already published on the Internet are contacting us.
Sample registration card of the RGVIA: Berzin, Karl Andreevich, private of the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment, drafted from the Torken volost of the Volmarsky (Valmiera) district of the Livland province. On July 27, 1915, he was wounded near the village of Petrilov (present-day Western Ukraine). Killed in battle on September 3, 1916 in the Korytnitsky forest (now Western Ukraine).
Sometimes difficulties in searching may be associated not so much with the fact that the information has not yet been digitized, but with differences in the spelling of names or names of settlements:
The problem of transcribing foreign surnames and localities is always present. The portal's search engine returns similar options, but this does not provide a guarantee. You should try to enter surnames and titles in all possible versions in Cyrillic.
There are no step-by-step instructions for finding relatives - or rather, there are no universal instructions. You need to enter any known parameters and in any combinations into the appropriate search fields. Maybe someone knows only the part number and last name, while others know the year of birth, place, and other data. The more data, the more accurate the search. But, Chistyakov emphasizes again, you need to enter information into the search request form in Russian.
The structure of the Internet portal is intuitive, he believes. The data for each soldier is organized in such a way that, knowing only the first and last name of the wanted person, you can easily find the number of the unit in which he served, as well as track the movements of the soldier during the military campaign. If, as a result of independent attempts, it is not possible to find the required information on the site, you can send a request to archive specialists, who themselves will conduct a search using the data provided, but such a service is already paid. Its form is on the archive website.
Sample registration card of the RGVIA: Latsit, Karl Yakobovich, a married Lutheran who was called up from Valka (Valka) to become a huntsman in the Life Guards Jaeger Regiment. On June 17, 1915, he was captured near the village of Alexandria (in Poland).
Such a request will also be needed in order to find data not only on those who suffered in the war, but also on survivors (the archive website has a detailed price list with paid services). So, for example, you can ask an archive employee to look at data about a particular person in databases, handwritten or typewritten inventories. The issuance of found information is charged per page depending on the safety of the document and the complexity of reading. The most expensive entry, 6 rubles (about 10 euro cents), is an entry from one page from a handwritten inventory of the 18th century.
Later typewritten pages are valued at 1.5 rubles.
Oleg Chistyakov explains that it is difficult to calculate in advance the cost of responding to a remote request. Answers to questions based on found documents are also priced on a page-by-page basis, but many factors influence the final price. This is the safety of the documents, and how old it is, and how well the ink has survived. If you try to indicate the minimum cost of a response and assume that the author of the request is lucky and the data about the person will be on one card from the catalog, he will have to pay 1.5 rubles for this. In addition, for a short written answer, even if the search was unsuccessful, you will need to pay 200 rubles. It turns out that the lower limit is 201 rubles 50 kopecks (about 3 euros), and the upper limit is almost impossible to determine - amounts can reach five figures. Therefore, those who have the opportunity to personally come to the archive can save money.
Kan, Ab-Leib Mendelev (ich), grenadier of the 12th Astrakhan Grenadier Regiment. Originally from Kreslavka (Kraslava) Dvina (Daugavpils) district. Killed on September 20, 1916 near the village of Zaturce (today's Poland).
Requests through a form on the website will have to be filled out in Russian, but archive staff say they will be happy to help people who are trying to find their roots. Perhaps no one will be particularly surprised, even if the request is prepared by an online translator. The main thing is to understand the essence of the issue. There is no specific response time in the archive, but it usually takes about a week. Much depends on the order of priority, but employees admit - although this is not entirely fair - that they try to process foreign requests faster.
In general, with a successful combination of circumstances, it is possible to trace the history of this family back to the time of Ivan the Terrible. True, this costs a lot of effort, because you need to visit more than just one archive, but travel around the archives in different cities of the country and even neighboring countries. Therefore, such work is very expensive,” explains Chistyakov, moving into the room where visitors work with documents captured on film.
What also complicates the search is the fact that there have often been wars and revolutions in our country, so there are significant gaps in the documentation. It is sometimes impossible to restore them at all, and the cost of the work of professional genealogists can amount to millions of rubles.
True, according to Chistyakov, the work of Russian archives today is much better coordinated than several decades ago. And the attitude towards documents is now more scrupulous.
Sample registration card of the RGVIA: Zhunda, Vikenty Lyudvigovich, private of the 97th Livland Infantry Regiment. Originally from the Malinovskaya volost of the Dvina (Daugavpils) district. Killed on January 19, 1915.
- The complexity of our work lies in the incompleteness of the documents. The main data was collected in 1917-1918, that is, during the period of war and revolution, and much was lost in the process. In the Russian Empire there was no archiving at all, and many documents were destroyed simply as unnecessary,” notes Chistyakov sadly and immediately corrects himself: “Then it was considered unnecessary.” And then there were also waste paper campaigns in the 20s... The country simply did not have enough paper, so some of the documents were lost. Now all pre-revolutionary and pre-war documents are prohibited from destruction.
He says that the digitization of documents continues and expresses hope that by the centenary of the end of the First World War, it will be possible to find on the Internet all available information about its participants from the Russian Empire.
What we are doing now - publishing archival documents - has never happened before. In this regard, the project is unique. In addition, we are working to expand access to documents and continue digitization. Our archive is not complete, like many others, which are regularly replenished, although people who study the history of their family often come to us and donate some documents. This is often done in order to preserve data for one’s descendants,” summarizes the head of the archive’s scientific reference department.
To the question of what is the fate of the archives on those who served in the Red Army during the Second World War and the post-war Soviet army, Chistyakov answers - this data is stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense Russian Federation and the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA, not to be confused with RGVIA). There you can find documents on the periods 1918-1939 and after 1945, and information from the Second World War is posted on the People's Memory portal.
How to search on the portal in Memory of the Heroes of the Great War of 1914–1918
http://gwar.mil.ru
Search by territory
It should be taken into account that the database (judging by the results) can store both the place of birth of a person and the place from which he was called.
Sample registration card of the RGVIA: Abel, Yukum Yanov (ich), private of the 1st Ust-Dvinsk Latvian battalion. Lutheran, originally from Grobinsky district, called up from Libau (Liepaja), was treated for illness (not injury) in the infirmary in Wesenberg (today Rakvere in Estonia). Discharged. Date unknown.
The search form theoretically allows you to narrow the range even to a populated area - as long as it is indicated on the map. If we are talking about a small village or city, you can, without specifying any more data, look at all the available data on those called from there. So, while for Riga the number of records is 1587, for Tukums - 113, for Bauska - 36, and for Ogre - only 4.
It is necessary to enter the historical name of the settlement - as it was indicated in Russian documents of that time (in our example, Riga remained Riga, and the three other cities for search purposes became, respectively, Tukkum, Bausk and Oger). True, there is such a map (albeit not very legible) in the “Maps” section. There you can also outline the territory for which you should search for data - on a slightly modified regular Google map (however, as Rus.Lsm.lv was convinced, this function does not work well - not to say “does not work at all”).
The historical names of Latvian settlements in German spelling, which became the basis for Russian, can be viewed on Wikipedia.
Finally, you can limit the search only to counties or even provinces, but in this case we are talking about thousands of records - for example, a search in Wenden (i.e. Cesis) county gives 2401 results. Again, we must take into account that the search form requires the full name of the county: if you enter “Wenden” in the “county” field, the result will be zero. It is necessary to enter “Wendensky”.
The old Russian names of counties and county towns can be found on Wikipedia - for the Courland, Livonia, Vitebsk and Kovno provinces, respectively.
Search by first and last name
Sample RGVIA registration card: Ballod, Edward, patronymic not specified (possibly illegitimate son). Private of the 4th Vidzeme Latvian Rifle Regiment, 19 years old, literate, Lutheran from the Marienburg manor in the Goldbek volost (today the village of Kolbergis, formerly Jaunaluksne) in the Valka district (in the Aluksne region). Before being drafted, he was a gardener. Wounded near Riga on January 12, 1917, on January 30 he was admitted for treatment to the infirmary in Nizhny Tagil.
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It turned out to be the most useful function. However, there are a few things to consider here.
On the one hand, first and last names should be entered in accordance with the spelling adopted 100 years ago (the letters Ѣ, Ѳ and I, abolished by the Bolsheviks, as well as a hard sign after all consonants at the end of the word, fortunately, are not required to be entered). On the other hand, the clerks of the tsarist army clearly did not have any respect for the national traditions of other peoples, nor an ear for music (and perhaps even in general), and in many cases - judging by the results - even literacy in Russian.
Therefore, it is quite difficult to predict in advance in what spelling this or that surname may appear (namely, in the subjunctive mood). However, some general principles It is still possible to formulate.
In most cases, the Latvian endings of surnames are cut off: the surname Ozols is written as Ozol, and Balodis as Balod.
However, sometimes the endings are preserved for some reason and Gulbis (it would seem, well, why is he better than Balodis?) most often remains Gulbis.
The endings of names are cut off in the same way, in addition, names are Russified or Germanized, but not always. Peteris is written as Peter, and Ekab as Yakov or Jacob, but Janis is written as Jan (sometimes Ivan), and Karlis as Karl. Borderline cases are also possible: for example, Martins can be written both as Martin and as Martyn.
Often, unnecessary doublings and/or softenings of letters appear in surnames. For example, Gulbis can be written as Gulbis, and Balodis as Ballod.
Sometimes absolutely necessary softenings and diphthongs disappear without a trace, and Berzins, Krumins, Liepins are written as Berzin, Krumin and Lepin. (Berzins can also turn into Berezin, and Liepins into Lipin, but still not often). Briedis can become Bried, and Bredis, and even Brad.
Some clerks apparently believed that they spoke German and sometimes tried to write down Latvian surnames in the German way, reading z as “ts” and v as “f”. Accordingly, “Tsalit” may actually turn out to be both Tsalitis and Zalitis.
First World War 1914–1918 in the diaries and memoirs of officers of the Russian Imperial Army: Sat. doc./ Rep. comp. S.A. Kharitonov; comp.: V.M. Shabanov, O.V. Chistyakov, M.V. Abashina et al. M.: Political Encyclopedia, 2016. – 749 p. – 1000 copies. (First World War. Great. 1914–1918).
The centenary anniversary of the First World War proved with irrefutable clarity that, in addition to the short-term, opportunistic and superficial attention of official structures, the media and part of the creative public, in scientific circles and among the general public of the country there is a sincere interest in the dramatic and bloody history of this global military conflict and participation in it the Russian Empire. After half a century of neglect and oblivion of the events of the First World War in the post-war USSR and which began in the 1990s. active but scattered attempts to fill the gaps in knowledge about the Russian front of the war of 1914–1918. Only now can we say that by the centenary of the war the situation has changed significantly.
Recently, a number of personal and collective monographs, collections of articles, reference books, encyclopedic and popular science publications on this topic have been published in Russia. Modern historians, not without success, have tried to resume the interrupted tradition of studying the course of military operations on the Russian front, as well as to adopt and develop newer and more popular thematic approaches in the West - the history of everyday life at the front and in the rear, various aspects of the psychological and intellectual history of the war, society of that time, etc.
The main, already achieved achievement of the celebration of the anniversary of the war of 1914–1918, in our opinion, was the publication in Russia of a significant number of historical sources, primarily of personal origin - diaries, memoirs and letters of war participants. Most of them have not been published before and have not been introduced into scientific circulation. In addition, some published sources were republished, both classic and well-known, and less accessible, published in emigrant periodicals and now brought together. In particular, one cannot fail to mention the extensive series of publications of memoirs of World War I participants started by the Moscow publishing house “Kuchkovo Pole” from the collections of the former Russian Foreign Historical Archive (RFIA) in Prague, now stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Numerous publications in this series “Living History” undoubtedly turned out to be necessary, timely and in demand by the scientific and reading community. However, the scope and high pace of implementation of this project have a downside: these publications do not always and not in all respects meet the high academic and archaeographic standards for publishing archival sources. For example, the scientific reference apparatus of E.V.’s memoirs raises some comments. Ekka, V.A. Slyusarenko and some others.
However, with the advent of the reviewed collection, prepared by a team of employees of the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA), experts, connoisseurs and lovers of the history of the First World War had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with and use another new and in many respects extraordinary publication of memoirs and diaries of Russian officers who participated in that war. war, which can be considered an example of a pedantic and highly professional approach to the publication of historical sources.
The holdings of the RGVIA, the main archive of the ground armed forces of the Russian Empire, are inferior to the emigrant collections of the RGVIA in terms of the volume and variety of their collection of memoirs. And yet, a number of sources of the memoir-diary genre from the period of the First World War are stored here, which, based on the value of their content, can be called diamonds. And the diligent, enthusiastic and skilled work of the compilers of the collection can be likened to cutting these diamonds and turning them into diamonds for the entire scientific community.
For publication, texts by seven authors were selected, preserved in the collection “Memoirs of Soldiers and Officers of the Russian Army” (F. 260), the fund of the Commission for the Organization and Construction of the People's Military History Museum (F. 16180), as well as personal funds (F. 101 , 982). Those published included notes from Lieutenant of the 153rd Baku Infantry Regiment N.P. Arjevanidze about military operations on the Caucasian front and ensign Ya.F. Kravchenko (from February 20 to July 7, 1916); fragment of the diary of the staff captain of the 37th Yekaterinburg Infantry Regiment E.N. Gusev with a description of the battle near Lashchev Posad on August 14–15 (27–28), 1914 during the Tomashevsky operation; memoir essays by G.F. Klimovich about the actions of the Life Guards of the Moscow Regiment in 1914–1915; memoirs of Lieutenant General of the Soviet Army B.K. Kolchigin about the famous and tragic battles of the Russian Guard on the Stokhod River in July 1916, as well as the diaries of Lieutenant of the 2nd Grenadier Artillery Brigade A.V. Orlov for 1914–1915. and the commander of the 15th Finnish Infantry Regiment, Colonel A.F.N. Chekhovsky for 1915–1916. During the First World War, all of them were officers (with the rank of colonel inclusive) - direct participants in the hostilities, witnesses of the military labors, exploits and sufferings of Russian soldiers of the Great War, i.e. the compilers of the collection deliberately gave preference to the memoirs and diaries of combat officers rather than higher-ranking military leaders.
The further fate of their authors was different. Ya.F. Kravchenko and A.F.N. Chekhovsky died in the First World War; E.N. Gusev died in 1919, fighting on the side of the whites in Civil War. B.K. Kolchigin, on the contrary, served honorably in the Red Army and valiantly commanded a number of formations during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. Reflecting the dissimilarity between the personalities and destinies of the authors, the published sources differ in volume, genre and stylistic features, and the psychological and ideological moods of the narrators reproduced in the text. Each of them is original in content and sound. For example, a small fragment of E.N.’s diary. Gusev about the battle near Lashchev Posad in August 1914 contains an exceptionally bright and colorful, in some places photographically clear, full of drama picture of that episode and is distinguished by attention to psychological details.
Memoirs of B.K. Kolchigin about the battles on the Stokhod River is also given in highest degree a visual description of that bloody drama, but at the same time they contain a powerful indictment of the Russian command. And it seems that behind the traditional ideological cliches of the Soviet era present in the text are hidden the true and sincere feelings of a guards officer who became an eyewitness and participant in those terrible events. There is no doubt about the highly critical and protest sentiments of Warrant Officer Ya.F. Kravchenko regarding the organization of life of the Russian army and the actions of its command.
The largest in volume is the diary of A.F.N. Chekhovsky, which covers events related to the preparation and conduct of a major offensive by the 7th and 9th armies of the Southwestern Front in December 1915 (operation on the Strypa River) and then to the great spring-summer offensive of 1916. If about the latter , i.e. While the Brusilov, or Lutsk, breakthrough has a number of published memoirs and studies, the unsuccessful offensive on Strype still remains one of the little-known operations of the 1915 campaign on the Russian Front. The second part of the famous work of A.A. was dedicated to these events. Svechin “The Art of Driving a Regiment”, however, it was never published, and its manuscript disappeared. Therefore, before the introduction of Chekhovsky’s diary into scientific circulation, the most accessible source for domestic readers about that operation was the novel by S.N. Sergeev-Tsensky “Fierce Winter” (1936) from the cycle “Transfiguration of Russia”. The factual richness of Chekhovsky's diary is exceptionally high, which makes it an extremely valuable document.
In a word, among the sources presented in the collection, specialists in specific military operations and episodes of military operations, and everyone interested in the daily life and combat work of Russian troops, the mood and psychology of soldiers and officers of the First World War will find interesting information for themselves. This rich variety of material is one of the main advantages of the collection under review.
It must be emphasized that from an archaeographic point of view, the collection deserves the highest assessment. All documents are prepared for publication in a very scrupulous manner, in compliance with existing rules and standards for text formatting, preserving the features of the original source.
The entire scientific and reference apparatus of the collection can be considered exemplary. It includes not only an informative general preface, but also concise prefaces to each of the published documents with their brief archaeographic description and biographical information about the authors; textual notes and notes on the contents of documents; a detailed biographical commentary of independent scientific value, as well as name and geographical indexes, and a brief glossary of terms.
Unfortunately, such a carefully and professionally prepared scientific work is not free from minor flaws. Thus, in the preface to the diary story of E.N. Gusev about the battle at Lashchev quotes a report from the regimental commander, which talks about the defeat and capture of the Austrian 14th Infantry Division (P. 46). The diary itself quite correctly states that in that battle on August 15 (28), 1914, Russian troops completely defeated the Hungarian 15th Infantry Division (p. 56), and its chief, Field Marshal-Lieutenant Friedrich Baron Wodniansky von Wildenfeld, was in despair committed suicide. The discrepancy between the numbers of the defeated enemy division, which was not specified in any way by the compilers of the collection, suggests that the scientific reference apparatus would have become more perfect if the notes had given brief factual comments describing the most important episodes of the mentioned military operations, using published sources and literature from the opposite side and etc. But neither this personal comment or wish, nor other minor inaccuracies that may be discovered by pedantic readers, in any way detract from the high merits of the book.
In conclusion, it can be noted that thanks to the highly professional and diligent work of its compilers, unique sources of personal origin were introduced into scientific circulation, and the level of preparation of documents for publication fully corresponds to the value of their content. This collection sets an extremely high professional standard for publications of this kind, and everyone who is or will be engaged in such noble work in the field of studying the history of the First World War should be guided by this example.
V.B. KASHIRIN
Ekk E.V. From the Russian-Turkish to the World War: Memories of service. 1868–1918 / Intro. Art. N.P. Grunberg, comment. A.I. Deryabina. M., 2014; Slyusarenko V.A. During the World War, in the Volunteer Army and emigration: Memoirs. 1914–1921 / Intro. Art. and comment. K.A. Zalessky. M., 2016.