Polish-Soviet War in Film and Cinema: A New Perspective Based on the Films For You, O Poland (1920) and Miracle on the Vistula (1921)

The Polish-Soviet War, particularly the Battle of Warsaw (13–25 August 1920), soon became a subject of legend and myth. Irrespective of its fundamental political significance, the defeat of the Red Army was glorified as salvation for both Poland and Europe in military, ideological and metaphysical terms. Conducted beyond academia, the narrative was forged mainly by veterans, the Catholic Church and various forms of literature and art. Due to government subsidies, documentary and feature films also conveyed a normative notion of these dramatic events and their participants. This article focuses on cinematic works like Dla Ciebie, Polsko [For You, o Poland, PL 1920], and Cud nad Wisłą [The Miracle on the Vistula, PL 1921] produced in order to commemorate the war between the Poles and the Bolsheviks. Taking the iconic turn, this article scrutinises the cinematic self-portrait of the Polish nation that had already been ‘imagined’ as a bulwark of European culture in the East by earlier literary works. Spotlighting protagonists who were given a place in the pantheon of national heroes, it also asks about those who were denigrated or marginalised like women and Jews. Finally, using quantitative methods and Geographical Information System (QGIS) as a tool, the article juxtaposes the maledominated, ethnically and confessional homogeneous ‘imagined nation’ with the film entrepreneurs and actual cinema audiences characterised by their diversity.

Armia Czerwona w 1920 roku. Organizacja, stany osobowe, działalność propagandowa ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem frontu polskiego w świetle wybranych źródeł i polskich opracowań wywiadowczych

The Polish-Soviet War, which took place between 1919 and 1920, remains one of the most dramatic, yet also one of the brightest pages in the history of the Polish military. Not only did the Polish army achieve a spectacular victory that ensured Poland’s sovereignty and unrestrained development, but also, according to many historians and politicians, saved Europe from the flood of communism. Apart from the famous Battle of Warsaw, the warfare that lasted from February 1919 to October 1920 included the Kiev Offensive, the Battle of Komarów and the Battle of the Niemen River. The war with the Bolshevists was not just a conflict over the borders, but also concerned the preservation of national sovereignty, threatened by the Bolshevists' attempts to spread the communist revolution throughout Europe. The intention of the Polish side, on the other hand, was to separate the nations occupying the regions to the west and south of Russia and to connect them with Poland through close federal ties. The fate of the war was finally decided in August 1920 at the gates of Warsaw. The Polish Army, following the operational plans of the High Command approved by Józef Piłsudski, the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army, pushed the Red Army east past the Neman River line with a surprising counter-attack. This battle saved Poland's independence and forced the Bolshevists to cancel their plans to spread the communist revolution to the countries of Central and Western Europe.

Rozszyfrowana wojna. Biuro szyfrów Oddziału II naczelnego dowództwa Wojska Polskiego a losy Bitwy Warszawskiej 1920 roku

The subject of the research is the impact of the work of the Cipher Bureau of the Second Division of the Supreme Command of the Polish Army on the result of the Polish-Russian war of 1919-1920, with particular emphasis on the Battle of Warsaw. Breaking the codes used by the Red Army to encrypt secret messages undoubtedly contributed to the Polish victory in the war. Although this fact was generally known to researchers, the discovery of the well-preserved and almost complete translations of the Russian ciphertexts preserved in the Central Military Archives showed the scale of the impact of reading Russian correspondence on the fate of the war. The analysis of selected ciphertexts directly related to the Battle of Warsaw proves that they became an important element of the victory at that time, providing the Polish side with information on the location, plans, numbers and the mood of the Red Army. This enabled Poles to make the right decisions at the operational level.

Frontline Drawings of Ukrainian Artists of the Second World War Period

Purpose of the article. During World War II, hundreds of Ukrainian artists were at the front. The drawings they created were a powerful source of propaganda for the Soviet regime. At the same time, in the general unity of the full-scale front-line drawing the individual features of artists of great artistic skill are clearly traced. The aim of the article is to determine the circle of leading Ukrainian artists who during the Second World War were in the troops of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RSCA) and worked in the field of drawing; to study the genre, artistic and stylistic structure, as well as materials and techniques of frontal drawings; identify the features of the reproduction of space-time in the front-line drawing of Ukrainian artists. Methodology. The study is based on the principle of historicism, a combination of historical and cultural, contextual methods, art history image and stylistic and system-comparative analysis. Scientific novelty. Peculiarities of human psychology of perception were clearly manifested in the drawing of frontline artists. The compression of the time field in the drawings of frontline artists is due not only to the doctrine of socialist realism, which was based on spatial three-dimensionality, but also to the peculiarities of human perception of time and space in stressful conditions. This also explains the difference of time display in the drawings created by the artists in the conditions of the front and evacuation. Artists, whose period of study coincided with the years of the avant-garde, the introduction of formal foundations of art in educational institutions, have achieved a much deeper and broader interpretation in the drawing of temporal and spatial categories. Conclusions. Frontline sketches were pictorial diaries: notes, sketches that were intended to be triggers for memories, for further writing of pictorial "memoirs" - paintings on the theme of war. This theme of Soviet propaganda will become a pass for future decades in all artistic spheres, both artistic and literary, musical, film and theater, etc., ensuring the favor of party leaders and the respect of the average Soviet man. Drawings of Serhiy Hryhoriev, Zinovy ​​Tolkachov, Vasyl Ovchynnikov, Anatol Petrytsky, Georgy Melikhov, Anton Komashko and other prominent Ukrainian artists are distinguished by the ability to give the passage of events the meaning of epic generalization, elevation above the simplified goal of capturing the moment. Keywords: drawing, Ukrainian drawing, frontline drawing, sketch, the Second World War, portrait, landscape.

Безвозвратные потери военнослужащих Красной армии, призванных из Калмыцкой АССР, в период Великой Отечественной войны по данным 1 и 2-го томов Книги «Память. Санл»: статистический анализ по времени, месту рождения и призыва

Introduction. The article deals with statistical analysis of the data borrowed from volumes 1 and 2 of the edition titled ‘Memory. Sanl’. The volumes publish annotated lists of 22.9 thousand Red Army servicemen in the category of fatal casualties (KIAs, DOWs and MIAs) from the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945, and most of the latter had been conscripted in the Kalmyk ASSR. Goals. The article compiles a database of Red Army conscripts from the Kalmyk ASSR further categorized as ‘fatal casualties’ (from the abovementioned edition) and attempts a statistical analysis by year of birth, place (district) of birth, date and place (military commissariat) of conscription. Materials and methods. The main research source is the annotated list of Red Army’s casualties published in volumes 1 and 2 of ‘Memory. Sanl’. The author employs a wide range of scientific methods, both general scientific and historical ones. The need for statistical analysis results in the wide use of statistical and extrapolation methods. Results. The work shows that both the volumes contain quite a number of repetitions; there are also errors, inaccuracies, discrepancies. There is also simultaneous use of outdated and modern names of geographical objects. Therefore, the present compiled and corrected database contains a significant portion of statistical data categorized in terms of a variety parameters, and further use of the latter will contribute to the research of a collective portrait of Red Army servicemen conscripted in the Kalmyk ASSR during the Great Patriotic War.

Memorialization of the "liberators" in Transcarpathia during the period of preventive Sovietization (1944 – 1946)

In 1944 – 1946, during the preventive Sovietization of Transcarpathian Ukraine, the local communist authorities initiated radical changes in its symbolic landscape in order to influence the collective memory of the population. The result of this policy was the appearance in the region in 1945 of monuments in honor of the Heroes of the Carpathians (soldiers of the Red Army), who died as a result of active hostilities in October 1944. Officially, the perpetuation of the memory of the fallen Red Army soldiers took place as a manifestation of the people's initiative of the local population in gratitude for the liberation from fascism, including from the “centuries-old Hungarian slavery”. However, archival materials and oral historical research prove that this process was an element of the traditional Soviet policy of memory, initiated by the command of the 4th Ukrainian Front. As a result, a number of memorial resolutions of the People's Council of Transcarpathian Ukraine were adopted in a short time. As a result, the graves of the Red Army were enlarged, fundraising was organized among the population, and the construction of monuments to the fallen liberators was started and successfully completed in all regional centers of the region. The peculiarity was that the installation of monuments in honor of the Heroes of the Carpathians took place long before the end of the Great Patriotic War / World War II, which was not observed in other territories of the Ukrainian SSR. One of the other paradoxes was that, so, the representatives of the Hungarian minority of the region demonstrated their appreciation for their "liberation from Hungarian domination".