The Soviet Union at War: Contested Chronologies of World War Two

Dates of events might be considered objective facts, open to neither debate nor contestation.

Yet periodisation – that is, setting the start and end dates of a particular time period in history – is very much a matter of interpretation. Indeed, where the historian (or history teacher) chooses to begin or end a historical period can determine not just the length of the period in question, but also its meaning and significance.

This is made clear in the case of the Soviet Union’s Second World War by Mark Edele’s excellent 2021 overview, Stalinism at War.

The Baron’s Cloak: A Study in Dynamic Continuity?

In my previous post, I made the case for a more dynamic understanding of historical continuity. Having tried to illustrate what this might look like in practice, I now want to turn to one story in particular. That story is told in Willard Sunderland’s The Baron’s Cloak.

This brilliant book details the extraordinary and troubling life of Baron Roman Feodorovich von Ungern-Sternberg, an eccentric mystic, reactionary nationalist, and ruthlessly violent Russian nobleman of Germanic origins. It follows Ungern’s life, from his birth in Graz to his family’s settling in Estland (modern-day Estonia) via Georgia, through his stuttering induction into the Russian army before the Great War to his career as a military commander in the anti-Bolshevik White movement during the Russian Civil War.

The book can be read in a several different ways: as a riveting story in its own right, as a tale of competing nationalism and radicalisms, as an exploration of huge upheaval and change. In Sunderland’s own words, it is “a study of the Russian Empire told through Ungern’s life” (p. 5), especially in its final years, as it collapsed and was then (partially) reconstituted by a new Soviet state.

However, reading this book, I found it to provide a highly stimulating narrative of dynamic historical continuity.

Here, using several short excerpts, I’ll retell key parts of the narrative in order to draw out some of the examples of continuity it seems to reveal. As I go, I’ll return to the diagrams of historical “paths” which I provided in my previous post, illustrating how I think the excerpts illustrate these.

The February Revolution Reconsidered: Part 1, A Violent Revolution

In my last post, I challenged two myths of Russia’s 1917 February Revolution which removed Tsar Nicholas II from power: that it was “spontaneous” and “leaderless”.

Over the next two posts, I’ll put forward two rather different interpretations. Both are commonly overlooked when teaching the Russian Revolution. Both, however, deserve serious attention.

In this first post, I’ll examine the case for the February Revolution being a violent event. This directly challenges a common myth that February was peaceful, especially when compared the previous outbreaks of revolutionary unrest, such as 1905’s Bloody Sunday massacre or the 1912 Lena Goldfields massacre.

In fact, February 1917 witnessed considerable violence. This took several forms, including killings of protestors; bloody reprisals against military officers and police; public disorder and mob justice; and iconoclasm.

Urbicide: (Re-)conceptualising Urban Annihilation through History

In September 1941, the German Wehrmacht put the Soviet city of Leningrad under siege. It would not be lifted for almost 900 days.

By that time, the toll on the city and its inhabitants had become immense. Shortly before the siege began, around 400,000 people, mostly children, were hurriedly evacuated. Those left behind were subjected to daily bombardment, starvation, and chronic fuel shortages.

By the end of the siege, in January 1944, some 800,000 people had died of starvation and up to 200,000 more had been killed by military attacks or in fighting to defend the city.