This Is My World: A Submariner’s Battlefield Diary
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2020.2.484Keywords:
Great Patriotic War; man at war; battlefield diaries; battlefield practices; autobiographic narrative; G. I. SennikovAbstract
Battlefield diaries written by simple soldiers and seamen are unique, rare, and practically uncensored sources of war anthropology. The authors combine the comparative historical method of literary criticism with source analysis, which enables them to consider the Great Patriotic War from the point of view of personal history and reveal the peculiarities of wartime ego-documents. The authors refer to the battlefield diary of G. I. Sennikov, a submariner of the Northern Fleet, written between 1943 and 1946. The diary combines the genres of a diary and an ego-document. The peculiarity of the text is the fact that it combines the functions of a battlefield diary (keeping the author’s memories, having a therapeutic effect, etc.) and those of the individualisation process which helps the author to construct and preserve their own personality (self-identification, self-expression, philosophical, analytical, and vicarious functions, etc.) in the extreme conditions of war (from Murmansk between 1943 and 1944 to Crimea between 1944 and 1946). The autobiographic narrative bears the typical features of a diary, reflecting the development of a young Red Army sailor, i. e. severe selfcriticism, the “other” individuality which the author painfully becomes aware of, a frank and quite often uncomplimentary analysis of situations related to sexual relations. Additionally, the diary reflects the crucial stages in the sailor’s personal growth. The author of the diary builds a world of his own and works out his own ethical code; also, he creates a life plan and sets goals for himself.
References
Arkhiv laboratorii narodnoi kul’tury (LNK) [Archive of Folk Culture Laboratory (LNK)]. Frontovye zapisi Sennikova G. I. Rukopisnyi fond (RF). 42. Dos. 1, 2, 3, 4.
Egorov, O. G. (2011). Russkii literaturnyi dnevnik XIX veka. Istoriya i teoriya zhanra. Issledovanie [The Russian Literary Diary of the 19th Century. The History and Theory of Genre. Research]. 2nd Ed. Moscow, Flinta, Nauka. 280 p.
Imennoi spisok bezvozvratnykh poter’ lichnogo sostava [Nominal Roll of Irrevocable Personnel Losses]. (N. d.). In Pamyat’ naroda [official website]. URL: https://pamyat-naroda.ru/heroes/memorial-chelovek_donesenie77738801/ (mode of access: 29.03.2019).
Moiseeva, S. A., Rozhkova, T. I., Loseva, I. V., Deryabina, E. B. (Eds.). (2015). O voine iz voiny: narodnaya pis’mennost’ 1941–1945 gg. [About the War from the War Perspective: Folk Writings from 1941–1945]. Magnitogorsk, Magnitogorskii gosudarstvennyi tekhnicheskii universitet. 336 p.
Nurkova, V. (2010). Rasskazyvat’ o sebe, rasskazyvat’ sebya, rasskazyvat’ soboi: avtobiograaficheskii narrativ s pozitsii kul’turno-deyatel’nostnogo podkhoda [Telling about Oneself, Telling Oneself, Telling by Oneself: Autobiographical Narrative from the Standpoint of the Cultural Activity Approach]. In Razvitie lichnosti No. 1, pp. 73–92.
Postnikova, E. G., Moiseeva, S. A. (2018). Chtenie na voine: refleksiya, terapiya, samoidentifikatsiya (na materiale dnevnikov 1943–1945 gg. podvodnika Severnogo flota G. I. Sennikova) [Reading at War: Reflection, Therapy, Self-Identification (Based on the Diaries from 1943–1945 Written by Submariner of the Northern Fleet G. I. Sennikov]. In Filologicheskie nauki. Voprosy teorii i praktiki. No. 8. Part 2, pp. 251–257. DOI 10.30853/filnauki.2018-8-2.7.
Poteri lichnogo sostava podvodnykh lodok Severnogo flota [Personnel Loss of the Submarines of the Northern Fleet]. (N. d.). In Velikaya otechestvennaya pod vodoi [official website]. URL: http://www.sovboat.ru/dead/mean_sf.php3 (mode of access: 29.03.2019).
Rozhkov, A. Yu., Tazhitdinova, I. G. (Eds.). (2016). Eto i moya voina: Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina v pis’mennykh i vizual’nykh ego-dokumentakh [This is My War: The Great Patriotic War in Written and Visual Ego-Documents]. Krasnodar, Traditsiya. 592 p.
Rozhkova, T. I., Moiseyeva, S. A., Filippova, I. A. (Eds.). (2010). “…Ya umru, kogda priroda budet voskresat’”: dnevnikovye zapisi 1940–1943 gg. [“…I will die when nature resurrects”: Diary Records from 1940–1943]. Magnitogorsk, Magnitogorskii gosudarstvennyi universitet. 124 p.
Sennikov, G. I. (1969). Vystrel v bukhte [A Shot in the Bay]. Sverdlovsk, Sredne-Ural’skoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo. 91 p.
