I want to give me a hand

The St. Petersburg historian, candidate of historical sciences, an employee of the memorial and educational historical and cultural center "White Affairs" Kirill Alexandrov is deprived of the degree of Doctor of Sciences.

His dissertation, defended on March 1, 2016, is dedicated to the personnel composition of the Vlasov army . The purpose of the long -term study was to figure out what social groups people belonged to, who joined the Vlasov army during the Second World War, and why they decided to turn weapons against the Soviet Union.

The purpose of the study was to figure out what social groups people belonged to the Vlasov army

The intensity of passions during the defense of the dissertation was high - the building of the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences picketed by the Communists, activists of patriotic and veteran organizations who accused Cyril Alexandrov in the apology of the traitors of the Motherland, one of the participants in the People’s Council, wrote a complaint to the prosecutor's office. Supporters of the scientist defend the right of science to remain outside the policy and the right of researchers to touch on any topics.

In October, it became known that the Ministry of Education and Science canceled the decision of the Institute of History on the assignment of a scientific degree to Kirill Alexandrov. About whether Russian historical science is free from political conjuncture, as well as why it is important for us to know who the Vlasovites are, we are talking with historian Kirill Alexandrov.

- Kirill, as I understand it, today we will discuss two subjects: the work of the Higher Attestation Commission is the highest certification commission, or rather, its expert council on history, and the topic of your doctoral dissertation - who and for what reasons served in the Vlasov army. Let's start with the first point: the deprivation of your doctoral degree was a surprise to you?

- No, although I relatively recently found out that the expert council was 8:11 voting. I would like to thank all members of the Expert Council, who, in spite of any pressure, proceeded from common sense, and not from those ridiculous claims that were presented to me. For example, there was a certificate from the Central Archive of the FSB that I had never worked in this archive. But I indicated the terms of my work with an accuracy of up to months. For the first time, I worked with the archival and investigation of Andrei Vlasov and the accomplice convicted with him in the summer of 1994. I worked right on Lubyanka, went from the fourth entrance.

I was a consultant to the film "Vlasov, twice damned general", my work was oversaw an archivist officer of the counterintelligence service Yuri Redbiev. The most important thing is that my archive notebooks remained in my hands, I presented them; They can see everything in them: handwriting, yellowness of paper, the volume of records and their prescription, links to archival sheets and documents. In response, they told me a wonderful phrase: "Well, you rewrote this from other researchers." And then I realized that when you have a serious person in a high rank, with a doctoral degree speaks such a lie in the face, the issue has been resolved.

One of the claims was why I had no links to a three -volume document of Vlasov 2015. I explained that, firstly, a significant part of the documents from there I knew to me-I read it in an archive and investigative case. And secondly, when this three-volume was released, I just had a discussion of the finished dissertation. And when I asked if I needed to redo the dissertation because of this three-volume, pushing the defense for another six months or a year, they told me: no, just say this issue in the preface.

The intensity of passions during the defense of the dissertation was high

- What is the name of your dissertation?

- "Generals and officer personnel of the armed groups of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia 1943-1946." I found out there that there were 35 generals there, and the generals and officers together - more than 4000, 2200 I installed by name, 185 biographies subjected a continuous analysis from the moment of birth to the moment of death. I asked how this three -volume could influence the conclusions of my dissertation, in response - silence: no way. After all, people who presented this claim are not specialists on this topic, they poorly read my dissertation, and they are not able to correlate its content with the three -volume document.

It was also said that in my work there are not enough theoretical generalizations. Well, I leave this without comment - as it turned out, in the work of Mr. Medinsky there are more than enough such generalizations, I even think that it all consists of theoretical generalizations.

My opponents were three professional historians, doctors of sciences Nikita Lomagin, Anton Posadsky, Dmitry Komarov. All of them are specialists in this area. One of the largest experts on this topic, not only in Russia, but also in the world, doctor of historical sciences, Oleg Romanko, participated in the preparation of the review of my work of the leading organization - the Crimean Federal University named after Vernadsky . And these people are more than competent in order to distinguish bad work from good. All of them made serious remarks, but in the end they gave a positive conclusion. Neither in the expert council, nor in the Presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission, I am sure that there was not a single specialist at the moment when a decision was made to deprive me of a doctoral degree, so it was amazing for me to listen to them.

In early March of this year, three notebooks were stolen in a cafe from my backpack

And I will tell you a story that I have not told anyone yet. In early March of this year, three notebooks were stolen from my backpack - it was those on which the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense was written - apparently that I could not confirm my words. The rest of the notebooks that were in the backpack, no one touched.

“But did someone see these stolen notebooks?”

- Yes, they saw them. All this looked vile, ridiculous and funny. I answered all the questions. I did not have three replaced abstracts and changed opponents, and of course, I believe that the decision to deprive me of a doctoral degree was not scientific, but repressive and political. I received more than 150 letters and calls from colleagues from around the world with words of support - regardless of their attitude to my views and the characters that I am writing about. Nevertheless, I have been doing this for 25 years, and this story has not ended, now I am going to publish all this, I received several proposals, including from Czech colleagues.

- Cyril, every process has a trigger - who launched the process of depriving you of a doctoral degree?

- These are all backstage games. The pressure on the St. Petersburg Institute of History began at the end of January 2016. There were phone calls, calls for conversation: refuse, review, do something ... One of the authors of official reviews a few days before protection said to pick up their review under the threat of dismissal. He refused, and everything happened, but this administrative resource has nothing to do with science.

All this looked vile, ridiculous and funny

In general, I was very lucky: I was in doctoral studies at the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and my dissertation was discussed for several years, not entirely, but for the heads, for which I am very grateful to colleagues - this was the best school for me. Almost none of my colleagues shares my views on people who were the subject of my research, but our views remained beyond academic science. With the director of the institute Nikolai Nikolaevich Smirnov, we often polemize on the topics of Russian history of the first half of the twentieth century, the period of revolution and the Civil War. But he set the honor and dignity of the institute, academic science above any political assessments and disagreements, clearly divided science and politics: politics does not interest us. These people should be in expert councils.

Kirill Alexandrov and his cat Mannerheim

- What was the subject of your research?

- My dissertation is dedicated to the professional group - the officer personnel of the troops of the "Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia". We often confuse the Russian liberation army and the Vlasov army. In fact, there was no Vlasov army by the end of the fall of 1944 - only individual Russian units, partially integrated into the German armed forces. Vlasov got the opportunity to create his army only on November 14, 1944, and its creator was not he, but his chief of staff and deputy military affairs, Major General Fedor Trukhin , a hereditary nobleman, a former warrant officer of the imperial army, during the Civil War, a military-partisan Major General of the Red Army. As a person, he is more interesting than Vlasov - by virtue of education, education characteristic of him reflection and other things.

The pressure on the St. Petersburg Institute of History began at the end of January 2016

Trukhin and the nearest circle of his officers began to create an army. It had its own officer corps - so I wanted to understand how many of them were, how they got there, what was their service in the Red Army, what was the share of Russian emigrants, the White Guards and their children - and it was great: for example, of the 35 generals of the Vlasov army, 18 - participants in the white movement. Among the lieutenant colonels, colonels and military elders there were more than a quarter of former white officers. Of the 51 commander 28 were former white.

Nevertheless, Soviet citizens, mainly former personnel commanders of the Red Army, played the main role. My task was to establish the circle of these people, to analyze their biographies, to see what awards they had, who were a member of war crimes in the occupied territories. Well, it was necessary to understand what happened to them, because after the surrender of Germany, the officer corps of the Vlasov army did not go away. It also existed in the American occupation zone, for a long time such large formations were preserved as the Russian corps of Colonel Anatoly Rogozhin.

- And what is your main conclusion?

- I established the number of officer corps, established the influence of former white officers and their children, found that the circle of motives on which people got there was the widest, and this was about protection. You can’t reduce everything to the fact that here are all the helpers, or all are the opponents of Stalin, or all became his opponents in captivity. No, there are different destinies and different motivations. A number of Vlasov commanders in 1941–42 actively fought in the ranks of the Red Army. For example, the guard Major Vyacheslav Artemyev was the commander of the Guards Cavalry Regiment, posthumously awarded the Order. Vlasov had two or three pilots - the heroes of the Soviet Union. And there were also defectors, who deliberately crossed the side of the enemy, such as Major General Mikhail Shapovalov and Major Ivan Kononov . There were adapters in the Vlasov army who simply wanted to survive, but were offended by the Soviet government, repressed before the war, but in general, the share of generals and officers repressed before the war was very small - I think 10-15 percent. So my main conclusion is that the motivation for officers entering the Vlasov army was multifactorial.

By the way, this caused the hottest discussion and political accusations. But I do not see any crime here. The bulk of the officers of the Vlasov army belonged to those social groups that were subjected to special repression in the 20-30s. These are, first of all, immigrants from the peasants. For example, Sergey Bunichenko, a former Colonel of the Red Army, Major General, hanged along with Vlasov, whose division provided invaluable support to the rebels in Prague-he was excluded from the party before the war for criticism of collectivization and collective farm system, and there are many such examples.

The circle of motives by which people fell into the army of Vlasov was the widest

In addition, there were immigrants from non -member social groups - former merchants, nobles, children of the clergy. On this basis, I concluded that the very fact of the existence of the Officer Corps of the Vlasov Army by personality can be considered as a social protest against the Stalinist repressive policy.

- This, probably, most outraged your opponents?

- Yes, although I do not see anything wrong here. There are many such examples-during the First World War, tens of thousands of military personnel of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army, who swore an oath to their emperor, went over to the side of the Russian army in protest against the national policy of Austria-Hungary. The state treason remains state treason, but the task of the historian is to state facts, and not to give moral assessments-this also spoke about this. Whatever assessments to approach my characters: vile traitors, selfless patriots, unfortunate people, victims of historical circumstances - this does not affect the content of my dissertation and the conclusions that I came to.

- And what did you expect from you - confirmation of the Soviet concept, that all Vlasovites are dogs and traitors?

- Yes, that this is a bunch of drunkards and brawls, traitors of their homeland, for a bowl of soup who went to serve the Nazis. But we know the novel by Arkady Vasiliev about Vlasov, written in the 70s: “At one in the afternoon, Your Excellency,” there is a much less well-known article in the journal “Questions of Literature”, where he writes that the betrayal of Vlasov is a logical continuation of the Yaroslavl uprising of 1918, the Kronstadt uprising of 1921, these are all the links of the same chain-the Russian counter-revolution. Even then it was clear that the point was not a bunch of traitors, drunkards and rowky.

Military personnel of the guards battalion of the Russian liberation army in Pskov. June 22, 1943

I managed to revive this problem; In the 90s, when I began to engage in it, it was a gray spot, it was not associated with any names, but there were people, their families, actions, sins, and the life path. I was asked what the benefits of my work are. And I managed to help some relatives find information about their grandfathers and great -grandfathers, about whom they knew nothing for 50-60 years old, and this human, humanitarian aspect is very important for me. Now for us the topic of a person in the war is generally important for us, and no one was engaged in this topic in relation to the Vlasov army.

-Were there any discoveries: facts, fate that struck you during work?

The task of the historian is to state facts, and not give moral assessments

- For 25 years, there were a lot of this. In one American archive, I found unique documents - detailed lists of officers and ordinary Vlasov army, who were in American captivity. And there is primary installation information, that is, you can look for documents in other archives. It was a discovery for me. A few years ago, I published a document on how the Germans were captivated by Lieutenant General Vlasov. I found this German report in the Huver archive of Stanford University, it is clear from him that Vlasov never surrendered in captivity, but was issued by Russian peasants who received a reward for this.

- That is, they handed over his own?

- Yes, he was captured, being loyal to the Soviet regime. And in captivity, the Russian German, a native of Riga, who spent his youth in St. Petersburg, a participant in the First World War, and then the White movement, the captain of the North-West Army, and then the Wehrmacht Vilfried Shtrikfeldt , spoke and convinced him. Without him, probably, there would have been no Vlasov movement at all. And I found a genuine order signed by Yudenich on the production of Shtrik-Shtrikfeldt in captains for the differences in the service. Dozens of people helped me, it was a unique human, and not just a scientific process.

- What fates were especially touched by you?

Now, according to my calculations, five more living officers of the Vlasov army remained in the world

- There are two people whose fate occupies me very much. One of them is Major Ivan Tenikov, Tatar by nationality, originally from Biysk. In 1942, he served in the 337th fighter aviation regiment, in the 287th fighter aviation division of the 8th Air Army. On September 15, 1942, Taranikov ranged the German Messerschmitt 110 over Stalingrad. He knocked him down and threw himself with a parachute, that is, he accomplished a real feat. A year later, he was shot down in an air battle, was captured, and in 1944, under the influence of Vlasov propaganda, he served in the ROA, then he served in the Vlasov army in the rank of major. True, for health reasons, he could no longer fly after being injured.

And then he disappeared. He was considered the dead, he is mentioned in the Soviet books of the 70s-Air Taran, the Battle of Stalingrad. For his ram, he had to receive at least the Order, or even the Hero of the Soviet Union, but his award card is not. And where he was transferred, it is also not clear where he spent a whole year. There is no information that he was sentenced to some punishment in absentia, as well as marks on returning to the Soviet Union and criminal record. I suppose that he managed to stay in the West, according to some indirect data, he could be in Canada, where there were many Vlasovites after the war. But this is only an assumption.

Another interesting character is the colonel of Vlasov Aviation Alexander Vanyushin. It is written in his card that he was convicted by the military tribunal and executed, so I thought until 2010 or 2011, but in fact, it illegally took American intelligence from Europe to the USA, he changed his last name there and lived for a long time.

Some part of the Vlasov officers in different ways managed to escape

Another unique personality is Major Boris Pivenstein , who participated in the salvation of Chelyuskintsev, for which he received the order, and in 1943 he was shot down and was captured by the Germans. Как еврей он был обречен, но его вытащили из плена, и после войны он тоже исчез. Есть оперативные данные МГБ, что в 1952 году он выехал из американской оккупационной зоны Германии на Запад, и есть совсем уж экзотическая версия о том, что в 1956 году он участвовал в войне на стороне Израиля в качестве летчика израильских ВВС. Но я подчеркиваю, что это непроверенная информация.

Я уже упоминал Кононова – это единственный генерал-майор власовской армии из числа советских граждан, который избежал репатриации, все остальные генералы, советские граждане, были выданы, расстреляны или повешены. Кононову удалось спрятаться, и в 1950 году он приехал в Австралию. Кроме ордена Красной Звезды за финскую войну у него еще около 15 наград вермахта, это совершенно неуемная личность. В 1950 году он предлагал правительству Австралии сформировать русский полк и отправить его в Корею воевать на стороне сил ОНН. Австралийцы, наверное, испугались таких предложений, а Кононов, наверное, без проблем набрал бы две тысячи человек, так что потом можно было бы делать блокбастер на этой основе. Но его идею не поддержали. Он умер в 1967-м в Австралии от разрыва сердца.

Какой-то части власовских офицеров разными путями удалось спастись. Там была трагическая история. Человек, командовавший кадрами власовской армии в американском плену, – это был участник Первой мировой, кавалер ордена Святой Анны за храбрость, штабс-капитан старой русской армии, потом полковник Красной армии Михаил Меандров, сын московского священника, репрессированного большевиками. Даже американцы в Баварии говорили им: разбегайтесь! А Меандров считал – нет, мы офицеры, мы не можем бежать, не можем бросать солдат, мы не просто пленные, мы – политическая оппозиция Сталину, американцы обязательно дадут нам политическое убежище. Там был запутанный скрининг, просеивание, анкетирование, и какой-то части действительно удалось спастись. Но в целом все кончилось плохо: большую часть этих людей зимой 1946 года выдали, хотя какая-то часть все же сбежала и оказалась в США, Канаде, Южной Америке, Австралии. Сейчас, по моим подсчетам, в мире осталось еще пять-шесть живых офицеров власовской армии.

-– Кирилл, вы собираетесь дальше заниматься этой темой?

Оценки и выводы могут быть любые, главное, чтобы к науке не примешивалась политика

– У меня широкий круг интересов, я занимаюсь первой половиной ХХ века, но все равно все, что связано историей власовской армии, останется для меня важнейшей темой, а что касается отдаленных планов, то я хотел бы написать историю всего власовского движения как социально-политического явления. База у меня есть, но надо еще поработать в архивах. В США мне удалось познакомиться с документами на эту тему, которые еще никто не видел.

– Как вы считаете, настанут времена, когда вам вернут, по всей видимости, несправедливо отнятую у вас ученую степень?

– Дело не в моей степени, а том, чтобы ученые в России могли спокойно работать, не завися ни от каких политических обстоятельств, ни от какого давления. Оценки и выводы могут быть любые, главное, чтобы к науке не примешивалась политика. Если бы я написал то, что от меня ждали, я, наверное, был бы уже профессором, академиком, кем угодно, но у меня нет цели стать доктором исторических наук такой ценой. Для меня было очень важно, что те люди, которые со мной спорили, поддерживали меня, были включены в процесс обсуждения моей работы, подавали мне руку. Так вот, я хочу, чтобы все они продолжали подавать мне ее и дальше, – сказал в интервью Радио Свобода историк Кирилл Александров .