Soviet Letters you would NOT want to receive

[Ed_Haynes]

From a large collection acquired recently, a few examples.

I leave it to the Russian readers to fill in the facts and the context.

[Ed_Haynes]

Example 1

[Ed_Haynes]

Reverse.

[Ed_Haynes]

Interior.

[Ed_Haynes]

One more.

Example 2

[Ed_Haynes]

Reverse.

[Ed_Haynes]

And the interior.

[Ed_Haynes]

Reminding us, perhaps, that the GPW was not about "things", or people, or even history, it was about families.

For me, these are a sort of shrine to those who defeated fascism.

I have many more. There were many more.

Edited July 28, 2008 by Ed_Haynes

[Guest Rick Research]

I have no experience with these, but they are addressed to the local veterans commissariat office rather than directly to the family, so perhaps there was a less... bureaucratic notice from those local offices to the next of kin?

Just think: these were the "lucky" ones. They were RECORDED, having died of wounds rather than simply disappeared among the missing.

[koopyetz]

example 2

NKO- USSR Form. No.4

Accounting Office for Dead and Missing Soldiers 26. 2.1946

Notify: Mareev Ekaterina Ivanovna

That the soldier : Master Sergeant

Last, First and middle name: Mareev Vasilii Ivanovich

Born: 1907

Was wounded and died of wounds 31 January 1944

revisions additions and corrections appreciated

[koopyetz]

example 1

NKO- USSR Form. No.4

Accounting Office for Dead and Missing Soldiers 20.12.1945

Notify: Konoilev

That the soldier : Senior Sergeant

Last, First and middle name: Konoilev Ivan Pavlovich

Born: 1907

Was wounded and died of wounds 27 June 1942

revisions additions and corrections appreciated

[Paul R]

That is the first I have seen of this type of document... I am sure that there are millions of these somewhere. I am actually shocked to see these originals. I wonder how the escaped archives?

[Guest Rick Research]

They're not from archives, they're from Local Veterans Commissariats (RVK)s. That would be the same as our small town Veterans Affairs Offices. Can you imagine one room in a town hall filled with tens of thousands of old file photos and paperwork like this, kept forever? As soon as the 'Union turned into the 'Federation, millions of items like these were... thrown away.

What's left have literally been salvaged from the trash.

[Paul R]

What's left have literally been salvaged from the trash.

That is tragic. I would think that information like this would be kept for future generations and research.

[Guest Rick Research]

It's "just" Routine Correspondence. The families would/should have been notified at the time. This is internal corresspondence just like purchase orders for furniture or more boxes of paper clips. The file photos, for instance, were apparently intended to catch "traitors" if a manhunt was ever needed. There were copies at EVERY level of the military bureaucracy. (What earthly good was a 1947 photo that was sitting in a file cabinet for a retiree in 1986? )

Presumably tons and tons and tons of letters about pension applications, disability certificates, and the like went straight into the trash disposal system over there. These are/were unwanted LOCAL records. It (literally) piles up.

My own town, for instance, still has ledger books for 1860s dog licenses. I am absolutely CERTAIN somebody, somewhere Out There could produce a fascinating Ph.D. thesis on Mid 19th Century Pet Keeping. But otherwise... it takes up SPACE.

Don't misunderstand. I spent my undergraduate and graduate history "career" mining exactly such obscure paperwork. I'm still working on Imperial German archival records that have never been published until now. My abode resembles a rat's nest of global paper flotsam and jetsam...

but I have a pretty good idea that when I am no longer here to preserve it... it will all go in the trash too.

[Ed_Haynes]

It's "just" Routine Correspondence. The families would/should have been notified at the time. This is internal corresspondence just like purchase orders for furniture or more boxes of paper clips. The file photos, for instance, were apparently intended to catch "traitors" if a manhunt was ever needed. There were copies at EVERY level of the military bureaucracy. (What earthly good was a 1947 photo that was sitting in a file cabinet for a retiree in 1986? )

Presumably tons and tons and tons of letters about pension applications, disability certificates, and the like went straight into the trash disposal system over there. These are/were unwanted LOCAL records. It (literally) piles up.

My own town, for instance, still has ledger books for 1860s dog licenses. I am absolutely CERTAIN somebody, somewhere Out There could produce a fascinating Ph.D. thesis on Mid 19th Century Pet Keeping. But otherwise... it takes up SPACE.

Actually, that would be an interesting dissertation.

However, the real problems are two: (a) what becomes of records when "regime change" takes place (usually they get trashed) and (b) what becomes of records when they are left in working offices that have no need for them and only so much space in which to work (usually they get trashed). And the archives are usually so poorly funded that they cannot deal with what they have (especially if people expect the archivists to do their research for them!).

[Chuck In Oregon]

However, the real problems are two: (a) what becomes of records when "regime change" takes place (usually they get trashed) and (b) what becomes of records when they are left in working offices that have no need for them and only so much space in which to work (usually they get trashed). And the archives are usually so poorly funded that they cannot deal with what they have (especially if people expect the archivists to do their research for them!).

* * * * *

Too true.

I have a handful of GPU capital crimes case files from the 1920s, with photos, interrogation Q&As, internal memos, telegrams, decrees, the whole thing. They were just pitched after the Soviet collapse. "Who needs this old stuff?"

Very interesting things to me, at least at the time. But eventually the question becomes "What the heck am I going to do with this stuff?" Just like it was for them.

Chuck