Manifestation of Collaboration during the Occupation of the Bobrovodvorsky District of the Kursk Region
| 05 December 2024
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Kovalev V.I., Gubkin, Russian Federation
Manifestation of Collaboration during the Occupation of the Bobrovodvorsky District of the Kursk Region
Abstract
The article is a case-study of relationship between the civilian population and the invaders in town Bobrovodvorsk of the Kursk region from 2 July, 1942 to February 5, 1943. The author analyzes scholarship, archival materials, oral and written memoirs of eye-witnesses and concludes that the machinery of the occupying authorities generated from among collaborators was an essential element of Nazi military power in the occupied territory. They represented the grassroots level of power and were the main of policy conductor for German and Hungarian authorities. However, the district administration and land societies formed from among the collaborators worked under full control by and in conformity with German and Hungarian military leadership. Thus, collaboration was not always effective. One of distinctive traits of occupation authorities was their striving for total domination over the population. Probably, lack of a widespread resistance was not as much due to amicable or wait-and-see attitude of the Soviet people towards invaders, but to general state of confusion and little opportunity of effective resistance under the “new order.” However, the attempt to enslave the nation and turn the Soviet people into uncomplaining Nazis slaves failed ignominiously. Most documents used in the article are introduced into scientific use for the first time. The article broadens the traditional image of the occupation regime in the national historiography and prompts a new understanding of the issue.
Keywords
Occupation regime, collaboration, superintendent, Hungarian commandant, administration, land society.
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About the authors
Kovalev Vladimir Ivanovich, PhD in History, associate professor at the Gubkin branch of the V.G.Shukhov Belgorod State Technological University, Gubkin, Russian Federation, +7-908-789-30-52, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it