SOCIETY OF SOVIET UKRAINE AT THE BEGINNING OF GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR: DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC ISSUES

Abstract

The article deals with the formation of historiographical knowledge of Soviet society in the early period of Great Patriotic War. The historiographical researches on this subject are analyzed. The periodizations of historiography of Soviet society in 1941–1942 are defined and explanations of criteria of such periodization are examined. The essential characteristics of each historiographical period and mistakes of some historiographical schools are defined. The priorities of research in the field of study of the history and historiography of Soviet society of the initial period of the Great Patriotic War are defined. The first period in the development of historiography of the initial level of the Great Patriotic War concerning Ukraine falls on 1940–1950s. The characteristics of historiography features of this period are the following: dogmatic views on the events, submission of major conclusions about the war to ideological and political determinants; ignoring negative aspects inherent to Soviet society. The second period covers the events of 1950–1980s. The characteristic features of this period are the following: the creation of a new historical myth of hypertrophied role of parties in the War; the priority development of macro-historical studies; bias of memoir literature; absolutisation of spiritual unity of Soviet society. At the same time, this period characterizes first attempts of critical reflection of the tragic outbreak of war, the role of the Stalinist repressions of the army high command. The third period of Soviet historiography falls on 1980–1990s. This period characterizes a number of contradictory traits. The weakening of ideological censorship and restrictions on open announcements of tragic military confrontation led to the emergence of revisionist historiography direction; empowering access to documentary base of limited access archives created conditions for both objective historical research, and overtly speculative publications. Excessive politicization of historical science has caused the appearance of two vectors — traditional and revisionist. Post-Soviet historiography is based on the recognition of the many achievements of Soviet historiography, on the critics of separate provisions (dogmatism, the principle of partisanship, omission of certain negative aspects of the CPSU (b), government security forces). The Ukrainian state of the development of historiography problems covers a timeframe from 1991 to nowadays. This process is marked by a wide range of pluralistic views on our recent past and a number of features, at first, an attempt to create its own national historical narrative by a fundamental reassessment of the past. Thus, the study of Soviet society in the beginning of the Great Patriotic War was carried out within the conventional scheme: social and professional substructure, society and government, USSR armed forces, which can be explained by errors of Soviet sociology, which actually denied the existence of antagonistic groups in the USSR society. From the present point f view, the study of historiography of Soviet society allows the consideration of this phenomenon in two interrelated dimensions. Firstly, it is an argued comprehensive analysis of Soviet historiography,
the rejection of nihilistic attitude to its heritage. Secondly, the widespread involvement of foreign historiography, especially the one, which uses German archives and oral sources of the European origin, that will be useful in the verification of certain interpretations of the life of Soviet society of 1941–1942.