Drawing on previously closed military and secret police archives, interviews with veterans, and private letters and diaries, Catherine Merridale presents the first comprehensive history of the Soviet Union Army rank and file. Sixty years have passed since their epic triumph, but the heart and mind of Ivan -- as the ordinary Russian soldier was called -- remain a mystery. Ivan's War confirms what anyone who read Night of Stone already knew: that Catherine Merridale is a superb historian, among the very best of her generation.” —Tony Judt, author of Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 “This is an inventively researched and evocatively written study of the Soviet soldier on the blood-ridden Eastern Front. After the infantry, whose service was almost guaranteed to end in invalidity or death – or, as they would quip, in ‘the department of health [zdravotdel] or the department of the earth [zemotdel]’ – armoured and mechanized troops faced the most certain danger. (Feb.), Paperback - 396 pages - 978-0-571-21809-7, Paperback - 462 pages - 978-0-312-42652-1, Open Ebook - 480 pages - 978-1-4299-0070-6, Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin, NIGHT OF STONE: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia. This was not simply ‘boiling up’; the tank would also torch the atmosphere around it. SparkNotes are the most helpful study guides around to literature, math, science, and more. Macmillan Code of Ethics for Business Partners. The white-hot flash of the explosion would almost certainly ignite the tank crew’s fuel and ammunition. A tour de force of original research and a gripping history, Ivan's War reveals the singular mixture of courage, patriotism, anger, … More…. In the process Merridale restores to history the invisible millions who sacrificed the most to win the war. . Living or dead, they have remained anonymous. Plot Summary.

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‘Have you burned yet?’ was a common question for tank men to ask each other when they met for the first time.”, “The last blow fell in 1947, when Stalin ordered that the streets of Soviet cities should be cleared of beggars, many of whom were amputees. Tolstoy and Behrs had 13 children between 1863 and 1888, and Tolstoy wrote most of his major works, including War and Peace, during this time. At best, the crew—or those at least who had not been decapitated or dismembered by the shell itself—would have no more than ninety seconds to climb out of their cabin. Ivan's WarONEMARCHING WITH REVOLUTIONARY STEPWhenever people think that they will have to fight a war, they try to picture what it will be like. Refugee Introduction + Context. This was not simply “boiling up.” The tank would also torch the atmosphere around it. A woman with a baby, local people learned, was practically immune to rape. It was a long time since any had seen their children.”, “Rape was not the only crime that Soviet soldiers would commit on their sweep through Prussia. Much of that time would be swallowed up as they struggled to open the heavy, sometimes red-hot, hatch, which might have jammed after the impact anyway. The professor of contemporary history at the University of London, she also writes for the London Review of Books, New Statesman, and the Independent.

We know something about hoe the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought.

Ivan's War confirms what anyone who read Night of Stone already knew: that Catherine Merridale is a superb historian, among the very best of her generation.” —Tony Judt, author of Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, “This is an inventively researched and evocatively written study of the Soviet soldier on the blood-ridden Eastern Front. However, other pressures were at work as well. Her account of the sufferings of the Red Army soldiers and their families is unlikely to be bettered.” —Robert Service, author of Stalin: A Biography, “Merridale's new book is excellent.
The white-hot flash of the explosion would almost certainly ignite the tank crew’s fuel and ammunition.

A tour de force of original research and a gripping history, Ivan's War reveals the singular mixture of courage, patriotism, anger, and fear that made it possible for these underfed, badly led troops to defeat the Nazi army. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. By then, there could be no hope for the men inside. But of the violent crimes, rape was the most prevalent. Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 is a social history; Merridale largely avoids any in depth discussion of the European war's strategic, operational or tactical military history; those so interested will have to go elsewhere.

Sign up to receive information about new books, author events, and special offers. From the creators of SparkNotes. All of Catherine Merridale's virtues are on display: remarkable research (based in this case on literally hundreds of interviews with survivors and witnesses); a clear, unpretentious style that belies the complexity of her material; comfortable historical command of a dauntingly large theme; and a rare compassion and empathy for her subjects. It also reflects the continuing reluctance of most Soviet veterans to discuss their experiences—in sharp contrast to German survivors of the Eastern Front. In all, about 1.8 million prisoners like him would end up in the hands of SMERSh.”, “The men knew that their own conduct was turning brutal. . The battlefield was no haven, but it was safer than the armoured coffin that would now begin to blaze, its metal components to melt.

Through the soldiers' eyes, we witness their victorious arrival in Berlin, where their rage and suffering exact an awful toll, and accompany them as they return home full of hope, only to be denied the new life they had been fighting to secure. The Soviet war effort has been described many times but her new book tells the searing story from the bottom up. A dark joke from this stage in the war has a politruk informing a young man that almost every tank man in his group has died that day. She carefully details the soldiers' age and ethnic diversity, and she puts a human face on a fact demonstrated repeatedly by retired U.S. officer and Soviet military expert David Glantz: the Red Army learned from the experience of its near-collapse in 1941, and by 1945 its soldiers were more than a match for their Wehrmacht opponents.
Rape is a common instrument of war, a chillingly familiar accompaniment to conquest and military occupation.

That’s a fact.”4”, Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945. All Quotes Of the thirty million who fought in the eastern front of World War II, eight million died, driven forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. ― Catherine Merridale, Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945. tags: russia.

We’d love your help. By then, there could be no hope for the men inside. “Have you burned yet?” was a question tank men often asked each other when they met for the first time. Their stories seldom correspond to reality,... "Catherine Merridale has picked the locks that kept this history hidden. Over eight million of them died. To withdraw your consent, see Your Choices. They were the men and women of the Red Army, a ragtag mass of soldiers who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. . What they got instead was a Stalinist crackdown—and a long silence, broken now by this outstanding book. Of the 403,272 tank men (including a small number of tank women) who were trained by the Red Army in the war, 310,000 would die. Merridale, professor of history at the University of London, combines interviews, letters and diaries with research in previously closed official archives to present the first comprehensive portrait of the Red Army's fighters. Most poignantly, Merridale reveals that frontline soldiers increasingly hoped their sacrifices would bring about postwar reform—"Communism with a human face." On the contrary, it makes them reserved, rather coarse, and very cruel. Ivan's War is full of the type of information that will make you find someone to tell.” —Richmond Times Dispatch, “This book is the raw and bleeding version .

a tightly edited, well-paced and very readable account.” —The Seattle Times", "Unprecedented in its approach, Catherine Merridale's research into the lives of Red Army soldiers combined with her perception makes this a most fascinating and important work.” —Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad, “Catherine Merridale has done something very unusual. His courage so impressed the Wehrmacht (which was seldom given to sentimental acts) that German soldiers carried his almost lifeless body to a dressing station, whence he was taken to a prisoner-of-war camp. . Catherine Merridale is the author of the critically acclaimed Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia. “Ivan's War is a marvelous book. Error rating book. The atrocities in East Prussia could be compared to others, such as those in Bosnia or Bangladesh.”, “Of the 403,272 tank soldiers (including a small number of women) who were trained by the Red Army in the war, 310,000 would die. “I have to say that the war has changed me a lot,” Aronov wrote.


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