Belenko Mikhail P.,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Role of Water Transport in the Evacuation of Civilians During the Great Patriotic War
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2018-2-19
The article considers the role of water transport in the evacuation of the civilian population of the USSR in the rear regions of the country during the Great Patriotic war. The importance of water (both maritime and river) transport revealed itself in several key aspects. This is the evacuation of citizens from the territories, land communication with which was blocked by the advancing enemy forces. Then, transportation of the population, primarily industrial workers and their families, on the inland waterways of the USSR from the threatened areas to the rear in cooperation with rail transportation. It is necessary to point out the role of river transport in the organization and provision of river crossings. Before the war this task was solved by local authorities and was not included into the duties of river transport divisions. Conclusions are drawn about the number of people evacuated by water transport in regard to each task: in 1941 there were more than 500 thousand people, in 1942 – about 450 thousand people removed from the blocked territories. More than 2 million people were moved in the course of the “industrial” evacuation. It is impossible to figure out the exact number of people saved by the newly established river crossings, but rough estimates indicate that there were millions in 1941, and hundreds of thousands in 1942. It is shown that several factors complicate the accurate measurement of the contribution of water transport in civil transportations. They include registration faults caused by the war (especially in the Black sea basin, the Baltic sea and the Gulf of Finland). Another significant factor was the combined type of transportations: the same people were transported by water, then by rail, then again by water; thus, the “mechanical” summation of the number of evacuees recorded in various sources leads to a significant overestimation of their total number.
Publishing: 19/12/2018
How to cite: Belenko M.P. The Role of Water Transport in the Evacuation of Civilians During the Great Patriotic War // Historical Courier, 2018, # 2. Article 19. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2018/ISTKURIER-2018-2-10.pdf
Links: Issue 2 2018
Keywords: Great Patriotic War, evacuation, transportation, water transport, sea transport, river transport