Dmitry Igorevich Petin,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Omsk State Technical University, Omsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Ex-Officers in the Social Space of the West Siberian Province in the 1920s: The Example of Tara and its District
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2024-6-4
In the current quarter of a century, domestic scientists in their works have increasingly begun to turn to understanding, using the example of social history, the various military-political consequences of the Revolution and Civil War that took place in early Soviet society. In the Siberian province in the 1920s. The key players in those social processes were often representatives of the former officers, who formed the intellectual part of society and the core of the bureaucracy due to their educational qualifications being quite good for that time. Ex-officers in the USSR, despite being in demand and sometimes irreplaceable in the profession, continued to remain an “alien element”, falling (regardless of their ideological views) under oppression for political reasons. The article reconstructs the collective social portrait of those who lived in the Tara Irtysh region in the 1920s from the methodological position of military anthropological knowledge based on typical characteristics ex-officers. The study is based on a complex of unpublished sources from the funds of the Historical Archive of the Omsk Region and its branch in the city of Tara. Based on the results of the study, it is concluded that in the 1920s. The average Tara combatant from among the white officers is a native of other territories with peasant roots and primary education, a middle-aged employee, who previously held the rank of no higher than lieutenant (received during the First World War), and often had wounds and front-line awards. The article is addressed to a wide range of specialists studying the early Soviet society, including the practices of social adaptation of “former people” (the situation of former participants in the white movement), the organization of intellectual work (using the example of provincial Soviet institutions), the problem of small towns in Siberia, as well as the Siberian local history.
Publishing: 28/12/2024
The article has been received by the editor on 11/06/2024
How to cite: Petin D.I. Ex-Officers in the Social Space of the West Siberian Province in the 1920s: The Example of Tara and its District // Historical Courier, 2024, No. 6 (38), pp. 50–65. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2024/ISTKURIER-2024-6-04.pdf]
Links: Issue 6 2024
Keywords: social history; small towns; historical anthropology; Civil War; officers; former people; Soviet society