Operation Vertyachiy of the Red Army in the national memorial literature and archival documents

This research is devoted to the study of a major historical event during the Great Patriotic War, the description of which in the historical literature and archival documents is contradictory and problematic - this is the offensive of the 24 army of the Don Front in the direction of the Vertyachy Khutor, carried out from 22 to 30 November 1942. This offensive was part of a larger-scale operation “Uranus” -a counter-offensive by the Red Army troops to encircle the German fascist forces at Stalingrad. The purpose of the research is to analyze the materials talking about the offensive of the troops of the 24th army in the direction of the Vertyachy Khutor, to identify problematic aspects in the description of the events of this operation and to outline promising areas of their study. In the course of realizing this goal, a set of tasks was solved: a comparative historical analysis of the content of memoir literature and archival documents, which dealt with the events of the attack on the Vertyachy Khutor, was carried out. The main sources of the research: firstly, the numerous memoir literature, in which the events of the Vertyachy operation are considered to one degree or another: the memoirs of the commander of the Don Front, Marshal of the Soviet Union K.K. Rokossovsky “Soldier’s duty”, memoirs of the depu ty commander of the 24th army, General A.V. Gorbatov “Years and Wars”, memoirs of the commander of the 109th tank brigade of the 16th tank corps V.S. Arkhipov “Time of tank attacks”, memoirs of the commander of the 214th rifle division, General N.I. Biryukov “On the lines of fire: the 214th Kremenchug-Alexandria Rifle Division”, “In campaigns and battles” of the former commander of the 65th Army, General P.I. Batov; secondly, documents of the Red Army formations, units and subdivisions posted on the Internet portal “Memory of the People” (URL: https://pamyat-naroda.ru/), namely, operational reports, combat orders, combat reports, combat logs, directives and instructions, reconnaissance bulletins and reports, plans of operations, maps, diagrams, information from units and subunits of the 24th Army and other units, and formations of the Don Front. As a result of the following research, the number of problematic aspects was identified in historical description of the events of this operation. Many of these aspects cannot be resolved without open access to a wider list of data on the events of the Second World War.

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