Historiography of the war: Krivosheev's changing view

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Der Alte Fritz
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Historiography of the war: Krivosheev's changing view

#1

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 28 Nov 2022, 00:10

Recengtly I have been mapping the changes in historiography of the war, specifically the canon of Soviet operations as they have developed over the years.
I wanted to see if Krivosheev changed his methodology in line with the canon as it began to grow after 2000.

This is what I have so far:
  • 1) Krivosheev, G.F. Grif Skretnosti Sniat: Poteri Vooruzhennykh Sil Sssr v Voinakh, Boevykh Deistviiakh I Voennykh Konflikakh [The Secret Classification Removed: The Losses of the Armed Forces of Ussr in Wars, Military Actions and Military Conflicts]. 1st ed. Moskva: Voenizdat, 1993. http://prussia.online/books/grif-sekretnosti-snyat.
  • 2) Krivosheev, G.F. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century. London: Greenhill Books, 1997.(got book)
  • 4) Krivosheev, G.F. Rossii͡a i SSSR v voĭnakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil [Russia and USSR in wars of twentieth century: statistical study]. 2nd ed. Moscow: OLMA-Press, 2005.
  • 7) Krivosheev, G.F. Rossii͡a i SSSR v voĭnakh XX veka. Kniga poterʹ [Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. The Book of Losses]. 2010th ed. Moskva: Veche, 2010.
  • 8) Krivosheev, G.F. Velikai͡a Orechestvennai͡a Bez Rpifa Sekretnosti. Kvira Poterʹ. [The Great Patriotic War Without a Stamp of Secrecy. Book of Losses]. Moskva: Veche, 2014.
  • 9) Krivosheev, G.F. Velikai͡a Orechestvennai͡a Bez Rpifa Sekretnosti. Kvira Poterʹ. [The Great Patriotic War Without a Stamp of Secrecy. Book of Losses]. Moskva: Veche, 2020.
I have the editions (except for 2005) up to 2010 but wondered if anyone had editions after this date. If so, please could you tell me how many strategic operations does he list (it is 50 up to 2010) and how many operations are included in a table (highest nmumber to date in Table 35 p.178 of 2010 edition is 73 operations.)
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Re: Historiography of the war: Krivosheev's changing view

#2

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 29 Nov 2022, 23:00

Krivosheev states that there are:
  • 50 strategic operations
  • 250 front level operations (by which he means part of strategic levle operations)
  • 1000 army level operations (by which he means local small scale operations at army level)
The 1st edition and 1997 English edition Table 75 p.107 lists 43 Front operations (ie. sub-sections of unlisted strategic operations)
The 2009 & 2010 editions list 73 Front operations
A comparison of these lists shows that they are not the same and there are an additional 5 operations which appear in 1997 and not in 2010.
So Krivosteev has listed 78 operations in total.

Are these operations listed anywhere else?
V. I Fesʹkov, K. A Kalashnikov, and V. I Golikov, Krasnai͡a Armii͡a v pobedakh i porazhenii͡akh, 1941-1945 gg. [The Red Army in the Victories and Defeats of 1941–1945] (Томск: Tomskiĭ gos. universitet, 2003), http://militera.lib.ru/h/feskov_vi01/index.html.
lists only 31 operations out of the total of 78

It would be great to get some other editions of Krivosheev to see if he adds any additional operations in other editions
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Re: Historiography of the war: Krivosheev's changing view

#3

Post by Art » 30 Nov 2022, 12:51

Der Alte Fritz wrote: ↑
29 Nov 2022, 23:00
 Krivosheev states that there are:
  • 50 strategic operations
  • 250 front level operations (by which he means part of strategic levle operations)
  • 1000 army level operations (by which he means local small scale operations at army level)
Not exactly. It's said that a part of the front and army operation belonged to the framework of strategic operations and a part were independent operation.

"Grif sekretnosti snyat" (1993) lists casualties in 'selected" 43 front-level operations. I guess, "selected" implies that this list wasn't supposed to be complete.

Beginning from the edition of 2001 and on the text gives casualties in 73 independent front-level operations, which were not part of strategic operations listed earlier. Accordingly some operations disappeared compared with the 1993 lists. For example Yelnya operation as a part of the Smolensk defensive operation, Zhitomir-Berdichev operation as a part of the Dnieper-Carpathian offensive operation etc.

I believe, pre-1990s list of large (strategic of front-level) operations can be found in the Soviet military encyclopedia or some other official sources.
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Re: Historiography of the war: Krivosheev's changing view

#4

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 08 Dec 2022, 19:03

Your are correct. The Krivosheev 1992 (50 strategic operations and 43 'selected' operations) and the 2001 (51 strategic operations and 73 'selected' operations) lists combined give an additional 5 operations which are not listed in both the 43 and 73 lists. What is not clear is these are part of strategic operations or if they are indepedent front operations. Their size would seem to rule them out being army operations.

He is drawing this from:
1) S.Z. Golikov, Выдающиеся победы Советской Армии в Великой Отечественной войне [Outstanding Victories of the Soviet Army in the Great Patriotic War. Second revised and enlarged edition], 1954, http://prussia.online/books/vidaushchie ... nnoy-voyne.

2) Pavel Andreevich Zhilin, Vazhneĭshie operat︠s︡ii Velikoĭ Otechestvennoĭ voĭny 1941-1945 gg.: sbornik stateĭ. [Important operations of the great Patriotic War 1941-1945: Collection of articles] (Moskva: Voen. izd-vo, 1956), http://prussia.online/books/vazhneyshie ... 41-1945-gg.

3) S.P. Planonov, Operat͡sii Sovetskikh Vooruzhennykh sil v Velikoĭ Otechestvennoĭ voĭne 1941-1945 gg. (Voenno-istoricheskiĭ ocherk): V 4 tomakh [Operations of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. (Military history sketch): In 4 volumes.], 4 vols (Moskva: Voenizdat, 1958), http://prussia.online/books/operatsii-s ... so-shemami.
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Re: Historiography of the war: Krivosheev's changing view

#5

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 08 Dec 2022, 19:06

However I keep coming across operations that are not listed in Krivosheev or Fes'kov lists.

For instance
http://www.tankfront.ru/ussr/mk/gvmk04.html 4 GUards Mech Corps history lists the Bulgarian operation [05.09.1944 - 09.09.1944] which we find in Wikipedia https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91% ... 0%B8%D1%8F
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