Daily Existence of Karl Marx Smolensk State Pedagogical Institute during the Great Patriotic War (According to Contemporary Recollections)
Authors: Konstantin Kupchenko , Natalia Nikitina 
Published: December 2020

issues of the daily life of educational establishments in the Western regions of the Soviet Union which were attacked and occupied in the early period of the Great Patriotic War have been touched upon in this article. The essence of historical science of war is that the paradigm is confined to the study of military operations and battles being the subject of numerous studies, scientific events, documentary chronicles. Many social history moments of wars have undeserved on the fringes of the scientific field of studying these problems. The history of everyday life has recently become a current historical research direction in the national historical science, allowing to reconstruct many events often unfairly unreported in scientific research and left in archival material or memoirs of the their direct participants. The relevance of the project stems from the very limited knowledge of the problem which has not been reflected either in the specialized studies or in the comprehensive studies of history of Smolensk Pedagogical Institute and the region in whole. The main task of the present study is to identify previously inaccessible information on the employees and students of Smolensk Pedagogical Institute who took part directly in the events described, introduction of new historical sources of science, especially personal sources. The work is based on strict adherence to the principle of historism. The article uses the most scientific and productive methodological guidelines of modern historical research directions. The main approach is historical-anthropological. The integrated approach of the study involves the following methods: historical description, historical analysis, comparative history, microhistory. The whole complex of archival heuristics tools is used in the work with the documents. In view of the lack of special works, the individual archives on the topic of the study were based on the materials identified in personal collections, common archives, relating to the military period of the region, memoirs and recollections of witnesses and direct participants in the events described in the proceedings. The study shows that since the first days of the war the staff and students of the Institute were involved in general activities aimed at organization of defense, at the opposition to the enemy, at evacuattion: to ensure the security of buildings and property, to attract to economic, defensive activities, assisting fighter squads. The authors note that at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the main activities directed to mobilization, defense and evacuation measures in Smolensk Pedagogical Institute were assigned to the Department of Military Training as the most prepared for work in extreme conditions. It has been shown in the article that in July 1941 due to the occupation of the city Smolensk Pedagogical Institute ceased to function as a teaching unit and it resumed its activity only after the liberation of the region in autumn 1943.