An interesting analysis of the book by Nikolai Nikulin "Memories of the War" was released at "Digital History". If anyone remembers, this is where the whole book is about dirt, blood, sex, guts, moronic bosses, tyrants and idiots in military uniforms and this book is how our domestic liberals of all stripes loved to trump with this book.

This is the second version of the analysis, and it seems to me that it came out deeper. Artem Drabkin disassembled the essence of the text in tandem with Yegor Yakovlev, practically without raids on the late author. Basically, they tried to figure out WHY Nikulin wrote this way and not otherwise, and why he dragged so many third-party tales into the text, passing them off as the opinions of his colleagues or just random military acquaintances.

This time, Artyom chose a very true trick - he entered the names mentioned in the "Feat of the People" database, was not too lazy and found reviews about these commanders from other non-boss authors. The comparison is impressive, yes. And yes, it is also significant that the literate and highly educated Nikulin calls his ordinary colleagues "Ivans" in the book.

I also remember well my feelings from this book, I read it 12 years ago - somewhere in 2011. And when I came across in the text about the story about visiting the unit by Marshal Zhukov, I was dumbfounded by the "trench truth from the Hermitage Nikulin" (c). Who remembers, there the troops cleared the way for Zhukov's "jeep" to drive fast. And his type was overtaken by some naive driver in a truck, who quickly carried shells to his unit, since they were already running out on the front line - and therefore did not obey the signals of the traffic controllers. According to Nikulin, the petty tyrant Zhukov indignantly commanded his retinue: "Turn around, catch up, then beat the piss out of him and leave him in a ditch somewhere." And there's a lot of that.