Memories of Tafkil Bikchantaev

The article presents the memoirs of Tafkil Bikchantaev, who took part in the Great Patriotic War in 1943–1944. His memoirs were recorded at a much later date in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Victory and were directed to schoolchildren. Therefore, T. Bikchantaev is not carried away by details, emotions, on the contrary, he covers only the moments of the war that he considers the most important. The text is well-structured: in the introductory part, the front-line soldier recalls the value of Victory in the Great War, the contribution of the Tatar people to the Victory. This part is written in slogan language. Then the war veteran recalls how he was drafted into the army, was in the Suslonger training camp, about the famine, about participa-tion in battles on the second Baltic front and about his injury. In this part of the narra-tive, long-remembered events are mentioned that deeply touched the author of the memoirs. In general, the recording of memoirs tells how a simple Tatar village guy saw the war, and how he perceived it.