The Revived from Oblivion: Struggling for Historical Memory of the 110th Kalmyk Cavalry Division. Part 1

Introduction. The article analyzes historiography and history of the 110th Kalmyk Cavalry Division, the only ethnic Kalmyk (largely) military unit that was engaged in active combat operations during the Great Patriotic War. However, despite its huge contribution to the heroic struggle against invading troops the unit — worthy of decent memory and respect — got surrounded with defamatory myths that bear no relation to actual events. Since most of the Division’s documents submitted to archives had disappeared, it took several decades to objectively examine its history. Materials and methods. The historical genetic method being a principal one for the present research, the latter also employs historical systemic and comparative methods. The sources analyzed are books and articles, official documents and correspondence from various archival repositories, personal messages and memoirs by veterans of the 110th Kalmyk Cavalry Division and researchers of its history. Results. The article is a consistent review of the unit’s historiography that may be divided into five stages to be designated as follows: 1) period of silence and lies (1943–1957), 2) period of ‘sporadic’ studies (1957–1967), 3) period of active scientific work (1967–1977), 4) period of indifference (1977–2011), and 5) period of new scholarly interest (2011 to the present). The Kalmyk Cavalry Division has long been an object of defamatory insinuations and calumny when it was accused of ‘unreliability’, denounced as a ‘gang’ or even as German collaborators — these had clearly political implications. Meanwhile, the historical research was seriously complicated by the loss of most of its documents although after the disbandment those were duly handed over according to inventory lists along with the banners. This severely obstructed the process of preserving historical memory of the only ethnic Kalmyk unit that fought against the enemy during the Great Patriotic War. Hence, the difficulties that scholars in the field have had to overcome were immense. Part One of the article covers stages one to three. Conclusions. Historiography of the 110th Kalmyk Cavalry Division may be described as a difficult and winding path, with periods of both oblivion and activation experienced.