Presentation of Vladimir Gelfand’s Book Diary 1941–1946

Wartime diaries are a unique phenomenon. The diary of Sergeant, and later Lieutenant, Vladimir Gelfand is doubly unique in its chronology, geography, scope and candor. The first entries date from May 1941; the last from October 1946, when the author returned home from Germany.

V. N. Gelfand reached the front during the Red Army’s severe defeats in the summer of 1942 and the panicked retreat after the Kharkov disaster. He took part in the Battle of Stalingrad, helped liberate Ukraine and Poland, and finished the war in Germany. A private serving as a mortar man and later the commander of a mortar platoon, he tried to write every day and under all conditions, even in a trench under fire.

The diary contains unvarnished information about everyday life in wartime, and about customs and conditions both behind the lines and at the front. At the same time, it is a kind of Bildungsroman: the story of a naive idealist growing up, of a boy becoming a man.

Of particular interest are the author’s entries from his service in Germany in 1945–1946: his impressions of German culture, everyday life and customs, and of his relationships with German women. The German part of the diary was published in German and Swedish translation. But Vladimir Gelfand’s diary is now being published in full, without omissions or abridgements, for the first time. The publication is accompanied by photographs, most of them taken by the diarist himself during his service in Germany.

The book will be presented by Vladimir Gelfand’s son, Vitaly Vladimirovich Gelfand, and by Oleg Vitalyevich Budnitsky, Doctor of Historical Sciences and professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.