The issue of anti-Soviet manifestations in Kabardino-Balkaria during the Great Patriotic War in domestic and foreign historiography

The paper considers the issue of anti-Soviet manifestations in the North Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War as a vector for assessing the political situation in national autonomies developed in the academic space to describe the political situation in national autonomies. It is argued that ethnic coloring in “mass betrayal” theses is influenced by primary sources and facts – wartime documents and their data. The authors emphasize complexity of the research discourse transition from the categories of “mass anti-Soviet actions” and “support for the Germans from villages, regions or peoples”, and calculation of the “unacceptable” level of ethnic collaborationism and banditry to the conceptualization of the anti-Soviet underground issue through attempts to qualify the composition of political crimes. The paper turns to the analysis of state’s reaction and decisions in the context of the political situation in national autonomies. Taking into account not only theoretical aspects, but also the practical results of Germany's policy aimed at unleashing the anti-Soviet struggle in the North Caucasus proves valuable. The main conclusion of the study is that against the backdrop of post-Soviet methodological pluralism and the revival of heroic concept, it is relevant not so much to avoid inconvenient issues as to substantiate the scientific inconsistency of the “mass betrayal” theses addressed to the North Caucasus national autonomies.

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