PublishedHelion & Company, June 2023 |
ISBN9781804512432 |
FormatSoftcover, 488 pages |
Dimensions23.9cm × 26.4cm |
The Battle of Kursk, despite the seven decades that have passed since the event, continues to attract great attention even today. The combat operations, which unfolded in the summer of 1943 in the center of the Eastern Front, by their scale, the forces drawn into them, and their military-political results, were a pivotal stage not only in the struggle of the Soviet people with the Nazi aggressors, but also in the Second World War as a whole.
However, since the war, despite the enormous attention given to the fighting near Kursk, not a single book has been published, in which the photographs of Soviet war correspondents, taken directly on the battlefield, have been gathered, organized and presented for a broad audience of readers. This new photo study is unique - it consists of more than 500 photographs which capture images of the fighting, accompanied by expert commentary on them. It contains a collection of the best and at the same time little-known work of the leading Soviet war correspondents that covered the Battle of Kursk: V. Kinelovsky, P. Troshkin, F. Kislov, G. San'ko, E. Kopyt, I. Ozersky, O. Knorring and other outstanding photo journalists. The book also contains the work of a participant in those events, Lieutenant Colonel P. Gapochki, who was an adjutant to Lieutenant General N.S. Khrushchev, a member of the Voronezh Front's Military Council. Through his duties, Gapochki managed to leave behind his personal impressions of the important and very difficult work of the top command echelon of an operating army, which to this point have been classified. Although Soviet photographs comprise the bulk of the book, it also includes a significant number of captured German photographs, as well as aerial reconnaissance photographs taken in the spring and summer of 1943. This gives a more objective image of those historical events. All of this invaluable material was found in the archives of eight Russian and foreign archives and museums, as well as in the family collections of veterans. This photo album will be of great interest to many readers with its rare and unique photographs, which have captured instances of the immortal heroism and valour, demonstrated by the soldiers and officers of the Red Army in one of the most significant battles of the preceding century. In the same way Valeriy Zamulin's book Demolishing the Myth broke new ground for an English-speaking audience, this photograph album should also open readers' eyes to a swathe of new Kursk material, much of it hitherto inaccessible. AUTHORS: Valeriy Nikolaevich Zamulin, a PhD candidate, is a leading Russian scholar of the Battle of Kursk. Since 1996, he has been working intensively in the most important Russian and foreign archival institutes, including the Central Archive of Russia's Ministry of Defense and in the US National Archive, in order to gather and analyze documentary sources on the events in the Kursk bulge in the summer of 1943. In 2002, he was the first to describe the course of the famous Prokhorovka tank clash on a documentary basis, to publish previously unknown figures on the Red Army's armor losses in the tank battle of 12 July 1943, and to give his assessment of the results, which differed from that previously accepted in Russia. He is the author of more than 60 scholarly works, including six books, in both the Russian and English languages, which have attracted great interest among scholars and history buffs. His most well-known work is Demolishing the Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943: An Operational Narrative (Helion, 2011). The results of V.N. Zamulin s scholarly work are broadly used by military-historical authors, professors of state universities and Russia s military museums. Several documentary films and television programs have been made with his participation. In 2010-2011, he was the academic consultant during the creation of the new military history museum in the legendary village of Ponyri, which in the Battle of Kursk was the epicenter of the most savage and bloody fighting. At present, Zamulin is a member of the faculty of Kursk State University. Stuart Britton is a freelance translator who resides in Cedar Rapids, IA. He is responsible for a growing number of translated Russian military memoirs, battle histories and operational studies, which saw an explosion in Russia with the opening of secret military archives and the emergence of new Russian scholars who take a more objective look at the events and historical figures. Two works that received prizes or prominent acclaim were Valeriy Zamulin's Demolishing a Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk 1943 and Lev Lopukhovsky's The Viaz'ma Catastrophe, 1941: The Red Army's Disastrous Stand Against Operation Typhoon. Notable recent translations include Valeriy Zamulin's The Battle of Kursk: Controversial and Neglected Aspects and Igor Sdvizhkov's Confronting Case Blue: Briansk Front's Attempt to Derail the German Drive to the Caucasus, July 1942. Future translated publications include Nikolai Ovcharenko's analysis of the defense, occupation and liberation of Odessa, 1941-1944, and Zamulin's detailed study of 7th Guards Army's role and performance in the Battle of Kursk against Army Detachment Kempf. 575 b/w photos, 8 colour maps
