Journalist and writer Vasily Sarychev has been writing down the memoirs of old-timers for fifteen years, fixing the history of the western region of Belarus through their destinies. His new story, written specifically for TUT.BY, is dedicated to Soviet women, which in 1941 Soviet authority left to chance. During the occupation, they were forced to survive, including with the help of the Germans.
Vasily Sarychev is working on a series of books "In Search of Lost Time". As the author notes, this is “the history of Europe in the mirror of a Western Belarusian city, which was told by old people who survived six authorities” ( Russian empire, German occupation during the First World War, the period when Western Belarus was part of Poland, Soviet power, German occupation during World War II and again Soviet power).
Fundraising for the publication of a new book by Sarychev from the series “In Search of Lost Time” ends on the crowdfunding platform “Beehive”. On the page of this project, you can get acquainted with the content, study the list of gifts and participate in the publication of the book. Participants will receive a book as a gift for the New Year holidays.
TUT.BY has already published Vasily about the incredible fate common man, caught in the millstones of big politics, "polite people" from 1939 and about escaping naked from prison. New story dedicated to wives Soviet commanders.
When Western Belarus was annexed to the USSR, they came to our country as winners. But then, when their husbands retreated to the east with the active army, no one needed them. How did they survive under the new government?
I'm on you like in a war. Abandoned
“Let your Stalin feed you!”
Many years ago, in the sixties, there was an incident at the checkpoint of a Brest factory. The enterprise is more female, after the change of workers, an avalanche hurried home, and conflicts occurred in the crush. They did not look at faces: whether it was an editorial or a deputy, they applied it with proletarian frankness.
At the turnstile, as in a bath, everyone is equal, and the wife of the commander from Brest Fortress, who headed the factory trade union - not yet old, twenty years had not passed since the war, survived the occupation - pushed on a common basis. Maybe she hit someone - with her elbow or during distribution - and the young weaver, who heard from her friends such things that they don’t write about in the newspapers, whipped backhand: “German prostitute!” - and she grabbed her breasts and croaked: “If you have small children ...”
So in one phrase - the whole truth about the war, with many shades, from which we were carefully taken away.
In conversations with people who survived the occupation, at first I could not understand when they made the remark “this is already after the war” and began to talk about the Germans. For the inhabitant of Brest, hostilities flashed in one morning, and then another power, three and a half years of deep German rear. Different categories of citizens - locals, Easterners, Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, party workers who got out from behind the wire of prisoners, commander's wives, soltyses, policemen - each had their own war. Some survived the misfortune at home, where neighbors, relatives, where the walls help. It was very bad for those whom hard times caught in a foreign land.
Before the war, they arrived in the "liberated" western region as mistresses - yesterday's girls from the Russian outback, who pulled out a lucky ticket ( we are talking about the events of 1939, when Western Belarus was annexed to the USSR. - TUT.BY). To marry a lieutenant from a stationed regiment meant to take off in status. And here - " liberation campaign"and in general a different world, where people raise the brim of their hats when they meet and turn to "pan", where in the store without an appointment there are bicycles with wonderfully curved handlebars, and private traders smoke a dozen varieties of sausages, and for a penny you can take at least five cuts on a dress ... And that's all these people look at them with their husband with apprehension - they look right ...
Nina Vasilievna Petruchik - by the way, the cousin of Fyodor Maslievich, whose fate is already in the chapter “ Polite people 1939,” she recalled that autumn in the town of Volchin: “The wives of the commanders were in boots, floral print dresses, black velvet jackets and huge white scarves. At the market, they began to buy embroidered nightgowns and, out of ignorance, put them on instead of dresses ... "
Maybe the weather was like this - I'm talking about boots, but they are met by clothes. This is how an eleven-year-old girl saw them: very poor people came. People, chuckling, sold nightgowns, but laughter with laughter, and the newcomers became the masters of life in a year and a half before the war.
But life calculates for random happiness. It was these women, perceived with hostility, with children in their arms, with the outbreak of war, who were left alone in an alien world. From a privileged caste they suddenly turned into pariahs, thrown out of the queues with the words: “Let your Stalin feed you!”.
It was not so with everyone, but it was, and it is not for us now to judge the ways of survival that young women chose. The easiest thing was to find a guardian who would warm and feed the children, and protect them somewhere.
“Limousines with German officers drove up to the building and took away young women, the inhabitants of this house”
Photo is illustrative Vasily Prokopuk, a boy from the time of the occupation, who was snooping around the city with his friends, recalled that on the former Moskovskaya (we are talking about one of the Brest streets. - TUT.BY) one could see young women with soldiers walking in the direction of the fortress. The narrator is convinced that it was not local girls who “spasted” under the arm, for whom it is more difficult to accept such courtship: there were parents, neighbors, in whose eyes the church grew, finally. Maybe polkas are more relaxed? - “What are you, the Poles have ambition! my respondents answered. “There was a case, a panenka was seen flirting with an occupier - the priest screwed this into his sermon ...”
"The war is walking around Russia, and we are so young ..." - three and a half years is a long time in a short Indian century. But this was not the main motive - the children, their eternally hungry eyes. The troubled boys did not delve into the subtleties, they muttered contemptuously about women from the former houses of the officers: “They found themselves ...”
“In the center of the courtyard,” writes the author, “there was a rather exotic wing in which lived a German major, our present chief, along with a beautiful young woman and her little child. We soon learned that this ex-wife Soviet officer, left to the mercy of fate in the tragic days of the Red Army in June 1941. In the corner of the barracks yard stood a three-story brick building inhabited by abandoned families. Soviet officers. In the evenings, limousines drove up to the building with German officers and they took away young women, the inhabitants of this house.
The situation allowed options. For example, weren't the commander's wives forcibly taken away? According to Ivan Petrovich, “it was a small barracks, converted into a residential building, with several apartments per floor. Young women lived here, mostly with small children. It is possible that even before the war it was the house of the command staff, where the families found the war: I did not see guards or any signs of forced detention.
More than once or twice, I witnessed how the Germans drove up here in the evening: our camp was across the parade ground from this house. Sometimes they dropped in on the commandant, other times straight. It was not a trip to a brothel - they were going to the ladies. They knew about the visit, smiled like good friends. Usually the Germans came in the evening, went upstairs, or the women themselves went out dressed up, and the cavaliers took them away, one might assume, to a theater or a restaurant. I didn’t have to catch the return, with whom the children were, I can’t know. But everyone in the camp knew that these were the wives of the commanders. They understood that for women it was a means of survival.”
Here's how it turned out. AT last days before the war, commanders and party workers who wanted to take their families out of the city were accused of alarmism and expelled from the party - and now women have been left for the use of Wehrmacht officers.
The son's name was Albert, the Germans came - he became Adolf
Photo is illustrative It would be wrong to say that the women left behind were looking for such support, it was just one of the ways to survive. Unpopular, stepping over the line, beyond which - gossip and piercing glances.
Women who came to Western Belarus from the east often lived in twos, threes, it was easier to survive. They went to distant (they didn’t give them to the neighbors) villages, but you can’t live on alms alone, they settled down to wash wagons, barracks, and soldiers’ dormitories. Once a German gave a large postcard to the wife of a political worker from the artillery regiment, and she hung it on the wall to decorate the room. Many years have passed since the war, and the baboons remembered the picture - they vigilantly looked at each other during the war.
The wife of the battalion commander of the rifle regiment, who had been stationed in the fortress before the war, at the beginning of the occupation copied her little son from Albert to Adolf, she came up with such a move, and after liberation she again made Albert. Other widows moved away from her, turned away, but for the mother this was not the main thing.
Someone will be closer to her truth, someone to the heroic Vera Khoruzhey, who insisted on going to the occupied Vitebsk at the head of an underground group, leaving a baby and a little daughter in Moscow.
Life is multifaceted, and those who survived the occupation remembered different things. And a romantic-minded person who left the terrible building of the SD was clearly not after torture, and the German’s love for a Jewish girl, whom he hid to the last and went to a penal company for her, and a city plantation worker who hastily appeased a Wehrmacht soldier nearby in the park, until she shot by a client who caught a bad disease. In each case, it was different: where is the food, where is the physiology, and somewhere - a feeling, love.
Outside of service, the Germans became gallant wealthy males. Bright in her youth, the beauty N. said: at least don’t go beyond the threshold - they stuck like ticks.
Statistics will not answer how many red-haired babies were born during the war and after the expulsion of the Germans from the temporarily occupied territory, as well as with the Slavic appearance in Germany at the beginning of the 46th ... This is a delicate topic to take deeply, and we went somewhere then to the side...
Maybe in vain in general about commander's wives - there were enough restless women of all statuses and categories, and they all behaved differently. Someone tried to hide their beauty, while someone, on the contrary, turned it to good. The wife of the commander of the reconnaissance battalion Anastasia Kudinova, older, shared shelter with young partners who also lost their husbands in the fortress. All three with children - such a kindergarten-day nursery. As soon as the Germans appeared, she smeared her friends with soot and kept her away from the window. I was not afraid for myself, my friends joked, our old maid ... They pulled their mother's strap and survived without the enemy's shoulder, then they joined the fight.
They were not alone, many remained faithful, waiting for their husbands throughout the war and later. However, the opposition - arrived, local - is not entirely true. Everywhere there are cultured and not very cultured people, with principles and creeping, pure and vicious. And there are depths in any person where it is better not to look, the nature of all sorts of things mixed up, and what will manifest itself with greater force depends largely on the circumstances. It so happened that since June 22, 1941, the most destitute, stunned by these circumstances, were the “easterners”.
Another would not be missed - the reason. How did it happen that you had to flee to Smolensk and further, leaving weapons, warehouses, the entire army of personnel, and in the border areas - also wives to the delight of Wehrmacht officers?
Then there was a noble rage, the science of hatred in a journalistic performance and a real one, which increased tenfold strength in battle. This hatred helped to carry out combat missions, but in a surprising way it was not shifted to the direct culprits of many sufferings.
about
Here it is, female happiness ...
Registration number 0089599 issued for the work:
A young, beautiful, young wife of an officer, she had just graduated from the Pedagogical Institute, I was barely twenty-two years old. We came to the border, to my husband's unit. Around the forest, nature is generous and beautiful, "the air is clean and fresh, like a kiss of a child," but the wilderness is terrible! I’ll go to teach at the garrison school, I’ll definitely find a place for myself, otherwise I’ll die of longing! My husband is a rather nice, kind and reliable person. Several soft-bodied, girlfriends called him "mattress", but I wanted to spit on their characteristics - I will live my life behind him, like behind a stone wall. You look, he will also become a general!
The first day in the garrison began stormily and well. We were received warmly and cordially. As I remember now: preparations are underway for the holiday, and we, having thrown our things into the room allotted to us in the officer's house, are happy to join in the fun commotion. Among the new comrades there is one young officer, he immediately catches the eye: young, but already weighed down by life experience, tall, handsome brunette with breathtaking blue eyes. Rare combination! He also looks at me furtively, but very often, I stumble upon his eyes all the time. In huge aquamarine eyes - admiration and poorly hidden passion. We don't say a word to each other, he laughs a lot, tells jokes and seems agitated for no reason.
I am suddenly seized with an incomprehensible excitement. Finally, everyone sits down at the table, there are a lot of people, it's fun. A strange married couple is present at the celebration: a highly experienced general and his flirtatious young wife, who frivolously shoots her eyes, as if in a shooting range, at all the abundance of local young officers. Looks like I'm tired of my gray-haired husband! They are guests of honor. Zd about right! Music, youth! Maybe it's not as boring here as I thought? "All the same, I'll try the position of a teacher!" - vouched for herself.
Dances begin, and my husband is suddenly invited by a young general's wife. Why, out of all the variety of young interesting men, she chose him, it still remains a mystery. The brunette officer immediately comes up to me and silently drops his head on his chest. Modestly lowering my eyes, I go with him, and the heart begins to dance the Charleston. We are having this conversation.
HE: "Maybe let's go straight to" you "?"
I (coquettishly): "Yes, we didn't seem to drink brotherhood..."
HE (smiling): "The hint is clear."
We are very close, his hot hand trembling slightly on my waist.
HE: "Let's meet! Can you come when your husband is asleep? I'll wait at least until morning at the very place where the two rivers meet."
I know a place with that name. It was shown to me and my husband as the only garrison attraction.
I: "Good! - I remember myself. - However, no! Why do I have to run at your first call?"
HE: "You see, life is fleeting. You can't waste time on all sorts of nonsense if you are convinced of the correctness of the decision, as I am now!"
There is a hint of a dangerous service in his words, and I feel that he does not draw at all, he simply explains the reason for his intemperance.
I: "For such frivolity, very good reasons are needed, agree!"
HE: "Yes, of course! I really liked you, moreover, I'm in love with you, in love to hell ... I immediately understood, as soon as I saw you! Do you think that love at first sight is a good enough reason?"
Me: "I don't know... For an experienced heartthrob like you, a new officer's wife is a tasty morsel... for one night. I don't want that!"
HE: "A very bad hint, Katyusha, but perhaps fair. Still, believe me, believe at your own peril and risk, I have something to compare with! Your face, and smile, and the slight tenderness of words ... Everything is in you "life, it's hard for me to explain... "Tidbit" - it's not about you, rather, about the general's wife. And you are the only woman I need, behind your eyelashes is a mystery! But for now I can only offer a date against the backdrop of a raging water, while only night under the stars. The day will come, and I will conquer you, turn your head, take you away from your husband! You are mine and no one else, and you will not stay with this good guy, just know it!"
Me (trembling): "You're romantic..."
HE: "In relation to you - yes ... So you will come?"
His whisper is trembling, his breath is hot. The officer's mouth almost touches my ear, causing it to ignite and become purple and hot. I can hardly restrain myself so as not to wrap my arms around his neck and press my puffy, Marilyn Monroe-like lips against the harsh, hard line of the handsome man's lips.
All evening the officer does not take his eyes off me, does not dance with anyone else, watching me clumsily waltz with my tipsy husband. Before leaving quietly whispers: "I'm waiting for you, Katyusha!" I know his name - Yuri Petrov, and he is single. However, I don’t care, even if it’s one night, but mine, and there, at least twenty years of longing - everything is one! A tickling excitement takes over my being, I'm shaking like I'm in a fever. There is no doubt - in love! I thought I would never lose my head! That's hot!
My husband and I come home and he begins to awkwardly harass me. The husband is pretty drunk, breathing live vodka in his face. I weakly return his caresses, trying not to arouse suspicion, but he falls asleep right on top of me without doing anything. I carefully roll the softened guy onto my back, wait another ten minutes. I leave the house, I’m wearing a summer dress, a blouse on top, my hair is loose and disheveled from a light breeze, wet grass lashes my legs. I quickly run across the field to the river. Here it is, the very place where two streams meet, flowing in different sides but towards each other. The shaken water forms a turbulent funnel here, directly over which a bridge is built. Watching the whirlpool from above is both enticing and creepy.
The officer is waiting on the bridge, in his hands is a bottle of champagne (we didn’t drink at brotherhood) and a bouquet of wildflowers. I approach slowly, we look into each other's eyes, converge, and he hugs me. His strong beautiful hands are busy, but his whole body is striving to meet me ... No one has ever silently and eloquently let me know about his thirst, no one has ever seduced so fiercely and frankly! I melt, lose control of myself, and flowers and champagne fly into the depths of the waters; a man picks me up in his arms and carries me to the other side. There, in the haystack, under starry sky we spend the first night of love. Fly all to hell! His kisses are crazy, his dives are amazing, his hot confessions are mesmerizing! I rush about, as if in agony, whispering crazy words, laughing and crying at the same time... Let the morning never come!!!
I come home at dawn, shocked, tired, exhausted, and under the drunken snoring of my husband, I cry bitterly to the point of complete dumbness. I can’t believe: HE loved me, possessed me, I don’t want to believe: this will not happen again in my life !!! I fall asleep, sobbing ... The morning wakes up with sunlight and a knock on the door. My husband, groaning from drinking, goes to unlock it, but I don’t want to open my eyes, I don’t want to lose the last remnants of happiness.
"Katyusha, pack your things, I'm behind you!" - suddenly I hear a painfully native voice. He, Petrov Yuri! Beside myself, I jump up, muttering: "Yes, yes, yes!" With a groan, I throw myself on his neck.
“I decided not to wait for an opportunity, not to look for prudent solutions, not to lie! I don’t want you to live a day without me!” my lover exclaims and interrupts himself anxiously: “My girl, will you marry me?”
" Yes Yes Yes!" - I keep repeating like a clockwork. I collect things under the bewildered gaze of the one who yesterday was considered my husband. But I know who my real betrothed is!
Reprimand, condemnation, accusations of immorality, human gossip, Yuri and I endured and survived without staggering. The ex-husband began to drink with grief. Under New Year when my beloved returned from a business trip, he again took me to our place. We threw a bottle of champagne into the whirlpool, taking a sip. Carefully wrapping my hips in a sheepskin coat, Yuri took possession of me right on the bridge, and we conceived our boys, Volodya and Yaroslav. He said then: "How not to freeze these seething waters, so our love with you will never dry up, my Katyusha!" Yuri was again expelled from the unit to a closed garrison, lost in the deep taiga. By sending him, the regimental authorities hoped to reconcile me with my husband. But I knew who my real and only husband was!
She continued to live in the room of officer Petrov, teach at a local school (she achieved her goal) and burn with love. It's time to go on maternity leave, and we finally got permission to marry. The attempt to separate us, prevent "immorality" and "preserve the cell of society" failed miserably. Only when my navel climbed over my nose did the commanders understand: everything is serious with us! Yura was hastily returned from a long business trip, fearing that I would not give birth to a straw widow. They say that the same aforementioned general said the decisive word in our defense, he probably also barked in, risking marrying his young bird.
I had not seen Petrov for five months, and when he returned, I hardly recognized him. A thick scar cut through his native face, and his hair turned completely gray! But his hardened appearance did not become less beautiful. How I loved him then! Yuri said that he turned gray from longing for me and our child, but I did not believe him. Snow in her hair - it still didn’t go anywhere, but the scar ... I cried all night.
Soon we had twins, Vovka and Slavik. The event was solemnly celebrated by the whole unit. Even ex-husband forgave me and brought gifts for the boys.
Garrisons, far and near. Borders, northern and southern. Service and teaching. Children and friends-colleagues. This is our life in a nutshell. Sometimes it was not easy, but I do not regret a minute, not a second! Yuri and I still yearn for that beautiful place, the confluence of two rivers, it leads us through life ... A whirlpool where water boils and foams, a bridge and a haystack on the opposite bank ... A dream come true, a fairy tale in reality!
Our boys are completely different, like the two streams over which we conceived them. And yet, Vladimir and Yaroslav, although they are swimming in opposite directions, but towards each other. I believe that someday life will reconcile them. They have a complicated relationship different tempers and addictions, but the beginning is one - a bridge over stormy waters!
A few years later, a new entry appears in the diary: "We have not wandered around the garrisons for a long time, we settled in N in her husband's home country. The boys have become quite adults, they are looking for their own paths in life! And Yuri and I still love each other, we all also dream of breaking out there, to our place. Look at the whirlpool, remember yourself young and in love. Maybe then our young happiness will return again ... "
An ellipsis, a charming reticence, an illogical hope... There is not another word in the diary. Apparently, since then she had nothing to write. Everything is here, love and life.
Here it is, female happiness ...
The train flashed by with luminous windows, a long whistle of goodbye, and we were left alone with two suitcases at a dimly lit half-station. Rare lanterns, one-story wooden and brick houses with tightly closed shutters, the lights of high-rise buildings flickered in the distance ... After the regular thud of the wagon wheels, silence fell upon us.
Our independent life began.
We had nowhere to sleep. The compassionate duty officer of the hostel offered to stay in the "red corner", where a young married couple had already settled for the night. Probably, our confusion touched the heart of the unfamiliar lieutenant, because late at night, when the four of us gathered at a long meeting table covered with red staples and wondered what we should do, he knocked softly and, apologetically, handed us the key to his room. He and his friend went to sleep in the gym ...
My husband and I once studied in the same class, sat at the same desk, copied from each other, prompted in the lessons. How I did not want him to become a military man! .. Gold medal, excellent knowledge of natural sciences- the doors of all the universities of the city were open before him, but the family tradition (in his family all the men were officers) outweighed the scales.
When my research supervisor at the university found out that I was marrying a cadet, he urged me for a long time not to do stupid things. I studied well, received an increased scholarship, developed a promising topic that could become the basis for a dissertation. But youth and love do not care about the advice of elders, career and well-being. In addition, in self-denial, I imagined myself to be Princess Volkonskaya, going into exile to fetch her husband...
Our town was considered one of the best. Representative commissions were brought here, flying back in helicopters filled to overflowing with deficits from the military trade warehouses and modest gifts of the local nature.
Everything was in that prosperous, exemplary garrison and the cleanliness that the soldiers brought in the mornings instead of full-time janitors, and the pond, dug and cleaned by their own hands, and the flower beds, abundantly filled with water, while it did not reach the upper floors of the houses, and even a fountain with cascades. There was only the smallest thing - housing for officers.
Young girls like me besieged every day the instructor of the communal-operational unit in charge of resettlement, and she calmly shrugged her hands: “Wait” ...
But not everyone was waiting. Who turned out to be smarter and who had money, soon moved into apartments. The rest, who did not want to present expensive gifts and give bribes, or simply did not have the required amount, lived in the hostel for a long time, moving from room to room.
There, in a communal apartment, for the first time in my life I saw bedbugs. Neighborhood with blood-sucking insects was combined with the crying of a baby behind the wall, the rumble of stomping boots along a long corridor, the howling of a siren in the morning, calling officers to a drill, with the voice of a singer coming from someone's old tape recorder, or the strumming of a detuned guitar.
A year later, I was no longer surprised that at three in the morning someone suddenly needed salt or a piece of bread, or even just wanted to pour out their soul.
Those who had no problems with housing are unlikely to understand the depth of happiness of owning their own corner. One of my acquaintances, also an officer’s wife, who has spent a lot of time around the world, lived in private apartments for crazy pay, once admitted to me: “You know, when I get my apartment, I will kiss and stroke its walls ...”
We were almost the last to leave the hostel, the day before the New Year. And together with the new neighbors, they burned unnecessary trash, boxes and crates. We watched in silence as the flames licked dry cardboard, shooting out bedbugs, and it seemed to us that we were incinerating our recent past in smoldering firebrands. It was believed that this cleansing fire would forever carry away all our sorrows and hardships into the blackness of the night.
And then they returned to their empty apartment, where instead of a light bulb two bare wires hung lifelessly, and on rickety chairs with official numbers that replaced our table, they celebrated the holiday by candlelight.
It wasn't until three years later that we finally received a warrant for a separate apartment.
After work, having hastily eaten store cutlets, we went to repair our new home. They rejoiced, like children, at each painted window, the wall pasted over with wallpaper. And in rare breaks, we imagined how great it would be for us to live here. No one will wake you up in the morning with the sound of heels, no one will meet you at the door and hand over your two-month-old baby to sit. In the evening it will be possible to watch by yourself, without neighbors, a rented TV.
I don’t remember when the first well-knit box appeared in our house, but only then did they become our constant companions. Wooden and cardboard, large and small, neatly folded "just in case."
Surprising this state - temporality. It is difficult to grasp at what point it becomes dominant in your destiny, powerfully subordinates you to its laws, predetermines your desires and actions.
I was absolutely sure that even the most severe administrator would not resist my honors diploma, optimism and energy, and I would find a job for myself without much effort. It wasn't there! At first, everything really went wonderfully (a pleasant smile, a friendly tone), but as soon as I announced that I was the wife of an officer ... At first, it was even curious to observe the drastic change that was taking place with my employers. Where did their administrative enthusiasm, friendliness, sympathetic intonations go! The answer followed immediately and in a categorical form: there are no vacancies and are not expected in the near future.
I continued to knock on the thresholds of the institutions until the military family instructor patiently explained to me that there was a long and hopeless queue for every place in the town. And you have to get out yourself if you want to work. The only thing she could offer me at that moment. - the position of the administrator in the hotel. And yet I was lucky. Something touched the heart of the elderly editor of the local newspaper, and he accepted me as a correspondent for a month's probation, thus insuring himself against further obligations.
AT modern society interest has grown in the study of small groups acting as a social microenvironment that has a direct impact on the individual. small group is a kind of community in which certain social relations are realized, and which, at the same time, are mediated by joint activities. Consideration of such communities allows us to most fully reveal the picture of everyday life, to consider the life of an ordinary person.
One example of a closed community is one in which a person's behavior strategy is built in accordance with ideas about the people around him. These representations form knowledge about daily practices and their temporal distribution among the residents of the town during the day, work features, preferences and interests, values inherent in one or another category of people living here.
The limited space, "life in plain sight", close relationships in a military camp leads, on the one hand, to the cohesion of the inhabitants, and on the other, to the formation of separate communities in the military environment, for example, women's. AT Soviet times women, having the opportunity to make a career on an equal basis with men, to participate in public life, faced difficult choice between family priorities and their own needs for self-realization. The officer's wife, being a civilian, nevertheless, experienced all the "hardships and hardships military service”, which often expressed for her in the absence of opportunities for growth professionally and culturally, as well as general dissatisfaction with life. Since on the territory of the military camp the position of women as a whole initially depended on the attitude towards their husbands-officers, and within the residential part of the town, women formed a relatively independent community with their own hierarchy and organization of life. This determined the research interest of the authors in the study and analysis of this problem using the biographical method. The study was conducted in April-October 2011 (the sample consisted of 10 women from 45 to 84 years old) and made it possible to identify the features of the life stories of wives. No other male profession has such an impact on the position of women in society as the military profession. On the one hand, the very phrase "military wife" is just a definition marital status women, and more is said about the husband than about the woman herself.
But on the other hand, behind this definition there is a whole layer of specific ideas, the wife of a military man is an independent female status not only within the military community, but also civil. The definition of "officer's wife" is self-sufficient, enshrined in the language as an independent formula, and behind it is a whole layer of ideas related to a certain generalized image. In the course of the study, we covered a fairly large period of time, in connection with which one can notice certain changes that have occurred in the daily routine of military camps and in the minds of people. All respondents who participated in the study had an education and a profession, and during the survey there was such a tendency that predominantly all women had a pedagogical, medical or economic education. “It has always been interesting for me to observe the pattern “the work of the husband is the work of the wife”.
I even compiled some rough statistics. It turns out that more than 50% of officers' wives work as teachers, medical workers or cooks. Another 40% are housewives, trade workers, and only 10% are engaged in completely different things. Sometimes, it seems that God specially creates such couples for a strong union” (N.V., aged 51). The dating stories were quite similar. They took place at dance parties that were held in schools and institutes, as well as among friends.
So, for example, several respondents in their youth went to dances in military schools, and some, on the contrary, tell how in their educational institutions festive events were organized, to which young people from military schools were invited. Short and rare, due to barracks life, meetings of the cadet, as a rule, ended with a marriage proposal. Graduation at the school, golden shoulder straps, wedding and departure to the place of service. This is where the romance ended, and the harsh everyday life began. “Beyond the walls of the military camp there was a different life ... It was an army, the service may be inconspicuous, without shoulder straps and titles, but just as difficult, and maybe even harder, than that of her husband. Not everyone survived” (E.S., 47 y.). A military camp is related to a military unit as a women's space is to a man's. Women are mainly engaged in the organization of everyday life, and men are engaged in military service.
Women's and men's perceptions of the appropriateness of space occupied in the town are determined according to relatively different value systems. The identity of an officer's wife is initially formed through the awareness of self-affirmation, primarily through the achievements of her husband. The service hierarchy directly affects the relationship of their wives, defining the boundaries of communication between them. And this is clearly seen in the stories of the respondents themselves. The key moments in the life of an officer's wife are: early (most often) marriage, the birth of children (in the very first years of marriage), constant moving from one military camp to another, everyday overcoming of difficulties associated with the remoteness of towns from administrative centers, lack of work, therefore , in most cases a life-long profession of a housewife. Since, on average, the family of a serviceman moves 3-5 times during the service of an officer. For a civilian, moving is always an event, and a turning point in his personal destiny. For members of military families, this is a completely predictable and inevitable fact. Within the framework of the “common destiny”, a change of residence, on the one hand, is a common phenomenon, one might even say, “routine”.
"Life on suitcases", temporary housing, the absence of one's own "home" - all these topics make up an idea of the general fate of the military. At the same time, undoubtedly, the fact of changing the place of service of an officer is an event in the life of the whole family, but an event that does not go beyond the usual course of things. In general, moving does not entail a change in the living environment. There is a certain "knowledge" about the types of military camps, the hierarchy of its inhabitants, the conditions of relationships between people, the usual types of everyday practices that are formed in the process of living in a military camp. Therefore, the development of events is predicted in accordance with this knowledge. An important place in a woman's life is how she distributes time during the day. A military wife lives the life of her husband: her daily routine is entirely focused on the departure / arrival of her husband.
In his absence, she takes care of household chores; violations in a clear schedule are always associated with the service of an officer, and the wife is able to "explain" any delays of her husband at work or his absence for a certain time ("urgent business trip", "exercises", "barracks position", after all, "something It happened at work." This is expressed in phrases such as: "our service." Regardless of whether a woman works or not, her main “profession” is the duties of a “military wife”. “The regime was certain, it was normal, sometimes they went to the exercises, To the exercises ... for three days, in general, not for long, but the fact that you yourself are always there is unequivocal. The only thing he left at eight, from two to four break, as it should be at this time, I have to feed, drink and put him to bed, he had to rest, as expected, and he left until eight in the evening. And you're alone all day, that's for sure. These are household chores, girlfriends, you will go, take a walk. On weekends he is in a dress or somewhere else ”(E.P., 48 years old). An important place in the life of any woman is occupied by a child, but in the life of a military camp, a child is an important condition for the involvement of a woman in a social circle consisting of neighbors and other women who have children - “mommies”, which are the majority in a military camp. “You quickly get to know each other there, everyone walks with strollers, the neighbors help each other out a lot, at least they lived very friendly.
The specifics of the garrison, they are rocket men, they went on duty for weeks. They went on weekly duty, i.e. I haven't had my husband for a week, as they say, do it yourself” (S.S., aged 47). Generally feature The composition of the population of the military camp has always been complete families, which consisted of a husband, wife and children. Unmarried girls in the towns are, as a rule, only the eldest daughters in officer families. There were almost no other unmarried women in military camps, because the only way to become its resident is to marry a military man. As a rule, everyone in the unit knew single women living without a husband, in this case we are talking, first of all, about divorced women, who most often remained in the unit after a divorce. On the territory of the military camp, they became the object of increased attention and evaluation.
Single women are associated with such everyday plots as pandering and sexual relations with married officers. “... we shared our thoughts with each other that husbands should not be left, because there are many divorced and all of them, as a rule, remain in the same town, the husbands leave further according to distribution. Therefore, one must protect one's own, vigilant. She gave birth to children and did not go to her mother, we only went on vacation together once a year, for two months with the children” (S.S., aged 47). All conflicts that arose in the women's society were resolved with the participation of the Women's Council. Very often, in the context of the interview, such a character as the “commander's wife” (“chief's wife”) appeared - an older woman who is the wife of an officer commanding a separate unit. The fact that the wives of the military, who are subordinate to the senior officer, recognize the seniority of his wife, calling her "the wife of the commander", this indicates that women form a separate part of the community of the military camp, the relationship between members of which is built in accordance with the hierarchy , according to the position of the husband.
The perception of the life of that time, the difficulties that one had to face: poor living conditions, constant moving, staying in places remote from the city's "benefits" - material and spiritual - are always present in stories about past life, but most often they were overlapped by the fact that “but it was friendly and fun”, they were young. Therefore, to the question “How can you evaluate your decision to marry an officer today?”, They answered positively: “Why not, love does great miracles, you will follow him anywhere, and you won’t have anything in the military - this is unequivocal, except for their state salary, they have no left money, ... therefore, one must be prepared for anything. At that moment, the officer's salary was enough to support me, my children, and save something else” (I.V., aged 45). Thus, our study shows that the study of small groups, the disclosure of internal connections, norms, and attributes specific to these groups is an important and promising area of modern social research. Such studies make it possible to look into another "world", to look at a different reality through the eyes of its direct participants.
V.N. Rakachev, Ya.V. Rakacheva
