Written Sources on the Implementation of B. B. Gorodovikov’s Project to Attract Soldiers Demobilized from the Soviet Army to Restore the Economy of the Kalmyk ASSR. 1962–1965

Introduction. Materials on the resettlement and use of the labor potential of soldiers demobilized from the ranks of the Armed Forces of the USSR are a valuable source on the history of state policy in the first years after the return of the Kalmyk people from places of deportation and restoration of the Kalmyk ASSR. The purpose of the article is to familiarize the reader with the types of sources and their content, their analysis in terms of representativeness. The research material were office documents stored in the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia, memoirs of eyewitnesses and demobilized servicemen published in the collections of the documents and posted on social networks, publications of 1962–1963, the main newspaper, published in Russian, at that time in the republic was Sovetskaya Kalmykia. Results. The identified documents of authorities and personal origin, as well as mass media publications, contain valuable information on the reception, and accommodation of demobilized soldiers who arrived in 1962–1963. At the same time, they almost completely lack the information on the social and national composition of the demobilized, the geography of their places of origin, their units and places of service in Germany. The documents allow us to recreate the process of implementing the Gorodovikov’s project as a whole, but when analyzing them, it is necessary to take into account the ideological component of that time, the absence of any critical information. It is also important to note that the resettlement of demobilized soldiers to Kalmykia was voluntary and organized. The plan determined the need for the republic’s economy in the number of demobilized soldiers, economic sectors, specific areas and the organization of their reception

Political science · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Nuclear Issues and Defense