xiForeword
Yevgeni Nikolaev was a member of the Soviet Narodnyi Komissariat
Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD – the People’s Commissariat of Internal
Affairs), who fought on the Leningrad Front in 1941 and 1942.
He appears as number 32 on a Russian list of Second World War
snipers with the most kills.
Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian historians
engaged in critical debate on the country’s history for the first time.
Archives were opened for research and access was granted to foreign
historians with the goal of obtaining an objective perspective on the
past. However, this new transparency was shortlived. Vladimir
Putin’s rise to power meant the closing of archive doors once again
and a return to propaganda to restore the image of Russian glory.
Till this day, serious historiography remains uncharted territory.
Nikolaev’s autobiography is an interesting example of Soviet
propaganda literature and the historical misrepresentation it
fashions. The text – which was composed around 1980, decades
after the events it details, with the help of a journalist – must
therefore be read critically. For instance, we are told that Finland
attacked the Soviet Union when the truth is that the Soviet Union
attacked Poland and Finland to reclaim territory it had held before
the First World War.