Academic literature on the topic 'World War II, Second world war'

This article highlights the activities of foreign spies and Turkestan immigrants in Afghanistan during World War II by analyzing historical sources and literature. Also, the National Organization of Bukhara and Bukhara residents in the territory of Afghanistan and the issues of its activities and fate were analyzed on the basis of primary sources. In addition, the causes and factors of the defeat of the German and Japanese espionage in Afghanistan have been covered

The article is a fragment of the book «The Screen of World Documentary», prepared for publication, and deals with the organization of propaganda and the artistic problems of newsreel and documentary film during World War II in the USA, Great Britain and Germany.

The article offers an overview of modern historical data on the origins, causes of World War II, the decisive role of the USSR in its victorious end, and also records the main results and lessons of World War II.Hitler's Germany was the main cause of World War II. Nazism, racial theory, mixed with far-reaching geopolitical designs, became the combustible mixture that ignited the fire of glob­al conflict. The war with the Soviet Union was planned to be waged with particular cruelty.The preconditions for the outbreak of World War II were the humiliating provisions of the Versailles Peace Treaty for the German people, as well as the attitude of the "Western de­mocracies" to Russia after 1917 and the Soviet Union as an outcast of world development. Great Britain, France, the United States chose for themselves a policy of ignoring Moscow's interests, they were more likely to cooperate with Hitler's Germany than with Soviet Russia. It was the "Munich Agreement" that became the point of no return to the beginning of the Second World War. Under these conditions, for the USSR, its own security and the conclusion of a non-aggression pact with Germany began to come to the fore, defining the "spheres of interests" of the parties in order to limit the advance of German troops towards the Soviet borders in the event of German aggression against Poland. The non-aggression pact gave the USSR just under two years to rebuild the army and consolidate its defensive potential and pushed the Soviet borders hundreds of kilometers westward. The signing of the Pact was preceded by the failure in August 1939 of the negotiations between the military mis­sions of Britain, France and the USSR, although Moscow took the Anglo-French-Soviet nego­tiations with all seriousness.The huge losses of the USSR in the summer of 1941 are explained by the following circum­stances: before the war, a large-scale modernization of the Red Army was launched, a gradu­ate of a military school did not have sufficient experience in managing an entrusted unit by June 22, 1941; the Red Army was going to bleed the enemy in border battles, stop it with short counterattacks by covering units, carry out defensive operations, and then strike a de­cisive blow into the depths of the enemy's territory, so the importance of a multi-echeloned long-term defense in 1941 was underestimated by the command of the Red Army and it was not ready for it; significant groupings of the Western Special Military District were drawn into potential salients, which was used by the Germans at the initial stage of the war; Stalin's fear of provoking Hitler to start a war led to slowness in making the most urgent and necessary decisions to bring troops to combat readiness.The Allies delayed the opening of the second front for an unreasonably long time. They, of course, achieved outstanding success in the landing operation in France, however, the en­emy's losses in only one Soviet strategic operation in the summer of 1944 ("Bagration") are not inferior, and even exceed, the enemy’s losses on the second front. One of the goals of "Bagration" was to help the Allies.Soviet soldiers liberated Europe at the cost of their lives. At the same time, Moscow could not afford to re-establish a cordon sanitaire around its borders after the war, so that anti- Soviet forces would come to power in the border states. The United States and Great Britain took all measures available to them to quickly remove from the governments of Italy, France and other Western states all the left-wing forces that in 1944-1945 had a serious impact on the politics of their countries.

The article discusses the scientific experience of using the „alternative history” method in the study of the history of the Second World War. The authors revealed the peculiarities of the methodology for applying this method in world historical science until the middle of the twentieth century, showed its research capabilities and shortcomings. The features of the use of the method of alternative history in the modern historiography of the Second World War are revealed. The purpose of this article is to compare the main methodological approaches to the application of the method of „alternative history” in the historiography of World War II, to determine the degree of their appropriateness and correctness. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are set: to consider the genesis of the method of „alternative history”, to establish and reveal its key provisions, the algorithm of use, application and features of use in British and Russian historiography. At the present stage, the method of alternative history makes it possible to significantly expand the cognitive possibilities in the study of the history of the Second World War. Its use was pioneered by representatives of Anglo-American historiography. In the post-Soviet space, this method was established much later.

Until the late 1970s the impact of the two world wars on Africa was a comparatively neglected area of its colonial history. In 1977 the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London drew attention to this neglect by organizing a symposium on the first of these two wars. A selection of the papers presented at that symposium was published in a special issue of this Journal in 1978. This proved to be a landmark in the study of the history of the First World War in Africa, which has since received much scholarly attention. By contrast, a survey written a few years ago of the Second World War in Africa could make relatively little use of original research. In 1983, however, the Académie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer, Brussels, published a large collection of papers on the Belgian Congo in the Second World War, and in 1984 Richard Rathbone and David Killingray organized a further conference at S.O.A.S. on the impact on Africa of the Second World War. This elicited over thirty papers by scholars from Africa, Europe and North America; they not only provided extensive geographical coverage but also represented a wide variety of interests: political, economic, social and cultural. The conference organizers have since edited a selection of these papers in book form: the topics range from the impact of the war on labour in Sierra Leone to relations between the colonial government and Christian missions in southern Cameroons.

This article examines the rapid changes to Soviet accounting practice during World War II. The adaptation of the pre-war accounting system was required to meet the extraordinary demands of a conflict that saw as much as 40 percent of the national population under German occupation. Many large production facilities were rapidly relocated out of the war zone to the Urals, Central Asia, and the Far East. Soviet wartime accounting was focused only on contributing to victory. Sometimes this meant establishing extremely simplified allocation procedures; sometimes this meant creating new accounts for enterprise assets temporarily under enemy control, and sometimes this meant extensive and thorough procedures to safeguard economic resources and military property. For scholars the war provided an example of how accounting can rapidly evolve to meet changing national priorities.

Povzetek Druga svetovna vojna je bila obdobje, ko so bile ženske prvič v zgodovini v velikem obsegu vključene v vojaško službo. Zavezniki so jih vključevali v vojaške aktivnosti že vse od začetka vojne, tako v civilnem kot v vojaškem sektorju. Sovjetska zveza je za vojaško službo mobilizirala največji odstotek ženske populacije, Združene države Amerike pa so oblikovale homogene ženske vojaške enote. Ženske so bile aktivne tudi v partizanskih vojskah v Evropi. Borke so pokazale izjemne sposobnosti, bile so dragocene za vojaško moč svoje države, vendar so bile množično demobilizirane, ko se je vojna končala. Veteranke so bile večinoma prisiljene sprejeti tradicionalne ženske družbene vloge in pozabiti na svoja medvojna junaštva. Ključne besede Ženske v vojski, veteranke, druga svetovna vojna, demobilizacija, reintegracija v družbo. Abstract World War II was the first time in history that women were called upon for military service to a great extent. The Allied military forces utilized women from the beginning of the war in both the civilian and military sectors. The Soviet Union mobilized the largest percent of female population to perform military tasks. The United States formed the all-female military units. Women were active in partisan armies all over Europe. Women soldiers proved themselves to be of great value for their countries, but when the war was over, they were demobilized en masse. As women veterans they were mostly forced to accept traditional feminine social roles and to forget about their inter-war bravery. Key words Women in the military, women veterans, second world war, demobilization, reintegration into society

The author writes about the inadmissibility of revising the main results of the Second World War, the consequences of which are acutely felt in the 21st century. About the role of the USSR in the Victory in World War II and the desire of the West to belittle it. About attempts to lay the main blame for the outbreak of war on the USSR along with Nazi Germany. On the responsibility of Western and «small» countries for the «pacification» of the aggressor. Why is this happening, who is responsible for starting the Second World War, what are the results of the war and what are their consequences — this article is devoted to the consideration of these fundamentally important issues.

Russian and Soviet nurse refugees faced myriad challenges attempting to become registered nurses in North America and elsewhere after the World War II. By drawing primarily on International Council of Nurses refugee files, a picture can be pieced together of the fate that befell many of those women who left Russia and later the Soviet Union because of revolution and war in the years after 1917. The history of first (after World War I) and second (after World War II) wave émigré nurses, integrated into the broader historical narrative, reveals that professional identity was just as important to these women as national identity. This became especially so after World War II, when Russian and Soviet refugee nurses resettled in the West. Individual accounts become interwoven on an international canvas that brings together a wide range of personal experiences from women based in Russia, the Soviet Union, China, Yugoslavia, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. The commonality of experience among Russian nurses as they attempted to establish their professional identities highlights, through the prism of Russia, the importance of the history of the displaced nurse experience in the wider context of international migration history.