Larry Holmes's new book is a follow-up to his 2012 study of Kirov's pedagogical institute during and after the Second World War. The new monograph is short and takes a broader look at the devastation inflicted on a single Soviet home front city, but an important one given its relatively close (500 mile) location from Moscow. This is an enjoyable book and the narrative comes alive through the extensive use of diaries, letters, and a wide array of state and provincial archives.
Holmes takes a more nuanced view of World War II and the evacuation than the Soviet and contemporary Russian master narrative that is so steeped in patriotism. The book's best moments are when he showcases the struggles experienced by both evacuees and their hosts in the city of Kirov, at times in brutal and disturbing detail. The study is not innovative since other historians, as he acknowledges, have written similar critical studies of the World War II-era evacuation and home front life in recent years. What makes his study worthwhile is his concentration on an important Russian city and the fact that this monograph accompanies the author's broader body of work on the city of Kirov. He showcases how the rarely efficient Soviet bureaucracy—which he has previously documented so well—was stretched to its limits by the war, adding to our understanding of Soviet crisis management. In the author's view, the evacuation period is one of “considerable heroism and good intention. It is also one of neglect, death by privation and massacre” (16). The bulk of the book documents this dichotomy.
This book helpfully puts the Soviet wartime evacuation into the broader historical context of the mass forced population movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He highlights that violence inflicted on Soviet displaced peoples was not unique. Empires, authoritarian states, and even democracies do it. Often overlooked, he notes that children evacuated to rural areas in wartime Britain were often met with physical or sexual abuse.
While acknowledging the successes of the evacuation, Holmes focuses more attention on the on hunger, diseases, and the utter confusion experienced by residents and evacuees alike, all of which stoked friction within the city. He underscores the disdain of many of Kirov's temporary residents for this provincial capital, its people, and its institutions, many of which were devastated by theft and neglect by the city's temporary institutions. He examines socioeconomic, educational, and ethnic hierarchies of power, as scores of Soviet citizens and institutions came through the city. Some—like the Commissariat of Education and Commissariat of Forest Industry—gained prime real estate and assets of local institutions, curtailing the abilities of the latter to function for years to come.
The initial cooperative spirit that met many evacuees rapidly evaporated as city residents realized that the quick war that Soviet propaganda had promised was not coming true and the strain of the constant stream of new arrivals broke the city's already strained infrastructure and social safety net. The evacuees—many of whom came with nothing—were also seen as a privileged group by locals, no matter whether they were orphans, intellectuals, or government bureaucrats. Holmes, however, examines the various gradations of privilege, noting that many privileges were ephemeral in a city where access to food, clothing, adequate housing, and medicine was severely limited by the exigencies of the war and chaos of Soviet crisis management. Central authorities often made things worse. In coordinating the evacuation, they paid little heed to local realities and needs. Disputes between evacuated and local institutions occurred frequently, as ostensibly weaker provincial institutions pushed back at central decisions. This highlights what Holmes calls the “paradox of Soviet power” where Moscow stepped in to end one conflict, while usually creating another by ignoring regional interests and underestimating the ability of locals to push their own agenda (146).
Academics will find the book of interest; although the narrative tracks with recent works on the impact of the war on front line and Central Asian home front cities, it complements those studies nicely and highlights the remarkable flexibility of the Soviet system, which struggled to respond to the evacuation crisis but ultimately did. The book also is highly accessible to general audiences and would work well in a classroom setting. It is a good regional study, a fine analysis of wartime civilian life, and a useful study that sets the evacuation into a broader history of massive forced migration.
