How I went to the Digital History festival in St. Petersburg

On October 20, I attended the first popular science festival “Digital History” in St. Petersburg, organized by Egor Yakovlev. I’m sure there are people here familiar with his activities on Dmitry “Goblin” Puchkov’s channel. Such an event has been asking for a long time, especially if you look at how many specialists were attracted to the channel of the same name.

The forum was held in the same premises of the St. Petersburg hotel as the scientific and educational forum “Scientists against Myths 6,” which I also had the pleasure of visiting. So comparisons will be inevitable. And, indeed, they have quite a lot in common, but no less their own characteristic features.

October 20, St. Petersburg, concert hall of the St. Petersburg Hotel
What we don’t know about the Great Victory of 1945?
What role did former tsarist officers play in the Civil War??
Why the Baltic fleet was able to defeat the British squadron in the Baltic in 1919?
What operations did Nazi intelligence conduct in the Baltic states in the pre-war years??
Where and in what way was the Soviet SMERSH able to outplay the Nazi Abwehr?
What were the “Russian plans” of the Finnish intelligence services?

The organizers and speakers promised to answer these and many questions. After all “For the first time in St. Petersburg, the vanguard of researchers of the military-political history of the 20th century will speak to a wide audience.”.

09.30 – 10.00 Registration of participants

10.00 – 11.00 Speech by Kirill Nazarenko. 1919: Red Fleet against British invaders in the Baltic.
Kirill Borisovich Nazarenko – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Deputy Director of the Institute of History of St. Petersburg State University, expert on the history of the Russian fleet.

11.00 – 12.00 Speech by Alexander Dyukov. Baltic collaborationism in World War II: a new look.
Alexander Reshideovich Dyukov – director of the Historical Memory Foundation, author of one of the most poignant books about the Nazi genocide, “What the Soviet People Fought for”.

12.00 – 13.00 Speech by Andrey Ganin. Russian officers in the fire of the Civil War.
Andrey Vladislavovich Ganin – Doctor of Historical Sciences, leading researcher at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, author of fundamental works on the history of the Civil War.

13.00-15.00 Lunch break

During this time, there will be an autograph session with speakers, a visit to a military history exhibition and a book fair. Presentations of historical literature.

15.00 – 16.00 Intelligence Interrogation. Egor Yakovlev – Alexey Isaev. 1945: Unknown victory

Alexey Vaflerevich Isaev – candidate of historical sciences, the most fruitful Russian scientist specializing in the study of the Second World War.

16.00 — 17.00 Intelligence Interrogation. Bair Irincheev – Sergey Verigin. Finnish intelligence services against the USSR in the 1920s-1930s.

Sergey Gennadievich Verigin – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Director of the Institute of History, Political and Social Sciences of PetrSU, specialist in the history of Finland.

17.00 — 18.00 Intelligence Interrogation. Dmitry Puchkov – Alexander Zdanovich. Smersh: myths and facts.

Alexander Aleksandrovich Zdanovich – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, leader in modern research on the history of Soviet intelligence services, Lieutenant General of the FSB.

18.00-19.00 Autograph session with https://richprizecasino.uk/games/ speakers, end of the festival.

As you can see, the event is divided into two equal parts: classic reports and speeches, and after the break, reports, but in the format of an “intelligence interview” – interviews in real time.

On Saturday morning, getting to the other end of the city is quite a challenge. Not surprisingly, having arrived 15 minutes before the start, there were very few people and they surrounded the book stalls and reenactors in small groups. There were even more of them near the first ones.

These are the officers who greeted visitors at the entrance

But then a voice announced the beginning of the festival and we began to take our places. About 600 tickets were sold, with a hall capacity of 800. Nevertheless, approximately a quarter, or even a third of the seats were empty. Not only everyone found the strength to get up so early. And indeed, by the second half of the festival the number of people noticeably increased, but that’s not about that now.

Of course, not everyone has gathered yet.
The presenters were Yegor Yakovlev himself and, widely known in narrow circles, tour guide Pavel Perets. His videos can be easily found on the same Dead End. After the opening speech, Egor invited Kirill Borisovich Nazarenko to give his first report.

But instead of the speaker, the resurrected sailor Zheleznyak took the stage, interrupted the performance of the bourgeois entertainers and took them backstage under a Mauser to be reforged.
Nazarenko’s report partially overlapped with a number of his lectures posted on Digital History. Even the slides were familiar to many. But specifically covering the issue of the confrontation of the Soviet fleet with the British is beyond thematic monographs "The Baltic Fleet in the Revolution of 1917-1918." And "Fleet, revolution and power in Russia. 1917-1921".

However, neophytes learned from this speech why they should not blindly trust memoirs; about the social stratification between sailors and officers and the reasons for the spontaneous reprisals of the former against the latter; how the first red fleet was formed; who managed to defeat the British fleet (the strongest in the world) during its raid on Petrograd and what conspiracies formed around him and why Admiral Shchastny was shot.

After several questions from the audience, Nazarenko left the stage, and the sailor Zheleznyak returned the presenters, who had already been re-educated in a revolutionary spirit.
The next speaker was also a well-known historian, primarily for the book “What the Soviet People Fought for,” Alexander Dyukov. The main object of his research is the phenomenon of Baltic and Ukrainian collaboration during the Second World War.

And he does this so successfully that in 2004 Latvia banned him from entering for a period of 20 years. On this day, he highlighted the problem of cooperation with the Nazis in general terms. Behind such a large scale of collaboration there was one determining factor – the foundation and breeding ground left by local dictatorial regimes before the Baltic states joined the USSR in 1940. By the beginning of the war, there was an extensive nationalist underground in the Baltic states that maintained contacts with the Nazis.

Well, Andrei Ganin’s third speech was dedicated to the fate of the officers of the Russian Imperial Army.

Using the example of three officers who started at the same school, it is clearly shown how their fates moved across Russia from one camp to another. It is important to understand that during the revolution and civil war many did not have a direct path for the Reds or for the Whites from beginning to end, as Nazarenko said in his report. Many simply ran to the winner. When the scales tipped towards the Whites, many officers chose to serve Denikin and Kolchak, and when it became clear that the Reds were winning, their ranks were replenished with yesterday’s White Guards.

But of course there were a lot of ideological people in the service of the Bolsheviks: Sveshnikov, Brusilov, Bonch-Bruevich, Manikovsky, Vasilevsky, Shaposhnikov and many others. Likewise, on the white side, many were ready to die and died for their ideals.

But I was really surprised by the answer to the question about comparing the scale of the Red and White terrors. The speaker spoke in the sense that if the Bolshevik propaganda was all-encompassing, then the terror was just as large-scale. I will think about using this innovative technique in my dissertation. Such generalizations discouraged me from buying the author’s books: "Daily life of the General Staff under Lenin and Trotsky", I’m a big fan of paper books. Moreover, such generalizations sound strange against the background of two detailed monographs by Ilya Ratkovsky with a simple title "Chronicle of White Terror"" And "Chronicle of the Red Terror". And they, with the facts on the pages, are ready to argue with this bold statement.

This morning I noticed three small stands. While I was out for lunch, we completed the preparation of the fourth with samples of printed propaganda from the times of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940, and from the times of the Great Patriotic War. The lecturer was the irreplaceable Bair Irincheev.

But, alas for me, I missed everything while I was listening to the advantage of foot wraps over socks (they fill the entire space between the boot and the leg, so that water does not flow inside), and why they abandoned the wide-brimmed helmets of 1936 (the danger of getting hit on the head with a saber disappeared, but a blast wave could tear out the head along with the spine).

I didn’t notice at all how people started arriving. Everyone was fussing around the press wall, where they could take pictures with the speakers and get their autographs. Then the press became more active. Although there were a couple of cameramen and photographers scurrying around the hall, no major publications were seen. True, I noticed a microphone with a familiar channel, but nothing more.

All those involved were interviewed, and the reenactors once again showed their deep knowledge of the intricacies of military affairs of the Peter the Great and Soviet eras, as well as the art of cursive writing of the 18th century.

An example of early 18th century cursive writing.

I’m not a big fan of all kinds of rivets, so I was pleased to hear about the equipment and features of combat operations in the era of Peter the Great and the Great Patriotic War. Many soldiers‘ household items and uniform items could be touched and partially tried on. Of course, all weapons from a saber and a smoothbore shotgun to a DPM machine gun could be picked up and photographed in the image of a formidable warrior.

Of course, this attracted children and teenagers to a greater extent, but there were also adults who right there began to torment the reenactors about the possibility of joining their orderly ranks. And the “private” only had time to answer: “Contact the commander. There he stands".

Perhaps two hours was too much for such an exhibition, but the abundance of free time literally provoked me to go buy a few more books. Especially with a discount. As a big fan of printed books, I couldn’t help myself. A stern voice saved me from further expenses, reminding me that it was time to take my seats, and there were 5 minutes left before the start of the performances.

And here we can especially praise the organizers, but not of “Digital History”, but of “Scientists against Myths”. They always emphasized that they strictly adhere to regulations. I didn’t pay any attention to it at all until the upcoming performance moved forward half an hour. There were 5 extra minutes for the report, here they answered the questions a little longer and here is the result. Although it cannot be said that this bothered anyone. At such moments you realize that organizing and holding such events is not an easy matter.

Before the start of the second part, Yegor Yakovlem invited a reenactor from sunny Brazil to the stage (but this is not certain) and, promising to ask him questions about the history of Russia, began to make opportunistic jokes about Putin and Mamaev-Kokorishche.

Here we see possible answers to the question “Who killed Kennedy?»

In the first “Intelligence Interrogation”, Yegor Yakovlev talked with Alexei Isaev about the victorious year 1945 and the “Battle for Germany” – this is the name of the 16th episode of the excellent documentary series “The Great War”, where all the theses voiced on stage received an excellent screen embodiment. As soon as I heard the words “Storm” and “Poznan”, a barrel of explosives appeared in my imagination, which was rolled up to the pillboxes and exploded, stunning all the defenders. This is what we were talking about.

But in addition to the historical fact, one important thing was recorded: the quality of the rank and file and officers of the Soviet Army at all levels was such that the Wehrmacht troops, bristling with machine guns and hiding behind concrete walls, who promised to drown the offensive in blood and hold the line for weeks and months in the hope of reducing the war to a draw, were taken on with minimal losses in a few days, and sometimes even during normal reconnaissance in force. Although, it would seem, the Red Army was given a non-trivial task of storming a fortified city and, thanks to initiative and experience, it was solved in the shortest possible time.

The topic of the Soviet-Finnish war was never very popular, and during the Second World War it and the entire northern front were eclipsed by the fight against the Nazis. Bair Irincheev talked about the features of sabotage counter-intelligence activities with Professor of Petrozavodsk State University Sergei Verigin. And despite the fact that the topic stated the 1920-1930s, we were talking about the war period.

Guerrilla and sabotage warfare in the Finnish rear in the occupied territories was complicated by the lack of a loyal population. A lot of people left after the retreating Red Army at the beginning of the war, and those who remained were driven to Finnish concentration camps (after the turning point in the war in 1943 they were no longer called concentration camps) or fell victims to ethnic cleansing of the Russian population. In addition, 30% of Red Army prisoners of war died in Finnish captivity, which is 26% less than in German. About 15-20% of Finns died in our captivity. After the war, this was not particularly remembered in the name of good neighborly relations with Finland. How he joked later Väinö Linna in the novel "Unknown soldier": “The huge, mighty Soviet Union won this competition, and brave little Finland took an honorable second place.”. The book, by the way, is very good. It’s so Finnish "All Quiet on the Western Front"».

Alexander Zdanovich to the left of Nazarenko.
The festival ended with a conversation between Dmitry Puchkov and Alexander Zdanovich, Doctor of Historical Sciences and retired FSB Lieutenant General. The theme of SMERSH somehow logically stemmed from the intelligence struggle on the Finnish front. We were talking about myths associated with this service. In addition to all these enchanting stories about detachments, mass executions and the desire to send everyone they meet to the Gulag, reproduced in every first domestic film, refuted by the simple fact and the huge number of SMERSH members killed on the battlefield and their role in battle. We are talking about over 10,000 dead. Much more interesting is the wide range of responsibilities faced by officers, from counterintelligence to supplying troops and combating epidemics in the troops.
At the end of the conversation, Dmitry Puchkov asked:
— Is it true that you were the only one who saw Solzhenitsyn’s criminal case??
– I saw not only the case, but also him himself. The only thing he told me was “They put me in prison correctly, don’t show my case to anyone,” answered Alexander Alexandrovich and the hall exploded with applause.

This is the second time during the lecture, and the first accompanied the words about publishing a book about SMERSH at our own expense. Edition of only 300 copies. By today’s standards, 1000 circulation is already a success. Almost all of the books mentioned were published this way. In fact, this is how most scientific literature is published today. Sometimes there are less than 1000 copies.

So far, some modesty of the event is striking compared to “Scientists…”, no participant badge at the entrance, no counter with merchandise, not even a colorful booklet. Instead of the latter, a simple A4 sheet with a program on one side and a Yandex card on the other. This is understandable, since this is the first forum, there is no local culture yet. Let’s see what happens next. The next meeting has already been announced and will be held in Moscow on December 1.

So for science, such events perform an invaluable service, showing that real, highly professional researchers exist and they are busy with interesting things, things that are useful and understandable to the average person.