The results of the work of students-translators of Vyatka State University contribute to the successful conduct of search work on the territory of hostilities during the Great Patriotic War

During the implementation of the project “Popularization of the feat of Soviet soldiers. Translation Support for German Frontline Documents” over 1000 documents received from foreign archives were translated

The Faculty of Linguistics of the Vyatka State University has been implementing the project “Popularization of the feat of Soviet soldiers. Translation support for German front-line documents. As part of the training practice under the guidance of teachers of the Department of Linguistics and Translation, students translate combat reports, front-line reports written in Wehrmacht units during the events of the Great Patriotic War, which took place in the spring of 1942 on the territory of the Novgorod region.

We are talking about the Demyansk offensive operation of the troops of the North-Western Front of the Red Army, the participants of which were units formed in the Kirov region.

    "In the fall, the formation of the First Mobile Airborne Brigade began at the Zuevka station, consisting mainly of Komsomol members aged 18-19. All of them underwent two months of training, the unit was considered elite. In early March 1942, the brigade was abandoned behind German lines in the Demyansk region, where a 100,000-strong enemy group was surrounded. The fighters of the First Mobile Airborne Brigade smashed the garrisons, blew up ammunition depots, destroyed patrol groups - they exhausted the Germans in every way. The fulfillment of combat missions resulted in heavy losses for the First Maneuverable, which initially numbered more than 2,600 fighters. 1130 people were killed or missing, 773 were injured or frostbitten" - said Vitaly Komlev, commander of the Veteran search detachment of the Kirov Regional Public Youth Search Organization Duty.

In addition, according to the searcher, the 86th separate rifle brigade, formed in Kirov by January 1942, was sent to the same places. The unit also suffered significant losses in the forests and swamps of the Novgorod region.

    "We have very few documents of the Red Army relating to these events, so we turn to foreign archives, in particular the Federal Archives of Germany. We have received thousands of documents, a significant part of which are combat reports from the 123rd, 12th, 30th and other infantry divisions of the Wehrmacht" -explained Vitaly Komlev.

Weather conditions, expendable materials, the movement of military units and, of course, the daily course of hostilities - future translators from the largest university in the Kirov region plunged into all this. Third-year students Olga Marakulina, Ksenia Zaitseva, Olga Ivanova and Arina Terekhina shared their impressions. They noted that the main difficulty was shorteners and abbreviations, the "deciphering" of which required recourse to additional sources. In addition, I had to master the competencies of geographers by referring to maps, including those of that time: after all, a number of settlements and water reservoirs simply do not exist today.

"Our students have shown themselves not only as first-class translators, but also historians, culturologists, researchers in the broadest sense of the word" -emphasized Professor Olga Baykova, Head of the Department of Linguistics and Translation.

Project manager Yulia Zhilina noted:

"This work touched the students so deeply that even at the end of the practice, some expressed a desire to continue studying the translation of military documents; especially when they realized that their contribution brings real benefits."

Vitaly Komlev spoke about one of such examples. It is associated with a dramatic military episode in the area of ​​the Divin Mokh swamp: 60 paratroopers died there. For a long time, the search did not bring success. The translations of Vyatka State University students gave an important clue for orienting in the area - as a result, the remains and personal belongings of 7 dead soldiers were found.

"We had a unique opportunity to learn about the events of the Great Patriotic War from primary sources, studying the original military documents of those years. The experience gained in the course of working on German combat journals made it possible not only to improve translation skills, but also to personally touch history, to contribute to expanding knowledge about the exploits of our soldiers," - admitted the fourth-year student Daria Kryazhevsky.

Participation in the project allowed students to translate more than a thousand front-line documents, develop professional translation competencies, and create their own scientific research on military texts and terminology. And, of course, it is better to learn about national history, to pay tribute to those who showed courage and heroism during the war years.

In the photo: Vitaly Komlev with participants in the project "Popularization of the feat of Soviet soldiers. Translation support for German front-line documents", copies of military documents, students and employees of the Faculty of Linguistics on an excursion in the Museum and Exhibition Complex "Platsdarm", museum exhibits.


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