800 Days on the Eastern Front: A Russian Soldier Remembers World War II (Modern War Studies): A Russian Soldier Remembers World War II (Modern War Studies)

click here for more details, find new or used items	Nikolai Litvin Our price £17.50 New from £7.37 Used from £16.54 Pages: 159 (Hardcover) Editor: Stuart Britton ISBN: 0700615172 Pub: University Press of Kansas Pub date: 2007-04-28 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 274340

Reader Reviews:

A Russian soldiers tale. (3/3 people found this helpful)

Considering the amount of memoirs available form WW2 it is amazing how few are from a Soviet perspective, at least in English. So in this context the book is a gem and in content it shines.

Nikolai Litvin's memoir is very low key and honest. For the most part he is a driver, either as a commanders chauffeur or with a transport battalion and you get interesting small details as how dirty his one uniform becomes when he served as a mechanic. Don't worry there are hair raising parts as well and sad stories. Litvin comes across as a man doing his duty for his country and never tries to claim credit for extraordinary deeds even if he did a few.

Starting out as an anti tank gunner in a Airborne Division he is wounded early during the battle of Kursk, from there he is transfered to a transportation battalion and is bombed by artillery and planes, he lives when others, even his friends die. At one point he has difficulties in disposing of a friends body. Then he is sentanced to a penal company for desertion when all he does is following a command that turns out to be a suggestion and not a proper command. His time with the penal company is very interesting. Then he gets reassigned to his transport unit and gets drafted from the rear units to the front replace combat losses. All through the story there are accounts of Litvin's personal experience and some very horrible incidents.

Many readers will also find interesting how Litvin is fighting the infantry mans war, very few tanks are metioned at all. In fact with 2/3 of all Germans fighting on the Eastern Front and the majority of both Germans and Russians fighting as infantry this tells how the war was for most, even if it isn't the most glamorous part.

Special mention should also go to Stuart Britton who completes the memoir by adding introductions or adds explanations to fit Litvin's experience into contex and big picture. They summarise the unfolding events and explain strategic and tactical events and I found these parts very useful and informative without casting a shade on Litvin's story. In many occasions Litvin would have been blissfully ignorant of what was really going on but as a reader it is good to be helped along by Britton.

Through Litvin one gets a very diverse view of the Soviet Army and not always its most glamorous side but the toil of the every day soldier. I heartly recommend it for anyone interested in WW2 memoirs and would like read about the experience from the Russian side.

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