The Practice of Mobilization Recruiting Researchers for Soviet Military Historical Science: a Microhistorical Study

The establishment of military academies for the Red Army (RKKA) in the 1930s led to an increased demand for military and historical staff for the purposes of scientific support of academic disciplines and research projects related to the retrospective analysis of wars and military art. This growing shortage resulted in the ambiguous practice of mobilization recruiting within the academies and the forced transfer of trainees - cadets and adjuncts - to the category of salaried scholarly/teaching staff (specializing in military-science profiles). The article reconstructs several experiences of a Soviet military commander General Alexander N. Bogolyubov and consequently discusses the specifics of this practice which often frustrated career prospects and plans of Soviet commanders who were thus involved in the orbit of military history through such specific mobilization. The article reveals the features and results of A. N. Bogolyubov’s work in 1938-1941 as a recruited military historian. In conclusion, the thesis about the possibility of extrapolation of the presented microhistorical case to a relatively large group of A. N. Bogolyubov's contemporaries and fellow students from the RKKA General Staff Academy is substantiated.