Stalin's War - Soviet Uniforms and Militaria 1941-45

(Hardback)

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This is the third volume by the acclaimed Hungarian collector-and-photographer team, identifying and explaining historic Soviet militaria from private collections. A wide range of uniforms, insignia, awards, weapons, equipment, documents and ephemera from the Soviet Union's 'Great Patriotic War' are illustrated, in more than 230 close-up colour studies, supported by more than 60 fascinating monochrome photographs that have survived, unpublished, in private hands. This volume includes explanations of Soviet military symbolism from the early days of the Communist state, but concentrates on the period of key interest between 1943 and 1945, when Stalin consciously revived many of the visual traditions of the Tsarist years in order to harness Russian patriotism against the Nazi invaders. AUTHOR: Laszlo Bekesi is a lecturer on economics and geo-politics in Budapest University of Economic Sciences and a lifelong collector of Soviet militaria. Gyorgy Torok combines his career as a research chemist with professional photographer. 230 colour & 60 b/w photos

Author Bio

LASZLO BEKESI is a Hungarian economist and sociologist. Now a lecturer in geopolitics at Budapest Corvinus University, he wrote his PhD thesis on the cycles of military symbolism in the former Eastern Bloc countries. For many years he has collected Soviet militaria and related documents and photographs. He is the author of two previous titles from Crowood Press: Soviet Uniforms & Militaria 1917-1991 in Colour Photographs (2000), and KGB & Soviet Security Uniforms & Militaria 1917-1991 in Colour Photographs (2002). GYORGY TOROK has been restoring and using old cameras for more than ten years, and his interest has recently turned to large format cameras. He recently opened a school of photography teaching the theory and practice of conventional and modern fine art and commercial photography; he has also published many articles in photographic art, telecommunications and other magazines.