Using the Rzhev War Memorial to learn about the ‘hushing-up’ of history

Anna Cherepova , Moscow, Russia

15+ years

90 minutes

Abstract: During the lesson, students will be asked to study Soviet-era historical primary sources about the Battle of Rzhev. In doing so, they will conclude that this battle is comparable in importance – i.e. the number of human and material losses – to other battles of the Great Patriotic War (World War II), e.g. Stalingrad or Kursk. At the same time, students will see that this large battle was unfairly ‘forgotten’ by the Soviet state. In the course of further discussions with the teacher, students will give possible reasons for the concealment of historical facts, as well as the consequences of these actions. As a post-lesson homework assignment, teachers may ask the students to conduct research on similar silenced facts in the history of World War II and offer ideas on how to avoid this in the future.

Key question: How and why are historical events hushed up, who is responsible, and is it possible to avoid this in the future?

Learning outcomes

Students will:

Learn what distorting and concealing historical facts means or signifies.
Train their analytical and critical thinking skills.
Understand why it is important to remember and discuss certain historical events that may be unpleasant for a nation or country.
Use empathy to learn who suffers from the concealment of facts.
Discuss their opinion about the importance of opening memorial sites in the future.

Pedagogical Recommendations

Students should have experience working with historical sources and know the specifics of how to examine them. It is important to explain to students that it is necessary not only to read the text itself, but also to bear in mind the author of the source, their background and goals, and when the source was created. Students should be able critically to evaluate facts and opinions presented in the text.

Activities

Before the lesson, students receive a handout that describes the history of the commemoration of the Battle of Rzhev. The text provides a brief overview of some historical memoirs on this battle (see Appendix I)

Memorial to the Soviet Soldier, Rzhev, Russia, 2020. Photo: Korobtsov, Andrei, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, File:Ржевский_мемориал_30.06.2020.jpg

Stage 1: Introduction. 10 minutes. The lesson begins with a discussion of the memorial site. Students describe its appearance and symbolism, using the above image. The teacher informs them that this monument is dedicated to the Battle of Rzhev. It was installed only in 2020 at the request of veterans. The teacher facilitates a discussion on why some memorial sites were established in Soviet times by the state itself, and others only now. Students offer their own opinions. Then, the teacher announces the topic of the lesson: the concealment of facts in history.

Stage 2: Group work with sources. 20 minutes.
Students are divided into 3 groups and work with historical sources. Each group studies a separate issue about the Battle of Rzhev. The first part of the work is the study of the memoirs of a Soviet officer, a participant in the Battle of Rzhev (see Appendix II). Each group receives a different extract from the same source. After studying the sections of the document, the groups present their results to each other. Students should write down keywords on a piece of paper so that each group has the answers of other groups in front of them visually. These keywords can be placed on the board so that all groups working with other passages from this source have a general idea of the reasons for hushing up the Battle of Rzhev. After that, the students draw conclusions about the scale of the battle to further understand why the Soviet government chose to hide its results.

Stage 3: Comparison of statistical data. 15 minutes.
Calculating the exact number of those killed not only in the Battle of Rzhev, but also in World War II as a whole, is a very difficult task. In pairs, students should imagine what difficulties researchers can face when calculating losses, compare the statistics of human losses in the largest battles of World War II, and conclude what place Rzhev occupies in the history of the war (see Appendix III).

Stage 4: Study of an interview about the memorial. 25 minutes.
Students should read the extracts from an interview about the Rzhev War Memorial with Svetlana Gerasimova, a historian (see Appendix IV). While reading the interview, they should think about the following questions:

According to Gerasimova, what were the goals of the Rzhev operations? Compare them with those you learned about from Source 1.
Were these objectives achieved?
What reasons does Gerasimova give for the deliberate silence concerning this battle?

Stage 5: Final discussion. 20 minutes.
As a class, discuss the following questions:

Why can some facts in history be evaluated in different ways?
Why are some facts distorted or concealed?
Who suffers from it?

Finally, return to the image of the memorial site. The teacher asks: why is it necessary to erect memorial sites? What function(s) do they have?

Optional post-lesson homework activities:

Students can be invited to do research and look into the history of World War II for other examples of how facts were suppressed. The teacher may ask students to figure out, in the course of their research at home, who benefited from the suppression and why, as well as who suffered from it. The teacher can also invite students to discuss how to prevent the hushing up of events in the future.
More advanced students can be invited to conduct research on the historical memory of their country's wars. The task is to read a history textbook about any war, and to conclude how the information about this war is presented in the national narrative – as a tragic, shameful, or heroic event? Why does national historical memory mostly deal with the heroic side of history, rather than the uglier side?

Assessment

As the activities in the classroom assume the active involvement of students in the performance of tasks, the teacher can evaluate the involvement of students, the accuracy of the answers given from their work with the documents, and the reliability of quotations.

The teacher can evaluate homework according to the following criteria:

Accuracy of the facts given.
Variety of historical documents that students use.
Reasonableness and validity of the conclusions that students make in their research.

Glossary

Here you can find definitions for the words in bold below.

Army Group Centre (German: Heeresgruppe Mitte) – one of two distinct German strategic army groups that fought on the Eastern Front in World War II.
Bridgehead – a strategically important area of ground around the end of a bridge or other place of possible crossing over a body of water.
Offensive operation – a military operation taking the form of an advance by armed troops with the aim of occupying territory, gaining an objective or achieving some larger strategic, operational, or tactical goal. Another term for an offensive often used by the media is ‘invasion’, or the more general ‘attack’
Salient – a battlefield feature that projects into enemy territory, also known as a bulge. As the salient is surrounded by the enemy on multiple sides, the occupying troops are vulnerable. See the location of Rzhev in the image below for a visual example of a salient.

Map of the Battle of Rzhev, 1941-42. Photo: History Department of the United States Military Academy, PD, Wikimedia Commons, File:Rzhev_salient_1941-1942.jpg

Supreme Command – is the top-level operational command of the armed forces of a state (or coalition of states), usually in wartime and sometimes in peacetime. In the USSR during World War II Josef Stalin was the head of the Supreme Command.
Wehrmacht – the armed forces of Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1945.

Appendices

Appendix I – Preparatory handout for students

Please read the text below about the Battle of Rzhev and the collective memory about it. While reading, please think about the following questions:

How has the attitude of Russian officials and historians towards the Battle of Rzhev changed over time?
In your opinion, what consequences might hushing up the story of defeats and failures lead to?
Do you think citizens of a society are able to influence official authorities not to hush up or distort historical events?

The Battle of Rzhev was a military confrontation between Soviet and German troops during the Great Patriotic War. It took place in the area of the Rzhev-Vyazma salientfrom 5 January 1942 to 21 March 1943. The confrontation included four offensive operationsby Soviet troops aimed at defeating the main forces of the Army Group Centre, liberating the cities of Rzhev, Sychevka, and Vyazma, and thereby clearing the Rzhev-Vyazma salient. It ended with the retreat of the Wehrmacht on 5 March 1943.

In official Soviet historiography, the events of 1942-1943 on the Rzhev-Vyazma salient were not considered as a whole, and even more so were not qualified as a battle. There was no description of the battle in the Soviet Military Encyclopaedia, in the six-volume History of the Great Patriotic War, or in other official publications of the Soviet period.

In the modern Russian period, the term ‘Battle of Rzhev’ was introduced into historiography by the independent Russian historian S. A. Gerasimova, and others. Over time, the validity of this conclusion (that the activity around the salient should be recognised as the ‘Battle of Rzhev’) was recognised at an official level, and therefore in the Great Russian Encyclopaedia the battles of Rzhev 1942-1943 are considered as a series of interrelated Soviet offensive operations. A direct appeal has already been published in the official journal Russian Military Review: “The restoration of historical truth requires the introduction of the concept of the Battle of Rzhev into use by scholars, putting it on a par with such fateful battles of the Great Patriotic War as the Battle for Moscow, the Battle for Leningrad, and the Battle for the Caucasus.”

The events in the area of the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead were not glorious for the Soviet side: for a long time, a large German army group was situated near the state’s capital. All attempts by the Supreme Commandto eliminate it, despite heavy losses, ended in failure, and, as a result, the commander of the Western Front, I.S. Konev, was removed from office. After the war, the country's leadership tried to ‘forget’ about these events.

Source: Adapted from ‘Battles of Rzhev’, Wikipedia, accessed 14 November 2022.

Appendix II – Memoirs of Soviet officer Pyotr Mikhin about the Battle of Rzhev

Group 1.Read the following excerpt from the memoirs of Pyotr Milkhin, a Soviet officer who fought at the Battle of Rzhev. How does the author characterise this battle? Underline the keywords that support your answer.

“For three years at the front, I had to participate in many battles, but again and again my painful memories bring me back to the Battle of Rzhev. It's scary to remember how many people died there! The Battle of Rzhev was a massacre, and Rzhev itself was the centre of this massacre. I didn't see anything like it again during the whole war. And for me, as for many of my fellow soldiers, it was also a harsh lesson in the school of war… My story about the battles in and around Rzhev only slightly exposes the submerged part of the iceberg that is the Rzhev tragedy. This is just what I have seen and experienced myself. […]

More than sixty years have passed since the end of the Battle of Rzhev. But despite its grandiosity, which was not inferior in scale to either the battles of Stalingrad or Kursk, few people know about it. Only a veteran who was in that meat grinder will never forget it.”

Group 2.Read the following excerpt from the memoirs of Pyotr Milkhin, a Soviet officer who fought at the Battle of Rzhev and explain the importance of the battle. Support your answer with quotes and words from the text.

“The Rzhev salient along the front was 530 km long, going 160km beyond the town of Vyazma. And it was only 150km away from Moscow. Both Stalin and Hitler were aware of the importance of this bridgehead, and therefore the former sought to eliminate it at all costs, the latter to keep hold of it at any cost. The following facts speak about the constant interest that both Hitler and Stalin showed in the battles for Rzhev. When his troops left Rzhev, Hitler wanted to hear about the blowing up of the bridge over the Volga on the phone. And Stalin, who had never gone to the front, could not resist visiting Rzhev on 4 August 1943, six months after the fighting ended. It was there that he signed the order for the first salute in honour of the liberation of Oryol and Belgorod.

The battles near Rzhev were led by outstanding military leaders from our side: Marshals Stalin, Zhukov, Konev, Vasilevsky, Sokolovsky. But Rzhev was never taken.

The Germans referred to Rzhev in different ways: ‘the key to Moscow’, ‘a pistol aimed at the chest of Moscow’, ‘a springboard for jumping to Moscow’. And they fought furiously to take it.”

Group 3. Read the following excerpt from the memoirs of Pyotr Milkhin, a Soviet officer who fought at the Battle of Rzhev. How does the author explain that information about the Battle of Rzhev was hushed up? Support your answer with quotes from the text.

“As a result of the clearance of the Rzhev-Vyazma salient, the threat to Moscow was finally removed. But the fact that Rzhev was not taken by us either in January, as Stalin ordered, or in August 1942, and was abandoned by the Germans only in March 1943, did not do honour to our command. That's why the commanders who fought there were so shamefully silent about the Rzhev battles. This silence nullified the heroic efforts, inhuman sufferings, courage, and self-sacrifice of the millions of Soviet soldiers who fought at Rzhev; it was a betrayal of, and an outrage to, the memory of almost a million dead, the remains of whom, for the most part, have not yet been buried – that, it seems, is not particularly important.

The Battle for Rzhev is the most tragic, the bloodiest, and the most unsuccessful of all the battles conducted by our army. And we don't usually write about failures. But after all, a long war cannot consist of victories alone. Isn’t the tragedy of millions more important than the dubious honour of even the most high-ranking uniform?! And patriotic education will not suffer if we point out the heroism and tragedy of soldiers who laid down their lives for the sake of victory in failed military operations.”

Source: Mikhin, P. A. (2006). Артиллеристы, Сталин дал приказ! [Gunners, Stalin gave the order!], Yauza: Moscow.

Appendix III – Statistical data of World War II battles: losses of USSR armed forces

Rzhev-Vyazma Strategic Offensive Operation (8 January 1942 - 31 March 1943)
Number of troops at the beginning of the operation	Human losses in the operation
Number of troops at the beginning of the operation	Irretievable losses	Medical losses	Total losses	Daily average
1,058,200	272,320	504,569	776,889	7, 543

Stalingrad Strategic Offensive Operation (19 November 1942 - 2 February 1943)
Number of troops at the beginning of the operation	Human losses in the operation
Number of troops at the beginning of the operation	Irretievable losses	Medical losses	Total losses	Daily average
1,143,500	154,885	330,892	485,777	6,392

Kursk Strategic Defensive Operation (5 - 23 July 1943)
Number of troops at the beginning of the operation	Human losses in the operation
Number of troops at the beginning of the operation	Irretievable losses	Medical losses	Total losses	Daily average
1,272,700	70,330	107,517	177,847	9,360

Oryol Strategic Offensive Operation “Kutuzov” (12 July - 18 August 1943)
Number of troops at the beginning of the operation	Human losses in the operation
Number of troops at the beginning of the operation	Irretievable losses	Medical losses	Total losses	Daily average
1,287,600	112,529	317,361	429,890	11,313

Source: Statistical data of World War II battles: losses of USSR armed forces. Krivosheev, G. F. (ed.) (1993). Потери Вооруженных Сил Ссср В Войнах, Боевых Действиях И Военных Конфликтах [Losses of the armed forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities, and military conflicts], Военное Издательство: Moscow, p. 176.

Appendix IV – Extract from an interview with historian Svetlana Gerasimova

“The construction of the Rzhev Memorial to the Soviet Soldier near the village of Khoroshevo in the Tver region spurred public interest in the events which took place during the Great Patriotic War in 1942-1943 near Rzhev. The goal was to defeat the troops of Army Group Centre, which posed a real danger to the capital of the USSR, Moscow. The task of ensuring the safety of Moscow, set in January 1942, was only partially achieved by March 1943. The battle’s territorial scope along the front is impressive – from 600-700 km in early 1942 to 530 km in March 1943. In other words, the Battle of Rzhev was not for one city, rather an important German bridgehead was eliminated.

In Soviet times, the events in the area of the Rzhev-Vyazma salient were partially covered up. In our time, official military-historical scholarship shows the military operations on the central sector of the Soviet-German front from January 1942 to March 1943 only in fragments. This can be explained by the fact that the operations of the Soviet troops, despite all their heavy losses in manpower, did not fully achieve their goals. It was not possible to finally defeat the troops of Army Group Centre at the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead, so the Soviet command considered these operations unsuccessful. Yes, the Germans eventually left the area, or rather, were withdrawn by the Wehrmacht command. The hushing up of these operations might also be explained by the fact that the troops in these operations were commanded by the most famous commanders of the Great Patriotic War – Zhukov and Konev.”

Source: Bushev, A. (2019). ‘Историк расскрыла малоизвестные страницы Ржевской битвы’ [Historian reveals the little-known pages of the Battle of Rzhev], Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 19 June, accessed 18 January 2023.

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