"Research" - A Guide.

[Tal Inbar]

TEXT AND PICTURES CREDIT - OUR SUPER MODERATOR DAVE

(THANKS FOR THIS G R E A T JOB!)

What is it?

There are two trains of Western thought on the former Soviet Union. One side thinks that the 'Sovs' were quite disorganized, leading people forward en masse to be slaughtered through outdated tactics, technology gone wrong, and so on. The other side thinks of them from the Communist-political point of view, and sees them as an extremely cold, ruthless, micromanaging, and above all, able to easily track each and every one of their citizens through their daily life.

Well, honestly, neither, yet both, are true. The exact details of each philosophy can be debated ad nauseum, but that is best left for the people much unlike yours truly; people with little letters behind their names, thick glasses and '400 pound heads' (as we call them.)

For the rest of us, the answer lies somewhere in the middle ground of the two views. Here's the truth: the Soviet military kept excellent records on each of their personnel. While most other countries did as well, over half the records for American personnel got 'cooked' by arson in 1973, the Brits won't let you look at anything later than WW1, and so on.

Since there is no longer a Soviet military, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has opened its archives, allowing researchers to 'dig' through and find records of individual personnel. This was actually possible prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, however, it was normally only made available to the veterans themselves, and their next of kin.

Nowadays, a researcher can go to the Central Archives in Padolsk, about a forty minute train ride from Moscow, and for a fee, pull up the records on an individual.

[Tal Inbar]

The Award Card

What they normally find first is the 'Uchetnaya Kartochka', often referred to in English as the 'Award Card'. This will list several things. At the top of the page, after the words 'Uchetnaya Kartochka' is a line that reads "Ordenskaya Knijka", and directly below that is the word "Udostoverenia". Translated, the top word means "Order Book", the bottom literally means "Identification Document". Order Books were issued with the awarding of orders, the "Identification Document" was issued with medals.

Usually, one of the two words will either be crossed out, circled, blacked out, etc, and there will be a number next to it. This number can simply be a number, normally six digits, or it can be a number (also six digits) following a letter. This is the document number of the Order Book or Identification Document issued with the award or awards.

If you then take the document with the group that the research is for, and open the book to the first or second page (normally the second page, the one listing all the award numbers, except on much later documents) and you will see that this number on the award card matches the number in the document. If it doesn't, you should be glad that you got the research and send the group back to the person you bought it from!

There are always exceptions to the rules, of course. Award cards filled out up to 1943 only had slots for the name of the award and the date, and none for the award number, though I have seen numbers written on the cards. If a group does have this sort of card, and there are post-43 awards in the group, normally there will be an award card of the later type, with all the award numbers.

The other information that can be found on this card is the person's First, Last and Patronymic names, their rank, gender, date of birth, place of birth, party affiliation, education, nationality, date joined the Red Army, place of service when the awards were presented, current place of service, and home address. The place of service when the awards were presented is often the last unit they served in during a war, or it could be their previous unit to the unit issuing the award card, or even the very same unit.

On the reverse of the card, you will find the listing of all awards, including orders with their numbers, the document number issued with the award (including document numbers for campaign and commemorative medals) and the unit issuing the award with the date issued. Entries here depended greatly on the individual unit. I have seen some with as little as the basic information listed above, for only the person's orders, and I have seen award cards with every order, every medal, and even foreign awards listed!

After the listing of awards, there is a place for the persons signature. This is quite handy to verify against the signature in the order book. Below that, will be the name and title of the person issuing the card, the date the card was issued, and the stamp of the unit. This unit stamp has saved the research on a group on numerous occasions, especially when only the award card was available and the handwriting on the front was too messy to decipher!

As I mentioned briefly above, sometimes the only document available on a person is their award card. For whatever reason, the citations and the service record are unavailable. This is most commonly found with Naval groups, as well as with groups to non-WW2 veterans from the 1960's onward.

Award card styles do vary throughout the years, but have contained essentially (with few exceptions) the same information with each style.

[Tal Inbar]

The Citations

After the award card is found, it is then time for the researcher to dig through the massive volumes containing the citations for each award. When the award document for that particular individual is found, the page (or pages) is then photocopied and unless any further research is warranted, the page is mailed to you (or to a middleman, who then mails it to you.)

What can be found on the citation? These can either be a great wealth of information, or simply create an even greater mystery. Even though most people dread citations for long service, I find them actually some of the most valuable citations that you can get back. Let me cover first, though, what can be found on your average citation.

Much like the award card, we have the persons full name, rank, their position and unit, what award they are nominated for, their date of birth, nationality, party affiliation, their participation in the Civil War (and following 'conflicts'), and participation in the Great Patriotic War, wounds received in either war, date of joining the Red Army, region drafted from, previous awards, and permanent address (normally also listing the next of kin, i.e. wife, father, mother, etc.)

Following this, the citation will then have the "short, concrete" description of the action for which the person is being nominated for an award. Remember, just the fact that the citation was written for a certain award didn't mean (and still doesn't mean in today's citation writing!) that the person was necessarily going to receive that award. Much depended on politics, the persons relationship with their superior, and so on.

The actual writing of the citation can vary from an excellent literary work to a downright poor example of a bad grasp of the language! Some are short, some are long, some are 'flowery' some are direct and to the point. The citations from a unit with a long history of heavy combat are often more 'ho-hum' about great feats of valor than a unit fresh on the frontlines, tasting combat for the first time.

The last sentence of the write up will have what award the person is recommended for. Following that, there will be the name, title and signature of the person nominating the individual. Most of the time, signature of the unit commissar, the date and the unit stamp will also be present on the citation, but it's not uncommon to find them without one or all of these.

On the reverse of the citation, there will be several lines for the approval or disapproval of the award from the next authority in the chain of command. For lesser awards, which could be awarded by the unit (the medals For Valor, For Military Merit, and the Order of Glory 3rd Class) this line would be for (normally) the Divisional commander. As the initial signature line, this area too can also be found with the signatures of the commander's chief of staff, the unit commissar, date, and unit stamp, or none of these.

The next and subsequent lines are for the next authorities in the person's chain of command, all the way up to (depending on the award) the Front Commander. For the highest awards, such as the Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin, etc, the citation would then be sent to the General Staff in Moscow for final approval and processing.

During each of these approvals, disapprovals and further nominations, there was always a chance of the award being upgraded, downgraded, or in some cases, both. Here too, 'politics' played a role in the upgrading and downgrading, but the actual intention was to have these reviews be a 'sanity check', to ensure that no one was simply 'giving away' awards, and that their true value was being upheld. Given that there were no 'complete unit' awards of the Hero of the Soviet Union, and other high awards, it appears that this system worked fairly well.

Since there are exceptions to every rule, especially when you figure how many millions of awards the Soviet Union handed out over 73 years, there are, of course, variations in the citation format.

There were several different ways orders and medals could be awarded. These would either be from the citations, or for more common awards and 'group' awards, there would simply be lists of names, along with their units, of those who had earned the award. This type of list can commonly be found in long service awards of the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Lenin after WW2, when they would be given out to senior soldiers and officers for their time in the military, prior to the advent of the Irreproachable Service medals.

These lists really don't tell you much at all, other than a date when the award was given, and often the unit the person was serving in at the time. There was another format, common for the awarding of the medals For Valor and For Military Merit during WW2, which was essentially a condensed version of the 'long form' citation, listing the person's name, rank, and so on, with a short citation. These are commonly found when the Regiment or Division would award a number of soldiers the same award at the same time (though often with different citations). The nominating authority would then sign the bottom of this citation, and it would then go up the chain as a normal citation would.

A last variation of the 'common' citation is the format used for awarding of a long service award. These citations were either for the medal For Military Merit, and the Orders of the Red Star, Red Banner and Lenin.

The great thing about these citations is the reverse. Instead of the normal areas for authority approval, there is a large area to list the units and billets the person had served in through their career and what dates they had served there. Additionally, if the unit had been in combat, what front they had served on.

This has been a literal gold-mine for several groups that I have had, with otherwise 'ordinary' citations. A 'ho-hum' group can quickly turn into a 'wow' group when one discovers that the units they had served in had been wiped out, or had been at Stalingrad, or at Kursk, or Berlin.

Sometimes, however, the citations are unavailable for an award. This could mean that the citations were lost (as often happened, especially with the combat loss of a major unit headquarters) or were misfiled, or were Navy!

A special note should be made here about Naval citations. I have researched close to twenty bona-fide naval groups. I have received award cards and citations from about eight, and just the award cards themselves from about four. My luck has been better than most, who often find their groups to be 'un-researchable'.

The Naval citations which I have received have all (except for one) been re-typed onto new paper. I don't know why this is, as I am just grateful for what I have gotten back!

I have included some scans of various citations at the bottom of this page. They clearly show the wide variety of documents used for various awards from different units!

[Tal Inbar]

Special documents for Heroes and Cavaliers

In the early 1960's, the Soviet archivists began a process of organizing the service records of those who, by that time, had been awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union or Cavalier of the Order of Glory. A new form was created, which provided a single-source document for the award card and personnel data.

The Cavalier and the Hero documents were the same. In fact, the Cavalier document was simply the Hero document with 'Hero of the Soviet Union' crossed out and 'Cavalier of the Order of Glory' stamped above it!

These documents listed all the information found on the award card, to include their name, date and place of birth, and so on, as well as some minor service history, a listing of all awards and documents with their respective numbers, and a photo of the awardee. In addition, these documents were normally updated to contain their current occupation and residence, along with (if applicable) their date and place of death.

[Tal Inbar]

What is a 'Complete Service Record'?

You've probably heard or read of a group with a 'Complete Service Record', or a 'Personnel File'. What has happened here is that the person requesting the research also wanted copies of the persons personnel record folder. These can be anywhere from 10-80 pages in length, depending on who the person was, how well their file was maintained, and how long they served in the military.

In a totally complete service record, you'll have not just the citations, but also the person's complete service history, all in nicely typed format, often at least one copy of an autobiography, if not several from different years, all of their fitness reports and promotion documents, Party paperwork, official letters and correspondence and retirement papers.

What does this give you? By having all of these papers, you have a wide view of the persons career and their background history. You know who their family was, the personal triumphs or tragedies, the quality of officer they were, and so on. Sometimes, this is the only way you can know about their participation in the Civil War, as well as promotions past the time that their award card was issued (especially for general officers.) Additionally, on several occasions, I have found citations for awards that had been misfiled into their service record, rather than in the proper books!

Does everyone have a service record? No. These are mostly only available on senior officers, and sometimes even with them, they don't exist. Up until the persons retirement from the military, their service record was kept at their local unit. The units were supposed to send the records to the Central Archives upon the persons detachment from the military. However, they were often lost, misplaced, or sometimes given to and kept by the service member themselves!

Is it worth requesting a complete service record? Yes, in my opinion it is, especially for senior officers. It can open a whole new dimension to that person that isn't evident in their citations, often radically changing your perspective on that person.

[Tal Inbar]

How do I start?

I am asked on a regular basis which awards I think are best to research. Honestly, the awards that are best to research are those that hold the most interest for you. Will that beat-up For Valor medal have a better citation than that nice, expensive Suvorov Order? Probably not, but 1) you never know and 2) the whole point of research is not to get the 'coolest' citation, but to learn more about the person that wore that award. If that award or that group of awards means something to you- that's the group to research.

However, that being said, if one wanted to 'hedge their bets', the awards that usually (note the 'usually'!) have the best citations are the Orders of Glory and the Orders of Aleksandr Nevsky. Does that mean that a Lenin or Red Banner will have a 'ho-hum' citation? By no means! I have had outstanding citations for both of those awards, and have had some really 'ho-hum' citations for awards that I just knew were going to be 'good'!

One will find though that quite a few awards of the Orders of Lenin, Red Banner, Red Star and the medal For Military Merit were given for long service. Prior to the creation of the Irreproachable Service medals, these were the only awards that they had to award personnel for their long service to the 'Rodina'.

Some of the 'high-end' awards are likewise often (at least in my opinion) fairly 'ho-hum', such as the 'big three' orders of Kutuzov, Suvorov and Khmelnitsky. These were often given to senior officers for broad service, conducting successful operations over long periods of time. While there is nothing wrong with that, those type of citations (at least for me) don't hold the same meaning as the junior personnel 'down in the dirt'. Of course, that's just my opinion, and of course- there are always exceptions! Just see some of the citations here on the site to prove otherwise!

Once you have selected the award or group of awards that you want to research, you then need to contact someone who can place the order for research for you.

Research isn't cheap! On average, it will cost you $60-$70 for a single award, and upwards of $120-$130 for a large group. A large, complete service record will sometimes run as high as $150.

Is it worth it? Undoubtedly- yes! Despite the few times that the research comes back on a group and it's not quite as 'cool' as you thought it was going to be, most of the time it really shines a whole new light on the group, and really gives you a great respect for who the person was who wore those medals.

Additionally, research is invaluable, particularly on 'high-end' groups in verifying the authenticity of the group, ensuring that each of those awards was actually given to that person. And, on a purely 'surface' level, an 'ordinary' group with great citations can up to double in value!

SAMPLES from the Personnel File of Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, General Arhipov.

[Dave]

Tal-

Thanks for the compliments! :)

I'd like to add that Ed Maier has some updates that weren't included in that article about research. Hopefully he'll have a chance to post a reply in this thread.

--Dave

P.S. Arkhipov's personnel file was a bear to scan, so please take advantage of the work! :) Enjoy!

[mcwirsk]

Dear Tal ( and Dave)

Thank you. This was a mamoth task/report that you have given us. This is the first time I actually understand how all the research clips together.

You deserve a vote of thanks from all.

I do research in the SA army archives and its almost the same system. Amazing.

I do not believe that a group is complete if it has no research. Research opens the world and turns pieces of metal in living objects.

Thanks again Tal and well done.

regards from sunny SA

Munroe

[WAR II]

Dear Tal and Dave,
Thank you for a job well done. I, and others I am sure, appreciate the time you have taken to put in order the reasons for medal research. I now have a better understanding of the process.
Warm regards from Southern California,
Bill

[Разведка]

Is there any way that we might put a sticky on this? I found this very helpful, but it took a little while to find. In beginning to research medals that I have in my collection, this would have been my first choice to read over. Thanks, Tal!