I have bought a Red Star (#3,693,554) with booklet with awarding date 30 October 1967. In Echoes of War I saw that on 28 October 1967 a bunch of Red Stars was awarded to October Revolution veterans. Is this likely to be the case too with 30 October 1967?
Another award I am considering buying is a Red Star (#3,314,780) with booklet with awarding date 25 June 1954. This date falls right in between the long service ukazes of 30 April and 5 November 1954. Do you think 25 June 1954 would be a long service date too?
Does anyone have information about awards issued for actions in Czechoslovakia in 1968? Specifically, which orders/medals were awarded and how many of each?
CtahhR Wrote:I would suggest we would see some correlation between period of time between the Ukaz and the issue and distance from the Kremlin. So most likely Muscovites' awards are the place to look for same day (or those ferried in to Moscow).
I forgot to mention an alphabetical bias may also be shown. Alphabetical as in if 20,000 people in a single site were awarded an Order it is likely that Comrade A got his award days before Comrade Z.
And a few other comments:
CtahhR Wrote:Some booklets don't have spaces for both Ukaz and issue dates.
I have also seen many instants when there has been a mass awarding where a document has been completely filled in by one hand (or in type) except the day numerals which were added in a separate hand or colour.
I'm sure we're all have the "come into my office" scenario by alphabetic call with the "he's not here", "ok next!".
Having reviewed my own collection, I now believe that we will not be able to see much correlation of any sort, just as is the case with the distribution of military awards after WWII. I've found that a surprising proportion of awards in my collection were issued on the same day as the decree date. I think it highly unlikely that any of the recipients, who were all over the USSR, were shipped to Moscow to receive awards. My own guess is that any gap between the ukaz date and date of issue was totally a function of lots of random logistics. For example: Were the awards shipped and received in time? Did Moscow remember to telegram the decree to that mostly-forgotten province in the far east? Did the local party committee misplace a form? Was the schedule just too packed to have an awarding ceremony? Etc. However, I do think that there were often advance preparations to minimize delay. How else could someone in Ukraine or Uzbekistan get the memo in time?
Presenting examples from my collection below.
1. Uzbekistan. Notice, two awards 20 years apart, both awarded on the same day as the ukaz.
2. Estonian husband and wife, awarded two different years.
3. Ukrainian. Two different years.
4. Officer of Ukrainian descent serving in Ukraine. Awarded for military and political training. (ukaz date confirmed by research)
5. Latvia
6. Moscow (I think). :) Awarded for providing security at the 1980 Olympics. The only other award from this decree I've seen so far was presented on a different day.
That's all. But still, that represents at least a third of awards in my collection eligible for this topic.
The question to ask though is how large are the numbers of awards in these Ukazs? It obviously takes considerably more logistical support as the numbers increase.
So far (other than commemoratives) in the collection the greatest period between awarding and issue I've found is 23 months.
