Table of Contents:
  • The sword and the pen : an overview of war literature
  • Return from the front : the veterans dissent
  • Traitors, wolves, and infernal cold : the war stories of Vasil' Bykov
  • The imperium ripostes : the return of the Vozhd'
  • The hinge of fate : the Battle of Stalingrad in Soviet-Russian war literature
  • NKVD reports from Stalingrad, 1942-1943 : blocking detachments, deserters, executions, and morale
  • The Russian war novel of the 1990s : a final reckoning?
  • Afterword
  • Appendix A: Order of the headquarters of the Supreme Command of the Red Army, 270, 16th August 1941
  • Appendix B: Order of the People's Commissar for Defence of the USSR, 227, 28th July 1942
  • Appendix C: Statute concerning the main counter-intelligence directorate of the People's Commissariat of Defence ("SMERSH") and its agencies in the provinces, 21st April 1943.