«Пока живой — писать буду…»: повседневность чувств эпохи Великой Отечественной войны (по материалам личной переписки магнитогорцев)
«I Will Write While I’m Alive...» : Everyday Feelings of the Great Patriotic War Era (A Case Study of Personal Correspondence of Magnitogorsk Inhabitants)

Summary/Abstract: In contemporary terms, attention to the so-called history of the emotions is enhancing. L. Febvre first put the problem of studying emotions. He was followed by J. Huizinga, N. Elias, T. Zeldin. In Russia this direction of historical science took only the first steps. This article discusses the experiences and range of feelings of Magnitogorsk citizens, veterans and home front workers — the immediate participants of the tragic events of the Great Patriotic war. Letters most clearly reflect the range of feelings and experiences. Despite the censorship conditions, people wrote letters very actively. The war threw the country into unprecedented epistolary activity. Correspondence during the war was sometimes the only common thread between people, a means of emotional recovery, the revival of forgotten feelings of peace, comfort, hearth. The whole range of feelings experienced by the citizens of Magnitogorsk, could be divided into two groups. The first group includes a range of emotions, which were related to the official discourse of the Soviet period in General and the Great Patriotic war in particular. The second group of emotional experiences reflected the world of human sensations, formed under the influence of external circumstances. Based on the sources of personal origin, the author concludes that the world of the Magnitogorsk people’s senses was unusually rich. Extraordinary conditions of wartime shaped the unique practice of sensual experiences.

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