Estonia has been repeatedly attacked by German aggressors. As early as the beginning of the 13th century, German feudal lords, together with Swedish and Danish feudal lords, invaded and captured Estonia. For many centuries, the Estonian people fell under the feudal, national and ecclesiastical oppression of the German conquerors, were deprived of political independence and the possibility of self-determination. But the persistent struggle of Estonians against the invaders did not stop. More than once, peasant uprisings broke out on Estonian soil. Everything that our people had to experience under the yoke of the German feudal lords was imprinted in the memory of generations, in memories and legends, in folklore. New times have brought new experiences, new observations. The era of national awakening has arrived. Thanks to the growth of the Estonian press and the activity of the most progressive forces of the national movement, all this experience has become more clearly understood.

The German aggression against our native land was again committed during the fierce struggle between imperialist Germany and the forces of the October Revolution. In 1918. The Baltic States were again occupied by German troops, who stayed there for about a year. The centuries-old irreconcilable contradictions between the German invaders and the indigenous population were no secret to the top of bourgeois Estonia. However However, on the eve of World War II, the Estonian bourgeoisie did everything possible to conceal these contradictions, to divert the study and knowledge of the history of its people on the wrong path. This was due to the fact that the authorities of bourgeois Estonia were increasingly following in the wake of the policies of Hitler's Germany. None other than the commander-in-Chief of the army of bourgeois Estonia, General I. Laidoner, in one of his speeches delivered in the Estonian city of Tartu at the end of January 1938, proclaimed a kind of "basic concept" of Estonian history. It claimed that the Livonian Order, awarded by the German invaders in our lands in the 13th century, was supposedly a state entity where Germans and Estonians were equally endowed with power. The general claimed that the main purpose of this state was to jointly defend the country from an external enemy. And for such an enemy, the eastern neighbor of the Baltic States, Russia, was given out. Such statements about the" German-Estonian " Order state were an integral part of preparing the ground for cooperation between the local bourgeoisie and Hitlerite Germany. This is how the German Nazi magazine "Jomsburg"understood and approved it. It is true that the Estonian bourgeois press was not very enthusiastic about the "basic concept", but it should be said that some of this fiction still remained in the minds of some of the local population, especially during the Nazi occupation.

From the first days of the invasion of the Soviet Union by German troops, it became clear that Estonia would soon become the scene of military operations. In this regard, questions arose: what methods of Soviet patriotic education would have the greatest effect on mobilizing the local population to repel the evil enemy? In particular, how can the facts of Estonian history be used for this purpose? In order to describe in detail how these issues were resolved at that terrible time for our country, it is necessary to do extensive research. Therefore, we will limit ourselves here only to personal memories and some comments. It seems that these memoirs will focus the attention of researchers of the history of the Great Patriotic War on circumstances that have not yet been sufficiently taken into account in the literature.

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In the propaganda and propaganda work carried out by the press among the Estonian population during the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, the facts of history were rarely cited. This was probably due to the lack of experience in using such material. Thus, my first historically reasoned article, written in Tartu on the second day after the outbreak of the war, was published only in the Republican newspaper with a small circulation "Noukogude Opetaja" ("Soviet Teacher") dated June 27, 1941, under the title " Against the historical blood enemy!". It showed the connection between the policy of "Drang nach Osten" of Hitler and the aggression of German feudal lords in the Baltic States that began in the XIII century. I have used the memoirs of the Danzig figure H. Rauschning, who was once a confidant of Hitler, and then broke with him, under the title "Gespräche mit Hitler" ("Conversations with Hitler"). They very frankly describe Hitler's misanthropic plans for all the peoples who inhabited the territory to the east of Germany. But, unfortunately, a significant part of the article was not published in the newspaper. The fate of this work somewhat discouraged me. Therefore, my original plan to write more widely, using the data of the same Rauschning, about the plan of Hitler and his closest henchmen to seize "eastern space", subjecting the local population to "reorganization" and the most severe racist extermination, also failed.

In the first weeks of the war, I became increasingly concerned with the question of how to organize work in order to effectively and extensively use the facts from the history of my people to strengthen their moral unity and strengthen their resilience in the fight against the Nazi invaders. It seemed to me that our local propaganda was largely devoid of concreteness and necessary effectiveness at that time. Is it really impossible to use the history of the Estonian people in our propaganda? We discussed this issue with the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Estonian SSR I. Lauristin and the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia N. Karotamm, as well as the editors of the newspapers "Kommunist" and "Noorte Hääl" ("Voice of Youth"). Despite the fact that my proposal found supporters, nothing significant was done in those days in terms of its implementation.

When conscription began in Northern Estonia, I visited many recruitment centers to observe the mood of the population. It turned out that the most painful issue for the mobilized and their relatives was the need to leave their native land and go to the eastern, rear areas of the Soviet Union. This prompted me to write an article "On what front?", published in the newspaper" Kommunist " (1941, N 205). The main idea of the article was that the defense of the Estonian land and its people is inextricably linked with the struggle of all the peoples of the Soviet Union against Hitler's Germany. I considered the awakening, taking root and spreading of this idea among Estonian citizens to be one of the essential prerequisites for a successful fight against the hated enemy. The article gives examples from the history of the early 13th century: the struggle for freedom against the German invaders, for the preservation of ancient freedom; the weak unity of the Estonian people at first; the particularism of the Estonian lands and its overcoming at the cost of severe trials. My article was an attempt to link the phenomena of the past with specific topical events. Talking to people familiar with this article, I came to the conclusion that such an appeal to the history of the people could give a good result. Despite the fact that the importance of history in shaping the moral and political face of society has been known since ancient times, it was still interesting to see once again that this fact was confirmed in our days.

During the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, the Estonian press generally rarely used history as an ideological weapon. This was due to various reasons, including the need to link practical propaganda work with various current events, such as participation in the establishment of the front, the troubles associated with evacuation, etc.

In September 1941, in Leningrad, I conceived the idea of writing a pamphlet that would present the most important moments from the history of German aggression in our region. At first, however, this idea has not yet been realized. Once in Chelyabinsk, at the end of 1941, I outlined a plan for an article about German aggression in the Baltic States in the past. The article was published in 1942 in a small collection,

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prepared under the editorship of N. Karotamm, Secretary of the KPI Central Committee. In addition to it, there were also published articles by N. Karotamm and N. Andrezen. The collection was published under the title "The Age-old Struggle of the Estonian people against the German Aggressors". My own article ("On the struggle of the Estonian people against the German Occupiers in Bygone times") was later reprinted in the collection" The German-Fascist Occupation in Estonia " (1947).

More favorable conditions for using the history of the Estonian people in the political and educational work carried out among citizens evacuated from Estonia to the Soviet rear were created after the Estonian Republican Commission for the Study of the History of the Great Patriotic War, established in early 1942 by the decision of the Central Committee of the KPI. N. Karotamm was appointed Chairman of the commission. As Vice-Chairman, I was assigned to lead the collection of war-related memoirs, both in Estonian national military units and among evacuated civilians. I was also authorized to involve suitable people from among the Estonian writers who had been evacuated to the rear. As a result, we were able to leave in a small group in mid - February for the Sverdlovsk region, where the formation of the first Estonian national military unit, the 7th Division, had already begun. We worked in the division for three weeks, collecting memories of the events of the Great Patriotic War on the territory of the ESR in the summer of 1941.

Based on the facts from the history of Estonia, we turned to the arguments taken from the chronicle of the struggle against German aggression in the course of political and educational work among military personnel. We tried to orient political workers in various parts of the division in the same way. As a result, we have a firm conviction that the struggle of the Estonian people against the German aggressors who oppressed and exploited them for centuries is replete with a large number of topics that are of great importance in the political education of our contemporaries. In March - April 1942, after their first business trip to the 7th Division, they were in Moscow, where they had the opportunity to introduce our observations to their comrades from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In these conversations, the idea was born to use the 600th anniversary of the St. George's Night Uprising, which was celebrated in 1943, in the interests of our political propaganda. From that moment, the necessary preparations for the celebration of this date began.

If when we were evacuated from Estonia at the beginning of the war, we hoped that we would return home in a few months, then in the first half of 1942 it became obvious that the war would continue on St. George's Day in 1943 and that propaganda work should also be established accordingly. In the historical struggle of the Estonians against the German aggressors, the St. George's Night uprising of 1343 became increasingly important. In order to " shine the spotlight on this topic as widely as possible, it was necessary to provide our propaganda with the necessary printed materials. I have written a number of articles that have been published in various publications. They compiled the collection "Estonian History Testifies against German Fascism" published in 1943. I devoted another pamphlet to the St. George's Night Uprising - "The Precepts of St. George's Night to a Contemporary", which also went out of print in Moscow in 1943. I was also assigned to compile a popular science review of the Departures, identify the causes and results of this uprising, and show its place in Estonian history. This essay, entitled "The Struggle of the Estonians for Freedom in 1343-1345", was completed in early 1943. and at first, it was distributed according to the lists among people evacuated from Estonia, and among political workers of our national formations. It appeared in the spring of the same year in the first issue of the collection " Syyasarv "("Battle Horn"), which was dedicated to the 600th anniversary of the uprising in St. George's Night. The editorial was N. Karotamm's article "The St. George's Night Uprising and the Patriotic War of the Estonian People". The collection also contained a number of works of art on the themes of St. George's Night: a poem by Johannes Barbarus, poems by Ernie Hiir, Mart Raud, Johannes Semper, Jaan Kiarner, excerpts from "Tazuya" ("The Avenger") Edouard Bornhe, short stories by Aadu Hinta, Arnold Tulik and others.

The theme of the uprising on St. George's Night was also widely used by our masters of art-artists, composers. Having visited Yaroslavl three times, where I advised evacuated Estonian artists on historical issues, I could not help but notice how enthusiastic they were about this topic. Behind

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in a short period of time, in relatively difficult conditions, a large number of paintings and sculptures dedicated to the 600th anniversary of the uprising were created. Shortly before this date, in April 1943, an art exhibition opened in Moscow, where 151 works were exhibited. Eugen Kapp's opera "The Fires of Vengeance" (libretto by Paul Rummo) was also a major artistic work on the themes of the St. George's Night Uprising. This work played a huge role in strengthening the anti-fascist mood among Estonians and fostering a sense of patriotism. In connection with the celebration of the 600th anniversary of the St. George's Night Uprising, a rally of representatives of the Estonian people was held in Moscow on April 18, 1943, which was broadcast on the radio. At this meeting, I made a report "The seriously wounded people always rose up", which was later published in the collection of articles "The History of Estonia testifies against German fascism". The leitmotif of the report was a miniature scene taken from the Renner-Heneke chronicle about the battle of Tallinn during the uprising: a seriously wounded Estonian, gathering his last strength, tries to attack a German who has left the city gates. In my report, I gave this emotionally intense scene the meaning of a peculiar symbol. This is how the participants of the rally took it. I was glad that my historical and journalistic experience was a success.

Political workers and writers evacuated to the rear of Soviet Estonia tried to introduce the events of the St. George's Night uprising to other fraternal peoples of the country, so that these events would also inspire them to fight. Print and radio broadcasts in Russian were very useful. In this connection, let me remind you of my article in No. 7 of the "Historical Journal" for 1943. We have received information that the events of the uprising were successfully used in propaganda work in other republics. We can mention the following detail: in the Russian tear-off calendar for 1943, on a leaflet dated April 23, it was printed that 600 years ago on this day a major uprising of the Estonian people broke out against the German invaders. The calendar had a circulation of 5 million copies. Consequently, millions of our compatriots learned about this outstanding event in the history of the Estonian liberation struggle. The dissemination of such information aroused a natural interest in the Estonian people, in the history of their struggle against the German aggressors.

Speaking about the fact that the extensive events marking the 600th anniversary of the uprising of 1343 played an important role in the political education of our fellow citizens who were evacuated to the rear and served in the ranks of the Estonian national formations during the Great Patriotic War, I would like to mention the merits of the then secretary of the KPE Central Committee, Nikolai Georgievich Karotamm. He showed great initiative and talent in organizing the anniversary celebration.

The reference to this event from the heroic chronicle of our people was of great political and ideological significance. The whole history of the Estonian people, with its battles for freedom, relevant events and situations, starting from the 13th century and ending with the war against Hitler's aggression, which carried a real threat of extermination of our people, was presented in a single row. It was especially important to show the plans for the extermination of the Estonian people, which were hatched by the German invaders at various times. They were discussed by me in the article "German plans for the extermination of the Estonian people" ("Syasarv". Issue IV, Moscow, 1944), covering the last 80 years before the Second World War. I wrote about these plans and how the Estonian people reacted to them in the article "The Legacy of our ancestors obliges and inspires us to fight for Soviet Estonia" (Rahva Hääl, 19. VII. 1944, No. 36).

Turning to the history of Estonia in general and in connection with the struggle of our people against German fascism, we had to touch on some extremely important, albeit private, issues. One of them was the false concept of Estonian history, which had existed among the Germans since time immemorial, and now, in war conditions, was raised on a shield by the Nazis. Special attention was paid to the preaching of the "unity of destinies" of the Estonian and German peoples, their historical "solidarity" and joint actions, and the" cultural and educational services " of the Germans to the Estonian people. The fascists and their henchmen, especially in the occupied territory, tried by all means to poison the consciousness of the local population with this ideological poison. It was necessary to expose their historical forgery. This was done, in particular, by my reports delivered in a number of military units of the Estonian Rifle Corps. Basic polos-

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The conclusions of the reports are summarized in an article entitled "The German Fascists want to take even its history away from the Estonian people", published in the collection of articles "Estonian History Testifies against German Fascism". At the time when this article was being written in the Soviet rear, we did not yet have all the information about the Nazi falsification of Estonian history. After the liberation of the republic from Nazi occupation, our materials on this topic were expanded. It turned out that it was necessary to return to this issue once again, which was done by me in the article "On the falsification of Estonian history by the German occupiers and their henchmen" (published in the collection "The German-Fascist Occupation in Estonia").

From the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, the false concept of Estonian history was repeatedly invoked by traitors to the Estonian people as an ideological argument designed to justify their cooperation with the German Nazis. We stigmatized those Estonians who, both in the past and in the present, became frequent henchmen, collaborated with the invaders, and helped them. One of them was the overseer (kubyas) at Lodijarve Manor during the St. George's Night uprising. His image is derived in the novel "Tazuya"by Eduard Bornhe. On this subject, I wrote a note "On a distant prototype of the Estonian traitors to the Motherland." The article "Pärt Suja and his modern great-grandchildren" shows the headman of the Karulas school P. Suja, who in the 70s of the last century served the Co-workers of the Baltic Sea quite a lot in their actions directed against the biggest initiative of the Estonian national movement of those times - the idea of creating an Estonian Alexander School (both of these articles are published in the collection " History Estonia testifies against German fascism").

The appeal to Estonian history for the purpose of moral and political education of our compatriots in the Soviet rear was not limited to reports and publications, of which only the most typical examples are given above. In order to widely disseminate historical knowledge, it was decided to include the study of Estonian history in the program of courses for party, Soviet and trade union activists organized on behalf of the KKE Central Committee. As the only senior historian evacuated from Estonia, I gave lectures on the history of my republic during these courses. I had to give lectures in the district center of Myshkiio (Yaroslavl region), in Yaroslavl, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Yegoryevsk, as well as in almost all Estonian national military units.

Among the relevant activities related to historical science and carried out in the Soviet rear, special attention should be paid to the organization of collecting memories of military events on the territory of the Estonian SSR in the summer of 1941, as well as on the formation and combat path of individual military units of the Estonian Rifle Corps. After I received the assignment from the Estonian Republican Commission for the Study of the History of the Great Patriotic War to direct this relatively extensive work, I was lucky enough to find the most suitable assistants for this task in the person of writers evacuated to the rear. The authors August Jacobson, Mihkel Jurna, August Allee, Ernie Hiir, Paul Caerdo, literary critic Nigol Andrezen, educator Johannes Seylenthal and historian Felix Roose participated in the work - some in full, others for a short time. In the process of collecting memories, we visited not only all the units of the Estonian Rifle Corps, but also various special military units. This work took place mainly during 1942, and partly in the following year. To record Memories, we interviewed more than 300 people, which resulted in more than 3 thousand interviews. pages of content.

The interviews were based on an instruction questionnaire with the expectation that the answers together would describe everything that happened in the summer of 1941 on the territory of the Estonian SSR in the greatest possible detail and completeness. The instruction included questions about the composition of the local asset and the tasks assigned to it, about the mobilization of those liable for military service and vehicles, about the organization of fighter battalions, their composition and combat operations, about the evacuation of people and material values, about the fight against banditry, etc. The main concern when collecting memoirs was to find suitable interviewers in relatively large groups-

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and third parties. This means that it was necessary to find people who, due to various prerequisites (the place of work, the tasks they performed during the first military summer in Soviet Estonia, as well as observation and the ability to make their own judgments), could give reliable information when recording their memories. At first, it was not easy to solve this problem. Only later, when the political workers with whom we worked closely became more familiar with the composition of military units, the work went on successfully. The difficulties also arose because we were trying to get information about the events and state of affairs in the first military summer on the scale of the entire republic. We needed to find suitable people for the survey from all cities, counties, and even parishes. With the help of the political officers of the military units, our group finally solved this problem quite satisfactorily.

When recording our memories, we in our team took all measures to ensure that the narratives we recorded were as true as possible and were based exclusively on real facts. At the same time, it was impossible, of course, to neglect the personal opinion, impressions and judgments of the narrator about what he told us. But at the same time, it was always necessary to clearly indicate their subjective nature. If during a trip to the troops we received information that was in conflict with the information available to us, we tried to get additional clarification both from the persons we interviewed and from those knowledgeable in the relevant matter. However, we did not always succeed. In order to ensure the authenticity and documentability of the recorded memories, a rather strict procedure was adopted when making these records. On the spot, in a military unit, the interview was recorded by an employee of our brigade. So a draft was born, on which there were various notes from the interviewer. Arriving from the place of the "survey" to the "base", which was located at that time in Chelyabinsk, the interviewer who took part in the trip, based on the brought draft, compiled a clean copy. The records processed in this way were handed over to me as a foreman. I, in turn, checked them and, if necessary, noted contradictions or statements whose authenticity was doubtful. The interview was then typewritten in four copies. With two copies, one of the group members would go back to the same military unit where we were interviewing. Here, the interviewee read a record of his memories and certified them with his own signature. The text of the assurance read: "I confirm that the above interview was recorded from my own words and its content corresponds to the facts known to me." If necessary, corrections and additions were made to the text. They, in turn, were certified by the signatures of the interviewer and the interviewee. We sent our memoirs designed in this way to the KPI Central Committee.

When our group created to collect war memoirs was mostly finished, this method was successfully continued in the Estonian Rifle Corps by historian Felix Roose. He was retained in the corps as an authorized representative of the Estonian Republican Commission for the Study of the History of the Great Patriotic War. He carried out this task with great passion and diligence: he collected memoirs, organized a good correspondent network for the commission, and took care of the reliable preservation of documentary materials throughout the corps. The detailed work diary that he kept for this purpose was of particular value from the point of view of the history of the Estonian Rifle Corps. Unfortunately, these recordings were subsequently lost. Historical materials collected in the Soviet rear during the war years, primarily memoirs, are a unique, irreplaceable primary source for the initial period of the war in the territory of the Estonian SSR. Historians refer to this primary source, but still too little. Future researchers will undoubtedly pay more attention to it.

The collection of military memoirs in Estonian national military units was of great importance for the political and educational work carried out in military units. The very fact of collecting memories testified to the fact that not only among the interviewees, but also among their comrades-in-arms, the consciousness of what they were doing was growing stronger.

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participants in events of world-historical significance, which are also recorded with the help of the printed word. At the same time, those who directly collected memories in military units made reports to the soldiers, which often acquired effectiveness that exceeded all expectations.

So, during the Great Patriotic War, the facts of Estonian history gradually found more and more versatile use in political and educational work among the population and soldiers of the Soviet Army. The historical interpretation of events seemed to put representatives of past generations in the ranks of fighters with the enemy. We felt that they were in a single formation with us. Even now, many years later, we are convinced that all this was a factor that contributed to strengthening the military community of Estonians with other peoples of the Soviet country, strengthening the combat capability of our society. Estonian historians can recall with satisfaction the work that was devoted to the study of the Motherland's past during the Great Patriotic War. In addition, by organizing the collection and recording of military memoirs, we sought to create one of the primary sources on the history of the great liberation struggle that our people fought shoulder to shoulder with all the other peoples of the Soviet Union.

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