by Acad. Gennady MATISHOV, Chairman of the RAS Southern Scientific Center, Yevgeny KRINKO, Dr. Sc. (Hist.), Deputy Director for Science of the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies of RAS SSC (Rostov-on Don), Vladimir AFANASENKO, Research Assistant of the Laboratory of History and Ethnography of the same institute The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 holds a prominent place in the fate of Russia. Despite numerous studies related to this war its history still has blind spots including inter alia combat operations in the Russian south in 1942-1943. Their significance was underestimated in the Soviet time, and only in recent years there appeared works whose authors abandon previous stereotypes. It is impossible to make head or tail of the combat operations in the space between the Don and Volga rivers to Caucasia, between the Azov and Caspian seas, and to understand the causes of temporary successes of the enemy without referring to declassified archives and memoirs of the direct participants of the events. After the successful battle near Moscow ill luck pursued the Soviet troops, and Wehrmacht again seized the initiative. In the summer of 1942-autumn of 1943 the fate of the country was decided in the south of Russia. It was just where the events developed which could ultimately affect the war outcome. The following battles were of prime importance: in a large bend of the Don (07.07-23.08.1942), in the direction of Astrakhan (01.08-28.12.1942), Gudermes-Kizlyar (25.08-17.09.1942) and Grozny (02.09-30. 12.1942), strategical battles near Ordzhonikidze (25.10-13.11.1942) and Stalingrad (17.07.1942-02.02.1943), Rostov-on-Don combat operations (20-24.07.1942, 08-14.02.1943) and breakthrough battles of the Mius front (17.02-30.08.1943) and the so-called Blue Line (13.02-09.10.1943). They became the principal landmarks of the fundamental turning point in the war. ACTIONS OF THE GENERAL HEADQUARTERS In the summer of 1941-winter of 194 ... Читать далее