TY - JOUR
AU - Robinson, Michael
AB - The Broken Years tells the first story of the estimated 1.14 million Russian disabled ex-servicemen of the First World War. Sumpf’s impressive study recounts their experience in six chapters via the prism of three wars and revolutions from 1904 to 1921. I was struck by the magnitude of the task of completing this daunting national case study. Not only is there a dearth of previous research on Russian Great War veterans or histories of disability and the welfare state in Russia to draw upon, but surviving sources appear scarce and often partial. Sumpf deserves immense credit for the depth of research involved in completing this complex project which effectively integrates statistical, medical, legal, governmental, pressure group, political and symbolic perspectives utilising national, regional and local archives located across Russia. A creative methodology is pursued to tell this story. In addition to medical case files and state forms involving individual veterans, diaries, artwork, novels, posters and movies are incorporated and discussed. I found the high-quality reproduced stills of the latter to be incredibly emotive. The Broken Years recounts the fascinating story of the patriotism and activism of Russian disabled Great War veterans at the front and on their return home before the ascension of Bolshevik rule condemned their experience to obscurity. Viewed as broken relics of an ‘imperialist war’ in a Marxist society that valued class and labour above military service, the rights of disabled Russian veterans were cruelly castigated in early Soviet Russia. By consistently placing the Russian experience within a global transnational framework, The Broken Years simultaneously tells both a familiar and unfamiliar story of disabled First World War veterans. Regarding the former, Sumpf relays how state authorities objectified disabled Russian veterans, how many veterans felt abandoned by their country, hid their disability from their contemporaries, and the impact disability had on their sense of masculinity and the effect it had on veteran domesticity. The unfamiliar aspects of this book provide the reader with some fascinating material. For example, Sumpf’s study provides historians of disabled veterans with a unique perspective on a turbulent, violent and oppressive society which was also able to draw beneficial lessons from its former experience of industrial warfare during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5). As the author contends, Russia’s uniqueness explains why no such study has been undertaken until now. As a historian of Great War veterans, I remain excited about the possibilities for future works in this area to now incorporate revolutionary Russia into the historiography. To date, work on disabled veterans remains overly focused on the more industrialised and developed western nations. Indeed, one can only hope that additional research on Russian veterans builds upon the foundations laid by The Broken Years particularly with the room now available to research the experience of veterans after 1921. Admittedly, I am unsure how the current geopolitical situation will impact the potential for further research on Russia in the short term. Sumpf’s study will undoubtedly interest a wide range of historians, especially those involved in analysing revolutionary Russia, disabled veterans and historians of disability, welfare and medicine more broadly. Hopefully, Cambridge University Press will republish the book in a more modestly priced paperback format to better enable this fine piece of work to reach a more general readership who will learn a great deal about these hitherto forgotten men of Russia and the First World War. Sumpf writes on page one that ‘we know nothing about these anonymous figures’. Finally, thanks to this important and timely study, we know a great deal about the energetic activism and tragic suffering of disabled Russian First World War veterans. © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/pages/standard-publication-reuse-rights) © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
TI - Alexandre Sumpf, The Broken Years: Russia’s Disabled War Veterans, 1904–1921
JO - Social History of Medicine
DO - 10.1093/shm/hkac044
DA - 2022-08-30
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/alexandre-sumpf-the-broken-years-russia-s-disabled-war-veterans-1904-dQydCzFuiq
SP - 418
EP - 419
VL - 36
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -