The Broken Years
Russia's Disabled War Veterans, 1904–1921

The forgotten history of Russian disabled veterans' political struggle for equal rights, specialised care, education and adapted work.

Alexandre Sumpf (Author)

9781009048385, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 September 2024

322 pages
23 x 15 x 1.8 cm, 0.48 kg

'The book … is based on a dizzying array of sources. … The writing, informed by a melancholy appropriate to the topic, is beautiful and often evocative. … this path-breaking study … is highly recommended for every serious student of Russian and Soviet history as well as the history of veterans and of disability more globally.' Mark Edele, Slavonic and East European Review

The Broken Years tells the forgotten story of Russia's disabled ex-servicemen through three wars and three revolutions: the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Civil War and the First World War. Using extensive archival material from national, regional and town archives, Alexandre Sumpf explores the treatment of these veterans by the state, their battle for legal status and their right to both collective and individual health care. He shows how the question of disabled veterans became bound up in broader political and social debates in the early 20th century and fostered healthcare and social welfare policy. The experience of these 1.14 million war veterans reconfigured notions of heroism, sacrifice and patriotism while the period of 1915-1919 was marked by extensive political activism by disabled veterans. Dr Sumpf illustrates how the Bolsheviks condemned disabled veterans as the symbol of the “imperialist war” and brutally negated their rights as part of the broader devaluation of the war experience in early Soviet Russia.

Introduction
1. An overwhelming loss
2. The right to health
3. A social status renegotiated by the war
4. Discriminatory social welfare
5. An ephemeral political spring
6. The devaluation of war experience
Conclusion
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX], Military history [HBW], European history [HBJD]