Hi; Kovpak's photo was on the cover of Grenkevich's work on the Partisan Wars and Kovpak is accounted a great leader ( http://books.google.com/books?id=sp...&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result ). How much of his story is fact and how much is communist era myth making? Well that will be for future scholars to sort out-but for certain the man caused the occupiers some grievous damage. Some photos; http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1077120 Undefeated Sydir Kovpak, Ukrainian Guerilla an excert from Grenkevich; http://books.google.com/books?id=7-...X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPA235,M1 300,000 GERMAN casualties in Belarus alone? It is a fact that the NAZIs used mostly azis allied divisions to fight partisans so if 300k of the casualties were purely German the Axis numbers must run over a million. If these numbers are even close the War in the East was a two front war. http://rodohforum.yuku.com/topic/2598 A veteran's account; http://www.vor.ru/Victory/Veteranes/Braiko_eng.html JeffinMNUSA
Ideology is so intertwined with history and in this case with nationality that it is very difficult to write anything impartial with the sources available. But thanks very much for bringing this up, I found it most interesting.
Ka; Well as David Glantz writes; "There were no reliable Soviet sources before the end of the Cold War." And the Partisan files were still sealed the last I heard. What will emerge in the next 20 years of scholarship? I would speculate that it will emerge that the Partisan Wars played a much more significant role in the fall of the NAZI empire than has previously been guessed. The post WWII Soviets had good reason to downplay the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare-not the least of which were the Post WWII insurgencies in Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltics; not to mention the egos of their conventional force military leaders. JeffinMNUSA PS, An article on the Bielskis; http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/37115
