The best sites about the Great Patriotic War

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

For Victory Day, we made an overview of the resources dedicated to the Great Patriotic War. It turned out that there are many interesting and useful sites about this on the Runet.

The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 is not just a historical event. She changed the destinies of millions of people. Someone fought and died in battles, someone worked for the front, someone starved and suffered hardships for the sake of Victory. The least that the younger generation can do for those to whom they owe their lives is to remember and respect. Amazing web projects about the Great Patriotic War presented in this collection will help in this.

This electronic bank was created with the support of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

Objective of the project: providing information on the progress and results of the main combat operations, exploits and awards of the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War.

Sources of: Central archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

It is planned that the system will have access to documents of more than 200 thousand archival files, the total volume is about 100 million sheets. Currently, the bank contains information on more than 12.6 million awards.

If your father, grandfather, or great-grandfather has received awards, then this resource can help you find information about it. The portal consists of three sections: "People and Awards", "Documents" and "Geography of War".

If the surname is widespread or you don't know much about your ancestor, the search will become more difficult: the system can return dozens of warriors. So, by request "Ivanov Ivan", more than 250 awarded are displayed. But if you narrow down the search parameters (add, for example, the place of appeal or the name of the award document), then the relevance increases.

I found my grandfather the first time (there were no namesakes). He died before my birth, but the memory of him is anxiously kept in the family. I knew that my grandfather was a tanker, he was called up in 1943, as soon as he was 18 years old. But I didn't know that he was a senior sergeant and that he …

I did not know that the awards on his jacket, which hung in my grandmother's house, were the Order of Glory III degree and the Order of the Red Star. In total, I found three documents about my grandfather (award lists and characteristics) and one more about his older brother. I am not a sentimental person, but at the sight of archival originals (albeit from a computer monitor) a lump rose to my throat.

In the section "Award documents" you can search for orders and decrees on awards.

If you do not know personal data, but you know that your ancestor was awarded such and such an award during such and such a period, you can try to find the corresponding documents through this section.

In general, for people studying the Great Patriotic War, this bank of documents is an excellent help in research work.

on work with the portal "People's feat".

This resource is designed to help establish the fate of your ancestors who did not return from the war. The site contains information about the ranks of the victims, the units in which they served, the dates and causes of death (killed, died of wounds, missing), as well as about the places of burial.

Objective of the project: to help people find out the fate of their dead or missing relatives and friends, to find information about their burial places.

Sources of: archival documents clarifying losses (more than 13, 7 million funerals, documents of hospitals and medical battalions, trophy cards of prisoners of war), passports of military graves (more than 42, 2 thousand), Memory Books (more than a thousand volumes).

Burials are being searched for even 70 years later - the bank is being replenished.

On the main page there is a search form. You can use it (the search will be carried out by name, date of birth and rank, if known), or you can go to the extended form.

All available information about the person is indicated here: the place of recruitment, the last place of service, the date of departure, the region of burial, the hospital, and so on. You can also set the search range - which documents to search for.

The search results table contains the names of the deceased, the dates of birth and disposal (exact or approximate), place of birth (if known) and the type of document that contains information about this person.

For greater relevance, there is a request mode opposite each information field:

From the beginning of the field - records are searched in which the beginning of the field value matches the entered characters.
Exact field - records are searched in which the field value exactly matches the entered one.
Exact phrase - records are searched in which the field value contains the entered sequence of words in an arbitrary place.
Full-text search - records are searched in which the field value contains at least one of the specified words.

In addition, when forming a request, you can use special characters: *- search for records with any word ending (Ivan * - Ivanov, Ivankin and so on); “- search for a record containing the exact occurrence of the desired phrase (“1910-20-02”); +- the selection will include records in which the value of this field contains at least one of the specified words.

Search instructions are available on the Memorial WBS website.

On this portal, I found information about another relative. It turned out that he was buried in a mass grave near the village of Krutoy Log, Belgorod Region.

This is a database of monuments and memorials dedicated to the memory of the participants of the Second World War. It was created by a group of enthusiasts in 2006. According to the concept of the project, everyone - both a resident of a tiny village and a resident of a metropolis - can take a photo of the memorial object located in its location.

Objective of the project: to fix monuments, graves, memorial plaques and other memorable objects on electronic media.

Sources of: user-generated content, photos submitted by the project participants.

The resource contains information on more than 11 thousand memorial sites.

The site interface is very simple. It can be seen that non-professionals are doing it. But this does not detract from the value of the information contained there.

In the search section, you can find information about monuments and memorials in the locality of your interest.

It is unlikely that I will ever visit the village of Krutoy Log, Belgorod Region, but thanks to this portal I know what the same mass grave looks like where my ancestor lies.

There are three types of galleries on the portal: "Busts" (commanders, heroes of the Soviet Union, war veterans), "Frozen metal" (samples of military equipment: tanks, aircraft, artillery, and so on) and "Memorial plaques" (dedicated to specific military events, military educational institutions and hospitals, historical sites, wartime personalities, and so on).

This web project contains information about WWII veterans. It was created by a group of civic activists (individuals and companies) for the 60th anniversary of the Victory.

Objective of the project: to express gratitude to those who won the Great Patriotic War, to draw attention to the participants in the war and say thanks to the veterans.

Sources of: data from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

The project can be conditionally divided into two parts. The first is a list of veterans with a search engine. Even seven decades after the end of the war, veterans are looking for fellow soldiers, comrades in arms, those with whom the war brought them together.

Literally from the first day, we began to receive letters from site visitors who saw their uncle or great-aunt on the list, who were considered dead. It turned out that, despite the fact that the war ended more than 60 years ago, not all relatives and friends found each other.

Using the search form, you can find the person of interest, if it is in the lists of the portal. Unfortunately, the resource does not provide detailed information about the veterans - only full name, date of birth and region of residence. But even this can greatly facilitate the search.

In addition, anyone can submit an ad that they are looking for this or that person. Perhaps the veteran himself or his loved ones will see and respond.

The second part of the project - with the memoirs of the participants and archival chronicles. It clearly (with photo, video and audio materials) shows the course of the war: from the offensive to the defeat of the Wehrmacht.

Using a visualized model of the course of the war, we tried, avoiding pathos and assessments, to combine historical facts, modern memories and archival chronicles.

The map is really very interesting. You can read about the battles for more than one hour, listen to eyewitness memories and watch the theater of military operations. For convenience, the authors of the project even made mobile applications.

These are thematic messengers about the key events of the Great Patriotic War. They are created by the corporation "" together with museums, archives and libraries.

Objective of the project: tell about famous battles, show unique materials that convey the versatility of the events described and the complex fate of a person.

On the main page there is a chronological tape and a map of the war. On them you can navigate and select the event of interest. Previews of events are presented in the form of a cinematic film: when you select one of them, its geography is displayed on the map, and a short description is displayed to the right of the map.

A specific issue, for example, about the defense of Moscow, contains a factual description of events, supported by scans of historical documents and photographs. There are also stories about the heroes of those events and their exploits. The text is accompanied by clippings from wartime newspapers, archival artifacts, as well as poems, songs and military folklore.

The resource is great for self-education. In addition, it will be useful for teachers and historians (for example, materials can be used for reports and presentations).

The social component of the project is implemented in the ability for authorized users (you can log in through social networks) to send their stories: memories of the warriors, photos from personal albums, documents about awards, and so on.

Also on the portal there is a forum where you can discuss a topic of interest to you about the war. True, activity there is frankly weak.

This is a portal with the memories of the participants of the Second World War. Created with the support of the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications.

Objective of the project: to preserve the memories of witnesses of the events of the Great Patriotic War as a primary source of information for future generations.

A site for those who want to comprehend history through the stories of real people. There you will find written and radio interviews, copies of letters from the front and photographs of the war years.

Memories of the participants in the Second World War are divided according to the types of troops to which they belonged: pilots, artillerymen, medics, sappers, tankmen, and so on.

For example, among the memoirs of bomber pilots there is the story of Nikolai Sergeevich Syshchikov. A short autobiography is followed by an interview where he talks about his war.

Nikolai Sergeevich talks about the planes he flew, and about the military operations in which he participated, and about the soldier's life.

The peculiarity of this web project is integration with the "People's feat" portal. If the database of the electronic archive contains data on the awards of the interviewee, then they can be viewed by clicking on the "Award sheets" button.

In addition to the memoirs of the participants of the Second World War, the site has a section with.

Users can discuss interviews. Since the portal presents different points of view, each witness of those terrible events has his own vision of what was happening, there are often debates in the comments.

This is a digital archive of photographs from the Second World War. Created on June 8, 2009 by private individuals, editor - Stanislav Zharkov.

Objective of the project: Save as many high quality photos of the topic as possible and provide the most convenient access to them.

“History frozen in photographs” - this is how this project can be described figuratively. The portal contains photographs (over 24 thousand), as well as information about wartime photographers.

Navigation is carried out through sections of the catalog, as well as through tags. In addition, the site has a calendar with memorable dates captured in photographs. If you click on the name of an event in the calendar, the corresponding photo will open.

The site can be useful for photographers, lovers of history and military equipment, as well as journalists and bloggers writing about the war. Each photo has a background and, probably, that is why it is catchy. They want to be viewed, and not flipped like pictures in social networks.

Soviet machine gunners run past a burning German tank Pz. Kpfw. VI "Tiger"

Artillery guardsmen of the Voronezh Front are resting at their 76-mm cannon ZiS-3

Soviet I-16 fighter that made an emergency landing near the village of Riiska

Soviet tank crews with a child in a liberated village

Victory Banner on the defeated Reichstag on May 1, 1945

Those interested can add their pictures to the portal, but for this you need to comply.

And time multiplies everything by zero

Generation change generation

And here is the pain of war

Comes only in spring exacerbation … Igor Rasteryaev

Of course, the above is not an exhaustive list of sites about the Great Patriotic War. Also noteworthy are "", "" and many other projects. English-language resources are no less interesting.

Do you want to supplement? Submit links to your favorite resources and share them in the comments.