Perpetuating the Memory of the Students of the Novosibirsk Institute of Military Railway Engineers - the Participants of the Great Patriotic War
On the basis of different archival materials, letters and memoirs of fellow soldiers, the authors of the article review the impact of the Great Patriotic War on the lives of the NIVIT students whose work and studies were interrupted by the mobilization into the Red Army. During the World War II, altogether 1,079 students were drafted from the NIVIT for the military service in the Red Army. Although their life paths were different, and not everyone could come back home from the War, all of them heroically followed the difficult way to the Great Victory. 64 names of the Red Army soldiers are engraved on the monument at the main entrance of the Siberian Transport University (STU). However, information about many of them is not sufficiently accurate and complete. Some documents, newspaper articles, memoirs of their fellow students and soldiers concerning the war time have been preserved. Their letters from the frontline are carefully stored in their family archives and in the STU Center for the History and Culture. The authors of the article, on the basis of the archives of those tragic years, have recovered the forgotten names of the students who contributed to the victory. The researchers conclude that it is necessary to carefully perpetuate the memory of the NIVIT students, not only of famous heroes, but also of ordinary soldiers who could overcome the hardship of the war time. As Russian poet R. Rozhdestvenskiy wrote, “It is necessary for the alive, not for the dead!” The story of the war told through the lives of the former students can teach the younger generations to be respectful to their memory and be responsible for the future of our country.