Germany's war against the Soviet Union raised a small army of child-soldiers. Thousands of those below the enlistment age served with regular and paramilitary formations, even though they were not formally mobilized or allowed at the front. For several decades after the war, these youngsters played an important part in Soviet remembrance culture; however, their true experiences were obscured in the myth of the Great Patriotic War. Situated at the crossroads of social, cultural, and military history, this book tells the story of the Soviet Union's child-soldiers in a critical and systematic fas ... More

Germany's war against the Soviet Union raised a small army of child-soldiers. Thousands of those below the enlistment age served with regular and paramilitary formations, even though they were not formally mobilized or allowed at the front. For several decades after the war, these youngsters played an important part in Soviet remembrance culture; however, their true experiences were obscured in the myth of the Great Patriotic War. Situated at the crossroads of social, cultural, and military history, this book tells the story of the Soviet Union's child-soldiers in a critical and systematic fashion. Focusing on the mechanisms and psychological consequences of propaganda on Soviet children, as well as their combat deployment, a non-traditional, three-tier approach to writing history of childhood ‘from above’, ‘from below’, and ‘from within’ is adopted. A wide variety of new sources provide an insight about young soldiers' combat motivations, the roles they played in the field, and their routine experiences and relationship with older comrades. Far from being victims, Soviet child-soldiers emerge as independent social actors capable of making choices about their behaviour, thereby exercising their agency.