Vodolagin, Mikhail Alexandrovich

Mikhail Alexandrovich was born on October 16 ( 29 ), 1903 in a family of immigrants from poor peasants. Education of the future professor began at the parish school and continued at the city school of the 2nd level. From 1918, M. A. Vodolagin served as a messenger at the headquarters of Tsaritsyn, from 1920 to 1922 - an employee of the Tsaritsyn Provincial Food Committee. From 1922 to 1923, a cadet of the 7th Samara Engineering School. From 1923 to 1925 he worked as a worker in a walling workshop in Stalingrad. From 1925 to 1927 he was the secretary of the Komsomol cell, and from 1927 to 1929 he was an instructor in propaganda of the district committee and the Komsomol district committee. From 1929 to 1930 - Deputy Head of the HR Department of STZ . From 1930 to 1935, the director and teacher of the Stalingrad College of Physical Education . From 1935 to 1938 the director of the Astrakhan newspaper school. From 1937 to 1941 he studied at the Faculty of History of the Stalingrad Pedagogical Institute. From 1938 to 1939, deputy head and head of the propaganda and agitation department of the Stalingrad Regional Committee of the CPSU (B.). From February 14, 1939 to October 1, 1949, the secretary of the regional committee for propaganda and agitation.

Participation in the Great Patriotic War

With the outbreak of World War II, Mikhail Alexandrovich became the military commissar of the Stalingrad corps of the people's militia. In the days of the Battle of Stalingrad, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, among other things, was the special authorized officer of the SSCE (one of 33 who were sent to solve crisis situations ^[1] ) to ensure the passage of wounded soldiers, the population, and evacuation cargoes across the Volga. During the Battle of Stalingrad, M. A. Vodolagin was the author of numerous leaflets and appeals to the defenders of the city, published several brochures and books from the series “Heroic Stalingrad”.

At the end of November 1943, passing on the way to the Tehran Conference, JV Stalin arrives in Stalingrad. Despite a short stop (10 minutes to fill the locomotive with water), the Supreme Commander is met by a delegation of civilian and military leaders of the city. Among those who meet Mikhail Alexandrovich Vodolagin ^[2] .

Already in 1943, the local publishing house published such valuable collections of documents and materials as “Leaflets of the Stalingrad Regional Party Organization” and “Heroic Stalingrad”. A great job in preparing them for publication was done by the secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU (B.) M. A. Vodolagin.

After the war

In 1947 he defended his thesis ^[3] . In the characterization issued in the same year, Mikhail Aleksandrovich was characterized as follows: “... is politically developed, ideologically stable and disciplined. "He did not participate in anti-party groups and oppositions, has no party prosecution." However, in 1949, a successful party career ends:

... By checking the compromising materials received at the regional committee of the CPSU (b) against Comrade Vodolagin found that in 1943 he received a letter from a cousin of anti-Soviet content, which he destroyed without informing the party authorities. Comrade Vodolagin did not deny the fact of receiving this letter, but explains his non-partisan act by the fact that the letter was of a personal nature. In addition, verification established that Comrade Vodolagin did not accurately disclose biographical data in his documents about his father and the father of his wife, who was the son of a large Filonovsky merchant. "The regional committee’s bureau decides:

1. For concealing from the party organs the receipt of an anti-Soviet letter from a cousin, his arrest and conviction for counter-revolutionary activity of comrade Vodolagin M.A. from the post of secretary of the Stalin regional committee of the party to remove and reprimand with entry in the registration card. Secret regional committee I. Grishin.

2. Release Comrade Vodolagin from the duties of the editor of "Notepad Agitator" by decision of the Central Committee.

- extract from the protocol No. 208 of the meeting of the bureau of the regional committee of the CPSU (b) of October 1, 1949

From October 1949 to 1950, Mikhail Alexandrovich worked as director of the Tsaritsyn-Stalingrad Museum of Defense. Veterans of war and labor Nikolai Ivanovich Pershin and Nikolai Ivanovich Maksimov recalled that he was an erudite, educated, attentive, very courageous and courageous person with the gift of a speaker. On November 15, 1949, a museum council was formed in the amount of 25 people in order to improve the work of the museum. An editorial board was created, which developed a draft guidebook and a certificate of the historical places of the city. In 1949, the museum held a re-exposure of two halls. In the spirit of its time, the role of individual political and military leaders in the atmosphere of the then dominant cult of the personality of Stalin was greatly exaggerated. In the section "Battle of Stalingrad" the main attention was paid to the role of IV Stalin in the defeat of the Nazi troops near Stalingrad, the military leader’s services were exaggerated, the halls were supplemented and updated, quotes from Stalin’s works were written and updated.

However, between the new director and the former director of the museum A. I. Khmelkov ^[4] , as well as the museum staff, a difficult relationship developed, which ultimately leads M. A. Vodolagin to a party reprimand.

From 1950 to June 1952, Mikhail Alexandrovich worked as chairman of the regional committee for helping wounded soldiers and evacuated children. However, in this work he received a party reprimand “... for not taking measures to stop the illegal spending of the patronage commission, being the chairman of the regional committee for helping wounded soldiers and evacuated children” (From a note from the party control commission under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated June 5, 1952 )

Work in Moscow

After the second party penalty, M. A. Vodolagin, realizing the impossibility of his employment in Stalingrad, moved to Moscow, where he began to teach them at the Literary Institute. Gorky. At the Literary Institute, Mikhail Alexandrovich heads the department of the foundations of Marxism-Leninism, and also engages in scientific activities. But here, too, party control bodies begin the trial of his personal party affair.

On November 25, 1952, the Secretary of the Party Bureau of the Literary Institute makes a request to the Stalingrad Regional Committee of the CPSU (B.):

... We ask you to urgently send a detailed description of the former secretary of the Stalingrad regional committee comrade. Vodolagina. This characteristic is extremely necessary, because the institute's bureau raises the question of the impossibility of staying as head. Department of Vodolagin, which has two party penalties.

... I would like to know the details of the case and information about his parents and his wife, a certificate of employment from 1918-1950, a copy of the diploma, is it true?

In the characterization sent to Litinsttut, M. A. Vodolagin was exposed “as a small skinner and a liar,” and on December 12, 1952, the institute’s bureau expelled him from the party.

However, Mikhail Alexandrovich is fully committed to science. Publishes scientific works, collections, writes articles. On October 23, 1965, he became a doctor of historical sciences, and on January 10, 1968, he was approved as a professor in the department of history. The times of the Khrushchev thaw became the most fruitful years of creativity. In the 1960s and 70s, he wrote the books “Volga Stronghold”, “Essays on the History of Volgograd 1589-1967”, which describes the period from the Tsaritsyn watchtower to modern Volgograd.

About the teacher Vodalagin responded to his Literary Institute students:

• "Was readingits professor Vodolagin, whom we loved for freethinking and, indeed, Khrushchev’s temperament. ” ^[5]
• “Many probably remember Professor Vodolagin, who gave freshmen introductory lectures on the history of the CPSU. It was a professor - a zinger, rolling around the conference room, the largest room, where Archibald Archibaldovich ruled during Bulgakov’s time, who took away a bag of stellate sturgeon when Woland started his jokes. Bulgakov’s devilry did not act on Vodolagin. When I was in Stalingrad, I saw his photograph in a place of honor, among the defenders of the Volga stronghold. One of the students, the Crimean Tatar, expressed something to him about the inadmissibility of the eviction of Tatars from the Crimea. Vodolagin got up, how he went to sprinkle with numbers and facts, how many Tatars entered the SS battalions, how many of our soldiers they killed! He knew about it so well that he was one of the organizers of the eviction of the Tatars. ” ^[6] .

Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor M. A. Vodolagin was a scientific opponent at the first defense of the title of Candidate of Historical Sciences at the Volgograd Pedagogical Institute, held on February 26, 1970 ^[7] .

M.A. Vodolagin was buried at the Kuntsevsky cemetery in Moscow next to his wife and son (plot 10K).

His son Vodolagin, Valery Mikhailovich (1932-2002), was the editor-in-chief of the Thought Publishing House.

The main field of scientific activity of Mikhail Alexandrovich Vodolagin was the history of Stalingrad, and in particular the Battle of Stalingrad. His role is highly appreciated among the pioneers of the study of the participation of Stalingrad and Stalingrad in the Great Patriotic War and the Battle of Stalingrad ^[8] . Mikhail Alexandrovich was one of the first researchers of the role of the Stalingrad people's militia in the defense of Stalingrad. And his monograph "Stalingrad in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1943)" became the basis for many studies on the militia ^[9] .

40s

• Vodolagin M.A. The Great Battle of Stalingrad. - 1943.
• Vodolagin M.A. People's Stalingrad militia // Heroic Stalingrad / Regional Commission on the History of the Patriotic War (Under the general editorship of M. A. Vodolagin). - Stalingrad: Regional book publishing house, 1945. - T. 2.
• Vodolagin M.A. The defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad. - Stalingrad: Regional book publishing house, 1946.
• Vodolagin M.A. Stalingrad in 1941-1943. World War II of the Soviet Union: Dis. ... cand. East Science .. - M: Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 1947.
• Vodolagin M.A. On the defense of Stalingrad. - Stalingrad: Regional book publishing house, 1948.
• Vodolagin M.A. Stalingrad in the Great Patriotic War (1941 - 1943). - Stalingrad: Regional book publishing house, 1949.

50s

• Vodolagin M.A. , Shcheglov V. N. Metallurgical Plant "Red October". - M. , 1957.
• Vodolagin M.A. At the walls of Stalingrad . - M .: Gospolitizdat, 1958. - 100,000 copies.
• Vodolagin M.A. Stalingrad in the Great Patriotic War. - M. , 1958.

60s

• Vodolagin M.A. Volga stronghold. - M .: Soviet Russia, 1962.
• Vodolagin M.A. Red Tsaritsyn. - Volgograd: Soviet Russia, 1967.
• Vodolagin M.A. In the days of anxiety // Stalingrad saga. - M, 1968.
• Vodolagin M.A. The first tractor. - M, 1968.
• Vodolagin M.A. Essays on the history of Volgograd 1589-1967. - M: Nauka, 1968 .-- 448 p.

80s

• Vodolagin M.A. Stalingrad Arsenal // Forge of Victory: Feat of the rear during the Great Patriotic War. Essays and Memories .. - 2nd ed. - M .: Politizdat, 1980 .-- 423 p. - 100,000 copies.

For active participation in the heroic defense of Stalingrad and the persistence and courage shown at the same time, M. A. Vodolagin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, medals "For the Defense of Stalingrad", "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945", "For valiant labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 ”.

• Gluhenkaya L. F. About the director of the museum M.A. Vodolagine (neopr.) . Museum panorama . Stalingrad 1942 - 1943. Date of treatment December 24, 2014.

• Battle of Stalingrad. July 1942 - February 1943: Encyclopedia / Ed. M.M. Zagorulko . - 5th ed., Rev. and add. - Volgograd: Publisher, 2012 .-- 800 p.
• Usik B.G. The militia of Stalingrad: July 1941 - February 1943: dis. ... cand. East. sciences . - Volgograd: Volgograd State University, 2007. - 207 p.