Volkov, Andrei Sergeevich. Memuarnye zapiski: vospominaniia general-leitenanta inzhenerno-artilleriiskoi sluzhby. Moscow: INION RAN, 2025.

The book contains the memoirs of Lieutenant General Andrei Volkov (1893–1965) and his diary covering the period from January 1942 to May 1945.  Volkov was enlisted to the Russian Army in late 1914, took part in the First World War, and joined the Red Army in 1918; he was already a major general (one-star general in the Soviet and modern Russian military hierarchy) by 1941.  In May 1941 he received a new appointment to the post of chief artillery supply officer at the Western Special Military District that was transformed into the Western Front after the German invasion 22 June (renamed into the 3rd Belorussian Front in 1944).  He served in this position until the end of the war with Germany and took part in a number of its major operations including the defeat of the Soviet troops in Western Belorussia, the first Battle of Smolensk, Battle of Moscow, Battles of Rzhev in 1942–43, Operation Bagration (one of the most successful offensive operations of the Red Army), the Battle of Königsberg.  His account is quite different from the majority of Soviet war memoirs: he describes mostly not the operations themselves, but the functioning of the supply service, with special attention to the issues of logistics and prudent use of available resources.

Full text (PDF, 38 MB)

I prepared this book for publication in cooperation with Olga Dernova, my colleague from the State Historical Public Library of Russia that had helped me in my work at The Bibliography of Middle-earth.  The descendants of General Volkov are her neighbours; the world is a small place 😉