Born Under A Lucky Star
By Ivan Makarov
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Synopsis
History is written by the victors, but the harsh reality of war can only be depicted by its soldiers.
As a Russian recruit in World War II, Ivan Makarov witnessed General Chuikov pull out his pistol and shoot their regimental commander as a traitor. That was on his first day at the front.
Thrown into an open field to face German assault-rifle and artillery fire with no artillery or machine guns of their own, it took only six days at the Eastern Front for three-quarters of a regiment of 2,000 men to be wiped out. Not only by the Germans, but also by their own Russian blocking detachment. At this rate, Ivan struggled to comprehend how he would survive the hundreds of battles that lay before him, with death seeming to be the only certainty.
But Ivan was a wise soul and a brave soldier, who fought for his life, no matter how hopeless or fatal the situation.
In his raw and trenchant memoir, Ivan recounts in detail the terror and despair faced by a Red Army soldier on the Eastern Front.
He has no sympathy for Stalin and his incompetent commanders, who sought awards and recognition at the expense of their soldiers' lives. He simply wanted to serve his country.
It is rare to find first-hand accounts of the Great Patriotic War from Red Army soldiers, as many did not survive to tell the tale. For the first time, Ivan reveals his gripping recollections of battles, times, places, and people encountered over the course of World War II from when he was drafted in 1941 until their victory.
These recollections he dared not put on paper until 1992.
About the Author
Ivan Makarov was my grandfather on my mother's side. He was a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. From my childhood, I remember that he loved to tell stories about the war—about his childhood and life. Ivan also had an old typewriter and was constantly typing on it. In early 2000, he came to visit us, gave a bundle of printed stories to my mother, and said, "These are my memoirs of the war, one day you should publish a book. Let people know the real truth about the war, as all my life, I have never seen the real war portrayed in any book or movie."
There are hardly any accounts detailing what the war was like for a Red Army soldier from the front line, especially in the first years. A profoundly changed man returned from there. Those who managed to return, as a rule, did not like and could not recount the real events that had transpired, and many of the Russian military documents of those years are still inaccessible to the public.
Ivan wrote these stories from 1992 to 1998, after the Soviet Union collapsed and it became possible to talk about what had really happened openly. Before this time, he could easily go to prison for such writings. This book is a collection of individual stories. These events Ivan recalls in detail, from Stalingrad to Germany. During the first half of the war, Ivan was a machine gunner and a regimental scout during the second. He talks about what he personally saw and experienced during the war, and what difficulties were faced by ordinary soldiers. Ivan describes how he was captured by the Germans, escaped, and returned to the Red Army, and how he served in the machine gun company once more. Later, he was assigned to the army's intelligence services and performed special tasks. Despite all the difficulties on the front line, he maintained his desire to live, managed to survive, and returned to Russia
These stories I found in my mother's house before I moved to Australia in 2014. I started reading and could not stop, I found it captivating. After reading and making copies, I decided that it was necessary to publish the book and even translate it into English. Usually, the authors of Russian war memoirs were commanders or political workers, whose stories were vastly different.
Related to Born Under A Lucky Star
Related ebooks
Witness to the Storm: A Jewish Journey from Nazi Berlin to the 82nd Airborne, 1920–1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Red Road from Stalingrad: Recollections of a Soviet Infantryman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red Partisan: The Memoirs of a Soviet Resistance Fighter on the Eastern Front Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After Stalingrad: Seven Years as a Soviet Prisoner of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girl With A Sniper Rifle: An Eastern Front Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stalingrad: How the Red Army Triumphed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the Hell of the Eastern Front: The Fate of a Young Soldier During the Fighting in Russia in WW2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red Army Sniper: A Memoir on the Eastern Front in World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kursk 1943: Voices from the Battlefield Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBorn Under A Lucky Star. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn the Roads of War: A Soviet Cavalryman on the Eastern Front Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Voices from Stalingrad: First-hand Accounts from World War II's Cruellest Battle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soviet Staff Officer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsForgive Us, Wolves Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeningrad: Hero City Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier's Letters from the Eastern Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWith Paulus at Stalingrad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunger and War: Food Provisioning in the Soviet Union during World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiberation of Nazi Concentration Camps Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLoss, Liberty and Love: My Journey from Essen to Auschwitz to the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeningrad Under Siege: First-Hand Accounts of the Ordeal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Surviving Katyn: Stalin's Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Living And The Dead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood in the Forest: The End of the Second World War in the Courland Pocket Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Busmen in the Firing Line Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTomorrow I'm Dead: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTreat 'Em Rough!: The Birth of American Armor, 1917–20 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia: Czech Initiatives, German Policies, Jewish Responses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOccupation in the East: The Daily Lives of German Occupiers in Warsaw and Minsk, 1939-1944 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Wars & Military For You
The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America's First Nuclear Accident Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wager Disaster: Mayem, Mutiny and Murder in the South Seas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Born Under A Lucky Star
0 ratings0 reviews