Germans

The article examines such a phenomenon of the Soviet socialist reality as special settling (a special regime when people are not allowed to leave the place of their living). The author studies the life of the Soviet Germans who made up the majority of special settlers. Education, the structure of German special settling, legal aspects and everyday life, reasons and peculiarities of withdrawing this regime are considered

The review presents the analysis of S. V. Kretinin’s monograph, which examines the problem of the German national minority in Poland in the interwar period (1918–1939). The importance of the research done by the historian, the features of the author’s approach are noted, the discussion issues are indicated. According to the reviewer, S. V. Kretinin’s monograph essentially opens up new prospects for studying the history of the Germans in Poland.

The article examines the attempts to return the Volgagermans, deported in 1941, to their places of pre-war residence. The author gives a periodization of these processes and reveals the features of each period. Attempts to relocate to the Volga from Siberia and Kazakhstan began to be undertaken since 1956 after the abolition of the special settlement regime for the Germans (1955). Until the end of 1972, they were illegal, the settlers faced many difficulties, since there was a ban on the return of the Germans to the places of the pre-war accommodation.