Front-line camera operators, natives of the Crimea, during the Great Patriotic War: a historical and biographical sketch

The research aims to reveal the role of the professional activities of cinematographers who worked in front-line conditions and were natives of the Crimean Peninsula in covering the events of the Great Patriotic War and creating cinematic sources that testify to them. The work is conducted on the basis of archival materials of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, facts and conclusions from the works of specialists in the history of cinema are also used. The methodological basis of the study was the complex application of empirical analysis, the comparative method and the method of actualization. The author presents facts related to the initial stage of the development of the state army record of the front-line chronicle;lists the traditional professional functions of a military film correspondent at the front; summarizes and analyzes the biographical data of nine Crimean cinematographers (Mansur Barbutly, Alexander Bratuha, Boris Burta, Osman Zekki, Kenan Kutub-zade, Leon Mazruho, Grigoriy Mogilevsky, Emira Faik, German Shulyatin), gives information about their life and combat path, filmography, merits and awards, and characterizes the topics of the cinematographers’ documentaries (front-line exploits of Soviet pilots, the days of the besieged Leningrad, the liberated Auschwitz, the Berlin operation, the fighting for the liberation of Ukraine, Poland and Czechoslovakia). The author compares the biographies of the USSR military cinema group employees born in Crimea and evaluates the significance of their heroic activities for creating film sources about the Great Patriotic War. All the film workers mentioned in the study, natives of the Crimean Peninsula, were from fairly large settlements of the region (Simferopol, Bakhchisaray, Feodosia, and others) and began their careers in cinematography even before the start of the war (in the 1920s-1930s). All of them survived the Great Patriotic War; however, none of them, for various reasons, returned to their small homeland. In the post-war period, they all continued their professional activities at various film studios in the Soviet Union. The study showed that natives of the Crimean Peninsula made up from 2 to 3.5% of all employees of the front-line film service.