History in a human dimension or how destiny is chosen: on V. N. Tokarev’s book, “The chief designer”

The article contains a critical analysis of the new book “The Chief Designer” (Saratov, 2022) by Viktor Nikolaevich Tokarev, a historian, an archivist, a local historian, and a veteran of the Russian submarine fleet. It tells about the life and work of the Soviet naval shipbuilder Vladimir Nikolaevich Peregudov (1902-1967), a designer of submarines. The analysis of the book fits in the context of the modern study of personal history, which is characterized, particularly, by an increased interest in the intellectual and spiritual component of the creative personality. Attention is drawn to the extensive and diverse source base of the book, represented primarily by a large number of documents identified by V. N. Tokarev in the archival funds of Soviet military educational institutions, military research institutions and state security agencies. In general, V. N. Tokarev’s book testifies to the author’s ability to work with each document, accurately determine its information capacity, distribute the documentary materials in accordance with the conceptual basis of the study, which allowed him to reconstruct the least studied periods and episodes of V. N. Peregudov’s life as well as his scientific and technical activity. As a special advantage of the book “The Chief Designer”, the authors of the article note the harmonious combination of an abundance of bright and previously unknown factual material, which is typical of the historical and archival approach to biographical research, strict scientific reliability, critical and philosophical generalizations of events and turns that happened in V. N. Peregudov’s life, as well as a good literary style. A remarkable feature of the book, very rare in modern historical research, according to the authors of the article, is a penetrating sense of “unity” and involvement of the living in the destinies of the departed. All this, of course, promises a wide popularity of the book among readers interested in the history of the Russian navy, the destinies of outstanding ship designers and remarkable natives of the Saratov land.