«I was silent for a long time, but the fierce hatred of the fascist murderers made me speak up». Memoirs of the hero of the Soviet Union A.F. Shcheglov

This article is the first to publish the memoirs of the commander of the 30th Guards Rifle Corps of the Leningrad Front, Hero of the Soviet Union Afanasy Fedorovich Shcheglov, which he left to the staff of the Leningrad Institute of History of the CPSU (b) in 1945. They cover the period of his life from 1912 to 1945 and are important because in them A.F. Shcheglov tells in detail not only about his participation in various operations of the Great Patriotic War and the perception of battles, but also about his path of formation in the pre-war period. This material is being published for the first time, and it makes it possible to fill in significant gaps in his biography.