This is not only our, but also your honor...: on the history of forming the first voluntary 96th tank brigade named after Chelyabinsk Komsomol

Using the Ural materials the article investigates the aspect of forming the 96th tank brigade named after Chelyabinsk komsomol, insufficiently illustrated in scientific literature, which in the beginning of the Great Patriotic War became the first regular large voluntary tank unit in the country. The article makes an attempt to analyze this phenomenon as a significant aspect of the Southern Ural life of the military period. On the basis of the extensive fact base, with engaging the documents, not having been used earlier, by means of studying and analyzing the archive and published documents, recollections of the military epoch veterans, taken from the museum and private funds, we have represented the basic trends of work for organizing the foundations of the mass voluntary tank formation in the Ural. The author comes to conclusion that developing this movement in the Ural during the Great Patriotic War was represented as a complex system. It is proved that the experience, used at forming the tank brigade , was used as a basis for forming the Ural voluntary tank corps.