How they fought and how they won: non-jubilee historiographic notes. (book review: Mikhin P. A. “Gunners, Stalin gives the order!”: we died to win. Moscow, 2006. 574 P.)

In the context of the contemporary Russian historiography of the World War II the article analyses the memoirs by P.A. Mikhin «“Gunners, Stalin gives the order!”: We died to win» (Moscow, 2006). The analysis of the memoirs is correlated with the dominant trends of “jubileesation” and “commercialisation” in historiography of the World War II. It is shown that the memories are highly informative, contain a deep analysis of the war events and the experience of interaction between the Red Army artillery and infantry on the battlefield. Of particular value is a frank description of the front everyday life of the ordinary Red Army officer. The conclusion is that the memoirs provide a more complete and accurate picture of the war, than that in the majority of books by modern professional historians.