Answers to these and other questions can be found in the anniversary statistical publication "The Great Patriotic War", presentation of which took place on May 6 during Rosstat and Victory Museum joint online conference. This event also launched the multimedia web-portal "Victory Figures". As many as 3,692 stories about wartime statisticians will be handed over to the Victory Museum and included in the “Victory Faces” nationwide depository.
“The need for impartial information about the Great Patriotic War is growing,” said Mr. Pavel Malkov, the Head of Rosstat, while presenting a statistical publication. “It contains facts and figures that are hard to challenge.”
The first time Rosstat published statistical materials about the Great Patriotic War was in 2015. The second edition is supplemented by sections on losses, mobilization and evacuation of the population, partisan movement, military graves and state awards. Readers will get acquainted with new data on the situation with budget and money circulation during wartime, balance of cash income and expenditures of people, volume and structure of Lend-Lease supplies, cost of certain types of weapons and military equipment, food supply norms for population and nutrition standards for military personnel, as well as military-economic potential of Germany in mid-1941.
The publication contains information that reflects socio-economic situation of the country in the pre-war years, during the World War II and recovery period. It also presents economic indicators of the rear areas and occupied territories.
Public and private archives, historical references, calculations by Rosstat and experts from scientific organizations have contributed to the publication. Some of the introduced archives have only recently been declassified.
Mr. Malkov emphasized: “During the Great Patriotic War, the value of exact figures significantly increased. Accordingly, the burden on everyone, who produced data, increased as well. In the war years, statisticians continuously worked hard, donated blood, dug trenches and fought at the frontline”.
2,744 employees of the Central Statistical Office of the USSR were engaged in the battles, many of them were awarded military orders and medals. 236 people were perished or gone missing. Memory of each of them, as well as of those, who selflessly worked in the rear, is immortalized at the “Victory Figures” web-portal. The multimedia project, developed by Rosstat, is devoted to the USSR and RSFSR statistical data in 1939-1955, as well as to the personal records of the Soviet State Statistics Committee employees during this period.
In addition, Rosstat handed over 3,692 stories of Soviet statisticians, who fought at the front and worked in the rear, for permanent storage in the popular historical depository “Victory Faces”, created by the Victory Museum for the purpose of collecting and preserving records about the entire military generation.
Mr. Alexander Shkolnik, Director of the Victory Museum recounted, as follows: “This is a unique collective portrait of wartime people. It is important that Victory Museum visitors are provided with interactive access to the depository. Thus, participants of the “Victory Faces” project will have the opportunity to contribute names of their ancestors to the history. We invite everyone to take part in this project to collect the most complete information about the contribution of our people to the Great Victory”. Victory Museum public opinion poll manifested, that more than 86% of our fellow citizens believe that significance of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War has not been lost over the years. However, survey showed an interest decrease in the Great Patriotic War among young people. The nationwide “Victory Faces” depository has become an answer to this challenge. The request to maintain historical memory is confirmed by results of the study – more than 68% of Russians believe that the memory of the military generation must be preserved in museums and other institutions”.
“Statistics deals with objective figures and facts. These are dry numbers, however, behind them are human destinies and lives. Our task is to preserve memory of all,” said Mr. Malkov, summing up the results of the online conference.
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