Russian World War II Dictionary : A Russian-English Glossary of Special Terms, Expressions, and Soldiers' Slang

The Great Patriotic War (GPW) of the Soviet people against Nazi Germany, known in the West as the Eastern Front of WWII, continues to attract a number of military historians from different countries around the world. The frontline veterans' reminiscences occupy a prominent place among most important documents of that time. In contrast to official documents, these recollections reproduce the so-called truth of the foxholes, the genuine spirit of the war. Along with their honesty, the WWII veterans' reminiscences are full of idiomatic expressions, specialized terms and abbreviations peculiar to that war. Regardless of their language, the memoirs reproduce the wartime vocabulary of the authors-nationalities, and reading then can be a difficult task for uninformed readers. As a consequence, special dictionaries appeared in print and later on internet websites. Unlike most of the Allied countries, no war jargon/slang dictionary has been published in Russia. This glossary is intended to begin to fill that gap.

Isaak Kobylyanskiy, born in 1923 in Ukraine, is a WWII Eastern Front veteran. As a Red Army NCO and then officer of a rifle regiment, he fought from 1942 up to Germany's capitulation in 1945. In 1994 Kobylyanskiy emigrated to the USA, becoming an American citizen in 2000 He resides in Rochester, New York. Kobylyanskiy is the author or coauthor of three titles Kobylvamskiy, Pryamoy navodkoy po vragu (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2005); its English version From Stalingrad to Pillau A Red ArmyArtillery Officer Remembers the Great Patriotic War (University) Press of Kansas, 2008), Drabkin and Kobylyanskiy, Red Army Infantrymen Remember the Great Patriotic War: A Collection of Interviews With 16 Soviet WWII Vetcans (Author House, 2009). Stuart Britton is a freelance translator/editor of Russian memoirs and histories related to World War II and the Korean War. His glowing list of English translations includes Gorbachevsky's Through the Maelsrom (University Press of Kansas, 2008), Pilyushin's Red Sniper on the Eastern Front (Pen Sword, 2010); Seidov and Sutiagin's MiG Menace Ovei Korea (Pen 8c Sword, 2009) and Demolishing the Myth, The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943 An Operational Narrative (Helion, 2011) by Valeriy Zamulin. He resides in Cedar Rapids, Iowa