Odessa 1941-44: Defense, Occupation, Resistance and Liberation by Nikolai Ovcharenko

Odessa 1941-44: Defense, Occupation, Resistance and Liberation Reviews

• 
  goodreads Customer

  After reading the two negative reviews I was iffy on buying this.
  
  After reading the book it's a classic even mentions the crimes of stalinism, In the Ukraine there will always be negative reviews. On things related to the Soviet Union, this book is not Soviet propaganda at all.
  
  It also talks about the genocide of the Jews, Ussr propaganda did not do that
• 
  F. Carol Sabin

  One of the most interesting and neglected operations in WW2 in the East – Odessa campaigns of 1941 and 1944, written by a Russian historian should make an interesting reading. Well, it is not the case.
  I believe that a major role of any new book is to interject some intelligent or new perspective into the analysis of topics that is over and above what the obvious is. This is definitely why a reader or a reviewer decided to purchase a volume.
  
  The reader/reviewer was expecting to hear some new perspectives on the various issues discussed in such a book. What value added, as a writer or historian, has Mr. Nikolai Ovcharenko contributed to this analysis? The answer is pathetic and what I saw in this „study” left me speechless.
  
  The book is so overloaded with unnecessary detail, exaggerations and propaganda and very, very far from a balanced account: 99.9% of this book is written from the Soviet perspective, relaying far too heavily on old Soviet accounts of the battle, which is odd considering the collapse of USSR and the new trend and exponents of Russian historiography (see Lopukhovsky, Kavalerchik, Svetlana Gerasimova or Zamulin etc), who based their works on much academic, careful and balanced research, free of Communist dogma. The Soviet sources used in this book are too old (from 1940s to 1980s) and place a large grain of salt on their value, usefulness and conclusions.
  
  That heavy (Soviet, not even Russian) bias leaves the author without the building blocks for a true, balanced analysis, which would rely on heavier use of new technical archives, and some military operational know how to sift the reports/books to get the true state of affairs for BOTH sides. The author doesn't have that skill set or he deliberately aimed such a scenario of spreading old Communist dogma having nothing else to reveal.
  
  One would expect to see how Odessa campaigns (1941 and 1944) with a very new eye because the views and trends have changed over time. Yet every reader does not see how this author’s views have changed. If anything, Mr. Nikolai Ovcharenko’s views seem stuck in the 1950s or 1960s; I mean his views on battles are exactly what existed during the 1950s and the 1960s and I read before 1990! There is not even one new iota of discussion or analysis on any particular aspect of these campaigns which changed over the past 25 or so years, especially new Romanian books about the War in the east (i.e. strengths, losses, occupation issues, etc.). It is as if the descriptions of the battles depicted in this book are fossilized remains of the 1950s and 1960s and no book was published since then!
  
  Not doing research in Romanian or English language sources, the author made several factual errors that he never would have made had he consulted the available Romanian/English sources on the matter. Just few examples of his blatant omissions:
  In 1941 on Odessa front, the Romanian losses were enormous, close to 93.000 troops and they are verified and checkable by any scholar in the world, but what were the Soviet losses in personnel (Answer: some estimates went from 41.000/Glantz to 60.000/Axworthy, including 16.000 POWs/Lopukhovsky my book looks horrible with virtually every page full of notes and question marks…This is Communist “history” and I had full of this! I actually forced myself to finish this book and had I have known I was reading such text books I would have saved my money. Thanks God, the last Chapter (11 “Odessa rises from the ruins”) is somehow free of dogma and saved me from additional headaches!
  
  In short, a one to two star book filled with propaganda and fossilized issues of communist dogma. Maybe Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev et Co. smile from their grave and would be proud of such “hammer and sickle style” „study”! Personally, I would not recommend this book! New readers to the Odessa campaigns, who maybe accept this book without hesitation, will have a limited and distorted view of the actual events.
• 
  Mr. M. W. Axworthy

  This book seems to rely almost wholly on published Soviet era accounts, with very little evidence of primary archival research and none of foreign language, especially Romanian, sources. It therefore adds little original to the wider understanding of Odessa during the war. It is also weak on maps and, although footnoted, lacks a bibliography.
  
  However, this does not entirely rob the book of value as it introduces a lot of hitherto untranslated material to English language readers, which is important in itself.
  
  The defence of Odessa in 1941 was undoubtedly a secondary Soviet epic, for which the Red Army deserved considerable credit, but it was so heavily propagandized as a result that it has since been difficult to disentangle the hard facts from the PR, leaving the reader to search between the lines for the reality. This book does not help much in doing so.
  
  To use a couple of examples, according to the official Soviet version, and this book, the evacuation of Odessa and demolition of its industries was an unblemished success. Yet the Romanians claimed to have captured thousands of prisoners on entry and photos exist of abandoned Soviet vehicles and artillery in Odessa docks. This is not addressed. Further, the book spends some time recounting the sabotage by partisans of Romanian run factories in Odessa and the plundering by the Romanians of masses of industrial plant. If the demolitions during the evacuation and sabotage afterwards were so effective, how can either be so? Again, this is not addressed.
  
  This book has its uses, but it really highlights the absence of, and need for, a comprehensive work on the subject that uses both primary Soviet and Romanian sources to achieve an acceptable synthesis. This it is definitely not.