Mykhaylyuk V. Great Patriotic War disabled veterans' adaptation in the context of everyday life in the Donbas region (1943 - 1945)

The thesis is devoted to the process of investigation of Great Patriotic War disabled veterans' joining to the everyday life of Donbas region in 1943 1945. A wide variety of sources is used, and its analysis is performed using the micro- and macrohistorical approaches, historical anthropology, common in historical research principles and methods. It gives possibility to scrutinize the concerned scientific problem. The fact that normative legal basis of rehabilitation governmental social policy was performed within the existing Soviet ideological doctrine and was largely political and legal, was established. The five key areas of the process of political and legal support of disabled veterans' rehabilitation process were defined. There are material, occupational, medical, domestic and social areas among them. They were implemented by a highly centralized Soviet government, so even in names of resolutions - from declared on national, regional, urban or rural levels - they duplicated fundamental admonitions of ruling party. The slogan "Everything for the front, everything for the Victory!" objectively required all social and cultural activities to be identified and conducted based on the residual principle of financing and material support of Great Patriotic War disabled veterans. Generally, the system of material and living conditions, medical and health services of disabled veterans during the war and in postwar period, was quite advanced. Some disabled veterans received necessary aid, step by step organizing their life and applying their professional skills at work. But for other disabled veterans callous treatment which included irresponsibility, negligence and greed combined with undisguised flagrant disregard of local officials, those who were obliged to take care of crippled soldiers, appeared to be the norm of everyday life. Soviet government tried to change and improve such situation, but disabled veterans remained indigent. The features of disabled veterans' adaptation, analyzed in the light of their own worldview and through their preferences, life values and goals, were defined in the thesis.