Thanks for the response! You mention traitors and deserters in this post which certainly implies that some Soviet soldiers retreated. Earlier, you said that no Soviet soldiers ever retreated. How can you have deserters and traitors in such a situation?
Do you have any comment about politically-motivated history textbooks in Russia and Putin's recent efforts to minimize knowledge about the negative parts of Soviet involvement in WWII? I haven't examined primary sources myself, so I can't say whether you or the historian is more accurate, but at present I would say that the historian is more likely to have an objective view of the matter.
When I see an article like this about modern Russia, I greatly doubt the objectivity of Russian textbooks regarding anything that could be considered "patriotic."
I'm not saying that you're intentionally biased, but is it possible that the primary sources that the historian and the western scholarly community rely upon are ignored and/or concealed in Russian schools and scholarship with the aim of glorifying the "Great Patriotic War" instead of depicting all events, whether positive or negative? As a school teacher, I'm not sure whether you've examined western scholarship about the Soviet Union, and in doing so you might be able to figure out whether there are sources you're unaware of that support the historian's statements.
You haven't said yourself that western scholars intentionally view the Soviet Union negatively (in the present day), but other Russian posters have, and I want to respond to this in case it concerns you as well. Having studied European history at a major university in the United States, I can say that many of our scholars are not American (one of my history professors was Bulgarian) and that I have never met an American history professor who cares very much about nationalism and patriotism on a personal level. The vast majority of American professors are Democrats (large-scale studies have demonstrated this) and often have a negative view of American foreign policy and the American military's actions in the present day and in the past. They actively criticize the actions of the U.S. military in WWII, Vietnam, and Iraq. This differs substantially from history education in the United States at the high school (secondary) level, where history is taught in a more superficial and less critical manner (this is why I strongly differentiate between university professors and high school teachers -- on average, they will be educated in very different ways). In my experience, if a history professor in America makes a statement regarding historical data, there is no political motivation behind the statement at all -- they never even think about this.
Well, 1 thing at a time.
Er.
A. All the arguments are about the plot being historically accurate when it's obviously not. Devs didn't mention a single historical document (apart from the Order .227, which one is presented as a poor translated thing), just random parahistorical books.
And they're lying about the main data source - Vasily Grossman book "Life and Fate". Not a single thing that offends my feelings exists in that book.
So there can't be any research behind those accusations as there are no real sources quoted.
B. Russia is a unique experience, trust me with that. People here pay a lot of attention to the legacy of the ancestors. It's buried too deep into the complex matter called 'mysterious russian soul'.
So you can't put away the honoring of the heroes as it's tradition. And that tradition grows stronger when it's suppressed from the foreigners.
C. Why don't you try to look at the subject from the Russian side?
Is it too difficult for developers to make a warning message I've mentioned above? Does it take too much time or sources to make an apology to the angry people?
Relics don't even try to make a contact there. They've bunkered themselves out of the world, that's all.
Russians are very hard to wake, but when you do that they can be overreactive and dangerous. It may be real that some zealots will come for the devs heads literally. As a petition starter I'm trying to make people believe in a violence-free way to solve problems. I'm doing my best to calm them.
What if I fail at that because of Relic ignorance? Does it really take to loose someone to get gears working?
Relics've waken a real shitstorm here in Russia instead of dealing with the simple matter: a warning + an excuse.
That's a 10 Mb patch, you see? It's less than a day of work.
But they're refusing to do a shit.
So we're doing what we can to bring their attention to the problem - petitioning, mailing newspapers and so on.
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cblanco ★ 
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VonManteuffel 
Heartless Jäger 
