Heroes of the Great Patriotic War: “The true story about political instructor Kemal Kasumov”

Abstract

During the Great Patriotic War, figures from various areas of arts, employees of entertainment institutions took part in the creation of works aimed at uniting the people, maintaining and developing patriotic feelings, and performed in front of the soldiers of the Red Army as part of front-line concert brigades. The dastan “The true story about political instructor Kemal Kasumov,” discovered in the funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation, is being introduced into scholarly discourse for the first time. Written by a famous ashug – poet and performer of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialistic Republic, member of one of the front-line concert brigades, M. Bayramov. It was during the war years when the dastan about K. Kasumov became widely known both among the front-line soldiers and among the civilian population. At present, the study and publication of the dastan “The true story about political instructor Kemal Kasumov” serves to preserve the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War and reveals the forgotten feats of an ordinary Soviet soldier.