zoltanillemagnus wrote:

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hey i'm doing a research paper in english class and we are allowed to choose what ever we want for our topic. i chose to write about Vasili Zaitsev, seeing as i love snipers, and i love russians (just not their government). problem is it doesn't seem to matter how i type it into google, i keeps getting useless crap about the movie and stupid videos from youtube. and i refuse to use wikipedia because they don't guarantee validity. so i was wondering if any of you might have some links to some good stuff about Zaitsev. i'll probably go back and read all the posts on this thread, too. i'm just trying to get as much information as i possibly can because i really want to do my paper on one of the greatest snipers of all time.

In speaking of the nation of Russia, Winston Churchill once said, "It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma". How fitting that would also be for any stories about Zaitsev. Undoubtedly a great sniper by that name existed, but beyond that, the specifics have been colored by propaganda, the passage of time, national self-interest, and the desire we all have for heroes (hence your fanscination with this person to begin with?). There is supposedly even a personal memoir written by Zaitsev, but how can we know how much if it is self- or state-sponsored aggrandizement?

Recovering the straight story is probably impossible 65 years after the fact. Everything said or written about him has an agenda, so objective history is probably impossible.

I would think a really interesting paper could be written about the process of growing a legend - starting with what meager bits of historical evidence there are, and then talking about the things that have caused his memory to grow to such large proportions - the things mentioned above (propaganda, etc.). Rather than being discouraged and distracted about all the conflicting information, you could let those things become a part of the paper. Even the movie becomes a meaningful part of that process. Zaitsev still lives in our imaginations, even though that figure may have only a fleeting resemblance to a sniper who worked the streets of Stalingrad in 1942.

Zaitsev's story has been a large catalyst in my fascination with the role of the Soviet Union in WWII, and it has given me a keen appreciation for Russian weapons. His story may be a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but it has nonetheless been a major impetus to my firearms collection. I currently have 20 Mosin Nagants, including 3 PU snipers - not to mention a plethora of other Soviet small arms.

Although I started that part of my collection before I saw the movie or even heard anything about Vasili Zaitsev, the breadth of my collection has undoubtedly been enhanced by my fascination with the movie. But even things as fundamental as what kind of rifle he used are up for grabs - note the picture taken in Stalingrad in October 1942 (PEM sniper). Contrast that with the rifle allegedly belonging to him and currently displayed at the Stalingrad War Museum (PU sniper). One more illustration of the difficulties surrounding the story.

Historical problems notwithstanding, the movie sparked in me a lot of reading and library acquisitions about Великая Отечественная война - the Great Patriotic War. So I've been enriched by the legend, and pieces of that conflict have been preserved in my collection, even if the facts remain elusive. The exact history may be unrecoverable, but his impact on history is very real and very much alive. I'd be interested in reading a paper about that!

Jim