Eestlastest ajateenijad Nõukogude Liidu relvajõududes külma sõja perioodil [Estonian-born conscripts in the armed forces of the Soviet Union during the Cold War period]

Abstract

Requiring military service in the armed forces of an occupying power is a violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention. Nevertheless, men from the occupied territory of the Estonian SSR were forced to spend two to five years in the armed forces of the USSR as their ‘national’ service and/or were encouraged to choose the career of an officer. The aim of the article is to analyse how these men remember their service – focusing on the time period since after World War II to 1991 – and thereby provide insights into a phenomenon that affected generations of Soviet men of different national, material and educational backgrounds.

(Longer version of this abstract is included in the article, starting from p 178.)