From face to badge: the history of the soldier's medallion. Soldier's Medallion

11.10.2021

MEDALLION OF A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

Valueva Nadezhda

Morgun Maria

6th grade 2nd platoon, MBOU Lyceum named after Major General V.I. Khismatulin,Surgut

Starkova-Ashurilaeva Nadezhda Arkadyevna

scientific director,teacher of the first qualification category, head of the Center for Continuing Education for Children,MBOU Lyceum named after Major General Khismatulin V.I.,Surgut

Relevance: After the end of the Great Patriotic War, many nameless remained: fraternal military graves, the remains of the dead, missing. It is necessary to find all, without exception, the remains of Soviet servicemen, to establish the identity of whom it is possible and to reburial with honors, giving their civic duty to those unnamed heroes who gave their lives for their country during the Great Patriotic War.

The time comes when the search engines go out into the fields where the hostilities took place in order to find soldiers, to bury the remains to the ground, when underwater search expeditions begin in order to find and identify the ships lying at the bottom, the mass graves of soldiers since the Great Patriotic War. war. The search movement has been operating since the 1950s-1960s, every year hundreds, if not thousands of missing soldiers rise from the ground, from craters, from rifle cells and simply from the fields where they fell in the last attack. By some estimates, hundreds of thousands of people are still missing.

There are many different exhibits in the museum "Loyal sons of Russia" of the municipal budgetary educational institution of the Lyceum named after Major General Vasily Ivanovich Khismatulin, but the exhibits brought by the cadets of our lyceum as part of the Nord search group are special: these are EXHIBITS found at excavations in the Pskov region ...

We present one of the exhibits of the Museum "Loyal Sons of Russia": a medallion of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War of 1941, which was found in 2008 and transferred to our museum (Figure 1).

Drawing1 ... Medallion of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War - an exhibit of the museum "Loyal Sons of Russia"

Target of our work: to analyze the meaning of the medallion of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War.

To achieve this goal, the following were determined tasks:

1. Collect information about the soldier's personal identification mark - a medallion.

2. Study the materials about the soldier's medallion.

3. Determine the reasons for the absence of medallions in the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War.

Methods: study of theoretical material using Internet resources, literary sources, museum exhibits.

1. The introduction of soldiers' medallions.

By order of the NKO (People's Commissar of Defense) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics No. 138 of March 15, 1941, new medallions were introduced in the form of a plastic pencil case with a parchment paper insert. Also, the soldier's medallions of the 1941 model were made in metal and wooden versions. In the cavity of the medallion there was a paper insert of the established sample in two copies. The size of the paper insert is 40x180 mm.

Drawing 2 ... Capsule

The capsule was made of black or brown plastic and consisted of a body and a lid with a threaded connection to each other (Figure 2). Capsule length 50 mm. It should be noted that the paper insert intended for servicemen of the border units of the NKVD troops (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) had a slightly larger size: 53x280 mm and a vertical green stripe 5 mm wide along its entire length. In terms of content, both paper inserts were almost identical.

On the insert form (Figure 3), in the appropriate columns, the soldier entered:

· Full Name;

· year of birth;

· military rank;

· Native - republic, territory, region, city, district, village council, village;

· Information about the family: address, surname, name, patronymic of the wife, next of kin;

What kind of RVC is called (regional military registration and enlistment office);

· Blood group according to Yansky (from I to IV).

Drawing3 ... Liner blank

It was forbidden to indicate the name of the military unit.

There are insert forms on various paper, where the clerk entered the necessary columns by hand, or filled in the entire medallion from the words of the soldier (there were many illiterate soldiers among the soldiers).

2. Reasons for the absence of medallions among soldiers of the Great Patriotic War.

Since the inception of the search movement, search engines have wondered: Why are so few killed people carrying mortal medallions? Not everyone knows this even now.

1. Due to the unavailability of information about the events of those years, a version was born that lives on today. There was a total superstition among the soldiers: if you carry a mortal medallion with you, you will be killed. The medallion is needed only in one case - if you are killed. To a certain extent, such a sign came from this. The medallions were called "death row". Many soldiers went into battle without a "suicide bomber"; they simply threw it away or did not fill out the insert forms. The Poles, for example, before the Second World War also had such medallions, but in Polish they were called "immortelles". This is a fundamentally different attitude.

In fact, in difficult front-line conditions, practical soldiers found the use of medallion capsules for other purposes. For example, if you cut off the bottom of a capsule and cut an insert with a thin hole out of wood, you will get a mouthpiece, and you can smoke precious tobacco without a trace. And the insert itself, in extreme cases, could come in handy for a roll-up. It is convenient to store sewing and gramophone needles, threads and other small household items in a whole capsule. Including, sometimes vital. Cases of fish hook medallion capsules are known to be found.

2. But these are not the main reasons for the lack of medallions in the dead. One of the main reasons is the imperfection and frequently changing system of accounting for the personnel of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. In search practice, very rarely, the owners of found medallions are counted as dead or missing in 1941.

The main reason is that medallions have not yet been issued to the overwhelming majority of servicemen. The state of affairs improved only with the stabilization of the front and the restoration of factories and plants. As a result, identification medallions were issued more or less regularly during the incomplete 1942. And the war, as you know, lasted four years. This is one of the main reasons for the lack of medallions among the victims.

Contrary to superstition, the soldiers tried not to be unidentified in case of death, and relatives or friends were informed about their fate. Many facts speak convincingly about this. For example, in the absence of a capsule, the soldiers used the cartridge case as its capacity. In the absence of a standard form, the fighters wrote down their data on any piece of paper.

3. The inserts of the medallions were very often taken out without tearing off the halves (empty capsules), and more often they were simply taken away with the capsule. This is the third circumstance that explains the fact that most of the remains of the dead are found without medallions or with empty capsules. The latter circumstance suggests that the dead, found without medallions, for the most part, according to the registration documents, are not missing, but killed and even buried.

Modern spectral instruments make it possible to read texts made with graphite, ink or printing ink without any particular difficulty, even if the text has faded significantly. Texts made with plant-based ink are more difficult to read, since they fade away and are washed out almost completely as a result of prolonged exposure to unfavorable conditions.

In the event of the death of a serviceman, one copy of the insert was seized by the funeral team and handed over to the unit headquarters. The second - remained in the medallion with the deceased. But in reality, in conditions of hostilities, this requirement was practically not fulfilled, the medallion was confiscated entirely. On the basis of inserts taken from the medallions, the names of the dead who remained on the battlefield were established, and lists of irrecoverable losses were drawn up.

It should be noted that during the Great Patriotic War, medallions with wooden and metal cases were used in some units. As a rule, the liners are poorly retained in them.

In November 1942, by order of the NKO (People's Commissar of Defense) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics No. 376, the medallions were removed from the supply (Table 1).

Table 1.

Orders of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR

date	Non-profit organization order
	World War I. A cervical mark has been introduced to identify the killed and wounded.
	Medallion introduced. Issued upon arrival at the unit simultaneously with the service (Red Army) book.
	The medallion has been canceled. The Red Army book remained.
	NPO Order No. 238. A medallion and instructions on how to use medallions in wartime have been introduced.
	The Red Army book and the mortal medallion were canceled.
	A medallion and a new regulation on the personal registration of losses and burial of the deceased personnel of the spacecraft in wartime have been introduced. The document is based on the position of the order of the NCO No. 238 of 12.21.39.
	A Red Army book has been introduced in addition to the medallion.
	The medallion has been canceled. Motivation - a Red Army book is enough. Some servicemen continued to store medallions on their own initiative during 1943.

The medallion has been canceled. Motivation - a Red Army book is enough, but some servicemen during 1943, on their own initiative, continued to store medallions.

The cancellation of the medallion led to an increase in the number of missing servicemen due to the impossibility of identifying the deceased.

First: more than 70 years have passed since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945).

Second: for example, they found a medallion, a capsule - it is intact and unbroken. Inside there should be a standard piece of paper with text, which should be filled in with a pencil (Figure 4).

Drawing 4 ... Pencil

The pencil is better preserved. Pencil writing is much better in one turn. And if it is written with an ordinary fountain pen, then the ink is blurry. There is a medallion, an ebonite capsule opens, and then it turns out that the capsule is either empty (supposedly death could have been cheated by throwing a piece of paper out of there), or paper dust is pouring out of it.

The loyal sons of Russia museum exhibit - a soldier's medallion - is interesting and unique. The Great Patriotic War is unlikely to ever end, it will not end not only in the memory of the people and in the history of our country, but also from the point of view of those soldiers who still need to be found and buried. Museums store a lot of information about the past, the present, and it is very important to acquaint children and adults with the exhibits and their history in order to remember the history of our country, so that the irreparable will not be repeated ...

As the great Russian commander Alexander Suvorov said: "The war ends the day the last soldier who fought in it is buried".

Soldier's Medallion

Vitaly Ivanov

A soldier's medallion is raised.

And there is hope

Replenish the list of names

From that endless war.

Find out who is in full growth

Went to the last fight

And who is now among the birches

Lies in the ground damp.

MORTAL MEDALLION

Vyacheslav Kondratyev

He was given to us - black, shiny,

Looks like a lipstick case ...

Ahead, then, the battle is on

And you need to keep it tight.

It contains a surname, blood according to Yansky,

Age - twenty short years ...

Why is it not clear to me

No graphs for your beloved?

After all, when you get off the ground,

Overcoming fear and trembling,

Don't you remember her

Don't you call her?

Wouldn't it matter

People will find out later -

Whom among the trench everyday

Did you go to defend every day?

And now, without fear of the consequences -

I won't be alive then -

I write ... And let it be known

The name of the one who did not become a wife ...

Bibliography

1. Documents of the group of military archeology "Seeker".

2. "Antiquities and Antiquities", articles about Soldier's medallions.

3. "Names from soldiers' medallions" / Compiled by: A.Yu. Konoplev, R.R. Salakhiev. - Kazan: "Fatherland", 2005.

4. Mortal medallions. Portal creator = SF = Veles // SPB.RU. [Electronic resource] - Access mode. - URL: http://www.hranitels.ru (date of access 15.02.2012).

“The main thing is not to miss the medallion. It was a great luck if it was kept in good condition, opened and was filled, ”- who is looking for the remains of Soviet soldiers. On March 15, 1941, a soldier's medallion was introduced to identify the servicemen of the Red Army. About what came before him, and what personal signs appeared after - in the material "Defend Russia".

In ancient Russia, every warrior who went on a campaign wore two icons on his body: one with the image of the patron saint of the principality that he defended, the other with the face of the saint patronizing his name. In the event of his death, both names were read out during the funeral service. This method was quite effective, given the small population and the variety of names.

During the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, soldiers and officers sent to fight in Bulgaria were supplied with metal tokens, as evidenced by records from the “History of the Life Guards Jaeger Regiment for 100 Years. 1796-1896 ". On the tokens, the abbreviations of the regiment name, battalion number, company number and the personal number of the serviceman were knocked out.

It is believed that for the first time such tokens appeared in Germany, where in the second half of the 19th century, a Berlin shoemaker, sending his sons to fight, made tin tags for them. In the event of the death of their sons, they could easily be identified and reported to Berlin.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Nicholas II introduced a charter, according to which the concept of a "firing badge" appeared. It was a metal plate of arbitrary shape, ranging in size from 1 to 1.5 vershoks (from 4.4 to 6.6 cm), on which letters and numbers were knocked out: company (squadron) number or team name, unit number and name and personal number the lowest rank to which the sign belongs. According to the charter, the "dismissal signs" served to streamline the dismissals of lower ranks: a soldier, leaving on leave, received a token with his personal number from the officer on duty in the company (squadron, battery), and upon returning to the location of the military unit handed it over to the officer on duty - at the same time the arrival of the dismissed was noted in a special book.

The first personal identification medallion for all servicemen of the active army appeared in 1917. Minister of War General of Infantry Belyaev signed a special order:

On the 16th day of January 1917, the Sovereign Emperor ordered to establish a special cervical sign for identifying the wounded and killed, as well as for marking the Georgievsky awards of the lower ranks according to the drawing proposed with this. With such highest will, I declare to the military department, indicating that the sign should be worn under uniform clothing on a cord or braid worn around the neck, and the entry enclosed in it should be printed on parchment paper.

The “neck mark” was a medallion consisting of two halves, into which parchment paper was inserted. The soldier had to manage to write in a lot of information about himself in beaded and preferably calligraphic handwriting. Indicate your regiment, company, squadron or hundred, rank, name, surname, awards, religion, estate, province, county, volost and village. It is worth noting that similar tokens in some parts of the tsarist army appeared at the beginning of the First World War and copied Austro-Hungarian samples.

In the Soviet army, medallions were introduced by Order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR No. 856 dated August 14, 1925. The royal cervical sign was taken as a basis. They were a folding metal box measuring 50 × 33 × 4 mm with an eyelet for a tape, into which a parchment sheet was inserted, belonged to official things and were issued indefinitely. In case of loss, a new one was issued.

On March 15, 1941, new medallions were introduced in the form of an octagonal plastic pencil case with an insert on parchment paper in duplicate, which was supposed to be carried in a special pocket sewn on the outside of the belt of the trousers (on the right side).

The following columns were filled in on the form of the insert with ink: surname, name, patronymic, year of birth, military rank; native: republic, territory, region, city, district, village council, village; family address; surname, name and patronymic of a relative; what district military registration and enlistment office is called; blood type. It was forbidden to indicate the name of the military unit in the medallion.

In fact, due to poor supplies, ordinary, often newsprint, paper was used instead of parchment forms, and the notes were left with graphite or plain ink.

In accordance with the charter, one copy of the liner was taken away by the funeral team, and the second was put back into the medallion and left “in case of someone killed or died from wounds”. On the basis of the inserts, lists of irrecoverable losses were compiled.

In November 1942, the soldier's medallion was abolished. To identify the fighters, it was supposed to use the Red Army book.

They remembered again about personal identification marks for the military in 1957, when permanent personal numbers were introduced for officers, generals, admirals, which were applied to iron tokens.

Currently, similar tokens are used in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

29 Jan 2007

MEDALLIONS,
DOCUMENTS CERTIFYING THE PERSONALITY OF MILITARY SERVICES IN THE RKKA

Medallion arr. 1925 "incense"
The soldier's medallion was used to identify the servicemen of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army who died during the hostilities. Introduced by the Order of the RVS dated 14.08.25, No. 856 as an identity document. It was issued to all servicemen of military units after arriving at their unit when they were enrolled in the service.
The medallion is made of tin in the form of a flat box measuring 50x33x4 mm with a braid to be worn on the chest. It contained a special form of parchment, made by typographic method. Very often, forms were printed on plain newsprint. When using this type of medallion, in the course of hostilities, it turned out that the medallion was leaking and the parchment sheet quickly deteriorated. In 1937, this type of medallion was removed from the army's allowance in connection with the political processes of the 30s.
These medallions, although rare, are found among soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War.

Medallion arr. 1941 g.
Order of the NCO of the USSR No. 138 of 03/15/41 introduced the "Regulations on the personal registration of losses and burial of the deceased personnel of the Red Army in wartime" and new medallions in the form of an ebonite pencil case with an insert on parchment paper in two copies. On the form of the insert, in the appropriate columns, the soldier entered:
- Full Name
- year of birth
- military rank
- native - republic, territory, region, city, district, s / council, village
- family information: address, full name wife, next of kin
- what kind of RVC is called (district military registration and enlistment office)
- blood group according to Jansky (from I to IV)
It was forbidden to indicate the name of the military unit. There are surrogate forms on various paper, where the clerk entered the necessary columns by hand, or filled out the entire medallion from the words of the soldier (there were many illiterate soldiers among the soldiers)
According to clause 28 of the Regulation, one copy of the insert was seized by the funeral team and handed over to the unit headquarters. The second - remained in the medallion with the deceased. On the basis of inserts taken from the medallions, the names of the dead who remained on the battlefield were established, and lists of losses were compiled. But in reality, in conditions of hostilities, this requirement was not fulfilled, the medallion was withdrawn entirely. In addition, soldiers were often given only one copy of the insert due to a shortage of them.
Many soldiers went into battle without a suicide bomber. The very fact of their issuance was an infrequent matter, especially since the fall of 1941. Moreover, there was superstition among the soldiers, if you fill in the insert, they will kill you. Often the medallions were simply thrown away. In the capsules themselves, needles, matches, and tobacco were worn.
In November 1942, the NKO Order No. 376 "On the removal of medallions from the supply of the Red Army" was issued. This led to an increase in the number of missing servicemen due to the impossibility of identifying the victim.

Standard hexagonal ebony medallion Medallion insert on parchment paper "Blockade" medallion Sailors medallions
Wooden medallion
Wooden capsules were machined from different types of wood without impregnation in the form of a composite pencil case from a tube and a lid in conditions when it was impossible to organize the production of ebony capsules and supply them to the units of the active Army in the conditions of the outbreak of war. Alas, they passed moisture well through the body and did not ensure the integrity of the liner either. They were made both in small factories and factories, and in small workshops and artels.

Steel medallion

Another type of "suicide bombers" were cylinders made of copper or brass tubes with or without thread and a cover (plug). There was a kind of metal capsule with a groove on the tube and a protrusion on the lid: after putting the lid on the tube, by turning the lid, it was fixed on the tube by entering the protrusion into the groove.
Homemade medallions
Quite often, empty cartridge cases played the role of medallions. The most "popular" among them were cases from revolvers of the "Nagant" system, Mosin rifles ("three-line"), as well as from the German 98k carbine and even from the Soviet TT pistol. Revolving and German carbine casings, as less common for ordinary Soviet soldiers, were specially used by them to make it easier for the funeral team to quickly find the desired "suicide bomber" among the belongings and ammunition of the deceased soldier. The following items could be used as plugs for the sleeves to prevent moisture ingress: a bullet inserted into the sleeve with a sharp end, followed by compression of the sleeve with pliers or without it; a pencil inserted with a lead inside the sleeve; wooden cork from scrap materials

Red Army book
Introduced by the Order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR of October 7, 1941 as a document proving the identity of the Red Army soldier and junior commander. The issuance of a Red Army book in exchange for a military card or registration certificate was carried out by the part to which the Red Army soldier arrived from the district military registration and enlistment office. Sending Red Army men and junior commanders to the front without Red Army books was strictly prohibited. Identity cards were issued to officers as personal documents.
The Red Army books were confiscated from those killed and those who died of wounds and were handed over to the headquarters of a unit or a medical institution, where, on their basis, lists of irrecoverable losses of personnel were drawn up.

The Battle for the Caucasus is one of the largest battles of the Great Patriotic War. Apart from the blockade of Leningrad, none of the battles of this war lasted so long. From July 25, 1942 to October 9, 1943, for 422 days and nights, stubborn battles were fought on the plains of the North Caucasus and mountain passes of the Main Caucasian ridge, in the Azov and Black Seas, in the sky over the Kuban. The losses of the Red Army in this battle amounted to more than 800 thousand people, while today the remains of only 115 thousand defenders of the Fatherland lie in single and fraternal graves on the territory of the Krasnodar Territory. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers and officers have not yet been buried. The great commander of Russia A.V. Suvorov said: "The war is not over until the last soldier is buried." The Great Patriotic War is not over, it continues, and not only because the soldiers' bones to this day turn white on the mountain slopes and are plowed every year by tractors on the collective farm fields of the Krasnodar Territory, but also because the "echo of war" is still thundering explosions of ammunition that did not explode then, again and again claiming human lives.
The war continues, and as in any war, there are soldiers in it, on whose shoulders all the hardships and hardships fall. Only now, six decades later, they have in their hands not rifles and machine guns, but metal detectors and shovels, and their name is search engines. These are people for whom search work has become a lifelong affair. What makes them, risking their lives, go to the place where battles raged almost six decades ago, swept over cubic meters in search of the remains of soldiers, this is not understandable to an ordinary person. A search engine is, first of all, a state of mind and, of course, experience and knowledge acquired over the years. It is enough once to see the eyes of the people to whom the guys returned a family member who was considered missing in order to understand that their work is not in vain. But up to this point, there is a difficult path to go from studying archival documents to field search work, discovering the remains of soldiers and establishing their names.
The names of the soldiers are established both by personal personal belongings and by the numbers of awards, but the most reliable way is to establish the name by the soldier's medallion. In November 1942, the order of the NKO of the USSR No. 376 "On the removal of medallions from supply" was issued. This has led to an increase in the already huge number of missing soldiers. It is difficult to understand what the authors of the unreasonable decision were guided by, but if they believed that with the introduction of the Red Army book containing all the necessary data about the fighter by order of NCO No. 330, the need to duplicate this information in the medallion disappeared, their “holy naivety” was very expensive. On the territory of the region, hostilities were mainly conducted after the notorious order. Practical experience shows that in the Kuban a soldier's medallion can be found only in one case out of eighty, this explains the low rate of identifying the names of the dead in comparison with other regions of the Russian Federation, where hostilities were fought in 1941-1942.
Even if you are lucky and managed to find a soldier's medallion, this does not guarantee that the soldier's name will be returned, and a family member will be returned to the relatives. If water has entered the capsule with a paper insert or condensation has accumulated in it, it will be damaged. Mishandling the medallion can also damage the paper insert. This methodological manual contains the experience accumulated by the search associations of Russia in identifying the identity of the discovered servicemen who died during the Second World War. Servicemen of the Romanian, Slovak, Hungarian and other armies took part in the hostilities on the territory of the Krasnodar Territory on the side of fascist Germany, therefore it would be correct to describe the experience gained not only in establishing the names of soldiers and officers of the Red Army, but also of all other armies that took part in the Battle of the Caucasus.

1. HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION SIGNS (LOS)

The problem of accounting for irrecoverable losses and identifying the personalities of the victims is more than one hundred years old. In different states, it was solved in different ways. The warriors of Genghis Khan, leaving for the battle, left the stones, and when they returned, they took them back. The number of stones remaining indicated the death toll. However, this method only gave an idea of the number of dead soldiers and did not allow establishing their names. In Russia, in the same period, each warrior wore two icons on his body, one with the image of the patron saint of the principality, of which he was a warrior, and the other with the face of the patron saint of the owner's name. Thus, during the funeral service for the fallen, the names of the soldiers and the names of their principalities were pronounced. In conditions of a small population and a large variety of names, this method partially justified itself, but at the same time it was imperfect.
The first attempts to create personal identification marks have their roots in Germany in the mid-60s of the 19th century. It was then that a certain Berlin shoemaker, whose sons served in the Prussian army and went to war, made tin tags for them. With their help, someone had to identify the sons in case of their death and notify the father in Berlin.
The shoemaker was so proud of his invention that he dared to turn to the Prussian War Ministry with a proposal to introduce similar signs throughout the Prussian army. The proposal was sensible, but the shoemaker came up with an unsuccessful argument. He referred to the successful experience of using special dog tags in Prussia for keeping track of them and collecting taxes from owners. When the discussion of the new idea in the Ministry of War reached the king, the king of Prussia, who adored his soldiers, Wilhelm I, was simply enraged by the proposal to put "dog tags" on them. Only after some time did he still allow himself to be convinced of the usefulness of this idea and, for the sake of experiment, agreed to the introduction of personal identification marks in some parts of the Prussian army.
This is the legend. In fact, the introduction of the first personal identification marks during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 met with massive rejection of the innovation from even the most disciplined Prussian soldiers. They were simply thrown away the LOZs given to them in droves, at best they were "forgotten" in the wagon train. The fact is that any soldier in war sooner or later becomes superstitious, especially with regard to death. Therefore, the requirement of the commanders to carry on themselves the "messenger of death" caused a superstitious fear among the Prussian soldiers that it was this "messenger" that would bring on them a quick death. Only the active propaganda by the Wehrmacht officers among their soldiers of the need to constantly wear the LOZ, as a guarantee that the soldier's relatives would receive a pension in the event of his death, turned the tide and wearing personal identification marks became the norm. The order of the War Ministry of the Prussian army of April 29, 1869 obliged each soldier to wear a tin tag on his naked body under his uniform with a string indicating the part and number of the owner of the sign in the lists of this part.
The appearance on January 10, 1878 of a new military medical charter stipulated a change in the shape of the LOZ from rectangular to oval, which it remained later. In 1914, Germany abandoned the system of applying only the name of the unit and the personal number of the owner to the personal identification mark, which entailed an increase in the size of the mark, and in 1915 a single size of the LOZ was established. On September 16, 1917, there was an instruction to duplicate the inscriptions on the upper and lower parts of the LOZ, and for the convenience of breaking them, divide the sign with three narrow slots along the long axis of the oval. It remained in this form until 1945.
In Russia, the first attempts to introduce personal identification marks were made during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. It was then, before being sent to the theater of military operations in Bulgaria, that all soldiers and officers received metal tokens with a cord to wear around their necks. They were stamped with letters - abbreviations of the regiment's name (for example: L.G.E.P. - Life Guards Jaeger Regiment), battalion number, company number and serviceman's personal number. Lists of soldiers and officers with an indication of their personal numbers were kept in the regimental office. This was done to identify the killed and wounded. However, then this innovation did not become widespread, and over time it was completely forgotten.
In the last days of the existence of the tsarist empire, the Minister of War, General of Infantry, Belyaev, signed a special order: "On the 16th day of January 1917, the Sovereign Emperor ordered the establishment of a special cervical sign to identify the wounded and killed, as well as to mark the St. with this drawing. With such the highest will I declare to the military department with the indication that the sign should be worn on a snuria or a braid worn around the neck, and the record enclosed in it should be printed on parchment paper. " The cervical mark was an amulet with a form inside, the size of a tram ticket. The soldier had to manage to write in a lot of information about himself in beaded and preferably calligraphic handwriting. Indicate your regiment, company, squadron or hundred, rank, name, surname, awards, religion, estate, province, county, volost and village. At that time, only a small part of the manufactured signs had time to leave for the troops.
Eight years later, the royal neck badge began to be used both in the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army and the Navy as an identity document and for identification purposes by order of the Revolutionary Military Council No. 856 dated 14.08.25. From that moment on, it became known as the "soldier's medallion". A new piece of equipment and an indefinite item was issued to all military personnel and civilians. The medallion belonged to service items and, in case of loss, was replaced with a new one. During the Finnish campaign, it turned out that the medallion was not hermetically sealed and, in combat conditions, the paper insert spreads beyond recognition. It was canceled in March 1941. At the same time, by another order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. 138 of 03/15/41, a medallion of a different type was introduced into the troops. It was with him that the Red Army met the war.
In the cavity of a soldier's medallion, sample 1941, the soldier, the officer kept two forms with personal biographical data. If he died, then one copy was to be removed by the funeral team at the headquarters of the unit, thus the losses were recorded and their lists were compiled. Well, the second was supposed to be left in the medallion with the deceased. In the conditions of hostilities, this requirement was practically not met. The whole medallion was taken from the soldier. And there were one more nameless soldiers.
You should not blame someone for carelessness or incompetence here. The instruction was first of all violated due to the complex use of the official thing, which was not perfect in other senses. It took too many steps to retrieve the locket from the deceased. First, find it in one of the pockets, remove the screw cover of the case, pull out one of the blanks, leaving the other one, close it again and finally put it back in your pocket. Not everyone could stand the long procedure under machine-gun fire. In November 1942, by Order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. 376 "On the Removal of Medallions from Supply", the soldier's medallions were canceled. Soldiers' medallions, outcast in the very middle of the war years, never returned to the rank and file of either the Soviet or Russian army.

The soldier's medallion, introduced by the Order of the RVS No. 856 dated 14.08.25, was a tin box measuring 50x33x4 mm with an eyelet for braid (Fig. 1). A paper insert was placed inside.
By order of the NKO of the USSR No. 138 of 03/15/41, new medallions were introduced in the form of a plastic case with a paper insert (Fig. 2). Also, the soldier's medallions of the 1941 model were made in metal and wooden versions. Despite such a variety of designs, plastic soldier's medallions are most often found on the territory of the region. In the cavity of the medallion there was a paper insert of the established sample (Fig. 3), containing information about the surname, first name, patronymic, military rank, date of birth, address of the owner and his immediate family. The size of the paper insert is 40x180 mm. The capsule is made of black or brown plastic and consists of a body and a lid with a threaded connection. Capsule length 50 mm. It should be noted that the paper insert, intended for servicemen of the border units of the NKVD troops, had a slightly larger size: 53x280 mm and a vertical green strip 5 mm wide along its entire length. In terms of content, both paper inserts were almost identical. In November 1942, by Order of the NKO of the USSR No. 376, the medallions were removed from the supply.
At the same time, in various districts of the Krasnodar Territory, there were cases of discovery of soldier's medallions of an unspecified sample, manufactured at the factory (Fig. 4). These personal identification marks are made of aluminum alloy, and despite the difference in shape, they are similar in content. There is a 5 mm hole in the upper part. LOZ contains information about the actual or conditional name of the military unit and the personal number of the owner.
One of the forms of homemade soldier's medallions became notes containing information about the owner inserted into the cartridge cases, while their muzzle, as a rule, was closed by a bullet turned upside down.

MEDALLION OF A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

Valueva Nadezhda

Morgun Maria

6th grade 2nd platoon, MBOU Lyceum named after Major General V.I. Khismatulin,Surgut

Starkova-Ashurilaeva Nadezhda Arkadyevna

scientific director,teacher of the first qualification category, head of the Center for Continuing Education for Children,MBOU Lyceum named after Major General Khismatulin V.I.,Surgut

We present one of the exhibits of the Museum "Loyal Sons of Russia": a medallion of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War of 1941, which was found in 2008 and transferred to our museum (Figure 1).

Drawing1 ... Medallion of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War - an exhibit of the museum "Loyal Sons of Russia"

Target of our work: to analyze the meaning of the medallion of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War.

To achieve this goal, the following were determined tasks:

1. Collect information about the soldier's personal identification mark - a medallion.

2. Study the materials about the soldier's medallion.

3. Determine the reasons for the absence of medallions in the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War.

Methods: study of theoretical material using Internet resources, literary sources, museum exhibits.

1. The introduction of soldiers' medallions.

Drawing 2 ... Capsule

On the insert form (Figure 3), in the appropriate columns, the soldier entered:

· Full Name;

· year of birth;

· military rank;

· Native - republic, territory, region, city, district, village council, village;

· Information about the family: address, surname, name, patronymic of the wife, next of kin;

What kind of RVC is called (regional military registration and enlistment office);

· Blood group according to Yansky (from I to IV).

Drawing3 ... Liner blank

It was forbidden to indicate the name of the military unit.

2. Reasons for the absence of medallions among soldiers of the Great Patriotic War.

Since the inception of the search movement, search engines have wondered: Why are so few killed people carrying mortal medallions? Not everyone knows this even now.

It should be noted that during the Great Patriotic War, medallions with wooden and metal cases were used in some units. As a rule, the liners are poorly retained in them.

In November 1942, by order of the NKO (People's Commissar of Defense) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics No. 376, the medallions were removed from the supply (Table 1).

Table 1.

Orders of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR

date	Non-profit organization order
	World War I. A cervical mark has been introduced to identify the killed and wounded.
	Medallion introduced. Issued upon arrival at the unit simultaneously with the service (Red Army) book.
	The medallion has been canceled. The Red Army book remained.
	NPO Order No. 238. A medallion and instructions on how to use medallions in wartime have been introduced.
	The Red Army book and the mortal medallion were canceled.
	A medallion and a new regulation on the personal registration of losses and burial of the deceased personnel of the spacecraft in wartime have been introduced. The document is based on the position of the order of the NCO No. 238 of 12.21.39.
	A Red Army book has been introduced in addition to the medallion.
	The medallion has been canceled. Motivation - a Red Army book is enough. Some servicemen continued to store medallions on their own initiative during 1943.

The medallion has been canceled. Motivation - a Red Army book is enough, but some servicemen during 1943, on their own initiative, continued to store medallions.

The cancellation of the medallion led to an increase in the number of missing servicemen due to the impossibility of identifying the deceased.

First: more than 70 years have passed since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945).

Second: for example, they found a medallion, a capsule - it is intact and unbroken. Inside there should be a standard piece of paper with text, which should be filled in with a pencil (Figure 4).

Drawing 4 ... Pencil

As the great Russian commander Alexander Suvorov said: "The war ends the day the last soldier who fought in it is buried".

Soldier's Medallion

Vitaly Ivanov

A soldier's medallion is raised.

And there is hope

Replenish the list of names

From that endless war.

Find out who is in full growth

Went to the last fight

And who is now among the birches

Lies in the ground damp.

MORTAL MEDALLION

Vyacheslav Kondratyev

He was given to us - black, shiny,

Looks like a lipstick case ...

Ahead, then, the battle is on

And you need to keep it tight.

It contains a surname, blood according to Yansky,

Age - twenty short years ...

Why is it not clear to me

No graphs for your beloved?

After all, when you get off the ground,

Overcoming fear and trembling,

Don't you remember her

Don't you call her?

Wouldn't it matter

People will find out later -

Whom among the trench everyday

Did you go to defend every day?

And now, without fear of the consequences -

I won't be alive then -

I write ... And let it be known

The name of the one who did not become a wife ...

Bibliography

1. Documents of the group of military archeology "Seeker".

2. "Antiquities and Antiquities", articles about Soldier's medallions.

3. "Names from soldiers' medallions" / Compiled by: A.Yu. Konoplev, R.R. Salakhiev. - Kazan: "Fatherland", 2005.

4. Mortal medallions. Portal creator = SF = Veles // SPB.RU. [Electronic resource] - Access mode. - URL: http://www.hranitels.ru (date of access 15.02.2012).

Medallion ("suicide bomber") in the Red Army was introduced by the order of the RVS No. 856 of 08/14/1925, the medallion belonged to service items and in case of loss it was replaced with a new one. The medallion was a rectangular box made of galvanized sheet (50 x 33 x 4 mm) with an eyelet for braid. Inside was (parchment and newsprint), made in a typographic way, with the personal data of the soldier. Such a medallion was not hermetically sealed and therefore the data insert quickly fell into disrepair. In 1937 he was removed from the allowance of the Red Army. But still they are found among the soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War.

Order of the NCO of the USSR No. 138 of 03/15/1941 introduced the "Regulations on the personal registration of losses and burial of the deceased personnel of the Red Army in wartime" and new medallions in the form of a black ebonite (textolite) pencil case, with an insert on parchment paper in two copies. Insert size 40 x 180 mm. consisted of two identical forms - one of which was to be removed by the funeral team, and the other remained in the medallion with the body of the deceased soldier. The insert, intended for the servicemen of the border units of the NKVD troops, had a slightly larger size: 53 x 280 mm and a vertical green stripe 5 mm wide along the entire length.Based on the inserts taken from the medallions, the names of the dead who remained on the battlefield were established, and lists of losses were compiled ... But in reality, in conditions of hostilities, this requirement was not fulfilled, the medallion was withdrawn entirely. In addition, soldiers were often given only one copy of the insert due to a shortage of them. The blank contained everything about the fighter. The medallion turned out to be completely sealed when tightly twisted. Trousers and wide trousers had a special pocket on the belt, into which it was ordered to sew a medallion capsule. In November 1942, by order of the NKO of the USSR No. 376 "On the removal of medallions from the supply of the Red Army", the medallions were removed from the allowance of the Red Army. Probably it was decided not to duplicate information from the Red Army book introduced in November 1941 and rely only on it.

Homemade medallions were most often made from a rifle sleeve with an inverted bullet plugged. Rarely, but there are wooden and metal homemade pencil cases. From the set of the gas mask bag, a wooden case from an anti-fogging pencil could be used. Notes in such medallions are also homemade, but there are also regular forms.

Types of medallions used in the Red Army:

Folding metal rectangular with an eyelet "incense" arr. 1925 (galvanized sheet).
Steel round pencil case of the first issues (steel capsule opening into two halves).
Ebony pencil case with six edges without an eyelet on the lid "for sailors".
Ebony pencil case with six sides with "standard" eyelet. The most massive.
Round ebonite pencil case "blockade".
Homemade medallions.

In the list of references (at the bottom of the article) you can find a template for a mortal medallion letterhead. It is enlarged exactly 5 times, which should be taken into account when printing. It should also be remembered that the template was made from the original letterhead and in it the author tried to convey all the nuances of the printing house, the flaws of the matrix of one specific original letterhead taken as a sample.

Red Army book (soldier's book) in the Red Army was introduced by order of the NKO of the USSR No. 330 dated 07.10.1941 as a document proving the identity of a Red Army soldier and a junior commander. The issuance of a Red Army book in exchange for a military card or registration certificate was carried out by the part to which the Red Army soldier arrived from the district military registration and enlistment office. Sending Red Army men and junior commanders to the front without Red Army books was strictly prohibited. Identity cards were issued to officers as personal documents. Size 106 x 76 mm. A red star with a hammer and sickle was printed on the cover of thin cardboard. A total of 12 pages with the data of the soldier: I. General information; II. Passage of service; III. Participation in campaigns, awards and distinctions; IV. Apparel property; V. Armament and technical equipment; Vi. Height No. ____. The photo in the book could often be missing.

The Red Army books were confiscated from those killed and those who died of wounds and were handed over to the headquarters of a unit or a medical institution, where, on their basis, lists of irrecoverable losses of personnel were drawn up.

Identity card for the commander of the Red Army.

Identification of the remains of military personnel. Medallions, alas, are not a frequent find and there are a lot of reasons for this. Sometimes even the fighters themselves got rid of the mortal medallions. Being on the verge of life and death, people become superstitious and filling out the death medallion form for some fighters was considered a harbinger of imminent death. Instead of storing a "mortal" note in a medallion, the soldiers adapted the capsules for household needs: they kept small items as well. And here the personal belongings of the dead servicemen come to the aid of the search engines in identifying the remains. A large number of names were returned thanks to various inscriptions on personal belongings - bowlers, spoons, mugs, belts and on other items of ammunition and equipment. Soldier's books and other paper IDs are sometimes preserved readable. Rarely come across orders and medals by the number of which it is also possible to establish the recipient. In general, every little thing matters.

I want to tell you about one of the many search trips, which for me personally finally removed all the questions "why", "and who needs it." In the evening, by the light of a light bulb, they read the medallions found in a large army canvas tent. A multitude of people gathered over the glycerin bath, in which another reading medallion was being opened. And so, in the silence of the evening forest piercing the air, it sounded in plain text - "Dear comrade, in case of my death, I ask you to notify my wife at ...."... It was the same soldier who asked me, asked any of the people who bowed over his medallion to let him know about his death. Don't let go missing! A request from the past burned with its breath and made me feel the will and self-sacrifice that were required to win. And even after 69 years, but we returned for it ...

Form of the Red Army medallion in PNG format ()
Methodical manuals for search work on the battlefield of the Second World War.
A reminder when working with medallions, their inserts and other documents and exhibits during search work. ( link )

article ID: 77696

From face to badge: the history of the soldier's medallion. Soldier's Medallion

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