Anamnesis Grigory Baturin. The Life and Death of the Chief of Staff of the Taman Army

• Published in: Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Serii͡a︡ 4, Istorii͡a no. 4
• Main Author: Morozova, Olga
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.09.2025
• ISSN: 1998-9938
• DOI: 10.15688/jvolsu4.2025.4.8

Introduction. Grigory Baturin (1880–1925) is known as the chief of staff of the Taman Army, which in August – September 1918 made the transition from the Black Sea coast to Armavir in battles with White Cossack detachments. For many years of his life, Baturin was associated with military units formed on the basis of the Taman Army, with fellow Tamans, having made many efforts to perpetuate the history of this army. The most complete biography of Baturin was compiled by the Soviet historian N.A. Efimov in the 1970s. But due to the restriction of access to personal documents, he partially recreated the actual side of the military commander’s life. Methods and materials. The access to Baturin’s personal papers from the funds of the Rostov archives made it possible to clarify information about his activities from the spring of 1919 to the summer of 1920. Some of the papers are letters of a personal nature, which allowed psychiatrist A.Ya. Perekhov to conduct a psycholinguistic examination of the texts. Analysis. The content of the service record of the hero of the essay is not always confirmed by official information about the Red Army from reference publications. The reasons for the differences lie in the mechanism of passing army documents and the nature of the civil war and are explained by the deterioration of Baturin’s health. The way of life and relationships within a close-knit group of former fellow soldiers in the first half of the 1920s reproduced the model of life and everyday life of the command staff and their families at army headquarters that developed during the war years. The circumstances of Baturin’s private and family life are reconstructed. Medical documents provided objective data on his physical condition in the last year of his life. Results. In terms of supply and living conditions, representatives of the provincial elite in the first half of the 1920s were close to the rest of the population. The psychiatrist suggested the presence of gradually increasing recurrent endogenous depression.