"BANQUET CHRONICLE" A.Ya. VYSHINSKY: FROM THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF SOVIET DIPLOMATS IN KUIBYSHEV (1941-1942)

Abstract

The article examines an episode from the everyday life of Soviet diplomats during the Great Patriotic War. The reports of one of the leaders of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Andrei Vyshinsky on diplomatic receptions in November 1941-1942 are analyzed. These receptions took place in Kuibyshev, where employees of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, headed by Vyshinsky, were temporarily evacuated. Reports on them have been preserved in the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation and are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. They were sent by Vyshinsky to Moscow in the name of Stalin and Molotov. The sources identified by the author of the article, together with memoirs, make it possible to reveal various aspects of the culture of everyday life of Soviet diplomats who were temporarily in Kuibyshev. First, they give an idea of the participation of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in festive commemorations (anniversaries of the October Revolution), which were one of the components of the ceremony for the representation of power. Secondly, the recordings of Vyshinsky's conversations, reflected in his reports, contain important information about the moods of representatives of the diplomatic corps, in particular, ambassadors and envoys of the member states of the anti-Hitler coalition. It was used by the Soviet leadership in solving foreign policy tasks during the most difficult period of the war.