The map of Stalin from 1939, on which the security of the USSR begins from the river Rezovska - World

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The “security zone” on the southern borders of the USSR, outlined with a blue pencil, covering the territory from the Bulgarian border to the island of Lesbos.

The world today marks the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, which is considered the beginning of World War II – the bloodiest and most destructive military conflict in human history.

Historians continue to investigate and debate the causes and perpetrators of the war. In Russia, the subject is particularly sensitive because of the tens of millions of victims of the occupation and defeat of Adolf Hitler’s army. As well as because of the secret protocols of the non-aggression pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) between the USSR and Germany, including the liquidation of Poland through the division of territory and security zones to protect the security of each party.

An exhibition of Russia’s federal archives opened in Moscow in the summer “On the eve of the Great Patriotic War. September 1, 1939 – June 22, 1941”where they are exposed two curious maps from the personal archive of the Bolshevik dictator from the days before the signing of the pact in August 1939.

Both have Stalin’s hand outlined security zones in pencil, clearly showing the Soviet Union’s claims to control of the Straits – from the mouth of the Rezovska River and the Turkish Black Sea coast to Istanbul, across the Bosphorus to the Dardanelles and the Aegean islands before them. .

The explanation for the exhibition, which ends on September 5, reads:

The “security zones” from the point of view of the Soviet leadership were limited to territories that had previously been part of the Russian Empire, as well as areas of traditional state interests of Russia.

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In addition to the line for the subsequent partition of Poland and the outline in blue where interests pass in the three – then independent – Baltic republics, Finland and the Åland Islands at the beginning of the Gulf of Finland, Western Belarus, Western Ukraine, Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, the Straits and the Exit are covered. through the territory of Turkey and Iran to the Persian Gulf.

Stalin painted how he imagined the security corridor stretching to the Persian Gulf.

The whole of Czechoslovakia, Denmark and Norway were already colored as a zone of German security, but in northern Finland and the northernmost Norwegian archipelagos were shaded in the colors of both countries.

“The Soviet leadership tried to negotiate with Turkey and Bulgaria for mutual assistance agreements to ensure the security of the southern borders. But negotiations with Turkey, pledged guarantees from Britain and France, ended in October. In late November 1940, Bulgaria refused the Soviet proposals and joins the Tripartite Pact “, reads the explanation to the exhibition.

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President Vladimir Putin recently signed a law banning the equating of Joseph Stalin’s actions with those of Adolf Hitler because they were part of downplaying the Soviet Union’s leading role in defeating Nazism.

You can view the map in detail here.