Theater and Military Actions. A History of a Frontline City

An incredible story of the city of Kolomna during World War II. Performances and movies against the backdrop of intelligence data, battles, and combat sorties. The life of the city does not stop despite the proximity of the front and partial evacuation, and it is captivatingly described with the involvement of a large number of authentic documents: articles from newspapers of that time, political reports, letters, and memories of direct participants. At the core of the book are the memoirs, notes, and an album of photographs of the actor of the Kolomna amateur theater, Vasily Nemov. The private story of a man turns out to be a story of the 20th century – Nemov witnessed the 1917 revolution, went through World War I, and literally saved the Kolomna theater, and in some ways, the residents of the city, lifting their spirits with performances and films. The life of one Moscow region city during the war shows the lives of ordinary people outside of battles against the backdrop of heroic events.