Vladimir Kovalevskii

Vladímir Ivánovich Kovalevskii was a Russian soldier who served in the tsar’s army during the First World War and fought the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War, then joined the French Foreign Legion, Francoist Army during the Spanish Civil War and Hitler’s Spanish Blue Division on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. He was deeply disillusioned by his experiences as an interpreter with the Blue Division in the Soviet Union. Soon after the Second World War, as an exile in Spain, he wrote this remarkable record of his varied military career. Little is known about his later life. His memoirs were first published in Spanish in 2019 with an introduction and notes by Xosé M. Núñez Seixas and Oleg Beyda. This English translation is by Richard Harrison.