ARCHIVAL SOURCES ON THE HISTORY OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS IN COOPERATIVE SERVICES DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, 1941-1945

The article strives to assess archival sources on the history of the educational activities of the cooperation of the USSR in the great Patriotic war of 1941-1945. Studying the history of industrial education has important theoretical and practical significance for integrating data and elaborating new approaches to implementation of the current professional education policy. The whole set of documents can be tentatively divided into three groups: (1) materials of the Russian State Archive of Economy fond 484 "Centrosoyuz of the USSR-RSFSR. The management of the educational institutions of the Central Union of Consumer Societies of the USSR -RSFSR" for 1917-1992, which consists 10 series of files from 1930s; (2) archive complexes of regional archives: fond 469 "The Komi Republican Union of Consumer Societies" and fond 1547 "Syktyvkar cooperative College" for years 1937-1997 of the National Archive of the Komi Republic, which provide information on the activities of educational institutions during the Great Patriotic War. Each fond keeps more than 500 items. (3) The third group of documents, which are stored in the archives of the Museum of Consumer Cooperatives of the Komi Republic, include memoirs of workers and participants of the Great Patriotic War. All sources are to the same historical period and all concern the same subject. Their style, however, differs. The author concludes that in the wartime the educational institutions of the system of consumer cooperatives were developing and strengthening. The education network featured both higher and secondary level professional education institutions. Special emphasis was placed on training expert workers.